Does anyone else who buys training feel that the training and coaching industry is getting greedy?
A trainer who charges £400 a day and works three days a week should expect an income of around £50,000-plus – which I call not bad for a three-day week. If that person was retained by a training company that wanted to add a profit margin of, say 50%, then a daily rate should be around £600. So will someone tell me why training companies try to charge £1,500-plus a day?
I have recently obtained quotes from about six ‘executive coaches’, and every one, when asked what differentiates them from others, said exactly the same thing. Nothing differentiated them – except the cost. This ranged from £600 to £1,650 a day – and all said that they could not cope with more than three trainees in a day.
On in-company courses, it is normal for training companies to ask for £1,500 a day and even for one-man-bands to ask £1,000, just to trot out a generic subject. Why do we pay such sums, often without protest or negotiation?
I suppose it is something to do with the fact that training managers are not spending their own money, or have been brainwashed into thinking that they have to pay this sort of price for good training.
Perhaps companies should look first at giving training to the people who negotiate with their training suppliers. And while no-one really protests, trainers and training companies will just go on charging silly rates.
Buyers unite! Start telling trainers that they cannot charge whatever they feel they can squeeze out of us – then look at the effect on the training budget.
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