The Trainer as a Speaker

It is a common challenge for speakers to have interesting material in their heads, yet struggle to convey their message effectively. This phenomenon is often referred to as “speaker’s pain” and can be frustrating not only for the speaker, but also for the audience. The good news is that it does not have to be this way.

In this article, you will learn how to avoid the most common mistakes and how to communicate your message more effectively. This way, you prevent wasting your time and energy and ensure that your audience actually learns something from your presentation.

Over ten years of experience and still learning

As a trainer, you do not only teach others, you also get to know yourself better. Delivering training helps you look at a topic from multiple angles and gain a deeper understanding of it.

Over the past ten years, I have learned a great deal in my work as a trainer, and I am keen to share that knowledge with you. In this blog series, I share everything I have learned to help you, as a current or aspiring trainer, grow in your craft. My previous blog focused on personality;

The pillars of influence

Are you familiar with the concept of the “pillars of influence”? It is a term I first encountered when studying the work of top speaker and trainer Remco Claassen. When speaker’s pain occurs, it costs your audience energy just to keep paying attention, and unfortunately our energy supply is limited. As a speaker, your goal is to hold your audience’s attention without exhausting them.

If you find yourself reading your PowerPoint or Prezi slides out loud, I genuinely sympathise with you, and one could argue that the audience might be eligible for support from the fictional PowerPoint Victim Support Foundation.

So how can you do it differently? If you want to keep your audience engaged and ensure they actually work with your content, I recommend using the three pillars of influence. These are described in the book Verbaal Meesterschap.

Pillar 1: Education

The first pillar I want to explore with you is education. How do you ensure that your audience remembers your message? It takes skill to share the right amount of content without overwhelming people. Ultimately, it is about finding the right balance between information and emotion.

If you were to interview your audience after your session, they would likely remember only a few key points. With the right approach, however, you can make those points stick. A day later, they will probably remember even less, and after a week you will be lucky if they still remember who you were.

To help your audience retain the most important elements of your presentation, I recommend deciding in advance which emotion and which core messages you want them to remember. Build your presentation around these choices and repeat the key points in different ways, so they are truly experienced and internalised by your audience.

Pillar 2: Entertainment

Entertainment is the second pillar and is especially important during longer training sessions. How do you keep your audience engaged during a half-day training or even multiple days? It is essential to actively engage and entertain your audience. Stories, videos, and exercises help prevent people from checking out and invite them to fully engage with the techniques you use as a speaker.

I can best illustrate this with my own experience during the Verbal Mastery programme I attended in Mierlo. At the time, I was already familiar with the material, had just finished reading the book, and was highly motivated to observe the speaker’s techniques. What struck me was that every time I wanted to take notes, the speaker would start telling a story, play a video, or introduce an exercise. I became so engaged that after about half an hour, I put my pen down and unconsciously surrendered to the speaker’s techniques. As an observer, I could no longer disengage and allowed myself to be fully carried by the presentation.

Among speakers, this use of storytelling is sometimes referred to as using “Anneke D(ote)s”. Combined with videos and exercises, this approach is incredibly powerful. And in case you had not noticed, I have just used this technique myself by sharing a story about something I experienced in Mierlo several years ago.

Pillar 3: Empowerment

The third and final pillar is empowerment. Do you want participants to start doing something after your session, stop doing something, or never forget a key insight? This is sometimes abbreviated as DLNMV. As a speaker, you need to create a sense of urgency that motivates people to act on your content.

Think in advance about what makes your message relevant for the participant. People are naturally driven to avoid pain or seek pleasure. Your role is to make clear what they stand to gain. Be intentional about addressing WII4M, “What’s in it for me?”. By emphasising this repeatedly and from different angles, you help participants truly understand why they should apply what you are teaching. My tip is to reinforce this once more at the end of your block, so it remains fresh in their minds.

In the image, you can see the pillars of influence. Remember that a strong mix of education and entertainment, combined with the right level of empowerment, is the key to success.

Time for an example

Before the training starts, the trainer carefully considers which actions participants should take after the training, which behaviours they should stop, and which information they should never forget.

As a trainer, you are responsible for designing the training in a way that focuses on the right balance: not too much education and plenty of entertainment. This helps ensure that participants maintain their energy levels, or even leave with more energy than they started with.

Below, you will find a visualisation of the desired outcome for a two-day Product Owner training. Keep in mind that the goal is for participants to start doing something, stop doing something, or never forget something. Also think in advance about the emotion you want to leave them with.

In this example, the trainer uses a recurring metaphor: a tropical island, supported by matching music. This taps into the pillar of entertainment. In addition, the trainer repeatedly highlights and discusses the three characteristics of top Product Owners. This repetition helps ensure that the most important information sticks with the trainees and that these key points are never forgotten.

Would you like to learn more about how to translate this into a clear outline? Keep an eye out, as one of my upcoming articles will focus on structuring and organising your training.

Bonus tips:

1. The most important tip I can give you is to dive into the book Verbal Mastery.
2. Would you like to work hands-on with fellow trainers to sharpen your skills? Take a look at the programme The Professional Trainer.
3. Re-read tip one.

Your training, your masterpiece

How do you shape and design your training sessions? And what have you experienced so far? Give it a try and let me know how it goes. Go for it.