Choosing an NLP training provider?

The 7 questions to consider

How do you choose the the right NLP training course, and the right NLP training provider, for you? It can be ‘challenging’. In fact, with so many training organisations and styles of NLP, it can be a bit of a nightmare!  And there’s potentially a lot of your money, your time, and your expectations involved. It is also a very important choice since you are likely to only attend one NLP Practitioner course in your life!

This article is biased!

Before you read further let’s first clarify something… We are NLP training providers so how can we be unbiased?  Well, we’re not unbiased – but neither do we join in the ‘we are the best’ clamour.  Instead we have assembled 7 probing questions for you to consider and to seek answers to so that you make the right choice for you.When you’ve got your short list of possible NLP training providers check whether their online information offers clear and straightforward answers to these questions. And, if they don’t, contact the organisation and ask a real person! (Our own contact details are here)

 1. How long are the training programmes?

The original requirement for an NLP Practitioner Certification Programme 120 hours of attendance at a workshop and with a Certified NLP Trainer in attendance. It is also possible to ‘do’ NLP in a much shorter time by attending an ‘accelerated’ or ‘fast track’ training – and you can even stay at home and pay for an online course (or just buy a couple of books and watch a few free YouTube videos).  We have an article her on how best to earn NLP.

2. How many other participants?

This is an important question if your outcome is to develop skill – because the skill requires personal interaction with and feedback from a Certified NLP Trainer. In some trainings you can be part of a group or audience of anywhere from 40 to 100’s. Usually such events get around the need for hands-on coaching and feedback by having ‘training assistants’. However such assistants will frequently be previous participants in a similar programme (rather than Certified NLP Trainers) who are coming back from free training in return for ‘marshalling the crowd’. Here at Pegasus we occasionally have training assistants but these are at least Certified Master Practitioners or graduates of our NLP Trainer Training programme and, since our groups are usually around 10-16 you always have access to the course trainer. (See why Pegasus NLP favours small learning groups.)

3. How trained are the trainers?

Until near the end of the 1990s becoming a Certified NLP Trainer required that, in addition to being certified as a Practitioner and Master Practitioner and Trainer, you also did an ‘apprenticeship’ through being an active observer-assistant at a number of Practitioner and Master Practitioner Programmes. This ensured that when you presented your own training programmes these had depth and quality. We believe that an effective trainer will have many times more knowledge, experience and material than they actually have time to teach – this ensures that their work has depth and that they can draw upon practical experience in answering questions from participants. Nowadays, through some organisations, it is possible to become a “Certified NLP Trainer” in a matter of weeks. For this reason we recommend that you be quite thorough in assessing who you will choose as your training provider. Ask questions about the course trainer(s) such as:

• How long have you been been actively involved in NLP?
• When did you receive certification as a Practitioner and as a Master Practitioner of NLP?
• With which organisations did you do your NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner and Trainer Trainings – and were these full-length 120 hour programmes with full syllabus?
• When did you receive certification as a Trainer of NLP?

Note that if they have gone from Practitioner to Trainer in anything less than a couple of years they are likely to be ‘training from the book’ – with the result that what you will learn is unlikely to have the breadth and depth that comes from experience and familiarity with the material.

4. What is the background of the trainers?

Have they had a life other than NLP? Are they experienced in the fields in which you are interested?

5. Just one – or a team of trainers?

Attending an NLP Practitioner training which is presented by just one person will not provide you with the breadth nor the depth of NLP experience, insight and skill that you will get from having two or more trainers on course. And it’s also worth bearing in mind that one-trainer NLP Certification courses are often run by new and inexperienced NLP trainers.

6. What is their attitude towards their participants?

You can get a pretty good idea of this by how they respond to the questions on this list – while also considering …

• Do they believe in empowering or do they just teach?
• Do they take a genuine interest in you as an individual or are you just another ‘customer’?
• Do they get a little impatient or uncomfortable when you ask them probing questions such as the ones on this page?
• How do they respond to the ‘money-back guarantee‘ question…?

7. Money-Back Guarantee?

NLP training courses are not cheap – they represent a quite significant investment of your money. And of your time.  And of your expectations! It is not a nice experience to arrive at a training that you have carefully selected, and for which you may have pre-paid in order to receive an ‘early bird’ discount, to discover that it is not what you expected or that the trainer is not treating you as they had promised. Training providers who believe in the quality of their courses will guarantee them and allow you a day or two to gauge whether or not you have selected the right training for you.   Since 1996 Pegasus NLP has had a simple, no-quibble money-back guarantee. With our 4-day NLP Core Skills, for example, if you are not convinced by the close of Day 2 that this is the right course for you we will give you a full ‘no questions’ refund. With our Practitioner and Master Practitioner Programmes the guarantee is the same – two days to decide if this the course for you – or your money back.

By Reg Connolly, Director of Training, Pegasus NLP