Blazing Trails Coaching

When you hire Priscilla Hansen Mahoney, you get a speaker who understands contractors, trades, service businesses, and the real-world challenges of leading a growing company.

On stage, Priscilla is practical, conversational, direct, and engaging. She uses humor, stories, audience questions, and recognizable business situations to make leadership and operational topics relatable. Her presentations are energetic without being theatrical and substantive without feeling like a lecture.

Audiences can expect to hear about the issues they are actually dealing with: leadership, delegation, accountability, team development, communication, Lean thinking, operational improvement, succession, and getting the owner out of the middle of every decision.

Priscilla does not deliver generic motivational speeches. Her goal is to help people see something in their business differently and leave with ideas they can put to work.

For event planners, that means a presentation designed around your audience.

Before the event, Priscilla works to understand who will be in the room, what challenges they are facing, and what you want them to take away. A presentation for business owners will not sound exactly like one for managers or crew leaders. A room full of contractors will hear examples that reflect jobsites, crews, field operations, office-to-field communication, and the realities of running a construction business. Service-business audiences will hear examples that reflect scheduling, customer handoffs, workflow, leadership, and team accountability.

Her presentations can be delivered as keynotes, conference sessions, breakout sessions, workshops, leadership programs, association meetings, retreats, or interactive training sessions.

Depending on the format, audiences may participate through questions, discussion, reflection exercises, and real-world scenarios. Priscilla wants people thinking about their own businesses while she is speaking—not simply taking notes.

Expect practical questions such as:

What are you still doing that someone else should own?

Where have you become the bottleneck?

Do your people actually know what they are responsible for?

Have you delegated authority, or just handed someone another task?

Are you solving the real problem—or the symptom?

Where is wasted time hiding in your business?

Are your managers actually leading, or are they simply your best technicians with new titles?

Those are the conversations Priscilla is known for creating.

A client who hires Priscilla can also expect professionalism and preparation. She brings extensive experience speaking for business and industry audiences, including the National Association of Home Builders, the International Builders’ Show, Bernstein Shur’s Women in Construction event, and the Maine Women’s Conference.

She combines that speaking experience with hands-on work as a business coach, consultant, and strategist. She works directly with business owners and leadership teams, which means her presentations are informed by what is happening inside businesses right now.

Her credentials include iPEC Certified Professional Coach, Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, Lean Project Management practitioner, Distinguished Toastmaster, and a degree in Business Management.

Most importantly, Priscilla understands that the event planner is hiring her to serve the audience.

You can expect a speaker who is prepared, adaptable, respectful of the event schedule, easy to work with, and focused on delivering value.

You can also expect your audience to laugh a little, recognize themselves more than once, and leave with something useful to talk about on the drive home—or at work the next morning.

Priscilla’s goal is simple:

Make them think.

Make it practical.

Make it useful.

And give them something they can actually do differently when they get back to work.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney is a business coach, consultant, strategist, and professional speaker who helps contractors, trades, and service-based businesses grow stronger, more profitable companies.

As the owner of Blazing Trails Coaching, LLC, Priscilla works directly with business owners and leadership teams navigating growth, leadership transitions, operational challenges, succession, and the day-to-day realities of running a company where the work has to get done in the field.

Her speaking focuses on leadership, accountability, delegation, team development, operational improvement, Lean thinking, succession, and the transition from doing the work to leading the business.

Priscilla is a speaker for the National Association of Home Builders and has presented at the International Builders’ Show, Bernstein Shur’s Women in Construction event, and the Maine Women’s Conference. She also speaks for business associations, leadership groups, and industry organizations.

Her audiences include business owners, executives, managers, supervisors, crew leaders, and emerging leaders—especially those working in construction, the trades, and service-based businesses.

Priscilla’s message is grounded in a reality she sees every day: many businesses grow faster than their leadership systems.

The owner may still be answering every question. Managers may have been promoted because they were technically strong but never taught how to lead. Roles are often unclear. Decisions get pushed upward. Communication between the office and the field breaks down. Processes exist in people’s heads. Everyone is busy, but too much still depends on a handful of people.

Priscilla helps audiences recognize those patterns and understand what needs to change.

A major focus of her work is helping owners make the shift from being the person who solves every problem to becoming the person who builds the team, structure, and systems that allow others to lead.

She speaks candidly about delegation, decision-making, accountability, role clarity, and leadership development. Her approach is practical because her work happens inside real businesses—not just in conference rooms or on presentation slides.

Priscilla regularly works with companies where schedules change, crews need answers, customers have expectations, profitability matters, and leadership decisions have immediate consequences. She understands the pressure owners and managers feel when they are trying to grow a business while still handling the daily fires.

That experience shapes the way she speaks.

Her presentations are practical, direct, and rooted in examples audiences recognize from their own businesses.

Priscilla also brings Lean thinking and process improvement into her speaking in a way that is accessible to companies outside traditional manufacturing environments.

She helps audiences look for wasted time, poor handoffs, unclear workflows, duplicate work, unnecessary steps, communication gaps, and other forms of operational friction that quietly drain productivity and profit.

Her Lean approach is heavily influenced by the principle of Genchi Genbutsu—“go and see.”

If you want to understand a business problem, go where the work is happening.

Talk to the people doing it.

Watch the process.

Look at the handoffs.

Understand what is actually happening before deciding how to fix it.

That principle is central to Priscilla’s consulting work and one of the reasons her presentations connect so strongly with contractors, tradespeople, and service businesses. She does not treat operational problems as abstract concepts. She looks at how the work actually moves through the business.

Leadership development is another major part of Priscilla’s work.

She believes businesses cannot grow sustainably if all leadership responsibility remains concentrated at the top.

Owners need capable managers.

Managers need strong supervisors.

Supervisors and crew leaders need clear authority, practical leadership skills, and the confidence to make decisions.

Employees need to understand what they own, what is expected of them, and how their work contributes to the company.

For companies with field teams, this is especially important. The frontline leader often has enormous influence over productivity, communication, employee retention, customer experience, safety, and profitability.

Priscilla speaks about how to develop those leaders rather than simply promoting someone into a leadership role and hoping they figure it out.

She also speaks on succession and ownership transition.

Her work with business owners has shown her that succession is not only an ownership issue. It is a leadership and operational readiness issue.

A business is not truly ready for succession if critical knowledge lives in one person’s head, if every major decision depends on the founder, or if the leadership team cannot operate without constant intervention.

Priscilla helps audiences think differently about succession by focusing on leadership depth, management systems, decision rights, accountability, knowledge transfer, and the strength of the organization beneath the owner.

She also works with employee-owned businesses and speaks on leadership and governance within growing ESOP companies, including the importance of clear roles, management discipline, leadership depth, and employee-owner education.

Priscilla’s speaking style is conversational, practical, and often humorous.

She does not believe audiences need another hour of vague inspiration.

They need useful ideas.

They need language they can take back to their teams.

They need questions that help them see their business differently.

And they need practical actions they can use when they return to the office, shop, jobsite, or field.

Her experience as a professional speaker includes presenting at the International Builders’ Show, one of the residential construction industry’s premier national events, and speaking for the National Association of Home Builders.

She has also presented at Bernstein Shur’s Women in Construction event, speaking to professionals working across the construction industry, and at the Maine Women’s Conference, where she has shared her perspective with women leaders, professionals, entrepreneurs, and business owners.

These speaking opportunities reflect both the depth of her experience and her ability to connect with different audiences while staying grounded in the realities of leadership and business growth.

Priscilla is an iPEC Certified Professional Coach, Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, Lean Project Management practitioner, and Distinguished Toastmaster. She holds a degree in Business Management and has extensive experience in strategic planning, leadership development, team facilitation, operational improvement, and organizational development.

Through Blazing Trails Coaching, she works hands-on with business owners and leadership teams to strengthen operations, clarify responsibilities, improve accountability, develop leaders, and build businesses that are capable of growing without depending on one person to hold everything together.

Her background also shapes the way she approaches leadership.

Priscilla grew up on a third-generation Maine farm, where responsibility, resourcefulness, and getting the work done were simply part of life.

She is also a Registered Maine Guide, an experience that reinforces many of the same principles she brings into business: preparation matters, leadership matters, conditions change, and the person in charge has to pay attention to what is actually happening—not just what was supposed to happen.

That mix of business strategy, leadership development, Lean thinking, and practical experience gives Priscilla a distinctive perspective on the stage.

She is especially well suited for audiences of contractors, trades professionals, service business owners, managers, supervisors, crew leaders, and companies navigating growth.

Her presentations are designed for people who are asking questions such as:

How do we grow without creating more chaos?

How do I get out of the middle of every decision?

How do I develop stronger managers?

How do I delegate without losing control?

How do we improve accountability?

How do we create clearer roles?

How do we improve communication between the office and the field?

How do we build systems people will actually use?

How do we prepare the next generation of leaders?

How do we build a company that can succeed beyond the owner?

Priscilla’s goal is not simply to give audiences information.

It is to help them recognize what is getting in the way, understand what stronger leadership looks like, and leave with practical ideas they can actually use.

Whether she is speaking to a national construction audience, a room full of business owners, a women’s leadership event, a management team, or a group of frontline leaders, Priscilla brings straight talk, real-world experience, and a strong belief that better businesses are built through better leadership, better systems, and people who know what they are responsible for.

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney is the owner of Blazing Trails Coaching, LLC.

Her work is focused on helping contractors, trades, and service-based businesses grow profits, build teams, and work Lean.

Priscilla’s presentations are intentionally low-tech and easy to accommodate in most venues.

Most programs require little more than a comfortable speaking area and appropriate sound for the size of the room. When slides are used, they are typically simple and designed for visual emphasis rather than as the primary focus of the presentation.

**Audio**

For audiences of more than 40 people, a microphone is required.

A wireless microphone is preferred so Priscilla can move naturally and engage with the audience rather than remain behind a podium. When travel does not require air travel, Priscilla can furnish her own microphone if needed.

For smaller groups, amplification is generally not necessary unless the room size or acoustics require it.

**Visuals and Presentation Technology**

Most presentations are low-tech.

Some programs may include a simple slide presentation to reinforce key ideas, frameworks, or visuals. Slides support the presentation rather than drive it, so audiences can stay focused on the conversation instead of reading from a screen.

When slides are included, the venue should provide an appropriate screen or display and access to its presentation system. Technical arrangements can be coordinated with the event planner in advance.

**Staging and Lighting**

No specialized staging or theatrical lighting is typically required.

Standard event lighting that allows the audience to clearly see the speaker is sufficient. Priscilla’s speaking style is conversational and interactive, so a setup that allows her to connect naturally with the audience works best.

**Room Setup**

Priscilla is comfortable presenting in a variety of environments, including:

* Conference and convention rooms
* Association meetings
* Breakout rooms
* Training rooms
* Workshops
* Leadership retreats
* Business meetings
* Construction and trade industry events

For interactive workshops or training sessions, room layouts that allow participants to take notes, participate in exercises, and engage in discussion are helpful.

**Recording, Video & Photography**

Event organizers, sponsors, attendees, and third parties may not substantially record, livestream, broadcast, reproduce, distribute, or reuse Priscilla’s presentation without prior written permission.

Brief attendee photos and short social-media clips are generally welcome as long as they do not substantially reproduce proprietary presentation content.

Priscilla may photograph or record portions of her own participation, the stage or event environment, and appropriate wide-angle audience views for portfolio, website, social media, public relations, and marketing purposes. Any venue, privacy, or recording restrictions should be communicated in advance.

If an event organizer would like to professionally record, livestream, archive, or distribute a presentation, those rights and permitted uses must be agreed upon in writing before the event.

**Before the Event**

Priscilla is happy to coordinate with the event planner or AV team in advance regarding microphone needs, slides, room setup, timing, and other logistics.

Her goal is to make the technical side simple so the focus can stay where it belongs: on the audience and the conversation.