After 5 years, Darren took a management position with one of the UK 's leading training companies within the Health and Fitness industry. His responsibilities included; Programme Director, Senior Trainer and Assessor and Centre Manager. Darren recognised, from his experience in coaching sports people that the key to improving and sustaining performance is to develop a high performance cerebral approach. In view of this Darren undertook research and analysis of performance development, coaching methods and related emotional intelligence research, which resulted in substantially improved results for his Clients, using his new methods. As a result of this he was approached to work as a subcontracting consultant with a leading training provider to deliver performance training, coaching programmes and 1:1 coaching for staff, management and directors in Blue Chip organisations.

Having established Potential Plus in 1999, to work with the above, Darren developed his portfolio of courses and 1:1 coaching techniques for the commercial environment and has had substantial success with Directors and staff across the UK and Europe.

Darren is married with four children – ages ranging from 3 - 20 years of age – which keeps his home life interesting and busy. A keen footballer, having played at semi-professional level and a black belt in the art of Wu Shu Kwan, Chinese kick-boxing.

His personal goal is to establish Potential Plus as an industry leader in delivering programmes for performance and coaching in all areas of business and to provide one-to-one coaching to develop the best in individual leaders at all levels.

His programmes are characterised by their focus on the ‘psychology of performance’ in tandem with skills training. This ensures participants get not only the skills they need but also the awareness of how to ‘unlock’ their own potential, producing dramatic results. “By introducing a performance aspect to training, we are able to ensure skills are embedded and individuals are able to exploit the potential they were not even aware they had.

Follow-up training or one-to-one coaching allows individuals to develop strategies to break down any future barriers they may encounter.”A qualified NLP practitioner and Insights Discovery accredited, Mark’s career has moved from the pharmaceutical arena to specialise in best practice for training design & delivery in Leadership, Selling and Customer Relationship Management. He is also an ILM approved trainer.

Mark’s goal with clients is to ensure that their needs are exceeded with the training solutions that he develops and delivers.
Mark lives in Poole, Dorset with his wife and son .He has a keen interest in motorcycles and motorcycle racing and enjoys occasional track days.

Her ability to maintain a high standard of work, even under pressure, makes Sandra a reliable and trustworthy member of the team.

Sandra is a keen runner and has completed half Marathons, she is also a regular visitor to the gym. Sandra is a qualified Childminder, Gym Instructor and Personal Trainer.

Sandra has three children, ranging from 7 – 14 years old, that keep her “free time” busy which means she has to be well organised and plan her days like a military operation.

Sandra likes outdoor activities and regularly goes to Wales where she is involved with running adventure weekends / team building events for family, friends and Potential Plus clients.

Alongside her acting career, Thea’s taken emergency calls for the Police, helped out in the training department at Amnesty International, and sold car insurance. Her experience of so many different work environments and management styles brings depth and ‘realness’ to her corporate acting and roleplay.

Thea’s also a writer. Her guide to gin, London Gin – the Gin Craze is due for publication in 2013. She’s ‘ghost-written’ for a number of very successful children’s books. And her writing skills come in very useful for creating scenarios for corporate work.

When she’s not busy acting or writing, Thea indulges in her life-long passion – horse-riding. There’s always something to learn from horses. Striking up a safe and successful partnership with these unpredictable animals requires confidence, constant awareness and great adaptability from the human side. Using positive reinforcement (training with praise and reward rather than punishment) creates trust on both sides and brings an outstanding level of performance for horse and rider.

Tony then took his skills into business to deliver performance and coaching programmes for a successful training consultancy.

His exhilarating programmes put business teams, managers, and individuals through their paces, helping them to achieve their best performances in all aspects of life.

With a deep understanding of the importance of controlling attitude, confidence, self-esteem and mental focus, his entertaining and acclaimed programmes, inspire delegates to become true winners.

Tony has developed and delivered training all over Europe, South Africa and Australia for companies such as National Australia Group, L’Oreal Professional, Hewlett Packard, Astra Zeneca, Zurich Financial Services, Royal Bank of Scotland, Roche Products, Janssen-Cilag, Merck Pharmaceuticals, Wyeth Laboratories, The Royal Mail, Friends Provident and many more.

He has recently spent three years growing his business in Australia and has joined forces with Potential Plus to develop a larger network of associates and increase the capability for his clients.

Tony is married with two young children; he enjoys all sports and is a regular gym user

From there she worked as an Area Trainer for First Great Western Rail, training Customer Service, Assertiveness, Conflict Management and Communication Skills. She also spent three years as a Trainer at The National Centre for Young People with Epilepsy and two years responsible for training and line managing a team of call centre staff for a travel and interpreting helpline.

Katie has spent the last two years as a freelance Training Consultant training Business writing, Management courses, Interpersonal Communication, Conflict Management, Assertiveness and Stress Management. She delivers Management courses for the Institute of Leadership and Management and has undergone training with the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development.

Katie is married with two young children and loves water-skiing, snowskiing and swimming.

Becki has featured in the media on BBC radio, LBC, Gcap network and written various articles for publication on the subject.

She uses a blend of state-of-the-art neuro-sciences to coach and educate a wide spectrum of business leaders, and individuals committed to expanding their thinking to get the results they want. Her findings have proven to her time and time again that ‘all resistance is due to a lack of rapport and inadequate communication’. Her mission is to educate others in how to master their own potential and take responsibility for their communication by understanding what it is they are really saying.

For fast, lasting personal change work she applies a tool belt packed with change tools such as Neuro-repatterning which is a hybrid of NLP and hypnosis, is a Master NLP Practitioner and is a qualified Life Coach and Results Coach.

As well as coaching individuals within organisations Becki compliments the team at Potential Plus with a cutting edge program available to businesses of all size which in just eight minutes identifies 18 of an individuals communication keys, including how they make decisions, how they motivate themselves, what leadership style works best with them and identifies overriding thoughts and behaviour patterns. Becki then produces a brief operating manual on each individual for management.

By understanding why people do what they do and mean what they say a manager then knows how to empower an individual to quickly and easily reach their full potential. Any business that fully understands how to drive the individuals that make the business, increases its opportunities, growth, and profit.

Becki’s passion for people reflects in her leisure pursuits and she enjoys theatre, film, comedy and spending time with great people.

A central part of her work is designing and facilitating workshops to develop skills and engagement, for example a wide range of bespoke individual skills and team development programmes, assessment and development centres, leadership, coaching, managing performance, developing business partnering and building client teams. She also undertakes coaching for groups or teams in order to support them to develop as a group or make change.

Jane is a confident, focused and challenging facilitator and coach. She provides a balance of empathy and understanding with high task focus and a desire for change. She enjoys getting to the heart of matters and working with individuals to make real changes.

Her background in line management and consultancy allows her to blend both organisational sensitivity and an understanding to people, to help individuals perform and develop within the environment in which they work. Jane likes to listen, understand, challenge, provide feedback, humour and perspective, and see how change can bring you benefits. She uses various models in her work in a pragmatic way.

“Your professionalism, humour, flexibility and occasional sheer bloody-mindedness made it work fantastically.” “You were brilliant. You should have been stretchered off at the end of the project, you worked so hard. You were extremely agile and adaptable, in picking up what was happening and changing the format to suit.”

Jane is CIPD qualified, a member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council, and NLP Practitioner, and is licenced to use a range of diagnostic materials including Verax Synergistics, TRACOM Producing Results with Others and Executive Coaching Tools . She als o r ec eiv es r egular ‘c oac hing s uper v is ion’ fr om an independent supervisor to ensure she in turn is well supported, and follows best practice.

Jane lives in Churt in Surrey with her partner. She has an active role in the lives of three step children. She enjoys running, skiing and walking.

During this time, Steve played an integral part in the provision, support and ongoing development of the ABPI examination standards for a major UK pharmaceutical company, having been selected as a committee member at the ABPI Training User Group, Whitehall.

His experiences include the development of ʻworkableʼ and integrated sales models, working as a pivotal member of the product development team pre-launch of several world-renowned products, responsibility for the implementation of ʻTarget Account Sellingʼ and ʻCo-ordinated Action Teamsʼ throughout the UK and has held responsibility for Management Development amongst other UK & Europe wide, high profile projects.

As an experienced sales trainer Steve has been exposed to many methods and concepts ranging from a Practitioner in NLP certificate, several coaching models, various sales models and territory management concepts. His approach however, combines the parts of these that he feels are workable and relevant to the individual, and the situation.

Other experiences include delivery of advanced facilitation & presentation skills, negotiation skills, business planning & project management amongst other developmental areas.

For the past 3 years, Steve has also written, developed and lectured professional Accountancy training courses in Enterprise Operations, Enterprise Management and Enterprise Strategy for the CIMA professional qualification. He has also been integral in delivering ʻTrain the Trainerʼ courses for budding accountancy and law lecturers throughout Malta, Belfast, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

This lends Sharon a great deal of credibility in the training room, as she has probably encountered most common work situations and can empathise with candidates.

In previous training roles, she was a Learning & Development manager with responsibility for meeting the training and development needs of over 2000 employees. This means that Sharon has a valuable knowledge of the external training market, as well as understanding customers’ needs to provide cost effective, added value training. As a trainer, she looks for interactive, enjoyable solutions to maximise the learning experience and has designed bespoke solutions covering a wide range of topics.

Sharon has extensive experience in delivery & facilitation of course material together with on going coaching of individuals at all levels across a range of industries including: automotive industry, manufacturing, financial services and local government departments.

In particular, Sharon enjoys working with clients to use training and development as a way of increasing motivation and improving culture and company results. At the heart of Sharon’s work lies the inspirational Insights Discovery System. The Insights system celebrates the uniqueness of each individual and illustrates the exceptional ways in which recognising and valuing these differences can empower people, teams and entire organisations.

Sharon believes that the Discovery Profile is the most accurate and dynamic personal profile in the world, and the best possible tool for assisting individuals in their search for understanding – both in terms of their personal style and in terms of managing their relationships with others, at work and at home. Sharon is an accredited Licensed Practitioner of Insights and has used the tool many times for individual Personal Development and increasing both individual and team performance.

Following her success with one of the top IT Technical training companies, Fiona took the brave leap into the world of freelancing where she established her own group of clients and broadened her experience by taking on longer term project management contracts in between training assignments.

One of these contracts was with a government department which introduced her to the PRINCE2® methodology of project management. Always in search of the next challenge, Fiona became a PRINCE2 accredited trainer quickly establishing one of the highest pass rates. During this time she worked with 2 local authorities to implement PRINCE2 into their organisation.

Her reputation in this field led to the offer of helping a multi-national FMCG company to establish their project and programme management processes including an Area PMO for their Africa Middle East Region, based in Dubai.

After 2 years in Dubai Fiona seized on the opportunity to establish the first PRINCE2® Accredited Training Organisation based in the Middle East.

Over the next 4 years she added to her company’s offerings by becoming an accredited trainer for APMG Change Management, an NLP Practitioner and gaining a license to deliver John Kotter’s “Leading Bold Change” workshops which bring to life the practical application of his 8 step model of Change Management.

Fiona returned to the UK in May 2010 to continue her goal of facilitating successful change in the most effective way for her clients.

PRINCE2® is a Registered Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce in the United Kingdom and other countries

Using her acting skills and observation she can portray any personality type or behaviour with great ease and reality giving those she works with the opportunity to learn new techniques in a ‘real’ situation creating an understanding of the impact you have on others.

One of Catherine’s key skills is her awareness of the unique contribution each person makes, supporting them to be the best they can be using empathy and compassion. Her warmth, focus and determination ensure that Catherine’s sessions are enjoyable yet productive, bringing about profound change, and new levels of understanding to take back to the workplace.

When she’s not working, Catherine and her partner Nick, a Theatre Production Manager, love spending time enjoying good food and wine with friends and family and stepping out to the theatre or jazz club; and when time allows they like nothing more than a few days boating off the South coast with their Yorkshire Terrier called Ruben!

He immigrated to the United Kingdom in 1986 and has held several senior positions in two freight forwarding and third party logistics companies including sales director for 5 years and managing director for 7 years.

With a background in sales and leadership and a keen interest in developing people, Spike used much of his time in senior management facilitating training sessions to help grow people to their full potential. In recent years he has moved into a full time European sales training position which entails developing sales people in techniques as well as building confidence and having a more positive attitudes to ensure improved business results. He has been educated in training through a number of courses and studies the discipline through reading the right books.

Spike has developed as a Business and Personal Coach studying through an UK coach training organisation and is currently awaiting the results of his Post Graduate Certificate examinations from the University of Chester. His development as a coach has brought widespread improvement in Spike's ability to develop people in various areas from sales success, to leadership and performance management.