L&D: Competency Architecture, Training & Coaching

What it is

Training in the skills that build trust with clients: listening, questioning and conversation intelligence. We help people change their mindset, their perspective and their skills. We have done this for about 20 years.

This is where the Trust Foundry started. Everything else we offer grew from it.

A palette of soft skills

Trust is not built with one skill. It is built with a palette, and people need to know which colour to use, and when:

Emotional intelligence. Reading emotions, yours and the other person’s, and using that to guide your behaviour
Emotional awareness and accountability. Noticing how you affect the conversation, and owning it
Empathic listening. Hearing what the client means, not only what they say
Sense-making. Helping clients frame and make sense of their situation
Coaching. Helping the client think, rather than telling them what to do
Metapositioning. Stepping back to see the conversation, and your part in it, from outside
Questioning. Asking questions that open up the client’s thinking
Storytelling. Making a point so that it is understood and remembered
And more, depending on your sales context

We work in three ways

Curriculum design. We help sales leaders, and their HR and L&D counterparts where they exist, define a sales training curriculum. Or we define the soft-skills part of the curriculum you already have
Behavioural models. We define the behaviours expected with clients: ideal, desired, tolerated and unacceptable. A behavioural model makes a posture tangible. Leaders can see it, name it and supervise it in the day-to-day, not only in the classroom
Delivery. Classroom, virtual and digital training, and conferences for wider audiences, at four depths: awareness, discovery, scaffolding and mastery

It is for sales and business development leaders who want their people to listen, question and build trust. It is also for the HR and L&D partners who design and run the programmes.

Sound familiar?

You do not need to recognise all of these. Two or three are a meaningful sign that training may be relevant.

Your sellers know the product well. Meetings still turn into presentations
Everyone agrees that good questions and active listening make better meetings. Nobody can explain precisely what that means, or show what it looks like in a real meeting
Clients are asked few questions, and the questions are the same every time
Sellers hear the client’s words, but not what sits behind them. Hidden concerns come out late, or not at all
Training took place. Within weeks, behaviour was back to normal
Quality depends on who is in the room. A few people are very good, and the others are not
Leadership asks for “consultative selling”. Targets, bonuses and reviews reward volume and speed
Your curriculum covers product and process well. Listening and questioning are one line on a slide
Your technical experts are respected for what they know. Clients do not yet see them as advisors

The cost of waiting. Client experience is inconsistent. Some interactions build trust. Others fall short of the standard and damage the relationship capital you have built. The result is that differentiation stays difficult. You also lose revenue of the quality you want: the kind that comes from clients who trust you.

Is this the one you need?

Our specialisation. We develop the soft skills needed in complex sales. We also work on the shift in behaviour that moves a technical expert from “the person with the answers” to a trusted advisor. This is a different job from teaching presentation skills or sales techniques. It asks experts to change how they listen, how they ask and how they use their knowledge.

Training is rarely wrong. We have not met a sales team that was over-trained. Most teams are under-trained in the soft skills, and these skills fade without practice.

Training is also not a silver bullet. When results do not move, the cause is often elsewhere:

Roles and responsibilities are unclear or overlap. Commercial strategy is unclear or not shared. Compensation and rewards pay for the opposite of what you train. Sales motions do not leave room for the new behaviour.

When these are misaligned, a good course is absorbed by the system within weeks. This is why we ask about them before we propose training.

Think of the orchestra. Advisory sets the direction. L&D is where each musician learns the instrument. SalesOps is where they play together. Without training, there is no instrument skill. Without the rest, there is no music.

It fits when

Your team lacks listening, questioning and conversation skills, and you can see the effect in meetings
Your technical experts need to be seen as trusted advisors
You are building or reviewing a sales training curriculum
You want a shared, visible standard for how people behave with clients
You have a training budget and want it to lead to lasting change
You are ready to look at what supports or blocks the new behaviours

What needs to be in place

A sales leader who sponsors the programme and takes part in it
Willingness to look at roles, strategy, rewards and sales motions that may work against the training
Live opportunities where people can practise
Time for people to learn, practise and repeat

It is not the right choice when

The direction is unclear: that is Advisory
You need to find out where the system leaks: that is an Audit
You need tools, processes and routines to change: that is SalesOps
The change must reach culture, rewards and systems across the whole organisation: that is Sales Transformation
Training is expected to fix a problem that sits in strategy, roles or rewards
A one-day event is expected to change behaviour for good

How it works

01
Understand the context. We start from your priorities and your Audit, if you have one. We check what supports or blocks the behaviours you want: roles, strategy, rewards and sales motions. If they pull the other way, we tell you before we design anything.
02
Define the behaviours. We build a behavioural model with your leaders. It describes how people act with clients at four levels: ideal, desired, tolerated and unacceptable. It turns a posture into behaviours you can see. Managers can then coach and supervise against it every day.
03
Design the curriculum. We choose the levels, the skills from the palette, the depth and the formats for each audience. We either build a new curriculum or work on the soft-skills part of your current one.
04
Deliver at the right depth. People move through the four depths, with practice on real opportunities.
05
Embed. Learning continues after the course: micro-learning, self-coaching, AI coaching and learning journeys. Managers reinforce it in their routine coaching. We review what is used and adjust.

The four depths

Each depth has its own purpose, format and result. Not everyone needs all four. We choose by role and by need.

Depth	Purpose	What people do	Typical format	Result
Awareness	See why the skill matters and where you stand today	Hear the case, see examples, reflect on their own habits	Conference, short workshop, digital module	A shared language and the motivation to change
Discovery	Experience the skill for the first time	Try techniques in exercises and role-plays, get feedback	Classroom, up to 27 people ideally; virtual	People can name the skill and use it in a safe setting
Scaffolding	Apply the skill on real work, with support	Prepare and review real meetings, use micro-learning, self-coaching and AI coaching between sessions, get feedback from peers and managers. The support is reduced as skill grows	Learning journey over several weeks or months; small groups	The skill shows up in live meetings, with help
Mastery	Make the skill a habit and adapt it to hard situations	Practise on complex and high-stakes situations, with observation and individual coaching	One-to-one or small-group coaching; observed meetings	The skill holds under pressure. People can coach others

Formats and people

Classroom. Up to 27 participants at once, ideally.

Virtual or digital. For distributed teams, and for follow-up.

Conferences. For wider audiences, to set a common language and a common aim.

Frequent formats include 2-day training workshops for classroom training, across Europe and beyond, series of online workshops, year-long learning journeys and cultural activation.

In practice

The curriculum, in levels

Prospecting
Sales Meeting Management
Complex Selling
Relational Selling Management
Negotiation
Key Account Management

The palette of soft skills

Emotional intelligence
Emotional awareness and accountability
Empathic listening
Sense-making
Coaching
Metapositioning
Questioning
Storytelling

Methods, built and refined over the years

Micro-learning
Flipped learning
Self-coaching
AI coaching
Learning journeys

Design work with leaders and L&D

Sales training curriculum
Soft-skills components of an existing curriculum
Behavioural models

What you get

A curriculum your people can follow. A clear path from awareness to mastery, in levels. Each level builds on the one before. It fits your sales motion and your language.

A behavioural model you can supervise. The standard of behaviour is written down, agreed by your leaders and visible. People know what good looks like. Managers know what to coach, and what not to tolerate.

Skills that last. Training is followed by practice, coaching and reinforcement. Skills are used in live opportunities.

Technical experts who work as advisors. They keep their expertise. They add the skills to listen, question and make sense of the client’s situation.

An honest view of the system. A clear list of what supports the new behaviour and what works against it. You decide what to align and when.

Signs it worked

Meetings open with the client’s agenda, not a presentation
Sellers ask more open questions and follow them up
Technical experts are invited into client conversations as advisors
Clients mention the quality of the conversation, unprompted
Managers coach against the behavioural model
The gap between your best and your average people narrows
What the company says it values matches what it measures and rewards

A test. Listen to three recent client meetings, recorded or reported. Count how often the seller asked a follow-up question to understand the answer. If it is rare, the skill has not landed yet.

What's different in how we deliver

Another training programme, forgotten in a month. A reasonable fear. Many sales teams have sat through one.

I started in training. I have spent about 20 years helping people change how they listen, how they question and how they see their clients. I have seen training work. I have also seen it fade, again and again, when the system around it pulled the other way.

So I do two things. I train with a clear view of what happens after the course. And I ask early about roles, strategy and rewards, because these decide whether the skills survive.

Client Insights

Client situations, the work we did, and the outcomes — insights from our case studies.

View all use cases

Next step

Book a call. Bring your current curriculum, or a description of what you train today. In a first conversation, we look at what it covers and what is missing.

Length and format to be confirmed.

The booking calendar can’t show here because scheduling cookies are off. Click the button to pick a time on the Calendly booking page in a new tab, or allow cookies through “Cookie preferences” in the footer to book without leaving this page. You can also email julien@trustfoundry.eu.

Often preceded by an Audit, which shows where the system leaks. Often paired with Advisory, for direction, and SalesOps, to turn the skills into shared practice.

Questions

How long does it take, and what does it cost?

Cost depends on your choice of format, the degree of customisation and the extent of mentoring and coaching that will follow. Our classroom training start from about 15k€ (per session, max. 27 participants). Year-long learning journeys rarely exceed 200k€ for up to 40 ppl. Digital solutions are much more scalable.

Is training enough on its own?

Never, unless it is the only limiting factor. It works best when roles, strategy, rewards and sales motions point the same way. Beyond the initial training, skills activation, on-the-job coaching are commonly useful for a wide adoption and sustaining change.

Can we train too much?

We have not seen a sales team that was over-trained in listening and questioning. Frequency and practice matter more than volume.

Do we need all four depths?

No. We choose by role and by need. A wide audience may need awareness only. A key-account team may need all four.

Can you work with our L&D team?

Yes. We help define the curriculum, or the soft-skills part of it, together with HR and L&D.

How large can a session be?

Up to 27 people in a classroom, ideally. Virtual and conference formats reach larger groups.

How do you use AI?

AI is one component of how we teach. It supports people. It does not replace the trainer or the coach. In training, we use it in four ways:

In learning journeys and self-coaching. For the awareness and discovery depths, AI is part of our learning journeys and our self-coaching platform
For conversational learning. People talk with AI to explore concepts and frameworks. This makes them easier to understand and to remember
To prepare meetings and interactions. Sellers and experts use AI to prepare for conversations with prospects and clients
For feedback and coaching at scale. AI gives feedback on the soft skills people are developing. More people get regular coaching than a trainer could give alone

AI can also analyse meetings in detail and feed your CRM, your deal qualification frameworks, and your client and market intelligence systems. That is part of our SalesOps work. See the SalesOps page. People stay responsible for the conversation and for the decision.

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