Successful corporate training business seeks dynamic franchise owners

Are you truly passionate about working with people? Do you have a strong commitment to professional and personal excellence? Do you believe you could excel in a corporate training franchise?

If so, you could be the type of person sought by Simon Thiessen, founder and CEO of The Real Learning Experience . After more than a decade of successfully delivering corporate training programs in Australia, The Real Learning Experience has launched a corporate training franchise group with a strong vision for the future.

“We are establishing franchises in all major states, and building Australia’s first high profile, national brand in corporate training for excellence,” Simon says.

“To date, no single company has dominated the corporate training market in Australia. There are registered training organisations that deliver competency-based training and small training companies in various states, but no one has taken a leadership position in training for excellence,” he says.

The Real Learning Experience programs are developed in Australia for the Australian market, and the business coaching franchise company has trained more than 100,000 people from major organisations including News Corporation, Telstra, Cadbury, the Federal Department of Defence and the Department of Premier and Cabinet in Queensland and in Tasmania.

“In fact, Tasmania’s two most recent Premiers have undertaken training with us, which is an excellent endorsement of our programs,” Simon says.

So why are The Real Learning Experience’s programs so effective?

“We know that people learn from doing, not just listening, and so all our programs are developed around dynamic activity, involvement, engagement and fun,” he says.

“We train in the key performance areas where organisations want to raise skill levels and effectiveness, including sales, leadership, teamwork, organisational effectiveness and culture change, personal effectiveness and customer service.”

The Real Learning Experience training franchise system has been developed over three years by Simon and his team working with PricewaterhouseCoopers, who have a specialist franchise division.

“Everything in the company has been done with a focus on developing the franchise group. We’ve invested a significant amount of money, and we now want to attract the right kind of people who can work with us in building a very successful national brand,” Simon says.

The key attributes he is looking for are a real love of working with people, a keenness to facilitate learning and a very strong focus on personal and professional excellence.

Franchise owners will need to have $40,000 for the franchise fee, plus startup funding and must have the drive to build a flourishing business. You also need to be able to relate well with the corporate market aged 25 – 55 years. A high level of energy is important as this is what drives a great training session. Simon keeps fit by participating in triathlons.

“If you give out a lot of energy and you are really passionate, you sweep people up and they respond with their own energy. This is when real change can occur, and you can go home at night absolutely buzzing from the experience,” he says.

But the true satisfaction comes from seeing people develop their skills and knowledge, and achieve outcomes that previously weren’t possible for them.

New franchise owners spend four weeks training full-time with Simon, including observing real-life training sessions. There’s an art in managing a group, and knowing when an activity is needed, when it’s time to ask a few provocative questions or time to take a break, and this is all part of the training program.

“You always go in with a game plan, but you need intelligence, self-assurance and quick thinking to deal with challenging situations and change tack if necessary,” Simon says.

Franchise owners are provided with ongoing training support, training materials and local marketing tools, and are supported by a central marketing campaign and website. An exclusive territory comes with each training franchise.