One of the single biggest Covid rescue packages of its type in the UK is hoping to save thousands of jobs and transform the business economy of South Yorkshire.
Training – which is one hundred per cent fully-funded - for hundreds of business owners and staff is being fast-tracked in a bid to stave off the very worst of the impact of the pandemic in Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham and Doncaster.
The pioneering Plan. Grow. Do. programme – which is financed by Skillsbank – is providing the Sheffield City Region’s businesses with the critical skills to compete in a world that has been fundamentally changed by the pandemic – a world many South Yorkshire businesses won’t survive in unless they undergo radical change.
Steve Knapp (pictured left) of Plan. Grow. Do said: “The heavy industrial base of the Sheffield City Region has been built on traditional methods of selling and marketing. Covid-19 has dealt a body blow to everything from face-to-face networking to doing business on the golf-course.
“Businesses need to transform their marketing and selling methods to survive in the post-Covid world. Doing it the way they’ve always done will no longer work.”
50 business leaders from the Sheffield City Region were invited to trial the Plan. Grow. Do. training in July/August 2020 and the results exceeded all expectations.
Skillsbank - which is part of the Local Enterprise Partnership – is now funding hundreds more places and want’s the region’s business sector ‘digitally fit’ by March 2021.
The Plan. Grow. Do. programme has been devised by two of the region’s most influential sales and marketing experts. All of the training will be delivered live and online.
Steve's inspirational selling techniques are still the cornerstone of one of the world’s biggest brands – Shell. In 2019 he released his best-selling Amazon book ‘FunnelVision – Selling Made Easy’ which has introduced his pioneering teachings to businesses and entrepreneurs worldwide.
Rob Taylor – a Sheffield-born award-winning marketing expert who has worked with the likes of Amazon and Google – has won plaudits for his work helping over 300 traditional businesses embrace and harness the power of the digital economy in recent months.
He said: “Covid-19 has seen great swathes of the business community switching to working online. New buying habits have been formed and if businesses don’t embrace this new way of working, they won’t have a business.”
Their Plan. Grow. Do. training programme is specifically geared to helping businesses and entrepreneurs to re-think their business model.
