Why “Off-the-Shelf” Training Fails – And What Happened When I Was Asked to Teach Japanese Etiquette


Recently, a well-known training provider (who will remain nameless) asked me if I could deliver a one-day


classroom session on Japanese Etiquette.

Not once.
Not twice.
But seven separate times, by different schedulers, all in the same week.

Each message said the same thing:
 “Are you available to deliver this course?”

Not one message said:

  • “Do you have expertise in Japanese culture?”

  • “Have you ever lived or worked in Japan?”

  • “Do you know anything about this topic at all?”

And here's the truth…

What I know about Japanese Etiquette could fit on the back of a postage stamp.

But they didn’t care.

Why?
Because the person who booked this course through their website was expecting a training professional — and the provider simply needed someone (literally anyone) to stand at the front of the room so they could run the course and get paid.

This is the dark side of off-the-shelf training.

When training is sold as a product rather than a service:

  • Quality doesn’t matter.

  • Relevance doesn’t matter.

  • Experience doesn’t matter.

  • The learner certainly doesn’t matter.

What matters is filling the seat, clicking “course delivered”, and issuing the invoice.

And too often, the person who turns up to “train” is someone who can read the slides — nothing more.

At NBS Training & Coaching, we do things differently.

We don’t deliver training we aren’t qualified for.
 We don’t use generic slide decks written by someone you’ll never meet.
 We don’t put a stranger in front of your team and hope for the best.

Every programme we deliver is:

✔ Practitioner-led

✔ Experience-based

✔ Built around real scenarios

✔ Designed to drive actual behaviour change

No beige training.
No filler content.
No pretending.

Just practical, relevant, no-BS training that your people can use the next day.

If you’ve ever been burned by off-the-shelf training…

…or you want something that actually improves communication, leadership, behaviour or team performance — let’s talk.

👉 www.nbstrainingandcoaching.co.uk

john@nbstrainingandcoaching.co.uk
 📩 Message me to discuss your team’s training needs.

Less Beige. More Brave.

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