Organizations outsource training projects or processes for various reasons, including gaining access to specialized expertise, scaling programs efficiently and freeing up internal resources.
Selecting the right training provider is the first step to ensuring a successful partnership, but success doesn’t stop there. Building a strong relationship between providers and buyers is essential for delivering learning solutions that align with business needs.
In this episode of The Business of Learning, we sat down with Kelly Lake, chief strategy and innovation officer at SweetRush, and Tiffany Vojnovski, CPTM, senior learning strategist at SweetRush.
Tune in now for their insights on:
- Questions to ask when selecting a training vendor
- Communication and feedback strategies for effective partnerships
- Measuring the success of partnerships with training providers
More Resources:
- Top Training Companies Lists
- Vendor Directory
- M&A in Corporate Training Columns
- Managed Learning Services for Maximized Learner Engagement
The transcript for this episode follows:
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Sarah Gallo: Hi, welcome back to the Business of Learning. I’m Sarah Gallo, senior editor here at Training Industry.
Michelle Eggleston Schwartz: And I’m Michelle Eggleston Schwartz, editor in chief. Effective relationships between training vendors and buyers go beyond transactions. They require clear communication, alignment on business goals, and ongoing collaboration to ensure training initiatives drive real results. In this episode, we’re exploring what makes a vendor partnership successful, how to maintain those strong relationships, and key questions buyers should ask to find the right training provider. With us, we have Tiffany Vojnovski, a Certified Professional in Training Management and senior learning strategist at SweetRush, and Kelly Lake, chief strategy and innovation officer at SweetRush. Tiffany and Kelly, thank you for joining us today.
Kelly Lake: Thank you.
Tiffany Vojnovski: Thank you.
Sarah Gallo: Yes. Welcome. We’re excited to have you on the podcast today and to really get started, I’m hoping you could define what we actually mean by vendor relationships. Can you walk us through the different types of partnerships or relationships that might form between training vendors and buyers?
Kelly Lake: Absolutely. First, thank you both for having us, on the podcast today and enabling us to share our lessons learned and some advice back out to the industry. So we thank you both. It’s a very interesting time in our market. We are definitely seeing a change. From a buyer or organizational perspective and vendor, we say a little bit more of, you know, an evolution for the vendor types that we work with. And usually it had been in the past…. So you have a content partner as a vendor. You have an LMS or a technology partner and more of a facilitation. If you have, you know, ILT kind of activities, that’s kind of emerged a lot and changed due to the demand in the market from the advancement in technology and the different types of, you know, projects that organizations are needing to provide and to deliver on. So, you know, with the rise of AI being able to look at, do I need a specific AI vendor? What type of vendors should I be working with? You know, whether it’s a system rollout, it depends on that. So I think a lot of that, it is a buyer’s market right now. I think the onus sits on the vendors to be able to meet the demands, to work with organizations. So it’s not a one size fits all. It’s actually more of, how do you embrace that relationship? What type of relationships or organizations looking at, especially now, and, you know, we’ve gone from a strategic perspective, to, “Hey, we’re just going to work with the vendor.” We may have a one off. We’re not too sure, there’s, you know, over 287 vendors out in the market right now. How do they stand aside? I will tell you that it is more strategic approach. It’s more holistic approach. They know more what they need to do. But understanding that type of a vendor relationship is a long term [endeavor]. It’s embracing the organizational value. It’s an, or it’s embracing their strategy as they go forward. So that’s there, there’s different types now. And I would say from that perspective, really looking at an organization and being a leader in [an] organization, understanding what that means to your vision and your goals as you go forward. It’s not limited anymore. You know, they’re looking for a more proactive way to do that. So I think it’s definitely perfect timing, you know, specifically here and I will share with you. I just had a meeting yesterday with one of the largest insurance companies in the world that they were struggling with. We don’t quite have that best partnership. What do we do? We have different types of initiatives across the board, but, you know, we have like 10, 15 different vendors that we’re working with, and we don’t quite know what kind of relationship to have, and they’re looking for somebody strategically. So I would definitely say. Look at that, take the time, understand those different types of relationships, but they have to align with your organization, and they have to align with your long-term goals. So I hope that helps just a little bit more. And Tiff, I don’t know if you want to add anything to that.
Tiffany Vojnovski: Sure. I just want to really celebrate the current moment because we’ve got an especially savvy group of clients. We’re having better conversations than ever. And that sort of selective pressure of having a buyer’s market for L&D and talent management is really pushing us to have better conversations and really flex our consultative skills. So conversations are deeper, they’re better, they’re more long range, they’re more forward thinking and It’s a great moment. It’s a great moment to talk about learning.
Michelle Eggleston Schwartz: I love that. I’d love if you could kind of walk us through what are some of those key reasons why an organization might decide to work with a training partner?
Tiffany Vojnovski: Sure. Well, let’s be frank, budget cuts, economic uncertainty, they’re real. And L&D leaders are experiencing that both on their own teams and across our organizations. So, the skilling need is only ramping up. And as we have greater need to acquire more skills and faster and then be able to shift and pivot with the evolving market and with technology, AI is a huge one right now, a vendor can really help with scalability, shifting some of those fixed costs of a learning team of that really specialized talent to variable costs. That you can use really strategically and a vendor can help kind of ease that shifting and pivoting by opening up access to that technology and expertise. We use AI as an example. So late last year, LinkedIn Learning and Microsoft released some research showing that most workers want training on AI, but only a really small fraction of organizations are offering that. So, say an L&D leader decided to bridge that gap and they didn’t have those experts in house, they might turn to a vendor partner who can source that AI talent and kind of right size that engagement so that experts are really maximized. They can come in exactly when and where they’re needed, and they’re not sitting on the bench while you figure out how to utilize them. So a vendor partner who’s done this before is going to be able to be much, much more intentional in how they use that talent. So as we ride those crests and troughs of our business, we can leverage contingent talent without the pain of recruiting and hiring and onboarding and figuring out how to utilize these folks. Something else I’ve seen that I find really inspiring is that a vendor partner has the opportunity to help you break down the silos within your organization by helping you identify the people who should be at the table and then by helping you figure out the right questions to ask them. So, as a vendor, we can come in and ask some of those hard questions, the why questions that may feel naive or off limits if you’re already within the business. So something we can do is play host, hold the space for those conversations to happen in a more open-ended kind of creative way. For example, design thinking and other kind of phase one explorations. And finally, a vendor can just tease out common themes that they’re hearing and help folks take that strategic view and find alignments across business units. I know Kelly and I have been talking a lot about connecting those dots, especially between like talent management and L&D. Kelly, anything you want to add there?
Kelly Lake: No, I just echo what you’re saying Tiffany across the board and you know, it’s more pinnacle now than ever to be able to see that. And to realize now there’s good vendors and there’s bad vendors. And that’s why it’s important to partner with that strategic vendor, right? It expedites the process. It brings, you know, it inserts that expertise to help customers move forward and know what to do and to avoid, you know, We’re always the first people to come and say, listen, you know, we’re going to help you move forward strategically, but we’re also going to show you the areas that you need to be careful of and lessons learned from a lot of different areas from a global perspective as well. So I think that’s important, you know, when you’re, when you’re working with, with your strategic partners, vendors, that they’re able to come to the table and be able not only to express, And echo your vision, but also be able to navigate you through those milestones as you go forward from a proactive way to learn from that. That is key, because a lot of times it’s like, here’s your timeline. Here you go. This you’ve selected your vendor. You don’t necessarily understand what that looks like long term. So I completely … timing is everything. And it’s just amazing right now. So. Thank you.
Sarah Gallo: Yeah, I love that. That being intentional and strategic is really key here. And I’m hoping now that we’ve covered, sort of the what and the why, can you both expand on how training professionals can really whether a training process or project is a candidate to be outsourced? Or in other words, how can they determine the need for working with a training vendor?
Kelly Lake: Here you go. That is a very timely question. And so let me let me explain a little bit more about that. So Tiffany went in and explained and gave a little bit more insights on the benefit of pulling a partner and what does that look like? So now, if you look at, you know, the need and understanding and being out, you know, working with so many customers globally and actually myself working not only from the vendor side, but also from the organizational side and the consulting side. You know, you. Once you start to sense that and most times if you’re an L and D leader and you say, okay, we have different types of projects, different types of skill sets. We’re not too sure that we can actually do this in house ourselves. We have a small team. We have like maybe six total team, whatever that is, you know, the core area to question. Well, do we have the expertise on staff right now. Can we do this ourselves? Is it something that we need to roll out? We alluded to before from an AI perspective. Do we need to reach out to a consulting firm that can help us with that level of expertise that can coach us through skill set? Right? And again, as Tiffany had mentioned before, it’s skills acquisition. So not only do you get that as a part of your team, but you’re actually bringing in a new skill set that augments the team, augments the procedures and helps them move forward. Size. You know, do you have a large-scale project that needs to go out and you have a timeline that’s going to restrict you large system is implemented. It might be even put something as specific as a smaller scale that is vertically challenging for the organization where they have to have specific expertise in a core vertical. Whether it’s from a banking situation, it might be something else, but they’re not quite able to gather the knowledge or even talk to their SMEs, right, and be able to pull that knowledge from those SMEs to help them move forward, or if you brought in a vendor partner, they can actually come in and help those conversations and extract the details that you need. You know, it’s also core timing beyond that, too. So if you have to partner with different business units in your organization and you may not have those relationship, it’s great to bring in a vendor partner that can help you build that. So a lot of times that we all wear like 15 hats and L&D that you’re trying to figure out how do I move forward? I have my initiatives. You know, I have to be focused on cost savings. I have to be focused on delivery and success. And outcomes for any kind of learning deliverables that we have. So I need to think about, can I deliver on time? Can I deliver on costs? Can I have the expertise that I need in there? Do I need help with the strategy for the project moving forward? Have I thought all the things through that I need to, and working with so many different organizations on it used to be just their learning strategy, right? Then it was like their immersive learning strategy, right? And now it’s gone beyond that. So it’s even their AI strategy. So sometimes L&D folks may be challenged to understand. Okay, how do we reach out that? Is there a global restraint for me? Am I sitting in the States? I need to roll out geography from, you know, the U.K. straight through wherever it might be. Then I would reach out. Do I have translation issues? Do I need to be able to translate localization in different areas? Those are some things I’m thinking about. Are there technology challenges? Do I need some expertise to understand how to roll this out? I have a new LMS, or I have legacy data. Who do I need to partner with and when do I need to do that? So that demand, the success of the project sits with the L&D folks. So they, it gives them an opportunity now to be more flexible and to scale by thinking about these different types of criteria for them to move forward with.
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Michelle Eggleston Schwartz: As we’ve touched on today, finding the right partner is so important. It with so many options available to buyers today kind of in the sea of training vendors. What are some of those critical questions buyers should be asking when selecting a corporate training vendor to ensure that they’re finding the right fit for them?
Tiffany Vojnovski: Good question. Yeah, like any relationship before you swipe right, I would advise looking for evidence of shared values. So anyone can post that those values on their website, but who are they working with? What kind of work are they doing? Do they work with any organization that knocks at the door or only with partners who align with their values? Also, what are they known for? Are they known more for kind of one-off projects, economy, speed, or really long-range creativity, strategy, transformation? You know, you may not want that sort of one-off economic approach if you’re looking to really enhance and grow your employee experience. And attract new candidates with your innovative learning program. That’s considered a benefit on par with health insurance or a 401K plan for candidates today. So you may want to make the real investment in a longer-term relationship. Another thing that’s really easy to research [is] what kind of content are they putting out there? What are they adding to the conversation in our industry? Are they sharing true thought leadership and expertise, or is it just mostly a strong sales type message? That’s a really important tell there. And then when you meet, you know, that first meeting, that critical first meeting is the vendor partner curious about you. Are they curious about your business and your learners, or is it just kind of the sales show? So, someone who’s ready to be a true strategic partner and look for a long-term relationship they should have as many questions for you as you have for them. And then if all of that is aligned, you want to make sure they have the expertise and the availability in place to partner with you, for example, going back to sourcing AI experts at the right time for the right parts of the engagement. Are these folks available on the timeline you need, or is their dance card so full that you have to wait for them? That could be really critical if you’re time sensitive. Really who isn’t these days? And then the core team, do they have the availability to deliver on time within budget? Kelly mentioned location. How does location play into that? The collaboration process can look quite different if you’re in the opposite time zone. So that can mean a few days added to review as you wait for each other’s responses. Kelly also mentioned language. Do you need to translate your programs for a global learner audience? And keeping in mind, translation is not just one to one, word for word. Concepts and stories and even humor that can work in one language simply May not translate and working out those differences will take time. And of course, add to the investment. So speaking of investment, as Kelly mentioned, you want to think about their pricing model, their services and their benefits. Do they bring tangible outcomes for your learners? Data security is huge right now. It’s always been huge. It’s higher than ever. And then finally, if something goes wrong. What’s their escalation policy? It’s a deep conversation. It’s a two-way conversation and it should be ongoing. So keep reevaluating that relationship, raise a flag if it’s not working because, you know, as in any relationship, how someone works with you when things aren’t going so great can reveal a lot about who they are.
Kelly Lake: Absolutely. I would just add a couple things and everything that Tiffany just highlighted is key. And it’s from lessons learned, right? I will tell you some of the larger organizations that we’ve worked with that you would think would be proactive for questioning are not. And you would think that, hey, we’re going to be in detail. Take the time. It’s very difficult up front when you’re working. So there’s two points, right? One is working with vendors that you’ve worked with in the past, right? And then there’s the newer vendors. So the vendors that you’ve worked with in the past, it’s okay to slow down, give that feedback and change the different types of communication that you have with them from an SLA. And what happens is, Organizations start to get in a momentum, right? And they say, I will let that go. Take the time with new vendors. It’s very hard to develop a relationship in a short period of time. Do your research like what Tiffany is saying but take the time with them. Once you’re one on one, my biggest question is, do you practice what you preach? Do you actually utilize what you’re doing internally for your own employees? Much harder the time you’ll hear no, or Hey, listen, you. you. know, get past the salesperson, actually talk to the domain expert. Take the time, roll up your sleeves. If you’re looking at technology, get into a demo situation, experience firsthand, bring that back into your organization, take the time to walk through that content development so you can do a lot of research. Now, you know, you can even use chat if you want to. And, you know, you can do, there’s vendor reviews. Now you can utilize … AI. But it’s the initial, take the time. And a lot of times organizations don’t have that. So do the research, bring in, I’m a big one on talk to your stakeholders, right? Find people on your team that can help you do that. Or I push vendor partners very strongly to have them do the work for you. You know, if you’re busy running your company, running your LMS and running all of your technology yourself, and you’re an L&D or talent person, ask the vendor to come to you as a strategic partner and do their due diligence. Tell them the problem statement, let them come back to you, demonstrate them, give you a presupposition. A solution as opposed to waking, waiting for an S O. W. Allow them to do that. This is what’s expected now in the industry. So I highly recommend that anybody that’s listening to take that time, push them to be your strategic partner and then make your decision because you’ll have education back in your mind on what works, what doesn’t. And definitely talk to your references, talk to people that have gone through that, reach out on LinkedIn, have a one on one use social media to find that. But, these, between what Tiffany and I are telling you, are really great lessons learned.
Sarah Gallo: Definitely. I know we talked a lot about kind of finding the right training vendor fit, which is a huge, huge first step. I also want to dive a little bit into maintaining the relationship specifically around communication and feedback. So, can you touch a little bit on why that is so important to maintain that clear communication and consistent feedback loops throughout the partnership? And are there any tips or strategies you want to share on how to ensure that consistent communication?
Kelly Lake: I think that is absolutely key and where a lot of projects fail, and a lot of vendor partnerships fail. Because you need to take a look at a holistic approach. Like what we’re talking about. If you don’t clearly establish in the beginning that type of communication model. You know, it fails. You’ll hear stories in the industry. And I’ll use an example. We’ve worked with an LMS partner. I’ll just use this as an example, for years and our customer service, it keeps going downhill and downhill. And I say, do you give feedback? I either hear, yes, we give feedback and it doesn’t go anywhere. Or no, we’re just too busy actually doing our deliverables. And we’ll, we’ll get to it at some point. Right. And then you see some organizations that are on their sixth LMS, with new technology coming in. And it’s just, it became in our industry, you know, just wrote, it was like people, what people expected. It’s like, it’s, it’s actually ongoing where we’re seeing more replacements of that. You don’t see that much from, from a content vendor perspective, because there’s more touch points, more interactivity, but from technology, you know, and then what happens is you get into your system, then to your company and you become dependent on it. And then you’re like, we’re lucky if we can get any updates that we need. But you know, that understanding it’s really important that you have that communication upfront. I will say. I said this before, but your SLAs know your company and the vendor that you are matched in your SLAs, that they embrace what you do, that they’re signing off on that. I will tell you that a lot of times you’ll hear that clear feedback from the vendor saying, “Oh, we think we’re doing a great job.” But if you talk to the organization, like, “Nope, I don’t think they quite understand what we need.” So there’s a mismatch of communication. And that mismatch is like one of the number one reasons that prevents organizations from growing and delivering on time and actually seeing a return on performance as opposed to growth, where you need to be in that, you know, so clear communication up front, meet with the senior people with your vendor partners, understand that have them engaged. We at SweetRush are highly engaged from that perspective because we need to know what organizations and need their people to us. It’s a collaborative approach instead of like, you know, what did we deliver on time? Do we check the boxes? It goes way beyond that, right? So, you know, you go from your standard, you know, project status kind of like this is weekly. We’re doing great. It goes more to a company overview. How are we approaching with that? Are we? Every organization that is working with a vendor should have a dashboard. Where are we going? How are we moving forward? What’s the strategy accompanying that? So there’s complete visibility, higher communication, more feedback. Again, allowing the vendor partnership to come back with that feedback, embracing that and providing a solution. To exactly where you are and what you’re doing. It’s key to everything that you’re doing. Because once you start production, usually it’s very difficult to, you know, to get ahold of those, those different areas without an escalation. And then also really embracing from the feedback perspective, what that escalation looks like. What is the policy? Are you embracing that? Will that happen in time? Are there any language barriers? Are there any restrictions in regards to that communication? If you’re an organization that, you know, your stakeholders may change their minds as they go through the project. That never happens. But if that happens, being prepared, what does that look like? What is my backup strategy to ensure that we have that effective communication? So I will tell you, and I’m sure Tiffany agrees with me across the board, effective communication, you can’t have. Success without that feedback is key to everything because as a buyer and company, you’re learning as you go too your understanding, the vendor should be helping you. Strategic partner should be helping you with your skills to improve upon the process to understand process a little better than what they’re doing, and then they grow with each other. So I think that mutual benefit for both is incredibly important, especially now in our market.
Tiffany Vojnovski: Right on. Yeah. Kelly, when you’re talking about delivery, it’s, you know, it’s so different from just delivering a package and being able to track your package and knowing it’s there. It’s, you’re creating what’s inside together as you go. You’re not just dropping it off at someone’s door and that ongoing feedback I think is so important. So figuring out how you’re going to work together, for example, in a more agile approach where the client is continually sharing feedback. On smaller pieces and the vendors iterating at a regular cadence. That prevents things from getting too far into the weeds. If you’re not aligned, it’s better to find that out at an earlier stage before, you know, vendor goes off and designs a beautiful elaborate strategy. That is not at all what you’re looking for or not appropriate for your business. Or not just making sense for you. So, really important also to talk about preferred methods of communication. We all work differently. We all have different situations. Honor those methods, honor those times. Sometimes hours of communication are really important as well. Something I also like to do is preview the journey so that we all have a sense of where we’re going. We all agree on what the milestones are. And something that can be just as important is previewing the emotional journey. For example, in design thinking, I know it’s really intense up front as we interview learners and we shake out business performance needs, make really hard decisions about scope. It feels like a lot. And I always compare it to jumping off a mountain on a motorcycle, like Tom Cruise. There’s that moment where you just hold your breath. You’re not sure you’re going to land. And then you do. So when you’re back on solid ground and you feel completely exhilarated by that risk you just took. And then at the end, you have an amazing learning program to show for it. That feels fantastic, but it doesn’t feel fantastic going into it. If you’re not expecting that, like that breath moment, that intake of breath where you’re not sure what’s happening. So. Without that preview, clients can sometimes feel that uncertainty is happening because something’s wrong. So really being aligned on the process, knowing what’s part of the process, knowing what is a challenge or a concern that you need to solve together makes a huge difference. Knowing that your partner’s there for you along the way, it’s the difference between, here’s another analogy, knowing that you’re riding a roller coaster that is safely and regularly maintained versus one that’s just like held together with a wrench. It all comes down to communication, right?
Kelly Lake: And I think an important point of what Tiffany’s saying, too, is, you know, we all get excited in the beginning, you know, of like that bright, new, shining object. Right. And we all get excited. Like, Hey, we’re going to do this. We’re going to do something different in our organization. We’ve got this great partner. You know, we’ve seen them out in the market. We know what they can do. And then, you know, You actually get into it and you agree upon it. And then you start to see something that really isn’t what you manifested in the very beginning. So it’s a very interesting dynamic, you know, slow down, take that time, communicate, make sure you see something, request mockups, request demos, request …. Let them do a proof of concept for you. So if you’re working on this and you’re all agreed, there should be no issue whatsoever by saying, you know what, just to secure this, can you have a proof of concept? Can you do some mockups? Can you do, you know, just a quick little mockup of what we’re doing from a technology perspective and do a live demo. Let me show that to my stakeholders internally. So we all get buy-in, don’t be afraid to ask for those specific things over communicate. It will work well.
Michelle Eggleston Schwartz: Definitely. Thank you for sharing because I think as you guys illustrated, communication is everything and having those feedback loops and improving the relationship over time [is] so, so important. So thank you for sharing that. I’d love if you could share kind of, in addition to communication, what other qualities make for an effective relationship between a training vendor and buyer?
Kelly Lake: Do we have another hour? No, I’m kidding. This is, this is something that, that Tiffany and I talk extensively about. And because of, you know, we stress that communication is key, but there are so many other areas to think about. And it’s not the point to overwhelm our listeners, but it’s just a chance for them to understand some insights. Just to, I’m sure they’re going to go, “Oh yeah, we’re concentrating on that one,” or whatever it might be. But if you think about, Tiffany hit it right on the head, when we’re talking about trust and transparency, it’s vitally important, because what happens, I’ve been in situations where we actually had to roll out and this is, previous life, nine different systems at the same time in an organization, a very large global organization, and we thought we had everything completely lined out and we had to work with multiple vendors. So imagine organizations trying to manage that aspect and that if you don’t have that transparency up front and you don’t understand what’s happening. So it’s one thing to be working with one vendor and it’s another thing to be working with multiple vendors. So take that time and really understand. What that looks like. So you agree upon that and that goes back to share goals, right? Let’s make sure that we are in alignment. If you think your objectives are a little different from what your partner’s coming back with, take that time, align them with them and to ensure, because a lot of times we say, okay, do our partners understand what we’re trying to accomplish? Is it hitting? And I’m going to take you back to business goals. Does it align with our company’s goals as a buyer ourselves and do our vendor partners understand how do we map learning back to our business goals? It is a huge gap in the market right now across the board, and it’s on vendors like us strategic partners to actually connect the dots across the board. How do we align those, the learning initiatives with business goals for our partners so they can be successful? You know, and of course, that goes into mutual respect and communication and also collaboration. That is so important. You know, Tiffany was talking about what does that look like when we get into a design perspective? That collaboration has to be there. I’ll go back to the time zone issue. If you’re working with multiple time zones, let the vendor manage that back to you. Let them manage how we’re going to do iterations, how we’re going to actually make sure that we have those reviews in place. You know, we sometimes In the organization, don’t expect, you know, reviews of the vendors themselves. We, we talk about them on project management calls or, you know, ask the vendors that you’re working with or your strategic partners to give feedback on their team’s performance, give feedback collectively as one unified team. It will be much better. And I also think that’s going to lead to adaptability. Think about what that point is. So if I’m out there looking for a vendor partner and a strategic partner, I want to make sure they can adapt, adapt to what we’re doing. Being able to look at our constraints as a, a buyer, look at the way that they, the culture needs to be, but understanding that there’s a partnership between the teams. Because a strategic partner is just an extension of the buyer’s team. It needs to be unified as one. And I also think. Long term partnerships is very key. Sometimes we think one and done, let’s get it done. I have this, you know, I have, oh, my goodness, I have a course that needs to be done here and there. It doesn’t make a difference of the duration of the project. It’s that relationship. How important is that to build that relationship? And again, as a strategic partner, it becomes like for us a number one priority to make sure it’s mutually beneficial across the board. And the last one I will leave you with is a huge one. It’s continuous improvement. That is important. What is that vendor partner bringing back to? Are they looking at the partnership? Is it working well? What’s not working well? But are we as vendor partners working to improve your process? Can we affect change internally within your organization? Are we bringing you new ideas, innovative ideas and applying it specifically, right? To your business, because it doesn’t make a difference. Vendors can come back to you and say, “Hey, this is great. This is great. Look at this.” But if it doesn’t apply back to that customer’s business, it’s not effective. And it’s all these different aspects that surround, you know, that effectiveness is key to everything. And we could, we could go on with a lot more because this is what we live by. But I think for, for everyone out there just to hear some of those might resonate or reinforce what they’re thinking.
Tiffany Vojnovski: Absolutely. And just thinking about that, that idea of continuous improvement, Kelly, I’m just thinking about how any relationship takes work. Are you growing together? Are you growing apart? Are you growing out of the relationship because your business is changing and your partner isn’t able to meet you there? So I think that’s just so important that we choose to be in our relationships every day. We’re not bound by some kind of contract, that, you know, is deciding whether we want to be there or not. We’re really thinking about it, reevaluating it every day and choosing to be there, choosing to keep that relationship because it’s beneficial to us and to our business.
Michelle Eggleston Schwartz: Definitely. We’ve covered a lot of ground today, and I think we could keep talking for another hour or two on this topic alone. But before we wrap up, I’d love if you could just share, kind of some tips on how buyers can evaluate the success of their vendor partnership. Do you have any advice there?
Kelly Lake: Sure. Absolutely. I think one of the biggest. Areas to take a look at are the most impactful areas has to do with effective measurement of what, you know, whether it’s, we’re producing content, we’re producing, you know, how are we measuring what we’re doing? And a lot of times organizations come back and say, well, you know, we’re not too sure what that looks like. And I think it’s important because it’s a high priority emphasis on visibility across the board. So when you take a step back and you’re looking at your vendor partners, even new ones. You know, focus on that. And it’s not just for learning. It’s from across the board, but it’s also for talent management as well, because talent management, as we know, is the entire process and of working with employees from the beginning, right straight through to the end, but growing them to a point where they can be productive and mapping that back to the business side of it and learning is that very valuable aspect that, that provides the growth within that and the plans for it. So I think if you take a step back and look at it. Again, I will say this. It is a buyer’s market. So the takeaway, take your time, make sure you’re looking at performance across the board, make sure that your vendor partners are providing you that insight to effective measurement on everything they’re providing you, you know, look at the performance and the quality of what they’re doing. A big thing is, you know, looking at it. All your partnerships for mitigating risk. Are they taking the time to come back and identifying those areas of risk for you? Because you don’t have time driving because you’re too busy rolling out the projects or working with them to really see where those red flags that are happening. I think it’s very important that you step back and enable that vendor to say, Okay, this is my expectation. Take the time to communicate that, but allow them to do that. And like we just said, keep pushing that innovation, you know, keeping, you know, encouraging them to come back and improving that relationship across the board. It’s so important as we move forward. There’s a lot of options out there, and it’s important that you have the highest quality, the most proactive, culturally aligned and enabling, success every single person we work with their success is our success. And I think that is so important that you align that with any vendor partners to teach partner that you have. Tiffany, you want to add anything to that?
Tiffany Vojnovski: [I] think you said it, Kelly. Absolutely. And I love that idea of challenging each other to grow. Absolutely. Challenging to bring innovation, you know, what’s new, how is that being incorporated into our strategy? How are we looking forward together?
Sarah Gallo: Love that. Awesome. Well, on that note, thank you both so much for speaking with us today on the podcast, Kelly and Tiffany. How can our listeners get in touch with you if they’d like to reach out after the episode?
Tiffany Vojnovski: You can find both of us on LinkedIn. We are also hosting an in-depth discussion of L&D and talent management trends on March 20. So we’d love to catch you live and hear any questions or insights you might bring to the table. Thank you.
Michelle Eggleston Schwartz: For more resources on vendor partnerships, visit the description in the show notes on our website at trainingindustry.com/podcast. Lastly, don’t forget to rate and review us wherever you tune in to The Business of Learning. Until next time.
