Ep. 42: Personal Branding = Job Offers (Live Coaching)
Lindsay 00:00
I'm Lindsay Mustain, and this is the career design podcast made for driven ambitious square pegs and round holes type professionals who see things differently and challenge the status quo. We obliterate obstacles and unlock hidden pathways to overcome and succeed where others have not stagnation feels like death. And we are unwilling to compromise our integrity and settle for being averaged in any way. We are the backbone of any successful business and those who overlook our potential are doomed to a slow demise. We do work that truly matters aligns with our purpose, and in turn, we make our lasting mark on the world. We are the dreamers, doers, legends, and visionaries who are called to make our most meaningful contribution and love what we do.
Lindsay 00:42
It looks like we are officially live. I'm so excited. I haven't seen you for a week now. So I'm really glad to get to jump into it. This is one of my favorite topics. And I know you already started doing some of the work in it and had a really good time already. It looks like
Abby 00:57
Yeah, I'm excited about it. This is a I when I saw, you know, branding, I was like I just did this like going through design labs. And when I read through it, I was like, Oh, this is different. And I'm so excited
Lindsay 01:09
Was amazing, because you absolutely 100 do branding. And I am talking about probably the embodiment of the brand. And you're like the visual representation of the brand a little bit here. Okay, so amazing. So today we are talking about personal branding. And I like to this topic is one of my favorites, it is like this is a big deal. It's a big deal. And so when I talk about personal brand I talking about what it is that people are saying about you when you are not even in the room. And that's what Jeff Bezos said was real true brand. What are people saying about that, but it's not just true about a company or product, it's 100%, about the conversations that are happening without you being in the room. And we have the opportunity to influence that or even have you be brought up in those rooms. And so we want to talk about that today. So this part we call this expert brand builder, which is aka personal branding. And I always like to say this is this is a big deal. When I say that, I mean, this is the most important part of your professional investment that you need to make to free yourself and recession proof yourself. So you never need to look for a job again, that is how powerful personal branding is. So when I look at my time, I last time I looked for a job was in 2007. Why? It was my brand. And I went and I had this moment. And I know you've probably heard this story already before Abby. But I had this on where I've been laid off from a company. And I was starting to look for work in a time of the Great Recession. And there was no jobs like nobody was hiring recruiters that wasn't even like a thing at this point because we didn't need them. So I was looking for a job that's practically extinct. And when I tapped into using my brand combined with my networking, which we'll be covering, actually on Friday, you unlocked all this additional opportunity. And so for me, I got three different job offers and a 25% raise. And now it is the single topic I am asked to speak about more than anything else. I've even talked about it at Microsoft provisioning center in Times Square, and people pay me 1000s of dollars, just get up on stage and talk for an hour about this one topic. And it is single handedly the most efficient skill set that executives have identified for themselves is not having a personal brand. So if you look at when we make very notable CEO, like purchases as far as acquiring their talent, what makes those people who are different from the very top to your talent versus the people who are just really good at their job, it's 100% their brand. Okay, so that is what I we're going to talk about today is building your own personal brand. And I guess I want to hear from you, Abby, you've said, you know, you've done some of this brand work, but this wasn't exactly the same brand work. So tell me about what I got out of this.
Abby 03:44
So yeah, this was it was a little different for me coming at it from a perspective of my values. And, you know, storytelling, which I you know, I that's one of the things I have is my top skills. And I love to do, and that's something that I do a lot for other brands. So when I first you know, branded myself, a lot of it was you know what, you know, what are you about, and I had to figure that out. And then it was also about creating my portfolio, which is my image online, right, other than my LinkedIn. So yeah, but coming back through, you know, this week's lesson it was it was much more about things that are important to me, like I said, in alignment with my values, what are my top values? You know, what? important to me, what am I looking for? What kind of companies Am I looking for? What kind of industries do I want to work in that sort of thing, which can be difficult to narrow in on when you have so many different interests sometimes. But you know, it comes back to the things that are fulfilling for me, and so I had to really assess what that looked like and just kind of how I wanted to frame myself up in a way that organizations would then resonate with in those things that are important to me, finding companies that would also resonate and people that will resonate with the same things that energize me So,
Lindsay 05:00
I love that so much. Okay, so I thought Randy says hi, hey, Randy, if you guys are tuning in live right now, do me a favor, and let's do hashtag personal branding, if you believe is important, and you want to know more, let me know, I know, we have a lot of people watching on LinkedIn, across Facebook, I get like it kind of all compiles together for you to take a look at. So go ahead and drop that in here. But I want to talk about something that you said, that was really important, which is, it's about your values. And that is that people will think that their brand is just like the story they tell. But if that story doesn't actually represent who you are at your core, people don't tend to resonate with it. And so you have to really get deeper into the point of like, Who am I what are the values that I have to be really aligned to who we are at our core before we try to go out and find the right employer. That's one thing that I find people do. So your brand really needs to be representative representative of your own personal values. And by that, why it's so important to that we find a misalignment. So there's a couple of ways that misalignment can happen. When I talk about the dream jobs, when I'm looking for the right job at the right company at the right salary, we'll really want to talk about the right company that needs to align your personal values. So when there's a disconnect between what's important for personal values, and what's important for the company, where like maybe there is a lack of integrity. So I'll give you an example. This is not to shame anybody who works there currently, but one of the things I had struggled with was Uber. And Uber had done some things that were not in alignment with my integrity. Now they've since done some things to correct that but that would have been something where I go wow, integrity or love is one of my highest values which I kind of use a synonymously that's probably going to be in a good fit for me and even though they might have an opportunity that's available I'm really looking at what you what, what fills my soul in my cup first. But that is one really important thing. Now I've talked about like why why do you think your brand is is so important. What do you think you've learned after this Abby going through kind of this man,
Abby 06:55
I mean, I feel like I've probably said this a couple times already, but it was just kind of a, like a aha moment for me. So first off, I think this was not difficult, like it's becoming slightly easier as I go through because I'm saying, but I'm identifying a company that resonates with my values and feeling like my values are more important than my skill set is a kind of a new mindset for me. And it's like How is that possible? Like how could I possibly find work that is values based. That's not the way that I used to think and now what I'm realizing is that like you said, you know, if you're working for or with an organization that doesn't align to your values, it's going to rob you of a lot of joy that you can find in your work and honestly like you're going to have an unfulfilling career and you're going to end up somewhere that you don't want to be ultimately right so i think it's it's more about who do you want to align yourself to and what do you want for your life and making sure that the if your values are being matched then you're going to end up in an organization that is fulfilling for you you're going to end up in a place that you want to be and you're going to end up growing in the ways that you want to grow right you've placed yourself there intentionally so it's just a very different way
Lindsay 08:18
ike my favorite word so that's exactly at your your brand is just it's people seem to forget it they don't even acknowledge it like openly I have a skill so that it matches and then they go in a company they're not exactly not exactly a good fit and so I love that you talked about being a part of meeting and I'm looking at your your homework here your life right is what we're offering them the moment for me that kind of changed and guys if you were ready to start moving towards your dream job I actually put up a link here for the five day resume challenge go to bit.li slash five day resume challenge and I think you actually went through this didn't to Abby's started you're working as well. So this is really powerful and we've had a lot of people that have opted in. So right now it's not it's gonna close pretty shortly, but I'd love for you to take advantage of it right now, how to write a resume that will get you an interview for your dream job in just five days and I'm talking 30 minutes a day. Let's get it done. Okay, so when I talk about personal writing, it came to me as I was came up to this layoff and I sat in an office and I listened to somebody who is very notable HR speaker right now, she used to be an executive in my HR department. And so she came with this really powerful message about a time when she went into layoff an entire field office. It was not that the company wasn't hiring, but we don't really do a lot of work, which is like another proof I have, we don't have a lot of work to repurpose people who are existing, put them inside of other roles. So when it happens, click on that person to go advocate for themselves or hopefully get a call so she let go. I think you're supposed to 50 people and everybody's phone was ringing except for one person who was sitting in the corner office. And they she didn't get a single phone call and she was a leader who had never even gotten a phone call to pick her up. And that's when I realized like there was something really wrong her brand was really messing with eggs. Oh gosh, thank you so much, Randy, you are best. Put that up here. So I decided that that was my situation beforehand, I was already in there and I might have been able to tap in my network. But it wasn't really like the big thing for me. Now my network and I calculated today between my first and second degree connections and followers, my immediate like reach is 9 million people. Now I don't know that I have 9 million people who are gonna be like banging down the door for me, but I know it's more than know. And so I like to say what's the number of B people I want you to be ready to pick up advocate for you. Once you have 20 people, unless you have 20 people who you know who are willing to stand at the door and tap their foot, wait for the hiring manager to respond to them, which wouldn't be the right move, but they're not willing, you don't really have an effective brand. And we've been so focused on like being good at our job, or even like our own development that we don't even bother to invest in the personal brand. And the personal brand is really what changes everything here. Okay. All right. So that moment changed for me that was the time I started to invest in that about the same time as when I joined LinkedIn, I started to really use that platform. Okay, so I want you to think Now where do you build your platform for professional development? Well, it starts on a big scale to LinkedIn but right now you already have a brand and that brand is happening inside of people who are talking about you today. So if you really want to get an idea go talk to somebody you trust to give you really I would say not diluted feedback about your brand and see what it is that they say and a mentor can be really valuable for this okay. Okay what we're trying to do is really disrupt the idea again around the commodity versus the market asset kind of market space and commodity needs we're gonna try to choose to try to charge as little as possible and then the asset price but he says we can charge top dollar for what we do, and we don't want to be in the commodity market space we want to charge top dollar for our true value. Okay. I know you talked a little bit about this that before you are 100% the commodity space what has been the reprogramming happen for you? Yeah
Abby 12:04
you know you give that example of like in the sugar aisle, which sugar Are you going to buy and I had to giggle because um you know, like, growing up and like advancing in my career like I would always you know, when I first started shopping just get like the cheapest groceries that are there when I'm like when I was first on my own and then as I started making more money I remember you guys are gonna giggle but like I'm a foodie I love to eat right so I remember the first thing that I bought when I made more money was like the good cheese like and ever since then honestly it's just been a matter of like okay like what better thing can I afford to buy now and food and it's always been my food like and so yeah I definitely have like scaled and I'm the same way like I will actually buy the good sugar and I will travel a little bit further to get what I want because I like it better it tastes better makes me happy. You know better for me whatever it is like so yeah 100% I just felt like okay, well I am you know, here's all my skills here's what I can do this is how I'm going to sell myself and what I'm recognizing and even throughout this course is that those are valuable but that's not how people connect to me right and that's not how they're going to remember is because I delivered the best like I don't know I I'm trying to think of a good example I set the best store ever like whatever I did in the past
Lindsay 13:29
Let's just take a second here and if you believe in spending a little extra money do hashtag the good cheese the better cheese are the better whatever it is are you willing to put more dollar when there's a higher perceived value? Keep going
Abby 13:46
lIt was actually tillamook cheddar which I've like since even upgraded from there because oh my gosh, like I was like I've been eating garbage cheese my whole life anyway no until I knew better So yeah, I completely resonate with that. And yeah so I think it's just a matter of like recognizing what are the things that that people feel connected to with me and it's not necessarily how well I filled out that Excel form you know what I mean? Or how well I did that pivot table and like put the spreadsheet in the drive like who cares right everyone can do that. So what is it that that makes me stand out and that ties back to what your you know what we're calling branding here today and that is finding my people right finding the people who are like me that relate to the same things as me that stand for the same things as me and how do I put myself in that space?
Lindsay 14:41
So I love that people are saying the good cheese Ruby versus Christmas was absolutely good cheese. And Nate says Tilak is legit I'm so glad it's not just me that thinks Okay, that's amazing. So yes, I we do spend time with things that have more more value, but I started with very beginning where I talked about core values. And one of the things that we are working with me that we tend to do, I should say we tend to We absolutely do is a core values assessment. And this one is I've done a lot of these over my life, but I've kind of put them all together into what matters more. And what we did is we went through like 32 different topics and said, choose what matters most to you. And the whole point here is however you define it. So one of the things that's on that list is like fame. Well, fame isn't really that big of a deal to me. However, for somebody else it might be. And none of these things are good or bad. That is the other thing like money and power was on there. Inherently we have a belief around money and power that they are sometimes not good things. Even if you say one thing, I'd love more money and power. But inherently we believe it, most of the time of our programming has been all the bad guys and movies have a lot of money and power. So we have this like consciousness programming, but what I want you to think about is like what's most important, so I want to talk about your values in black color. Starting with it, I used to say it's either like either trying to take off a limb, or it was super easy to pick your high top values and how was for you?
Abby 16:10
It was so I originally I had like 10 or 12 out there that were important to me. And I just like you said hacking off a limb. I just kind of thought, okay, like, some of these are important to me, but maybe not that it's not important to my work, but maybe not something that would resonate in the same way. Like maybe it's important to me personally, but not necessarily professionally. So I was trying to think about it from you know what, what touched on both of those things. And so I landed on for an hour if you want me to list them off. Yeah, I
Lindsay 16:45
So let's go like from the lowest to the highest, which they're probably within degrees of each other. Yeah, probably can't hear me Rebecca, but just hit refresh and check your audio settings that'll probably fix some of the issues if you're not hearing me, but I know that it'll help you. When I tell you maybe it'll the captions will work for that and so we'd love to have you join us live. Okay, go ahead and tell me about the values that you chose. And again, nothing is bad or good. Here it's whatever it is that you want, which is what I want you to be aligned to.
Abby 17:13
Also everybody's hashtag good. Yes. cracking me up you guys.
Lindsay 17:19
Thanks, lady.
Abby 17:20
Thanks for that. Okay, so from the bottom number four I put influence I think this is coming from my background and leadership I feel like I want to be an influence and a force for good for others. So you know, my ability to influence is has really important in my development as a professional and it's not only those who report to me, but also being able to influence those I report to and those in my surrounding like work groups and also sometimes I'd be on a project for a couple of weeks at a time and I would need to influence like a team of 40 people at once that don't report to me at all and have nothing to do with me but I'm there to do a job right so I have to be able to kind of work my way through that. So that's been important for me and I think I want to again, for those who have been an influence on me, I just want to pass that on as well in any way that I can. So that's a big one. Um, number three is empowerment This is so important to me and I honestly struggled with this is this my top one because and I you know, I may rearrange these at some point
Lindsay 18:23
I will come to do
Abby 18:26
and I might have different phases in my life, right might mean different things exactly. Changing but for me, I feel like this is something I've noticed kind of come out and all of my work and not even intentionally but obviously this is something that I I feel very deeply is in the people that I've worked with even my friendships in my family relationships like I think that we all assume other people know more than we do at some point in our lives or another and sometimes the difference is just making the choice to do something even if you feel like I don't I don't really know what I'm doing like to do what you know, I guess until you figure it out or learn from someone who can teach you and feeling like you have the freedom to choose that as you know as an adult and as a whole grown man and woman other whatever. You know, that's important and I want others to feel empowered by the things that I'm saying and the things that I have learned and that's part of why I've been vulnerable during this is so others can see that you know, you don't rise to the top so to speak from from being there born into it like we all learn and struggle together and no matter how you think someone is how well put together they are how well spoken they are like there are things going on behind the scenes right so and that's not to say that I am any one position or other but I'm here at this point in my life where I'm, you know, recovering from a loss and I want everyone to be able to see that it's okay to like be out there about that and to learn on the way and that's still a strong place to be and for you okay now,
Lindsay 19:57
Randy is going to be writing an entire post about the good cheese and tagging you. So I think you have that influence and he feels empowered enough to write about cheese on LinkedIn. And that's beautiful. And that might actually lead into the next, which is, authenticity was
Abby 20:16
on the same lines, like I just, I, this has been a struggle for me because I feel like I've always been told my whole life growing up and everything but I have to look a certain way I have to act a certain way I have to talk a certain way be friends with this group of people, talk to people, like I have to fit in this and it drives me nuts. I'm like, Why can I just be good enough to be myself like, I want to be that and I want other people to feel like they can be that to whatever that is for them. Like live in that that space like so. That's really important to me, especially now more than ever with everything that's going on in the world. Like Be yourself and if you're not hurting yourself or anyone else, like have fun. Just go for it. Nate says
Lindsay 20:55
that was so powerful Randy's gonna be spinning around the cheese I was able to eat chocolate and cheese I'm 100% cheese cheese and I love chocolate. But that don't switch to the next The first thing which is one of the foundations in fact it's the very first part the first quadrant in the place of career power, which is what value Oh passion. Yeah, so you have passion on here so tell me about being passionate like I have an idea of what that means to me What does it mean to you?
Abby 21:29
Um, so this is this and this was when I kind of I didn't have it at the top at first and then I moved it to the top because for me this is where everything starts if I don't feel compelled to do something like I can't go I probably won't finish it It won't be convincing no one's gonna believe me so if I'm not passionate about what I'm doing every single day like why am I wasting my time and why am I wasting anyone else's time? I don't feel like that's authentic right first of all, like we're gonna tie those in together also. I mean, how often do you go into like a meeting space and it just feels very like the kill me was like I don't know another boring meeting but like if you listen to a speaker right or if you go into meeting really new speaker that is super jazzed up about what they're doing Do you not also get really excited about it so if I can't bring that passion and and that also leads into my influence part is if I can bring the passion and I can kind of ignite that and other people then we will generate that energy together. And I think so. So that's
Lindsay 22:35
your voice 100% Ooh, that's somebody I want to say what Nate says Why can't I be good enough to be myself that was the part where people are really resonating So I love that and then Lauren it says I'm reevaluating my values as a late career transition and this align with my values so much different now than when I started and that's also true it's like take a look at what matters to you now because and there's no right answer again people if they want money please put it on there that's important to you know, like having a Lamborghini that might be a really really want to have now I never really met me ever made sense. But it was my brother's the anniversary of his first birthday after he passed I actually rented a Lamborghini and drove it and I was like, now I get why people buy these that was a lot of fun. But things evolve and change is probably not going to be something where I'm like this is whether or not I feel like I'm successful. My success for me really depends on how successful my clients are, which this last week I'm just gonna say guys that are tuning in right now I have never seen a hotter market than there is now in the 20 years I've been recruiting there has never been a better time to be positioned for your career right now to appear as top talent so if you are tuning into the series you are exactly in the right place keep going on. If you're ready to have a resume that actually shows up as top talent just go to the bit.li slash five and that's the world renowned five day resume challenge and you can get started on that. Now the values are important because it's kind of the way we look at it we were always like well oh my god, I hope that they choose me and I want you to think is this a good alignment now with what I want to be or what I want to do like the job being open isn't good enough anymore. So what I want you to think is like if you're trying to influence people, not everybody, not everybody on LinkedIn is your who your target audiences. So I, I wrote a post the other day, and you might have seen it, I had somebody kind of just tore me to shreds a little bit in the chat because they're like I talked about the disparity between women and men salary. And we already know that like, on average, a woman will be paid like somewhere around 70% less, it's even more decreased for women of color. And one of the people who was a client of mine, she had a TEDx speaker and she's a PhD there's a ton of research in preparing for her book she found that women in general work two times as hard for half the money. So that's where I'm like it was it was crazy and somebody said will you stop being so divisive, and start posting more? What is a positive content and I thought if you've never seen me I besides me being a little more like I maybe have already avant garde, I'll give you that. But I'm not that divisive. I'm illuminating. And that means that's my value, which is that I'm not here. One of the things I talk about to inside of this was don't speak just for speaking sake, speak to have a message to tell people about like, what is it that we are trying to get across not like, hey, Kumbaya, and I won't say any names here. But there are a lot of people who are like, we should do better. Please like me or follow my YouTube channel and I was like, please stop talking. And without any that you're giving to your audience, because you're nice to have Yes, we should hire people who have been unemployed. Yes, we should. But I'm like oh, let me tell you how you hire those people that so if you're following my message, if you're just tuning in now you've never heard from me before, please follow me. I tried to breach the 60,000 followers and we're like, like a couple of like 100 and some away so like, come on, we're so close. What I really want you to know here is that when you're speaking speak for value, right? And we want to think about our audience when we're talking so I'm not here to so the person who thought I was divisive, that's fine. You're not my target audience and you can go ahead and keep on scrolling because they asked me to not do it and I said No, I won't. And I said Thank goodness for freedom of speech. That is cool, right? Yeah, that's exactly it. I'll do it. trouble for everybody. And that's okay. There's not a race ready for my message. But there are people who are gonna say like Abby tuned into my podcast, she said, I thought you were talking to me on the podcast intro and so I was like stalking so I'm gonna help Abby move towards the next thing. Susan says being an alley for fairness is not divisive. Thank you. Oh and Rebecca because I always bring the value Thank you. I tried to but people are like oh you know, why don't you have more Kuma Yeah, I was like, it's cool. Well, Kumbaya does not help you. Like I might I might sometimes tell you like when I won the two comma club award I might tell you guys about that. What did I say about that message? It wasn't just about like look how cool I am It was more like I'm not going to stop because I have more people to help and that's what I want to tune in for. Okay, so in this like how do you think when I talked about I talked about hyper targeting hyper targeting your audience and that knowing that not everybody is for you? What What do you think about like creating an audience that's really excited about your own message what resonated with you about that?
Abby 27:12
So as obvious as that feels now that I exist I've never done that before and not in this way at least not in a professional setting right I felt like I had to be available to everyone all the time for everything because you never know like what opportunity will present itself which is still true, but the idea that I can create like my own professional little universe of like minded people or maybe ones that aren't that I want to learn from like that. Like I love it, I'm so excited to be able to think about it in that way and it's so obvious to think like okay, well the things that I'm going to share right the stories that I'm going to post will bring in the right people because they're also going to be interested in the same topics that I'm interested in the one participant in the conversations that I want to be in there are they're also going to align to my values and kind of like I said that you know, you had your intro to the podcast and I was like, yeah, this is the one like I was so excited. Like, that's good that could happen for me like that could happen for me but someone will read what I wrote and get excited about it and like that's so cool. I mean, like, I don't know
Lindsay 28:24
how many people actually they probably reach out to you to avvio people will will tell me like thank you so much for sharing this Abby's amazing I'm like loser like little impressions. These are people you've never shook hands with. You don't necessarily even had a conversation but people feel compelled to tell me how valuable this is. Hey, Matt, it's great to see you. Um, so like, I want you to know that you're impacting people I think you know, this it started actually hasn't already started to open doors as far as networking conversations, without actually having to have a lot of effort.
Abby 28:51
I've had a lot of new requests that I did not prompt myself. So that's new.
Lindsay 28:57
And we got like attraction networking, honestly, it means that more people are want to be a part of our circle in our world, or in our, what we call urban ones. They want to be a part of that they want to connect with you just being really human and being vulnerable is a really attractive characteristic. So authenticity. You have modeled that from the get go.
Abby 29:16
thing. Okay. Same. Yeah.
Lindsay 29:23
That's why we are here. So Susan, it's like, how do you attract I love following Abby's story. Look at you. That's amazing. I know, I'll be honest, when I saw her story, I saw me and Abby, like when I went through the layoffs. So I understood that I didn't know how to present myself and I had to learn all this stuff on the hard way. I'm like, if I can just show somebody who understands that who I know has potential. And if they're open to doing it with me completely publicly, which is the most narrow world then I want to be a part of that journey and so that we're very thankful for it. I've seen a change now over the last few weeks with these libraries. Seriously. Me too.
Abby 30:00
You too I feel different that's good to hear.
Lindsay 30:03
So this is what I'm like it's beautiful like I keep saying it's very end well most people where they can just get all of your stories together so they can go through this journey and follow you along. So Susan says how do you attract those like minded Aren't you limit to your followers? no in fact Abby How did I get it was not in my circle Abby was had a comment from Adam cardiac who is massive follows on this platform and somebody who I'm friends with and he commented on hers and I saw it and I asked her connect with her I said would you be open to doing this so just know like that really the second degree is where the big power is but second and third degree is really powerful. Yep,
Abby 30:41
yeah, I think I mean, just in the work that I'm doing on my LinkedIn so if you tuned in last week, we got to go through some of the things that you know LinkedIn leverage has to offer and networking is a huge part of it so huge thanks to Jessica by the way she sent me the list of like the top What was it like 50 or 100 employers in San Diego to follow on LinkedIn so thank you
Lindsay 31:04
I love people and she is
Abby 31:09
so yeah, so I started following some of those businesses and I started thinking okay well like there are companies that I use their products so I wouldn't I follow those companies and then I started looking at well who's working there and then the ones that are in my network that are posting I started looking more into you know, the comments well who's commenting things that resonate with what I resonate with and maybe I should connect with these people so I'm expanding my network intentionally right and others who are on there leveraging this tool though, the way that they can you can do the same thing right so there's limitless number of people that you can connect to and you can expand your network in different ways but they can also find you if someone that you know, share something that you're in right or if you comment on someone else's posts they may see it and decide that they want to be in your network
Lindsay 31:56
100% how I built my entire network it was just by showing up and saying things and you have to just also recognize especially like Abby is somebody who's got massive reach you know, I think you've probably had like more than 100,000 views on that one post there's I can't tell you how many there were but I know that she's had masturbation just not everybody's gonna be for everybody not unreasonably for everybody and that's okay. So we have to show up and just stand in our truth our power at our highest level representing who we are in our values. And we can we don't speak just to speak we speak to help either illuminate or to break down barriers or to open up to others. That's what we do. It's not just about talking. Okay, I'm waiting for to be team replay. I will say if you are watching this on the replay, go ahead and do hashtag team replay because we love that Okay, so the other thing that's part of your title here now Abby is storytelling, or storyteller, right? And you Yeah, you did product storyteller. And one of the things I talked about inside of here is the math most massive way to influence people which happens to be one of your values is what it's by telling your story. So storytelling authentic
Abby 33:06
that's basically the
Lindsay 33:09
same thing. In fact, so much being authentic that Rebecca says listen to your story has completely changed. I'm going on this layoff insert. I saw that
Abby 33:15
I was reading when I got lost. I'm like, that's so sweet. I love it.
Lindsay 33:20
Susan for Abby's link, I think she's got it featured on her profile.
Abby 33:24
Yeah, I did, I figured out how to pin it. It's the task. The only story
Lindsay 33:31
which is perfect, because it's a huge one, it was so good. And rarely does it work the way that Abby does my the thing that got me viral the very first time was an article which never works either. So we but how you do is you just hit the nail on the head a little bit more often, when you start telling the story. So storytelling is the most powerful way. So we don't people don't buy in, like what you tell them. What they do is they look for a story they look for what the takeaway the parable is. And then we usually give them some sort of call to actions aligned with that parable like, hey, Okay, you know what, at my company, we do all things with love. If that matters to you, if you feel like you want to be a part of something like that, that I'd recommend you come join my five day resume challenge, because we're going to teach you how to find your dream job, something that you love that aligns to your values by going to the five day resume challenge, which if you guys are actually interested in that it's open right now. And it's bit.li slash the number, not number, the word five day resume. Okay? So storytelling is really important. And really, when I talk about telling the structure of a story, there are people who have lots of views and people who don't so I'm curious, what do you think are some of the differences between somebody who gets a lot of use and somebody who doesn't?
Abby 34:35
Um, so I think the difference is probably, who's putting in the effort, right? Who's actually sharing who's going out there and doing the work and a lot of ways right and who is making is making the effort to do to make the connections to share the story to connect with people that would be
Lindsay 34:53
lonely, and again, not talking just to talk but the other part is that have you ever bought And it's maybe not the National Enquirer, but maybe it's like Us Weekly, or star magazine or something. And it'll say, like, William and Kate getting divorced or Mary had a baby. Yeah. And that's really the most powerful part of a story. And this is where like, I will sometimes start with something as sounds a little negative, with the whole goal of being able to catch your attention I want you to do is read the rest and get the good feel good stuff. And so I want you to like the very most important part of telling your story is that very first two lines of text. That's all you've got to catch someone's attention, right? We want to like Actually, yeah, I tried to do that. Angela, people are like, I hate polls. And I like I use polls in there sometimes, like on the weekends on a little more loosey goosey with it. But on during the days, I'm like, What would you like? And I don't think anybody knows this. But I'm actually gathering research for something I'm about to roll out. So there's a reason why. Yeah, it's going to be very exciting when it happens. So I use it for that. What do you What
Abby 35:57
did you say? You get the Sneak Peek here first guys.
Lindsay 36:01
I was like I'm teasing it if you're not following please do was so great to see you, Angela. I can't believe that this link to Abby Miller star is what got all the start. Exactly. So how many doors will open from this? Okay, calling people on LinkedIn and getting more time knows their genius, worst challenge ever slash Where do I sign up? That's the hashtag five day personal branding challenge. If you haven't gone through that, I know that you did your story today you did your origin story corrected? I did. How's it going so far, because I love that it was on my feed. And it was amazing to read the story.
Abby 36:33
I mean, it's not it's not blowing up as much as the last one. But I wouldn't expect that because Adam didn't comment on it. But I've had like 100, and some views of it right now and quite a bit of reactions and several comments as well. So there, there's interaction going on with that, which is really cool.
Lindsay 36:47
That's perfect, especially when you get started. And then also you can't we can't all be out of car piac. And we absolutely love Adam and he's a guy. But we what we can do is continue to show up and get refined our message. So the reason why I use polls is that that right now is the most powerful way to post on LinkedIn after you have built your brand equity. So Abby did that with her story, her original article, and now she's going deeper into this so when we talk about it so we're gonna talk about there couple things I love if people tell their origin story, a lot of people know my origin story. But it started with being watching my dad be layoff laid off as a little girl and I knew he would go to work every day. He's about ready to leave the room when he would promise gold watch. And then one day it was all over. He got laid off. So layoffs are kind of a sore subject for me. And he went years job searching and then his his life ended very shortly after he walked into the emergency room and he had a brain tumor. And that brain tumor, I watched this man who was the most amazing man I ever knew in my entire life and watched him be disintegrated in his self worth because he couldn't find a job which these two are things are not tied together like your your worthiness, like we don't go to a baby and go get to work. Don't tell them to get to work. They have incredible value for just being a human being and so do you. But we tend to associate our true worthiness with our employability, which is not the same however, we can hack that because really what I want you to do is I hope your life through your occupation. So inside of this, I want you to think about telling your story. So the origin story is the very first one. And then there are next things called what I call mini soapbox, right? And these are things like like me, I know you had some things with design. Yeah, like for me, I get really fired up about the recruiting process about employee engagement or poor employee engagement, poor company culture, ridiculous things like talking about Google trying to reduce pay or tattle where which employees are spying on you to increase productivity. And I wouldn't say productivity Miss. So much as I don't even know what that's word productivity versus buisiness. There's what I would say so many stuff. So if you're going like this is so unfair, this is so awesome. Probably got something in there. That's gonna resonate with people if you talk at a really, really powerful level. The most viral post I ever posted was something I said I'm not a recruiter. I am a recruiter by the way I was saying I but I'm a talent acquisition ambassador. That's what I was saying was that my goal was not to be just to recruit, but was just to placed the highest caliber talent in the most amazing job opportunity. If we just took that viewpoint of what recruiters do, how much would we change the industry? I wrote that in 2016 I think are 17 so that change hasn't happened yet. So I continue to tell the story and I will until things get changed a little bit here. Yeah, but I know that so Abby has a story with her dad Angela has a story with her dad and Lauren so this I tell this story a lot not too because I get tired of telling the story. I don't mean that in the best way. But if somebody needs to know like, I just like be qualified to do this. Like literally I was built to do this. This was so so hard for me like to watch and I just never wanted any Whenever I have to go through what my dad did, that's why I do the work that I do. Okay, so after many soapbox rants, there's something I was like, Oh, these are never my most controversial posts today said, you should never have more than a two page resume, the answer is 95% of time, you should never have more than a two page resume. But what I'm trying to say is that anything much more, you're wasting both your effort to try to create it. And any green if you're actually printing this out, you're not being a very green citizen, okay. And then we have the hero story things that people went from being very successful or robbing very successful to being very successful times when you've overcome a struggle. And then things that you might have watched from other people going through, like the hard way. So I learned this the hard way. And my mom likes to say, you don't always have to make all the mistakes yourself, Lindsay, of which sometimes I disagree, and I decide to do it anyhow, because I'm like, we don't know. But we want to
Abby 40:52
never been very good at that. Like to learn on my own and just follow
Lindsay 41:00
me too, as well. I like you Okay, yeah, that's recruiters we just people jobs. Yeah, no, there's a little bit of work that goes into it, too. Right. Okay. And, and then the other thing I talked about is things that are interesting to your audience themselves, actually, like, what are they? What are they like interested in? So I've been talking a lot about, you know, culture when it comes to the workplace. It's not really about job searching, but it is important and aligns to what we call the human centric workplace. So what what we really want to do is talk about building out a story. And I know that you've actually shared it. So do you mind walking through? Do you have it in front of you? Or would you like me to go through it?
Abby 41:35
Well, they posted today? Yes, yeah. I have it up in front of me. I'm gonna read it.
Lindsay 41:42
I do. Okay, go ahead and tell us the story. This is the story of her job being eliminated.
Abby 41:48
Okay, so I'm just going to I'm going to read it to you guys, because I just wrote it, so I don't have it memorized yet. I'm so sorry. But also, I'm gonna need to write about picking the best candidate based on the good cheese. I feel like because I really everybody likes good cheese. I think we've decided I hear from us on LinkedIn. Okay, so we started today. Go ahead. Sorry. I was just commenting you go right ahead. Okay. Um, so this is a, an origin story. Um, as Lindsay mentioned, it's you know, not, I think we have probably many different origin stories depending on what when you're telling, but this is going to be the latest of what happened to my job and why I'm doing this event with Lindsay and what kind of what I've been through what my perspective has changed to meet. So anyway, with that, my opening statement is unfortunately, this means that your position has been eliminated, effective immediately. With a few words, a 16 year journey with my employer had abruptly come to an end and made a choice. I had a choice to make more than the loss and let it crushed me or see it as an opportunity for something better ahead. I chose a ladder. Five months later, I was a certified UX designer, creating a solution for food sustainability with major global organizations, governments and thought leaders in the food system. On Thursday, September 30 2021, that's this Thursday, I will present our solution at the United Nations Food System summit. Looking back, thank you. Looking back to where I was at the beginning of the story, I could never have imagined that this is where I would be today. Maya Angelou once said, I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it. This is a quote that I referenced a lot. Just when I'm struggling. So I thought it was important to include any number of unexpected disappointing or soul crushing things can happen every day. You cannot control most of it, but you must choose how you will see and respond to it. I made a choice to change my perspective and surround myself with people who could help me level up and it absolutely saved me. Never let someone else tell you what you can or cannot do. It is your choice to see your own potential and tell your own life story. This is one part of mine. What story will you tell next?
Lindsay 44:05
Rebecca says I am obsessed rich says Abby is a badass and Randy thinks you're going to be getting a cheese deal, I think from the whole thing. If you might not be incredible. And I know we measured your SSI has gone up about 10% since we started
Abby 44:23
for four points over the weekend. Yeah, we're good. Yeah. So I was like we're gonna see that keep going up. So
Lindsay 44:28
this five day branding challenge is is a really cool way and it's a free challenge I'll share with you guys keep following me because I will share all my stuff well 80% of my business is is totally free because I cannot i know that i ray is willing to invest in their career. So I have lots of free options for you to get started and moving the needle like just for that little bit. When you see those momentum and any more help. I hope you'll think of me but if not, all of a sudden your friends that it will so we can help as many people as possible because I know that I am the world's best at what I do. I have no question. So I really want To get our word out there so if you have anybody we want to send this way please keep going. But I wanna talk about the first private personal brand challenge. So personal branding became so big for me and it was one of the things like I remember celebrating my 3000 people connections on LinkedIn that was such a big deal. It'll be a big deal when I get there. Exactly actually she just hit 500 so let's give a big round of applause to Abby and she was I think you were like to something when we started so
Abby 45:24
I before that it was probably like 100 people like nothing before I mean Adam like blew my page up and then it was a lot more by the time you found me But yeah, I was I came from nothing you guys
Lindsay 45:37
know we all have seats and agrees I love actually you should write a story about that you should that should be a post so you'll hear me say sometimes now From now on, I'll go that's a post that's a post a lot of times when you guys are telling me stories I'm like, that's a post that's a post and we never ever have like a boohoo post. Life is hard and life continues to be hard. We don't ever Britney Brown says we want to coach from the womb or the scab but not from the womb. So there has to be always something even Abby's very first comment about her first post talk she said I hope I'm not whining it definitely wasn't whining It was like here's how I can do better. Thank you so much my lady Yeah, so she's so awesome. Um, what do you think what Dave give the most amazing speech it's my birthday Yes, there's so much she's great. All right, so the five day personal branding challenges where you post five days on social media using the stories that we're talking about and you can use the number or hashtag number five day personal branding challenge and in that you are also a couple other things which is connecting with companies and following other people's stories following companies and connecting with other people yeah, Abby did this so very well that's post Yeah. So this is she she wasn't sure about the content and you said it kind of just ignited that for you when you had some idea.
Abby 47:00
It was weird like I couldn't figure out what to post I'm like what do I put on here? Like I know I shouldn't be sharing things but I don't know what to write and I just was having this block and then as soon as I was reading through your different ideas and I was like oh yeah, I can do that. Like I totally have a story for this and so that was really helpful.
Lindsay 47:17
So like one little like ignition source alone like we said the little light and so what people are going to get us more interested in your comments like you're probably gonna write about the good cheese like that will probably be something else because apparently this trending topic now people resonate right like the comment what do you say why why can't I just be myself and that be good enough? Like That was a powerful quote so you're gonna see and so when I always looking for a message I will say lots of things. What I used to go in on is when people when I see a response so I taught any story about my dad even though that's a hard story for me to tell it's hard to kind of bear my wounds. I share it because it matters to people and a lot of times they're like oh I know that you're not here just to like coach your urges somebody was like became LinkedIn famous and did something with it. I'm like no, I was doing this long before I was anything on LinkedIn. And I have a bigger reason for why I do it. So just keep sharing your stories and as people have more comments on your things like today, I want you to go and keep a running list so just on your on your phone, I want you to just put a running list of your contents Tom writing Yeah, that's your you're going to get I'm totally cheesed off and I am totally following Yes. I love so this cracks me up I love it so much. Okay, so this we're gonna be finishing up and by the time that we have our next session on Friday, we are going to be actually at the point of doing networking Okay, and so this is kind of a big deal networking is I say you know everything has had a lot of content right I you don't do anything willy nilly. There's deep contents on everything because I don't try to give you the encyclopedia but people are like well why did they do this? I'm like, Well, let me tell you about this and here's what research says and here's how to best present it. Everything I do has been optimized after doing this with a million resumes you know, and now we've helped 15,000 people I'm also sending you a cheese real shortly and we got the good shape, I would have not thought that would be the thing and that's why we're not really good at predicting what what matters to people so you when you find something you keep talking about it
Abby 49:24
or a children's book that we're going to go with it
Lindsay 49:28
could be a children's book. So coming into next session so you're good to go Abby, you already know what to write for the next time it looks like you've got lots of stories. I'm sure there's gonna be some cheese on here listing a story every day this week so feel free to get so go like it and just say like personal branding works if we're gonna do hashtag personal branding works, because then we'll see her start to show up. And we want her to we want to raise her social selling index. We wanted to see engagement. We want her to get connections automatically. And that's what personal branding does. It just builds that equity about your brand. Yeah. Have you already go to the tilma cheese? I know this, I was like, I've actually been to that place. I actually found a friend that was in Seattle, because I want to be there too. And I was like, This is the strangest thing. It's not exactly. It's not exactly like in the middle, it's in the middle of like, nowhere. Okay, I have no in networking, this networking piece is going to be big. And I haven't told you this Abbey. But there's really only two modules inside of this one. So a list of what I want you to do. And I do not expect you to do all of it. Networking is one of those things. It's kind of like building a snowball and pushing it over the mountain to become an avalanche. Okay, so the Infinity loop of branding and networking are the same. So they create this virtuous cycle that leads us to connect with people open doors, and vice versa. We just keep going. So as long as your branding, which is why have you do it three times a week going forward. It open source and networking, when you start to reach out networking, people see your brand, you'll show up higher in the feed, and it just keeps going back and forth. I'm going to tell you that this is so powerful. I was asked by a company just today to coach for abon something around LinkedIn on a platform that both Tony Robbins and Dean graziosi who are both New York Times bestselling authors you probably don't if you are if you're living on a rocket, you don't have to tell him right, just do that. And the only thing I did folks was build my brand. Okay, so just build your brand. Gather ice tilma cheese is great. And ice cream is even better, right? Yeah, what you never know what the influencing phrase will be exactly. So glad I hashtag it. Yes. See, Randy started a trend he knew we're gonna go into work to do on that. So now I'm going to let Abby ask some questions. And if you have questions here, if you're listening, please go ahead and tell me if you're watching live too. Let's do a hashtag live. If you're watching on the replay, just put a hashtag replay we're really glad to have you no matter when you're tuning in. You're going to get massive value. So any other questions? You have Abby about this?
Abby 51:51
So you were so I'm doing this five day challenge but I do have a question for you. So I know that with the industry that you're in with the what you're doing with people, you post a lot of content so my question is, is it? Is there an oversaturation for someone like in my position? Is it necessary to post every day multiple times a day? Like what is a normal cadence? It can get to be too much I don't know what that feels like. So I would
Lindsay 52:17
say I wouldn't post more than three times a day I do find like unless I have really really good content I might do a poll and a content I wouldn't hit up like three polls in one day I would do three pieces of content but I would vary it and then I don't want you to just post about like, like I don't just post about job search I talk about like recruiting I talk about the press of recruiters and advocating for recruiters honestly talking about career design I talk about the corporate culture I talked about what's happening inside of you know corporations these things we don't want to over saturate but using this like I want you to think minimum viability right you probably do this inside of design when we are least effective thing that we can do in order to create it one post a day is really all you need and that's more than the average person now I've had people who have gone to work for very Gary Vaynerchuk I've had people who have gone on to become LinkedIn influencers I was somebody who actually inspired Adam to start posting so just know that what I teach really really works so if it feels really good to for you to keep going keep knowing we don't really we don't want you to stop but I also want you to think I don't want you to spend all your time I'm always looking for what's the least amount of time to create the massive result so one is really what we do for that
Abby 53:29
yeah I mean I prefer to like work on my my work then yeah, but I you know I want to make sure that I am available in a way to others right so I present there for them as well so and I just was wondering if you are posting multiple times a day do you have any idea how the LinkedIn algorithm works as far as like what people actually see like will they see all three will they only see one
Lindsay 53:54
will only see a couple Unless Unless they're like going into look at you in particular so whatever is in the algorithm changes just like every social media platform but there's some things that are pretty tried and true which is long form posts work really well always holes I would love to see after you get through this five day personal branding challenge I love goals. I like so I used to do they're super easy people love taking tests and so I'm like as long as it's not like I've had some that are just like Do you know what this is? And yes or no and I'm like that's not it. It's more like make it really easy to just well if they just read the poll box, could I make the guests and then now I read it now I'm gonna go back and read the content and we will stop somebody on a poll more than more than anything else. So that's usually where I'm seeing you know, when I get above five digits for reach, I'm gonna get on the polls these days. It is and so one click and it's anonymous to everybody except for the viewer. And I'm sure LinkedIn keeps it but it's good to know and then I get to see you know, people I know you and I more I respond to things, the more the feed, aggregates, other things Inside, so other people's content that would be interested in and this is where I go in and I just say oh, I'm like I just comment. And so that's another strategy here is to is building your brand is just making meaningful comments and other people's which is not like cool or great post, it's more like, I really love this, I'm celebrating you Congratulations that would be one like for a new channel, or be like when I say, Oh, you should really consider this. And I was like, I think I wrote about recommendations. I don't know if you saw about that. But I wrote, I said, these are like your public references, you should obviously have that start with five, go to 10, go to 15, then go to 20. So I gave actionable advice. So that's another way for you to build your network on the other end, besides just posting itself. So that's the second part of networking, really. But we're going to go deeper into this on Friday. So I'm going to say here, you're going to hate me a little bit. Abby, this is the time when I go out to eat or working out like there's pain to create gain, okay, and we really want to nobody steal my bowl idea on cheese, I think we have a few people. In fact, if you guys could go ahead and put the good cheese and tag me in it. I'd be a love loving that I've always
Abby 56:01
tagged me in it. Come on.
Lindsay 56:04
Please tag tag avianna to Hello. Yeah, that both takes up Did you take a little bit of time. But remember, we were doing one post a day, it's been one post a day, and it's been 30 minutes, just commenting. And so I can get into it. And I mean, I will just stare at LinkedIn for hours if you let me. So keep that in Remember, we're looking for least amount of effort most amount of reward, which is why even if you're doing this program, and you were doing it full time, I'd only want you to spend two hours at most every day. That's it. Not like you're like you should job search full time. That is not a thing. Anybody who says that has actually never done that, because that's not a real thing. So we're gonna go into that, and I just want you to when I say you're gonna hate me a little bit, it's going to be harder, it's gonna be harder than what you've done in the past and everything has been building to the point. Now you've done a lot of work. So you're an excellent student, but it's going to be hard for anybody else that's going to go out there. So what we're going to be doing is hyper targeting our most desirable organizations. Now, I've already done similar work for this, most people have it, it's gonna be hard because what I'm gonna ask you to do is why do you want to work there? Which seems easy, but we're not looking for a superficial answer. We're looking for very deep, meaningful answer. And the second thing we're really looking for is what pain can I sell for them? That's the hard one. What can I do to help solve the issues? Now I'm going to go through this strategy. I'm gonna teach you the six ways to reveal the hidden and unpublished job network next week and why 90% of networking fails Shinsei next week. It's really this week. It's Friday. So Friday, yeah, it's already up there and ready to go. Okay, Uber, like I said, what were personal, right? Agree. So personal branding would come so I wouldn't go back Rebecca, if you haven't listened to Abby's journey, go through it and listen to her lives. And you'll see so it starts with mindset and clarity that resume the LinkedIn that personal branding, so that's number five in that list. Okay, I do have to wrap up here. So I want to say thank you so much for tuning in, and we were scheduled to go for Friday. So I'm looking forward to seeing you all please tune in for that session. I know that some OCD may be really interested in Priebe. Everybody's really excited about it. So I can't wait to see you on Friday. I'll send you a message with everything you need to do and we'll get started on Friday. Okay,
Abby 58:03
sounds good.
Lindsay 58:05
All right.