Why?
Mood:  bright
Topic: Why?
I presented my project to the small business incubator group at Chisholm. Long before they had seen all the aspects of the program, one entrepreneur-minded young aussie asked over and over, "What's your distinction?" -- It was like dealing with a small child who kept asking, "Why?" every time an adult gave an answer.
Problem is, he was right. It's not easy to see the distinction between customized, targeted, goal-, or business-oriented training and any other sort of online, usually MSOffice or software, training if you haven't been in business for a while.

Question: Who would use your services?
Any size business or person who needed to be able to do a specific job.
Comment: Pretty weak answer; not clear; even a little grandiose, despite being short.

Question: Can you give me an example?
Your company hires a lot of skilled casuals. Despite their documented skillsets, they take weeks to train to do anything, even mundane jobs.
Permanent staff or supervisors have to constantly show them what to do. That takes time from their own jobs; and you still don't know that the casuals do the job right. So it has to be checked -- Taking more time from the permanent staff or supervisors.
The most common answer to this dilemma is to hire more or less permenent casuals.
In Australia, that becomes a legal tightrope. If you keep a casual employed for more than 3 months in the same job, they're considered an employee. Your company has to do withholding, pay WorkCover and Super. If you don't, your company can be sued by the casual or the government.

A better answer is to provide the casual with interactive training that shows them how to do certain jobs. They learn to do it right. -- The way you want it done. And they don't tie up supervisors' or permanent staff time.

Comment: Is this a good example? No, not by itself.

Response: That answer opens up all sorts of questions, and the best of them is:
Does anyone use customized training?

Yes. Name any of the largest companies in nearly any field you can think of. IBM has been doing 'customized' training for decades; they call it 'in-house' training.
IBM trains its employees to be specialists in its product lines. Their people walk into any situation confident and ready, not just to demonstrate the technical aspects of their products, but also knowing how to present those capabilities to the business.
Another example is McDonald's.
When someone goes to work at McDonald's, they are trained by CD or video tapes on what's expected of them as employees; how to work with the equipment; and how to deal with the customers.
The quality of the work and product is maintained across the world because of the way the employees are trained.

Question: But my company is small. I only have a couple of employees. Why do I need customized training?
Answer: You've got the same quality issues to manage as the largest companies and franchises around the world.
In fact, your issues are more personal and significant for your business. Your employees represent you personally in such a small company. How they act affects not only the reputation of the business, but your own reputation -- for better or worse.
If you don't set a standard for your business that's professional and efficient, who will?