Training Skills for Your Trainers
Training For Trainers Course Introduction
In This Video
- We not only build powerful skills for agents and leaders, we train trainers in our delivery skills, the same ones we use in our live and remote training sessions. In this video, Patty and Mo talk through the Training For Trainers course and its life-changing benefits.
Welcome Trainers, Presenters and Meeting Managers
If you are a trainer or you manage the training function, this is the page for you. If you provide occasional presentations to your team or company, this page is for you, too. And if you want to improve your meetings, virtually all leaders will benefit here, too.
The Training For Trainers program we offer focuses on delivery excellence – participants truly interacting with the content, meeting your instructional outcomes, evaluating learning, having fun and making sure that every participant can perform much better on the job as a result of the class you just trained. We have been training trainers around the world since 1994 and these are the results they see when they apply the skills from Training For Trainers.
“I love delivering our Training For Trainers program. Every trainer wants completely engaged participants who leave their classes energized and then go and employ the new skills immediately. This course will give you every delivery and development skill you need to make that happen consistently. I wish every trainer had these skills. Life as a trainer is a lot easier!!”
Patty Ash
Senior Training & Development Consultant
Call Center Training Solutions
Delivery Excellence: Is it a Dying Concept?
Today, the skill of training delivery is overshadowed by e-learning development, learning management systems, and just-in-time training through QRGs (Quick Reference Guides). These are all necessary and important, but being an awesome and effective trainer or presenter seems like it’s from another era. And does remote learning help or hurt? Remote training is so easy to do. Just schedule a Teams or Zoom meeting and you can train a group. That training falls short, however, if the trainer does not have the ability to make sure the new skills make it back to the job. TFT will rebuild your trainers’ pride in delivery excellence.
Training For Trainers: Proven and Successful!
Thousands of trainers from all over the world have participated in this powerful class since 1994. Many large clients have purchased the licensing and now train all their trainers themselves in the Training For Trainers course. It is powerful because it provides all the skills needed to conduct a training class, whether one hour long or 10 weeks long.
Where Did This Course Come From?
Mo Bellio here, President of Call Center Training Solutions. I became a trainer back in 1989 while working for Sprint, after an eight-year career in sales and management. Good fortune for me, the trainer skills we learned came from several international training consultants/experts, all who came from the Xerox Learning Center in Leesburg, Virginia. At that time, this was the preeminent place trainers from around the world would visit so they could learn the latest and most effective course design, training delivery and training management skills. I was blessed to receive all those skills and it changed everything for me! Our training and design content has its roots in those original training skills.
What will be Your Take-Away from Training for Trainers?
The other half of Training For Trainers is focused on job performance. If all we do is have a great class and everyone has fun, but no one goes back to their jobs and makes the changes, that training was a complete waste of time. Training For Trainers shows trainers, developers and subject matter experts where to begin when developing a course. Whenever we are building a course from scratch, we start with a front-end analysis of the department(s) so we can capture the best practices the entire team should be using. Some of these already exist and some of them are brought in by our team. Knowing how to capture or create the very best practices is more of an art than a science, but it’s all part of Training For Trainers. Your trainers will learn this critical development skill.
We all want our training participants to leave the class and start performing at a higher level, changing the metrics for the better. This takes good development skills and an effective process!
If your delivery skills have become stale, participating in Training For Trainers can really help. You will receive world-class delivery skills. You will leave with a fresh set of objectives on how to improve your training, both the development of your content and the way you deliver. You will start enjoying the challenges to make every day better and benefitting from the new delivery skills.
Finally, the big question. Can a training program create long term sustainment of the new skills and the improved performance that may happen, right after a class? The answer is mostly No (however….). QA can help, but QA can only tell us what the reps are not doing. It does not create sustainability. Even with great job aids, ongoing video and digital media support tools, the new skills will eventually fall away – unless – the leadership team is supporting them, coaching to them, reinforcing and messaging about them.
In Training For Trainers, we offer great ways to get your leadership team fully engaged in the training initiative. Your leadership team is a critical part of the improvement process. Too many organizations have a large space between Training and the Sales or Service teams. We will show you how to bridge that gap and get the leadership team on board from the start.
What’s Next?
Training for Trainers
Course Overview
Contact us for two other courses
Effective Presentations for those who occasionally present, and Meeting Management and Facilitation for leaders who regularly run morning meetings, quick huddles or any other type of get-together.
Below you will find the major skill sets and modules from Training For Trainers. If you do not see a skill here that your trainers need, please ask us about it. There are many other training modules we can incorporate so your program is fully tailored.
Course Overview
This is a fairly new module. It provides learners with an overview of the perspectives we have developed over the last 25 years about key skills and training concepts. This module introduces the priorities we believe will help trainers achieve their full potential.
Sections / Topics / Skills
- The Goal of Training and How We Accomplish It
- Significant Training “Fails”
- The Learning Process and How to Create Retention and Sustainability
- Main Components of Any Course
- The Role Instructional Objectives Play in Design and Delivery
- Fundamental Platform Skills
This module covers the fundamentals of how people learn best and what is most important when they enter a training class, whether in person or remote. Understanding Adult Learning Theory is vital for trainers to be most effective and to ensure trainees retain the valuable information being delivered.
Sections / Topics / Skills
- Developmental Levels of Current Employees’ Current Skill Sets
- What Adult Learners Respond Best to during Training
- Multi-Sensory Learning (reaching all the sense while delivering)
- Behaviorist/Humanist Styles of Training and Proper Application
- What Adult Learners Like
- Activity: Identify the Key Principle being employed in each scenario presented
Often, it is what the trainer doesn’t say, but communicates through their non-verbals, that makes the difference when training adults. Non-verbal communication accounts for up to 70% or more of the messaging and meaning being received by participants. This module covers the Do’s and Don’ts of Non-Verbal Communication and how to help trainers leverage them more effectively. Since Covid, we have also trained up countless trainers and speakers on maintaining engagement and buy-in when training remotely. “The Big Six for Remote Training” will provide your trainers with best practices for remote delivery.
Sections / Topics / Skills
- What Impact does Non-Verbal Communication have in a Class?
- Nervous Habits
- Facials & Eye Contact
- Voice and Vocal Variety
- The Big Six for Remote Training
- Activity: Participants demonstrate all the major Non-Verbal elements in a mini-simulated training session. If your trainers are remote, the activity focuses on the Big Six best practices.
Trainers must wear many hats. This module introduces five different Delivery Roles (Styles) trainers should incorporate throughout the training (e.g. Expert, Authority, Person, etc.), rather than training exclusively with their dominant Style. Trainers who employ all Styles ensure their classes function smoothly and the trainer remains in the driving seat. Additionally, participants will learn eight common Trainee Roles or personality types (e.g. Hero, Independent, Discouraged Worker, etc.) and how to work with each one for best results.
Sections / Topics / Skills
- 5 Trainer Roles Defined
- Multi-Role Utilization
- Group Dynamics: Critical Leadership Roles
- 8 Trainee Roles Defined
- Tips and Techniques for Managing Each Role
- Activity: Participants must correctly identify the Trainer Role and Trainee Role being described in four scenarios and must choose the best delivery approach for each one.
- Five Question Methods (e.g. Direct, Overhead, Burrow, etc.)
- Seven Question Types (e.g. Recall, Consequence, Comparison, etc.)
- Building Urgency Through Questioning
- Activity: Participants conduct a mini training session, incorporating all of the Question Types and Methods.
This is one of the most critical skills for trainers. In this module, participants learn best practices for opening courses and modules that engage class participants from the start. Participants also learn the VOPOVR (Value, Outcome, Process, Objective, Validation, Review-Wrap), a proven, outstanding process for opening a course.
Sections / Topics / Skills
- Importance of Strong Openings
- Smart Ways to Improve Every Course Opening
- The VOPOVR
- The VOPOR for Opening an Individual Module
- Activity: Participants design and deliver a complete VOPOVR for a fictional class
Instructional Objectives (a.k.a. Learning Objectives) are the building blocks of excellent training. They are the difference between “need to know” training and “nice to know.” In this module, trainers will learn and practice creating the three Components of Objectives (Behavior, Conditions, Standard), Appropriate Measurement Activities and the two main Types of Objectives (Terminal and Enabling).
Sections / Topics / Skills
- What is an Instructional Objective?
- Important Considerations for Objectives
- Components of an Objective
- Tiers of Objectives: Terminal and Enabling
- Instructional Tasks / Training Content
- Activity: Multiple activities for participants to create various types and elements of Objectives.
For the trainer that must occasionally develop content or entire training courses, this module provides a simple, straightforward process for doing it right. You will master the key building blocks to creating a great course (or modify one) every time!
Sections / Topics / Skills
- Thoughts about the Body of a Course
- Open/Body/Wrap Concept
- Creating Openings
- Course Design Process (when time really matters)
- Anatomies
- Course Anatomy
- Module Anatomy
- Instructional Task Anatomy
- Presentation Anatomy
- Activity: Participants are given a set of instructional objectives and must sketch out the anatomy of a new, 3-module course
Another important but overlooked skill, this module introduces proven skills for answering questions effectively and accurately. Since this is an unplanned and unscripted skill, many trainers unintentionally provide unsatisfactory responses to questions.
Sections / Topics / Skills
- What Fielding Questions Reveals about You the Trainer
- The Fielding Questions Process
- Tips for Improved Listening
- Activity: Participants demonstrate the Fielding Questions Process
- Anatomies
- Course Anatomy
- Module Anatomy
- Instructional Task Anatomy
- Presentation Anatomy
- Activity: Participants are given a set of instructional objectives and must sketch out the anatomy of a new, 3-module course
All trainers provide feedback to participants, whether it is after a role play, to discuss a participant’s general progress or when a participant is demonstrating unacceptable behaviors during the class. This module provides great tools for all situations.
Sections / Topics / Skills
- The Importance of Presenting Accurate and Effective Feedback
- Balanced Feedback for Sharing General Feedback
- Reinforcing Feedback for Sustaining Excellence
- Formative Feedback for Eliminating Unacceptable Behaviors
- Activity: Participants demonstrate all three Feedback processes using their own typical participant situations
Pricing
All pricing is customized to each client’s needs, including number of classes, preferred length of class, etc. Please use the following pricing as samples only. We will work with your budget.
- Delivery Price for Entire Workshop (approx. 4 days or 30 remote hours): $6,500.00 (12 participant maximum)
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Two or More Workshops Booked at Once: $5,900.00 each
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Available for In-Person or Remote Classes (remote can be broken up to fit your team’s best schedule)
E-Learning and Video-Based Training: We have many ways to deliver your training. Contact us today and we will build a delivery plan that makes the most sense for your team. We can train hundreds or thousands of participants across the world with a combination of live webinar, video or e-learning lessons, live skill practice, etc. We can even involve your leaders in the delivery.
FAQs for Training For Trainers
What are some reasons why a corporate training class can be boring?
When training content doesn’t directly relate to participants’ roles, responsibilities, or career goals, it quickly loses their interest. Irrelevant content fails to demonstrate the practical application of what’s being taught, resulting in participants becoming disengaged.
Trainers who rely solely on one delivery method, such as lecture-style presentations, without incorporating interactive elements or varied teaching approaches, can create a monotonous atmosphere that fails to capture participants’ attention.
Overloading participants with excessive information in a short amount of time can overwhelm them and hinder comprehension. The brain’s ability to retain information diminishes when bombarded with too much data.
Training sessions that lack interactive components such as discussions, group activities, or hands-on exercises fail to engage participants actively. Passive listening without opportunities for engagement often leads to boredom.
It’s important for trainers and organizations to recognize these pitfalls and actively work to create training environments that are dynamic, engaging, and tailored to participants’ needs.
What are the skills a trainer should possess?
General Traits
This is number one, by far! Trainers must possess the ability to create and sustain involvement from all participants. Boring lecture or watching 2-3 people answer all the questions is not true Facilitation. Participants learn more and sustain that knowledge or skill when they have been highly involved throughout the class.
In-depth knowledge of the training topic is essential for trainers to provide accurate and insightful information to participants.
Dynamic presentation techniques, including voice modulation, body language, and visual aids, captivate participants’ attention and enhance comprehension.
Clear and concise communication helps trainers convey complex ideas effectively, keeping participants engaged and informed.
For Remote Training
Trainers must navigate virtual classroom tools, manage participant interactions, and foster an inclusive environment.
Being capable of assisting participants with technical problems ensures a smooth learning experience despite potential technical hiccups.
Remote trainers need to leverage breakout rooms, polls, and collaborative tools to maintain participant engagement from a distance.
Creating visually appealing presentations and ensuring clear audio quality is crucial for effective remote training.
Remote trainers should accommodate participants in various time zones by scheduling sessions at suitable times.
Bottom line, trainers need a blend of technical, interpersonal, and adaptability skills to deliver effective training across both remote and in-person settings. Their ability to convey information clearly, engage participants actively, and manage unexpected situations will ultimately determine the success of their training sessions.
What are some ways I can improve my training classes right now?
Tailoring content to participants’ specific needs, roles, and skill levels can significantly boost engagement. Generic content might not resonate as effectively as content that directly addresses participants’ challenges and aspirations. This may take some time on the front end to schedule meetings with key contacts in each department.
Incorporating real-world simulations or case studies that participants can interact with provides hands-on experience, fostering deeper understanding and engagement. We love simulations, we long as they do not get so elaborate and long that they take away from the learners’ ability to get the most out of the skills being trained.
Introducing elements of gamification, such as quizzes, challenges, and rewards, can transform learning into a more interactive and enjoyable experience. Keeping a running point system and perhaps breaking into teams all make the gamification more fun.
Facilitating peer-to-peer learning through group discussions, team projects, or breakout sessions encourages participants to share insights and learn from each other. Just be careful with discussions and build limitations around them so participants a) stay focused on the learning, and b) the talk time does not rob too much time from the class.
Incorporating visuals, videos, infographics, and other multimedia assets makes the content visually appealing and caters to different learning preferences. Reps love videos too. Even if just to break up the training, playing an online video (keep it on point/informative or silly/non-offensive).
Utilizing polls, surveys, and chat features enables trainers to gather instant feedback, answer questions, and address concerns, creating an active learning environment. With Teams or even Zoom, especially if there are participants from all over the country, it is worth learning and using all the interaction tools.
Incorporating a mix of live sessions, self-paced modules, discussion forums, and one-on-one interactions accommodates different learning preferences.
Linking theoretical concepts to practical applications and real-world scenarios helps participants understand how the learning can be applied in their work or daily lives.
To enhance engagement and delivery quality, trainers should consider incorporating a combination of these elements, while also continuously seeking feedback from participants to refine and improve their training approach.
What can a trainer do to ensure that all the participants make it to the class and none drop out just before the class starts?
In advance of the training, communicate the value and relevance of the training to participants. Clearly outline the objectives, benefits, and expected outcomes of the training. When participants understand what they stand to gain from attending, they are more likely to commit.
Rather than sending generic invitations, personalize the invitation process. Address participants by name, mention their roles, and explain why their attendance is particularly important. This personal touch can create a sense of individual importance and engagement.
Conduct a preliminary needs assessment to identify participants’ skill gaps and training requirements. By tailoring the training content to address their specific needs, you demonstrate the training’s relevance and enhance their motivation to attend.
If possible, offer multiple training time options to accommodate participants’ schedules. This reduces the likelihood of scheduling conflicts and encourages more participants to enroll.
Enlist the support of participants’ managers or supervisors. When these higher-ups emphasize the importance of attending the training, participants are more likely to see it as a priority.
Share brief teasers or snippets of the training content before the actual session. This can pique participants’ curiosity and demonstrate the value of attending.
Emphasize how the training will benefit participants individually, both in terms of their job performance and career growth. Show them that their time investment is a valuable step toward their professional development.
Maintain communication with enrolled participants leading up to the training. Share relevant articles, videos, or resources related to the training topic to sustain their interest.
Send automated reminders about the upcoming training, including the time, date, and location (if applicable). Consider using multiple channels, such as email, text messages, and calendar invites.
By implementing a combination of these strategies, corporate trainers can significantly improve attendance rates and reduce dropouts just before training sessions. A participant-centered approach that emphasizes relevance, engagement, and personalization will ultimately create an environment where participants are motivated and excited to participate in training classes.
List three best practice responses when participants are rejecting the training content.
Assess and Adapt the Content
Before making changes, gather feedback from participants to understand why they are rejecting the content. Use surveys, discussions, or anonymous feedback forms to pinpoint specific issues.
Ensure that the training content is aligned with participants’ roles, needs, and skill levels. If the content doesn’t directly relate to their responsibilities, it can lead to rejection.
Tailor the training content to match participants’ preferences and learning styles. This can involve modifying examples, case studies, and scenarios to make them more relatable.
Emphasize the practical application of the content to participants’ daily tasks and challenges. Demonstrating the value and relevance of the training can rekindle their interest.
Engage and Re-engage Participants
Incorporate interactive activities, discussions, group work, and case studies to involve participants actively in the learning process. Engagement can rekindle interest in the training content.
Introduce gamified elements such as quizzes, challenges, and rewards. This adds an element of competition and fun that can encourage participants to participate more enthusiastically.
Present participants with real-world problems that the training content can solve. This shifts the focus from theoretical concepts to practical solutions and captures their attention.
Use relatable stories, anecdotes, and examples to illustrate the importance of the content and its impact on real situations. Storytelling can make the content more memorable and engaging.
Communication and Transparency
Create an environment where participants feel comfortable expressing their concerns or reasons for rejecting the content. Address these concerns openly and transparently
Clearly communicate the benefits of the training content in terms of personal growth, skill enhancement, and career progression. Participants need to see the value in what they are learning.
Encourage open dialogue between trainers and participants. Allow participants to ask questions, share their opinions, and contribute to the training discussions.
Establish a feedback loop where participants’ opinions and suggestions are actively sought and incorporated into the training. This demonstrates that their voices are heard and respected.
Remember, rejection of training content can stem from various factors, including perceived irrelevance, delivery style, or personal attitudes. Corporate trainers must remain flexible, empathetic, and willing to adapt their approach to create an engaging learning experience. By assessing the situation, re-engaging participants, and fostering open communication, trainers can transform rejection into active participation and a positive learning outcome.