Erasmus changed everything
"Due to the nature of our business this project has offered multiple opportunities for my business to grow and also gaining international recognition". Rajiv Findlay
As a founding partner of ClickTime agency I'm looking forward to sharing with you one of the many projects we've had the privilege to be apart of which has helped to improve my skills and business opportunities on an international front.
Check out the above image, I've just finished my Train the trainer KA1 Adult Education in Europe Project and received a certificate for completion among my fellow class mates.
I was so proud of myself and my colleague Theo for achieving such a dearing feet of crossing boarders and taking on a new European market which has now solidified our route towards becoming a globally recongised brand.
The adult mobility programme first came to my attention by Patrick Cross from Gecko Programmes Ltd. He came to learn what we did as a business and suggested the opportunity to experience the Train the Trainer course with one of my business partners Theodore Hoffman, in the Czech Republic, Prague. This would give us the competitive edge in the market and also the experience would add value to us as businessmen.
Personally, it was an incredible experience that has benefited me in so many ways:
- Improve my skills as a trainer, facilitator, coach and mentor
- Certificate to add to my CV
- Networking with professionals from around the world
- Experiencing a new culture and learning the language
- Challenging me to be better and more prepared
- Navigating foreign roads and public transport
- Budgeting on a daily
- Networking with foreign businesses & gaining work
What an opportunity! I couldn't wait to share with my other (partners / Investors) I set up a conference call with everyone the day after expecting them to share like minded thoughts of growth and prosperity.
How wrong was I... My partners quite respectfully dissembled the dream within the space of 3:43 call. They were reluctant to let us go as we're a new business and having 2 senior members out of the country for 11 days in a Class Room training seemed like a massive risk. Instantly after taking the conference call while navigating around the busy streets of London on foot going to a client meeting, I felt like they've just kicked me back into reality.
Nevertheless, I was determined to make it happen as the benefits outweighed the risk as the business was designed to be managed remotely from anywhere in the world and the opportunity allowed us to put that to the test. Therefore, it was up to me to think outside the box and adapt a new approach by implementing new tools to automate and streamline the time consuming jobs like posting content and auto messaging systems to target customers and then we arranged for conference calls to made instead of visiting our clients on site like we usually do and used the time out of the classroom to resolve any outstanding work.
This worked a treat and we've now adopted these strategies into our business plan.
The team at Gecko Programmes are incredible and made sure our flights were booked as well as providing funding for the course and covering expenses while we were over there. Even with this extra bit of funding we knew that we had to make every hour count while over there. Therefore, we planned out every single day meticulously and before evening landing on Czech ground, I had already arranged to meet a very well known tour guide and business man known as big Phil!
We arrived in the late evening and went straight to our Air BnB dropped our stuff off and met with Phil who took us on our first tour around the City, his business looks after Stag Doo's and everything to do with the nightlife, so even though it was 11:00pm he had enough zest and energy to light up the night he was taking us to all the top restaurants and clubs to introduce us to the owners and setting up meetings for later on in the week. It was safe to say that from that one night we were booked up for almost every hour in the day after our course ended at 3pm.
Our aim was to get to know the owners and understand their business and aims and negotiate how Click Time can help. This worked incredible well as businesses in Prague operated differently to the UK market.
What new knowledge and skills have you acquired?
I found out so much from the course that I can now apply to my business and how I train new and existing staff. One topic especially is defining the difference between:
Facilitator | Mentor | Coach
Each one of these roles I use within my business already however when delivering workshops, myself or training new members of staff. It’s essential to know which method of training is necessary.
After 6 months from the training I now run 3 different events in the midlands area serving 100's of participants and members from all walks of life and backgrounds for the most part they're all professionals, creatives, freelancers and business owners:
- Creators Club
- &Co
- Introduction to social media Workshop
What kind of differences have you noticed with the work practices?
During the course, I understood more about doing business in Turkey as there were several attendees from Turkey that worked for the university; They were so engaging and enthusiastic about working together, this made me feel like it was all worth the fight to get here, what an opportunity!
We're now working directly with Munzur University to co-ordinate a volunteer program to help students learn what it's like to work in the media industry. This is something that I enjoy and get great fulfillment and satisfaction from by inspiring the youths, the same way that I was inspired as a teen doing a similar enterprise program.
General impression, feelings, judgement about your experience abroad.
First impressions of Prague are it’s a very old country with many similarities to the midlands in the UK including the weather but a little bit colder, actually 10x colder, Theo had to buy a jacket that could pass as sleeping bag just to keep warm. Public transport is straight forward to navigate in and around Prague for cheap 0.50p for a metro ticket bargain! Beer cost around ￡1.50 and the meals were around the same price as the midlands even though it was the capital and they knew all about healthy portions. Check out my breakfast below from Waf-Waf cafe a client we managed to work with while over there.
Visually they’re very rich in history with most buildings dating back to 12th Century and beautifully preserved.
Due to the nature of our business we were contacted via Instagram by a few restaurants requesting that we visit them to sample their dishes and encourage our viewers to visit them. During one of our visits to a restaurant called FatCats in old town we were invited to check out their new project “Gallery 44” a new top end restaurant that’s aiming to bring in talented and renowned chefs from around the world to be an ambassador for their country and cater for the people of Prague. Check out the video https://bit.ly/2H9ZQSs
This to me has revealed just how serious the people of the Czech Republic are about their food. It’s astonishing even down to how and why they have such an incredible selection of beers and wines.
Which skills do you feel have improved significantly and how?
I made a real conscious effort to learn the language and felt this was well received and opened a lot of doors “Dekuji!”.
Also my approach to business and negotiation. I was on another level over there every single day I was focused on creating more business and learning as much as I can.
Describe the good and bad elements of the mobility experience...
I would say the best part for me is the opportunity to go abroad and the financial support helped to overcome the down time in business to have us out of the office.
The bad elements aren't major however finding the location for places was difficult as google maps didn’t work that well. This could be overcome with more information from people that’s been before to give clearer directions.
The fact that we had to arrange our own accommodation is bad and good as it’s tricky to figure out where exactly to stay however we had the opportunity to use AirBnB which for the 2 of us we found an apartment 8 minutes from the venue 10 minutes from the nearest metro station and tramline.
Our apartment was lovely and we got it for a 2/3 of the cost in comparison to a hotel for the same time. Therefore, I would recommend anyone going on mobility to use Airbnb.co.uk to find accommodation.
Has this experience helped you in improving your business?
This experience has opened many doors for doing business in Prague with several restaurants and a college in Turkey.
The skills gained from the course has given me huge confidence to deliver my workshops more effectively.
Check out their Youtube channel “ClickTime agency” for more on their Prague travels.