For a quarter of a century, Russell Wardrop has been doing the same job: developing rainmakers.
As co-founder and managing director of KWC Global, based in Glasgow and London, Wardrop has made it his career to help lawyers, accountants and financiers learn the business skills often forgotten in business school: how to sell, lead and grow. His thesis is disarmingly simple: when learning and development is designed correctly and linked to tangible results, it ceases to be an overhead and begins to pay for itself.
“Too much L&D is treated as a discretionary cost,” he says. “It’s not really entertainment, but it’s rarely embedded in a strategy or measured by sales.” That’s a big mistake – so we made it our mission.”
The spark: from the lecture hall to the market square
Wardrop and his co-founder – and wife – Sharon (pictured) began their academic careers. He had trained as an architect and at the same time developed a career as a speaker; She studied law, enjoyed the details and, as he reported, “loved a spreadsheet.” Together they had extensive experience in setting up and validating undergraduate and postgraduate courses. What they could see and what many companies didn’t see was the gap between technical excellence and commercial impact.
“There are so many brilliant professionals who are never taught how to sell or influence,” says Wardrop. “We developed programs that gave them these tools and the rest is history.”
To start, they chose a name that couldn’t be ignored: Kissing with Confidence. They were not theater coaches, but business people with the promise of “extremely direct feedback” and practical exercises. The offering has since evolved into KWC Global and the Rainmaker Series and is delivered to world-class legal, accounting and financial services companies worldwide.
Profit center, not cost center
The KWC method begins with the goal in mind. “For us, the focus is on ROI from the first customer contact,” says Wardrop. This is not a vague wish, but a design principle: define the behaviors that increase sales, build insights based on them, and measure both qualitative and quantitative changes.
“Training only works if it changes behavior and improves performance,” he adds. “If what we’re doing doesn’t achieve that, we fix it – or we stop doing it.” The discipline also extends to customer service: KWC prides itself on its “continued” focus and on maintaining what Wardrop describes as a world-class Net Promoter Score.
The Rainmaker’s Toolkit
So what constitutes a rainmaker in KWC parlance? The company’s curriculum combines leadership, sales and influence. Participants practice articulating values, having difficult conversations, navigating politics without losing their edge, and moving stakeholders from “maybe” to “yes.” The constant refrain: results.
“We always ask ourselves: How does this move the needle?” says Wardrop. “That’s the difference between an overhead and an investment.”
Missteps, momentum and the Zoom moment
Wardrop is open about what he would change. “A lot,” he laughs. “But every misstep taught us something important.” If he has a single revision, it might be technology: “If I had gotten into this sooner, we would be further along.” “Zoom was an unexpected lifeline during lockdown, taking us all over the world overnight.” The lesson, conveyed with typical bluntness, is not to over-analyze the past. “When you have more time to look back than forward, it’s tempting to overanalyze everything. That’s not my thing. If I had known more about the business sooner, maybe we would be bigger – or broke.”
Who he admires
Two names quickly come to mind. Firstly, Dr. Brian Williamson, the Stirling-based serial entrepreneur. “He changed the way I thought about business,” Wardrop says. “Growth comes from a clear vision and a relentless focus on results.” The second is Gordon Ramsay – for reasons you can guess. “Unwavering honesty and high standards.” “A little fire never hurt anyone.”
The KWC way: clear words, actions, evidence
Wardrop’s own style is firmly rooted in the company’s culture: straight-talking, action-oriented and allergic to theater for theater’s sake. “If designed correctly,” he repeats, “training becomes a profit center and not a cost center.” This design makes the difference between a day out of the office and a commercial use.
Advice for founders and professionals
Urged for advice for those starting out in their careers, Wardrop offers a concise checklist:
• Find your focus. Stand against the wall. “Becoming brilliant at something specific.”
• Learn to sell. Market yourself. Be visible. Technical mastery is not enough if no one knows.
• Build resilience. “It was forged in difficult times.” When you meet me, ask what my favorite recession was.’
• Be distinctive. “Find an angle and be unique in some way.” The original “Kissing with Confidence” brand and promise of direct feedback was just that.
• Turn the frame over. “If you can turn what others see as a cost into a lever for growth – such as by realigning L&D – you will build a company that lasts.” Or, as Gordon Ramsay would say, “You have a chance.”
Of the obsession with results
Wardrop pushes back against the idea that training is gentle. For him, the soft is the hard core of growth: the ability to win contracts, maintain price, lead teams and motivate colleagues. What counts is proof of impact. KWC’s assignments begin with agreeing on the key metrics – new pipeline created, improved conversion rates, average fee increase, customer retention, cross-selling, leadership reviews – and end with reporting on them.
Customers remember this obsession with results. It is also the reason why KWC remained relevant through the cycles. Markets change, sectors consolidate, learning preferences come and go; The need to grow never does.
If there is a common thread, it is directness. Wardrop is the first to admit that he doesn’t use corporate euphemisms. But clients don’t hire him because of euphemism. They hire him for the momentum—and for the program architecture, coaching, and accountability that sustains it after the workshop peak has subsided.
The architecture looks simple because it is simple: focus, practice, apply, measure, iterate. Do the important things consistently and pay attention to the scoreboard.
Wardrop has spent 25 years turning skeptics into salesmen and engineers into leaders. The formula is no secret; it is rarely used consistently. “Find the behaviors that drive sales and embed them,” he says. “Everything else is commentary.”
For companies wondering whether to invest in training this year, the challenge is: Don’t spend, invest. Put ROI at the beginning, not the end. Design for results. Measure what matters. And insist that everyone who touches a customer can sell, influence and lead.
If you do all that, Wardrop suggests, you won’t spend much time debating whether L&D is an overhead.
