Grow Your Training Business

Retain Your Current Training Clients

To grow a corporate training business in a tough economy, the first priority is to protect your current clients. With so many training providers chasing a shrinking business base, you can expect that every one of your existing clients is being contacted regularly by your competitors.

Don't assume that your previous great work and solid relationships will be enough to keep competitors from getting a foot in the door with your current clients.

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There are many strategies you can employ to ensure the retention of your existing clients. Most importantly, keep the lines of communication open, even if you are not currently working on a training initiative for the client. In fact, the "down time" between training engagements can be the most important time to stay engaged.

Strategies for "Down Time" Client Engagement

If the client is holding off on training because of budget constraints, find ways to flex the budget (for example, combine two or more client organizations into a single training event) or even offer to deliver mini-workshops or reinforcement sessions at little or no cost to the client. The purpose of "free" training is to keep the client engaged and connected with you, to build additional loyalty and appreciation, and to keep competitors from having any opportunity to get a foot in the door.

Your competitors are doing more than ever to ease their way into your client organizations. They are offering free workshop materials, discounts on training fees, plus additional services such as e-learning courses or podcasts to reinforce training. Now, YOUR clients may or may not be getting these offers. There is only one way to know for sure. You need to have "the talk" with your clients about potential competitors. Not in a defensive or worried manner, but comfortably and confidently. Let the client know that you wouldn't be surprised to hear they are getting calls from other potential training providers. Let the client know that you would appreciate any information they can provide about the approach these competitors are taking on their prospecting calls. And of course tell them that if they hear something that sounds truly interesting, you would like to know about it as well.

Research your competition. Know their strengths, weaknesses, and how they are positioning themselves in your market. Then make sure each of your clients has been "vaccinated" against the competitor's approach. For example if you have an active competitor who is focused on negotiation skills training, and this is not your particular area of expertise, you should do your research and identify a negotiation skills program you would feel good about recommending to your clients. Then let all of your clients know that you have access to negotiation skills training resources and can provide a referral to them if this is something relevant to their business needs. You don't have to be the expert on every training need - but you SHOULD be a reliable resource to connect clients with solid training content for all common business needs.

If you have an active competitor who is offering free training services or heavily discounting their resources such as workbooks, audio CDs, etc. it is important that you become familiar with the materials. You should identify any weaknesses or deficiencies, then make sure you educate your clients to help them know what to look for when they are considering any new training resources. You shouldn't necessarily refer to the competitor directly, rather, help the client understand what to look for, and help them quickly focus on those areas that tend to highlight the competitor's downside.

This is probably a more activity related to defending against competitors than you are used to. And in a normal economic environment you could afford to just focus on delivering quality training solutions to your clients. But these are not normal times, and unfortunately your competitors are working harder to gain new business. So you are going to have to do work harder to protect it.

Stay in touch with clients; continuously share tips, ideas and innovative information with your clients by email. Whether this is with a regular monthly e-newsletter or ad hoc messages sent as you come across interesting information, you should "touch" every existing client at least once a month with SOMETHING OF RELEVANT VALUE to them. Never just "check in" to "see how things are going." Always reach out to them with something of value, and make them look forward to your next conversation.  

Use the down time as an opportunity to review previous training initiatives with the client, get your "report card" from them and make plans for improvement of future training engagements. Sometimes, when there is no specific training scheduled for the near future, this is the perfect time to engage in a discussion of best practices and identify areas to improve effectiveness of future training.

Most importantly, remain vigilant and mildly paranoid. Take nothing for granted. Just because they have told you there is no training budget for the next 12 months doesn't mean that a really good sales professional couldn't find a way to get a "foot in the door" with them. So keep talking and sharing ideas with these clients, and finds ways to bring value even during the "down time.

How I'm Stealing Your Training Clients

An open letter from one of your competitors:

To whom it may concern,

I want to thank you for allowing me to cultivate business relationships with many of your best training clients and ultimately acquire them as clients of my own training business. You may have been wondering why they don't do as much business with you as they used to, and hopefully you have been blaming the bad economy - because I wouldn't want you to blame me. In fact, I really don't want you to think about me at all, until after I have squeezed every possible training dollar out of every one of your current clients.

How am I doing this? It seems impossible really, since you have such strong relationships with most of them. They tell me how much they truly like you and respect you. In fact some of them actually feel guilty about working with me, so they never mention it to you. It is more comfortable for them to just say that their training budget has been cut this year.

I really shouldn't be sharing this information with you, but since you haven't done much about it up to now, I probably don't need to worry too much about you getting all proactive on me. So here is my 5-point plan for stealing your best training clients.

 

My 5-Point Plan for Stealing Your Training Clients

1. I talk to them more than you do.

Do you remember what it was like back when you were acquiring them? Remember all the follow up calls and deep "needs analysis" conversations? Remember how hard you worked to earn the right to ask questions and learn more about their business? Well that was a long time ago and as you have become more comfortable, your conversations with them have become more shallow.

Plus you never seem to call or engage with them unless there is some specific training event on the horizon, or the potential for some new business. Your clients never mention this to you, but the truth is they NOTICE that you have started to take them for granted. Oh sure, you send out the holiday cards and tins of popcorn. You call occasionally to chat and find out if there is anything potentially coming up. But you don't REALLY talk to them any more. Not the way you used to.

And frankly, I'm just making more of an effort to call them more often. I WANT to talk to them, I WANT to meet with them, and because I'm the "bright shiny new penny" my conversations with them seem to be more enjoyable and compelling.

 

2. I talk to them about issues you never discuss.

I don't limit our conversations to any specific area of training expertise. You are a known quantity to them, because you have delivered training on specific topics, so they tend to peg you as the resource for that particular topic. And since that's all you ever talk to them about, they naturally assume that is all that you do. But I don't talk about me as much as I talk about THEM and what they need to achieve their business objectives. And whatever they need, I'll find a way to flex my background and perceived expertise to deliver a relevant solution.

Also, I talk to them about YOU. But you never ask them about me. Naturally the training you have delivered comes up in our conversations and I ask them to highlight your strengths and, ahem, your "growth opportunities." I gently ease them into a discussion of what's "not perfect" about the training you deliver. And after I have a list of potential improvements I ask them if they have ever had this conversation with you. The answer is almost always "no." Then I explain to them that with each of my training clients, we conduct a quarterly review and a more in-depth annual review, essentially giving me my "report card" on how well I am doing for them. Your clients seem to love this idea - of course, once they hear it from me, even if you try to do the same thing yourself, you'll just come off as a copycat.

 

3. I bring them new ideas and resources.

I try to connect back with every one of your training clients at least once a week. Sometimes by email, sometimes by telephone, and occasionally with an in-person meeting. Every time we connect I try to provide them with a new idea or resource that is relevant to our previous conversations. It may just be an online article related to their business challenges. It may be an actual training resource, or sometimes just a single PowerPoint slide they can incorporate into their own training materials if they want to.

The point of all this is that I want them to see me as a constant fountain of new thinking and new ideas. I don't want them to see me in a limited way as only focused on a narrow arena of corporate training. Yes I know that traditionally trainers have been advised to specialize, to develop the deepest possible expertise in a specific area. That works great when the economy is booming and expanding. But when the economy is contracting, and I'm having to fight for every possible new training dollar, I need to have the widest net possible.

Fortunately for me, since I'm brand new to them, it is easy to frame myself up as a broad generalist with a wide range of expertise. It would be much tougher if I had already sold myself to them as narrowly focused on just one area of employee development. Sort of like you did.

 

4. I "work" for them before I work for them.

I let them know that I'm always looking for ways to help my clients gain a competitive advantage, especially in this tough economy. And while I am certainly interested in generating revenue for my business, I know I need to earn my way in. So I am willing to do more - even offer free workshops or programs or resources - and I know there is a natural desire to reciprocate. If I go out of my way to do more for them, they will tend to (eventually) do the same for me.'

Plus of course they need time and exposure to get to know me and become comfortable with my training style. So I am going to leverage every possible opportunity to work with them, to deliver compelling training, to provide useful resources, so they get a strong sense of what it is like to work with me, before they ever actually work with me.

 

5. I try harder, and they appreciate the effort.

Your clients know I'm "hungry" for new business. I'm not desperate. I'm not needy. And I have no interest in asking them to do anything just because it would be good for ME. My focus is on what is good for them. But with that said, I tell them (and more importantly show them) that no one is working harder than I am to gain their business.

You on the other hand seem to want to emphasize how successful you are, which is totally fine. You drive a nicer car than most of your clients, you dress better, and take them to restaurants they couldn't afford on their own. And they are truly impressed by your success.

With me, they don't see me as having "arrived." They see me as someone very much like themselves, working hard for every training event, earning every dollar, etc. And no matter how much money I make, I cultivate that perspective with them. Because I know they have a natural instinct to want to help the underdog, the person who will push themselves farther and harder.

 

So let me wrap this up by once again expressing my gratitude for the doors you have opened for me. In such a tough economy it means a lot to be able to cherry pick the best training clients of a successful professional such as yourself. I would like to say that maybe someday I can return the favor, but I don't think so. Once I have them, I'm going to work very, very hard to retain them.

With deepest appreciation,

One of Your Competitors