Every organization faces this question eventually: Should we build our manager training in-house, or should we buy it?

Building is often the dream. You get full control and can tailor the training content to the exact issues your managers face is in your unique industry, based on your organization’s values and real-world scenarios.

Unfortunately, building a training you can really be proud of from scratch takes 6-12 months and costs $50,000-$150,000+ in opportunity costs. Ouch.

So, understandably, most organizations next look into a reputable manager or leadership training provider. Finding a provider is it’s own part-time job, but on the bright side, you can shave months off your timeline. Still, buying comes with it’s own headaches: per-seat pricing that makes your CFO cringe, schedules challenges, and off-the-shelf content that you know you’re going to eye-rolls about.

Neither build vs. buy gives you what you actually need: exceptional content you can customize, own, and deliver on your timeline.

The stakes are high. Managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement. People don’t leave jobs—they leave managers. The quality of your manager training directly impacts retention, productivity, and your bottom line. But you know all that!

What if there was a third option? Here’s what the science tells us about what actually works when it comes to leadership training, and why we believe the future of manager training looks different than both building and traditional buying.

Why Manager Training Works
(When It’s Done Right)

Let’s start with the good news: Investing in manager training pays off. A rigorous study by Bianchi and Giorcelli found that upskilling managers led to a 6% increase in sales. Gallup research shows similar results—companies with effective manager training see an 18% increase in employee engagement.

But not all manager training is created equal.

The difference between training that transforms your organization and training that wastes everyone’s time comes down to three critical factors identified in decades of organizational psychology research:

1. Behavior Change Takes Time and Reinforcement

One-and-done workshops don’t work. Research consistently shows that behavior change requires:

• Spaced repetition over weeks or months
• Practice opportunities between learning sessions
• Accountability structures like peer coaching or manager check-ins
• Application of skills to real workplace scenarios

This is why the most effective programs use a series model (typically 3-5 sessions over several months) rather than a single intensive workshop.

2. Research-Backed Content Matters

Effective training isn’t based on opinion or intuition, it’s built on empirical evidence. Do any of the examples below surprise you?

• Research by Gallup and Workhuman shows that only 1 in 3 employees feel recognized for their work, and those who don’t receive recognition are twice as likely to quit
• Building equal relationships across teams isn’t just nice to have—Nishii and Mayer’s research found that teams where managers have great relationships with everyone have the lowest turnover, while teams with uneven relationship quality have the highest turnover.

Teaching managers on how to give recognition and build relationships looks different when it’s based on the latest research. The best training programs cite their sources and build content directly from peer-reviewed research.

3. Practical Application Beats Theory

Managers need concrete tools, not abstract concepts. Effective training provides:

• Specific scripts and frameworks they can use immediately
• Reflection exercises that help them apply learning to their own teams
• Clear action steps with measurable outcomes

Research from training effectiveness studies shows that the gap between knowledge and behavior is huge. Giving managers a framework without practice is like teaching someone to swim without letting them in the water.

The True Cost of Building In-House

Now let’s talk about what it actually takes to build effective manager training from scratch.

Typical timeline: 6-12 months

Here’s what’s involved (we’ve done it!):

• Research phase (2-3 months): Review academic literature, conduct needs assessments, analye your internal data, synthesize into initial outline
• Content development (2-4 months): Turn outline into storyboard, write out full script, edit script, create slide deck draft, create illustrations and visuals, develop activities and exercises
• Pilot testing (2-3 months): Run pilot, gather feedback, make revisions
• Facilitator training (1-2 months): Train your team to deliver the content effectively
• Ongoing maintenance: Update content as research evolves, refresh materials, onboard new facilitators

Resource requirements:

• Subject matter expertise in organizational psychology, DEI, management best practices
• Instructional design capabilities
• Graphic design for professional materials
• Data analysis to measure effectiveness and ROI
• Project management to coordinate it all

Conservative estimate: 500-1,000 hours of skilled labor to develop a high-quality multi-session program. AI could possibly cut down on this amount, sure. But you’re just as likely to get AI slop and burn through even more hours.

For many organizations, this translates to an opportunity cost of $50,000-$150,000+ in employee time, not counting the managers who aren’t being trained while you’re building.

When Building Makes Sense

Building in-house can be the right choice when:

1. You have the expertise in-house. You have organizational psychologists, experienced instructional designers, and subject matter experts on staff with the bandwidth to dedicate to this project.
   
2. You’re training at massive scale. If you’re training 10,000+ managers and plan to run this program for many years, the upfront investment in building will pay off over time.
   

The Problem with Traditional Buying

Here’s where most L&D teams get stuck. Traditional buying options come with significant limitations:

Per-seat pricing models are the industry standard. You pay $150-500 per participant, every time you run training. If you have 100 managers and want to train them twice a year, you’re looking at $30,000-$100,000 annually. We know because this is what we charged as consultants and live training providers. The good providers know the market and know their worth; there’s no getting around it.

Consultant-led training gives you expertise, but you’re stuck with their availability and customization limitations. Need training next month? They’re booked until Q3. Want to run multiple cohorts? That’s additional fees for each session. That’s the business model, and we get why—scheduling live humans is tough.

Off-the-shelf vendor programs can’t be customized (much). You can’t add your company’s engagement data, adjust examples to your industry, or modify the content to reflect your culture. It’s usually take it or leave it. While some providers will allow for some customization, they usually don’t.

Platform subscriptions lock you into annual contracts with per-user fees. The content is often generic, managers have to squeeze training into their already-packed schedules, and completion rates are dismal because going through training alone feels like a check-the-box exercise.

For growing companies with capable L&D leaders, these options don’t make sense. You need quality content, but you want some control and flexibility. You want professional materials, but you understandably need to customize them. You’re willing to facilitate training internally, but don’t have time to build from scratch.

A New Option: Ready-to-Run Customizable Training

There’s an emerging model that solves the limitations of both building and traditional buying: licensable training programs.

This is the philosophy behind Leadwith. We provide the raw materials for elite manager training—expertly designed and tested editable slides, complete facilitator scripts, and participant resources. You tweak to make it fully yours. This option includes:

• Expert Foundation: Every module is built on peer-reviewed research.
• Internal Branding: You can add your company’s data, specific examples, and brand voice to the materials.
• Scalable Ownership: You license the materials once and use them forever, without per-seat SaaS fees.

Who This Works For

You own it, you can modify it, and you can build it on your timeline. You’re not starting from scratch, but you’re not renting either.

This model is ideal for organizations that:

Have internal L&D capacity to facilitate training. You have skilled L&D professionals or trained facilitators who can deliver workshops—you just need high-quality content.

Are growing and don’t want to be locked into per-seat pricing. If you’re scaling from 50 to 200 managers, per-participant fees will 4x your training costs. A one-time license scales with you.

Need flexibility on timing and frequency. You want to train managers during onboarding, run refreshers every six months, or deliver training in cohorts that fit your calendar, not a vendor’s availability.

Value customization. You want to integrate your company’s engagement survey data, adapt examples to your industry, and make the training feel authentically yours but you don’t want to start from zero.

Want to build internal expertise. Instead of outsourcing forever, you value building your team’s facilitation skills and owning your training infrastructure.

Who This Doesn’t Work For

Licensable training isn’t the right fit if:

• You don’t have anyone internally who can facilitate workshops (you need consultant-led delivery)
• You’re a very small organization (under 20 employees) and will only train managers once

The Economics Make Sense

Let’s do the math:

Traditional per-seat pricing:

• Train 100 managers at $3,000/10 manager cohort = $30,000
• Train them again next year = $30,000
• Add 50 new managers = $15,000
• Three-year total: $75,000+

Leadwith licensable training:

• One-time license per program: $2,995
• Internal facilitation costs: minimal (existing L&D time)
• Train 100 managers, then 150, then 200
• Run refreshers quarterly if you want
• Three-year total: $2,995

For growing companies, the math is obvious.

What Leadwith Offers

Leadwith was created specifically to fill this gap. Each program includes:

• 80-100 editable slides with professional design
• Complete facilitator scripts (word-for-word if you want them)
• Facilitator guide with communication templates, engagement tips, and objection handling
• Demo videos showing delivery from different presenters
• Research guide with 15+ peer-reviewed sources
• Participant resources with actionable templates and scripts
• Pre/post surveys to measure impact
• Lifetime access with updates

You can add your company logo, insert your engagement data, adapt examples, adjust timing, and deliver on your schedule. The research-backed framework is proven. The customization makes it yours.

Each of our training programs has been refined through delivery to 25,000+ leaders across organizations like Workday, Lattice, ThredUp, and more. 

The Bottom Line

The build vs. buy dichotomy is outdated. There’s a third path: licensable training that gives you research-backed content, full customization, and ownership without the time and cost of building from scratch or the ongoing fees of per-seat models.

Building from scratch makes sense for a small number of organizations with unique needs, specialized expertise, and time. Traditional buying works if you don’t have internal L&D capacity, are okay with off-the-shelf content and don’t mind recurring costs.

But if you’re a growing company with skilled L&D professionals who can facilitate training, licensable programs offer the best of both worlds: expert content that you own and control, at a one-time price that makes sense.

The goal isn’t to create something entirely new or to rent someone else’s content forever. The goal is to give your managers the skills they need to build engaged, productive teams—efficiently and at scale.

Because while you’re debating build vs. buy, your best people might be planning their exit.

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