For the small business owner, side hustler, or entrepreneur deciding whether a training session is worth the time it takes away from the floor.
The first question I get from owners is some version of: is ninety minutes really enough? It is a fair question, and the answer is: enough for one thing. Not enough for five.
That constraint is the design. Here is the reasoning.
A day of training costs you more than the trainer
If you close a floor for a day, you lose the day's revenue, you pay the wages, and you pay again in the goodwill of whoever covers. For most small businesses that math never works, which is why the training keeps getting postponed to a quieter month that does not arrive.
Ninety minutes fits in the shape of a real week. Before opening. Between rushes. After close, with the door locked and the chairs still down. Split across two shifts so nobody misses a service. It is small enough that you say yes this month instead of next quarter.
People do not retain a day anyway
Sit through six hours of anything and you will remember two moments and a sandwich. Attention does not scale with duration, and neither does learning. The useful unit is not "how long were they in the room" but "what can they do on Tuesday that they could not do on Monday."
So I plan backwards from one behavior. One skill, sequenced properly, practiced out loud, written down in their own words. Ninety minutes is roughly the right interval for that: long enough to teach, demonstrate, rehearse, and debrief; short enough that nobody has drifted.
What fills the ninety minutes
Roughly: a short frame for why this skill matters on your floor specifically. A demonstration. Then most of the session is people practicing on each other: awkward the first time, noticeably better by the third. Then everyone writes their own version on a card they keep.
Notice what is missing. No icebreakers. No personality quiz. No slide deck emailed afterwards that nobody opens. The room is mostly people talking to each other, badly and then better.
The part that does the real work
Here is the thing I would want to know if I were buying: the workshop is not the intervention. On its own it fades, the way everything fades. So every program carries two weeks of follow-through: a challenge to use the skill three times while it is fresh, and a ten-minute check-in with the owner or manager to see what held.
If someone offers you a day of training with nothing after it, they are selling you the part that feels substantial rather than the part that works.
What ninety minutes will not do
It will not fix a staffing problem, a scheduling problem, or a manager problem. It will not turn a resentful employee into an enthusiastic one. If your issue is that people are underpaid and overworked, training is not the answer and I will tell you that on the phone.
What it will do is teach one skill properly to people who were never taught it, and give them a way to keep practicing. Done three times across six weeks, that adds up to a team that handles customers noticeably better. That is the claim. It is the whole claim.
Common questions
Is ninety minutes really enough time for training to work?
Enough for one skill, taught, demonstrated, practiced out loud, and debriefed. Not enough for five skills. The constraint is deliberate: attention and retention do not scale with duration, so a longer session mostly adds content that will not stick rather than more learning.
What makes a ninety-minute workshop different from a slide deck or a day-long seminar?
Most of the session is people practicing the skill out loud on each other, not listening. It is followed by two weeks of short follow-through (prompts to use the skill and a brief check-in), because a workshop with nothing after it fades the way any one-time session does.
What will a ninety-minute workshop not fix?
A staffing problem, a scheduling problem, or a pay problem. If the underlying issue is that people are overworked or underpaid, training will not solve it, and that gets said upfront rather than sold around.
If some of the gap is yours, this is the part you can schedule.
A 90-minute workshop on your floor or live online, built around your shifts, with two weeks of follow-through so it does not evaporate. $297 for one, $797 for all three. Give me two dates that work and I will confirm one.
Gina Wilt holds an EdD in Educational Leadership and Innovation and an MBA. She was university faculty and a director of professional learning, specializing in adult learning design and in teaching educators how to teach. She designs and runs NextReady Studio workshops and also runs Thrive Vibes, a community and learning-travel brand for people starting, growing, or rethinking a business.