Foodservice University^® was established in 1998 as a resource to the foodservice industry, enabling foodservice manufacturers, sales agencies, and distributors to consistently deliver product and mission-critical sales information to all levels of their sales organization.  From the manufacturer’s existing product training and brand details, FSU develops a comprehensive curriculum of “digital eLearning modules” to be securely accessed online by your sales partners (broker reps, distributor salespeople, and field sales personnel).   It is delivered in multimedia FLASH™ technology, with audio, streaming video, and full-motion animation capabilities.  Fully auditable, it provides online management reporting of all training activities; from exam results, down to individual question responses and course progress.  

Currently, Foodservice University^® counts a wide variety of foodservice companies as its clients, including Land O’Lakes, General Mills, Icelandic USA, Precision Foods, Nature's Path Food Service, Dreyer's/Edy's Grand Ice Cream and Bay Valley Foods.  In addition, Foodservice University^® manages and operates the U.S. Foodservice Web-Based Training Program, currently delivering 13 customized eLearning courses to their 5,200 Territory Managers and support staff. 

Training is no longer an optional “convenience”, but a business requirement driven by strategic imperatives to improve service levels and boost employee productivity at every level of the organization. Proper product and brand training --- along with focused soft skills knowledge acquisition --- keeps your sales partners “on top” and one step ahead of the competition. 

Developing a solid business case for a sales training strategy to mobilize your company's workforce means carefully assessing current challenges, scoping out business solutions, detailing resulting benefits, and determining the best technology solutions. We can help you build your case for sales training investment, as well as mobilize our decades of channel expertise toward developing a strategy that addresses your business plan and objectives.

STRATEGIC POSITIONING
The most important factor in any training initiative is support from management.  To effectively work, an organization MUST understand that training has been identified as an ongoing strategic objective, and activities related to it are reviewed as an element of any personal evaluation (course completion, scores, field activities, etc.)   The key is to tie these activities to customer activity, sales effectiveness, and sales group productivity.  These are tangible elements which can be converted to metrics and tracked and analyzed for plan evaluation and ROI.

BLENDED LEARNING INITIATIVE
The Foodservice University^® Online Learning Management System should only be a PART of your training strategy.   To fully succeed, an overall “training strategy” should be developed, to include:

• Classroom training    
• Sales meetings    
• Printed materials    
• Pre- and post- testing     
• Online training    
• Asynchronous (available anytime)    
• Synchronous (webcast at a particular time)

The objective and the content of the training will typically determine the best method to use.   Product training needs all these methods, but at most companies, resources force a choice.  Hands down, the best method is a small classroom, with a trained instructor.  Close behind is asynchronous online training.  

People learn in a variety of ways:

1. Auditory    
2. Visual    
3. Kinesthetic

Both classroom and online interactive processes use all three to focus the content toward effective learning.  Furthermore, as Educational Psychologist William Glasser claims that we only learn…

• 10% of what we read    
•  20% of what we hear    
•  30% of what we see    
•  50% of what we see and hear    
•  70% of what we discuss with others    
•  80% of what we experience    
•  95% of what we teach someone else

Using interactive multi media eLearning you can take your printed document training programs and increase retention and learning up to four times!

“Every journey begins with a single step…”    We are here to assist you in assembling the approach, objectives, and content necessary to take your group to its next level.