Turning Training Content into a Credibility Asset
"...So get yourself a Debbie – the person who guides you through the long darkness of creativity.”
Richard Pascoe and Kirstie Hawkes, - Authors of The Versatile Presenter - Makingpresentations.co.uk
The Challenge: Richard and Kirstie were experienced trainers with a proven body of work - yet turning their ideas into a book that captured their thinking left them uncertain where to start.
Richard and Kirstie had something most people don’t: years of experience, a proven training framework, and a powerful idea that they had already refined in practice.
But it lived in fragments.
Through training courses, handbooks, and summaries, they had been teaching a critical truth about communication in business:
There is no one-size-fits-all way to present.
The challenge? Turning that depth of thinking into something more permanent, more scalable — a book.
Because in reality, most professionals default to a single presentation style shaped by their role:
- Salespeople persuade
- Insights managers present data
- Project managers summarise next steps
But as our careers evolve, so must our ability to communicate in different ways, in different contexts.
Richard and Kirstie had the idea. They had the experience.
But they had never written a book — and didn’t quite know how to turn everything they knew into one.
Who are Richard Pascoe and Kirstie Hawkes?
Richard and Kirstie are experienced trainers and practitioners in business communication, helping professionals become more effective presenters across different contexts.
Their work is grounded in real-world experience, built through their own careers in sales, marketing, and insights. Their techniques focus on real-world application, refined over two decades of training business leaders around the world.
Their book, The Versatile Presenter, brings those ideas together into a single, cohesive framework designed to help professionals adapt how they present as they grow.
The Solution: Turning years of training into a single, credible authority asset
Richard and Kirstie had built valuable training frameworks over the years; we needed to turn them into a cohesive, business-book-ready asset that could extend their impact.
Solution Step 1: Structuring the Thinking
The first shift wasn’t about writing; it was about clarity. Richard and Kirstie weren’t starting from scratch; they already had a well-developed body of work and a proven way of thinking about presentations. But all of it existed in pieces — across workshops, handbooks, and live delivery. The real challenge was stepping back and asking: what is the core idea here, and how do we bring it together in a way that is clear, intentional, and complete?
“We needed a guiding hand as we identified the through-line across our work. And as we refined our ideas into a consistent framework to act as the bedrock of the manuscript itself. What was once scattered across workshops and handbooks became a clear, purposeful body of work – this gave us something that truly reflected our thinking”.
Solution Step 2: Navigating the Process
The book solidified their core ideas and became a powerful credibility asset they now share with clients and prospects.
“Writing a book wasn’t just a creative challenge —we found it a demanding and often disorienting process, with moments of exhaustion. We had the added complexity of writing as a pair.
What made the difference was the guidance we got: a balance of positivity, realism about the experience ahead, and a great team to carry the work through to publication.”
Solution Step 3: From Idea to Asset
With the book complete, it became more than a finished product—serving as a credibility builder, a foundation for their core ideas, and a central asset that supports their training and client work.
The result? “We have a book… Writing the book has solidified a huge part of our thinking – ideas that are the bedrock of the many training courses that we run. The book has become the perfect credibility builder, as we share it with existing, new and potential clients.”
So get yourself a Debbie – the person who guides you through the long darkness of creativity!
Richard PASCOE - CO-AUTHOR OF THE Versatile Presenter - makingpresentations.co.uk
Here's what Richard has to say:
"Writing a book, at least one you will be proud to share with readers/clients/customers, is a mammoth undertaking. You will get exhausted, disoriented, and lost. So get yourself a Debbie – the person who guides you through the long darkness of creativity."
What Debbie Says About Richard & Kirstie
"What made Richard and Kirstie’s journey successful wasn’t just their experience, but their willingness to turn lived expertise into structured thinking, stay the course through a demanding process, and build a long-term asset that transforms knowledge into thought leadership"
