Hebert brings ‘crazy, fun’ style to workplace training

LYSANDER  —  An energetic instructor can make any topic interesting, from customer service to sales, according to Joan Hebert.

“If you ever stand up and say, ‘I know this is dull and I know this is not fun,’ you’ve just shot yourself in the foot,” says Hebert, the principal of Hebert Performance Training. “I’ve got a crazy, fun style, and people seem to relate to it.”

Hebert’s company specializes in communications-related training for companies. That includes a range of topics, such as customer service, sales, leadership, team building, and presentation skills.

When it comes to employees and their supervisors, Hebert takes a divide-and-communicate approach.

“I always separate the employees from the leaders,” she says. “I like to be close to the folks and have them be honest with me and open. They’re not going to do that with their boss in the room — they clam up.”

While she may like to train workers separately from their supervisors, Hebert also makes sure she works with those bosses. For example, she focuses on three types of information when instructing supervisors in customer service, she says.

“One is a condensed version of what the employees received, so the supervisors know what to enforce,” she says. “The second is a mini-coaching skills training, and they practice with me one-on-one on giving feedback. And then the third piece of that leadership customer-service program is an organizational view, looking at all the facets of serving customers.”

Hebert is Hebert Performance Training’s sole employee. She founded the company in 1997 and runs it from her home in Lysander.

Major clients include Time Warner Cable, Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals Inc., the Oneida Indian Nation, National Grid, the U.S. Department of Defense, Citizens Savings Bank, and New York State. Hebert trains employees on-site, meaning she travels around the country to locations including Albany, Chicago, and Denver.

New clients can come from referrals and the company’s website, www.heberttraining.com, Hebert says. She also speaks at human-resources conferences and training confabs to drum up interest and find new clients, she adds.

“You’ll speak somewhere, and you may not get the call for six months to two years,” she says. “There could be a very long lead time.”

Hebert tries to customize training for different companies to meet clients’ needs. That can mean putting on training sessions in the middle of the night for third-shift workers, Hebert says.

It could also mean addressing certain issues specific to the client, she adds. 

“I tell clients to tell me their dirty laundry,” Hebert says. “I have clients provide me with actual scenarios and issues their leaders run into, so we can actually talk their world, their issues, their terminology.”

Hebert declined to share revenue totals for Hebert Performance Training. But she projects revenue growth of 20 percent in 2012.

Companies pulled back on training as the economy tightened in the last few years, according to Hebert. Now they’re starting to show interest again, although they often take extra time before finalizing a training contract, she says.

“I would say from the fourth quarter of 2011 to now, I’m seeing a lot more places starting to pursue training,” she says. “There is still a very long lead time. A lot of places, they look at it and they sit on it.” 

Background

Hebert founded her company 15 years ago, after spending the first part of her career with AT&T. She began with the telecommunications company in 1981 as an operations technician, then moved into marketing and training in the mid-1980s, and officially focused on training starting in 1989.

“Where I fell in love with training was at AT&T,” she says. “I did management-development training, and it kept me on the road pretty much coast to coast. I’d go to 10, 12 cities. I developed a lot of the management training.”

While at AT&T, Hebert helped develop programs to teach collections and supervisory-management courses, which included technical skills and soft skills like coaching. At the end of 1993, she decided to take a leave from the company to earn a master’s degree from Syracuse University in organizational communication.

Two years later, Hebert resumed her career at AT&T, where she remained until departing and starting her business in 1997.

“The timing was good,” she says. “I was ready to do it. I very much enjoy training any topic. People always tell me, ‘Joan, your
energy, you are so psyched.’ I tell them, ‘If you’re not excited about your material, employees certainly aren’t.’ ”