Outsourced Product Training

• What are the benefits of working with Professional Education Solutions?
• How will training increase our sales?
• How can PES help our company save money on post-sales product training?
• We are currently making money on post-sales product training. Why would we want to outsource this service?
• What qualifications and experiences do your instructors have?
• What can your instructors deliver that our own sales representatives cannot?
• We have our own PD staff. Why would we use your training?
• What differentiates PES from other training providers?
• What if the demand for training in a particular quarter exceeds our forecast? How will you be able to scale your services to meet the demand?
• How can you ensure us that our customers will be satisfied with the training experience they receive from PES?
• How do you guarantee client confidentiality?
• How would we work with PES to coordinate scheduling, communication, and other logistics?
• What are the components of your entire training package? Do we have to purchase the entire package?

What are the benefits of working with Professional Education Solutions?

As an education publisher or service provider, you benefit from a relationship with PES in the following ways:

1. Reduced cost - You can reduce or eliminate the cost of keeping your own trainers on staff full-time, as we become your virtual training department or supplement your existing staff.
2. Increased geographic coverage - We can dispatch trainers across the U.S. and Caribbean on very short notice.
3. Improved capabilities - We have more than 25 years collective experience in developing highly effective training materials and workshop presentations for a variety of products and services. In addition, as new products are released, we can quickly develop new workshops to speed introduction.
4. Product feedback - Our knowledgeable staff can help communicate the user's perspective back to your development staff to improve future feature set development.
5. Flexibility - If something isn't working, our tenacious staff will work hand-in-hand with your team to make it right, and do it quickly.

Back to the Top

How will training increase our sales?

As an education publisher or service organization, providing professional training to your end users always makes the implementation and continued use of your product more successful. Teachers are busy and have a lot going on each day. If your product or service isn't seen as integrating easily into their routine, helping them to solve problems and positively impacting the learning in their classroom, the likelihood of their using and supporting the product is small. Ultimately, they just quit using it and the publisher loses on three fronts:

• You have an unhappy customer.
• Your product can become branded as "shelfware" - the kiss of death to educational tools.
• The advantages of your product or service is lost to children who could benefit from it.

The way to prevent this dilemma is to provide high-quality, timely product training to your clients, all the while keeping an eye on cost and your bottom line.

Back to the Top

How can PES help our company save money on post-sales product training?

You can reduce or eliminate the cost of keeping your own trainers on staff full-time, as we become your virtual training department or supplement your existing staff. The US Department of Labor and the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes "Employer Costs for Employee Compensation" on a quarterly basis. The most recent publication, released on March 14, 2006, reflects the 4th quarter of 2005. It reported that 29.8% of employee compensation goes toward benefits, in addition to salaries. For example, the cost to a business for an employee earning an annual salary of $40,000, would be an additional $11,920 in benefits. PES works on a fee basis with no such hidden costs.

Back to the Top

We are currently making money on post-sales product training. Why would we want to outsource this service?

At PES, we understand that professional training can comprise an important revenue stream for our clients, and we don't seek to divert that stream. We seek instead to make it more profitable for you by replacing salaried, employees who receive compensation benefits and represent a significant overhead cost with highly qualified, non-salaried consultant trainers who require no benefits and can be employed on an as-needed basis. If you desire to retain your staff, we can work with them as team members to help them accomplish more training in less time, delivering more value to your customers at less cost to you.

We are a fast and flexible learning organization committed to providing competitive value and services to our customers. In today's fast-paced world, we accept change as the rule, not the exception. We help you devise cost-effective methods of doing business in a swiftly evolving marketplace.

Back to the Top

What qualifications and experiences do your instructors have?

Our instructors are located across the country, and travel around the nation facilitating workshops. This provides them with perspectives from many different viewpoints. This wealth of ideas and knowledge allows our instructors to bring more value as workshop facilitators.

Our instructors have earned various advanced degrees, including Masters of Education, Computer Education, Adult Education, and Educational Specialist. They have played various roles in their respective districts: classroom teacher, administrator, director of technology, curriculum coordinator, and in-service coordinator, just to name a few. Within these roles, all of our instructors were classroom educators or adult education providers in their "former lives." They know what is important to those still "in the trenches" and can connect through that shared experience to address real world concerns and prepare your customers for the most effective applications of your products in a learning environment.

We meet face-to-face with our instructors at our semi-annual training conferences and monthly via teleconference. Through these modes, they keep up on current educational trends, workshop best practices, technological innovations and new product release information. All of this helps them bring fresh ideas and up-to-date insight to their training roles.

Back to the Top

What can your instructors deliver that our own sales representatives cannot?

• Enhanced Credibility - Teachers trust professional instructors because they're not salespeople. Instructors are perceived to be at trainings solely to teach, not to sell. Yet our professional instructors coordinate with salespeople, your company, and the school to deliver that training not only effectively but with enthusiasm and an understanding of what it takes to encourage teachers to embrace your products as solutions that will help make their job easier. In this way, we provide the support that makes each sale successful.
• Peer Respect - Teachers relate to our professional instructors because most have been in a classroom themselves, and can understand the frustrations and challenges your end users are subject to. They also grasp the ways that your product can help them reap the immense rewards that can only belong to successful teachers.
• Comfort and Flexibility - Our professional instructors are trained to teach both adults and children effectively. They know what to expect when instructing a group of teachers: How to work with reluctant as well as eager learners, and how to connect in end users' minds the product they are instructing to their school environment. Because of this familiarity, teachers are far more likely to adopt your product in the course of their everyday class work.
• Self-perpetuating Momentum - Our professional instructors learn from each other and from your sales representatives. They are open to sharing ideas and methods for teaching your product, which greatly enhances future presentations.
• Professional Connection - Our team of former teachers and professional trainers know education. We understand the concerns of educators because we have been there and continue to monitor developments in the education field. Our professional instructors help you open and build lines of communication with your customer base. We represent your company authoritatively, with pride and a hard-working midwestern attitude!

Back to the Top

We have our own PD staff. Why would we use your training?

Professional Education Solutions can be a valuable addition to your current professional development staff. We are flexible and can be available at a moment's notice to help "fill in" when you have a high demand for training. Using our trainers, you can maintain a strong support presence even when your professional development staff is stretched thin. We can be your highly-qualified arms, legs, brains and smiles!

But keep in mind that PES is so much more than training. Our team, experienced in instructional design, can assist with curriculum development and the creation of other resources to enhance the learning experience.

Back to the Top

What differentiates PES from other training providers?

PES offers a turn-key solution to your training needs. Our cadre of instructors are versatile and experienced in developing instructional materials that engage and inform. Where other training organizations may focus on non-specific product professional development, our goal is to integrate your product's training with teaching skills that are real-life and classroom-oriented. The results are happy teachers, administrators and students.

Back to the Top

What if the demand for training in a particular quarter exceeds our forecast? How will you be able to scale your services to meet the demand?

We have a large pool of available instructors, as well as resources for quickly locating new ones. We also have contingency plans in place. Our method for getting new instructors "up and running" quickly is proven, and we are confident that we can meet any demand that comes our way.

Back to the Top

How can you ensure us that our customers will be satisfied with the training experience they receive from PES?

We are obsessed with customer satisfaction, and our instructors know that their job isn't finished until their trainees have provided immediate feedback about their PES workshop experiences. Information we have compiled indicates that

• 98% of the participants in our workshops rated our instructors good or better.
• 91% of the participants in our workshops rated the workshop overall as good or better.

Professional Education Solutions stands behind our people and our service. We know our fundamental responsibility is to consider how our actions and attitudes affect your customers' opinions and satisfaction. We appreciate that, in the "small world" of education, we're only as good as our last workshop. We will work cooperatively with you and your customers to address any expressions of dissatisfaction by a customer with respect to the products or training provided by PES, until we arrive at a resolution that is mutually agreeable to everyone involved.

Back to the Top

How do you guarantee client confidentiality?

Professional Education Solutions is an organization that prides itself on its integrity, teamwork and exceptional performance. We are committed to doing what's right, without exception. Knowing the value placed on intellectual property in today's competitive marketplace, we guard your trade secrets as though they were our own.

Back to the Top

How would we work with PES to coordinate scheduling, communication, and other logistics?

Each of our clients works with us in a different manner, determined by their individual needs. While we are available for occasional visits to your corporate headquarters, we can communicate quite efficiently through telephone calls and e-mail, during weekly or monthly meetings.

We are experts at the development of processes to strengthen communication and relationships between district-level administration and school-level leadership and your company, to ensure timely addressing of any issues and the regular flow of product-positive messaging to your customers.

Back to the Top

What are the components of your entire training package? Do we have to purchase the entire package?

PES is adaptable to your needs. You can avail your firm of 100% of our service offerings, or a tailored combination of services that best addresses your company's unique after-sale needs. We can work as an extension of your existing training team, or become your entire virtual training department. Because of this structural flexibility, our clients find our services timely, practical, efficient, and economical.

Back to the Top