By Pat Durante, CEdMA President & Senior Director of Education Service, Black Duck Software
Contributors:
Jesse Finn, Former CEdMA President and Industry Veteran
Tom Kimmel, CEdMA Vice President
Ken Hirsohn, CEdMA Treasurer & Director, Global Customer Training Programs, AlienVault.
Traditionally, most software training has been sold as an ‘add-on’ service in the form of seats in a public classroom (virtual or physical). This poses a dilemma for both the seller and the purchaser. Selling a single seat at $3-5k per student is hardly worth the tiny commission an education sales rep or license seller would earn. Even selling a private onsite class for up to 10 students for $15 or $20K can be hard work for very little return. To make matters worse – these one-time training events are often designed to force students to “drink from the fire hose” and “learn everything you need to know in as few days as possible” so that the students can get back to real work. Retention from these type of training events is dismally low.
