It was estimated that in 2007 global spending on training exceeded over $60billion. Yet despite this huge investment, a recent survey suggests that less than 20% of organisations enjoyed a productivity gain that lasted beyond 12 months*. So, how do you get the maximum return from your training investment and avoid the traps others fall into?

Unlike other consultancies, we at Korda & Partners urge our clients to challenge the existing training sacred cows such as:

An increasing number of salespeople find themselves in this difficult situation, trying to do deals with organisations that have employed trained buyers. So what are these buyers actually thinking and how can you defend your margin when facing them? A good starting point is to understand the Five Golden Rules of Negotiation.

We need our people to have the full range of competencies

In reality, each individual is unique and the ones who deliver superior performance generally do not master the full range of competencies: they excel by just playing to their strengths. Training programmes should therefore not focus on filling the gap between current skills and a theoretical average level of competency: they should aim at supporting each employee in enhancing and fully using their potential.

Training is a long term investment and won’t deliver immediate results


Because we don’t demand immediate results, we don’t get them. If participants are not in a position to apply what they have discovered on training programmes the chances are they never will. Whilst training strategy should consider the long term, training itself needs to deliver visible results immediately.

We must have small groups and the trainer has to be the expert


Too often training programmes waste time and money because they are trainer driven not learner driven. A tentative survey recently suggested useless time might account for anything up to 60 per cent of even the most admired training courses.

So how can you do better? At Korda & Partners we build training programmes for our clients that exclusively focus on maximising three key ratios:

Efficiency

Useful Time
Total Training Time

Getting more effectiveness in this area means radical changes in the training design. At Korda & Partners we employ around 50 different learning techniques to ensure each participant is fully active from the very first to the very last minute of the process.

Effectiveness

Personal Improvement
Useful Timee

Traditional training methods are time-consuming. New methods like "focused deliberate practice" allow you to learn in 25 minutes what used to take 90 minutes, and with much higher retention.

Translation

Concrete implementation
Personal Improvement

It is not enough to master a new skill or technique. Participants must actively prepare to use it. Establishing action plans, setting clear performance measures and giving management a specific role in monitoring implementation are crucial factors of return on investment.

Delivering against these ratios calls for a dramatic change and new agenda for the world of training. In effect it is a re-think and a revolution in commonly accepted training principles.

Our fresh thinking has helped our clients:

- run sessions for very large groups (100 plus) that get them to practice on specific skills until they are fully mastered
- build entirely active sessions without a single PowerPoint slide.
- cut classroom sessions to hours rather than days
- help delegates bring real case examples into the training environment using pre-course frameworks and then build specific action plans through sharing experience with other colleagues and facilitators
- develop peer coaching groups back at work that help delegates benchmark what excellent performance looks like, focus on their strengths and turn them into areas of excellence and set an action plan for one area of weakness being turned into a strength.

Making moves on at least some, if not all, of these factors can have a dramatically positive impact on the return achieved from training spend. Please contact us to find out more about what we have done with clients and the impact it has had on their business performance.

* Drew Stevens:Getting to the Finish Line

It has been well documented that happy, motivated and committed employees help deliver better business results through lower turnover, absenteeism and sickness rates and by working harder and more cooperatively with co- employees. Many businesses leaders have realised the importance of this and are instituting programmes to build employee engagement. However there is still a long way to go as a recent survey from Melcrum in the US found that 73% of companies either do not consider it or incorporate it just as a "general philosophy" in the HR practices. General philosophies are important but it is only when they are translated into practical actions do they deliver results.

To sustain market leading levels of employee engagement, businesses must instil a meaning and purpose to every employees working life to generate full engagement that lasts.

Below, I outline the key steps in achieving this with some practical advice based on experience with large organisations:

Step 1: Listen to your employees and involve them in the development of solutions
Most leading companies already conduct staff surveys that aim to measure and get feedback on how employees feel about their working life and environment. Whilst these have an important role to play, they need to be supported by "employee listening" groups, in order to get a deeper understanding of what lies beneath the survey data. Using our expertise in facilitation, we ensure we quickly get to the core of employee concerns and motivations as well as helping our clients really listen to words of their people. We also identify a number of realistic and innovative solutions that are generated by the employees during the listening groups.

Step 2: Build a "people vision" that is as important as the "business vision"
When executives put in even half the effort in developing and implementing a people vision as they do for the firm's business vision then their chances of delivering the expected results are increased dramatically. The criteria for developing a people vision are that :

1) It must be unique and relevant to the organisation
2) It must be meaningful and motivating to all employees
3) It must be clearly communicated and shared by everyone

Step 3: Implement with Energy
There are huge amounts of latent energy within large organisations waiting to be unleashed. By launching and actively implementing a few key initiatives, most of them requiring very small investments in time and money, organisations can use this energy to transform their performance and culture. At Orange, identifying and implementing the people management best practices directly contributed to a 46% increase in employee engagement.

Managers and employees contributing to employee engagement should be recognised and rewarded in such a way that it maintains their energy and enthusiasm in the long run.

At Korda & Partners, we offer our clients a full range of services from "listening to the voice of the employee through to crafting and implementing an entire employee engagement programme from scratch. Contact us to find out more

Of course, it's one thing to read these rules but quite another to actually apply them in the heat of a contract negotiation. Only by re-creating the pressure of a real situation in the training room can we begin to embed these principles. When applied with a full range of negotiation tools and techniques, the Five Golden Rules will successfully defend your margin, however extreme the pressure or whatever tricks buyers play to gain advantage.

You've built a strong relationship with your client and you're about to finalise a contract when a new colleague's introduced. "Don't worry," your friendly client says, "he's just here to help me finalise the details". All of a sudden, you're sat across the table from a stranger who's obsessed with price and discounts.

An increasing number of salespeople find themselves in this difficult situation, trying to do deals with organisations that have employed trained buyers. So what are these buyers actually thinking and how can you defend your margin when facing them? A good starting point is to understand the Five Golden Rules of Negotiation.

Rule 1: Have the courage to start with a high initial position. Many salespeople negotiate with themselves before even meeting a client because of their fear of the client's negotiating power. Don't compromise before you have to. I once trained the sales team of a major IT component manufacturer; shortly afterwards the Sales Director rang to say this rule had just saved them $350k because for years they'd been giving a customer a discount that the customer was completely unaware of! To prepare, set out the negotiation variables (like price, payment terms, specification) and on each variable determine your initial position, your target and your bottom line.

Rule 2: When asked for a concession, always respond with a defence of your offer first. Concessions made without being defended suggest your offer is inflated and greater discounts are to be had. Defending your position shows you are serious and your offer is credible. It will also let you switch the conversation from discounts and rebates to features and benefits. To prepare, work out one or two key points to defend each of the negotiation variables.

Rule 3: Only make a concession if you obtain something in return. This sounds obvious but in my experience, this is the one rule that salespeople consistently break. Make a list of all the items you can ask your client for (e.g. faster payment, lower specification, smaller penalties). Remember to structure your response "If you...then I will..." For example, "If you agree to pay 50% in advance, then I will give a 2% discount."

Rule 4: If you have to make concessions, make them small and of decreasing value. A handy hint is to think of what will get agreement, then halve it. Also steer the buyer towards asking for concessions that are less costly for you. Employ a phrase like "On this particular point I can do nothing, however I can propose..."

Rule 5: Lead the client towards the conclusion. If you do not control the conclusion of a negotiation, your client will. A common buyer trick is to seek "rolling" concessions: by dangling the carrot of the contract, they extract significant discounts after it seems the negotiation has ended. Isolating the final variable is vital, so use a phrase such as "Apart from this point, do we have agreement on everything else?" to cut off the buyer's ability to push for more.

Of course, it’s one thing to read these rules but quite another to actually apply them in the heat of a contract negotiation. Only by re-creating the pressure of a real situation in the training room can we begin to embed these principles. When applied with a full range of negotiation tools and techniques, the Five Golden Rules will successfully defend your margin, however extreme the pressure or whatever tricks buyers play to gain advantage.