Kissing With Confidence

Kissing With Confidence

Helping to develop an international profile

Kissing with Confidence is a Glasgow company that specialises in teaching people to communicate more effectively. The company gives one-to-one tuition and short training courses, bespoke company-wide programmes and keynote speeches at conferences and events in the UK and abroad. Its suite of oral communication skills covers public speaking, networking, pitching, selling and negotiating. Over the past eight years, Kissing with Confidence has built up an impressive client list spanning many industry sectors, including professional services, the legal profession and higher education. It now works at the highest level with some of the largest companies in the UK.

Co-founders, Sharon McLellan and Russell Wardrop, are passionate about oral communication. They describe themselves as creative, innovative and challenging, delivering training that is motivational, memorable and unique. They are keenly aware of the business benefits of networking and are actively developing leads and contacts provided by the GlobalScot network to help boost their international portfolio of blue-chip clients.

Working with GlobalScot

A last-minute decision to attend the GlobalScot Conference in Edinburgh in 2006 resulted in significant new international business for the company. Sharon McLellan met GlobalScot, Derek Shepherd, MD of Aggreko International at the conference. He was looking for a training provider in higher-level presentation skills to do some work with his senior staff in Dubai, liked what Sharon told him and asked for details. Aggreko is now one of Kissing with Confidence’s major clients.

"I found them very hands-on and refreshingly good fun to work with. All my team have enjoyed their training and improved their presentational skills and techniques."



Kissing with Confidence started working in Dubai with Aggreko and now works extensively in the UK with them as well. This has helped to develop the company’s global credibility and has led to more work in Scotland including high-level coaching work and people coming on open courses.

The company is now able to offer on-site training to new clients during their regular trips to Dubai. The start of a dynamic and profitable business network in the Middle East can be directly linked back to an informal meeting at a GlobalScot Conference.

Future plans

Kissing with Confidence intends to maintain their links with the GlobalScot Network and increase their international business. Working both in Dubai and in Central Europe, the company is well-placed to take on more contracts in both these centres, particularly in the higher education and the legal sector.

"The conversation at the Edinburgh Conference was really significant for our company. GlobalScots played a pivotal role in getting us work with Aggreko and this was definitely the start of us getting an international profile."