Grow your international sales by upskilling your team

Start by identifying the skills needed for your team (or external suppliers) to effectively support your export strategy. 

This could include export-specific skills such as: 

• Language proficiency 
• Cultural awareness 
• Knowledge of international regulations and procedures 
• Understanding the markets you are looking to trade with 

Also consider transferable skills and experience you may need to draw on, such as: 

• Influencing and negotiating 
• Project management 
• Stakeholder management and networking 
• Leadership 
• Conducting due diligence 
• Finance 
• Legal 
• Resilience 
• Decision-making 

Next, get a sense of what your starting point is by assessing the current skills of your team members against the list of skills you identified that you will need.  

You can use various methods to conduct the gap analysis, including self-assessment, interviews, surveys, and performance reviews. 

You can use a table or spreadsheet to record your findings – Indeed has an example of how to do this for a single employee. You can also easily adapt this to create an overall picture for your team. 

Once you have done this, you will be able to see what gaps in knowledge and skills you need to address.  

Based on the skills gap analysis, create a training plan that outlines the required training for each team member.  

While putting your plan together, think about: 

• The level of training required 
• How many people need to undertake the training 
• Any restrictions on the type of delivery that will be appropriate – for example, do you need online only? 
• Any individual needs your employees might have, such as their best learning styles 
• Whether it’s new skills for your business which will need external training providers, or if you have someone who is already skilled and could train others 
• What existing resources you have access to, such as memberships to trade bodies or export organisations  

You will then be able to assess which training can be delivered internally, and plan that in more detail with the person who will be delivering it.  

If you need external training providers, research some suitable options and pick the best based on the requirements you identified earlier. 

Some resources to consider are: 

UK Export Academy

The UK Export Academy is a free training programme by the Department for Business and Trade (DBT). You can sign up for an account to access training on a range of export topics delivered online and face-to-face. New sessions are regularly added, so keep checking back to keep your team’s skills up-to-date. 

Institute of Export & International Trade

Members of the Institute of Export & International Trade can access a wide range of courses and webinars to grow your business and ensure you trade compliantly and with confidence. 

Open to export

Watch a variety of Open to Export free online webinars and get free advice on international growth. 

ICAEW country resources

Access 170 guides from ICAEW including economic forecasts, guides to doing business and information on the tax climate in each jurisdiction. 

Also take time at this point to consider how you will evaluate the effectiveness of the training. 

It can sometimes be tricky to measure, so consider using some of these ideas:

• Self-assessment questionnaires 
• Informal feedback from peers and managers 
• Focus groups 
• On-the-job observation 
• Actual job performance key performance indicators (KPIs)

Try using this training plan template from Indeed to note your ideas.

Once the training plan has been developed, implement it in a structured manner.  

Ensure that the training is interactive, relevant, and addresses the identified skill gaps. 

Encourage your team members to actively participate in the training process by linking their training back to their progression plans and your business’s objectives, so they can see its purpose. Share what’s in it for them. 

If you are training a few team members at once, you might like to add a friendly competition element to keep them engaged.

After the training is completed, evaluate its effectiveness using the measures you decided in your plan. 

This could include assessing whether the team members have acquired the desired skills, if the training has improved their performance, and if you have seen any positive impact on exports. 

You might like to do this evaluation at different milestones, such as straight after the training and several months later to assess the longer-term impact.

Export markets are constantly evolving, so it's important to keep your team up-to-date with the latest trends and regulations.  

Plan for ongoing training and development to ensure that your team’s knowledge and skills remain relevant and effective.