(Image: GRAFFITI YES by Andy Welsh on Flickr)

Last week we were in the Brazil training a media company on how to sell interactive and social media programs and how to create compelling online content.

We conducted about 30 hours of training, which was being simultaneously translated in Portuguese.
Our hosts were gracious, their country beautiful and their entire company was deeply committed to learning.

We conducted the same training session in different cities, Rio and São Paulo.
The reaction to the training was different in each city, and I attribute it to one principle: agreement.

In the first session, we shared new interactive sales tools: banners, online video, email, streaming, etc.
We presented to the sales team and received limited reactions.

In the second presentation, we asked, “What would make your job easier in presenting digital media to buyers.”
This started a conversation. We heard their voices and their feedback.

And before sharing our presentation, we asked if they wanted to learn techniques to present digital media to buyers.
By getting agreement from the audience on the what they want to learn, the entire session changed.

The lesson I took from this is the importance of talking with you audience first and getting agreement on what they want to learn.

Here is one easy tip.  Ask everyone in the audience to write one challenge they are currently having with the topic.
Then ask the audience to share those challenges and write them down on so everyone can see.
This usually creates conversation and relevance right away.

How do you get agreement with your audience?

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