According to Peter Meyer, president of The Meyer Group: Training departments can avoid the risk of being under-funded or declared expendable by applying the same strategy used by many independent consultants.

Meyer recommends a seven-step process that focuses on defining success for your internal customers or training sponsors. If you follow it, you may discover that your department gets more funding and a higher profile rather quickly, leading to greater productivity (and job security) for both you and the departments you serve.

Step 1
Make cold calls on department managers by asking yourself the following:

What departments might your next training project come from?

Which ones have training needs that you may have overlooked, underestimated, or not cultivated yet?

Which departments recently changed equipment, processes, responsibilities, or other aspects of their work in ways that created training needs that didn't exist before?

Step 2
Make an introductory call to the key contact person.

Talk only briefly about yourself or about your department. Quickly move on to the training opportunity or problem that this department needs resolved.

Step 3
Talk to key people who can give you several perspectives on the problem - the “big picture“ view.

Ask individuals, both inside and outside the department, who are affected by the problem, to define a successful resolution. (You'll carry these definitions into Step 4).

Step 4
This is the design session, when you persuade stakeholders to buy into your training proposal so that your department can produce a tangible, effective solution, not just an attractively bound document.

Discuss the success criteria that the stakeholders themselves put forward in Step 3 and propose a definition of the problem.

If you cannot get them to agree on a definition, go no further. (Meyer points out that this rarely happens.)

Lay out a few possible solutions, including their costs. (Because time is more important than money to many managers, make sure to include any time savings.)

At the end of Step Four's design session, you should have defined:

The severity of the issue

The need for a training-based solution

Criteria for success

An implementation plan

The estimated cost

(Note: Cost should be a minor part of this discussion compared to the value your department will provide by resolving the problem).

Step 5
Document the design session in a proposal. If Step 4's design session achieved closure, all your proposal needs to do is accurately reflect the outcome of that session.

Step 6
Develop an agreement that both you and the customer department manager can live with.

Make sure you that have all of the proper approvals.

Step 7
Provide the training and follow up.

Review the initial success criteria and confirm whether your services have met them.

Make a pitch for the next project using the current project's results as a springboard — success breeds success.

“Blow your own horn.“ Document your success with all influential parties and promote your training services to other customer departments.

 

By Peter Meyer