On Tuesday 6th September 2022, four budding entrepreneurs decided to start a new Health and Safety company and so, at one of the houses of the soon to be new Company Directors, a meeting was held to discuss the concept and henceforth, You Can Do It Training Ltd (YCDI) was born.
Like most things, everything starts somewhere and like all companies, our first task was to decide on a branding campaign, so, in a pub in a sleepy village in Stone, Jon, Shaun and James met with a website designer to design the company webpage youcandoit.training.
After this hurdle was complete, it was the simple task of getting the accreditations and move on. How naive we were!! Whilst applying for an accreditation seems quite simple, it is quite the opposite, as some of the biggest hurdles are credit and due diligence checks, and when a company has only existed for a week or so, there is literally nothing to check.
The other big immediate need was office space. Whilst office space is quite abundant in Stoke-on-Trent, office space with ample parking isn’t, so started our search for a suitable home to base our operations and we all agreed, The Bridge Centre in Birches Head was perfect. So, on a sunny morning we descended onto the bridge centre, had a lovely meeting with Kath the centre manager and hey presto, we agreed a deal and moved in on Tuesday the 16th September to start our new venture.
The next few weeks was all systems go! The new Directors entertained themselves, buying furniture, equipment etc that we would require to become a successful training business. This period of time was the hardest, the calm before the storm shall we say, as we all started to find our feet together, despite our enthusiasm.
The first accreditation we got was from a lovely Gentleman who runs QNUK and as such, allowed us to start trading almost immediately and so began our journey.
Numbers were low to start, and truth be told, we aren’t yet packed out but we are getting there with plenty of external courses being held as one thing we know is people and as companies buy from people and we have fantastic relationships with businesses in Stoke and surrounding areas.
The next accreditation was IOSH which turned out to be time consuming as we had to prove previous experiences as well as history to prove we could actually do as they ask in relation to training. This turned up out of the blue and gave everyone the much-needed push to move forward with the business and to start making progress. One thing we could definitely offer was our trainers as both Shaun and James are both Chartered members of IOSH and therefore, they both offered themselves out to offers for training. This actually worked out better than we thought as when they were approached, we spoke to the company in question and struck a few deals where we could train under their accreditations on their licences.
As the days rolled on, we welcomed our first members of staff, Amber Blakemore - Office Manager, Mathew Tabbinor - Head of Key Accounts, and Samantha Williams - Head of Customer Engagement and our first external Trainer - Katherin Stephenson, who will take over the mantle as the primary First Aid Trainer at YCDI.
The most recent accreditation we have received is our CITB Licence. To say we are ecstatic is an understatement to say the least! With many orders waiting to be booked, this is a real game changer for us as we already have courses booked in with orders to be confirmed
YCDI consists of the following entrepreneurs, Jon Taylor, Paul Bailey, James Boden and Shaun Blakemore. Shaun and James are both Chartered Members of the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, Paul is a Technical Member of the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, and Jon is a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Management.
Since we started training in the middle of September, we have received 52 Google Reviews with an average rating of 4.9, which is an incredible feat in such a short amount of time. We have also trained with The Holdcroft Group, The Michelin Group and the Paragon Group, and received feedback on Google such as:
“I found this course very informative and will definitely help me in my role as a manager at Michelin. The training room, facilities, course content and duration were all excellent. Our trainer James Boden was very knowledgeable and delivered the course very professionally and also made it fun.”
“Shaun Blakemore absolutely terrific trainer lovely attitude in teaching me and my colleagues couldn't ask for any better”
“I've learnt so much today with Kath Stephenson, I’m very grateful and also had a laugh”
We would like to offer our sincere thanks to all that stood by us in difficult times and supported our cause throughout. You Can Do It Training is looking forward to what the future holds! This is just the beginning for us…
We would particularly like to mention #QNUK, #IOSH and #CITB for having faith in us and allowing us to deliver first in class training through their process & guidance.
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