I spent the early part of my career BEING trained brilliantly as part of the then IPC Graduate Training programme, and then managing others and coaching new starters on the sales teams I led to get them established as confident sellers – at that time selling print advertising and creative solutions originally  at IPC Magazines and then ‘Nat Mags’ as it was before becoming Hearst.

It was when the PPA approached me to write a bespoke workshop for one of their members on ‘creative selling’ that I first designed and delivered a training day –  and I just loved it! 

That was more years ago than I’ll confess to here, but it sparked an exciting new career-path, enabling me to work with a very wide variety of clients, understand the challenges their sales team were facing and then create practical, engaging training solutions with clear metrics for implementation and actions to apply immediately.

Incredibly my client base today spans over 195 media and non-media organisations – from multi-national public companies to small local, family-run enterprises. 

I adore the process of learning about a new business, how it’s evolved and where the commercial challenges lie. 

The more open the client, the more inspired I can become to create a training solution to exactly fit the brief.

It never gets dull and no two training events are ever the same. 

Even after all these years, it’s still nerve-wracking just before any training session begins, and it’s still brilliantly exciting to watch delegates sit forward, jot down notes, nod in agreement, take me to one side during the break to ask a quiet question which may have been concerning them for a while.

I’ve been lucky enough to have built my career in the fast-changing media world and I’m energised and enriched by constantly updating our training programmes to embrace new technologies, new platforms, and new commercial challenges. 

As ‘Gen Z’  enters the multi-generational workplace, ‘soft skills’ training is increasingly important to ensure that we can continue to build confident and effective sellers to take our opportunities to market and drive new business opportunities for all.

Working alongside me and sharing my belief in making training fun, engaging, practical and ‘real’ – I am lucky enough to have a carefully selected group of associate trainers who each bring their own years of experience and expertise into the training room, delivering our programmes with energy and enthusiasm.