March 2008: Virtual Training Tips (Part 1 of 3), WPF Courseware, The Up-Sell

Virtual Training Tips, WPF Courseware, The Up-Sell

Welcome to the inagural issue of the Intertech Professional Series Courseware Newsletter! In this issue, we have:

• Techniques for improving virtual training delivery
• Information on a featured courseware title - WPF Courseware
• A couple of ideas on how to increase revenue with your existing clients

Finally, thanks to you, we're having fantastic success with the Intertech Professional Series Courseware line-up and are interested in hearing from you on ideas for future titles, improvements to existing titles, and, overall, how we can help you grow your business. If you have a moment, drop us a line at 800-866-9884 +23 or send an email to info@intertechcourseware.com.

Have a Great March.


Virtual Training Tips (Part 1 of 3)

As a medium, virtual training appears better suited to advanced topics where the instructor serves as more of a tour guide and facilitator to students already familiar with the fundamentals and who are motivated to self-guided education. These topics don’t require weeks of virtual classroom instruction, but just a few hours.

If a training organization chooses to deliver virtual training the following thoughts can improve the experience:

Training includes interactive content and students are engaged. This is sometimes called “blended learning” because e-learning is done as a reinforcement or preparation for a traditional classroom experience. A Thomson NETg Job Impact study in 2002 found that blended learning performance was 30 percent more accurate than e-learning alone; blended learning performance on the real-world task was 41 percent faster than e-learning along; blended learning was 159 percent more accurate than no training.

Classes are designed for shorter classroom hours but spread over more time. Research studies have suggested that the average adult can “listen with understanding” for approximately 90 minutes, and “listen with retention” for approximately 20 minutes. The length of the latter observation varies somewhat with the education level of the individual. Generally, the lower the education level, the shorter the “listen with retention” period. Therefore, to be effective, elearning should teach a smaller amount of content over a longer period of time than traditional classroom instruction.

WPF Courseware

.NET 3.0 introduced a series of new technologies. The most significant where WPF, WCF, WF, and LINQ. The first offering to be covered in this inaugural newsletter is Intertech’s WPF course.

The WPF courseware is based on Andrew Troelsen’s best-selling Pro C# 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Platform. This award winning book is in its 4th edition and has earned accolades from industry groups like Referenceware as well as over 200 positive reviews on Amazon.com.

Intertech’s WPF Courseware is three days in length, has two student manuals, a student lab manual, full solutions to the labs, configuration documents and instructor PowerPoint slides.

This title is available today.


The Up-Sell

The cost of selling a new customer versus selling to an existing customer can range from being two to twenty times more expensive depending on your source of information. As a training executive, how do you effectively sell to your training customers?

There are a couple of simple methods that can ensure you get the follow-on business. The first is to up-sell and cross-sell. The training industry is unique in that one course, typically, is naturally followed by another course. When students finish with one course, the up-sell can be as simple as a flyer on their chair the last day of class that markets the next class in the sequence.

The second technique is all about presence. If you don’t have a newsletter, start one. The ideal schedule is monthly. Being front of mind is critical to hit your customers with an offer when they have a need. If you don’t believe this, pick up any magazine you subscribe to, shake it, and see how many renewal postcards fall out.