Ep 95: Becoming A Great Instructor
Episode 95
Published Dec 2, 2024
Last updated Feb 18, 2026
Duration: 58:28
Episode Summary
Master the art of teaching through practical tips, including rehearsal strategies, obstacle overcoming, and audience connection, to transform your instructional approach and create impactful learning experiences.
Episode Notes
In this podcast, we delve into the essential elements that transform good instructors into great ones, drawing insights from John-Michael Keyes and the I Love U Guys Foundation. Key topics covered:
Preparation and Practice
- The importance of thorough rehearsal and material mastery
- Techniques for effective self-recording and review
- Time management strategies for different presentation lengths
Audience Engagement
- Creating an immersive training experience
- Techniques for maintaining audience attention
- Addressing objections and overcoming obstacles
Professional Approach
- Arriving early and being fully present
- Body language and speaking patterns
- Passion and commitment in delivery
Advanced Techniques
- Anticipating and preemptively addressing audience concerns
- Facilitating introductions and networking opportunities
- Adapting to different audience sizes and time constraints
Whether you're a seasoned trainer or just starting your journey as an instructor, this video offers valuable insights to elevate your teaching skills and create impactful learning experiences. Don't miss this opportunity to transform your instructional approach and captivate your audience!
CLICK HERE FOR CARPE AUDIENCE BOOK:
https://iloveuguys.org/downloads/Carpe-Audience.pdf
View this episode on YouTube at https://youtu.be/xLzNSeiSu6s
Transcript
Bill Godfrey:Some of you may recognize this guy sitting next to me, he's the author of a book called "Carpe Audience" and has perfected and mastered presentations and instructing in a way that you can't imagine. And that's today's topic, how to become a great instructor, stick around.
Welcome to "Active Shooter Incident Management" podcast. My name is Bill Godfrey, your podcast host. We're here at the National Center for Integrated Emergency Response, and I'm joined by John-Michael Keyes of the I Love U Foundation. Good to have you, John-Michael.
John-Michael Keyes:
It's great to be here.
Bill Godfrey:
It's exciting to be back. And we also have two of his proteges at the foundation. Kevin Burd, Kevin, good to have you back in the house.
Kevin Burd:
Great to be here, Bill.
Bill Godfrey:
And Stacy Avila, thank you for coming back in.
Stacy Avila:
Thank you.
Bill Godfrey:
So today we are gonna be talking about really becoming a good instructor, how to master that art of teaching. And I thought it might be a great place to start. Talk a little bit about what led you to write the book and develop the "Carpe Audience" program.
John-Michael Keyes:
So, when we started down this path, organizationally, I started going to conferences and I would see presenters who were compelling and engaging the audience. And yet I'd see the audience dozing off because it was PowerPoint from hell. We've all seen it, and I didn't know it at the time that that's what was happening, but I started doing some homework on brain science. And it turns out that everything people know typically about PowerPoint induces a physiological response. It's involuntary and it's cognitive overload. When you see all of the same words and the person is reading all of those words at the same time, it breaks your brain. You wanna go to the beach, you doze right off.
And I started doing homework on that. It was some of Meyer's work on this. "Brain Science" was another one. And I wrote "Carpe Audience" to kind of capture that whole notion of what a presentation should look like and then how the presenter delivers it.
And we talked about it in one of the other casts. An emotional hook is an important part of delivering a presentation. And we set an emotional hook early because humans learn more efficiently with that. Well, there's science to prove it. And so it started as what am I going to do in my presentations in 2009? And "Carpe Audience" was a result of, well, let me write this down 'cause people are asking about it.
Bill Godfrey:
And it's a magical experience, and I don't use that loosely. It's a magical experience to see you present "Carpe Audience" as a program and see you walk through it. The book is amazing, which by the way, it's available as a PDF for free on the foundation website, right? So we'll make sure we link to that in the show notes.
Stacy, Kevin, both of you came to know John-Michael under a little bit different circumstances and got to see some of his presentations. What was your reaction first time you saw a "Carpe Audience" and-
Stacy Avila:
In place, and I'll say he's, I mean, this mandatory reading list for any instructor with the I Love U Guys Foundation 'cause it really informs the entire, what we're trying to give is a training experience, not just a training class. And so it really has that feel to it. And sometimes it's kind of hard. You can't pinpoint what it was at first, but you knew it had a different feel. And so I really studied tone, inflection, tempo as I watched John-Michael present and really tried to see how could I have that become my own as well.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, Kevin, how about you?
Kevin Burd:
So for me, again, going back to, we mentioned this in one of the other cast podcasts also, April of 2010, first time I ever saw John-Michael present, but then all the pieces came together when I saw "Carpe Audience" for the first time and then read the book, "Ah, now I know what they were doing. Now I know the design behind it."
And for me, my father was an educator, 40 years in education, and it was instructors, some have that, it's like the classroom presentation, the PowerPoint, keynote, whatever. It's just, it's dry. It's a number eight font on the screen. And it's that death by PowerPoint where we kind of jokingly refer to it as. But also looking at the way John-Michael was presenting and then going out and observing other instructors with other trainings. And "I don't like that, but I really like that." But never having the book or a model of how they got that way, right? Or what we're presenting. That's where it all kind of came together for me.
Bill Godfrey:
And for me, I saw it at one of the conferences you were speaking at, and somebody had spoken very highly of it. In fact, at that point, I don't think we had met. I think that was the first time I'd met you watching it and I'd heard really, really good things about it. And I said, "You know, I wanna go see this." And there were a number of things that grabbed me right away. But as a lifelong trainer myself, an instructor, I mean, you do a career in public safety, it's hard not to get involved in training and teaching at some point.
But one of the things that grabbed me right off the bat is what I'm gonna call the format or the appearance of your slides. They weren't the traditional slides that we would normally see. They didn't have bullet points. What it was was a full screen photo in most cases, and not typically graphics or image, but an actual photo. And it had one word, sometimes two words, but most of the time one word on it. And the word was in a huge font, like a 96 point or 120 point font. It was huge. And it had been carefully placed in the photo so as not to obstruct the key message of the photo, which always had a specific tie to that one word.
So it was like, you've got this word that's the topic. So, if you think about it from the traditional slide point of view, we'll put in five or six words as the title of the slide and then a whole bunch of bullet points. And I said, "Son of a gun, this guy has found a photo that visually illustrates this point. He's narrowed that title down to one word and there are no bullets, they're in his head and it's coming out.
And I watched you just click and go through this and go through this. And I thought, "Wow, that is pretty cool." It was very engaging. It was quite memorable. Quite memorable. And I immediately remember thinking, "Holy crap, how much practice do you have to put in to remember all these points on the slides, on on the slide deck?" I mean, it was an amazing experience.
John-Michael Keyes:
You've gotta know your material, absolutely.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, well, and as it turns out, being a good instructor in large part is practice.
John-Michael Keyes:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
Can you talk a little bit about that?
John-Michael Keyes:
Rehearsal. It's essential and it's part of the fabric of what we do and rehearsal where it's not you sitting in front of a laptop reading it in your head. It's standing up, grabbing your clicker and delivering the presentation as if there was an audience there. And with today's skillset of Zoom and laptops, you can record yourself and review yourself, but very early on it was a videotape camera. You'll have to explain that to the youngsters. Okay? And I set the thing up and I would rehearse the material and it's evolutionary in a sense because I didn't start out with eight hours of material. But rehearse it, review it, and do it again. There's a lot of payroll in the room when we deliver a presentation or a training.
Bill Godfrey:
You bet.
John-Michael Keyes:
And we need to, as presenters, as instructors, honor that payroll in the room. And if we are in a presentation and then mucking around on YouTube, that isn't honoring the audience. So if there's a video, get it, embed it, and click through it. And so it's rehearsing not only the material, but the delivery as well.
Bill Godfrey:
Absolutely. Kevin, how about you? How important has been that practice and that rehearsing to you and your training career?
Kevin Burd:
It's everything. You have to practice. You have to rehearse the materials. There's nothing worse than getting in front of an audience and you don't know the material. And I think everybody here at the table and those listening have probably been in the room where the instructor questions themselves, they go back to books and, hey, we all have those moments, right? But you need to spend the time to rehearse and the time management and understanding, hey, if I'm assigned a 15 minute, 30 minute, 45 minute module by myself, what that looks like. And the only way to to figure that out is to actually do it.
And where it's evolved for me is using "Carpe Audience" and in one of the other casts we talk about, we send our instructors out with 1,160 some slides ish. And whether we're asked to do a 45 minute, a four hour, an eight hour, we take that slide deck and we reduce it down to what we need, what was the request for the class, what training we were providing, and we reduce that down. We've gotta rehearse that.
And for me, it's also turned into, I know my slide pace as well as what I need to get across during this 45, 50 minutes before I give 'em a break. Two-hour session, I know how many slides I need. So, I can start with that. Hey, I can roughly, so I know for me, I'll go through certain presentations about 125 to 145 slides per session, like 15 minutes or so. So I will start, I'll take that 1100, bring it down to a few 100, and then I start to practice and rehearse because when I get in front of that room, I wanna make sure I'm prepared and they get what they came here for. And if I start looking out in the crowd and somebody else, if they're on YouTube, if they're texting their buddies or they're, phone calls come in, real-world stuff happens, they gotta go take a call. But I wanna make sure all eyes are upfront on me or the instructor if we're working with somebody.
And the only way to really make that happen is to rehearse and practice and know your material and set that credibility right as soon as you get in front of them.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, Stacy, let me ask you this. So I know frequently when I'll do rehearsals on my own, my pacing that I practice seems to be slower than what it turns out to be in the actual classroom. So, you know, you've got an hour and a half session, you got an hour 45, you got a 50-minute session, and so you're adjusting your pacing in rehearsal and you do it enough, you got the timing down and then something-
Stacy Avila:
It's adrenaline, right?
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
Stacy Avila:
Adrenaline in your living room.
Bill Godfrey:
You end up going a little bit faster. I mean, what are some of the things that you do to make sure that your rehearsal, you stay on time, I guess?
Stacy Avila:
Right, so that's where I was kind of talking about that, that tempo and tone and inflection and getting up. I did exactly that, in the living room, hooking my laptop up to the television and presenting, using the hand motions, gestures, everything that I would do in front of a class. And so then, and you can just transfer that over and you have to kind of go outside yourself a little bit. That's the theater of it. So that as you're presenting, yes, I'm making eye contact with the people in the room, but I'm really saying a lot of the same things at the same spot on each slide. And so, then you really get your material honed, but then that also allows you, if a question comes up that you're not used to, things like that, you know this so well, you can focus on the variable that you weren't expecting.
And I think that our presentation is unique a little bit. I always kind of say to people like, you know, "You feel like you're giving a little bit of your soul every time that you've presented," but I think that shows through in that presentation. And it doesn't hurt to have someone create a presentation that's easy to deliver and powerful. That's, you know, if we had, well, and thank you for having us too, with the presumption that we are good instructors, so that's nice.
I know this side of the table is, but I always kind of make that joke if, you know, people give you the nice compliment of wow, what a great instructor when really, I have to say, the person that created the training that makes all the difference. Makes it so much easier.
Bill Godfrey:
It does, but by the same token, I think the understanding the material and the practice, the rehearsal is a big part. For me, one of the things that I kind of mentally mark two slides, the one that is supposed to be my halfway mark, and I go, "Okay, I know what my time is." When I see that slide, at some point during that slide, I'm gonna find a clock in the room, maybe one I've set up. I'm gonna sneak a peek at my watch and figure out where I'm at. Am I running long? Am I running fast? You know, how hot am I at about that halfway mark?
And then the other one is, most of the stuff, and I don't know if this holds true for you guys, most of the presentations I'm doing, I like to leave about 10 minutes at the end for Q and A. And so, I'll have a pacing slide a few minutes before the end so that I can again do that time check and make sure that I'm gonna have time for the QA or if for some reason, you know, sometimes people will ask questions as it goes and it throws your pacing off. So if we've inadvertently done the QA during the presentation, then I adjust the timing out to finish the time. You got any tricks like that that you've used over the years?
John-Michael Keyes:
Yes.
Stacy Avila:
And they're trade secrets, evidently, yes.
Bill Godfrey:
And they are?
Kevin Burd:
Trade secrets.
Stacy Avila:
If you get "Carpe Audience," the book, yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
Which by the way is free.
Stacy Avila:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
We're not hawking anybody. It's free. You know, don't get offended.
Stacy Avila:
And talk about your times of breaks.
John-Michael Keyes:
So, we've gotten to the point, and one of the benefits of livestream delivery for us during the pandemic is that we set up studios and stood in front of green screens because sitting behind a laptop and being a postage stamp was not compelling. And so I felt like a weatherman. And what we learned is 45, 50 minutes and then let's get at least a solid 10 minute break in and that 45 isn't bad. And pre-pandemic we used to do 90-minute sessions.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
John-Michael Keyes:
Okay?
Bill Godfrey:
Which is hard.
John-Michael Keyes:
Well, it's hard on the audience too, and it's hard on the brain. And so, getting to that point where I'm gonna run 45 to 50 minutes and then run a break, and if start time was supposed to be 8:00 and the host had some housekeeping, we did an 8:04 start and now I've run 47 minutes, well that's gonna mean I'm gonna run a 12-minute break in order to get us to the hour again.
Stacy Avila:
No, I'm unable to do math in public. So, mine are 10 or 15 minutes regardless.
Bill Godfrey:
She has our rule.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
Never do math in public.
Stacy Avila:
Never. Oh, where do you think I picked that number from?
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
John-Michael Keyes:
And to your rehearsal point, I am 10% faster without an audience than with an audience. And that translates to livestreams too. Livestreams, the same content goes by in 90% of the time of in person. And some of that is human interaction that occurs over the course of it. We don't stand in front of the room. We're walking around the room and making eye contact and the occasional humor. We've identified some folks that may be receptive to a tease and-
Bill Godfrey:
Marriage jokes?
Stacy Avila:
Always.
John-Michael Keyes:
Always.
And so-
Kevin Burd:
I don't understand that.
Stacy Avila:
No, it's true.
John-Michael Keyes:
I thought you were an expert.
Stacy Avila:
He doesn't get the joking part of it.
Bill Godfrey:
So you mentioned earlier about recording yourself.
John-Michael Keyes:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
Which I think is an extraordinarily valuable tool to record your rehearsals and then watch 'em back critically. I was watching a, I'm not sure what to label him. Public speaker isn't fair. Keynote speaker isn't fair. The guy's actually a magician, easy for me to say, does magic stuff. But quite accomplished, quite accomplished in performing that skill, in being very articulate, very deliberate with body language, things like that. And one of the suggestions that he'd made, and I hadn't heard this before, he says, "You're gonna record yourself performing it and then you're gonna leave it sit for a day and then you're gonna go back and you're gonna watch it three times.
The first time you're going to turn your back on it and listen to the audio. Then you're gonna restart it again. And this time you're gonna turn the audio all the way down and just watch your body language. And then you're gonna watch it the third time with both of 'em together while you're making notes about, okay, I needed to do this gesture, this gesture didn't come through, I was fidgeting here, I was moving around." I never realized all of those little micro body language things that we do as we're shifting weight when we're speaking or moving around or back and for-- Go ahead.
Kevin Burd:
What do you mean?
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
Stacy Avila:
Well, I was gonna say, it could be, it's-
Bill Godfrey:
What do you mean, Mr. Burns?
Stacy Avila:
It's emphasis and it also can be a distraction. So knowing that sweet spot, what's too much, what's not enough, to really be able to give a compliment to what you're saying instead of taking away from it.
Kevin Burd:
I love that.
John-Michael Keyes:
I love that.
Kevin Burd:
Yeah, I love it.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
Kevin Burd:
'Cause you're listening first, and then you're seeing, and then putting it all together. I absolutely, I love that. That is a great tool that should be used, yeah.
John-Michael Keyes:
We've got years of, we still do a lot of livestreams and I now have years of seeing myself from either the thighs or the torso up in front of the slides, looking at the camera. And it's fascinating because the camera awareness, where you are in frame, all of that stuff, just in that eight feet of green screen is revealing.
Stacy Avila:
And the livestreams really helped me hone in and tighten my presentation. So yes, you have the benefit of, you've got notes that are nearby, but then just really able to hone it in. There was an additional degree of difficulty if you do a livestream from The Keyes Studio because usually at some point during class, Baron the dog will come lay down in front of you. And so then you'll have to step over him as you're moving your way.
John-Michael Keyes:
Yeah.
Stacy Avila:
From side to side for the slide.
Kevin Burd:
What was interesting from my perspective too, once we started doing the livestreams, one, getting a chance, an opportunity to see yourself, play it back and also the pace 'cause I was in the same boat and we have some producers at the foundation that every time John-Michael and I do a livestream, we are usually quicker than most others. And it's just, well we've been, we've been doing it for a long time. We know, I see the slide, I know what I'm gonna say. I see the slide and I'm gonna say it and, but the tricks you were talking about before, when I build out that two-hour, three-hour training, tip, I'll throw some cheater slides in there. Maybe there's a couple videos. Now I'm not trying to fill the time. If somebody books a training, needs the three hours, I want it to be qualitive. Not always necessarily quantitive. But if we end a few minutes early, there's time for group discussions and some more Q and A.
But I may, during the rehearsal, in case I'm a little bit fast, "Standard Reunification Method for Dispatchers," one of our newer videos. I know it's a great five minutes, or actually that one's seven minutes I think, but I'll have a couple in there. So, if I have the time, I can throw that in there because I went a little bit quicker. There wasn't maybe as many questions in the room. We've been there before.
But again, it all comes back to knowing the material and knowing your pace and adjusting based on the conversations. I know we do introductions, if time permits, every single class, whether there's 20 or there's 500, or 320, which we did in like 27 minutes in Minnesota recently. That's going to eat up some clock. So, we've got to manage our time from there on out. But some of the benefits we have found from that, we continue to do it.
Stacy Avila:
The other benefit that I like about introductions is you know your room then, you know who's in your room, you know who you can maybe draw on if you wanna do a little joke around with. But also just knowing how to reach this audience. And I do a little research the night before 'cause we were all over the country, right? So I'll kind of look up the town. You talk with people as they're coming in that morning. And so, the presentation might have a little different flavor depending on where you're at in the country. You know, if there's...
Kevin Burd:
That's a great point. I know we do it on both sides here. Instructors are there an hour before students ever get there and you mingle with them as they're coming in. You start building that rapport and those relationships with them right off the bat. Didn't mean to sidetrack, but that's a great point.
Stacy Avila:
No, absolutely.
Bill Godfrey:
You know, it's funny, when we were going through the pandemic, and of course we had to change gears on all fronts on how we did training, how we interacted with people, and all of these companies and corporations were quick to pronounce the death of the office and everything was gonna be remote from here on out, schools right at the top of that list. And the whole time I just, I never, I never believed that that was going to be successful.
There's a magic that happens when you have live interaction with people. When you can read body language and face-to-face, you know, for example, I know we talk about timing and rehearsal. I'm looking for that audience engagement. And when I say engagement, I don't necessarily mean talking to them or drawing things out of them, though sometimes that's a part of it. Sometimes you're asking questions and looking to get some feedback. But I mean, looking at their body language, are they locked on? Are they lost? Do you have 'em yet? You know, have they bit? Are they buying in to what you're doing yet?
And I find myself occasionally, and we all know how that is. You know, you start 8:00 in the morning and in public safety world, there's people that have been, they just came off shift. They've been up all night, they're tired. They were volun-told to be there and not necessarily warmed up and receptive yet. And I find myself going off script there to try to steer it because there's this energy in the room or the flavor of the audience where you'll say something and you'll see, "Oh, that hit."
Stacy Avila:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
Let's poke at that a little bit.
John-Michael Keyes:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
And see if we can get that going. Now, the goodness of that is you get the audience engaged. The badness is, it blows your time tracking.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
What are, 'cause I know you, I've watched you do that in working a room 'cause you won't let 'em on break until you own 'em. So what are some of the-
John-Michael Keyes:
Or 45 minutes.
Stacy Avila:
Whichever comes first.
Bill Godfrey:
Or if you have to go to the bathroom because you're old.
John-Michael Keyes:
Yeah. Poking the audience, that was an interesting way of thinking about it. And sometimes yeah. I just like people and sometimes it's just fun to interact with people. I had an experience in Texas pre-pandemic and it was a small group. It was an afternoon training, so it was an in-service day and there was humor in this room. And so couple chuckles as we get started, couple jokes, they laughed. But at one point I said something, she said something, I said something back, she said one more thing. And I lost it.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
John-Michael Keyes:
I could not, the room was, I lost the room to laughter. I had to say, "Hey, okay, it's been 10 minutes, you guys, I gotta come back and finish this." Sometimes getting the room back from break. You've got to play with them. And one of the ones that I enjoy a lot is, "Sh, he's about to start talking." into the lav.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
John-Michael Keyes:
And sometimes people look around, "Who said that?"
Stacy Avila:
"Who said that?"
John-Michael Keyes:
And Brian Murphy gave me one that's fun. And we use a prop, a reunification card, handing the card to somebody and they aren't sure if they wanna take it. And you look 'em in the eye and say, "Work with me here." Okay? And that line, just the audience enjoys it. And that was a gift from Brian Murphy. And so, there are moments to leverage those little gifts and go-
Stacy Avila:
And paying attention to the room. Like you said, you'll have a warm room sometimes where just is comfortable right from the start. Sometimes the room can feel kind of cold and you try to get it warmed up a little bit. But then knowing, okay, I was gonna go to lunch at 11:30, but people are starting to nod, 11:20. All right, we're going. So knowing, being able to think on your feet enough to cut your time, give 'em a break if need be.
Kevin Burd:
Activation phenomena.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
Kevin Burd:
Introductions, I think it might be worth...
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
John-Michael Keyes:
It's some of the brain science.
Kevin Burd:
Brain science.
John-Michael Keyes:
Yeah.
Kevin Burd:
Why?
John-Michael Keyes:
Part of our motivation in introductions is understanding who's in the room. I'm also looking for some specific roles. Do we have victim advocates in the room today? I've got dispatch in the room today. So, some of the public safety partners that aren't always invited to a training. And what was the question?
Stacy Avila:
Activation phenomena, yes.
Bill Godfrey:
Brain science.
Stacy Avila:
Brain science.
John-Michael Keyes:
Brain science. But that introduction also makes it easier for folks to raise a hand and ask a question later.
Stacy Avila:
'Cause they've already spoken up. So they're gonna be more likely to speak up later.
John-Michael Keyes:
And so that's part of the activation phenomena. And then we always come back from break, "Any questions, any comments, any heartburn?" And sometimes questions come up. But that very first break, usually there's a shyness in the room. And so, I'll ask a question of myself and people forget that I asked the question. So, it kind of broke the ice about Q and A.
Stacy Avila:
And you always know the answer then too.
John-Michael Keyes:
I do.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
John-Michael Keyes:
And typically I remember the question.
Bill Godfrey:
So, you know, I wanna switch gears a little bit and talk about this in a little bit different way. And let me kind of set the context for this. So, I enjoy listening to a number of podcasts, almost all to do with professional development, business, that kind of thing. And there was a, a particular person I was listening to who is not just an expert in sales from a business perspective, expert in sales and marketing, but just really good at it.
And he's a really good teacher, which is why I enjoy listening to him. And I wouldn't say that he was a natural speaker. I think he's trained himself to be good. But he's a great teacher and he's a great salesman. And it made me think out loud one day, "Is he a great salesman because he's a great teacher or is he a great teacher because he's a great salesman?"
And then I took this the step further, because we're not selling in our classes. We don't sell in our classes, you know, except we do. We're literally asking the audience to buy in. What we're selling them is we want your attention. We want your time, we want your attention, we want your focus on this topic, and then we want you to do something about it. We want you to buy in today and go to work tomorrow. And all of a sudden this thought clicked in my head, "We are selling, we're not selling for money, but we're trying to get you to buy in."
Stacy Avila:
And it's still a transactional relationship, right? So if they see how much you've bought in, how important it is to you, they start paying attention because maybe this should be important to them as well.
And one of the things that I think you talked about the slide design that John-Michaels created, where it's just the photo and a word. You've already got their attention because then they're thinking, "What are they gonna say about this?" And so if it's just the bullet points, well, we already know what they're gonna say about this, but it captures their attention because then they need to listen to you.
Bill Godfrey:
And it's funny you say that because you said the passion that you've got, how much you've bought in. And one of the things that hit me is it's not really, do you believe? The belief is not black and white. It's not binary. It's how much do you believe? How much?
Because if we're going to transfer our belief, if we're gonna transfer that sense of buy-in, that sense of this has value, then we have to believe in it ourselves. And not just a little, but a whole lot. Otherwise we're not in a position to transfer that belief to the audience. Have you ever thought about it in that context, in those terms? I'm hitting you with this with you cold. So sorry about that.
John-Michael Keyes:
So, there's a couple things. You use two words that might be synonyms. And if we were to look at what is the role of a salesperson and what is the role of a teacher, there's a lot of overlap right there. Okay? We're gonna listen, we're gonna understand the needs, and then we're gonna project a pitch. And we are absolutely providing incentive for people in the audience to learn more about our programs, use our programs, but it's a low key sales pitch. It really has been traditionally, "Take a look. If it fits in your environment, you can download it at no cost." Well, that is a sales pitch. Okay? But it's not a hard close. Maybe that's it.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. It's not a cost of money, but it's a cost of your time and attention.
Kevin Burd:
Time and attention.
Bill Godfrey:
And I just, three, four, five years ago, I don't think that resonated with me. I don't think I made that connection. It's like you just said, checklist is on our website. It's free. There's guidance that goes with it. There's training that goes with it. There's documentation that goes with it. You don't need training from us to use this. But a lot of people want it. Same reason they call you for training on standard response protocol and standard reunification method. There's value in doing that.
But the more I thought about it, the more I thought, these are almost sentiments, the same. And what really hooked me was the concept of I'm asking the audience to buy in. Buy is in the very thing that I'm asking them to do. I am kind of selling. And where I'm going with this is our recent instructor development session. You know, Kevin, you were here, we did this not too long ago. We had a full day of just doing instructor development, body language, coaching, tone, pause, presentation, all of those skills. But we also spent a couple of hours on sales and watching some educational material from this very guy I've been talking about, talking about how to do what he calls the logical close.
But the way he walked through the logic of this and getting people to make a decision, it's not important that you do or don't buy from me. It's important that you make a decision. And my job is to help you make that decision. Kevin, what were your thoughts from that? And how did that impact you? The idea that this is-
Kevin Burd:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
Wrapped in it.
Kevin Burd:
And I remember you talking about the buy-in, and then you brought into the professional development we ran here. And it makes total sense. Like, we don't wanna say when we're out there, "Hey, I'm trying to sell you this thing." 'Cause when you use the word sell, there's usually a dollar sign behind it, right?
Bill Godfrey:
Sure, it's assumed.
Kevin Burd:
We're trying to give you some context and then you take action on what we've just provided you. And having that mindset that, 'cause I always viewed it as, I can't sell this. I'm not up here, we're not selling this, we're not selling this class. "It's a free, grant-funded DHS class. We're not selling anything here, folks."
Bill Godfrey:
Right.
Kevin Burd:
No. But we don't wanna sell it, but what we're giving you is the tools to take back, to have the discussion, take action. Right? And that's what it's all about.
Stacy Avila:
And don't you think that's actually more valuable than just the money in a checkbox?
Kevin Burd:
Yeah.
Stacy Avila:
'Cause we really want people to use these programs. So the time and attention, that's a higher value. And then taking the action, you're absolutely selling that.
Kevin Burd:
Yeah. So I think you have to have a little bit of mindset of the salesman. You don't wanna walk in front of a room and say, "I really don't like selling pens, but will you gimme five bucks for that one?" I know there's a whole selling the pen, whole other side conversation that somebody used.
Bill Godfrey:
Is that how your last marriage ended?
Kevin Burd:
Yeah, I get this house for sale.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
Kevin Burd:
But no, how many times have we been in the room and somebody's gotten up there and they've tried to sell you something?
Stacy Avila:
It's hollow, it's a hollow feeling.
Kevin Burd:
It's hollow.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
Kevin Burd:
Yeah, it's not, there's not-
Bill Godfrey:
You don't even feel that they believe it themselves.
Stacy Avila:
Exactly.
Kevin Burd:
Exactly. And that's why I was saying, "Hey, I got these pens, look pretty cool, right? You wanna buy one?" That's not gonna, not gonna buy in on that.
But if you can approach it in a way where it makes sense for who's listening to it and you give a little bit of leeway, and I know we stole this from you years ago, right? We're showing you a way, it's not the way. if anybody ever stands in front of you and says, "This is the way to do something," buy 'em a happy meal and show 'em the way to the door, right? Not giving you the way. Take a look, if it works for you, great, but if nothing else, we've given you some tools, some context. Go do something with it. Become an advocate. Become a champion. Go back and follow up on this.
Have some discussions and hey, maybe not every single piece of the checklist will work. Maybe not the five actions, complete side conversation, right? Going over doing some international stuff there. Hold and secure don't translate as well overseas as it does here. That's okay. You still got lockdown, evacuate, and shelter, shelter in place. Those discussions can still continue to happen.
So, you want to make sure that when you're presenting this, you've got the heart, you've got the passion, you've already bought in, or there's no sense in you being in front of the room at that point.
John-Michael Keyes:
That is also the secret hidden agenda. And we've got a series of objectives, whether it's a 45-minute presentation or an eight-hour day, and we wanna achieve these objectives. And if we have an eight-hour day, there may be more objectives and a greater understanding of some of the materials and programs. But we still have an objective.
And one of our objectives is getting the right people in the room, elbow to elbow. And so law enforcement doesn't have a lot of opportunities to sit down elbow to elbow with administrators or teachers. And so if we give 'em that opportunity, we gave them an introduction, the cop can notice, "Oh look, that's a person from the school down the street that I didn't know." They may get together during a break and say, "Hey, I'm John-Michael."
And so, the people in the room facilitating the introductions, we talked about our instructors are greeting people as they're coming in. We're walking the room. We love to have lunch in the room. If there's lunch in the room, we're having lunch with the participants. And we also make it a point that we're the last one out the door. If there are still folks around, anyone beyond the host, and I'm done, I'm gonna talk to that person. Why are they still here?
Stacy Avila:
Yeah, we want our instructors first one in, last one to leave.
John-Michael Keyes:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
To me there's a basic etiquette that has to be followed. And it's like Kevin was talking about earlier, you know, we use the pitch that it's a way, not the way, you know, maybe, and in a lot of ways those are the soft sell. We believe, you know, we believe in the checklist. You guys believe in the SRP/SRM. We, you know, we-
Stacy Avila:
We believe in the checklist as well, yes.
Bill Godfrey:
We all believe that, yeah. We all believe that. We have that belief. We know that it will work. We know that it has worked and we know that it's good. We also know that they're the national standards.
John-Michael Keyes:
Hm.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. This checklist is a national standard for managing hostile events. Yours is the national standard for reunification and for responding in school events. But you can't, even though you have all of that belief, there are some people that'll take that on face value and they'll buy in. Most won't.
And so you have to almost ratchet down the intimidation, because for many, in order to get there, in order for the student to get there, to buy in, they have to find a reason to disregard the way they've already done it. Or the way that they do it around there, or that policy that they just spent two years doing, you know, whatever. And you have to of give 'em that off ramp to say, "You know, just give it a thought. You know, maybe it doesn't completely apply, but just give this a thought."
And if you can get that barrier threshold down to where they actually will look at it, consider it, and work through some of the challenges, they very quickly realize, "Yeah, this kind of is a really good way. And there's apparently a reason these are national standards."
Stacy Avila:
And do you think it's because like for the foundation, for example, coming in with a little humble confidence and offering it as, "Hey, take a look at it." Also offering, I had never been in a training before where they said, "If anything we say gives you heartburn, let us know. Let's talk about it." You know, so you're already offering up, "If you don't like it, let's talk about why." And so, then it does break down some of those walls from the people that are sitting there with your arms crossed at first of, "This isn't how we do it around here." And then by the end of the day, "Yeah, this makes sense."
Kevin Burd:
I think a lot of times the first obstacle we have is the two things everybody hates. Right?
Change and the way things are.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah, right?
John-Michael Keyes:
Yeah.
Kevin Burd:
So, but if we present it in a way that it doesn't make any sense for us to send one, two, five, 10 instructors to show you how to do it your way.
Stacy Avila:
Right.
Kevin Burd:
We're giving you something that's had some research done. We are out doing this. It's been recognized as national standards. They were just, "Here it is, take a look at it."
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, we believe in the process. That's why we traveled here. We're trying to help. If you have some heartburn or disagreement, ask us why. There's a reason. And I know this to be true for both of our curricula. There's a reason why we're saying what we're saying and why these processes are doing what they're doing. And if you got a question, ask, because we're happy to share with you the reasons.
Kevin Burd:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
You know, you-
Kevin Burd:
Challenge us.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, exactly.
Kevin Burd:
Says who?
Stacy Avila:
Do you think that's also-
Bill Godfrey:
With what proof?
Kevin Burd:
With what proof?
Stacy Avila:
Do you think that's also why it's so important to have your instructors have a little credibility? So whether they're a practitioner in some regard, whether, you know, education, first responders, right? So there's a little bit of credibility of what I'm saying is true.
Kevin Burd:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, I completely agree. You know, Kevin, you mentioned the obstacles, overcoming obstacles. In sales parlance, they say the obstacles come up before you ask for the sale. And then objections are what occurs after. And if you fail to deal with the obstacles before they ask, they will show up as as objections.
Kevin Burd:
Objections.
Bill Godfrey:
And so one of the things that we drilled in our instructor development was obstacle overcomes. And it was really quite fascinating because I made the instructors, we had 20 some instructors there.
Kevin Burd:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
I made 'em all make lists of every obstacle, or every objection, every obstacle, every objection, everything. There was a reason why this won't work here. And then we compiled it into this big list and we went through every single one on the list with the instructors and said, "Okay, explain how to get over that. How do you, what's the overcome for this objection? What's the overcome for this one? What's the overcome for that one?"
And it was so fascinating that we went into a class, it was just a couple weeks later, just a couple weeks later, it was a class actually here in Florida. And I said to the team, "I'm gonna do something a little bit different." So right after we got through our normal opening sequence, I said, "Okay, I want you to tell me," I got a big whiteboard up front of the room and I said, "I want you to tell me how you would completely and totally mess up active shooter response." Funny thing, brain science. We humans have a lot better idea catastrophizing, did I say that right?
Stacy Avila:
Sure.
John-Michael Keyes:
Sure.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
Making things worse than they actually are.
Stacy Avila:
There it is.
John-Michael Keyes:
That's the title, "Catastrophizing."
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, for the transcriber, I have no idea how to spell that either. So, we can very, and you think about it from a public safety perspective, we're always taught to think-
Stacy Avila:
Worst case scenario.
Bill Godfrey:
Worst case scenario. So I asked the question, "Tell me what you would do to completely mess up the response and make it the worst possible response you could." And it was a list. And it was the very list of things that we talk about in the curriculum that was coming up over the next three days. And I'm like, "Oh, this is so good."
And then I moved on to part number two and I said, "Now I want you to work with me here on faith. Everything that you've just said here on this list is absolutely true. If we did every one of these things, we would have a horrible response for an active shooter event." I said, "Now, if we did the opposite, how do you think it would go? If we avoided doing all these things and we did the opposite of these things?" And everybody was like, "Yeah, I think that, yeah, that would go pretty good if we avoided making those mistakes." I said, "Okay, great. Now turn the whiteboard around. Gimme the list of all the reasons why you can't do this here."
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
And they go, "What do you mean?" And I held up the book and I go, "This book contains all of the answers to all of these things," as I spun the board around, "And tells you how not to do these things and how to have a great response." I spun the board back around to the white side. I said, "Now gimme the list of all the reasons why you can't adopt this here." And boy, they started coming in. Headquarters will never buy it. The chief will never sign off on it.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah, yeah, right.
Bill Godfrey:
If it's not their idea, it's not a good idea. That's not the way we do it around here. I don't like your terminology. I mean, the list. It was a fascinating experience. It was a fascinating experience.
I think one of the things that really surprised me though is over the course of the three days, how all of the other instructors kept referring back to that list 'cause that whiteboard sat off to the side for three days and they kept referring back to how to mess it up and all the reasons why it wouldn't work here.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
It was fascinating. Have you ever tried anything like that?
John-Michael Keyes:
Well, we do it a little different. We've got a secret weapon and that's our hidden asset. And that is, we know what we're gonna talk about next and looking at objections that might come up during reunification, I can address the obstacle while we're still talking about the SRP. And so, I know this objection is gonna come up way down here 'cause it has before. First time it came up, it got my attention. Second time it came up, now it's a thing.
Stacy Avila:
Right.
John-Michael Keyes:
But I can address that objection in part of a different conversation so that by the time I get to that, that one's gone.
Stacy Avila:
Do you remember when you said-
Bill Godfrey:
You've overcome it.
Stacy Avila:
Well, and the one thing I've noticed as you go around the country is varied of environments and places there are, a lot of it's the same. You get the same questions, the same concerns, the same why this won't work.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
Stacy Avila:
And so once you we have the answers to that, and they're credible answers, we're done. Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
And I'll say this out loud. One of the ways to become a great instructor is to have the conversation more times than the people that you're teaching.
Stacy Avila:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
So that you're not surprised by the questions.
Stacy Avila:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
You've already had this conversation.
Stacy Avila:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
Not once, not twice, but dozens of times. You know the answer. You know what works.
Stacy Avila:
And there's a little trick that you can do. I bet some of you are thinking about, we even have it, is this picture giving you heartburn? Right? And let's just address the elephant in the room right away. Take it head on. That's another little piece of adding credibility 'cause it's like, "Oh, they're not afraid to talk about anything." And I think that's really important in our presentation. We're not obviously not afraid to talk about anything. We're gonna talk about it. And I learn so much from all of the different places I go to, and then we have this kind of internal joke, we can spread those seeds then around the country.
Kevin Burd:
Seeds.
Stacy Avila:
Or IEDs. Blowing up some place. One way or the other. I set you up for that joke there, Kevin.
Kevin Burd:
I know.
Stacy Avila:
And you completely, see this as our issue.
Kevin Burd:
Sensitive to the podcast.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
You afraid we're gonna get a cease and desist from Homeland Security again? You know?
Kevin Burd:
Again.
Stacy Avila:
Again.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, we got a memo from that on the headquarters. It's no longer search and destroy, it's sweep and clear.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah, sweep and clear.
Kevin Burd:
Yeah, yeah.
John-Michael Keyes:
Yeah.
Kevin Burd:
But no, we're planting seeds.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
It is.
Kevin Burd:
And we're hoping we'll take it back and do something with it. Grow it.
John-Michael Keyes:
We had a really interesting experience. Too much information. Are we giving the kids too much information? And Dr. David Banky, he's a retired math teacher now, and sometimes wizened elder to all of us. And he wrote a list. "Are we Giving our Kids too much Information?" And he wrote this list and it's about 10 items.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
John-Michael Keyes:
And goes like this. "Are we giving our kids too much information? You bet we are." And I have an audience member then read each one of those. And that's where I've got more than seven words on the slide. I've got the one sentence and I start pacing it so that I'm switching that slide as they're reading the last word. So there is an ongoing cadence of an audience member reading it. And it's been a riot.
Stacy Avila:
And it's so powerful because we kept getting that question, "Hey, if the majority of the time suspects in these events, you know, are we training them then about what to expect if we train 'em on drills or have these conversations with them? That's too much information," but going through, "Yeah, we're telling them people are coming to stop 'em. We're telling them that entry through glass will be difficult and all of these points in the hopes that ultimately a different decision is made and the event doesn't occur at all."
Bill Godfrey:
You know, it's funny, one of our instructors, I won't say which one, has the phrase-
Stacy Avila:
Is it Kevin?
Bill Godfrey:
No.
Stacy Avila:
No, okay, pshew.
Bill Godfrey:
Allegedly. See me later. He has a phrase that he says in class "When these events occur, we're not dealing with rogue members of SEAL Team Six."
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
We're dealing with the kids that live in mom's basements and are genetic rejects. They're, you know, or some other colorful, you know, metaphor of the level of what the perpetrator, where they're at.
Stacy Avila:
Their skillset.
Bill Godfrey:
What they've done.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. And that's not to say that there have not been instances where they've been very well prepared, very methodical in their planning.
Kevin Burd:
Some training.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
But at the end of the day, no matter their skillset, we still have an obligation and a duty, an obligation to respond and a duty to act and to solve that problem. And I don't think that ever goes away.
Stacy Avila:
No.
Bill Godfrey:
You know? And when you look at it through that context, we're there to help people who have a responsibility to respond and a duty to act on both sides, whether it's public safety or schools. To think that they don't wanna do their best or we're not going to be the best instructor, that's just hard to buy into.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah, but it's this important, and every training this way that the importance of us training harder and harder and getting better because I don't want our story to be anyone of your stories. And it just sits, this is why we do this. So, do some get away from us? Yeah. But we have to keep getting better. We have to plan, we have to prepare, and we have to be able to respond in a way to stop it.
Bill Godfrey:
Completely agree. All right, I'm gonna do a quick lightning round. Your you're best tip for instructor development.
John-Michael Keyes:
Instructor development?
Bill Godfrey:
Well, getting better, for an instructor to get better. They care enough that they wanna be better.
John-Michael Keyes:
Care enough to be better.
Stacy Avila:
See, he knows the answer to every question.
John-Michael Keyes:
It really is. Bring your best game to everyone. I mean, sometimes it feels like it's the, sorry, and it's no longer a lightning round. It's a extemporaneous chatter. And we're doing the same thing sometimes and it feels like Groundhog Day. But I don't get that. It doesn't feel like Groundhog Day to me. I grab the time zone that I'm going to as I'm getting on the airplane. Okay? By the time I'm at the venue, I'm in the time zone. I'm there for that group of people. And while some of the words may be the same that I said last time, it's a different group of people. It's a different vibe. And if you honor the audience, if you're there for them, it doesn't feel like Groundhog Day.
Stacy Avila:
Well, and I think as many times, how many thousands of hours have probably the both of us seen you present? I watch it with, I get something every time, every single time. It is still enjoyable to watch, even though I am saying, "Well sometimes I'm like, no, don't, I say this there." Right. But it's this, it is still an enjoyable presentation. You're still having that impact, right?
John-Michael Keyes:
And if it feels like Groundhog Day, it may be time to again, explore career in different services.
Kevin Burd:
Yeah, yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
Stacy Avila:
'Cause that's gonna translate to the audience if it feels like you're just doing this rote.
Kevin Burd:
Yeah.
Stacy Avila:
You know?
Kevin Burd:
And that's what I was gonna say, rehearsal.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, I was just say, Kevin, Kevin you're up, lightning around.
Kevin Burd:
Rehearsal.
Bill Godfrey:
Watch how long this one goes.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah, yeah.
Kevin Burd:
I'm from Jersey. It'll be quick. Rehearsal, rehearsal, rehearsal. And if you're gonna be in front of the room doing this, be in it for the right reasons.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
Stacy?
Stacy Avila:
I think you make me go last and these are the two great answers.
Bill Godfrey:
Well, no, I'm gonna add mine too, but go ahead.
Stacy Avila:
Well, then no, so I'll be sandwiched in between great answers and then have mine. So just knowing, knowing, challenge yourself, know your potential. Reach above that. Know your audience. I think that's probably some of the best advice. And have fun. If you're not having fun, that will also translate to the room.
John-Michael Keyes:
Oh, I'm gonna lightning round back.
Stacy Avila:
All right.
John-Michael Keyes:
Our first or second or third slide is we're not an expert.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
John-Michael Keyes:
We are avid students. And so, not being an expert gives us permission to be part of the room.
Stacy Avila:
Part of the room. And you do, that's another thing that I do a lot, is I'll ask a question back. "Well, what would you guys do here? How would you handle this," right?
Kevin Burd:
Alex Trebek's not happy right now.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah.
Kevin Burd:
This went from a lightning round to...
Stacy Avila:
But there was no music playing over.
Bill Godfrey:
That's right.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah, yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
I think Karla just held up the 60 minute sign.
Stacy Avila:
Yeah, yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
And so, here's what I'm gonna say is if you're gonna be an instructor, be a professional instructor. But let me define what I mean by that. It means know your material, rehearse, be there early, not on time, early. Be present, be committed. Pay attention to your speaking patterns, your body language, your audience engagement, the feedback that you're getting. Have passion. And importantly, make sure that your commitment, your belief, is way up there on that scale of one to 10. That to me is being a professional instructor. It has absolutely nothing to do with the title and nothing to do with your payroll or anything else. It has to do with how you approach the task and those individual skills that you do.
So, thank you guys once again for a fascinating conversation. John-Michael, I can't thank you enough for bringing your team down here to Orlando to sit into the studio with us for several podcasts. Thank you, Karla, for making us look good as always. And until next time, stay safe.