Leanne works at the intersection of small business ownership and wellbeing. She understands the people who work well in small business produce a business that will also work well. Leanne Faulkner was the founder of the skincare brand Billie Goat Soap. Billie Goat started as a boutique brand hand made in her kitchen and grew to a multi-million dollar business sold both nationwide and internationally – receiving several prestigious business awards along the way. She sold Billie Goat in 2012.
Leanne appreciates that growing a small business can be challenging. She experienced her own lived experience managing her wellbeing through the rollercoaster that is small business. Today she works as a small business mental health advocate. She has consulted with the ATO, Beyond Blue, Everymind and many organisations to help them develop ways to support the wellbeing of small business owners. She won the COSBOA Small Business Champion award in 2015 for her work in the mental health sector. She recently partnered with the Federal Government, Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman plus Beyond Blue to develop and launch the new small business wellbeing site – My Business Health.
She has represented COSBOA on the Mentally Healthy Workplace Alliance and has been an active contributor to the two recent parliamentary round-tables hosted by the Federal Government on this key workplace topic. She has two published research reports on the NSW Government , State Insurance Regulatory Authority (SIRA) website researching the mental health of micro-business owners and soletraders.
Leanne is a lecturer for the University of Newcastle, teaching small business growth and innovation. She is also completing her PhD - researching how work may affect the wellbeing of micro-business owners.
She is an engaging and authentic keynote speaker who has the ability to connect with audiences of any size. She is also an experienced webinar and podcast host who understands the nuances of online presentations. Her recent clients include Xero, CommBank, American Express and CPA.
Speaking topics
Working Well – the elixir to small business success
This keynote emphasises how workplace wellness is the key to workplace success in small business – especially for solopreneurs. Drawing on my own experience as a small business owner this presentation explores how to recognise the signs when we’re not working well and provides practical steps to address the imbalance. Attendees leave with ideas and strategies they can easily apply in their own business environment demonstrating that an investment in themselves is the best investment they can make to their business success.
Working Wellness In
This keynote addresses how small business owners can build resilience and wellness without sacrificing valuable work time. Too often approaches to mentally healthy workplaces include strategies that simply don’t work in small business. This keynote provides practical and realistic ideas to support small business owners to work well in their business using strategies that fit with the realities of small business ownership. Attendees leave with a list of practical, often fun, self-care ideas they can apply immediately in their own workplace.
Creating A Mentally Healthy Small Business
Do you want to address employee wellbeing but just don’t know where to begin? It’s often challenging talking about mental health in small business environments because our workplace is quite small and intimate. It takes confidence to address wellbeing topics head on! This keynote provides business owners with a roadmap to know how to have mental health discussions in the workplace and manage the wellbeing of their small business employees. The audience will learn how building a mentally healthy workplace is so much more than fruit baskets and lunchtime yoga!
Workplace Wellness – not just for your employees
Do you know how to improve the working relationship you have with your small business customers? This keynote explores how corporate workplaces can provide mental health support to their small business clients. It explains the value of business connections and how reaching out beyond a business transaction adds value to a business relationship. It provides easily applied ideas to connect with small business customers including how to identify a customer in distress and direct them to professional support. It also presents easy and interesting ways to connect with the small business community to ensure all interactions add value to the business process.
