The first time I was asked to train new members of staff, I was given 10 minutes notice and was told to "just wing it". Fortunately I am currently working in a company that now sees that investing in training for all members of staff, both new and current, is extremely important in this day and age. Quality of service and expertise is a necessity, which in order to get your employees to provide that service you need to coach and give them the best quality training. It's like with anything in life - when you put quality into anything, you will ultimately get the best results.

With the company I work for investing in their staff by investing in training, I was recently promoted to the position of customer service trainer for our Bristol office. Keen to utilise training tools even before I got this role, I spoke with a training friend of mine and he introduced me to TrainingZone. Since then I have referred to several articles for tips and ways to improve the way that I train. For example the article on Architects for learning has influenced the way I think and prepare my coaching and training workshops.
 
The very same friend also told me about how he went to TrainingZone Live last year and how it greatly aided his ways of training (in fact his testimonial for TrainingZone Live is on the website) so when an opportunity came along for me to go, both myself and my manager, the company training manager for the south of England, snapped up the opportunity.
 
It has been hard to decide what workshop stream we should go for, it's like being a kid in a candy store - too many choices and not enough time, but given the forthcoming training projects the purple stream holds the key elements that I require.
 
First of all I am looking forward to listening to the workshop "The Secret of Emotional Intelligence & Behavioural Change for Exceptional Leadership" with Seven Suphi. Given the fast pace changes within the sector of which my company works in, this workshop will help within my role as we are eager to use different ways to develop our frontline staff. We are currently looking into how we can give excellent personal service from every area in the company and I'm hoping to gain information to help my future trainees to tap into their emotional intelligence.

 
As I am fairly new to the training role that I am in, I am aware that sometimes I am going to make mistakes.  As with a lot of trainers, these mistakes will often shape and help me grow and become a better trainer so the workshop "It couldn’t happen to a trainer" by Dr Peter Honey will be extremely beneficial. Both myself and my manager enjoy using analogies within our training workshops so it will be fantastic to gain tips on how to explore story telling in a way that helps trainees and even myself to learn.

Currently our training team are exploring various different methods on ways we can train our staff. This is why I am especially looking forward to the Rapid eLearning workshop with Bruce Roberts. We have used online learning centres to teach new and current employees but this workshop is going to help us to fully utilise our online training database to get the most out of elearning. The fact that this workshop also gives you a completed lesson to use when you are back in the office is utterly fantastic! I'm positive that this workshop will greatly influence our training methods for the future.

 
Last but definitely not least I have always found NLP fascinating since the concept was introduced to me and have read books from Richard Bandler to Tony Robbins in an attempt to understand it better. When I saw that one of the leading NLP trainers in the UK was doing a NLP Solutions for Organisational Problems workshop at training zone live I knew that I had to be at one of his workshops. Incidentally when discussing the workshops with my manager, he too noted and was also excited at the prospect of listening to John Seymour especially as he has a qualification in NLP himself.  For him it's the same as an accomplished rock guitar player getting guitar lessons from Jimi Hendrix! Having experienced the effects of NLP on myself I've wanted to integrate NLP into several future training workshops to overcome those pesky blocks that some trainees give themselves. This workshop is going to greatly influence the future training sessions that I have lined up. 

 
Ultimately I'm just so excited and amazed that that I'm going to have access to the leading minds in the field of learning and development at such an early stage in my career as a trainer. This workshop is not just going to influence and help me develop my training skills, it is going to benefit my future trainees in their worklife and I'm sure in their day to day life.