Four million small businesses now able to access new free training website

The recently launched website http://www.FreeTrainingDirect.com uses a combination of free video training, business resources, and step-by-step guides to give company owners and managers the chance to develop new skills without having to attend expensive classroom courses. This is the first time that a private enterprise has provided such a comprehensive training system totally free of charge to businesses in the UK.

After the lack of finance, the biggest single cause of business failure is lack of knowledge. This is especially true in the first few years of a business’ life, although knowledge gaps can cause serious difficulties at any time – particularly when conditions are tough as they are now. The website www.FreeTrainingDirect.com is a bold initiative that attempts to bridge the knowledge gap for the owner/managers of many small to medium sized business by providing a large range of business training online. The vital difference with this website is that all of the online business training is available to everyone totally free of charge.

In a recent interview, Managing Director John Graham said, “We are very excited about this initiative. By providing a comprehensive range of training, business resources and guides we believe that we can make a real impact on the success of businesses today. This is not a new model for us because we have been providing other specialist resources free to niche markets in the past. However, this is the first time we have rolled out such a large resource to the general small business community and the feedback we have had so far has been excellent.”

The free online training covers many of the key business topics including sales, marketing, management skills, coaching, delegation as well as providing step-by-step guides, for example on health and safety. While much of the material is produced in-house, other trainers are also featured on the website to provide a diverse range of approaches, styles and opinions.

MD John Graham added, “We intend to add to the material on the site month by month so that the content remains fresh and topical. Having said that, even now there is so much information on the site that most users only scratch the surface. One major benefit of such a diverse and comprehensive range of materials is that everyone takes something different from it depending on their individual needs.”

To use the website business owner/managers complete a very simple registration process and confirm their email address, and they then have full access to the whole site. On www.FreeTrainingDirect.com the video training is streamed directly to the users’ computers so that the material is instantly accessible and users can easily view whatever they want whenever they want.

The training materials are designed for use by businesses at all stages of their development whether new starts, or businesses that have been trading for some time but want to boost their performance. In addition to these business users, individuals who are currently employed and simply want to develop new skills, or are possibly thinking of starting their own businesses, will also find that the training material gives them an excellent start.

John Graham finished with this observation, “We believe by launching this website, we have revolutionised training for small businesses. It has always been a sad fact that the owners of small businesses are in a ‘Catch 22’ situation, they often need the training the most, but can least afford either the time or the money to undertake that training. We have eliminated both of these barriers. The training is free, and the business owners can view the videos at a time to suit themselves, from anywhere in the world. Each topic is broken into bite-sized chunks so that in just a few minutes, managers or owners can gain new insights into their businesses, and then return later for the next stage of their training. It is our hope that this training will help as many businesses as possible to improve and grow in spite of these challenging and difficult economic times.”

For more information visit www.FreeTrainingDirect.com and register online for free.