Marketing ‘mentoring’ consultancy Legends & Leaders launches with $62k price tag
A marketing mentoring service – offering marketers workshops from industry consultants for up to $62,000 has been launched in Sydney.
The brainchild of former JWT group account director Adrianne Nixon, Legends & Leaders says its marketing experts include the likes of former Nestle marketer Ian Alwill, DM expert Malcolm Auld, occasional Gruen guest Jane Caro, pitch doctor Colin Wilson-Brown, ex Ogilvy boss Mike Beckerleg and former Ogilvy chairman Tom Moult.
The new consultancy, which bills itself as an Australian first, says it has 90 industry experts on its books.
According to the Legends & Leaders business presentation, the new consultancy will offer mentoring modules hosted by the senior industry figures across areas such as: creative, account management, media, finance, digital, strategy, public relations and brand immersion.
Half day, full day or two day packages are priced at $22,500, $30,000 or $50,000 respectively. There is also a “bespoke” option priced at $25,500 for a half day of mentoring, $36,000 for a full day or $62,000 for two days. 
“This is not a training session, we are not training people we are helping them to achieve better teamwork and results from the team from the people they work with,” said Nixon.
According to the Legends & Leaders presentation the consultancy recommends that the mentoring sessions occur off site. Some of the venues listed include: “Homes normally used for shoots, rehearsal space at Bell Shakespeare, Behind the scenes at Taronga Zoo, The Kiosk at Shelley Beach, Suite at the Sheraton, Fox Studios.
Nixon said a key part of her business would be that mentor would not be pitching for business from the agencies or clients in the program.
“There are over 90 people on the mentor roster and it will evolve and change as we progress. Our experts have to be independent in the sense that they are freelance consultants or they are what I call ‘masters of their own domain’ and they own their own company or are so senior that they will remain independent when they are put in front of people,” she said.
“There is no pitching business which tends to be an issue overall. They sign an NDA and its a case of what is said on tour says on tour.”
Legend & Leaders has launched with endorsements from the CEO of the Communications Council Margaret Zabel and STW Group CEO Mike Connaghan.
“The Legends & Leaders initiative presents a unique opportunity for clients to strengthen not only their agency relationships but significantly improve their marketing and business results. The bespoke approach can build team capability and unlock new opportunities by leveraging the insights and experience of experts in the industry,” said Zabel in a statement.
Connaghan said: “Any investment in helping client and agency teams achieve a better result is welcome. We have a saying at STW, ‘experience is usually a thing you get just after you need it’. Leaning on the experience and knowledge of this group seems invaluable.”
Nic Christensen
Parts of the Legends & Leaders presentation:
For those numbers, I’d be expecting a half day mentoring session with Dave Droga, Steve Jobs and Barack Obama.
In all seriousness, I really believe that those figures are stupidly high. A client or agency won’t pay that for middle management coaching, which leaves senior staff. But the list of mentors, while high calibre, are ex senior clients & agency staff from the Australian market themselves. In other words, it is a lot of money to be coached by your peers.
And you thought Mumbrella 360 tickets were expensive.
If I still worked in this industry I’d be really annoyed if I saw my managers trapsing off to these events. As a junior I wasn’t even making the 1/2 day rate in a year. Even now I only make slightly more than the 2 day rate (and I’m not talking about the bespoke one)!
Any agency who pays to send people off to this should be putting their money towards their juniors. If they were given more money and support, by the time they hit middle management they wouldn’t need one of these courses!
I think they could have shelled out for a powerpoint template and some decent stock images…
Ridiculously overpriced, especially in comparison to other senior management coaching providers where you at least know who you’re getting.
And someone should tell them they shouldn’t use cheap stock photos and graphics.
Firstly, the presentation that Mumbrella has shown was an internal working document that they should not have received. I asked them not to share it, but they decided to disregard.
Secondly, the prices are not flat rates. Again, the document was a working document and out of date. Each session will be costed individually based on the requirements and the cost is all inclusive – mentors, venue, catering and follow up sessions.
It is a program tailor made for the individual team – they know exactly who they’re getting and (unlike some conferences) there is no wastage.
That’s funny.
Bag the organisation that publsihed the document on their own website and then take a sideways swipe at the events business.
Do you guys offer PR training as well?
And here was me thinking that mentoring was giving back to the industry which had made you successful for without payment , or close to it, so the next generation could do well too.
This is complete bulldust. No Finance Director in his right mind in today’s business climate is going to sign off on managers doing this wankfest at these prices. Where’s the ROI? Take it from a qualified vocational trainer, this is prehistoric. Experiental learning i.e transferring the knowledge into the workplace and managers realising practical, tangible benefits from the learning experience, is what works for business today.
“At about the price of a print ad”…are you still in the era of your mentors…wake up.
I do love an early April Fool.
It’s an interesting concept but what a train wreck of a launch – her defence above is poor. I would also have thought that having their site up and running was a priority, but no – “Coming Soon”.
Perhaps they need some mentoring around how to launch a business.
#launchfail
The” tall poppy bitchin syndrome “alive and well in Ad Land
So no one here is going to be at all surprised that Mumbrella themselves are already working on delivering the exact same concept and are quite possibly spitefully pissed that someone else beat them to the punch?
And @Andrew&Gina indeed, why engage in open and transparent dialogue with your detractors? Much easier to hide behind a pseudonym and anonymously troll
Hi John (or “Melissa” as you were last time you posted from this IP address),
I can say with some certainty that we’ve never contemplated doing anything remotely similar to this concept.
There are many, many brilliant ideas in this industry that I wish I had thought of first. This is not one of them.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
It’s not like coaching or mentoring is anything new is it? The thing this signals to me, as I have found with some clients, marketing mentoring can be a much better option fr them. Empowering people to do things themselves has it’s rewards other than monetary. Mentoring certainly works with SMEs. Many corporate marketers wouldn’t admit to needing it. Many good agencies are mentoring their clients by default anyway. So why not charge for it? Why get uptight about what they charge? I assume these very clever marketing experts have done their research and this offering is based on insights they have uncovered. I say good luck to them. It’s given me plenty of food for thought.