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ATD Blog

Finding International Training and Consulting Business

Tuesday, July 3, 2012
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n January 2009, at the peak of the financial crisis, I was doing a talk in the Midwestern U.S. and had occasion to have lunch with an old friend of mine, a consultant.  He told me that his business was terrible, and due to the financial crisis it had completely dried up on him.  I asked him “where do you do business?” He said “domestically within the U.S.A.” And I said “that’s your problem. You need to go global.” He said “how do I do that?”
    That is the question I would like to address in this blog.

    I am often asked “how do you get so much business outside the U.S.?” I wish I had a better answer to that question than the truth. If my firm were a large one, I could establish branch offices in foreign countries, hire local talent, and market myself locally. But as it stands I do not want the headaches that come with maintaining physical facilities and managing a staff offshore.  I prefer to travel to foreign locations, conduct training or engage in consulting, and then go home.  As a result, I must establish relationships with local partners. They market my courses, arrange the meeting rooms, and handle logistics such as hotels and equipment. I show up and deliver the training. They pay me a speaking fee plus cover my travel expenses.
    The real challenge is finding reliable partners. That is not easy.

    Usually the partners find me. They have read one of my 79 books, attended one of my seminars, heard of me through others who have attended my seminars, watched one of my YouTube videos, or found me by looking on the web for a speaker who can talk on a topic for which they believe a seminar market exists in their home nation or region. Normally they reach out to be my email, ask for a daily rate and a resume, and then try to negotiate. 

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    Partners are not always trustworthy. I can tell you many horror stories of working with partners who promised me huge groups and then delivered nobody, wasting my time (and leading me to turn down other business) by failing to market properly. Some try to escape paying or delay payment excessively. Checking references for offshore partners is not always easy—or particularly effective since they will usually cite those whom they know will give them a good reference.

    In the future there is probably room for more effective international speakers’ bureaus than presently exist to play matchmakers between trainers and consultants and local partners. Right now they do not much exist.

Biosketch
William  J. Rothwell, Ph.D., SPHR is President of Rothwell & Associates, Inc. (www.rothwellandassociates.com) and also a Professor on the University Park campus of The Pennsylvania State University, where he heads up a graduate emphasis in Workplace Learning and Performance. Author of over 79 books, he regularly presents globally. He can be reached at [email protected].

About the Author

William J. Rothwell, Ph.D., SPHR, SHRM-SCP, CPLP Fellow, is president of Rothwell and Associates, Inc., a full-service consulting company that specializes in succession planning. He is also a professor of learning and performance in the Workforce Education and Development program, Department of Learning and Performance Systems, at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park campus. In that capacity, he heads up a top-ranked graduate program in learning and performance and is the program coordinator for the fully online Master of Professional Studies in Organization Development and Change. He has authored, co-authored, edited, or co-edited 300 books, book chapters, and articles—including 64 books. Before arriving at Penn State in 1993, he had 20 years of work experience as a training director in government and in business. As a consultant, he has worked with over 50 multinational corporations--including Motorola, General Motors, Ford, and many others. In 2004, he earned the Graduate Faculty Teaching Award at Pennsylvania State University, a single award given to the best graduate faculty member on the 23 campuses of the Penn State system. His train-the-trainers programs have won global awards.

His recent books include Organization Development Interventions: Executing Effective Organizational Change (Routledge, 2021 in press), Virtual Coaching to Improve Group Relationships (Routledge, 2021), Adult Learning Basics, 2nd ed. (Association for Talent Development Press, 2020), The Essential HR Guide for Small Business and Start Ups (Society for Human Resource Management, 2020); Increasing Learning and Development’s Impact Through Accreditation (Palgrave, 2020); Workforce Development: Guidelines for Community College Professionals, 2nd ed. (Rowman-Littlefield, 2020); Human Performance Improvement: Building Practitioner Performance, 3rd ed. (Routledge, 2018); Innovation Leadership (Routledge, 2018); Evaluating Organization Development: How to Ensure and Sustain the Successful Transformation (CRC Press, 2017); Marketing Organization Development Consulting: A How-To Guide for OD Consultants (CRC Press, 2017); and, Assessment and Diagnosis for Organization Development: Powerful Tools and Perspectives for the OD practitioner (CRC Press, 2017), Community College Leaders on Workforce Development (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), Organization Development in Practice (ODNetwork, 2016), Mastering the Instructional Design Process, 5th ed. (Wiley, 2016), Practicing Organization Development, 4th ed. (Wiley, 2015), Effective Succession Planning, 5th ed. (AMACOM, 2015), The Competency Toolkit, 2 vols., 2nd ed. (HRD Press, 2015), Beyond Training and Development, 3rd ed. (HRD Press, 2015), The Leader’s Daily Role in Talent Management (McGraw-Hill, 2015), Organization Development Fundamentals (ATD, 2015), Creating Engaged Employees: It’s Worth the Investment (ATD Press, 2014), The Leader’s Daily Role in Talent Management (Institute for Training and Development [Malaysia], 2014), Optimizing Talent in the Federal Workforce (Management Concepts, 2014), Performance Consulting (Wiley, 2014), the ASTD Competency Study: The Training and Development Profession Redefined (ASTD, 2013), Becoming An Effective Mentoring Leader: Proven Strategies for Building Excellence in Your Organization (McGraw-Hill, 2013), Talent Management: A Step-by-Step Action-Oriented Approach Based on Best Practice (HRD Press, 2012), the edited three-volume Encyclopedia of Human Resource Management (Wiley, 2012), Lean But Agile: Rethink Workforce Planning and Gain a True Competitive Advantage (Amacom, 2012), Invaluable Knowledge: Securing Your Company’s Technical Expertise-Recruiting and Retaining Top Talent, Transferring Technical Knowledge, Engaging High Performers (Amacom, 2011), Competency-Based Training Basics (ASTD Press, 2010), Practicing Organization Development, 3rd ed. (Pfeiffer, 2009), Basics of Adult Learning (ASTD, 2009), HR Transformation (Davies-Black, 2008), Working Longer (Amacom, 2008), and Cases in Government Succession Planning: Action-Oriented Strategies for Public-Sector Human Capital Management, Workforce Planning, Succession Planning, and Talent Management (HRD Press, 2008).

He can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at 814-863-2581. He is at 310B Keller Building, University Park, PA 16803. See his website at www.rothwellandassociates.com, his videos on YouTube, and his wiki site at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Rothwell.

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