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Peggy Salvatore

Peggy Salvatore writes on business and health care issues, and she is a proud mother of three.

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Where is Your SME on the Continuum of Knowledge?

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Today I am posting an excerpt From Working With SMEs. Can you relate to this concept?

Ideally, your SME is on the third level of the four stages of learning continuum and is a Conscious Competent.

4stagesoflearningmodel02

When your SME is a Conscious Competent, that means she is aware of what she knows, and she is able to tell you. Since such a SME is still on the learning curve herself, not having reached the state where her knowledge is unconscious, she is closer to her own training and remembers what it is like to be a naïve learner. By remembering what it is like to not know, the SME will better remember how she acquired the knowledge or skill that is the subject of your training program, and by extension, how to explain it in a linear way to you.

Briefly, here is how a SME at each level of competence will affect your information gathering process:

Unconscious Competent: When you are gifted with a SME who has risen to career heights in a specialized field and can still explain what she knows, you have truly unearthed a gem. You will both find the tools in this book helpful to organize that a lifetime of knowledge into small, digestible, relevant chunks for you and your learners. Simply, she is such a vast repository of information that she really does not know how much she knows and how well she knows it. It is your job to unearth the gems and help her break it down into simple steps.

Conscious Competent: When you have been given the bright, up-and-coming SME who is still ascending the ladder of knowledge, these tools will help you focus on the important pieces of information that you need to assemble for your learners and identify the additional resources to fill in gaps as they arise.

Conscious Incompetent: When you are faced with a SME who lacks the needed knowledge, we have some tips in the next chapter for that situation. Our recommendation, though, is that you search to find a Conscious Competent SME. It will save you time and effort in the short and long run.

Unconscious Incompetent: It happens. You can be given a know-nothing SME. This is the worst of all possible worlds. The book discusses how to deal with this situation, as well.

What has been your experience working with subject matter experts?

 

 

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More Differences Between Coaching Entrepreneurs and Corporate Executives

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Last week, we explored some of the unique challenges faced by entrepreneurs. Corporate executives and entrepreneurs share some business imperatives as leaders in their organizations. However, they vary in the way they approach thinking about their businesses and the degree of control they have in operating them.

Corporate executives may have several layers between themselves and the owners. An entrepreneur is the owner often along with some very interested investors who may take close interest in the everyday functioning of the operation.

Last week, a friend and retired CEO who now advises entrepreneurs as part of his ongoing business interests, wrote a note to me and added to the list of issues that an entrepreneur needs to think about when building their business.

Here are more things that the new entrepreneur needs to consider. Most of these things are important to all businesses, but they are critical, do-or-die imperatives in a startup and all within the control of the entrepreneur.

  1. Build structure, not a bureaucracy. Know the difference.
  2. Cash is king, not profitability.
  3. Don’t give away product enhancements. Adjust your price as they are introduced.
  4. Understand your competition before getting started.
  5. Be thorough in establishing your initial price. It’s tough to raise a price, particularly in the startup phase.
  6. Don’t get distracted by outside requests or activities. Your future depends on your new company, not outside events.

When reading through this list, how many of these mistakes do you think a new business will make? Having been involved in a few startups, I have seen a few of these violated without good outcomes.

Which one do you think is most important? Perhaps the most deadly mistake is not realizing that cash is the lifeblood of your organization. Without it, you can’t survive.

As for the others, after you’ve survived, you need to optimize your business’s potential through maximizing operational efficiency, market positioning and pricing by paying attention to the other items on this list. The future health of your new business depends on getting all these things right.

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Talking Leadership Training to Entrepreneurs

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This blog post came out of a conversation today with business coach Hal Alpiar of BusinessWorks.US.  We were discussing the differences between coaching corporate leaders and startup entrepreneurs. I will be joining Hal in BusinessWorks.US to offer co-coaching that brings together our different backgrounds to help clients envision and realize startup success through many facets of business.

 

Many small businesses and startups today are run by former corporate managers. These entrepreneurs bring with them skills and attitudes from big business. This migration is occurring because the business world itself is scaling down from massive lumbering organizations and scaling up to small agile enterprises. Opportunities are in the world of small, nimble businesses.
 

In the entrepreneurial world of startups, all parts of the business process are accelerated and much easier to execute than they were even 10 years ago. The Internet of Everything makes starting and running a business streamlined. Even big, gawky manufacturing, production and logistics have a cleaner line directly to the customer.

Most business processes translate well into the new agile and transparent business environment. However, agile and transparent are not the same thing as quick and easy. A small, agile successful business still requires the same strong business principles and leadership skills of the long path. The people skills and rational decision making behind steering a business don’t lend themselves to short cuts.

Entrepreneurs especially may be susceptible to looking for the streamlined path to leadership and corporate governance. They are focused on their baby. They love the product or service they are developing. They seek sales, not markets. When you are the midst of working in overdrive, obsessed with your creation and trying to make your first few sales, is the most difficult time to step back and look at the longer road.

From Corporate Management to Small Business Leadership

That focus on product development and sales is exactly what baby needs to be nurtured into a viable business.  To organize and sustain that business, though, means strengthening entrepreneurial leadership skills. A little support and hand-holding especially through the first year can help make a smooth transition from corporate management to small business leadership.

Here are some of the issues an entrepreneur faces:

  • When to hire someone and what to look for
  • How to manage a small, possibly virtual, workforce
  • Understanding the difference between cash flow and revenue, and how a shortage of one of those will sink you
  • Why staying close to your customers will help you define your markets
  • Sales, marketing, public relations and corporate communications – what’s necessary and what’s optional when you’re starting out
  • How to maintain a semblance of a personal and/or family life while obsessing over your baby

What are some other issues you can think of that make entrepreneurial leadership training and coaching different than corporate executive coaching?

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Learner Engagement Whenever, Wherever

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Some of the advantages of elearning, on-demand learning, asynchronous learning – whatever you call the ability to access learning at your convenience – are offset by some of the drawbacks such as the potential for learner disengagement during the virtual classroom experience.

Blending Online and Human Interaction for Max Impact

To make sure your learners get the most out of your elearning offerings, take a blended approach and give them credit for participating in virtual environments. Let them know you see them and make it worth their while to take advantage of online learning opportunities. Give recognition and encouragement liberally. Nobody wants to learn in a vacuum.

When computer-based learning first came on the scene, it was a popular bandwagon. After all, a pre-packaged elearning program is a great way to deliver consistent content to all learners on their own time at a relatively low cost per learner. Some online learning proponents predicted  the death of live classes. The rumors of its death were premature.

On-demand or asynchronous learning has earned its place in the training world and it’s irreplaceable. But the live class lives on. The nature of work and the workplace makes means people are accessing learning all the time and so asynchronous learning is needed.  In fact, elearning just makes good sense.  Like other learning modalities, acquisition of knowledge via elearning programs is still best aided by the human factors of getting feedback, asking questions, and having personal support.

Support At All Points Along the Learning Continuum

In light of the importance of the personal interactions, the best uses of elearning takes advantage of its portability, and good program design puts supports around elearners so they have the human connection as well. Here are three ways to use your elearning platforms to maximize their impact:

  1. Pre-learning – As in the flipped classroom. Send information in the form of an audio or video webcast, or a more structured learning program, but deliver this new pre-packaged online information to the student before your live class to enrich the interpersonal learning.
  2. The core experience – Deliver information rich learning in the form of well-crafted elearning modules that are designed around learning objectives, test appropriately at intervals to reinforce learning, and use interactive case studies that demonstrate integration of concepts. Support the online learning program with some flexible human interaction through occasional emails to check in with learners, an online moderated forum discussion platform or a live Q&A with instructors.
  3. Learning support – After a live class, you can support ongoing retention and growth by using a smartphone or tablet-based mobile learning platform to push information to students after the event. Use flexible mlearning platforms to ask your learners questions and gather their input. Push reminders in the forms of small chunks of information. Send a link to a video, audio or pdf with additional information to continue their growth. The goal is to use online individually-controlled and -accessed mini learning events to support your live classroom material.

Ongoing, lifelong, adult learning requires learners to take responsibility for their own growth. You can, however, support their efforts by making information easy to access and by making sure there is a human somewhere along the learning continuum to provide additional information and support.

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2015 – 2020: Five Generations in a Learning Organization

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The workforce is entering a unique period between 2015 and 2020 when fully five generations will be in the labor pool at the same time. Organizational development experts have given much attention to the interpersonal challenges of this circumstance. You can hire any number of experts who will train you how to work to successfully integrate the styles of multiple generations in the workforce. Let me suggest that tensions extend beyond the social implications of this phenomenon.

This particular demographic distribution as shown in the Bureau of Labor Statistics chart below demonstrates a convergence of talents, skills, and attributes that need to be conveyed not from one generation to the next but perhaps from one generation to another that is three degrees removed from it. That transfer presents several challenges including both what and how that learning is relayed. It is also happening in a time of technological advances that alter assumptions about what is important.

 

                                            5 generations in the workplace BLS

Generational filters require that knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSA’s in training parlance) not only be captured, but also preserved and translated in such a way that the knowledge itself remains relevant and usable to a workforce with different frames of reference.

In this context, organizations face the challenge of finding their experts and preserving their knowledge in ways that make it accessible to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Start by reflecting on the context of the kind of labor that is leaving your organization. Each business must examine the kinds of KSA’s that built your successful organization so that you can accurately identify what to capture and how to capture it. Then organizations need to create a system for identifying and transferring the critical knowledge and talent that is leaving the workforce in unprecedented numbers.

When people leave, the worst thing that can happen is that they take critical skills sets with them that you cannot replace. The second worst thing that can happen is that, when you discover they possessed irreplaceable pieces of your corporate puzzle, you hire them back as consultants at exorbitant rates on their own time schedule. And the best outcome is that you use their last, best years with your company capturing what they know. If you are shooting for the best outcome, make sure you have a process in place today to preserve your organization’s competitive advantages.

 

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3 Tactics to Gain and Retain Online Engagement

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Hint: Physics holds the answer.

Last week, we talked about maximizing learner engagement during live classes by tapping into the Wisdom of the Crowd. When it comes to deep learning, live classes still have the edge. But we can’t ignore that a lot of learning takes place online both in real time and on demand, and both of those scenarios require different approaches.

People have been learning in real time and space since the first teacher scratched out a picture of a tiger on a rock and told the kids to avoid this animal. Online learning is a brand new medium. We are still learning what we can borrow from live classes and discovering places where we need to have new rules.

One of the biggest challenges in online learning is to keep the learner attending to the program while the distraction of email and temptation of Facebook are beckoning like sirens in their tray.

Beyond “Unmute Yourself”

Most webinars and online classes begin with a simple request: “Please close all your other windows and programs during this class.” It’s a good opening statement. I recommend you use it while you are going over the features of the software such as how to raise your hand and how to unmute yourself.

In addition to the obvious opening directions, a few delivery techniques can keep your learners engaged beyond the first few screens.  To make online learning more engaging, revise some of the rules you use during live classes.

Try these 3 tactics to keep your learners attending:

1. Get feedback. The common wisdom is that if you throw in a few slides with polls throughout the class, you can keep people awake. The reality is that if people are engaged and paying attention, they will participate. But polls alone won’t keep them with you. They are just a measure for you to find out if there are still lucid warm bodies on the other end of your Internet connection.

Feedback is more than a taking a poll, although polls can be very valuable when you use them to gather reaction to your content. When you use them to find out what your class knows, you can direct your presentation in response to gaps and misconceptions that you’ve uncovered. Beyond just finding out what is important to them, use polls, surveys and – yes, the comment box and the venerable microphone – to gather information about what your class understands about your topic.

Uncovering gaps and attitudes will help you provide valuable information. It goes beyond most polling questions that measure what percentage of the class “does this” or “plans to do that” or “prefers thus-and-such”. Find out what they know. After all, it is enlightening when you’ve asked a few questions into silence to find out that the people that have been asked to participate in your class don’t have the background necessary to understand the material. If you find gaps, you can make adjustments to explain difficult concepts rather than just plow through them while your students tune out.

Be concerned about silence and lack of comments. Your students may be bored and talking to friends on Facebook, or they may be in a class that is not appropriate for them and they are lost. Find out which it is and adjust your approach.

2. Keep your online learning to as little as 10 or 20 minutes whenever possible. We’ve adopted the one and two hour online class structure from live events. It’s just not a practical expectation for an online class given the demands on peoples’ time. When a learner is plucked from the work environment and sent to a training room for a morning, they are clearly present. When you ask them to click in from their cubicle or from home, how often do your hear dogs, kids or coworkers vying for their attention? I venture to say most of the time. Knowing this is a fact of life, ask for a small chunk of power-packed time and you are more likely to keep their attention.   Face it, our virtual attention spans are used to 140 characters, click and play, or multi-tasking. Those behaviors don’t change when the content is educational.

By keeping it short, you gain a few things.

First, you are more likely to have their attention for the full amount of content you want to deliver to them. Second, we learn better in small chunks. To pick up the pace of your online classes, schedule a few 10 or 15 minutes sessions and follow it with a half-hour roundup and Q&A session.

3. Provide more slide content. The last holdover from live training that can use an overhaul for online training is our approach to slide design. The live rule is that less is more when it comes to slide content. Some design approaches now recommend that slides have an image and one or two words, leaving the presenter to deliver all the content verbally. Certainly, slides packed with several hundred words of 12-point type are considered verboten in a live presentation.

In an online presentation, let me suggest that you consider the fact that light travels faster than sound. One of the reasons that webinars and online classes drone on for an hour or more is that we are adhering to the slide rule which is usually some version of no more than six words per line, no more than six lines per slide while most of the content is delivered verbally. This approach arose from the fact that very few people can read hundreds of words of agate type from the back of a conference room and concurrently listen to the speaker expound on said content.

Consider, however, that the online learner has the screen directly in front of them and they are staring at your slide with rapt attention (hopefully). Take advantage of this situation. In order to shorten your online delivery programs, both live and asynchronous, the solution is to speak less in an online presentation and give more content on the slide. You still need to avoid squeezing Ulysses onto one slide, but you can deliver an important topline and all the major points on one slide and be very effective. To understand the theory behind this, consider this scenario: when given an option whether to watch a 25 minute video speech or read a pdf transcript that takes maybe five minutes to breeze through, what do you do? Reading the material is a great way to get the same content much more quickly.

Apply this light travels faster than sound theory to your online class to shorten the time you take to deliver content. When structuring slides, place valuable topline points and second level detail on the slides because the learner is looking at the screen and taking in the written material while you are talking. You can make your points even more powerful by adding a few images to reinforce them. Remember, the online viewer is close up to your slide so you can add a few small image enhancements to even further deliver your message. When you speak over the content-rich slides, simply discuss the main points and add a little verbal color, linger a few seconds longer to allow the learner’s eye to find the relevant secondary information, and then move on.

Online learning is an emerging art. These are some observations and tweaks I have been making as I play with the genre. As you test some of these new approaches, refine what works best for you, your material and your learners. As always, the bottom line is respect for your learners and their time.

 

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How to Get Massive Learner Engagement by Tapping into the Wisdom of the Crowd

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wisdom of the crowd

I am putting the finishing touches on a book called U-Turn Leadership for a retired CEO about how he saved failing organizations. The book is designed both as a standalone read and as the foundation for a course on leadership. Last night, he called to tell me something very important about designing the first class.

This very important point is based on a principle I strongly believe in: the wisdom of the crowd. Simply, we are all experts in something. Great learning draws it out.

The First Lesson

Designing the first class lays the foundation for everything that follows. You:

  • set the tone for your interactions,
  • establish the rules for success and
  • describe the knowledge the students need to acquire to achieve mastery.

Now, expand that definition: Use that first interaction to get learners to feed you what they know. In the spirit of flipping the educational experience, let your class do the teaching.

If you want to get someone engaged in learning what you want to teach them, ask them about themselves. Show an interest in what they already know. Get their perspective. Understand their points of reference. Get them talking and thinking about what they know about the subject.

When your learners are teaching each other, they are involved in the class in a way that moves them from passive receptors to members of an active feedback loop. Putting them in the teacher’s seat in the beginning allows you to tap into all the knowledge in the room for a vibrant experience for everyone.

Wisdom of the Crowd

I have long believed that just about everything I am about to teach is already known collectively by the class. So before diving in and droning on, I present the material as questions. They find out how smart their classmates are, build respect for themselves and for each other before you enter the topic.

You also find where the gaps are, with whom, and how to adjust perceptions to make your material accessible to the learners.

In one case, I teach soft skills training to experienced service providers.  I introduce the class and tell them that they already know or instinctively do much of what we are going to talk about. In the case of this particular class, I am teaching wisdom to Solomon. So we use the classroom material to talk about cases and issues they encounter and I facilitate as they advise each other using the framework of the class material to guide discussions.

In a word, the method is Socratic. So, it’s nothing new. And just like in the classes themselves, I expect I am telling you things here that you already do and know.

Great classes remind you what you know and expand on it. Adult learning is all about making those connections. If you want great engagement, start by make your students the teachers. Tap into the wisdom of the crowd.

Applying the WOTC Formula

How will this play out in the first U-Turn Leadership class we are writing? We’ll ask the class to define leadership.  Yes, we have a formal framework that we call the 5 Absolute Attributes. But that first class is a discussion about the participants’ experiences with leadership.

The U-Turn Leadership book and seminar series is based on university classes that were full to brimming after word got out about them. The classes involved real-life examples and the exchanges in class solved problems. When you draw on the wisdom of your students, you have moved from the theoretical to what is real for them. When the learning is real and applicable, the students care.

Try this simple Wisdom-of-the-Crowd (WOTC) Formula when designing training, then watch the rest of your classes flow out of what you’ve shared with each other.

The WOTC Formula:

  • Ask: Draw on the learner’s knowledge.
  • Connect: Have the class teach each other to build a web of learning relationships.
  • Encourage: Show them how smart they are.
  • Structure: Give them a framework in which to do their thinking so their discussions and learning are aimed toward a goal.

By tapping into the wisdom of the crowd, your learners are enriched by each other. Appreciate their knowledge and create massive engagement.

How do you tap into the knowledge in your classroom? Share your strategies for learner engagement in the comment section below.

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When Your SME Goes Live: Classroom Management Tips and Techniques

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microphone  This is the fourth of four posts on tips for training your subject matter expert to be polished in front of learners.

In this final train-the-trainer – or TTT –  post, let’s look at some fundamentals of classroom management that make presentations run more smoothly. Many classroom management issues involve simple logistics. Some seem obvious to experienced facilitators but to the untrained trainer a few of these little logistical details can create speed bumps for the pace of your class if they aren’t handled properly.

Most trainers have some kind of icebreaker as a way to introduce themselves and engage learners. If you have favorite icebreakers you’ve learned, share them with trainers who are new to the classroom. There are plenty of ideas online for games to warm up learners. If you have a short class, say one hour or so, you won’t have time to do many complicated activities that take away from your limited time. At least have an introduction that engages the attendees such as a brief entertaining story that reveals a bit about you and your subject.

Logistics

Train-the-trainer sessions should include instructions on how to set down rules that make the class more comfortable for everyone. Yes, you are dealing with adults, but even adults need to be reminded to turn off their cell phones and check messages on the break. Even adults need to be reminded to wait their turn to speak. And even adults need to be reminded that speakers should be given undivided attention when they have the floor and that side conversations are distracting.

When creating a training slide deck, the rules are usually a standard second or third slide before the agenda or learning objectives.  That’s because the trainer needs to discuss logistics before diving into anything of substance to avoid stopping the class to address these things later. If the class doesn’t have a slide deck, simply post the rules where everyone can see them. Just make sure you call attention to them.

Here’s what to include for classroom rules:

  • Cell phones: Turn off cell phones and get messages on the breaks
  • Exits: Point out exits for emergencies when the location is unfamiliar to the learners
  • Bio Breaks: Point out bathroom direction when the location is unfamiliar to the learners
  • Temperature and noise: Adjust heat or cooling, ask if everyone is comfortable, and resolve any environmental issues if possible. Call building maintenance if there is a serious issue with comfort or if someone is operating a jackhammer outside the classroom.
  • Parking Lot: Create a parking lot for discussions that are outside the scope of the class and for questions that arise and need to be researched (the parking lot can be a white board, a flip chart or some other place where you can write topics that need to be tabled)
  • Rants: Encourage participation; discourage side conversations so everyone benefits from the thinking of the group
  • Food and Drink: Announce availability or prohibitions regarding food and drink during the sessions. Inquire about food allergies.
  • Schedule: Announce beginning and ending times, break times and whether snacks, lunch or dinner is available. Ask if anyone has a conflict. Inquire about food allergies.

In a multi-day class, insert this slide at the beginning of each new day of training as a reminder and briefly review the rules. Adjust these recommendations depending on the material, the class and the location. For example, food or breaks may not be relevant in a one-hour class. Emergency exits and bathroom directions are not needed when employees are familiar with the layout of their own company.

Behavior

Depending on the topic, attendees may encounter strong opinions or emotional moments among themselves. The trainer’s role is to keep the environment safe for people in the room. If an attendee feels attacked professionally or personally, it is important to try to reframe the statement or situation to neutralize the content of the message.

Distinguish between honest, healthy, heated professional discussions and those that cross the line and become personal. Often a strong, fiery debate is appropriate. If things devolve into tears or anger, though, consider the line crossed and jump in to reframe and neutralize the topic. If something can’t be resolved, say “let’s agree to disagree and put this in the parking lot for right now. Perhaps we can come back to this if we have time at the end of the class.” If the issue has no short-term satisfactory resolution, don’t return to it. It will only distract from discussing relevant material.

If a particular individual is disruptive, they often simply need to be acknowledged. Physically move closer to them and ask them for their opinion. Usually after a person is seen and heard, they will calm down and participate. When you encounter an individual for whom attention does not work, you may take them aside on a break, find out if there is a problem and, if it cannot be resolved, invite them to leave.

Your Trainer Appreciates Tricks of the Trade

When you are training your trainers, most subject matter experts who are going in front of a classroom for the first time are excited to be teaching their beloved topic. When you give them a few tips and tools, they will be much more successful. You can head off a lot of unnecessary problems by preparing them with these few techniques.

To review, over the past few weeks we discussed three main areas to cover when training the trainer. No, it’s not rocket science but it’s easy to overlook the easy stuff. Prepare your SME for success as a classroom trainer by including in your train-the-trainer program:

What are some of the classroom management techniques that you use to keep classes running smoothly? Share your comments below.

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When Your SME Goes Live: Trainers Should Be Seen and Heard

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microphoneThis is the third of four posts on tips for training your subject matter expert to be polished in front of learners.

To review from our previous weeks, train-the-trainer sessions – or TTT sessions – need to include three main topics:

  • The material to be taught
  • Vocal quality and body position
  • Classroom management

This week, we will explore vocal quality and body position to ensure your material can be seen, heard and remembered.

Presentation Training is Essential

Except for a largely untrained rock band experience, I didn’t have any real experience in front of an audience until I spent a few years with Toastmasters. For anyone who wants to truly understand presentation, Toastmasters provides the ultimate education. Not everyone has the time or proximity to take advantage of a Toastmasters chapter, but everyone who gets in front of a group as a speaker, trainer or facilitator needs the skills it teaches.

To get any real value out of a program like Toastmasters or a certified facilitation course, you need months, if not years, to become truly polished and comfortable. Let’s assume you don’t have that kind of time to get ready, or get someone else ready, to present a class or facilitate a meeting. Now what?

When you are training your trainers, if your SME can nail down a few basic behaviors the material can be seen, heard and remembered. I recommend reinforcing basic speaking skills even for seasoned trainers during your train-the-trainer session. Refreshers are good for everyone. Even seasoned SME-trainers can use a little reminding about basic presentation skills.

Be Seen, Be Heard, Be Clear

Entire books have been written on speaking well and body language. For brevity, I just want to arm you with a few highlights that you can use in a quick TTT module. If you only have time to emphasize a few things, there are two main components to speaking, training and facilitating: voice quality and body posture.

1. Vocal Quality: Simply put, you must be able to be heard. This means accounting for people with different abilities to hear, as well. Don’t assume everyone has excellent hearing; they don’t. So even if you think your volume is fine, ask if everyone can hear you. Adjust seating if necessary.

Be sure to articulate your words and speak at a comfortable pace. Most of us have some regional accent or may speak too quickly when we are nervous. All the more reason to slow it down just one notch and pronounce consonants like “p’s” and “t’s” clearly that compensate somewhat for regional variations in pronunciation. This goes double if you have attendees who are non-native speakers. Keep your word choices simple so everyone understands what you are talking about. Even a room full of PhDs may have different specialties and you may be speaking across disciplines. Your goal is to be understood easily by as many people as possible.

When attendees speak, often their comments get lost. If you are leading a discussion or taking questions, be sure to repeat the questions before you answer them or sum up comments made by attendees. When it is obvious a speaker’s volume is too low to be heard, you can also ask them to repeat their comment so everyone can hear them. “Jane, that’s a great point. Would you mind repeating it to make sure everyone heard it?” It is more common than not that your attendees have not spoken loudly enough to be heard by everyone.

Unamplified Situations: In small rooms, you may be unamplified so make sure to speak loudly and clearly without shouting. Want to know if everyone can hear you? Ask them. Ask them early. Ask them again a bit later just to make sure you haven’t lost them. I have a habit of dropping my voice when I am engrossed in the material and I need to constantly remind myself to keep my voice level up.

Amplified Situations: Make sure you do a sound check both before the presentation or class and right after everyone arrives. Place your mic appropriately on your body so you can move your head and body naturally. You don’t want to talk into your collar! When the room is full, do one last check before you begin because people and their clothing absorb sound. You might have been loud and clear in a large empty hall during your sound check, but you may be muffled with a roomful of people during the real thing. Also, if you move around when you speak, be aware of the placement of your mic so it doesn’t create feedback.

2. Body positioning: Your attendees need to see you and they need to see your material if you are using a video or slide presentation. Don’t compete with your slides for attention. If they contain vital information, step aside so they can be read by everyone. Sometimes, with a small room or due to some other logistics, it is hard to find a place to stand where you aren’t obstructing someone’s view of critical material. If that’s the case, move around enough so everyone gets a chance to see your presentation. Also, just like with vocal volume, ask if everyone can see. Again, offer to adjust seating and ask if people would like to move closer.

Everyone needs to see you – not just any side of you but your face. Your face communicates a lot of your message. In fact, if you have attendees who have trouble hearing you, they will be getting critical information by seeing your face. Again, this may mean moving around depending on the size and orientation of the room. As much as possible, do not turn your back on your attendees at any time. It not only obscures your facial expressions, it is impolite.

Finally, body posture communicates most of your message. I’ve seen studies that say body language makes up 80% or more of our message. Smile. Make eye contact with your attendees. Keep an open posture, meaning don’t put your hands in your pockets or fold your arms. Gesture using your arms from the center of your body. Open palms and open arms are good signals to your audience that you want to communicate with them.

One last little hint: just because a presenter is comfortable in front of the class doesn’t necessarily mean they are effective. Reinforce these basic skills to make sure they are not only comfortable with themselves, but that your trainers are making the learning experience comfortable for the attendees, too. When the attendees can see and hear the material, you have accomplished the first step to them remembering what you have told them!

What are your favorite train-the-trainer tips? Pet peeves? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

 

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Jonathan Milligan’s Blogging Your Passion: Publish Your Expert Message Online

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Meet author and blogging expert Jonathan Milligan. Jonathan recently published a book, 15 Traits of Successful Pro Bloggers. In it, he creates a step-by-step path to establishing a successful online business based on blogging about what you love. He calls it “Blogging Your Passion.”  Jonathan also has started Blogging Your Passion University (BYPU) where he personally leads you on the journey to turning your life’s passion into your life’s work by building an online business.

Jonathan is a teacher by training and at heart. He makes the journey fun, and his students come away with a workable plan. Jonathan is the Lewis and Clark of the online blogging business! He’s gone where few have traveled, he’s cut some new trails, and he drew the map. His 15 Success Traits of Pro Bloggers pyramid is below the video where you can follow along as he describes it. Also, pick up his book featured on Amazon on the right side of this page to learn his whole system in detail.

If you are an expert in something (psssst…we are all experts in something!), and you’ve considered blogging about it, you’ve come to the right place. Enjoy this interview with Jonathan where he generously shares some great information with us.

CLICK HERE for Jonathan Milligan’s Blogging Success Pyramid PDF

Do you have something you’re passionate about and would love to start a blog sharing it with the world? Are you a blogger now and have hit a plateau? Tell us about it in the comment section below.