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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.

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!

Every day in 2025, Leanne is podcasting on her new show, Leanne on Demand.
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I've loved bringing out a private podcast to listeners this week! If you've missed it, listen to this episode and if you want to dive deeper, you need to jump over to bookedoutfacilitator.com to register for the show. It self destructs on 4 October.

In this minisode, I share the three key ingredients to booking out your facilitation business.

This episode sets the stage for the week, highlighting the three key areas you need to focus on.

Doors close for the final, live round of Booked Out Facilitator on Monday 4 October.  Find out more and enrol here.

Booked Out Facilitator: Testimonial of the day:

“I am just starting out in my workshop and facilitation journey and although I was nervous to join experienced people in this space, the group itself was incredibly supportive.

Leanne is incredibly encouraging and it really gave me such confidence to move forward in my business.

I've put myself out there and before the course finished, I had two workshop bookings, and two quite important meetings and I've really focused my service offering.

I will definitely keep returning to the content.  The Booked out crew, really attracts good people. I  can not recommend it enough."

- Jade, Comms Nerd

Every day in 2025, Leanne is podcasting on her new show, Leanne on Demand.
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(Otherwise, enjoy the back catalogue of First Time Facilitator episodes).

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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
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.

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!

Click here for show notes.

Every day in 2025, Leanne is podcasting on her new show, Leanne on Demand.
Tune in over here!

(Otherwise, enjoy the back catalogue of First Time Facilitator episodes).

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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. 

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:

• Connect with Tricia Conyers on LinkedIn
• Bikablo visuals
• Tricia’s Instagram site - islandinspirationsltd

Click here for show notes.

Every day in 2025, Leanne is podcasting on her new show, Leanne on Demand.
Tune in over here!

(Otherwise, enjoy the back catalogue of First Time Facilitator episodes).

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

My conversation this week is with Uyen Vo from Fierce Consulting.

I LOVE THE WAY Uyen sees the world, considers things, and ultimately - operates.

She thinks about things in an analytical way - though, not in a black and white way, I find her reflections are shared in a very playful analytical way!

Uyen shows people how to get more done, save resources, and reduce employee burnout. She does this through delivering engaging workshops on project management, personal effectiveness and leadership.

You’ll hear Uyen's analytical prowess and some great phrases she uses in this conversation to reflect on work and life.

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

Needing a change from all those spreadsheets, she made a sideways move into people development. 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 weigh up her decisions (including opportunity cost and utility)

For show notes, visit https://www.firsttimefacilitator.com/episode191

Every day in 2025, Leanne is podcasting on her new show, Leanne on Demand.
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(Otherwise, enjoy the back catalogue of First Time Facilitator episodes).

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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!

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

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, he also shares how he creates welcoming workshop experiences for his participants to drive word-of-mouth referrals (and boost participation levels). 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, curious, self-deprecating,  - you’ll hear that in this conversation. 

Click here for show notes.

Every day in 2025, Leanne is podcasting on her new show, Leanne on Demand.
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(Otherwise, enjoy the back catalogue of First Time Facilitator episodes).

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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.

If you'd like to get assistance with setting one up, send me a message on LinkedIn, oh and check out the tool I use to create my private podcasts, Hello Audio!

Every day in 2025, Leanne is podcasting on her new show, Leanne on Demand.
Tune in over here!

(Otherwise, enjoy the back catalogue of First Time Facilitator episodes).

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About a year ago, I had a conversation on this podcast that completely changed the way that I viewed my facilitation business. That conversation was with today’s guest, Alan Weiss, the Rockstar of Consulting.

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, reshaping, rethinking the way I work... Spending less time on social media, and also focusing on my mindset… in an attempt to be more fearless! 

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.

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 facilitator on this call and letting the brilliance of the Booked Out Facilitators take over the microphone.

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

If you’re curious about joining the next round of Booked Out Facilitator, 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.

• Connect with Alan Weiss on LinkedIn
• Follow Alan on Twitter
• Alan Weiss’ website
• Million Dollar Consulting Growth Access 
• Grab the second edition of The Consulting Bible

Every day in 2025, Leanne is podcasting on her new show, Leanne on Demand.
Tune in over here!

(Otherwise, enjoy the back catalogue of First Time Facilitator episodes).

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I love the metaphor that my guest today shares, when she explores how she manages group dynamics - it’s like an antenna, that you need to tune into!

This week, I’m talking to the delightful Lisa Evans from Speaking Savvy, and host of the Business Chat podcast.

I was using some of Lisa’s story activities before I even met her (through reading about them in The Story Cookbook).

I’m particularly inspired by her story of a major career shift in her 40s. A great reminder that we control the narrative of our lives and careers, and it’s never too early, or too late, to start in a new direction!

In this conversation, we explore many areas related to our facilitation craft. Lisa shares her views of what can sometimes hold us back from stepping up and sharing our ideas with others (including the key role of leaders and facilitators in enabling that psychological safety), how she likes to view extroversion and introversion, and her perspective on why we feel so tired after leading an all-day workshop!

Oh, we also have a fun rant on conference locations.

About today's guest: Lisa Evans

Lisa Evans is a certified executive speaker coach and a business storytelling consultant. She started off her career as a midwife and did that for over 20 years,

These days, Lisa helps leaders to mine, refine and deliver captivating ‘sticky’ stories for their business and brand.

She has empowered over 1,000 leaders to deliver stand out messages with engaging business stories. She is also a keynote speaker, trainer and the host of the Business Chat Podcast.

She lives in Perth with her family and a retired greyhound named Giraffe.

Contact with Lisa on all of the platforms

• Lisa Evans’ website Speaking Savvy
• Lisa’s LinkedIn profile
• Connect with Lisa on Facebook
• Follow Lisa on Instagram
• Listen to the Business Chat Podcast

Every day in 2025, Leanne is podcasting on her new show, Leanne on Demand.
Tune in over here!

(Otherwise, enjoy the back catalogue of First Time Facilitator episodes).

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I remember in those early days when you're called to run a workshop, or moderate a panel conversation, you feel like you need to do things "by the book". I remember my panel interviews being very pedestrian! Now I think (I hope) I've developed more confidence, and I'm willing to create some banter between panellists, and let some personality shine through.

In today's episode, my guest Peter Hopwood and I also banter on presentation, panel and moderation tips.

Peter is a British Global Speaker Coach, Virtual Speaking Specialist & TEDx Coach, Media Skills Trainer, Worldwide Events MC & Speaker.

He has lived in 7 countries (jealous), worked in 32 (even more jealous) and is currently based in Croatia, working worldwide on Zoom.

He is a communicator, confidence-booster & connector,  travelling the world (virtually) to help professionals define, craft and deliver stronger stories and take control of their messages, storyline & speaking impact.

In this chat, Peter also shares how you can keep any repeat sessions you deliver, feeling fresh (even if you’ve delivered it a million times!), how you can communicate more strongly on virtual calls, and tips for moderating panel conversations.

Resources mentioned in the show:

• Peter's website
• Connect with Peter on Twitter
• Follow Peter on Instagram
• Send Peter an email: hello(at)peter-hopwood.com
• Support the show (https://buymeacoffee.com/leannehughes)

Every day in 2025, Leanne is podcasting on her new show, Leanne on Demand.
Tune in over here!

(Otherwise, enjoy the back catalogue of First Time Facilitator episodes).

Support the show