Unlocking the potential in the people behind the brands

Through training and coaching in marketing, innovation and leadership skills

We unlock the growth potential of brands of all sizes by transforming the capability of their marketing teams

LockSmith is Chris Lock and Alex O'Rourke (nee Smith). Between us, we have 50 years’ experience gained in multinationals like Diageo and Coca-Cola as well as start-ups and SMEs such as Fever Tree, Feel Unique and Lily’s Kitchen. We use that combination of experiences to design and deliver bespoke training courses and coaching programmes to develop both the functional skills and soft skills of your marketing team.

Alex and Chris sat with a laptop

How can LockSmith help?

Functional Skills

We offer marketing and innovation courses that can be run off the shelf or tailored to your needs

  • The Key to Brand Building
  • The Key to Innovation
  • The Key to Customer Marketing
  • Unlock Amazing Briefs
  • Unlock Commercial Marketing Skills
  • Unlock Brand Positioning
  • Unlock Real Insights

Leadership Skills

We work with individuals, teams and founders to unlock their full potential through workshops and coaching

  • Unlock Your Brilliant Best 
  • Find Your Confident Core 
  • Unlock Better Client Relationships 
  • The Key to Getting Stuff Done  
  • Unlock People Potential 
  • One to one career and life coaching
  • Mentoring

What’s it like working with LockSmith?

Collaborative
Fun
Practical
Agile
Creative
Structured
Immersive

But don’t just take our word for it. Listen to what these lovely people have to say.

LockSmith Clients

Latest News

Navigating Change Through Connection: ​A Wellbeing Retreat for Edrington UK’s Marketing Team

The Edrington marketing team was facing a significant moment of change. With organisational shifts on the horizon, there was an opportunity to step back from the day-to-day and focus on the bigger picture. The team needed space to reflect on the personal and professional impacts of a transformative year, celebrate their successes and recharge for the future.​

This wasn’t a standard business retreat. Edrington’s vision was something far more personal — a chance to recognise the journey the team had been on, thank them for their hard work and create an environment where they felt supported, valued, and empowered for their next chapter – whatever that might be.

Developing a team of strategic, commercially astute marketers for Clorox

The leadership team at Clorox recognised that to keep their brands profitable long-term in a commoditised categories like cleaning and personal care, they needed a strategic, commercially astute marketing team.​

The problem? Most of the team hadn’t been formally trained in marketing. Without foundational theory and critical marketing skills, they were delivering hit-and-miss marketing plans that fell short of the consistency Clorox needed to drive business performance. There was also a gap in customer understanding and sell-in skills, meaning that even their strongest marketing plans lacked the commercial follow-through needed to make a real impact.​

That’s where we came in. To raise the floor for Clorox, we designed a fully tailored, end-to-end learning journey to equip their team to deliver brilliantly thought-through marketing plans and effectively commercialise them, making the marketing function at Clorox a key driver of long-term profitable growth for the business.

Unlocking Compelling Customer Propositions​ with C&C

C&C had an exceptional marketing team delivering standout brand marketing campaigns. The problem was the impact was falling short. Why? They weren’t successfully bringing their sales team or retailers along on the journey to support their brilliant marketing activity.​

After a closer look, we uncovered the root of the issue: the team hadn’t been trained to craft commercially astute propositions.​

They weren’t winning over key decision-makers: retailers and customers. So, while the marketing hit the mark, it was getting blocked from reaching consumers because they weren’t swaying the gatekeepers.​

The mission? To raise the floor on commercial capabilities by training the marketing team at C&C how to create sell-ins that buyers simply can’t say no to.