The effectiveness of training sessions depends largely on the trainer. A trainer who simply stands in front of the group and delivers information without interacting with the students will not teach as well as someone who gets involved. To become a top notch trainer you will need to:

1. Create Rapport

Before the training session starts, mingle with the participants and get to know them.

By meeting attendees ahead of time and chatting with as many of them as possible, you will have broken the ice before the session begins. This will create an immediate warmth between you and your audience when you begin to train them.

Avoid sensitive topics in this "getting to know you" phase, as you are trying to build rapport, not get into an argument. Stick to topics like good restaurants in the area, or traffic on the way to the venue.

2. Give More Than Expected.

If you deliver only content that is expected, you are really not giving value for money.

Make an effort to provide a more valuable and interesting experience than participants expect. Do extra research or locate additional resources that help people gain more from the experience.

You can share your own, or other people's stories and perhaps even get the attendees themselves to share personal experiences that are relevant. You will find that you can also learn a lot by involving your audience.

Make the learning as interactive as possible. In other words, get the trainees as involved as possible. The easiest way to get their cooperation is to make the whole process fun. If you create a friendly, safe environment in which people feel comfortable getting involved, you will find people much more willing to interact.

It is also important to keep learning yourself. You can improve your training skills by attending seminars for trainers.

3. Use a Variety of Training Methods

It is important to move between different training techniques in order to keep trainees interested. Standing in front of people and lecturing them with straight information is likely to cause them to lose interest and stop paying attention because it is so boring.

Instead, use a number of training techniques that encourage interaction and move the learning forward quickly. It is important that training has a practical purpose and active learning is the best way to achieve it.

It isn't hard to make your training sessions interesting. Here are some strategies you can use:

- role play

- group discussion

- case studies

- trainee presentations

- telling stories

- short quizzes

- fun games

Presentation aids such as Power Point presentations, video clips, audio, flip charts, posters and other training props can help convey information and keep the audience's attention.

Adjust your approach depending on the time of day. For example, during the afternoon when people may begin to get tired, keep them alert with interactive strategies.

4. Use the Right Amount of Variety

The aim of training sessions is to give attendees the ability to actually do what they are being trained to do. This means that it is very important to reinforce learning throughout the session. A good rule of thumb is to provide three different activities for each specific topic so that learning can be reinforced.

One way you can do this is to introduce a case study with a video clip that gives a detailed view of the subject. You can then divide the participants into small groups to discuss the information and come up with some solutions to a problem. Afterwards, the groups can designate someone to present their information to other attendees.

Learning retention is significantly greater when you include group activities and multi-sensory training techniques.

5. Keep Them Interested With Surprises.

There should be no surprises for the trainer of course, because the training session should be very well planned.

However, the participants are another thing altogether. A good trainer plans to surprise the trainees.

You can surprise them by using a range of different and interesting training strategies. Participants may be aware of the course content but find the techniques new and interesting.

You can also use rewards to motivate them. Small rewards like chocolate bars, pens or notebooks can be enough of an incentive to get people involved. When you divide participants into teams during the session, you can award points to teams. This is a great way to get people excited and involved.

6. Train to The Objectives.

It is easy to get off track when you create an interactive learning environment, so it is essential that you have planned the course carefully. What are the learning objectives of the training? What topics must be covered in each session?

It is important to constantly reiterate these objectives during the course so that it stays on track.

It is common for groups to want to spend more time on topics that interest them but if you do that you will find there is insufficient time to cover the other topics in the course.

Next time you need to run a training session, apply these training strategies for the best learning outcomes. Keep in mind the rule of three as you plan and deliver the training: repetition, recall and retention.