Many businesses struggle to present and communicate the real difference they can make for their audience. They don’t connect the dots from features and data to benefits and outcomes. Yet, customers and leads want to understand how you can help them thrive.
Littlefish was no exception. But it knew the team must excel at this important presentation skill to reach ambitious growth goals. That’s when Improv4Business got involved.
A bedroom startup in 2003, Nottingham-based Littlefish currently employs over 650 people, with plans to increase turnover from £36 million to £100 million in three years.
The business provides managed IT and cyber security services to around 150 public and private sector organisations. This includes leading organisations such as National Gas, Farrow & Ball and The Canal and River Trust.
Focusing on tailored support, Littlefish provides dedicated service desks, modern workplace, cloud services, and cyber security. Its impressive performance has secured countless awards, including The Lloyds Bank British Business Awards Mid-Size Business of the year (2022) and CRN Channel Awards MSP of the Year (2022 and 2023).
As the business grew, Head of Learning and Development, Rebecca Pawson wanted the team to develop a crucial presentation skill. She wanted them to learn how to engage the audience with contextualised content.
Littlefish generally presents to two main audiences. Customers make up the first. They want to understand progress and future opportunities to develop. The second audience is prospective customers. They want to learn how Littlefish can help them achieve their goals.
Rebecca explained what they wanted to achieve:
“While skilled at delivering information, our team had an opportunity to further refine how we connect service features to the tangible benefits they offer. Achieving this would take our presentations from good to great and ensure every conversation resonated deeply with our audience.”
In short, Rebecca wanted the team to deliver presentations that showed why Littlefish was different, and highlight what its service meant for that customer’s business.
Such presentation skills are rarely taught in school, or early careers, so it’s common for employees to lack the know-how to do this well. Plus, people can feel apprehensive about speaking publicly, let alone doing it effectively. This was the case for many at Littlefish.
Recognising this level of expertise would require external support, Rebecca looked for a trainer who could bring something unique to the table. She also wanted to work with someone experienced at developing specialist presentation skills in business. That’s when she came across Alex at Improv4Business.
“The “improv” bit caught my eye. Plus, Alex had supported big companies like ITV, and recently completed a PhD in public speaking anxiety and performing under pressure. That gave me early confidence about his abilities,”
Rebecca continued:
“When I first contacted Alex at Improv4Business, his personality shone through. He was easy going and focused on our needs. The fact he drew on his acting career and improvisation skills to teach engaging business presentation skills seemed fun and different. And training should be fun.”
While Improv4Business develops its training around three core modules, sessions are tailored to meet each client’s specific objectives. So, the starting point came from Rebecca.
“Alex wanted me to establish our training objectives before we shaped the sessions. When we discussed our needs, he highlighted elements he didn’t feel he could help us with - I loved how honest he was,”
Rebecca and her colleagues developed a list of attendees for the first two training sessions. A mixture of customer-facing roles, Alex took time to understand them.
“He kept asking probing questions to ensure we created sessions that would be as effective as possible,”
Ahead of the first off-site training session, Rebecca said Alex arrived early to rearrange the furniture and create a less formal feel.
“As the attendees arrived, Alex took the time to walk around and chat with everyone, helping them feel comfortable and ready to engage,” said Rebecca. “He began the session by inviting everyone to share their thoughts on presenting and the areas they were keen to improve.”
While some attendees mentioned they wanted to boost their confidence, particularly in handling challenging conversations, the session was designed to address these areas constructively. By the afternoon, participants were already showing increased confidence and actively applying the new techniques they’d learnt.
The day flowed from theory in the morning to practical activities in the afternoon. Alex first discussed what Littlefish wanted to achieve, before looking at slide construction and communication techniques. He then helped everyone embed this learning. The structure helped everyone settle down and lean into the training. And by the afternoon, everyone felt happy to get involved.
Taking a leaf out of his own “improvisation” book, Alex asked Rebecca for an existing Littlefish deck template for everyone to critique together. This added real relevance when embedding learning.
One lively afternoon exercise stood out for Rebecca.
“Alex gave the group a topic to present, but then told them they couldn’t say anything starting with “s”. It was tough to do, and yet great to see people get over their nerves as they focused on avoiding “s” words. Everyone had a go because Alex made it such fun for us. He boosted peoples’ confidence when they didn’t feel they’d done well, always finding something they’d achieved.”
It’ll take weeks (and months) for the Littlefish team to act on their new skills. But one member of the sales team achieved a result after two days.
“He told me his PowerPoint deck needed to change. And while I said ‘No pressure, when you have time’, he turned this round ahead of a presentation two days later. They won the bid! The refreshed deck clearly helped, and this early success provided a massive confidence boost for him and the entire team.”
The training also highlighted unexpected areas for improvement. One was the need to refine presentation templates to help the team create impactful slides more easily.
“This insight was invaluable,” said Rebecca. “We’re now working with Alex to update our templates and brand guidelines to better support our presenters. Without the training, we wouldn’t have spotted this hurdle. It’s not only about the individuals presenting, it’s also about the business helping them put that information together easily.”
Comments from attendees
“Alex was absolutely the best I've ever come across. The moment he started to speak I was listening to everything he said.”
“The day flew by. It was packed with content, but so well delivered that it didn't feel like a heavy day at all.”
“Alex had amazing energy and an ability to engage everyone. I was surprised at how he managed to get everyone involved in activities, which under 'normal' circumstances, a lot of people would shy away from.”
Littlefish plans to run further presentation skills sessions with Improv4Business. Having clear and confident presenters throughout the business will deliver huge value as the company strives to reach its £100 million turnover goal.
“This is really going to help us,” said Rebecca. “Alex’s training has got everyone thinking differently. Instead of focusing on features and figures, they’re asking what the data is telling us, and what the story is behind it. They’re putting that into perspective with their audience’s needs at the forefront too.
Everyone’s busy these days, so the better we can use the presentation time available to communicate our value, and the benefits we provide, the more likely we’ll reach our own goals. And if these skills make our team more confident, it’s a win for all concerned,”
Level up your presentations
The following are just a handful of the clients we have had the honour of working with over the years.
