Getting buy-in from your audience

This week I presented my popular workshop on “12 Proven Tricks to Spice up your Training” at the VELG National Conference in Melbourne. In the presentation I discussed the importance of engaging the audience and finding the balance between attraction and distraction. Essentially we want to distract them to our training, not distract them from our training. I used the analogy of training being like walking into a retail store. If a salesperson comes up to us too early, we will put our “just looking” barriers up. If they don’t come quick enough, we get frustrated and disinterested. This is a lot like the classroom - students will often put their “just looking” barriers up until they feel comfortable in the space and trust in the transaction. Similarly if they are not involved or engaged in participation, they will lose interest and we can’t “sell” our content. So rather than beating the group into submission with a content heavy introduction, followed by a dozen slides outlining all the assessment that needs to be covered in the course, perhaps a well timed ice-breaker or warm-up could get the buy-in you need and set the scene for a successful day of delivery. Marc Ratcliffe CEO, MRWED Group Follow Me on twitter: @MRWED_CEO