Ep.66/ Crafting an Authentic Brand with Jennifer Lemmert
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Corporate Communications Consultant Jennifer Lemmert talks about turning a job loss into a launchpad, rolling out her communications consulting business at the height of the pandemic and being a military wife and mom to 3 kids under 6. Jennifer helps leaders and companies inspire action in their industries – through storytelling, executive branding and employee engagement.
In this episode, Jennifer shares how she started investing in herself, enrolling in my Video Boot Camp to grow her business and amplifying her own brand and business.
Jennifer offers tips on how executives can create a personal brand. Plus she and I share our least favorite corporate phrases! Optimizing, utilizing… so much more!
Then, Financial Coach Tess Waresmith shares investing tips to get started investing.
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Wondering how you can create an authentic and effective brand for your business while also valuing your time with family?
Jennifer Lemmert talks about turning a job loss into a launchpad, rolling out her communications consulting business at the height of the pandemic and being a military wife and mom to 3 kids under 6. Jennifer helps leaders and companies inspire action in their industries – through storytelling, executive branding and employee engagement.
In this episode, she also offers tips on how executives can create a personal brand. Plus she and I share our least favorite corporate phrases! Optimizing, utilizing… so much more!
Then, Financial Coach Tess Waresmith shares investing tips to get started investing.
In this episode you will learn:
Creating holistic goals for businesses, including having fun and finding fulfillment
Moving away from overused corporate phrases and using impactful language
How to effectively tell a story in as little time as possible
Quotes from our guest:
"It's okay to press pause on stuff until you can be in a place where you have more support. It's okay to take a day off."
“It does take work to practice being yourself publicly."
"Learning how to even shift your existing talents and skills, it's actually really hard."
Follow host Kim Rittberg on Instagram
Subscribe to Kim's YouTube Channel to Make Better Videos that Convert
FREE DOWNLOAD: Improve Your Video Quality to Increase Your Revenue - 10 Tips to Take Your Videos from Mediocre to Magnetic click here
How To Be A Happier, Less Stressed & More Successful Parent: Click here!
EPISODE LINKS:
Connect with Jen: https://www.jenniferlemmert.com
Connect with Tess: https://wealthwithtess.com
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Kim (00:02):
You'll meet military wife, business owner, and mom to three kids under six. Jennifer Lemmert. She details how she turned a job loss into a launchpad for her thriving corporate communications business. She also offers tips on how executives can create a personal brand. Plus she and I share our least favorite corporate phrases, optimizing, utilizing North Star and then Tess Waresmith, a financial coach who helps women in the workplace build wealth, has investing tips for you.
(00:31):
This is Moms exit interview, the show for moms who want to craft the career and life they want. Each episode, you'll meet inspirational bombs across various industries and levels who are working and living life on their own terms, and they'll bring you actionable tips from finance to business development to happiness, to crushing that impostor syndrome. I'm Kim Rittberg. I was a burnt out media executive at Netflix, US Weekly and in TV news. I wanted a career where I was fulfilled at work but present at home with my kids. So I started working for myself and I love it, but not every day was easy or is easy. I wanted to explore with all of you how other moms were creating careers on their own terms. They're carving out flex jobs, starting their own businesses, they're taking back control. Join me and make work work for you instead of the other way around.
(01:35):
Summer is officially over, so if you're like me, you're probably crying. I love the beach. But anyway, it is time for fall. The changing of the leaves. I live in New York City. There are different colored leaves. That's nice too. If you are gearing up your business for the fall, make sure to grab my free downloads. I have three. Yes, I'm very generous with my knowledge. One is how to pitch yourself in 30 seconds. One is how to be more confident on camera, and the third one is 10 tips for amazing video. So you can go to my website, kimrittberg.com or just message me on Instagram with tips and I'll send that on over. And now you're going to hear from Jennifer Lemmert. She and I met because she was a student in my video bootcamp, but even before that I want to share, this really speaks to the power of putting yourself out there on social media.
(02:15):
She took my bootcamp class because she actually found out about me from LinkedIn. So I think that's so cool and really shows what I preach a lot is that when you start putting yourself out there, you can build these authentic relationships that lead into the real world. And she took the video bootcamp class to learn about video strategy and personal branding for herself, but also to use it for clients because she does corporate communications. I loved getting to know Jennifer. Her story is awesome and she's juggling so much. She and her husband who's in the Navy reserves and their three kids, and she tackles it all with optimism and humor. She's going to share how she launched her business, how she filled in the gaps in her knowledge with experts like me to teach her, but others too. And I have actually since hired Jennifer on a project. So these social media relationships are not only just offline, they're online too, and they can truly go into the real world and are both directions. I also love hearing from Jennifer when she stopped looking for a full-time job finally and realized, yes, this is working. And after you hear from Jen, you're going to get investing tips with Tess Ware Smith. Here is Jennifer Lemmert.
Kim (03:17):
Guess who is here with us. It is Jennifer Lemmert who helps leaders and companies inspire action in their industries, their storytelling, executive branding and employee engagement. Jen turned a job loss into a launchpad rolling out her communications consulting business at the height of the pandemic. She's based in the DC area and is mom to three boys under six. And Jen is a graduate of video bootcamp and we've also worked together on another project on our branch here date. So I'm a big fan of Jen and I've been really excited to have her join the podcast. I think what she's doing professionally is really interesting and personally she's really juggling a lot. So Jen, thank you for joining.
Jennifer (03:50):
Thanks so much for having me. I'm really glad to be here.
Kim (03:53):
Okay, talk to me about, I'm going to jump right into the aha moment. When did you decide to work for yourself and what was happening before that?
Jennifer (04:00):
Sure. So if anybody remembers 2020, are you a New Year's resolution type person, Kim, or do you just go with the flow every
Kim (04:07):
Year resolution?
Jennifer (04:08):
Okay, so I call New Year's resolution time, like January, Jen, I get all these great ideas. I'm going to start all these great new habits. So January, 2020, my New Year's resolution was I'm going to figure out how to launch something. And I didn't know what that was, but I knew that I had been working at my corporate job for a few years. I mean, I'd been in corporate America my whole career obviously, but I had a a super long commute and I was just really tired. I was only seeing my kids on the weekends and on the weekends I was too tired to do stuff. It was that make it or break it moment where it was, do you go after a promotion? Do you quit and find something else? I know I'm still going to have to commute somewhere. I don't know what this is.
(04:49):
So January that was go time. I'm going to figure it out this year. Then I'm working in the hospitality industry. Things were going great until all of a sudden, boom, there's a global pandemic and the industry's in a death spiral. Rumors started flying, we're all going to lose our jobs. And I thought to myself, well, this is my sign. So I got my L L C paperwork together. I started making calls to see who could advise me and then within a few days got the call that I, and most of my colleagues had been furloughed. So in kind of one foul swoop, you think about what would life had been like if I had been a stay-at-home mom. It was like, oh, well now I know a three-year-old and one year old. My husband and I were working at home dealing with all those pandemic things and I was devastated as a lot of people were, and I thought, this is my time. I didn't really have the time, so I made the time, but that was the aha moment. It was sort of delivered to me, but it was in the back of my brain. So one of those, be careful what you wish for moments because life is listening.
Kim (05:50):
As soon as you lost your job, how quickly did you say, okay, I'm going to start this business L l C. Here I come bank account. How long did it take you from having that job loss to actually starting your business?
Jennifer (06:02):
I think if you look at the actual dates on my business license, it's a few days before I actually got the furlough notice. There were rumors that it was coming. So I'm not somebody that really sits back and lets things happen to me. I'm an action person. So whatever happened, I was going to be moving and try to grab onto some kind of control. Nobody knew what was going to happen, so did not have a clue what I was doing. I didn't know how people started businesses. I knew people freelanced. I knew people had side hustles, but I didn't have time for any of that. So it was just kind of going get talking to people who know more than me and get all the business paperwork lined up so I can try to figure something out.
Kim (06:40):
Oh my God, you hear the Amen Sister in my voice. I am like, yes. When I last media, people freelanced or they started their own production company and I'm like, well, I don't want to do either of those things. So then when I started my business, I probably had earned $4,000, maybe $7,000 total doing what I do. But as a strategist, but similar to you, I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. So how did you then move forward and decide, okay, I'm going to make this work. I'm not going to look for another full-time job. I'm going to make this a company. How did you have that confidence or wherewithal, and then were you scared? I mean, how did you feel at the time?
Jennifer (07:16):
Terrified. Terrified. You go from your regular salary to spending hours on the phone with unemployment to try and get whatever you've put into the system, which I never thought I would do. You take it very personally, it's not personal, especially when it's a global pandemic forcing a ton of layoffs. But at the same time, you look around and you're like, well, why me? Not somebody else, which is not very fair, but let's just own all those ugly feelings that we have when it happens. I didn't have a business mindset. I had a survival mindset and I thought, I cannot go through this and not feel like my brain is turning to mush. So I just kind of created my own schedule, which is my kids were napping at the same time every day, which was amazing when they were three in one. So I would take them out in the mornings, run them around until they were dead tired and would definitely take a nap.
(08:06):
And then the afternoon I was on the phone, I was doing Zoom calls with strangers, virtual networking. I was trying to take classes, I was trying to get smart on stuff. And then late at night, I was creating a website. I was reaching out to people. I was doing stuff for free. I did a lot of stuff for free just to make new connections, keep my brain moving because I didn't know I was still applying for jobs because again, I'd never been a business person. I didn't know anybody who was really doing this successfully. I was kind of making it up as I went along.
Kim (08:35):
At what point did inside, I'm not going to look for full-time jobs anymore. I like this. It's going well, I'm going to stick with it.
Jennifer (08:40):
I think it was the end of that summer, I started to feel like some traction. I had my first paying client, which was a former boss, asked me to create a website for her, and I charged her almost no money for it. And I was like, well, okay, maybe there are other people there who would pay me too, but I'm not going to know unless I really get out there and show it. So I just put up the LinkedIn post that was like, it's been so great this summer. I've turned, I started this business. You can reach out to me. Here's what I'm doing. Would love to connect with people. And right off the bat, a contact from years before I hadn't talked to her in ages and ages reached out was like, I might have something if you're interested, I have a client who needs some help.
(09:17):
And that just kind of kicked everything off. You never know who's watching or who's listening until you kind of put it out there. But I was afraid to put it out there. I was like, well, am I making enough money? Well, the answer was no. I'm not making enough money. Could I call myself a success? They're like, well, this is a success. There's a business. There's a name. I got a website. I feel legitimate enough to come out and say, here I am, world sink or swim. And I thought the worst thing that could happen is I make no money and I get a real job. And I say, you know what? That was a fun project to do during the pandemic. So no harm, no foul, really.
Kim (09:48):
How is it financially now compared to when you were full-time before? How's the business going?
Jennifer (09:53):
I'm not competing for a 3% raise or a bonus or something like that. I'm negotiating contracts. I have more of a say in what my worth is versus this is the position and this is your salary band. When you're working corporate. It's like, well, you don't tell somebody what your salary is. It's just like that whole weird thing. But yes, financially definitely doing better and I can work as many hours as I want or as few hours as I need to depending on what's happening in life and still can make the math work for us, which is amazing.
Kim (10:23):
I do think that's true. I think that one of the things about when you're at a company, you're paid to fill that role. You're paid to do the job, but the truth is not as output and goal oriented as clients. So I'm like, here's the output. I will give you that output. It really doesn't matter if I spend two hours or 40 hours doing this thing, but I love hearing it from you that it's working for you
Jennifer (10:40):
Well, and I think every year you get smarter too about how to approach it from the business perspective. When I was first starting out, I set my rates against what my corporate salary was, and now I look back and I'm like, oh my gosh, what was I thinking? That's not actually what the value is if you break it down per hour, that's not what people pay consultants.
Kim (10:59):
Kind of as an aside, I was just thinking about this. So listeners, Jen worked with me on a project that I did. It was a brand shoot day in June in New York City, which sadly you couldn't come to in person, but Jen was helping
Jennifer (11:09):
Next time.
Kim (11:12):
Jen helped with the scripts with the people, and it was really fun because the people coming were great, and business owners came to sit down and film videos together, not together on their own. They would film a video, go film outside, get head shots, and we did a celebratory dinner and it was really fun. It was basically a founder or professional brand shoot day for your personal brand. And so Jen worked with me on it, and one of the things that I love about this that I learned, I didn't learn it early in my career, but I learned it later in my career from a couple of good bosses, is you can actually work with people you like and be professional, but also enjoy it and let people know that you see them as humans. So I think the first five to seven years of your career, you're sort of like, how much am I a corporate?
(11:52):
How do I exist in the button down pants suit only bring 20% of myself to work versus total overshare on the other end of it? You're in somewhere in between where you can bring on people and respect, be clear about the delineation of like, this is the rates, this is what's expected, but also have fun and have a good time. Actually, one of the people I worked with, Beth's tell me who I love. She's a director and she was my lifestyle producer at US Weekly. She was one of those people. She would get on set and make everyone feel good and make everyone have fun. And it didn't always have to be, there's not always a yelling director on set, which I've had before. Someone who's telling you what to do and making you feel smaller. Then there's a way to make everyone feel good.
(12:33):
And I think that's something that I've taken with me and I hope now I'm going to make sure Beth listens to this episode, but that's something that I've taken with me that you can foster an environment that's really warm but also professional. I've worked with the same I team on several shoots and we're all respectful to each other. We have drinks, but we're also professional. We have expectations. But that idea that you can really make it a fun place to be and make everyone feel good, and actually that's worth something and that's powerful. People want to work with you, people want to hire you, people want to work with you and under you and next to you on top of you, whatever. That was kind of aside.
Jennifer (13:04):
Oh, I was just going to say, but to back up your aside, I mean people have asked me, do you have certain goals you're trying to meet every year? Do you have a revenue goal or something like that? And it's remained true three years in or three and a half years in the three things I want to do with this business or have fun, make money enough to live and work with people I like. And if I'm hitting all three of those things, then this is a success no matter what the up and downs might be of the business world, because who knows for the last, how long have we been thinking the economy's going to crater, but it's like, you know what, I'm still working with people I like. I'm still having fun. I have a lot of irons in the fire at all times. So yeah, always feeling successful when you have goals like that.
Kim (13:44):
Well, thank you for telling me that because sometimes I have a question that I didn't necessarily ask in the last few interviews, but I asked someone like, what are your holistic goals? Not what are your financial goals for this calendar year? It's not that, but it's what you said. And actually my resolutions every year, January, Jen, my resolutions in the past two years, one of them has been only do work where I have ownership or impact. For many, many years I was very behind the scenes and so I didn't have ownership. I did. I might've been the person overseeing all of it, but it's still for some larger brand that's not really me. And so now I get to have ownership on the projects I'm working on because it's my company or have impact and impact means I've done a lot of work with a nonprofit, now I'm working with a lot of business owners and professionals. I'm actually helping them make more money. That to me is really cool and very special. And so ownership and impact has been something that I've really dialed into. And then there's the personal goals of I want to see my kids the right amount that I want to see them. I want to be able to get them from school a few days a week and not five days a week and I want to have Fridays off, things like that. But ownership and impact have been two of my goals.
Jennifer (14:50):
Love that.
Kim (14:51):
And my next question for you did because I'm now doing this for my business, how did you uplevel gain more skills in the areas that you didn't know about?
Jennifer (15:00):
I mean, go to the professionals. I think we kind of put it on ourselves. If you're going to read a book or you're going to go to this networking event, you're going to get all this stuff out of it. You really have to invest in yourself and be willing to put dollars behind it in order to grow. And I think that's hard when you're on your own because you're doing your books every month. So you look at what's coming in, what's going out, and everybody wants to have low overhead, so it's easy to say, oh, I don't know if I can spend the money on that. But if you don't spend the money to upskill and stay current with what's out there, then what value are you to clients? It would be like, I'm still on dial up internet because I didn't want to invest in something high speed.
(15:37):
That's a really bad example, but you know what I mean? It's the same reason when the video bootcamp came up. I was like, this is a really great opportunity for me to invest not just in myself but to learn skills that I can take to my clients as well. But this year too, January, Jen, I realized I need to get a better handle on the finance part. I'm a creative like you, the numbers part makes me just fall asleep. So I was like, I'm going to hire a financial planner and she's going to force me to get all of my accounts in order and understand how they're working so that I can be more of a business owner. So you go to the people who are experts in their area, just like I want people to come to me because they think I'm an expert. You can't do it all. There's no reason for a business owner to take it all on their own. You have to go to the people that know more than you so you can learn from them and grow, and then it's on you to pass what you learn on to the next person behind you.
Kim (16:27):
No, I totally agree with you on that. And so Jen was mentioning the video bootcamp that she did with me, which I loved by the way. And I think for me it's fun because you're someone who's really great with words, but it doesn't mean that you make videos for your brand adjacent. It means you have the skills to write a great script, but it does not mean that you're being on camera or doing video or adjusting your scripts to video. And so learning how to even shift your existing talents and your existing skills.
Jennifer (16:53):
Well, and it also put me in the seat of things that I advise clients to do, and I work in executive branding, I work in employee engagement. So how do leaders talk about themselves? How do they talk to their employees? How do they talk about their companies? And sort of share that passion beyond just a written page where it's flat when you turn the camera around, it's a totally different experience than when you script it out and you're like, okay, well stop blinking so much or stop looking off to the side. It's like, oh, this is actually really hard. I have a newfound respect and sympathy for all these people I've put on camera over the years because it's hard and you have to really let go of that part of yourself. So anyway, that was a really good experience for me, but I mean you'll probably see me on video more. I'm sort of dipping my toe more in that area. So
Kim (17:37):
What did you feel was most valuable for you learning about video for your business? Because you run your own business, so you're doing what you now are armed with the knowledge and information. So what do you feel like was most helpful for you to learn about how to market yourself through video?
Jennifer (17:51):
I think thinking about video as being a really tight way of telling stories. We see so many people are out there more on LinkedIn and we see it and you see this long novel that people are writing on LinkedIn and it's like, is anybody reading that? I don't know. Can we make it succinct? Everybody's really highly visual. You're on Instagram scrolling. Take the things that people are doing and using and applying that to storytelling and you can make things more impactful in a shorter amount of time for your viewer. On the flip side, when you're on the creator side, of course that takes a lot more time. If you want to make a higher impact, you have to be willing to invest that time too.
Kim (18:30):
No, you're right. It is interesting. My beginning of my career was in news and I learned how to tell a full story in 30 seconds, and that was the beginning of my TV journalism career. And then over time I'm like, you actually can tell a story in 30 seconds. It doesn't have everything. Of course, it doesn't have all the nuance. It doesn't have all the backstory. And then later in my career, I was an executive of branded video for pop sugar and I had to make, I think it was a six second video ad for a makeup problem. And you're like, how do you tell a story in six seconds? There's still a beginning, middle, and end. It's mostly visual. But when you really think about that and you're like, there's a beginning, a middle, and an end to every story, even if it's advice or even if it's a day in your life and you really distill it down, it's very powerful when you can master it. It's really powerful because people do live videos. I'm like, A live video is great. It's always good to shift and play around with different formats, and you can expand on knowledge and teach someone a lot more over 20 minutes or 40 minutes, but most people are not going to sit down and watch that. No, but almost everybody will give you 30 seconds if you can make it interesting.
Jennifer (19:31):
Well, and I think too, when you're talking about going from this full script, the first draft is never it, right? So get it all out into the first draft, get every single detail you want in, and then you just cut and just keep editing, editing, editing yourself until it's really tight and entertaining and impactful. And I think that's how you get from 30 seconds down to three seconds if that's all you have.
Kim (19:53):
Your husband's in the military, how do you juggle his service and running your business? Do you have any other advice for military spouse entrepreneurs?
Jennifer (20:00):
Yeah, so I didn't grow up in a military family. This is all very new to me, so I've kind of learned on the fly. But my husband is a full-time consultant, but he also is in the Navy Reserve. And what that means is that he has military assignments usually one weekend a month and two weeks of the year. But we've had several longer deployments in there, which have been a few weeks or a few months, and it's a huge shift for the whole family when he has to be gone. I mean obviously it's hard for the kids to be down a parent. It's hard for me taking on a hundred percent of the household and the parenting, but then you layer in the fact that I'm running a client service business and I am the business. It just adds another layer of complexity. But some things that I've learned after doing this a few times, happy to share because I think it's applicable whether or not you have a spouse in the military or you have a spouse that travels a lot.
(20:51):
I think we all run into that where we end up being solo and we're trying to manage our business. But I think the first thing is, and this goes back to being authentic and being real, is that it's okay to let your clients know that your home situation is a little bit different and it might impact how you're working. And that's not to say I tell my clients, my husband's gone, that deliverable is not going to happen. It's more like my availability might shift. I'm going to be working on this from 10 to midnight. I'm going to send it first thing in the morning versus maybe a different timeline or how can we make this project more efficient so that I can get this done and to the level that you want it? And what I've found is that clients, I mean I have wonderful clients that's part of it, but they really go above and beyond to be supportive throughout the process.
(21:35):
And I think if you can just be upfront about that, people are willing to be there for you. I'm a perfectionist, so many of us are. We're type A, we're controlling. That's why we run our own businesses. But one thing I've found is that I have to just repeat to myself, you don't have to be a hundred every single day. I can only give 10% today and I can give 80% tomorrow. Everything that I can give is going to be enough for that day. My kids aren't going to shrivel up and die if I give them a PB and J and sit them in front of a video for an hour or two so that I can get work done or I can just take a breather. So I think we just have to give ourselves that grace to say, you're down a person. You can't do the work of two people, so it's okay that you're just doing the best you can.
(22:20):
And I think lastly, the hardest thing for me is dialing back, especially when it comes to business development. We're always hustling. We're always trying to build connections, but it's okay to press pause on stuff until you can be in a place where you have more support. It's okay to take a day off. I know that's such a crazy thing to say. If the kids are in care, there's no reason that you can't tell your clients I need a mental health day. And it's okay to call in support beyond friends and family. It's okay to call your kid's teacher and say, Hey, we're having a rough day today. I'm going to be a few minutes late. It's okay to call in a freelancer and say, Hey, can you do a day's worth of work for me just to get a little bit of a better balance? There's no such thing as balance, but I think we have to give ourselves permission to take a breather and take some time off if we need it because if mom's not healthy, healthy to keep the house running, the house isn't going to run and the business definitely isn't going to run. So you have to take care of yourself too.
Kim (23:19):
I agree with you on so many of those sentiments. I think when we were kids, you know how many lean cuisine, microwave meals I had brought up? I think I had order and Chinese food for an entire year. My mom was in law school. It's okay. I didn't die. I'm not like I didn't have a heart attack when I was nine. And I think to your other point about tv, we had a lot of TV time when we were gone
Jennifer (23:38):
And
Kim (23:38):
Look at us geniuses thriving.
Jennifer (23:41):
You worked in tv clearly it was a good thing,
Kim (23:45):
Right? I'll be like, mom, thank you for letting me watch so many cartoons. Actually, she thinks she didn't let me watch cartoons, but she was wrong. Who is in your village for support?
Jennifer (23:53):
My in-laws live close by, thankfully. My in-laws are wonderful. They take care of my kids when I need them. My parents live not too far away as well, so they've been incredible this whole time. And then I have my neighbor moms too. I mean, it's so nice to have, we all have kids the same age. I can pick up the phone and just say like, Hey, can you come over for a few minutes so I can just run this errand really fast? Or do you want to come over after the kids are in bed and just have a glass of wine and complain about how terrible our kids are? You pick people up along the way that you have that kind of mind meld with. And I think now it's nice because post pandemic people are starting to be more open again and there are more opportunities to get out in the world. And then I also have my Slack community that I started for independent consultants and communications women. They're all women, how we can support each other, whether it's through teaming opportunities or advice or getting in a business mindset, inspiration, all that kind of good stuff. So I have those ladies as well who are, they're awesome.
Kim (24:55):
Jen, I would love your input. What is your advice for corporate leaders or corporate executives creating their brand?
Jennifer (25:01):
So the funny thing about that is that everybody already has an executive brand, whether you realize it or not, there's a really great definition, which is that an executive brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room. So if you're aware of what that is, you can start to shape that into who you want to be perceived as. So when I'm working with clients, we always kind of start with that. Who do you aspire to be? And then we build from there. So a couple of ways we do that. First of all, you have to be authentic, and that word's almost become buzzy now to the point where it's become meaningless. But what we really mean is be real. So if you are a jerk in real life, but you want to be seen as a humanitarian, you have to bring those two pieces a little bit more together because anyone who knows you is going to start to see through it.
(25:48):
So you want to be real so that people can relate to you and they want to build connections with you. The second big piece is to be conversational in how you talk about yourself and how you talk about what you do. So I always use the example of if you are at a barbecue and you're meeting someone for the first time, how do you introduce yourself? You're not going to talk to them in all of your technical jargon and expertise. You're going to bring it down to their level so that they understand and they can buy into what you're talking about. It's the same thing when you're talking about your leadership brand. It's the same thing when you're talking to employees or outside your industry. You want to be talking in a way that people understand and it resonates with them. And
Kim (26:27):
I loved your tip about authenticity. I'm sorry I interrupted you. Give me number three. Oh,
Jennifer (26:30):
No. Number three. I think the thing that's really hard for a lot of folks to wrap their heads around is it's not just building your LinkedIn profile and you're done. Your brand is something that's active. You have to grow it over time. You have to nurture it. And it's not just how do I show up in a formal setting? How do I show up at a company town hall? It's as small as how do I talk to people in the hallway? How do I talk to customers? How do I send an email? And it's something that you have to be aware of at all times because it all rolls back into how people perceive you. So you have to be active about it and intentional.
Kim (27:05):
And I loved your point about authenticity because I've been doing a lot of podcasts to promote my podcast, but in general, grow my business, especially over the past two years. Greatest compliment is several people have gone on the phone with me to do a discovery call because they heard me on a podcast and they say, you're exactly like you seemed on that podcast. I'm like, that's perfect. That's exactly what I hope to do is I've really worked to bring Kim Rittberg the professional, and Kim Rittberg the person together and put it out there. So I love that you brought up the word authenticity. I think it can be like a cheesy buzzword, but the truth is it does take work to practice being yourself publicly. I think we all sort of freeze up, especially on camera. We all have a robotic frozen version of ourself. We all feel nervous speaking in public or being in public, and I think acknowledging that that's normal, but then saying, all right, well, who's the person at the barbecue? Who's the person at the corporate conference? Who is that person? And leading into it, thank you so much. I love that advice.
Jennifer (27:55):
Sure.
Kim (27:56):
Okay, gem, I want to hear your least favorite corporate phrases because I've had several different jobs and one of the things that I laugh about and I'm definitely able to see the humor in are those really funny buzzwords, like those sort of catchy phrases that end up in every handbook. What are your least favorite corporate phrases?
Jennifer (28:16):
This is a hot take because this one isn't necessarily a corporate phrase, but I think we need to get away from the word excited or exciting. I don't know how many times people are saying, I'm so excited to be here, or I have a really exciting announcement. It's like, are you really excited? It's sort of lost its meaning. That's when we talk about these corporate phrases that kind of put everybody to sleep. What are the high impact words? So I would like to delete excited for a while. That's a lazy one. Optimize kind of drives me crazy because we're always trying to optimize, and if you look up what optimize means, it means to be the very best. So you are moving toward your optimal state. You're not optimizing. Maximize also another one. It's just another word for grow actually. It's all the i's optimize, maximize, utilize.
(29:07):
The word is use. And I think we get into this habit in our academic years where it's like you have to use these big words and they mean things and you're writing a long paper and you want to impress your professor. But when you're in front of a group of people, you want them to understand what you mean as soon as possible. So if you throw in a bunch of corporate jargon in there, you risk them not getting your meaning. And it's especially important now if you're talking to an audience who has a different background. If you're talking to an international audience, do they know what those words mean? Get your message across in the simplest way and don't clutter it up with a bunch of extra stuff. I'll also add unpack in there. Sorry, I keep going.
Kim (29:49):
I want more. I was like, I know you have word Glenn. Jen, I know you have more
Jennifer (29:52):
Unpacking. Don't unpack the meaning. Let's just talk about what something means. I want to give you this complex topic. Let's unpack it together. You're never unpacking together. Just we're going to embark on a path of understanding together. Let's just talk about this concept. Yeah, I think people throw in jargon words when they're not really sure what to say and they're afraid of not sounding smart. So go for the simplest. Simpler is better, for sure.
Kim (30:19):
Okay. Talk to me about if we can't say I'm so excited to be here, what should we say instead?
Jennifer (30:24):
There are a couple different ways I would approach this. It's all about the good hook, right? You know this from news and all of your media experience. You could say, there's nothing better than standing in front of this crowd today. Or I woke up this morning knowing it was going to be a good day because I was coming to see all of you. These would be in a live setting. You could say, thrilled. See, I'm better at writing. I'm pumped to be here. I'm amped.
Kim (30:50):
Thank you for having me.
Jennifer (30:52):
I'm psyched. But I mean, the caveat is what works better live versus what works better. When you're writing too, I think you really have to think about the channel when you're thinking about what words you're going to use. So I should have issued that caveat at the beginning.
Kim (31:06):
These are for writing or verbal ones that you were saying you hate. I think we're just talking about hating words, so that's okay.
Jennifer (31:11):
Just hating words and I think, but I think too, one of the key things you do too, whether something's going to be written or spoken out loud is write it and then say it out loud so you can see how it lands. There are things that you write and we write these super long sentences. You say it out loud and you're like, oh gosh, I never got to the point. So it's a matter of really retraining your brain from, you have to give everybody all of the information at once to skinnying it down into the most important stuff that's going to make the highest impact. Maybe excited does resonate with your audience. It's just a personal pet peeve of mine.
Kim (31:45):
No, I think it's so true. When I used to work in tv, I never loved writing novel style things. I could write an essay. I was a fine writer, but I never loved writing huge articles. So when it came to tv, I write it as a short script. I got a recommendation years ago, I'd write it, edit 30% out, say it out loud, see how it feels, make sure you're not stumbling over it because the scripts were the written were for the spoken voice. Whereas when you have written content, if longer it's more like prose, it's more poetic, it might be more flowery, then you can be descriptive and you can really serve up nuggets and very beautifully depicted, very visual phrases, but just tighter and for the spoken word. So I am so excited, Jen, that you joined me. I am highly aligned with what you're saying. We are working towards our North star together.
Jennifer (32:35):
Oh, I forgot. You hate North Star, right?
Kim (32:39):
Jen, this is so fun. How can people reach out to you? How can they work with you? Give us all the goods?
Jennifer (32:45):
Well, you can find me everywhere on social, on the web, Jennifer Lemmert, L E M M E R T. My website is jenniferlemmert.com, and I would encourage you to connect with me on LinkedIn, on in Instagram. I would love to hear from you. Would love to chat more.
Kim (33:00):
Thank you so much. And now you're going to hear from Tess Blair Smith, a financial coach who helps women in the workplace build wealth. She is here with some solid investing tips to get started, and you can find her on Instagram at Wealth with Tess.
Tess (33:15):
Hi, my name is Tess. I'm a financial coach and I help women in their thirties and forties build wealth using simple investing strategies that anyone can do. If you're a mom and you're an entrepreneur, the way you're going to invest and grow your money might be a little bit different than people in corporate. So let's talk about three top tips to get started investing and some things you need to do to set yourself up for success. The first thing you need to do before you start any investing or saving as an entrepreneur is to figure out what your goals are. And I don't just mean your business goals, I mean your personal goals too. The reason this is so important is because depending on your goals, you're going to treat your money differently. Here's an example. If you are trying to save for a house in the next three to four years, that's money that you don't want to necessarily invest.
(33:59):
The reason for that is because the stock market fluctuates. So that's money you might want to put into something like a high-yield savings account that's going to get you a little bit of a return, but you're able to take that money out whenever you need. If you are ready to start planning for retirement and you want to start putting your money in something that's going to grow over time, then you can start investing, especially if you're not planning on retiring, and then in the next five years, that's money that you're going to want to invest. So understanding what your goals are and what's important to you over the next few years is going to dictate how you invest your money and where you put it. The second thing you're going to do is set up an emergency fund. This is a really important step of investing because it's going to give you the peace of mind to make sure that if something goes wrong, you don't have to pull money from your investments, you can pull it from your emergency fund.
(34:45):
So an emergency fund is just three to six months of living expenses in case something goes wrong, you'll have money that's easily available that you can pay for whatever you need to pay for. Now for entrepreneurs, you might want to think about having your emergency fund be closer to the six month mark just because your income is going to fluctuate, especially if you're a new entrepreneur, you might not know exactly how much revenue you can expect over the next few months. So it's really important to have some cash available to you that you're going to be able to take whenever you need it. And one great place to put your emergency fund is into a high-yield savings account. Now, if you don't have a high-yield savings account right now, this is your next step after you watch this or listen to this because a high-yield savings account is a really easy account to open.
(35:27):
You can open it with any online bank and you can get a much better return on your money than if you put it in just a regular old savings account with a big bank. So as of the time of this video, the interest rates for high yield savings accounts are at 4%, which is very, very high and is much better than just putting your money in an account, a big bank account that's going to give you a 0.04% return on your investment. So if you don't have a high-yield savings account, go open one up today, and that's a great place to put your emergency fund. Step number three is find a way to get a financial education and learn the basics of investing. One of the most powerful things for entrepreneurs about investing is that you can save on taxes and grow your retirement funds over time by using accounts that are specifically for entrepreneurs.
(36:12):
So you can open certain retirement accounts as an entrepreneur that other people can't, and those accounts can help you have less taxes when you file your taxes at the end of the year and can help you grow your money over time. So for example, one of these is called a Solo 4 0 1 K. If you are somebody and you don't have any employees, you can open, open something called a Solo 4 0 1 k, contribute money. It will grow over time and you can reduce what you contribute from your annual taxes. So it's a great way to plan for retirement and save on taxes, which is the biggest expense that we're going to have as entrepreneurs for a lot of people. And there are other options too. There's something called a SEP I R A, which is a simplified employee pension and is really easy to open and is also a great investment vehicle for entrepreneurs.
(36:58):
So really important that you get a basic financial education. Investing doesn't need to be complicated. Most people think investing is much harder than it is because you hear all this financial jargon, but you can start to open up these retirement accounts and pick really simple investments. I promise it's way less hard than running a business. At the end of the day, you are the only person that can guarantee your financial independence. And while we all probably started our businesses to serve others, we also started our businesses to earn money and get paid and create the life that we want to live on our terms and investing is one of the best ways to help you do that. So make sure you start getting a financial education today and learn the basics of investing. I would love to help you out. Follow me at Wealth with Tess on TikTok or Instagram where I share tons of beginner investing tips that will help you out. So I will see you on the gram or on TikTok at Wealth with Tess, all one word cheering you on. And happy investing.
Kim (37:54):
Thank you so much for listening. Make sure to drop a review, and if you want to send in a real mom moment that we'll share on the air, check out moms exit interview.com. And if you're a professional or small business owner looking to grow your brand through amazing content with no silly dances and with no burnout, check out my website, kimrittberg.com, and you can hit contact to chat with me. And thanks for listening. This is the most amazing community. You guys send in the best feedback. So share it with your friends. Let anyone know who you think would appreciate it. And this is Mom's Exit interview. I'm your host and executive producer, Kim Rittberg. The show is produced by Henry Street Media. Jillian Grover edited this episode, and Aliza Freelander is our editorial producer and publicist. I'll see you next time.