A MultiBILLION Dollar Industry


The training business is a MULTI BILLION DOLLAR a year business, according to Training Magazine. More than $10 to $20 billion of those dollars is for personal growth-our area of expertise. Just how lucrative is this market? The American Self-Help Clearinghouse lists more than 1,000 Self-Help groups worldwide. Self-Help groups benefit from seminars and workshops. Amazon.com carries more than 20,000 Self-Help titles. And according to MarketResearch.com, Americans spend a staggering $8.5 BILLION a year on Self-Help products.

If you interact with your clients face-to-face, on the phone, via e-mail, or in old-fashioned writing, you already know areas of communication where you can help them improve their skills. Those who regularly hold seminars make large amounts of money. The seminar market is huge. Corporations, companies, non-profits and other various associations sponsor keynote speakers at their annual meetings and conventions. What better way to get known and, as a result, get more clients! Corporations are the largest spenders. The United States meetings industry is a $75 billion per year income generator. According to Entrepreneur Magazine, there is continual need for management development, speaking skills, human relations skills-seminars that provide the “how-to's” of excelling in a challenging, competitive environment.

Where else is there a need for seminars, workshops, and speakers? A recent article said “Companies should do more to improve workers' literacy,” says a survey of human-resource executives. The Center for Workplace Issues and Trends, a private research firm in Horsham, Pa., conducted the survey for the Olsten Corp., a temporary personnel firm in Westbury, N.Y. Of 455 respondents,
nearly 80% said the need for employees with solid literacy skills had increased in the last five years. Other results:

ο 65% said writing skills needed improving, yet fewer than 25% said their firms allocate training money to boost writing skills.
ο 62% listed interpersonal communications skills as needing improvement.
ο 59% said workers need more training in customer service.

“This disparity between what is needed and what is being offered suggests an imbalance between the $30 billion spent by corporations each year on workplace training and workshops and that needs to be addressed,” says William Olsten, chairman of the personnel firm.

“On the positive side: 40% said their training budgets rose this year from last, 43% had no change and only 16% reported declines.”

Companies want to provide empowerment, fulfillment, enrichment, and enhanced skills for their employees. Everyone wants to improve, and you can help people through seminars with your area of expertise or the area you purchase from us-Discovering Your Passion, Profiting From Your Passion, Speak Well and Create the Image You Desire, Attitude, Nonverbal Communication Skills, Strategies for Success, the Secret Shopper, and other programs empowering employees and employers.

A seminar could be thirty minutes to one hour or more in length or as long as a few days. If the seminar, better called a workshop over a period of days, is an entire day or longer, breakout sessions are expected, where participants work together on a segment of their learning.