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How To Monetise Your Personal Brand: Leanne Hughes and Petra Zink (#friendsoffirsttimefacilitator) #203

Petra Zink interviews Leanne Hughes on how to monetise your personal brand.

Hello friends! Over the next few weeks, I'm sharing podcast episode where I've been the guest! Today, you're listening to an epic conversation I had on my friend Petra Zink's podcast, Your Brand, Your Future.

Quick announcements:

In this conversation, Petra and I discuss:

  • how to identify opportunities that have potential and can be monetised

  • what to do in the lead up to monetising an idea

  • her roadmap and how she prepared for the transition

  • the power (and necessity) of a strong and supportive network

  • ways to turn a conversation into a commercial opportunity

  • ... and a whole lot more!

About today's host:
Petra Zink is a certified Personal Branding & Digital Strategist, Speaker, Coach & Consultant - specialised in helping corporate professionals go from expert in their company to trusted authority in their industry by building strong Personal Brands.

She is the Founder of impaCCCt and The360Talent.Co - both companies are designed to future-proof individuals and organisations through coaching, online courses, training and practical keynotes. 

Petra combines 10 years in Brand and Product Marketing with 5 years in recruitment and has developed a blueprint that 400+ professionals have used to clarify, communicate and commercialise their Personal Brand so they can establish themselves as the authority in their space.

Her programs are designed for busy Professionals who want to learn how to stand out in their marketplace by turning their expertise into real impact.

Clients include industry leading leaders in digital, technology, legal and financial industries, entrepreneurs, and corporates who understand the importance of building strong Personal Brands to heighten their Company Brand. 

Petra is also the host of the Your Brand. Your Future podcast show, a mix of mini masterclasses and interviews with global thought leaders on the strategies and tactics to becoming the authority and using it to drive an industry, a conversation, or a new way of thinking.

Petra specialises in future-proofing individuals and organisations by helping them transform their expertise and authority into compelling Personal Brands. 

Petra Zink interviews Leanne Hughes about monetizing your personal brand

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How to plan an off-site retreat: Behind the scenes planning for The Junket (Episode 202)

In this behind the scenes episode, Leanne Hughes shares how she’s planning her first off-site retreat called The Junket.

What’s The Junket retreat? It’s a small, awesome event I’m hosting down the Gold Coast in February 2022.

After months of thinking and talking about it, I’ve decided to jump right in and host my first, ever off-site retreat!

Planning an event is, as I share in this episode, a decision-making factory on steroids. There are so many decisions, where do you start?

I share my process for designing this retreat across these topics:

  • Mindset

  • Intention/purpose

  • Naming your event

  • Validating your event: interest vs Interest

  • Structure

  • Food and drink

  • Crafting an invitation letter

  • X-factor

  • The C Word

Your invite to come along: Take a look at The Junket retreat invitation letter. There’s only 7 spots remaining, and I’d love to hang out with you at The Gold Coast.

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, Papua New Guinea, and Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development.  She has over 14 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 is the Winner (External) in the 2021 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.

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The Free Time Facilitator: How you can lose the busywork, and love your business with Jenny Blake (Episode 201 #encore)

Jenny Blake shares how facilitator business owners’ can free up their time!

I quit Instagram for the rest of the year after having this conversation!

Welcome to an encore episode!

There is no one else I’d “open up” the podcast for, than the one and only, Jenny Blake. I shared this interview with the Booked Out Facilitator group, and I think it’s the perfect conversation to share with you today, as we close off the year and look to scheme + dream what we work on in 2022.

This is the first interview Jenny Blake has done to promote her fabulous (and much-needed) new book, Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love your Business. It’s a playbook to free your mind, time, and team for your best work. It is an invitation to reimagine how you run your business.

I want to share an excerpt about her book, so you get a sense of what you’re in for in today’s chat:

“Your time is far more precious than money.  It is your presence, your memories, your quality of life. For many, growth fuelled by added stress is not worth the tradeoff. You have an urge to simplify and streamline.  Ask yourself: are you consistently doing the work that you and only you can do? If you are burdened by busywork, the bottleneck in the way of your company’s profit and potential, this book is for you."

In this conversation, we also talk about choosing your niche, and how to build a business without social media. Jenny also takes us behind the scenes and shares how she uses Notion to capture and curate her ideas.

After you listen, ask yourself this question: “What do you need a permission to do?”

Jenny Blake is an author, podcaster, and keynote speaker who loves helping business owners move from friction to flow through smarter systems, powered by Delightfully Tiny Teams. Her third book, Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business, launches March 22, 2022. Jenny’s previous book, Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One, won the Axiom award for best business book in the careers category in 2016. Licensing clients for her Pivot Programs include Google and CHANEL.

About today’s guest: Jenny Blake 

Jenny Blake is an author, podcaster keynote speaker heading up Delightfully Tiny Teams, Jenny Blake is passionate about helping business owners move from the everyday hustle to strategic smarter systems. Jenny has released two books: Life After College, Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One, which won the Axiom award for best business book in the careers category in 2016 and she is now set to release her third book on March 22, 2022, called Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business. 

Free Time for Heart-Based business owners and Pivot with Jenny Blake are two podcasts that Jenny hosts with a combined one million worldwide downloads. 

Since working at Silicon Valley startup, Jenny then did five years in coaching and career development at Google. In 2011 Jenny then moved to the Big Apple (New York City) to launch her own business and to this day as we know it, Jenny lives in Manhattan with her husband and her angel-in-fur-coat German shepherd. She loves yoga and buys too many books. Learn more and take the Free Time quiz at ItsFreeTime.com.

In this episode you will learn:

  • Solopreneurs can build their business without hustling 

  • What nonlinear breakthroughs are and how they can help grow you as a person and your business

  • How to escape distractions

  • How to store and retain your ideas

  • Where you can start when it comes to licensing your IP

Here are some sample questions we asked Jenny on the show:

  • What is a nonlinear breakthrough? How can it serve us in our business?

  • How do we create “Hockey Stick” moments? We are told to focus on one thing. We are curious. Is it about asking and being open to it?

  • How do you build your business without being on social media when we live in a digital-first world?  

  • How can we escape distractions? 

  • Is there an opportunity for corporates to take on a non-linear breakthrough?  

  • How do you push your book without social media?

  • How do you store/retain ideas?

  • Are there certain requirements to licence a program?

  • How do you know when pressure is motivating or debilitating?  


Resources mentioned in this episode:


Quotes from the Episode:

  • “To be forgiving of ourselves and don’t allow the pressures to creep into the deep work time” 

  • “When you are in corporate I think you have to put in private meetings on the calendar that are for yourself otherwise people take them. That is what is so tricky about corporate calendars people feel entitled to grab the time.”

Watch the video below

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The finale with Leanne Hughes + listeners (Episode 200)

The final First Time Facilitator podcast with Leanne Hughes - reflections from Leanne and listeners on 200, amazing episodes.

What can I say that hasn’t already been said?

There’s a temptation because it’s the last show to try to share something that’s the most valuable thing, that summarises the last 200 weeks of my life.

Then perspective hits and I realise, that’s nothing I can really say in “one final episode” to summarise two-hundred weeks of conversations, content creation, Monday deadlines, audio editing, posting on social media, laughs, workshops, travel, Covid, etc.

Some key things:

  • Yes! I will be starting something new, I’m still working my way and deciding what that is. In the meantime, you’ll hear some “From the vault” episodes every Monday (with new intros)

  • The best way to keep in touch with what’s next is to;

Ending a podcast is very different to ending a job. You know when you leave a job, you get all these lovely messages/people who you least expected signing your farewell card?

The magic of hosting this show, is that as the show continued, every week I’d hear from someone who found an episode helpful, or they discovered the show at EXACTLY THE RIGHT TIME for them in their career.

The show couldn’t have got here without you. It’s been a co-creation process this whole time. I’d like to thank the following people who submitted voice notes and emails for the final episode, in no particular order:

Juan Daniel Sobrado, Beth Wonson, Tom Scantlebury, Prina Shah, Garbiel Furman, Jan Szmanda, Tim Ferguson, Tony Brazelton, Julia van Graas, Kevin Meenaghan, Sally Prosser, Paul McGregor, Sean Lavin, May Lee, Lauren Scholz, Ken Burgin, Joeri Schilders, Deanne Gagnon, Gordon Rhodes, Cathryn Lloyd and Thomas Fry.

A reflection question that’s fitting to ask you now is this: Is there anything you need to stop, in order to progress where you’d like to be?

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, Papua New Guinea, and Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development.  She has over 14 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 is the Winner (External) in the 2021 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.

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Facilitating audio only sessions to give your thoughts an audience with Ronsley Vaz (Episode 199)

Leanne Hughes interviews Ronsley Vaz about moderating audio-only workshops and sessions.

If I were to think of two words that describe this podcast's main themes, they would be "courage" and "preparation".

  • Preparation - so that we can feel ready to adapt to what happens in the room, a feeling of, "I/the group have got this -- Whatever happens!"

  • Courage is about taking the opportunity, saying yes to when we feel like we're not just ready yet. 

With the emergence of Clubhouse and launch of audio-only rooms across platforms like Twitter and Facebook, how do you create an environment where people have the courage to come off mute? How can you create an inclusive conversation, when you can't see people and pick up on their body language?

There's no one better to riff on this topic than the CEO of Australia's first audio agency. Yes, he loves audio more than I do!

My guest today is Ronsley Vaz. Ronsley is the reason I started this podcast.

I went to his We Are Podcast event in Brisbane in Nov 2017, without any intention of starting a podcast. Three months later, First Time Facilitator was launched into the world. 

This interview was a ton of fun to record, at Ronsley's home studio in Brisbane and I'm so glad I could share a full-circle moment with all of you.

Ronsley has recently started identifying himself as a facilitator but I placed him in that bucket a long time ago.  He has an insane ability to connect, bring people together, and make magic happen.

About my guest: Ronsley Vaz

Ronsley is the executive producer of The Psychology of Entrepreneurship, & host of Should I Start a Podcast. He is also the founder of the award-winning audio marketing agency Must Amplify. Must Amplify is best known for helping leading brands, personalities & businesses raise their voice through podcasting, while positioning their message to stand out in a crowded market place. These include some of the world's most impactful actors, entrepreneurs, athletes, artists & politicians. 

Ronsley is passionate about sharing his knowledge and experience to those interested in adding a podcast to their business profile. It’s that very passion that helped build his vast network of podcasting professionals all over the planet. Along with his team at Must Amplify, Ronsley produces the unique audio docuseries The Psychology of Entrepreneurship,This innovative podcast dives deep into the minds of creatives using research and data to explore complicated concepts.

As the executive producer and host of the show Should I Start a Podcast, Ronsley offers tactical advice and information to podcasting newbies and those curious about the medium. Along with his first podcast, the mega-successful Bond Appetit, Ronsley has been downloaded more than 5 million times across 133 countries. His TEDx Talk which was made a TED talk in 2020, “The Perfect Recipe for a Deep Conversation”, touches on his passion of exploring the world through his voice, and the voices of others.

Cool tools available from Ronsley check them out!

In this episode you will learn:

  • Why it’s important to assess, and choose the people you spend the most time with

  • How Ronsley has successfully confidently navigated career changes

  • How to moderate audio-only conversations

  • Why it’s important to verbalise what’s on your mind

Questions Leanne asked Ronsley Vaz:

  • What do you think it is about your ability to connect with people?

  • How do you see the energy and the way you show up helps in the way you do your business?

  • What gives you the confidence to change careers?

  • How do you make a conscious decision of choosing the right reps?

  • What did you find from the experience when you can’t see people but are able to moderate that? 

Resources mentioned on 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, Papua New Guinea, and Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development.  She has over 14 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 is the Winner (External) in the 2021 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.

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198: Igniting the genius in the room with Shannon Dean Hughes

Leanne Hughes interviews Shannon Dean Hughes about her experience using improv in her workshops to help her clients dream big.

Something I'm pondering right now is how often our ideas are cemented in reality ("How would this actually work?") which can limit our capacity to dream big.

My guest today inspires her guests to go against that inclination, and to start exploring possibilities. We often go through a live role-play on this call to see how we can bring this approach to exploration in our workshops.

My guest today is Shannon Hughes. Yes, you can never have enough Hughes’ in your life!

In this conversation, Shannon shares how she incorporates improv techniques into her work to enliven creativity and collaboration - I like her ideas around making your partner look good. She shares some activities she’s delivered on virtual calls as well - listen in for the activity she delivers using SILENCE.

Shannon’s also offering her free download to you: Tips and Tricks to Enlivened your Virtual Gatherings

About our guest: Shannon Dean Hughes

Shannon  is an experiential trainer with a calling to enliven the innate genius, creative resourcefulness and easeful collaboration in businesses of all shapes and sizes. In her practice, Enlivened Studios, she brings strategic business mentorship and experiential teaching practices to break down cross-team silos and embolden transformational leadership.

With 20+ years of corporate marketing and HR strategy experience, plus a lifetime of proven leadership, performance and creative devotion, her work combines skill + heart into every Enlivened Studios session. Through this work, she’s on a mission to help people live fully, lead consciously and impact the world with joy and collective aliveness.

In this episode you will learn:

  • The value of using AND instead of BUT

  • How you can design your workshop to build psychological safety (and avoid resistance)

  • How to create exercises for workshops that energise and connect your participants quickly

Questions Leanne asked Shannon during the interview

  • How did you discover and bring in your performance side in the facilitation space?

  • How do you get that thinking going, your improvisation?

  • How do you deal with some type of resistance?

  • Have you had those moments where you feel you’re being tested?

Resources mentioned:

Watch the episode here!

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, Papua New Guinea, and Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development.  She has over 14 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 is the Winner (External) in the 2021 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.

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197: A reflection extravaganza: What happens when you’re no longer a First Time Facilitator? Jan Szmanda interviews Leanne Hughes

Big announcement for the show! In this episode, Jan Szmanda takes over the host seat, to interview Leanne Hughes on her own show where she reflects on 3 years of podcasting and facilitation.

Oooh… this episode is a watershed moment. I make a big announcement.

Back in episode 50, I gave the podcast microphone to my colleague and friend Sean Lavin to interview on the show, to reflect on what i’d learnt both personally and professionally from the show.

It’s now 147 episodes (and weeks!) later. I think I’ve grown up a little. My perspective has changed, so I thought it was a fitting moment to sit back into the guest seat and reflect on that journey, while also sharing a pretty massive update (from my perspective!) about the First Time Facilitator podcast.

This time, I invited a listener to jump into the host seat.

When I was planning this episode and releasing “the news”, I wanted to pull it back to my intention of starting the podcast in February 2018. Back then, I really was a first time facilitator, working in Organisational Development but pulled in to lead workshops with little experience - desperately wanting to get better at creating engaging experiences and group dialogue.

So, I handed the microphone to a listener who demonstrates the values of this show: An energy and willingness to reach out, a growth mindset, someone willing to say yes, accept opportunities..

I’m delighted to announce your host for today’s episode is Jan Szmanda. Jan is based out of Madison WI in the US, he currently has the privilege of running workshops on leadership development and team effectiveness and is excited to continue growing in the field of organizational development.

You can find him most active on Twitter and LinkedIn and he'd love to connect with you!

Jan’s enthusiasm about this podcast shines through, he’s listened to the show since 2019 and taken great notes over the years. Most importantly, he’s taken ideas from this show, tried things out.

As I mentioned, there’s a big announcement in this podcast and if you’d like to help me in celebrating 200 episodes of First Time Facilitator, I’d really love to get your voice on the show.

To share what First Time Facilitator has taught you, has inspired from you, or anything really - head on over to leannehguhes.com/200 to share what the show has done for you!


About today’s host: Jan Szmanda

Jan Szmanda is a facilitator, L&D geek, board gamer, new puppy parent, and long time FTF listener. Based out of Madison WI in the US, he currently has the privilege of running workshops on leadership development and team effectiveness and is excited to continue growing in the field of organizational development.

You can find him most active on Twitter and LinkedIn and he'd love to connect with our listeners.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Watch the episode here!

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, Papua New Guinea, and Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development.  She has over 14 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 is the Winner (External) in the 2021 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.

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196: Having the courage to facilitate with flair with Suzanne Rose

The magic of this podcast is that I get to connect with amazing facilitators around the world. I met today's guest through the podcast. She also lives in Brisbane and over the last couple of years we’ve hung out at various events, she's hosted some Flipchart meetups at her property and over coffees (and wine!) we've riffed off all of the topics related to group dynamics, learning and facilitation. Her passion simply shines through. So of course, I had to get her on the show!

My guest is Suzanne Rose and she is a Sergeant of the Queensland Police Service, having joined in 1998. She was poached by a spotter in recent years, and landed the perfect role for her personality, running professional development workshops for police training facilitators. This includes her favourite signature three-day facilitation skills workshop - 'Facilitate with Flair'. 

Her role has led her to study the craft of facilitation beyond her organisation, and to learn what is best practice based on research from around the world, including studies from the fields of neuroscience and educational psychology. 

We talk more about her Facilitate with Flair experience and how she navigates the mindset of "doing things differently" when working in an organisation which is hierarchical, and where things are done a certain way.

Suzanne is committed to transforming aspects of police organisational culture around training. She hopes to reduce the mortality rate with the cause of death being PowerPoint, and actively inspires facilitators to be brave enough to try more engaging and fun ways to deliver their sessions - even the heavy, dry and serious policing topics. 

About our guest: Suzanne Rose

Suzanne Rose is a Sergeant of the Queensland Police Service in Australia, having joined in 1998. Most of her service has been in frontline street policing, with a taste of property crime investigation, and years as a Police Operational Advisor in a non-urgent contact centre. When not on COVID Deployments, she is now based at the Police Academy.

In recent years she was rescued from her mundane role of editing e-learning word documents when she was hand-picked by a supervisor who identified her presentation skills and wanted her in his team...to run professional development workshops for training staff. Her favourite is a three-day facilitation skills workshop she calls 'Facilitate with Flair'. The careful design of the content and activities led her to study the craft of facilitation beyond her organisation, and to learn what is 'best practice' based on research from around the world— including studies from the fields of neuroscience and educational psychology. 

Suzanne is committed to transforming aspects of her organisation's training culture. For starters, she hopes to see long sessions morphed into bite-sized 20 minute learning episodes with a short brain break or energisers in between. Also, she wants a reduction in the mortality rate caused by 'Death by PowerPoint' - with more active learning done in its place.

What drives Suzanne is her passion for inspiring facilitators to be brave about trying new, engaging and diverse ways to deliver their sessions (which often cover heavy, dry topics). This will lead to greater participant engagement, retention of information, and transfer of knowledge and skills to the workplace. Connecting with people across her organisation and other agencies through her role lights her up, and she dreams of a world in which all facilitation is 'anti-boring'.

 Suzanne is a full-time working mum who lives in Brisbane on acreage in koala habitat. She lives with her husband and their two young daughters, a Labrador, 7 pet chickens who love cuddles, and an abundance of wallabies, possums, rainbow lorikeets and kookaburras around their bush property. She spends her spare time making fun memories with her girls, and can't wait to take them on adventures through far-away lands abroad where nothing is taken for granted. 

Question Leanne asked Suzanne during the interview:

  • What were you thinking when you jumped to facilitation?

  • What common mistakes do you see some facilitators make and how can you help?

  • Do you believe that any session can be made interesting, interactive, and engaging?

  • How do you develop the confidence and try different things and experiment and push the boundaries?

  • How do you get ready before a session?

  • What are your tips for first-time facilitators?

In this episode you will learn:

  • How to help boost participation in your workshops

  • How to develop confidence in the way you facilitate

  • Some of the common traps first time facilitators make

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Watch the episode here!

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, Papua New Guinea, and Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development.  She has over 14 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 is the Winner (External) in the 2021 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.

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Episode 195: Real recognition is following-up (after the follow-up) with Sarah McVanel

We all know relationships require ongoing maintenance, you can’t just “set and forget”. And that’s the hard part, right? Continuing conversations, staying present in each other’s lives, getting the space to reach out and reconnect with people you’ve met, and clients you’ve previously worked with.

There’s no one better at connecting and staying front of mind (from a place of service) than today’s guest, Sarah McVanel.

That’s right folks, Sarah is back for the third time on the First Time Facilitator podcast! And guess what? A week after we spoke on the show, I received a birthday card in the mail from Sarah so rest assured, she role models every strategy that she shares in today’s episode.

Sarah focuses on recognition and using it in a variety of ways - for re-engaging your workforce, to re-engaging with clients, and ultimately as a retention strategy.

Over the last 18 months, Sarah’s business has rapidly evolved to meet her client demands and in this conversation, I ask how she helped recognise her healthcare clients (in particular, nurses) by hosting a virtual Nurse’s Week celebration.

Enjoy the listen!

About our guest; Sarah McVanel

Sarah McVanel helps individuals leverage the exponential power of recognition to retain top talent, fuel healthy teams and sustain healthy bottom lines. She speaks nationally on the topic, leads workshops, coaches leaders, and conducts organizational recognition program reviews.

Sarah is a Certified Senior Organizational Development Professional (CSODP), Professional Certified Coach (PCC) and Certified Human Resources Leader (CHRL). She is one of 1500 Certified Professional Speakers (CSP) worldwide and Past-President of the Toronto Chapter of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers (CAPS). She has a BA in Psychology, MSc in Family Relations, and Diplomas in Human Resources and Healthcare Administration.

Sarah has 20 years of experience including at a senior leadership level and now owns a boutique firm Greatness Magnified. She is an author of peer-reviewed journals, articles, five books, "Forever Recognize Others' Greatness: Solution Focused Strategies for Satisfied Staff, High Performing Teams and Healthy Bottom Lines" (2015), "The FROG Effect: Tools and Strategies to Forever Recognize Others' Greatness" (2016), #GreatnessBizHacks: 100+ Tips to Grow a Profitable, Service-Based Biz you Love, FLIP Side of Failing: How to Recognize and Leverage Greatness in Work and Life (2019) and ROCKSTAR: Magnifying Your Greatness in Times of Change (June 2020).

Helping leaders leverage the exponential power of recognition to retain top talent and sustain healthy bottom-lines. Curating healthy workplace cultures through FROG - Forever Recognize Others' Greatness - through the modalities of speaking, training, coaching and a range of books and products.

Sarah's insights into how to harness the greatness within yourself and your organization will inspire, challenge and focus you...and leave you with a powerful new understanding of your work, your colleagues and your life!

In this episode you will learn:

  • How to build loyalty with your clients

  • How to create customers for life by appreciating them always

  • How to create content (in a low-friction way) that add value consistently

  • Mindset hacks for facilitators

Here are some sample questions I asked Sarah during the interview

  • What has been going on for you and your business? 

  • Can you please share with us the nurses’ week initiative you’ve done?

  • Can you please share with us how to create loyalty with your clients and spot new opportunities as well and how it applies to us as facilitation business owners? 

Resources mentioned in this episode:


Watch the episode now!

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, Papua New Guinea, and Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development.  She has over 14 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 is the Winner (External) in the 2021 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.

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Episode 193: The Self Employed Facilitator Life with Jeffrey Shaw

When I dropped out of corporate life three years ago, I remember trying to write social media posts, emails, even website copy and I couldn’t break out of that “be professional” way of doing things.

As a result, my messages came across very vanilla and didn’t really attract anyone (let alone my dream clients!).

I’m honestly still trying to break that mindset, that balance between being myself, showing up authentically, and being confident that by doing that, I’ll attract the right people.

That’s the conversation I have with today’s guest, Jeffrey Shaw, author of The Self Employed Life.

He’s a legend in the self-employment game and I’m so delighted to share our conversation with all of you today.

When I dropped out of corporate life three years ago, I remember trying to write social media posts, emails, even website copy and I couldn’t break out of that “be professional” way of doing things.

As a result, my messages came across very vanilla and didn’t really attract anyone (let alone my dream clients!).

I’m honestly still trying to break that mindset, that balance between being myself, showing up authentically, and being confident that by doing that, I’ll attract the right people.

That’s the conversation I have with today’s guest, Jeffrey Shaw, author of The Self Employed Life.

Jeffrey shares wonderful perspectives on our facilitation business messaging (like “Don’t worry about repeating yourself!"), how he gets into state to deliver his sessions, and he also shares his perspective on why the work that we do as facilitators does take its toll on our energy levels.

Speaking of energy, Jeffrey shares a cool tip on how you can boost your productivity by setting different environments, for different tasks.

He’s a legend in the self-employment game and I’m so delighted to share our conversation with all of you today.

About our guest: Jeffrey Shaw

How many people can say they’ve never worked for anyone else? Selling eggs door-to-door at 14 years old began a lifetime of self-employment. As a speaker and small business coach, Jeffrey Shaw helps self-employed and small business owners gain control of their business in what seems like otherwise uncontrollable circumstances.

 Drawing on his experience as a renowned portrait photographer, Jeffrey shows business owners how to see business through a different lens and strategies to compose the often-chaotic pieces of life and business into sustainable success.

 Jeffrey’s TEDx Lincoln Square talk is featured on TED.com, he’s the host of the top-rated podcast, The Self-Employed Life, author of The Self-Employed Life and LINGO, an in-demand keynote speaker at conferences, events and universities, a LinkedIn Learning instructor and contributing writer to Entrepreneur magazine.

In this episode your will learn:

  • How Jeffrey designs his workshop experiences around 7 fundamental shifts he’d like to create for his participants

  • How to consider your facilitation business messaging, using the analogy of stakes (big stake, little stake)

  • How to think about writing your email broadcasts in a way, that doesn’t feel inauthentic

  • Jeffrey’s productivity hack using different work environments around your house

  • How Jeffrey gets into the right energy before he jumps onto stage / in the virtual workshop room

  • The responsibility you have on your shoulders as the workshop facilitator

  • A very cool activity called the “Up it” activity you can use to dream big!

Resources mentioned in this episode:


Watch the episode now!

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, Papua New Guinea, and Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development.  She has over 14 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 is a finalist in the 2021 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.

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Episode 192: Stop designing workshops. Start designing experiences with Tricia Conyers

Tricia Conyers from Island Inspiration shares her workshop experience design methods and facilitation tips on Leanne Hughes’ podcast.

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This week, we’re spinning our focus back onto the craft of facilitation with a guest who I so resonate with in terms of her enthusiasm for the work we do, her passion for trying different things and of course, because she throws away those powerpoint slides!

Tricia Conyers from Island Inspirations is a change coach, learning experience designer, trainer, facilitator, meeting designer, remote work strategist and graphic recorder. 

She’s passionate about navigating change, making learning experiences powerful, making conversations visual and helping others solve problems by unlocking their best thinking.

And she’s based on the island of Trinidad. 

In this conversation, Tricia shares ideas around how meetings drive culture - I could not agree with this any more, how she got her start in facilitation, she share’s a facilitation fail - though in fairness, I think she was set up(!).

All her ideas and ways of working really centre around the idea that we are not  in the business of designing a workshop, we are in the business of designing experiences, and our goal is to create active experiences, not passive, and you’ll get a ton of different ideas on how you can do that by tuning in.

About today’s guest: Tricia Conyers

Tricia is the founder of Island Inspirations Ltd., a visual thinking, creativity sparking, graphic facilitation company. She believes that leaders should personify showing Heart, being Human and inspiring Hope in their interactions with others.

Island Inspirations Ltd specializes in facilitation (visual, virtual and in person), graphic recording, meeting design, learning experience design and experiential workshop design. Combing the power of visuals and facilitation to create powerful learning experiences and to accelerate change.

Tricia has 25+ yrs experience in change. She designs and facilitates learning experiences (LE) based on the fundamental belief that the LE is the intervention to unleash the latent capacity and higher potential in others.  For over a decade, Tricia has led and supported teams remotely. 

Meetings serve different purposes from communication to collaboration, performance management to decision-making, learning to creating. Each requires different protocols, facilitation styles, engagement etc.. Tricia is a meeting designer who designs for intent. She brings to her sessions a wide range of techniques and skills. She is an INIFAC Certified Master Facilitator and Certified Virtual Facilitator, a Certified LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Facilitator, a Twenty One Toys Empathy Toy® Facilitator and in progress of certifying as a Time to Think facilitator.

Tricia holds a Masters of Engineering, Masters of Arts and Bachelor of Arts with Distinction from Cambridge University, England and she enjoys traveling, pilates and photography.


In this episode, you will learn

  • Why it’s important to get your meetings right, given their impact on team and company culture

  • What Tricia learnt when things didn’t work out in one of her sessions

  • Some of the powerful questions Tricia asks to create new, impactful experiences with her groups (such as, “What can we gain from having virtual sessions?”)

  • How Tricia weaves in various types of visuals into her facilitation work

  • How to get your participants shifting from passive -> active participation

Resources mentioned:


Watch the full episode here!


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, Papua New Guinea, and Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development.  She has over 14 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 is a finalist in the 2021 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.

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Episode 191: An economist’s perspective on growing your fierce facilitation business with Uyen Vo

Uyen Vo sharing an economist’s perspective about building a facilitation business on Leanne Hughes’ First Time Facilitator podcast.

I LOVE THE WAY my guest today sees the world, considers things, and ultimately - operates!

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She thinks about things in a very analytical way, completely opposite to the way I interpret events, but it’s with deep contemplation. And not in a black and white analytical way, it’s a very playful way of looking at business and life. 

I’m always keen to hear her thoughts on topics and find she asks brilliant questions, which no doubt serves her extremely well as a facilitator and coach, although she calls herself a trainer who facilitates.

You’ll hear that analytical prowess and some great phrases she uses in this one, I don’t want to spoil that for you - I love word play and new concepts, and she shares all of that with you, she also shares the power of relationships, and those key people in your life that can really shape the trajectory of your career, and your life.

Who am I talking to today? Her name is Uyen Vo from Fierce Consulting, based in the UK.

About today’s guest: Uyen Vo

Uyen Vo show people how to get more done, save resources, and reduce employee burnout. She do esthis through delivering engaging workshops on project management, personal effectiveness and leadership.

After graduating from the University of Cambridge with a BA Hons in Economics, Uyen Vo joined Lloyds Banking Group in the City of London.

There, she specialised in delivering technical initiatives across numerous areas including balance sheet management, business banking and capital management.  

Needing a change from all those spreadsheets, she made a sideways move into people development and became responsible for a team of over 300 people.  She ran all people-related activities including L&D, talent development and performance management.

Since then, she’s been blessed with a really varied career, including corporate social responsibility and technical consulting, and she’s a facilitator, consultant and entrepreneur as the founder of Fierce Consulting.


In this episode, you will learn

  • How Uyen deliberately planned her career transition, including weighing up the financial risks associated with going out on her own

  • How Uyen landed on her powerful value proposition

  • How she re-oriented her time marketing her business from a scattergun approach, to a relationship-centred approach

  • Some of the economic concepts she uses to weight up her decisions (including opportunity cost and utility)

Quotes of the episode:

  • “Your facilitation business (and busy-ness) is fully integrated with your life”

  • “It’s better for you to be a small part of someone’s budget, than a big part of their budget”

  • “What your client requests, isn’t usually the thing they need”


Resources mentioned:

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, Papua New Guinea, and Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development.  She has over 14 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 is a finalist in the 2021 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.

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Episode 190: Level up your workshops by thinking like a gamer with Marvin Fox

Marvin Fox shares how you can level-up your workshop experiences by thinking like a gamer, on Leanne Hughes’ First Time Facilitator podcast.

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This week I’m chatting to someone who has an extremely cool role in the university sector, in fact he works at my old university, The University of Queensland. I so wish he was in this role when I was there!

His name is Marvin Fox and he’s the Senior Program Officer for UQ Ventures, leading the Validate pre-accelerator program and running Design Sprints for research and industry clients.

In this episode, Marvin shares his incredible career and life experiences travelling around this amazing world with a serious dose of curiosity and wonder.

As facilitators, we are in the business of experience design, and Marvin brings in an analogy I’ve never even thought about before, drawing parallels between gaming and workshops.

In this conversation, Marvin shares how creates welcoming workshop experiences for his participants to drive word-f-mouth referral. He also talks about the role of human centred design in teaching and learning.

Marvin has loads of cool catch phrases and ways of thinking about workshop delivery, design, engagement, which I’m sure will plant a seed in your brains to how you rethink your approach to sessions.

Throughout his career, Marvin has championed the importance of enterprise skills growth and development. With his background in International Business, he’s built a career in business and education in China and Japan. 

He’s also developed a strong focus on social entrepreneurship, recently designing and delivering programs at QUT Creative Enterprise Australia and QUT Entrepreneurship, focusing on the quality of the learning experience for students, creatives and emerging leaders. 

Not only that, he’s a cool bloke - funny, great sense of humour, deprecating, calming - you’ll hear that in this conversation.

About our Guest: Marvin Fox

Throughout Marvin’s career, he championed the importance of enterprise skills growth and development.

He worked in marketing, advertising and promotions for JLL, Pacific Highway Marketing and later for UNSW in Sydney. He then worked at the QUT Business School in Brisbane, where he facilitated the engagement of current students through co-curricular activities that consolidate their skills in preparation to take on the future workforce. Through this experience in learning, teaching and student support, he became an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

He also developed a strong focus on social entrepreneurship. He was the Faculty Advisor for Enactus QUT, a student association at QUT that runs social enterprise projects to make a sustainable difference in the community. After winning the national championships in Sydney, he took the team of students to represent Australia at the Enactus World Cup in Silicon Valley, USA.

Recently, he designed and delivered programs at QUT Creative Enterprise Australia and QUT Entrepreneurship. In 2019, he delivered entrepreneurship programs throughout South East Asia and also led the delivery of "The Refinery", a creative incubator held in the Sunshine Coast.

He is currently the Senior Program Officer at UQ Ventures, leading the Validate pre-accelerator program and running Design Sprints for research and industry clients.


In this episode, you will learn

  • How to create value-adding engagement in your workshops, to supercharge your participation

  • Marvin’s take on authentic messaging

  • How to incorporating the mindset of gamers into your workshop experiences

    Focusing on the things that you can provide to others

Here are some questions I asked Marvin during the interview

  • What does the phrase “beyond the classroom” mean?

  • What do you do to get people interested and show up in your workshop?

  • What are the techniques, tools you use during the workshop?

  • How do you design what a workshop would look like?

  • Do you have any favourite activities you’d like to share?


Resources mentioned:


Watch the episode now!

About 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, Papua New Guinea, and Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development.  She has over 14 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 is a finalist in the 2021 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.

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Episode 189: No one watches your webinar replays! 7 reasons your program and business needs a private podcast with Leanne Hughes

No one is watching your webinar replays! Leanne Hughes shares 7 ideas on how I podcast can bring you the traction you need.

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I'm handing you an idea today that's worth at least $10k, and this idea applies to you whether you’re a consultant working externally, you work internally as a leader, as a director, as a Comms or L&D expert.

I don’t know about you but I often sign up to online webinars, events, courses, programs, [fill in the blank here] with incredible motivation.

As I take out my credit card to pay I say, “This is the program I’m going to engage in. I don’t care if it’s on at 2am my time. I’ll be there live!”. 

If you’re anything like me you’ll know that, in a couple of weeks, that 2am live webinar happens and I go to bed the night before, thinking, "I don't need to stay up for this. I'll watch the replay!"  

Watching that replay keeps getting taken over by other priorities, so I never get that time.

So, if you run a course, or work internally and you WANT people to hear your message, relying on them to watch a replay is not a good strategy.

If only 5-10% people who sign up for an online course, then we need to rethink our approach.
Why do we run video shows, or send through webinar replay links, when podcasts are the most joyful way to learn?

As a podcast listener, I’m preaching to the converted. However, you might work internally and want some ideas on how to persuade your company to start a podcast. Or, you might want a nudge to create your own show.

In this episode I share the Top 7 reasons why I think you, and your company needs to start a podcast.

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, Papua New Guinea, and Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development.  She has over 14 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.

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Episode 188: Be a fearless facilitator (and ignore your feedback forms) with Alan Weiss

Alan Weiss returns to the First Time Facilitator podcast and reminds us all to be more of a fearless facilitator: Empty your head. Forget the smiley sheets. Don’t be afraid to say, “I can help you”.

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About a year ago, I had a conversation that completely changed the way that I viewed my facilitation business. That conversation was with today’s guest, Alan Weiss, the Rockstar of Consulting (by the way, here’s the link to listen to Episode 128: Stop being so afraid: Nobody wants a humble consultant (and other truth bombs).

Not only did that interview resonate with me, it resonated with many of you, so I had to invite Alan back on the show for an encore performance.

Last year’s interview was a real watershed moment for me. Since then, I’ve been really adjusting, rehsapring, rethinking the way I work, and also focusing on my mindset… trying to be more fearless!

I’ve also been working with Alan 1:1 and in a group mastermind.

In this conversation, members of the Booked Out Facilitator program were my co-hosts, and jumped in to ask Alan questions about every aspect of building our facilitation businesses. I enjoyed being a lazy faciltator on this call and letting the brilliance of the Booked Out Faciliators take over the microphone.

In this conversation (which is like a group coaching call!), we pick Alan’s brain on:

  • How to 10 x your fee

  • What to do with feedback - the answer may surprise you

  • What we can do everyday to build our self worth

  • Free or fee? Should we charge for our webinars and information sessions (or not)?

  • How to reach true, economic buyers in organisations

  • How much research you should do before contacting a buyer

  • …and much, much more.


Underpinning all of Alan’s responses is a philosophy of being fearless - of tooting your own horn, and of leaping into action.

I’d like to thank my co-presenters:

  • Prina Shah

  • Jade Goulding 

  • Melanie Loy

  • Yoke Van Dam

  • Tricia Conyers

  • Joshua Soon

  • Joel Birch

  • Gwenael Mouthay

  • Lena Nasaikou 

  • Gosia Syta

This program has come to an informal close, we had the “not a closing ceremony call” last week, and I’m excited to start sharing more info on the next upcoming program. If you’re curious, check out bookedoutfaciliator.com

About our guest: Alan Weiss

Alan Weiss is the rockstar of consulting. Marshall Goldsmith once called him “The finest entrepreneurial coach in the world.”

His consulting firm, Summit Consulting Group, Inc., has attracted clients such as Merck, Hewlett-Packard, GE, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and over 500 other leading organizations. 

His Ph.D. is in psychology. 

He is an inductee into the Professional Speaking Hall of Fame® and the concurrent recipient of the National Speakers Association Council of Peers Award of Excellence, representing the top 1% of professional speakers in the world. 

His prolific publishing includes over 500 articles and 60 books, including his best-seller, Million Dollar Consulting (from McGraw-Hill) which is one of my faves.

I also love Million Dollar Maverick and his ebook, The Martial Arts of language.


Contact with Alan on all of the platforms

Reach out to Alan - he LOVES hearing from you. Join him on social media - Twitter, LinkedIn - thats the reason he came back, he got some tremendous feedback from his last show.

Watch the interview with Alan Weiss

About your host: Leanne Hughes

Leanne Hughes is a trusted advisor, 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, Papua New Guinea, and Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development.  She has over 14 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.

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