ATD Blog

Finding the Right International Partner

By William J. Rothwell

Saturday, September 7, 2013

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I have often been asked how I obtain so much international work. This year alone, I have presented in Africa, Asia, Latin America, as well as in the United States.

My secret, if you can call it that, is cultivating foreign partners. I work with them on everything—determining exciting and relevant topics to present, marketing events, finding the best venues, collecting registrations and payments, paying local taxes and managing legal and business issues, preparing handouts and learning materials, conducting the actual training, following up after the event, marketing other programs, and more.

There are risks in working with partners, and finding a local, reliable partner is not always easy. Here’s some advice from my many years working abroad.

Beware of partners who talk a good game, but cannot deliver results.

This type of partner will promise you a program, you will book the dates and turn down other business, and then they will fail to reach break-even and cancel at the last moment when it is too late for you to find other opportunities. This has happened to me more than once.

One way to manage this problem is to ensure that there is a cancellation fee, with escalating amounts that increase as the date of delivery approaches. Another way to manage the problem is to ask for U.S.-based presenters (or at least Westerners) as references for those foreign partners.

Beware of local partners that book your days, but then fail to pay.

To manage this problem, make it a policy that you are paid half of the delivery fee upfront and receive complete travel reimbursement for the first few sessions you conduct with a new foreign partner. If the partner is unwilling to do that, then it is probably not a reliable partner. Suing offshore partners in a foreign court, while possible, is a distasteful process compared to the alternative I suggested.

Beware of local partners that are unable to market effectively.

Some partners think that they need do nothing more than send out mass emails at the last moment, trusting that a foreigner’s name and reputation is all it takes to fill a room. That approach does not work in America, and it also does not work anywhere else.

About the Author

William J. Rothwell

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, 2^nd 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, 2^nd ed. (Rowman-Littlefield, 2020); Human Performance Improvement: Building Practitioner Performance, 3^rd 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, 5^th 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, 3^rd 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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