Training materials for trainers, coaches, and consultants

I'm working on a new offering and have decided to take a different approach than I have in the past. Instead of waiting until everything is final and announcing it for sale, I'm reaching out to potential customers for discussion so that they can share their thoughts before things are set in stone.

I have tons of course materials and over a hundred slide decks, exercises, and quizzes on dozens of topics relevant to BD, capture, and proposals. I’m thinking about creating a subscription add-on for PropLIBRARY that will share the training materials I have with other consultants and coaches to accelerate, enhance, and incorporate into their own training.

Status

I have all the content for this offering. I just need to reformat it. I'm thinking about going as plain as possible to make it easier for you to incorporate into your own slides and branding. I'll launch a solid foundation in a couple of weeks and add to it forever.

What I need to work on are the product details. And rather than do this in isolation, I'd rather do some outreach and get some feedback regarding what works best for you.

Examples

Here is a small fraction of the course material topics that will be available. You can use these to quickly launch a course. Or add to a course you have in mind. Some could be broken down into several courses. Each will be posted as a pptx file that you can reformat and incorporate into your own presentation.

1. Bringing structure to the Pre-RFP release phase of opportunity pursuit
2. Formulas and techniques for improving your proposal writing
3. Goal-Driven proposal process training
4. How to format your Executive Summary
5. Introducing capture management
6. Introducing the MustWin Process
7. Introduction to proposal recipes
8. How to get everyone on the same page regarding the proposal process
9. Objective signs you are not maximizing your ability win proposals
10. Using the process to increase ROI and win probability
11. Introduction to Proposal Content Planning
12. Start by defining proposal quality
13. Proposal sight reading
14. Proposal Quality Validation
15. How to word your RFP responses

Market research and accommodating different needs

I'm planning to make this an add-on to the PropLIBRARY Subscription. But I anticipate a few variations to meet different sets of needs. For example, some people fly solo. They are either freelance consultants, entrepreneurs, or the only inhouse proposal specialist at a company. Their need for training materials is to enable them to personally deliver training to others. Then there are people who work in a proposal department, large or small, in a company with enough staff that they need just-in-time training or perhaps a semi-regular training program. When a company has over a thousand employees, that's a lot of training to deliver. Finally, there are the agencies that place consultants. Many of them do training. Maybe not as much as they would like. Access to the library I have to offer could be a major source of revenue and a great accelerator. So the offering should accommodate different needs with different licenses for how the materials can be used and distributed.

Summary of the licensing models under consideration

• Solo trainer. Applies to single employees, consultants, coaches, or trainers. Only you will be licensed to access, display, distribute, and use the PropLIBRARY training materials for the purpose of conducting training to specific, named individuals. You may use the materials to teach courses and include them in your training materials. You may not publish the materials in any public medium such as on a website or in a book, without written permission. If you charge for the training, you decide how much and keep all of it.
• Corporate trainers. Applies to companies with a significant head count potentially involved in proposals and with multiple staff who would deliver the training. A specified number of concurrent trainers will be licensed to access and use the PropLIBRARY training materials. They may use them to teach courses and include them in training materials for an unlimited number of students who are all employed by the same company. They are not licensed to teach students at multiple companies. They also may not publish the materials in any public medium such as on a website or in a book, without written permission.
• Agency trainers. Applies to companies that provide proposal services to many corporate customers. A specific number of concurrent trainers will be licensed to access and use the PropLIBRARY training materials. They may use them to teach courses and include them in training materials for an unlimited number of students who are in companies that have engaged the parent corporation for training services. They may not publish the materials in any public medium such as on a website or in a book, without written permission.

In all of the above cases: 

• Attribution to PropLIBRARY will be required on each slide or page where they are used. This will take the form of text saying “Portions Copyright 2024 by CapturePlanning.com, LLC and used with permission. See https://proplibrary.com for more information.” This text in a caption, footer, or type at the bottom of a slide is sufficient. A “white labelling” option will be provided for an extra charge that will permit you to use the PropLIBRARY training materials without attribution.
• The license to access, use, display, and distribute the PropLIBRARY training materials where used in whole, part, or with modifications ends when the subscription ends. If your subscription expires you will be required to remove our materials from your training materials and no longer display, distribute, or use them. An optional permanent license will be offered for an additional charge that will enable you to use the materials in perpetuity, even after your subscription ends.

Thoughts on pricing

Final pricing has not been decided. Perhaps you can help with the market research by sharing your thoughts.

Strategy. I look at this from multiple perspectives. The first is whether I consider the price to be a good value for enabling solo consultants to launch a training offering. The second is whether it saves enough time compared to creating all your own content to make it a no-brainer. I consider the break-even point related to a single course and the profitability after doing multiple courses. Basically I want to position consultants to make (a lot of) money through training. For companies, I want to position you to launch an internal training program that saves far more than the license cost.

Single trainer. I haven’t determined the pricing for the Single Training subscription add-on. It will require a PropLIBRARY Subscription and be an extra charge on top of that. 
Until the future product launch, I am planning to make the materials available to PropLIBRARY Subscribers who I find are good candidates to help me market test the concept without the add-on charge. Many of you already have your subscription, but if you're on the monthly payment plan you will need to convert your subscription to annual. If you do not have a PropLIBRARY annual subscription, they cost $595 per user for the first year and only $195 to renew in the following years. Here is the subscription product page.

Corporate trainers. I am considering setting a fixed price for up to a specific number of trainers (5, 10, 50?) to keep things as simple as possible: purchase your license and you don’t have to worry about how many trainers or students. If you are in this category, reach out to me below since it requires manual processing at this point.
 
Agency trainers. This will also be a fixed price, but higher than the Corporate trainer license, which is restricted to employees of a single company. I expect it to come in below the cost of the time to create the equivalent yourself, enable you to differentiate and promote your brand, and be able to have training materials from a source that is not only respected but is also quite thoroughly vetted. If you are in this category, reach out to me below since it requires manual processing at this point.

White labelling. This will be a fixed price based on the type of license.

Permanent licensing. This will be a fixed price based on the type of base license and renewals for a certain number of years. Maybe 5.

Affiliate possibilities

One piece of feedback I've received already (Thanks Eileen!) is that some folks might want to be able to earn a referral fee for referring customers to become PropLIBRARY subscribers. That is something fairly easy to to implement on our end, so we will definitely do that for those who want it. We can even provide some marketing support related to best practices for making  the referrals.

Promotional possibilities

Something else we'll be doing is mentioning people using our materials in their training in our newsletter and other channels. This can help promote the training you'll be offering.

How to make contact and participate in shaping the offering

If you are a consultant or trainer and this is something you might be interested in, I’d like to talk to you before I finalize the details. This is your chance to influence the direction I take. Click the button below to schedule a phone call or a Zoom and we can have a conversation about it.