I wrote about selling earlier this week.

I met with a group of L&D people earlier this week at #LnDCoWork. We were talking with Michelle Parry-Slater after a reading from the second edition of her book. We were discussing how L&D is moving/needs to move (delete as appropriate) and I mentioned how we don’t see the same arguments about what finance and accounting needs to do to prove their value. The ever wise Julie Drybrough mentioned how the relationship is different since there are tangibles we see in finance and more intangibles in L&D.

I was reading about customer education yesterday and how the expectations of the customer are framed by the trust they have in the professional doing the work.

The inspiration then comes and I recognise the point I was trying to make when I mentioned selling.

Tangibles – the LMS, the course, the happy sheet – are the things the user sees.

Intangibles – the smart design, the modern learning principles, the skill in delivery – are the things the user doesn’t know about.

No answers, but more questions:

• Do people recognise or understand our professionalism?
• Does the business care about the intangibles?
• If we are judged by the tangibles, how do we market them to demonstrate our professionalism?
• How far do we need to row back to help people to understand our purpose, function and activity?
• How do we develop people to make organisations people literate?

I’m still working this out but it seems I’m not alone. Laura Overton is in a similar place – working out the relationships between the vendor and buyer.

More serendipity.