Speaking Business podcast Maria Franzoni

My guest today is the Founder and Director of Behind The Mic, a speaker management and consulting agency in London. With over 15 years experience in the speaking industry, she has worked in both the US and UK markets. She has made a career out of helping inspirational, thought-leaders share their expertise on stages across the globe."
 
 

As CEO of Human First Ltd, Jaz Ampaw-Farr helps leaders who want to influence, inspire and motivate their teams with greater engagement in order to grow their businesses and leave a lifelong legacy. Jaz combines lessons learned from a challenging and often brutal childhood with those from her rise TV presenter, TEDx Speaker, stand-up comedian and Z-list reality TV star.  Her authentic honesty and humour consistently empower people to think differently about leading themselves and others.
Jaz has managed to go from a market where she is highly established and a bit of a rockstar into a brand new market, and that transition, is not easy. We'll find out exactly how she did that and how she has now become very successful in her new market.  Jaz will also share how she runs her business and what her products and services are.
Links
Connect with Jaz on LinkedIn
Learn more about Maria
Connect with Maria on LinkedIn
Listen Here
Libsyn
Itunes
Stitcher

Intentional Storytelling
Steve Ashton is an expert in Executive Presence and Storytelling.  He became an expert in both of these disciplines through personal experience of being the sales and marketing director of a business that grew from £7m turnover to £68m in 3 years, through thousands of hours of live tv, radio, theatre acting, stand-up comedy and podcasting as well as more than 30 years working in Learning and Development.
He recently left a role as Chief Leaming officer for an international Division of American Express and has set up his own practice focussing his efforts on helping people increase their presence and ability to engage, connect and inspire people with storytelling.
Steve shares why storytelling is such a popular subject these days, why it's important to be a good storyteller and some top tips and tools to use for storytelling.
Links
Connect with Steve on LinkedIn
Learn more about Maria
Connect with Maria on LinkedIn
Listen Here
Libsyn
Itunes
Stitcher
Spotify

How every speaker could benefit from having a manager.
Who better to be looking after your speaking career, than a manager used to dealing with bookers, promoters, and agents in one of the toughest of all businesses – the music business?
QJ is very familiar with the notorious rogues, the dodgy dealings and the pitfalls that we come across in the speaking business – to this day.
When he started out in the business, he was an artist, songwriter and producer signed to a couple of major record labels himself, but eventually ran his own record label, signing other artists, and dealing with the likes of record pluggers, radio DJs, in order to get publicity, exposure, and radio play for those he signed.
He says, ‘You really have to be pretty ruthless in the music business to get anywhere. So having honed my skills in that industry, I find that the challenges of making progress in speaking are not dissimilar, but a lot easier.’
QJ shares his passion for ‘other people’s talent’ and why he believes that a good manager can take your speaking career to the next level.
Links
Connect with QJ on LinkedIn
Learn more about Maria
Connect with Maria on LinkedIn
Listen Here
Libsyn
Itunes
Stitcher
Spotify

Finding your 'True Funny' 
Paul Dornan has worked in the TV and film and comedy world for over two decades as a writer, producer, director, teacher and mentor. Specialising in character comedy and comedy-drama, he’s written and helped create sketch shows, sit-coms, series and films that have won awards, stormed the box office and sold around the world. Along the way he’s worked with a galaxy of stars – from Dame Edna to Mrs Merton aka Caroline Aherne from Boy George to Downton’s Hugh Bonneville, from Lenny Henry to the Spice Girls. A natural collaborator and team player, he’s acted as writing mentor for rising comedy talents and once co-wrote the massive Sunday Times No 1 bestseller ‘The A-Z OF Behaving Badly with Simon Nye – one of the biggest comedy books ever.
Away from page and screen, he has used his narrative skills in the business world too, helping a range of international brands with creative brainstorming and story.
He’s now the founder of a new venture – True Funny – a service offering creative consultancy and coaching to help professional speakers bring more humour, warmth and likeable storytelling to their work.
Paul shares how his work as a writer and director can help speakers make great main-stage speeches, what true funny is and why this is so important for professional speakers and whether making people laugh is a god given gift, a magic trick, or is this something anyone can learn.
Links
Connect with Paul on LinkedIn
Learn more about Maria
Connect with Maria on LinkedIn
Listen Here
Libsyn
Itunes
Stitcher
Spotify

Owning your own story.
With a background in Public Relations, Lesley Woods has 20 years’ experience of curating and creating compelling stories.  Her career has taken her around the world, working with international partners to shine a light on the work of her military colleagues, from celebrating Christmas in Kandahar to delivering humanitarian aid to the Central African Republic.  
As a current serving senior Royal Air Force Reserve Media Officer, she shares unique perspectives gained from her operational experience.  Her mission is to get you out of the (communication) trenches and into new territory, to get you thinking differently about how you can emotionally engage your audiences.  
In her civilian ‘day job’ role she leads campaigns in the UK Ministry of Defence Communications Directorate, a team that aims to ‘give a voice to the men and women who serve so that their stories can be heard’.  
To help the UK Armed Forces reach new audiences she has led collaborations with films, TV series and documentaries, from influencer events with Disney to a PR partnership with the producers of James Bond.  She once lost half an eyebrow evacuating a TV documentary crew from a burning toilet tent in Afghanistan....whilst wearing ballistic pants.  
Lesley shares the importance of using your OWN story along with tips on the concept of bullet-proof storytelling.  For those speakers that are interviewed, Lesley has lots of advice from her media training background.   And if you ever fancied climbing a tree for Tom Cruise, well Lesley can tell you how.
Links
Connect with Lesley on LinkedIn
Learn more about Maria
Connect with Maria on LinkedIn
Listen Here
Libsyn
Itunes
Stitcher
Spotify