Do businesses really not have any budget?

[outofofficeagain]

I have been self-employed for 15 years and recently changed direction, delivering corporate training (well-being and DEI-related). I've done training before, but this is a new area and new target market.

It started well, but over the last few months, I've had nothing. People either do not get back to me at all or coming back with nos.

Is it the time of year? Or is it a terrible time to be doing this?

I can go on for a bit longer but getting very scared that this was all a terrible idea and I should go back to what I was doing before.

Where I work we have to reduce spend by a million. Can't reduce service, so the only way to achieve this is redundancy. Not doing it for fun I can assure you.

A few thoughts - if i have training budget it’s going on something that will increase income.

I think DEI is past peak interest, and if you’re not established already this will be a tough area to work in.

Someone I know who trains gets lots of people booking now and asking to be billed this FY for sessions later in the year if they have money left, surely that can’t just be our sector.

If you don’t have money to spend from last year you’re probably waiting to hear your budget for this year so can’t commit.

I agree with previous posts re the need to cut costs and varying emphasis on priorities.

In addition, general business and death in service insurance policies increasingly offer access to wellbeing and medical services and bereavement counselling for employees plus free advice on all aspects of employment law. This is a very easy option for employers to fall back on without needing to spend more. In my experience, larger businesses also have sufficient knowledge in house.

All experience is valuable. I’m sure you’ve developed transferable skills you could put to good use in another role if you find you need to seek one in the future.

Good luck!

Sorry OP the current government does not make for confident spending, we are all wondering where we're going to be hit next. From a medium sized business perspective DEI would probably be the very last of our priorities as far as personnel is concerned: the very first being wages increase. I'd rather give my employees hard cash and more security than well meaning words.

You’re trying to sell a solution to a problem that businesses don’t have. If you want a successful business, you have to find a business problem that is common enough for there to be demand for a solution; and you need to have the skills and capabilities to provide that solution.

I can see why it could be valuable. But for most organisations even when there is budget this is likely to be way down the list of topics. I would expect that for most professional places a line manager would be able to speak to HR to get support on policies, approach etc.

Sorry OP this doesn’t sound like a runner to me.

I have suffered a significant bereavement and my managers used their own common sense and compassion to help me. I also accessed grief counselling through my workplace. I work in local government and haven’t had any external training for the last 5 years. We simply haven’t the spare cash for it. When I started out it was very common but those days are gone. Sorry, OP.

Yes it's a tough sell. I am in a similar position - slightly different offering - and the work has dried up. I have my theories and not employing specialists will come back to bite people... but budgets are budgets and this is a crap time of year.
The work market is truly shite and my bottom line gets lower every day (I have been successfully doing this for 5+ years, totally decimated in the last nine months)

I work for a large international bank and I would say that this kind of training simply isn't considered a priority anymore. Through Covid it was very people and well-being focussed but the last couple of years since being back in the office it's drifted back down the priorities. The minimum wage and NI hike as well as geopolitical change is impacted spending plans for businesses of all sizes sadly.

@jelliebelly you have a point there about covid focusing company's priorities on well being and supporting employees' mental health. The pendulum is now starting to swing in the opposite direction. Companies are rowing back on covid-era benefits such as WFH and other perks like bringing dogs into the office. It could be that grief and loss is wrapped up in covid-era priorities but that has slipped now that the labour market has tightened and times are getting tougher economically.

I used to work in another area which was a bit of fad which died down. It is best to pivot into a different growing area than mourn the loss of something that is not coming back in the same shape.

I'd definitely agree this has something to do with it and also the NI going up

Could you add some menopause related topics - in a lot of companies it just isn't mentioned at all.

Also I found Briggs Myers personality types training really useful and this is much better done in person.

Would you be able to pivot this training towards people who communicate with bereaved people?

I used to work in life insurance claims and we would have refresher training from Samaritans and Cruse on how to communicate with bereaved customers. Most financial services companies, utilities etc will have bereavement teams so may be a potential market for you?

I've seen bereavement policy leave of a Week, at BT, one place had 3 days - including one day for the funeral. DEI and grief was just in house common sense.
I still think this thread has had very good solutions for op to branch out and sell herself in many other areas.

I work in a sector vaguely concerning DEI and it's not been mentioned a lot recently

2023 was a mega hot year for it, not so much nowadays

If you're gonna do anything, I'd do women's health, family focus products, infertility etc

That's an emerging market

As so many people have said it's just not something that has a market. I'm a bit surprised you got so far down the route of going all in without sense checking this.

I'm senior and this is not something that's ever come up as anything we'd even think the about spending money on. We have HR who support people.

The only time I've ever been part of a thing like that was went my company lost a lot of staff in 9/11 but I hope that's a once in a lifetime event and not something you can make a business out of.

Sorry but it's better to call it a day now than sink more money and time into something that has got no legs.

The thing is OP i dont think the scenario you are describing, where someone experiencing bereavement isn't supported, happens very often at all.
In my experience actually workplaces /colleagues tend to be quite empathetic with bereavement, often managers will somewhat ignore the policy suggested 2 days and be much more flexible etc. I just don't think the scenario you describe occurs so frequently that it would become an issue it's worth paying for training around, sorry.

I know nothing about this sector tbh but I’m sorry to read about how flat you’re feeling.

Could you get casual retail/hospitality work to bring in money but keep pitching the business for another year or so? You may catch a break. I think you might regret it if you don’t give it more time. You’ll always wonder if the business was genuinely moribund - or whether you stopped too soon.

Obviously if your financial outgoings are significant you may not have the ability to do that.

all the best

I'm late 40s and a lot of my friends are dealing with chronically or terminally ill parents or their parents have died recently. All have been surprised at how supportive their workplaces have been - time off, staggered returns, signposting to EAP, providing access to additional counselling where EAP has been insufficient. These friends work for a variety of sectors and across a range of business sizes.

I think businesses are generally much more aware these days of a whole range of things and that includes supporting those who are grieving. I think that this includes awareness that it isn't unusual for someone to come back to work too soon and need more time off meaning that, during the period they are back, you are gently monitoring them and ready to step in to remind them they can take more time off if they need.
I also wonder quite how many businesses there are where someone is indispensable, so devastated by a death that they need to have a significant period of time off work yet the support of a manager who has been on a half day/day training course is going to have a significant impact on when they return to work. I would have thought very few people would be in the middle of that particular Venn diagram.

Totally agree with this: the market in many areas feels completely and worryingly at a standstill, which is really worrying for freelancers.

I've been earning a lot over the last couple of years but I am now wondering if I should think about getting out-of-work benefits at this point, as my books are basically dead from April onwards: particularly as I'm disabled so unable to work outside the home. I'm hoping that if I hold my nerve, things might change, but government spending is not really looking up for the economy generally (unless you work in defence!).