An Outside perspective on CRM

I tend to get caught into too many details about the color of the icons sometimes. To help me get out, I went there to learn about CRM from a non-tech perspective.    I subscribe to selling power , and it keeps me grounded on what sales people face on a daily basis.

Why eLearning at all ?

As training budgets compress, and employers do not want to have employees “idle” as they are learning new software, eLearning is becoming a viable alternative.

Whether it’s ACT! or other skills you teach as a consultant, consider eLearning technology as a secondary resource.

Reference

Mark Mondo

Know Your Audience. Or do you ?

So I prepared my first course, teaching something besides “How to add a new contact to ACT!”.

It was not much of a stretch, but I decided to start a 15 minute lecture on prepping a PC before an install of ACT!. This lecture was to the other students in my “Instructional Design” course at www.sxu.edu.

I followed my “courseware” on building courseware, and I followed the principles of:

1) Course Objectives

2) Duration

3) Materials & Equipment

4) Delivery Method(s). I chose lecture only because it was new technology to a non-technology audience), and I also did a little bit of demonstration, but not too much. Handouts were also given on how to determine PC memory and OS.

5) Evaluation

The result…

I felt uncomfortable, and I realized in 3 minutes that I was over their heads anyway.

My lesson learned.

Don’t assume

I came across as too technical of a presentation. Although I worked furiously to pair down the ACT! install procedure, I didn’t know my audience well enough.

After being in the software business for 15 years, I probably wind up assuming too much about my audience or client’s knowledge at times. After all, our peers are technicians that in many cases blow my doors off in technical knowledge about PCs and programming also.

So, I hope this helps you reconsider your assumptions about your next audience’s knowledge about PCs and ACT!.
Mondo

How Do You Measure Training ROI ?

One of the lectures in our class discussed the “business” aspect of training.  It’s cited that training is always the first line item cut, no matter the reason.

So trainers keep this in mind when they need to “justify their existence” in an era of cutbacks.

As part of our training classes, we are starting to build an ROI calculator.  I haven’t figured out the ACT! formula yet.  Here is the formula course uses.

ROI=(Program Benefits – Program Costs)/Program Costs*100

The challenge I see with CRM training is putting a dollar value on the benefit.  How do you quantify the CRM training benefit ?
Mondo

Post Training – Training

As I wrap up my final part of the project for my training class in grad school, I have to cover post-class evaluation. The four principles about evaluating training programs are:

Reaction – AKA Customer satisfaction

Learning – Did they acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to perform the new program ?

Behavior – Have they actually changed their behavior with the acquired skills ?

Results – Did the company achieve its intended goals ?

Source: Evaluating Training Programs, James Kirkpatrick, & Donald Kirkpatrick

I am looking at the creating an online ACT! Tutor that tests users’ knowledge and skills.  My thought is if our clients (5+ users) spend $5K+ on software and services, why wouldn’t they want to know if their clients actually understand how to use ACT!   Yes, they sat through my presentation, but what did they really take away ?

I would love to hear your commentary and acquire market research before I invest the development time.

mark[at]mondocrm.com

Thanks. Mark M

A stat on how much we learn

At my MBA class, they sited this interesting stat that learners generally retain:

• 10% of what we read
• 20% of what we hear
• 30% of what we see
• 50% of what we see and hear
• 90% of what we perform and describe

This was sited by a study authored by Edgar Dale, and it’s depicted as the cone of learning.

Welcome

I have decided to further my formal education and go back to St. Xavier University in Chicago and learn more about training. My goal is to share what I have learned in school thus far, and I look forward to hearing others’ contributions. After all, training remains on of our most profitable services we can deliver. It doesn’t break, and it’s easy to show them how to do a mail-merge.

Right now, I am taking a course “Human Performance Improvements and Results”. What I have enjoyed about it is how I have to change the approach to my clients before I step in to the class room.

Over the next few posts, I will introduce what I have learned.

Mark R. Mondo
MondoLessons.com