Vocabulary

size	conduct (3)	profitability
ability	in common	competence
expect	apply (2)	conduct a study
hire	drain (2)	competitive
proud	marginal	go down the drawn
invest	executive	bottom line
gross	scale (4)	according to
source	generate	Fortune 500 Company
rule (2)	resolve (2)	sustainable
field (2)	dominate	effectiveness
rate (2)	perform (2)	on a scale of one to ten
revenue	comparison

 
 
 
 

Company Profitability

Do you know the real secret of high profitability in companies of every size?

Napoleon Hill conducted a 22-year study of the 500 richest people in America.

He made three discoveries.

The Three Discoveries

First, he found that each of these top people had certain skills and qualities and abilities in common.

Second, he found that none of them started off with these skills.

And third, he found that they were all learnable skills. He found that top performers are made, and not born.

The Secret is Training

The rule is you cannot expect people to perform at high levels unless they have been thoroughly trained to perform at those levels — just like an athlete.

The highest profit companies in America spend a large amount of money on training.

The companies that are marginal spend little or nothing on training.

Many executives running companies that were having serious problems told me, sometimes quite proudly, “We don’t train our people; we just hire good people, and expect them to do a good job.”

As they say this, their businesses were going down the drain.

Xerox, IBM, Motorola

Some years ago, Xerox conducted a study on their training program. They found that they were getting $22 back to the bottom line for every dollar they invested in training their people, especially their salespeople.

IBM found that they were getting $26 back to the bottom line for every dollar they invested in their people.

And Motorola, when it was in the top of its game, found that they were getting $33 back for every dollar they invested in their people in helping them become better at their jobs.

Investment

Resolve today to turn your company into a learning organization.

The top 20% of companies in America, according to the American Society for Training and Development, spend 3% of more of their gross revenues on training the people who are expected to generate and process these revenues.

How do this number compare with the amount you spend in your company?

According to Sales and Marketing Management Magazine, the top 20% of companies in profitability, invest an average of $6,000 per year, per person in sales training, rewarding and celebrating their sales people.

Surprisingly, 70% of American companies of all sizes do no sales training at all. They may do a little product training, but they don’t do sales training.

Reluctance

Sometimes executives say, “What if we train them, and then they leave?”

But the right question to ask is, “What if we don’t train them, and then they stay?

The president of a Fortune 500 company said recently, “Our only source of sustainable competitive advantage is our ability to learn and apply new ideas faster than our competition.”

Conclusion

One of the ways you can lead your field and dominate your market is to have the best and the best trained people in your business.

Now here’s a question for you: on a scale of one to ten, how much do you rate the quality of your people, their competence and effectiveness overall in comparison with your best competitors.

And what would you do to start bringing up your score?

Questions

1. The main idea of this text is the secret of successful companies and individuals. True or false?

2. What are the three features that the richest people have in common?

3. Is this secret just a theory or opinion?

4. According to the writer, what is the difference between successful and failing companies?
5. Can a company simply hire the best people and remain competitive?

6. What examples did he give? What companies did he mention?

7. Most US companies train their staff extensively. Is this right or wrong? What figures (numbers) were given?

8. Are most executives reluctant to invest in training their employees? Why are they reluctant?

 

A. Which is cheaper or more cost effective, spending lots of money on training or saving money by not training company staff?

B. Does your company or organization train their employees? What are some examples of company training?

C. Our company needs to provide more training. What do you think? What areas, departments or jobs need more training?

D. What areas do you need more knowledge, skill or training on?

E. What will happen in the future?