Hello Robert.
First, thank you for giving us this opportunity to “Ask Me Anything”. I hope that people will gain lots of valuable insight to help them with their goals.
In terms of my question, let me give a little background. I have been in the IT training space for 14 years and have helped thousands of individuals and corporations obtain the training solutions that they needed. Of course, working for a training company I was forced to sell their solution. However, I never sold a program to anyone if I truly didn’t think that they could benefit from it. With that being said, I noticed through the years that not all training providers/ colleges shared the same values as I did and they would sell a solution just to make a sale and not have the best interest of the customer in mind. As with any sales based business, you are looking to increase the bottom line. However, that doesn’t mean that you have to “burn” people and organizations in the process.
About a year and a half ago, I started my own consulting company that sources training solutions for my clients (both B2C and B2B). I really didn’t do much with it until October of 2015 because I still had my full time sales position selling training solutions. In October, after 9 years with the same company, I was let go due to the company not “selling IT training solutions anymore”. I was basically the last rep out of what used to be 30 reps. Since then, I have been making strides in my company and developing the relationships with other providers. However, I don’t want to recommend some of these solutions to my clients if they have unethical sales practices.
I have a great idea for the next stage of my business plan, but it relies heavily on funding and I am concerned that if I expose what it is.. another company can run with it. It is an idea that will revolutionize how companies and individuals source their training solutions. I would be first to market with this idea.
Aside from an NDA, how can I get my idea out there for funding and be sure that nobody will take it and run with it? Additionally, would it be something that you might have an interest in hearing about yourself?
I appreciate any thoughts.