"Pete, would you be interested in writing a training program for our new sales people? Our employee turnover is high and our new people are burning too many ups, (wasting sales opportunities with prospects that walk up to the car lot),” he asked. "Tell me Al — what kind of training does a car dealer provide to rookies?" I asked. "We call our rookies green peas and there is no in-house program. We study the new-car brochures," he replied.

Constructing an effective training program requires generating the information a new employee needs to know and organizing the facts into a logical, building-block progression. New concepts should be introduced in bite-sized pieces and followed immediately by short quizzes to make sure the new information is digested. Ideally, training should be pro-active rather than re-active. It should anticipate and address problems that pop-up during normal business rather than waiting for a difficulty to arise and then scrambling to solve it. The most valuable sources of data come in two forms: personal experiences and input from current employees. In the same manner we ask customers how we can improve our services, so should we ask our employees how we can better facilitate their needs in the field. Who knows better than they do the types of situations they need help with?

Training is an investment in your company's future. Anything one can do to enhance an employee's prospects for success, enhances the company's bottom line. A manager must always keep sight of the big picture and do everything possible to lift his team. When training does not exist, you end up with a group of mavericks instead of a cohesive unit. Trained people work more efficiently because they work within prescribed guidelines and they maximize every sales opportunity.

We spend tens of thousands of dollars annually on advertising and marketing ploys to bring more customers to us. Wouldn't it be wise to educate our work force so they can do more with the customers we already have? Lowering turnover saves huge blocks of recruiting time and dollars. If you were building a new home, you wouldn't want to build the foundation over and over again, would you? Let's build one strong foundation and place upon it your skyscraper to the clouds.

I didn't know anything about the car business. To write a useful program, I would have to become a green pea myself and mingle with the employees. I would need to understand the obstacles they faced daily, (whether real or perceived) and figure out ways to overcome the gaps in the existing training. It would require learning their language and going through the same steps new employees were going through to learn their craft. Once I had a better understanding of what a green pea needed to know and the adversities he needed to master, I could prepare an outline for a training program. This was an opportunity for me to go back to my roots — to feel once again what it is like to be rookie in a new job and learn new skills. I wish every manager in our business could go through it. It is an enlightening experience.