260 – Crafting the Perfect Digital First Impression with Karen Yankovich

Karen Yankovich 0:00
You’re listening to the good girls get rich podcast episode 260.

Intro 0:05
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
You know, we do a lot of networking online, and we meet a lot of people, right? Have you ever met somebody online and then met them in person, whether it’s just like one on one for coffee, or, you know, maybe at a networking event, and you finally meet them in person, and they’re different than you thought they were? Right? Like I this twice has happened to me that I can think of where one time, the person was a lot taller than I thought they were going to be any other time, they were a lot shorter than I thought they were going to be. And both times I’m like, Well, what the world made me think I knew how tall they were gonna be like, there’s nothing, there was nothing that I’ve ever seen either one of them that would make me think that they were either tall or not tall or whatever. And if it yet I was really like, in both of these cases, I was really surprised. And it took me a little while to kind of get used to the fact that the impression that I had of them, or after years of meeting them and talking to them and working with them was so different than what the reality was of them. And I’m saying is not because I think that we need to be perfectly clear on how tall we are anything like that in our in our market, because we don’t it doesn’t matter at all. But I’m saying this because what’s happening is we are whipping up personas for the people that we follow, right? And the people that we meet, and people are doing that for you. They’re seeing your content, they’re seeing what you do they’re meet, they’re connecting with you on LinkedIn and seeing your posts and your Yeah, we’re in the age of video. So but very rarely are you seeing somebody doing like an a full in person video, right? The bottom line here is though that we are we are creating in our mind, personas around the people that we meet digitally. What that tells me is we need to understand that there is such a thing as a digital first impression. You know, we wouldn’t if you were walking into a meeting for the first time you would walk in you would you know, I mean me I shouldn’t say we I said I would make sure that my hair was done that I had, you know my makeup was on point I had a great outfit on to me. Sometimes it’s also about the shoes. So I might have some great shoes on, I would go out of my way to create a great first impression. That same concept transfers to the work that you’re doing digitally. Does that make sense? Do you understand what I’m saying with this because if you are not doing this, if you’re not, if you don’t understand that you have a digital footprint, that you have a digital online brand and you have a digital first impression, then you are missing, probably leaving a lot of money on the table, you’re probably leaving a month, a lot of money on the table. You know, just take a quick minute and throw your name in a search engine and see what comes up. People are doing that for you, right people people are definitely doing that they’re before they work with you before they meet with you before they get on the phone with you. Or on that Zoom call, they’re probably throwing your name into a search engine. And you know how I know that because I do that. Right? I bet you do that too. Right. And you know, you almost want to I almost want you to go to like a, an incognito browser and do this. Because sometimes, you know, especially with Google search engines, it’s influenced by the fact that it’s you, right? So go and see, go to like, or maybe go to somebody else’s computer, just throw your name in a search and see what comes up. Because this is your first impression online. And the good news is we can control this, we can control our first impression online, especially if you’re listening to me now. And you’re thinking, well, if people search me online, they’re just gonna find out about all the things I used to be doing. You know, I’ve been in corporate for 20 years or 30 years. And now I’m a coach or consultant or, you know, an author, speaker, and nothing’s coming up about that. Well, this is all the more reason why you need to finish, you need to listen into today’s episode, because today we’re going to talk about how you absolutely can take control of what people see, as your first impression digitally. And come on, you know where I’m going with this right, like very first thing I’m gonna talk about here is your LinkedIn profile. One of the reasons why I do this, I don’t focus on LinkedIn, just I think I love LinkedIn. Right? In fact, somebody interviewed interviewed me recently, and they were like, oh, so worried about you, Karen. Because I was thinking, Oh, my gosh, what if LinkedIn goes away? What’s gonna happen to her business? And I was like, Well, you know, it’s really not about LinkedIn. Right? LinkedIn is a tool that we have, that we can use, but really what it’s about is our personal brand, right, and the brand and because we have LinkedIn, and I have checked all of the other sites, I mean, I’m always checking sites out I’ve been hanging out on Alignable lately, if you guys are on Alignable, find me there and connect with me there. And while I’m loving the activity on Alignable, what I don’t love about Alignable as much as I love on LinkedIn or some of these other platforms is there is no other place on the internet that you can create your first impression that you can create the brand of you All right, first of all, LinkedIn is the cornerstone of your online brand. It just is okay. You can, you know, argue with me, if you want me send me a message on on SpeakPipe. If you want, if you want to have a conversation about this, I’d love to have that conversation. But the reality here is that LinkedIn is the cornerstone of your personal brand online. So you know, I’ve done many, many podcasts on this, I’m not going to talk about all the ways you can optimize your LinkedIn profile. Connect with me on LinkedIn, I’m always doing I don’t know, there’s always ways that I can help you with that. But you know, at the very least make sure you’re looking at it with the eyes of somebody that’s looking at that as your first impression. Is that what you want? Is it like your resume? Or does it like your brand? Are they going to look at that and go, Wow, I want to get to know her, or they’re gonna go Alright, well, she looks like she’s pretty good at Excel. That’s cool. Right? What are they going to think about when they see that? This is your first impression, and especially if you are crafting the next chapter of your life in your career, you need to relook at this. And it’s not like we’re gonna fake stuff, but you want to be positioning yourself, for the person that you’re stepping into. Because that is the first impression people are going to see, yes, we’re going to have on there, all the things we’ve done before, of course, we’re going to still have all that, but what we’re going to be talking about and what we’re going to be showcasing is the person you’re stepping into, with like a well told story in your summary, right kind of narrating your journey a little bit, highlighting your the achievement and endorsements and recommendations that brought you to where you are today, right not about what things you used to do that that are relevant to the chapter you’re stepping into write having a compelling headline that encapsulates your expertise, your value proposition, what’s different about you, what makes you unique, these are all things you can take control over, right? So Way number one that you can take control of the first impression that people have of you online. And the next thing we’re to talk about here, and I talked about this a lot, and this is one of the reasons why I talk this is not one of the reasons this is the number one reason why I incorporate press and PR and media for credibility and leveraging that for more credibility is because that helps with your first impression online. Right. So when you are consistently featured in the media, in you know, press releases interviewed on podcasts, or newspapers or magazines, you get to borrow the credibility of the person that the host that’s that brought you on for that right? Or the publication that interview do, or the publication that you published in, right. So that immediately gives you more credibility, even if your your actual experience in this new chapters been about three weeks long, right? This should be the very first thing you focus on. Because when you are, you know, listen, if you’re not 20, if you’re over 20, or even over 30, or 40, which is most of the people that listen to the show, then you’re coming to this next chapter with lots of years of expertise. So we’re going to leverage that expertise with some press with some PR so that when people throw your name in a search bar 10 pages come up, right, that’s what we want for you. All of those media entries that they see when they search for you add to your credibility, add to that first impression so that you’re making this brilliant and beautiful and phenomenal first impression online and you can control this, Oprah’s probably not going to come knocking on your door. Right? So do you have some business milestones, write some press releases about those things, build relationships with the journalists and the industry influencers in your industry? Right look, for more speaking opportunities and panels to gain exposure, there’s talks that I did five 610 years ago, that are still coming up, when people throw my name in a search engine, they come up high, depending on the impact that the organization that brought me into speak has on on their digital presence, right? So you want to and you want to showcase these media features on your LinkedIn profile, right? Because again, we’re talking about that being the cornerstone of your brand, and other digital platforms, because you want to do all that to it all enhances your credibility, and helps you create that beautiful, brilliant, first impression online. These are all the kinds of things that we help you with in our choosing accelerator program. We have a 12 week program that gets you started. I mean, we meet you can’t do this yourself. It’s hard to do this yourself. You’re, you know, you’ve never been this person before. How can you step into this new identity without help and do it successfully? Right? I mean, maybe you’ll have some successes, but why not? You know, stick with a group of people that have proven successes around this and hang out with a bunch of other women who are killing it and are holding each other up as they’re stepping into this new chapter. That is, at the heart of everything we do in our shoes, linked up programs and accelerator program is the beginning of that we write your LinkedIn profile for you. We help you learn how to write pitches to media, what makes you different how you can stand out. It’s not just LinkedIn training, right? It’s literally about re crafting your identity as you step into this new chapter with just so much support and so many brilliant women surrounding you because I’m Want your success and this next chapter to be inevitable? So if you want to know what it looks like to get some help with just grab a spot on the calendar I Karen yankovich.com/call, I would love to see your name on the calendar.

Now there’s one more thing I want to talk about. And I’m going to dive a little deeper into this than the other two things. And that is, that is the connections that you have, right the connections that you have add to your first impression. Right? First of all, if your first impression is because a podcast host or somebody in the media share that they interviewed you, you immediately have more credibility than your competitors that maybe don’t have those same things, right. So, so surrounding yourself with people in this digital age, that have a brilliant brand of themselves, is especially important for women transitioning from like corporate to entrepreneurship, or if you’re just been a coach for a bunch of years. And now it’s time to just level it that heck up, right, like your next chapter is not gonna look like your last chapter. And a big part of that is the people that you surround yourself with. So online networking can be just as powerful as those face to face meetings when we do this, right. You know, we’ve learned that we just spent, you know, a year or whatever in place where we were doing all of our connecting online. So we’ve learned the power of zoom, I do think there’s zoom fatigue is real. So I have a personal commitment to do you know, more in person lunches more in person events, I literally have it on my marketing plan, which we teach you in Archie’s LinkedIn accelerator program, I have it on my marketing plan, that I want to have a person in person lunch with somebody once a week, because I need to get away from my computer screen. There’s a lot that can also be done online, right. And when you’re doing these things you’re building, you’re surrounding yourself with some of the smartest people in the world. It this establishes your professional credibility, right, your network, partially determined to find your credibility, the company you keep, so to speak, right? It can lend a significant personal clout to what you’re doing when potential clients or partners look you up and see that you have this brilliant network, and people are talking about you, and you’re posting pictures of you with respected professionals and some of the smartest people in the industry, it reinforces the trust in your brand. It also expands your reach and your visibility, right? Because again, it’s all about the first impression that you’re making a solid online network increases this visibility across all of your digital platforms, right? When you’re interacting with your connections and engaging with their content and contributing to discussions. You’re not just visible to them, but also to their networks. Okay, oh, my gosh, it’s the ripple effect that I don’t think we talked about enough. Okay, the ripple effect of the work that the women in my shoes into the accelerator are doing is so massive, and it significantly broadens the reach of that first impression. Right? Can you see how this all comes together here? Right? When people again, when they’re when they come first come across you whatever that looks like maybe you come up in a search, or maybe somebody saw, you know, talked about you or you were interviewed somewhere or somebody said, all you need to you know, listen to Karen’s podcast, or whatever that is, right. It provides context and depth to your brand. Because your connections offer context to who you are as a professional, right? This reflects like your expertise, your values, your business acumen, right, especially if you’re shifting into a new chapter, this is crucial, because it showcases the breadth of your experience, the depth of your capabilities, and it comes down to the people that you’re surrounding yourself with. Listen, you know, this, you know that I can say, Well, I’m really good at this. And all I’m saying is like, alright, Karen thinks she’s really good at this, it doesn’t really give me any additional credibility. But when you look around me at the people I surround myself with, that immediately enhances my your first impression of me. You want these connections to be authentic, though, right? Like, you know, we can be using digital networking, but we’ve we’ve learned nothing else from living through a pandemic, we’ve learned that authenticity is so important. It’s not just about having, you know, a new business card or a lot of connections. It’s about building those genuine relationships, marketing, you’ve heard me talk about this on the show marketing is much more personal these days. And this is going live at the end of 2023. And you know, what worked in 2018. And 2019 is just not working anymore. The online world is just so noisy. So these authentic connections, more personalized and authentic and vulnerable marketing is what is going to demonstrate your genuine interest in what you do and how you help others. And this is such a powerful piece of that first impression, right? It also showcases your communication skills because they see how you’re engaging with the people around you. right these are. This is also important as you are building a strong brand for your million dollar business like we’re not doing this to make 50 bucks Since 2024, right? We want our cup to be overflowing so that we can serve the world with that overflow that happens when people look at you, and they see the way you communicate with the people around you. Right? It’s social proof. It’s thought leadership, all the buzzwords that we hear in marketing, right? It’s definitely modern marketing. Right. So if you’re, if you’re in some kind of transition, showing that you’re not just capable, but adept at navigating and leveraging you that transition is such a big part of what’s gonna help you have so much success in this next chapter, that you’re adept, that you’re adaptable, that you’re up to date with modern business practices, that you’re up to date with technology that you can show up in this new space in this new room, and kill it, and just be be shining with all of the other people that are doing the things you do, but you are doing it better, right. So this strong network, you know, mixed with active and strategic online engagement, all of this reinforces your reputation. It showcases your expertise, it demonstrates your value and your industry, right. And this is how we we are creating and crafting and being intentional about the first impression people see of us online. And you know, for those of us that are over 51 of the biggest questions I get asked is well, what if people know how old I am? Right? I’m gonna say what I say to that is eff that, right? Like we have more expertise, we have years of experience, you know, as you are stepping into each new chapter ahead of you. Mastering this, these techniques that I’ve talked about here today on this episode is essential to continue to build the brand that is going to pay off for many, many, many years to come. So I just want to recap this for a second, the first thing we have to do is remember that people are creating a persona about you. They are we do it, I do it, I’m sure you can relate to doing this at some point in your life, right. So what we want to do, as smart, successful women entrepreneurs, is take control of what we can take control of maybe it’s not how tall you are, right, we want to take control of what we can take control of. And some of those things are your LinkedIn profile. Right. Some of those things are a consistent process for consistently being featured in newspapers and magazines, and interviewed on podcasts. And then a look around you are at the people that you surround yourself with. Right, you’re the sum of the five people you surround yourself with all those crazy cliches that you’ve probably heard me say 1000 times on the show, it’s important. And it all leads to the persona that people are building in their minds about you before they are making a decision to invest in you. Right, so take control of this. This is the timeless marketing that I talk about all the time. You know, I mentioned earlier in the show that we’ve got our shoes linked up accelerator program, my goal, the reason that I have crafted that program, the way it stands today is I want there to be more wealthy women of influence in this world. I think that women with more money can change the world. And I am so unbelievably grateful that I get to hang out with these brave women that have invested in themselves, and are showing up in these big ways across the world. If you want to hang out with these incredible women, just grab a spot on our calendar, Karen yankovich.com/call, get you to the calendar, I would love to see your name there. And of course, if you loved what you hear today, and you think that you know somebody that maybe needs to hear this message, I would love for you to take a quick screenshot of this, share it on your social media, make sure that you tag me, I’m at Karen Yankovich, use the hashtag good girls get rich so that we can share your post with our audience. And that’s how we all get more visibility. Right and I want to help you My goal is for there to be more wealthy women in the world. I want more people to see you. Right. So I would love the opportunity to share your content, you know that you’ve maybe shared about this show. In the show notes. There’s a link for SpeakPipe leave me an audio message there. I love your audio messages I love to listen to you know what you’re thinking about the show, maybe you’ve got an idea for a topic or a guest and I respond to every single one of those personally. So just go to Karen yankovich.com/ 260. You’ll see the show notes for this page. You’ll see the link to speak pipe any links I’ve talked about here today will be there the link to book a call all that is all on that page. So check that out. Listen, help me help you share this podcast right and I will share your post with my audience. We all are we’re lifting each other up. This is how we grow together. And I am going to be back here next week with another episode for you