Sell More of Your Consulting, Training, and Coaching...with the Kirkpatrick Method?

Have you ever heard of the Kirkpatrick Model??It is a diagram that portrays different levels of training effectiveness.?It has long been used by professional educators to describe various ways of measuring the success of a training program.?But few people – especially independent service professionals such as consultants, coaches, workshop trainers, and change management leaders – realize that Kirkpatrick can also be an extremely effective sales tool, and more.?Yes, you heard right – sales!

Let’s take a quick look at the Kirkpatrick Model to see what it’s made up of.?In the diagram below, you see there are 5 levels of metrics for education intervention, increasing from bottom-to-top in degrees of not just ease of measurement (and achievement), but also complexity, accuracy, and correlation.?Thus, the success metrics near the bottom of the pyramid are used much more commonly, and those at the top are quite rare in measuring any training event’s success. Yet, it's the stuff toward the top that most people really want.

Traditionally, those selling training rely on the sheer hope that the client will wind up seeing benefit to their organization.?Billions of dollars are spent each year on this very hope – and rarely does it generate clear or tangible success.?As a result, many client executives have become highly skeptical of training services; they often view them as a huge waste of money, time, and other resources – a false panacea.?This creates a major challenge to independent professionals trying to sell their services.

But using Kirkpatrick in the sales process can change all that.?The model allows you to be very precise about what your services will accomplish…and what they may not.?It can help you to not only describe the different ways of measuring success, but also show your client that with each step up in level, there is more that will be required to achieve that success.?Oftentimes what’s required is out of your hands, and much more influenced by the client/employees, or other factors.?This can be a game-changer in terms of clarifying the value that you provide and properly managing client expectations.

The higher up you go in the Kirkpatrick Model, the less control you have in the results being sought, and the more other variables come into play.?This can help you to refine how you sell your services.?But here is where you can also innovate your service delivery process (your business model).?For example, you can tell your client (decision-maker) that you’re willing to guarantee that workshop attendees will enjoy the training, but you may not be willing to claim that this will result in improving department productivity (business results).?Likewise, if you’re willing (or if the client expects you) to guarantee that their employees will actually change their behavior after your work is done…then you can justify the extra efforts and activities that you (and/or a strategic partner) will need to perform, as well as to charge them for!

By ascending upward into the higher levels of the Kirkpatrick Model, you automatically magnify your Value Proposition?to the client. Doing this becomes a powerful competitive differentiator. What other service providers can provide the "consumer promise" (i.e. the essence of your value proposition) of changed behavior? Chances are, none of them. Most of your competition (and perhaps this includes you, at the moment) do not even bother articulating their value propositions, or do so in a clear and compelling fashion. This is indeed a game-changer.

In my next article, we will explore various strategies that you can use to add behavior change interventions to the services that you currently offer. Doing so will give you a big competitive advantage in being able to confidently claim that your services will change behaviors. Remember, strategic leaders don’t want training, per se – they want the end result of what training should help generate (i.e. the upper portion of the pyramid).?In the meantime, you should consider gradually introducing the Kirkpatrick Model within any future (new or existing) client discussion – especially ones where you have the opportunity to propose more value-added services to deliver excellence – and tangible results – to that client.?Do you already use Kirkpatrick in this way? If so, we’d love to hear how.

About the Author. Charlie Garland is an independent professional engaged in all of the services and topics described above, including business model innovation and culture change. He has used this very same “Kirkpatrick” strategy in a number of instances to achieve success in selling and delivering to clients, especially those where behavior and/or culture change is among the highest client priorities.?Charlie is currently developing a workshop (webinar) to help other service professionals become more successful in selling their services to corporate clients, and beyond.?If you’re interested in such a workshop, include that within your comment below, and you may be able to participate in one of his pilot workshops for free.