Before you invest in a training program and start working with Wahoo Learning, there are some important elements to have in place first.
Even though we take care of the training program delivery and project management, there is some preliminary work you can do to help us hit the ground running and get to the deployment stage as smoothly and quickly as possible. Of course, this is also dependent on the individual requirements of your program.
Here is a detailed overview of what you need in place before we start working together.
1. Training Program Objectives (and how they link to core business objectives)
As soon as everything is in place in terms of contracts, we will start our journey with a kick-off meeting. During that meeting, we will ask lots of questions about your organisation. This allows us to quickly get to grips with your business objectives.
Before we kick off, it’s important that you have a clear set of requirements to help us align our goals and build a program that meets your goals.
Every organisation has its own unique requirements, but many follow a similar theme. Some examples of training program objectives are:
- Build stronger, longer-lasting partnerships
- Increase the volume of sales
- Gain a competitive advantage
In addition, we need to understand how each of your training program objectives relates to your core business objectives.
We will also ask for information relating to the company’s background, internal structure, sales pipeline and key stakeholders. The more knowledge you can share with us, the better.
As you are no doubt aware by now, training programs are not something that is launched and then left to its own devices. Programs are ongoing and need regular tweaking and maintenance.
Providing us with as much insight as possible from the start enables us to get the best results and maximise your return on investment. It’s even better if you’re already prepared to answer these questions and have covered everything off as a team.
2. The Requirements Of Your Audience
For your training program to be successful (and potentially revenue-generating), it must meet the needs of your audience.
Part of the planning process should always be talking to your customers. Time must be taken to find out what the individual and business objectives are. With this vital information, the training program can be aligned with their goals and engagement rates will ultimately be higher.
When training external audiences, keeping engagement rates high can be a challenge. They are usually training in their own time and have the usual day-to-day pressures of running their business to contend with. By outsourcing training program management, organisations can ensure that training programs are kept front of mind.
There are some key points that you should cover in the planning stages. Find out as much as you can about what value you can offer them, including, what they need to know, what they need to gain from training and the skill level they already have.
With all of this information at hand, building a training program to meet your objectives becomes a simplified task. We can launch with the confidence that uptake will be high.
3. Budget Allocation And Ongoing Costs (do you want to sell your courses)
Organisations often don’t consider the entirety of the budget needed to launch and maintain a training program. It’s easy to underestimate the cost of providing valuable content and a high service level. The initial focus is more often than not on the Learning Management System itself.
When securing a budget for your training program, there are some basic elements to take into account. These costs are:
- Producing effective training content
- The learning platform (LMS)
- Ongoing administration and management
Without careful consideration for the ongoing administration and management of the training program, organisations often hit problems and programs become stale and unengaging.
Of course, your training will add significant value to your customers and so when training content is created, marketed and sold correctly, it’s possible to offset the cost of the program. With the help of our management services, this can all be achieved with very little input from you.
If you are planning to sell your courses, before our initial meetings, think about how much revenue you need to gain to cover the costs you need it. Whether there is any internal budget available or not, starting to think about the pricing structure for your program is important. We are on hand to help with this once we are aware of the budget you have available.
Who Will Be In Charge Of The Training Program?
To work in the most time-efficient way possible, we usually request that we have a single in-house point of contact.
Part of that in-house role, and the most crucial part is to ensure high levels of communication are maintained between both parties.
The appointed person will work closely with the Wahoo Learning account manager to ensure the smooth delivery of the training program.
Some of the main tasks and responsibilities
are:
- Reviewing the program and its performance.
- Sharing company, program and L&D goals.
- Coordinating learning material.
- Defining necessary reports and data analytics.
- Sharing program challenges for
- Wahoo Learning to work through.
- Attend weekly/bi-weekly progress calls.
- Create/sign off all new processes.
Your Wahoo Learning account manager is always on hand to support all of these tasks and will always be available to answer any questions that may arise.
Summary
By working through your objectives and communicating with your audience in the early stages, your training program has a greater chance of success. This part of the planning process is crucial and time should be spent getting to know the needs of your audience to ensure your program is designed to meet those needs.
Bringing all this information we’ve discussed in this article to the table in the initial stages enables us to start work on our project plan as swiftly as possible. It will help both parties to fully understand the requirements and how we will work together on an ongoing basis.
With everyone ‘in the know’ goals can easily be aligned, and a plan for meeting the objectives of your program can be discussed, created and implemented.
Related resource: How to get the most from your partnership with Wahoo Learning
After reading this, if you have any questions, please get in touch with the team so we can add them to the agenda! If you haven’t been assigned a dedicated account manager quite yet, you can drop us a line here.
