How to be a good trainer?

Have you just started your own training company, or do you have years of experience? No matter your situation, we can assume that all trainers have a core interest in teaching others and helping them improve within a topic. Everyone wants their training business to be successful and profitable. An essential part of that success is directly linked to the quality of the training sessions, as well as the personal traits and training skills of your instructors. 

For some instructors, being a good trainer comes naturally because they are intrinsically compassionate, engaged, and warm. For others, it is something that has taken time, perhaps from doing their own personal development work or fine-tuning their training skills. In this article, we will explain what these qualities are and provide some hands-on tips for how to use and develop them in practise. 

Read also: Our 12 tips to impress your participants

Qualities of a good trainer 

There are a variety of qualities that can benefit you as a trainer. In fact, the list is almost endless, as many different personal traits and competencies can influence how you carry out training courses. To sum up the key qualities, we have divided them into two groups: personal traits and training skills.  

Examples of personal traits that can benefit you 

• Compassion 

• Patience 

• Warmth 

• Empathy 

Examples of training skills 

• Responsibility when carrying out training sessions 

• Clear and credible communication 

• Strategic planning and adaptable executing 

• Facilitation skills 

In the next section, we will dig deeper into how these personal traits and trailing skills influence training sessions and how you can sharpen your competencies further. 

Read also: This characterises a well-managed training business  

Seven key qualities of a good trainer

1. Be curious before, during, and after training sessions 

A good trainer is always curious – curious about your participants and their learning needs, curious about how to improve your course offerings, and curious about how to adapt to new learning trends. 

Our tips for executing on this in practice: 

• Show interest in your participants and encourage them to share their motivations for doing the course with you.
• Keep a finger on the pulse of learning trends so that you introduce new creative learning tools or hacks throughout the course. This is a great way to demonstrate your expertise. 

2. Be creative when planning and carrying out sessions 

You need to deliver training in a comprehensible way, and there are many training delivery methods available. Let “creative and memorable learning sessions” be your guiding principle when choosing the right delivery method for you and your participants. For example, you can take advantage of learning tools that engage the participants through storytelling or choose to organise the sessions as active exercises. 

Our tips for enhancing the training session: 

• Break up complex topics into manageable, engaging formats. 
• Remember to adjust the session depending on the energy level or general vibe in the room.
• Don’t be afraid to take inspiration from various learning styles such as blended learning or practical learning set-ups like group discussions. Here you can find many ideas for how to present learning materials. 

3. Be encouraging and patient  

Empathy is the ability to understand and connect with the feelings of others. This is at the core of being a good trainer. Empathy is closely related to being patient, encouraging, and approachable. If participants feel that they can trust you, they are more likely to stay engaged since they can ask you questions, share worries, and feel safe in the learning environment. A well-functioning learning environment is key to learning success. 

Empathy as a leadership skill: Let’s say that a participant is struggling with motivation or does not find the learning environment conducive to learning. Barriers to learning like these can be a huge obstacle to finishing the course. As someone in a leadership role, it is your job to help them, whether it be a question of motivation or a practical challenge like the physical or digital space. A solution could be to create digital resources that enable them to delve into the material on their own, in the safety and comfort of their own home. 

Our tips to demonstrate patience and empathy: 

• Show a genuine desire to help.
• Facilitate ways for participants to face their challenges or lessen their burden.
• Be encouraging in good times and bad times. 

4. Stay organised  

You should be structured and organised as a trainer. In other words, you should demonstrate a high degree of responsibility. Being organised is related to how you structure your training sessions in comprehensible ways that are aligned with the learning goals and desired outcomes that the participants have. If training sessions are difficult to follow, or you as a trainer are in disarray, participants are likely to lose motivation. It is also harder for you to demonstrate empathy, since you and your participants are probably experiencing the learning environment differently. 

Our tips for being an organised trainer: 

• Use a training management system (TMS) that can help you stay on top of all administrative tasks, which you can also integrate with other learning management tools.
• Make a plan for each training session and the whole training sequence, and share this with your participants for full transparency.
• Be in the moment and put all your energy on the participants’ needs.  

5. Be engaging 

I think we can all agree from a participant’s standpoint that we want our trainers to be engaging and entertaining. You should be a strong presence in the room, not necessarily in a dominant way, but in the context of demonstrating good storytelling skills, showing enthusiasm, and using your expertise in a credible way. 

Our tips for demonstrating expertise in an engaging way:

• Answer questions as they come and be open to discussions.
  
• Use inclusive language and make sure to link new content to theories or content used in previous sessions.
• Summarise key points and focus on communicating them in a clear and precise manner. 

6. Analytical and data driven 

A strategic and credible trainer is a friend to anyone. While it might seem counter-intuitive to be data-driven or analytical while also demonstrating empathy, these traits can and should go hand in hand. A good trainer should balance them with considerations because, as previously mentioned, empathy is key to making participants feel relaxed and motivated. 

A strategic and data-driven mindset is also necessary for the profitability and longevity of the business. Verifiable data is a method for you as a trainer to evaluate your business and course offer, and, most importantly, to implement changes or improvements that will boost engagement, leads, and satisfaction. 

Our tips to ensure data-driven decision making:

• Encourage open channels for communication and collect feedback after each training sequence or session. 

• Use evaluation tools like the Phillips ROI model to measure training effectiveness. 

7. Be adaptable and flexible  

You are in control as a trainer, which is essential to remember. In the context of this course, you hold the authority and therefore, much of the power belongs to you. This does not mean that you should impose an authoritative rule on the learning environment, but rather that you adapt under pressure and demonstrate your ability to be flexible. There is great strength in recognising when to deviate from the original plans or take feedback onboard immediately. 

Our tips for staying in control: 

• Listen to your participants’ needs and focus on how you can adapt your original plans to these requests. 

You might also be interested in: How to create an online course from scratch 

Summary of skills that makes a good trainer

Core competencies 

• Participant-oriented: You are able to design a course design that is well-structured and impactful. It should be tailored to the adult learning principles.
• Analytical focus: You are conscious of how to measure success and use data insights proactively to improve your course offerings. 
• Strategic mindset: Overall, you are strategic, both in terms of how to design your course and how to reach new audiences through fresh marketing tactics. 

Core focus behaviours 

• Focused on the learner: You are centred on how the participant learns the best and adapt your approach to how they learn most effectively.
• Foster engagement: You use tools proactively to garner engagement and ensure that all participants are actively learning. 
• Gather feedback: Course evaluations are a bulletproof tactic of identifying areas of improvement in your course offer, which you use regularly. 

Be smarter trainer and use digital learning tools 

Elevate your training skills to the next level with FrontCore’s all-in-one Training Management System (TMS) – a cloud-based platform designed to streamline operations, simplify course management, and deliver tailored, effective learning experiences.

Or elevate your digital learning offering with FrontCore’s new Learning Management System (LMS), featuring advanced AI tools, customisable course modules, and flexible self-paced options, built for the needs of today’s adult learners.

Create smarter, more engaging, and more impactful training experiences together with us. 

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