Training Follow Up, how important is it?

          OK, you just finished your second full day of training (full day of training is 8hrs contrary to what The Head Monster thinks, LOL) and its time to start prepping for your next retailer. So, your back at ground zero and you're starting the process of learning a new retailers culture and spending all your time creating a customized training for them over again. But what about the follow up to the training you just finished up & the goals you set for the sales associates?  You did all the pre training work, spent the time customizing the power point, leaning the retailers culture and even spent time with their management team. So why wouldn't you follow up on all the hard work you put in? I mean the measure of a trainer is not how funny he/she is or how captivating they can be. The measure of a real trainer how the follow up and move the needle. Yes, it's all about the money! How did your hard work and training help increase what you trained on? If you don't work just as hard on the follow up the training doesn't really mean anything. By following up on you're training you can help increase the trough put and the likely hood of returning for a 201 with associates or maybe even a management style workshop.

         What is following up to a great training? It's taking the great energy and momentum from you're training and continue to have the sales associates and managers to feed off of it! This means making follow up calls and store visits. Their s nothing wrong with continuing or even furthering you're training on the sales floor.  Follow up also means working with the retailer to track sales after the training. The numbers are very important but not just to you. Look at it this way, you don't want to fly in, train and fly out never looking back! You can't treat you're trainings like a flock of seagulls. So get the numbers, because they are even more important to benefit the retailers and in a lot of cases they are over looked. Having numbers will allow the sales associates to know where they are and allow you and the management to set watermarks and goals so that the associates can be held accountable and see where they are going! So remember the numbers aren't really for you it's truly for the associates and the retailer! Following up is a very important part of training and in my opinion you're training is incomplete without it.