Notes From a Former Head of L&D On The Value of Finding Partners, Not Providers

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 TODAY’S THOUGHTS ☠️

Hey there 👋,

I’ve come to the point in my career where I’m old enough and been in the industry long enough to gather a few war stories.

Some are good, and others are bad, but they all contain valuable lessons.

Take, for example, the time when I experienced the WORST learning platform supplier experience I’ve ever had, and how that led to work with one of the best products and teams in the industry (at that time).

I feel like that’s one worth sharing with you.

So today, we’re exploring the value of finding partners, not just providers, for long-term success with your learning tech.

Get your tea or beverage of choice ready 🍵.

We've got lots to discuss!

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 IN THIS DROP 📔

• Finding your tech partner, not just another provider

• The team behind the product is super important

• What happened to Google’s learning science AI Model?

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 THE BIG THOUGHT 👀

Why You Should Find A Partner, Not Just Another Learning Tech Provider

As a former Head of L&D, I was the decision maker on choosing many learning platforms and products for organisations.

There’s something I notice many people get wrong.

It’s not only about who has the best technology, you also need to consider the people behind that platform, too.

You want a partner who will help you realise the potential of the product, not a team that leaves you high and dry after you’ve signed the contract.

I’ve been on both sides of this experience.

When I first joined one of my previous employers, I inherited a legacy learning platform from a big name vendor (no, I’m not going to say who for the drama).

I won’t sugarcoat it, the platform was basic and more akin to a glorified database.

Actually, I’ve seen better looking and functioning databases. Employees agreed, as they never used it. For the first 6 months in the business, I could hardly find more than 2 people who knew this thing was real.

The problem was that the company was in the 2nd year of a 3-year deal when I joined 😱

(Note to you all, never sign 3-year deals without prior proven performance within your organisation with the platform already.)

Now, I believe I did what any good L&D pro should do.

I spent time understanding the platform’s capabilities so I could see if we were underutilising any of its features (as so many teams do), and find ways it could help our employees. After a few weeks doing this, the conclusion was that it was very limited, more like a content-dumping site.

At this point, I’d already reached out to our vendor account team.

I’d had few replies, and when I did, they usually went along the lines of “Please look at this documentation on our help hub”. I don’t want the help hub. I want some actual account support.

Long story short, after many failed attempts to speak with anyone for any support, I worked with my procurement and legal team to see what we could do contractually.

We couldn’t stay with this platform if we wanted to support employees.

As part of this, we (as in our little group of me, procurement and legal) finally managed to be graced by the presence of a regional country director from the provider and their team. I thought this would be the time when we’d get some real support on doing more with the platform and making it a success.

I was WRONG.

The call went a little like this…

Me: I’d love to find ways we can make better use of the platform and understand what features will be coming up on the roadmap. Right now, we’re not making the most of this or our partnership.

Director: Sorry, but we’re not here to help with that. Once you’ve purchased the licenses its up to you to figure this out. I’ll send you links to our help centre with common questions.

I’m paraphrasing, but you get my drift.

3 weeks later, we dumped them as a supplier.

This event created an opportunity that led me to one of the best vendor partnerships I’ve had in my career. Like most sensible L&D pros, I spent time window shopping platforms and partners for a few months. I eventually came across a small but mighty team whose product I kept hearing about from people I trusted, so I thought, ‘There must be something here’.

[Note: This was about 8 years ago now, and that small company went on to be purchased by a much larger company after their success. I’ll leave that mystery for you to figure out.]

I had many providers banging at my door wanting to show me their ‘game-changing platform’.

In no surprise to anyone, none of them was that.

Yes, they had good features that would no doubt prove useful, yet, being burned once by a big name supplier with terrible partnership relations had me less compelled by platform capabilities and more focused on support behind the scenes, too.

Questions that consumed me were:

• How will this provider help me make this platform a success?

• Do I have access to long-term customer success?

• Can I have input on features and integrations?

• What can we learn from their other clients?

For most of the providers I spoke with, they struggled to make me feel good about any of these.

That brings me back to our lesser-known company with a smaller team. Don’t let that description fool you, though. They might not have had the vast financial resources of the industry’s big players, but they knew how to craft a good customer experience.

My first meeting with them was unusual.

I mean that in a good way because they didn’t try to sell me anything (which is rare in this line of work). Instead, they asked me about the challenges I was facing in the workplace and unpacked more about the specific context of my organisation.

I was surprised but also felt refreshed.

Of course, we got to the tech eventually.

The platform was simple but incredibly intuitive. It had features, which at the time were unique but have been copied by countless others since, that worked for what I was trying to achieve.

So, I was impressed.

Yet I was more impressed when I got to:

• Speak with existing clients about their experiences

• Meet with the CS teams to understand rollout plans, embedding strategies and long-term development

• Pilot the platform with no strings attached for 60 days (this was, and I still believe, quite rare)

These are things that no other provider that came to my door was willing to entertain.

To move this story along, we did the pilot, it went great, and we had a fantastic partnership with this company until I exited my organisation 3 years later.

I learnt a few valuable lessons from this experience:

• Seek partners, not just providers

• The people behind the product are instrumental to your success

• Don’t discount the small and niche teams over the ‘big names’, if it fits your context

• Never sign long-term contracts with any provider until you’ve completed an initial 12-month engagement

So, as you hunt for the next best platform or any piece of learning tech, keep this in mind.

Final thoughts

There you have it, friend.

A part cautionary tale and part good practice in the world of buying learning technologies. In typical fashion, I expanded upon this in my ultimate guide to buying learning technology for modern L&D teams.

→ If you’ve found this helpful, please consider sharing it wherever you hang out online, tag me in and share your thoughts.

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 VIDEO THOUGHTS 💾

What Happened To Google’s Learning Science AI Model?

In early 2025, I covered Google’s LearnLM, an experimental AI model trained specifically on learning science principles.

Since then, I’ve had a flood of messages asking: Where did it go? Is it dead? Can you still use it?

In this video, I share how you can still take advantage of LearnLM’s learning science features and where to access the best tools and prompts to get real educational value from it today.

Enjoy 😊.

Till next time, you stay classy, learning friend!

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