General Consultant Discussion

Be very careful about when an end user asks to go to a training center: Wayne, Beth McNeil wanted me to provide you with an update on our engagement with xxxand xxx as related to assisting him in the search for a Warehouse Management System. David Horowitz have had a couple over the phone conversations and have qualified him budget. xxx has requested David make a site visit tomorrow from 10 am to 12 noon. Once again we wanted to let you know where we are at and will keep you in the loop as we work through this engagement. This will be at least a six month and most likely a 12 month sales cycle. xxx has mentioned that he would be reaching out to you to fix a unit of measure issue they would like to correct for the New Year 2014. If you have any questions please feel free to reach out to me at any time or you can speak with xxx as well. Kindest regards, Joe Geusic WMS Account Executive 973.251.0490 v joe.geusic@swktech.com SWK Technologies, Inc. | 5 Regent Street | Suite 520 | Livingston | NJ 07039 Find Us: Website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | SWK Blog | YouTube ""We empower our clients and partners with knowledge, solutions, and tools for success.

Bad apple ruining the bunch ... not all training centers treat referring partners the same way! And don't your customers want to take a trip to Las Vegas?

These guys literally called me in the middle of what I presume was their training session to let me know the customer was asking about WMS. I guess I missed that description on the class. Oh well I've had customers get led down these paths before. SWK was also very generous in letting the customer have lunch with I think the SWK sales manager. What a bunch of nice folks.

We come at it from a different direction and offer the business partner a free seat in the class with their customer if we have one available. On a related note, I am quite certain that we don't earn the same tier from Sage that SWK does.

Be sure to get the referral when the sale goes through!!!!!! FWIW, SWK handles the Radio Beacon side of things for my client, I handle everything else. Ted Levi and David have been very straight up with me. This is very surprising.

We are not an ATC (is that still a valid distinction?) but we are certified trainers. Although we haven't had a class in quite some time, if/when a customer of another partner would ask about something, we would typically tell them to ask their partner about it. I must say, we picked up a couple of customers but only because their partner wasn't performing or they were not local. It was not our intention to steal anyone's customers but it does happen. I would NEVER do so if the partner was a member of this group, BTW.

There are no longer any ATCs. We are now apparently ATPs but I still don't know what the difference is. We have a very active classroom schedule and we have acquired customers over the years - like @ThereseLogeais says - only after the customer tries to reconcile with their partner.

I'm literally sitting at my desk working when this call comes into my cell phone and I'm instantly in a conference all with the end user (2 of their people) and their trainer. Live and learn. Not much you can do when the customer asks to go to a training center but from now on I'll prep them that they're going to get a sales pitch at SWK and probably a nice fancy lunch with the sales manager. It's interesting that most of my end users have come to me after leaving a partner who behaved EXACTLY in that way.

We at SWK definitely appreciate the concern here and have reached out to the parties involved (internally and externally) to work through. We respect our fellow channel partners and the relationships we have worked hard to build. When non-client opportunities are presented to us, whether through our ATC or other means, we immediately involve the partner and together work to provide them with a solution that meets their needs. If a sale does come from this opportunity, a revenue sharing opportunity is always provided for the partner. Wayne, we are hoping to work through this with you and in the end have a very happy mutual client. Wayne, please do reach out to myself or Jeff Roth so we can address the concerns you have. And I ask any and all of our fellow 90 Minds members, if you do have any concerns with us, please do not hesitate to contact me directly ~ I am happy to listen to those concerns and work through them with you ~ our relationships are important to us.

I had a call with Jeff Roth this morning. I'm not going to rehash the whole thing other than SWK's contention is that I provided them with permission to talk to the user about WMS (which is true) at the class and was based on an impromptu cell phone call from the user in the midst of class. An important clarification is that the user was the one who phoned me and put everyone on speaker phone - which caused some portion of this issue. However we've agreed to disagree as to whether the user caused all the confusion on the phone. My opinion on training centers across the board remains the same - they should be a place where users go to be trained on the subject matter in the curriculum. Users will bring up questions and requirements and those are in my opinion most properly saved and conveyed back to the partner.

@WayneSchulz I agree with you 100%

I'm sorry Wayne, I had something similar happen to me with a client out west a few years back. I sent them to a training center and they fired me shortly after. The instructor had taken her to lunch and they became BFF's. About ten months later, I get a call wanting me back. Just sad...

And did you take her back and raise your rates to reflect your value???

Frankly, we have a hard time understanding the true value for customers in a training center, except for the reporting-related ones. The standard Sage curriculum is pretty vanilla, so it covers a lot of things that the student won't use, and doesn't necessarily handle the particulars that they need. So, they burn a whole day or 3 to get maybe 2 hours of nuggets. We are trying to shift customers to training based around SOP's (Std Op Proc's) for their operation. The SOP's aren't at the keying level, but document how the company handles procedures based on the circumstance, assuming they know how to use Sage 100. Then we (or they) can train newbies on the details of manipulating Sage 100 to complete the procedures. is anybody else doing this?

Training users by following SOPs is smart approach (I think so because we do it) but how can you develop SOPs without the customer - the owner of the procedures - understanding all of the features that are available?

I'm of the opinion that we shouldn't try to protect our customers base. I can't prevent customers from getting other VAR's newsletters, or visit training centers or attend user groups... and I'm not going to try. In fact, I encourage them to explore other options, get second opinions and expand their circle of professionals. I can only do my best, and if I lose someone along the way, I look for ways to mitigate that risk. If a competitor can persuade a customer over lunch, there wasn't a relationship there to begin with. Sometimes you have to let customers see if the grass is greener elsewhere, and I'm good with that.

@WayneSchulz's issue, and @MarkKotyla's calm wisdom, there is the reality the some customers get a hair up their butt sometimes, and conclude that since their partner never talked about Issue A, that said partnrer doesn't know anything about Issue A. Even though it happens to me about once a year, I am still struck dumb when it happens.

@BrianRice : good point about the the customer's knowledge. However, if you take it from the point of, ""How are you handling customer payments?"" and drill into it a bit, they find that they have challenges with checks, with credit cards, cash at trade shows, etc. -- so your SOP doc covers all that in a holistic fashion. Then you train on the Sage steps. So, the customer doesn't really have to know what the tool will do, other than ""It will probably do it better than we are now.

I will let @MarkKotyla respond but it seems that his calm wisdom does account for the ""hair up their butt."" Our experience is that the most curious and most informed end-users provide the most productive and profitable relationships for us. Drilling into a bit isn't likely sufficient when you consider *all* of the intricacies among *all* of their processes. ""How are you handling customer payments?"" is one small part of their AR strategy. If you get to a sufficient SOP doc, they would never have to attend (or return to) any training*, unless the customer hired a new employee, their business changed, or there was a new tool/feature/option made available. *Sarcasm implied (the one constant is change)

We're not disagreeing much. My point is that we find we can break a request for ""training"" into either incidental coaching or modest process consulting that results in an outline of how the customer handles things like ""customer payments."" When they are faced with the actual choice between a. employee off-set for 2+ days (with travel) and no clear guarantee the the training will actually solve whatever problem they were trying to get at, or b. some time with us teasing out all what they actually do, with the end product something that more than just the single employee can use, then they choose b. Especially when they consider that the employee can walk out the door ... FWIW, the reason make a deal out of this, is that the approach is one we've developed to keep time out of our deliverable descriptions. So, we don't offer ""1 day of training"". We produce a list of tasks they will learn and train to that, whether it takes 2 hours or 2 days.

Agreed - we are not disagreeing much (insert navel-gazing joke here). Even though it is a line of business for us, I wouldn't consider classroom training an option in a scenario like you are describing. I would consider classroom training for an end-user when they are a new employee (or new to a department) tasked with finding new ways to innovate, further make use of their existing systems, or reset an SOP that has become cumbersome. Perhaps they are (or are not) working with an engaging business partner like a member of 90 Minds but to fully understand their options in one of these cases, the user would benefit from some immersion. That doesn't mean taking time off-site to read printed curriculum. It should include consultative instruction and idea sharing that is redirected to the partner (see the origin of this thread). It certainly isn't always possible, but we like to offer the business partner a seat in the class with their users at no cost if there is space available.

I typically recommend new hires attend classroom training, just to learn the basics. These users are usually too new to immerse themselves into SOP or workflow matters, as they're just getting started with a new employer, while trying to learn a new ERP system. I recommend they ask as many questions as possible. Afterwards, I meet with the customer to answer any questions and provide training specific to their role within the company. Therefore, I feel there's a need for both types of training: classroom for the basics and personalized for everything else. If the new hire learns from another employee, I usually ask probing questions to discern how informed they are and make recommendation to dept. supervisor or owner regarding additional training. When recommending training centers or MD's (or whatever they're called now), I do expect that the trainer/MD not sell direct and solicit business. If customer initiates the conversation, I'd want the trainer/MD to exercise good judgement and be professional. Then circle back with me so we can answer all questions and ensure customer is taken care of. When this basic SOP isn't followed, I don't recommend the trainer/MD. If my choices are limited, I prep the customer on my past experience and let them sort it out. I've had Blytheco sell CRM to a customer. Don't know whether customer reached out to them or if Blytheco cold called customer, and don't care. Can't fault Blytheco for making the sale, as they were better prepared than I, and it's not their job to keep me employed.

Many years ago I had a customer attend a training center class in Pennsylvania (not SWK). The customer was from Rhode Island. The training center felt that the customer had not ""gotten"" some of the concepts and sent their trainer on-site to the customer to ""make it right"". The only one who had concerns with this was me. Luckily (or unluckily) the customer shortly went out of business and the training center wasted their resources. Where they in the process of attempting to attract a customer? Dunno. But I recommended the customer attend a TRAINING CENTER not a referral to an independent subcontractor to take on a project (potentially).

Customers tend to gravitate towards trusted advisors and companies (and individuals) that provide training easily fall in to that role. It's natural and it's going to happen that a relationship can spark. Back in my (pre Sage CRM) Accpac days, I used to provide Crystal Reports for Accpac training classes. We ran across and inherited several clients who weren't happy with their current partner (many reasons here). [Note: one key difference with us was that the customers found us over the web. Other partners didn't encourage their customers to go to us.] That's going to happen unfortunately. What are our options these days? We can: 1. Send them to Sage. Sometimes this feels like entering the lion's den. I'm not commenting any further on this except to say I get uncomfortable sending customers to Sage for training. I have zero idea of what will be said. 2. Do it ourselves. Good option if we want to invest in preparation of materials and renting space if we are playing host. It seems like training can be profitable but - speaking from experience of running training sessions - it can also be very ugly financially. Sometimes it's hard to charge the right price to cover all the hard costs and preparation. 3. Use a trusted partner. Work with partners that we are comfortable with and have a good relationship. If this is a concern, we should call them and discuss parameters BEFORE we send the clients to their training. We should also sit down and prepare our clients - no different than sending them to Sage Summit or one of these Sage sponsored events where we have ZERO control over what they will hear and who they will talk to. I'm not defending anyone here but it seems that most of the bigger partners have a huge interest in creating partner networks and ""playing nice"" with other partners. Sometimes channel conflict will arise but I bet it happens less often than not. Just my 2 cents. PS. I prefer option 2 above FWIW.