6. Putting your ad in wrong category If you are a plumber, decision of where to place your ad is easy. But if your business is in a fairly specialised market such as oil refinery plumbing, there probably isn’t a good category for you. In fact, for many B2B businesses Yellow Pages is a poor marketing tool. Ask yourself question, where would a buyer look to find out about your business- it might not even be in Yellow Pages.

7. Depending on old technology advertising Every year internet advertising increases, with less being spent on print advertising. Yellow Pages is now available online and for certain businesses this is a better option, particularly with a link to their website. When being sold paper Yellow Pages ads, you may be offered complimentary online advertising. However, unless your ad is near front, you will be invisible to buyers who rarely will browse further than three pages. It is also worth paying for a link to your website.

The Yellow Pages consultants are on commission to sell you advertising. They only interested in getting you to spend as much as possible, not on providing best marketing solution for your business. Advertising is not same as marketing! Good marketing advice on whether and how you should advertise is money well spent. Not only can this increase sales, but it can save you thousands of dollars in advertising.

Before making a decision on Yellow Pages advertising, you should consider all your marketing channels, and make decisions on how much you invest in each dependent on their ability to attract leads. Having determined how much you will invest in Yellow Pages, do some market analysis and invest in your ad copy. This is particularly important for larger ad sizes. Yellow Pages advertising can be rewarding, but should only be considered as just one part of your overall marketing strategy.

Facilitate pre-training conversations and set expectations. As a supervisor or manager your job doesn’t end when training is identified or scheduled, it has actually just begun. Sit down with employee that is going to training. Have a discussion about why this training can be valuable to them and to business. Have them think about their goals for training. Recognize that first few times you do this people are going to look at you like you are crazy. They may not have an answer and that is ok. Be patient and help them identify a goal or goals for their attendance and have them write it down and take it with them to training. Then schedule a meeting for after training event to review what they learned and how you can support them in reaching their goal(s).

Encourage partnerships. If you have more than one person attending workshop, encourage them to partner up upon their return. A “learning partner” gives people support and some peer coaching and support when they are back at work. It helps people hold themselves accountable for doing something with what they learned. If you are sending just one individual, encourage them to “make a friend” in training and form this partnership with that person.

Have a follow-up meeting. People should return from training prepared for their follow-up meeting with you. Sit down and go over what they learned. If they haven’t yet come up with a specific action plan for trying and/or using what they learned, help them build this plan in meeting. Make sure this conversation ends with a defined action plan with a timeline.

Expect (and inspect for) results. People now have a plan, and it is your job as a leader to help them hold themselves accountable for that plan. Schedule follow-up meetings, check in or do what ever you can to support and encourage them to follow through on their plan.

Notice that five of these steps require no additional monetary investment. The investment they require is time, thought and energy. These additional investments are activities that will transform dollars spent into real organizational improvement.

All of this is true because training is an event, but learning is a process. To maximize return on your investment you must invest in more than activity or event, you must invest in learning process.

Kevin is Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group (http://KevinEikenberry.com), a learning consulting company that helps Clients reach their potential through a variety of training, consulting and speaking services. To receive your free special report on “Unleashing Your Potential” go to http://www.kevineikenberry.com/uypw/index.asp or call us at (317) 387-1424 or 888.LEARNER.