Who are you?
I’m Jenny McIntyre and I’m the Managing Director of Training First Safety
Why did you start TFS?
Training First Safety first started trading back in January 2020. I created, developed and launched the business with a vision of two things:
First of all to create an unbeatable service that takes away the burden of booking health and safety training. And also to create a work environment that helps to nurture and develop our team to the best they can be.
How did you get on during the pandemic?
Within 3 months of the business trading, you’ll all be aware, that we entered a global pandemic and were all put into lockdown so it was panic stations for me. I very quickly realised that it was a time and an opportunity for me to really work on and develop the business so I threw myself into things like training, I did my instructors qualification, I learned as much as I could about marketing, I did as much networking as I could so by the time we were coming out of lockdown we were ready to hit the ground running and we’ve never looked back!
What’s been your biggest achievement since starting TFS?
I think we’ve been very fortunate in the sense that we’ve hit quite a number of milestones over the past couple of years, and really quite quickly. For example, we moved into our own premises, the team has grown quite considerably and we won Health and Safety Training Provider of the Year at the Prestige Awards. For me, it’s very much a case of celebrating the small successes and stepping stones along the way rather than focussing on the big achievements. Don’t get me wrong it’s not come without it stresses but to look at where we are just now every single bit of stress has been worth it.
Tell us about the training plans at TFS
The continuous development of our team is something we take very seriously at Training First Safety. We’re always looking to take action to improve the performance of our team to not only help them but also our customers. So we do things like product knowledge, sales and negotiations and customer service. Not only that, we also focus on the individual needs of each member of the team so training can be very much tailored towards them. For example, we support our team members through SVQs and various different courses like that.
If you could give any advise to someone starting out in business what would it be?
I would say turn up even when you don’t want to, keep the momentum and the focus going, take risks, make mistakes but make them quickly, and if someone is better than you at something let them do it!
What’s next for TFS?
Other than world takeover, I would say the next year or two is going to very much be focussed around growth and finesse but other than that I’m not going to say too much!
