Before Buying Training, Define the Work It Should Improve
An Entrepreneur contributor recommends exploring skills before paying for training. Trovo’s takeaway: define the task, budget practice time, and test the work before expanding the commitment.
Explore a skill before paying for training, then judge learning by how it changes your work. That is advice Peter Murphy, CEO of Pocket Prep, offers in his September 29, 2026, Entrepreneur commentary on career pivots. Murphy recommends recurring study time, repeated practice, and applying the material rather than treating a credential as the endpoint.
Murphy’s article is contributor opinion, not a study measuring employee-training returns. Trovo’s interpretation: For an owner considering a course purchase, the useful decision is whether it addresses a specific task worth improving.
Give training a specific job
Before approving an expense, name what the employee should be able to do afterward, the standard the work must meet, and who will evaluate it.
That could mean preparing an estimate without the owner rebuilding it, completing a production setup accurately, or handling a routine customer issue without escalation. Record the current problem so the review has a baseline.
If you are examining leadership bottlenecks, start with a recurring task awaiting delegation. Treat course completion as a checkpoint; base the handoff on observed work.
Budget practice and supervision
Illustrative assumptions: A bakery assigns one employee 20 minutes of portioning practice, five days a week, for four weeks. That totals six hours and 40 minutes of employee time, excluding instruction, preparation, and supervisor review. No financial return is assumed.
The owner could compare portion consistency, discarded dough, and preparation time before and after the pilot. Faster preparation would be a poor outcome if consistency deteriorated. Better consistency might justify more practice even without a speed gain.
The immediate trade-off is capacity: who covers the employee’s other duties during practice? Include that coverage and the supervisor’s time in the budget. A limited pilot keeps the initial commitment small, but leaves a question to test later: can the employee maintain the standard during a busy shift?
If training is part of an expansion that requires borrowing, Trovo’s funding check can provide initial funding-profile context. It does not assess expansion costs, debt payments, or affordability; evaluate those separately. For the course purchase itself, choose one task, assign a reviewer, and set a review date before committing to a larger program.
Related coverage: What Owners Can Use From the New Financial Literacy Plan.
