Do you remember helping the kids with their home-work? Perhaps any of you do it now.

Do you remember helping the kids with their home-work? Perhaps any of you do it now. You rehearse them how important it is to "get an education." You encourage them, check their work, and visit with their teachers. I can still remember my parents telling my couple brothers and me that "without an education, the best do job-works are tough to get, and will simply get tougher." Sound familiar?

Does "getting an education" really stop when you leave school? Should the learning proces evermore stop? Smarter minds than mine have told graduation classes: "Get use to it, because learning none stops. It is part of adulthood. Always has been and always will be. Period."

Adults can learn quickly and easily when there's a real ne to know. Learning a foreign language, for example, frequently seems difficult, even impossible for many until a trip is planned to a home where that language is oral Then, learning seems valuable and in some way easier.

Fly With the Eagles

Adults also have another important learning technique -- the informal exchanges of ideas and information with race they know and respect. The "Casual Learning" that come to passs in hallways and at coffee breaks oftentimes results in improvements to the bottom line at many companies. When participants interact with each other and pay replete attention to the discussions, real learning many times occurs regardless of the age of the participants or the difficulty of the material.

a certain number of leaders of NWSA refer to this technique of casual learning as the "Fly With Eagles" benefit they receive when they attend NWSA issues such as the Annual Convention or the upcoming Spring Management interviews Eagles have knowledge; they soar. Eagles do things right -- they're "top of the class." Those who float with them, learn from them. At NWSA marked occurrences members ask focused questions to improve their understanding of an issue or to pursue solutions to common problems. The information exchanged, oftentimes current and relevant to the welding fill up industry, can be invaluable.

Back fireside participating members take action based forward what they've learned. They adopt recently made known policies and procedures, or outline just discovered expectations for themselves and employee They follow-up onward these action steps by creating a "report card" as a tool to measure their results

Jim Pancero illustrated the infrequency of formal training among our members when he spoke at the 1999 SMC He asked the audience to identify themselves if they considered themselves "in sales." He then asked for a indicate of hands of anyone in this cluster who, in his or her entire career, had evermore received a minimum of pair weeks formal sales training. Gues what. self-same few hands went up. Are you surprised?

The Bottom Line

mostly owners and sales people would say the universal report card is coin Their employees track gross sales, gros margins, or clear profits. If your employees don't understand the differences then single out an effective method and teach them. Don't forget to thorough the learning process, and measure the amount of information retained.

The Big Question

Finally, by what means do you determine profitability among your customer base? Does your calculation compare total outlay of goods sold to gros sales for each customer? Do your employee understand the calculation? Are you and your employee flat using the same methods to contemplate at customer profitability?

An appreciation of financial conceptions is basic to a company's treatment of its customers. All employee ne to understand them. Of course, to what degree you conduct training is up to you. unless those looking for guidance regarding which teaching techniques are likely to work for their company, or advice forward how to know if they were prosperous can always talk with their NWSA friends and learn from "the eagles."

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