--- tags: general --- # Request to spend training budget I want to spend £900 of this year's £3,000 training and conferences budget on hiring a coach for 6 sessions over 3 months to help me re-orient myself towards being an effective salesperson for our apprenticeship programme. The coach I have identified is [Ellen Donelly](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellenkatedonnelly/). She is a: > Talent, people & culture expert... spanning headhunting for tech cos, running Talent accelerator programmes and startup recruitment...and coaching people defining entrepreneurial career paths. Or to put it another way, she is a recruiter with loads of contacts and experience who has recently set up as a coach. I originally asked her to help with sales and marketing, but her response was: > In many ways I am the right person to achieve this with you as I have a network amongst people who have worked in or currently work in Le Wagon, Flat Iron School, Makers and WhiteHat. I am also in HR/Recruitment communities. Therefore a lot of this research could be done quickly and relatively stealthily. However when it comes to putting my name to something eg reaching out to employers on behalf of Founders and Coders, I am unsure if I can do this given my need to push my own coaching business. As I build a personal brand around coaching it could dilute my offering too much to be known for many things at once. So, I asked her if she would coach me instead, which I think will work out much better. Minor point: It will also be useful for me to have the experience of being coached while we are setting up our own (somewhat different) coaching programme. I feel that I need this external support to help us meet our provisional target of 6 apprentices for FAC21. Now that our application to join the register has been approved, I want to start right away.