In this blog, we share a glimpse into the training experience of our new franchisee Nicola Anderson (pictured left, back row) which included a week away with franchisor, Kate Chastey (pictured centre, front row). The pair immersed themselves in the launch of Nicola’s business and on the Wednesday were joined by the whole team for a masterclass delivered by Abigail Barnes of Success By Design Training.
We Do Things Differently
Once upon a time, Kate had a dream. She wanted to create a business full of incredibly capable, talented, driven people where each was nurtured and encouraged to create their own personal version of success. No hierarchy, no egos, no pretentiousness – simply great people doing great work and achieving their full potential.
That dream is now a reality!
In May 2022, Kate welcomed another new franchisees to #TeamPassionatePA. Nicola began her Franchisee Training on the 3rd May with a jam-packed calendar of learning. We provide a mix of self-led online learning through our bespoke e-learning platform which hosts our full Operations Manual and many other bespoke courses too.
Kate also works 121 with each new franchisee to provide masterclasses and upskilling in all areas of business management. Kate says “I don’t teach new franchisees how to be a PA, I teach them how to run a business, build and develop a client set to be proud of and most importantly, market themselves correctly to their ideal client. In today’s world, having great business support skills is not enough to be successful as a freelancer – you need to know how to actually run a business too.”
The Training Retreat
Nicola’s training experience included a whole week away! She and Kate relocated to Stroud (half way between them both) for four and a half days to immerse themselves in the set up and launch of Nicola’s Passionate PA franchise.
Monday: Settling in to the AirBnB and dinner with Laurey, another member of the team from ‘up north’.
Tuesday: Professional photoshoot with our amazing team photographer Cerrie Simpson and the whole team arrived for dinner together for the first time since September 2021!
Wednesday: Full team masterclass with guest speaker from London.
Thursday: Nicola and Kate spent the whole day working on Business Development with masterclasses, client enquiry calls and a great cheese board for dinner!
Friday: We recorded Nicola’s introductory video for her webpage – see more here.
Nicola said “this was such a fabulous week! Better than I could have imagined. Every day was different. A little scary with some things I’d never done before but Kate provides such genuine and calm support that nothing seemed impossible. The result of this week was a sense of real achievement and I’m raring to go… bring on the clients!”
The Team Masterclass
After our lovely team dinner on Tuesday evening, Wednesday morning brought even more excitement. Three times a year Kate organises masterclasses for everyone. These are opportunities not just to come together as a team but to learn, explore, develop and upskill.
May’s masterclass was on the topic of Productive Well-being with sensational speaker Abigail Barnes. Abigail’s business is Success By Design Training and she was enlisted to help us all view productivity in a fresh light…
Abigail is an international speaker and trainer and author of ‘Time Management for Entrepreneurs’. She works with ambitious professionals, driven business owners, companies, founders and CEOs who want to increase productivity and improve work-life balance for themselves and their teams. She teaches how to prioritise tasks not time, maximise resources to improve efficiency and focus on the activities that create results.
Abigail understands human motivation and uses her own life-changing wake-up call to inspire, motivate and teach audiences how to transform their mindset and results. She leaves audiences excited, ready to take action and begging for more. From the outset Abigail was engaging, supportive and very fun to work with.
“This came at just the right time for me and helped secure my motivation to make the changes necessary to reset my mind, body, and soul!” said Debbie Frith, our longest standing franchisee.
Steph Taylor, who joined in November 2021, added “The event was itself a masterclass in how to build a high performing team through investment, development and team spirit. The energy, camaraderie and commitment in the room was amazing. Everyone brought something different to the table which was not only accepted but celebrated and shared.”
Watch our video to see the week unfold…
After the masterclass, Jenni Bowman also shared “quite often in life, social media photos and posts can be manipulated to make things look far better than they really are. However, coming together for a PPA Masterclass is every bit as wonderful as the photos look, if not more so. As a group we share laughter, tears, experiences, solve problems, discuss client work and of course, there is also a day of learning. Learning together as a team brings out the best in all of us. It can often be difficult to find time in a busy working and family life to have an away day, however it is ALWAYS worth it.”
If you would like to know more about our incredible team, please click here or, if you’d like to explore joining #TeamPassionatePA, please click here!
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