What is the ideal model for success in the training sector?

The dynamics of the apprenticeship training sector are changing. Investors are paying attention to a set of factors that go beyond what mattered a few years ago. And several companies are seeing near unprecedented growth as a result.

Most notably, of late, we can look at the private equity investment in Corndel and the venture capital investment in Multiverse. The speed at which both organisations went from startup to exit is astonishing when compared to the many companies who have grown steadily in the sector for decades without seeing the same kind of financial backing.

Extraordinarily, despite Multiverse not yet having made a profit, venture capitalists valued the business at $200 million. It’s evident that we’re now seeing a different level of interest and value in the sector.

So naturally, it follows that we should ask: How did they do it? What is occurring in the market that enables such deals to take place? And which characteristics of these newly successful models should training providers emulate?

With the knowledge of apprenticeships, the shift to standards, and how to navigate compliance and funding, training provider businesses can expect grow to perhaps the £10-£15 million mark.

But to go beyond this, to attract the kind of investment Corndel and Multiverse did, providers need to adapt their approach.

The risk if providers do not adapt

It is no exaggeration to say that the training sector is subject to serious volatility. Funding pots change, government priorities shift and skills gaps can open wide or close depending on the instability of individual sectors. That’s without mentioning the impact of COVID-19.

Thanks to the pandemic, investors are even more focused on looking for businesses that are tech-enabled, that are disrupting old market dynamics. Training providers need to examine the way they used to do things, to ask whether they are still fit for purpose.

Corndel and Multiverse’s remote delivery was well insulated against the worst of COVID disruption. But even before this industry altering event, they – along with several other organisations entering into investor consciousness – understood how to position themselves to take full advantage of the market.

Why apprenticeships are now an employer-focused arena

To add value in today’s changing environment, training providers are balancing funding agencies and contractual requirements with the marketplace, which is increasingly being influenced by employers as much as learners.

This has in part hinged upon the shift that took place since the levy. Employers are no longer treating their choice of training provider as a peripheral issue. Now that employers are the ones holding the funds, they are signing agreements less readily, and they are adopting more of a buyer’s mentality.

They’re agreeing pricing, they’re pitching competitors against each other, and they’re measuring the impact of training provision on their business. In a positive sense, they’re demanding return on investment.

While the attention of training providers should not deviate from the learner experience, getting uptake is no longer primarily about finding learners who want to do a course, it’s about finding employers that want to partner with you.

In the past, because there was no financial agreement, training providers almost avoided the ROI conversation. Now it’s a much more complicated sale that requires a different way of working and a different thought process.

The training providers that are succeeding are those with a more mature ‘go to market’ strategy. Where they really understand the dynamics of the employers they’re working with. You need USPs that align with their interests.

Why providers need to readdress the exec team

When Lifetime received an early investment offer in 2008, we decided it wasn’t time to exit just yet. Instead, we focused on honing the business and recruiting greater capability at board level so we were ready to work with investors. We brought in a new FD, a new NED and a new COO who was elevated to CEO a year before the process.

We discovered the importance of having the right advisers and of getting the management team ready for their new ‘home’. But we also learned that the business must not be reliant upon my input. If the founder is not selling themselves as part of the solution, you will need to demonstrate the capability of the business without them in it and prove it won’t fall like a house of cards.

When it eventually came to presenting to investors, I was advised not to answer any investor questions – or at least not those that my management team could answer. By letting them take the wheel, investors saw the value in the breadth of the exec team rather than a business that was reliant on the founder.

What’s your reputation like with investors?

Reputation plays a significant role in valuation. If you’re a business with private equity, the reputation of your team should be your main focus, since you’re already on investors’ radars. But if you haven’t reached that stage, you might need to consider your PR too.

At Lifetime, we’d always been quite hot on our relationship with customers but we’d come up under the radar. We’d received so much of our business from referral so we had little in the press. Accordingly, we needed to start warming up the investment community.

Why providers need to reimagine their business plans

Both Corndel and Multiverse defined their product-market fit really well. They were built on the basis of apprenticeship standards, the apprenticeship levy and working with larger employers. Their business plans were future-facing and – as evidenced by their success – robust enough to deal with the curveballs of COVID-19.

For providers to create a strong business plan that attracts investment, it requires extensive preparation. It needs to demonstrate minimal risk and maximum value, but it also needs to be aligned to the market they’re operating in. this is where timing is a critical factor.

Providers need to assess the wider market sentiment and refine what makes their offering different. This needs to be coupled with realistic competitor analysis, SWOT analysis, risk assessment, and – of utmost importance for apprenticeships – what the likely changes in the sector might be.

The funding and political landscape is constantly changing for training providers. This is a risk for those looking to buy into a business because they can’t predict the future. Providers need to show they have already anticipated the future and that they’re prepared for changes that could come. Some will happen, some won’t, but providers need to demonstrate that nothing will hit them by surprise.

Providers need to be more responsive than ever. COVID-19 was a prime example of something coming out of left field. No matter how much crystal ball gazing you did, you wouldn’t have predicted it. But organisations that were more used to adapting, problem solving and finding solutions were better prepared to rapidly pivot when the time came. These businesses were used to being on their toes, ready to get on the front foot even when the unexpected did come.

Are you at risk of distraction?

When you’re getting geared up for investment, it’s important to keep focus where it matters. A sales or fundraising process can add a whole new layer of demands to your exec team, but you can’t let your business wobble as you’re going through this time.

For anyone who approaches a sale or fundraising round, their business needs to be at a place where it’s running like clockwork, where it doesn’t need their input all the time. The risk is, if you and your team are consumed with the sale, the business won’t hit its targets and you either won’t be able to sell or you’ll have to settle for a lower price.

Why providers need to reconsider their product

Both Corndel and Multiverse created the blueprints for their business around the Apprenticeship Standards, without inheriting the legacy elements of the old Apprenticeship Frameworks. This enabled them to create a product that was radically different.

Employers – and by extension, investors – are looking for a product that provides easy remote access, that’s always on (so learners can complete their training at any time), but also a product that creates an innovative learning experience that will drive higher results.

When it comes to training providers, there can be resistance internally to creating a radical model. But to create a high-quality experience, that is built around high quality learning instead of preparing for an assessment, we need to do away with legacy thinking.

For Corndel and Multiverse, high quality content was absolutely key. Corndel developed their own while Multiverse went to the best digital content providers and wrapped their offerings into their programs. Meanwhile many existing providers were still leaning on individual tutors to carry the weight, creating their own worksheets and printing them off to hand to learners the next day. And their print outs would be different to what their colleague was doing 20 miles down the road. This lingering lack of consistency was a residual from pre-standards days before training providers started becoming digitally native.

There’s no need to try and convince people that digital is an important part of the learner journey anymore. Now it’s about honing the user experience, together with the social side of learning. This is where Bud is focusing its attention right now, developing avenues for social and peer learning that will enhance the whole user experience.

In the Multiverse example, one of the key stories they told was about being ‘a university experience without going to university.’ An apprenticeship that does not only provide learning, but also the networking, social interaction and events that a uni would provide. For many providers to even begin to assess how they can replicate this, they need to evaluate the core of their product.

Why it’s still all about the learner

Although employers have more influence than they used to and the market is changing, some aspects remain constant.

You have to ask what does the learner need, what does the employer need, what does the funding agency need. That triangle has to be solid and not skewed in any direction.

If you grow too fast and overlook Ofsted and the ESFA, you do so at your peril. Meanwhile if you forget the employer, you’ll struggle to grow your client base. But of course, if we forget the learner, we lose the heart of everything that we do, along with the faith of investors.

Keeping the learner front and centre is a difficult task if it is to be more than admirable rhetoric. Heather recalls that when Lifetime was small, she could meet most of her clients and hear of learners’ names in the office. This worked up until they reached 400 staff and the first investment into the business in 2011. After that, they were adding 40 or 50 new staff each month, and that was the last time Heather could keep track of every individual’s name.

If that’s true of staff in a rapidly scaling business, it’s even more pertinent when it comes to learners.

“The only way to know what’s going on is to look at the data, to look at the trends and measure the right things. You need to have feedback loops in place right down to the customers at the coalface. Because the bigger your business becomes, the more removed you are from them.

It’s these feedback loops that will help providers refine their product, improving learner experience and learner outcomes to upgrade the overall quality of what they do. This is what matters to the learner but it also matters to the headline valuation and the level of investment that can be achieved.

Eventually, it comes down to being the best at what you do. It’s straightforward in theory but many don’t succeed.

Where should training providers go from here?

The market has changed and it will change again. While the need for quality will remain a constant, training providers will need to adapt how they create, refine and replicate that quality at scale if they are to earn the notice of investors and a high valuation.

You may have a good business to date, but what about the forward story? How do you make sure someone isn’t going to come and eat up your market share tomorrow? What can you do to stay ahead of the curve?

Investors will be looking at what you’ve achieved to date. But judging by the current speed of the market, it’s clear that our history is not so hot to investors as our present positioning and our capacity to scale.

To get the strategy right here, the engine must be streamlined; providers need to create feedback loops with learners and then create the time and space to innovate and refine their product, without cutting corners on contracts or Ofsted.

Growth can only happen when everything is running smoothly. The more efficient your business is, the more resources you have to invest in new projects and scale up growth more quickly.

At this point, where your business should focus its attention depends partly on your goal. If you’re seeking private equity funding, it’s essential to get your metrics, profits and employer focus in place. Whereas if you’re seeking venture capital, as the Multiverse sale has proven, you don’t necessarily need the profits so much as proof of potential.

To create such a forward story, the use of technology is critical to demonstrate you can replicate quality at scale and, ideally, at a lower cost.

Finally, it is worth considering whether an exit is right for your business. Selling is not the only way to make a financial gain through your business. And the best outcome is not necessarily getting paid the highest price.

If you’re staying in the business, or if you’re going to have an investment in it, the best outcome is about finding the right partner. The benefits of that relationship go both ways. If you set false expectations and sell too high, you might do well up front but as a part-owner/shareholder you may not do so well on the other side.

As a founder, I did not build my business for a financial return. Delivering a profit meant that we could invest in better ways of doing things that meant we could make a difference to more people. Finding the right partner was key to ensure that we continued to do that.