It’s been 18 months that none of us could have expected but I’ve been delighted to see how confidence is returning to so much of the economy. I still see caution in some places but, increasingly, the summer has seen a more buoyant UK and a surge in business investment.
The particular area of investment increase that I’ve seen is, of course, in the money spent on sales team performance. With clients in property, healthcare, hygiene and finance, we have insight to a broad range of sectors. Across them all, bookings for sales training have increased hugely since May and all such investment is an indicator of confidence. Along with property and recruitment, training is one of those things that shows a belief in the future – you don’t take on a new office, hire new people or invest in the long-term improvement of team performance without the confidence that you will see a return on your investment (though, of course, downtimes can also see an investment in training as companies seek to maximise staff resources but it’s less widespread than in more buoyant times).
What does this mean for our clients and the wider economy?
For our clients, their businesses are growing strongly again and, for those looking to invest in more training, we look forward to helping them. It’s great to see teams back to full strength, back to work, back to the office (for most) and back to concentrating on business growth rather than handling the shutdown of our world.
For the wider economy, both in the UK and worldwide, it’s a wonderful step in the right direction. Of course, if we’ve learnt one thing from the last 18 months, it’s that we can never know exactly what’s going to happen in the future. But we can work hard to make the most of the present which always gives us the best chance of being prepared for the future, whatever that holds for us all.
With our training diaries 85% booked until the end of October, we’d advise that people get in touch quickly if they’re looking to give their teams a helping hand.
Here’s to sales continuing to go up, to business confidence staying up and to the increased smiles on people’s faces staying up. Bottoms up Britain!
