Here are the benefits I’ve seen from sending employees to outside events:
Exposure to Experts
This is where you get leverage. Let an expert who has invested thousands of hours train my staff while I get other things done. Or better yet, we attend together so we can compare notes and share the experience.
Exposure to New Ideas
New ideas create vision, which creates desire. When our creativity is limited, our attitudes tend to be limited as well. Desire is the fuel of accomplishment. Desire is what increases action. Desire comes from vision—when you learn something new or an event takes place that changes your thinking. Some business owners who have limited thinking themselves don’t want their employees getting new ideas because they may want to impose change which makes the owners uncomfortable.
Just because they get ideas doesn’t mean you have to incorporate them, but on the other hand, it creates a situation where you don’t have to do all the thinking. Are you finally getting the picture that the less you have to do the better? You don’t have to use all the ideas. If you send your staff to an event that you don’t attend, encourage them to take notes and bring back ideas to discuss. Take them to lunch or have a meeting at the office and go over the ideas. You can select the ones you want, they still feel valued and you get the benefit of using someone else’s brain power!
A Feeling of Importance
Speaking of feeling valued, when you invest in educating your staff, it tells them they are important. They are valued. They are assets rather than expenses. Put education into your budget and use the phenomenal marketing systems to generate the income you need to fund it.
(Reference Pages 213-214 of the 5 Secrets of a Phenomenal Business Book by Howard Partridge)
