T3 - Train The Trainer

That's what today's activity is called. Pretty descriptive, no?

Whenever we (guys like me, although, there are a few women who do this) are hired, we need to be trained about what we are going to teach others. So we are gathered together from all parts of the country, and in fact the world, as some of the trainers hail from Great Britain, Canada, and occasionally other countries. And we "learn the program".

This particular program is a 90 minute presentation, made primarily to Infiniti sales consultants, although periodically a manager or two will sit in as well. I started to tell you about it, when I was so rudely interrupted by arrests made halfway around the world. We will be comparing the new Mercedes GL450 full size sport utility vehicle to the Infiniti QX56 full size sport utility vehicle. While the QX56 has been around for a couple of years, the GL450 is a brand new vehicle for Mercedes, so Infiniti wants to educate their sales consultants about the capabilities of the competition.

We spend the day seeing the program modeled (someone else presents the training as we are to present it). We watch it and participate as our sales consultants would. This is actually quite helpful, as we get to see it from the "other side". In this case, that only takes 90 minutes. Then we review the content and look for problem areas that may occur. Then we research the vehicles to look for the questions that will occur that are not incorporated in the training agenda. There are always questions. Then we go our merry way, and have the weekend to let it sink in, practice it... whatever it is that we do to learn the program.

As there are too many Infiniti dealerships for one person to train in a reasonable time, the country is divided into six territories, and six teams each travel within their assigned territory, training the staff of those dealerships within their scope. In this case, each team consists of one person. Sometimes the teams consist of two or three people.

Since the sales consultants are already (or should be) familiar with their own product, we bring them the competitive product. In this case, the GL450. Since there are 6 teams, 6 GL450's need to be purchased for the program. Since I will be starting in the greater Los Angeles area, and the training was held at Nissan headquarters in the Los Angeles area, my assigned vehicle was one of the vehicles used in the training today. So I drove home in a 2007 Mercedes GL450 that had 20 miles on the odometer when I drove it away. The base price on this particular black GL450 is $54,900. Once the destination charge and options were added, the total retail price, as it says on the window sticker, is $62,775. I don't think that we'll be buying one anytime soon.