To be somewhat Polly-anna about our current economic situation, I have always believed that we tend to do our most interesting and exciting work when our backs are ,so to speak, to the wall. I set up my last company in the early 90’s during what was a puny little recession in comparison to our current (mighty and global)credit crunch.A friend of mine who was in banking at the time tried to persuade me to stay put in my job arguing that the first two things to disappear in a recession were advertising and training, and with a grave nod and a headmasterly stare he reminded me that we were about to start a business training people in advertising. In truth I think that business was all the better for being a “bootstraps” venture. We couldn’t buy any training content so we wrote our own, we couldn’t hire a sales team so we went out and pitched for every scrap of work. As we grew the knowledge that we could survive and thrive in a credit restricted world gave us huge confidence even when he banks were throwing money around.

Design guru and retailer Terence Conran in a recent Guardian Magazine talked about the Habitat experience in the UK in the 1970’s. Habitat an up market furniture and interiors store responded to the 3 Day week, the energy crisis and the collapse of the UK economy by launching an affordable range called Basics, this was subsequently franchised to a Japanese company called Seibu who subsequently opened stores called Basics which eventually changed it’s name to ………………………Muji.

Just think if you have an idea to save your customers money in the short term, you could end up with a brilliant product or service in a few short years.

Be brave, but don’t be stupid, real innovation comes from resourcefulness and playfulness, when you haven’t got enough to do what you’ve always done do something better.

A couple of articles have got me thinking this week about the state of our profession. In his article For Trainingzone Donald Taylor paints a fairly bleak picture of the troubles that may lie ahead.

If you’re working for a classroom training provider, you probably already know the answer. In the smaller dip of 2002/2003, classroom training companies suffered as clients cut back on classroom delivery costs. It’s a simple calculation: no classroom training means no fees and no travel, a quick saving in tough times.

“Right now, the manager wielding the knife over the budget has no hesitation in cutting all external training beyond what is legally required.”
But don’t people still need training? Of course they do, but training is still seen as being rather like painting the woodwork on the outside of the house. Everyone knows you have to do it, but even if it looks really bad, you can let it slide for a season or two until structural damage sets in.

In 2002/2003 a number of classroom training companies went to the wall. We can expect worse in 2009, as demand plummets

The Education section of the Guardian today suggests that the Governments pleas to industry to maintain their training budgets are being ignored.

“a survey reported exclusively in Education Guardian today suggests that many employers are not taking any notice.

Half of the training managers questioned in more than 100 large companies say their budgets have been, or will be, cut. Barely a third of them expect their training budgets to come through 2009 unscathed, and just 16% expect their budgets to increase during the downturn.

More than two-thirds say they anticipate that they will need to “streamline their course portfolio” this year.

The managers surveyed work for organisations employing at least 1,000 people and include Xerox, Siemens, the NHS, Pitney Bowes, Deutsche Bank, WHSmith, GSK, JPD, AstraZeneca, Barclays and Oracle.

But there are opportunities; Taylor suggests that the type of training to survive the upcoming culls (and this applies equally to internal providers as well as those of us who sell training for a living) will be:

• provided by niche players
• closely integrated with the purpose /customers/culture
• cheap quick fix off the shelf solutions

The Guardian suggests that it is general training programs that will be culled but that the demand for real leadership, business acumen delivered in a flexible , dare we say blended format.

Interestingly I don’t know a trainer (internal or external) who doesn’t consider themselves to be flexible, integrated, business savvy and fantastic value for money. The next few months will provide us all with an opportunity to work out whether we are as smart as we think we are and to sharpen up in all these areas. But here are the warning signals, that all is not well in your training business or training department.

• If all your training solutions are organised into classroom courses and planned by the day.
• If your training materials are broadly the same as they were in 2003 (new fonts and covers dont count!)
• If you know more people who have left the company than those who remain
• If you find yourself surprised and disappointed that this years Management Programme has been put on ice

Then now might be a great time for a serious step back.

The alarm bells are ringing and the coffee is pungent enough to stop a charging bull!

The only question is what will you do next?

There has been a steady stream of enquiries this week from entrepreneurs, concerned about the lack of sales in the last few weeks.

Obviously the economic downturn is having it’s effect on purchases and purchasers. In my own field Guardian Education reported that more than 50% of buyers of training and education services expect their budgets to be cut this year. However I do wonder whether the real issue is that many sales people and entrepreneurs have, for a number of years now , been able to sell their product without really having to stretch themselves. When we have a steady flow of leads and confidence abounds in the marketplace we become good at customer service and marketing and account management but our sales skills often whither somewhat on the vine. In the past few years I have become accustomed to pitching for business in a competitive environment, but it has been a while since I have had to persuade a client that maintaining their training budget s a good idea. Interestingly one never has to work hard at the logical argument, (of course well trained staff will help you come through the recession Duh!) the real issues facing clients at this moment are all emotional issues. Fear, feeling unable to stand up to the FD or the board, uncertainty about the future, and confusion as to what our real priorities are; these are reasons that people are reluctant to commit to investments in the future. Really good sales people thrive in this environment, they offer calm amongst chaos, solutions not products. The most important skills they have right now are listening, empathy and creativity.

But many sales people will actually give up in the face of the media storm, they will tell themselves that it’s not worth calling a client because they don’t have any money or because they are laying people off. If they do go to see their clients they obsess about getting the same amount of revenue as last year rather than solving the problems that the client faces this year.

We are in a new game now, treat every client as a new contact, everything that you knew about their needs and their priorities is subject to change. Now is the time to be out there in the field making your mark. Remember that many of your prospects are having a tough time and there is a world of difference between empathizing with them and being morose with them. You may be the brightest spark in their otherwise stressful day, don’t waste the opportunity. Generate your own energy, become associated in your clients mind with someone who can help and wants to help. Even if you come up with ideas and proposals that the client likes but ultimately rejects,  you still remain fixed in their minds as a “value adder”.

In spite of all the woe now is a great time to get noticed. Happy hunting

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