You’re never an expert: The Value of Training
On Monday, I started the Fast Track program with the National Speaker’s Association. It’s a program focused on teaching you how to become a paid speaker. Needless to say that’s one of my goals, so it made perfect sense to start attending the class. While there, we also got some recommendations for books that we might want to read and I ordered them from the library on Tuesday night.
Something I’ve always found important with anything I do professionally is the value of getting additional training on what you are doing. The truth is you can never really be an expert on a subject, if you’re really serious about that subject. And I say that because if you feel that way about the subject, you’ll always be trying to learn something new about it, or experimenting with it, or getting training on it, because you want to see what other people have to say.
Something I do on a fairly regular basis is attend seminars other people offer on the subjects I teach about. I want to see what they have to say about the subject, and I always learn something I didn’t know about the subject that I can take back to my clients to help them, as well as continuing to develop myself as a professional.
Getting additional training is the mark of a true professional. It says this person believes in the value of getting more education about the subject s/he is an “expert” in. It shows that s/he is willing to go the extra mile to learn new information and keep updated and informed about the topics and subjects important to his/her profession.
At the very least I think it’s important to be reading up on the subjects you teach on, or offer services and products in. I’m always reading at least one book on a subject related to business at a given time, so that I can learn more about what I’m teaching others. I don’t feel this makes me less genuine. If anything it shows that I want to provide the best information possible to my clients and recognize to do that I need to learn more.
When you start thinking of yourself as an expert, do a humbleness check on yourself and take a class, read a book, or do something where you learn from someone else about your field of study. Challenge yourself to learn at least three things from the class, book, etc. Doing that will keep you humble and also help you learn something new about what you love doing.
Why you always do a dry run with your new classes
Earlier this week , I taught for the first time, a webinar on social media marketing. I’d never used a webinar before so I realized upfront that I needed to plan for that by offering a second date for the class. And while I already knew the material and was comfortable with it, I also knew that because I was presenting it for the first time, it was better to do what I call a dry run, where I’d simply do the class without putting pressure on myself to record it.
I did get asked by participants if I was going to record the webinar, and as I told them, I’d record the one on Wednesday, but not Monday. And I was glad I didn’t record it, because there was one or two technical issues that I had to deal with, which I didn’t really want recorded. So now, I know these issues, and I’m more prepared with presenting the class, because I’ve done it once. Now I can record the class, because I have a better idea of what will happen.
A dry run of a class, basically just doing the class for the sake of seeing what will happen is always essential, in my opinion, for making the class successful. It allows you to see what is working without worrying about what others beyond the attendees will say if they happen to see the information. It can also give you some good perspectives on what to improve for the next time you teach the class. I do a dry run really to help me improve myself.
To be fair, having a recording can be useful also. You can listen or see yourself and from that learn what mistakes you made. Some people will benefit from doing a recording, if they especially want to focus on the talk itself. In this case, because I was dealing with technology, I decided I wanted to go without the recording and focus on making sure I had a good handle on the technology, before taking that next step and recording the talk.
Regardless of what you do, if you’re going to use something you’ve recorded for commercial purposes, make sure you only do so after you have done a few trial run and feel comfortable with the product you’ll be providing to people.
