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Growing up, we’ve all had dreams of being a fighter pilot, astronaut, space explorer, ancient warrior, or any of a million different occupations throughout history. Unfortunately for most of us, we don’t ever get to live out our childhood dream, instead settling for a simulated experience in a video game.

Sometimes the simulations are so real they have a place in real life. Prospective pilots, for example, train on realistic simulators in order to help them improve their skills. The effectiveness of simulations for training hold true in our real-world roles as businessmen and managers as well. Just like a pilot training in a simulator doesn’t have to worry about dying in a fiery crash should he or she make a wrong move, business simulations are a perfect way to practice management skills; you know, for those of us that never made it to our fantasy occupation.

A business simulation is a great method used by manager trainers today to allow managers and business owners to practice different scenarios and discover potential outcomes for their actions. There are two main types of business simulations that are often used. The first is called scenario based and the other numeric based.

Numeric-Based Business Simulations

Numeric simulations have less of an interactive role as the trainee is presented with items such as income sheets, employee counts, cash flow statements, and so forth. The trainee must make decisions that result in the numbers being changed. For example, incoming cash flow is down so the trainee must decide on the best way to decrease expenditures, whether it be through decreasing the number of employees, closing locations, shutting down specific departments, or even increasing expenditures by pouring more money into marketing.

Each decision is run through an algorithm and results for each decision displayed. Numeric based scenarios are designed more to provide how decisions made at a high-level affect a company’s numbers, thereby giving the trainee experience on making high-level decisions.

Scenario-Based Business Simulations

Just as the military uses war games to help officers develop strategic thinking, battlefield analysis, situational awareness and other skills necessary to leading and managing a military operation, business trainers use scenario-based simulations to develop a business owner’s or manager’s financial analysis, market analysis, teamwork, leadership skills, and more.

A scenario-based business simulation is sometimes also called role playing due to the fact that trainees act out situation with the trainers. Throughout the scenario, the role playing may be interrupted to allow the trainers and trainee to discuss the situation, review the actions of the trainee, and talk about the outcome and why it happened that way.

Executive Perspectives (http://www.epsims.com) helps businesses learn and improve by training them through business simulations. The author, Art Gib, is a freelance writer.

Sales training is perhaps the single greatest resource you can give to your employees. It is a means of teaching them the best techniques for today’s business world. It is also a means of giving your employees the right tools to boost sales and profit margins.

Sales training is being used more and more by businesses because of the proven methods of training that can inspire your sales staff. By implementing these methods you are giving your employees the opportunity to exceed at their jobs.

Whether you set up in house sessions or online, sessions for just a few employees or many, Sales training is taught by seasoned sales professionals who have been in sales field for many years and know what methods are effective in today’s market place.

Although these methods are developed for salespeople, any staff members who have contact with your customers can benefit from them, making it a very cost effective way to conduct your business.

Many business owners are skeptical of the cost that is associated with these types of courses. However, it is nothing compared to money that is lost in revenues from customers that got away.

Business owners who have tracked their sales after sales training have found that their profit was raised substantially, allowing them to give bonuses to their employees for a job well done.

Sales training can be conducted in many different ways. It can be set up at orientation for new hires, or you can hold an all day training session in your office. The trainers develop a method that is tailored to your business and will assist all personnel who attend the sessions in honing their skills on many levels to turn them into selling machines.

Sales training for outside sales staff and virtual offices has always been very difficult to schedule. No one seems to have the same time available and traveling to one location was nearly impossible, especially if the company had worldwide salespeople.

Today, it is possible to hold sessions online, where your staff can log in with their own username and password to attend the training sessions at a time when it is most convenient for them.

Sales training can teach your sales force many different aspects of sales and how to perform them with accuracy and ease. A trainer can instruct your employees on how to prospect and close a sale. He or she is specially trained in the fine art of sales and each has a lot of knowledge to offer.

Sales today are very different from sales in past years. Many of the techniques are outdated and obsolete. The business word today is fast paced and aggressive and if a business does not keep up to date, they will end up failing.

Each business is unique and sales trainers understand this. They bring to the sessions proven methods of sales protocol and teach your staff how to implement each aspect of it.

When your sessions have finished, you will find that by initiating the training that has been provided, your sales will increase substantially.

Peter Geisheker is the CEO of The Geisheker Group marketing firm. http://www.geisheker.com

Peter develops and implements strategic marketing programs as well as sales training for businesses of all sizes. http://www.npsalestraining.com

My assumptions are that:
You have some basic knowledge of training.

Or you may have experience in the training field as an instructor.

You might have developed instructor-led training or printed training manuals.

YOu would rather get a root canal than write objectives!

Wait, there is hope!

The first most important principle to remember about writing objectives is: Understand is not a measurable objective!

Let me repeat, Understand is not a measurable objective!

Having written objectives for over 25+ years, I admit I am very picky. And when I see a document that starts off with objectives that include “understand”, I cringe. Excuse me, how to do measure someone’s understanding of a concept or procedure? You can’t.

What is a measurable objective?
- Objectives are written to give direction to training events.
- A measurable objective contains an “action” verb thereby engaging the learner to demonstrate knowledge or problem solving skills.
- A measurable objective is “capable of being measured”.

Here is how to quickly create measurable objectives by putting Bloom’s Taxonomy theory into practice.

1. At the Knowledge Level, the learner exhibits previously learned materials by recalling facts, terms, basic concepts and answers.

Level 1: Key Words include: Choose, define, find, label, list, match, name, recall, relate, select, spell, tell, what, when, where, which, who, why

Use these to create instant objectives:

The student will be able to:
- Define what is ______?
- Match how is… related to______?
- Choose where is ______ found?
- Tell why we chose to use ______?
- Select the main ______?

2. At the Comprehension Level: the learner demonstrates the ability to relate to facts and ideas by organizing, comparing, translating, interpreting, giving descriptions and stating main ideas.

Level 2: Key Words include: Classify, compare, contrast, demonstrate, explain, extend, infer, interpret, illustrate, outline, relate, rephrase, show, summarize, translate

Use these Instant Objectives:

The student will be able to:
- Classify the type of ______
- Compare and contrast ______to ______
- Explain the process to ______ a ______
- Illustrate the best process to ______

3. At the Application Level: the learner solves problems by applying knowledge, facts, techniques and rules in a different way.

Level 3: Key Words include: Apply, build, choose, construct, develop, experiment with, identify, interview, make use of, model, organize, plan, select, solve, utilize

Use these Instant Objectives:

The student will be able to:
- Solve common business case scenarios using ______
- Identify what would result if ______ happened
- Select the best ways to solv e a problem about ______
- Organize the ______ into ______ for efficiency
- Utilize the process to ______

4. At the Analysis Level: the learner examines and breaks down information into parts by identifying motives or causes; making inferences and finding evidence to support generalizations.

Level 4: Key Words include: Analyze, assumption, categorize, classify, compare, conclusion, contrast, discover, distinguish, divide, examine, inspect, simplify, survey, take part in, test for

Use these Instant Objectives:

The student will be able to:
- Discover the process by examining the individual components of the ______
- Classify the ______ into elements
- Conclude that ______ will happen if the following steps occur
- Examine the relationship between ______
- Categorize the parts of the ______

5. At the Synthesis Level: the learner compiles information together in a different way by combining elements in a new pattern or other solution.

Level 5: Key Words include: Adapt, build, change, choose, combine, compile, compose, construct, create, design, develop, elaborate, estimate, formulate, imagine, improve, invent, make up, maximize, minimize, originate, plan, predict, propose, solve, solution, suppose, theorize, test,

Use these Instant Objectives:

The student will be able to:
- Discuss the changes needed to solve ______
- Choose the most efficient way to ______
- Invent a new technique to ______
- Modify the plan to ______
- Minimize the loss or risk by ______
- Combine the right techniques to ______
- Improve the efficiency by ______
- Propose effective strategies to ______
- Adapt a new way to ______
- Design a new approach to resolving ______

6. At the Synthesis Level: the learner presents and defends opinions by making judgments about information, validity of ideas or quality of work.

Level 6: Key Words include: Agree, appraise, assess, award, choose, conclude, criticize, decide, deduct, defend, determine, disprove, dispute, estimate, evaluate, explain, influence, interpret, judge, justify, measure, mark, rate, recommend, rule on, perceive, prioritize, prove, select, support, value

Use these Instant Objectives:

The student will be able to:
- Provide reasons to agree with the ______
- Offer opinions on the effectiveness of specific wording to customers.
- Estimate the amount of time it takes to______
- Recommend effective strategies or tactics to complete work more efficiently.
- Recommend three approaches to ______
- Rate the effectiveness of ______
- Defend the actions of ______
- Evaluate representative / client conversations for ______
- Assess the value of ______

A closing note on writing objectives:

Don’t use more than 3-5 objectives per unit of instruction. If there are more than that, consider breaking that unit into two parts. And even though we would like to think that we live in a perfect world and the learners need to achieve competence up to Level 6 - that’s not reality. Be happy if you can get them to solidly achieve typical goals of Levels 1 - 4.

Good luck in writing objectives painlessly!

Design2Train, a SBA 8a certified company, was founded by Karen Miller, an award-winning instructional designer with over 25+ years of training development experience. Visit our website: http://www.design2train.com

While catching the early morning news at the gym today, I was astonished to hear the headline that Starbucks is closing nationwide for three hours to train its 135,000 store employees on the art of coffeemaking and the ultimate customer experience.

Wow! I have been a training professional for over 25 years and this announcement is monumental to our profession. A company actually talks about the importance of training, stop the presses!

Training is often the 800 pound corporate gorilla that never gets addressed, yet needs to be. Many businesses fail based upon their lack of buidling an effective and ongoing internal training program. Since training is considered an expense to most companies, its importance is low on the corporate totem-pole.

Finally, through this announcement, a well-known and profitable company has given us a peek behind the corporate kimono and revealed that lower sales and unhappy customers could be related to “a training issue.” Kudos to Starbucks for stepping up to the plate and addressing this situation. And cheers to them for making a marketing event around it. How often do we hear about other companies staff training events? NEVER.

Telling the world you need to devote time training is a great positive, because it reveals you know the secret to success - its your people! A well trained staff and happy customer experience help drive company profitability.

How did Starbucks determine they needed additional training? Well, they didn’t ask me, but if they followed standard training industry processes, here are the steps they might have taken. First, they would analyize their volumes of data to determine who their target audience known as demographics.

Often large companies will trun demographics into fictional people and create a story around them to help staff to better visualize their customer needs. For example: A typical young mom with 2 children under the age of four frequents the store between the hours of 8:30am - 10:30am. So they will give this group a name, Sue. And that business professionals will be descending upon the store between 6:00 to 7:30am. Perhaps this group will be called Bob. Each story will tell what products these people ask for most and what customer experience they expect.

When building the training program objectives, they will address the individual needs of Sue and Bob. The key to sound training programs revolves around meeting the needs of your target audience.

The next step is to teach staff members what you want them to say and do. This should be a step-by-step process that is repeated several times. Repetition builds knowledge, confidence and skills.

Now they know the expectations, it is time for the learner to practice their new skills. Using case studies about Sue and Bob will help to reinforce the key learning strategies determined in the objectives. When working through real problems, learners become problem solvers. The key to highly successful customer service is to create problem solvers.

Finally, the trainer might have asked for learner feedback so any questions can be addressed then in real time.

I predict the net result of this three-hour training intervention will create a mad rush to your local Starbucks, just like the mood we experience on the day after Thanksgiving. We Starbucks groupies will wake up and literally run to be the first in line to benefit from the well-trained barrista’s abilities to wow us with that perfect latte and service with a smile. I want to taste the fruits of the training intervention first-hand and affirm my training profession.

Thank you Starbucks for elevating the corporate training experience to a new level. I tip my training hat to you!

Karen Miller founded Design2Train, an instructional design and training development company to help companies solve triaining related issues. Learn more about the company at http://www.Design2Train.com

What was long thought of a desperate approach to failed leadership, executive leadership coaching has made its way into many “successful” businesses as a mainstay. IBM for instance, has permanent staff whose role is strictly to train upper management. Successful companies are looking to maintain that winning streak. Executive leadership training is meant to help executives and CEOs learn about their methods and help them go where they want to go with their business, bringing their workers and constituents along — willingly — with them. This is done by evoking change in the company’s culture.

Some Training Approaches

For the most part, executive leadership training will begin with management: CEO, executives and general managers. It’s often broken into groups, or a series of one-on-one conversations with the guide. Also if there are special groups in the office that are given specific tasks, training is provided by some guide teams to help organize an effective structure.

Depending on where management wants to go with the company and the flow of information the guide typically wants to understand the culture and thought process within the company and advises them on:

- Building trust for executives and staff alike
- Aligning belief system and promoting teamwork
- Empowering all levels to take ownership of their work
- Refining communication and transparency

Some of the pitfalls within the structure are also looked into. Mostly this has to do with the overall corporate attitude, or culture as described before.

Training is geared to create a strong corporate culture. A strong culture is where all staff responds to work direction because of strong alignment with upper management. This is basically saying the idea of merely doing something because “it’s my job,” rather than a personal feeling and the belief that doing the work is the right thing to do.

There are pitfalls to a mindless following of this as well and executive leadership training is meant to train leaders in recognizing this and finding a balance between alignment verses bandwagoning and blind allegiance mentality, which can stifle creative independent thought.

You may be familiar with past employers who, you can tell, held a position in a company that suffered from bad culture. One dominant style of executive leadership style is where there is a micro controlled system will a lot of policy and negative reinforcement measures. Bureaucracy and procedural adherence is forced upon new employees. If not like this, then the groupthink opposite could occur.

Everybody is blissfully following allegiance and working happily in their position while the company could be suffering terribly and implodes. One may venture to think of companies in the tech industry during the turn of the 21st century that were overvalued or had corruption run rampant — they possibly had a slice of this negative culture style.

Art Gib is a writer for Partners in Leadership (http://www.partnersinleadership.com) who provide executive leadership coaching. They will direct a company’s executive team in training seminars, which were initially made popular by the book “The OZ Principle.”

Recently I helped a small business owner totally re-write his marketing and business plans. The owner was grateful for the new copy, but expressed a concern that he may have issues writing copy for marketing materials or responding to bid proposals later in the year.

He said,”It is so hard to start from scratch writing a marketing document when you have a blank piece of paper staring you in the face.” I understand completely and recommended how we could help him create “branded copy” quickly.

If you are a typical business owner, there are many times in the day when you must write about your business to inform, educate or communicate about your unique products and service offerings. Using this technique, you will no longer have to start with a blank page.

I refer to it as the Content Blocks writing technique. This method has personally saved me many hours of writing time as well has kept my marketing messages consistent and focused in proposals, company flyers and websites. It is a simple yet effective technique and here’s how to use it to build your business marekting campaigns. Here’s how to create your own content blocks document.

Start with a Word document and name it content blocks with a date in the title. Here is an example: abc_company_content_blocks_02152008.doc

You want to put a date in the file name because this is a work in progress, as your company grows and matures, the content will evolve. Keep this document on your desktop so you can easily click on it to retrieve information with one click.

Now it’s time to map out what to put into this important marketing reference document. You will want to write the information in a short paragraph format with a couple of spaces around each one to form “content chunks”. Take the time to write about three to five sentences in each paragraph. It is better to include a little too much information and be able to erase as needed, rather than having to think about and add additional information.

One of the easiest ways to add the best information to your content blocks document is to review a proposal and see what types of information they are requesting. Fortunately, over 50% of the information they request will be on the next proposal, therefore you have a competitive edge in getting proposals done quicker using this menthod.

Once your document is prepared, you can open it in a second window on your screen and as you are responding to a proposal you can quickly cut / paste information. Not only does this save time in preparation, you are able keep spelling errors to a minimum since your content blocks document has been run through spell / grammar check.

Think of the time you will save responding to proposals, writing article publications, and preparing other documents in a normal marketing business cycle.

Checking back with the owner, he has used his content blocks in several ways including sharing it with his webmaster to get the correct wording for extending his brand on the homepage.

Another important suggest is to revise your information regularly and as needed, so that your marketing materials are current and consistent in “voice” and terminology. Time marches on, your company flexes and grows - so does your need to refine your content blocks.

Here are the topics we included:
Board of Directors (and a quick description)
-Company Summary: include founder and founding date
-Competitive Comparison: what types of businesses do you compete with?
-Competitive Edge: what makes you different
-Competitive Landscape (includes five competitors)
-Contact Information: name, address, cell, fax, email
-Company Owner Biography (including professional memberships, patents, degrees)
-Executive Summary (break up into 1-2 sentences, easy to cut / paste in other docs)
-Market Segmentation: public vs private?
-Mission Statement: no more than three sentences
-Company Objectives (stating where business income comes from in percentages)
-Positioning Statement: contextual reference
-Promotional Strategy: how do folks hear about you?
-Sales Literature: include links to websites,PDF documents, audio files, video files
-Target Clients: describe who is your target client
-Technology overview: are you high or low tech?
-Testimonials (quotes from clients): audios are better

In addition to words that describe your company include visuals that “brand” as well including:
-Logos: website, products, affliate programs
-Pictures of company owner, business site, website, clients, processes, products
-Links to audio files with testimonials, music or the company owner telling about the business

Using content blocks is a simple way to organize the most current and important information about your company. Take time to create this simple Word document and save hours agonizing over attempting to create proposals and other important documents at the last minute.

V. Karen Miller is the founder of Design2Train http://www.design2train.com, an instructional design and training development company helps business owners prepare training and information products.

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