Have you thought about getting a coach or joining a course but immediately dismissed it because your organisation has no budget?

Have you considered asking your employer to invest in you but felt too awkward to actually make the ask? Or do you feel bad booking yourself on to training because it feels like it will be taking training away from your team.

If any of those scenarios resonate with you, then stay tuned, because in this episode, I'm going to help you shift your mindset so that you feel more comfortable asking your employer to invest in you. I'm going to share how the leadership multiplier effect means your development directly benefits others. And I'm going to provide you with the strategies you need to make that ask of your employer. This is the influence and impact podcast for women leaders, helping you confidently navigate the ups and downs of leadership, and feel less alone on your journey as a leader. My name is Carla Miller. I've been coaching leaders for the past 15 years. And I'm your new leadership bestie as your bestie. I'm here to remind you of the value that you bring to your organisation to help you believe in yourself, and to share practical tools and insights from myself and my brilliant guests that will help you to succeed in your career.

It is a beautiful sunny day here in Cumbria, which as you can imagine doesn't happen very often. It has been a long, long winter. And I am so happy to see that gorgeous blue in the sky today is making me feel in such a good mood. And I've already been out for two walks this morning, and it's only 11 o'clock in the morning. We've got some really exciting things coming up for you in terms of both the podcast and in terms of ways to work with me. We've got and I just need to stop a sack baby home.

Right, let's just cut that whole bit about the beautiful day and everything I've said since then, and I will start again. I don't know what it's like where you are today. But here in Cumbria, as I record this, it is a beautiful sunny day, the sky is that gorgeous shade of blue. And it really feels like spring has sprung. And I don't know about you. But I really feel like I needed that.

I don't think I realised how much I needed it until I saw the sun today. I've already been out for two walks. And it's not even 11 o'clock yet. I'm also really excited about what spring is bringing. So we've got International Women's Day, happening this week, that will have already happened by the time you listen to this. But it's great to have the opportunity to go into companies and to talk to men and leaders about ally ship. Because I love talking to women leaders. But wouldn't it be great if we could help to change workplaces as well. We've also got influence and impact coming up in May that's filling up nicely. There's a few spots left, if you're interested in that. And then women leading my offer for women leaders is coming out in the next couple of weeks. So there are going to be some fantastic early bird discounts and opportunities. So if you have not already do go and get yourself on the waiting list at Carla Miller training.com, forward slash earlybird. Okay, so that aligns very nicely with learning how to ask your employer to invest in you. Because I know for a fact that there are lots of people who self fund their participation in my courses. And they're coaching with me, when actually they wanted to ask their employer, they just didn't feel comfortable doing so or they assume the budget wasn't there. And I always encourage you to make that ask. So let's start by looking at how you can shift your mindset so that you feel more comfortable making that ask. And the first thing I want you to think about is that this is about taking control of your career, rather than being a passive bystander. So I think as women in particular, we often wait to get noticed, we don't talk about what we're good at. We don't talk about where we want to go whilst men are much more practised at that. So there's this theory that men go out and they make sure that everybody knows what they're doing now, what they're doing well, what they want to do next and how much they want to get paid.

And for any of us, we feel really deeply uncomfortable doing any of that. And I'm not asking you to go from where you're at now to communicating like a man who hasn't grown up surrounded by gender bias. What I'd like you to do, though, is to recognise that we don't have to sit and leave our career up to our line manager, because the line managers can be random, some of them are fantastic at developing us. And some of them, it's just not on their radar, or they don't think it's a priority, and they don't know how to do it. So I would really encourage you to think for yourself about either Where do you want to go next? Or how do you want to develop yourself? Do you want to be climbing the ladder? Or do you just want to keep on mastering your craft, where you are now, or mastering and developing yourself as a leader?

So think of it as taking control of your career? Now, the other thing is, if you don't ask, you don't get because you're just not on that, like your training and development probably doesn't feature very highly on your list of line managers priorities. Hopefully, it is on there somewhere, but it's probably not right at the top. So you do need to make the ask. And I have always felt really uncomfortable asking anyone for anything. And I remember talking to someone who was a hairdresser for Victoria Beckham. And she said, she got a bit of advice from Victoria Beckham, which was Ask, ask, ask.

You don't get given opportunities, you have to create opportunities for yourself. And so that is a timely reminder to me when I'm worried about making the ask. And the other thing to think about is, we are so used to putting our team first and as women, we are trained by society to put everyone else first those of us that are parents are trained to to put everybody else's needs before our own. But your needs matter to whether that's your need to develop particular skills, whether that's your need to feel more comfortable and confident in your role, your need to feel like you're growing, when you've been in a role for a period of time, or your need to feel like you're ready for the next role. Your needs matter to it doesn't always have to be your team's needs coming first. The only person who's responsible for prioritising your needs, is you. So if you're not doing that, nobody else is either.

And I think it's really useful to think about the leadership multiplier effect when it comes to training. So I could train a member of your team, and that would be super helpful for them, I can train you. And that will benefit your whole team, because you will be a more effective leader, you will be a happier leader, you will understand yourself better, you'll have better self awareness, therefore, you'll be more conscious of the impact that you have on them. Even let's take an example of influencing if you learn to influence and instead of you and your team sitting there getting frustrated, because you don't have the information or resources, or access that you need, you will be able to navigate your organisation more successfully and get those things for your team. So that leadership multiplier effect means that the money invested in your development has a bigger ROI than the money invested in developing a member of your team. Now, I'm not talking about you taking all the leadership budget and no one the training budget and no one having anything else. But I think sometimes we forget that we do have more impact and more leverage.

And ask getting better does make things better for the whole team. The other thing about training a leader is that a leader will share their insights with their team members. So I had a lovely message recently from someone who had been on one of my courses. And she was coaching a member of her team through a difficult situation and shared a strategy that she'd learned on my course. Her team member put that strategy into action and had an incredibly positive experience in a challenging situation. And I love that I love that when I work with someone as a coach or a trainer that that those strategies, those insights that they filter down, they cascade down through teams as well.

Now another two reasons to make sure that you do ask your employer to invest in you is that you are flagging that you want to develop yourself so even if they do say no, you'll find it much easier to get the time to attend training if you decide to fund it yourself. But you've also flagged to them, Hey, I'm someone that wants to keep growing and getting better. I've got a growth mindset, I am ambitious, in whatever, why that means something to you. So it's always even if you are absolutely convinced that they will say no, why not make the ask anyway. And I know that a lot of the people that listen to this podcast work in the charity or not for profit sector, and training budgets are small.

However, even if they don't have the whole budget, you make a contribution towards it. So lots of people, for example, in my courses end up getting them part funded by their employer. So you never know what you might get. And just because something's not in the training budget doesn't mean there's not some other budget elsewhere.

Now, before I go on to providing you with a strategies, structure that you can use to ask your employer to invest in you, I just want to signpost you to a couple of other podcasts that are relevant to some of the things I've just shared. So in Episode 87 of the podcast, I talk you through how to have the career conversation with your line manager. So if you're listening to this thinking, Oh, actually, it's not even just about investing in me, it's about having that broader career conversation. There are some fantastic insights in Episode 87. In Episode 120, I have faded Wallace on as a guest talking about developing your career and some of the different ways that you can do that. So that is definitely worth a listen. And then in Episode 146, we talk about being intentional with your career. And that's an interview with Dr. Hannah Roberts. So all of those if you're in that headspace now of thinking, Oh, it's still kind of the start of the year, I want to think about where my career is going this year. Go and listen to some of those episodes. Okay, so how do we actually go about asking your employer to invest in you?

Okay, first up, let's remember, you are not asking them to do you a favour, you're not going to them and saying, you want something random, like you want croquet lessons? And would they please fund that you are asking them for the training or coaching whatever it is, that will allow you to excel in your role and to overcome challenges. So this is not them doing you a favour? This is you saying I want to be even better? In my role, I want to get even more results for my organisation. And getting these particular skills will allow me to do that. And great leaders are committed to constant learning, like can you imagine working for a leader who was like, Yeah, I know everything there is to know about leadership, I've got this.

I can't, I don't think that would be very much fun. I think a leader that recognises that they still have more to learn, and that they've got areas for development, and they're going to work on those is the kind of leader that I would want to work for. So that's the first thing to remember. Now, the second thing to remember is that, and this is a general influencing role. You want to pitch it in terms of what's important to them. So yes, you're going to talk about what you will get out of it. But think about what they are personally passionate about. So are they personally passionate about?

Innovation, for example, and new ideas and growth? Then you can refer to those terms when you're making your pitch. So what do they talk about when they give feedback about you or your team? Or when they talk about what you'd like to do more of you want to capture the language that they're using? So think, what's important to them? How can I phrase it so that it really really lands with them so that it ticks, the boxes that are important to them, so that you're using the language that they might use to describe it, so that it sounds like something that they thought of rather than something that you're proposing. So simple, that can make a real difference, particularly if you've got a different kind of communication approach to your line manager. Right. So step one, explain why you want to do it, and tie that into your work performance, or the feedback you've had in terms of your appraisal, or something that's been highlighted in your PDR or tie into your current career progression.

So for example, part of your role might involve presenting to the exec team a lot, and maybe you get nervous doing that. So you might pitch it in terms of this will enable me to be more confident presenting to the exec team, which means they'll be able to better represent the department and an answer questions. And effectively, what you're saying there is, it's going to make them look better, because you will be better. Or it might be that they're if you work in a large organisation, some of them do promotions on an annual basis, it might be about making sure that you're ready for that next round of promotions. So explain why you want to do it. But make sure that you are tying that into your role very, very tightly and try and use examples for that. So rather than saying, this will generally make me more confident, well, what would it make you what situations do you need to be more confident in order to do your job better, and talk about those situations tell stories that bring it to life. So you're pitching this vision of how you will be different as a result of this training and how it's going to benefit the organisation. Point to focus on the skills that you will acquire, and how they will what you learn will play out in terms of your ability to do your job well. So it might be around presenting skills, it might be around inclusive leadership, it might be around something like dealing with your overwhelmed team, or learning to say, No, think about the actual tangible skills that you are going to get from this investment and where you're going to put those into practice.

And then step three talk speak to the multiplier effect. So think about how this is going to benefit your team. So your line manager might be thinking, well, we need to split that training budget equally between the five of you and your team, and you get the same amount as everybody else. But actually, it will be a better investment to invest a chunk in you in order to benefit the wider team. So think about and talk about how it's going to benefit your team. And then step four, make sure that you are positioning, whatever it is you want the investment for as well as possible. So whether that's a course or a coach, or maybe it's not an investment of money, maybe it's a sabbatical, think about what is the relevance to you. So let me just redo that bit PB.

Step four, position, the investment you want, smartly. So whether you're wanting investment to do a course, or whether you want to work with a coach, you know, you want to really make a case for that particular course or that particular coach. So what credibility do they have. So for example, if you were wanting to take part in influence and impact we've had over 500 women go through that now from all sorts of different organisations, including big names, there's credibility attached to that, or you want to work with a coach, you can talk about how long they've been coaching for, or the particular area that they specialise in, or the fact that you have been on the podcast and X episode was really helpful, as you know that my experience is relevant. And when I say resonates with you, I hear that quite a lot from the coaching clients that approach me. So whoever it is, whatever the course is, position it well. And then step five, you want to show how you will manage your time, effectively, because the number one question, beyond what is it cost will be? How much time will this take? Because you're probably already got a lot on your to do list.

And so you need to think about how you're going to answer that question. So for example, on the training courses that I run a, they are not very time heavy, but also they're very, very practical. So there's not lots of very technical theories and models. It's not theoretical, basically, it's all practical. So the idea is if you spend an hour and a half with me, you're going to wait make back so much more than that, because this is going to save you time, it's about working smarter, instead of getting caught in tension with another department and that taking up days of your time, you're going to learn to influence effectively, for example, or instead of not having the confidence to do something or being a perfectionist and doing it a million times before you hand it in. You're going to believe in yourself more and trust the quality of the work that you're putting forward. So show how you will manage your time effectively. So to recap those five steps. One explain why you want to do it and tie it into work objectives in some way to focus on the actual skills that you will acquire and how you're going to be able to use those effectively. Three, speak to the leadership multiplier effect. So talk about how this will benefit your team, for make sure you're positioning the course or coach smartly, otherwise, they might try and pitch you something else as an alternative. And five, show how you're going to manage your time effectively and how actually, this is going to be a plus, rather than a minus when it comes to your time.

Now, the other thing you want to do is to think about what objections what questions or concerns might come up and how you're going to overcome those. So a common one, for example, is someone goes to their line manager or to HR and says we want to take part in X course. And they're told well, we have an internal costs for that. Now, if the internal course is great, fantastic, go with that. But actually, if you've got your heart set on a course by a particular supplier, then share the reasons for that. So for example, you can make a case that being in a programme or course outside of your workplace, and not surrounded by your colleagues, will give you the psychological safety to be able to talk honestly about what's going on for you. And to get solutions to the challenges that you face. You can also make the point that you will be building a network meeting women from a broad range of different industries or meeting a group of peers within your sector. Or you can make the point that this particular course or coach is tailored to your precise needs. So yes, a broad general leadership course, is a great introduction, but actually is that going to help you with influencing skills, for example,another objection that might come up is they might say that you have internal coaches. So quite often, organisations will train up individuals within the organisation to coach others. And that can be absolutely fantastic. But it really depends what the challenges are, that you're facing. If you're having an issue with the culture of the company as a whole, for example, it's not necessarily great to have an internal coach. So you might want to make the point that you want confidentiality, that you really feel that you, you need that in order to work with a coach effectively. Or you might want to say that the particular expertise of the coach you've chosen, are really core to that coaching experience for you. Or it might just be the fact that coaching is such a personal choice, and you really resonate with a particular coach, because you've had an experience with them in some way.

Another objection that could well come up is budget, and that there's a limited budget for training, like I said earlier, make the ask, you can always offer to part fund. So I have quite a few clients that part fund, or you might be able to agree with your employer to split it across two financial years, so to use your training budget, Acuff across a couple of years. And then finally, if they give you there's just no budget for training, well look at other pots of money. So you can say, Well, is there anywhere else the money could come from? Could it come from the marketing budget, for example, or from x budget.

So encourage them to kind of broaden their thinking about where it could come from, I think if you can make a really strong business case, which is what we've really been talking about here, for investing in you to do a particular piece of training, then a lot of places can find the money if they can really see the business case for it. And so I think it is useful when you're asking your employer to invest in you. I think it is so much easier when you're being specific about it. I think generally asking for investment in you as like generally asking for support, like, people don't know what to do with that request, and be specific about what you need and why you need it.

So in summary, you deepening your skills, or your confidence as a leader isn't selfish. It's something that will benefit your team and benefit your organisation. So go into this conversation with that mindset. And secondly, asking for them to invest in you in a particular opportunity flags that you want to develop and grow. And you can bet that there are plenty of men out there that just are just asking for the training they need, regardless of how much it costs or how much budget there is and without second guessing themselves. So that's where some of the budget might be going. So it's about having that confidence and self belief and that knowledge that your needs matter and you get to develop yourself that hopefully will then enable you to actually have that conversation and to hold your own in that conversation. So I hope it goes well. I would love you to ask to take part in influence and impact or to join women leading or to work with me as a coach. But there, there are many incredible opportunities out there to develop yourself offering all different things.

And I think it's good practice to ask your employer to invest in you and to be always learning and growing. And that doesn't have to be a masters or something epic. It could be a couple of hour workshop or it could be a one day session. But something that enables you to feel like you're moving forward, you're progressing and you're growing. I hope this was helpful. Do let me know how you get on. And as always, if you want to talk about working together in some way or you want to know which of my courses or coaching offers is most relevant to you, you can always book a call with me just head over to my new website, carlamiller.co.uk.

Have a great couple of weeks and I shall speak to you soon.