Why I Turn Down Work in A Competitive Market

A few months ago, I responded to a LinkedIn post requesting a trainer to deliver a specific course. I asked the poster to send me a message with some details: number of participants, intended learning outcomes, and language proficiency level. Even if you do not work within the field of training and development, I am sure that you can still deduce the purpose of these questions. But the training and development consultant that had posted seemed not to know that. He responded with something along the lines of "send me your CV and proposal." I politely declined and said that I did not think we would be a good fit.

"Learning and development is not a one-size-fits-all."

First, let's start with why I ask these questions (if anyone is still wondering). Asking about the size of a group of participants helps the trainer assess the amount and type of work that would be required to make sure that everyone in the group will be able to participate effectively. I prefer to keep my groups under 20 participants so that I can pay attention to every single one of them throughout the training or course. The number of participants also determines the size of the venue in which the training or course would be held. A small venue with many participants means too little room for movement and personal space. It means that both trainer and participants will be uncomfortable, and uncomfortable people are not as receptive to learning.

Determining the intended learning outcomes tells me what it is that my client/s are looking to achieve through the course or training. Within any topic, there is almost an infinity of subtopics, ideas, concepts, and skills to learn or train. It would make sense then to assume that such an infinity would lead to a parallel infinity of things and ways to teach or train. If I know what the client/customer wants, I can personalize and tailor the content and methods I use in the course or training to achieve the exact intended learning outcomes and make sure they "stick."

Finally, determining the language proficiency of a group lets the trainer know how to best communicate with the group of participants. It has been my experience that when it comes to language some people feel embarrassed to ask for definitions. In those unfortunate cases, the link of communication between the trainer and participants drops from the first mention of the undefined word until the next chance the participant gets to look it up. Don’t lose that link because losing that link means losing their attention, and losing their attention means that you are no longer delivering on the promise you make as a learning and development professional. So, for those reasons, and because learning and development is not a one-size-fits-all, I ask those three basic questions.

"As an independent professional, your reputation is all you have."

With that out of the way, let's talk about why I declined the opportunity to work with this specific poster. The poster's inability and/or unwillingness to answer the three basic questions tell me that one of two things are true:

1- They have not properly assessed their organization's needs and, therefore, do not know what would work best for their context.

2- They do not care enough about the content of the course of training and are only interested in crossing it off a list of KPIs that they want/need to meet.

In both of these cases, as a trainer, I can anticipate that the majority of the participants will not be receptive to the course of training. Either because they see it as a redundant waste of time or because they do not see the direct benefit in it.

When participants are in either state of mind, they are no longer learners. In fact, as many trainers can attest, they have the potential of becoming disruptors.

By starting off on such a shaky foundation, any course or training are almost guaranteed to receive negative feedback, or slightly above average feedback even for stellar work. That feedback, given power through word of mouth, can slowly end a career. If you are an independent professional, your reputation is all you have; And if you are going to be building partnerships, build them on solid and mutually beneficial foundations.

After more than a decade in the field, this is why I turn down work, sometimes, and why I think you should, too.