Rugby, Warwickshire (PRWEB UK) 14 March 2016 -- As the Chief Executive of an award winning apprentice employer, I’m surprised that assessors visiting our offices to support our apprentices, never once drop in to see me to discuss how we are investing our training budget in developing our non-apprentice workforce.
This is a missed opportunity for training providers supporting apprentices to take a greater share of their employer client’s wallet.
Share of wallet is a marketing phrase which encourages existing suppliers to work with their clients to increase the proportion of spend with them rather than their competitors.
It’s such an obvious strategy because your client already has approved budget as they are spending this money already, just not with you.
It’s a ‘no brainer’ whilst visiting employers, training providers could initiate discussions around the business strategy, key issues and opportunities, identifying training budgets that could be used with them to help their clients achieve their business objectives.
The company I founded 4 years ago, Smart Assessor, is a highly successful fast growing SME providing technology solutions to training providers delivering apprenticeships. Smart Assessor has increased revenue and profit year on year by 70% with ambitious growth aspirations.
As an Investor in People company we have a significant people development budget which continues to underpin our successful growth. In recent months we have invested in a variety of external training programmes from 3-day negotiation skills courses through to a 3 year MBA programme.
How easy would it have been for the assessors, or business development staff from training providers, who are regular visitors to our place of work to have a conversation with our senior managers about our training budget and to see if they could take some share of this wallet?
The world of apprenticeships is being radically overhauled, there will be much turbulence in the market place over the next few years, but similarly for those with an entrepreneurial market led outlook there are exciting opportunities too. – but they won’t come to you – you have to use your initiative and proactively seek them out before someone else does.
Click below to listen to Fiona Hudson-Kelly, CEO Smart Assessor E-Portfolio, talking to FEnews on this topic.
http://www.smartassessor.com//Blog/Share-of-Wallet/
fiona Hudson-Kelly, Smart Assessor, http://www.smartassessor.com/, +44 1788834669, [email protected]
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