You know that line, everyone is in sales.
Most people hate it, but everyone is selling themselves. It is important for women to understand how to promote themselves, and how to sell their business.
Today, we’re going to talk about how to develop a plan so that no matter what you can sell yourself in any situation.
Julie Holton:
The climb to the top feels so good when you get there.
Audrea Fink:
Is it just us, or can it feel lonely sometimes even when you’re successful?
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
And who defines success, anyway? What about life’s twists and turns?
Julie Holton:
We’ve learned a few things along the way, and we’re ditching the culture of competitiveness.
Audrea Fink:
Bringing together women from different backgrounds to share their stories.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Let’s do this together. Welcome to Think Tank of Three Podcast.
Audrea Fink:
Hi, this is Audrea Fink, here at Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris and Julia Holton, we are your Think Tank of Three. Our special guest today is Amy Zander. And we are talking about the importance of self-promotion, building an entrepreneurial spirit, and thinking like a business owner.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Amy is a serial entrepreneur having owned five businesses. She figured out that her passion also lies in supporting business owners and creatives in their marketing efforts. Amy has built a full-time gig out of helping those in her sweet spot.
Julie Holton:
She is the owner of Zeedia Media. It’s a digital marketing company in Lansing, Michigan. You can tell just by glancing at her website that she loves what she does and she does it her way phenomenally. She has not just one podcast, but two. And she helps her clients produce their podcasts as well. In fact, Amy and I met on a podcasting panel for the small business development center here in Lansing. Amy, we are so glad to have you on the show today. Welcome.
Amy Zander:
Thank you so much. It’s an honor to be with you three fabulous ladies. I’m excited.
Audrea Fink:
I’m super excited because we were talking about one of Audrea’s very favorite topics, self-promotion, and selling yourselves. Amy. I’m so excited to get your two cents on this because when we talked in prep for this call, we had a lot of thoughts. You had a lot of very strong emotions, and I just think this is going to be so valuable for women. So right now you’re currently working on developing a marketing boot camp for artists. You saw that there are a lot of artists out there who’re getting out of school and they don’t have any idea that making art is now a business. They don’t learn how to run a business in school, right? They don’t learn how to promote their work. So tell us a little bit about what you saw that made you decide you wanted to build the boot camp.
Amy Zander:
Just for brevity, I am going to come up with a better name than like artist’s boot camp, but that’s what it is basically. I’m going to brand it a little bit better when we finally launch it. I have a deep passion for the arts. My daughter is a painter and so many of my good friends are creatives and artists. And like you said the professional artists, no matter what their medium is like a lot of other industries and degrees, you’re not taught how to make it into a business, what you’re doing when you’re in school. I also think that the concept of a starving artist is bullshit. There isn’t an equivalent in any other profession. Like we don’t talk about starving lawyers or starving electricians. I think this term needs to go away. And I think that it starts with the artists that they should not think of themselves that way. They should price their work accordingly and never, ever compromise and learn how to promote themselves.
Amy Zander:
So coming back to your question, the artist boot camp, I’m going to tell a little story, which really got me going on this idea. I am involved in a local show in town called the Artist Umbrella. And it’s kind of like a vaudeville act. It’s a stage and there are lots of different performers. And it’s a way for up-and-coming artists to get their feet wet, kind of on a stage, it’s really supportive. And around the perimeter of the show, there are lots of booths set up for artists and different people. And I always get there early and I walk around and I talk to the artists. And at the last show, I walked up to this booth and this young woman was sitting behind her booth. She wasn’t really engaged. She was kind of looking a little like deer in the headlights a little bit.
And she had beautiful artwork set out in front of her. It was resin artwork with flowers and things like that. And the title of her art was A Florist’s Daughter, which I thought was super cool. So I started asking her, I’m like, “So are you the artist? Tell me your story.” So I started asking her questions and she stands up and I started engaging her more, why did you name it A Florist’s Daughter? Tell me about your mom. So she gets this huge smile and she’s got like a thousand-watt smile and she just starts launching into this beautiful story about her mother and her love for her mother and these flowers and her art. And I’m like, and I’m listening. And then she got all done. And I was like, “You should really record that story, record yourself telling that story and put it out there on your social media and your Instagram.”
And she’s looking at me kind of funny. And I got my friend standing next to me who owns an art gallery, her name’s also Amy. And she’s like, “Oh honey, listen to her. She’s a marketing person. She knows what she’s saying. Just do it.” And I’m like, “Thanks.” She just lit up with those questions. And then later during the show, I was sitting on a balcony it’s outside. And I kind of had a bird’s eye view of the whole show. And I was keeping my eye on her. After I left her booth, the rest of the time she was up, she was engaged. She was smiling. She was promoting herself. She was selling her art.
And I’m like, that’s what every artist needs. They just need to be asked, what’s your story and told, tell your story. So Amy and I were just talking about how we feel like we could help artists. Like we could help them figure out how to promote themselves better and value themselves and tell their story and then all the nitty-gritty social media marketing stuff too, we can help with. That interaction with that artist born the idea of this boot camp.
Julie Holton:
I loved the boot camp idea so much, Amy. I’m ready to start sending people to you. I’m cheering you on. A couple of years ago, I taught a master class at MSU. It was just a one-time class for graduate students, all artists in some way, shape, or form. And most of them were graduate students just like you were describing. They had never taken a single class on marketing, on business. And here I was trying to cram it all into three hours and I’m thinking like, and also make it so that I’m not just talking at them the whole time.
What are we doing? We’re not equipping them so that when they leave, I mean, yes, we’re equipping them in a way where they are masters of their trade and they’ve really developed their deep talents into something more. But they deserve to learn how to run a profitable business. And I love the whole idea of getting rid of this whole starving artist bullshit, like that, no. Everyone who provides any kind of service, any kind of product of any kind there’s value there. And we as consumers need to get ready to start paying for that value too.
Audrea Fink:
It’s the same in law school, you go to law school, you learn to be a master of your trade. It’s the same with doctors. You go to medical school and you learn to be a master of your trade. And we aren’t teaching people how to then run their business. I mean, that might be a toll on our podcast, the lack of education, but in higher education. But it’s amazing how many people come out with a degree and they are the experts in the trade and they have no idea what the next thing is and how to build a business from it.
Julie Holton:
Kind of like that blog you just wrote Audrea about people in sales, who don’t know how to sell, because they don’t even realize they’re in sales.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
I’ve told my husband and with regards to our kids, I said, I don’t care what they’re going to do in life. They will take a business class to understand how to run their business. I don’t care what they’re doing. They are going to have some business knowledge and background. I also think though that it isn’t necessarily natural for people to self-promote, especially as women. “Oh, you don’t want to play, you don’t want to be boastful. You don’t want to play yourself up.” And we’ve taken that advice and internalized it as opposed to taking that advice and recognizing where that advice fits, where you should be a little humble versus where you need to be saying, “I can do this, let me help you. I can do this. Let me do this.” As opposed to the greatest thing since wheat brown I don’t understand what your problem is. I mean, there’s a way to do it. And that has not been properly dispelled to individuals in my opinion. So that leads me to this question. What do you need to build a solid self-promotion plan?
Amy Zander:
That’s a really good question. And those are the things that my team and I are rolling around right now in our brains, trying to think. Because again, this hasn’t really been launched yet, but it’s something that we’re going to make happen. It really needs to start with that self-confidence and worth, which is their story, right? Like I talked to that woman about and every business has its story and its why. Right. So, and of course, brand. So whether you’re a personal brand or a business brand, so there’s branding. And then I think mentorship will be a big part of this boot camp. Having older artists or artists that have been in business a little bit longer, some people that already have their art galleries going. And, and I don’t just mean visual arts. I mean, this is any kind of artist. And then a big part of it will be the marketing, solid good marketing practices for social media, YouTube, TV, radio, given a nod over there to Julie because she is my person that helps me with that kind of stuff.
Amy Zander:
And then finally, a piece that’s really important to me is giving back to the program once they’re launched and experiencing success, whether that’s financially giving back to the program or becoming a mentor themselves or in some other capacity, but we’re going to be requiring that anybody that goes through the boot camp then has to give back in some way.
Audrea Fink:
So cool.
Amy Zander:
Yeah. I’m excited about it.
Julie Holton:
What’s so great about artists and marketing. And this is where Amy, we can geek out for a moment on the marketing aspects of this, whether we’re talking about visual artists or whether they’re singers or music composers, they have so much content to work with. The doctors and lawyers I work with, have content, but it’s not quite as exciting as the artists.
Amy Zander:
It’s like pulling teeth to get more.
Julie Holton:
When you say that to artists, they don’t see it because they haven’t learned it yet. And so they don’t even know what the potential is they’re sitting on. I know for me, one of the things that I struggle with, even as a marketer is a self-promotion. I still cringe pretty much every time I post a picture of myself, even though you wouldn’t think that. And so maybe that’s the sign of good marketing is that you don’t realize. My brother-in-law and my sister are kinds of going through this thing with their ten-year-old where every time she sees herself in a mirror, she’ll stop to look. She’s noticing herself for the first time and looking at herself and through the critical eye, I am sure of the medium, what little girls start to go through. But even as a little girl, we’re told to stop doing certain things, when it comes to self-promotion or to quiet ourselves or not be boastful, like all the things that Reischea was saying earlier. So are there any things that you think that women specifically need to unlearn as they’re learning how to promote themselves?
Amy Zander:
Hell yes. I think that we need to stop being people pleasers for one thing.
Audrea Fink:
Amen. Can you just say that again but louder this time?
Amy Zander:
Yes. We all need to stop worrying about being people pleasers to kind of jump off of what you were saying about your brother’s daughter. So I have a 16-year-old daughter. She’s a little quieter, a little shyer than I am. For example, she went to school and she was sitting with some friends and some other guy came up and he was like chatting her up. And he wanted her phone number and she’s like, “I didn’t really want to give him my phone number, but I didn’t want to seem rude. So I just did.” And I was like, “What? Like you did something you didn’t want to do.” And then I was just like, “Well, why didn’t you just say bring out, that this is my advice, bring out that inner diva.”
We all have an inner diva and just say, “I just met you, and let’s see where this goes and see if you’re worthy of my phone number later.” That is what I wanted her to say. Right. But she’s not me. I can’t make her say things I would say, but we have these conversations about just don’t do things you’re not uncomfortable with. But the other thing that I had to learn and I learned this later in life for sure is to talk to yourself every day exactly like you would talk to your best friend. So encourage yourself. Love on yourself, tell yourself the hard things too, in a loving way. But if you had this amazing artist friend who was like, “Oh my God, everyone likes my art.” Or I don’t know what artists say to themselves, but it’s probably the same things that we say to ourselves.
But if they showed up at your door, stressing out, spinning out about themselves, what would you say to them? You’re not going to say, “Yeah, you’re right.” Like all of the things that we say to ourselves, you got to stop the negative talk. You really do. And it’s a process, it’s training, it’s reminding yourself every time you start to do it to stop, but just think of yourself like that, if you knocked on your own door, what would you say to you. And surround yourself with other divas who promote you and love you, and you’ve got to get rid of the toxic people and the competitors. It took me to my mid-forties to find my group of solid diva women, but I have them and I wouldn’t give them up for anything. You’re worth it. Tell yourself you’re worth it every single day.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
You literally pulled the words out of my mouth. I was saying to myself, we are very good at promoting in general. My gosh, Julie just called me a couple of weeks ago and just left this very long detailed message. And I was like, by the time you’re done listening to it, I was like, she really likes me. It was so good and great and everything. And I’ve done that to others. I’ve had conversations with others where I’m telling them, “Why are you selling yourself short?” We had to do that with Julia a couple of times, which blows my mind because we’re like, “Do you recognize how phenomenally woman you are?” So it’s not that we don’t have the ability to do it. We seriously, however, struggle with doing it for ourselves. And oddly enough, that is something that in general, men really don’t have a problem with that. They don’t have a problem feeling themselves.
Audrea Fink:
They also don’t have a culture telling them everything they do is wrong the same way we do. But it’s true.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Exactly. When you get the question thrown back at you, let’s say at the time that we’re recording this, there’s a woman in my town who’s running for mayor. And she just announced that she and her husband are expecting their third child. And my first thought was, why do you feel the need to even say in the first place? And then the next thing is the first question out of many people’s mouths is, “Well then how are you going to do the job?” And it’s like, I’m ready for the guy to show up at an interview or show up at some whatever speaking event. And when he explains how my wife and I have four kids, or we’re expecting our third, or we’re expecting our fourth, the first thing comes back to them as well. “How do you find the time?”
Amy Zander:
How do you do it all?
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
How do you do it all? But that’s like the automatic, how do you do it all. So as I completely veer this conversation in a different direction but.
Julie Holton:
Well, we want to say too, one thing that we also have talked about, that we don’t talk about a lot because we focus, we’re women we focus on our issues and we’ve got plenty of them. But the men that do struggle with self promotion, I will say, are the men who don’t fit that stereotypical mold that society says they’re supposed to fit. The men with the emotion, the men who are empaths, the men who are sensitive because as a society, we say that those are those things are weak. I mean, that’s of course, right? That’s what makes women weak, not, I’m trying, I’m being sarcastic. I know you can’t see my face for our listeners, but those… So I do want to say, because I know we have a lot of men who listen too and we hear you and we see you as well. Because we know that when you are trying to be yourself in a society that says that something about you isn’t quite the way it’s supposed to be. That’s when we struggle. And for women, self promotion is one of these areas.
Audrea Fink:
We’re told we have a mold we’re supposed to fit in. And when we try to get out of that mold, we question ourselves we’ve talked about imposter syndrome, a million times on this podcast. It affects 70% of people, all people, including men. It’s just that at times I think we get stuck in our heads because we have more conflicting messages. We glorify women when they’re pregnant. And then as soon as they have kids, we want them to shut those kids up. And it’s the women’s job. Where’s dad at this? Why don’t we expect him to shut it down? I think there’s a lot of conflicts. And we are just figuring out how to wade through it.
Amy Zander:
Yeah. I’ve often noticed that people want working women to have a job like they don’t have a family and have a family, like they don’t have a job.
Audrea Fink:
At the same time.
Amy Zander:
It’s so funny that you said that Reischea because I often say that when’s the last time anybody asked a man, “How does he do it all?
Audrea Fink:
There was a segment, oh, maybe three years ago. If I find it, I’ll put it in the show notes. There was a segment where they recorded a bunch of male athletes getting asked the question that women are getting like, “How are the kids and who you wearing and how are you going to be able to do it all?” And you could see these men be like, “Those are irrelevant questions. Why are you asking me this?” And it’s like, exactly, they’re irrelevant questions. Let’s stop asking women athletes this.
Amy, when you and I were talking prior to this recording, we discussed the importance of having that entrepreneurial spirit and how it is so important to have that sense of I can do it. I can build it. I can sell it. If you’re going to succeed in business, it’s so important for women to get comfortable with money and selling themselves and not separating the two. I can sell my brand, but let’s not chat about money. What do you recommend to women who are uncomfortable talking about money as part of their business?
Amy Zander:
Yes. I have definitely worked on improving my own relationship with money. I have this amazing friend Lewis who is an energy healer. He basically taught me just what I concentrate on, what I put my emphasis on. So I don’t pretend that it’s like magic or voodoo or anything like that. He’s like, “Give me your wallet.” And I was like, “Okay”. And I have my business credit card and my personal credit card. And he’s holding them in each one of his hands. And he’s like, “Your business one seems fine. What’s going on with the other one? It’s like super heavy and weird. And like all this crazy energy around your personal money.” And I’m like, “Well, yeah. Money stresses me out,” and he’s like, “Well, first of all, you got to stop saying that.” And then he made me take out my checkbooks and write the word opportunity all over my checkbooks.
And then he told me, “You’re not allowed to ever pay a bill until you’re excited to pay that bill because you have the money to pay it.” And he’s like, “Did you ever have a time in your life where you didn’t have enough money to pay your bills?” And I’m like, “Pf course, like not even all that, it wasn’t all that long ago.” And so he’s like, right. He’s like, “So the first step in improving your relationship with money is to be really happy that you have it and be happy to spend it and pay your bills.” So he’s like, “So if you’re afraid to pay a bill, don’t pay it yet.” I mean, you can’t let that go forever. Right. But just having that gratitude and putting that out there in the universe, thank you. I have this money on pay was bill, super excited to pay for my house.
That’s really helped me and money doesn’t stress me out as much as it used to. And it really stressed me out because I just didn’t know how to really manage it very well. And I also just felt like I was spread thin. We were a young family. I was building a business. We just didn’t have enough money. I was really reminded of this recently. I was at an art show for a young artist in town, and my company had sponsored her art show in a small way. So I was there and she was selling prints and they were like two for $30, which I thought was way too low, but I had $40. So I’m like, “Here, I’m going to pay you. I just want to give forward. I don’t want to change back. Like these are worth it. Like, I just want to buy your prints.”
And she’s like, “Oh, don’t give me the money. Can you just give that to my fiance, like money makes me really uncomfortable.” And I’m like, “Darling, let’s go have a chat.” And I was like, “No, you cannot be uncomfortable with money.” I said, “The only thing that I would like you to ever be uncomfortable with money is that you have so much money that you don’t need it all. And then you start giving it away. That’s the only uncomfortable about money I ever want people to have.” And so she and I had a long conversation and she came from poverty. I think she still has this poverty mentality. That’s got to be part of my boot camp because none of this poverty mentality anymore. Like no under that, like we said, starving artists, like get really comfortable with money and pricing. Because if you’re not comfortable with money, you’re not going to price your art or your services or your products or whatever, no matter what industry you’re incorrect.
Audrea Fink:
I love that we’re talking about money more on this podcast. We just had Joyce martyr on. She wrote a book, the Financial Mindset Fix. If you have not picked it up or started it yet, do it. I am going through a chapter a week and it’s blowing my mind. I have discovered through going through her book, how many stories I tell myself about money. Why? I love this idea of paying your bill when you’re excited because you have the money because it’s really so much of it is the mindset. So much of it is if you’re fearful, if you’re stressed, if you’re anxious, then you shy away from it. And women are told, “Oh, don’t deal with that. Don’t worry about money.” So we don’t deal with it. But we still worry because money still makes the world go round.
Julie Holton:
It’s so true. I have to share just a vulnerable moment for you because I feel like this is what the podcast is all about. But Amy, I think as you were sharing about the credit card and needing to feel excited about paying bills, a light bulb totally went off for me. For me and my business, I found that there are certain numbers that are more comfortable for me than others. And as those numbers grow, I start to be like, “Whoa, wait. Like that’s too much to think about. Like that’s too much to manage.” And I almost, I don’t want to say self-sabotage because the numbers continue to grow. But I have noticed within myself, the feeling of discomfort grows, I’m going to try a new approach this week. We were talking about one of our previous episodes. I have a TV show, an amazing opportunity.
It’s been this really incredible success for my team, but there are a lot of numbers. There’s a lot of money associated with that. There are the production costs. There’s all the, there’s a lot of stuff that goes into that. And so a lot of money coming in and out as we manage all of that. And I have found that each month when it’s time to figure out those numbers and pay all the bills and make sure money. Because a lot of it’s just filtering through the agency. But each time I’m like, okay, instead of like stopping and looking at well, number one, the money’s there, the bills are covered. But number two, this is an exciting opportunity that we have the ability to reach so many people now through this new medium of television. And isn’t it so interesting though? I did not realize until you were talking that I feel stressed about the money associated with the TV show and it has nothing to do with the success of the show. And really having to do with anything other than the stories I’m telling myself in my head, as I approve these big numbers.
Amy Zander:
Yeah. My husband was looking for a new car for like, well, over a year, he was like stressing out about the money. He knew what car he wanted. Whenever we had the money, it was fine. We knew what we could spend. And so we get to the day where we’re going to go get the car. And I’m like, “Oh my God, I get to go buy a car. This is so exciting.” And he’s just like, “I’m just losing the money.” I’m like, “No, no, no, we’ve already dealt with the money. Like what are you talking about?” And he’s like, “Who are you?” And I’m like, “No, I’m excited. You finally get to get the car you wanted to buy. You waited for so long and to celebrate those things.” But it is definitely an interesting mindset. And every time, every payday and we have like a little celebration at CD media. “Yes, I get to pay you guys for your hard work.”
Audrea Fink:
I love it.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
But that energy is contagious. Yeah. That energy is just as contagious as negative energy. The negative energy can be just as contagious if people aren’t reigning that in. You continually perpetuate these negative thoughts. And I work on that myself, my fear with money, I know exactly where my fear with money is coming from. And I know what will solve that. I just haven’t been able to make it happen yet. And so I know that’s what I am fighting and dealing with, but that’s what you’re constantly putting out there. That’s the energy. Then that’s the energy that’s going to be constantly fighting off. Because the, “Yes it’s payday!”
Like when you were younger, when we were in our far beat for me to act like anyone’s old sitting up here, but when we were like in high school with our little jobs and like, “Whoo I can go to the movies.” Or even if it was the allowance, I’ll be honest. I didn’t have a job when I was in high school because I had a whole lot of other stuff going on. So my parents were like, “No, you need something. Let us know. We’ll figure it out.” But you got excited about that little 20 bucks that it’s like, “Can I go to the movies with my friends?” “Yes, here.” So if you perpetuate that energy, then that energy will be perpetuated to others around you. And that will come back to you.
Amy Zander:
I think too, in our culture, there’s like a double-edged sword. We live in a capitalist society and I always say, I’m a complete dirty capitalist. Of course, I am. I love money. I want money. I want to make more money. I want to make other people more money. And I want to give a lot of money away. I like money, but that’s not a popular thing to say. And especially not for women, but my whole thing is money can solve a lot of problems. People say, “Oh, money can’t buy you happiness,” sometimes. Sometimes money can solve a lot of problems.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
It can help.
Amy Zander:
Yeah. And in business too, I mean, sure. Not in your personal life things about love and relationships and things like that. But with business and promoting other people and the more money I make, the more money I can give away, which is the way that I look at it. And so I’m all about money. I don’t make any bones about the fact that I am a capitalist.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
That is one of my least favorite statements, money can’t buy you happiness. And like I said, no money can’t buy you happiness, money can surely help you get where you need to go to get there. Aside from helping others now yes like you said, reiterating what you just said, we’re not talking about personal relationships love, but if the stress of money is in the background, your focus can now go to those other things. Right.
Audrea Fink:
And it’s so important to figure out what is pulling out focus. I’m going to copy Julie and be a little vulnerable at the time of this recording. I’ve just started looking for work again. I took my sabbatical. I enjoyed it. I loved it. I grew. I’m ready to work again. And I am struggling with the salary negotiation portion. And I’m like, “Why am I struggling with this? I absolutely know how much I’m worth.” And I have to keep going back and re-listening to podcast episode 21 with Dana. Like here’s how you negotiate your salary. Yesterday I was on the phone with a friend who was negotiating her salary. She called me for advice and we walked through it and I verbally rewrote her counteroffer with her. Why am I struggling with my counter offer, when I can do it for others? You got to be able to get into your head and think like, okay, where’s that separation? Why can we do for others? What we can’t do for ourselves? Why is money dirty when it’s mine? But it’s just a tool when it’s others.
Julie Holton:
Amy, I want to go back to this concept as you’re working with artists something that I have wondered about. Do you think that people are born with this desire to be able to self-promote or to be an entrepreneur, to be a business owner? Or is it something that people can learn to have an entrepreneurial spirit?
Amy Zander:
This is a tough question. I feel like I’ve always had this entrepreneurial spirit and I had an incredible example growing up from my mom, who also built a business when I was in middle school through high school. And it was a very successful business and I’ve owned five businesses. So I started in high school with a house cleaning business to pay for my college. And it just kind of went on from there. But I also feel like I would make a terrible employee at this point because I’ve just worked for myself for so long. I don’t know, not everyone can be a business owner and you have to get really, really comfortable with uncertainty. And I think that’s the biggest hurdle sometimes for people. And sometimes maybe people don’t realize when they first start out owning a business too, is that you have a fluctuating income, you gain and lose clients. The unexpected happens, a pandemic happens, a recession happens. Not everyone wants all that responsibility. And that’s fair.
I mean, that’s totally understandable. I mean, the world needs all kinds of workers, but if you are interested in being a business owner, I think you should just start hanging out with other business owners, maybe get a mentor, work in the business, ask a lot of questions and find out as much as you can. But just knowing, going into it, that being a business owner is all about uncertainty.
Julie Holton:
I think too, to add to what you’re saying, Amy. A lot of people learn during the pandemic that they have a false sense of security as an employee. Sometimes we talk ourselves into thinking that we have a solid, I’m thinking back to before I was a business owner, I had a solid salary. I knew what the benefits were, my healthcare covered, but I did also have that glass ceiling that I couldn’t break. I have that ceiling on my salary. I knew the limits to what I would make that year, but I had this false sense of security that my job wasn’t going to go anywhere. How many people have that rug pulled out from underneath them during this pandemic to realize that when you’re not your own boss, you’re also not in control? You don’t know what the financial outlook is for the company you’re working at. You don’t know what perhaps the long-term plans are. So there are some in both, we just don’t always see it that way.
Audrea Fink:
I love acknowledging that just because you have a job doesn’t mean you have job security. There’s no such thing as job security. Not really. And if we stopped glorifying working at the company because it will keep you going forever, especially in today’s economy, gone are the days where you lived and breathed one company, gone are the days where a company lasted that long.
Amy Zander:
Okay. So we live in Michigan. So there’s the auto industry. And in a long time ago, like our grandfathers and things like that worked in the auto industry and they would work as you said, they would work there for life. And they were taking care of, I don’t know that there’s not as much loyalty from the employee side these days towards their employers, but it also goes the other way. Like a lot of companies aren’t doing enough to keep their employees either. So it’s kind of, it’s just a different culture.
Julie Holton:
I think we’re now going to need to do a podcast to help alleviate all of the anxiety we just gave everyone about job security. But no, it’s so important to look at it with eyes wide open, kind of it helps to better assess, especially if you’re someone who’s on the fence. And you’re thinking about whether you want to launch into your own business or whether you want to pursue your passion to see if it could be profitable. There’s so much opportunity out there.
Amy Zander:
That’s true. And I think just hope maybe to right now alleviate a little of that anxiety is just to remember that no matter what profession you are in or wherever you are at in your career, if you have the drive and you have the ability to promote yourself like we’ve been talking this whole episode, you have job security. You could always go find a job. You can promote yourself, you can find something. And so it’s just having that confidence in yourself. It might not be your dream job. It might be a stepping stone job. I’m sugar-coating it for sure, it’s hard, but that’s the first step to maybe alleviating that whole job search thing.
Audrea Fink:
This has been so insightful. Thank you, Amy, so much for sharing your thoughts with us today, before we go, we’re collecting advice from successful women in our communities and we’re sharing it in our Think Tank of Three forum. So we have three rapid-fire questions for you. Are you ready?
Amy Zander:
I think so.
Audrea Fink:
Is there a lesson that you’ve recently learned that you wish you had learned earlier in your career?
Amy Zander:
Yeah. Don’t compromise your work by rushing something.
Julie Holton:
From the lessons Amy that you’ve learned. What advice would you offer for any woman in any career?
Amy Zander:
My mentor told me this one time when I was having that dreaded imposter syndrome issue and it’s a one to 100 questions. So he said, “If you took everything there is to possibly know about marketing and that was 100. So zero is knowing nothing and everything is a hundred. Where would you put yourself on that scale? How much do you know about marketing?” And I was like, “30, maybe.” I didn’t really know. I wasn’t sure because I know what I don’t know. Right. Because I’m in marketing and he’s like, “Where would your clients put you on that scale?” And I said, “Oh, much higher, 80. I don’t know. They think I know everything.” He’s like, “Right. All you got to know is a little bit more than the people that you’re selling stuff to.” He’s like, “That’s what matters.” And I’ve always thought about that one to 100 rule every time I start doubting myself or feeling some kind of imposter thing. Because we all have it from time to time. So just remember that one to 100, you only got to know a little bit more than somebody else,
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
But also you made a good point recognizing what you don’t know and then at the time learning it.
Amy Zander:
Right, exactly. Yeah. Or finding somebody else who knows.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
In today’s professional setting, what do you think the most important skill for a woman is?
Amy Zander:
Be your own biggest cheerleader. You are a diva and you need to show the world every day that you’re a diva and cheer for yourself.
Julie Holton:
Well, and I, for one and so glad that I get to collaborate with this diva, Amy, thank you so much for being on the show. Now you also have not one but two podcasts that you produced. Tell us a little bit about them so we can send our listeners to your podcast. Who are they for and where can we find them?
Amy Zander:
Sure. My first one is Brand Archetypes and you can find it@brandarchetypes.com or wherever you find your podcasts. And that is all about branding and marketing. And that’s just for small business owners looking to brand and market themselves better. And then my newest one is called Adventures in Business. You can find that on my website at zeediamedia.com or wherever you find your podcasts. My co-host is Lisa Fisher. And we are interviewing people who work in live in the Lansing area, that are either entrepreneurs or hustling or have a side hustle or just their whole work story about what it’s like to work today.
Audrea Fink:
Thank you again, Amy, for joining us today, we really appreciate it. And that’s all for this episode of the Think Tank of Three. If you have topics you’d like us to cover or guests, you’d like to hear from sending us a message at thinktankofthreeatgmail.com, subscribe to the Think Tank of Three, wherever you listen to podcasts, and connect with us online.
Julie Holton:
Follow us on social media. You can find us individually on LinkedIn and as Think Tank of Three on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Women click to join our private group on Facebook, where we can all share advice and articles.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
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