Training providers: reaching whoever holds the training budget

Training is an easy thing for a business to put off. It matters, everyone agrees it matters, and it keeps slipping to next quarter.

So the providers who do well with outreach don’t just email every HR manager they can find. They email the companies where something has just changed and training has suddenly become urgent.

Who you want

For most independent providers, the best clients are employers with 50 to 500 staff. Big enough to have a training budget, small enough not to run their own academy.

Pick sectors where you have credibility. Health and safety trainers do well in construction, manufacturing and logistics. Leadership trainers do well in fast growing firms promoting people into management for the first time. Software and AI trainers do well wherever new systems are being rolled out.

The person who decides is usually the HR manager, the learning and development manager, or the health and safety manager. In smaller firms it’s often the operations director or MD.

Signals that it’s a good time

• Hiring at volume, or a batch of new managers promoted at once
• A new site or a big new contract
• A change in the rules for their sector
• New systems or software on the way
• A public inspection report in a regulated sector that points to training

Each of those turns “we should do some training” into “we need to do it this quarter”.

Where to find them

Apollo or a similar tool, filtered by sector, headcount, location and job title, will turn up most of your targets. Job boards show who’s hiring at volume. Companies House lets you search by SIC code for your chosen sectors. In regulated sectors, the regulator’s public reports are worth reading too.

What to say

Link the training to something true and public about the company. Never suggest they’re doing a bad job.

Subject: New site at Bodmin for Trewen Foods

Hi Priya,

Saw Trewen Foods is opening the new production site in Bodmin and hiring for it now. We run IOSH Working Safely and manual handling on site, in shifts, so teams don’t lose a whole day.

Would a short chat about what the new starters will need be useful?

Sam, Kernow Safety Training
If this isn’t for you, reply and I won’t email again.

The rules, briefly

You can email limited companies, LLPs and public bodies without asking first, as long as you identify yourself and make opting out easy. Sole traders and ordinary partnerships need to have opted in. A named HR or L&D manager is still personal data under UK GDPR, so keep only what you need and link to your privacy notice.

This isn’t legal advice, and the ICO is updating its guidance after the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, so check the latest before you send.

Get the template

Download the training providers ICP. It covers company size, sectors, decision makers, signals, where to look, who to leave out and the rules, with spaces for your courses, delivery and accreditations.

Fill it in, paste it into Claude, Copilot or ChatGPT, and ask:

• “List 10 sectors in [region] most likely to need [our training] and how to find employers in each.”
• “Score this company against the ICP and suggest who holds the training budget.”
• “Write a first email to this HR manager using the ICP.”

For a different kind of training, build your own ICP with the generator.

When you’re ready to send, Waving sends plain text emails from your own domain, with no tracking. You approve every email, and follow ups stop when someone replies.