0:00

As professional communicators,

0:00

team leaders, change managers, and

0:04

even project managers, we can often

0:04

be tasked with managing events.

0:08

Whether it's a CEO town hall, a

0:08

conference, an expo, or anything in

0:13

between, there's always some kind of

0:13

event we will be called in to help

0:17

organize, if not manage, entirely.

0:20

I know over my career, especially

0:20

in internal comms, I've been

0:23

involved in a huge variety of

0:23

events, whether I liked it or not.

0:27

But that doesn't mean I knew what I was doing. In fact, quite a few of us have

0:29

no idea what we're doing, which is

0:33

why event management professionals

0:33

should be on your speed dial.

0:37

Because how do you make sure the event

0:37

you run gets the outcomes you want?

0:42

And that's what today's

0:42

episode is all about.

0:47

Hello, friend, and welcome to

0:47

another episode of Less Chatter, More

0:51

Matter, the communications podcast. I'm your host, Mel Loy, and I'm

0:53

recording this episode on the

0:56

lands of the Yuggera and Turrbal

0:56

people here in Meanjin, Brisbane.

1:01

And today I am Excited to bring you an

1:01

interview with the one and only Sally

1:05

Porteous, event manager extraordinaire

1:05

and all round awesome human.

1:10

Sally has unwittingly and unknowingly

1:10

been involved in planning and coordinating

1:14

events since she was a teenager,

1:14

coordinating local fairs, school fates,

1:18

real estate roadshows, sales conferences,

1:18

and community engagement activities.

1:23

But it wasn't until Sally was well through

1:23

the first act of her career journey that

1:26

she realised the activity she had always

1:26

managed to incorporate into every job

1:31

was actually a career she could pursue. So in 2011, Sally embarked on a journey

1:33

of curiosity to see if this thing

1:37

people called event management was

1:37

indeed something that could hold her

1:41

attention for act two of her career. Volunteering for a year, then securing

1:43

community festival production gigs,

1:47

Sally discovered that this was in fact

1:47

something she could do forever and had in

1:52

fact already been doing most of her life. Sally is a passionate advocate for

1:54

creating remarkable audience experiences.

1:59

Experiences are worth remarking on. And so she has created three pillars

2:01

of support for her event community.

2:05

Red lanyard is the production company

2:05

supporting people and organisations

2:08

to create their best work. Event Planner's Workshop is about

2:10

creating space for people to

2:13

learn, play, and test their work. And the Event Manager's Network

2:15

that encourages connection,

2:18

collaboration, belonging, and support.

2:21

Still a self described work in progress,

2:21

Sally continues to create meaningful event

2:25

experiences, give others the confidence

2:25

to do the same, and connect a vibrant

2:29

community to make magic in the world.

2:32

In today's episode, we cover

2:32

everything about how to organize

2:36

and manage quality events because

2:36

events are a solid communication

2:39

channel that we should be using. Sally shares some of the common

2:41

challenges to look out for, and

2:44

she has a special little offer

2:44

just for you, the podcast listener.

2:49

So make sure you stay tuned for that

2:49

and check out the podcast notes.

2:52

Without further ado, here's Sally. Sally.

2:57

Welcome to Less Chatter, More Matter.

2:59

Thank you so much.

3:00

It's lovely to be here. It's lovely to have you here.

3:04

So, before we get into it, let's

3:04

tell us a little bit about you.

3:07

What do you do and how did you come to

3:07

develop your expertise in this space?

3:12

Excellent question to start me off. So, Sally Porteous is my name.

3:17

And I actually own the title Event

3:17

Manager now, which is something

3:21

that I didn't own for a long time. Jack of all trades for many, many years.

3:26

And, uh, so a few years ago, I decided

3:26

to put my hand up and say I can do this.

3:33

And, yes, became an event

3:33

manager, which was back in 2011.

3:38

Which, you know, probably to the

3:38

youngins in the audience, that

3:42

sounds like a long time ago for me. Um, it wasn't too long ago.

3:45

Um, retrospectively realising now that

3:45

I did events in every single job that

3:50

I've ever had, and I obviously just

3:50

gravitated towards that task naturally,

3:55

and, um, I had an opportunity to do a

3:55

major event, a very high profile, um,

4:01

event for, uh, an organisation, and

4:01

through that process realising it's

4:07

actually a skill that I had, and it

4:07

wasn't something everyone could do.

4:11

So I decided to study it, um, volunteer in

4:11

it, dive right in and hope that maybe this

4:17

is something I might like doing and I do.

4:20

I love it. I've been doing it ever since.

4:22

That's awesome. And look, I totally agree with

4:23

you on, in terms of, you know,

4:26

it's a skill that not everybody

4:26

has, but not everybody is good at.

4:29

I like, I'm not an event manager.

4:32

It's something I've had to learn

4:32

how to do, you know, as part of

4:35

my roles over the year as well. Um, and under duress a lot of the time.

4:39

So I take my hat off to event managers.

4:41

I think you are all amazing people for

4:41

what you put up with quite honestly, a

4:45

lot of the time, like wedding planners.

4:48

I would say the same about

4:48

comms management, Mel, seriously.

4:52

I think one of the things I learnt trying

4:52

to write effectively in that government

5:00

job that I had was learning how to take

5:00

feedback without taking it personally.

5:06

I don't know how you do those....

5:06

15, 000 rounds of revisions.

5:10

Yeah, that's, uh, that's

5:10

a story for another day.

5:14

So you've now owned your own business.

5:16

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

5:19

Yes, indeed. Thank you. Um, so it's, it's a multifaceted business.

5:24

It's evolved over time. It merch company.

5:28

I worked in the music industry

5:28

for a while and loved that.

5:32

And so, um, when I left the

5:32

music industry, I decided I was

5:37

going to be a merch company,

5:37

and so that's what I set up.

5:39

Unbeknownst to me, I have no idea

5:39

how to, you know, source product, et

5:43

cetera, from other parts of the world,

5:43

uh, so that lasted all of five minutes.

5:48

But I still loved working with the music

5:48

industry, so I stayed in there, and um,

5:52

I worked with artists and bands to create

5:52

project plans to send themselves on tour.

5:58

It was at a time when the music industry

5:58

was changing and everyone was having

6:01

to become a lot more independent. And so learning those skills,

6:03

um, was quite difficult.

6:07

So I was sharing that with, um,

6:07

people I knew in the music industry.

6:12

And I was running these workshops

6:12

and I absolutely loved doing them.

6:15

And so that was, it's been a side

6:15

hustle for a long, long time.

6:20

Um, and it's had iterations of being

6:20

a full time business, and then a

6:24

side hustle, and then a full time

6:24

business, and then a side hustle.

6:27

And one of the things I talk about

6:27

a bit is, it's okay to have a

6:31

business and a job as a side hustle.

6:33

So if anyone out there, you know,

6:33

berating themselves because yet again

6:38

they have to go and get a job, please

6:38

don't, because, just flip it, right?

6:42

Just flip it. It's just, that's the side hustle.

6:45

I love that reframing. I love it.

6:47

Yeah, it's just temporary. So, like I said, it's multifaceted.

6:51

Uh, I have, I produce

6:51

events for other people.

6:55

I, uh, create events for myself, and

6:55

I have a networking, a network, um, of

7:01

event managers that I produce events

7:01

for, or people that produce events,

7:05

really, not even just event managers.

7:08

And then I also coach and train

7:08

people in the art of event

7:11

management and event planning. So, I'm pretty passionate about that.

7:14

Building other people's capacity

7:14

and capability to, um, produce

7:19

their own events and events for

7:19

other people, people they work for.

7:22

So, lots of facets to it, but

7:22

essentially it's, it's all in the space

7:27

of creating for you, creating with

7:27

you, or helping you do it yourself.

7:33

Love that. Okay, so So now that you've got

7:34

all this experience behind you,

7:39

question number one is why is quality

7:39

event management so important?

7:44

So I think, you know, there are those

7:44

people out there who think anybody can

7:47

do it, but we know that's not the case. So why is that quality of

7:48

event management so important?

7:52

Yeah. Yeah. Um, the quality of, of the

7:53

outcome that you give your

8:00

audience is the important part. What happens when You're not experienced,

8:03

or it's not your zone of genius,

8:08

or it's not your wheelhouse, or you

8:08

haven't done it very often, and you're

8:12

kind of winging it along the way. The thing is, when you're creating

8:13

an event that has an audience, you

8:19

can possibly get so caught up in the

8:19

logistics, so caught up in the booking

8:24

of the venue and the choosing of the menu

8:24

and, um, you know, am I putting notepads

8:29

on the table or am I putting pens down? Am I putting minties down or jelly beans

8:31

or do I need to have a healthy option?

8:35

If you're not experienced in this space,

8:35

leaving that to somebody else allows

8:41

you the space to focus on the audience.

8:44

Because if the audience doesn't have a

8:44

great experience, they're never going

8:48

to come back to your event again. They're not going to get the outcome

8:50

that you were hoping that they would get.

8:53

Um, essentially, You need to create

8:53

an environment for yourself where you

9:01

can constantly focus on the audience.

9:03

Does the audience care about this

9:03

decision that I'm about to make?

9:06

What's the impact on my audience

9:06

about this decision I'm about to make?

9:11

And if you don't have the brain space,

9:11

you know, if you don't have the brain

9:15

capacity to think like that, your audience

9:15

won't get what they expect to get, and

9:22

they will leave the room, and they'll

9:22

walk away going, That was a waste of time.

9:28

So that's, that's why I think

9:28

a professional event planner

9:32

or knowing how to do the event

9:32

professionally is the key skill.

9:37

Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, Sally, I love what you said there

9:38

because our ethos aligns really strongly

9:42

here on putting the audience at the

9:42

center of everything you do, whether it's

9:47

comms or events, which are, you know, an

9:47

event is a communication channel, right?

9:51

It's you're imparting messages on people.

9:53

It's two way communication a lot of the time. So if you're not putting the

9:55

audience at the center and thinking,

9:58

okay, what do I want them to know,

9:58

feel, and do after this, then of

10:02

course it's going to fall flat. So I really appreciate

10:03

you honing in on that. Thank you.

10:07

Um, my next question then is

10:07

what are some of the common

10:10

challenges with organising events?

10:15

Common challenges organising

10:15

events is, um, funnily enough, people

10:21

don't start with the audience in mind. Uh, your, your community probably

10:24

does because as you say, that's

10:29

your ethos and that's what you

10:29

bring to the table all of the time.

10:32

That's the first hat that they put on. I'm the audience member,

10:34

what is my expectation here?

10:38

Most people though, they don't,

10:38

they start with the venue in mind.

10:41

They go, oh where are we going to have this? When are we going to have it?

10:45

One of the challenges, um, your community

10:45

might experience, similar to mine, is

10:51

we are often at the disposal of the

10:51

person who has booked us to do the thing.

10:57

And so we need a, we need a framework to

10:57

help people understand why it's important

11:03

to follow our process and not theirs.

11:06

So I think, um, for me, for example, I

11:06

have a process that focuses on purpose,

11:13

audience, objectives and outcomes. That's the first four things I talk about.

11:17

And that every decision comes from that.

11:20

If the client I'm talking to

11:20

wants to start talking about

11:24

a venue, I can pull them back. I can, I can pull them right back and

11:25

go, let's just do these four parts first.

11:30

And then through that process, they

11:30

will often realise, Oh, actually,

11:34

this is completely the wrong venue,

11:34

or location, or time, or, you know.

11:38

So, um, that's probably

11:38

the biggest challenge.

11:41

So, just helping clients through those

11:41

conversations, I guess, through those

11:47

... lots of good questions I start with, um,

11:47

and that can be a challenge sometimes.

11:52

Sometimes they don't want to

11:52

go through those questions with

11:55

me and, you know, we can't make

11:55

people do things, can we, but yeah.

11:59

It does. Yeah. And if what it sounds like is, um,

12:00

you know, the challenge, I think

12:05

if I'm surmising this correctly is.

12:08

helping people understand that you've

12:08

got to take a strategic mindset

12:11

to events, not a tactical mindset.

12:14

And tactics are the things like

12:14

booking the thing, you know, organising

12:18

the menu, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the strategic mindset is that

12:19

level up and you've got to start there

12:23

before you can get to the tactics.

12:26

Yes. What a great way to put it. Love that Mel.

12:28

Excellent. So you touched on this just a

12:31

little bit before around people,

12:34

you know, having ... not having the

12:34

capacity to, you know, attend events.

12:37

And many of the people who listen to

12:37

this show will be involved in organising

12:42

internal events like CEO town halls,

12:42

leadership forums, you know, leadership

12:46

conferences at their organisations. Apart from that capacity piece, what

12:48

do we need to be on the lookout for

12:53

when organising internal events?

12:55

I guess the point I made

12:55

before about trying to understand

13:03

what else is going on in people's

13:03

daily work to give them the

13:07

headspace to come and pay attention.

13:11

Again, just focusing on the

13:11

audience, focusing on what do you

13:13

expect from the audience here. And this comes down to your comms

13:15

strategy, obviously, but it kind

13:18

of ties in a little bit like

13:18

it's, it's what I talk about with

13:21

clients as well is what do you want

13:21

people to do when they leave here?

13:26

Um, are they just coming to listen? Could this be done as a webinar?

13:29

Do we all have to come together? Like, what is the, what is the, the

13:31

setup, of this activity that we're

13:36

going to do in the first place. Thinking about those kind of,

13:38

what do you want people to do?

13:42

As you said before, um, and behave.

13:45

And what change are you looking to make?

13:48

One of the things you raised you

13:48

were talking about there too was

13:52

you know thinking about okay? Well, what how do you want people to

13:53

behave and think one of the things I

13:56

always say is Uh, especially for things

13:56

like CEO town halls and those sorts of

14:00

things, don't ignore the elephant in

14:00

the room, you know, if there's something

14:04

going on in the organisation that

14:04

everybody's talking about and leaders

14:08

are uncomfortable with talking about and

14:08

they just ignore it, that helps nobody.

14:12

So I think, you know, leaders need

14:12

to step up in these events too, and

14:16

actually be brave and talk about the

14:16

things that again, audience mindset.

14:20

What's on their minds? What should you be talking about?

14:23

And sometimes that's going to be hard. There's going to be hard conversations.

14:27

But there's ways to, to make that still

14:27

a really meaningful interaction where

14:30

people walk away feeling positive too.

14:33

Exactly. I think, I think you hit the nail on

14:35

the head, and I actually mentioned

14:39

it, I sent my newsletter out this

14:39

morning and I mentioned it in that, um,

14:43

it's, it's important to tell people,

14:43

even if you don't know anything.

14:51

So one of the, one of the, it was a

14:51

post actually, not in my newsletter,

14:54

um, I did a post about one of the top

14:54

three things I've learnt about clients

14:58

and that is that it's okay to say I

14:58

don't have an update for you right now.

15:02

Yep. Absolutely.

15:03

Because that makes them happy. That makes them really happy.

15:06

Even if you know nothing,

15:06

tell people you know nothing.

15:09

That's it. And it's okay to say, I don't

15:09

know, but I'll find, as soon as

15:12

I found out, I will let you know. I one

15:15

of the things I've learned in

15:15

the last year and a half, which comes

15:18

from, um, a great author called Priya

15:18

Parker, who has a book called The Art of

15:22

Gathering, which is a phenomenal book.

15:25

Um, she talks about priming your

15:25

audience, and then you have your,

15:31

you know, your event, and then the

15:31

post event, um, activity with people.

15:36

And I think this is a, this is

15:36

something that's worked really

15:39

well for me in the last year and

15:39

a half, I've taken this on board.

15:42

I've worked really hard to

15:42

talk to people before my event.

15:46

So, when I, when I get to the

15:46

event, they know me pretty well.

15:50

I've taken the time to go and search

15:50

their LinkedIn's and, and, you know, kind

15:54

of do a bit of research there as well. So, I've got something to talk

15:56

to them about when they come.

15:58

And then that post event as well, making

15:58

sure that they do the follow up that

16:03

they said they were going to follow up. Or, in my event labs, for example, I

16:04

test different ideas, um, we try all

16:10

sorts of disruptive ways of doing things

16:10

like name tags and things that we do

16:15

in the stock standard way all the time. But I like to follow people up

16:18

and go, did you do that thing?

16:21

Did you test out that idea

16:21

that we threw out there?

16:24

And so her, um, she's got a lot

16:24

of amazing ideas in that book, but

16:28

that, that has been a game changer

16:28

for me for the last 18 months.

16:33

Yeah. And what you're referring to there is,

16:34

um, from behavioural science perspective

16:38

is the primacy and the recency effects. So we tend to remember more the

16:41

first thing we've seen or heard or

16:45

experienced and the last thing as well.

16:48

And so all that stuff in

16:48

the middle often gets lost.

16:51

But if you can start strong and finish

16:51

strong with, you know, the key things

16:54

you want people to know, feel and do,

16:54

you're in a much better position to get

16:58

the outcomes you want from that event.

17:00

And the other thing that plays into

17:00

that, is what's called the peak end rule.

17:04

So, um, there was some

17:04

experiments done around this.

17:06

Some of them are a bit nasty, so I won't go into it. But, um, essentially we tend to judge an

17:08

experience by the very last moments of it.

17:17

So if you have an amazing holiday, but

17:17

then, you know, the plane ride back

17:21

is a disaster and blah, blah, blah. You actually, that actually

17:23

taints your whole experience.

17:25

So if you can finish an event on a

17:25

high with a really good something,

17:30

then that's more likely to get much

17:30

more positive outcomes as well.

17:33

So you're just tapping into

17:33

all the workings of the brain.

17:37

I love it, Sally.

17:39

It's true though. It's true. Yeah. I mean, I often say like when it comes

17:41

to like food selection and things

17:44

like that, and people really don't. They really don't pay enough attention

17:46

to that part of their event planning.

17:51

At the end of the day, if the people

17:51

didn't get fed what they thought they

17:54

were going to get fed or really enjoyed

17:54

it, that's all they will remember.

17:57

They won't remember what you said.

17:59

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yep. Uh, now, on that though, obviously,

18:01

this all comes at a cost, right?

18:05

And we are in a world where

18:05

organisations, whether it's internal

18:09

events or external events, have to

18:09

be really mindful to about the optics

18:13

of having events in the first place. You can't be seen to be

18:14

splashing cash around.

18:16

There's a cost of living

18:16

issue, all sorts of things.

18:19

And people are getting much more

18:19

conscious of sustainability as well.

18:24

So how can you balance, though, that

18:24

the optics and the costs and the

18:29

sustainability portion of, you know, an

18:29

event with letting people have a really

18:33

good time and those memorable experiences?

18:35

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Um, I think it's, it's, it's

18:37

coming together as a group.

18:41

I would, I would build

18:41

subcommittees into your events.

18:44

I mean, I could give ideas, obviously,

18:44

but every event's different.

18:47

Every meeting is different. Um, one of the things I recommend,

18:49

though, is that people bring subcommittees

18:52

together who are interested in

18:52

those things and get them to come

18:57

up with the ideas of how you can

18:57

bring that in to your organisation.

19:01

So that would be my advice, is that

19:01

I would, um, I would bring people

19:05

in to talk about; and as far as.

19:08

Doing things differently and being a

19:08

bit disruptive, um, get the creative

19:12

people in your organisation, get your

19:12

graphic designers, get, get those people

19:16

that are, uh, working the creative

19:16

side of their brain all the time, ask

19:23

them, can they come up with... you

19:23

know, 10 ideas, for example, that, um,

19:31

they can implement into their normal

19:31

standard meeting structure that they

19:36

would love to see be done, right?

19:38

So if you normally walk into your

19:38

town hall and there's an agenda

19:44

on the screen behind you, how

19:44

would we do that differently?

19:47

How do we share the agenda with people? How do we tell people, because people

19:48

want to know what's happening, right?

19:52

They want to know there's this

19:52

first and then this and then that.

19:57

Maybe trying to build some things like

19:57

that into your internal events, into

20:01

your town halls, into your workshops,

20:01

to let people know what occurs when.

20:07

But as I say, grab other people from your

20:07

organisation and get them to brainstorm.

20:12

Let them know what you're doing and

20:12

that you want to do things differently.

20:17

And I think, you know, number one,

20:17

you get five new advocates for your

20:22

event, your meeting in the room, right?

20:25

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

20:28

Co ownership. That's, you know, it's such a powerful

20:28

tool anyway, whether it's change or comms

20:33

or events, like having that sense of

20:33

ownership really helps to drive people.

20:37

Yeah, that's brilliant. Thanks, Sal. Um, I have another question before we get

20:39

to our last question, but it's around AI.

20:43

Now, it is infiltrating

20:43

everything we do now, and it's

20:47

only getting smarter and better. And there's, there's some

20:48

really cool tools out there. Are there any AI tools?

20:53

Uh, that you're starting to use

20:53

in events or that you think have

20:56

potential to be used to help

20:56

make the event process better.

20:59

So,

21:00

so I do have and I'm happy

21:00

to give it to your audience for free

21:04

Mel; I've actually done a workshop on

21:04

how to maximise your events using AI.

21:09

So I've got a little 4 part workshop.

21:12

It was done. I did it. A little less than a year ago.

21:15

So obviously there's new and

21:15

fabulous things out there since then.

21:20

But what is in it is still very

21:20

good and even better than it

21:24

was when I did this workshop. So I'm happy to give that to your

21:25

audience for free because what it

21:29

is is you still have to ask AI the

21:29

right questions, you still have

21:34

to give it the appropriate prompt.

21:37

Now, here's an example.

21:40

I, I was asked by someone, I hadn't signed

21:40

the contract on this conference yet.

21:47

Um, I was still going through

21:47

the pitch process, they hadn't

21:50

chosen me yet, but they sent me.

21:52

They sent me four speakers,

21:52

four presenters, and said, we're

21:56

thinking about these as MCs. Um, and as you can imagine,

21:58

there's a whole evaluation process

22:04

that goes around choosing an MC.

22:06

You don't just look at a website

22:06

and go, Oh, yeah, they look nice.

22:08

Let's choose them. And so I thought, I'm going to, I'm

22:10

going to create a checklist for them.

22:17

on how to choose the right presenter

22:17

and I'll do a little short video and

22:21

this will be, and I'll be able to give

22:21

that away to other people as well.

22:25

And then I went, actually, no, I'm going

22:25

to get ChatGPT to create this for me.

22:32

So I asked it the obvious

22:32

question, but I had to keep going.

22:38

But what about this? And what about that?

22:40

And if I wanted the person to

22:40

be able to do this, what kind of

22:44

questions would I need to ask them? So I had to, like, I had to know.

22:48

the answers to those questions

22:48

before it could give me what I

22:52

wanted, if that makes any sense. So what it gave me in the first

22:53

instance was pretty basic.

22:57

It's a bit like when you're trying

22:57

to delegate a task to someone but

23:00

you've never done the task yourself. If you've never done it, they're

23:02

just gonna, gonna keep coming back

23:05

to you going, Is this what you want? Is this what you want?

23:09

So, I think it's a

23:09

phenomenal tool to save time.

23:14

Um, I've just, I've just signed up

23:14

to something called Sintra, which I'm

23:18

not quite sure on yet, um, but it's

23:18

a bit of fun to play around with.

23:23

It's actually got 12 assistants in it.

23:25

There's also tools, so for those of you

23:25

who, who don't want an event planner,

23:29

which would make me very sad, there

23:29

is, there is tools that, and I know

23:36

ChatGPT has this task Aspect to it now.

23:41

Um, I tried it. I didn't like it because all it

23:42

did is just send me more emails.

23:46

Um, and I don't need any more emails, but

23:46

there's one out there called agent GPT,

23:51

which I go through in that AI workshop

23:51

and you can tell it to go and email.

23:57

Like, I asked it to go and find me up to

23:57

5 vegan restaurants on the Gold Coast.

24:03

So then it comes back with links, with

24:03

references, um, and it had found me the

24:08

vegan restaurants on the Gold Coast. I could have then continued on and

24:10

said, can you email those restaurants

24:13

and, um, see if you can get a booking

24:13

for me on this date and this time.

24:18

So it's a task doer, which

24:18

is pretty phenomenal.

24:22

Hmm. Well, Sal, we've covered a lot of

24:23

ground today, so thank you so much

24:28

for sharing all those insights. I have three questions that I

24:30

ask every guest on the podcast.

24:32

Are you ready for those?

24:33

Yeah, I am. I am.

24:36

Yes, she is. Okay.

24:38

First one, what is one of the best

24:38

communication lessons you've ever

24:42

learned, and how did it change the

24:42

way you approach communication?

24:46

So, I had a job in a government

24:46

department, and I never ever thought,

24:51

you know, that, that working in

24:51

a government department would

24:56

actually give me the majority of the

24:56

lessons that I carry with me today.

25:01

Um, but, that's where I discovered event

25:01

planning as a skill, as a, as a, you

25:06

know, shingle that I hang over my shop.

25:08

Um, but it's also the place where I

25:08

discovered brevity, um, getting to the

25:16

point, but also at the same time, being

25:16

able to give someone the whole picture.

25:21

And I was alluding to this before when

25:21

I said about people coming back with,

25:26

you know, 15 takes of the same document.

25:29

I remember the person I worked for, I

25:29

remember his red pen and it drove me

25:35

nuts when I first got this job; um, I

25:35

first got this job and he first came

25:39

into the role, he was probably the

25:39

first person that kept going, red pen,

25:43

do it again, red pen, do it again.

25:46

And, and, In the beginning, it

25:46

was horrendous, in the beginning

25:50

I took everything personally, I

25:50

hated it, you know, but it actually

25:54

made me a much better writer. So that's probably the best communication

25:56

lessons I got was about brevity, and

26:01

that was working for the government.

26:03

Love it. Uh, next question.

26:05

What's one thing you wish people would

26:05

do more of or less of when communicating?

26:11

I've probably done it through

26:11

this whole podcast, but I try

26:13

really hard not to say, I think. I think is a way to buffer any pushback.

26:24

It's almost like we, you can't

26:24

berate me for just saying, oh, I

26:29

think, because it's just my opinion

26:29

instead of stating a fact, right?

26:33

So, I think is, is number one.

26:35

And the second one is,

26:35

um, do you understand?

26:41

Am I, am I making sense? When someone is presenting and they

26:43

are asking if they're making sense.

26:49

I just feel like they should be

26:49

able to read a room, you should

26:54

be able to read people's face. Are they nodding?

26:56

Are they engaged? Are they, you know?

27:00

Do you know what I'm talking about?

27:02

Yeah, it erodes a bit of confidence

27:02

in the speaker, I think, as well

27:06

to say, Oh, I just said it myself.

27:08

I think, I think, uh, but also

27:08

to check on, there are other

27:12

ways to check understanding. As you say, are people, do

27:14

the people look engaged?

27:17

Are they nodding along or

27:17

ask some leading questions?

27:19

So you could ask questions like,

27:19

can anyone give me an example of

27:23

this from your own experience?

27:25

Did that actually get through rather

27:29

than saying, does it make sense? That's great.

27:31

Okay, last question. Who do you turn to for

27:33

communication advice?

27:35

Well, you, obviously. Um, look, it, to be quite honest with

27:36

you, it's not, um, I've always drawn

27:44

on, on that advice, obviously, that

27:44

I had from that employer that I had.

27:49

Um, I have done the, IAP2, I've done the

27:49

Essentials of Engagement, um, and a couple

27:55

of others there, and I tend to refer back

27:55

to those, so I'm, I'm someone who loves

28:00

to keep my notebooks, I go and print them.

28:03

Um, and I tend to refer back to those

28:03

quite often, but having now, um, spent

28:09

some time with your International

28:09

Association of Business Communicators,

28:13

I think I'm going to build myself a,

28:13

quite a nice little pool of people

28:18

that I'll be able to tap into. Because it's, it's really interesting.

28:21

I love it. I love it. Other, other than that, I get

28:23

a professional, like I've had a

28:25

professional copywriter before. Um, I've engaged, I engage,

28:27

yeah, I engage professionals

28:31

to do what I need to get done.

28:33

yeah, oh that's a great idea.

28:37

Well on that Sally, thank you so much

28:37

for bringing your professional expertise

28:40

to Let's Chatter, More Matter today. If people wanted to find out more

28:43

about you, how could they get in touch?

28:46

Easiest place to find me is

28:46

on LinkedIn, uh, so it's just Sally

28:49

Porteous on LinkedIn, which is P O R T

28:49

E O U S. . But yes, on LinkedIn as Sally

28:56

Porteous is the best place to find me.

28:58

Brilliant. And we'll put that link

28:58

in the show notes as well. Sally, thank you so much for

29:01

your time today and sharing

29:03

your wisdom so generously.

29:05

Thank you, Mel. It's been a joy. I love chatting with you, as

29:07

always, and I look forward to

29:10

seeing you at a IACB event soon.