Apply for the Business Apprenticeship +

Pragmatic SME Scale Blueprint

Build internal capability while strengthening the enterprise conditions needed for the next stage.

When the business has outgrown the way it currently works, developing a team member alone may not resolve the wider conditions constraining progress. This pathway combines the two-year Business Apprenticeship with twelve months of strategic and operational coaching and advisory through the Pragmatic SME Scale Blueprint.

The apprentice develops broader business understanding and practical capability, while the leadership team clarifies priorities, strengthens enterprise design and improves the way decisions and execution connect.

The Apprenticeship develops the person. The Scale Blueprint helps the business build the conditions in which capable people can contribute effectively.

Two connected programmes, with different roles

The Business Apprenticeship develops your emerging team member’s capability over two years.

The twelve-month Scale Blueprint supports the leadership team to strengthen the enterprise for its next stage.

The work can inform each other where relevant, but each programme has its own scope, participation requirements and commitments.

What your investment includes for the Business Apprenticeship:

Sponsor and apprentice onboarding and alignment: Establish the business context, development priorities and a meaningful starting responsibility.

A two-year, 12-module applied programme: Build broader business understanding, commercial judgement, operational capability and systems thinking across four stages of development.

Learning connected to real business work: Apply learning to relevant responsibilities, decisions, projects and challenges inside your organisation.

Sponsor support for business alignment: Connect the apprentice’s development to the enterprise’s priorities and the work they are growing into.

An Apprentice Portal: Track progress, practical application and outcomes as learning develops into useful contribution.

Sponsor participation: Take part in relevant sessions and practical discussions so the business and apprentice build shared understanding.

What the business’s leaders need to commit, for the Business Apprenticeship:

An apprentice prepared to participate: The emerging team member needs the motivation and capacity to engage with learning, apply it to real work and reflect on their progress.

A named sponsor: A founder, manager or senior operator provides holistic business context, mentoring, regular feedback and appropriate decision boundaries.

Meaningful work: Provide a real responsibility, recurring process or bounded project through which the apprentice can learn and contribute.

Protected application time: Make room for learning to be used, reviewed and improved—not continually displaced by urgent day-to-day demands.

A two-year commitment: Enrolment covers both years of the programme. Payment is split into annual instalments, with the second-year invoice emailed before Year 2 begins. No automatic payment is taken.

The two-year capability journey

A structured progression from understanding the business to taking on meaningful responsibility. With real work, mentoring and feedback throughout.

Prepare & Start Well

Align the sponsor and apprentice around the business context, development priorities and a meaningful first responsibility. Agree how mentoring, feedback and practical application will work.

Year 1 — Understand the business

Build a working understanding of how the business creates value, how its key building blocks connect and what the financial numbers are saying.

Develop the judgement to investigate business questions and bring back useful answers.

Year 1 — Contribute with confidence

Develop marketing, sales and communication skills, alongside legal and ESG awareness.

Apply these skills to customer and stakeholder work, while learning to recognise risks and when specialist advice is needed.

Year 2 — Take ownership of useful work

Build leadership, improvement and digital capability through smaller projects and recurring processes.

Develop greater independence, with clear expectations, appropriate decision boundaries and sensible escalation.

Months 10–12 — Fourth connected cycle

Bring resilience, systems thinking and execution skills together.

Learn to connect priorities, people and day-to-day work, contribute to business decisions and help carry meaningful responsibility.

Bring the learning together

After the core modules, complete a final Business Impact Project focused on a meaningful business priority.

Demonstrate how the learning has been applied, what contribution has been made and what needs to continue or improve.

Responsibility grows through demonstrated capability—not simply because a module has been completed.

What your investment includes for the Pragmatic SME SCALE Blueprint:

Twelve months of strategic and operational coaching and advisory to build an enterprise that can carry the next stage.

You have chosen a structured, done-with-you programme for a business that has outgrown the way it currently works.

The Scale Blueprint helps the leadership team clarify the intended future, strengthen the enterprise conditions carrying the next stage and redesign what is no longer fit for purpose—without treating the whole business as a one-off transformation project.

A clear enterprise starting point: Establish the intended future, the relevant enterprise boundary and the first priority conditions that need attention.

Four connected 90-day SCALE cycles: Work through four practical cycles across 12 months to simplify the view, clarify what is connected, assess evidence, leverage proportionate change and embed what works.

A shared view of the enterprise conditions: Make the relevant value flow, decision architecture, leadership rhythms, capability, information, systems and ways of working visible—so improvement does not simply shift the friction elsewhere.

Strategic and operational coaching and advisory: Work alongside Ash through live enterprise decisions, trade-offs, priorities and implementation—not from the sidelines with a static strategy document.

Stronger enterprise design: Test, strengthen or, where evidence supports it, redesign the structures, decisions, information flows, roles, capability and operating practices needed for the next stage.

A sustainable next-stage rhythm: Finish with clearer priorities, stronger leadership and operating rhythms, and a more capable enterprise able to continue learning and simplifying over time.

What the leadership team needs to commit, for the Pragmatic SME SCALE Blueprint:

The Scale Blueprint is designed for leadership teams ready to work on the enterprise conditions carrying the next stage. It requires two structured working sessions each month and practical progress between sessions.

You will need to bring the relevant business context, protect time for strategic and operational decisions, involve the appropriate leaders and team members, and reinforce the changes being tested across the enterprise.

Plan for: two structured working sessions each month, plus approximately 4-8 hours per month for preparation, leadership decisions and follow-through. Some cycles will also require agreed involvement from relevant leaders or team members.

Between-session support is provided through agreed communication channels to help the work keep moving. It does not include unlimited on-demand consulting or emergency-response support.

Twelve-month rhythm for the Pragmatic SME Scale Blueprint

Prepare & Start Well

Complete the Programme Start Process, establish the intended future, define the relevant enterprise boundary and prepare the first 90-day SCALE cycle.

Months 1–3 — First focused cycle

Establish the initial enterprise view, clarify the first priority gap and begin testing the changes most likely to create useful leverage.

Months 4–6 — Second cycle or embedding

Strengthen the decision, information, value-flow, capability or operating conditions that are limiting progress or creating recurring friction.

Months 7–9 — Third connected cycle

Build on what has been learned, test further improvement or redesign interventions.

Months 10–12 — Fourth connected cycle

Consolidate what works, protect the new enterprise pattern and establish the next priorities for continued learning, simplification and growth.

Choose the next SCALE cycle

Update and communicate the new enterprise view. Then choose the next priority boundary for continued SCALE learning, simplification and improvement.

Your investment:

Initial bundle payment — €11,930, excluding taxes

This comprises:

• Business Apprenticeship Year 1 — €4,980

• Twelve-month Scale Blueprint — €6,950

All component prices exclude taxes.

The Business Apprenticeship is a two-year commitment. Year 2 is invoiced separately before the second year begins. No automatic payment is taken.

The Scale Blueprint runs for twelve months. Its delivery period is separate from the two-year Apprenticeship journey.

Need help before completing payment?

Email ash@pragmaticpeople.co with your question.

Initial bundle payment

Prices exclude taxes.

This payment covers Apprenticeship Year 1 and the twelve-month Scale Blueprint. Apprenticeship Year 2 is invoiced separately.

Payment is followed by a sponsor, apprentice and business suitability assessment before acceptance into the Apprenticeship.

What happens next:

Complete your initial bundle payment securely through Stripe.
Receive the next steps for the sponsor, apprentice and business suitability assessment.
Complete the assessment so we can confirm acceptance into the Apprenticeship.
Agree the onboarding arrangements and practical start dates for both programmes.
Establish the apprentice’s development priorities and the enterprise starting point for the first 90-day SCALE cycle.

The right fit

comes first

After payment, we assess sponsor, apprentice and business fit before confirming acceptance into Pilot 2.

We check that:

• The apprentice is willing and able to engage with the learning, apply it to real work and receive feedback.

• A named sponsor can provide business context, mentoring, regular feedback and appropriate decision boundaries.

• The business can provide meaningful work, relevant information and protected time for learning and practical application.

• The programme matches the business’s development needs and expectations.

The apprentice does not need to arrive with all the answers. We are assessing whether the conditions for useful learning and contribution are in place—not whether their capability is already fully developed.

Where a gap can reasonably be resolved, we will discuss the changes needed before confirming acceptance.

If we do not accept your Apprenticeship application following the initial suitability assessment, we will refund the Apprenticeship component of your bundle payment in full. No Year 2 Apprenticeship payment will be due.

You may choose whether to continue with the Focus Accelerator. Before you decide, we will confirm its price and any adjustment to your remaining payment.

Knowledge Transfer Guarantee

If your Business Apprentice leaves before completing the first year, you may nominate another suitable team member to continue the programme at no additional programme fee.

Where practical, the replacement can catch up on the learning completed to date and join the current cohort. If joining the current cohort is no longer practical, they may start again with a future cohort at no additional programme fee.

This helps protect your business’s learning investment and supports continued capability-building if the original apprentice leaves.

Replacement participation is subject to assessment, reasonable timing, available cohort places and confirmation that the proposed participant is suitable for the programme and that the business can provide appropriate sponsor support. Any catch-up plan will be agreed based on the stage of the programme and the learner’s starting point.

First-Session Confidence Guarantee:

Join the Scale Blueprint and attend your first working session. If, within seven days of that session, you decide the Blueprint is not right for you, email ash@pragmaticpeople.co and we will refund 100% of the Scale Blueprint component fee.

All we ask is that you attend ready to engage, share the essential starting context and give the process a fair opportunity to begin.

This guarantee applies only to the €6,950 Scale Blueprint component of this bundle. It does not refund or cancel the Business Apprenticeship, which has its own suitability and Knowledge Transfer terms.

Choose with confidence:

If the Accelerator Programme Start Process shows that the Focus Accelerator is clearly more appropriate, you may transfer your Scale Blueprint component payment to it.

We will confirm the applicable Focus Accelerator price and refund the difference between the two component fees.

Your Business Apprenticeship place and payment arrangements remain unchanged.