Trainer’s Notebook

A recent post on Bob Cenek’s HR Journal reminded me of talking with John Simonds of Martin-Simonds a few years ago. Martin-Simonds specialty was the “engagement” of professionals in engineering and architecture firms, and the effects on client satisfaction. Engagement in this instance refers to the client relationship. It was John’s mantra that most engineering professionals are myopic about the projects on which they’re working. They forget about the human client who’s actually got to approve the work and send them a check.

When John would interview clients, oftentimes managing multimillion dollar budgets for engineering services, they would often state that they were actively seeking another firm to take over the work. This was about 16% of the large client base he surveyed over three years. There was another segment- about 20%, that weren’t actively seeking a new firm, but who were open to any reasonable offer to “trade-up” to a more conscientious customer-oriented firm. Oftentimes, this 36% had been driven off by poor listening, repeated and unapollogetic disappointments, failing to meet deadlines, switching project engineers, etc. The issue was seldom the quality of the project work. Clients want to receive a birthday card, a donation to their favorite charity, a call once in awhile between projects just to get together for coffee or lunch. Sound familiar? It’s what everybody wants, whether you’re a client or an employee.

So how much of our time do we spend on the human side of our key relationships each week? Would 10 percent of our time be sufficient? Yes? No?

OK, quick, name five TRAINING brands you love!
1) _________________
2) _________________
3) _________________
4) _________________
5) _________________
Beep! Ten seconds are up! If you say you need more time to think about it, you may want to re-think the purpose of branding. Branding is about irrational love. Love em or hate em, brands aren’t about thinking. If we’d just asked for “Five Brands You Love” you’d have come up with five easily, right? Your favorite car, music player, magazine, snack, toothpaste, beer, search engine…
What are training brands, and how can we get our clients to think of our product like Toyota or iPod? In response to this question, Lisa Haneberg, the new VP of Programs for ASTD-PS came up with a nifty diagram to express brand effectiveness:

More info on this on Lovemarks.
What’s interesting about this isn’t why Marlboro ranks low on trust or iPod ranks high - these are just illustrations, as is Wells Fargo and Bank of America. What’s interesting is what it takes to get into the high love zone in training. Some people probably favor the “… For Dummies” book series as a high love item, and others don’t love it at all but trust it, and so on, but in training, what does nearly everybody love?