Is there any interest among entrepreneurs for courses on;

- budgeting
- business plans
- sales skills
- communication skills
- managing staff
- social media
- web based marketing
- other ideas?

How much would you be willing to invest in
- time ? (2 hours? An evening? A morning?)
- cash per hour of training? (given the trainer would be an expert ?)

I'm also interested in hearing from experts who could train in any of the above, and who would be interested in doing so on a win/win basis, sharing risks and rewards. Or on another topic of relevance.

Thanks for thouhts

Lisa

Hi Lisa,

In my experience the real big demand is for practical information about how to set up your business in Switzerland, plus the ins and outs of dealing with business regulations etc here. I'm in an entrepreneur group in Zurich and anytime someone has knowledge like that to share, everyone starts taking notes and asking questions.

I know it varies by canton, so if you offer a course covering the local bureaucracy and regulations I'll bet there would be demand.

Cheers,
Virginia

It all depends on the credentials of the lecturer and they better be exceptional given that almost all of these topics are very well covered online, with really good quality and free of charge.

Good input thanks. You're right that a lot can be found on-line.

Generally the good trainers don't put their materials ie including videos out for free :-) except really short samples.

And people have different ways of learning; researching online isn't always very motivational, and entrepreneurs sometimes ( in my experience) like to meet other entrepreneurs, in person.

But yes, you can learn a lot on-line and this ( or the crisis) has definitely affected our business.

We could go into the business of making and selling training videos :-) but it's really a lot less fun for the participant and as you indicate, that market is so well established it's (1) hard for the average person to know how to find a good one and although ours would be good :-) its (2) hard for us to compete on costs.

So you think live training is no longer needed?

Lisa

What is the background to your question?

Let me answer with a question - who do you think would sign up should you decide and host a live training session? Realistically. And a leading question to that is how would they learn about you?

Perhaps there are people who be interested in paying for a live motivational training as opposed to, say, reading about the first-hand experience as blogged by various successful and unsuccessful entrepreneurs online. These accounts are hugely motivational as they are informative, and there is plenty of them.

There is knowledge and there is motivation. It is hard enough to make individuals pay for the knowledge these days, but trying to make them pay for being motivated - that, I honestly think, is nearly hopeless. A more realistic option would probably be to have someone else pay for the training - like a start-up incubator, or a local chamber of commerce, or a business school. That could easily work, though I have no idea how one would go about acquiring such training contracts.

Like the previous poster has said, only in exceptional cases, particularly if a certificate of attendance / completion is given some weight by the industry, potential employer and so on.

Good answers thankyou. Appreciated

Lisa

Don´t be shy to thank the respondents using the buttons provided

I believe I can't do that via tapatalk on phone however someone will tell me if I'm wrong on that I'm sure!

But I do notice the nice ones and find a way of thanking eg next time I'm on line instead of on phone cheap tickets to an event or something. Helpful advice has a value - and what goes around comes around :-)