The Learning Practitioners Association: representing all individuals substantially engaged in or actively working towards consultancy, design, development and delivery of training interventions whose recipients are outside statutory education.

The trusted place for trainers, learning developers & training advisers

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Welcome to your TrainerBase update 275.

A lack of profiles

If I may I would like to share a disturbing realisation; there are insufficient suitable member profiles on the TrainerBase web site to satisfy purchaser needs.

The Learning Practitioners' Association attended WOLCE last week and we were overwhelmed by how busy we were and the positive feedback we got from a considerable number of purchasers; interested in using our services and our members.

THAT SAID

We were struggling on occasions to put forward sufficient member profiles; IT trainers, Budgeting, Sales forecasting and Communication skills being examples of requirements expressed. Then, on Friday we had 2 requests from purchasers for lists of trainers to undertake a number of significant projects including Equality and Diversity, Budget Management and Training and Coaching Skills. Carol our business development officer spent a considerable amount of time searching the TrainerBase for a sufficient number of suitable profiles to forward to these 2 purchasers. She got so frustrated with the lack of suitable profiles she gave up. This is deeply worrying; we have purchasers wanting trainers and we can't find sufficient decent profiles to forward.

What to do

Granted we are involved in tough economic times however purchasers still want to find good training providers. We have been increasing our presence in the purchasing community; WOLCE being one such big presence and a growing number of purchasers are coming to the site for help. Becoming a member of the Learning Practitioners' Association and having a profile on the TrainerBase is one market channel with significant potential return on investment.

Become a member today and help us help purchasers find new training providers.

Member tips

And to help you maximise your investment a set of members tips can be found at www.trainerbase.info/membertips . The following have already been posted:

• Activating your profile, selecting a style and starting editing pages.

• Adding images and links

• Search engine optimisation

• Testimonials, courses and programmes

Please have a look at these so that you are familiar with how to activate and populate your profile. Any help needed let us know and if you would like us to do the work on your behalf, a paid for profile building service will be available shortly.

And in Future articles I will provide tips on:

• Sharing resources (without giving away your stock in trade)
• Who has been looking at your profile (how popular are you)
• Networking (making contacts in a virtual world)
• Applying for opportunities (how not to get yourself eliminated before you start)

We are working hard to raise the profile of the Association within the purchasing community. You can help us with this by becoming a member of the Association and be in with a chance of graining some significant new work.

Top

Of course there is the usual activity taking place on the site and you should visit regularly to ensure you do not miss out.

Opportunities

A small number of opportunities have been posted on the site in the last week. Have you seen if your next job has been posted?

News stories

We are always keen to receive news stories from members; this is great FREE advertising.

Discussion forums

Valerie Fawcett has asked questions on the Discuss page. Nicki Davey is asking for help in the Members only forum.

New members

New members of the Association include:
Peter Mayes, Stuart Preston,
Peter Bartlett, David White,
Tom Battye, John Ryan, Phil Lion,
David Lumley, Ian Perrett, Peter Moore.

Downloads

Nicki Davey and Christine Bell have recently added some resources to the Downloads section.

Number of FREE downloads on the system: 1,874.

Downloads in the past 28 days: 242

Useful Stuff

Mike Morrison has contributed an article to the Useful stuff section on
How do we attract and retain clients.

Do you have contributions that would be of interest to visitors and raise your profile? Let us know.

User statistics

Current total number of active web site users: 5,983 of which 4,205 are UK based.

Currently signed up for the newsletter: 5,011

Currently signed up for offers and ads: 5,384

Current association members: 475. Is this the economic climate hitting. The number and value of opportunities contracted via the site is holding up, if not improving. The purchaser campaign is generating potential leads. We are increasing the level of benefits. What else is there we can do?

Number of new member types in the past 28 days;

• Basic user (potential purchaser) 11
• Supplier 2
• Trainer 37

Profile views in the past 28 days; 4,638 (boosted by our attendance at WOLCE).

• Traceable: 502 (registered user on TrainerBase)
• Non traceable: 4,136 (unidentifiable visitor, search engine robot)

The top searched for subject in the past 28 days out of a total of 146 different subjects are:

• Leadership, Communication Skills, Health and Safety, Management Development and Project Management.

And what are the top keyword searches being used in the general Search filed on the site: well here they are:

• invoice, tna, time management, coaching, training needs analysis, opportunities, jobs, kolb, resources, trainers, open and closed questions, assertiveness, proposal, sample invoice, open questions, managers guide to tna, export, insurance, evaluation, questioning, train the trainer, pdp, coaching exercises, appraisal, appraisal forms, invoices, first aid, customer service, learning styles, project management, trainer rates, management, leadership, presentation skills, communication.