Believe it or not: Postcard marketer discovers government pays to train small business staff

18 August, 2005, Clearwater, FL — There is a buzz going around the nation now: Empower your people, train them up to better serve the public. We all expect better staff training in airport security, civil engineering, and health-care staff. Even people with disabilities are given training to give them a better chance to be contributing members of society. But CEO, Joy Gendusa, of PostcardMania has decided to take advantage of a federal training program to ensure her full-time employees are better trained in her own industry – marketing. The result: happier, more competent employees increasing the percentage of satisfied customers.

Today there seems to be a widespread sentiment of ensuring staff of small businesses receive the necessary and proper training to not only get the job done, but get it done better. In Pinellas County, the new slogan that governs their incumbent Worker Training Program is Pinellas County Florida Means Business. This program is funded by the Federal Workforce Investment Act (WIA) and administered by Workforce, Florida, Inc. The purpose of the program is to provide grants to employers to assist with certain expenses associated with skills upgrade training for full-time employees of the company.

PostcardMania (www.postcardmania.com) plans on using this grant money to train their full-time employees in graphic design, printing, sales, customer service, marketing and PR. Before finding out about the grant, plans were already on the way to remodel their warehouse into a staff training facility equipped with audio-visual equipment, dictionaries, training manuals and reference materials for their industry. Training staff was not a new concept – the only thing that was new was that the government would help.

The purpose of The Federal Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998 is to consolidate, coordinate, and improve employment, training, literacy, and vocational rehabilitation programs in the United States, and for other purposes. It is up to each different state as to how they will actually utilize the appropriations. WIA offers a full scope of workforce development activities through statewide and local organizations.

These activities are geared to help the participants in employment, job retention, earnings, and occupational skills improvement. This, in turn, improves the quality of the workforce, reduces welfare dependency, and improves the productivity and competitiveness of the nation. Yet, many employers are not aware of the Federal WIA much less what their state is doing in regards to it.

I believe on the job training is essential to creating a good staff team who are all in coordination and can really serve the customers to the highest degree of excellence. It also makes the individual employee feel more certain and secure, not only in their job, but in their personal life as well stated Joy Gendusa, Training staff is such a needed commodity, but it can get very expensive for the small business owner. I am certainly glad that the government has a program such as this to help the small businessman and businesswoman succeed. I just wish more business owners knew about it.

For more information about WIA in your area, visit your state government website and search for WIA. In Florida, visit www.workforceflorida.com

PostcardMania is a full-service postcard direct mail marketing company which includes graphic design, printing, mailing list acquisition and mailing services – with the unique service of in-depth marketing advice at absolutely no additional cost whatsoever.

For more information about direct mail marketing with postcards or to request an interview or inquire about a speaking engagement with Joy Gendusa, visit PostcardMania at www.postcardmania.com or call 800-628-1804.

About PostcardMania: PostcardMania (www.postcardmania.com), founded by Joy Gendusa in 1998, is a full service direct mail postcard marketing company providing businesses with full service postcard direct mail marketing which includes graphic design, printing, mailing list acquisition and mailing services with free marketing advice.