How to Run Seminars and Workshops, 4th Edition

Chapter 14Tricks of the Trade

Up to now, I have attempted to show you some solid, conventional approaches to corporate training. As with most professions, once you master the technical aspects of your position, you need to learn certain tricks of the trade. In this chapter, I present you with a number of these tricks. Depending on your style, topic, and trainees, some may be appropriate for you. Tricks that do not seem helpful now may be of use to you someday down the road when you are a presenter with your career on the line.

1. Avoid Too Much Material

We need to start here, because you are looking at the single biggest mistake made by 95 percent of the presenters you see today. Why does this phenomenon exist? It's a combination of two issues that permeate the seminar business. It's all about timing.

The first issue is about timing. When a company wants to train its employees internally, timing never seems to be an issue. This is because the costs are relatively low, and the logistics are fairly simple. However, once a company engages the services of a consultant to conduct a seminar or workshop, timing becomes an obsession. Consultants typically bill based on time, and clients want to keep this timing to a minimum. So the material is condensed, and the program is delivered…quickly.

When I conducted internal sales programs for Xerox, the length of the program for a typical new hire consisted of two two-week classes conducted in the first two months of employment. Xerox had ...