Thoughts on the Economy

Certainly, one of the most significant bellwethers in most peoples minds today is the unemployment numbers. We won't start feeling more comfortable until we see those numbers go down. We won't REALLY start feeling comfortable until we see ourselves, our friends and family returning to the workforce with REAL jobs.
However there ARE other areas that can be looked at to spot where we're headed. Two of them are advertising and training.
The reason being is that these are systemically the first two to go when an organization is starting to get worried or in trouble.

I can't write about advertising and while my observations about training are anecdotal, there is positive news on the horizon.
As someone fairly connected with the training world in the Chicagoland area, discussions with colleagues show an uptick in companies contracting for needed training. And that's a good sign.

In my case, as a coach, speaker and trainer, while I have seen a decline in my more traditional skill development programs, I have been providing services in the more "additional skills" arena or "traditional with a twist".

An example of "additional skills" is that my most frequent speaking/workshop programs have been on Business Networking for those people that network to get clients. Other topics that have been popular in seminar or workshop format has been Effective Communication and Motivating the Workforce (which I have published a white paper on my website).

In the traditional with a twist, I have brought subjects to organizations such as Creating Customer Loyalty, Relationship Selling and Stress and Time Management. All important subjects and certainly available, but I've offered the same subjects from a different perspective or outlook. It's exciting to have people come up to you afterward and tell you that they "get it" now.

The additional change in training that has seemed to really resonate in these times has been the Strategic Roadmap/Moving Your Business Forward Workshops where we have helped entrepreneurs, micro and small business owners, not for profits look beyond today's challenges creating a vision and goals for the upcoming year.

The Strategic Roadmap (often thought as Strategic Planning Lite) has been used more and more with struggling departments and not for profit volunteer boards. The response I get back from facilitating workshop, helping them create those goals, responsibilities and vision has been uniformly, strongly positive.

Organizations, departments, etc. are desperately looking for paths forward and Strategic Roadmap seems to have provided that service for them.
So looking at the trends in training I certainly don't feel we're out of the tunnel yet, but I do sincerely believe that not only have we seen the light at the end of the tunnel, but we can be sure that the light is true light and not the train coming to run us over!

Good luck and good fortune in everything that you do!