How to Sell Learning to the C-Suite
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The document outlines a 5-step process for learning and development (L&D) professionals to get key stakeholders like the C-suite on board with learning initiatives: 1) Act like a consultancy and focus on employee ROI, 2) Understand decision-making processes, 3) Assemble support teams, 4) Present metrics-driven business cases, and 5) Pilot targeted use cases. It then provides examples from Malwarebytes and Cylance that demonstrate applying these steps, showing how integrating learning delivered cost savings and accelerated goals. The webinar agenda includes a Q&A with speakers from Cylance, a consulting firm, and Udemy.
How to Sell Learning to the C-Suite
- 1. Udemy for Business How to Sell Learning to the C-Suite August 29| 10:00am PST
- 2. Speakers Paula Spears Senior Director of Global Talent Management & Employee Development Cylance Brent Boeckman CEO and Founder Rising Strengths Consulting formerly Head of L&D at Malwarebytes Shelley Osborne Head of L&D Udemy
- 3. Agenda 1 5-step process to get key stakeholders on board 2 Case example: Malwarebytes 3 Case example: Cylance 4 Q&A
- 4. 5-step process to get key stakeholders on board
- 5. Challenge: proving the value of learning • Traditionally challenging to show ROI of learning in ways C-Suite understands • How can L&D pros drive this statistic up and get more business leaders on board with learning? Sales Only 33% of business leaders think the L&D function impacts business outcomes Source: CEB 33%
- 6. 5-step process to get key stakeholders on board 1 Act like a consultancy: Your employees’ ROI is your ROI 2 Get crystal clear on your company’s decision-making process 3 Assemble your dream team 4 Speak in numbers – build your business case 5 Pick good use cases and easy wins
- 7. • Don’t start with your bells & whistles, start with their concerns • Understand the needs of the team or company • Be reactive rather than prescriptive Act like a consultancy: your employees ROI is your ROI STEP 1
- 8. Act like a consultancy: your employees ROI is your ROI STEP 1 Connect your training to your employees’ ROI • Sales team: If goal is to increase sales deals by X%, that’s your ROI • Customer service team: Soft skills training ROI is to increase customer service satisfaction scores • Software development team: Tech training ROI is to increase time to productivity of new hires and bring products to market faster
- 9. Get crystal clear on your decision-making process • Understand how major decisions are made at your company • Align on priorities across departments • Know where your budget is coming from • Create a working timeline STEP 2
- 10. Assemble your dream team • Be a door-to-door salesperson • Identify an active sponsor • Find out who’s on your side • Align priorities across finance, legal, HR and IT departments • Integrate L&D with all facets of your business STEP 3
- 11. Speak in numbers: Build your business case STEP 4 Speak in a language that resonates with execs • Start the conversation with metrics • Weave numbers into a bigger story • Be concise and give context Do your groundwork • Talk to referrals • Benchmark • Gain access to key data • Create metrics where you don’t have them
- 12. Speak in numbers: Build your business case STEP 4 Put your numbers together • Impact on the business: lost revenue, excess costs, lost productivity • Budget, resources, timeframe • Alternative cost scenarios • Expected outcomes: improved revenue and efficiency • Alignment with business goals: profit generation, business growth, revenue increase, operational efficiencies, risk mitigation
- 13. Pick good use cases and easy wins • Consider the point of need and time • Pick the right pilot audience • Be agile • Manage realistic expectations o Case example: Udemy Feedback is Fuel program STEP 5
- 15. • Make it about the individual department • Your managers ROI is your ROI • Don’t have separate goals, adopt the team’s goals • If team goal is to increase sales deals by 10%, that was my ROI • Get to know the different processes of each department STEPS 1-2 Act like a consultancy & understand your decision-making process
- 16. Assemble your dream team Be a door-to-door salesperson: • Sell vision of what is possible: share course collection—what would your team take? • Questions to ask: What does training mean to you? How do you envision developing your people? • I spent 5-6 months talking to managers, leaders, and execs about their issues and goals STEP 3
- 17. Assemble your dream team Use a change management process • Identify who’s on your team and who’s not o Find an active sponsor to help win over C- level stakeholders o Focus on naysayers who you need to educate more on the initiative • Recruit learning champions at team-level o Identify team who has an ROI objective that L&D could help achieve STEP 3
- 18. Assemble your dream team Integrate L&D with all facets of the business • When rolling out Udemy for Business, success based on integrating learning into performance reviews: o In quarterly goals, one goal related to personal development o Allocated 20 hours per quarter for employees to invest in learning STEP 3
- 19. STEPS 4-5 Build the business case for learning & pick a good use case CHALLENGE Sending the QA team to on-site Python training would incur high travel and training costs. SOLUTION QA team to take on- demand Python courses through Udemy for Business. RESULTS Entire team trained in 30 days vs. 6 month goal. Substantial savings in travel, training, and labor costs. Entire production calendar moved up which resulted in shipping product releases and updates ahead of schedule.
- 20. STEPS 4-5 Build the business case for learning & pick a good use case ROI of learning for Malwarebytes $2,340 Savings per employee 11 QA Engineers $25,740 Total savings
- 22. • Identified the training needs of business leaders & managers • Constituency needs: More just-in-learning, less classroom instruction • Understand who the key decision makers are in the process • Key lesson learned: align priorities early on with Finance, Legal, HR and IT departments STEPS 1-2 Act like a consultancy & understand your decision-making process
- 23. Assemble your dream team Identify an active sponsor and have them test it: • Our CEO took a course on Udemy for Business and became an instant champion Find people who are already engaged in learning: • Asked employees taking courses on Udemy on their own to share why they loved it STEP 3
- 24. Assemble your dream team Align with your finance, legal, and IT departments early on: • Biggest takeaway: Didn’t spend enough time educating them early in process • Should have done product demo for them • Finance looked at overall cost, not cost per person • Legal contract language also a hold up in process (e.g. privacy, liability issues) STEP 3
- 25. Assemble your dream team Integrate L&D with all facets of the business: • At Cylance, we build learning into onboarding from Day 1 • Employees sign on to Udemy for Business and start taking courses during onboarding • Creates a stronger alliance with L&D and HR • Demonstrates how much company cares about employee development STEP 3
- 26. Build your business case for learning Demonstrated cost savings to win over my CEO: • Calculated ROI using cost per employee • Compared cost of individual employees already reimbursing Udemy courses vs. subscription for entire company • Graphed break even point: amount we previously spent reimbursing employees vs. annual subscription • Showed would spend 4x less using subscription STEP 4
- 27. Build your business case for learning Once purchased, continued to show CEO monthly metrics: • Adoption metrics • New users and popular courses • Our tagline: “We don’t care what you’re learning—just learn” • People were learning more and it cost less • Added benefit: people could learn without others knowing they didn’t know something STEP 4
- 28. Pick good uses cases and easy wins Cylance Management Essentials Program: • Blended learning: gave them more direction & structure • CEO & Executives co-facilitate • 5 management competencies tied to Udemy for Business courses • 15 online courses • Monthly discussions on each topic • Capstone project • Certification at end of 6 months STEP 5
- 29. Q&A Paula Spears Senior Director of Global Talent Management & Employee Development Cylance Brent Boeckman CEO and Founder Rising Strengths Consulting formerly Head of L&D at Malwarebytes Shelley Osborne Head of L&D Udemy
- 30. Thank you