Professional skills training — live cohorts

Skills you can put down on a Monday.

The Bench runs short, live courses in the business skills nobody teaches in school — negotiation, financial literacy, hard conversations — built for people who learn by doing, not by watching.

6
Core courses
1–4
Weeks per course
100%
Live, cohort‑based
Certificate included
Course catalog

Pick the skill,
not the semester.

Negotiation Fundamentals

BUS‑101

The structure behind every negotiation — anchoring, leverage, and how to walk away without losing the deal.

Live cohort · 3 wks$480

Financial Literacy for Managers

FIN‑110

Read a P&L, build a budget, and defend headcount decisions without a finance degree.

Live cohort · 2 wks$360

Executive Communication

COM‑140

Say less, land more. Structuring updates, cutting the preamble, and writing decisions instead of narratives.

Live cohort · 4 wks$560

Leading Through Change

LDR‑120

Reorgs, pivots, and bad news — how to keep a team functioning when the plan changes under them.

Live cohort · 3 wks$480

Advanced Negotiation

NEG‑201

Multi-party deals, internal negotiations, and what to do when the other side won't move first.

Live cohort · 2 wks$420

Running Effective Meetings

OPS‑130

Agendas that hold, decisions that stick, and how to cut a recurring meeting nobody needs.

Live cohort · 1 wk$220
How cohorts work

Four steps, every course.

01

Enroll

Pick a course and reserve your seat in the next cohort — groups stay small, typically under twenty.

02

Pre‑work

A short self-assessment before session one, so live time goes to application, not baseline explanation.

03

Live sessions

Weekly, small-group sessions built around real scenarios — not lecture, not case studies from a different industry.

04

Applied project

Apply the course to a real, current situation from your own job and get direct feedback before you close it out.

Who teaches

Practitioners, not professors.

Add facilitator name

[X] years in [field]. One line on what they've actually run — a team, a P&L, a negotiation that mattered.

Editable

Add facilitator name

[X] years in [field]. One line on what they've actually run — a team, a P&L, a negotiation that mattered.

Editable

Add facilitator name

[X] years in [field]. One line on what they've actually run — a team, a P&L, a negotiation that mattered.

Editable
What alumni say

From past cohorts.

Sample testimonials — replace with quotes from your own alumni before publishing.

“First negotiation course that didn't feel like a TED talk. We practiced on our actual deals.”

— Marcus, operations manager, BUS‑101

“I finally understand our P&L well enough to argue about it in the budget meeting.”

— Renee, engineering lead, FIN‑110

Next cohorts are forming.

Enroll now