More Training and Education = Higher Profits

Or “Why Providing Education and Training Is Good for Your Members.”

Okay, we all know that, or we wouldn’t be in the field of education. But we’re also surrounded by those who keep demanding that we show some results for all the money we spend on our educational events — face-to-face and online.

For more than ten years, Laurie Bassi and Dan McMurrer have been studying the relationship between corporate training investments and their profitability. They’ve concluded — time and again — that companies providing training and PD to employees are consistently more profitable, even allowing for the wild market swings we’ve recently seen.

What does this matter to you and to your non-profit organization?

Too often we think of our association members as “members” rather than as professionals taking what they gain from our programs back to their medical practices, educational institutions, business offices, or other places of employment. They contribute there, which further contributes to the bottom line of their company or institution.

Here’s the challenge:

• Mine your registration and completion data (for all programs) to find the members (or institutions, if you’re a trade association) that have participated most frequently in your educational programs.
• Ask those individuals or institutions for data related to their profitability for a specified period. Have they consistently performed in the top 10% of their market segment? 20%? (Your measurement standard might differ, depending on the field.)
• Look for a correlation. If  data from Bassi and McMurrer holds, you should be able to see a positive relationship between the amount of professional development and the level of profit realized.  

Now you have data that can come in handy in at least a couple of ways:

• Shows your board of directors the effect your educational programs are having in your members’ businesses, institutions, etc.
• Demonstrates to your members the value they’re getting from the educational programs you’re offering.
• Provides your members with data they can take back to their superiors that helps make the case that the investment in your association and its education programs is worthwhile.

Sure, correlations are just that, and there can be many reasons for profitability. There are likely many organizations spending little on professional development but raking in the dough and at high profit margins.

But when someone just wants to see numbers, and when you can make a strong case for their validity, you’d be remiss not to at least take a whack at it.

Interested in reading more? Here’s the article summary, from Workforce:
http://www.workforce.com/section/11/feature/26/60/15/266018.html

aLearning Featured in “Managing eLearning” Podcast!

Curious about where associations are with elearning these days? Looking for a quick summary of the aLearning: A Trail Guide to Association eLearning book so you can decide how it can help your association or your client associations?

With many thanks to Jon Aleckson for bringing out the best of our conversation, I’m happy to provide this link to a podcast that covers these very topics and much more:

http://www.webcourseworks.com/blog/association-elearning-book-helpful-vendor-client-relationship

If you’re looking for ways to make sure your content and delivery modes are aligned, your membership is ready for elearning, the options you’re considering are affordable and do-able (does your staff have the skill sets?), and that you have all the information you need to make the best decisions for your association — this book will recover its cost many times over for you.

Just $25 for the download or  $35 (plus shipping) for the print version, you’ll have a manual that will take you step-by-step through each decision and action. If you follow the process outlined in the trail guide, you’ll have completed your elearning strategy, budget, and implementation plans by the time you reach the last page.

For a review, see a sumary of Bill Brandon’s review for the e-Learning Guild’s Learning Solutions e-Magazine.

Busy Strategizing

Though all has looked quiet on the surface, it’s been very, very busy behind the scenes at the aLearning Blog. Here’s what’s been going on: aLearning: A Trail Guide for an Association’s eLearning Strategy.

Yes. A book. A book about three seemingly disparate things: Associations. Strategy. eLearning.

It’s the book I wish I’d had when our association headed into online learnig — and me, with experience developing elearning! So I can imagine how lost many association execs and learning professionals feel when they need to sort it all out.

No wonder so many associations lack a workable elearning strategy, as Jeff Cobb discovered in his newly-released report. His blog summarizes the issues very well. I agree with his advice:  ”…start viewing e-learning as s strategic part of your mission and your business and begin treating it like the substantial, long-term asset it could become.”

 aLearning: A Trail Guide for an Association’s eLearning Strategy will be available in 3-4 weeks. From lingo you need to know, to deciding whether an LMS is necessary for you or not, to conducting needs assessments and scans, including deciding what you need to offer and the best modalities for each topic (yes, Learning 2.o is discussed), all the way through to estimating costs, issuing an RFP and selecting a vendor — this book includes activities, charts, examples, and a case study to help you work through each step in the process as you go.

You’ll end up with  more than a workable (and flexible) strategy — you’ll have covered some essential steps necessary for creating your business plan as well.

If you’d like more info on the book, please e-mail me directly. Watch for more here soon!

Stop Aiming at Your Shoes

If you haven’t gotten yourself a copy of Jeff Cobb’s 2008 Association Sector E-Learning Survey Summary Report, GET IT and READ IT and HIGHLIGHT IT and LIVE IT.

Far too much here to summarize, but a few things popped out that struck me as counterintuitive. Of course, I generally function in a counterintuitive way, so perhaps someone will let me know what I’m missing….

Under “Business Goals & Marketing,” Jeff notes that,

“A slim majority of respondents already using e-learning (50.2%) as well [as] respondents planning to use e-learning (52.5%) indicated that their offerings must [be] self-sustaining and profitable. An additional 33.7% of current users and 38.3% of planned users indicate that their offerings must be self-sustaining though not necessarily profitable.”

He goes on to report that,

“The vast majority of respondents currently using e-learning (86.0%) or planning to use e-learning (77.4%) charge or plan to charge for some or all of their offerings.”

So… most organizations need to offer financially sustainable, if not profitable, online learning. And most are planning to charge money for them.

Recently, a separate study indicated that the average price for a Webinar is $230. Remember, a Webinar is a one-time deal. (I’m making an assumption here — that if a recording is offered, there’s a pricetag on it.) Elearning, particularly asynchronous courses, are generally provided for a much longer period of time.

With me so far? Okay. Jeff’s report goes on to share what respondents had to say about what they charge or plan to charge for their e-learning:

“The average price per course hour for organizations currently offering e-learning is US $56.79. For organizations planning to offer e-leraning in the next 12 months, the average projected price per course hour is US $52.24.”

HUH???!??!?  Why would you charge less than average? Why would you LOWER that per hour course rate when people will need e-learning more than ever in the next year at least? Doesn’t it make more sense to charge what you must in order to at least meet your expenses?

What am I missing in this picture?

Because it seems to me if you keep aiming at your shoes, you’re bound to shoot yourself in the foot.

Learners Forget

Okay, I’ll confess up front I can’t find the article, but we’ve seen the data that discusses how much learners forget as soon as they walk out the door (or close the asynchronous course), and how much more they fail to retain over time.

So we help them plug the holes with Web 2.0 — or my new favorite reference to these online tools, Social Learning — so they can connect with each other for answers, update their personal learning environments by blogging or podcasting or capturing their new knowledge on their wikis, or saving the links to their social bookmarking sites…. right?