Brad Lea is the creator of Lightspeed.vt which is a very advanced learning management platform that big names like Grant Cardone and Anthony Delmedico use to host their respective online training courses. Cardone University is one of the number one sales training platform in the world, while Storm Venture Group University is by far the biggest LMS for storm restoration contractors. Each learning program has hundreds, if not thousands of hours of content including quizzes at the end of each section.
The programs are even structured according to certain courses, whether that is Mastering the Cold Call or an entire program on the insurance adjuster process during storm restoration. In SVGU, it even goes into how to hire and vet for certain ‘must have’ positions within a storm restoration company.
Value. Value. Value.
These programs can cost thousands of dollars while promising huge ROI.
But is there really truth in regular training and are these programs worth the price tag?
Do employees or even W2 contractors have something to benefit from regular, if not redundant training?
That is a good question.
In the article from the Hr Exchange, 7 Stats that prove the value of training, it says that,‘Employees are like turbines of a plane. Of course the turbines need regular maintenance, A strong training program builds morale and provides that regular maintenance.’
Companies have a 24% higher profit margin when investing in training; Also, 68% of new hires say training and development are a company’s most important policy. Furthermore, 40% of employees who work for a company with poor training will leave in the first year.1
Clearly the numbers do not lie. Employees want to be engaged, stimulated, and have opportunities to learn and grow with the company.
So why do so many companies—big and small– not train??
A large part of that reason is that most small business owners are so involved in the granular level of the business that it is very hard to conceptualize delegating tasks instead of doing it themselves. On a larger scale, medium/large sized businesses are either making so much money in spite of themselves and inefficiencies are ignored, and or, poor leadership that doesn’t value training in the first place.
In fact, it sort of breeds a culture of apathy. It’s very difficult to hire because a business that does not have a modern learning management system probably does not have Standard Operation Procedures (or Job breakdown analysis) or a knowledge base in place. (all different names for the same thing)
While a LMS like Vt.Lighspeed is advanced version of a LMS with tracking, metrics and quizzes, LMS makes it extremely easy to hold a team accountable and gives the learners the luxury of training on a phone or a mobile, on the go, or at home.
A person from Cardone’s office once said, ‘Training is like showering, If you don’t do it you start to stink.’
A great learning management system is Talent LMS.
The cost of Talent LMS is broken down here (free up to 5 users with 10 courses). Besides the fact that it is free for small companies, it is also very user friendly and easy to upload content onto. It’s customizable with company logo, colors, etc. Courses can be built, assigned to users.
Overall it is very good start for a knowledge base. A company that already has an extensive training or SOP system can put that content into the LMS very easily.
Think about it this way, any new hire can go through a specific course according to role–whether that is sales, operations, management, etc. Then the employer can track the employees training efforts and tie the new hires training progress into his pay.
No pay without training. (Video discusses later).
Good hires don’t exist as a cookie cutter candidate. Therefore, Companies need to have systems and processes in place in order to take the new hire through the funnel.
Below is a picture from Jobvite, it shows how the recruitment process creates a new hire. It weeds out the fluff and collects the grains. Similarly, a new hire process needs to have that via the LMS training/accountability post hire, as well as a clearly defined path of progress in pay and knowledge. 
If a new hire is not motivated to train, likely he will only hold down the organization over time. Owners need to google the facts about the cost of a bad hire. This article doesn’t have enough words to go into detail on that subject matter. The cost financially, the effects on company culture, morale, ethics, and motivation. ASTRONOMICAL.
Now, Talent LMS is only a suggestion of a system that a company can use to start creating an accountable training platform from a preexisting knowledge base. Photos, videos, the SOPs all can be pushed into the LMS, then users can be added according to the course. Once on the course, management can track the training progress via the reporting sections within the Talent Lms.
As a side note, sometimes LMS are already entirely built out for industries or certain crafts like SVGU. So instead of reinventing the wheel, owners can supplement these systems in order to have a successful LMS in place.
But it can’t be stressed enough the difference between having a real mobile friendly LMS as opposed to paper-pen old fashioned one on one training meetings. If a company trains 1 hour a week in person, it is not consistent enough to make a lasting impact.
The video below is a great way to understand how training has helped many companies. Founder of Lightspeed.vt, Brad Lea, discusses how, “A inconsistent training program is just an exposure program. It exposes the new hire to the concepts but is not remembered very long.” He finishes, ‘when I took my own medicine and used my LMS to hold employees accountable, my business scaled dramatically. It’s not raining without training.’
The problem with one-on-one training programs is it delivers an inconsistent message. it is costly to the company. As opposed to an LMS, the employee can login anytime and access a consistent, well delivered message at the touch of his fingers.
What’s even most interesting of all in the video is that Anthony Delmedico explains how directly connecting training to employee draws (meaning new hires are not paid if they do not train) led to being able to quickly see who was likely to succeed in a given role and how it incentivize the acquirement of knowledge in the workplace.
