Financial modelling training on a shoestring

Blog

all posts

all tutorials

Financial modelling training on a shoestring

by Rickard Warnelid on April 21 2009

It is a well-known fact among financial modelling training companies that certain sectors of financial training benefit from economic slow-downs. The main reason for this counter-intuitive fact is that people are looking to polish their CV in case they would be made redundant.

Corporate financial modelling training is taking the biggest hit

Not surprisingly the upswing in individual training is offset by corporates and institutions reducing training budgets to cope with the threats of recession. With many of the banks on a zero training budget for 08/09 this will keep causing a lot of pain in the financial modelling training sector. The net effect for most financial training companies is a reduction in total participants, and the hardest hit are almost always companies catering for corporate clients with high fees and costly overheads.

How do you get a good deal on financial modelling training?

If you want to use the current environment as an excuse to get a better deal on financial modelling training then you should read this. There are a number of ways of getting more attractive pricing when organising financial modelling training and in combination they can be quite effective

Have an open discussion with your training provider and ask them how you could bring the training fees down
Register multiple participants
Bundle up several training courses in one registration
Use early-bird discounts where applicable
Organise an in-house course (and provide catering, venue, printing, etc)
Offer to work exclusively with one training course provider
Ask for a last minute discount in the days before a course (just keep in mind that the best courses are often full due to the small group sizes)
Find a smaller operator who can be more flexible on price
Offer to provide testimonials or ‘success stories’ for marketing
Wrap the training fees up with other consulting work (say you are using F1F9 for model builds, why not ask if they can give you a good deal on the training too?)
Promise to recommend the course on LinkedIn, Facebook, your own website, etc (could be a tough one, but it’s worth a shot)

Universities market short courses in financial modelling

Many post-graduate universities offer short courses on financial modelling as part of their alumni and continuous learning programs. In Australia we have seen UTS Financial Modeling Certificate advertise frequently in the Australian Financial Review, and recently Macquarie Applied Finance have joined in.

Specialist modelling firms targeting individuals

Some of the smaller, niche training companies are now directly targeting individuals who are looking to prepare for a tougher job market. On the more aggressive end of the scale we have Financial Mechanics and Navigator Project Finance (including financial modelling in London) who both offer courses to individuals at 50% of the corporate rate. Fi-mech even made a big announcement about it, but Navigator seems to be quieter about this arrangement but they have also been reducing the fees for financial modelling training courses in London and Singapore.

Extract from Financial Mechanics newsletter, ‘The Swamp Fox’

Course discounts for ‘private citizens’
Making our training more accessible to students and between-jobbers

For students and those between jobs, we will be offering course tuition at a 50% discount to our commercial prices effective 1 April 2009 - no, not an April Fool’s joke. With financial modeling as a marketable skill in these times, we believe our hands-on teaching will provide practical techniques for those looking to hone their skills a bit further. Who qualifies?

Send this article to a friend

COMMENTS

[...] Excel is the backbone

Submitted by Do You Really Need an ‘Advanced Excel’ Course? (not verified) on Fri, 11/12/2009 - 01:16.

[...] Excel is the backbone to any custom built financial model, and one of the core attributes of a financial modeller is to have good technical Excel skills. When struggling with their financial models, some managers’ first reaction is to send their staff on an advanced Excel course to improve their modelling skills. However, with training budgets under constant scrutiny you really need to make sure that you get the best value out of your training options. [...]

John, I certainly agree

Submitted by Rickard Wärnelid (not verified) on Mon, 27/04/2009 - 13:25.

John, I certainly agree that ‘pre-approving’ testimonials is unethical and is bad practice. I have never heard of this being applied in the industry which is good. I quite like your idea of the ‘underwriting’ of financial modelling training spaces for the next x months. We have used a similar concept in the past called ‘training partners’ where companies actively using our training programs get an upfront discount based on their ambitions for the coming year. It is difficult to structure a formal framework where say a bank would by ‘tickets’ to a course, at a bulk discount, since often the decision and costs are absorbed by different departments with different training philosophies. I think that if the product/methodology/bran would be strong enough one should be able to deliver financial modelling training for free and essentially absorb the cost in the marketing budget. I can see a lot of problems with this approach (especially if you are a pure training company) but it is appealingly elegant – great training – zero cost. We are still some way off this, but I think that this could be a way forward in the future.

Rickard, All good stuff,

Submitted by John Richter (not verified) on Sat, 25/04/2009 - 04:06.

Rickard, All good stuff, no argument from me -- we of course stand by what we've announced and in general the ideas you've noted will have an impact on pricing discussions -- far more effective ideas than simply running with what I'd call the General Motors Plan, i.e. large firms simply jamming suppliers down on price without offering much value back. The testimonial one is tricky, and we've resisted this, as it weakens the sincerity of testimonials in general - pre-agreeing on a discount ahead of knowing that someone actually would honestly recommend it is tough. Last minute discounts definitely in the game, but in general, we offer discounts for firms / individuals willing to fly 'standby', i.e. no promise of a seat. We often do not offer last minute discounts, even if their is space on the course. One further thought -- as an idea. The 'bulk bookings' together with 'standby flexibility' are effective, as all training providers are 'load managing' their courses. For example: "What discount would you provide if we underwrote x individuals to be trained on y topics, fit on your courses anywhere in the next z months as long as you advise of us spaces at least one week before course starts." Food for thought, John Richter Financial Mechanics http://fi-mech.com [EDIT] Rickard Wärnelid corrected the hyperlink to Financial Mechanics [/EDIT]