Often we as training providers, who mostly sit within a cost centre structure, are overly eager to prove our value to our stakeholders or organisation, by meeting any request that is made.

The irony is that when we do this, we are often shooting ourselves in the foot and setting ourselves up to fail, particularly when our stakeholders/clients don’t know what it is that they need, to begin with. This is not due to our clients being stupid, but rather it’s because we’re the L&D professionals and it’s our task to help identify skills gaps and provide solutions.

The best part is if you use a consulting model or framework, you’ll know that you don’t necessarily need to say the word no. Instead you can provide a variety of options and distinctly communicate the benefits and disadvantages to each option whilst influencing, or guiding, the client to the best solution.

This can be a work in progress, but give it a go, after all, practice means improvement!

For example, this Google Scholar search brings up several studies that show that writers who think of a specific person or clearly defined audience are more persuasive. Some terms to search for include “audience adaptation” and “market segmentation.”

Also, I define elearning as instruction that’s intended to change behavior, not just to transfer information. If we want to change behavior, we need to first identify the behaviors that need to change. That step alone helps narrow the audience, because, for example, newbies and experts probably make different mistakes.

Ideally, you’d be able to evaluate your elearning to see if it led to improved performance. Then you could point out that the information dump that your client required had no effect, which might give you the chance to create a more focused and activity-rich intervention next time.