I read a blog recently regarding someone making the decision to close down their RTO. Yes it was a hard decision to make and yes it had underlying factors for the decision. It also highlighted once again to me the ups and downs of having an RTO.

Working with people who want to set up an RTO I hear so often from people who have a will, BUT who haven’t identified a niche, or how they will be different to the rest of the 2000 RTOs providing the same scope that they plan on delivering. Having my own business I continually hear the words “ find a niche an inch wide and a mile deep”. This also applies to RTOs, they are businesses.  

Success come to those who see that niche, communicate with them (industry) and differentiate themselves from their competitors, whilst being able to harness technology to drive efficiencies. 

There is a client I work with who targets a specific industry, the industry needs a variety of training, but he customises it to this industry. Let’s say it is the vacuum cleaning industry…so he has business skills on scope (for the receptionists), front line management skills on scope (for the team leaders), safety (for the guys on the floor) and mechanical (the gurus doing the work). Everything is written to that industry, the advertisements, the material and the dialogue. He is finding a huge amount of clients fee paying knocking on his door, more than he expected, and he has just employed another trainer!

The RTO who closed down was receiving government funding and they found it difficult to be sustainable once the funding changes made an impact on them. I don’t know the exact details, however I do wonder that if they had really targeted their market place, would they have had to close down?

Is that what will be happening more and more during 2013?