Peter Cutrer hasn't just been a Firefighter/EMT, Fire Marshal, Fire Instructor and Deputy Chief for 15 years. He also now trains public safety agencies like NASA, Disney, Boston Fire, FDNY, and ESPN!
Check out this clip from the What Sales Can Learn From A Firefighter series where Peter tells us what advice he would you give to sales executives and sales leaders, specifically some best practices for training teams to have a dominant response.
Advice About Training from a Firefighter
Peter Cutrer: Well, the last couple of years, actually about the last five years, I have been just running my own company doing this training, public safety and larger private enterprises. One of the things that I have really found, and I kind of live by this. I picture myself being in the training and I ask myself, "First off, what do I want to take out of the training? Second off, would I like the training, if I was sitting in it? And third off, do I feel that I'm going to be able to take something away from the training, that's beneficial that I can use in my everyday life?" I have sat through thousands of training classes over the years and some of them I'm just like looking for a way to escape. It's like a jail. And it's just the worst training ever, if you will.
So when I run my training's, I like to call them edutainment. They're educational, but they're entertaining at the same time. And I ask myself, "Would I have enjoyed this class? What can I take away from it? What is some thing I can glean from the class?" So that helps me to run successful training programs. I think too many people spend too much time talking about themselves in the training, when they need to really focus on the material and the practical application. So if you give people something to take away from, then they're going to pay attention. If you just read PowerPoints and slides, you're going to lose everybody and it's not going to be successful.
Carole Mahoney: Yeah. I think I agree with you. Some of the worst training's that I've been through is the partification training's. "When I was in XYZ company and we did this." And I'm like, that was 20 years ago. It's totally different context and oh, by the way, I don't care.
Peter Cutrer: Exactly.
Carole Mahoney: So, and that's why I have the motto that it's not about me. And it applies to training as well. It's not about you and training, it's all about the student. It's all about the person who has to be able to take what you're giving them, and apply that to their job. And I love that you have the edu-, what did you say?
Peter Cutrer: Edutainment.
Carole Mahoney: Yeah.
Peter Cutrer: I can't take credit for that. One of my mentors told me that when I first started getting into this, so.
Carole Mahoney: It's so true though, right? Because we're not just purveyors of information and that's just not how our brains work either. So if you can entertain them? If you can tell stories, that's actually how our brains grasp on to new information.
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