188 – Shine a Light on Yourself with Cindy Winslow

Karen Yankovich 0:00
You’re listening to the good girls get rich podcast episode 188.

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
Hello there. I’m your host, Karen Yankovich. And this is episode 188 of the good girls get rich podcast. And this show is brought to you by she’s linked up where we teach women simple relationship and heart based LinkedIn marketing. It’s a system that gets you on the phone consistently every week with the people that can change your business, your life and your bank account forever. You know what this helps create more impact and influence. We’re creating wealthy women of influence here on our she’s lindab family. So if you listen before, if you love what you hear today, you know, we love to hear from you. So please make sure that you subscribe to this episode, wherever you’re listening to it. And if you’re feeling it, leave us a review. I love to get your reviews because it lets me know a little bit about what shows are resonating with you right and we could do more of that. I’d love for you to share this episode on social media. Take a quick screenshot, put it in your stories, put it on LinkedIn, hashtag it with good girls get rich. Tag me, I’m at Karen Yankovich Tag Cindy Winslow, who’s our guest today. And we’ll be sure to share your post with our audience and we all get more visibility. In the show notes, we have a link to speak pipe, you can leave us an audio review there or audio message or just let me know who you think we should interview or a topic you’d love to hear about. Just go to Karen yankovich.com/ 188. And you’ll see the blog for this page, you’ll see the link to speak pipe and we can communicate that way as well. I am so excited about this episode, I decided I wanted you guys to take a picture behind the scenes a little bit this year into our she’s linked up family we have really built this program out I think it is the only LinkedIn strategy program for women that I know of on the planet. It is certainly the premier strategy program. And it’s really designed to help you build relationships. And you know what, we have such brilliant coaches in our program that I thought like it was a good it’d be fun to kind of interview them on the show so that you can get a sense of the kinds of things that that we help people with, but because you might be having some of these same questions, right? Like Cindy writes LinkedIn profiles for our students in our she’s in depth program, every single student meets Cindy, and she’s worked with every single one of them. And writing your profile is emotional, right? There is an emotional piece of it. Sometimes our students when they see their updated profile, they look at it like I don’t know, can I really say that about myself? You know, because it’s as women, we’re not naturally bragging about ourselves, and we’re not really bragging, we’re owning it. And Cindy and I are going to get into that in this episode. But I’m really excited for you to meet Cindy today and hear a little bit about the kinds of questions that she gets from our students. And if you’re writing your LinkedIn profile, it’s January 2022, or February 2022. And whenever you’re listening to this, and you know, maybe this will help you shift the energy of your profile a little bit to help you have lots of success this year. So without further ado, here’s Cindy. I’m here today with Cindy Winslow and Cindy was a full time real estate agent, trainer, new agent mentor for 15 years, then was offered an opportunity to help start a nonprofit that specialized in building new and modifying existing homes for people with disabilities. Her role there was director of real estate and after two years of building out the nonprofit, the parent company cut the funding due to state budgets cuts and she decided to start her own virtual business allowing her the freedom that she wanted if she returned to the full time to the real estate world that would not offer her that same freedom. So she began supporting real estate agents, and eventually transitioned into copy and content writing, which was what she had always wanted to do. Now she’s doing what she loves helping others who want to better the world articulating their messaging with words. And Cindy, is the LinkedIn profile ahead LinkedIn profile writer in our she’s linked up program. Cindy, I’m so happy to have you here today.

Cindy Winslow 3:53
I’m excited to be here.

Karen Yankovich 3:55
This is fun, Cindy, and I just said we don’t really know where this is going to go. But we you know, I thought it would be fun to just have a conversation with Cindy about that, you know, so when people join our shooting program, the first thing that happens is they meet Cindy, right? As soon as they get enrolled, and they get moving because we want their profile to get done. First, we write your profile for you. Because it’s hard to write your own LinkedIn profile, right? I feel like it’s hard to talk about yourself the way you want to be seen in the world. So Cindy is the first person that meets many of our students. And you know, I know that when we are getting questions about profiles, as people moving through our program that you who’s listening may have some of the same questions. So first of all, Cindy, aren’t other women in our program, not the most amazing, brilliant women you’ve ever met?

Cindy Winslow 4:40
How many times do I tell you that every person I meet no matter what they do, I find so intriguing.

Karen Yankovich 4:47
Yeah, and Cindy’s job is to dive into that intrigue and to kind of look at their whole history. And like tell build it up to the story of them right like right back down to when they worked in McDonald’s and customer service. Right? So first thing that happens is they get an intake form, right? And then you get the intake form. So let’s talk a little bit about what happens from there. Like when you first start talking to these two hours, two of the women in our program, how are they feeling about, you know, taking this step to really shining a light on themselves?

Cindy Winslow 5:18
Well, you send it, nobody wants to talk about themselves. And that’s what I find. Probably the most surprising, is these women who are achieving such great things can’t do their own horn.

Karen Yankovich 5:31
Right, right. And it’s, you know, I like to say like, it’s, it’s not, it’s, I’m okay with you bragging, but it’s not really about bragging, it’s about owning it, right? Like owning the things that you do, right, the things that you’ve done. And, you know, I know, a lot of times too, sometimes, once they’re, once we’ve done their profile, they’re like, they need a little time to live sit with it, before they can even upload it. Right before the rest of the world sees what we see in them.

Cindy Winslow 5:58
Right. And I think it was Simon Sinek. He said in one of his books, people don’t buy what you do they buy, why you do it. And that’s what we try to bring out in their profiles.

Karen Yankovich 6:11
Right. Right. So what do you find? What, Where? Where are people having these challenges? Like? What kind of challenges are people having when you start working with them?

Cindy Winslow 6:22
Well, I think and because we work mainly with women, I think it’s a big problem with women is we think, because we know something, everybody must know it. So it’s not anything special. And some of these women’s just don’t see how they can change the world with what they do.

Karen Yankovich 6:42
Yeah, yeah, it’s so true. It’s so true. You know, a tiny little segue here we did. End of 2021. We did you know, we do weekly q&a calls. And I asked everybody, what’s your big goal for 2022? Not one person on that call, threw a number at me, everyone wanted to make more of an impact, every single one of them. Now I of course, I’m like, the more money you make, the more impact you can have, right? You can, let’s have your cups overflowing, so that you can have an impact from that overflow. But these are, you know, people that really have a heart towards making big change in the world. Right. And they’re making big change in the world. And yeah, like, like shining a light on that is a little uncomfortable. Yeah, yeah. So I know that, you know, one of the biggest I know, when I was when I when I work with people, and I’m not a writer, I tell people don’t I know what I want to see. But Cindy is the one that’s gonna make, you know, that’s gonna get the words out. But I also know that one of the hardest parts about helping somebody with something like their LinkedIn profile is getting their voice, right, like you can write it, but you need to, it needs to be, you know, in their voice. And one of the recommendations I have when they say, you know, when I talked to them, about what they’re when they do the work with you is to literally, once you’ve got that first draft from Cindy, read it out loud, and see if it feels like you see if you would say those things, you know, and if you can’t read it out loud and feel like it’s the way you would actually talk to somebody, then that’s where you need to make notes back to Cindy and and let her know, you know, like, this just doesn’t feel like me or over. You know, I might say this, but I’d never say that. Right? So how do you navigate that?

Cindy Winslow 8:21
I do a lot of research, you know, I have a one hour call with them to go over what we’re going to write and how we’re going to write it what, you know, we go over some creative positioning statement. But then I go in and I read, you know, whatever I can find on them. You know, whether it’s LinkedIn profiles, articles, they’ve written their website. I love when they have videos, because that really helps me tune into their voice. I don’t always get it right. But we get close. And you know, after I write it, then we have another meeting where we start to tweak it. So I don’t ever expect the first draft to be the final draft. But sometimes it happens.

Karen Yankovich 9:08
Yeah, yeah. And you know, to I do you find too, though, that sometimes they’re like, feeling like it should be very factual. And we really want it to be more narrative. Right. So how does tell us a little bit talk a little bit about that?

Cindy Winslow 9:22
I think the confusion comes because when LinkedIn started, it really was a job searching kind of place, right? And this really your profile, especially if you’re running your own business really isn’t your resume. It’s what you offer people and you know how you can help them with your services. So I think that’s one of the hardest things is, is some people want to make it look like the resume when you don’t even if you’re job seeking I don’t think you want to make it look exactly like your resume. Because you you’re gonna give them your resume. You want to give them something different

Karen Yankovich 10:00
Right, well, I like to say like your resume is all about who you used to be, right, your LinkedIn profile should really be the brand of you projecting into the future, the person you’re becoming like dressing for the job you want, right? Not making stuff up, but, but really showing up like the person, you know, if it’s a woman, you know, if you’ve got a goal to be a seven figure business earner in 2022, then you got to be showing up like that seven figure business earner in January, right. And that’s your profile, and you’re reaching out to people have to also be showing up like that. And it’s sometimes it’s the energy, right, it’s not, it’s just the energy of their profile, not even the words in the profile. It’s how, you know, the shifting the energy from resume to brand.

Cindy Winslow 10:41
And we start with a positioning statement, when I do the initial interview with them that talks about who they serve, how they help them. And their unique, what makes them unique, what makes them the person to help these people. And I try to convey the importance of that, because it’s not something we’re going to put on their profile. It’s just for them to kind of psych themselves up. I tell them, It’s like their power pose, like, you know, yes, I love that Wonder Woman pose or stuff like that, just to get you psyched up and get you in the right mindset to convey your messages.

Karen Yankovich 11:21
It is a lot about mindset, right? I didn’t even know that this is even there. Do you know that before they even fill out that form, they watch a video from Carrie, because their mindset coach in the program, like they watch a video like Carrie. And actually Carrie asked to do this. She said, Can I do a video for people right before they’re writing, they’re sending the profile information to Cindy, because she wants like your mindset about how you’re showing up is such a big part of how you’re showing up in your profile. Now, for those of you that have that, follow me on LinkedIn, in December of 2021, I did a whole series of LinkedIn profile tips, like right, your you know how to move your profile. So I felt like this is a good follow up to that because you can go to LinkedIn profile tips. COMM takes you to the Youtube playlist, where they were all those videos are, and then apply the energy type stuff that Cindy and I were talking here. If you want to take a stab at it yourself, of course, you know, we want to help you if you want some help. But you know, sometimes you take a stab at it yourself. And that’s cool, right? That’s cool. But if you don’t consider the energy that you are putting into this and the way that you’re showing up, then you’re you’re at a disadvantage, I think.

Cindy Winslow 12:25
Yeah, mindset is, that’s why we love Carrie.

Karen Yankovich 12:29
Yes, we do love Carrie, we do the character of Carrie on the show. Carrie actually was I think a guest like episode two way before I even had she’s linked up Carrie was like my second or third guest on the show. I’ve known Carrie for a lot of years. So it’s been exciting to actually be working with her. But we I digress. You know, one of the things that we’ve struggled with, right, as the as the people that run the program is, you know how the profiles getting done, and not from the perspective of what you’re doing, but from the perspective of our students dragging it out. Right? Because, because if they dry out the profile, then they’re dragging out having to do that outreach and having to do the scary stuff, right. So it’s interesting to me to watch these brilliant women had need a crutch, right? Need a crutch, to to be stepping into another reason why we love Carrie right to help them with the crash. Yeah, I remember that I did a profile years ago for a woman who I mean, she was like, top 20 women in the world who kind of person like I don’t really want to, you know, I don’t want to give her name. But she’s like, you would probably recognize her name. She is you know, being she’s, she’s she’s a very successful woman. And we did her profile. And she said to me at when it was all done, she like, I feel like I’m bragging. I was like, Really, you did all this stuff? Like you did all this stuff. Like we’re not making stuff up. This is stuff you did. We’re just asking you to own it. Right? And it’s so hard for women to do that. So they delay and they push it off, and they push it off. And they don’t want to put it out there. So that’s where we come in. And we’re like, let’s go, let’s go. Let’s get that in. Because if you don’t, then you’re not really going to be able to achieve the things that the profiles there to help you achieve, right.

Cindy Winslow 14:08
Absolutely.

Karen Yankovich 14:12
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And you know, when people are, you know, when, you know, obviously, in the beginning of the program, people haven’t finished their profile yet. They’re working with you still. And I get that they want to wait a little bit to do the outreach. And I agree with that. Because when you’re doing outreach from a LinkedIn profile that really positions you as if your peers, with the most influential people in the in your industry, people look at you differently, they’re more likely to say, yes, I want to be connected to her, like, especially in this virtual world, right, where people are maybe doing a virtual networking event. You know, chances are, you know, 75% of the people on that virtual networking event barely have a LinkedIn profile that talks about what they do. So when you do have that great profile, everybody’s going to be like, Wow, hold on, I want to know this person. Right. So it’s so powerful, even more so. In this virtual world that we’re living in, to, you know, to have this work done.

Cindy Winslow 15:05
And I find that’s one of the things that I have found as a surprise is some of these women come in, and they have like two or three sentences in their about section and haven’t written anything about themselves out there. So we start from scratch.

Karen Yankovich 15:22
Yeah. And you know, one of the things before they even work with Cindy, they, one of the things I require is that they talked to me first, so we can get clear on what their target is, right? Because if we can see the target, we can hit the target. But if we’re like, wow, I could do this. And sometimes I do this. And I’m, you know, I’m a realtor, but I also stage homes. And I also do that, like, I’m here to do all that stuff. Let’s pick one thing that you want to get a big fat juicy contract for, and let’s write your profile. So that that supports your goal of getting that contract. But what I think it’s so what I what I want to remind people is that that can we can change it right? Once your profiles done, if you want to shift it, and you know, you’re getting the contracts you want here, you can shift it, then it’s not Mount Rushmore that it can never be changed, you know. So, you know, tell me what out what other kinds of things do people find a challenge when we start working with them on this, like, where else are they struggling? When, when you’re working with them?

Cindy Winslow 16:18
I think just defining the benefits that they provide to their target market. Yeah. And that’s what you have to explain to them. Your here’s my benefits of working with me, and here’s how they can help you. So

Karen Yankovich 16:32
because nobody really cares about them, right? They care about what they do. Yeah, nobody cares. And that’s so funny too, because I know like, I don’t want to, you know, certainly, like so many women that have doctorates and and you damn well earned that and you should be called Doctor. At the same time. Nobody cares about the degrees you have, the certifications you have, they care about what transformation happens in my life when you are in it. Right? So so there’s a little tricky navigating with that we want to we want to, of course, own all of that. And at the same time, realize that people don’t run a laundry list of your experience.

Cindy Winslow 17:12
Right? You said about, you know, we help them identify their target market if they don’t already have that. And that’s really where you have to start with this. It’s right, who are you talking to? And what do they need to hear?

Karen Yankovich 17:26
Yeah, and then reverse engineer everything we write in the profile to support getting that contract? Because that’s what it’s about, right? If you know, if you put on there that you have, you know, ABC degree, is that going to help you get that contract? If not, it doesn’t need to go on there. You know, like, I mean, I know that sounds a little harsh. But at the end of the day, what is it? I don’t want you to make stuff up. But what is it that you’re doing that supports the transformation that people want to see? And tell me about it? Right? Like, tell me in the about section? Make it interesting, right? Tell me a story. Right. Right. Yeah.

Cindy Winslow 18:03
And think that one of the other things that people forget about is a call to action.

Karen Yankovich 18:08
Right? What do you want to do now that we got this profile?

Cindy Winslow 18:11
Yeah, you got to be very clear about what you want the reader to do next, and how you want them to connect with you.

Karen Yankovich 18:18
Yeah, and there are some funky ways fancy ways for real bold on that and things like that. I’m not a big fan of making it mean, I was like, this isn’t your Instagram bio. So I don’t want it to be all full of crazy characters and fonts and things like that, but a little attention to your call to action, because at the end of the day, that’s what you want, right? You want them to take some whatever action you want them to take. So I would say Cindy, is one of the one of the the biggest the question that I probably get asked most often and tell me how you would handle this. The question that I probably get asked most often is I am a attorney by day and a Reiki Master by night. How do I write my LinkedIn ready to LinkedIn profiles? So you know, tell me how you handle that for people because it is so common we are we are living in a multi passionate world, I totally think that we are living in a multi passionate world. So how do you handle that?

Cindy Winslow 19:07
Well, I think you just have to focus on the one thing that you want to build at that time. And like you said previously, you can adjust your profile at any time. But you know, if you want to sell your Reiki practice, because you want to get out of becoming an attorney full time, then obviously that’s where you want to start. And I’m sure you can, there’s going to be a way where you can marry some of yes, some of each of those.

Karen Yankovich 19:36
Right, like, where do they intersect? And how do we find that space where they intersect? Because you worked hard to be an attorney, right? Like to me that that shows that you have I feel like credibility, you know, worked hard to get that degree. And it doesn’t mean you’re not working hard as a Reiki Master, right? But um, yeah, so So I feel like that’s literally almost every single client that we have. It’s literally almost every single person I talked to Has that that question, but I do all these different things. How do I put it in? Do I need two profiles? How do I put it all in one profile?

Cindy Winslow 20:07
Well, and I think it comes from, you know, again, being women, we do what we think we’re supposed to do, until we get to a certain point where we saying, hey, it’s time to do what I love. And then that’s usually when we see those shifts in career.

Karen Yankovich 20:27
And I feel like that’s when people join our program, when they’re making some kind of transition, right, they’re coming to us with years of experience, maybe they’re a brand new coach, they just got their coaching certification, but they’re not 12. You know, they’re 60 got 40 years of, you know, 35 years of experience in the corporate world, or in the work world, they’ve probably been coaching for more years, and many coaches, you know, that have been doing it for a few years, because they’ve got experience. So, you know, that’s another thing that I find that I have to kind of hold people’s hand through a little bit like, just because you are a new, whatever, you are a new, it doesn’t mean you haven’t been doing this for 20 years, it’s just that you’ve got a new title, and you’ve got a new focus on how you deliver this skill that you’ve probably been honing for years.

Cindy Winslow 21:14
And there’s commonalities between the two that we can find to bring that experience to your new role. Right.

Karen Yankovich 21:22
I love that. I love that. So all right. So if somebody’s listening to this, and they watched some of the videos on my LinkedIn profile tips, and they’re ready to take a stab at their own profile, what would your number one piece of advice be to them?

Cindy Winslow 21:37
I think defining your target audience, and speaking to what they need to know about you, and how you can help them

Karen Yankovich 21:46
Right, how you can help them what’s in it for them. I love that. I love that. Well, Cindy, thank you so much for doing this today. This has been a lot of fun. I think that you know, I think it’s important. This is it’s probably the you know, we made a decision a few years ago that we weren’t letting people write their own profiles anymore, because it was it was impeding in their success, right? It was impeding their success. So we had to have the courage to basically say, You know what, anybody that says, Now, we’re writing a profile for you, because a great profile is such an integral part of your success strategies. And, you know, if you’re writing it yourself, and I can’t even tell you how many people and you’ve probably could think of a few people that we wrote it for them, and then they rewrote it, and they rewrote it again, and they rewrote it again. And the more you rewrite it, like I can think of one person that I looked at, and I was like Cindy wrote this. And then like I realized it was like four edits after you wrote it. And like, got rid of all the good stuff, you know, so I’m saying that because, you know, there’s a reason to, to create this stuff in a way that positions you. It’s, I feel like it sales copy. It’s not a resume. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And thinking about it like that, like thinking about it from branding and marketing, I think is a is a good place for your head and your energy to be as you’re moving forward. Very cool. Well, Cindy, Cindy, I’m going to link to all your stuff in the show notes. Cindy, is not just a great LinkedIn profile writer, but she does all kinds of fun copy stuff. So well. If you want to connect to I highly recommend you connect with Cindy on LinkedIn. But certainly we’ll link to some of the other work that she does as well. And if you’re looking to get some coffee, then reach out to Cindy. Soon as she finishes writing my LinkedIn profiles. She’s all yours. And you know, we’ll we’ll see. We’ll see in Slack city. Thanks so much for being here.

Cindy Winslow 23:27
Thank you, it was fun.

Karen Yankovich 23:29
Well, it is always fun to talk to our coaches here on podcast, or in general or just on Zoom or in Slack or wherever I get a chance to talk to them. So it was fun to do this with Cindy today. I hope that you found some value. Remember, if you go to LinkedIn profile tips, com you can check out the YouTube playlist for the LinkedIn profile tips videos that I did in December of 2021. And I’ll take you through a bunch of you know, you can binge it right binge watch it, make some updates to your profile. And of course, if you want to know what it looks like to get some help and to be in our shooting family, and have Cindy do your profile for you. Just book a call on my calendars. Just go to Karen yankovich.com/call. And we’ll jump on the phone and see about what it would look like to get some support for you. So thank you so much for listening today. And I will be back here next week with another episode of The Good girls get rich podcast