I’m Tapley Trudell. I help small businesses optimize their staff training.
Part of being a new business owner is that you are constantly evolving how you talk about what you do. Which actually means evolving how you think about what you do. As a fun exercise, I thought I would write a conversation with a fictional interlocutor* to flesh out some of these ideas.
Fictional Interlocutor: You said you help small businesses optimize their staff training?
Tapley Trudell: Yep.
FI: What’s that when it’s at home?
TT: Have you ever had a job where your boss spent the first few days showing you how to do stuff and then said, essentially, “Good luck, let me know if you have questions”? And then your boss is frustrated because you aren’t doing what they think is a good job?
FI: I mean, no, because I’m fictional and you just created me, but I can imagine.
TT: Good enough. Well, that scenario, or something like it, happens a lot. Even well-meaning business owners who are doing their best with their staff training often find that training takes way too much of their time, and even with their best efforts, their employees still aren’t performing as well as they’d like.
FI: Sounds frustrating.
TT: It is. It’s also expensive. Totally apart from the whole “time = money” thing, this situation can lead to lost revenue due to mediocre customer service as well as high turnover costs.
FI: What do you mean by high turnover costs?
TT: An employee who isn’t excelling in their job often isn’t very happy in their job – and eventually unhappy employees leave. Replacing employees is inherently expensive.
FI: Wait, so you’re saying that providing better training to employees can actually lead to a happier staff?
TT: Yup. And a happier staff means happier customers and happier business owners. And isn’t being happy what we all really want?
FI: Wow, so you’re, like, making the world a happier place, one business at a time?
TT: (laughs) Well, I’m not saying THAT!
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.
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I’m also not NOT saying that.
*Full credit to John Scalzi for the idea of a fictional interlocutor.