The Sum of Your Circle -  Who is in YOUR network? 

It’s often said that we’re the average of the five people we spend the most time with. While not based on science, there is some social truth to the influence of those we surround ourselves with, especially as entrepreneurs, career coaches, and resume writers who impact others' lives. 

Let’s face it, while we excel at advising clients on building networks, we often neglect our own. 

It’s time to practice what we preach and craft a circle that mirrors the ambition and expertise we encourage in our clients and supports our growth as professionals and people. 

Assessing Your Network 

If you coach clients on networking for a job search, you probably tell them to start by assessing who is in it. 

“Who are the first five people in your Rolodex?” is usually my prompt for initiating brainstorming. 

So, who are yours?

Map out your network. Who do you currently rely on? Do you have a mentor? A peer who challenges you? A protégé for you to mentor? People who inspire you? Push you? Make you better?

Identifying these roles is just the beginning of understanding your network and identifying the holes in it. 

→ Action Item: Catalog your network across these categories to see where you’re strong and where you are lacking: Mentors, Referral Sources, Peers, Industry Thought Leaders, Ideal Clients, Client Advocates, Industry Connectors, Domain Specialists, Supporting Non-Professionals (Family and Friends), and other Entrepreneurs (of varying industries). 

Diversify and Fortify Your Connections

Surrounding yourself with people like you is beneficial in many ways, but so is the diversity in perspectives that come from different points of view, whether it be demographics, industry-specific, or another form of diversity - let’s mix it up! 

Enrich your business with the advice, counsel, and expertise of people beyond your industry, outside your community, with different skin colors, income brackets, and geographies. Find people who can challenge your thinking or introduce you to new concepts. 

Whether it’s a coach you let behind the curtain of your business world, a VA who can freshen up your content, or a serial entrepreneur - networking outside your immediate circle will make you a better business owner and coach. Period.

Action Item: Analyze the network map created in Step 1 to pinpoint at least one type of connection you lack, and set a goal to bridge that gap. Who can you engage to fill the holes, diversify, and round out your network? Is it a specific person or “anyone” in a particular category? Where would be a great place to get in front of your targets? LinkedIn? Through your existing network? Elsewhere? 

Taking Our Own Advice

We know the theory of networking, and we even know its execution. It’s time to apply it like the pros we are! 

It’s time to go to work and be where you’ve deemed most advantageous for meeting the people filling your network. Whether attending targeted events, engaging in online forums, strategic messaging on LinkedIn, or volunteering, build your strategy - just as if you were a job seeker prospecting a curated hit list of companies. 

Remember, it’s about quality, not just quantity, so you don’t have to spam the world or show up at every Meet-Up on the planet, but you have to get yourself out there, in the right way, and in the right places.

Action Item: Identify an upcoming event where you’ll likely meet the potential contacts you want to add to your network. Similarly, craft an engagement plan to nurture similar contacts via LinkedIn or online communities. Whether in-person or virtual, focus on building a relationship and be ready to follow through with a clear call to action.

Rinse and Repeat for Ultimate Network Growth

Don’t start by filling just one hole! Set the intention to expand your network strategically and consistently so you’re never left with a hole again! Set specific, measurable goals for how you will conduct your networking efforts, and set a stretch goal for yourself to engage with a thought leader or influencer who seems just a little bit out of reach. 

You never know what doors will open or new opportunities will present themselves when you network intentionally and strategically, but I can promise: you’ll be pleasantly surprised! 

A strong, supportive network is critical to our success as entrepreneurs. Obviously, we need the direct business results from referrals, target clients, and client advocates, but there’s so much more to gain with a rich network. 

Entrepreneurship is 80% mental, and building the right community can be the difference between feeling lonely and siloed in business and being pushed to grow, build resilience, and collaborate. 

I challenge you to commit to taking one concrete step this month to enhance your network. 

You won’t be sorry!

Your Friend and Coach, 

Angie M. Callen, CERW, CPCC, CPRW

Patience is a Virtue Most of Us Don't Have (And Here's Why You Need It as a Business Owner)

Let’s face it. Life moves at the speed of light these days, and if you’re a business owner, it can feel like it’s moving even faster. 

Patience may seem like a luxury you can’t afford, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. 

The Rarity of Patience in Modern Business

Why do we lack patience? Our digital world has us moving faster than ever, and instant gratification has become a way of life. 

If you’re not getting rapid results, you’re failing. Or at least that’s what the never-ending stream of mass-appeal “grow your coaching business to six figures overnight” ads on my Facebook feed want me to believe. 

The pressure to perform, generate leads, and bring home the bacon can overshadow the need for thoughtful, sustained growth. We're often so focused on immediate needs - chasing the next client or the quickest revenue spike - that we neglect the consistent, systematic efforts that ensure long-term stability.

→ Sounds like something we’d tell an anxious job seeker, eh? 

The Necessity of Patience for Business Owners

While counterintuitive, patience for business owners isn’t just a virtue - it's our best strategy, especially when it comes to marketing, lead generation, and building consistent revenue. 

Here’s why:

1. Cultivating Relationships: Whether it’s with clients, peers, or mentors, building meaningful relationships takes time. Patience allows these relationships to mature into networks that offer support, business, and opportunities, but it takes time to build a consistent referral base that drives reliable leads.

2. Marketing and Lead Generation: There is no magic wand to wave or potion to concoct that will take your business from zero to six figures overnight. Trust, brand loyalty, and visibility take time to build, as do marketing and lead generation strategies that take time to percolate. Rushing these processes can lead to a big waste of money, but more importantly, impatience can set unrealistic expectations that have you jumping from channel to channel without truly cultivating any one potential source. 

3. Revenue Growth Expectations: When starting a business or in the early stages of growth, revenue can come in waves and be unpredictable. This is normal - and it’s normal for even the first year or two. What you don’t want to do is have one great month and say, “Great, I made it,” make big decisions based on that spike, and then you’re starving (literally and figuratively) for the next three. Don’t get me wrong, we want great months, but one doesn’t mean you know how to reproduce it, so take one great month and turn it into three back-to-back. Then take that three months and do it all over again, and now you have your formula for consistent revenue - see how important patience was to that sustainable growth?!

Patience in Practice: A Closer Look at Business Growth Areas

In addition to setting realistic expectations and goals for the revenue side of business, patience, and forethought can do a lot for other areas of your business. Speaking from experience, I naturally fall into the “I have an idea; let’s do it NOW” trap that can end up taxing teams or giving initiatives too little focus. 

After working with a coach (a coach without a coach is like a doctor who won’t go to the doctor), I learned how to put ideas into execution at the right time.

I learned to be patient. 

Here’s what that can do for you: 

Strategic Planning: Long-term planning is only possible with patience. Set your vision, establish your goals, and create annual road maps that include launching new products or services, your time off, and other milestones you can lock in advance. This will keep you accountable for the activities you need to do to make that vision a reality while also keeping those “I have an idea” impulses in check! 

Client Retention: Securing a new client is an achievement; keeping them is an art. Patience in your client engagements - and giving them the experience they want instead of the process you think they need - allows you to understand, meet, and exceed their expectations. Don’t rush into writing the resume if they need a coaching session; don’t rush to close a sale if they need time. Fostering loyalty is more profitable in the long run than new client acquisition. It’s also more fun! 

Building Your Skills: How to Be More Patient

1. Establish Minimums: When deploying new marketing strategies, lead generation channels, or even launching a new product or service, give it time. Pre-establish a timeline to gauge the effectiveness of any single initiative. 

Hint: Three months is typically needed to see if marketing or lead generation strategies will provide an ROI. This period allows enough data accumulation to make informed decisions and see trends while avoiding the typical knee-jerk reaction to short-term fluctuations or a week of crickets. 

2. Set Incremental Goals: Break down your larger business goals into smaller, manageable milestones.

Hint: Go back to the suggestion above about planning out your year. This will make big, hairy, audacious goals less daunting by breaking them down into smaller chunks, which also means more opportunities to celebrate wins (and celebrating reinforces patience and persistence). 

3. Reflect and Adjust: Set regular monthly or quarterly intervals to review your business strategies, goals, and current outcomes. 

Hint: Knowing your numbers helps you adjust your approach to maximize efforts, and a dose of patience will ensure the incremental goals and activities remain aligned with your long-term objectives and market realities.

In Summary

Cool it. No, just kidding - but maybe back off the need for instant gratification a touch? 

There’s a time and place to be fast, and there’s a time and place to be slow, methodical, and thoughtful. This is just another example of a time to look in the mirror and give yourself a dose of the advice we give clients every day: consistent, methodical action paired with realistic expectations (translation: patience) will get you the reward. 

Turtles win races, too, ya know. 

Coach Well!

Your Friend and Coach, 

Angie Callen

Letting Go: Delegating Work is a Must for Business Growth

As career coaches and resume writers, we often work in a solopreneurial capacity, which means business growth is often bottlenecked by one person: us. 

Our time is limited, and we have to balance a lot - from client meetings and deliverables to operational tasks, marketing, responding to LinkedIn messaging, the list goes on - and it can feel overwhelming. 

Whether you want to grow (or scale!) your business or just maintain the current level of activity while freeing up some of your time, there’s a truth we have to face. 

It’s time to delegate.

Entrepreneurs are terrible at offloading work. We hold on tight-fisted because doing everything ourselves has become a way of life, and we wear it as a badge of honor. Oh yeah, and there’s also that “no one else can do this as good as I can” thing. 

Doing everything is holding you back. 

In the early days, you have to suck it up and wear all the hats because money is tight, but there comes a point where keeping everything on your to-do list has diminishing returns on your time, so in our quest to scale - or even sustain, the concept of delegation becomes crucial. 

There are many ways to attack the “get help” goal, which has been a conversation I’ve had multiple times just this week - in Build Your Business, in a coaching community, and with two separate coach clients! Clearly, we need HELP! 

My recommendation: A Virtual Assistant (VA)

A VA offers a flexible, scalable solution to handling administrative tasks without the overhead of full-time employees. For entrepreneurs in the coaching industry, this means access to skilled help on an as-needed basis, which allows us to focus more on coaching and less on the minutiae.

The key to leveraging a VA, or any outsourced support for that matter, is determining where to get help and what will provide the best return on the investment. Everyone's needs are different, and it can take some iterating to determine where you feel the most benefit, but trust me, it’s worth it. 

Note - Training someone takes more time - at first - than it would if you did the task yourself, but in the long run, it will save you time. (Sounds like something we’d say to a micromanager struggling to lead a team, eh?)

Transitioning responsibilities to a VA has been transformative for me and Career Benders, and I thought it might be helpful to share some of the areas where I’ve delegated work to get your brain thinking about how a  VA can help streamline your operations:

• Bookkeeping: It is the first thing I recommend you offload! I have a VA who works specifically in finances, so this is the only task that person completes for me every month. (Oh yeah, you can have more than on VA!)

• Client Onboarding: Setting up agreements, sending out invoicing, and onboarding new clients onto our client management system is all done by someone who is not me! 

• Document Preparation: After the bookkeeper, the next thing I brought on was someone to format client deliverables for me, so all I have to do is sit down and write. Sure, this may take only 20 - 30 minutes, but the time adds up when I was in high-volume mode and writing 8 - 10 resumes a week! 

• Social Media Management: I love marketing (as most of you know), but content creation and social media management are so different from my core day-to-day activities that it requires a big lift to accomplish. I just won’t do it, so I brought someone in to tackle it for me. Other than LinkedIn, I am totally hands-off with social. Yay!

• Email and Communication: Many colleagues use VAs to manage scheduling, which can be a huge time-saver. I’ve still found it’s best to control my calendar, but my VA has completely taken over all of our email marketing. She has a hand in newsletters, the weekly Sunday Scaries, and our automated marketing. Sure, the content still comes from me, but again, I don’t have to spend time formatting - all I have to do is opine. It’s what I do best! 

• Other Stuff (and the list goes on): From the logistics of webinars and workshops to website updates, podcast appearances, content research, and lead routing, there are a ton of ways a VA can take 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there from your plate to yours, and over time, you will see it add up! 

The other thing I enjoy about having a VA—and the right VA—is that I’m not alone! I have someone to bounce ideas off and, more importantly, some help with accountability and reminders of everything I’m good at putting on my to-do list. 

Speaking of finding the right VA…

Finding great help isn’t easy, and it may take a few tries to match the right person with the proper skill set and needs. I tried various models, from direct hires to offshore assistants, but the best fit for me came from a U.S.-based women-owned business that hires professionals who require flexible working arrangements, such as moms returning to work, women navigating personal transitions, and teachers seeking new opportunities. 

This model has not only supported my business needs but also aligned with my values of providing meaningful employment opportunities. I have a kick-butt VA who wants to see me succeed. Talk about a win-win.

Your First Hire

If you’re considering a VA, start with tasks that have clear processes and require minimal oversight, like bookkeeping, and then add layers of complexity as you build your VA relationship. Set realistic goals and have level-headed expectations, and you’ll be toting the value of a VA before you know it! 

In Summary

Incorporating a VA into your business strategy isn’t just about freeing up time—it’s about investing in your business’s growth potential. With the right VA, you can create efficiency, enhance your service offering, and ensure that your quality of service remains as high as possible because you are focused on your clients. 

Remember, the goal of scaling your business is not merely to increase the number of clients or revenue but to enhance your ability to make a significant impact in the lives of those you coach. A VA can be a pivotal part of achieving that goal.

Food for thought!

Happy Business, 

Your Friend and Coach, 

Angie Callen, CERW, CPRW, CPCC

Do You Really Need a Website as a Career Coach or Resume Writer? 

The short answer? Yes. 

But if you know me, you know there’s a long answer, heh, so here’s a deeper dive into why a website is crucial and what you can do if you’re not quite ready to build one.

→ It’s Your Digital Storefront – Make It Count

Think of your website as your digital business card. Along with LinkedIn, it’s often the first encounter potential clients have with your brand. 

No website? Then you’re a hidden gem that lacks credibility in this digital world. Perhaps more limiting, it also makes it hard for connections to have a place to send referrals. A website not only introduces you but can also convincingly argue why you're the best choice.

→ Control the Narrative

Unlike social media platforms, a website is a stable, customizable space you own. It’s unaffected by algorithm changes or platform rules, allowing you to control how your professional story is told. This space lets you highlight what you want, like specific services or successful case studies that align with your target audience's needs.

→ Build Credibility and Trust

A professional website enhances credibility, and adding a blog can further establish your authority while providing valuable insights to keep readers engaged. 

→ SEO: Be Found

Without SEO, even the best services might go unnoticed. A well-optimized website ensures you appear in searches like “Resume writer in Glenwood Springs” or “Tech career coach,” which helps your audience find you. 

Think about it like an ATS. A well-crafted resume will land atop the pile instead of getting buried in a database; an SEO-optimized site will do the same because no one goes to page 14 in Google Results :) 

→ Convert Visitors Into Clients

Your website should guide visitors towards engagement—booking a consultation, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading a resource. This helps build a client base while turning visitors into potential leads you can nurture more intentionally. 

What If You’re Not Ready for a Website?

Not everyone is ready to launch a website right away. Budget constraints, time limitations, or early business stages might delay this step. 

Here’s what you can do in the meantime:

- Leverage Social Media: Build a strong presence on platforms like LinkedIn, where many professionals and potential clients spend their time. Share content, engage with users, and grow your network so your profile can become a landing page and temporary storefront. 

- Use Online Marketplaces: Platforms like Upwork or Fiverr can help you get started and reach clients without a website because they provide a built-in audience actively seeking specific services.

- Start a Blog: Use platforms like Medium or Substack to publish content to help you establish your authority and share your expertise until you have your site; this content can also be used as evergreen articles on LinkedIn to increase your profile visibility. 

- Network Extensively: Networking can often substitute for immediate online presence by building your reputation through word-of-mouth.

- Prepare Your Website’s Content: Start creating content for your future website now - write service descriptions, draft blog posts, gather testimonials, and plan your site structure. This will streamline the development process when you’re ready.

Final Thoughts: Your Website as an Investment

Consider your website an essential investment in your professional image and market presence, not just a pricey business expense. Eventually, you’ll want (and need) this tool to expand your business. 

So, let’s revisit the original question: Do you need a website? Yes, to effectively stand out, control your narrative, and attract more clients. If you’re not there yet, use the alternatives to build visibility while you save up and work toward the goal. 

Your future website will thank you for laying the groundwork.

Your Friend and Coach, 

Angie

Once upon a time, in a world not too different from our own, I embarked on a journey armed with nothing but a dream and a business card that featured, I kid you not, a clip art logo of a barbell bending. 

And, Career Benders was born!

Fast forward through six years of blood, sweat, tears, and one intentional branding exercise, and here we are. 

My point? You don't need a perfect brand to start your journey; you just need to start.

Here are some ideas on where to begin to build a brand that reflects your current goals while setting a foundation to evolve gracefully as your business grows. 

Step 1: Name Your Brand

Your name is your first handshake with the world, so make it count. Start with something memorable, easy to pronounce, and, most importantly, meaningful to you. 

Free brainstorming tools and the thesaurus are great resources to think outside the box or create word associations. And remember, Google is your friend to ensure the URL for your chosen name isn't already taken [or confirm your name doesn’t mean something embarrassing in another language…eke!]

Step 2: Embrace Your Inner Picasso for Logo Design on a Shoestring

Yes, my first logo was a free clip art, which is a testament to starting where you are. Today, platforms like Canva or free versions of Adobe Spark offer budget-friendly options for more robust logo DIY. Your logo should capture the essence of your brand's personality with colors that evoke the emotions you want people to feel when engaging with you. 

Step 3: Find Your Voice 

Crafting your brand's voice isn't just about deciding whether you're more of a "dear sir/madam" or a "hey there!" kind of guy or gal. Are you formal? Quirky? Direct? Choose a lane, stick to it, and be consistent across all channels - emails, social media posts, and even how you answer the phone. Make it match and make it memorable!

Step 4: Built Your Brand’s Digital Footprint

Your website is your business card, storefront, and salesperson all rolled into one, and it’s the perfect canvas to articulate and visualize your brand. When it comes to articulation pieces, remember clarity is king. Ensure your site clearly states who you are, how you help, and what problems you solve. 

Step 5: Evolving Your Brand 

Your brand will evolve, and that's not just okay; it's necessary. As you grow and become more experienced as a coach, you’ll begin to understand how to iterate and focus your brand to align with the niche you continue to refine. The key is to keep your core values and mission at the heart of this evolution as you listen to your audience, stay abreast of industry trends, and pivot your strategy as you grow.

In Summary: Clipart Can Still Show Heart

Starting with a less-than-perfect brand isn't a setback; it's a rite of passage because it shows you tackled the biggest milestone of all: starting. 

Your brand is a living, breathing entity that grows with you, so, start where you are, use what you have, and do what you can. The rest, as they say, will follow.

Here's to bending barbells, brands, and careers! 

Your Friend and Coach, 

Angie Callen, CPRW, CPCC