Business training ranges from rigorous, career-changing programmes to laminated slides in a hotel conference room. The price tags overlap; the outcomes do not. Before committing your budget, or your team's time, ask these seven questions.
1. Who is actually teaching?
Not the brand, but the person in the room. What have they taught, where, to whom? Do they carry real academic credentials, and have they run a business themselves? The combination is rarer than it should be.
2. Is there a syllabus?
Serious training can show you, in advance, exactly what will be covered and in what order. If the programme cannot be written down module by module, it is inspiration, not education.
3. What standard is the content?
Ask what the material is benchmarked against. University-level content, the standard of an MBA or master's programme, is a different product from motivational content, even when the topics sound alike.
4. How big is the group?
In a room of forty, you attend training. In a cohort of four, you are trained: questioned, challenged and made to apply the material to your own organisation. Group size quietly determines how much of the fee turns into capability.
5. Does it fit how you work?
Can they deliver in person, at your offices, and online? Can content be tailored to your sector and your team's actual situation, or is it one deck for everyone?
6. Is progress assessed?
Assessment and evaluation are how training proves itself. If nothing is ever measured, "it went well" is the only outcome you will ever have.
7. Is the pricing honest?
Clear, published pricing is a mark of respect for the buyer. Vague pricing usually precedes a negotiation you will not win.
Our answers
Kings Business Academy publishes its full course list and pricing: twelve-module group programmes in cohorts of four from £750, and one-to-one sessions from £170, taught personally by Dr Martial Godo, a university business lecturer at Global Banking School (part of Oxford Brookes University) and the proprietor of two businesses. Judge us by the seven questions; we wrote them expecting to be asked.