£882,000

9/8/11

I have a business with a turnover of £882,000.00 per year and I’m looking for a Managing Director, Marketing & HR Director and Finance Director to run it for me. The question is, once I have found the ideal people, how much training should I give them?

I was thinking maybe a few hours. What do you think? How much training would you want them to have if it were your company? In fact, would you want to be the Managing Director?

The above was a very interesting question posed at an Area Director training (I think by Mike Holman). It certainly made me think.

A chapter of 30+ members will pass around £800k of business in the group each year. For a group of 20 members it might be £400k and one of 40+ members over £1.5 million. Now that is a big business - bigger than many of our own businesses. Even the smallest chapter is in fact a pretty big business.

Now the Leadership Team (and others on the team) are responsible for that business; their job is to maintain it and grow it. And like, John Lewis, we are all shareholders of the business, in that we share in the profits: the ‘Thank You for the Business’. So, we all want a well-run business by well-trained people. Don’t we?

The better the business is run the more profit it makes. Our chapters are just the same. What would you think if you gave your £882k business to a new team only to find it was turning over only £500k 6 months later?

So, I have a question for you. How much training should we and our chapter Leadership Teams get?