We tried something new recently, and thought we’d share a peek behind the curtain into the planning process and somewhat emotional rollercoaster of a journey we had.

As a team we’ve delivered training in various formats over the years. From giving advice and helping to upskill colleagues in previous roles, to more formal training sessions with clients, our work has always involved an element of sharing what we know with others.

We’ve always enjoyed this aspect and have pondered on how to make this a core part of our offer alongside delivery of research projects, but it’s not something we’ve ventured into until more recently.

The first step

Last year the MRS put a call out inviting submissions to deliver training on a whole host of research topics, and we submit a proposal for a session on conducting ethical, safe, and empathetic research on sensitive topics.

Our work in this area over the years is something that colleagues and clients have seemed to really value, and for our sins we’ve tended to seek out projects on ‘tricky subjects’ that often involve a sensitive approach.

Our pitch was successful, and Maura and I have now delivered two (soon to be three) full day online sessions with the MRS. We’ve had some great feedback from attendees, and have since carried out more training in this space as part of projects with individual clients.

What if…?

It got us thinking, is there a gap in the market? Freelancers or those in small agencies don’t always have the time or funds to invest in training, meaning sessions run by large membership organisations or accredited courses aren’t always accessible.

We had an idea to offer something that we would want to attend ourselves. To pack in as much learning as we can within a couple of hours, keeping the group size small to have that friendly, interactive feel, and to try to make it affordable for those who might not have the backing of a large employer but still want to develop their skills.

What’s the worst that can happen?

After persuading ourselves that yes, this was actually a good idea, we decided to just go for it!

After a little investigation into different event hosting platforms, we picked a date a month or so ahead and published the event on Ticket Tailor (a sort of lesser-known version of Eventbrite, with lower fees!) We then set about promoting it on Linked In, sharing with our contacts, sending some targeted emails to teams and organisations that might be interested, and of course refining the actual plan and content for the session.

Our journey went a little like this…

[ChatGPT brought my vision for a comic book strip to life…I only wish my hair looked that good IRL.]

We were buzzing to get a couple of sign-ups almost straight away and had an initial handful of bookings from a couple of people we’d previously worked with, and others I’d got chatting to at a conference in the summer.

But then…despite regular posting in Linked In and cold email marketing tactics that may have bordered on aggressive, the dread started to set in when the date loomed closer and we were stuck on 4 bookings out of our 10 available spaces.

We tried to stay patient and trust that more would come, but as the days rolled by, our worry continued to grow! Could we still run it? We’d promised an interactive session with lively discussions…could we pull this off with such a small group? Would we need to offer something different?

Trusting the process…

And then, with just under a week to go we had another 5 bookings come in, and with it a deep sigh of relief – it was going to be okay! And just as I was finishing a ‘last ticket remaining!’ post for the day before, it was snapped up before I had the chance.

Not only that, but I had to tell one of my email follow ups that we didn’t have any spaces left for their two colleagues who also wanted to join. We’d gone from worrying we’d have to postpone or give our session a major overhaul, to starting a waiting list in the space of a week. And these were all people we hadn’t previously known, who’d heard about the session from a mix of Linked In, emails or recommendations from colleagues.

Now throughout all of this our other member of SMPL was telling us: “don’t stress…it will be fine…people will come…just be patient.” But in this case mine and Maura’s tendency to overthink held strong over Sean’s always optimistic and relaxed attitude to life…we generally balance each other out, and that’s probably one of the reasons we all work so well together.

And so we endured the ‘I told you so’ looks and conceded yes okayyy you were right, we didn’t need to worry so much!

So, what did we learn?

For a start, some people clearly like to live spontaneously and book close to the date, so we need to learn to CHILL OUT. We also discovered a couple of good promotional routes slightly later on, so next time we’d probably give ourselves a few extra weeks lead in time just to be on the safe side.

The session went ahead with the full 10 attendees and couldn’t have gone much better. We had researchers from the public sector, a research institute abroad, an independent, and a couple of larger agencies. Participants stayed engaged throughout and contributed well to discussions, and our initial survey feedback tells us they found the session useful, the balance of presenting and interaction was just right, and they would recommend it to other researchers – success!

[Feedback from training attendees]

Spurred on by our positive feedback and confidence that we CAN do it, we’re already looking at doing another session.

If you’re interested in a future training session with us, please pop your details in our short form to let us know! https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/45U5OZ/

Written by Poppy Reece, Managing Director at SMPL Research