It's hard to believe that summer is winding down and it won't be long before every store and school-age child have the same thing in mind-going back to school. It's time for everyone to pack up their backpacks, pick their classes, and buy a new round of textbooks.
   And it's also a good time to ask yourself if your team needs to go back to school.
   It's easy during summertime hustle to ignore training issues that may creep up. After all, the calls keep coming and your team is running all over the place. Who has the time to train, or even think about going away to training? There's simply no time. 
   But now, as things may slow down a little bit in your company, it's time to think about sending your team back to school. And the best part is that those busy summer months mean that you likely have the revenue you need to fund this type of training. 
   Now it's time to make your back to school training plan so that you can give your team the training they need to improve their results and boost their performance.

Determine the needs
Start by analyzing your team's performance. Is there a particular repair or process that your technicians are having trouble with? Would some sales or communication training make them more comfortable in front of homeowners and help them improve their average invoice? Could your team on the phones improve their percentage of booked calls? Determine what areas your team could improve their results in and that will guide you towards the proper training they need.

Make it an incentive
Training doesn't have to be something that your team is "sentenced" to attend. Make it an incentive for high performance. Once you identify who in your team needs training and what type of training they need, establish some goals that they can achieve for a certain amount of time. For example, if you want to send one of your technicians to training, give him a goal of increasing his average weekly invoice by $5 until the training. Perhaps for each week he achieves that goal, you can cover a certain amount of the training investment. Get creative and get your team excited about earning the right to attend training.

Attend it with them
A lot of business owners and managers think that the training is something only their team should attend, but if you're going to get the most out of the course, you should attend it with them. Not only will you know the information as well so you can hold them accountable, but they are more likely to be on time, be attentive and retain the information if they know their manager is there with them.

Hold them accountable
The training won't do any good if it's not implemented upon returning to work. That's why, after you attend the course with your team, you need to hold them accountable for putting the information to work.

Share the information
A great way to reinforce the information that your team member gains at training is to have them present it to the rest of the team. Have them make a presentation at your next training meeting so that others can benefit from the information too. That will spread your training investment across the rest of your team.

Take the time to analyze the performance of your team and how the proper training will impact their results. The back-to-school time is an exciting time for children and students across the country, and with the proper planning and focus in your company, it can be an exciting time to improve your results as well.