Training pays, according to interactive marketer, social media icon and PPAI Expo keynote speaker Seth Godin. In this issue of Promotional Consultant Today, read what Seth has to say about the value of training.

Sometimes, it's easy to underestimate just how much it pays.

Consider an employee who is going to work 2,000 hours for you this year. It's not unusual for an organization to spend only 10 or 20 hours training this person— which is about one percent of her annual workload.

How much training would it take for this person to be 10 percent better at her job? If you invest 100 hours it'll pay for itself in just six months. There aren't many investments an organization can make that will double in value in a year.

But let's take it one step further:

Imagine a customer service rep. With all expenses accounted for, it might cost $5 for this person to service a single customer by phone. An untrained rep doesn't understand the product or how to engage, or hasn't been brought up to speed on your systems. As a result, the value delivered in the call is precisely zero (in fact it's negative, because you've disappointed your customer).

On the other hand, the trained rep easily delivers $30 of brand value to the customer, at a cost, as stated, of $5. So, instead of zero value, there's a profit to the brand of $25; a comparative ROI of infinity.

And of course, the untrained person doesn't fall into this trap once. Instead, it happens over and over, many times a day.

The short-sighted organization decides it's saving money by cutting back training. After all, the short-term thinking goes, what's the point of training people if they're only going to leave? (I'd point out the converse of this— what's the danger of not training the people who stay?)

It's tempting to nod in agreement at these obvious cases (or the similar case of getting, or not getting, a great new job based on how skilled you've trained yourself to be-again, a huge cliff and difference in return). What's not so easy is to take responsibility for our own training.

We've long passed the point where society and our organization are taking responsibility for what we know and how we approach problems. We need to own it for ourselves.

Take that first step in owning your knowledge by attending The PPAI Expo next week at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas. You can hear Seth Godin, live, as he delivers the keynote presentation, Invisible Or Remarkable: Notes From The Revolution, on Tuesday, January 12 from 8:30 to 9:50 am in Ballroom J on Level 2.

Source: Seth Godin is the author of 18 books that have been bestsellers around the world and have been translated into more than 35 languages. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything. You might be familiar with his books Linchpin, Tribes, The Dip and Purple Cow.

In addition to his writing and speaking, Seth founded both Yoyodyne and Squidoo. His blog (which you can find by typing "seth" into Google) is one of the most popular in the world.