The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) national chairman John Walker has recently called for training for small businesses, saying that small firms need to train staff in the skills that will impact on their bottom line.

The FSB report that prompted John Walker’s comment was the result of a survey of FSB members where 46% of them stated that sales, marketing and PR training would help their businesses to grow. A fifth of members also saw basic communication skills as integral to business growth.

The report continued by stating that the FSB “argues that in order to be competitive, businesses need these skills to take advantage of new and emerging markets, and as a result, they need training to be made available and accessible so that they can make the most of it.”

Answer to call

Now, Free Training Direct has responded to the FSB by offering free business training to all 210,000 members.

Managing director, John Graham, said: “As soon as I read the report by the FSB I personally wrote to the chairman, John Walker, offering FSB members all of the training on our website totally free of charge. The range of training on the website covers all of the topics listed as essential by the FSB survey and much more beyond. The training is also ‘available and accessible’, as called for by John Walker, because it is online and totally free to use so any small business owner can use the training anytime, anywhere, and they can also use it to train their staff.”

John continued: “Our company has been training businesses large and small for more than 10 years and so we have a wealth of experience on which to draw. This ensures that the training we provide is based on practical business skills and not just theoretical knowledge. Many existing government small business resources seem to concentrate more on the technical subjects such as taxation, accounting, payroll, financing, etc. In contrast, our training concentrates largely on the soft skills areas needed every day by businesses such as sales, marketing, communication skills, presentation skills, management skills, etc, in fact the very skills identified by the FSB members as being essential for their success.”

The training from www.freetrainingdirect.com/ is totally different to traditional training courses. Everything is online on the website, and all of the training is presented in the form of video programmes that cover each step of the subject in a simple, easy to follow format.

Most of the courses are broken into ten-minute segments, each of which can stand alone, or they can be run together into a 20 or 30 minute training session. One of the most important aspects is that it is entirely up to the users when they access the training, whether for half an hour at lunchtime, or at 10 o’clock at night when they have some free time. John concluded: “This FSB survey confirms what we have been saying for years, that small businesses need access to training if they are to succeed, and this training needs to be easily accessible and available to all.

“That is the main reason that we decided to launch the Free Training Direct resource for small businesses. Anyone can now access good quality training free of charge 24 hours a day, seven days a week from the convenience of his or her own office or home.

“We launched this initiative in January and already have over 3,500 companies registered as members on our website, with between 70 and 80 new businesses registering each week. This proves to us that we are providing what small business owners want and need in these challenging economic times.”

Adding video to the training mix

Also contributing to the business e-learning product field, Skylark Media Group, a video production company based in Bristol UK, offers to provide corporate video as part of an e-learning training programme.

Video has become an important element in online communication and can compliment an online learning programme. Narration, visual tips, demonstrations, role-plays and simulations are examples of what video can provide. User control is very important in e-learning, and inter-active video can install this.

Skylark currently provides corporate video for websites, training videos and client testimonials.