Open Courses

Currently available in-house - Book this course!

An organisation is truly evaluated by its customers, opinion formers and the media on how it communicates through a crisis. With crises coming in all shapes and sizes this workshop is designed for PR professionals who may have to advise senior managers on managing an organisation’s communications process during a crisis.

Level

In-house PR managers, account managers and account directors within PR consultancies.

Content

• What makes a crisis?

• Common mistakes to avoid

• The four phases of a crisis

• Drawing up a crisis communications plan

• Best practice – lessons learnt from the past

• Strategies to employ in a crisis

• Tactics to deploy in a strategy.

Outcome

Delegates  will have the confidence to advise management during a crisis and will be equipped with strategies and tactics to ensure that their organisation or client communicates effectively during the four distinct phases of a crisis.

Currently available in-house - Halfday course - Book this course!

Working in PR is a balancing act between servicing the needs of clients (and media) whilst getting things done efficiently and effectively. But what happens when things go wrong? Go in too softly and you won’t be heard or taken seriously, go in aggressively and you’ll generate conflict. This workshop provides useful tips on developing assertiveness so that you’ll be able to stand your own ground without alienating others.

Level

Account executives and account managers

Content

• Recognising when to be assertive

• Using assertive body language techniques

• Planning what to say

• Dealing with criticism

• Handling someone who constantly ‘dumps’ work on you/takes the credit

Outcome

Delegates who attend this course will learn the difference between assertiveness and aggressiveness and pick up practical skills on how and when they can be assertive.

Currently available in-house - Book this course!

Designed for PR consultancies this course looks at the client/consultant relationship. It explores effective approaches and techniques for developing successful long-term, profitable clients and dealing with difficult and troublesome client relationships.

Level

Account managers and account directors.

Content

• Understanding and managing client needs

• Matching needs with benefits

• Negotiation structure and techniques

• Closing the deal

• Interpreting the brief

• Identifying key result areas

• Implementing the programme

• Managing the profitability

• Dealing with overservicing

• Developing and selling new projects

• A client satisfaction toolkit.

Outcome

Delegates  will be equipped with the confidence to deal with different types of clients. They will also be armed with a range of strategies and techniques that will help them to develop effective working relationships.

Currently available in-house - Book this course!

Creative ideas make us more successful. But too much creativity is lost in the workplace by a natural focus on delivering the more functional parts of our working roles. This course helps delegates to understand the different thinking processes required to maximise creative potential in the work environment. And how to translate that into the best of brainstorms, using real case studies and very hands-on participation.

Level

Account managers, account and associate directors and in-house professionals who participate in or run brainstorms and want to learn how to get better at releasing their creativity.

Content

• How to set up and run a brainstorm session

• Brainstorming techniques at four progressive levels

• Understanding and overcoming the biggest barriers to creative thinking

• Applying creativity to specific types of challenge or opportunity

• How to analyse and evaluate creative ideas

• How to sell original ideas to clients

• Live brainstorming sessions on current projects.

Outcome

This course will enable you to learn and apply the creative thinking techniques that are used by everyone from award-winning creative directors to professional comedians. And you will take away with you an array of fresh ideas for a current project.

Currently available in-house - Book this course!

Description

This highly interactive one-day course gives delegates the tools to write business documents that are clear, simple and persuasive. It covers everything from the basic rules of good business communication to more advanced techniques used by professional writers. Tips on grammar are also provided.

Level

PR staff who need to write more persuasively or to convey information more clearly and succinctly.

Content

• Writing with authority

• Capturing and holding the reader’s attention

• Communicating key messages effectively

• Using the right language • Making a winning case

• Conveying bad or disappointing news

• Fixing cumbersome sentences

• Structuring documents to maximise readability

• Speeding up the writing process

• Sidestepping common grammar traps

• Avoiding classic business writing mistakes.

Outcome

By the end of the course delegates will know how to apply the principles of good business writing to a broad range of documents including: emails, reports, profiles, proposals, briefings, client updates and business cases.

Currently available in-house - Book this course!

Description

Designed for new entrants at any level, this course covers the key issues you need to understand to start a career in the PR business.

Content

• What is PR? - how it fits in with other marketing communications

• Types of PR - consultancy, in-house, government, public sector

• PR Disciplines - consumer, corporate, financial, public affairs, crisis, internal, digital

• Sectoral PR - B2B, charity, healthcare, fashion…..

• PR activity - reactive / proactive / interactive /international

• Target audiences - who, where, how they perceive you, priorities

• Addressing audiences - communication objectives, what needs to change

• Strategy & tactics - definitions and differences, objectives and evaluation

• Tools - what we have to work with, potential hidden assets

• Messaging - key messages, their power and available channels

• Media landscape - overview of the media and how it is changing

• What makes news? - realistic views and examples from different angles

• Presenting your message - making your story stand out, writing press releases

• Pictures - what makes a good PR picture with examples, good / bad

• Spokespeople - who should be spokesman? - often not the obvious person!

Outcome

From attending this course, delivered by one of the leading trainers in the sector, you will be able to select areas for further development while being able to undertake the basics.

Currently available in-house - Book this course!

This course  focuses on the key levers that affect profitability and how they can be managed to ensure that staff are effective without being over-worked or over-stretched.

Level

Directors responsible for team, client and agency management. Also Account Directors with Board potential.

Content

• Key ratios – what are they and what do they tell you?

• Why ‘time’ should be your currency not £s…

• Over-servicing – the root of all evil – and how to kill it!

• Understanding ‘utilisation’ and ‘capacity’

• Estimates and Quotations

• Understanding management accounts and forecasting

• Revenue and Capital expenditure.

Outcome

Delegates  will be able to optimise their firm’s financial performance and maintain profitability even when the unpredictable happens. They will understand the different ways of managing time and fees to ensure that over-servicing is reduced (eliminated entirely) and that better time management always leads to greater staff satisfaction and improved morale.

Currently available in-house - Book this course!

Those who attend will learn how to think beyond any current inhibitors to business and market success. Delegates will gain a clearer understanding of their leadership style and the way that their style impacts upon morale, motivation and the development of “followers”. The course includes work on delivering and receiving feedback and the process for creating inspirational and robust direction.

Level

Designed for account, associate and board directors.

Content

• Processing the details of reality

• Strategic realities

• Team reality check

• Political realities

• Buy-in reality • Implementation realities Influence – making a clear impact

• Influential leadership styles – profiling tool • Who do you need to influence – stakeholder mapping – proximity mapping

• Behaviour and influence

• Feedback – the breakfast of champions

• Personality and influence Vision – creating an engaging picture of the future

• From Mission to Vision

• Choosing the arena for your Vision

• Creating and sharing a motivational Vision of the future

• Making it happen Motivation and Communication – keeping up momentum and bringing people on board

• Motivation is based on Science

• Motivation needs careful planning

• Communication is not only a process but an interpersonal skill.

Outcome

Delegates will leave the course with a clear steer as to next steps in establishing their leadership within their business - “Live the Vision”.

Currently available in-house - Halfday course - Book this course!

This half-day course provides personal understanding and the requisite skills to achieve more efficiency in managing the wide range of tasks and demands experienced daily in a busy PR agency or corporate office. It looks at time management in the context of personal effectiveness: managing our priorities and work/life balance in such a way that we feel more in control of our lives and at one with our long-term aims. It also explores how to alleviate the classic Catch-22’s faced by managers.

Level

From executive assistant to senior manager - anyone who wishes to improve the way in which they manage their time

Content

• Time Management: what it is and what it isn’t

• Understanding personal effectiveness

• Effective prioritisation

• Attitudes to time

• Personal organisation

• Understanding and beating the procrastination habit

• Tackling time stealers

• Effective delegation

• Personal action plans

Outcome

Delegates will gain a clear understanding of how they can prioritise their workloads, be more proactive and increase their productivity and avoid the stress build-up which is often the result of poor time management.

Currently available in-house - Book this course!

Description

This course will give PR agency directors, account and associate directors vital commercial skills. It helps delegates to understand the key factors involved in winning, managing and growing client accounts profitably. It examines the factors affecting profitability and how to monitor and control them. The session aims to provide senior account handlers with the commercial skills necessary to ensure that their firm is properly paid for the work that it does.

Level

Directors responsible for team, client and agency management. Also Account Directors with Board potential.

Content

• Growing client/accounts – the 9 things we all forget to do!

• Winning new business – establishing a profitable basis

• Estimates and Quotations – the fundamental flaw

• Client contracts – what’s important and what’s not

• Negotiating the deal – a simple method to ensure optimum profitability

• Dealing with difficult client contract demands.

Outcome

Delegates who attend this course will be able to manage their clients and accounts effectively to ensure that they optimize profitability and growth opportunities. Their teams will enjoy greater clarity of purpose and higher satisfaction. The firm will grow faster and enjoy greater profitability.

Currently available in-house - Book this course!

Pitching a story into the media - print, electronic or broadcast -is perhaps one of the most challenging tasks facing the PR professional today. The media receive thousands of approaches every day and most are unsuccessful. This course gives delegates a clear and winning strategy to successfully place their story in the media. Once you have been on this course you will notice an instant increase in your hit rate!

Level

Account executives, account managers and in-house PROs who wish to increase their success rate at placing stories in the media.

Content

• Common problems encountered when selling in a story

• The key ingredients for a strong story

• Riding the News Cycle

• Constructing an angle that sells your story

• Tailoring your story to fit the different media

• Knowing who you are selling to

• Knowing the media timetable

• Building the media contact list

• Telephone techniques and tactics

• Following up your pitch

• Leveraging your story through interviews and photography.

Outcome

Delegates will be equipped with the confidence to deal with different types of journalists and furnished with the strategies and tactics to successfully pitch in stories to all types of media.

Currently available in-house - Book this course!

This course helps delegates to understand that the key to successful strategic planning in Public Relations is to ensure that communications objectives are aligned with business and organisational objectives. The result is that PR is at the centre of the organisational stage and the tactical implementation of the strategy developed is relatively straightforward.

Level

Account managers, account directors and senior in-house professionals responsible for establishing public relations strategy in support of marketing and corporate objectives. Some experience of planning and implementing communications tactics is assumed.

Content

• Characteristics of strategic PR

• Managing creativity and creating the environment in which it flourishes

• Crisis and issues management

• Writing objectives and a framework for evaluation

• Issues facing PR, including the strategic impact of new technology

• The personal dimension and developing strategic habits.

Outcome

Delegates  will be able to appreciate the strategic issues that lie behind successful PR planning, understand the characteristics of strategic communications and how the components of public relations planning fit into the ‘planning pyramid’.

Currently available in-house - Book this course!

The Internet is fuelling one of the biggest shake ups in society since the industrial revolution – the digital revolution. Increasingly clients and senior managers are asking for advice about wiki’s, blogs, podcasts and vodcasts. How can PR use the super publics of MySpace and Facebook? And what of the virtual worlds such as Second Life? What can Flickr offer a campaign? What should we do if a client’s brand is subject to a hate site, spoof site or worse an anti site? How can we utilise webcasts and SMS texting. And what is a prosumer? How is the media reacting to the digital revolution and how can PR’s harness these changes? This one-day workshop takes you through the dynamic world of E-PR and helps you understand what is on offer, how to devise effective strategies and deploy cut through tactics.

Level

Suitable for everyone who wants a greater insight into the fast changing world of the Internet and its impact on companies and consumers

Content

• The Internet & Web 2.0 – a very brief history
• The changing Environment – a new landscape for PR
• How the media is responding to the changing landscape
• The Death of the consumer & the birth of the Prosumer
• Blogs
• Social media sites
• Prosumer sites
• The Dark side of the web
• Hate sites
• Anti sites
• Your Media Shop Window – The website and how best to use it
• Monitoring, Measuring and Motivating on the web
• New Channels - New Tactics
• Running Multi Media Campaigns – strategies for web 2.0.

Outcome

From a combination of insightful teaching and dynamic practical sessions delegates will be equipped with the confidence to take advantage of the fantastic opportunities the Internet offers while also being able to counsel clients on when to and when not to use E-PR.

Currently available in-house - Book this course!

This course provides a realistic insight into the day-to-day activities involved in working in PR, whether in an agency or a corporate or marketing communications department. Level It is suitable for staff who are joining a busy PR agency or department for the first time or for more senior staff who are moving into PR from a different job.

Content

• What is PR
• Good PR v bad PR
• Planning and targeting
• Media relations - knowing who to approach and how to sell in
• How to be news aware
• Press release essentials
• Organising press events
• Overview of most common PR tools
• Managing budgets
• Evaluating PR.

Outcome

This course will give you an insight into the practical skills needed to implement core PR activities, providing you with the confidence needed to deal professionally with the media and suppliers.

Currently available in-house - Book this course!

This course focuses primarily on pitches and credentials presentations. It includes work on strategy, the nuts and bolts of putting the presentation together, mental preparation and, most importantly, the delivery itself. Please note that you will be invited to bring with you and deliver a short presentation at the beginning of the session.

Level

Account managers, directors and executives: anyone who has to pitch.

Content

• Understanding personal impact

• What wins the pitch?

• Audience strategy

• Structure, preparation and prioritising your messages

• How to maximise your personal style

• Mental preparation and handling the fear factor

• Handling the Q&A.

Outcome

By the end of the course delegates will have a clear method for preparing the presentation, will understand how to maximise the impact of their messages and be more self-aware and self-confident in their delivery. They will gain an understanding of how to give their presentation a genuine edge.

Currently available in-house - Book this course!

This course introduces delegates to current performance management best practice. It focuses on how to develop your team, it assesses successful approaches to team leadership and how to communicate and motivate your team to realise their full potential.

Level

managers who want to develop their team leadership skills.

Content

• Defining team types and the roles within the team

• Assessing your style of leadership

• Motivating team members

• Setting and communicating clear objectives

• Delivering effective feedback

• Establishing training and coaching needs

• Using effective delegation

Outcome

Delegates will learn to appreciate the issues that lie behind successful team leadership, understand the characteristics of teams and how to communicate with their teams to improve their performance.

Currently available in-house - Book this course!

This course provides a practical guide to the day-to-day activities of an account executive, enabling you to make a valuable contribution to the implementation of client programmes.

Level

Account executives who are joining or have recently joined a busy PR consultancy, or administrators who have been promoted to an account handling role

Content

• Team role explained

• Juggling different projects

• Servicing clients – building trust and rapport

• How to take a brief – from client or colleague

• Dealing with the media

• Press release essentials

• Planning and organising PR projects

• Overview of most common PR tools

• Feeding back and writing reports

Outcome

This course will equip you with the practical skills needed to implement core PR activities, providing you with the confidence to handle clients and media professionally.

Friday February 19 - Book this course!

A vital role within any PR consultancy, the account manager is the person at “the coal face”, dealing with clients and the media, devising PR programmes, implementing tactics and supervising staff. As such, it one of the most demanding and challenging roles within an agency. This workshop will equip you with all the skills necessary to make you a first rate account manager who can multi-task with confidence.

Level

Senior account executives and recently promoted account managers within PR consultancies

Content

• What makes a good account manager?

• Classic manager skills and how to gain them

• Project management in an ever changing environment

• Planning and allocating resources

• Team management – delegating upwards and downwards

• Building confidence and assertiveness skills

• Techniques for handling difficult clients

Outcome

Delegates will gain the skills and confidence to lead their team, handle clients successfully and implement and manage a range of PR programmes.

Currently available in-house - Book this course!

Arguably the most important position within an agency in operational terms is that of the Account Director. The role requires a combination of management expertise and strong inter-personal skills in order to get the very best out of the team. Add to this the need for strategic insight, project management expertise and client handling skills to complete the demands of the role. This workshop brings all these skills into play, sharply focusing on how to become the very best in this most vital of all vital agency roles.

Level

Senior account managers and recently appointed account directors within PR consultancies.

Content

• What makes a good account director?

• The secrets of good team management

• Getting the most out of all your resources

• Handling clients

• The financial perspective

• Developing strategies that clients will buy

• Growing your portfolio in revenue terms

Outcome

Delegates  will gain the skills and confidence to develop their team so that they deliver supreme client satisfaction and great campaigns.

Currently available in-house - Book this course!

This course focuses on the many challenging skills required of the successful manager if they are to manage their teams to perform effectively.

Level

Designed for managers with minimal management experience, and for those aspiring to become managers who wish to develop their management skills.

Content

• Understanding the manager’s role and how it can affect team performance

• Identifying leadership styles

• Dealing with difficult people

• Managing performance

• Motivation and delegation

• Developing your staff.

Outcome

Delegates will learn to appreciate the approach necessary to become a successful manager, understand the characteristics of difficult people and how to deal with them and how to communicate with, motivate and develop their teams.

Currently available in-house - Book this course!

Winning new business starts well before you get that call to pitch. What will bring business to your door? What is your proposition, your relationship with the market place, your reputation? How will you put your consultancy in a position to win, not just to pitch? This workshop looks at how you generate new business, and how this approach can be sustained. It examines how you create opportunities for generating new, new business, and new business from existing clients. It suggests ways in which to develop a new relationship with your own consultancy in the context of business development so that you can determine and plan for continuing growth and success. The course will include the opportunity to work on conversion with live examples.

Level

Senior managers and directors of PR agencies wishing to enhance their new business prospects.

Content

• Marketing your agency. What’s your proposition and how do you build on this for market clarity, definition and difference.

• examining of the sources of new business and how you develop the framework for identifying leads.

• Creating sparks. Starting and sustaining relationships with potential clients.

• Networking for new business. Developing spheres of influence and building on the relationships which will work the market for you.

• New for old. Winning new business from existing clients. Adding the WOW factor, building the basis for new work and expanding the brief.

• Fuelling the flame. Moving from warm to hot. Conversion issues and opportunities.

• Whose credentials are these? Considering what the client needs to hear.

• Strategies for new business development. How to develop yours.

Outcome

Delegates will be able to plan their new business strategies with greater sense of purpose, and clearer picture of the likely results.

Currently available in-house - Book this course!

The press release is your strongest tool and this course teaches you to use it wisely. Delegates will learn how to identify the strongest elements of a story to produce a cleverly crafted release with ‘sticking’ power.

Level

Designed for those with limited or no formal training in writing press releases. Suitable for in-house and consultancy personnel.

Content

• Understanding news value

• Review of good v bad releases

• Common grammatical mistakes

• Layout essentials

• How to get started • Building the story

• Formula for writing headlines

• Keeping copy snappy

• Techniques that can strengthen the story (including quotes, case histories, endorsement)

• How to adapt a news story for specialist media, TV or radio.

Outcome

This practical course provides you with a foolproof formula for writing successful press releases that you can then adapt for any sector.