Live Events - 1st and 3rd Thursdays of the Month
2 May 2024
Own Your Journey – Reclaim Your Joy
A collaboration between Alison French of Alto Solutions and Sarah C.B. Guthrie, Artist
Have you ever truly considered your professional journey? Not the courses you took in school or the job titles you’ve had, but the path itself. In so many cases, it is not a straight line and we don’t always take the time to embrace the curves we have encountered along the way or understand how they have led us to where we are today.
Come join a journey with Alison French and Sarah C.B. Guthrie, who have navigated their paths to entrepreneurship as a leadership consultant/facilitator and professional artist, respectively. Along the way, we will explore moments of joy and draw out the lessons we have learned.
For over seven years, Sarah has been writing about and painting joy–and has some key insights to share about how to cultivate a practice of joy. “To me, joy is an optimism of spirit we all carry within us,” she notes. “It’s sparked through our actions and, unlike happiness, is not dependent on our circumstances to be felt.
Paradoxically, we can feel joy at the same time we feel anger, sadness, and grief.”
In this workshop, we will share some difficult moments in our careers and the joys we found on our path to entrepreneurship. We will share some tools that participants can use to look back at their own journey.
As this program is still in the pilot phase, we are looking to you, our trusted Consultant Connections, to help us build this journey of joy through your feedback. We can’t wait to take this journey with you!
-Alison and Sarah
FREE BOOK GIVE-AWAY
Attendees will have a chance to win a copy of the upcoming ATD's Handbook for Consultants!
Sample of Past Events
February and March 2024
Quarterly Sessions for AI Session Kick-off, Tools to Be Your Best Self, and Marketing Strategies and Community Connection!
Harness AI's Potential and Avoid Its Pitfalls: AI Use Cases for Your Business and Your Clients
Kate Elgayeva helped us:
🤯demystify cutting-edge AI capabilities
🎯envision applications for your business and your clients
🤝use an ethics-focused lens to inform responsible AI implementation
Self-love is the Best Love
Bose' Akadiri took us on a journey to:
❤️🔥Ignite our inner joy
💖Create a self-love routine
💞Build meaningful connections
March was all about Marketing and Community!
Community session to provide support, collaborate, and problem-solve consultant challenges. Consultants engage the community to solve a problem, give feedback on a new service, or share lessons learned.
January 2024
4 January was THE Chat of the year! 🎉🎉
Elaine Biech, our phenomenal founder, kickstarted our year to help us transform Famous Last Words into success strategies and mindsets! It was our largest session to date with a broad range of consultants from around the globe. Great conversations to start the year filled with energy and focus!
On the 18th, we had an open community conversation. These sessions are very engaging and include participant-driven breakouts. Participants choose the topics based on what they need to tackle. Breakouts allow for group problem-solving and sharing proven strategies for marketing, client engagement, and business growth.
November and December 2023
November's New Year New Me with Arianne Saxton helped us get a jumpstart on 2024 with a renewed sense of purpose and determination.
Arianne shared her 'RENEW' approach: Refresh your mindset and goals, Enhance your skills, Nurture personal growth, Empower positive changes, and Work consistently toward your aspirations.
We followed that session with a C5 group planning session for 2024
Based on consultant feedback, we will be adding in quarterly sessions for AI, mastermind and group problem-solving and collaboration sessions, and strategies for marketing, client engagement, and business growth.
October 2023
October became ROCKtober!
Two tremendous sessions with community rockstars Kassy LaBorie and Brandy Ford.
Shift Happens: Embracing change for client success and for your success!
Clients count on you for results. Yet those results are based on their ability to drive change within the organization. How do you help clients navigate change? What tools, tips, and strategies did you use to ensure success?
Brandy Ford led an interactive session on:
🔹Different types of organizational change
🔹How change impacts clients and their teams
🔹The pivotal role of executive leadership in change initiatives
🔹Effective communication strategies and data visualization
Engage, Connect, Belong!
Learning, working, and meeting online is now commonplace. Meaningful connections are made when people know they are noticed and feel their contributions matter. Kassy LaBorie shared her no-fail “Engagement Principle” - what it is and ways to put it into action as you navigate this online world!
Kudos to Brandy and Kassy! Experts in the room left energized from a-ha moments they experienced during the sessions!
September 2023
Skilling Up was our focus for September!
Erica Holthausen led an exceptional session to help consultants write for high-visibility publications. Erica shared actionable tools, tips, and strategies to get published. Consultants laughed, learned, and left inspired, energized, and motivated to develop a publication strategy!
We also had an amazing community connection and learning session. Consultants asked each other questions, shared connections and resources, and leaned in to support each other. It was an exciting conversation that resulted in advice from mentors, AI tools, marketing tips, efficiency hacks, books, courses, certifications, client success strategies, and more!
August 2023
We explored the world of government contracts!
Leena Mendoza showed us how our expertise is highly valued in the public sector. Local, state, national, and international agencies often seek specialized services to address complex challenges. From IT consulting to management advisory, government contracts offer a vast array of projects that can elevate your career and bolster your reputation.
July 2023
We explored ChatGPT and learned strategies to use it in our consulting businesses. Stan Skrabut led an interactive and energizing session. We discovered new ways to accelerate how we could use ChatGPT and AI to create content to enhance our consulting services. The session was a hit so we will do more in 2024!
A few resources to check out:
How social enterprises are using AI by Moving Worlds
ATD Resources for AI - member only content
ChatGPT and AI for Consultants
June 2023
June was all about solutions!
Everyone has moments of doubt, fear, and discomfort. We discussed what things hold us back from raising prices, confidently negotiating contracts, or launching a bold new idea or business. Ryan Goff led us through an exercise to help each of us identify and overcome the source of our fear so we could confidently pursue business and personal goals.
Nanette Miner, Ed.D., managing consultant of The Training Doctor, LLC, hosted an ASK Me Anything session. Nanette let us tap into 30+ years of business and consulting experience in a variety of industries including financial services, insurance, hospitality, manufacturing, state and federal government, and more. Nanette provided consultants with solutions for their business to help them attract clients, manage their business, and plan for pivots as industry needs and consultant interests changed.
May 2023
May was magnificent!
Many of us met in person at ATD '23 in San Diego! It was wonderful seeing our global consultants in person.
We also hosted two sessions including one on the digital revolution led by Mike Lovell. Mike covered key trends and tools that will impact our businesses and our clients.
Wendy Picard led an enlightening session on neuroscience and how our brains process information and make decisions. What we do automatically impacts how we lead people, engage clients, and make key decisions. Wendy shared tips and tricks to help us uncover potential pitfalls and see new opportunities.
April 2023
Ask the Community and a Brand Discussion
Jeff Panning led a Lean Coffee session to:
- Promote networking
- Demonstrate a virtual, in-person, and hybrid facilitation technique
- Deliver success strategies and tips to apply to your business
- Leverage participant expertise to solve business challenges
Adapt this approach to get ahead of trends impacting your clients:
- Remote jobs are here to stay - Robert Half
- +40 Remote-first Trends intro by Josh Bersin
- Here’s What’s Happening to Remote Work in 2023 - Forbes
- Return to the Office Commentary including data from Conference Board - Fortune
We also had an energizing brand conversation with Kassy LaBorie!
What’s a quiz got to do with branding Kassy's consulting business? We took the quiz, talked about brands, and engaged in small groups to see how we might apply new strategies to build our businesses.
Curious? Find your Virtual Training SuperPower and think about new ways to build your brand. https://kassyconsulting.com/quiz-what-is-your-virtual-training-superpower/
March 2023
Ask the Community
We hosted a networking session around the theme of Serendipity. It was a hit! Hot tip from the community: reconnect with former colleagues, school mates, and clients. Consultants who reached back 7 years or more enjoyed catching up with old friends and received introductions that led to new current contracts. Leverage your network to pack your pipeline!
ASK Consultants session led by Trudy Mandeville, Ed.D. Trudy shared sales tips to help your clients overcome initial objections to buy your products and services. By anticipating and validating client objections, consultants build trust-based relationships that turn into new business opportunities.
Dr. Rich Douglas shared Humble Consulting and Mike Lovell shared Trusted Advisor as resource books to complement this session.
February 2023
We hosted and revisited ASK Consultants sessions. Lots of great strategies, tips and tools to help you: Align Brand Value with Customers; Get Ready for Growth; Pull, Pivot, Profit; and Pursue Passive Income Projects.
Great strategies shared by Clay Ostrom, Mike Shanley, Sardek Love, and Diana Barbiani. Check the website for downloadable resources, blogs, and wisdom from Elaine Biech and other community members.