Simon Burgess - Director

Simon is a professional and experienced business owner, management consultant and a hands-on coach/trainer with over twenty years of senior management experience and thirty three years’ experience within the optical profession. He has succeeded within a variety of blue-chip companies in fields such as training and development, business coaching, operations, high impact marketing campaigns, manufacturing and retail sales, business planning, recruitment and selection and business development. He possesses the key skills and competencies required in order to develop all levels of business strategies, processes and procedures and has a high level of business experience including how businesses succeed and the proven capability to work at senior management level yet is able to communicate with all levels of personnel in order to attract, grow and retain new business. He believes in empowering, motivating and encouraging a change in mindset so clients are able to release their full personal and professional potential through becoming modern day thinkers and leaders of their teams.

Simons previous roles include UK and Ireland Training Manager for Specsavers Opticians where his contribution in developing people within the Optical profession was rewarded by being given an Honorary Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers award and subsequently given the Freedom of the City of London. He was then approached to become the UK Development Director for Vision Express leading his team to introduce a training and development path for the UK stores to create knowledgeable and confident experts. Previously to these roles Simon worked for Boots for 13 years where he managed teams and businesses and progressed into Business Operations Manager leading businesses to grow.

Simon decided to set up his own company (Think Consulting) in 2005 where he established SightCare Training working alongside the SightCare Group and provided all training and development requirements including business growth and coaching programmes for approximately 14 years which incorporates around 500 independent business owners nationwide.

Simon has presented and performed public speaking at many optical events throughout his career and is passionate about delivering the very best customer experience. He is also British Psychological Society qualified in Level A occupational testing and Level B personality assessments and believes that psychology plays a big part in creating a positive mindset to enable businesses to flourish and teams becoming confident experts creating a memorable experience.

Think Training and Business Growth

Think Training has a reputation for quality, integrity and innovation resulting from many years of building relationships with independent opticians based on trust and mutual respect.

Think training can educate your whole Practice team so they are able to deliver service excellence at all points of patient contact through knowledgeable and motivated staff thus enabling your practice to increase turnover and profits. 

Bespoke and open course training and development can be used effectively in your practice to:

• Address specific performance issues and development needs
• Correct the imbalances between the skills needed in the practice and the skills it currently possesses
• Increase the collective knowledge, skills and expertise of management and all staff
• Change the practice culture, by raising awareness and understanding of the attitudes and behaviours necessary to exceed patient expectations
• Prepare and equip staff for the future by re-training in new skills
• Build an even more effective team over the long term
• Differentiate your Practice through your team

Think training specialises in the design and delivery of bespoke training solutions. We work in partnership with you to understand your unique requirements.

We can then play an integral part in providing training solutions that make a positive and measurable contribution to your Practice team both now and in the future.

We work to a tried and tested approach, which is underpinned in our consultancy methodology, which reflects our principles and beliefs about how individuals learn and grow.

• Client focussed: our start point is to take each client organisation as unique with its own culture, goals and challenges.
• Partnership ethos: we seek to establish at the outset a working partnership with our clients such that we are sharing information and working together to achieve agreed outcomes.
• Learning outcomes: ultimately it is essential to define clear measurable learning outcomes from any activity and then put an evaluation process in place to track actual results achieved.
• Excellence in design: reflecting best practice in design and ensuring that real and lasting change is achieved and maintained which requires constant updating and improvement.
• Excellence in delivery: choosing the best delivery method and then executing it with excellence requires a team of specialists of the highest calibre who themselves are committed to learn and grow and will judge their success by how delighted you are.   

We Aim 

• To understand your needs
• To be the most responsive and reliable
• To be fair, objective, understanding, responsible and service-oriented
• To have the best trained employees
• To identify best practice for your business
• To improve your business in terms of people and profit
• To have effective and efficient processes
• To offer and provide legendary service 

Training Style

• Participative and interactive
• Experiential
• Leading edge
• Proven and effective
• Tailored to meet the needs of your business
• Fun, exciting, memorable 

Think training is committed to providing products and services designed to meet your defined requirements and that are delivered on time and to an agreed price. Our objective is to provide an exemplary service that delights our customers, both corporately and individually. We believe that each member of staff has a vital part to play in achieving this goal, a policy fully supported and enabled by all of our team.

Our approach to training and development

Quality of Service

A core value for Think training employees is to provide an exemplary level of service. Customer expectations are defined for each project; measurement criteria are agreed, monitored and reported on. We tailor our services to meet the customer’s needs, requirements and sensitivities. We match our customer’s needs by selecting consultants with relevant skills and knowledge.