Entrepreneurs Over 40 Episode 17 with Mary Fain Brandt

[00:00:00] Greg Mills: Our guest today has a ton of experience in the corporate arena, working in the financial industry, specifically banking. This has given her a glimpse as to where sales professionals struggle when it comes to social selling and online prospecting. She's the CEO of Mary Fain Brandt Consulting, founder of the LinkedIn Bakery and an international LinkedIn trainer, speaker, and strategist.

[00:00:22] She teaches Entrepreneurs, Business Leaders, Executives, and Sales Teams, how to fill their pipeline by using LinkedIn for just one hour a day. Her client successes include landing a client one day after working with her to be being offered a job three days after getting laid off. That's pretty good. Her clients typically see a 35 to 65% increase in profile views and engagements, which leads to conversations that convert. She specializes in working with Financial Professionals, Bank Managers, It Professionals and Coaches to help others increase their visibility, but more importantly, learn how to connect, cultivate and convert. She describes her brand as fun and informative. She's a get to the point, get it done, type of gal with a passion for color coding, colored pens, and homemade cold brew. With the vanilla almond milk. She lives in beautiful San Diego, California with her husband, Joseph. Without further ado, Mary Fain Brandt.

[00:01:19] Mary Fain Brandt: Whew. That's a great bio. Thanks for reading that for me. I'm going to hire myself. Thank you so much for having me on this show. I love the name of the show, I think is very specific, which I think is gonna really help you attract the right audience.

[00:01:36] Greg Mills: Well, thank you. Now, can you take a few moments and fill in the gaps from that intro and bring us up to speed with what's going on in your world.

[00:01:44] Mary Fain Brandt: Sure. Right now I'm in the middle of a launch of LinkedIn Remastered, which I've gathered 13 worldwide speakers. They all have some expertise, whether it's branding copywriting or LinkedIn, and we're diving into that for six full days. So I'm really focused on that at the moment. Because my whole thing, as you said, Connect, Cultivate, Convert.

[00:02:07] I want to help people rethink how they're using LinkedIn to find the opportunities that are right there. And a lot of people just miss the target because they don't understand how to use LinkedIn, or they hired someone that simply have the headline. LinkedIn Trainer, because when the pandemic hit, we saw so many people shift and they realize, oh my gosh, they have this aha moment.

[00:02:34] Where, how am I going to find a job? How am I going to get in front of my potential clients? Oh, I need my network and I need to build that on LinkedIn. So unfortunately we saw a lot of people shift and say there were a LinkedIn Trainer when in fact they were more of a Social Media Manager. And every platform has its ins and outs and webs and flows.

[00:02:55] And so, you know, I really want to help people understand the right way to connect, cultivate and convert.

[00:03:02] Greg Mills: Now, backing up from that just a little bit. Did you come from an entrepreneurial background at all? Was anyone in your family? Did they have their own business?

[00:03:11] Mary Fain Brandt: Yeah. So my dad, he was a Real Estate Appraiser and he had his own company because he just couldn't work for other people. That's the story he tells, you know, and I actually worked for him for a bit. He wanted me to take that over, but that's just not where my passion was. I have to say that I saw my dad struggle, like when it was good, it was raining money and we'd go out.

[00:03:33] And when it was bad, we were struggling to pay the bills. So I grew up with that entrepreneurship is hard and it still is, but I grew up with that mentality that you don't want to be an entrepreneur. And my dad didn't at the beginning. He's like I had this great job at a private school in San Diego Bishop's school.

[00:03:52] And he's like, just stay there. Just ride that out. It's going to be great. I never wanted to be an entrepreneur to tell you the truth because of what I saw growing up. And then the only reason I became an entrepreneur is my mom got sick and I had to make this difficult decision to leave that cushy job in LA Jolla, California, where I thought I was really going to retire from.

[00:04:14] My mom got dementia. It turned into early onset Alzheimer's and I left that job, so I could be her advocate and spend time with her. And I had two great years with her before she passed and not working a nine to five job. I couldn't be there for her, take her to doctor appointments. We had a turning moment when she went missing.

[00:04:35] She was one of those elderly people missing on the news, where they brought out the SWAT team and the dogs, in the rain on a Friday night searching for her, and five hours later, we found her alive and okay. And that kind of really changed everything for me. So when I left the school, I was like, what the heck am I going to do?

[00:04:56] I was in this pivot of what was my next career going to be. So I understood the struggle of being 50, and shifting. I had gone through an out service placement and it was a joke that I went, it was very antiquated. So I was like, I can do this better. So I actually started as a career coach to help other people when they were pivoting and when they wanted to redefine what their career looked like.

[00:05:20] So many times people get stuck in jobs because the paycheck. We have bills to pay when you hit 40, right? When you're in your forties, you've got a mortgage, you've got kids. So you're like, what else can I do? I'm just going to keep working at this job, but that shouldn't be our mentality. And I want to point out that the average job length, or the average length of a time at a job is really about two and a half to three years.

[00:05:47] It's okay to pivot and jump now. And that's the biggest takeaway that I want people to take from this is it's actually good for you to leave every two years.

[00:05:57] Greg Mills: Okay. I know that being, I've got an it background and you know, we're in, we're almost incurred to leave every two to three years. I believe you've gone on record as saying that LinkedIn used to be the ugly duckling of the social media world.

[00:06:14] Mary Fain Brandt: It is.

[00:06:15] Greg Mills: Yeah. How has it gotten better since you made that comment?

[00:06:18] Mary Fain Brandt: That is actually one of my opening statements: that LinkedIn used to be the ugly duckling of the social media platforms. But now it's blossomed into a beautiful Swan because of the features and functionality. So, Microsoft took over LinkedIn in what 2016, and they dumped a lot of money into it and they made it more robust.

[00:06:40] It used to be a place right where resumes went to die. That's the big joke, right? You put your resume up and it dies. But now it's this social media platform for professionals. And it's the platform where you grow your professional network. Every platform has their purpose, but LinkedIn is the professional platform. And so it's so much more, it's so much more robust and I love how it keeps growing and changing. And I was in a LinkedIn group this morning and we just discovered some new meeting features that I'll be talking about next week.

[00:07:16] Greg Mills: Okay. So it's constantly evolving and you're constantly learning with it as well.

[00:07:21] Mary Fain Brandt: I'm always learning. I'm in a private LinkedIn group. We meet Wednesdays at 8:00 AM for an hour to go over, what's working. What's not working. We hear about accounts getting locked out. Right. Why did they get shut down? So LinkedIn has their terms and conditions and you have to play by the rules, or you can have your LinkedIn account shut down.

[00:07:41] So we talk about what's working, what's not working and features that we'd like linkedIn to have. So I love this group. It's one of the ways that I stay on top of what's, new and improved on LinkedIn and how I can help my clients, whether a job seeker or a small business owner.

[00:07:59] Greg Mills: Okay. Now, what do you recommend for somebody that feels stuck in their current role and wants to try something new? How should they leverage LinkedIn or how can they move forward?

[00:08:10] Mary Fain Brandt: Well for the job seekers, this last year, everything shifted and we haven't seen the fallout from the pandemic. We're still experiencing shortages with, in some industries. You've got to know which industries are taking off. Also remote work and, the hybrid model is here to stay. So that is something to take into consideration.

[00:08:32] If you're thinking of pivoting, you need to take inventory of what you're passionate about in the professional sense and where your skills lie. There's some simple exercises that I go through with my clients. Here's one, text 10 people and ask them what makes you fabulous. Don't give them any context, right?

[00:08:51] Just ask them what makes you fabulous. Are you a problem solver? Are you a community builder? Right? Then you take some of those key words and you start looking at jobs. So instead of going right into looking for jobs, you need to do the foundational work of who you are. Creating your own personal brand.

[00:09:10] I know you might think that's only for business owners, but I'm telling you in 2021, everybody needs to create and implement their own personal brand. As a job seeker, that's totally going to make you stand out, especially when you get on LinkedIn and start engaging with others and creating content.

[00:09:30] So create a personal brand and start growing your network because your network is probably where someone's going to introduce you to someone that knows the company that's hiring or knows the hiring manager or hears from another group of an opening that is perfect for you.

[00:09:48] Greg Mills: Okay, that gives me a little bit more context and some of our listeners more contexts as well. Now, it sounded like you were almost mining for keywords, from your friends that, you might want to concentrate on. Should you then go on LinkedIn and look for those same keywords?

[00:10:07] Mary Fain Brandt: That's just one exercise that I do with my career clients, right? We have like three or four. That's like one of helping you understand who you are and what your branding might be built around. And it's also an eye-opener. Some people come back and go I had no idea,

[00:10:23] that's how people thought of me. So I asked that you asked. Colleagues friends, family. Right? So we want to get that. What is that called? The 360 view of how people in all different aspects of your life, how they view you, because it's really about perception, how people view you and what their perception is.

[00:10:42] Some other exercises are just simply looking at jobs that are intriguing to you and then diving down. Why are you drawn to that company or what is so intriguing about that position? A lot of us have transferable skills, but we don't know how to communicate that on LinkedIn. When we're trying to update our LinkedIn profiles, how do we communicate that we were in IT, but now we want to be a teacher.

[00:11:09] Maybe you were the person in IT that trained all the new employees. Right. Maybe you put together the training program. So obviously you have that teaching ability. So it's really about diving down with the clients and learning what they did in the past and what they want to do in the future. So I say this, your resume is what you've done.

[00:11:32] Your resume is your past, where your LinkedIn profile is your future .Future proof, it talk about where you want to be and how you're going to get there.

[00:11:39] Greg Mills: I'm a company of one, should I even bother with a LinkedIn company or just use my personal profile? And if so, should, how should I even use the LinkedIn Company profile?

[00:11:50] Mary Fain Brandt: So I always recommend that even the solo preneur. So you have a personal profile on LinkedIn and let's establish the difference. A personal profile is yours. It belongs to one person. It should have your headshot. It should not have the logo of your company. LinkedIn- that goes against the terms and conditions.

[00:12:11] They want the personal profile to be personal. So it needs to have your headshot and information about you because we want people to connect with you, the person,

[00:12:20] A lot of people do that. They'll put the logo up and you really shouldn't do that because at some point LinkedIn will start monitoring and they can shut it down and then you've lost everything.

[00:12:32] So your headshot should be just a clear headshot. You should be smiling. It should be a current headshot. So you look like the person that you are in person. Forget vanity. I had a colleague post the other day, Hey, I just updated my headshot. It's it's been like five or seven years. He's like, I've lost some hair.

[00:12:52] Some of it's gray, I didn't look like the old headshot. He's like, pro tip: Update your headshot. And I agree with that. You know, we want to be more relatable to the people we connect to it. So your personal profile is personal. Should have a headshot should talk about what you've done.

[00:13:08] Your experience section. You should have a robust About You section. Your company page is an extension, right? So that is the company page. You can have your logo, you can put the articles up there. Now they allow you to write articles on company pages, which can really help you drive traffic through Google.

[00:13:26] That's a whole nother training session. But I do want to say they have updated the company pages where you can have call to actions, like sign up for my event, register for something, visit my webpage, get more information. But company pages are still a little blah. They don't get a lot of traction.

[00:13:47] There are ways to build your followers, but it does take time.

[00:13:52] Greg Mills: Yeah, I wish there was a way and maybe there is, and I just don't know it, but a post on your, on your regular LinkedIn profile and then kind of drive that to your company page.

[00:14:03] Mary Fain Brandt: There are some different tactics that you can talk about. The other thing about having that, company page is that as the only way you can have your logo auto-populate to your experience section instead of having that little blah icon. When you have a logo populated, it just looks more credible, right?

[00:14:24] So if no other reason set up a company page for that.

[00:14:27] Greg Mills: How do you advise going about building a brand on LinkedIn?

[00:14:32] Mary Fain Brandt: So you really need to know who you are, what you value. So I value time. Like the, probably the biggest thing I value is time and people, and I don't like my time to be wasted. So I don't waste people's time. My show is 30 minutes. Bite-sized tips for busy entrepreneurs. Right. So it's bite size. So that's what I value.

[00:14:54] And that's what people expect for me. So you want to build your brand on LinkedIn? Yes. It's your colors, it's your font. It's your logo. That is probably 20% of your brand, to be honest. The bigger part of your brand is how do you want people to feel when they see or hear your content? So on a live show, I want people to feel energized.

[00:15:16] I want them to learn something with my content that I put out. I talk with my hands. You can see me right now. I talk with my hands. I'm joyful, I'm energetic. And my branding is all like that. Because it's too hard to be two different people. Right? If my branding was very subdued and quiet and very calm and then you were to meet me, the branding would be off.

[00:15:38] There would be a disconnect and people would go, but that's not Mary Fain Brandt online. I don't know who this Mary Fain Brandt is. What else is she hiding?

[00:15:48] Greg Mills: Okay. That makes sense. So how do you feel about using emoticons and the different icons on LinkedIn? I've always thought of not doing it, but I've recently seen people, including yourself that have done it and it looks good.

[00:16:04] Mary Fain Brandt: And that's why you use them. You answered your own question. Why do you use them? Do you use too many? No, don't, it's not Instagram folks. So you don't want to fill your posts with those, but you know what it does. Doesn't it look nice when you see it? Doesn't it kind of catch your attention.

[00:16:21] Greg Mills: Yeah, it does. I would have to kind of go through and tweak it a little bit, but yeah, I can definitely see where that could come into play.

[00:16:29] Mary Fain Brandt: Yeah, so don't overuse them, but some bullet points, some arrows you want to break up your text. It's scientifically proven that when you use an emoji or an arrow or a bullet point that your eye stops like a half second more. So scientifically the reason I'm using them is it's easier to read.

[00:16:49] It makes people stop. You know, how you can read, sentences that are all jarbled. As long as the first letter and the last letter are in the right place, you can read a whole paragraph. Because that's the way our brain processes, but an emoji, your brain has to stop and go. What is that?

[00:17:05] Is that a smiley face? Is that a sad face? Is that an arrow? It bullet point. Where am I supposed to look? So it's actually about getting people to stay on your content just a little longer.

[00:17:14] Greg Mills: Yeah. So if I'm hearing you right, I should use ambiguous looking icons.

[00:17:19] Mary Fain Brandt: Well, I don't know about that. You want them to be on point, so.

[00:17:24] Greg Mills: Um,

[00:17:24] Mary Fain Brandt: You know, like an arrow, here's what we're going to learn today. And I'll put an arrow or a bullet point. Here's the three things you're going to learn in today's show.

[00:17:32] Greg Mills: Okay. Now, what are some of the tools you recommend for using on LinkedIn? I've noticed that, my LinkedIn, on my PC is different than LinkedIn on my tablet. As far as the options.

[00:17:45] Mary Fain Brandt: So you're talking about desktop versus the app. And those two things are always different. So there's the mobile app and it's always different than on your desktop and those will always be different. the one thing I do suggest is that everyone get the app on your phone because we all have times, you know, doctor appointment or kid's soccer game.

[00:18:09] Maybe you just want to sit there and get on LinkedIn and see what's going on. I'm a big proponent of an hour a day of LinkedIn will get you the biggest ROI. You don't have to spend hours a day, but you need to be strategic. Right? So I like Monday mornings is like, I dive in. I see what's going on in the world, you know, who's posting, what are people talking about?

[00:18:31] Can I comment and engage? So that's like the biggest tip is to really start commenting and engaging. On posts of people that are in your network, as well as people that you're not connected with so that you can strategically grow a strong network. As far as programs. Are you talking about, you know, the app versus, or are you talking about scheduling?

[00:18:56] Like I am, I'm a program queen here. I love apps and programs. We could do a whole show on that.

[00:19:01] Greg Mills: Well, I know that you've got the gadget podcast as well, but what I was referring to specifically, it was just kind of apps, both for scheduling and for, a lot of things. I don't even know what's possible with regards to LinkedIn.

[00:19:18] Mary Fain Brandt: So as far as scheduling, I use Agorapulse because it has the analytics you can see. So there's three tools. So Agorapulse and PromoRepublic are two great scheduling. Agorapulse is always looking to update. I just got off a research call with them last week. Like, Hey, what would you like to see us add?

[00:19:40] And I did give them my recommendations, what I love about Agorapulse. So if you're on multiple platforms, I'm on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. You can see all the comments. So when you use Agorapulse, instead of going to each of those platforms, what you can do is you go to Agorapulse and we call it inbox zero, you can see the comments and you can reply right there from one platform.

[00:20:06] So that is a great tool. If you're just getting started, PromoRepublic is great. And the reason I like PromoRepublic, I used to use that, is they actually give you prompt ideas and they're broken down by category. You know, Motivational ,Analytical. They're also broken down by platform, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, right?

[00:20:30] So they break that down and they give you inspiration and they also provide images. So if you're just getting started, PromoRepublic is a great tool to kind of get used to, creating content and posting it out there. And again, I think you can connect up to 10 profile. On both of those is I connect up to 10 on each of those.

[00:20:52] I like both of them for different reasons. So that's a great scheduling tool. And then for the entrepreneurs, if you're looking to get analytics, I do have to say that LinkedIn doesn't provide good analytics. Right. They kind of suck right there. They don't tell you, like on Tuesday at 9:00 AM, you had the most views.

[00:21:11] They just really suck, but there is a tool called shield AI and, that will give you the LinkedIn analytics. It breaks it down by week by month, by quarter by year. It also breaks it down by type of content and they just added some new features that I'm still diving into. They give you a word cloud that tells you what your posts were about.

[00:21:36] And I can tell you when I use that tool, when I look at it, I can confidently say that Wednesdays are my best engagement day because I go live and I get the most engagement on my LinkedIn lives.

[00:21:48] Greg Mills: Now how often should someone post on LinkedIn and what should they be posting?

[00:21:54] Mary Fain Brandt: Ooh, that's a loaded question. You should post what your audience wants to know about. So if you're a job seeker, are you positioning yourself as a thought leader in the industry that you're either in or trying to get to? So if you're a manager trying to move into a senior manager or a VP role, are you posting content that is relevant to that position? So, culture, How you handle teams, Leadership Development. Right? So that's a really loaded question that I work on with my clients, one-on-one. We come up with a 30 day content strategy that they can kind of rinse and repeat. I actually find 90 days of content strategy with someone -three months of doing it with them, helps them, so then they can go and do it on their own. So content wise for business owner, what are you pushing out? What do you want people to do? Do you want them to sign up for something? Are you looking for more engagement? Is this a brand awareness month? I think it was in March,

[00:22:53] we finally rebranded. We got the new website, up new logos. So I was trying to announce that to the world. So I was, sharing, Hey, did my new website. Hey, can you jump over there and make sure there's no typos? Cause y'all know I'm dyslexic and I've read this thing 10 times. So I think one of the, the mis-marked on LinkedIn with content is people aren't humanizing it enough.

[00:23:16] They're thinking above the level or they're overthinking it. Have some fun with it and humanize it. I always say H to H human to human, there's a person behind the profile. There's a person reading your content, talk to that person. Don't overthink it, make it more conversational.

[00:23:34] So that is like one tip. As far as how often. Again, that changes for what are you working on right now? What is your goal for LinkedIn? Is it brand awareness. Are you trying to get your name out there? I always say if you're just starting off post twice a week, you want a little more post three times a week.

[00:23:53] It's not Instagram. You don't need to post daily and you don't need to post twice a day. They actually say, if you've posted, if you've created content and it's getting a lot of engagement, And a lot of reach, they say don't post until it starts to die down because then you're going to take away from it.

[00:24:12] But it just depends what you're doing. Right now, with LinkedIn Remastered, last week, we were posting every day about this to get people, to sign up and to tell them instructions. Like, Hey, you're going to be getting emails, join the group. So really depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

[00:24:29] Greg Mills: Okay. Now you touched on groups. I've had limited success in my . LinkedIn groups.

[00:24:35] Mary Fain Brandt: LinkedIn groups suck. I'll say it. Supposedly they're putting a team together to work on them. I have yet to see them really be successful. So I'm running LinkedIn Remastered right now and the joke is in the email. It says, sign up for the private group and I say, PPS or PSS, right? I say. I know Facebook group.

[00:24:56] And this is all about LinkedIn. Why? Because LinkedIn groups suck! More about that later. Because LinkedIn groups don't have the functionality and people don't engage.

[00:25:05] Greg Mills: That's been my experience too. It's usually you get, get in one and it's kind of a vacuum.

[00:25:12] Mary Fain Brandt: I feel like they shoot out a lot of spam.

[00:25:16] Greg Mills: Okay. Now what is Creator Mode?

[00:25:21] Mary Fain Brandt: So Creator Mode is a relatively new feature. I think they started rolling it out in May, and they're trying to support the freelancers and contractors on LinkedIn, because that's a huge population, especially with the Pandemic. A lot of people decided they're not going back to corporate. They're going to go full time in their business.

[00:25:41] They're a Freelance Graphic Artists. They're a Freelance Copywriter, a Freelance Videographer. So Creator Mode is for those people that create. And it's to showcase their content. So what it does is it moves up your content higher. It moves it up above the, about you section. So it's like, you know, you see the background banner, you see your headshot, you see, I think two sentences of your, about you.

[00:26:08] And then it'll show you your content. I had it turned on because I wanted to test it. What I found is my profile views went down..

[00:26:17] Greg Mills: Okay. That's kind of unintuitive

[00:26:20] Mary Fain Brandt: Right. A few of us in the group, we tested it and most of us ended up turning it off.

[00:26:26] Greg Mills: Okay. Now what's been the most difficult part of running a LinkedIn Consulting, Marketing business for yourself.

[00:26:36] Mary Fain Brandt: Oh, that's a great question. , The first word that comes to mind is focus.

[00:26:42] I only do LinkedIn. I have to say I'm very focused. I do live, I can train someone on how to put together a live show. I can help you put together an event, but it's all LinkedIn, right? I'm not a Facebook Trainer.

[00:26:55] I'm not an Instagram Trainer. I'm a Career Coach and LinkedIn Consultant. So I am focused on that, but I do have SOS syndrome. I don't know if you've heard of that medical term, Shiny Object Syndrome.

[00:27:06] Greg Mills: Yeah, for very familiar with shiny

[00:27:08] Mary Fain Brandt: Yeah. I'd like to learn a lot of things. So, when I say focus, I need to focus more on things that I'm working on, not take on other projects.

[00:27:18] It's hard to stand out in the sea of sameness on LinkedIn. I try to be myself and I want to attract the people that want to work with me. So I don't think it's a problem of not being known on LinkedIn. I think I'm well known. There's other things that just as entrepreneurs, we have to work on like closing sales, doing the ask, repurposing our content instead of trying to do content every day, taking one piece and turning it into 10 things.

[00:27:49] Greg Mills: Which do you prefer LinkedIn stories or articles?

[00:27:55] Mary Fain Brandt: Articles stay forever. So when you ask me what I prefer, if I'm working with a client, I'm going to tell them to do both articles live forever. They give you that authority and that credibility. It's a way for potential clients to learn more about you and your brand. So I think that they're important.

[00:28:16] I think that you should be doing an article once a month just to keep it up there. Stories are fun, quick snippets that get your name in front of people. With stories, it can lead to an opportunity. So when someone did a story, like we knew each other, but we hadn't talked. Right. We know each other from the social media marketing world.

[00:28:37] She did a story and I commented. Which goes to her inbox and that started a conversation between us. So again, it's different functions, right? So I think stories are great to show people the behind the scenes or, Hey, I'm going live at nine o'clock come join us. Right. So they really have different functions.

[00:28:59] Greg Mills: Are stories more time-sensitive do they expire?

[00:29:02] Mary Fain Brandt: They expire in 24 hours.

[00:29:04] Greg Mills: Let's talk about the LinkedIn Accelerator that you've got coming up in a few months.

[00:29:08] Mary Fain Brandt: Oh, I'm so excited. So I work really hard. One-on-one with my clients, you know, it's an in-depth four month training program. But not everyone can afford that price point. And I really wanted to create something that everybody could join and that still offers that live training. So it's not a course where you're going to get videos and you're going to have to figure things out on your own.

[00:29:33] I'm not a proponent of that. So I couldn't create that. The LinkedIn Accelerator program is a live coaching series for six weeks. You get me live on Mondays. We're going to do a live training Wednesdays. You're going to get a hot seat and like a Q and A. Do you want us to go over like your headline or your profile or Searching .Wherever you're at.

[00:29:54] We're going to answer those questions and then we're going to have implementation weeks because the worst thing is right. Someone tells you trains, you got to do something and then you leave the program. And you haven't done the work. So I built in two implementation weeks. When one is all about your profile. You're going to do the work and we're going to help you get through it.

[00:30:15] So it's six weeks. We're launching, uh, the beginning of October and the price point is amazing. There's going to be a core track at $497 , and there's going to be a VIP track at $997. And that's only for 10 VIPs. Where you're going to get an extra one-on-one session with me during the whole course,

[00:30:35] Greg Mills: So how has the pandemic impacted your business? It sounds like it may have actually improved things.

[00:30:43] Mary Fain Brandt: I want to say the speaking opportunities still came in. We had to learn how to make online trainings, a little more engaging. Right. So there was a little curve there, but it didn't really impact me negatively like it had for other people because all my trainings were on Zoom anyways. Right? We have client portal. All of our clients have their own portal section where we do all the communication. So it was all online. I actually even did an online, get this. I have a client who co-wrote a book. And so we did a virtual book launch and it was a two hour virtual book launch with a, a saxophone player, a bartender and raffle prizes.

[00:31:25] So I learned a lot, and I stretched myself, but I would have to say that it, it didn't affect me negatively.

[00:31:33] Greg Mills: Okay. Let's get ready to wrap this up. Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you'd like to talk about or.

[00:31:42] Mary Fain Brandt: Just for those that are looking to pivot in the career now is the time to really put that thought into that. I've worked with and heard so many people, I'm not happy. I'm not happy. My boss doesn't support me. Well, let's fix it. Like literally let's fix that. I just worked with someone.

[00:31:59] She just got a new job two weeks ago. She's so excited. It's right up her alley, but we revamped her entire LinkedIn profile and built up or connections cause she was really just starting out. So you really need to work on your LinkedIn profile, you guys and your network. And those are the two things that I love working with my job seekers, my career clients, you know, let's level you up, let's build up your confidence and let's get you in a happy job.

[00:32:25] They're out there. They exist.

[00:32:27] Greg Mills: So what's the number one piece of advice that you can give our listeners. You may have just given it.

[00:32:34] Mary Fain Brandt: for job seekers. Yeah. For the business owners, you know, it takes five years to build a business. Right when you think that it's not gonna succeed and you're ready to give up I want to encourage you to give it another six months to nine months, and you're going to turn that corner. I want to say that you've got to realize it costs money to do business.

[00:32:53] Get a virtual assistant to help with production, with social media. Hire someone. It will be the best investment that you can make .Hire earlier. I wish I had hired my VA earlier. She's been with me. I don't know if it's two years going on three years. Best decision I made.

[00:33:09] I didn't think I can afford it. That's what most people say, but you can.

[00:33:13] Greg Mills: What's the best way for people to check you out and get in touch with you?

[00:33:18] Mary Fain Brandt: So either connect with me on LinkedIn and let me know that you saw me on the Entrepreneurs Over 40 show, or you can check out my newly branded website, MaryFainBrandt.com. Let me know what you think. And if you catch any typos, definitely send me an email and let me know.

[00:33:35] Greg Mills: Okay, will do. That's a wrap. Thank you, Mary, for being my guest on entrepreneurs over 40,

[00:33:41] Mary Fain Brandt: Thank you so much, Greg. It's been my pleasure.