What an HR head checks before shortlisting a training vendor

An HR head or L&D manager shortlists a training vendor on five checks, usually in this order: is the problem theirs, is the firm on the approved list, who exactly will stand in the room, who else has used you, and can the paperwork go through finance without a fight. The proposal is read only after the vendor passes those checks. Most firms lose the order before the proposal is opened, and never find out why.

Is it a problem the business actually has?

Training requests start with a manager's complaint, not a catalogue. New team leads who cannot run a review meeting. Freshers who take a year to be useful. A sales team that answers price questions badly. A safety audit coming up.

The HR head writes that problem down in a line and looks for a vendor who repeats it back correctly. Calling it "leadership development" when the buyer said "my supervisors shout at the shopfloor" shows that nobody listened. Use their words. The first conversation should therefore be a needs call where you ask questions and write the answers in the buyer's words. Your sales process should have that call as a named step with a written note at the end, not a pitch.

Are you already on the list?

Large companies buy only from approved vendors, and the list is set when the annual training budget is set. A firm that appears in that planning conversation is in the plan. A firm that writes in the last quarter competes for what is left.

Smaller and owner-run companies have no formal list, but the same logic holds in a looser form. The HR head asks peers, looks at who has trained at similar firms and favours a name already heard. Which is why staying visible matters more than any single proposal.

Who is the trainer, and will that person be there?

This is the check that surprises vendors. Buyers know that firms sell with their best facilitator and deliver with whoever is free. They look for a named trainer with a profile: years of practice, industries worked in, languages of delivery, and a sample of the material.

Put the trainer's profile beside the programme page, and say in the proposal who will deliver and what happens if that person is unavailable. A firm that keeps the account with a named owner, not with one star trainer, also keeps the client if that trainer leaves. That is a common loss, and buyers notice when a firm handles it plainly.

Who else has used you?

References are asked for, even when not requested in writing. Two or three client names that the buyer can phone are worth more than any slide of logos. Use a client's name only with their written agreement, because many vendor contracts and codes of conduct bar it, and a logo that must be removed looks worse than none.

For example, a firm that trains first-line supervisors at auto-component makers around Peenya can give a prospect in Hosur a reference from a similar plant, with the contact's consent. That is a stronger line than "we serve the manufacturing sector".

Can the paperwork pass finance?

A good programme still stalls if the vendor documents are incomplete. Finance wants the GST registration, PAN, bank details, a signed vendor form, the quotation in the buyer's format and a clear statement of what is and is not included, such as travel, material and the venue.

Keep one folder with every document current and named plainly, so that nobody hunts through laptops when an RFQ arrives. For larger buyers, the vendor registration form asks for company documents, trainer CVs and references together, and a half-filled form simply waits.

A short checklist before you reply to an enquiry

What happens after the shortlist?

The HR head rarely decides alone. The proposal goes to a business head and to finance, and nobody on your side knows who is holding it. Ask, at the needs call, who else will see the proposal and what that person cares about. Then follow up with that person's question answered, not with a polite reminder. Record every proposal in one CRM with the date sent, the people who have it and the next action, so that silence has an owner.

What to do next

List the last ten RFQs or proposals you sent. For each, write which of the five checks you think failed, and what you knew about the buyer's real problem when you wrote the proposal. If the honest answer is "we did not ask", that is where to start. A 90-minute free audit looks at exactly this stretch: how enquiries and RFQs arrive, who follows up, and where a proposal goes quiet. The written, scored report ranks what to fix first.