Dale Carnegie’s Unlimited subscription benefits both customers and franchise partners

Aaron Kent, Dale Carnegie’s VP Franchise Performance Excellence, discusses the Dale Carnegie Unlimited training subscription.

Can you tell us a little about your background with Dale Carnegie?
I joined 20 years ago. I was a franchisee in Los Angeles, and sold my franchise in 2015. My title now is VP Franchise Performance Excellence. I provide learning, coaching and support to franchise partners. I provide them with tools for profitable growth. I lead the Franchise Partner Academy, and I’m involved with the Carnegie learning center. I’m also the brand manager for Unlimited.

What is Dale Carnegie Unlimited?
Unlimited is a Live Online subscription solution for employee training. It’s unique because the training is live. We know through research and data that utilization is better for Live Online versus point-and-click training – 70% versus 10%.

Customers get one to three years of access to the training. The monthly fee is based on the number of seats. They can schedule team members into our pre-existing Live Online events. There are also private Live Online programs available. The pre-determined schedule is customizable. The customer can choose some programs and not others.

The duration of the classes is shorter – as short as one hour, which appeals to employees. If an employer buys from us, they overcome a barrier to training – their staff will use it. 

How would it help a franchisee?
If a new franchisee taking over a dormant territory and comes in without sales people, Unlimited gives them a runway to build a client base and a team. With it, they do not need to provide any trainers. This way they can generate revenue immediately. There is also improved time-to-market. As soon as they learn to sell, they can get wins.

Historically, digital training is public, which is difficult to sell. The private online training provided with Unlimited is more desirable to customers.

Unlimited also helps a franchise partner when they sell their franchise. Because it is a subscription revenue stream, it is valued higher when a franchise is sold.

What does the future look like for Unlimited?
While there has been more of a return to work post-pandemic, in-person work has not recovered, so employers are still looking for online training options. Unlimited has experienced 50% year-over-year growth in 2022.

It was originally built with North American team members, but we hope to expand it to more time zones and languages.