​​​​George Marcou

Towards the end of 2008, I decided that in order to take my interest in personal development to the next level, I would take the opportunity to join one of the main promoters of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) in the UK.

This move fulfilled three of my ambitions in a single move:  

• To work with high-end trainers

• To deliver training to external customers

• To continue developing myself both personally and professionally, using some of the most effective methodologies.

NLP Life Training represented some of the best proponents of NLP and personal development methodologies.  These included one of the co-originators of NLP, Richard Bandler as well as world renowned trainers and authors, Paul McKenna and Michael Neil.

I had the opportunity to see them work and to spend time with them, picking their brains.

This helped me enormously while I built a new corporate training department for the company.

The original brief for the role was to achieve 2 £million in revenue in the first year which we decided we could best accomplish through delivering training to the public sector.  Securing these contracts would take the bid and tender management skills that I had first seen at Delphi Information and then practices and refined at ZEAG.  Our initial efforts were well received and looked set to be successful.

Within 2 weeks of starting this role, our bankers withdrew the facilities that would support our bids and left us in the same position as so many other businesses as the recession deepened.  Looking for a new plan.

We dusted ourselves off and decided to pursue training directly with many of the organisations that had sent their executives to our seminars.  

These included government departments, leading banks, car manufacturers, telecommunications manufacturers and networks, leading supermarkets, major construction companies and may other blue-chip companies.

I approached all of these and secured appointments to conduct a training needs analysis, formulated responses in conjunction with our senior trainers and secured contracts and agreements to deliver the training.

Within 6 months, were on track to achieve the targets set out for the year, when market forces took their toll.

The recession and the disappearance of many corporate training budgets, combined with the withdrawl of support from the company's bankers and the intervention of HMRC eventually cut the project short.  It was a good initiative, but brought in too late to save the company from being forced into liquidation.

This did not dampen my enthusiasm for professional development or training delivery.