First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Jane Anderson (Episode 21)
Here is the episode transcript from my interview with Jane Anderson on Episode 21 of the podcast.
You can listen to my interview with Jane Anderson on the First Time Facilitator podcast.
Leanne: Please welcome to the First Time Facilitator Podcast, Jane Anderson.
Jane: Thank you so much for having me, Leanne. I'm really happy to be here and feel very privileged to be part of your show.
Leanne: Oh, that's lovely to hear. You’re extremely impressive! So I was just reading your biography, you've worked with over 50,000 people, you've written five books, you have your own podcast, you’ve worked with some huge global clients now living in Brisbane. I see you and your brand everywhere.
Jane: I’m stalking you know…
Leanne: Yeah you probably got some remarketing cookie on me but for those listening around Australia or possibly haven't seen your brand or globally, can you just explain a bit about yourself and how you entered the world of personal branding and helping others in terms of building their influence capability?
Jane: Yeah sure, so I started, how I never thought that I would probably be doing this but when I started, I started working with personally branded businesses when I was 14 years old. The very first experience I had, I don't know if you remember growing up but whether you had bought shoes from “Mathers” shoes, like maybe your mom made you wear “Clarks”.
Leanne: A “Clarks”.
Jane: Yeah, but Clarks was a fact came from a personal brand, it was someone who founded the Clarks brand. Then I saw Robert Mathers and the Mathers’ family, the people who founded Mathers. Sir Robert was knighted for his services to the business community and they were my first mentors in my life and they were like family to me. I worked for them for twelve years and then I went on and did a marketing degree and then Tom Peters had this concept called “Personal branding” when I was in second-year uni. and I was like, imagine having like somebody say “I want a personal brand and here's my credit card.” and I was like, “this is…” and that was long a bit like the internet hadn't even been in store.
Leanne: Wow.
Jane: I just remember thinking “Imagine people doing that!” I have always had this love, I did a marketing degree but I ended up working in HR for working sort of between those two fields which those two connected are all about influence. So it just sort of evolved that way and I worked for the Mathers family as I said. I also worked in government and worked in large organizations but I kept coming back to. I always had an interest in people's personal branded businesses like I worked for Tony Ferguson the Weight Loss Company, Rotary Weight Chemists as part of that whole branding and then worked in for Super Retail Groups, Supercheap Auto, BCF. The CEO of that company had an incredible personal brand, he's very humble, his name is Peter Birtles and he won CEO of the year.
I was really drawn to people who had strong personal brands and it was just the value of who people are and not just about the organization brand but the individuals that work there. All those people who have had the courage to put their face on the shingle out the front and say like I always found it fascinating that the people I worked for had the courage to do that. I was such a behind-the-scenes kind of person. I was like...
Leanne: Oh, no way!
Jane: Yeah, I think I just was always in awe of what they could. That they had so much courage to put their face out there and it was something though I never had the courage to do so I was like “Yeah, I'll support you whatever you need done, if your face is on the shingle that's great as long as mine is not.”
Leanne: Isn’t it funny how times have changed?
Jane: Yeah, well that was what happened, you know we had a change of government in Queensland in 2012. I had started my business but a 70% or 80% of my contracts went overnight with the change of government because most of my contracts were government work. I was sort of hiding behind a brand because I just didn't have the courage to put my personal brand out and then I went, you know what, actually I have to change something and I have to change something very fast and I thought “Okay, I can see now why personal brand works because of social media.” because I just noticed that all the things I was doing with helping wasn't just businesses but I'd also spent five years working in career counselling and helping market people for jobs and I thought “Okay, I've danced around it long enough, I've helped everybody else and now I have to do it for me.” It’s not something that I've ever started up feeling comfortable with. I've always been a cheerleader in someone else's corner and but you know one day the time comes where you've got to do it for yourself and you know you just got to “step-up and let's do it!”
Leanne: It's really fascinating! A couple things I want to just to point out was I liked how you talked about the intersection of marketing and HR. That's my background as well as I was in marketing before I moved into HR, studied HR though but I think the similarities are that you are influencing over people you've got to sell ideas you got to persuade them particularly around culture change. Great to hear that you've got that intersection but also around having to step-up as well and have that courage, you use the word “courageous” quite a lot there which I really like. I think with our first-time facilitators a lot of them are getting their step-up by doing a lot of facilitation internally with businesses which is a great way to hone your skill and a lot of this podcast has been focusing that how you deliver those workshops but we have never really spoken about let's just say you actually get really good at this and you want to go out on your own. How do you transition and how do you create that step? and so I got your book “EXPERT to INFLUENCER” and I really wanted to point out there's one thing I was like “Oh, this is brilliant and haven't heard this word used before.” and you're talking about how do you develop trust with people because that's how people buy your brand, buy your credibility and everything else and as a facilitator we need trust in our workshops to get the great outcomes.
Now, what I thought there was under personality. You're talking about the twelve pillars of trust, an item there was called “remarkability”. How remarkable are you? I love that word! Can you just explain a bit more about that or how we actually can start finding “What does make us remarkable? What does make us unique?”
Jane: Yeah, when you think about “Why would you want to do that? Why can't I just keep doing what am I doing? Why can’t I just keep facilitating on contents that's already been out there or their stuff it's out in the market?” I could keep going with Covey’s Seven Habits forever and it's amazing and I love Covey's work so it's not saying that there's anything wrong with that but it's more on how do you make this leap and what you've got to do is be remarkable. Seth Godin talks about this with some in a lot of his work and you actually need to be the artist. What happens is when you're the facilitator, if you're using or you're working with other IP or you feel facilitating your strategy day, there's some kind of framework or context that maybe you have learned. It might be maybe you've learnt pro-side principles or maybe you've learnt add car models or maybe you're facilitating around some kind of someone else's IP and to make the transition yourself is you actually have to be the person creating the ideas. I know that's like- “How am I supposed to compete with like Myers-Briggs or DISC Co.?” All that stuff's out there, I have nothing else to add. But you have insights and experiences and knowledge that no one else has and it took me a long time to get my head around this because I went inside up for every certification possible and now because I was like “Good, I don't have to create this stuff, you've already done it. Great!” and those things still serve well in fact, I've created my own certifications for other people. But if you really want to stand out, what happens if you don't, if you want to stand out the benefits are particularly if you're making that transition now, the difference is in, first of all, what you paid. So there's a very big difference in your day rate and what you will be paid by clients because they need to see the value in what you bring and you can still bring in some of those things. So for example if it's like DISC Co. or Myers-Briggs, I might do it as part of what I do but it's not my whole practice otherwise I'm the same as everybody else and then what happens is they're going “Oh, we need a Myers-Briggs workshop.” and Myers-Briggs is great by the way, I'm not saying it you know I've done thousands of my not-wise Myers-Briggs profiles. I followed about 6,000 people.
Leanne: Wow!
Jane: Yeah, it's been a lot.
Leanne: Yeah.
Jane: But what happens is that people will say “Oh, we need a team-building thing, why don't we do that Myers-Briggs thing?” and they go out to market and look around and all the pricing is pretty much the same. So you have to be even more remarkable to try and get that work because otherwise what happens is you're like a “toothpaste on the supermarket shelf” where the customer's standing there going “Well, I don't know which one to buy so I just buy the one that's on special.”
Leanne: Yeah.
Jane: So you're competing on price now, so the problem is if you're not remarkable and the problem is we've got this “Tall Poppy” thing so we don't think we're very much remarkable at all and in fact we are. I find everybody fascinating that it's we're too close to our own stuff to think that we're “I'm not good enough or maybe I don't really know anything.” but you know that was what my problem. When I realized that I had this problem, I had this commoditization problem and so I realized that actually I'm competing on price with people and how am I differentiating myself or how am I articulating my value so that I can say something other than “You just need to buy me because I'm better!.” or “You just let me do it because I'm better.” but then you got to have a bit more than that to be able to get that over the line and so it's that fine line isn't it between the cocky and arrogant and trying to sell yourself and you're like “You look at these other people I go. How did they do it? How on earth are they’re so busy? How are they doing all this amazing work?” and so you spot on the difference. The remarkability is what makes you easy to buy and unique.
Leanne: Yeah.
Jane: And if you find out what that is then you're well-positioned and you can start to unpack your thinking and your ideas and what your experience it is. You know I've got some clients who have done you know PhDs and they get very cranky because when I work with them and they say “Are you telling me that you do this with people who haven't had to go and do a PhD and they are earning more than me?” and I said “Yes!”
Leanne: Yes. I mean isn't it interesting like ten years ago, if you wanted to be paid more I think the default response as well- just go to another course. It's so different nowadays.
Jane: Yes, but you don't need to.
Leanne: No.
Jane: You really don’t need to. If you can solve people's problems and you can help them have the insights and have the empathy to help them understand their own challenges and you're able to care. If you know how to care and run a tribe, if you know how to do that and you can solve problems, you don't need an MBA, that's just not needed anymore. But if you know your customers, if you understand them or the people in your rooms whether your customer is within an organization or outside if you're making the move. I always say the person who understands the customer the most is the persons whose business grows the fastest.
Leanne: Yeah absolutely. I love that you talk about what you said about we're so close to what we're thinking because it's in our own head so of course we take it for granted and we just assume – “Everyone thinks this way.” “Everyone would have the same response to that.”
What I like about your book though, it's you've got all these questions where you can articulate what your responses would be to different things like your values and things like that. I can totally imagine if you had thousands of people complete your book not one person would have the same answer to any of those questions, it’s like combination alone, if you put it to some paper and talk about logic we're all completely unique. So I hope all of our listeners get that and find the importance of what you're talking about because it does seem like nowadays you hop onto LinkedIn and it seems that everyone is a speaker, a coach, a facilitator so you have to get through a lot of noise.
Jane: Yes.
Leanne: Yeah and what you spoke about it's important about knowing what the customer wants. So I'd like to hear that in the context of facilitating a workshop. I mean you've run, you’ve worked with 50,000 people, what do you do beforehand to find out what they need from the day that you're there? What kind of tactics?
Jane: Great question. I wish so many people would ask that question so much more. I would say, if anyone said to me “Why do you get booked so much? Why do so many people work with you?” and it's because I spend the time on this and if there's anything that I would say that makes the big difference and this is where I’m with my clients, this is where I spend the time. So for example, let's say you're walking into a room of workplace health and safety or a consult teams in the mining industry. I've worked with lots of mining, oil and gas and so I know that getting them in the room is the first challenge.
Leanne: Big time. Hello to all my colleagues who’s listening. Yes it is, we all know it is. Time-poor. Yep!
Jane: Right? Time-poor is the first challenge. The second challenge is that you're in a highly reactive space so if something goes wrong, if you've got a mind shut down, if you've got, you know there's so much volatility and safety is a number one. So if there's something that goes wrong onside and particularly if you're dealing with workplace of health and safety, they're in a highly reactive role so then I go, “Okay!” So empathy and understanding is like dude. If you can get that then I can connect so I'll say “Okay, so what's going on for these people right now? What's going for on for them not just in their role?” so you've got what I call “Higher and lower order problems”.
Higher order problems you know they're going through a restructure, you know this particular mind sets has been going through. It's in a shutdown at the moment or there's lots of specific volatility that's happening in that specific role or there's a lot of compliance issues.
Lower order problems, they're still relevant which is around being time-poor that’s across all industries. But if you can take the time and I do this for keynoting as well so I do a lot of research. I have a research team so I get them out to go and find out. One of the specific challenges I've got the clients problems that I'm talking to them about but then I'll go and research what else is going on in the industry so I have them find out.
So for example, I spoke at a keynote I remember it was a couple of years ago and it was about working with young female lawyers like it was early career lawyers and it was particularly women and I was like “Okay, well I'm not a lawyer and I think I've got a bit of an idea.” but you can always assume too much so you've got to know that you've got a natural unconscious bias and assumptions. So I put it on Facebook and I said “Here's an early career female lawyer, you need to be in this age group. I'll pay you for your time. I need to interview you.”
Leanne: Wow.
Jane: So I say to them “Whatever you charge for client, I don't expect you to do it for free. Whatever you charged for a client you can charge me, I have a few questions.” and I usually take up about a half an hour of their time and I'll do it over the phone and they can bill me that's no problem because I know that builds my understanding not just for that client but I think I've worked something across 52 different industries now. So being able to know those problems that those different industries are facing and that's how you end up getting the work because I know that you can solve that.
Leanne: Yeah.
Jane: So I think it's worth…one of the things I find like I had a client just recently and he's done a PhD in this amazing management theory and I think there was sparks coming off him and I had so much stuff. He was amazing and I said to him “What problem does your customer say that they have?” this is after three hours of explaining his whole mission philosophy branding journey life story. I said “What problem does your customer understand that they have?” or “What problem does your customer say they has?” and he said “I don't know, that's my problem.”
Leanne: Wow.
Jane: So otherwise, it's you telling them that they've got a problem and that's like calling someone's baby “ugly”, isn't it? It sounds like “You know, you’re problem is?” So it comes from huge compassion and empathy and understanding and then only then it's like trying to land a plane- you got to clear your tarmac! You can't get anything through and you can't create change in a room and you don't have to regurgitate back to them everything that you've read. But you've got as a facilitator you've got to ask the right question and if you know the right questions to ask, the value you bring to the room is that's your job as the facilitator, isn't it? Your job is to change the room.
Leanne: Yes.
Jane: If you can have that understanding, it's not necessarily you’re being an expert in that person's job but if you can know the right questions to ask they've got the answers as you know. It's then that's really how and then that's when the value they see the value bring.
Leanne: Yeah, it's just being comfortable with the language that you're using as well and making sure that is relevant to that industry because you also talk about credibility in your book and I really I got this quote out that I loved. It's a John C. Maxwell quote that you've used in your book:
“Credibility is a leader’s currency. With it, he or she is solvent; without it he or she is bankrupt.”
It’s so important to be credible! I mean I guess you've been doing this for some time since you were 14 years old you've got this bank of clients you've worked with and got such a great reputation. For someone starting out, how do they create that credibility? I can't imagine, I know I'm very uncomfortable walking into a room and saying “Yeah, this is the stuff that I've done.” I don't really want to talk myself up again, the “Tall Poppy Syndrome” but it's really not about me anyway. But you want them to trust that you are meant to be in that room, you deserve a spot. How do you create that?
Jane: Yeah, great question. So trust, there is a difference between trust and credibility. Credibility brings trust, sorry, well credibility builds trust so I say there's three things that will build trust and this is some other new IP I'm working on. You saw the 12 pieces to building trust but I've really got it down to what are the three key big things that you need to be able to do to build trust.
One is authenticity, you've got to be just you, you've got to be your best self and you know that means knowing what you're trying to do, your mission, your clarity about what, who you are as a human being and just to be your most authentic self and I know that's easy to say, that first part is authenticity. The second part is empathy and empathy is that understanding that I've got an understanding, whether it's around, whatever the challenges that audience has or the team or the group or customer, whatever. If you've got those two things, so first of all its authenticity and then empathy which is what your challenges are on your world and then the bottom one is credibility so if you can get those three things the authenticity, empathy and credibility. If those three things come together you get trust because now you suddenly “I have more confidence in you; I can see the confidence in what you're saying; I can see you have conviction.” so that empathy is what actually makes you do go deeper in your knowledge.
Leanne: Yeah and like you said I mean you gave the example before of putting out a call to lawyers and then getting billed for the time. Not a lot of people do that. No, they don't! And especially with keynotes because you think “I've got this speech. It's all packaged up. I've spent a lot of time developing it. I can just go into any kind of industry and deliver this.” and I think that's where it does fall flat so what you're doing is as part of that research contextualizing it for that audience which is amazing!
Jane: Absolutely!
Leanne: So the three things that you talk about authenticity, empathy & credibility. It all talks, we're talking maps in the facilitation context but that is really what leadership is about as well.
Jane: That’s right.
Leanne: So that's what I love about doing this podcast about facilitation. Everything I'm hearing about people in terms of the great skills facilitators bring in terms of having empathy, showing up caring for people, taking that time. All of those attributes what makes a great leader.
Jane: Yes.
Leanne: So if you're becoming a great facilitator, a side benefit is you'll probably also be an amazing leader as well.
Jane: Absolutely, you know James Hume, he was the speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and he said “Whenever you're presenting and facilitating is the same thing you're auditioning for a position of leadership.” So you're in front of a room, you're already in your… I think sometimes we go out- “I'm a facilitator; I'm a trainer; I'm not a leader, I just run training programs.” but you know if you're in front of a room but even when we're branding and positioning people and around to give that credibility, we will look for photos where they're standing in front of a group. So it doesn't matter if you've got three people, if you're the one in-charge of the room, it's your room and you're the one holding the space for everybody, you're the leader!
Leanne: Yeah, you have a leader. I love that. I did read it in your book about when you are given the opportunity to present, try and document that. So this book, I have to say I love the practical nature of it. You can read a lot of books at a very theory and you're like how does it supply but I think it's great for facilitators that do want to start stepping out of their companies. One example you gave was “Before you're traveling to a workshop, take a selfie at the airport or before you hit the road.” Like that's just something so simple but that immediately what that tell people “Well, I'm on the road, I've been asked to go somewhere else to run a workshop.” such a great little hack!
Jane: Yeah and even if you are trying to show people that you don't just work in your local town so you know when I started, my problem was because of the changing government you know 80% of my business went overnight so I realized that actually half my problem is that I have a business that is very focused on clients in Queensland so I said “Okay, I actually need to build not just a national but an international brand so that if anything goes wrong at any time I can pick up. I can go somewhere or I can work with clients. I can reach out and I'm not going to be affected by local government challenges.” and that was what happens to a lot of businesses here in particular Queensland because of our volatile government so what I did exactly that I said “Okay, every time we go check in, airport; Facebook post! So it was around building the brand to be and the communication strategy that went with that and of course people go “Oh my God, you're everywhere, every time!”
Leanne: You are!
Jane: And it's very deliberate and so I've probably settled down on a bit now. But when I first started, it was very deliberate because I had to really send the message that you know if people; “I won't worry you because you're in Brisbane or you're not in Melbourne or you're not in Sydney”. I needed to open it up and create access so people would instead say “Oh, when you're in Sydney next or when you're in Melbourne next.” so I was in Sydney or Melbourne most weeks so it was just opening it up to say “I'm prepared to get on a plane. I’m prepared. “Yes I'm in town!”
Leanne: Yeah absolutely. I want to talk about a bit of travel and environment because I know you're running a workshop at Peppers at Kingscliff.
Jane: Yes.
Leanne: For anyone, for those of you that have never been there it's absolutely amazing. It's very relaxing, this beautiful beach, the town is just if you get there and all your stresses pretty much dissolved. I would like to ask you yet just about that. Was that a deliberate move to create a strong environment for you workshop? Why did you pick that spot to run your one day workshop?
Jane: Well, it sounds like I won't be doing very much.
Leanne: Yeah, cocktails by the pool but that sounds like a perfect day.
Jane: Yes, exactly. White boards can be wheeled out to the Spa.
Leanne: That's a really good idea. You should get into hotel design and thinking about conferences and things like that? Why not?
Jane: That's right! Yeah you know one of the things that I've noticed, I'm a mentor in Thought Leaders Business School and my mentor who was the founder of Thought Leaders Business School. I’ve been in there for five years and his name is Matt Church. It has this mantra, you want to get to a point where you do work you like with people you like or love, people you love the way that you want. He said to me “If you could have a program that runs any way that you want, how would that work?” and that takes a while to build up to that so yes I was running around the country and I was running programs everywhere and I said you know like Kingscliff dope I grew up around that area so it's like home to me. The beach is like home because I live in the city now but the beach is where I reconnect, it's where I get off the treadmill and so when he said “What would that look like? What would work you love, work you like with people you love the way you want?” and I thought “Okay so what I would love is I would love to be able to have a be at a point where my business had grown enough and my brand was strong enough that people would have the courage to you know maybe not stay in Melbourne get on a plane and come and disconnect to reconnect a little bit.” but it's branding work you know you're really connecting with people's identity and the core of who they are that's quite hard to do in a corporate battleship grey office.
Leanne: And they're battling traffic to even get there on time.
Jane: Yeah. You know you've got to kind of get grounded I know because I grew up around that area maybe I'm a bit of a hippie at heart but you know it's those things that you really have to consciously stop and reconnect to who you are to actually make some of these decisions that you're making and go “Oh wow! Yeah I do, do that.” But what I had to do was create that base for me to work in to help other people so that they could see that for themselves and so that's the challenge I often start to pose to them; “What would your version of this look like?” and so there's one lady that I know that has done. She's a fantastic coach and she's a beautiful cook so what she does is she cooks in her coaching sessions so you go to her house and you sit up at the kitchen bench and she coaches while she's cooking. So she cooks, she bakes so by the end of the session so she spends the first few minutes you know putting all the recipe together and whatever. I'm not a very good cook but nothing like she’s like.
Leanne: I’m a terrible cook!
Jane: Microwaves, come in very handy sometimes. You know by the end of the session then you have that by the time she's finished cooking and then you sit down you have the meal together and so that's the end of that coaching session that goes for I think an hour and a half or whatever it might be. So you know hearing some of these stories of how people do it and its part of how they love to do it that's part of their brand that's what she's known for and that's what creates the remarkability.
Leanne: Yes. I was just that word was just coming up. I mean how many people would talk about that afterwards and that is something that's completely unique to her and I love that you know because we think of workshops and we think we're boxed in a room we've got them for half the day there's going to be pretty average catered lunch, we need to have PowerPoint slides but she's completely just gone- No! This is the way we're going to do it and but then by doing that she's attracting the type of people that she'd want so it's like hitting those three things that you spoke about earlier that's such a cool quote.
Jane: Yeah you stop trying to conform but having said that when you first starting out, you've got to be easy to buy and it's hard to buy you if you set something like that up straightaway. You haven't got enough trust, you haven't built up the credibility and all that sort of thing so you still kind of got to do the hard yards initially but build up your database, build up your relationships and once there's some you'll see in the book there are a few metrics that we look for to be able to know at what point if I did. Because people are scared to do things like that so there are certain metrics that I work with people in their businesses to say “Okay, yes you've got these numbers of certain people on data bases, certain revenue, customers types of programs” and then we say “Okay, yes now is the time to do it!”
Leanne: Yeah it's a calculated risk rather than just going “I must give this a Go!” and to be completely disappointed when no one buys it. Where did that go? Why did that fail?
Jane: Yeah you've got that trust and the relationship with those clients, they'll follow you, they'll go where you want and then because they wouldn't necessarily look for something like that but when they go, the fact that you're the one running it so you create, one is actually matters that CEO of Thought Leaders said, he said “Business is changing from the business of ideas particularly with facilitators. If you're in this space, you're working with your ideas and what your worldview is and how you articulate that to get the best out of people based on your experience.” but he said just recently that “It's not just about the ideas.” Because I can go online, I can find those ideas, I can read your blog's. It's actually the experiences you create that how those ideas are applied and how do I get to connect with that which is the whole remarkability. “What’s the essence of you that makes that experience?” because yes I can get the knowledge from you but I don't want to sit and read a blog, I want to hang out with you for a day. I want to know “Oh yeah, look at my stuff, yeah give me some attention. Look at me for a day and I want to be around your energy in the space that you hold.” and that's the real value.
Leanne: That’s what would attracts me. Yeah. I'd like to talk about energy as well, sorry I'm just coming up to like a keynote or the workshop that you're running down at Kingscliff. I've been really interested in listening to a lot of podcasts recently about the morning routine and what different people do. What do you do to get sort of psyched up or do you have to calm yourself down before you start delivering one of these?
Jane: Yes and its interesting, isn't it? Like keynote and facilitation as such different modes of delivery of ones thinking, ones “tell versus ask”. So you know you've got different energy spaces that you're working with but facilitation kind of got it. The thing they have in common is you've got to meet the room where they're at. You can come in, managing your state is everything so if you can manage your energy that's for sure. I have to fire myself up a little bit because I'm actually my natural state is mentoring so I'm very introverted ironically most people don't realize that but I'm more introverted than I am extroverted. And to facilitate in groups or to keynote and I keynote every week so it's not something that comes naturally to me, it is tiring. So I have to make sure I've got myself pumped up so it'll be things like make sure I get sleep, just eating well particularly when you travel because a lot of these conferences and things are interstate so I will never I always travel the night the day before. I also will go into the room the day before so if I fly in that afternoon if I'm the first or second one on in the morning, I'll go into the room because I need to know the energy or the space of the room. I'll do it just a quick practice on stage just so I can get a sense of how it works and it's funny I spoke at an event a few years ago and I was on straight after. I didn't know that the person who was speaking before me was going to be running a meditation session.
Leanne: Hard that to follow.
Jane: I had my headphones on and I had like you know right against the machine on and I was so fired up and then I went in and it was like “Okay.”
Leanne: You could feel that mood as “Woo!”
Jane: “Okay, we’ll slow down”. But you know you get even much the energy and then bring it out but you've got to bring, there's so much energy that comes to a keynote and to being able to prepare for that and it's knowing your stuff so that you can be present to the room and serve the room and connect with the room like things like what will give me energy is I'll stand at the door and greet people when they come in. It’s also clear that to them that “Oh, she must be somebody who's working here.” or “Oh, that's right. She's the lady that maybe she's on the hand out garden.”
Leanne: Oh yeah, and she's approachable as well which is great.
Jane: It's not me saying “I'm not coming in going right. I'm the speaker, I'll have my blue M&Ms. Thank you.” You've got to connect with the audience, my job is to change the room while I'm there so you just got to do everything you can to get that energy in connection, don't you?
Leanne: Yeah I love that my job is to change the room while I'm there. Gee! That’s pretty impactful, that's going to be the quote of the episode, love that! But I think as well, I'm entering I love seeing the room as well even the day before because then it helps you go to sleep at night because he's not wondering what does the room look like and you want to have like most your questions answered before you have that sleep so you can have a restful you know eight hours or whatever it is that you need.
Jane: Yes and unique to them. You know I've had things like I've fallen off the stage, technology hasn't worked every age.
Leanne: You’ve fallen off the stage?
Jane: Oh, you name it! Like when you do as many as I do, everything goes wrong but you know you've got to know your keynote forty-five minutes inside out back to front, if anything fails what are you going to do. You know I've had that happen before. You’ve just got to know plan ABCD and E.
Leanne: Have any times where like something's happening you're like “I just can't continue doing this, what am I doing?” Have that ever crossed your mind or you like “No, just get on back on the bike and let's just keep going.” You must have been talked at times.
Jane: Yeah there was one particular time it was actually really early and when I started speaking and I got booked for this keynote it was at the Gold Coast and it was Royal Pines. I don't know if you've ever been to Royal Pines but the meeting room is massive. It's like a nightclub like they're stripe lights, it was like a rock concept this thing.
Leanne: At the golf club, that's not, now I wouldn't have thought that but…
Jane: Yeah it's got a really big, it's really popular for conferences. It's got a great massive room so there's about a thousand people at this conference and I walked in the room and the A/V guy was there and I saw my presentation on the computer and I thought it looks a bit different though and so I went over to him and said “Hi, my name is Jane Anderson, I’m on this morning.” and he said “Yeah, marked me up.” and then I said “Can I just ask you? I think there's a slide there, I just looking at that presentation, it looks a bit different than the one I had to send through.” I had send to his head two weeks prior and he said “Ah yeah, you can have a look.”, so look through and it but there were slides missing, there were things I'd never seen before and so I was on in 20 minutes I couldn't change anything and so I said “Okay, all right I'll just work with that.”
Leanne: Gosh, well done.
Jane: “Have you got a whiteboard? and he said “Yes, I think there's one down at the back.” and so I thought all right I know where my where the breaks are I think in the content so I was like “Okay, I can work I think with it.” and then he said “Just so you know, you know the remote?” so he said “With the remote, just so you know it doesn't go backwards that only goes forwards in it.” so I said “Okay, so what happens if I have to go backwards?” he said “Oh look! I'll be at the back, I'm the A/V guy, you just yell out.” So of course I started the keynote and the slides started moving. I hadn't even touched anything and I thought “I should have known when he said that. How would he know that?” Anyway, I got it, I said on to Mr. A/V “Can you come back to the first slide again?” and so I started again and they just started moving in and I thought “Okay, I'm not touching anything!” so I just turned them off and I was in the first five minutes. Anyway, I got through it but I was kicking myself because I thought “What have I done wrong, I can't…” you know because everyone's looking at you that you're the problem so you've just got to work with. Anyway of course I got off the stage and the coordinator came running up and said “Oh my God that was amazing. I don't know how you did that but what you didn't know is that your remote was connected to the room next door and theirs was connected to yours. That was fantastic, would definitely get you back next year”. I can’t do it, I can’t do this thing!
Leanne: Oh my gosh! That’s up there! There were some of the worst stories I've heard. Wow! You handled that so well. But you wouldn't have been able to pull that off if you haven't prepared. There's no way I mean you could have, you can wing things for certain time but not for 45 minutes. Oh my gosh, well done! High five! I was getting goose bumps when you're telling me when you're framing that story that is the worst scenario and if that ever happens though at least we know “Hey, what's going on next door, I think we need to swap.”
Jane: Exactly, it’s a good tip for facilitators.
Leanne: It is really a good tip. Speaking of tips, are there any tips or words of advice that you can offer our first-time facilitators listening in?
Jane: Yeah I think if I think back to. I remember the first time I facilitated I was terrible. So I would, allow yourself to you know just be- know that you're not going to be perfect straight away and this still days where I like not very often but sometimes you just have an off day. It doesn't mean it's like your whole career is destroyed. If you have a tough day that would be the first thing is to know it's just a tough day. If something goes wrong that's all part of learning and part of growing. The other thing I would say that has made the biggest difference and I wish I did this much earlier was find your tribe, find the people who you need to be around, who are doing the same thing as you or trying to do something similar. But you want to also work out find your mentor and often the mentor will be the person leading that tribe so if you want to get really great at like it might be at training activities then find the expert who is the expert in training activities. Do some mentoring with them but work out as well- “Who are other people who are trying to solve that problem as well?” or “Where do other trainers hang out?”
So for example, I have a program which is called the “Women of Influence” and we have this power up program and so these are all women who are facilitators, trainers, coaches, speakers. So I lead the tribe but they're all trying to do the same thing but they're all different at what they do. Some do leadership, some do personal branding got three in there that do personal branding, we've got others that are business coaches but they do a lot of facilitation for businesses. Everybody's so different but to work out we'll you know particularly I think for women as well you know for women, we don't naturally get out of build the networks the blokes tend to. So find your tribe, go and ask around if it's you know whether it's the AITD may be there's some members in there if it's training, the Australian Institute of Training and Development. If you're a coach but you also include facilitation in your work maybe you do group coaching it might be that kind of space. Look at the ICF professional speakers if you're a facilitator and you're wanting to include more speaking, you'll be like this plenty of speakers who also do facilitation. So look for your associations, find your tribe get around with the right people and find a mentor.
Leanne: Excellent advice, brilliant! Jane, I've loved our conversation today I could easily talk to you for another couple of hours. I think we've just kind of touched the surface but I've learnt a lot already. A lot of what I picked up free reading your book which I will recommend to all the listeners especially if you want to start differentiating yourself in a crowded market I think it's really useful. But also hearing, you’re very authentic and vulnerable when you came out with some of those stories and I think that cheers the audience that it's okay to mess up and you need to stretch in order to develop at the end of the day. Finally Jane, where can people find you?
Jane: Yeah thank you. So they can jump on my website so its jane-anderson.com, you're welcome to jump on there and of course there's all LinkedIn and Instagram and those places so I'm always around like you said.
Leanne: Everywhere!
Jane: I’m kind of everywhere. You’ll be sick of me probably. But one of the things that you can do is when you go to the website. This could be useful actually for your listeners and you'll probably notice on the book it's got where you can do take the “Influencer Score” so I created a diagnostic to help people to understand like just the communication channels and just you know you don't have to try and do all of them immediately but just to know where to start and so you can go on it takes three minutes to fill out so you just go to the jane-anderson.com website, if you scroll right down the bottom it's actually a little bit hidden and because otherwise you go to the shop and you'll pay $80, so just go!.
Leanne: Wow that’s so cool. Okay!
Jane: There’s a little link its right down the very bottom and it's called the “Lead Generation Indicator” so if you're starting out or if maybe you're thinking about making the move or you have made the move out of corporate and you're starting to do this yourself. It gives you a seven page personal report of exactly where you sit now. I'm based on what you've got to do so you know your gaps on what and where to go from there.
Leanne: Oh that's perfect and we'll definitely link those in the show notes for sure.
Jane: Oh thank you! Yeah better, right!
Leanne: Lovely. Thanks, Jane. You've been awesome!
Jane: Thank you very much.
Leanne: Have a great evening.
Jane: Thank you.
Leanne: Well done!