Today, I will try to answer a question, “Why an individual, working directly with end client, cannot survive long in training ?”
Well, this question is based on my perspective - “An indiviual cannot go long”.
Or, as we call in Hindi, “Akela Chana Bhaand Naheen Phod Sakta (अकेला चना भाड़ नहीं फोड़ सकता)”
Given below are my justifications, based on my experiences.
Let’s try to look at the activities in a smart trainer’s life:
- Know / Learn, in depth, about the subject to provide training on.
- Have / Get practical knowledge to be able to provide effective training. Otherwise, it remains a pure theoretical “teaching” rather than practical “training”
- Prepare effective case-studies, that more real-world than theoretical. The training should comprise of some “best practices”.
- Be prepared to answer queries from the “related areas” rather than only “the subject / topics”
- At times, sit with the team undergoing training to analyze their project and provide best approach for implementing solution to business problem.
Trainer should understand the business problem as opposed to only technical problem since unless a technology solves the business / human problem, the technology or solution is of no use!
- Ensure that he is on the cutting edge of the technology, lest he becomes obsolete.
- Prepare the literate to be handed over to the audience.
However, if the trainer is an individual he will need to, additionally, work on the following:
- Negotiate price.
- Check his availability and giving immediate commitment, which he / she may not want to do.
- At times, run around places at the client premises to get his payments. The payment cycle can be from around 10 days to 60 days.
Which means that the trainer cannot work with the companies where the payment cycle is long lest he has enough buffer with himself.
- Look at taxes, especially TDS
- Ensure that the tax is not deducted for reimbursements. Ensure that Debit Note is taken care of appropriately.
- Participate in regular “vendor meets” organized by the clients.
- Prepare the literate to be handed over to the audience. Here, the physical delivery - may be a book or a CD/DVD etc.
Now, my simple question - “How much of this can an individual do effectively ?”
Once he starts running around to collect the payments, his precious training time is gone. Also, once he receives the payment after running around, he may be simply too tired physically to check up with the latest in the world.
At least two people are required. One to focus on the first set of activities, and the other for the latter set.
That’s how we - Yashwanth C and Gaurav Vaish - started Edujini.
I’ll find time to write something on the “history of Edujini” later on…