196 – Win the Room with Lauren Hirsch Williams

Karen Yankovich 0:00
You’re listening to the good girls get rich podcast episode 196

Intro 0:06
Welcome to the good girls get rich podcast with your host, Karen Yankovich. This is where we embrace how good you are girl. Stop being the best kept secret in town, learn how to use simple LinkedIn and social media strategies and make the big bucks.

Karen Yankovich 0:23
Hello there. I’m your host Karen Yankovich. And this is episode 196 of the good girls get rich podcast and this podcast is brought to you by she’s linked up the programs that teach simple relationship and hardface LinkedIn marketing to women. A system that gets you on the phone consistently with the people that can change your business, your life and your bank account forever. And she’s linked up family we create wealthy Women of Influence digital marketing, with that human to human touch, right. So if you listen before, if you love what you hear today, you know, we love to hear from you. Please make sure that you’re subscribing to the show. Wherever you listen so you don’t miss an episode. Leave us a review. We love to hear your reviews, it helps us understand how best to serve you in future episodes, please share this episode on social media. Take a quick screenshot of wherever you’re listening to this and share it on your social media use the hashtag good girls get rich tag me at Karen Yankovich Tag our guest her links will all be in the show notes. And then we can share your post with our audiences. And we all get more visibility that way. Right? This whole show is about women’s empowerment. So if you’re listening, share this episode so we can share it with our audience in the shownotes we’ve got a link for SpeakPipe where you can leave us an audio message. I love those audio messages you can tell us have a guest you think I should interview or topic you’d love to hear me talk about or just a review, please leave a message on SpeakPipe and we will get to respond back to you that way too. So just go to Karen Yankovich COMM slash 196 You’ll see the blog for this episode, you’ll see the link to speak pipe you see all the links we talked about here today on the show. And that’s where all the good stuff is. I cannot wait for you to hear this episode today. My client and friend and colleague Lauren Hirsch Williams is our guest this week. And Lauren is doing amazing things in the world. 2022 is such a big year for Lauren. And I can’t wait for you to hear all the things she’s got going and really what she’s doing to support you in what you want to be doing in 2022. So, listen in. Here’s Lauren. So we are here today with Lauren Hirsch Williams and Lauren is an author, marketing strategist, pitch stylist, executive producer and award winning screenwriter. She has held positions on all sides of the table from worldwide director of advertising at Pepsi, to ad agency executive to entrepreneur, she’s worked on Emmy winning shows and has developed a woman’s network that’s rolling out across the globe in 2022. And beyond. She believes we all have the power to stand up again, no matter how many times we’re knocked down. Lauren is taken to writing as a way to share the path she found lead to the greatest success in business and in life. So Lauren, I’m so excited to have you here today.

Lauren Hirsch Williams 2:55
I’m so thrilled to be here with you, Karen.

Karen Yankovich 2:57
Yeah, so Lauren and I know each other from a few different places, but she is currently at in part of our she’s linked up family. So I get to talk to her on a regular basis. So that’s always a lot of fun. But you have so many things happening. How are you doing?

Lauren Hirsch Williams 3:12
I sure do. And I’m doing great. Very, very busy. Not sleeping as much as I’d like. But this is what success is right.

Karen Yankovich 3:21
Right. Right. Right, right. Sometimes you have more time to sleep than others. Right? That’s awesome. So in addition to all of these things that we listed in your bio, you also have a book coming out. So let’s take a couple steps backwards and tell me a little bit about your journey. You know, I know that we have a book coming out. It’s called one cents ahead. And I want to hear all about the women’s network that you’re rolling out. But let’s talk a little bit about what brought you to where you are today.

Lauren Hirsch Williams 3:45
Sure. Well, I started out my career, I was working at an ad agency and I was lucky enough to pick up an advertising job working at Pepsi. So I started in the corporate world. And I eventually moved on because in my blood is being an entrepreneur and being creative and starting new businesses. So I left that world and went out onto my own. And then was sidetracked a bit with a bit of a health issue which derailed me for a little while. And as I reemerged from that, that health issue, I started to look at business differently. I started to look at meetings and people and interaction and communication in a different way. And started seeing different patterns and paths that were working for people and things that actually weren’t working for people. So I started drawing a lot of different conclusions and and insights and pulled it together, which is part of why I wrote this book. But it’s also changed the path and the trajectory of my career in terms of this female empowerment network that’s being launched and all of that stuff so we can get into some details. But that’s a nutshell of of the past.

Karen Yankovich 4:56
Yeah, so that’s some guts to leave an ad agent See and go out on your own?

Lauren Hirsch Williams 5:01
Yeah, well, I left Pepsi, Pepsi. And on my own after Pepsi, I actually ended up getting married and moving overseas. So it was a variety of things that pulled together to get me, you know, in the direction I was meant to be facing.

Karen Yankovich 5:14
Yeah, awesome. Awesome. Well tell us a little bit about the book. Let’s start with that. Tell us a little bit about the book one, since it had that as just come out, it’s just recently come out. Right. So that was a little bit about the book itself?

Lauren Hirsch Williams 5:25
Well, the book is really focused on winning the room, because at the end of the day, business success depends on that winning or being in a different rooms. I mean, it can be meetings, it can be virtual meetings, it can be phone calls, it can be networking events, there are all sorts of rooms. And at the end of the day, that’s where your business success comes from. It’s how you work with other people. It’s how you find your investment, it’s how you find your partners, your sponsors. And so being able to win that room, which I’m defining as being able to walk in feeling 100% or 1,000% empowered to be there in the first place. That’s one piece of it. But the other piece is being able to walk out victorious, whether you achieved your ingoing goal or not, it’s making sure that you don’t walk out empty handed. So that’s what winning the room is about in the book is really focused on helping you go through a process that allows you to develop skills, so that you become much better at winning every room you walk into.

Karen Yankovich 6:29
I love that, Lauren, because you know, you know what, I think that’s one of the reasons why we connect so well, because you know, that I stand for, you know, do your research, reach out to people build relationships, but don’t do them at 100 at a time, do it one at a time, right. So if you’re building relationships, one at a time with people that can change your business, change your life, you are, and you’re showing up for those calls for those meetings, in those opportunities, confident and you know, in with a position of like winning the room and being confident in that conversation. That is, I feel like that is everything, to having a successful business.

Lauren Hirsch Williams 7:04
It really, really is. And it’s great, because Karen, one of the things that you teach, that I think is so brilliant, is the process of biting off a little bit at a time. You don’t go in and say I’m going to take the world by storm tomorrow, you work it piece by piece, you find you one person and the next person and the next person to connect with, to interact with to develop and hone your skills so that as you move forward, you become more and more polished. And I don’t mean polished in a bad way me polished in a way of being competent and secure and how you’re moving forward. So your your all your programs really support that very, very much so

Karen Yankovich 7:47
well. And I think it because I think it’s important. I think like I said, that’s I think why we connect on this because listen, we can joke about being in our pajamas on the bottom and our you know, when we’ve seen lots of this and during the pandemic, where people are on Zoom, and then we see what’s actually on the bottom, hopefully, they actually have something on the bottom right. But so we can joke about that. But at the end of the day, if you don’t look, if you’re not showing up, you know, confident and feeling confident and looking confident and you know, having done your homework, and not, you know, not like kind of running like tumble weeding into a room or tumble waiting into a conversation and hoping you can figure it out from there, you have a much better chance of building the relationships where people are gonna want to do business with you, right? Because you’ve, you are making them feel good about themselves as well. Absolutely. Tell me a little bit about like, give us some tips on this right? Where you have give us some tips like we’ve got, you know, you and I, you know, we’re both, you know, women of a certain age, and I’ve had been in many rooms where, you know, if we, you know, listen, especially 2030 years ago, where you had to really be confident even if you weren’t, you are you get your lunch eaten, right? Because at least in my world, I was in a very male oriented industry, right? So I was very often the only woman in a room. So, so tell people that are not as comfortable with that, as you and I are, what they can you know how they can start preparing?

Lauren Hirsch Williams 9:12
And absolutely, and what I outlined in the book is a whole process that you go through because I think that when people walk into a room, they’re very much and rightly so because we’ve all done this, they’re in a sense obsessed with what it is they’re going to present because they’ve it’s no small feat to get in the room, first of all with people that really matter to you with a potential investor, or a partner or sponsor. So already, the stakes are high. And so you focus a lot on preparation, on planning on your presentation on rehearsing it. And you’re so focused on that, that you tend to draw inward. And a lot of times not not just women but men also but women tend to do this maybe a little more we get sucked into this vortex of negative thinking and we think about what could go wrong? Or what am I going to say next? What’s going to happen? You know, do I have all the answers? Did I miss anything? Did I do anything? Right? Did I do anything wrong? Why am I here? You know, we ask all these questions. And the reality is that to win a room, you have to pull yourself out of that, you have to make sure that what you’re doing is understanding and focusing more on the people around you. You want to read the people in the room. And a lot of people will say, Oh, I have a sense of somebody or somebody has a certain energy and I, I pick up on it, or I noticed body language or, or facial cues, things like that. And that’s important. It’s important, but what’s most important is what you do with that information. So there’s two pieces of this in a way. One is how accurately and deeply you read the information, then how you move forward and confirm what you’re learning what you’re finding out, because we can make assumptions about things and be completely wrong.

Karen Yankovich 10:57
How do you know when you’re accurate?

Lauren Hirsch Williams 11:01
Well, you have to ask the questions, you have to be able to understand the language of the people, you know, the language that people in the room like to speak. So some people are emotional thinkers, some people are logical thinkers, and you want to figure that out first. Because when you ask a question, you don’t want to go in and say you somebody looks like they’re confused. So you don’t want to say oh, are you confused? First of all, it’s a yes, no answer. And that all that gives you is one word yes or no, it doesn’t give you any depth. So what you want to do is figure out how to ask the question of whether they’re confused. So you might, if they look like they’re an emotional beat up, that they’re an emotional person, you can say, I kind of feel that maybe I’ve glossed over something, or maybe there’s an area that you want me to go into more depth, you know, can you help me understand what that might be? It’s not a yes, no question. But what it’s doing is it’s allowing you to gather as much information as possible from the other person, both about how you’ve read them, and about what they’re thinking and get in getting into more depth of what they’re thinking, because that’s only going to help you as you move forward in meeting. Right. So and if it’s a logical person, you might just take that question in a little bit more formal way. You might not say how you’re feeling or you might want to talk, do you understand the information that I’ve presented above? Is there something that I can expand on for you, that might be a little bit more formal or logical. So that’s how you can find out how to confirm what you’re reading. But what’s most important is gathering that information, confirming it, but then using it. Because we can walk into a room or say, Oh, I get a sense of people, you know, I pick up on this or that right? You know, I know how to read people really well. But if you don’t do anything with that information, it’s just a sensation or a feeling you have, you have to learn how to

Karen Yankovich 12:53
like, what do you do with that information?

Lauren Hirsch Williams 12:56
Well, you have to think about what you’re doing in the presentation, what you’re doing in the room, and whether or not, you need to pivot your behavior in some way. So in other words, if somebody is very, very confused, or they seem that they’re overwhelmed, or perhaps you’re finding a disconnect somewhere, they may be saying some one thing, but their body or their facial clues are saying something else. So you need to try and pivot your behavior and maybe back off of overwhelming them, or shift the direction that you’re going in so that what you’re trying to present to them is as clear as it can possibly be. Now you’ve rehearsed you’ve you’ve worried, as I was saying earlier, you’re so drawn inward, that sometimes and because you’re nervous, we all we all get nervous going into meetings, right? If it’s an important meeting, you get nervous. That’s that’s just the nature, you know, of being a human being right. But you have to learn to practice and train yourself to pull out of that, so that you can see what’s really going on in the room and then determine whether or not you have to shift what you’re presenting or the approach you’re taking. And it can sound a little complicated, or a little overwhelming, like oh my gosh, I have all these things going on at once. But just as you teach in your training, you take one step at a time you practice one thing at a time you develop one of your senses at a time and pretty soon it just happens on autopilot. And before you know it you’re able to react and pivot very very quickly so that you walk out victorious in some way you do not walk out empty handed.

Karen Yankovich 14:35
I love that. I love that. So what brought you to wanting to do this? I mean have you ever done this wrong? Like what happens when you when you are in a room and you screw it up? Like how can Right Is that doable? Or is it just that you don’t get the the value that you could have? If you had done this work?

Lauren Hirsch Williams 14:52
No, I have become so good in my past at sticking my foot in my mouth. That I am definitely learned the wrong way to go about it. I one story that I like to share. And when I first launched one of my businesses called Movie hatch, I had a friend, a colleague and a friend that I had known for many years when I worked at Pepsi, he was an outside consultant. And he went on to run a company called 19 Entertainment. That is the company owned by Simon Fuller, who created the idol series, American Idol, Pop Idol, you know, every country has an idol. And I wanted to bring him my show my concept because he knew the entertainment industry. And I met with him for drinks, and he had some colleagues with him. And I started talking about American Idol. And I, at that time, they were in a bit of a slump. And I just I’ve known him long enough that I could just felt very comfortable babbling on about everything they were doing wrong. And I went on and on and on about it. And he was just looking at me and trying to respond and trying to indicate that there were other people, but they were looking at their phones, you know, they were buried away, not paying attention. So I kept talking and talking and then the other people left, and he turned to me, my friend turned to me as I was talking about movie, he said, Well, why didn’t you bring that up in front of Simon? No, I don’t know these people. You know, I thought it was somebody that worked for him. And I then later found out that that was actually Simon Fuller sitting in front of me and I pitched my idea to him. My it might have taken a completely different direction. But the reality is that I was talking and I was asking questions, but I wasn’t listening to the answers. And I was watching my friend trying to guide

Karen Yankovich 16:36
that’s crazy.

Lauren Hirsch Williams 16:38
Tell me me to shut up. And I just didn’t do it. So talk about a massive learning experience when you’re sitting with a billionaire.

Karen Yankovich 16:46
Simon Cowell, good. Simon Fuller remembers you?

Lauren Hirsch Williams 16:50
Well, the funny thing was that I did send him again, because I was in their offices in London. And when I walked in, he came in through laughing because you know, then I realized who he was, I thought he was just some, you know, young assistant, and turns out, no, he’s just a young looking guy who’s done very, very well.

Karen Yankovich 17:10
Oh, my gosh, well, that would certainly inspire you to get good at this. I would think that’s awesome

Lauren Hirsch Williams 17:14
I mean, it’s a it’s a great example of, of having an opportunity, you know, walking into a meeting thinking, you know, one thing that I was going to share my business plan or my business idea with a friend, when I could have paid more attention, I could have read the people better, I could have read the room better. And I might have walked away with a completely different result.

Karen Yankovich 17:36
Right? Well, let me ask you something, you know, obviously, we’ll link to your book in the show notes. And I think everybody should get your book. But I I also want to ask is it different in this, like, if you have a virtual meeting, what’s different about it,

Lauren Hirsch Williams 17:47
there is a difference in that you can still read the people in the room, you can still read, you know, there can be zoom calls, or virtual calls, whatever format or tool you use, where you’re one on one, or there are several people in the room. And I actually have created a bonus chapter really focused on this because the book was written before we all knew it would be living this virtual meeting existence, right. And the difference is that in a room, you actually have a physical sensation of someone’s energy. And you cannot always pick that up on a virtual call. But there are other things that you can pick up on a virtual call that you would not have in a meeting, you can look at, you can pay attention again to their facial expressions, what they’re doing, where they’re looking what’s going on, you can tell what their hands are doing. If they’re on a phone, if they’re typing, if they’re distracted, if they’re looking around, or if they’re really focused on you. You can also one little trick that I do a lot when I’m on virtual calls, is I look to where their eyes are looking. And as I’m talking through the course of the conversation, I can determine are they looking at me? Are they looking at themselves? Are they paying attention to something else? And it matters because you don’t want to keep talking? If someone is slightly distracted,

Karen Yankovich 19:08
right? You can also see to do that on your job easy to do email paying something else pings. And yeah

Lauren Hirsch Williams 19:15
it is. But you You also learn that when you’re on a call with someone who’s truly focused, you really know that they’re focused and you can almost sense that energy through the camera. You can also learn things about people from their surroundings, you actually learn about what their world is like around them, or if they’re blurring everything out, you know, using a nice backdrop, a blurry backdrop. It actually says something about people and you have to pay attention. And you don’t want to make assumptions without confirming them. But you can read the room. Virtually you can do it even with a phone call. So I talk about listening with your eyes in the book because you do want to take care Breathing in and hear what’s coming to you all through vision. It’s what you’re seeing. It’s what information, what visual information is coming in. And I also say, then, that you want to see with your ears. Because when people talk, you can conjure up images of what they’re saying or how they’re talking or what patterns they’re going into, and what words they’re using. It all creates an image that is important for you to digest and assess.

Karen Yankovich 20:31
Right, right. I love that. Okay, so let’s segue a little bit to your newest venture. Tell us tell everybody a little bit about what’s what is coming up for Lauren, and the way that you support the world’s

Lauren Hirsch Williams 20:43
Well, we have been for a few years working on a project for female empowerment and our businesses in the entertainment industry, developing producing, distributing television programming and content on broadcast networks, digital networks all over the world. So we’re now evolving towards something that really helps women, and it’s called My turn TV. And it is all about female empowerment, not just programming about women. But a lot of it is of course, but also things that maybe women are behind, that are empowering them in different ways, whether it’s as a director or producer, or a business woman who’s creating products that may not only be for women, they may be for, you know, all people it doesn’t have to be. So it’s all about empowering women and getting the voice their voices out there. Because it’s like I say, my turn, I want everyone to be able to say it’s my turn, and step up to the plate, and have the opportunity and the vehicle to do so.

Karen Yankovich 21:45
It feels so yummy. That feels so yummy. So how so what can we look for and when do we want it? When do we start looking for this?

Lauren Hirsch Williams 21:51
Well, programming is going to be starting this year 2022. And we’re starting to roll out a variety of different shows, some are in the business, digital online business, some in regular business, automotive area we’re looking at as well. We are also launching a series of one night only concerts. So there are female murmurs that are doing big names, will divulge those as we go. On my turn tv.com We’ll be able to see the schedules of those things coming up. But one night only performances from mega mega star performers and artists, and help take those around the world their performances around the world because a lot of people still can’t get out or don’t want to go to concerts are still nervous about that.

Karen Yankovich 22:38
Wow. Wow, that sounds like so much fun. I can’t wait to see where this all goes. I’m gonna probably drive you crazy. I can’t wait. What’s happening? What’s happening?

Lauren Hirsch Williams 22:46
I know. And I can’t wait to have you as part of it, too.

Karen Yankovich 22:48
Oh, I can’t wait. That’s going to be so fun. That’s going to be so much fun. All right, Lauren. So your book is out your your network is launching, we’ll link to all of this in the show notes. And how can people learn more about you when they’ve heard this so that they can stay on top of what’s happening with my turn TV?

Lauren Hirsch Williams 23:05
Sure. Well, there were a couple of different things you can I have a website up called Lauren Hirsch williams.com. And every variation of spelling leads you back to the right. So spelling correctly, young

Karen Yankovich 23:19
woman after my own heart, I own say a number of domain names.

Lauren Hirsch Williams 23:24
Yes, and my turn tv.com will be the place where you find out about the female empowerment programming. And I am, you know, looking forward to people absolutely connecting with me on LinkedIn, if they have stories to tell, if they have information or challenges that they’re trying to overcome. Please find me on LinkedIn because I really want to hear all about it. We have a lot of philanthropic tie in for that network as well. So we are looking to share stories. And then of course, one cents ahead. And if if any of the listeners to this podcast go there, we have some free downloads that will give tips and guidance on minor adjustments that you can make to start commanding the room better as well. So there’s an opportunity there.

Karen Yankovich 24:09
That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Well listen, I appreciate the work that you do in the world you know that I am right there with you. I think that you know I don’t really care what your body parts or how you identify I just think women need a little bit more of a leg up and it’s time right it’s it’s our time to to really shine and you know, sometimes and who wants to do it alone, right? It’s so much more fun when you don’t have to do it alone. So thankfully we have people like you that we could do it with.

Lauren Hirsch Williams 24:36
Yes, yes. And and again, I think it’s just pointed out something very important which is it does not matter how people identify they when I say a female empowerment network, it isn’t only females, it is a variety of people any any way that you identify, it does not matter. You can be part of this but it is allowing a group of people that have not been heard in The past to be heard.

Karen Yankovich 25:01
Yep, I understand that. And I agree with that completely. Lauren, it has been so much fun to do this with you, we’ll put all the links to all of this in the show notes. I can’t wait to see what how this year unfolds for you. And I am excited to be in your world and to, you know, to continue to work together with you to more yumminess to more women on the planet.

Lauren Hirsch Williams 25:20
Absolutely. And Karen, I can’t end this without saying that I have to come back and credit you and your amazing, amazing team for helping me take some of my steps forward to announce some of these things to take the steps to be more involved in LinkedIn, and to take advantage of it and to learn the inside twists and secrets and pathways to get success out of that platform. So you have been enormously helpful to me and to everything that I’m working on.

Karen Yankovich 25:51
Well, I’m so glad to hear that because as you know, when you have a background as executive producer, not always in front of the camera, right? We’re shoving you in front of the camera. See your ways people want to hear your voice, you know, and you are killing it with that. So I’m so proud of you for saying all right, I can do this I can turn the camera on my face instead of you know producing somebody else so good for you for stepping into that and you know what, it’s a big year for your your books coming out your you know, networks coming out I am. It is my absolute honor to be in your world and helping you wherever I can to show up in a bigger way.

Lauren Hirsch Williams 26:26
Thank you. Thank you so much, Karen.

Karen Yankovich 26:29
So do you see what I mean about Lauren and all the cool things she’s got going on for you. In 2022 This Women’s Empowerment Network is going to be off the charts. Lauren, her heart and her soul and her brain are just all lined up to really create something that is going to just support all of us so I can’t wait to see what she comes up with. And as you know, you know Lauren is doing this to support you. I do this to support you a rising tide lifts all boats, we want to continue to support you I’d love for you to support me and Lauren by sharing this episode with your network, take a quick screenshot and just make sure that you tag me and tag Lauren, um you know that I am always here to support you. If you want to know more about what that looks like please grab a spot on my calendar, go to Karen Yankovich COMM slash call and we can chat and see, you know what having some support, the way Lauren’s gotten support from us what that might look like for you and how you can be building out some of the cool things that Lauren’s building out, whatever that looks like for you and your world. So Karen Yankovich COMM slash call get you to that calendar. I would love to see your name on that calendar. So we will be here next week with another episode. We’ve got some really great shows coming up for you. I can’t wait for you to hear them. And let’s do this. Let’s kick some 2022 buddhi and let’s do it together. See you next week.