First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Neen James (Episode 26)
Here's the episode transcript with Neen James. Alternatively, you can listen to my First Time Facilitator conversation with Neen.
Leanne: Okay, I'd like to welcome to the First Time Facilitator Podcast on the line in Pennsylvania, Neen James.
Neen: G'day! What a treat to be able to serve your listeners today, Leanne.
Leanne: Oh, that's a lovely attitude to have Neen. Thank you so much for your time. As I mentioned you're on the line in Pennsylvania however, you're from Sydney I believe.
Neen: True story. So I live halfway between Philadelphia and New York City on the East Coast and so I didn't even know where Pennsylvania was to be honest with you. But if you look at a map of the U.S., it's the squarest State on kind of the right-hand side of the map. If you're trying to look for where I am, so imagine moving from Sydney City so we lived on the water, we had a beautiful apartment look at the Sydney Opera House and the bridge and then I moved to Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
Now let me just give your listeners a bit of a picture of what that is. That is like perfect Suburbia. I'm talking 2.4 children, a truck a minivan and people even mow their lawn with stripes in it. I mean I moved out to Suburbia and yet I loved it. It's such a different way of life but I absolutely love it.
Leanne: I can see already how impactful you are as a speaker. I love it you launched and tell a story and we're very descriptive about the differences between those two locations and I don't know if I could give up the view of the Opera House to be honest but I'm so glad it did great transition for you.
Neen: Yes, exactly. I fix that by coming back to Australia because I still call Australia home obviously. I fix that by coming back at least once or twice a year. I was recently back there, my baby sister moved to Sydney with her two little ones so I have the privilege of just being able to hang out in all my local spots. To me, there is nothing more amazing than being able to run across the Harbour Bridge and then grab breakfast at my favourite little place and I'm sure people listening when you think about whether it's your original hometown or things you love about your hometown.
Now, there's so many ways you can engage people by using things like story and sharing personal observations or letting your audience know just a little bit about you that peek behind the curtain that every audience remember once and it's just another engagement strategy as a facilitator.
Leanne: That's brilliant. Thank you so much. Wow, we would try in there. I think that's a really great advice for our audience. I'd like to ask you, I've seen on Instagram your hashtag which is #happylittleozzy. How did you how did you end up coming from Sydney and absolutely just killing it on stages in the US which I hear is a very sort of competitive market when it comes to corporate speaking and training.
Neen: I followed the love of my life. So I have been married just we recently celebrated 29 years married. Now, I know that your listeners I sound like I'm five. But I promise I have been married pretty much my entire life and I followed my darling here and we created a life here about 14 years ago now. And what was interesting was in Australia I had a corporate career so I worked in retail, banking, telecommunications, and the oil industry and as you probably know Leanne, not a lot chicks in oil in ours and then I set up my own company just before I left to move to the US.
So I guess I'd been sort of playing with being an entrepreneur and I set up a training company when I left corporate and so I did that for maybe two years. So I didn't really have a very established successful business but I was doing okay and then I moved to the US. Now, what's interesting about Australia versus US in the corporate speaking market is the Australian market is so small, so you've got to be really good because it being that there is only so many events that are occurring and every meeting planner talks to each other, that's the beauty of the Australian market, right? So you've got to be good.
What was fascinating to me is when I moved to the US is that the market was so big, so how on earth do you stand out in an environment where there are literally hundreds of choices. I mean there's literally hundreds of conferences in Vegas alone on a weekly basis and so what I realized was that this whole idea of being Australian was actually a novelty.
Now, as an Australian that was really challenging for me to actually promote that I was Australian and I'm sure Australians listening to this will understand it but for your US listeners Leanne they might think I'm a little crazy. But I always get called like something that people remember, my audiences remember and so I had a very dear speaker friend his name is Scott McKain. Someone I look up to, definitely one of my dear friends and speaker role models and Scott McKain was one of the people who said to me, “You have to play up the Australianness of you.” and I was like, “Like tell people how to seek a day?” and he was like, “Exactly.”
So it's really funny that sometimes these things as facilitators or speakers they’re so a part of your core being that you don't actually realize how much your audience loves them and so whether you're in the mining industry, whether you're in HR, whether you are in a corporate, whether you're in non-profit, all the different facilitators that listen to your podcast. It doesn't matter what industry you're in. People want to know who you are and when they have the privilege of being in your training room, you want to create an environment where they get to have a little conversation with you. So I followed my honey and I'm so glad I did because we have the time of our life here and working in the U.S. is amazing but I also make sure that I keep my Australianness in my work as well.
Leanne: Yes. I think it's really true what you say about I guess because we're on our own head so it's really hard for us to see what is unique and different about us all the time and sometimes does take a conversation with someone else to say, “Do you really think that this is what sets me apart?” Just a sort of reflect on that and clarify what makes you unique. Really great point about that.
Neen: Yes.
Leanne: Yes. So what are the differences between because of your Australianness in the U.S. you mentioned that I guess in the States that's not really a problem with kind of finding or talking about what sets you apart. What about the audiences over there, is there a bit of a difference between the audiences in the US and the Australian market?
Neen: I think there definitely is. If you think about Australians and the way that we have a very, I think our core belief is very different to America and let me explain what I mean by that. As an American, and I became an American citizen as well so we have dual citizenship. It was very important to me that I honour both countries that I loved. But in America our core value is freedom and by that I mean, freedom of speech, freedom to bear arms and even if someone says something stupid beside you they have freedom of speech and so you need to be able to listen to that and so the core value in America is my belief is freedom. The core value in Australia, I believe is equality and that is that we want everyone to be treated equally. We have public health, we have public education, and we love the Aussie battler who pulls themselves up by the bootstraps and then make something of themselves.
In the U.S. they are very confident in the way that they promote themselves, their activities, where they live, the car they drive, they even have stickers on their cars of where they send their kids to school. I mean there is such a wonderful pride that they have. In America, if you do a great job you'll get a standing ovation and that's a fairly as a keynote speaker, that's a common and delightful wonderful thing that audiences do here.
In Australia, I don't see that as much and so I often mourn U.S. because we're going to Australia. Hey, don't be surprised if you don't get a standing ovation from Australians. They think you did your job and you did it well but they're not going to necessarily show you that in the same way because we value equality in Australia versus freedom. Does that make sense, Leanne?
Leanne: Yes.
Neen: So I think knowing that the core values are different, it means that you approach audiences differently. So for example, here in the US I might really emphasize how when they in my case my body of work is all about attention. So how do they grab people's attention, how do they keep attention, how do they pay attention and so I would be talking about, how that's going to make them better at their work, in their home, in their community. That same message would resonate in Australia of course but the stories I would use for the engagement would be different. The audience interaction I would use would be different. The exercises I would use would be different. Australian audiences and US audiences have different core values and belief systems. They both want to make an impact on the world, they both want to be great at their work but the way you might deliver to those audiences is different.
Leanne: Yes. I really like talking about this sort of cultural mix as well. Recently, I was in Indonesia and I was sort of watching a workshop pilot over there for the company I work for. At the beginning of the workshop it is like 8 o'clock in the morning, we've got these people in high-vis mining gear doing a bit of a war-cry in Indonesia and I just thought there is no way that anyone and Aussie bloke in Australia would be doing a war-cry about the company 8 o'clock in the morning which I thought. So yes, it's fascinating and some of the activity that didn't think would work over there worked because of the audience in their beliefs. So I think it's a really great point that you bring out.
I love to find out, this is a question that you've just inspired me to ask. How did you feel when you had that first standing ovation in the States was it a bit surprising for you and overwhelming then and also bloody amazing?
Neen: Yes. I think that it's so amazing to me that people share their recognition in different ways and so I'm always honoured when I receive a standing ovation but I also think that people express how they appreciate you differently, right? So some people might complete those smiley sheets in the evaluation, right? and they might give you a 5 out of 5 and that's their way of experiencing that they think you did a great job. I have other audiences where they will line up for literally hours to talk to me and have me sign their books and that to me is like truly one of the coolest, most amazing experiences ever. The people are literally willing to stand in line and wait to have a fantastic conversation with you and take a photo with you and that to me, I don't find it as much overwhelming as I find it totally fills my heart. Like I'm just I am absolutely astounded that people would do that but I also believe that my approach to those situations is my only job Leanne is to stand in service of that room of people, of that line of people, of the person I'm standing and talking to.
So because attention is so important to me, I want to make sure that every person that I have the privilege to serve is feels like they're the most important person to me in that moment whether it's the audience or the individual or the client or the sound engineer that's putting on my microphone. I want to make sure that every interaction they have they feel like they are getting the attention that they want and need and deserve. So I think it's an amazing opportunity when you get a standing ovation it literally does blow your mind and that's incredible but it's never expected. I've never ever expected that and I think for me, what's more impressive is when someone tells me what they're going to do as a result of my keynote.
When someone says, “When you said this, when you told this story, when you challenged us in this way, it made me do this, it made me think this, I want to do that.” and that's the kind of impact you can have as a facilitator of a conversation when people are making behavioural shifts that's far more important to me than a standing ovation.
Leanne: I agree. I think that's the most rewarding part of what I do as well is definitely getting that feedback months later saying, “Hey, I remember this point that you said and as a result this has happened to me.” and you think, “Wow, what a position we're in that we can do that.” and hopefully we're using it to drive positive change. Now, you talk about attention, I'd like to talk about your book Attention Pays and in this, you mentioned that there are three types of attention- personal, professional and global. I was wondering if you could explain to our audience what those three types are and how they can help us or just knowing that can help us when we're building up our facilitation work.
Neen: Absolutely. So the idea of Attention Pays is that when you pay attention it's going to drive profitability, productivity and accountability and when you think about us facilitators people who are doing training sessions and consulting in the world. One of the things that I want you to write down is that these three ways you pay attention, there's something important questions around them. When you think about personal attention that's about who deserves your attention and for many of the people listening to this that's the people in the room that you're training and facilitating, it might be the people you share your life with. If you want to accelerate your personal attention, you've got to understand who deserves your attention and that's about being thoughtful, we're going to come back to that one.
Professional is about what deserves your attention, what are the activities, the events, the projects, the key performance indicators, what deserves your attention, that's about being productive. And the third way we pay attention is global attention and global is about how you pay attention in the world and that's about being responsible and being a contributor. So it's personal about who deserves your attention and being thoughtful. Professional about what deserves your attention and being productive and global about how you pay attention in the world and being responsible.
And when you think about this in the context of someone who is working in consulting or facilitation, what you want to consider is that personal attention is often those one-on-one conversations, it's their conversations in the break. It’s you making sure that you are treating every person who's in the room as your most important event, your most important speech. I remember when I first started in the U.S., I drove for like six hours to a job, it was a three-day job, I had two people in the training room, there was a whole comedy of errors that occurred with this client and for three days I work with two people.
Leanne: Oh, my gosh.
Neen: But I had a curriculum that I had agreed to deliver, I wanted to stand in service of those people. We had an amazing time, it was really hard work but I turned it into more of a coaching-consulting conversation.
Now, I understand if we thought that they were actually going to be 52 people in the room and there are only two people in the room, imagine the adjustments we had to make. But what I've always believed to be true is whoever is in the room, is meant to be in the room. So when you think about personal attention it extends into your personal life as well so who in your personal life does deserve your attention. One of the challenges of choosing a career like consulting facilitation or training or in my case keynote speaking, you are traveling the world literally which means you have a lot of days away from home from people that you care about. So when you are home, are you giving those people that you care about your attention? Are you making sure they know they're a priority?
When it comes to professional attention as a consultant, as a facilitator, you want to think about what's going to really help you move your business forward, move your skills forward, move the day forward because one of the things I realized, Leanne, is you can't manage time. Time is going to happen whether you like it or not but you can manage your attention. So understanding where you're putting your attention and how it's going to move your audience's objectives forward, how it's going to move the business forward, they're the things you want to focus on.
And then global because I'm Australian, I obviously had to have that in there because it may not everyone is environmentally aware, not everyone is caring so much about what's happening in the world. But many people care about what happens in their community, in their local community, in their church, their temple, wherever it is. So global attention is about how you're really showing up in the world, how you're paying attention in the world and making sure you're being responsible and contributing to your community or to the greater planet.
Leanne: Great. So with these three types of attention is there kind of like a ratio of how we should spend our time? What do you find that say when you're starting out in your facilitation or a speaking journey that you focus a lot more time first on your personal attention and then look at deep down the track then start building at more professional skills or do you need to have a balance of all three at all times?
Neen: I don't think you can prescribe anything for anyone because I think the people that are listening to a podcast have such diverse experiences and backgrounds, right? I was so fortunate that in Australia I was privileged to have been on my feet and delivered training and spoken at best practice conferences and spoken at the leadership retreats and updated the board. So I had time on my feet not as much as I needed to be a professional speaker but I had an experience in that regard.
But I was also so fortunate that I work for companies who are willing to invest in me and send me to training programs and allow me to do my MBA and so it's a really hard question to ask as far as how you're going to split it. What I do believe though is you can be a phenomenal facilitator, you can be a fantastic trainer but if you choose to go out on your own and deliver it and have a business of your own doesn't matter how good you are on your feet, doesn't matter how engaged your audience is, if you don't know how to run a business then you don't have a business.
So I learned as a professional speaker, it didn't matter how great I was on stage even though I get fantastic opportunities where people audience members would walk up and say, “Hey, can you come and speak it out of them?” I still have to sell a speech, right? My product is a speech and the people listening your product is maybe the training program if you're out on your own. Now, if you work with a corporation that's a little bit different in that someone is paying your salary on a regular basis and so you're very fortunate to have that opportunity but for people who are listening who might be going out on their own, who might be running their own business or in practice then you have to also be good at focusing your attention on building the business and building your skill set.
Every year I invest heavily in my own development, I'm part of the National Speakers Association, I serve on several boards, I attend programs, I work with a performance coach for two days every single month on my speeches, I have a business coach who helps me with the actual running of my business. So I'm very specific in my own development because if we're going to ask others to invest in themselves, I believe we need to role model that too.
Leanne: Oh, my gosh. I want to give you a virtual high five. That's a 100% agree. I love that you're not resting on your laurels because you've really made it to an exceptional stage over there and to hear that you're still investing all this time on a monthly basis to improve your skill. I think that's very inspiring. So thanks for sharing that.
Neen: Oh, my gosh. I’m in working progress like everyone who’s listening to this episode. So let's just say there are no laurels for this little Ozzy, okay? I think what happens is we often watch other people, we see their lifestyle, we see what they've accomplished and we think, “Oh man, how am I going to do that, I'll never be able to do that.” and by the way, I have people in my life that I look up to in that same way.
But what I've realized is that it's those daily decisions that you make that affect your week, which impact your month, which then add up to your quarter, which then add up to your twelve months. I mean, I think it's those daily decisions we make, I don't feel like I will ever make it here, I don't know what that means. Do you know what I mean? I think that's a crazy thought because there's always the next opportunity, the next level performance, the next skill to develop, the next way to challenge an audience and what's fascinating that everyone listening to this is every audience is so different.
So it doesn't matter how good you are, you can have an audience that blows you away and there fun and they're amazing and engaged and then you can have an audience the next day and nobody wants to talk, nobody wants to play, no one wants to respond to your games, no one wants to do Q&A. I mean, everyone listening to this call and I believe me, I've had them those audiences can be so diverse. I don't know if I can ever make it in this business but I can really try to get better every day.
Leanne: Yes. I think that's what makes it such a really great industry to be in and it was that variety because when I started this podcast I thought I was unusual and that every time that I was running a workshop, even though it might have been the fourth or fifth time and I was confidently content. The second that the audience changed, I just got extremely nervous again and thought I really need to start reinventing this and focusing on who this audience is and is that normal and I found out through the conversation with really experienced people along with what you've just said that is normal. So we just have to keep using our craft and keep reinventing ourselves and I was hoping for that sort of magic potion but doesn't seem to be the case.
Neen: Yes. Oh, my God. It’s so true. Oh, honey when you find it please tell me about that. But I remember there is a phenomenal speaker, one of the top 25 speakers in the world, his name is Matt Church and he's based in Australia out of Sydney and Matt Church gave me advice very early in my speaking career and he said, “The reason that we get nervous is the centre of our thought is wrong.” Meaning what we're focused on, right? And he said, “Often people get nervous because they're thinking about themselves.” right? We think about, “Oh, my God. Are they going to like me? Have I done enough preparation? What if they ask me a question I can't answer? right? So we get nervous because the centre of our thought processes ourselves. Sometimes we get nervous and we move on a little bit and we think, “Oh, my gosh. These people are so qualified like 600 PhD people. What am I going to be able to teach them?” right? And so we get intimidated by the audience or maybe we get nervous because our boss is in the room or people with super big fancy titles are in the room and that's still wrong because the centre of our focus is wrong and if it's not about you and it's not about them.
What Matt explained to me was, it's really about us, it's really about creating a conversation not doing a presentation and when I learned that amazing ninja trick, it totally changed my nervous energy, right? So if you think about it as a facilitator, it's not about you and it's not about them, it's simply about a conversation you're going to create in the room and that's very liberating and I've relied on that many times when I get into my head and I think, “Oh, my gosh. I'm nervous.” and then I think, “Huh, I'm only nervous because I'm worried about myself and I'm not standing in service of this room.” And so it's my belief that when you stand in service, you can't be nervous and that is something that I've had to remind myself of so many times Leanne.
Leanne: I think I'm going to have something like that printed on a poster and pop it up. I think they'll be useful for everyone “When you stand in service, you won't be nervous.” I love that. Thanks for sharing that quote from Matt. Are there any other sort of who are your other speaker role models, you spoke about Scott and Matt. Anyone else that you can share with that our audience might get some inspiration from?
Neen: You know what's interesting to me is my role models at a very big variety of people and some are known in the US and some are known in Australia and Matt Church would be my number one. I had the privilege of learning from him earlier in my career until to this day, he still remains one of my favourite people to sit in the audience and watch not just because he the way he thinks and his brilliance. The way that he is so strategic and very clever in audience interaction and keynote speaking but because he's such a great human and adores his children and loves his wife and runs a successful practice. I feel like he's the whole package and so for me my role models for a variety of reasons.
I love people like Mark Sanborn, who was a brilliant leadership speaker because he's so eloquent on stage. He’s brilliant at what he does, he has longevity in the business. He’s built a very successful speaking practice and he has quality books that he publishes. So he's someone else that I really admire.
Jay Baer is a marketing speaker that I would encourage people to investigate. Jay has a wonderful energy about him, a high energy, he has great sound bites, he has fantastic social media presence and his quality of product is fantastic too.
So when I think about some of these people that I love, Tami Evans is a fantastic, hilarious speaker in the US. She is loved by audiences, she's always getting standing ovations and she's one of the funniest humans I know and Tami Evans is brilliant at audience engagement.
Judson Laipply is also one of my most favourite role models and Judson people may want to, they want to Google, Evolution of Dance. He was the very first YouTube viral video when YouTube was just starting and I think he remained the highest viewed video until that Gangnam Style video came out or something like that but Judson, I am constantly asking his advice on more audience engagement techniques, more interaction. He's a brilliant at that and so I have so many different role models for so many different reasons.
Connie Podesta is a phenomenal speaker in the US who speaks in front of thousands of people, no slides, just her in her microphone and she is hysterical, she's brilliant at bringing in people up on stage and having fun with them all at once. So for so many reasons I have so many different role models, Leanne and I think often what I'm looking for is “What do they do that is different? What is their mad genius? What is their one thing that they're doing phenomenally well?
I have a dear friend, Tamsen Webster and she has a product called the Red Thread Process and watching her break down someone's ideas so eloquently and presenting it back to them in a way that the world will understand it is phenomenal and she was the executive producer of one of the most successful TEDx franchises here in the U.S.
So all these people that I'm listening, I encourage your listeners to go and check them out and what you'll find is they're all brilliant at their area of expertise and that's how I look for role models. Are they good humans? Are they great on stage? Are they the kind of people who walk their talk who are the same on stage as off stage? That's my kind of role model.
Leanne: Wow. Thank you so much for all those names and we'll definitely link to all of them in the show notes as well. When you're watching someone that's just killing it and doing something a bit different on stage and you think, “Oh, I like what they're doing. I wonder if that will work for me.” What's your process then, do you try it yourself launch it in a workshop is as a, you just practice it out or how do you incorporate some of what they're doing into your work?
Neen: My first step is always to ask them what they were thinking when they did it. So I would say to someone like to Jay, “When you did this particular thing, tell me about that.” I would say to Tami, “When you set up that joke and then did the call-back, explain to me that process.” So I'm always looking at it from a process point of view. I will never attempt to replicate anything that my friends do on stage because it is their crazy genius, it's their brand, and it’s what they're known for. But what I'm really keen to understand is why do they do it and what process do they follow to achieve it.
And for someone like Tami Evans who was a professional actress so her training is in acting and she understands the power of that and she knows in prove and she has that ability on her fate to be so wishy. I’m not funny but I have the benefit of being an Australian so I am self-deprecating humour until the cows come and so that's my only form of humour. Does that make sense to you, Leanne? And whereas she can actually tell the jokes, she can tell a funny story, she can tell a story the exact same way with the rhythm and the beats and the laugh lines because she can remember lines because she was an actress. I can't remember things to that point, that's not something that I'm gifted with and so what I'm always looking at is not what I can do that they do but why do they do it and what's the process that sits behind it. Because then what I can do is go, “Okay, my version of that might be this.”
Now, the other thing that I would say to people who are listening from a facilitator point of view is there's so many great facilitators out in the world. Sometimes there are things you can replicate. Judson Laipply that I mentioned earlier, he has this really fun icebreaker and I was never a big fan of icebreakers, I'll be honest with you and I used to cringe a little bit every time someone would say, “Oh, we're doing an icebreaker.” But I saw just this one thing and I was like, “That is so freaking brilliant.” and he said “Use it, just use it, just make it yours.” and he said it wasn't his original material we couldn't find the source of it but it was so fun and the first time I did it was felt clunky like I was like, “Well, this Judson did it so much better than me.” But he'd been doing it probably 20, 30 times before I ever saw it. Does that make sense to you, Leanne?
So I think sometimes there are some exercises out in the world that others do better than you might but sometimes it's just giving it a try and doing it in a safe environment where people feel like you've created an environment that they can trust you and that it is safe to try things. Because my role as a keynote speaker is I am paid by the client to deliver a key message, that's not my training ground, that's not my opportunity to try new things. I'm going to try new material when I'm not speaking for a fee, when I'm speaking for free or when I'm with some friends. I'm going to test a story out as opposed to testing it on a main stage where I'm being paid to deliver.
Leanne: Yes. Absolutely. Totally get that. I've got to ask you, can you share what Judson's icebreaker was, I'm sure our listeners I'm hanging out for it.
Neen: So you know a term a scary story, right? So when people tell a scary story, Judson asks people to share a scarry story. Tell us about the scar that you have and if it didn’t reply to the removal of course, show us your scar and tell us about it and I have watched hundreds of people I mean very intelligent people just crack up telling their stories and so I loved it so it's called a scarry story instead of a scary story.
Leanne: I love that too, gosh! I'd be scared to share mine if it goes back to university days but---
Neen: But isn’t it funny that maybe at least you could think of something. Isn’t that amazing to you?
Leanne: Oh, yes. I had that, the second---
Neen: Everyone has a story like that.
Leanne: Oh, it's brilliant. That's great. Neen, I just want to go back to the attention and the professional attention because I went onto your website and I opened your speaker kit and I just love the colour, I love the words, I love the testimonials, everything about it was fantastic. How long did it take you to get to that stage? I mean how many versions are we talking here? It's just a beautifully put together kit that I think would be a great template for people to sort of use as a base but how did you sort of craft this and what version is this?
Neen: Oh, gosh. I want to say it’s like version 50,000. I think what happens is, one of the challenges with having the career that I have is that I speak about attention. Now what you are probably sitting there thinking, “Well, why is it a big deal?” Well, because people pay attention to the way I do things and so in my world I need to make sure I'm always doing things a little differently or the best version I can humanly afford and so I have a designer that I pay a bazillion dollars to and I say, “Here's my vision for this. I need it to be different to anything that is out there. I need to make sure it is better than anything I've ever seen before and I need to make sure that it quickly grabs the attention of my meeting planner or my bureau partner who is considering hiring a keynote speaker. It also has to represent my fee level.” I'm at a certain fee level in my career now where I can't just have a one-page word document with a logo on it because if they're going to pay a premium, they also want to make sure there's a consistency in all of my collaterals and so I've always invested very heavily in the marketing side of my business because my fears reflect that.
So one of the things people need to consider is not that they would copy that but they would look to say, “What's my best version of that? What's something that I can do that is really great?” Some people that have phenomenal speaker kits, Matt Church is one of them, Mark Sanborn is another one, Sally Hogshead is another one, where they had created something very different but unique to them and so when you're creating your own facilitator kit whatever it looks like. You want to think about what is the best representation of you.
Now, my brand colours were always pink and purple and the purple was very much to offset the pink and it was a hot pink and I stayed very true to that colour palette for many years and when I published my book folding time. I went with a red and grey colour scheme and started to move out of the pink and purple colour palette but what I've done with attention is really driven home the red colour palette. So my website has that throughout the red and the grey a very consistent colours and so what I wanted my speaker kit to do was combine the pink and purple of the past with the grey and red of the future that's what you have that you've seen.
Leanne: Got it. Yes, it look very impressive and interesting you hear that you still invest all those dollars to I guess now that you talk about the level that you're at as a speaker. You have to build everything else up around it as well. Particularly like you said as you are in that field of attention and branding and being out there so that's important.
Neen: And I was just talking to my designer today and I said, “Look, I need an industry-specific version of this particular one sheet for this person.” and because I work in media I do a lot of work with the large some of the movie studios and the television side of the business here in the US and so when you think about the business they're in, they are in the business of attention and so I needed something very quick but there was very elegant that would grab their attention and so I have a different version of media kit for the actual media that I work with. I also have a media kit for my book because I do obviously some TV and radio work and things like when I do a podcast I can just send my media kit to someone which says, “Here's some questions we could talk about, here's some things about the book.” So this level of collaterals all needs to be very consistent and so what I do is I then customize it for industry.
I work with credit unions they have a different budget than my pharmaceutical clients which have a very different budget to my media clients, which have a different budget to my hospital clients and because the industries are so different they're looking for different variations of my messaging. They have different challenges whether they have members or patients or clients or customers, they call them all very different things and so my one page is that I sent them the speaker kit conversions I have for them have their language in it not my language and so that's another thing you can consider if you want to customize is having templates that are customizable based on the type of industry that you serve.
Leanne: Yes and I think that a lot of our facilitators we do that when it comes to the training content. We can make sure that we contextualize the images and everything that we're using but I don't really think anyone's thought about contextualizing the collateral that we present, so thanks for sharing that. Now, with the range of clients that you work with, you must have presented at some pretty amazing locations around the world. What's the best conference venue that you've presented in personally?
Neen: Oh, my gosh. You know it's so hard to compare, right? And I'll tell you why I like different kinds of stages. In Vegas you know the stages are beautiful, they're often full production events where you have an amazing crew and the staging is beautiful, right? So those are those great times where you hope you have a videographer who's capturing like how kind of impressive it all looks, right? And then I have these clients who have boardrooms on like the 50th floor of a sky rise in a magnificent city like New York or Philadelphia and that's a very different kind of location for me and yet one that I love.
One of my very senior leadership teams for a media company that I work with. They took their team on a retreat, I was this speaker and invited me to stay with them. It was literally in the woods, it was one of the most exquisite Spas I've ever been in my entire life. That was my venue so it's really hard for me to say like what my favourite kind of location is. Sometimes I'll be like speaking in a beautiful boardroom in Seattle and looking out over the skyline in the water and then other times I might be in a tiny little room of the FBI where someone's following me to the bathroom where I'm not allowed to be on my own. Do you know what I'm saying? Like so it's really hard for me to choose a location.
You know I once spoke on a navy shipyard where they built submarines and so I had a handler that basically went absolutely everywhere with me and I got to speak to everyone from the person who runs the entire shipyard and their leadership team all the way through to people that were building the submarines that were welding the submarines. I mean it was such a privilege to be there and do that. So no day is the same, no conference location is the same, sometimes the hotels all start to look like. I don't have a particular favourite but what I do love is that every audience is so different, every venue is so different, and every sound crew that I get to work with is very different. That's to your point that you made earlier today Leanne, that's the beauty of this profession.
Leanne: It is. I would love to hear that FBI story sometime but will leave that for another day. Just incredible and I think you do place some of these images or locations that you're at on your Instagram account too. So encourage listeners to follow you there, it's always exciting to see what you're up to and what time zone you're in every day of the week. Now, we've spoken a lot about tools and tricks for first-time facilitators and how they can gain attention, some speakers to watch out for, even some great icebreakers and really it's all about being of service to your audience and to build a great conversation on the day. Do you have any other tips for our first-time facilitator audience that you'd be happy to share?
Neen: Yes. I mean I love to facilitate a conversation, doesn't matter if there's 10 or 5,000 people in a room. I will always default to the role of facilitator because it's what I know it's in my DNA and it’s how I love to have a conversation. So some of my favourite techniques are things like doing hot seats bringing people out and I've done this in front of a thousand people. You choose someone out of the audience, you put them on a chair and you play with a flipchart, you ask them some questions and present them back as brilliant. I love doing town hall type events where I would interview a leader from the company and as a result I would get the audience to also share particular questions, things that are on their mind but I'm controlling it as the facilitator. I love doing Q&A in a very different way, instead of going around the table or around the room. I like to make sure that there's some alternative ways to do that. I love getting people to help me co-create the agenda. So the beginning of sessions, I love to ask them what they want to achieve today and create an agenda in front of them.
Now, 9 times out of 10, Leanne I have the same agenda items they do but when you can talk in their language and they're requesting the things that are most important to them by co-creating an agenda, it's a really powerful way to make sure that you customized that particular training. I love setting up accountability partners in the room so that people have to declare what they're going to do as a result of the training. I ask people to share with their accountability partner something they can't stop doing, something they can start doing and then I encourage them to check in with their accountability partner in 30 days. There's so many different ways I love to engage audiences. I get them to take photos and share them with each other. I get them to do all kinds of things where they feel safe that they're sharing with someone else so sharing with a room or sharing with a group of people but they feel like they can apply everything as soon as they leave. One of the best engagement techniques is to keep it really practical so as soon as they leave your workshop, they can share with someone else what they learned and they can implement it in their everyday life.
Leanne: Oh, wow! Just tons of useful information there so thank you for that. I agree with the accountability partners, big time! I think we all need one of those in our lives, if not a few to cover all the different aspects of what we do. But personally, I just love your passion for this field and everything that you've shared with our audience today. We could have spoken for hours, I think there's so much to cover. I want to know what systems do you use and how you make all this happen and how you actually do all this every day, it's incredible. But time is life sink. So I’d like to ask and where can people find you, Neen?
Neen: I believe the easiest thing is if you just search me on social media. I'm so fortunate there is only one Neen James and so one of the things that you'll find is Twitter is where I have a lot of conversations with my clients and my audiences. Instagram is the peek behind the curtain of my life. Neenjames.com you will find hundreds of articles you can download for free and some of the resources that you have mentioned to your listeners today and you'll also see that if you go to my blog, you'll find there's a lot of articles written there for people who want to be professional speakers and so whether you choose that career or not you might do a search for that and you'll find some of these amazing people that I've talked to you about and you'll see resources there that I believe in as well. So hopefully that's just some places you can start. You may also want to see get your hands on a copy of Attention Pays and see if you enjoy it as well.
Leanne: Absolutely. We'll pop a link to your book and all those resources in the show notes but I also want to share with the audience. So I heard about name through Michael Ports Steal the Show Podcast and you've been on and introduced with him.
Neen: Oh. I love him.
Leanne: Yes. I can tell you guys love each other. The conversation, like I'm cracking up in the car listening to you brave talk. I've got a lot of value, a lot of value out of it. There's one episode in particular where you talk about conceptual models and you guys do a deep dive on that and I'd love to share that with our audience I think that's really useful too. Didn't have time to talk about it on our show but that's fine because there's so many other resources that our listeners can access and Neen I'm just so grateful for your time and your energy and all the information you've provided today and just through your book and your blog and all your conversations. It's just wonderful to see an Australian doing so well over there and thank you so much for your time.
Neen: It's my privilege and the great thing is Americans love an accent. So if you come over and do any work in Australia you have a huge advantage. Leanne, thank you for what you're doing in the world and being able to serve those first-time facilitators and whether the people are starting out in their career or they've been doing this a long time. It feels like you have so many great resources that can help everyone no matter what stage in their career they’re in. Thank you for what you do.
Leanne: Oh, thanks again Neen, love your work.
[END OF AUDIO] 43:23