Welcome to the Online Editor page where, each month, I’ll be encouraging you to reach for your mouse and click on the TJ Online website at www.trainingjournal.com

Did you know that virtually the entire contents of the TJ magazine are uploaded to the TJ Online website each month? I receive the files at the end of the month and upload them to the site as quickly as possible. Usually this takes a couple of days, so if you log on at the start of the month, it’s worth returning to the site as more content is added.

There’s a mixture of free and paid-for content, and you can view the free content as text on the website without having to download it. It isn’t possible to include diagrams within the text, but a downloadable pdf is available at a nominal charge of £1 for non-subscribers.

All the content is available free online to TJ magazine subscribers. Just log in and access the parts you need. There’s a link to each item on the home page. There’s also a link to ‘View the latest issue of Training Journal’ and if you click on that, you’ll open a page that tells you more about each item.

So what’s there? The free content of the online issue starts with Debbie Carter’s editorial. This is always worth a read because she introduces the month’s issue, giving you a flavour of what’s to come and what to look out for.

Free content also includes wise words from regular columnist Peter Honey, who has topped the turn-to-first polls consistently for more than a decade, agony aunt Isobel Rimmer, cyber whizz Garry Platt and ‘Gangsta Motivator’ L Vaughan Spencer.

There are also series such as ‘Tech Trends’, keeping you up to date with developments in technology supporting learning and development, ‘Super Models’, in which Dr Mike Clayton examines various training models, and ‘Great Thinkers’, highlighting inspirational people and their achievements.

You’ll also find in-depth news features, interviews, case studies and the hands-on, practical articles for which TJ is famous online.

Last month, I told you how to add your comments to a news item. You can do the same with the magazine content. Just log in, open the item and click on the link.

I really do urge you to do this. It would be great to get a good debate going about individual articles or opinion pieces. Is there anything you agree or disagree with, and why? Can you add anything? Maybe you’ve used a particular technique and found another application for it, discovered it works better if used with a complementary tool, or perhaps you feel inspired to try a new tool or technique but would appreciate some feedback from others on their experiences.

Of course, you can have that sort of discussion on the Digest, and I urge you to do that as well, but by adding your comments to the article on the website, you can add to your learning and that of others, each and every time the article is opened. I hope you’ll give it a try.

This month’s Digest

Trainers are brave people. They regularly stand up in front of a classroom full of delegates, persuade them to take part in all kinds of activities, and even get them to build rafts and cross rivers, all in the name of learning. But it seems they have an Achilles’ heel. Some seriously under-sell the value that they add to organisations through their training, regularly discounting days of prep work because they don’t feel confident about asking the client to pay for it.

The problem seems to be that, somewhere along the line, someone came up with a ratio of two prep days to each day of delivery. Those trainers who take a little bit longer on prep for complex topics worry about asking the client to pay for their time.

Nicola Adams said she struggles with the 2:1 prep delivery ratio, sometimes managing 3:1, but sometimes going up to as much as 5:1. She admits that she probably doesn’t charge enough and that getting clients to understand how long it takes to create a bespoke solution is difficult. She says: “I take the view, though, that even if I don’t actually use everything I have found in the design, I have achieved two other things. Firstly, I have armed myself with some additional information which adds to my confidence in delivering the topic and dealing with queries, etc, during the training; secondly, I have added to my own knowledge, which is a big buzz in itself for me.”

Claire Godwin took advice from someone she used to work for and now incorporates her prep time into her daily rate. Claire’s old boss didn’t want to think about prep time – she said it just made her wonder if the trainer was experienced and had done that kind of work before!

Sue Mennell, TJ Online Editor