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When “Built From Scratch” Is Best

	added value to customers by deepening employees’ industry knowledge improved customer partnerships and reduced competitive cost of sales by speeding up both customer response and overall sales cycle times

“We felt our people needed to be more educated about our industry in order to provide additional value to customers,” explains Training Coordinator Marcie Seyfarth. “We also wanted to improve credit quality and productivity. Recognizing that our business needs are unique, we found very few external educational programs available, so we turned to Advantage for a customized solution.”

The solution from Advantage partner Jeff Tucker and Advantage consultant Greg Gunther (and his Frogkick, Inc., team) was two workshops built from scratch. Tucker says, “MBC had a lot of new people coming in who could benefit from more knowledge about the nuances of the truck transportation industry. It also wanted to reduce credit application cycle time and improve credit decisions, which would reduce overall cost of sales. We needed to create a custom solution that would address both needs.”

The first step was conducting customer interviews and research. Tucker and Gunther collaborated closely with Seyfarth during this development phase. “We wanted to reflect the way this company did business, the needs of their customers, their language, and a lot of their processes and procedures,” explains Gunther. Seyfarth brought in an internal credit expert, and Gunther added a banker subject-matter expert who was familiar with lending to the industry. Since senior MBC credit analysts have the dual mission of issuing credit and supporting sales, sales and credit skills were blended into the training.

Building Industry Knowledge
The Industry Orientation Workshop was presented to an audience of recently hired employees. This day-long, interactive s ession covered issues such as industry trends, why customers buy, and a macro overview of credit quality concepts. “This kind of detailed industry knowledge helps our people respond to customers’ needs better, and helps us manage our overall operation more effectively,” says Seyfarth. Gunther adds, “People got an opportunity to dive deeply into and gain a level of expertise about a specific area, then rotate to a different issue. The synthesis of perspectives was very impressive.”

Improving Credit Speed and Quality
The two-day Credit Issuance Workshop was presented to senior fleet and dealer credit analysts. It included a skill-level pre-assessment, a working capital session, and a case study exercise. During the working capital session, participants playing business roles were required to make increasingly complex decisions as they practiced running a business. The case study incorporated an MBC spreadsheet. “We introduced the concept of scenario modeling, which supplemented MBC’s use of their spreadsheet software,” says Gunther. “This was a real added value because it helped the analysts make better credit decisions.”

“My experience working with Advantage and Frogkick was incredibly positive,” says Seyfarth. “They were extremely responsive to our needs, and created completely custom solutions that were very high quality. The collaborative partnership that developed between us was absolutely a key to success.”

Better Partnerships, Competitive Excellence
MBC will continue to offer the Industry Orientation Workshop to all employees and new hires. Seyfarth says, “Our goal is to be really good partners with all of our customers. That requires service and also knowledge, which the industry training helps us attain. Another plus is that any time employees feel that you’re investing in them from a knowledge standpoint, that’s very beneficial.”

The Credit Issuance Workshop also met the goal. “Our managers would attest to the fact that their people are using the new skills, without a doubt,” says Seyfarth. “If we can get a credit decision back to the customer quickly, that’s good partnership. If we can reduce the cycle time below that of our competition, it might make the difference between winning and losing the deal. So from a competitive standpoint alone, we feel that the credit training has also been very valuable.”