Corporate training is typically considered a fact of working for an organization. It is fairly easy to justify the importance of soft skills training, as it is an actionable way to help your employees grow and meet organizational goals effectively.
Just because your training participants understand why training is important, does not mean that they will necessarily go into it with an attitude that reflects that. When your participants go into training anticipating that they won’t enjoy it or that they are not excited for it, it may not motivate them to truly take in the training and retain information that they could benefit from in their work. This is why it is so important to find strategies to get your participants excited for corporate training. If your participants go into training understanding its value and truly looking forward to it, they are more likely to get more out of it.
But how to we get people excited for something that can sometimes be generalized as mundane like corporate training? It is possible, and being strategic with the marketing and promotion of your training workshops can make a huge impact on the success of your training workshops or training consultations as a whole.
Below are our tips on how to get your participants excited for corporate training.
Communicate the Value
Communicating the value of your training programs is something that can be built up in the weeks leading up to your training or as a tactic to sell your training services to clients. Alternatively, if you find yourself in a boardroom with a room full of trainees you’ve just met, you can build up the excitement in your training by communicating the value in your training just before you deliver it. By focusing on the benefits of the training before delivering the training, you can build anticipation that will draw in your participants.
When communicating the impact of your training workshops, discuss specific factors that will benefit your trainees professionally and perhaps personally. Consider how the training could help your participants advance in their career. Could it help people take on new tasks or roles? If so, there could even be other advancements such as increases in pay or benefits, as training adds value to participants as corporate professionals.
When considering showing the impact of corporate training, take time to think about what sort of perks will resonate most with your participants. This will ensure that you are able to communicate the impact of your training workshops in a way that will make them excited to take in the training and reap its benefits.
Market Your Training
Marketing your training workshops will help spread awareness of your value statements and increase the number of engaged participants.
If you are an independent trainer, you can promote your services on social media by targeting organizations or professionals that may want to develop their soft skills. Be sure to hits on those benefits and communicate your training style and the benefits of outsourcing their training to third party trainers. Being engaged on professional social media platforms such as LinkedIn can help you attract potential clients.
If you are a Human Resources Representative for a large or small business, you can use your company’s intranet or staff wide email lists to promote your training workshops online. Furthermore, when you conduct your training, be sure to snap some photos to show on your external social media platforms. This can demonstrate to your stakeholders your commitment to a positive workplace culture that fosters growth and professional development. Furthermore, promoting training internally can also be done through offering incentives to your employees that will motivate them to participate in training workshops that they may not have pursued otherwise.
Each of our training workshops provide an advertorial you can use to communicate its specific benefits. You can use the messaging in these to develop social media content to promote your workshops. You can also revise and print the advertorials to post in the office you work in, or email them as PDFs for an email style advertisement to your internal team or those on your email list (if you are an independent trainer).
Networking
What is the best way to build professional relationships? It’s networking, and it is no exception for the training industry. As an independent training, you are a business marketing to other businesses, which puts you in a bit of a unique circumstance, where networking gives you an opportunity to find mutually beneficial relationships with other businesses.
Having a strong elevator pitch going into networking events – whether in person or virtual – can help you summarize your values and how you can help other businesses. Your elevator pitch is similar to a verbal business card or resume. It is a brief (about 20-30 second) summary of your professional background and skills/specialties.
Having an elevator pitch prepared to provide both in person or virtually at networking events will help you effectively communicate your unique value proposition that will help you stand out when promoting your training workshops.
According to Indeed.com, your elevator pitch should include the following:
- Introducing yourself
- Provide a summary of what you do
- Explain what you can do
- Call to action
Below is a template you can use to develop your elevator pitch as a corporate trainer:
“Hi. My name is _____. Thanks so much for meeting with me today. After graduating with my _____ in _____ and gaining _____ years of experience in _____ I have helped _______ (dozens, hundreds, etc.) of organizations/participants boost their professional development and meet their organizational goals with corporate training. I've successfully delivered programs on soft skills topics such as _____, _____, and more. I am excited to learn about how I can help you meet your training goals as I have always been passionate for help people grow and develop professionally.”
Like any professional pitch or document, be sure to make it your own and have your elevator pitch reflect your personal brand.
Make Your Workshops Fun
Who doesn’t want to have fun sometimes? When it comes to corporate training, ensuring there are light moments throughout can keep morale up and actually keep your participants more engaged in the long run. It can help you connect with your participants on a more personal level and make for more interactive workshops.
Making your training fun can make the content you are teaching more memorable, making your sessions worthwhile to you and your learners. This can be done through implementing gamification, personalizing your workshops with anecdotes, and using humor when appropriate.
As a trainer, that last thing you want to see is ineffective training due to a lack of engagement or enjoyment from your participants. The reality is, many corporate training workshops are mandatory, and some participants may feel indifferent to going to them. However, by being prepared and having the tools you need to make your training fun, you can engage your audience and deliver memorable lessons that they can take with them to benefit their organization and professional development.
Want to learn more about making your training workshops fun? Take a look at one of our previous blog posts.
Conclusion
Corporate training opens so many doors for your participants. By helping them understand this by reaching your audiences with strong marketing and effectively communicating benefits that authentically resonate with your trainees, you can captivate your audience and make them truly excited to take in the ideas and topics discussed in your workshops. This will get your trainees in a mindset that will keep them engaged.
Do you have other ideas for getting your participants? Let us know in the comments below!
Posted by Katelyn Roy on
Supperbbb article about how to motivate people to join the program for their personal growth and development…. Thank u so much for a very nice material.
Excellent marketing strategies.
Very useful and practical tip for trainers. Could have elaborated a bit on “gamification”.