Episode 384

Host: Karen Yankovich

[00:00] The Second Commute

Karen: I want to tell you about a car. It’s 2010. It’s dark out, because it’s always dark when you leave at that hour. I’m out of my house by 6:30, sometimes 6:00, sometimes 5:30. I’m sitting in traffic on the Lincoln Tunnel Express, heading into New Jersey. I’m not moving. It takes me two hours to go 15 or 20 miles. Four hours of my one life, every single day, spent in the car going to a job.

Karen: If you’ve ever been in that traffic, you know. And I want you to hear today what I was willing to do to get out of that car – not what I wish I’d done, what I was actually willing to do. Because I would have done almost anything.

Karen: I built my own business. I got out. I want to be really clear – that part is a happy ending. I made some hard choices, and I built the business you see now. I got out of the paycheck world and the commute grind.

Karen: And then I did something I still can’t fully explain. I built the commute again. I had visions of getting up, doing yoga, drinking coffee on the deck. And eventually that happened. But in the first couple of years? Same commute, different car. I got up, I got in – posting every day, chasing hooks, chasing numbers before I’d even had coffee, and again before bed.

Karen: My friends would say, “Are you going to go in the house and work now?” And I’d say, “Well, I’m going to check my email. If I have to do something, yeah, I’m going to do that.” Nobody made me do this. There was no boss. There was no Lincoln Tunnel. This was something I created myself – or I just didn’t know better. I climbed into it every single day for years, and it took just as much out of me as the commute on the road ever did. The difference was that nobody was paying me for this one.

Karen: So today I’m going to tell you how I got out of a second commute. And I’ll warn you now – the answer is so tiny it’s probably going to make you mad. The message I want you to hear is this: what you’re doing does not have to be constant. It has to be consistent.

Karen: Welcome to the Good Girls Get Rich podcast. I’m your host, Karen Yankovich. We’ve talked a lot these last few episodes about borrowing a stage, doing brave things, getting into the room. It sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? And then comes the after-party question: okay, Karen, now what? Do I do that every week for the rest of my life?

Karen: Seen is a moment. Known is what you do with that moment – and it’s not “post more.” Most of you are going to post less after you finish listening to this episode. I’m not teaching this one at you. I’m telling you my story – what I did wrong, because I did it for years, and I did it well. I did it well, and it paid me nothing.

[03:38] Consistent at the Wrong Things

Karen: If you’re listening to this show and following me in any way, you know I think LinkedIn is the heart of all of this. When I left my job, I did what I knew how to do – I knew how to network, and I already knew LinkedIn worked. I’d built a business on LinkedIn. So when it was time for me to be visible, I went all in. That’s the whole problem. I didn’t know there was another way.

Karen: My days looked like reports and algorithms and posting and hooks, the right time to post, the numbers first thing and last thing, drafts at 11 p.m., batching on Sundays. And what made it hard to see that it needed to change was that it was working – or it felt like it was working. My followers climbed. Things were popping. People saw me everywhere. Honestly, it felt good to walk into a networking event and have someone say, “Karen Yankovich, I know you.” That’s what kept me doing it.

Karen: But the reality was, I was exhausting myself. I talk a lot now about the synergy I’ve built between my business and my life, but in the beginning it was every waking moment. I felt guilty hanging out with my grandkids. When I actually counted the hours, I realized I’d have made more money working at McDonald’s.

Karen: So I started counting what this was actually producing – cash in the bank, and how many conversations a week led to more cash in the bank. Honestly, I didn’t need two hands to count that. I wasn’t lazy. I wasn’t vain. I was diligent. I took B-School. I watched every YouTube video. I had the scorecard everybody hands you, and I was good at it. I wasn’t failing at consistency – I was consistent as hell. I’ve got blog posts on my website going back to 2012, every single week. I was consistent. I was just consistently doing the wrong things.

Karen: I’m telling you this as my story, not a client’s story, because I watch women do this every week, and every one of them thinks she’s the only one who’s tired of it. It’s exhausting, and it looked diligent – it looked like homework. That’s exactly why it was so hard to see and so easy to keep doing.

Karen: I was getting asked to speak at conferences. I’d walk into networking events and people knew who I was. But I wasn’t hired enough. I tried all the things, and I still believe firmly that those things work – it’s just about finding the right recipe, and that recipe changes every year. Marketing changes. The world changes. I’m recording this in 2026, and the marketing world is nothing like it was in 2012.

Karen: But what’s stayed the same is that nobody hires you because they saw your billboard. They hire women they feel like they know. And knowing gets built in the small back-and-forth – the comments you answered, the follow-up you sent, the name you remembered.

[07:30] The 20-Minute Visibility Ritual

Karen: I was reaching thousands of people and touching none of them. So let’s talk about a 20-minute process I eventually developed. Twenty minutes touches 40 people – but I’m known by every one of those 40, instead of spending 20 minutes posting everywhere and having 4,000 people who’ve seen me but don’t know me.

Karen: A couple weeks ago we talked about watering your money tree, and this matters here too: a viral post is a flower. A relationship is a tree, and a tree keeps producing fruit. Lightning has to strike twice for a flower. A tree just keeps growing.

Karen: So the number I started tracking was how many strategic calls I could put on my calendar. I want to be clear – I wasn’t looking for hundreds of calls. I wasn’t chasing leads, leads, leads. I was looking for strategic calls. If I have six calls on my calendar in a week, I want to convert five of them. That’s what I do now, and it’s what you can do too.

Karen: If you’re strategic on the front end, these 20 minutes can feel like more work than spamming your world with automation tools. But automation puts calls on your calendar that don’t convert, because they’re not the right people. What I do now has a name – it’s the middle move of our Borrow the Stage process, the engine of getting known. But I don’t want this to be about a word. I want it to be about a number. It doesn’t have to be constant. In fact, it shouldn’t be. It needs to be consistent: 20 minutes, a couple times a week. That’s it.

Karen: While content is a thing, we are not talking about content here – we’re talking about contact. Every minute of these 20 minutes is aimed at a person, not an algorithm, not a feed. Three simple moves. If you’re driving or walking, don’t worry – it’s all in the show notes. If you’re at your desk, grab a pen.

Karen: First five minutes: tend to what’s already yours. My LinkedIn inbox is the most valuable piece of real estate in my business. Is it full of spam? Sure – so is my main inbox. But my LinkedIn inbox, I’m on like white on rice. Your inbox is not a scorecard. Reply to every comment and message like it’s a conversation, because it is one. Say hello to whoever landed on your profile this week. Look at who viewed your profile and jump in – somebody looked you up for a reason, and almost nobody follows up on that.

Karen: Find a way to do it that isn’t spammy. You don’t have to mention that they viewed your profile – just reach out. Something like, “Hey Mary, thinking about you – what’s going on?” Follow up with the people already in your inbox.

[10:58] Go Where the Audience Already Is

Karen: You may have other platforms with their own DMs, but for sure, start with your LinkedIn inbox. Make sure you’re having real conversations with people, and feel free to delete anything that feels spammy. You do not need to talk to everyone – remember, if six people land on your calendar, you want to convert five. Be intentional about who gets your time. But if someone looks at your profile, there’s a reason. Be the person who follows up.

Karen: That was the first five minutes – tend what’s already yours. The next 10 minutes: go where the audiences already are. Comment five real comments on the right people’s posts. Not “Love this,” but a real sentence that shows what you know. A thoughtful comment on someone’s post is you borrowing her stage for 30 seconds. Her whole audience meets you for free. That’s the Borrow the Stage method in miniature.

Karen: If you can’t find five conversations to jump into, start with your own wall. If that’s not enough, go to the LinkedIn search bar and type in whatever you’re talking about that week. If you’re a money-mindset coach, type in “money mindset” and see who else is talking about it – then jump into those conversations. Now you’re in front of audiences who don’t know you yet, through someone who was a stranger to you five minutes ago.

Karen: Go where the audiences already are, and spend 10 minutes leaving real, conversational comments with your real point of view. It makes a difference.

Karen: Then the last five minutes: two warm opens. Follow up on a conversation that went quiet – maybe someone said, “I’m taking a trip to Disney World, let’s talk about A, B, and C when I get back,” and then you both dropped the ball. Follow up on that. Or send a real congratulations – a promotion, a launch, a milestone. No pitch anywhere near it. A voice note works well here. And then – timer’s up. You’re done. Go live your life.

Karen: I can’t tell you how many opportunities have come from these warm opens. I once commented on a post congratulating someone on a book – I barely knew them. Since we’d last engaged, they’d moved way up in their organization, and they brought me along, just because I jumped into a conversation and said, “Congratulations on your book, that’s such a big deal.” It turned into a huge opportunity.

Karen: If you’ve got 10, 20, or 30 years of expertise, your 20 minutes outweighs a beginner’s four hours. This is not a second job. This is not a second commute. This is 20 minutes.

[14:45] Why 20 Minutes Beats a Beginner’s Four Hours

Karen: I’m calling this the expert visibility plan – I just made that up this second, but think of it that way. Your 20 minutes, backed by your years of expertise, outweighs a beginner’s four hours. This is visibility sized for real life.

Karen: If you did what I did, this is how you get out of that second commute. Now you’re building a business on this small amount of visibility. The stage got you seen. This 20 minutes is how the room gets to know you after that mic goes cold. A stage with no follow-through is one bright day and then nothing. A stage plus 20 minutes is one appearance that pays you year after year after year.

Karen: Some of you are still in your first car – the actual job, the actual commute – building your way out on nights and weekends. I remember those days, and if that’s you, you’ve got to do it. Some of you got out and built the second commute without noticing. This has probably been an uncomfortable half hour, and I’m sorry about that – but also, you’re welcome, because it’s important you hear this. You can do this, but you have to do it your way, not the way everyone else says to do it.

Karen: Either way, the exit is the same: 20 minutes, a couple times a week. I promise you, it’s life-changing. It’s business-changing. And before I send you off to do it, let me be honest – I teach this for a living, and I’m preaching to the choir here too. There are weeks I don’t want to open LinkedIn. Some mornings that 20 minutes feels like 20 miles. I know the whole speech, and I still have to walk myself to the chair some weeks. I’m not up here as the woman who finds this easy – it isn’t.

Karen: Lately I’ve really been enjoying Threads, and I catch myself asking why I’m not putting that same energy into LinkedIn, since I know that’s where the business is. But if you find the right conversations and the right rhythm, three times a week for 20 minutes is one hour out of your entire week. I’m telling you I do it anyway, even when it isn’t easy, because I know what happens when I do – and what happens when I don’t. I’d rather do the 20 minutes.

[18:26] Your Challenge This Week

Karen: For the next week, block two or three windows of 20 minutes each. Calendarize it – treat it like an appointment, not a “when I get to it,” because we all know what that’s a synonym for. Inside each 20 minutes: reply to everyone, jump into five real conversations, and do two warm opens. If nothing happens in week one, that’s not failure – that’s the point. The win is that the timer ran and the water flowed. Fruit is a later problem.

Karen: Come into the Facebook group at LinkedInforWomenCommunity.com and post your windows – the actual times you did this. Let us hold you accountable. That’s what the LinkedIn for Women community is for.

Karen: Here’s what I want you to carry out of this: it doesn’t have to be constant. It needs to be consistent. Twenty minutes, a couple times a week, aimed at people instead of an algorithm. The women who do this outearn the women performing brilliance every single day. I’ve watched it too many times to call it luck – I’ve experienced it myself, and my clients experience it over and over. They know it too. Sometimes I’ll ask them, “Did you do your 20 minutes this week?” and they know exactly what I mean.

Karen: I know 20 minutes sounds too small to matter. But let me take you back to my car. This is so much easier than leaving your house at six a.m. for a two-hour commute. I did that for too many years, and I know exactly how long two hours each way feels. Twenty minutes with your coffee is not the hard version of anything – it’s the easiest thing I’ve ever asked you to do, and it’s the only one that’s ever paid me consistently. So do it. What if I’m right? Do it for yourself, for your family, for your bank account. I want more wealthy women in the world, and this is how it happens. We need to build networks that can pay us – we need to be around the people who can change our lives. This is how you do that.

Karen: If you want the whole path – how a borrowed stage becomes 20 minutes becomes a client, seen, known, chosen, start to finish – the links are in the show notes. Go register for the Borrow the Stage Masterclass at SheLinkedUp.com/masterclass. That’s the one thing I’m asking of you today.

Karen: Here’s my challenge: for one month, don’t perform. Just show up, minimum twice a week, for 20 minutes. Then look at your calendar after week two or three. Every time you’re tempted to post something loud instead of reaching out to someone real, I want my voice in your ear asking, “What if I’m right?” I’ll see you at the table, and I’ll see you on the way to the bank.