When Craig Worcester and I launched our very own training consultancy back in 2000, three years before Trainers’ Library was born, we felt the need to make ourselves seem bigger than we were. We felt that, unless we looked big, potentially large customers wouldn’t consider us. We thought that the sort of customers we dreamed of having (and subsequently got) would want to be assured that we could manage contracts of any size and scope and that the service we were providing was not going to be reliant on our good health.
We thought that appearing ‘big’ would give us more gravitas, more power and more credibility.
So, we created a lovely ‘corporate’ brochure, and matching website that instead of referring to Rod, or I (because initially, it was only me doing the training) referred to me as ‘we’.
We could do this and we could do that and we were huge and global and really, how could you not have heard of us? Really? You’ve never heard of People Development Company (Online) Limited? (Oh yes, we had a truly awful name back then too – created at a time when we all wanted to be ‘online’ which actually meant, wow, we’ve got a website and everything! We’re so HUGE.)
I see other consultancies following this approach of bigging themselves up every week – with every associate who’s ever crossed paths with them given some hugely flattering title and appearing in the ‘about us’ section of a very flashy website.
This isn’t to suggest that all training companies are smaller than they seem – many really are large. But I’ve known some consultants go to extraordinary, even unscrupulous lengths to make their business seem bigger than it is. For example, one of my colleagues was recently asked if she could be listed on a training company’s website as a member of their team. She’d never even met the trainer concerned, yet alone worked with them. (And no, he or she is not a Glasstap customer.)
The thing is, what I found is that my customers didn’t want ‘big’. They wanted, at the risk of sounding big-headed, me. For better or for worse they’d bought me and they knew what they were getting – me.
Whenever I needed to use associates to help me roll out programmes, I actually found I faced barriers from my customers. There’d be a pause, an intake of breath and loads of questions like, “Will they deliver the training like you would?” “How do we know what we’re getting?” I’d have to explain in detail how we recruited our associates and how brilliant they were. (And they were – some of them are still working for us today as writers.)
So, to big it up, or keep it personal? It’s a dilemma that every new training consultant faces. I just know that, if I had my time again, I’d have the confidence to just sell myself, rather than the illusion of a big business. Because, in our business, (as in many others actually) people buy people. Just being ourselves is often our most powerful marketing tool and the best way to stand out from the crowd in an increasingly corporate world.