Amy Westrup, resident of Whitefish Bay, and Shift Worldwide, Announce Launch of Virtual Training Program for Law Firms
As attorneys and other professionals face slashed training budgets and increased pressure to cultivate new and existing client relationships, The Shift System delivers effective group coaching and business development training over the Internet
June 25, 2009
Training and consulting firm Shift Worldwide, http://www.shiftworldwide.com, has introduced The Shift System virtual business development training program. Compared with traditional live training, The Shift System offers significant advantages in time, logistics and financial savings. At the start of a training session, participants, wherever they happen to be, simply log into the Shift Worldwide training Web site, turn on their Web cameras and join their trainer and peers on the screen. There is no travel time or expense for participants or trainer, nor are there location fees such as hotel meeting rooms or catering. Shift Worldwide CEO Paul Trout estimates that by adopting The Shift System instead of a similar sales training program conducted in person, a mid-sized law firm will reduce its training expenses up to 60 or 70 percent, including the nominal purchase of Web video cameras at approximately $35 each.
The Shift System, which targets common pitfalls in professionals’ business development efforts, utilizes a proprietary platform featuring multiple video feeds. As such, each participant in a training group, not strictly the presenter or coach as is typically the case with online training, looks into a Web camera and appears on the online training interface in live video. "Participants see each other in real time as they engage in group learning." Trout said.
“Only recently has it become possible to effectively conduct a collaborative online training session with 15 different video feeds,” said Amy Westrup, Shift Worldwide principal and Whitefish Bay resident. “The participant Web cam makes all the difference. It creates a psychosocial stimulus that holds people’s attention and improves their retention. They aren’t anonymous. They don’t check email or multi-task. They see and are seen by the other participants and they engage. The effectiveness is almost as good as with an in-person course and comes at a fraction of the expense.”
An early adopter and beta client is international law firm Foley & Lardner LLP. This spring, four of the firm’s attorneys, all in their seventh year with the firm and each identified as a high performer with business development potential, participated in The Shift System’s course on Conversational Selling from their home cities of Milwaukee, Chicago and Los Angeles. Said one Foley & Lardner participant, “I really enjoyed the video camera for the Web-based trainings ... I am definitely implementing what I learned.”
Foley management agrees. “The keys to making training stick are follow up and accountability. With nine sessions per course and individual coaching using the latest in Web cam technology, The Shift System provides both in a very personalized manner that doesn’t break your training budget,” said Kyle Heath, Chief Marketing Officer for Foley & Lardner.
“Business skills are swiftly becoming an absolute necessity for attorneys. Firms can’t market, or rather not market, as they’ve done in the past. To survive, they need partners and associates with well-honed sales and client-management acumen,” said Nathaniel Slavin, managing partner of Wicker Park Group and past president of the International Legal Marketing Association. “With The Shift System, firms can provide their attorneys with some of the best training in the industry, on topics desperately needed, without everyone leaving their offices.”
The seven course levels of the Shift program are Time Management, Lateral Integration, Building and Navigating Networks, Raising Visibility, Conversational Selling, Broadening Client Relationships, and Leading Practices and Teams. Each course is nine weeks in length and incorporates 10 hours of live, multiple-video-feed group training plus individual online coaching sessions for each participant. In addition to providing virtual business development training, Shift Worldwide conducts custom consulting for law and professional services firms to help them plan and execute business development initiatives. Shift Worldwide is headquartered in Chicago and has consulting alliances in Europe and South America.
Flooding hits the North Shore
Five North Shore police departments are teaming up on a new blog that provides residents with the crime prevention and safety tips, and news about community service projects and events throughout the area.
