It’s not about the slides. It’s about the people

When most organisations say they need a “Train the Trainer” course, what they usually mean is:
“Our trainers need to be better at delivering the content.” But that’s rarely the real issue.

In our experience, the content is normally fine. The slide deck is generally good. The objectives are clear.

What’s usually missing is something far more human.

It’s the ability to read the room, to sense the energy, to create genuine psychological safety, and to land a message in a way that means something to the people listening.

It’s about drawing people into the conversation rather than talking at them.

Train the Trainer isn’t about polishing slides or refining bullet points; it’s about developing the person responsible for delivering impactful training.

We focus on the person

In our Train the Trainer programmes, we don’t start with, “Let’s improve your content.”

We start with impact, and you can too: Who are you when you walk into that room?

Because your presence, your energy, your intention and your awareness shape the entire learning environment before you even start speaking.

How do you create an engaged audience right from the off?

We teach trainers to:

1. Start with impact

Most trainers start with “Hi my name is Dan and today you will learn about….”.
This is all wrong.

It is not engaging; in fact, it is boring and turns people off.

This approach means we are ‘telling people’ what they will learn. When we tell people what to learn, they switch off.

When they learn because they are involved, have a voice and are highly engaged we create lasting impactful training.

So we teach internal trainers a way to start with impact, such as with:

A question.
A fact.
A story.
A statistic.
By taking you away from threat towards reward or,
Focusing on the future state.

When you start with impact, you prime the brain for relevance. And relevance is what drives attention.

2. Land messages using AMEN

We use a simple structure we call AMEN to help trainers land messages clearly and memorably.

A – Audience. Understanding of who we are delivering training to and how they will best learn.

M – Message, what is your core message for the training or for the segment.

E – Example to bring it to life with audience relevant stories, use cases, analogies or metaphors.

N – Negatives. Address the negative thoughts in the room if there are any. This build trust and respect. Don’t ignore them. It makes you look like you don’t care or you are not part of the team.

Without structure, messages drift. They feel interesting but not usable.

When trainers learn to land messages properly, delegates leave knowing exactly what to do differently.

OUR COURSES Train the Trainer Courses Transform your organisation's ability to design and deliver training in the workplace.

3. Bring people into the conversation

Training fails when the focus is solely on the objectives and not the people.

We spend a lot of time helping trainers understand how to:

Ask questions that genuinely invite thinking.
Hold silence without panicking.
Acknowledge contributions properly.
Build on what someone says instead of correcting them.

When people feel heard, they engage more deeply. And when they engage more deeply, they remember more.

This is called meta-cognition.

The bit most organisations miss: Psychological Contracting

Here’s where things often go wrong.

We talk about psychological safety a lot in our BCF training courses.

But in many organisations training rooms, it’s frequently assumed rather than created.

If you don’t deliberately ‘contract the room’, if you don’t clarify expectations, confidentiality, contribution and respect you leave safety to chance.

The biggest miss is not gaining agreement. A ‘psychological contract’ is an agreement between two parties.

Most trainers simply put behaviours on the slide deck and say this is what I expect of you. When dealing with people, bring them into the conversation.

The impact?

People don’t speak.
Questions stay unasked.
Challenges go unvoiced.
Real learning doesn’t happen.

Why this matters strategically

If you’re in L&D or HR, here’s the truth: You can spend months designing brilliant programmes.

But if your trainers:

Don’t create emotional safety.
Don’t start with impact.
Don’t land messages clearly.
Don’t draw people into discussion.

Your return on investment drops dramatically. Learning to be a great trainer protects your learning strategy.

It ensures that every internal rollout; leadership, compliance, culture, technical, is delivered by people who understand the psychology of learning, not just the mechanics of presenting.

The case study

We help hundreds of people each year become great trainers.

And the ripple effect in the organisation is huge.

Learning the behaviours and skills of a great trainer and being able to implement them back in the workplace impacts positively on training delivered and therefore results.

But we also find that leaders become more effective because they understand people more.

They can adapt and find better ways to land a message and make it stick.

Recently, our Head of Training was working with a global energy company to create a bank of great trainers. Like many of our customers, they wanted their teams to spend more time in the office. Not ‘just because’ but to try and encourage more teamwork, build employee relationships and increase performance. And one of their strategies was to invest in better training so employees could instantly see the benefit of making the commute to the office.

So what does this mean?
More engaged people, more engaged teams, a more positive work environment and an L&D team that have made a significant impact on the performance of the organisation rather than simply ‘putting some training on’.

Final thought

Great training isn’t about the content. It’s about being intentional.

Intentional about:

The emotional tone you set.
The safety you create.
The messages you land.
The space you give others.

When we miss psychological contracting, we miss the opportunity to create a thriving learning environment.

When we focus only on content, we miss the people.

And when we miss the people, we miss the learning.

Training done properly, has a sustained and lasting positive impact on the business.

The BCF Group has been helping employees and team members develop their skills for over 25 years.
Whether you're looking to train a single cohort or develop a comprehensive internal training strategy, we can help you build the business case and deliver results.
Get in touch to discuss your specific needs.