Online training taking off

When Jane Rennie was first asked to hold a training session, she could think of nothing worse.

She was fresh out of university and had qualified as an accountant.

Her boss wanted her to hold a training session for a client.

This was the last thing Jane wanted to do, but her boss convinced her.

She looks back on that day as a defining moment in her life.

“As cliched as it sounds, that was the moment where I thought I have found my thing,” she said.

Jane moved on to work for a global training organisation in Dubai.

She wanted to explore more topics and areas of training her organisation wasn’t interested in.

In 2012, she took the leap and started her own training and consultancy business, The Extraordinary Training Company.

She says: “My husband said to me ‘you’re running out of excuses not to start your own business’, so that’s how we started out.

“We were born in Dubai, spent a little bit of time in Asia and then we moved back as a family to Scotland in 2016 and the business continued to grow.”

Before settling down in Perth, Jane had lived in 27 countries and spent her whole life travelling the world.

In 2019, she made the decision to focus purely on the training and coaching aspect of her business.

A year later, just before the pandemic hit, she shifted the focus of the business to training in the tourism and hospitality sector.

While in lockdown, Jane spent months looking at her business model, going through her offerings and deciding what content to take online.

She said: “Something in the back of my head told me not to try to do it all, and to just do the stuff that I know is going to translate to a really good experience.

“That’s what we did and we then started being recognised for delivering some really great online experiences.

“Because of being in the hospitality and tourism space, we were also able to reach a lot more people.”

Since the end of last year, Jane has also worked with Hospitality Industry Trust Scotland to put together an online training programme.

LEAP: Jane Rennie of The Extraordinary Training Company. Picture by Mhairi Edwards.