As Chief Learning Officer and co-founder of Inspiration Sports Business Institute, Bill Guertin is responsible for the content of ISBI 360, an online resource that is standardizing and automating the training, onboarding, and ongoing recruitment of sales and service reps in sports and entertainment. Mr. Guertin had the opportunity to talk to Market Scale about the current state of the training and recruiting industry as well as what he foresees in the upcoming years. His company, The 800-Pound Gorilla, Inc., has been active in sales training and consulting for over 100 professional sports teams throughout North America and Mexico for the past 12 years. With that experience, Mr. Guertin has found electronic training and recruiting methods valuable for a number of reasons. Less cost coupled with more revenue is the biggest advantage: it’s simply cheaper to train and recruit online. The software benefits the consumer as well, enabling a more flexible training schedule and larger outreach for potential recruits.
Guertin argues, “Online education is not an anomaly anymore; it has become THE worldwide standard for the highest quality education available to the masses in an affordable way. ISBI 360 has created the standard of excellence in the online space for sales teams in sports and entertainment, allowing individuals to maximize their sales results and see massive returns on their investment.” As a twice-published author in the field of sales and service, Mr. Guertin knows firsthand the importance of providing education through accessible platforms.
He goes on to explain his vision of the future of online job training: “Education shouldn’t be a once-a-year thing; the most forward-thinking companies on the planet invest in their people 12 months out of the year, and those who thrive in the future will look at ongoing people development as a necessity for their brand and their bottom lines.”
The company has set its sights solely on innovation in the future, which is an accurate reflection of another web-based service industry. “We will continue to grow and evolve into other related spaces with industry experts on specific topics in the coming months…We’ll be adding expert content from industry icons in the world of sponsorship sales, social media, and many other disciplines as well,” Guertin says.
