Our Unique Features

Your Partner in Skills Mastery Since 1996

Nicholas Hill Academy Ltd offers original leadership, management, and sales training, emphasising practical, workplace-tested tools. Established in 1996 by Thought Leader and Master Trainer Nicholas C. Hill, we hold a client portfolio spanning over 300 industries. We offer over 160 ILM-recognised practical and relevant courses, which we tailor to your needs to maximise results. With a focus on engaging delivery, active participation, and facilitated debates, we guarantee your skill development and post-course support. We never cancel our courses and provide personal attention through small classes.

Your Leadership, Management, and Sales Training Provider

Some Providers

Standard Trainer

Inexperienced Trainer
Teacher as Trainer
Rehearsed Scripts
Unknown Trainer

Nicholas Hill Academy

Seasoned Trainer

Developing Managers Since 1996
Senior Manager as Trainer
Broad Subject Knowledge
Thought Leader Trainer

Some Providers

General Subjects

Vocational Training
One Size Fits All
Mixed Participants
Self-Certified Courses

Nicholas Hill Academy

Specialist Subjects

Leadership and Management Specialists
Management Level Contextualised
Like-Minded Participants
320+ ILM-Recognised Modules

Some Providers

Impractical Content

Public Domain Material
Textbook Theory
Strict Course Syllabus
Off-The-Shelf Modules

Nicholas Hill Academy

Practical Content

Researched Training Material
Workplace Tested Content
Relevant Workplace Framework
Practical Workplace Tools

Some Providers

Powerpoint Lectures

Appeasing Monologue
Monotonous Delivery-Style
Endless PowerPoint Slides
Limited Participant Engagement

Nicholas Hill Academy

Engaging Delivery

Facilitated Group Debate
Animated Delivery-Style
Limited PowerPoint Slides
Continuous Participant Engagement

Some Providers

Low Value

AI-Generated Content
Skills Development Probability
Limited Customer Support
Stretched Resources
Cancellation Possibility

Nicholas Hill Academy

Unmatched Value

Practical Content Guarantee
Skills Development Guarantee
Post-Course Support Guarantee
Non-Overbooked Guarantee
Non-Cancellation Guarantee

SEASONED TRAINER

Developing Managers Since 1996

Nicholas C. Hill FCMI FIoL FIC is a seasoned certified master trainer and designer of 160 ILM-Recognised courses. He specialises in the comprehensive design and delivery of leadership, management, and sales training. Nicholas’ training style is high-impact and results-oriented, adaptable to various formats, including classroom, virtual, and hybrid settings.

Since 1996, Nicholas has trained thousands of delegates from over 700 corporations, SMEs, government bodies, and non-profit organisations spanning more than 300 industries. His training has driven team improvements of up to 234% in performance, 136% in efficiency, 104% in productivity, and a 44% increase in net profit, earning him an impressive 4.8-star rating from over 2600 online reviews.

Our client portfolio includes ABN AMRO Bank, Amazon.com Inc, Anglian Water, Ardagh Group, Bank of Ghana, Britannia Movers International Plc, BUPA (The British United Provident Association Ltd), Canonical Ltd, Celonis Inc, Chubb European Group SE, Church of England, CIPP (Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals), Cobham Plc, Cobra Group, Coloplast Ltd, Commvault Systems Inc, SAP Concur, Corus Hotels Ltd, Dale Carnegie Training Inc, Domino Printing Sciences Plc, EJ Group Inc, The Estée Lauder Companies Inc, EY (Ernst & Young LLP), Finsbury Food Group, The Hadley Group, Hamptons International Ltd, Hasbro Inc, Herbert Smith Freehills LLP, Hughes TV and Audio Ltd, IOM (International Organisation for Migration), Laing O’Rourke Plc, Legal and General Plc, LIBF (The London Institute of Banking and Finance), LISI Aerospace (Blanc Aero Industries UK Ltd), Masco UK Window Group Ltd, Massy Group, Medivet Group Ltd, National Highways, NFU (National Farmers’ Union), NHS (National Health Service), Ocado Group plc, OISC (Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner), Oxford University Press, P&O Ferries Ltd, Playson Ltd, Premium Credit Ltd, PWC (PricewaterhouseCoopers International Ltd), Reed Recruitment Plc, Republic of Cyprus Ministry of Health, Springer Nature Ltd, Spyrosoft Ltd, Stantec Inc, State of Qatar Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Success Resources Inc, Suez Recycling and Recovery UK Ltd, Sysco Corporation, TE Connectivity Plc, Trade Mark East Africa, University of Glasgow, University of the West of England, Voyage Care Ltd, Young Presidents’ Organisation, and many more.

Senior Manager as Trainer

Many leadership and management trainers lack practical team experience and offer theory without application. We recommend choosing a practising team leader rather than a theorist for your leadership training. Authentic leadership is demonstrated through having followers, but gaining loyal followers is your real challenge.

Our principal trainer, Nicholas C. Hill FCMI FIoL FIC, believes in conceptual and practical team leadership. He invests substantial time, money, and energy in recruitment, technical training, and performance management. Nicholas’s firsthand experience in building and managing teams effectively drives organisational success. His extensive project management experience since 1993 has solidified his expertise.

Since 1996, Nicholas has developed, refined, and implemented his principles, strategies, and techniques with teams, clients, and suppliers, rigorously testing their effectiveness. He trains you using proven tools that have yielded impressive results for our clients, discarding ineffective ones. With Nicholas, you benefit from his personal experience and extensive knowledge.

Broad Subject Knowledge

Some leadership and management trainers rehearse their delivery to communicate course material using a script. While this approach allows for flawless delivery, it often reveals a lack of deep subject knowledge and inflexibility, particularly during debates or Q&A sessions.

Memorised scripts might work for keynotes, lectures, and routine courses where participants do not expect to engage deeply with the speaker. However, this delivery style would be condescending and insufficient for your needs as a manager.

Our principal trainer, Nicholas C. Hill FCMI FIoL FIC, possesses extensive leadership and management knowledge. Over the past two and a half decades, he has developed thousands of leaders and managers. Instead of relying on a rehearsed script and a prescribed syllabus, he leads engaging Q&A sessions on our courses, utilising his coaching, mentoring, and facilitation skills.

Thought Leader Trainer

Is your leadership and management trainer a recognised authority? If your trainer lacks testimonials from other leaders in the same field, it is unlikely they significantly contribute to that field and may remain unnoticed. Therefore, research your trainer.

Read their published material and decide whether they are credible and capable of making a radical difference in your professional development. Nicholas C. Hill FCMI FIoL FIC is the principal trainer and course designer for Nicholas Hill Academy Ltd, creator of over 80 ILM-Recognised courses, founder of Professional Leader Magazine, former leadership columnist, and an established UK thought leader.

Founded in 2017 by Nicholas C. Hill FCMI FIoL FIC, Professional Leader Magazine is the free-of-charge biannual digital publication that helps you influence output, growth, change, and culture. Each issue features Nicholas’ exclusive conversations with internationally recognised thought leaders. The early issues share valuable lessons in leadership from the late masters of business, government, and nonprofit. You also benefit from many of Nicholas’ original leadership and management principles, which we present as beautiful full-page graphics. Each 90+ page publication contains 100% human-generated writing and boasts a readership of 674,910 professionals and 5948 active readers.

For four years, the world’s foremost event management company, Success Resources Inc., responsible for the speaking events of Anthony Robbins, Richard Branson, Alan Sugar, and Duncan Bannatyne, endorsed and advertised in Professional Leader Magazine to promote its international events. Recent advertisers include the Great British Business Show, recognised as the UK’s most prominent business expo.

From 2015-2020, writing alongside TV personality and adventurer Bear Grylls, Nicholas C. Hill was the leadership columnist for Sorted Magazine, which is available bi-monthly in WHSmith and across 23 countries. Nicholas is responsible for over 350 published leadership and management development articles. His work has previously been featured in many leading industry journals.

SPECIALIST SUBJECTS

Leadership and Management Specialists

While we have also offered sales and customer service courses since 1996, Nicholas Hill Academy Ltd has always specialised in training and coaching leaders and managers. Specialisation is necessary to solve specific problems and provide a range of solutions. Consequently, we understand your senior management, middle management, or first-line management challenges and have the resources you need to overcome them.

Many training providers offer leadership and management training but also deliver courses in computer software, economics, engineering, health and safety, human resources, humanities, information technology, languages, logistics, marketing, media, personal development, secretarial skills, quality assurance, or writing. Such a wide range of courses requires specialists in all areas, often meaning these providers subcontract your training to specialists like us. Why not cut out the middleman?

Nicholas C. Hill FCMI FIoL FIC is a certified master trainer of leadership and management strategy. He has researched, designed, commercially tested, and delivered our training course material for three decades. With Nicholas, you tackle your workplace problems head-on using his practical tools that work, avoiding irrelevant subjects or tools you mastered years ago.

Management Level Contextualised

Nicholas Hill Academy Ltd customises in-house team training based on your needs at each management level because responsibilities and skills vary significantly among senior, middle, and first-line managers. This approach is imperative because one size does not fit all.

For instance, a first-line manager in conflict with their direct reports will not empathise with the conflict experienced by senior managers in high-stakes investor negotiations.

Therefore, when delivering a goal-setting workshop, while we may use the same models for senior management cohorts as we would for first-line managers, we only explore the applicable context because the goals are of a different scale and nature. Consequently, open-frame discussions are relevant for each targeted cohort to achieve the necessary depth.

Our scheduled open courses attract managers at all levels, who accept the varying levels of experience in the group. These participants often have five to ten years of management responsibility. A few have strategic roles within their organisations, such as c-suite executives, partners, and directors, which means they are jointly responsible for conceiving and directing the vision and mission. Others may be in middle management or new to a managerial role. For course participant job titles, please see our client feedback.

Like-Minded Participants

Nicholas Hill Academy Ltd conducts diagnostic assessments before all training course delivery, including a needs analysis and participant skills assessment. Often, we divide delegates into cohorts for in-house training to ensure all participants are on a level playing field before courses commence.

For this reason, as discussed earlier, we advise you to form cohorts according to their management level. We also suggest designing your cohorts according to participant knowledge and experience. Academic institutions have applied this principle for decades, teaching the same subject in different sets according to student experience and strengths. We subscribe to this same thinking.

While other training providers may deliver to cohorts at the same management line level, insufficient care is taken to ensure your delegates share similar knowledge or experience. Therefore, some participants may ask questions to which others know the answers, which frustrates those who are more learned or experienced.

When booking our in-house leadership, management, and sales courses, we share our diagnostic assessments with you and design proposals so your delegates undertake training alongside colleagues at the same line level with similar knowledge and experience, adding value to their learning experience. Moreover, our approach ensures your delegates learn alongside like-minded participants.

320+ ILM-Recognised Modules

Many training providers self-certify you after you complete their training courses. We do, too. However, we accept that some future employers or clients may not acknowledge your certificate. Therefore, Nicholas Hill Academy Ltd has been an ILM-Recognised training provider since 2010.

ILM is the leadership and management division of City and Guilds and the largest management body in the UK, with over one hundred years of combined experience.

Although a small company, we offer one of the most extensive ranges of specialist ILM modules in the UK. You can rest assured that ILM continually assesses and quality-assures over 320 of our original modules through external verifiers. Therefore, we consistently meet academic and commercial leadership and management development standards.

Upon completing our leadership and management training courses, Nicholas Hill Academy Ltd will self-certify you. You can receive either a hard copy or a soft copy. You can also purchase an ILM-Recognised certificate, indicating ILM recognition in leadership and management development.

PRACTICAL CONTENT

Researched Training Material

Some training providers only use public domain material or AI-generated course content. We don’t subscribe to this poor practice because we believe hearing a trainer explain third-party topics in parrot-fashion without discernment will insult your intelligence.

Instead, our leadership, management, and sales courses offer over 320 unique modules, each comprising two hours of commercially adapted content. Our training modules are the collective work of Nicholas C. Hill FCMI FIoL FIC, who has researched, designed, and delivered our material since 1996.

Our copyrighted management strategies are the unique products of developing thousands of leaders and managers for three decades and interviewing some of the world’s foremost leaders and entrepreneurs. Nicholas believes his course participants are his best teachers because they provide honest feedback if a strategy is impractical. Hence, he has revamped many leadership and management theories over the years to create practical and relevant tools for you.

Workplace Tested Content

We believe theory needs testing. Tests inside and outside the confines of your organisation ensure universal standards and application. Practice is a reliable way to test your ideas and skills, which we encourage at the outset of all our courses.

When working with Nicholas Hill Academy Ltd, you test our tools by utilising them during the training and in your workplace. You measure your development by calculating how your new skills have improved your organisation statistically.

Since 1996, we have gathered client feedback and invested much time conducting follow-ups with course participants to measure the results. Our clients continue to share how our courses improve personal or organisational performance, productivity, efficiency, and profitability. Following course attendance, we assess differences in your unit output, decreased costs, improved margins, resolution speed, frequency of meeting deadlines, employee retention rate, and outcomes of meetings or presentations. Following your feedback, we update our leadership, management, and sales courses to improve commercial value rather than just theoretical weight.

Relevant Workplace Framework

Nicholas Hill Academy Ltd delivers all our leadership and management material using a flexible workplace framework as a refreshing alternative to academic models. While our principal trainer, Nicholas C. Hill FCMI FIoL FIC, cites reliable sources, including notable researchers, we do not merely teach the theory.

Instead, our course modules result from our dedicated research to create tools relevant to your modern workplace framework.

We use this approach because our clients say results and skills are more relevant than theory and qualifications. Therefore, we synthesise many known leadership, management, and sales concepts with the work-based research we have conducted with our clients for three decades. Our models are copyrighted and not utilised by other training providers. Furthermore, you can transfer many of our units to ILM qualifications through APEL.

Practical Workplace Tools

The challenge with all training course modules is in applying the tools. We know it’s a cliche to say, ‘If you don’t use it, you lose it’, but how many times have you learned a new leadership, management, or sales tool but never used it?

Putting the theory into practice is demanding because you have conditioned behavioural patterns and preferences you need to satisfy. We will help you recondition your thinking and behaviour using practical techniques to help you solve your workplace problems and achieve your goals.

Our in-house training does not use a strict course syllabus. Instead, our principal trainer, Nicholas C. Hill FCMI FIoL FIC, continually directs all group discussions to practical application in your workplace. This approach adapts to your needs and addresses your workplace challenges during the live training instead of leaving you to make sense of the concepts after the course has ended. Therefore, we tailor the course framework to your needs while delivering it. For instance, if all participants agree they would prefer more time in one module at the expense of another, we can do that for you. We really are committed to getting results for you.

ENGAGING DELIVERY

Facilitated Group Debate

Instructor-led classroom training should not mean an appeasing and uninterrupted lecture. The philosophy of ‘the trainer knows best’ and that they must keep you engaged with their eloquence and carefully crafted presentation skills is a fallacy.

Some trainers adopt this training delivery style to avoid debates where they might lose control over the group. Furthermore, the monologue avoids fateful question-and-answer sessions, whereby the trainer inadvertently reveals their lack of subject knowledge, losing vital credibility. We know this to be accurate, having worked with hundreds of other trainers for three decades. This approach may be suitable for keynote speeches or academic lectures but not for leadership, management, and sales courses.

Our principal trainer, Nicholas C. Hill FCMI FIoL FIC, has trained and coached leaders and managers since 1996, so he has the pedigree you need to solve your workplace problems. Nicholas shares various concept perspectives with you and then facilitates valuable discussions to explore practicality and relevancy. He also encourages you to consider alternative contexts to personalise the tools. This approach means you can raise continual questions in our courses to help make the tools applicable. Therefore, you explore all our research and test results through a stimulating dialogue examining conceptual pros and cons before practising in the workplace.

Animated Delivery-Style

Excellent course material, when delivered poorly, yields poor results. It is a simple but ill-advised formula for a small return on your investment. Some training providers act as an agency that handles sales and customer service, subcontracting the training to inexpensive freelance facilitators with minimal credentials and experience. Consequentially, the results are mediocre and fail to deliver results.

Can you recall your most memorable lessons or lectures from school, college, or university? Why were they special? As with many people, it is not because you were interested in the topics but because your teacher or lecturer passionately delivered the subject, which engaged you and facilitated your learning. The same principle should apply to any leadership, management, and sales training course.

Therefore, Nicholas Hill Academy Ltd never subcontracts training delivery, so what you see is what you get! Our Managing Director, Nicholas C. Hill FCMI FIoL FIC, designs and delivers all our leadership, management, and sales courses with passion and high energy. Moreover, consider booking a 1-2-1 course with Nicholas to receive personal attention and achieve the next level in your growth.

Limited PowerPoint Slides

PowerPoint-heavy presentations are synonymous with inexperienced or unskilled course trainers. Some leadership and management training providers even hire presenters or actors to deliver the material. We have met some of them!

Consequently, while they are excellent communicators, you receive a rehearsed monologue that cannot deviate off-script. This delivery model may be suitable for some professionals, but this methodology is condescending and unsuitable for leadership, management, and sales training due to its inflexibility.

Therefore, decide whether you want to sit in a classroom for a few days wading through a mountain of PowerPoint slides or want to take your skills to the next level with Nicholas Hill Academy Ltd. We limit PowerPoint in our leadership, management, and sales courses by using very few slides during course delivery. When we do, we use captivating illustrations and short bullet points.

Our virtual classroom courses do not utilise PowerPoint because we provide digital interactive workbooks. Furthermore, these stunning course manuals contain Nicholas C. Hill’s original leadership, management, and sales principles, which add value to your organisational culture development. As a manager, you are responsible for developing, communicating, and enforcing values that support your vision and mission, so you will find our principles invaluable.

Continuous Participant Engagement

We believe instructor-led training should not mean instructor-dominated training. If you attend a course where the trainer delivers a monologue and doesn’t engage you, they use a lecturing or preaching model.

While this approach may be suitable in universities, places of worship, conferences, or parliament, it is unsuitable for leadership, management, and sales training courses. The teaching model can be effective, but only for participants with long attention spans and an auditory learning style.

Our principal trainer, Nicholas C. Hill FCMI FIoL FIC, adopts training, teaching, coaching, and mentoring models according to the situation to keep you engaged throughout your course. He continually challenges and leads you while facilitating relevant interactions with other participants.

Furthermore, Nicholas Hill Academy Ltd acknowledges VAK learning, incorporating your visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic faculties. Therefore, you explore our course tools through stimulating dialogue and experiential exercises.

UNMATCHED VALUE

Skills Development Guarantee

While some training providers only offer skills development probability, Nicholas Hill Academy Ltd guarantees you develop the knowledge and skills you need when you attend our leadership, management, and sales courses. We have applied this philosophy for our clients since 1996. However, we do not expect you to take our word for it. Please read the hundreds of client testimonials on our website.

Before attending our courses, you can share your top three outcomes for knowledge acquisition and skills development. If, in the unlikely event, you have not achieved these results by the end of the course, please inform us within 24 hours of completion. Our team will continue to work with you at no additional cost until you are satisfied.

Post-Course Support Guarantee

If you have some unanswered questions or knowledge gaps after attending our leadership, management, and sales courses, be assured we will continue supporting you. As part of your booking with us and at no extra cost, you receive post-course 1-2-1 email mentoring from our principal trainer, Nicholas C. Hill FCMI FIoL FIC. Ask him any course-related questions because he is on hand to further support your growth.

Nicholas Hill Academy Ltd also provides optional instructor-led online coaching to maximise your ROI following course attendance. These 1-2-1 and group coaching sessions include the following benefits:

Test your understanding of the concepts and bridge any knowledge gaps
Share instances of when you have used our tools since completing the course
Overcome your challenges or reservations when using our tools at work
Explore other contexts where you can use our tools to multiply your ROI
Commit to using our tools long-term to maintain your growth

Practical Course Content Guarantee

We live in the dawn of artificial intelligence (AI). Future generations will look back and wonder how we ever lived without AI. As much as this technology is an opportunity for scientific advancement, it threatens current paradigms for all industries, including training and development. However, no matter how far AI advances, robots will never know the human experience.

For this reason, ChatGPT and other AI technologies cannot empathise with your leadership and management problems, meaning they cannot incorporate the necessary human element and respond empathetically to your psychological needs. While we endorse AI assistance, we reject AI control. Even this text and all our website content were written by hand for the same reason.

Nicholas Hill Academy Ltd offers a practical content guarantee for our training course material, publications, workbooks, slides, and supplements. Our principal trainer, Nicholas C. Hill FCMI FIoL FIC, researches, develops, and practises the tools he teaches. Therefore, you receive human-generated training. This approach means the tools you learn in our courses are pragmatic and relevant to humans, not the result of AI conjecture. Moreover, our training systems build the skills you need in the physical world.

Non-Cancellation Guarantee

While some training providers cancel courses or offer limited long-range rescheduled dates, Nicholas Hill Academy Ltd provides a non-cancellation guarantee. Therefore, as soon as you book with us, we will secure your date in our calendar and send confirmation of your booking.

In the rare event of unforeseen circumstances, we might need to reschedule our courses, but we will do so at your earliest convenience while providing you with various alternative dates. Rest assured you will receive the training you booked.

We stood by our non-cancellation guarantee even during COVID-19. We allowed our clients to run the courses online in a virtual classroom or postpone until after the lockdowns. Most chose the former option, which has become the norm and delivers many benefits associated with the classroom format. Therefore, we do whatever it takes to deliver on our promises.

Non-Overbooked Guarantee

Some training providers never let a sale get away and book as much training delivery into their calendars as possible. From a business perspective, this model makes sense. However, doing so when you have limited trainers will risk exhausting them. It also stretches resources and impacts customer service.

Instead, Nicholas Hill Academy Ltd offers a non-overbooked guarantee. Our open-scheduled courses are limited to five delegates. This standard means you receive personal attention and support from your trainer throughout your training. We also guarantee that we will not overbook our calendar. Nicholas C. Hill FCMI FIoL FIC is our principal trainer and delivers no more than 24 hours of classroom training per week. This approach ensures that his mental and physical energy levels are optimal when delivering your training courses. This approach provides a trainer whose performance is at maximum capacity throughout your development.