people + skills = business
Training Counts helps professionals develop those all-important 'soft' skills that often determine business and career success more than 'hard' technical knowledge alone.
We're big fans of 'The Peter Principle' which sets out the dangers of ignoring these soft skills.
We have experience in the UK and internationally and across sectors, with particular expertise working with accountancy firms.
How can we help you?
Courses - design and delivery of in-room and online training
Conferences - delivering relevant and engaging content to large audiences
Coaching and facilitation - helping individuals and small groups
Courses
Most of our training covers three broad areas:
These courses are either short standalone workshops or we combine content into development programmes for staff at the start of their management careers.
We also design and develop training to meet specific client needs. Recent projects include:
- A two hour in-room workshop to ‘re-set’ managers’ expectations that staff management is ‘part of the day job’ and not ‘as well as the day job’.
- Production of a 30-minute elearning module on risk management, hosted on the client's LMS
- One day in-room workshop to help Year 2 trainees take ownership of audit assignments and get files 'manager-ready'
- A two hour online workshop on unconscious bias for insurance professionals working across Europe and North America.
Please get in touch if you'd like to discuss something similar (or indeed completely different!)
Personal impact skills
'Write gooder!':
effective business writing
3½ hours in-room or online.
For staff starting to become responsible for written output whether for internal or external audiences.
Key content:
- Before you write - purpose, reader and persuasion
- As you write - structure, style and spoilers
- After - proofreading and presentation.
Get in touch if you'd like us to send you a fuller outline.
‘Pitch perfect’:
presentation skills for business
7 hours in-room or online.
For staff becoming responsible for presenting, whether to brief clients, win work or deliver training.
Key content:
- Characteristics of a great presentation
- Managing the six key elements
- Deliver and review a presentation.
Get in touch if you'd like us to send you a fuller outline.
‘Working that room’:
networking skills for people who’d prefer not to!
3½ hours in-room
For staff apprehensive about working a room, whether to develop new business, maintain client relationships or simply develop a professional network.
Key content:
- Before the event - preparation and personal impact
- During - initial approach, introducing yourself and your organisation, getting from 'small talk' to 'talking business', exiting conversations
- After - follow-up, reflection and next steps.
Get in touch if you'd like us to send you a fuller outline.
Management skills
‘Having those tricky conversations’:
managing poor performance
3½ hours in-room or online
For staff becoming responsible for managing the performance of colleagues, whether or not as a formal line manager.
Key content:
- The 3½ reasons staff don’t always do what you want them to do
- Keeping feedback constructive and objective
- Dealing with ‘tricky’ conversations.
Get in touch if you'd like us to send you a fuller outline.
‘Finding The One’:
recruitment and interviewing skills
3½ hours in-room or online
For staff becoming responsible for interviewing and making selection decisions.
Key content:
- The six steps of a robust recruitment process
- Interview structure, skills and questions
- Practical ‘on-the-day’ preparations.
Get in touch if you'd like us to send you a fuller outline.
‘Taking that step back’:
mentoring skills for managers
3½ hours in-room or online
For managers wanting to have more meaningful career development conversations with their staff.
Key content:
- A basic mentoring model to use
- 20 questions to kick start your conversations
- Tools and techniques to develop the mentoring relationship.
Get in touch if you'd like us to send you a fuller outline.
‘Stepping up!’:
management development programme
1 to 5 days in-room or online
For staff at the start or in the middle of their management careers. We run a range of programmes for clients based on their particular development needs. Typically they cover some, or all, of the elements below:
Key content:
- Impact on business bottom line and career development
- Managing yourself: personal effectiveness, managing workload, technology and interruptions and assertiveness
- Managing others: delegating, instructing and giving feedback
- Managing clients: client lifecycle, office politics and negotiation skills
- Personal action planning and ongoing support.
Here are outlines of a few programmes we're currently running for clients.
Get in touch if you'd like to discuss ideas and options for your own development programme.
Business skills
‘So what exactly do accountants do?’:
business awareness for support staff
3½ hours in-room or online
For secretarial and support staff in accountancy firms.
Key content:
- Context of firm in UK professional services industry
- Explanation of key service lines, sectors and terminology
- Your role in delivering client service.
Get in touch if you'd like us to send you a fuller outline.
‘Talking numbers’:
an introduction to finance and strategy
3½ to 7 hours in-room or online
For staff looking to develop their financial literacy and credibility.
Key content:
- Navigating reports like P&L, balance sheet and management accounts
- Making numbers meaningful: margins, ratios and variances
- Understanding budgets: purpose, terminology and responsibilities.
Get in touch if you'd like us to send you a fuller outline.
'Have you got what it takes?':
business simulation
3½ hours in-room or online
For staff to develop their commerciality by running a simulated business in real time against other teams.
Key content:
- Introduction - understanding the business simulation
- Business simulation - real time business rounds against the clock and against your colleagues
- Round-up - winners, losers and key learnings.
Get in touch if you'd like us to send you a fuller outline.
‘The subtle art of letting someone else have your way!’:
an introduction to negotiation skills
7 hours in-room or online
For staff starting to negotiate, whether internally with colleagues or externally with clients.
Key content:
- The six stages of any negotiation
- Identifying your bargaining position and outcome options
- Practical case study of a commercial negotiating scenario.
Get in touch if you'd like us to send you a fuller outline.
Conferences
We have spoken at dozens of conferences and events of all shapes and sizes at home and abroad. Recent topics have included:
'The 7½ soft skills all professionals need'
'Why don't staff always do what you want them to do?'
'Working that room - networking skills for people who really don't like networking'
And feedback has included:
"Engaging, entertaining and puts across his message clearly and with humour. An excellent and well spent hour"
"A really amazing, upbeat and professional presentation"
"The presentation had everything - humour and brutal honesty of real life scenarios which everyone could relate to"
Get in touch to discuss your brief or chat through ideas and options to help your event succeed.
Coaching and facilitation
One to one coaching can usefully supplement or substitute classroom training. The focus can either be on skills or career development.
Recent coaching assignments have included working with the following:
- a senior lawyer to become more effective in their internal working relationships
- staff getting to grips with 360 feedback as part of their development academy
- a director in a mid-tier accountancy firm to develop a sales pitch for a new client offering
We also facilitate 'away days' for departments and firms. Recent examples have included:
- an away day for a regional accountancy firm to help them strengthen their teamworking
- an afternoon for a senior legal team to develop their teamwork and communication
- sessions with three new partners to help them understand what was expected of them
Get in touch
to discuss how coaching or an away day might benefit your staff.
The Peter Principle
This is a super little book and still holds true over 50 years after it was first published.
The basic idea of The Peter Principle is that people rise in organisations to a level of incompetence and then stay there!
OK, so it's a bit 'tongue in cheek', but for some firms there can be problems if training and promotions are based too much on hard technical knowledge.
At manager level and above, success is determined more by soft skills - an ability to manage yourself, manage a team and manage clients - than technical knowledge alone. So a technical superstar may struggle to operate successfully at these levels. And if they do struggle (and are seen to struggle), they're unlikely to be promoted any further - i.e. they've reached their 'level of incompetence'!
We're sure this wouldn't apply to anyone who's actually reading this! But the lesson for individuals and organisations is clear - of course technical knowledge is vital, but it's often assumed and 'taken as read'. It's going to be those soft skills (managing self, others and clients) that determine career and business success more.
So ignore them at your peril!
About us
We’re based in London but work across the UK and internationally.
We have a particular specialism helping ‘technical’ professionals, such as accountants, develop those all-important 'non technical' skills they need to succeed.
Our clients come from a range of sectors including financial services, property, insurance, accountancy, law, media, consumer goods, professional institutes and the public sector.
Our Director and lead trainer is Angus Farr, who is one of those rare breeds - both a Chartered Accountant and Chartered HR professional. We also involve a number of associates, depending on the assignment, all of whom have sound practical experience of their subjects and at the 'chalk face'.
Get in touch to discuss options and ideas:
T: 0203 397 1300
E: angus@trainingcounts.co.uk
M: 07535 875 271
P: 20-22 Wenlock Road London N1 7GU