Larry Weidel explains how to keep trainees engaged: quiz them randomly with small rewards, have top performers demonstrate key sections, and use real stories to show why the material matters instead of just delivering information.
This is program number four. Now it's video four and point number four. Number four is for great training. Constantly, keep them talking. So to do that, you've got to constantly quiz and question. See, when they see you asking questions, even if it's not them, that keeps them on their toes, because they could be next. Now, you can do that one on one. You can ask their opinion. Quiz, question and ask opinion. You think that's true? Why do you think that's true? You know, it's just like when they're kids, they use the why thing. You so why not use that? The what, the why, the how, the when. Kids are full of questions, drive you nuts. Well, now you're teaching. Why don't you drive them nuts? You put the information in front of them, then let's see if they understand it, if they can use it. You never know unless you ask one on one or in the groups. And it's fun to get some nickels, dimes and quarters. And when you're quizzing groups, you can use a little incentive, a little recognition. Somebody gets the right answer, you throw them a nickel. That's a dime question, that's a quarter. See, little things like that stir up interest. It allows you to know what's going on in their head, but it also forces them to process it. Because even when you're asking other people the what, they're thinking, what if they ask me? What would I say? Oh, I didn't know that. And then the why, everybody's answering it in their own head. Because, see, also, it makes them pay attention. Isn't that one of the hardest things you have to do with kids or with students of any kind, keeping them from dozing off? Well, when you're constantly throwing questions in there, quizzing random, it keeps them on their toes because they're thinking, what would I answer? Plus they're curious what the other one would say. I didn't think of that. Hmm, pretty interesting. Yeah. And then it causes you to bring up different aspects of the same subject. You might go and have somebody you know answer tremendously this question right here. Then a new you ask somebody else, and they bring up an even different aspect of it and expands it even bigger in everybody's minds. But you see, when you do that, you have them actually doing your work for you. So that is number four. And let's go and see if we can do number five real quick. All right, real quick. Let's take a look at 35th point that I'd want to point out to you. Could Use to really make your training program pop. What you do is pull them up. Don't just not just asking questions, you pull them up. You pull up the best, the brightest. The whole idea is not to embarrass, but you get the best, the brightest, the people who learn it the fastest, quickest studies. You want to keep them, you want to reward these people for paying attention and you don't want to lose their attention either. So why you keep them involved by getting them kind of as your assistants in there and have them go up and role play for you and have them explain, go through it again. Explain bits and pieces. And so rather than taking little small, you know, one word or one phrase questions you might throw at them, if they're in a classroom thing, just sitting there, bring them up and have them go through longer pieces of it, bits and pieces of the whole thing. You know, give them three, four, five, something that might take two, three, four, five minutes. And have them explain sections rather than a fact or a hey, I've got the answer to that question, blah, blah, blah. No, let's go ahead and explain this whole section again and how you understand it now. And then you can come back in and ask the others if they got it right. Now if it's. If you say weekly training program and they're being challenged to go out and do things, you can bring the people who are actually going out and getting things done, those are the ones you bring up because they're fresher, they've got fresh news. They can say, you know, I was sitting out there and I heard this last week and then this, you know, I didn't know if I could do it. And then I went out there and I did it and here's how I did it and here's what I said. Now that adds a whole new dimension of believability to what you're doing. And they, they are much more likely to communicate what people need to hear than you are because they were sitting, you know, they're sitting in those seats and they were just, you know, they've just proved it to themselves. That's number five. Let's go over to number six, the last one, number six. And this is the power. This is how you now get people ultimately to really understand, really pay attention. And really more than anything else. Remember, I'm actually got another video coming up on the power of this thing. And what is this thing? Storytelling. And this has to do with examples of how people have used this, examples of how whatever you're covering has made a difference in other people's lives. How it used to be done this way, now it's done that way. And how it's been revolutionary. Better people have changed their lives or people have discovered this and they saved time or whatever it is. There's always a story behind the scenes. And so you. If you want to become a great trainer, you really want to have great training, you're going to have great stories. Because when they go away from the training, by the way, when you do presentations, you always want to end with a bang. So I'm ending with a bang here. It's the great stories that they're going to carry away from the time they spent with you. That's what really makes the light bulbs go on, really makes them excited about it, see the implications? So don't let your training be dry. Make it come alive. That's really the whole story. A great training program is a training program that makes the material come alive. You don't just spit it out there, tell them about it. You make it come alive. You let them see how it can impact their life. And when you do that, folks, you're going to have yourself one great training program. All right? Do it big. And look for that video on great stories. It'll be up soon, if it's not up already. Storytelling is the key to success in communication.
