How to develop a training program: basic exercises

Any training program consists of mini-lectures and various exercises. And there are only five types of exercises. In the last article, we discussed warm-up exercises in detail. And today we will also analyze in detail basic exercises.

They are also called themed.

• These are exercises that directly train the skills for which the participants came to the training.

These are the main exercises in the training. Hence their name. At the oratory training, these are exercises that form the ability to speak in front of an audience, the ability to gesticulate correctly, the ability to answer difficult questions. In sales training, these are exercises that develop the ability to ascertain needs, use a funnel of questions, work with objections, etc.

• In skill training (whose task is precisely to develop the necessary skills) namely basic (thematic) exercises should take up most of the training time. Up to 70% of the total time.
• In motivational training the task is different — to create a powerful motivation for the participants to change, to form in them important awareness about themselves, about relationships, about the world. Such trainings may contain very few basic exercises, and sometimes even do without them.

How to find out if this exercise is basic or not? Easily. You just need to ask yourself a question: what skill does it train? If the skill is not trained, then this is not the main exercise.

An important condition for the main exercise is that it must be built in such a way that all participants of the training managed to work. The main exercise, where only a few people from the group trained, is unacceptable. After all, all participants are equally entitled to receive those skills for which they came to the training.

therefore basic exercises are most often performed in pairs or triples …

And also in mini-groups of 4-6 people. These configurations just allow you to make sure that all participants in the training have time to work out the skill.

For example, let’s say we’re doing public speaking training, and we want each participant to come in front of the group and give a pep talk for 3 minutes. Let’s say we have 16 participants in the training. If everyone goes to the general circle and speaks, it will take us more than 2 hours: 3 min. per performance plus 5 min. for feedback (after all, many will want to speak out, after all, training in oratory skills), a total of 128 minutes per group and plus the legendary “this and that” …

Usually, when conducting trainings, we try to do as much as possible, and traditionally there is not enough time. Exercise for 2–2,5 hours is a luxury. And another important point — the group will get bored, the energy, involvement and motivation of the participants will greatly “sag” if we do the same thing for 2 hours.

What is the way out? There are two exits:

• Reduce the number of speakers. We propose to perform 4-5 «the most courageous». For them, it’s a great experience. After analyzing the pros and cons of each speech, we move on to a mini-lecture about the tools for an effective and incendiary speech. A good option! It’s just that it won’t be the main exercise anymore, because most of the group didn’t practice anything in it.
• Divide participants into mini-groups. For example, 4 «most courageous» participants speak to the general group, they are given detailed feedback under the guidance of a coach. Then we form 2 teams, each of which should include 2 people who have already performed (let them be “team captains”) and 6 participants who have not yet performed. Now in mini-groups it is necessary to continue the work so that everyone speaks. «Captains» organize the process and quality feedback. The coach comes to one or the other team, helping in the feedback.

What do we have in the second version:

• Time is reduced from 2 hours to 1 hour 20 minutes.
• In this case, the skill is trained by all participants.
• The tone and involvement of the participants was at a much higher level, because they worked independently, were involved, involved.
• Plus, we gave an opportunity for an active participant to appear in the role of «team captains», which is good for group dynamics, as it will speed up the distribution of roles in the group. But this is a completely different story … And we will definitely analyze it in our subsequent articles.

If you need to shorten the time — that means, we give 3-4 active participants to speak, then we form 3 teams, each of which will have 4 participants who did not speak. We get about 1 hour in time. And all the above advantages are preserved.

Doing more than 3 teams within the framework of our conditions (16 participants) is no longer justified. You will lose the feeling of speaking in front of an audience if there are only 2-3 listeners in front of you. Here, the coach always needs to look for a reasonable compromise, so that both the workload on the participants is preserved and time is saved.

Core exercises are large, long exercises. Often they take from 30 minutes to 1,5 hours. Since each participant must thoroughly work out the skill that is laid down in this exercise, then everyone needs to be given enough timeso you don’t have to rush. And it’s just as important to give enough time for feedback, because in the main exercises it is no less valuable than the practice itself.

When colleagues bring me their new training programs with a request to see, make changes and I see that 10–15 minutes are allotted for the main exercise, this immediately raises my doubts. Well, it doesn’t happen like that. Or the skill chosen is too small. Or not enough time is given to study. Or maybe not everyone is involved…

Where do you get the basic exercises from?

Here’s the good news — they’re easy enough to make yourself! We simply take situations, cases from life related to the topic of our training and transfer them to exercises. Let’s create?

• Sales training? Let this be an exercise in pairs. One is the seller, the other is the buyer. The seller needs to sell the goods we offer to the buyer according to the scheme that we gave. For example, we just learned how to build a funnel of questions to find out a customer’s needs. The task of the seller: using this «funnel» to make a sale.

How much time to work? Since the “funnel” is new, the participants will have to think carefully, select the right words, so you need to give a lot of time. For example, 7-10 minutes to work one way. The choice of time, of course, depends on the complexity of the goods.

Immediately after the time to “sell” is over, the obligatory component is feedback within the pairs. This is extremely important. Feedback enables the «salesperson» to reflect on their work, to speak their feelings without accumulating them. Feedback allows both participants in a pair to reinforce understanding of the question funnel.

• An exercise carried out without feedback (immediately after the completion of the “sale”) loses up to 50% of its effectiveness!

What is the best way to build feedback in the main exercises?

1. It’s always best to let the person who was «selling» speak first: How does it feel? How effective was the «funnel» in his opinion?

2. Then give the “buyer” an opportunity to express their opinion: Was the “funnel” used effectively? What went well? What else is worth paying attention to and improving?

3. If we plan to bring feedback to the general circle, then at first it is better to give the participants the opportunity to speak out within the pairs, and only then bring it to the whole group.

But back to creating the basic exercises. It is just as easy to come up with basic exercises for any other training topic:

• Influencer training? You are welcome. We are looking for cases from life where the ability to influence is important. Participants in pairs. One side is the driver who broke the rules because he was in a hurry to get to the airport. The other side is the traffic cop who stopped him. It is important for the driver to convince the traffic cop to let him go as soon as possible and without fines.

We ask ourselves, where else in life are there bright cases of influence? For example, one of the pair is an official who may or may not give the necessary certificate (he will make the decision). The task of the second is to convince the official to issue such a certificate in 7–10 minutes.

• Interpersonal relationship coaching? And we want to teach the participants to negotiate. Fine! So, one will play the role of the spouse, the second — the wife. And they need to agree in 10-15 minutes: they will buy a car (wife’s desire) or new furniture in the kitchen / fur coat (wife’s desire). The amount of money is limited — either one or the other, the floor of the car and the floor of the fur coat — you can’t 🙂. We agree!

Of course, it is logical to put the main exercises after the mini-lecture, in which you gave a certain scheme, which you need to work out in this exercise. In our examples, we will give before the main exercises the scheme of the «funnel of questions», the «algorithm for effective persuasion» and a mini-lecture on «how to easily agree in pairs.» By the way, we will also talk about how to make a strong, memorable mini-lecture in one of the subsequent mailings.

As you can see, creating basic exercises for training is quite simple. If you want to add ready-made and “tasty” basic exercises to your piggy bank, you can always purchase them in our “Exercises for training” section. Set the filter «basic exercises» and choose what you need!

And we have to consider 2 more professional coaching moments:

• Pairs or triplets? What to choose?

All our exercises can be done in triplets. Then the third will play the role of «observer».

What are the pros and cons of being an observer? He, as a person who is not involved in the sales process, will give more objective and deeper feedback. This is a plus. It will take 1,5 times more time for everyone to work. This is a minus (although sometimes a plus 🙂). Since all members of the trio will go through 3 rounds of selling, the skill will be mastered at a much more stable level. This is definitely a plus!

So, working in triplets (compared to pairs) gives a deeper level of study, forms a more stable skill, but takes more time.

It is also worth considering that working in threes requires a certain level of trust in the group. Just “sell a product to a colleague” or “sell a product when an observer is watching your sale” are “two big differences” for most of the participants in the training.

Therefore, at the first stages of the training, it is better to give work in pairs. Working in pairs is the fastest way to build trust in a group. When trust is formed, and the participants are ready to work openly, we give the main exercises in triplets.

What product to sell as part of the main exercise?

There are 2 main options here: build a sale on a real product — the one that participants sell in real life. Or on a product that is unrealistic for them, with which they do not work in life.

Many trainers choose to always work on the real product. And they are wrong. After all, mastering a new way of acting on a real product is much more difficult! There are a lot of “tails”, past experience that draws to the usual way of selling, the participants “slide” into the “as they always did”, and do not train the scheme that the trainer suggested.

The more complex the skill, the more important it is for the participants to truly master it, the better it is to do it on an “unreal” product for them!

Do they usually sell cars? So, let the main exercise sell phones. Or let them sell each other a can of coffee according to the scheme you proposed.

By the way, the more unusual the “unreal product”, the more it increases the involvement, energy of the participants, their interest in the exercise.

For example, the task of “selling a hairbrush to a bald man” or “snow to an Eskimo” usually helps not only to practice the skill, but also greatly invigorates the participants.

Of course, having mastered a new skill on an unreal product, you must then transfer it to a real product, give the participants the opportunity to transfer it to their own specifics.

Therefore, experienced trainers often give 2 main exercises for an important skill:

• The first is faster. In pairs and on an unreal product.
• The second is more difficult. For example, in triplets and on a real product.

And then the skill is really formed! And our trainings become really effective!

Well, it’s time to finish already … I want to say so much that I just can’t write short articles)). Let’s take a «sweet» look an example of a real basic exercise for sales training.

In a mini-lecture, the trainer introduces the group to the technology of a competent NPV proposal:

• Traits (red)
• Advantages (bright, stands out from others)
• Benefits (you will be noticed)

Next, he gives an exercise, let’s call it «Star Hour»:

After we have learned about the FPV proposal algorithm, it would be logical to work it out, as they say, on “cats”. In our case, plastic cups will act as cats.

Next, the trainer divides the group into mini-groups of 5-6 people, and undresses each group of the same plastic cups (one per group).

Each team needs to come up with the maximum possible number of FPV chains per plastic cup. You are given 10 minutes for this activity.

Next, we will play an analogue of the once-existing popular children’s program «Star Hour». One team names their NPV chain, the other must name theirs. And so, in turn, until the list or fantasy runs out. The interesting thing is that the chains must always be new and it is impossible to repeat already named chains, including those named by another team.

But I hope everyone understands that there can be one trait, but there can be several benefits and advantages from this trait, and, accordingly, several NPV chains can be built on one trait.

The groups take turns calling the NPV chains until they run out. The trainer comments on the chains, if there are inaccuracies in them (for example, advantages and benefits are mixed up), corrects, prompts.

Time for the whole exercise: about 30 minutes.

Required resources: plastic cups according to the number of groups.

• Is this the main exercise? Yes.
• What skill does it train? Make chains according to the FPV scheme.
• Does everyone participate? Yes, everyone in mini-groups participates in the discussion and development of chains.
• Is the exercise based on a real or unreal product? On the unreal (plastic cups). This means that the FPV scheme will be assimilated faster, and the exercise itself will be cheerful and energetic.

After this exercise, it would be appropriate to give another basic exercise to train FPV on a real product in order to consolidate the skill and integrate it into the situation of the participants.

Here we are already born and whole pieces of training!