That's the deal with Learning Outcomes.
Because "teach them sales" isn't a plan.
It's a wish.
The truth?
Your first draft will always be too vague.
Too broad.
Too safe.
It'll feel like cutting things out is risky.
But if you're not cutting, you're not curating.
And you're not running a workshop,
you're giving a tour of Wikipedia.
Your job is not to cover everything.
It's to deliver a handful of things that land.
Ideas that shift minds.
Tools they'll actually use.
Outcomes they'll remember.
That's how people learn.
Not from volume.
From clarity.
Example time:
| Topic | Too Vague | Sharp Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Sales | Negotiation | How to de-escalate a tense negotiation when you're in too deep? |
| Sales | Proposals | The 3 essentials every great proposal needs |
| Leadership | Feedback | How to tell a teammate their work isn't good, without crushing morale? |
| Teamwork | Collaboration | What to say in the first 5 minutes to reset a broken team dynamic? |
| Branding | Storytelling | How to write a brand origin story that fits in 3 lines and actually resonates? |
| Productivity | Time Management | A 25-minute planning ritual that saves 6+ hours of chaos each week |
A bad learning outcome is a topic.
A good one is a take. A lens. A shift.
A friend once asked for help designing his first workshop on enterprise sales.
He was already deep in slides and exercises.
I asked:
"Who's in the room? Why are they here? What do they want to walk away with?"
He answered easily. He really knew his crowd.
Then I pushed again:
"OK, you're teaching sales. But what's your core argument? What truth are you trying to make stick?"
He paused. Then said:
"That good sales isn't about pitching. It's about asking good questions."
Boom.
There's your sharp outcome.
We used that lens to clean his whole deck.
Cut everything that didn't serve it.
Sharpen everything that did.
Afterwards, he said it was the easiest session he'd ever led.
More organized.
Easier to prep.
Easier to teach.
That's what sharp outcomes do.
So how many should you have?
It depends. (Annoying, but true.)
A rough rule:
one clear outcome = ~30/45 minutes to teach well.
Why?
Because real learning takes space.
Not just a 10-min talk.
You need time to explain, test, discuss, reflect.
So for a 90-minute session?
You get 2-3 outcomes max.
For a half day? 5-6.
Full day? 10-12, if you're lucky.
But honestly?
Fewer is better.
Go deep. Don't cram.
