Chris Croft Training
Founded
- When? 1997
- Why? Because of a coincidence: the University Business School decided to cease its Management Training activities at the same time as
Chris Croft realised that it is possible to provide an effective service as a free agent. In fact there are a number of advantages which
come from not being part of an organisation:
- Lower overheads mean competitive pricing
- Freedom to redesign, adapt, make decisions which are best for the client
- Guarantee of quality for the client they always get "the man himself"
History
- Existing clients from the Business School have continued to use the services of Chris Croft Training, and have steadily grown in volume
- New clients added by referrals, and by customers moving to new organisations and continuing to use Chris Croft Training
- No advertising has been required
1997
- 'Time Management' published by Thompson International, and has been reprinted twice since
1998
- started making tapes for participants to have as revision aids
- first outdoor team weekend in the New Forest
1999
- wrote First Book of Management
2000
- all tapes made into CDs as well. Nearly all courses get a revision tape or CD included
- commissioned to do training work in the USA (Boston) and Germany
- designed a Best Value communication pack and presented at a national conference organised by the Idea on Best Value
- designed and ran a series of Development Centres for London Borough of Harrow in order to assess the commercial skills of their senior
managers, with custom-built exercises to test the competencies that they have identified as important
2001
- wrote Customer Care mini-book as a commission from Winchester and Eastleigh NHS Trust
- commissioned to do training work in Kenya
- asked back for the third time to present a session to the Grant Thornton annual IT Support conference
2002
- UK-based multinational client asked for a 4-day Train-the-Trainer course in Cairo for 18 of their Training Managers - one from each of
the African countries where they have offices.
Click here to see image from Cairo.
- Following a successful Sales course for the London office of an Australian software company they asked Chris to run the same course at
their head office in Melbourne.
- Began free tip of the month e-mail service. By the end of the year there were already 1500 subscribers.
2003
- Began running Certificate in Management (CMS) and Diploma in Management Studies (DMS) courses validated by Edexcel.
- Wrote and published pocket books on Sales, Project Management, and Time Management.
The future
- Continue to design and run courses
- Continue to enjoy training, and to find it satisfying
- Continue to develop and improve the courses
- Produce more books, probably small enough to cost less than £2 and give a short but meaty reference guide to subjects like Project
Management
- Continue to provide quality work at an affordable price
- Build client base selectively, working only for clients who really care about developing their people and who believe in positive
management methods
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