Teleconferencing: High-Tech, Low Cost Training

A recent study surveyed owners of 3000 businesses about their training practices and asked them to relate those practices to productivity. They found that education produces twice the gain in productivity and efficiency than money spent on tools and machinery. This explains why corporations shell out $50 billion a year on education and training. But the costs keep going up, particularly when the training involves removing the employee from the workplace for a day or more, or if the training is to include the entire employee population. For many companies, continuing education and training has become overly expensive.

We have developed a way to overcome this dilemma. Now, with the use of highly sophisticated, yet low cost teleconferencing capability, you can provide a live, interactive training seminar to a virtually unlimited number of participants in multi-locations. Any firm with a speakerphone can take part.

I recently conducted a teleconference seminar with FEDA (Foodservice Equipment Distributors Association). Ninety-two firms took part, in 92 separate locations, with a total of approximately 1000 employee participants. It was the largest one-time training program FEDA has ever conducted. Most firms had between 10 and 20 employees in the room. Most of these employees had never had any training on anything other than the most basic operational issues. It was an opportunity to focus the entire firm on improving customer service performance.

Here's how it works: For the program, you can arrange to have some or all of your management, service or sales employees listen to (but not see) me make a presentation on one of several relevant topics. Every participant receives a printed handout in advance. All participants get to hear a dynamic presentation of approximately 45 minutes plus a 15-minute question and answer session. Participants can ask questions in advance via FAX or live at the end of the session.

Every location taking part also receives a tape recording of the session that they can use in conjunction with other training activities or can loan to individual employees to cover specific topics. It is a complete package that can take training to levels within a company where it has been uneconomical or unfeasible in the past.

This teleconference seminar also ensures that the same ideas and materials are presented to every employee in the same way with the same emphasis. It is an excellent way to develop a unified training experience. Imagine a "brown bag" seminar where once a month, for example, the front line employees get to participate in an upbeat, idea-packed session during their lunch hour. Do you think it would improve morale, as well as performance on the job?

Cost for the teleconference seminar is surprisingly low. A package, which includes the live telephone seminar, a master set of handouts, and a recorded cassette of the session can be as low as $99 per location for multiple locations.

Teleconferencing isn't new, but using it in such a productive way is a new and very exciting prospect. The benefit potential is tremendous.

If you would like more information about how a teleconference program can work for you and your company, call Holli Catchpole at 800-222-4383 or E-mail us at holli@speakersoffice.com

ARTICLE TAGLINE FOR DR. TONY ALESSANDRA

Dr. Tony Alessandra has authored 13 books, recorded over 50 audio and video programs, and delivered over 2,000 keynote speeches since 1976. The ideas in this article, and many others, are adapted from Dr. Alessandra's book, The Sales Professional's Idea-A-Day Guide (Dartnell). If you would like more information about Dr. Alessandra's books, audio tapesets and video programs, or about Dr. Alessandra as a keynote speaker for your group, call (800) 222-4383 or visit his website at http://www.alessandra.com.

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