Is Training a Commodity?

I was listening to the book "All Marketers are Liars" by Seth Godin and he made a comment about products and services.  He stated that a commodity is something you need not want.  It's like when I'm shopping with my husband who can't turn a bargain down, I say to him "Do we need this or want this" which usually helps him walk away from most impulse purchases.

But it struck me as a new way to try to assess learning and the value that organizations place on training and ongoing access to information.

When does someone go from taking training because they have to (commodity) vs. they want to? This author also pointed out that the non-commodity products were purchased because of the value they provided or the additional perceived benefits the buyer would receive as a result of placing a higher value on this non-commodity service. So what types of training programs do we offer today that are value based vs. a commodity.   So I made a quick list of the more common ones:

Commodity                                      Non-Commodity

Compliance                                        Communication Skills

Product Info                                       Leadership Skill

Policies                                              Business Process

Critical Equipment Instructions           Trouble-shooting of technology platforms

So as I make this list, I can see that there is value in the non-commodity skills that is harder to equate to an ROI and therefor where I think the training community struggles with how to get funding for these higher valued initiatives vs. the commodity initiatives.  To help you communicate the true value of these programs, try to find how the company will be impacted in a tangible way if the higher valued programs are not provided.

For example, a hospital wanted to add a coaching program to their leadership curriculum.  When I asked shat is the goal for this program the answer was "to help them communicate better to their staff."  My response was how do you know that they will actually be coaching at the level that they need to in order to measure the impact of this program --- Blank Stares--- .

Ok so here is what you do.  Ask them " What will have a measurable impact in the business if managers are not coaching staff correctly?  Is there something going on that is new that is causing an increase in the need for coaching?  They said yes, we have a new quality improvement program in place and there seems to be some resistance --- ah ha!  Ok so what happens to the business if the new quality improvement program is not done correctly?  "Well, we wil continue to make errors or slow down our cycle of patient care".

Now we're getting somewhere.   Take this specific business outcome, and tie the coaching program directly to this business situation.  The client could see immediately the difference in the approach to the program and felt more confident that they would receive funding for a more targeted approach to this skill.

If any of you have other examples to share we would love to hear them.

New and Improved Surveys

Is this the face you make when someone sends you a survey or asks you to complete an online feedback form?  We think it's time for a change so we used our creative brains again to use our PhonePodding tool to create a more engaging way of extracting feedback from people.  Due to the fact that almost everyone carries a phone with them at all times, why not use this to collect feedback from training, events, products etc.  You can sample this yourself by clicking on this link--- entering your phone number and then experience a sample of a training survey that will take you by surprise!  This sample has worked so well it's gone VIRAL so check it out for yourself.