#162 | Building Your Brand Without the Cringe, with Amanda Blesing

Ever struggled to talk about your expertise without feeling like you're bragging? You’re not alone. In this empowering episode, we sit down with Amanda Blesing—former CEO turned executive coach and self-described “Fempreneur”—to unpack the art of authentic self-promotion that actually feels good.

Drawing from her time in the association sector, Amanda shares how a pattern of women holding back from opportunities sparked her mission to help professionals, especially women, step into visibility with clarity and confidence.

We explore:

1. Why personal branding exists whether we like it or not—and how to own yours
2. Amanda’s approach to self-promotion: take the self out and stay in service
3. A simple elevator pitch formula that works for any industry
4. Practical strategies to ease into networking and public speaking
5. Gendered feedback and why we need to shift the conversation
6. Why your career should be treated like a strategic project—with clear 1, 3, and 5-year goals

From LinkedIn tips to confidence-building moves, this episode is packed with wisdom to help you stop playing small and start showing up—on your terms.

"I've spent my whole career making others look good—now it’s time to do the same for myself." – Amanda Blesing

Connect with Amanda on LinkedIn (and mention this episode) or visit amandablesing.com to learn more about her coaching and speaking work.

In this episode, I cover:

9:25 Career Journey Through Association Sector
18:08 Tacking Imposter Syndrome Head-On 
27:18 Personal Branding Without Self-Promotion Cringe
36:23 Mastering the Elevator Pitch
42:37 Gender Equity Challenges and Progress
48:14 Speaking Opportuities and Career Strategy
And more…

Have you built a PMO from the ground up—or thinking about it? Tune in to learn how to create a solid foundation that supports growth, governance, and agility. Then, share your PMO wins or challenges—I’d love to hear your Agile Ideas.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Amanda Bleasing
• 9:25 Career Journey Through Association Sector
• 18:08 Tackling Imposter Syndrome Head-On
• 27:18 Personal Branding Without Self-Promotion Cringe
• 36:23 Mastering the Elevator Pitch Formula
• 42:37 Gender Equity Challenges and Progress
• 48:14 Speaking Opportunities and Career Strategy

Transcript

Fatimah Abbouchi: 0:00

You're listening to Agile Ideas, the podcast hosted by Fatimah Abbouchi. For anyone listening out there not having a good day, please know there is help out there. Hi everyone and welcome back to another episode of Agile Ideas. I'm CEO AMO, mental health ambassador and your host. Before I get into today's guest in today's episode, I will say that I missed the consistent push of an episode in the last month and normally I would release these every couple of weeks and I missed a fortnight. And the reason I missed a fortnight is because I've been really busy working on some really exciting things across a range of different projects, because you'll be the first to know and get all the insights and all the giveaways, goodies and information as well. So make sure you're checked in and subscribe. So now on to today's guest, who is someone who truly knows what it means to lead from the front and bring others with her.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 1:24

Let me introduce Amanda Blesing, a former CEO turned Fempreneur, now a sought after executive coach, speaker and mentor. Amanda is an expert in career acceleration, leadership presence and personal branding, but what really sets her apart is how she helps high performing, rather professionals promote themselves with confidence, without the cringe. We all could use some help in that space. She's on a mission to help more talented individuals be seen, heard and recognised, not just for their hard work but for the value that they bring. Her blogs spark conversation, her webinars earn rave reviews, and her one on one mentoring has helped countless leaders step into their power and own their space. From navigating imposter syndrome to crafting an elevator pitch that actually lands, Amanda brings powerful insights and practical strategies to the table, and today she's here to share them with us, so please join me in welcoming Amanda to the show. Amanda, thank you so much for joining.

Amanda Blesing: 2:28

Fatimah, I'm delighted to be here.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 2:31

It's been a while, I think, I've been following your journey online and seeing you pop up regularly with all the insights and thoughts you're sharing and knowledge, and we really never connected until now. So I'm really excited. There's lots to cover and I guess the general audience here will probably appreciate some of these insights because it's not topics we normally cover, so I think that's going to be really exciting for them.

Amanda Blesing: 2:52

Oh, I'm excited about that because sometimes when I speak about my own things, just like you and your listeners, we are so close to our own expertise that we forget that other people find it interesting. So I'm really excited that we're new, we're going to be discussing interesting things, and that you're excited about hearing some of what I have to share.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 3:12

And I'll make sure that I ask you some questions for my own selfish benefit, because I know you have some really good wisdom to share. So let's start there. Why don't you give us a two, three minute background about where you started your career and your experience and sort of what brings you here today in terms of, like, your career journey?

Amanda Blesing: 3:30

Great. So I have a really diverse background and initially I used to apologise for that, but in actual fact, I think now in more. You know we live in 2025. And I think it's okay in more. You know we live in 2025. And I think it's okay. It's normalised to be a multi-potential or a multi-passionate. It's actually normalised, and I'm a really big advocate for having a broad base in your career.

Amanda Blesing: 3:54

However, my own career I guess that the career pathway started in the association sector, the peak body sector, and I, where I started working, I transitioned from the fitness industry into the peak body sector, in the peak body for fitness professionals, and so that's that's where it started really, and I loved that. I was running conferences, I was running trade shows, I was getting exposed to all the best practice and new ideas and amazing global speakers in X Factor because of the conferencing, but my career then sort of progressed through the association sector. There was the fitness professionals. There was a time when I was running an expo in cinema and movies and things like that and film, and then I went to the Law Institute of Victoria where I ran their PD department, Insurance and Finance Professionals Institute, Global Foundation, and then perhaps my last executive role was as the CEO of SOCAP Australia.

Amanda Blesing: 5:02

Now, the one thing that all of these peak bodies have in common is that we help professionals be more professional.

Amanda Blesing: 5:09

We were providing those opportunities for professionals to showcase their career, showcase their expertise, to stand up in front of peers and say, actually here's a case study I'd like to share and so, or you know, here's a project that I worked on that's worthy of speaking about. And one thing I noticed was that all throughout this, when we'd call for papers, 10 men had put their hand up and only one woman or I'd call for award nominations, and the women were running around nominating their junior staff which is the right thing to do, you know, in terms of sustainability for the sector but perhaps were then worn out, or maybe that was code for imposter syndrome maybe weren't then ready or didn't have enough time to write their own nomination and all of a sudden, I went. You know what? I have had years and years of experience in helping men and women stand out, showcase their careers, feature, build their visibility, build their brand. I think I want to do this specifically. I focus predominantly on women, although I do have a few male clients and, yeah, it's incredibly rewarding.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 6:28

It's so interesting. It's always good to hear where something starts and I think it's very interesting because the culmination of the different skill sets, I can see how they would help people. Like you know, if I think back to my early years, a lot of leaders or people are thrust into leadership roles and they're really not given any guidance, support, training. I mean. Unless you put your hand up to go and do some sort of three, four day training or you do an mba, there's not really much out there. How has that sort of um trajectory for leaders changed from when you started doing this to now? Have you seen more opportunity out there for leaders to learn some of these skills?

Amanda Blesing: 7:09

well, it is interesting, isn't it? That's so much and we talk about it a lot in, you know, in learning and development around. How you know, often people are promoted because they're good at their skill set and they're promoted into a management or leadership position, but not necessarily given the training or understand that leadership is not just leadership. There's all this uh learning how to influence, learning how to navigate the politics, learning harder that it's important. You've got, you've got a personal brand. Whether you like it or not, whether you want one or not, you've got to lean into that. Uh, learning how to showcase and represent your organisation. So, no, those things still aren't taught particularly well.

Amanda Blesing: 7:49

I think we as a society, we still value sitting at your desk and doing hard work. It's a cultural narrative. Certainly here in Australia and I'm pretty sure elsewhere, we still really value sitting at our desk and doing hard work and we still look a little bit sceptically at those people who are going out for the lunches and networking and schmoozing, even though the research shows that well networked CEOs actually deliver better company performance. Hello, go figure. But we don't teach networking and yet it's an essential skill. So I'm not sure if that answered your skill, your question, but I think it's worth talking about because it's something it's this stuff that I work on in this area. That I work on not necessarily strict leadership, but it's really important to your career as a leader 100%.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 8:43

I think you're bang on with regards to, like the networking, people underestimate the value that that brings for you know, like you would mention brand, which I wanted to touch on in a second, but just the importance of that networking and building that. But a lot of people are actually too afraid to your earlier comment around imposter syndrome probably too afraid to step out, I guess, of their comfort zone, to go in into these environments and into these situations. What would you say to someone who maybe is feeling a bit like an imposter and doesn't, maybe has the skills but doesn't feel confident enough to step outside, you know, step over that line, so to speak?

Amanda Blesing: 9:20

It can feel really threatening if you are an introvert or you're worn out, exhausted, got a dose of imposter syndrome. Maybe you've been promoted really fast and you're doubting your seat at the table. You don't know why you're there and other people are questioning you. Or maybe you're speaking up in meetings and no one's listening to you. All of that can really undermine your confidence and make you really nervous about putting yourself out there.

Amanda Blesing: 9:48

So, in terms of getting over that one of the one of the things in terms of avoiding imposter syndrome I think we need to look after ourselves better and stop over proving ourselves. You know, if we're the, no one promotes the worn out, flustered executive up the back of the office. Sometimes they they're doing all the work, but you know, no one promotes the really worn out, flustered executive up the back of the office. We tend to promote the person who's a little bit more like the swan. Maybe your feet are paddling madly underneath, but you're swanning around. However, we do need to lean into that and sort of learn some skills about, you know, becoming more visible. Seth Godin said something really wise once and I really remember it. It was like when you're starting your journey, and I think it was with relation to public speaking. He said that the first person that you publicly speak to start with your dog, and what he meant was start small, and it's the same with networking.

Amanda Blesing: 10:52

No one says you have to go to the biggest and highest profile networking event and throw yourself in and try and meet people. Meet yourself where you're at Start small, maybe start with the smaller groups or start with peers. Or start where you're at start small. Maybe start with the smaller groups or start with peers. Or start where you're more comfortable. Learn some conversational skills, have a nice little elevator pitch ready to go so you can introduce yourself in a comfortable way that you it makes you feel confident and you know. Aim to get one or two business cards, not 10, because quality conversation works really really well.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 11:29

So I hope that's helpful for your listeners For sure. I mean, you never really know how to tackle imposter syndrome, but I think your examples there are really helpful, particularly even as someone who's gone through this journey myself. You never think you're enough or maybe you're overanalyzing, you're being a bit of a perfectionist, and those sorts of things do creep up on you and then make you feel like that. Despite that background you've got. You talk a lot about in your work, about the fempreneur. What's the fempreneur?

Amanda Blesing: 12:02

So, all right, I love the term fempreneur, I am a fempreneur, I work in the fempreneur. So, all right, I love the term fempreneur, I am a fempreneur, I work in the fempowerment space. I an entrepreneur who predominantly works with women, so, uh, uh, I'm passionate about gender equity, helping women win pay rises, promotions, better opportunities, and often women will reach out to me when they've had that aha moment Like, oh my gosh, I've spent my entire career making other people look good, but I haven't done the same for myself. So that's where I step in and, you know, I help them develop a targeted and powerful approach to navigating this next phase of their career, and my goal is to halve their effort but double their impact, because I think women are busy enough.

Amanda Blesing: 12:45

There's a lot of well-meaning, poor advice out there that actually doesn't necessarily work for women. Yes, I had one client told to go and straighten her hair before she would be taken seriously. I had another client told by by a manager that if she was serious about a promotion, she should probably consider getting Botox. Like both of these bits of feedback really undermine your confidence. This is why I'm passionate about what I do and that's why I step into the fempreneur space. I work in fempowerment.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 13:19

I predominantly work with women and I help them step into the bigger arena, navigate pay rises, better opportunities and I'm a bit of an entrepreneur and and then like thinking about those examples you just gave, that that's just going to make people like, like those examples, retreat and and you know you talk a lot about in about I can see your new book recently Invisible to Invincible. I would envision that those women and or men in those situations where they're being challenged like that, or given this unconstructive criticism that they then want to retreat and become effectively invisible, how do you help them regain their confidence?

Amanda Blesing: 14:00

And you're absolutely right. That sort of feedback just chips away at your identity. It chips away at your identity. It chips away at your confidence it does. It makes you want to like. If you don't like who I am as a person, you know how am I ever going to get ahead? It makes you feel helpless.

Amanda Blesing: 14:19

So the work I do really is a lot around understanding exactly what your brand is, understanding exactly how you're coming across, like getting specific feedback with behavioral examples. We don't want feedback that's subjective. We want feedback that's really object and we want feedback that's couched in ways that's about helping us get to the next level, not necessarily feedback about how you can do your job better. You probably get enough of that. You probably get enough of that at work. So the feedback that I work on with you on or with my clients on, is how to get you to the next level. So the feedback is always couched in that way. So the feedback is always couched in that way and we want to, you know, focus on the process. We want to give feedback about the process, the policy, the output, not the person.

Amanda Blesing: 15:12

And that sort of feedback about appearance. It's missing the point. It's missing the point. So perhaps the point? I don't know, I'm wondering, I don't really really know, but let's talk about the curly hair one. So the woman who was told she'd need it to straighten her hair well, the feedback might this might have been about should have probably been about working on how she communicated in meetings, rather than feedback about something about curly hair, because I think it was might have had something to do with she was coming across a bit wild and too energetic for the executive circles in her organisations. So that's more about communication, yeah, rather than curly hair yeah, exactly so.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 15:59

Aesthetics is just an easy way to. It's a cop-out, fundamentally, and, like you said, they're probably trying to communicate something else. They just don't know how to do it, that's exactly right and we've all got little blind spots.

Amanda Blesing: 16:09

So feedback is really really helpful. But feedback about personal things like that is really unconstructive.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 16:15

Oh, 100%. And so what you mentioned Seth Godin, the king of marketing and branding and all those things One of the things that I hear a lot is around branding and often I think people don't really understand what branding is, or your personal brand is, and I think sometimes people feel that the personal brand and putting yourself out there and spruiking yourself out there may come across showy or, you know, just really conceited in the way that you know it presents itself. So can you tell us so those are not clear what is a personal brand and why is it so important, regardless of what you want to do in your career and life?

Amanda Blesing: 16:55

yeah, okay. So I'm going to talk about two principles. I'm really glad you raised that, because it's really important, and we've all got a brand, whether we like it or not, whether we want one or not. And we get to choose, though, whether it's really important. And we've all got a brand, whether we like it or not, whether we want one or not. And we get to choose, though, whether it's a Ford or a Rolls-Royce, like we, and that's what you know. I want us to step into the fact, to the space of okay, let's choose what we want our brand to be.

Amanda Blesing: 17:18

So how do we show up for the job we want, not the job we have? How do we present ourselves? What are the topics we're talking about? Who's in our network? How do we showcase our experience and the typical problems we solve, the difference we make and the value we add? So personal brand is one thing. It's to do with reputation, it's to do with our results, it's to do, you know, even our cv and linkedin goes into personal brand. But also there there's another aspect which I think fits into the self-promotion piece, and this is positioning, and I think people sometimes like they're on linkedin going.

Amanda Blesing: 18:01

I don't like the way people are saying you know, look at me, look at me, I've just won an award. Well, that's pure self-promotion. Self-promotion and positioning that go together really well is when we take the self out of self-promotion and stay in service instead. So I too, sometimes I'm feeling exhausted or you you know, just worn out and I'm like I do not want to go on LinkedIn anymore. Oh, I'm so tired, I don't want to put myself out there. In case someone says something a bit snarky at me or is a negative comment that I don't know how to handle, or I just can't deal with it, or I've got nothing, or I've got nothing good to say. And so then I pick myself up by the bootstraps and go back to my book and I practice what I preach, and that's take the self out of self-promotion.

Amanda Blesing: 18:49

How might this content, how might what I share, be helpful to my network? So delighted to share that I just won this award for gender equity. This is a pretend script or post. You know, delighted to share that I just won this award for gender equity. This is a pretend script or post. You know, delighted to share that I just won this award for, you know, in the gender equity space, here's three ways, three reasons why these awards are really important. It does this, it does that, it does that. What do you think? And that would be a really good self-promotion positioning post. It positions you as an expert. It provides a bit of insight, some thought leadership, maybe even a how-to. You know. Here are three ways you could nominate yourself for an award. So you can see how you can do it. Just stick to being, take the self out of self-promotion and stay in service.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 19:43

Love that stay in service. I think it's so important, particularly on platforms like LinkedIn, which are absolutely flooded with content and all sorts of content. You mentioned something really important that I've struggled with over the years and, as you know, you continue. You know you continue to grow in in the work we do in our podcast and speaking as you've, if you've spent a lot of time doing negative comments. So a lot of people are either going to be in two camps they're going to be in the camp where they don't put themselves out there at all because they're afraid of what, in the words of Gary Vee, sally Happy Pants over on Twitter is going to say, or they just limit themselves because they're impacted negatively by a negative comment. Thoughts on that and what's been your experience negative comments.

Amanda Blesing: 20:32

I like LinkedIn because there are fewer negative comments there are no, not you know.

Amanda Blesing: 20:38

Let's say that they are still there, but they are fewer. I think it's a. It is is a professional platform. I highly encourage my executive clients use LinkedIn. It's there's guardrails.

Amanda Blesing: 20:51

Also, if someone says something a bit snarky, it tends to impact negatively on their career, not yours. Yes, I'd agree with that. Yes, and I think that that you know that safer environment that LinkedIn provides is really important for those beginning their branding journey, perhaps thinking about sharing some thought leadership. Perhaps they're even thinking about posting your way into the job you want not necessarily the job you have. You know, being strategic about the content that you post, aligning it with your career aspirations. But I think, yes, there will be some negative comments. If they're really bad, you can delete them, and that's a relatively new feature on LinkedIn. You didn't used to be able to do that, so you can just delete the comment. If it's really bad, you can report the comment.

Amanda Blesing: 21:40

There will be a time when someone may comment negatively on your content and I think the trick is to be curious if they do and ask a question back. You know, sorry to hear that that's been your experience. Have you found any solutions Like thank you so much for your insight. I did not realise that was the situation. I really appreciate you taking the time to tell us about that. So I think that you know being a little bit curious, a little bit of graciousness in the face of some of the negative, or just ignore them, because the less attention you pay to really negative comments, the better it is. I do think, though, that, um, sometimes we're a little bit worried that lots of people see our content. Yes, you should be so lucky.

Amanda Blesing: 22:29

When you post on LinkedIn, in actual fact it's only shown to about 9% or 10% of your network who are on at that time. So if you post, you don't have a big network and you post on LinkedIn, it's not shown broadly to everyone first, it's shown to your network first. It's not shown broadly to everyone first, it's shown to your network first. If your network engaged within the first two hours and they might like, they might comment, they might reshare, and that's the gold standard. You actually want that. If your network respond, uh, and, and that linkedin treats that sort of as an endorsement of your content, that it's quality, that it's worth worthy of being on the platform, it's worthy of being on the platform, it's worthy of being on the feed, and then then it shows it to more people. But initially you're probably only going to be seen your posts. It's only going to be seen by your network.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 23:19

I think it's really good advice and it's not black and white as you articulate. So I think the curiosity you're right they might be asking something that may come across offensive, maybe they've misunderstood, so I guess going in with that approach is really great. As you said, you can respond and after that point, decide not to engage further and then obviously you got the option of deleting on any platform really. But I think it's good to, yeah, just be curious because a lot of times there are some comments that come through I've certainly had them, I'm sure you've had them where they may have identified something in your comment or your post or your piece of work that you may not have considered, and they may have some thoughts that really shape or reframe what you've articulated. And I've seen people take conversations offline together to deep dive into it, so it becomes constructive. So I think that's, yeah, definitely some worthy advice. Yeah, I really like that approach.

Amanda Blesing: 24:05

Yeah, definitely some, uh, worthy advice yeah, I really like that approach, fatima. Actually that's a really good approach. You know, offer to take the conversation into the dms. Uh, you know, because I think that that's right. I, I too, have shared content and it's entirely been taken out of context or entirely was not what I meant. Yes, like you know, and sometimes I, because I will repeat content every now and then, like you know, a couple of years later I'll reshare. Sometimes it was a bit of content that was really well received two years ago and then now it's getting all the wrong sort of attention and the conversation is the comments are just like going, really I'm spending a lot of time responding and reframing and just like going, really I'm spending a lot of time responding and reframing. And if that happens, I find the best approach is like just delete the post. It's okay, you're allowed to, you know, respond, clarify your point. You know this was not my intent. Blah, blah. Delete the post, you don't you don't need that in your day job?

Fatimah Abbouchi: 25:02

no, absolutely, and, like I said, you can respond to things sometimes, but I mean once. When there's not a quality in response or a comment, I'm not going to give it time and attention. So, um, I wanted to just touch on one more question around branding that I'm curious about. So you've developed an elevator pitch formula. Now we hear that in business all the time. What's your business elevator pitch? But what is an elevator pitch formula? Can you kind of explain it to us and tell us how it can be tailored for different audiences?

Amanda Blesing: 25:28

I love elevator pitches. I know that that's not necessarily popular and you know some people are like oh, elevator pitches, they're dreadful, but they are. When done well, they are fun, they are playful. I did one for you earlier today and you may or may not have recognised it, but I've got a few formulas that I use. The formula that I'll probably that I will share with your listeners today is that what are the problems you solve, the difference you make and the value you add. All right, that's the basic framework. What are the typical problems you solve, the difference you make and the value you add.

Amanda Blesing: 26:09

So of course, you're going to say hi, you know, I'm Amanda Blesing, I'm the founder of the She-Suite Club, a whole heap like a leadership coach, but just for women. You know, when you wake up one day and you go, oh my gosh, I've spent my entire career making other people look good. That was my problem. Well, what I do is provide a strategic approach, a powerful approach to branding, to halve your effort but double your impact. That was your problem. Difference you make and then the value you add is where you might tell a story or a case study. You add is where you might tell a story or a case study. So recently I worked with a client and I am delighted to say, after working on her interview, her CV. A number of role plays on preparing for curly questions and navigating misassumptions or bias in the interview process, making sure she came across in the right way. She was appointed CEO of a very high-profile organisation.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 27:13

Wow, that's really good and you're right now. I think back to what you said at the beginning, which is a very eloquently put introduction, I would say, and it wasn't a lot of waffle. We've had a few of those where people just you just don't really know where to start, but I think it's important the way you've articulated it because, as you said at the top of our interview, that you've done a lot of different things and your experience depth and breadth is broad, so I think that helps. What do you suggest when someone who, for example, like me, I run a small business, I work in corporate, I have a not-for-profit, all of those sort of things do you focus in on that a specific problem, depending on the person you're speaking to? Would you summarise and include all of those? How would you approach that?

Amanda Blesing: 27:58

yes, you've got to be really specific. So you need to know who your audience is. So you know if you're going to a networking function, might you may consider, you know, if you're going to a networking function, you may consider the networking function that you're going to. So the example that you give would be really tailored for that audience. Yeah, I think that's just smart. Just like you would have a, you know, if you were having a regular conversation, being able to tailor your pitch based on having a regular conversation, being able to tailor your pitch based on, like for yourself, who are the clients that you might want to win from this activity.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 28:33

Yes, okay, that makes, rather than just what some people do say and spray, and then you get quite overwhelmed with you don't know where to hook into for what they've introduced or what they've said in their supposed elevator pitch. So I think that's worthy advice. Um, you've done a lot of speaking. I was looking at your profile and this week and you've had numerous speaking engagements and done a lot of work in that space across different organisations. What is the number one, or, you know, top one or two questions that are the most commonly asked, the question from the audience for me, yeah, from the audience.

Amanda Blesing: 29:07

Oh, that's a good one, all right. So, to be honest, the elevator pitch question, it's all. People are really curious about creating their own elevator pitch. I often get that one and I, you know, often get the question about you know, how are going to fix gender, gender inequality, uh, you know, what can we do? I think that, um, people do feel helpless. I think women feel a little bit helpless, um, and I know that our male peers sometimes don't know how to help.

Amanda Blesing: 29:42

So it's actually a really good question and I think it's relevant for everyone. How can we fix it? You know sometimes it's. Do we really want to? How can we fix it? It's a systemic issue, but that shouldn't stop us trying or shouldn't stop us doing our own, playing our own individual part. But it is a systemic issue and until corporates, organisations, companies really examine policies, processes and really unpack what's going on, gender equity is a long way off.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 30:18

Do you think it's improved over the last 10, 15 years?

Amanda Blesing: 30:22

Oh yeah, there's definitely been progress, definitely been progress. Although, because I work at that executive level, I tend to work with C-level executives At the very, very top. There are still very few female CEOs in the ASX-listed 300. So we've still got a long way to go. Unfortunately, there's definitely more women in earlier, you know, lower down on the rung there's definitely more women in uh, earlier, you know, lower down on the rung there's definitely more women earlier on the rung, and one of the statistics that I was really surprised about the other day that I learned was that in in major cities around the globe, what's really interesting at the moment is young women are out earning young men. Now, that's not an ideal either.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 31:07

yes, equity yes, yes, I did actually hear that on the diary of a ceo podcast not that long ago, at least in the uk, in the us. So, um, it's interesting that it's yeah, not just um, it's more universal. It seems in a lot of countries at the moment that that's happening.

Amanda Blesing: 31:25

Look, of course I'm going to advocate for women to get more money. I'm glad that young women are getting more money. It's fantastic. It's great for society. But gender equity, you know, pay equity I think that that's what we're really fighting for.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 31:40

Yeah, absolutely, and we'd probably talk a lot about that and spend a lot more time. But I am conscious that I know that that can be a political conversation that you know, people are not necessarily always aligned on. So I think we'll let the politics play out and let them work through that. You did. You did, in your early speaking career, have a bit of a mishap. You said it didn't go as well as planned. Tell us how. What happened, when were you? What went?

Amanda Blesing: 32:11

wrong. Well, it was in the very early days of my speaking career and I had been booked to speak in Singapore. But this was my practice gig before I went. So I'd been booked to speak in Singapore. I was really, really excited towards the oil and gas industry. You know, they had a special women's conference as an adjunct to the main plenary and I was really excited to go and speak and I thought, well, I'll just manufacture a few audiences closer to home. So one of my former board members from my former executive career one of my former board members said I will bring all my staff in and they rated me, they thought I was pretty amazing and they were like we'll bring all our staff in and you can practice with our staff. Well, I was so nervous. I think I put a lot of pressure on myself. Do you do that too, fatima? Oh, 100%, I think I put a lot of pressure on myself. Do you do that too, fatima?

Amanda Blesing: 33:07

and that, oh, yeah, a hundred percent yeah, I put a lot of pressure on myself to be perfect because in my role, you might remember, I had planned a lot of conferences so I had seen the best of the best and I'd brief, booked and briefed more speakers than most people have had hot dinners. So I put a lot of pressure on myself to be perfect and quite the opposite was the the truth. I spoke so fast because I'm passionate about my topic and I had so much content to get through. We got to the end and I could see these blank faces and everyone left the room, just dead, dead face. Everyone just left the room, you know, at an. Everyone just left the room, you know, at an appropriate time, but no one came and said anything and everyone just left and I was like whoops, it was a telling sign, but hey, let's face it, it was important. It was a practice session, it wasn't a paid speaking gig and I think that that was also really important, but it gave me great feedback.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 34:08

Yes, a hundred percent. I can find myself speaking quite fast a lot of times. So I experienced that and I had a similar situation about 15 years ago where I got asked to speak at an event and I just recall it going so badly that partway through it was sort of like a two-part speaking engagement. I just felt like running the fire alarm in the building because I just felt like being swallowed up and spat out. It was just horrendous because the right um preparation hadn't happened and, like you described, we tried to go through all the content. Quite it was just, it was a disaster. So what? What did you take from that? And and I guess, implement, implement to perhaps even on the content side, to improve, moving forward. What did you put in place to fix that so that it didn't happen again?

Amanda Blesing: 34:54

clearly, Well, it was really interesting that I had provided too much content because, having booked and briefed a lot of speakers in the past and seen a lot of conference speakers, I had seen a clear difference. In fact, it was a gender difference. Now the men would would not necessarily jam-pack their conference presentations full of as much content and would generally, uh, engage with the audience more. And the women in our desire to prove how our worse we were jam-packing our content. So there, I made the exact same mistake I had been observing for years. So that was the big takeaway for me Slow down and have less content and, in actual fact, focus on connecting with the audience, engaging, making sure the audience feel seen, heard and valued, because, in actual fact, that is the key message. I want my clients to feel seen, heard and valued, and that's often why they work with me because they don't feel seen, heard or valued. So I need to treat my audience with the same respect.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 36:01

And so I can see that you wrote a lot about that in your book. Tell us a little bit about the premise behind the book and where the idea come from and how that differs to your other books.

Amanda Blesing: 36:11

Okay, so this book, there we go. This book, invisible to Invincible. Yes, that is me on the front cover. You might remember, I mentioned I had an early career in the fitness industry and I taught yoga. So, yeah, that is me on the front cover. And we had a lot of fun.

Amanda Blesing: 36:26

Well done, we had a lot of fun with the photographer creating and getting that image. Then my third book that's going to be coming out soon, it will not have as creative a photo, however the idea came. So this book is a self-promotion handbook, so it's all about how to self-promote, particularly for women. I talk about the challenges that women face when they are more visible. You know, when we put ourselves out there, we run the risk of being criticised. We're damned when we do, yet doomed when we don't. However, you know, it's a really practical handbook.

Amanda Blesing: 36:59

But the idea came because I had witnessed, I guess, a series of media attacks on a very high profile woman, and I'd seen this happen. She had been chairing the board of a financial institution. The financial institution had been misbehaving and the Royal Banking Commission had, you know, named them and sort of drawn attention to some pretty shocking systemic issues that were going on. And, yeah, there were some absolute failures. But the media a select portion of the media, were running with criticism of this woman's beauty regime and how she networked her way to the top, as though they were the things that were at fault. And it comes back to this when we criticise people on their appearance or on their person, it really doesn't help, and that's why I wrote the book because I wanted to make sure that women did lean into high profile roles, that people feel confident when they're putting themselves out there, that they're not going to be criticised personally and here's some risk mitigation to be able to navigate that more easily criticise personally and here's some risk mitigation to be able to navigate that more easily.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 38:09

Yeah, that was a very challenging time, um, in the banking financial sector. I recall, um, I recall some of those stories and you're right, it's so interesting and it happens repeatedly where, where women are targeted based on how they, their appearance, is um and not not never, never the same with with males, and it's really frustrating, especially as a, you know, young woman, you know climbing corporate ladder, you know trying to grow a career and all these things, and then you're faced with that. It really does make you feel um, as you say, invisible. So I think this is going to be really helpful for people and and what's been the um most surprising feedback you've gotten so far from those who've read it, People love that it's practical.

Amanda Blesing: 38:48

So there's lots of worksheets in there, lots of practical activities, and people love that it's practical. It's not rocket science, like self-promotion isn't rocket science. But you know, I guess I teach a strategic approach. I talk about be visible and strategic. We don't want to exhaust ourselves racing around a networking function day after day after day. We want to be strategic in front of the right audience at the right time and the right place with those really good key messages. So that is it in a nutshell.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 39:25

I learned that the hard way. Recently. Actually, I was starting to attend a series of sort of startup mixes and other similar events and I realised I'm spending all this after hours, time away from my daughter, attending these events, not realising that at this point in life, that those are not the audience that I actually need for what I'm doing my goal. So I think that's really important and really understated. I think people probably don't really connect the two together, so I think that's a really good call out. Yeah, great. So thinking about sorry, Siri decides to talk midway through um. So thinking about those, um, those professionals and, as you said, predominantly the women, but this can apply to anyone. What advice do you have for professionals looking to pivot their career or step into new leadership roles? Maybe they're uncertain or they're not quite sure. Maybe they've been in the same role for a long time and they want to go into their own business. What sort of advice can you give?

Amanda Blesing: 40:20

them? Okay, good question, and it's one I get asked a lot. At the moment we're in a little bit of an economic downturn. So if you're thinking about changing, see if you can get your current company to invest in the change, in you first, as in try a special project in another area or a secondment to another area within your own company, because you've already got that trust uh, trusted relationship, you've already got a brand within the organisation, so maybe you can get some experience and exposure to something different in your current organisation before you springboard into a new organisation.

Amanda Blesing: 41:01

Now, the only reason I say that because in a in an economic downt, organisations tend to hire people who've done the job before. So if you're looking to pivot, see how you can gain some exposure first, maybe in your current organisation or a voluntary role or on a board or a committee somehow, before you necessarily try and make the big leap. Of course, never say die. I'm sure that there are people out there who have done that and done it successfully, and so it's just a word of warning and I think it's really helpful at a certain point in your career, get your CV written professionally. Your CV and your LinkedIn profile should actually scare you a little bit with how amazing you sound. Yeah, that is not lying, it's not cheating, it's all factual. It's just it.

Amanda Blesing: 41:50

We are too close to our own expertise, our own results. We forget stuff. That's like something comes up and we don't know how to write about them. We're either writing too many boring facts and not enough narrative, or too much narrative narrative and no numbers. Like it's much easier to have an, to have someone who's really good at this to help you craft the narrative, craft your career tool. So get someone to help you. Plus, there's no point in waiting until your dream role is on the horizon and then going oh my gosh, I'm going to spend all this time updating my CV on the weekend. That's too late. You need it done in advance. You need to have a sharp career toolkit ready to go well in advance.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 42:37

The CV and LinkedIn. I'm not sure if you would advise this as well, but they've got to align because, yes, I've seen I've interviewed people where their CV and it's not that it's just out of date, it's just a completely different roles, completely different companies and it really is a mismatch. So I think, from a brand perspective, surely those two have to be aligned yeah, that is definitely important in terms of branding.

Amanda Blesing: 43:00

It has to be congruent.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 43:01

You've got to be selling the same product yeah, absolutely, and so, um, you're thinking back to your journey of becoming a ceo, you? You have an interesting perspective about banning bossy. Tell me more about what's ban bossy, ban bossy.

Amanda Blesing: 43:17

Well, you might remember and it's a while ago now but Cheryl Sandberg wrote a book called lean in and I I must admit I was planning what to do after my CEO-ship in the association sector. I'm thinking, what am I going to do? And then I had this idea about oh my gosh, I can help people put themselves out there speaking boards, awards, accolades. I can help them do all of that sort of stuff because I've been doing it for years. I just specialise in this sector and in order to do that, I read. One of the books that I read in order to prepare before I launched my business was Sheryl Sandberg and Lean In.

Amanda Blesing: 43:53

And she says ban bossy. Why this resonated so much for me was because when I am under stress, when I'm under pressure, sometimes I can get like a little bit of a micromanaging behavior going on. I'm a bit direct and you know, sometimes people might not like how bossy I become, but telling someone that they're bossy, it's just chastising them. We need to ban that, that language. We don't want to tell little girls they were bossy. The reason I don't like it so much is because when I was a kid, my mum used to call me bossy. You know, stop being bossy. And so I, you know, really resonated for me that message, and I I was like no, I'm on this bandwagon too. Let's ban bossy. We don't want to tell little girls or young women or young career-minded um uh executives that they're being bossy. Let's really unpack the, the behavior, what's going on here? Really, let's give really specific feedback rather than just say you're being bossy. Let's get rid of that word.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 44:56

I love that book. First of all, the lean in book. It's fantastic and I do recall that actually being spoken about it's so interesting. Like you, I was also told I was very bossy, by my family, by my siblings, and I've never, ever heard a man being told he's bossy.

Amanda Blesing: 45:17

You're absolutely right. It's a gendered response, isn't it? It's a response for little girls to you know. Keep them playing in their lanes and keep them behaving nicely. Because we do have societal expectations on how a little girl should behave and how a little boy should behave.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 45:34

We have, we have those expectations, so yeah it's um, yeah, it's unfortunate, but hopefully, like you said, it can be banned and I think it's getting better, but I definitely won't be using that with my daughter. I wanted to um touch on one of the things that I know. You um in your, in your? Um form, and when we were doing some collecting of information, you you have a story about calling for papers and there was a bold moment involving a conference call for papers and you said yeah, can you tell us about that?

Amanda Blesing: 46:05

I'm curious yeah, well, um, I think I alluded to it earlier and there was this moment. I was sitting there and I worked at the time. I was working in a sector that was, in actual fact, I'd say, heavily female dominated in a lead, in leadership roles. It was customer care, complaints, consumer affairs, so you know, the women. There were a lot of women in management and leadership. So it was very, very interesting. So, as I I did allude to this earlier, I'd call for papers for the conference and 10 men had put their hand up and they'd say pick me.

Amanda Blesing: 46:40

You know, pick me, and um, and, and only one woman. And what was really interesting, and this is perhaps, or I think, what was really interesting. So the men understood that this was a game of pick me, can I workshop the idea with you, amanda? And they'd be sending me emails saying here, you know, I've got this idea. What do you think Could we tailor it? Blah, is this of interest? But none of the women. If they did email me, it had to be with a fully fledged, perfectly formed idea, the pricey, perfectly done, ready to go. And I think this needing to feel like we're perfect all the time, needing to be fully prepared, you know, because we're needing to overprove ourselves, because we've got to jump through more hoops in order to be taken seriously, this has consequences. So that is where that story comes from. You know, next time someone calls for paper for your industry conference, I challenge you, just say pick me, I've got this idea. It starts like this Would someone be willing to talk it through with me? I'd love to share this case study.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 47:45

It's very interesting. You say that there is a conference, which I won't name, that I've submitted to speak at a few times. I've had success in others, but this particular one has often given feedback that really doesn't make any sense. And then you look at their agenda and there's so much more, you know, gender-based, male than female speaking, and also repetitive, and so it's really interesting. So I'm always curious, like how do you get seen? How does your speaking submission get seen? How does it stand out? How does it be? You know be different. So any tips on that for people that are looking to speak at conferences?

Amanda Blesing: 48:22

I even for my executive level clients not just my, you know, women who run businesses but for my executive level clients I say have a basic bio drafted, you know, get someone to help you, get your GPT to help you. You know, it's amazing the tools that are out there at the moment and also have one or two topics in your back pocket that are ready to go, like perhaps a title, a subheading and three bullet points about what you might talk about. As I said, it doesn't need to be perfect, but have them ready to go. And the best tip is, you know, you know, email the conference organisers. The best pro tip I ever heard and I write about it in the book is for those who do want to take their speaker career seriously and they want to start doing more speaking gigs, is that it's sort of like a pro tip about being on standby.

Amanda Blesing: 49:12

So you email the organiser, say two months before a conference, and you say, hey, I realise that sometimes, sometimes a speaker can pull out at the last minute and, hand on heart, I did have one conference that I was running where nine speakers pulled out in the last month before the event, like that's a lot, and so, as the organiser will probably appreciate knowing that they've got someone on standby. So you say, hey, I realise that sometimes speakers pull out at the last minute. I've got this topic that's almost ready to go. I've delivered it a couple of times internally to my organisation and they really like it. I'd be happy to share that with your audience. All I need is 48 hours notice and I'd be happy to be there, love it.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 49:58

I'm going to steal that and apply it immediately, because I think there's a few conferences where they're probably out of reach to some degree, that seem a bit out of reach and maybe that's the lack of confidence speaking there. But I think having that that's a really good tip. I love it. I'm gonna definitely check out your book to see what other tips you've got in there like that one. Amanda, we're almost at the end of our time together. My last question for you today is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners, a call to action, a piece of advice or a question to ponder?

Amanda Blesing: 50:29

In terms of your branding and career journey. I think the biggest thing that gets in the way is that we just don't do it. We don't take action on it. I think we're very good at doing our job. We know the importance of work-life balance, so we work at that. We know the importance of having an identity outside of work. We're busy. We know the importance of doing a really good job at work, but one of the things that we forget to do is focus on that career strategy, and I really encourage people to really have a think about where are you going, what are you aiming for? Because how will you know when you get there? If you don't know what you're aiming for, you won't even know if you're on the right track.

Amanda Blesing: 51:12

So have a think about it. Do something that's like one year, three or five years, maybe even 10 years. Map it out. There's, you know, there's a bunch of things you could have underpinning that, like what you want, the why you want it, how much money you want, why you want it, how much money you want, what are the gaps or the steps that you might need to have done in order to get there. Map that out and share it with your boss. It's so important, it's so helpful. Your boss won't necessarily, if they're a good one, won't feel threatened. They'll want to help you achieve that, and it's an amazing tool. So I think that would be the advice. Do you have some sort of plan for your career?

Fatimah Abbouchi: 51:52

It's a really good call out. It relates to a comment one of my other guests had recently, whether he talked about treating your career as a project and actually planning it out like you would a typical project, whether you're building a house. So it really resonated with people. But key word in what you just so it really resonated with people, but keyword in what you just said action. I love that. Don't consume all this content, all this information and not do anything with it. So I think that will definitely really resonate. Where is the best place for people to connect with you and find you?

Amanda Blesing: 52:21

I'm all over LinkedIn, so connect with me on LinkedIn. Mention that you heard this podcast, because my profile is locked down a bit because I've got a lot of connections and I but I love to connect with people. So, just you know, work your way around the follow button and say, hey, I saw you on Fatimah podcast. I really liked this thing you said here. I love getting feedback like that and would you like to connect? And I'd be happy to connect with you. So, LinkedIn, I have my own website, amandableesing. com. That's a blessing in disguise, Blesing with one S.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 52:56

And yeah, I'd love to connect with your listeners, amazing, and I'll make sure to include that in the show notes and also reference to your book. I wish you the best of success in the next book. Looking to reading a bit more about that, but otherwise I thank you and appreciate all your time today.

Amanda Blesing: 53:11

Thank you, Fatimah, wonderful to be here.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 53:13

Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. Please share this with someone or rate it if you enjoyed it. Don't forget to follow us on social media and to stay up to date with all things Agile Ideas. Go to our website, www. agilemanagementofficecom. I hope you've been able to learn, feel or be inspired today. Until next time, what's your Agile Idea?