Dr. Holly Sullenger | SpeakerHub

Personal Details

Bio

Today, the skills college graduates acquire during college have an expected shelf life of only five years. Professionals must constantly learn and re-tool to stay relevant in their field. Dr. Holly Sullenger can help your organization remain competitive by providing speaking and training events that will motivate your teams and help employees stay relevant.

Dr. Holly is a seasoned veteran in the field of corporate speaking and training. Her content expertise areas include leadership, professional development and technology.

Dr. Holly has worked with individuals representing a vast array of different occupations and industries. She is a sought-after speaker and trainer known for being able to present high-level topics in ways that make the content easy to understand, to assimilate, and to act on.

Dr. Holly has a PhD in Adult, Workforce and Continuing Professional Education from NC State University, as well as degrees in Adult Education, Business Management, Computer Science and Liberal Arts. This enables her to combine an in-depth knowledge of business and industry with adult-education techniques and infused humor in order to bring unparalleled knowledge and assistance to those she partners with.

Let Dr. Holly help you keep your cutting-edge workforce motivated and at the ready – schedule your next corporate speaking and training events with Dr. Holly Speaks, PhD, LLC. Visit www.DrHollySpeaks.com for more information.

Current position (1)

Speaker/Trainer

Dr. Holly Speaks, PhD, LLC

Degrees (3)

PhD in Adult, Workforce, and Continuing Professional Education

NC State University

2012 to 2019

M Ed. Adult Education

Heritage University

1990 to 1993

B.S. Business Administration

Central Washington University

1984 to 1987

Presentations

Presentations (20)

Thriving in a Virtual Environment

When conducting business in a virtual environment, you can employ basic strategies to turn the boring virtual world into an exciting, memorable experience.

During this highly interactive session, attendees will learn three areas in which simple changes create a presence that others can learn from, interact with and enjoy.
• Attendees will learn how to establish a physical visual presence that is both professional and warm and fuzzy at the same time.
• Attendees will learn how to interact with others in a virtual environment in a way that promotes conversation and understanding.
• Attendees will learn what actions need to be “amped up” in the virtual world.

Join us, and find out how you can “up” your virtual game!

Communication Skills That Will Set You Apart

This seminar gives professionals tools to help them identify what effective communication looks like, and how to use this knowledge to be more personally productive and to become more capable with others. The attendee will be able to hear the real message being communicated by interpreting both words and body language and using the clarifying methods of active listening and feedback.

• The Steps in the Communication Process
• 8 Barriers to Communication
• Verbal Communication Tips
• Guidelines for Speaking Plain Language
• Types of Non-verbal Communication
• Positive and Negative Body Language Identifiers
• The Complete List of Open and Closed Gestures
• 6 Ways to Improve Communication
• Traits of Active Listeners
• Top 10 Rules of Effective Listening
• The Importance of Feedback

Coping with Difficult Co-workers

Difficult co-workers are inevitable. Because of our different approaches to life, our differing personalities, our unique opinions and our personal preferences, getting along is often a challenge. This seminar will show participants how to successfully work with individuals who might be perceived as “difficult.” Participants will walk away with proven strategies that will help them work more efficiently – while enabling them to garner a reputation of playing well in the same sandbox with others.

• Understanding the “Style” of Others
• Interpreting and Using Motivation Languages
• 10 Tips for Playing Well with Others
• Identifying and Finding Success with the Supremely Challenging Co-Worker
• Setting Yourself up for Continued Success

Creating and Delivering Home-run Presentations

This seminar is designed to help attendees create a memorable, enjoyable presentation while simultaneously delivering the intended message. Participants will learn how to develop a presentation, how to use visuals and handouts as assists, and how to present with confidence.

• Using PowerPoint as a Visual Assistant
• Developing a Winning Presentation
• Learning Methods to Rehearse and Relax
• Understanding the Pecha Kucha style of Presentation

Creating Great Work Relationships

In today’s fickle work environment, solid work relationships can mean the difference between floundering and having great success. This course shows participants how to create sound relationships between supervisors, co-workers, subordinates, vendors, and customers. Participants will return to work ready to form partnerships and alliances that benefit the organization.

• Understanding Personality Types and Their Impact on the Workplace
• Understanding Motivation Styles and Their Impact on the Workplace
• Understanding the Generations and Their Impact on the Workplace
• Creating Bridges in the Workplace
• Generating Success with Challenging Co-workers

Cross-Functional Teams

In today’s economy, employees are asked to do more with less. How, then, can employees be productive and efficient in the light of overwork and under-staffing? Cross-team collaboration, also known as cross-functional teams, allows employees to share talent, skills and expertise in a way that maximizes effectiveness while reducing time constraints and manpower shortages. The seminar participant will learn how cross-functional teams work, how they can be put in place, and how they can be used to maximize organizational productivity – while ensuring a happy and growing employee base.

• What is Cross-Team Collaboration and Why Should I Care?
• The 7 Deadly Sins that Block Collaboration
• 5 Steps to Cross Organizational Collaboration and Teamwork
• The Leadership Role within Cross-Functional Teams
• The Team Members
• Creating Common Purpose and Goals
• Clarifying Roles and Building Trust
• The Secret to Cross-Team Collaboration

Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace

Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to monitor one's own and other people's emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior. Studies have shown that people with high EI have greater mental health, exemplary job performance, and more potent leadership skills. In this seminar, attendees will learn how to develop EI in themselves, co-workers, superiors and subordinates, making professional relationships successful for all.

• The Importance of Emotional Intelligence (EI) in the Workplace
• The Three Models of EI
• 14 Steps to Developing EI
• 10 Ways to Enhance Your Own EI
• Ideas to Help Others Develop EI

Encouraging Creativity and Innovation in the Workplace

Innovation is simply creativity that goes “outside the box” to find fresh, exciting, and enticing ways to drive business. In light of the strong competition and weak economy of today’s workforce, a business that wants to grow and retain competitive advantage must be innovative. This seminar teaches participants how to encourage innovation within their work environment, an activity that is sure to put their organization on the fast track to growth and economic certainty.

• Innovation Blockers
• Innovation Promoters
• Establishing an Innovative Environment
• Key Management Roles that Encourage Innovation
• Hiring the Right “Innovative” Employees
• Building Innovation Teams
• The Competitive Benefits of Innovation

How to Create Your Own Internal Board of Directors

How do so many people get ahead in life? Is it luck? Is it money? Is it reputation? It might be a bit of all three. However, most don’t get ahead without the help of others. The synergy that is present when many minds and talents come together usually propels all involved to new heights. This seminar will help you assemble your own personal “Board of Directors,” and it will help you see how you are on the “Board of Directors” of others – whether you know it, or not!

• Identifying Strengths, Weaknesses, and Goals
• What is an Internal Board of Directors?
• Why is an Internal Board of Directors Crucial to Success?
• The 12 Members you Need on your Board
• The One Thing that Ensures Board Success
• How to Construct Your Board
• How to Pay it Forward

Leading a Team Through the Organizational Maze

Today’s leader carries a lot on their shoulders. They must maintain relevancy, be agile, be connectors and communicators, convey the vision and mission, hire teams of excellence, increase the bottom line, and more.

In fact, true leaders are rare. This is because the combination of skills, personality and ambition essential to leadership are difficult to develop and exhibit. This seminar will help leaders pinpoint areas they can adopt and/or strengthen on the way to becoming a leader of excellence.

• The 3 Ways a Leader Develops
• Attributes and Traits of Successful Leaders
• The 7 Habits of Remarkably Successful Leaders
• The Four Leadership Styles
• 10 Secrets of Successful Leaders
• 7 Tips to Build and Manage Teams of Excellence
• 10 Ways to Gain Respect as a Leader
• 4 Environments that Motivate
• The 15 Things Successful Leaders Do Every Day

Meeting that Work!

Meetings are usually seen as a four-letter word. They are often pointless, a megaphone for self-promoters, too long, too boring… and more! However, effective and efficient meetings, aka unicorns, really do add to the bottom line of any organization. This seminar will teach participants how to find unicorns, and create meetings that count.

• The Current State of Meeting Effectiveness
• Types of Meetings and Benefits
• 5 Parts of a Meeting and Key Players
• 8 Goals of an Effective Meeting
• Key Facilitation Elements
• Meeting Killers and Coping Mechanisms
• Meeting Rules
• Innovative Tools

Staying Relevant in the Workplace

With current unemployment rates and a surging millennial workforce, there is no longer a “guarantee” of continued employment. Today’s savvy professional will work to remain relevant and increase their professional worth. This seminar is designed to give participants a road-map to relevancy – an action plan that can give them leverage in their professional lives.

• What is Relevancy?
• Benefits of Remaining Relevant in your Field
• 15 ways to Remain Relevant in the Workforce
• 8 special Considerations for Personal Relevancy
• Why You Should Help Others Stay Relevant

Successfully Navigating Crucial Conversations

This seminar teaches skills for creating alignment and agreement by fostering open dialogue around high-stakes, emotional, or risky topics – at all levels of the organization. By learning how to speak and be heard (and encouraging others to do the same), you will surface the best ideas, make the highest-quality decisions, and then act on decisions with unity and commitment. This seminar is invaluable for teaching skills necessary when the stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong.

• Speak persuasively, not abrasively
• Foster teamwork and better decision making
• Build acceptance rather than resistance
• Resolve individual and group disagreements

The Art of Delegating

In order to be a truly effective leader, you must be comfortable delegating work. With a fine line between delegating and "dumping", it is important to follow specific steps that make assignments clear and create a sense of ownership among team members while also maintaining overall control. Effective delegation helps develop individuals and achieve specific organizational outcomes. Learn how to identify who is ready for delegation using a reliable and collaborative process and become prepared to determine "who will do what, when, and to what standard" in your day-to-day role.

• Demonstrate the steps of the delegation process
• Delegate tasks and responsibilities to develop and train others
• Plan and prepare for a delegation meeting
• Communicate clear performance standards for follow-up and accountability
• Understand the empowerment cycle

The Art of Saying “No”

The ability to set boundaries is one of the most important skills to master for both personal and professional growth. One of the most important aspects of a good boundary is the ability to say “No” to the people, activities and engagements that we do not enjoy or that do not advance us personally or professionally. When you say no to the things that don’t help you, you are, in effect, saying “Yes” to the things that will.

This interactive seminar will help you learn when and how to say “No” with grace and professionalism. You will learn to give yourself the freedom to say “Yes” to activities that will help you grow and that will add value to your personal brand and reputation.

• The Problems with Saying “Yes”
• How to Choose the Right Words when Saying “No”
• How Saying “No” Gets You Ahead
• Case Studies
• Best Practices to Help You Say “No”
• Role Play

The Changing Demographic: Embracing Diversity in the Workplace

Attendees will learn the advantages to establishing a desirable, success-oriented, diverse environment in their workplace. Participants will explore the tools necessary to promote diversity and will discover communication techniques needed to make diversity a permanent part of a prosperous and thriving corporate environment.

• The Benefits of Establishing Diversity in the Workplace
• The Challenges Associated with Establishing Diversity in the Workplace
• Ideas for Effectively Creating a Diverse Work Environment
• Methods of Communication that Encourage a Healthy Diverse Environment
• The Importance of Organizational Roles when Establishing Diversity
• Steps that Preserve a Continued Environment of Diversity

The Importance of Continual Networking

True networking occurs when there’s an understanding that everyone in the room has equal value. In its purest form, it’s about people enjoying other people, communicating passions and connecting with others who share those passions. It’s about listening, figuring out what others need and connecting them with people you think can help, without any designs for personal gain. The most successful networkers build genuine relationships and give more than they receive. They go beyond thinking, “What’s in it for me?” to ask, “How can I help?” This seminar will enable participants to network successfully, catapulting their careers into the stratosphere!

• The Art of Networking
• 5 Rookie Networking Fails and How to Avoid Them
• People and Places Essential to Successful Networking
• 8 Tricks to Make Connections that will Pay Off
• Tips for Networking Success

The Multigenerational Workplace

We are now living at a time in which there are five different generations in the workforce. In fact, there are five very different generations that often do not understand each other and frequently have trouble working harmoniously together. This seminar is designed to help professionals learn the different characteristics assigned to each generation in order to promote understanding, and to enable participants to realize that the most effective work teams will include members from each generation.

• The Aging Workforce and Labor Shortage Implications
• Traditionals, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z
• Benefits of a Multigenerational Team
• Challenges in the Workplace
• Best Multigenerational Communication Practices
• How to Improve Cross-Generational Practices in the Workplace
• How to Manage Generations Successfully

Timeboxing: Staying in Your Project Window

In time management, timeboxing allocates a fixed time period, called a time box, to each planned activity. And this particular project management practice works – with projects as well as in the personal life of each employee. Learn to get more out of your day – painlessly – with timeboxing.

• What is Timeboxing?
• Workplace Disruptions and Ways to Cope
• 15 Timeboxing Strategies to Get Things Done
• The Pomodoro Method
• Creating Your Personalized Success Plan

Unbeatable Leadership Skills

Leading successful organizations and effective work teams is a learned art. This seminar will help leaders discover the importance of developing solid, efficient work teams as well as the wisdom of crafting vision and mission that all can understand and work toward. Leaders will learn to project a leader role model while fostering team communication that will strengthen team bonds, increase productivity and profitability and add to a positive leadership front.

• Seven Patterns of Organizational Ineffectiveness
• Comparing Effective and Ineffective Teams
• 7 Steps to Build and Lead Effective Teams
• 4 Leadership Styles and 4 Team Member Styles and How to Blend the Two
• The Importance of Establishing Vision and Mission
• Fostering Effective Team Communication
• 10 Ways to Gain Respect as a Leader

Workshops (4)

Power BI Desktop: A 12-Week Learning Series

1 hour

Power BI Desktop is quickly becoming the most powerful business intelligence data analytics platform. An understanding of Power BI is essential for data professionals.

Excel Data Analytics with Power BI: A 12-Week Learning Series

1 hour

The good folks at Microsoft understand the fascination we have with big data and the need to present great data visualizations. Fortunately, Excel has many tools to help with these needs!

Memorable Business Presentations Through Storytelling and Visualization: A 10-session Workshop

1 hour

Members of business and industry are frequently required to give presentations and/or to persuade colleagues to move in a particular direction. Both of these activities are done much more successfully if the presenter can utilize the art of storytelling and visualization.

The Executive Presence/Professional Image Program: A 12 Week Learning Series

1 hour

The Executive Presence Program is designed to help working professionals hone their executive presence and professional image so that they, and their organization, are set up for workplace success. It is also designed to help sponsoring organizations realize a higher level of regard within their industry due to the professionalism, preparedness and acuity of their employees.

Past talks (7)

Timeboxing: New Ideas for Time Management

Council on the Status of Women Professional Development Training

NC State University - Raleigh, NC

January 24, 2019

The Value of Cross-Team Collaboration

OSC eCommerce Conference

McKimmon Center - Raleigh, NC

April 16, 2019

Excel Tips & Tricks

Members of Business and Industry Spring Conference

The Grandover - Greensboro, NC

May 22, 2019

Excel Tips & Tricks

NCACPA Local Government Conference

Embassy Suites - Greensboro, NC

May 15, 2019

Excel Tips & Tricks

NCACPA Not-For-Profit Conference

The Grandover - Greensboro, NC

May 20, 2019

Cross-Team Collaboration

NC Department of Revenue Leadership Training

NCDOR - Raleigh, NC

May 28, 2019

Timeboxing: Time Management for the Time Impaired

Department of Plan and Microbial Biology - Staff Training

NC State University - Raleigh, NC

June 25, 2019

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Virtual Trainer Extraordinaire

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Books & Articles (6)

Using Immersive and Experiential Training - Successfully!

Three Reasons Microsoft Excel is Still Relevant Today

Your Own Personal Board of Directors

How to Win with Emails and Text

How Adults Best Learn Technology

Creating Access Databases - Step By Step

Expertise (31)

Clients

Association Executives in North Carolina

AW North Carolina

BD Technologies

Blackman Sloop, CPAs

Blue Cross Blue Shield NC

Bob Barker Company, NC

Coca-Cola Bottling, Charlotte, NC

Coldwell Banker

Duke University Staff Training

Grifols, Inc.

Guilford Technical Community College, NC

Hare Pipeline Construction Inc., NC

Home Hardware Stores Limited

Hutchison Law Group PLLC

Johnston Community College, NC

LabCorp, Elon, NC

Lexitas Pharma Services

Lower Cape Fear HR Association

MCI

Medical Mutual Insurance Company, NC

Moore County Schools, NC

NC State University

North Carolina Association of CPAs

North Carolina Community College System Office

North Carolina Department of Revenue

North Carolina Office of the State Controller

North Carolina Office of the State Treasurer

North State Bank, NC

ScottMadden, Inc

Pepsi Bottling Ventures

Progress Energy, NC

Raleigh NC SHRM

Ramey Kemp Associates

Rufty Homes, NC

The Morehead-Cain Foundation, NC

The Pantry, Inc

Tipper Tie, NC

Town of Cary, NC

UNC Pembroke

VisitRaleigh, NC

Wake Technical Community College

Awards & certifications (5)

Outstanding Professional Discussion Leader

North Carolina Association of CPAs

2014

Outstanding Conference Speaker

North Carolina Association of CPAs

2016

Outstanding Professional Discussion Leader

North Carolina Association of CPAs

2011

University Award for Excellence

NC State University

2016

LIfetime Volunteer Achievement Award

Hope Community Church

2008

Reviews

Testimonials (1)

The timeboxing workshop Holly presents is fantastic. Her presenting style is engaging, the information given is clear and with great examples of how your time use can be affected. Timeboxing is such a good skill to learn not only for being more efficient and focused at work but also on tasks outside of work.
Rebecca Hughes
Verified