Week 3: The G-Force - How to Supercharge Your Business Through Learning

Hey there, and welcome ??

Thanks for joining me down the rabbit hole of corporate learning.

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This week, we are using G-Force, to fly past the competition/drivers and grow your business via external training (just like this guy below ??)

This edition is more tactical, about how EE can grow your business.?

I am basing this week 3 edition on article 1 and 2 written so far, introducing extended enterprise learning (1) and the deep dive into the audiences that make up this arm of the corporate learning market (2) ????

Part 1- Customer Education, rocket-fuel for your business:??

Customer education (CEd) is the driving-force behind extended enterprise market. It is used to attract and educate customers and is a competitive differentiator and something that is highly measurable, often tied to KPIs like Net Revenue Retention, upsell, CSAT and support tickets. The audiences can be several, from the general public/evangelism play, to enable prospects in the pipeline and to current customers about the product.

One of the biggest shifts, especially in SaaS is product-led growth (PLG), as seen in the photo below. See how CEd can be a component for PLG below ??

A graph is great, but let's get specific - how can customer education grow my business? ??

Here are seven reasons why CEd is like rocket-fuel to a company ????

1) Increased Sales & Profit

It is easier to get sales from existing rather than new customers. Customer education can supercharge this and drive adoption which results in increased revenue.

2)? Shorter Sales Cycles

If they educate themselves on your product, they’re more likely to buy it and do so quicker. They essentially become an “educated qualified lead”, which is extremely valuable, especially in SaaS.?

3)? Lower Customer Support Costs

Every interaction with support costs you, and lowering this is a massive upside to customer education. Better adoption and knowledge = less customer support and more cost savings.?

4)? Increased Customer Satisfaction

A proactive self-service approach that increases satisfaction as users know how to use your product effectively. Win/win, adoption drives time to value for customers and is key to upsell or cross-sell for companies

5) Cost-savings from customer education:?

• Acquiring new customers/evangelism
• Less costs for trainers flying out & about/training hours saved?
• Shorter onboarding times/rollout
• Product expansion/cross-sell & upsell.?

6) Building your brand exposure and loyalty - if your competitors are doing this, so will you. Enable adoption, advocacy and community - a bigger and bigger part of customer education programs. Learning + Community are often interlinked, or closely aligned with each other.

To help the customer along the PLG motion, customer education can be extremely powerful, as it helps customers find a map and a compass to go from the stage of Activation --> Engagement --> Loyalty and creates a win-win for both customers and companies alike.

Want proof? From SaaS Academy Advisors

?? 90% of companies have seen a positive return on their external education investments

?? Companies with formalized education programs see a 7.4% increase in retention & a 7.1% increase in lifetime value

?? 90% of external education programs grew last year

?? On average, 29% of customer user base is engaged in training annually

Partner side - how partner education will boost channel revenue:?

Partner education helps you build dream teams, and have tangible benefits ??

1. Shorter partnership onboarding/ramp times/speed to competency

Get partners ready to be quicker out of the gate, and to revenue.?

If you have a partner enablement/education program, the partner reps will get started much quicker and be more ready to sell your product., I manage multiple Docebo resellers and have seen how our partner education program via Docebo University has done this first hand.?

2. Shorter deal cycles - competent partners are less reliant on the mothership, the main company and more autonomous to sell and scale. If the partner knows your product inside and out, you will sell more, quicker. Happy to share this is 1000% the case with the partners I manage, they know their stuff, and the proof is in the pudding on the spreadsheets.?

3. Increased channel revenue - natural result of better product knowledge and more know-how about your product or service.?

4. Increased know-how about ideal customer profiles (ICPs) - partners who know your product well will find new ways of adding value to customers, either inside or outside your ICPs - I see this first-hand everyday with the partners I’m managing.?

5. Better marketing, PR and branding - internally and externally - if you have partners who know their stuff on your product/service, everyone wins. Your PS team will thank you, the partner’s C-Suite will thank you (more $$) and so will your CRO/CSO/VP of Alliances or CS.?

6. Compliance (for partners needing to be proving compliance to operate your product or service, i.e medical equipment).?

Training companies/e-commerce:?

For Training Companies (TCs), this is self-explanatory, as selling and delivering training is the lifeblood of their business. Here, EE can help their direct bottom line and grow their business in a very practical way.?

1. Increased sales of the programs - B2B, B2C or any variation beyond this.?
2. Increased marketing and exposure - driving attendance and hopefully (if the program is good, loyalty and customer retention)?
3. Saved time for admins, trainers, and customers alike. Rarely is a situation a win-win-win, but it is for TCs, a successful EE program can save time for admins (if the system is doing the heavy lifting and you have the right vendors in place), for trainers - who can spend time on strategic projects, not repeat same training over and over again) and for the customers who are able to training at their own leisure and avoid training times.?
4. For example, you are delivering a strategic project to a top-tier client. Previously, you were stuck delivering the entry level course face to face. Now, moving this online, while building a blended program for the strategic client project, which will boost bottom line.?
5. Saving money - less costs on traveling and costs associated with physical delivery of training. Variations here since many TCs combine blended programs with eLearning and face to face, but generally, EE programs save TCs a lot of money.

Associations:?

Two main options for associations - expanding program reach and generating revenue.

The intentions of an association varies a lot, some are not interested in generating revenue but expanding program reach. Examples of this are Amnesty and The Heart and Stroke Association of Canada, both organizations leverage Docebo to train volunteers on their programs and expand program reach. Next week, I will share the Amnesty story so stay tuned for that and many other EE success stories!?

For associations looking to generate revenue, EE can play a big part in:?

1. Indirect revenue - membership engagement - driving membership fees and tiers to fuel revenue. If a member is engaged with you, they’re more likely to retain their membership and even expand it (silver to gold for example)
2. Direct revenue - e-commerce sale of training, typically to members for a specific program or for specific member clients.?
3. Lowering support tickets - same as for customers, often membership organizations have support teams that can greatly benefit from EE.?
4. ?Building your brand exposure and loyalty - if your competitive associations are doing this, so will you. Enable adoption, advocacy and community - a bigger and bigger part of association education programs.
5. Cost-savings - same as TCs - moving training online can save a lot of money for associations
6. Saving time and training hours from key team members - save as in 5) but you get hours back to key members of your team that can be more strategic.?

Why you can’t ignore the EE market:?

I’ve worked at Docebo for 3.5 years, and the single biggest trend I’ve seen in corporate learning is the extended enterprise side. From 1 person SMEs building a business from scratch to McKinsey building a business unit with the Docebo platform, EE has something for everyone.?

It is simply becoming too important to ignore, because it has a direct correlation on bottom line and is closely linked to growth, of revenue or program reach. In the current climate, my experience (can only speak from the 100s of customers I’ve met in the last 3.5 yrs), internal L&D budgets get cut often, whilst EE budgets get expanded incrementally.?

Companies are doubling down on areas like customer success, driving adoption of your program, building brand loyalty, community and evangelism. EE was this thing SaaS companies used to do, but now, it’s becoming table stakes for leadership teams all over the world, from nonprofits to chemical manufacturers.?

The motivations for training externally may differ, but the opportunity cost is often becoming too big to ignore, and companies end up realizing that they cannot afford not to educate their customers, partners or other audiences in this climate. The market is very up and down right now, but getting the benefit of EE as described here is recession-proof, as it relates to people (saving time and effort), profit (revenue), product (marketing/evangelism/adoption) and process (streamlining and digitizing processes).?

P.S - I am not advocating for one side of the training spectrum (internal vs external) being better than another. I am just sharing my observations of 100s of clients I have spoken to all over the world.?

Next week, we are looking at the Podium ??, where we will explore three extraordinary EE programs and how they are managing their program by leveraging the Docebo platform: Loreal, Zoom and Amnesty. I will also crown my 3rd, 2nd and 1st place out of these as my favorite EE project to date ??????

Tune in next week, and let’s continue down the rabbit hole, together ??