From Knowledge to Action: How to Turn Learning into Real Business Results

In my 40 years working across business, leadership, and education, I’ve seen the same frustration play out time and again.

Business owners and professionals invest hours—even days—attending workshops, enrolling in training, or reading books on strategy and leadership. They walk away inspired, with a notebook full of ideas… and then life gets in the way.

The notes gather dust. The enthusiasm fades. And nothing changes.

The truth is this: learning doesn’t create results—action does.

And bridging the gap between knowledge and action is where I spend much of my time as a business mentor, coach, and trainer.

Why knowing isn’t enough

We’ve all been there. You attend an amazing seminar, hear brilliant insights, and think, “That’s exactly what I need to do.” But the next day, the emails, client calls, and staff issues pull you straight back into the daily grind.

This is why so many training investments feel like a waste—not because the content wasn’t valuable, but because there was no plan to translate that value into day-to-day practice.

My work focuses on making sure the learning sticks and delivers a tangible return—not just for individuals, but for entire organisations.

Step 1: Set your intention before you learn

The first step to turning knowledge into results happens before you sit in the training room.

Ask yourself (or your team):

• Why am I doing this training?

• What do I want to be different afterwards?

• How will I know if it worked?

For example, if you’re attending a leadership course, your goal might be:

“Within three months, I want to have introduced weekly one-to-one check-ins with my team to improve communication and engagement.”

When you start with a clear purpose, you listen differently. You filter information through the lens of “How can I apply this to achieve my goal?”

Step 2: Take “action notes,” not just “information notes”

Most people write notes that simply repeat what the trainer said. The problem is, those notes are passive—they don’t tell you what to do.

I teach my clients to write action notes alongside their regular notes. These are short, clear instructions to yourself about how you’ll use the information.

Example:

• Information note: “Social media can build brand loyalty.”

• Action note: “Create a monthly calendar of client success stories for LinkedIn, starting next Monday.”

This tiny shift makes an enormous difference to follow-through.

Step 3: Apply immediately—even in a small way

Learning loses its power the longer it stays unused. In fact, research shows we forget up to 75% of new information within a week if we don’t apply it.

That’s why I encourage my clients to take one small action within 48 hours of completing training.

It might be booking a meeting to share the key points with your team, trialing a new process with one client, or drafting a plan for a bigger change.

Immediate action does two things:

• It reinforces the new skill while it’s fresh.

• It creates momentum—and momentum is more reliable than motivation.

Step 4: Measure the impact

If you want lasting results, you need to know whether the changes are working. Choose a clear metric that reflects your goal, track it consistently, and review it after a set period.

For example:

• If the training was about sales skills, track conversion rates before and after.

• If it was about productivity, measure output or project completion times.

When I work with mentoring clients, we set success markers during our planning session so they know exactly what to monitor. This makes it much easier to demonstrate ROI—to themselves and, if relevant, to their stakeholders.

Step 5: Build accountability into the process

This is where so many businesses fail. Without accountability, even the best intentions get lost in the noise of daily operations.

As a coach and mentor, one of my roles is to provide that accountability—checking in regularly, troubleshooting challenges, and making sure action steps don’t get pushed to the bottom of the list.

Accountability doesn’t have to come from a professional coach (though it certainly helps). You can also:

• Pair up with a colleague and hold each other to your commitments.

• Report progress to your team in a meeting.

• Set public deadlines for implementing changes.

Step 6: Embed learning into daily routines

Motivation will always ebb and flow—but routines are dependable.

When I help a business embed learning, we look for ways to weave new skills into the regular workflow so they become “just the way we do things.”

Example:

• After time management training, a company might introduce a fixed weekly planning session for all staff.

• After customer service training, they might add a “customer success” story share to every Monday meeting.

By building the skill into a routine, you make it sustainable.

Step 7: Keep learning alive

One of the biggest mistakes I see is treating training as a one-off event. In reality, learning is a continuous process. That’s why I work with clients to create a learning culture in their business—where new ideas are tried, discussed, and refined regularly.

This could look like:

• Monthly “lunch and learn” sessions.

• Sharing takeaways from books, podcasts, or industry events.

• Encouraging staff to present on a topic they’ve researched.

A real-world example

I worked with a client in retail who had invested in customer experience training for their team. The sessions were engaging and full of great ideas, but a month later, sales figures hadn’t shifted.

When I came in, I realised nothing from the training had been embedded. Together, we created:

• A “customer-first” checklist for staff to use on every shift.

• A five-minute daily huddle to review wins and challenges.

• A monthly mystery shopper report to measure progress.

Within three months, customer satisfaction scores had improved by 27%, and repeat business was up 15%.

The training content hadn’t changed—but the application had.

The takeaway

The leap from learning to results doesn’t happen by accident. It’s a deliberate process:

• Set your goals before training.

• Take action-focused notes.

• Apply something immediately.

• Measure progress.

• Build accountability.

• Embed changes into routine.

• Keep learning alive.

I’m Janette Comish, and I’ve spent my career helping business owners and teams turn ideas into action. My focus is on practical education—the kind that drives measurable improvements in performance, profit, and personal confidence.

If you’re ready to make your next investment in learning truly pay off, I can help you create an action plan that sticks.