Whether you're writing articles for a website or facilitating high-end leadership development programs, it's key to establish yourself as the expert in your topic. Getting your participants or readers to recognize your real (or perceived) expertise will allow you to teach or write with confidence and really make an impact on your audience.

Why Are You the Expert?

At the beginning of every seminar, it can be invaluable to provide several solid bullet points regarding your background and experience. This will enable you to gain the respect and attention of your audience early on, without bragging about yourself.

An example of this might be to mention your years in the industry or some of your biggest clients. Once you have your audience's respect on the training subject, you can then aspire to teach with confidence and impact knowing that participants are fully aware of your knowledge and expertise in that area.

Establishing that respect when writing articles can be a little more tricky, but stating solid examples and providing well-written paragraphs can go a long way toward lending you credibility. And don't forget the "resource box" at the end of every article, where you have the opportunity to expound your own achievements in the literary world. Try http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/ [1] for more helpful tips on writing like an expert.

Recruit Your Audience

Even if the training topic is completely new, it can help to reverse the traditional training format so you can draw from the valuable experience of everyone in the room. In addition to "changing up" the same old training story (having just the facilitator speak), this role-reversal accomplishes two things:

1. It recruits everyone in the room to share their experiences, which can help broaden the buy-in when information/strategies come from peers.
2. It helps bring in actual case studies that make people think, "wow, that is a real-life example of how this could work."

When writing articles, this kind of audience buy-in can be achieved by asking readers to relate to real-life examples that you provide or by creating metaphors that will parallel your argument. The goal is to really get readers thinking about times and events when this topic may apply to their own lives. Jeff Herring, "The Article Guy," has some great advice for making this kind of impact. Check out his advice at http://theinternetarticleguy.com/articletemplates.htm [2].

Regardless of whether you are speaking or writing about your topic, it is paramount to create an air of expertise that the audience can respect. This will give you the chance to really lay down helpful strategies that make their lives easier. Ideally, this will keep them coming back for more, and you will earn the reputation as the "know-how" trainer in your field.

For tips to effectively train your people and streamline your organization, and for other solutions to your staffing challenges, visit www.traininginabox.com [3]. Sign up for our free newsletter at www.quicktrainingsolutions.com [3] to make your HR training and development life easier. Corey Nielsen designs and delivers innovative and effective training solutions for businesses through NTG, his business development and training company.

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