Leanne on Demand Daily with Leanne Hughes 🌴362. Audience First feat. Tim Ferguson (Weekend Rewind)
Today’s guest is Tim Ferguson, CEO of Audience, joining me from Switzerland. If you’ve ever walked into a workshop and felt your soul quietly leave your body, Tim is one of the people trying to stop that from happening.
This conversation is a masterclass in what great facilitation actually looks like when it’s done properly. Tim doesn’t treat “engagement” like a nice-to-have. He treats it like the job.
We talk about Tim’s wild career pivots, starting as a day camp counsellor, then theatre school, then a PhD track in religious studies, and somehow ending up running a global company that designs better corporate meetings and coaches leaders to present well. None of it was planned, which is both annoying and reassuring.
A huge theme in this episode is audience-first design. Tim and his team start with who’s in the room, not what’s on the slide deck. He even asks clients to imagine cancelling the event and selling tickets instead. If people had to pay with their own money and time, what would make it worth it? That question alone is enough to expose how much corporate stuff is built backwards.
We also get into:
- Why facilitation is a marathon, not a sprint (and why that matters if you want to do this work long-term)
- How to handle the moment someone calls your workshop “a waste of time” without getting defensive or folding
- A practical reset method (1-2-4-All) for turning tension into something useful
- Tim’s preparation routines, including how he memorises names and builds trust fast
- What it actually takes to work internationally (spoiler: relationships, reliability, and zero entitlement)
- The two underrated skills for new facilitators: presence (body language) and listening for what’s not being said
If you run workshops, lead meetings, or present for a living, you’ll steal ideas from this one immediately.
Sign up for free for my best articles every week: Work Fame.
Show notes for every episode at https://podcast.leannehughes.com
P.S. Ready to take things up a level? Here are some ways I can help:
- Watch My Speaker Reel: Let's energise your next event.
- Get My Book: Design your workshops fast using The 2-Hour Workshop Blueprint.
Let's connect on all the channels:
Visit my website: leannehughes.com
Email me: hello@leannehughes.com
Would you like to deliver your own private podcast feed to your audience? Sign up for a free trial today at Hello Audio.