Published On: August 10, 2014By
The idea of measurable training is mostly a frustrating dream for employee-focused learning professionals. But it's a much different story for extended enterprise learning programs. Learning tech analyst John Leh explains why.

Unfortunate training and development professionals worldwide toil endlessly creating and providing training for employees that is nearly impossible to measure.  They justify their corporate cost by avoiding compliance risk.  They are not invited to sit at the executive table.  They are the first to lose their job in a tight economy.  They are the butt of the jokes about “people that can do, and people that can’t train.”  They are the owners of an ever-shrinking budget and they are constantly asked to do more with less.

They can’t spend what they need to make great, engaging, gamified elearning content for engaged audiences.  Instead, they are using Articulate Presenter to convert existing PowerPoint presentations to compliance elearning that their employees hate, and this content is delivered via an LMS that everyone hates.   Blehh.  Existence as a cost center is such a drag.

Is this you?  I hope not, but if so, I have a solution to turn your professional life around.

Take a Walk on the Wild Side of  Measurable Training

On the measurable side of training, it’s all milk, honey, fun and games.  We provide the best, most engaging, eLearning content and learning environments in the world.  Our budgets are ample and our content is so good, we can sell it and people want to buy it!  Our users want to come back and consume more because they see so much value.  They share content with their friends and co-workers and compete to see who is the best, most educated and most helpful.  As a result,  trainers on the measurable side make an impact in the organization by:

  • Generating new streams of revenue by the sale of content
  • Increasing sales from external sales channel
  • Accelerate sales cycle
  • Encourage customers to use products better and buy more
  • Facilitate the growth into new global markets
  • Build the brand loyalty of customers
  • Increase customer satisfaction
  • Decrease administrative costs

Who Are These Wild Trainers?

Hundreds of thousands of them exist and work in every industry, commercial and public, big and small globally.  They are experts at endless and varying topics and their job is to teach it.  They don’t teach employees though – just everyone else including external sales and distribution channels, customers, members, dealers, agents and the public at large.

Many are internal employee training crossovers with responsibilities that now span employee, channel and customer learning.  Many are business professionals in marketing or operations with non-employee training responsibilities and minimal training and learning experience.  Still more are dedicated to providing industry and job-specific continuing education, professional development, certification and accreditation programs.  Many provide training to segments of the federal, state and local populations or students at any level.

They may be executives with profit/loss responsibility, instructional designers using the latest augmented reality and gamification techniques, LMS administrators, e-Commerce experts, virtual instructors, project managers, mobile app creators, LCMS gurus, support engineers or anywhere in-between.

But they all have something else in common.  Since their training and learning efforts of any size, shape, language or complexity are for non-employees there is always an element of “voluntary” with their user base.  They have to attract users, get them to want to spend time, money or both and entice them to keep coming back.

Experts in extended enterprise learning are different than internal employee learning specialists.  They are social media wizards that know SEO is not an executive position, forget the time of desktops, and are eCommerce, Shark Tank kind of training and learning professionals.  They should be called Instructional Marketers or Business Instructionalists.  I’ve been one for almost 20 years.  We don’t have a secret handshake but we are having the most fun in elearning.

Real-Life Examples of Measurable Training

Why are we having so much fun?  Because our users are having fun and learning.  Not convinced?  Nothing is better than real life to make a point.  Here are seven industry examples of measurable training being delivered to seven unique audience types:

Sales Channel Training:  VeeamSoftware, a Swiss IT company, provides content to over 50,000 channel partners resulting in 3000 engagements per month and 10,000 certifications via Docebo.

Franchise Training:  Yum! Brands is the parent company of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC.  They increased their in-store hospitality score globally by 2.5% after rolling out Saba globally.

Distributor Training:  Chance used BlueVolt to overhaul their training and certification program for their worldwide network of installers, as well as dealers, contractors and distributors.

Dealer Training:  Here is a recent blog post from Raytheon Professional Services LLC (RPS), outlining the business case for European automobile dealers and their use of eLearning and learning technology based on a survey to 44 auto manufacturers.

Customer Training:  Longview Solutions, a provider of enterprise financial software, has banked significant savings using Administrate to deploy eLearning.

Association Training:  The Emergency Nurses Association (ENA), a recognized as a leader in the emergency nursing professions provides education, social networking and resources to over 36,000 members worldwide via Digitec Interactive.

For-Profit Training:  Bert Rodgers Schools  sells real estate continuing education to over 90,000 real estate agents, appraisers and brokers per year via eLogic Learning’s eSSential LMS.

Thanks for reading!

 


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  • Build a viable business model for bulk sales
  • Develop effective pricing and marketing strategies
  • Compare tradeoffs of selling through sales reps versus online channels
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About the Author: John Leh

John Leh is Founder, CEO and Lead Analyst at Talented Learning. He is a fiercely independent consultant, blogger, podcaster, speaker and educator who helps organizations select and implement learning technology strategies, primarily for extended enterprise applications. His advice is based upon 25+ years of learning industry experience, serving as a trusted LMS selection and sales adviser to hundreds of organizations with a total technology spend of $100+ million and growing. John is active on social media and is happy to connect with you on X/Twitter or on LinkedIn.

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