Workshops With Impact ? 5 Keys to Facilitating Live Workshops ...

Workshops With Impact ? 5 Keys to Facilitating Live Workshops

Many solo professionals and business owners use workshops as a way to share their knowledge, build credibility, and market themselves. Live workshops create rapport, collaboration, and lasting relationships ? all of which can lead the participants to buy more of your core services.

There are two key aspects to live training ? design and delivery ? both of which require specific skills for success. If you?re a solo professional, many times you are both the designer and the facilitator.

In the facilitator role, how do you present the content in a way that inspires learning, plus keeps the audience engaged and coming back for more?

There are 5 keys to keep in mind:

Memorize your introduction. Your participants will begin making judgments about you as a facilitator within the first 2-3 minutes, so your goal is to make maximum positive impact. It can take several minutes for you to feel ?warmed up? in front of your audience. One way to reduce the warm-up period and inspire confidence is to memorize your introduction. This introduction can include some information about you, class objectives, and possibly an icebreaker activity.
Don?t rely on a slide deck. This is a big mistake many facilitators make ? relying too heavily on a slide deck and reading straight from it. This causes two issues. First, you aren?t making eye contact with the audience, which reduces rapport and connection. Second, you reduce your credibility because your audience may perceive you as unprepared or not knowledgeable with the content.
Leverage your audience. Your participants bring a wealth of personal and professional experience to the workshop ? acknowledge and take advantage of it! You might ask them to share their stories on a topic or answer another participant?s question. When working through activities, ask how they would apply the learning in their everyday life. By doing this, you?re allowing the class to learn from everyone.
Be present. It?s your responsibility to be present and focused throughout your time together. Your audience will sense when you?re truly listening and engaged in the content.? Easy ways to do this include periodically moving around the room, being attentive to time, acknowledging all contributions, and asking thoughtful follow up questions. Offer sufficient breaks so that everyone, including you, can regroup.
Take the pressure off ? don?t try to be an expert all the time. Even if you?re an expert on the topic, think of yourself as a guide taking your participants on a journey. You provide direction, but you also encourage them to take their own path from time to time. Will there be times when you don?t know the answer to a question? Absolutely. In those cases ask the group to respond with their ideas, again leveraging your audience and creating a positive experience.

These tips will help you create the best possible impact with your audience. You?ll create a memorable learning experience and keep them coming back for your next offering!

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Source: http://www.creativeworkshopseries.com/106/workshops-with-impact-5-keys-to-facilitating-live-workshops

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