Episode 135: Using virtual events to supercharge your business growth with Ken Burgin
Ken Burgin works with foodservice operators to assist them to be more popular & successful. He is a former cafe and restaurant owner in Sydney, and started the online management platform Profitable Hospitality. He now works for hospitality finance company SilverChef, focused on educational content and events for business owners.
Have you been running webinars but finding it difficult to get people through the door? This week’s guest is great at tuning in to topics that people actually want, and he’s figured out a pretty neat system to do this!
When Covid hit, Ken Burgin was the first person I hung out with on a Zoom call. In the space of 15 mins of just chatting to him on a call, I learnt a LOT about virtual facilitation.
In this conversation, we flip between talking about the virtual facilitation side of things, and providing value to our people; then we hear how Ken really grew his business and sold out his workshops on weekends; how he connects with people, how he adds value.
About Our Guest: Ken Burgin
Ken Burgin works with foodservice operators to assist them to be more popular & successful. He is a former cafe and restaurant owner in Sydney, and started the online management platform Profitable Hospitality. He now works for hospitality finance company SilverChef, focused on educational content and events for business owners.
Ken has many years of experience providing training and content to help transform the hospitality industry. He likes finding out the 'why' of business success, and the 'why not' of business problems, keeping track of the latest technology & presentation techniques, and updating his photography skills.
In this episode you will learn:
Keeping up to date with the latest in your industry
Growing your business and revenue
Preparation tips for webinars
Questions Leanne asked Ken during the interview:
How did you build your skills quickly to deliver the need for webinars?
If you have the same audience coming to your webinar every week or fortnightly, do you feel some sort of pressure to keep things fresh?
How do you tune in to what’s going on in your industry?
What are your tips for growing a business and revenue?
How do you manage your time doing all the work you do?
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Watch the video! Leanne Hughes and Ken Burgin chat about virtual events
About your host: Leanne Hughes
Leanne Hughes is an international facilitator, speaker and coach who loves creating unpredictable workshop experiences, that predictably work.
She combines her experience in Marketing, with her education in Human Resources and Psychology, to help leaders create engaging everyday experiences - that are so contagious they scale across teams, functions and regions.
Leanne has facilitated leadership, onboarding and team-development workshops across Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development. She has over 13 years’ of experience across a range of industries including mining, government and tourism sectors.
She’s the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and was a finalist in the 2018 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
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The 5 unpredictable ways to start a Zoom meeting (that predictably work)
Episode 134: Virtual centering and well-being techniques for online meetings with Wade Brill
Wade Brill is a Professional Certified Coach, Energy Leadership Index™ Practitioner, and Meditation Facilitator through UCLA’s Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior. She hosts the popular Centered in the City podcast, offering modern meditations for busy professionals, and is a recognized speaker at conferences, companies, and retreats. Wade helps busy professionals create calm and clarity amid chaos and realize the importance of their one mind, one body, and one life.
Are you zipping around from one virtual meeting to the next? Clicking Exit on a call, then clicking a new link to jump on the next without getting space in between?
I am!
Let’s talk about the arrival: How can we facilitate an experience, where our participants arrive into our virtual workshops with renewed energy and focus?
That's the conversation I have with today's guest, Wade Brill.
Wade is a Mindfulness Coach, Podcaster and Speaker who helps busy professionals experiencing stress and overwhelm be more present, productive and energized. Wade devotes her life’s work to helping others connect to their own inspiration.
In this episode, we discuss virtual centering and wellbeing techniques, and how to build our facilitation skills, as we move virtually to help support team wellbeing.
Wade also shared her ideas on how we can use team video calls to work on team connection, listening and attention skills.
About Our Guest: Wade Brill
Wade Brill is a Mindfulness Coach, Podcaster and Speaker who helps busy professionals experiencing stress and overwhelm be more present, productive and energized. At the age of 21, Wade survived Hodgkin’s Lymphoma while simultaneously losing her mother to Leukemia. This major life interruption inspired Wade to realize how precious life is and that practicing radical self-care is smart, not selfish. Wade devotes her life’s work to helping others connect to their own inspiration.
Wade is a Professional Certified Coach, Energy Leadership Index™ Practitioner, and Meditation Facilitator through UCLA’s Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior. She hosts the popular Centered in the City podcast, offering modern meditations for busy professionals, and is a recognized speaker at conferences, companies, and retreats. Wade helps busy professionals create calm and clarity amid chaos and realize the importance of their one mind, one body, and one life.
In this episode you will learn:
How to settle your mind and nervous system
Relaxation breathing techniques
How to incorporate mindfulness into online sessions through centering activities
Combining productivity with well-being
Questions Leanne asked Wade during the interview:
If someone wants to take charge of what’s going on in their head, where can they start?
What are the ways we can bring your work into online sessions?
What is your approach for people to become more mindful during the day?
How do you prepare for starting a new workshop with a client?
Resources:
Watch the video! Leanne Hughes and Wade Brill chat about virtual centering and wellbeing techniques for online meetings
Quotes:
“Before you let your day fill up with meetings, carve out half an hour of time for yourself, that’s going to make you feel your best, having that is key to being productive for the rest of the day.”
“True self-care and mindfulness is learning to listen inwards and let our inner voice tell us what our body and mind need instead of our body clock telling us.”
“As a facilitator, I am not responsible for the audience's outcome, they are responsible to make their own meaning and connect the dots in their own way. We plant the seeds but we don’t get to control how it’s going to get watered, bloom or blossom.”
About your host: Leanne Hughes
Leanne Hughes is an international facilitator, speaker and coach who loves creating unpredictable workshop experiences, that predictably work.
She combines her experience in Marketing, with her education in Human Resources and Psychology, to help leaders create engaging everyday experiences - that are so contagious they scale across teams, functions and regions.
Leanne has facilitated leadership, onboarding and team-development workshops across Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development. She has over 13 years’ of experience across a range of industries including mining, government and tourism sectors.
She’s the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and was a finalist in the 2018 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Tweet Leanne your number one takeaway from this episode!
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The 5 unpredictable ways to start a Zoom meeting (that predictably work)
Episode 133: Serving 132,000 students worldwide from a spare bedroom in remote Australia with Sarah Cordiner
Anytime you’re live - whether that’s presenting a webinar, or a face-to-face workshop, you’re essentially exchanging your time for money.
Today’s guest, Sarah Cordiner has helped over 132,000 students from all over the world. You don’t do that by running workshops, you do it by scaling what you offer through digital programs and courses.
Where do you start if you want to scale? That’s the conversation I have with Sarah today.
Sarah Cordiner is a Qualified Course Creation Specialist, trusted by over 20,000 Course Creators & Educators in 146 countries. She helps you turn your expertise into profitable digital products and programs.
Anytime you have to “go live” - whether that’s presenting a webinar, or a face-to-face workshop, you’re essentially exchanging your time for money.
Today’s guest, Sarah Cordiner has helped over 132,000 students from all over the world. You don’t do that by running workshops, you do it by scaling what you offer through digital programs and courses.
Where do you start if you want to scale? That’s the conversation I have with Sarah today.
Sarah Cordiner is a Qualified Course Creation Specialist, trusted by over 20,000 Course Creators & Educators in 146 countries. She helps you turn your expertise into profitable digital products and programs.
In this episode, you’ll learn how to start, how to build an audience and how one idea from a video, can be used to market in so many different ways.
More than that, it’s an inspiring episode looking at failure and how all that matters with failure, is deciding what to do next. Reflecting on this episode, I was reminded of this Winston Churchill quote: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
If you’ve ever held yourself back, or have reasons to not do things, I think you’ll also be inspired by what Sarah shares in this conversation.
About today’s guest: Sarah Cordiner
Sarah Cordiner is a postgraduate qualified education and training professional with over 13 years of experience as a leader and business owner in the education and training sector.
She’s the youngest university Executive Director in Australia's history,
She was listed by the Huffington Post as "The Top 50 Must-Follow Female Entrepreneur 2017", has had her course creation work cited in Forbes, she is a 12 x published author (and 5 times international number 1 best-seller), host of the Course Creators Podcast and holds the record for being the youngest University Head & Director in Australian history - a university that was ranked number 1 in Australia at the time of her leadership.
She's also a mum to 2 young children and runs her 7-figure education company from the spare room in her outback Australian home.
Using Sarah's tried and tested step-by-step system, even the newest entrepreneurs, traditional businesses and even complete non-techies can quickly and easily create a profitable online course that can impact millions and create a life and business that they love.
Here are some of the questions Leanne asked Sarah during the interview:
What do you do now and how do you discover the world of online courses and online training?
What is the first course you ever produced and how did it go?
How did it take for you to build your audience from all around the world?
How are you doing all of the things you do?
Resources:
Visit Sarah Cordiner’s website
Sign up for Sarah Cordiner’s Online Course for FREE
Connect with Sarah on Linkedin
Watch the video! Leanne Hughes and Sarah Cordiner chat about online course creation
Quotes:
“When you go out with a ‘I can get through this’ attitude, you no way you’re going to fail.”
“Education comes in many forms. And I realized the reward of gifting somebody new knowledge.”
“I am so amazed by how somebody’s life can be changed by simply allowing them to understand themselves. Showing people the skills that they didn’t know were there.”
About your host: Leanne Hughes
Leanne Hughes is an international facilitator, speaker and coach who loves creating unpredictable workshop experiences, that predictably work.
She combines her experience in Marketing, with her education in Human Resources and Psychology, to help leaders create engaging everyday experiences - that are so contagious they scale across teams, functions and regions.
Leanne has facilitated leadership, onboarding and team-development workshops across Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development. She has over 13 years’ of experience across a range of industries including mining, government and tourism sectors.
She’s the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and was a finalist in the 2018 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Tweet Leanne your number one takeaway from this episode!
Grab my cheat sheet:
The 5 unpredictable ways to start a Zoom meeting (that predictably work)
Episode 132: Getting your foot in the door as a moderator with Kjell Lutz
Kjell Lutz is fascinated by how people learn. During his studies in organizational psychology, he immersed himself in the theory of knowledge transfer, how can you help people learn.
He first applied this with small groups during training, then online with e-learnings and then with large groups during meetings.He further immersed himself in the psychology of making choices, how do we make choices and especially how can we make better choices.
Panel discussions! You see some great ones, you see some ordinary ones.
A few years ago I was really into the ABC TV show, Q&A with Tony Jones. Some people didn’t enjoy his style. I loved it. He was direct, funny, great at segueing the conversation and getting panellists to add, argue, contradict each other, which created fantastic drama.
It’s really funny, over 131 episodes down and today we explore a topic we’ve never discussed before: The skill of moderating.
That’s what we talk about with today’s guest, Kjell Lutz
In this one, you’ll hear how Kjell got his start with moderating panels and MCing, how he creates a dynamic conversation between panelists and audiences; how he gets large audiences interacting with content as well.
About our Guest: Kjell Lutz
Kjell is fascinated by how people learn. During his studies in organizational psychology, he immersed himself in the theory of knowledge transfer, how can you help people learn. He first applied this with small groups during training, then online with e-learnings and then with large groups during meetings.He further immersed himself in the psychology of making choices, how do we make choices and especially how can we make better choices.
Kjell as a chairman is full of energy and enthusiasm. With an appropriate dose of humour and the right interaction, he connects the participants to the theme of the day and the current topics. He loves to lead different work forms that contribute to the learning process of the participants. Let people experience something meaningful in a playful way.
As a speaker, he ensures that the dialogue session is properly initiated with an appropriate keynote. As a moderator, he facilitates the rounds of conversations to create the space that is needed.
In this episode you will learn:
How to create good conversation between panelists and audience
How to prepare yourself (and the panellists) before an event
How to select good speakers for your panel
Tips about moving training from face to face to online
Here are some of the questions Leanne asked Kjell during the interview:
Can you share what you discovered working from training and presentations to moderating and what are the skills needed in moderating?
How do you create an environment where people feel safe enough to stand up?
If you are the panelist, how do you make sure that you get the best out of each speaker?
Do you need interactive tools like Sli.do or any technology during moderation?
How do you prepare before the workshop?
Resources:
Kjell Lutz website
Connect with Kjell on Linkedin
Here’s a link to training that Kjell is delivering on 10-11 September. The Show Must Go On(Line)
Grab 15% off Virtually Possible - doors close this week! Code: PODCAST
Quotes:
“The important thing in moderation is what the goal is and what do we need to do.”
“Be open to new information, make choices and start doing.”
About your host: Leanne Hughes
Leanne Hughes is an international facilitator, speaker and coach who loves creating unpredictable workshop experiences, that predictably work.
She combines her experience in Marketing, with her education in Human Resources and Psychology, to help leaders create engaging everyday experiences - that are so contagious they scale across teams, functions and regions.
Leanne has facilitated leadership, onboarding and team-development workshops across Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development. She has over 13 years’ of experience across a range of industries including mining, government and tourism sectors.
She’s the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and was a finalist in the 2018 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.
Doors are closing soon: Virtually Possible
Virtually Possible
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Tweet Leanne your number one takeaway from this episode!
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The 5 unpredictable ways to start a Zoom meeting (that predictably work)
Episode 131: The conflict of creating interesting conversations (then having to stop them, so we can move to the next one) with Misha Glouberman
How did I find today’s guest? Through this article: How to Host a Cocktail Party on Zoom (and have better classes, conferences and meetings, too) written by Misha Glouberman, that Michael Bungay Stanier shared on LinkedIn.
As I read the article, my jaw dropped. The level of consideration around facilitating this birthday party was next level! From this one article, you could tell how much he values the finer details of hosting an event.
Misha Glouberman teaches communication skills, runs meetings and conferences for organizations, hosts live events, and speaks at conferences. His work has been described as “humanizing relationships—one event at a time."
In this episode, you’ll learn how we can get better at our conversations by zooming out, how to be collaborative when solving problems AND he also shares an incident he had as a panellist, when someone in the audience, called him out! Listen in for that story and more importantly, what Misha learnt from it.
One thing I’m still trying to navigate, is that fine line between giving your participants autonomy to create, vs. “sticking to the plan”.
Misha provides an excellent distinction on how we can decide how to progress by being transparent with the group.
About our Guest: Misha Glouberman
Misha Glouberman is the author, with Sheila Heti, of the book The Chairs Are Where the People Go, which the New Yorker named as one of its top nonfiction books of 2011 and described as "a triumph of what might be called conversational philosophy." In it, Misha relays everything he knows about communication, conferences, relationships, making friends, monogamy, playing charades and more.
His approach to conference design draws on Open Space Technology and UnConference approaches, which are highly effective at getting people talking and sharing ideas in ways that are effective and meaningful.
Misha has taught classes in improvised music and theater, worked as a database designer, and has a degree in philosophy from Harvard.
His interest in how people connect extends into his work as a performer and artist. Every month he hosts Trampoline Hall, a barroom lecture series that has been popular with the arts and literary set in Toronto and New York for well over a decade. His instructions on how to ask a good question at a public event were published in the New York Times Magazine. His Terrible Noises for Beautiful People is a series of participatory sound events for non-musicians, which has been presented in partnership with Nuit Blanche Toronto and the Long Now Foundation among others.
Here are some of the questions Leanne asked Misha during the interview:
With your background and the work that you do, have you always been interested in creating great connections? When did you discover that you want to work in this field?
If you could offer tips or suggestions for listeners on how to target relationships and build it over time?
How do you draw the line between giving autonomy vs being collaborative?
How do you get yourself ready for a workshop experience?
Resources:
Connect with Misha Glouberman on Linkedin
Lecture series hosted by Misha The Trampoline Hall
Say to Misha via Twitter and let him know you’ve listened to this episode
Visit Misha Glouberman’s website for more details
Join a community of facilitators from all over the world, on The Flipchart!
Quotes:
“When you are in a difficult conversation, zoom out - talk about the pattern, relationship, feelings and systemic issues.”
“I have two conflicting jobs as a facilitator, one is to create interesting conversation and the other one is to stop them so we can move on to the next.”
Join the Virtually Possible movement
Doors are now open!
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Tweet Leanne your number one takeaway from this episode!
Grab my cheat sheet:
The 5 unpredictable ways to start a Zoom meeting (that predictably work)
Episode 130: Taking you back-stage: How to find a collaboration buddy and facilitate a solution with Leanne Hughes
On this weeks’ show, I’m taking you backstage!
If you’ve been listening for a few weeks, you’ll hear that I’m collaborating with Joeri “The Magic Sauce” Schilders on a project called Virtually Possible.
We started chatting in early June and we’re really close to launching this new program! In this episode, I share my perspective on the collaboration process, and how you can facilitate a collaborative project with a) Someone you barely know, who b) Lives in another country.
We haven’t done things the traditional way: We don’t use emails to communicate at all!
I’d love this episode to inspire you to consider: Is there someone in this beautiful world who you could collaborate with to solve a problem?
On this weeks’ show, I’m taking you backstage!
If you’ve been listening for a few weeks, you’ll hear that I’m collaborating with Joeri “The Magic Sauce” Schilders on a project called Virtually Possible.
We started chatting in early June and we’re really close to launching this new program! In this episode, I share my perspective on the collaboration process, and how you can facilitate a collaborative project with a) Someone you barely know, who b) Lives in another country.
We haven’t done things the traditional way: We don’t use emails to communicate at all!
I’d love this episode to inspire you to consider: Is there someone in this beautiful world who you could collaborate with on a problem?
Collaboration is great for so many reasons - surprisingly, it’s also great for building your self-awareness.
I also share how you can identify a collaboration partner (hint: Look for someone who’s better than you at certain things!), how you can establish communication protocols and roles that play to your strengths, and the format for our sprint/work sessions last week.
Join us live!
Joeri and I are live-streaming onto YouTube later this week, sharing 5 ways you can ramp up the energy in virtual meetings (by being a little bit lazy). We’d love you to join in!
Click here to register (can’t make it live? We’ll email you the link!)
Resources mentioned in this show
About your host: Leanne Hughes
Leanne Hughes is an international facilitator, speaker and coach who loves creating unpredictable workshop experiences, that predictably work.
She combines her experience in Marketing, with her education in Human Resources and Psychology, to help leaders create engaging everyday experiences - that are so contagious they scale across teams, functions and regions.
Leanne has facilitated leadership, onboarding and team-development workshops across Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development. She has over 13 years’ of experience across a range of industries including mining, government and tourism sectors.
She’s the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and was a finalist in the 2018 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.
Waitlist: Virtually Possible
Virtually Possible is coming soon.
Also, you’ve heard it here first! Joeri from The Magic Sauce and I are collaborating on a program called Virtually Possible.
Sign up to the Virtually Possible wait list and join the movement
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Tweet Leanne your number one takeaway from this episode!
Grab my cheat sheet:
The 5 unpredictable ways to start a Zoom meeting (that predictably work)
Episode 129: Facilitating culture change, one conversation at a time with Prina Shah
In this week’s First Time Facilitator conversation with Prina Shah, you’ll learn how culture change works for organisations, balancing roles between being a consultant and workshop facilitator, how to build a facilitation business and also bringing in your personality and uniqueness.
So many times as facilitators we’re asked to come in to solve a specific problem: It could be communication, leadership challenges, absenteeism, decision fatigue or indecision, even. We’re given a lot of challenges and you know what? A lot of the time, it comes back to the culture of a team, the culture of an organisation and what standards and values have been set.
When you start talking about culture, it can get pretty complex, right?
So, where do you start?
That’s the focus of my conversation today with my guest, Prina Shah.
She is one of those rare HR people who have generalist and specialist experience AND she’s also working part-time and has her side hustle going as well - very cool.
We connected over IG and LinkedIn and as I mention during this interview, I really like the way Prina communicates her value with behind the scenes videos on social media. I saw she was doing some cool things and it’s why I reached out for a chat with her!
About today’s guest: Prina Shah
Prina has over 18 years’ experience of in-house management roles in the areas of Organisational / Leadership Development, Human Resources, Culture Change and Change Management for companies within the not for profit, government, utilities, small business and private sectors across London and Australia.
She’s based in my other favourite Australian city, Perth and she’s accredited in a variety of tools including the LSI, DISC and her specialisations include coaching, leadership and team development, facilitating culture change and more.
In this episode you will learn:
How culture change works for organisations
Balancing roles between being a consultant and workshop facilitator
Building a facilitation business
Bringing in personality and uniqueness
Here are some of the questions Leanne asked Prina during the interview:
If the client wants to set a new culture, where do you begin?
What do you do hen senior leaders are not role modelling positive culture?
What kind of workshops are you running? How did you progress and build your facilitation business?
How do you prepare the night before / or in the morning to get yourself in the energetic state that you need to be?
Resources:
Prina’s website
Follow Prina on Instagram
Connect with Prina on Linkedin
Continue the conversation when the show is over, join The Flipchart free group on Facebook
Quotes:
“I like the excitement of facilitating and not knowing how it’s going to go. Having an idea of what the outcome is but also going with the flow during the day.”
“As a first time facilitator, remember your personality, remember to be yourself rather than sticking to your slides.”
Waitlist: Virtually Possible
Virtually Possible is coming soon.
Also, you’ve heard it here first! Joeri from The Magic Sauce and I are collaborating on a program called Virtually Possible.
Sign up to the Virtually Possible wait list and join the movement
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Tweet Leanne your number one takeaway from this episode!
Grab my cheat sheet:
The 5 unpredictable ways to start a Zoom meeting (that predictably work)
Episode 128: Stop being so afraid: Nobody wants a humble consultant (and other truth bombs) from the rockstar of consulting, Alan Weiss
Leanne Hughes interviews the rock star of consulting, Alan Weiss on the First Time Facilitator podcast. Discover what it takes to create a million dollar consultancy.
If you’re going to learn something, you might as well learn from the best, right?
I’m still reeling from my interview with today’s guest, Alan Weiss.This is another episode for you if you run your own business or looking to be a solopreneur.
I reached out to Alan after Michael Bungay Stanier’s contribution to Episode 120, where he said, “If you read Alan Weiss’ book Million Dollar Consulting, you’ll never go hungry again”.
Alan Weiss is the rockstar of consulting. Marshall Goldsmith once called him “The finest entrepreneurial coach in the world.”
In today’s conversation we cover many topics, including:
Debunking the myth that the riches are in the niches
Who we should target in our marketing efforts (spoiler alert: Not HR or Training people)
How to create our value proposition to share the value we bring
Why it’s important to create content to build marketing gravity
Honestly? This is a masterclass in how to market your facilitation and consulting business.
This was also an experiential, Show.Up private community episode, where I invited members to ask Alan questions on the show.
Doors for Show.Up will open up in a couple of months - get notified when they do!
About our guest: Alan Weiss
Alan Weiss is one of those rare people who can say he is a consultant, speaker, and author and mean it.
His consulting firm, Summit Consulting Group, Inc., has attracted clients such as Merck, Hewlett-Packard, GE, Mercedes-Benz, State Street Corporation, Times Mirror Group, The Federal Reserve, The New York Times Corporation, Toyota, and over 500 other leading organizations. He has served on the boards of directors of the Trinity Repertory Company, a Tony-Award-winning New England regional theater, Festival Ballet, and chaired the Newport International Film Festival.
His speaking typically includes 20 keynotes a year at major conferences, and he has been a visiting faculty member at Case Western Reserve University, Boston College, Tufts, St. John’s, the University of Illinois, the Institute of Management Studies, and the University of Georgia Graduate School of Business.
He has held an appointment as adjunct professor in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Rhode Island where he taught courses on advanced management and consulting skills to MBA and PhD candidates.
He once held the record for selling out the highest priced workshop (on entrepreneurialism) in the then-21-year history of New York City’s Learning Annex. His Ph.D. is in psychology. He has served on the Board of Governors of Harvard University’s Center for Mental Health and the Media.
In this episode you will learn:
Tips for those starting out on how to get traction and build marketing gravity
How to shift from day rate pricing to value based pricing
Difference between niche consultancy and generalist consultancy
Providing clarity of outcomes when creating proposal for those those working in less tangible deliverables
Here are some of the questions Alan Weiss was asked during the interview:
Why is it important to differentiate marketing and consulting?
How do you build marketing gravity if you are just starting out?
What is your strategy for showing up delivering to the clients and marketing yourself on different channels?
How do you move from day rate pricing to value based pricing?
If you are a generalist process consultant how do you know where to market yourself?
What meetings do you recommend and how do you handle them?
How can we maintain more stability when it comes to associating with contracts?
Resources:
Alan Weiss’ website
Million Dollar Consulting Growth Access
Follow Alan Weiss on Twitter
Connect with Alan on Linkedin
Get your copy of the Million Dollar Consulting book here
Quotes:
“You're better off meeting with a buyer and failing to obtain immediate business than sitting at your desk designing "programs" and "offerings." The former is progress, the latter is procrastination”You're better off meeting with a buyer and failing to obtain immediate business than sitting at your desk designing "programs" and "offerings." The former is progress, the latter is procrastination.”
“When you are organized, focused and disciplined, then you have power because you are in control of your life.”
Waitlist: Virtually Possible
Virtually Possible is coming soon.
Also, you’ve heard it here first! Joeri from The Magic Sauce and I are collaborating on a program called Virtually Possible.
Sign up to the Virtually Possible wait list and join the movement
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Tweet Leanne your number one takeaway from this episode!
Grab my cheat sheet:
The 5 unpredictable ways to start a Zoom meeting (that predictably work)
Episode 124: How walkshops can help you read the room better with Jacinta Cubis
What happens when you mix street photography and facilitation together? Very cool things! You become a better observer, a key skill for facilitators.
We’ve never really taken a deep dive on the concept of “noticing”. Noticing your perspectives, other people’s perspectives, seeing things in a new light, or a different way.
I think this is always relevant, particular as facilitators - noticing, sensing what’s happening in a workshop room (or a Zoom room!).
My guest this week, Jacinta Cubis, is one of Melbourne’s most energetic and creative facilitators. She went to uni to become a journalist, exited a filmmaker and developed photographs in a Parisian basement.
She’s absolutely thrilled to be hosting Virtual #Facilitography Walkshops.
You heard it right, WALK SHOPS. What a cool concept.
Curious? Listen to find out more!
Jacinta is passionate about bringing out the best in people as a facilitator, coach and mentor.
As an author and speaker, she inspires and energises people with insights and ideas. She loves helping thought leaders and experts translate technical information into engaging content, and nail what they want to say, for diverse audiences.
She is the founder of #Facilitography that helps to train our eyes not just to look, but to see, notice and observe – with our phones and street photography. Better observers make better facilitators. Better project managers. Better team leaders. Better teachers. Better…everything!
About our Guest
Jacinta Cubis is one of Melbourne’s most energetic and creative facilitators. She went to uni to become a journalist, exited a filmmaker and developed photographs in a Parisian basement. She’s absolutely thrilled to be hosting Virtual #Facilitography Walkshops.
She helps take you on a creative 'walkshop' that helps you to get a good eye for reading the room - or the Zoom! #Facilitography can help anyone get better at reading the room and help:
Project teams connect to their strategy
Employees connect with each other
Communities show organisations what they like, want and need, in addition to telling them in writing and words
Internal teams see things from stakeholders and communities points of view
Stakeholders and partners see things from each other’s perspective
In this episode you will learn:
How you can get better at reading the room
Practicing observational skills for facilitation
How to give people photographic exercises based on what is useful for facilitation
Here are some questions Leanne asked Jacinta on the show:
How did you decide to start a career in facilitating workshops?
Can you share more what partnership brokering is all about?
What is facilitography?
How are you adapting/pivoting to the online world?
Resources:
Love Jacinta’s idea? Join one of her Introductory Walkshops on the last Tuesday of every month – details here.
Videos with examples of photo exercises that Jacinta give people in walkshops
Visit her the blog - Why Photography Is Great Training for Facilitation
Check out Jacinta’s #facilitography posts on Instagram – modelling the daily practice of observation and noticing
Connect with Jacinta:
Quotes:
“I am engaged to deliver outcomes.”
“Everyone can get better at looking (reading the room). If you practice your observational skills, it follows.”
“As facilitators, you have to work with what you’ve got.”
“Better observers, make better facilitators.”
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Tweet Leanne your number one takeaway from this episode!
Grab my cheat sheet:
The 5 unpredictable ways to start a Zoom meeting (that predictably work)
Episode 123: You lost me at hello: Re-engaging your audiences and nurturing your relationships with David Nour
What do you learn when you sit on 128 webinars in a week? My guest this week, David Nour shares his experiences and more in this episode!
What do you learn when you sit on 128 webinars in a week? My guest this week shares his experiences and more in this episode!
I invited senior leadership/board advisor, researcher, executive educator and best-selling author, David Nour on the show to talk about a phrase/book he’s releasing called Curve Benders. These are the strategic relationships we have in our lives - that can help our growth (personal, or business) dramatically. But how do you find these people in your life? How can you nurture these relationships?
David answer these questions and also shares a very cool story on how he created a speakers video reel, without ever speaking on stage!
About today’s guest: David Nour
David Nour was born in Iran, immigrated to the U.S. as a teenager with $100, limited family ties and no fluency in English. He graduated from Georgia State University with a bachelor’s degree in business management and went on to earn an Executive MBA from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University. He resides in Atlanta, GA, with his family.
He is internationally recognized as the leading expert on applications of strategic relationships in profitable growth, sustained innovation, and lasting change. The author of ten books, including best-sellers Relationship Economics® (Wiley), and Co-Create (St. Martin’s Press), as well as the forthcoming Curve Benders, Nour serves as a trusted advisor to global clients and coaches corporate leaders. He is an adjunct professor at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management, was named to the Global Gurus Top 30 Leadership Professionals list and is honored to be one of Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Global Coaches.
A Forbes Leadership contributor on the Future of Work, and an Inc. contributor on Relationship Economics, Nour’s unique insights have been featured in a variety of prominent publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fast Company, Huffington Post Business, Entrepreneur, and Knowledge@Wharton. He’s also the host of the popular Curve Benders podcast.
Resources mentioned in this episode
David Nour’s website: Nour Group
Check out and contribute to the Nour Forum
Listen to Nour’s podcast, Curve Benders
Social Media handles:
Connect with David Nour on LinkedIn
Instagram: @davidnour
Twitter: @davidnour
Quotes from David Nour
“Your relationships are your biggest assets.”
“Relationships should be intentional, strategic and ideally quantifiable in your journey from now to next.”
“Don’t let obstacles get in the way of what you’re after. Get creative, get scrappy, find a way to get there.”
“Use this pandemic to rethink, reimagine, reinvent, reinvigorate, parts of your life, parts of your job to go after that next level of personal and professional growth.”
“Many relationships come into our life that dramatically bend, shape our growth journey.”
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Tweet David Nour your favourite part of this episode.
Tweet Leanne your number one takeaway from this episode!
Grab my cheat sheet:
The 5 unpredictable ways to start a Zoom meeting (that predictably work)
Disrupt HR: The Creative Process in 7 Simple Steps
Last month I was up in lights at the Disrupt HR event in Brisbane. It’s the first time the event has been brought to sunny Queensland and the HR Community in the river-city came out in their droves, to hear from nine diverse speakers about the Future of Work.The format for the presentations is fast and furious – 20 slides with only 15 seconds spent on each slide. That’s 5 minutes to ignite some interest in the audience, lead them down the road with a story or personal anecdote, throw some stats around and inspire them to take action. Yes, it’s a tough gig.Here’s the video of my presentation ‘How one switch can improve your nine-to-five'’. I spoke about something really simple - office furniture, in particular, the sit-stand desk and its impact on productivity and quality of work life.How One Switch Can Improve Your Nine-to-Five | Leanne Hughes | DisruptHR Talks.When you write for Disrupt HR, you really need to consider your topic. I learnt a lot while preparing for the stage and thought I’d share my tips.But before we start, I want you to put yourself in the ring and:
Back your experience and your public speaking ability - then DO IT. Submit your application.
When I read on LinkedIn that Intelli HR were bringing the event to Brisbane, I thought ‘Geez that event looks interesting! I’ll DEFINITELY grab a ticket and tell my colleagues all about it too’.A few minutes later, my thoughts changed to, ‘Hey…I think I could actually speak at this thing’. I resonated with the tagline of the event: ‘DISRUPT is an information exchange designed to energize, inform and empower people in the HR field.’I love all things disruptive, so I expressed my interest with the event organisers, told them a bit about myself, outlined a couple of topic ideas and then forgot all about it.A few weeks later I received the call up. I was locked in to the program. And I was terrified.
Why did I sign up and why do I recommend you do the same?
I recently listened to this podcast from Pat Flynn – ‘Why you belong on Stage – Pat’s “braindump” of public speaking and presentation tips’. He explains how public speaking changed his life (how it helped to build his personal brand/credibility, led him to new opportunities, and opened his door to meeting other influencers), and other compelling reasons that will have you on the stage in no time. I recommend you plug in those headphones, go for a walk and listen to Pat’s wisdom. But if you don’t have that much time than this image pretty much sums it up:
You may be thinking 'I don’t know what to talk about', 'I don’t have credibility in any particular HR niche', 'I can’t memorise my speech' or 'I’m not creative'.And guess what? That’s completely normal. Most (if not all) speakers up on stage have had these thoughts at some stage in our career. It's whether you choose to ignore them and forge ahead, which makes all of the difference.Through this process working on my speech, I went through all stages of the change cycle. Denial, particularly, which manifested in the form of procrastination. Six weeks out I needed to submit my topic idea and a brief descriptor.Here’s a little wrap-up of the 7 step process I went through to deliver my Disrupt HR speech, from topic generation through to performance.
Step 1. Topic choice
By far, for me this was the trickiest of all the stages. I read a lot of blog posts and article on which topic to choose from and spent a while fleshing out ideas using mind maps.My criteria was that I wanted a topic which was fairly pragmatic, meaning that it was useful for the audience and they could take practical action the minute the speech was over.However, after listening to Michael Port’s podcast, ‘Steal the Show’, I realised that I was going about this all the wrong way...
The real Step 1 is: Profile the audience
The event isn’t about you, it’s about serving your audience and determining what’s in it for them.Think about the type of people that will attend an event like this. The brief attracts a local HR professional type audience. Think of a HR professional, one person in particular and profile their demographics - gender, age, education.Map out their career needs, fears, wants and frustrations.Think about:
- Why they’re attending a HR event after a long day at the office, when they could be spending time with their family.
- Why they’re attending an event that talks about disruption.
The key here is to not think about this criteria too broadly, you really want to target one person. As you work in the HR space, think of a colleague or boss that you could profile.Through this process, I realised that the majority of HR Professionals still work in an office environment and there are common concerns associated with that, such as our lack of movement and collaboration when you sit in the same spot, every day.This linked into something I’m passionate about - which is physical activity and how standing up while working can make you feel great, as well as lift your levels of innovation, collaboration and efficiency.You really don’t want to spend too long in the topic choice stage. Once you’ve made the decision, commit to it and cut off all other options. You still have a lot more work to do.
Step 2: Researching the topic
At this stage you want to use a range of sources, such as:
- Your own personal anecdotes and experiences (start thinking of interesting stories related to the topic)
- Data/research/stats to support your idea - Spend a couple hours on Google- I’d recommend both academic articles and also researching interesting blog perspectives.
- Chatting to other people on their thoughts to validate your topic
- Podcasts related to the area (makes it easier when you’re commuting/walking/don't have time to sit down and read)
I spent a few hours over two days, gathering all my stats, quotes and information together. With all of the information collated, I realised there were three broad themes to address;How sit-stand desks improve:
- Your health
- Your productivity
- Your levels of collaboration in an open-plan office.
Step 3: Drafting the speech
I spent most of my time in this phrase, writing and re-writing content, deleting, adding, tweaking and re-inveting… this is unavoidable.The good news is, that the PowerPoint slide auto-advancing speech format isn’t new. I drew inspiration from blog articles based on the Pecha Kucha format (20 slides x 20 seconds), particularly this one: Your Ultimate guide to giving PechaKucha presentations’.I also drew inspiration from the book The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience (Business Skills and Development) by Carmine Gallo. In the book, Gallo outlines how Steve Jobs used to sequence his big product talks in ‘rules of three’. He also used simple, visually powerful slides and he used stories to create ‘pain points’. After setting the audience up, he then offered the audience a solution to these problems (eg. the iPhone).As your speech time is limited, you need to use your visual slides to support/amplify your key messages and arguments. To plan this, I drafted my speech in a table with the following column headings:
- Slide number (1-20)
- Topic (eg. How sit-stand desks support Health)
- Content (data, stories to support stories)
- Slide image ideas (visual elements that make the content come to life)
I calculated my speech pace at 900 words over 5 mins (pretty quick) and I had written 1800 words. Cutting back was tough - it’s a balance of giving the audience enough to understand your message; but nothing too prescriptive that you’re spoon-feeding them.I dedicated 40% of my speech to setting the pain point (how our lack of movement is slowly killing us). The remainder of the speech was offering a solution. I also spent two slides opening up the presentation talking about something completely unrelated to the topic, the Wallabies recent form in the rugby league. This was to draw the audience in and to start them thinking 'How on earth does this relate to us?'How to defeat that writer's block? My tip for writing a speech is to pretend you’re writing for the rubbish bin. You just need to get those thoughts down, no matter how ridiculous and lame they sound at the time. From there, you can edit – add, tweak, adjust as needed, but building momentum is important.While drafting the speech I was also open to incorporating other concepts (especially after listening to Michael Port’s interview with Neen James on creating contextual models). I listened to another podcast where Michael Port interviewed author, Jonathan Fields. Jonathan was introducing his Good Life Project. He spoke about all of us having three buckets in our lives - our Contribution, Connection and Vitality buckets. I loved the law of the buckets and realised it was the perfect contextual model to align with my topic.I raced back home that night and read more about from Fields on How to Live a Good Life: Soulful Stories, Surprising Science, and Practical Wisdom
Step 4: Create powerful slides
I think slides are an element that speakers don’t prepare enough for/are understated.Remember, each slide flashes only for 15 seconds, so the slide must be strong, less words (or words with impact), bold, large visuals.Limit collages. Limit low-resolution files. Limit the clip-art.Each slide must support your argument and draw your audience in.Another simple tip - keep a simple visual theme weaved throughout the presentation. I chose a theme through Canva to design my slides.
Step 5: Do your first paper reading
Once you’ve drafted the speech, Michael Port suggests you do a ‘paper reading’. This is where you print your draft speech notes out, sit at your dining table and read your script aloud in a normal voice. This is a really useful exercise where you can determine which words/phrases feel comfortable off the tongue and sound authentic to you. You can extend this further and start ‘blocking’ your speech. This means, highlighting words where you’ll pause, increase volume and change tone. You can also block your movement - such as walking at a specific time, where you'll move your arms to emphasise a point, etc.Once you’ve done a couple of these, lock that speech down and move onto…
Step 6: Rehearse, rehearse and rehearse…Then, rehearse again
If you present at one of these gigs, the biggest challenge is that you can't take speech notes on stage.I don’t know any quick memorisation hacks. For me, it was all about practising when I had the chance. One practical tip I recommend is to record your speech into your Voice Memos iPhone app. I did this and would play it back when I was driving, out for a run or walking the dogs - it was an effective way to rehearse along.When I was getting the ‘hang’ of it, I’d start rehearsing from a quarter/half the way through the speech.I also recommend rehearsing in front of a trusted advisor. I’m lucky I work with a fantastic, HR professional (thanks Jordana) who gives excellent and honest feedback. The external validity and advice gives you confidence that a) You’re on the right path or b) Yes you need to tweak some things but you'll be good on delivery day.
Step 7: Showtime
Try to get a good night’s sleep the night before your performance!I didn’t rehearse too hard on the day, as I knew the time I had invested leading up to this moment had served me well. All I was focused on before the speech was staying relaxed, warming up my voice, and reminding myself to enjoy the moment.One of my favourite videos that I show anyone I help prepare speeches with, is this TED Talk from Julian Treasure – I usually start it from the six minute mark.Pat Flynn said that it's important to arrive early and mingle with your audience. He learnt this from Dale Carnegies’ book ‘Stand and deliver’. The purpose of this is two-fold:
- You connect with you a couple of people so it doesn't feel like you're presenting in front of a bunch of strangers (no longer as strangers)
- The audience members think it’s pretty cool that they’re meeting someone who is about to walk on the stage.
Conclusion
Phew! A lot of tips and detail there. Finally, just enjoy the rush of being up in lights. It’s an amazing experience and a mega adrenaline rush.Special thanks again to the team at IntelliHR for a superb evening and I will be plugging the next version when it hits Brisbane next time.