You’d be forgiven for saying, “no need to patronize me. Obviously the point is to make money.”

And you’d be right—sort of. It’s true that nobody’s creating her LinkedIn platform, email list, speaker portfolio, or book proposal for her health. The “point” of growing your audience and authority is to grow your career which is how you make your living. Right?

Right. Sort of.

TL;DR: though many experts are (understandably) reluctant to market themselves, thought leadership marketing is how experts move along the unknown –> known authority spectrum, which leads to more incoming (and well-paying) opportunities and a powerful asset at the negotiating table.

If You’re an Expert, Why Market?

My company helps women and nonbinary experts and thought leaders become household names through content, LinkedIn and email marketing. Yet experts rarely cite “make more money” as their primary reason for seeking out Medusa Media’s services. It’s usually a reason—often in the form of “earn higher speaking fees” or “receive more inbound inquiries” or “negotiate a bigger advance on my next book”—but not the first reason.

And many of these same folks have mixed feelings about marketing. They sense they should be marketing but are dragging their feet (even though not marketing leaves money and impact on the table).

So what’s going on? Why are some experts and thought leaders reluctant to market themselves? When they do invest in marketing their thought leadership, what do they want to get from it? Is thought leadership marketing different from other types? Let’s get into it:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Click on any of the links below to go directly to the sections that interest you:

• Why experts and thought leaders resist marketing
• What experts want from marketing
• Bar graph: challenges experts face in their marketing
  • Strategy
  • Audience growth
  • Time
  • Leads
  • Topics
  • Book launch prep
  • [BONUS] Embarrassment
• You might be ready for thought leadership marketing if…

Before we go on, let me be clear: when I talk about thought leadership marketing, I mean a type of content promotion and distribution that focuses on providing insights and a strong position in your unique voice and making an intellectual and emotional impact to position you as an authority so you can build power and wealth and drive social change. This can look like sparking and participating in relevant conversations, connecting with leaders in your field, and sharing research and insights and stories as a few examples.

Let me be clear again: sometimes I use “she/her” pronouns in this piece because after centuries of “he/him” being the default pronouns used to describe people, it’s valuable to use language that depicts women when talking about expertise. That said, the whole gender spectrum is welcome here. 

Why Experts Resist Marketing

Online marketing has an “ick” sheen that’s hard to polish off. Think:

• mass growth promises (“how I scaled to six figures in sixty minutes”),
• platitudes and non sequiturs (“I just ate a salad. Here’s what it taught me about thought leadership”), and, a personal least-favorite,
• prosperity gospel nonsense (“all you need to have an Instagrammable life is to change your money mindset/imposter syndrome/blah blah blah by joining my program”)

NO THANKS!

So you’d be forgiven (again) for thinking of marketing as self-serving, deliberately misleading, even inherently desperate or tacky or predatory—because sometimes it IS. Here’s how one woman put it:

“Us academics ‘tend’ to be a bit snobby about [marketing]. Maybe because of anti-capitalist sentiments in our liberal arts educations? Maybe because we can’t see beyond our own cushy salaried jobs? Maybe because we resist the idea of education as a ‘business’?” – Jenn Wicks

But whatever your sentiments about and experience with marketing (I frequently hear from clients about past social media marketers who disappointed them) hear me out:

Writing off marketing entirely is a disservice to experts and to marketing.

Fundamentally marketing is about spreading the word, spreading knowledge, and raising awareness. Marketing is the function that takes something from unknown to known whether that’s a product, service, cause, politician, person, or public good.

If you’re an expert or thought leader, you are somewhere on the unknown –> known authority spectrum. Say you’re a professor, author, researcher, writer, keynote speaker, consultant, or combination thereof. If you sell your knowledge in the form of consulting, speaking, books, or education, it follows that you could do that MORE if you were better known, right?

It’s a virtuous cycle: the more of a known authority you are, the more opportunities come to you and/or the more prestigious opportunities you qualify for, the more you take those opportunities, the more known you are, and on and on. 

Marketing your expertise—by distributing your work and thinking, making it clear what you do and how to hire you, building an intentional community, showing your skills and impact—accelerates the virtuous cycle, leading to more incoming (and well-paying) speaking gigs, sought-after leads, media opportunities, book deals, and more.

This is why obscurity is the enemy of women and nonbinary experts and thought leaders.

What Do Experts and Thought Leaders Want from Marketing?

I will not bury the lede: these are the challenges experts most frequently say they are facing when it comes to their thought leadership and marketing:

1. Strategy
2. Audience growth
3. Time
4. Leads
5. Topics
6. Book launch prep
7. [BONUS] Embarrassment

Some clients who come to us are excited and ready to market their expertise with more vim and vigor (and help from us)! But it’s common for clients to be some combination of reluctant, curious, and uncomfortable—and that’s totally normal and welcome, too.

When prospective experts and thought leaders reach out, the first thing we ask is for them to fill out this brief inquiry form, which gives us helpful info to guide a discovery call. One question is about the “greatest challenges you’re facing with your thought leadership”—in other words, where are you on the unknown –> known authority spectrum? What’s blocking your virtuous marketing cycle from working the way you want it to?

The answers to this question illuminate what experts and thought leaders ACTUALLY WANT, in their own words, from their thought leadership marketing. After this graph (and if you skipped the table of contents above to read this), I’ll unpack the most common answers, plus one not reflected on the graph but which comes up in client conversations (hint: it’s embarrassment):

Challenges experts face in their thought leadership marketing [Bar Graph]

1. “Creating a distribution [marketing] strategy”

Raise your hand if you (like me) have searched “difference between strategy and tactics” more than zero times . The words get used interchangeably but they are not the same: a strategy is an overall plan, and the tactics are the individual action steps in the plan.

Unsurprisingly, most experts and thought leaders need both when it comes to marketing their work and it’s the #1 cited reason clients want to work with us. That’s because a strategy answer that critical question: “What the heck should I do and say?” and its many sub-questions: “How should I say/do it? Where should I say/do it? How often? Who am I trying to connect with? In what ways? And importantly, why am I doing this? What do I want?”

Experts and thought leaders have a lot of valuable ideas to share but usually lack the systems that make sharing them (consistently and without it taking a bajillion hours) simple and effective. Besides, you didn’t become an expert because you love marketing or social media, so it’s understandable if you feel self-conscious and overwhelmed by online marketing strategy and technology. This is what prospective clients say to us when sharing their thought leadership challenges:

“Time and strategy for getting content out there, and building a following/mailing list. I’m also working on a book and trying to build interest and a following in a specific and slightly different topic.”

“Creating a strategy and tactics for engaging on LinkedIn around my upcoming book launch.”

“Too many ideas and obstacles executing (perfectionism, time, etc.); not sure what content is most strategic / best ROI”

Working with me and the Medusa Media Group team is one way to address these challenges.

2. “Growing my [LinkedIn] platform”

Clients want growth: of their audience (on LinkedIn in particular), of inbound inquiries, of engagement, email subscribers, and more. Why? For lots of reasons, but primarily to:

• reach more people and make more positive impact with their work
• enhance their brand and reputation (audience numbers are not everything, but you can’t tell me we don’t all judge books by their covers)
• become better-known authority figures, which leads to more opportunities.

If you’ll allow me to repeat myself:

The more known you are, the more opportunities come to you and/or the more prestigious opportunities you qualify for, the more you take those opportunities, the more known you are, and on and on. When you proactively grow your audience on LinkedIn and on your email list, you are cultivating a community of people in a relationship with you. That means more folks who will want to buy your book, recommend or hire you to speak and consult, enroll in your course, etc.

As for “why LinkedIn” it’s because it’s really the only professionally-focused social media and networking platform available. Our clients are usually highly-educated and experienced individuals who sell professional services—they sell B2B or B2(professional)C. If you’re an expert and you’re going to market anywhere on social media, LinkedIn makes the most sense for your expertise and audience.

PSST! If LinkedIn growth is a priority for you, might I recommend my Stop the Scroll: LinkedIn Content Plan for Experts workshop?

3. “Making time”

Remember that meme which read, “Beyoncé only has 24 hours in a day”? I found it inspiring at first (“Beyoncé exists in the same space-time continuum I do!”) until I realized it’s a lie: when you have the resources to hire teams to manage your work and life, you have way more than 24 hours to get things done.

The more their careers grow, the more experts and thought leaders need help. Experts are busy! They might be managing an academic or contract career, preparing for and traveling to keynotes and workshops, writing articles and books, managing a team, conducting research, and that’s just the professional side.

They recognize the importance of marketing themselves to keep the virtuous cycle moving, but marketing is its own function and skillset. It doesn’t make business sense for them to DIY it, nor to ignore it (because it holds back their growth and impact and can be embarrassing).

It does make business sense to hire someone with a proven track record of marketing thought leadership for experts (you can see our track record here). It saves you time and anguish because it’s more efficient and effective. I call it “worry transfer”—you no longer have to worry about staying in touch with your audience or sharing that podcast episode or promoting your book—that’s our job.

4. “I want more leads”

What does it take for someone to become a “lead,” i.e. a person who has shown interest in hiring your services? They have to know, understand, and trust both you as an individual, and the services you offer. Y’know what helps with this? You guessed it! Thought leadership marketing. 

Having an active and engaged LinkedIn helps generate leads. Having an active and engaged email list nurtures those leads. Creating unique, accessible and memorable content helps you do both. Marketing maintains your connection with your audience so that when they are ready to hire a speaker or coach or enroll in a program or recommend a book to their bookclub, you are the obvious choice.

(There are also a gazillion additional ways to generate leads. My business coach recommended having three: social media might be one, public speaking might be another, hosting or guesting on podcasts might be a third.)

5. “Generating thought leadership topics”

“My biggest challenges are content ideas and consistent execution.” And, “I have lots of thoughts but not sure if they would fall into the thought leadership category.” And, “I’m struggling and anxious about taking my many ideas and operationalizing them CONSISTENTLY.”

Sound familiar? This challenge is two-fold:

1. “Hydra-condition” is the state of having so many ideas, and seeing all the connections between them, that you get frozen with indecision. Having a thought partner (such as yours truly) helps bring focus and clarity to your ideas so they serve you and your audience.
2. “You can’t read the label from inside the bottle.” Experts are so close to their work that aspects of it seem obvious or boring or irrelevant. It helps to have a thought partner (me again) to help the expert see those aspects with new eyes and to tie them to what’s going on in the zeitgeist.

This became a running joke when author, speaker, advisor and coach Charlene Li was a client: during every call as we generated ideas for her LinkedIn livestream and email list she’d say, “when we started I was sure I had nothing to say!” In her testimonial she put it this way:

“I knew I needed a partner to share my thought leadership with excellence and consistency. Eva and her team were exactly that partner. I always looked forward to our meetings! I’d go in thinking I had no ideas, yet Eva always managed to get my creativity flowing, making me feel energized and confident.”

6. “I have a book launch coming—I want to be prepared”

Book launches are career catalysts, paving the way to greater authority in the marketplace, higher speaking fees, more inbound inquiries, media appearances and more. If you want to capitalize on such a pinnacle achievement it’s wise to build, in advance, the backend infrastructure that makes it easy to grow your audience and platform online. Furthermore, a strong LinkedIn presence, engaged email list, and warm network are assets at the negotiating table. 

We work with many authors, but the same logic applies to other big opportunities: TEDx Talks, launching a podcast, doing a pivot or rebrand. These momentous achievements are an excellent time to tap your network for support (people love supporting others, especially when you make it easy for them) and you’ll only improve the virtuous cycle if you have marketing infrastructure and support in place to leverage the big opportunity.

7. [Bonus] “I don’t want to embarrass myself”

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you suddenly realize you’re inappropriately dressed (or maybe not dressed at all)? The cringe is visceral, and feeling that cringe about your neglected LinkedIn or email list or blog is common. We often work with experts who, thanks to their research or a high-profile achievement, start to see a disconnect between the caliber of their work and the way they come across online. 

This challenge usually comes up in conversation, not in our inquiry form. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Feeling embarrassed about your online presence may not be something you’re keen to admit to a thought leader marketing advisor whom you barely know.

I’d love to say, “who cares? Your work speaks for itself!” That’s true to a degree, but if you’ll allow me to repeat myself again, everybody judges books by their covers. For better or worse, your “cover” is your online presence. Imagine someone gets two referrals to keynote their conference: one speaker has an active and engaged LinkedIn presence and the other hasn’t posted in 6 months. Why wouldn’t the conference organizer choose the speaker who can bring those assets to the table?

You might be ready for thought leadership marketing…

If the state of your LinkedIn makes you want to hide behind a tree.

If you have a book being published or you’re growing your speaker portfolio.

If you have plenty to say but no strategy to say it sustainably and effectively.

If you have a wealth of expert content gathering dust on your website or hard drive. 

If you want to grow your audience and network and engage in more meaningful conversations.

Those are strong signs that it might be time to market your expertise and thought leadership more intentionally. And I promise: doing so doesn’t have to mean talking about yourself constantly, adding a pile of work to your plate, or sharing anything that will give you a vulnerability hangover.

It also doesn’t have to mean recreating any wheels (many of our clients have a ton of material that can be repurposed for marketing) or doing anything that compromises your values or annoys the people in your community.

Marketing is fundamentally about spreading the word, spreading knowledge, and raising awareness—of you and your work, yes, but of others in your field, of opportunities that abound, of ideas and creative approaches and resources. It can be a tremendous force for doing good—and isn’t that what we’re all doing here?

To learn more about working with me, head to our trusty inquiry form or peep our capabilities deck .

The post If You’re an Expert, Why Market Yourself? appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

“Thanks for accepting, Eva! Do you think email lists are a good way to attract new clients?”

Not only did her response ignore my message, but I could SMELL the incoming pitch. It made me want to surround myself in a castle with a moat full of alligators. It made me think, we need better rules of engagement for managing connection requests and deepening relationships. So here we go:

Rules of Engagement for Responding to LinkedIn Connection Requests:

First, I’ll go over why it’s worth having an intentional strategy for responding to connection requests on LinkedIn. Then, I’ll offer three steps for doing it well. I’ll also share how NOT to respond to connection requests, plus some miscellany that might be helpful:

• Why how you respond to connection requests matters
• Creating connection filters
• Deepening relationships on LinkedIn
  • Alternative for “high-value” relationships
• Moving the relationship off LinkedIn
• How NOT to respond to LinkedIn connection requests
• Too long, didn’t read? Get a quick summary here

If you’re an expert or thought leader—entrepreneur, academic, speaker, author, etc—you can be certain the number of connection requests you receive will grow as your platform and authority do.

Some of these requests will come from people who are obviously important or valuable to your network. But most will not be obviously anything, which gets overwhelming very quickly.

(Then you may find yourself with 47 pending connection requests side-eyeing you every time you’re on LinkedIn. You probably feel guilty / resentful / hand-tied, so you slide your eyes over to the Notifications instead—there’s never a dearth of those—and resolve that Future You/Future You’s Assistant will deal with those requests.) 

Responding to connection requests isn’t urgent—most things in networking and marketing aren’t—but they do add up and it can feel bad. Fortunately, managing your connection requests systematically will grow and deepen your network, and make you feel capable and in control, and it’s not very hard. Everyone wins! 

Why Responding to LinkedIn Connection Requests Matters

You might be thinking, Who cares? Do connection requests really need this level of consideration?

And sure, some people are unbothered by increasing connection requests. They might say yes to anyone who asks (which I don’t recommend, for reasons I explain here), they might say no to everyone they’ve never met, no harm, no foul. 

But I suspect that you, like me and like our clients, are deliberate about your network and social media use. You want to be intentional and genuine about how you build relationships with people on LinkedIn (most of whom you’ll never know personally). So when it comes to their growing number of connection requests, our clients express concerns like, 

• Should I accept requests from people I don’t know to grow my audience?
• What’s the correct (polite, customary, effective) way to respond to a connection request? 
• I don’t want to get a ton of DMs from people I don’t know well. So should I say no to anyone I’ve never met?

These concerns make sense: you don’t want to offend anyone or hurt their feelings or commit a social media faux pas. You do want to use LinkedIn effectively and properly to grow your audience, opportunities and authority. Also, your privacy matters (as it should!) and you don’t want to overwhelm yourself.

As with most (all?) questions related to marketing, networking, audience growth etc., the answer to the questions above is “it depends.” It depends on your comfort level, your goals, how you want to use LinkedIn, your business/career model, and more. So let’s touch on that briefly, then get into the brass tacks, nuts and bolts:

Why do you use LinkedIn?

I’m not going to exhaust either one of us with a litany of reasons to you might use LinkedIn. Instead, I’m making an educated guess that you’re using LinkedIn as part of your thought leader ecosystem, to:

• Build a network of professionals for partnerships, referrals, opportunities, education, and to talk shop, and/or
• Grow an audience of highly engaged, eager-to-buy, and ready to refer people who never miss your emails, podcast episodes, webinars, and/or
• Share your articles, insights, posts, research to become a known authority in your field, and/or
• Make your book accessible during launch season

You want a healthy network and audience, authoritative presence, and to share your authorship if-and-when it’s book launch season. Great! If the main action is “Follow” on your LinkedIn profile already, anyone can easily click to follow you—perfect.

But as your platform grows more and more people will send you connection requests, and fewer and fewer of them will be people you know personally. Given the goals above, it makes sense to be strategic about accepting those requests: it’s not helpful for literally everyone to be your connection (there’s a limit!) nor does it help to reject every request from a semi-stranger—that would limit your growth.

So what do you need to simply and easily DECIDE if the juice is worth the squeeze, AKA which requests make sense to accept? A filter.

Step 1. Create a Connection Request Filter

A connection request filter is a set of clear criteria that’s simple to follow to decide whether it makes sense to accept or reject a request.

CAVEAT: it also has to be easy for someone who isn’t you to follow, so you can delegate this task. In other words, your criteria can’t rely on your intuition or mood, because you can’t delegate those (sigh).

As an example, here’s my filter. A request needs to met at least two of these criteria for a team member to know to accept their request:  

• Are they relevant to my work? (i.e. do they fit the profile of a likely future client or potential colleague in the same or a related field?
• Do we have connections in common?
• Have they sent a message explaining their request?
• (Other criteria might be: do we work at the same company? Are they affiliated with my university? Are we in the same field/role?)

A connection who meets none of the criteria is almost always a clear “NOPE” (see below for exceptions*). Same with connections who meet only one criteria—for example, they might send a message that is clearly generic, or we might have nothing but one connection in common.

As for those who DO meet two criteria, what’s next after you accept their connection request? Deepening the relationship.

Step 2. Deepen the relationship

The point of LinkedIn is to build your network, grow your audience, and share your authority—in other words, it’s about relationships, and an accepted connection request does not a relationship build.

Deepening the relationship with a new connection requires acting on it, which puts you in the driver’s seat of how that relationship might grow. I have a simple way I act on new connections (that I’m not already acquainted with), and it’s sending them this short DM:

“Hey NAME, it’s nice to be connected! [if applicable: I see we have some good people in common.] What prompted you to reach out?

I like this low-ball opening gambit because it’s easy for them to answer, and it gives me useful information:

• Did someone mention me to them?
• Did they find me by searching?
• Did they see a post of mine?

Their answer to this question helps me know how to deepen the relationship.

(I used to respond to qualified connections with a Roundtable invitation, which REALLY helped deepen the relationship. I’ve paused those for now [I write this in 2024, after a 7 month maternity leave and during a cross-country move]. I may do them again someday, but with a vetting process so I have more control over the people who join and the quality of conversations we can have.)

BONUS TIP: if you use a tool like Text Expander, deepening the relationship with a DM like mine is even easier for you or your assistant.

Optional Step 2.5 “High-value” relationships

Another powerful opening gambit comes from my friend, fractional CRO Talica Davies. It’s great to use if the connection request comes from someone who is likely of “high value” to your goals.

NOW LISTEN: this is not a judgment call on anyone’s personhood. Every individual is intrinsically “high value”. However, certain people are going to be strong candidates as prospective clients, referral partners, opportunity-sharers, etc. When that’s the case, it makes sense to put extra effort into your opening gambit: take a look at their profile and recent posts. If you see something you like, comment on it. Then send a message like this one:

“Hey NAME, I really liked [this article/post/thing on your profile], and I’m curious to learn more about you and your work. Where do you suggest I start?”

I’d be flattered to receive such a message—wouldn’t you? Who wouldn’t respond favorably to that!?

It’s straightforward and curious, and it lets you quickly get the right information to discover if you’re correct about how you might work with them.

(BTW, when Talica shared this with me, I realized I didn’t have an easy way to answer this question. Send them to my website? Too broad. To my email list? Too soon. Our Work with Medusa inquiry form? Too presumptuous. A virtual coffee link? No way rosé—I can barely stand receiving those, but that’s a rant for another time.) 

Fortunately I was already working on Medusa’s Capabilities Deck, which how I’ll answer this going forward.

Step 3. Move the relationship off LinkedIn

Remember that scene in Season 7, Episode 12 of Mad Men, when Joan picks up the photo of her son and her Rolodex, and walks out of McCann Erickson? Contact information is currency.

LinkedIn is an amazing tool for connecting and corresponding—people are right there and accessible! But we don’t have control of that access—Microsoft does. That’s why you’ll want to take the relationship off LinkedIn and into your metaphorical Rolodex as soon as possible: your contact list or email list.

There are myriad ways to do so, from inviting the connection to do something (attend an event or download a resource), to using tools like these to add their contact info to a spreadsheet.

Finally: How NOT to respond to LinkedIn connection requests:

You can do whatever you want, but if you’re in this to build your network, grow your audience, establish your authority and sell a book, I DO NOT recommend the following:

Don’t say “yes” to everyone

I had a client once who, in the early years of using LinkedIn and growing her platform, accepted every. single. connection. request. she. received. (This was before LinkedIn had the “Follow” feature.)

She learned the hard way that LinkedIn has a connection limit of 30 thousand. She’d long since hit that number (she’s a well-known figure) and had to have her assistant manually delete old connections to make room for new ones.

Another reason not to say “yes” to everyone, including those of us who don’t want anyone to feel rejected? Social media strategist Sharonda Jackson put it this way: “It’s okay to be picky about who’s in your community.”

Don’t immediately ask a leading question or send a pitch

Leading questions like the one I got (“Do you think email lists are a good way to attract new clients?”) and straight-up pitches do the opposite of build connection—they turn people off. Small talk and flirtation exist for a reason.

Don’t invite everyone to a virtual coffee

Potentially unpopular opinion alert: people I know and respect swear by the “let’s meet for a virtual coffee” or “let’s have a 5-minute phone call” technique for new connections, but I do not care for it.

Time is a precious asset, and the women I work with have to manage theirs very carefully. And while I appreciate the spirit with which it’s intended—it’s generous to offer to share your time—it’s a BIG ask, especially of someone who doesn’t know you yet and likely has many priorities competing for their attention.

TL;DR

1. If you use LinkedIn to build your audience, grow your network, establish your expertise or sell your book, then you’ll need a strategy to respond to a growing number of connection requests.
2. First, create a filter that you (or a team member) can easily use to determine if a connection request is a “yes” or a “no”. See examples here.
3. Send the connection requests you accept a DM to deepen the relationship. I like to say, “Hey NAME, it’s nice to be connected! [if applicable: I see we have some good people in common.] What prompted you to reach out?”
4. Finally, move the relationship off LinkedIn (where Microsoft owns the contact information) as soon as you can.
5. Oh, and here’s what not to do in response to connection requests!

Generate Leads with an Effective and Enticing LinkedIn Profile

Connection requests come through your LinkedIn profile, and speaking of which…

A few simple tweaks take your LinkedIn profile from eh to excellent—the kind of profile that pulls its own weight. In this short, free e-course I guide you to make simple updates to your profile so it effectively generates leads and opportunities and grows your network strategically.

Check it out here: Generate Leads with an Effective and Enticing LinkedIn Profile.

The post Respond to LinkedIn Connection Requests: a Guide for Experts and Thought Leaders appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

If so, I want to hire you!

I’m an ambitious and energetic CEO seeking support at the executive level to grow a purpose-driven, woman-owned company.

Our company supports women thought leaders to defy the status quo, amplify their influence, and expand their wealth and power. We work with authors, speakers, coaches and consultants in the Women Helping Women Economy.

You need to be someone who is fulfilled by supporting a person with a huge mission. You love to work independently and you enjoy organizing information and processes. You are detail oriented, highly organized and always follow through. You’re more likely to over-communicate than under-communicate. You are comfortable with technology and enjoy learning how to use new apps and tech tools.

This is a part-time position starting at 10 hours per week that will evolve to full time.

Qualifications:

• Executive level administrative experience of at least two years preferred
• Self-directed. You’re a high-performing pro at self-leadership and do not need to be heavily managed. You’re open to feedback and growth. You’re proactive about taking tasks off CEO’s plate and looking for ways to refine systems and processes
• Execution (getting things done) is your favorite and you’re willing to learn how to use a variety of different online tools (e.g. social media, design, and website software).
• Deadline-oriented. You don’t need a ton of structure as long as you know what’s due when.
• Super organized and comfortable handling multiple projects simultaneously
• Terrific and proactive communicator. You reach out when a project is at risk, not after the deadline. You respond quickly to texts and emails.
• Research makes you happy including sourcing studies, stats, and researching individuals
• Exquisite attention to detail including the ability to edit and proof your own work
• Flexible. No task is “beneath” you
• Nerdy about personal development, learning new skills, and talking about ideas
• Tech savvy with strong computer skills (Mac preferred) and Google Drive experience.
  Social media writing experience and/or interest is a plus!
• Must have your own computer, smartphone, and a strong Internet connection
• English as (one of) your first language(s) is preferred
• Bonus experience (in order of importance): Canva; WordPress; Kajabi; Mailchimp; Asana; social media platforms especially LinkedIn; QuickBooks; Meet Edgar;

Job duties include (but aren’t limited to):

• Research projects (calls for speakers, podcasts, prospective clients, studies and software)
• Researching, designing and executing on templates to complete routine projects
• Light graphic design work in Canva for company and clients
• Posting and publishing at dedicated times on behalf of our clients
• Refining, documenting, and transferring CEO’s notes and research
• Executing on real-time publishing deadlines
• Short-form content writing and publishing for social media
• Platform management: upload content to online education platform for online programs
• Client and prospect research and outreach (testimonials, feedback)
• Invoicing assistance
• Light administrative work such as email and calendar management

This role is NOT for someone who:

• wants a part time job while building a side hustle
• isn’t grounded at this point in their life
• isn’t committed to our mission
• isn’t open to a full-time career with a growing organization
• doesn’t like to be challenged or learn new things
• isn’t good at managing their time
• doesn’t enjoy working in a small team
• likes to be micro-managed 
• has no initiative or is not a self-starter

This is a part-time, virtual position that will evolve to full time. We are looking for candidates within the Pacific to Eastern time zones of North America. You are expected to have a home workspace and a reliable internet connection. Salary range for 10-15 hours per week is $10000-$18000 annually.

We are dedicated to inclusive hiring. People of color, disabled people, queer people, nonbinary people, and those with additional dimensions of diversity not identified here are encouraged to apply. Military spouses and parents of young children are also encouraged to apply.

Studies indicate that women tend not to apply for opportunities unless they are 100% qualified. If this opportunity speaks to you, even if you don’t meet all qualifications, please apply!

How to apply:

If you read this job description and thought “this job was made for me!” then please:

1. Send your resume and hourly salary requirements to hellomedusamedia [at] gmail [dot] com
2. Include a brief (~3 minute) video sharing why you’re a good fit to for this position. Informal videos welcome. Please include a link to your video in Google Drive or similar in your email
3. No cover letter is needed — that’s what the video is for!

If you read this job description and thought “my best friend would be perfect for this!” then please forward this post to them!

We are accepting applications until Friday, March 18th, 2022 but if we meet our dream candidate, we’ll snap them up. So if this speaks to you, make your move!

The post We’re Hiring! 📣 Fantastic Executive Assistant for Growing Woman-owned Company appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

“I want to develop my thought leadership,” my friend said, “but I work full time for a company. Isn’t that a conflict of interest?”

I’ve heard this question from numerous women. They do terrific work in corporate and independently, but they feel bottlenecked by two conflicting identities: corporate employee and independent thought leader.

Your Career is Comprehensive

The happy truth is, there’s no conflict, and thinking otherwise is holding you back. It also prevents you from adding a ton of value to your company! More on that in a minute.

There’s less conflict of interest than you imagine. Your career is comprehensive, and your corporate identity and independent work complement each other, making both strong, incisive, and relevant.

I want to have an individual voice in my field. How do I use my existing corporate platform to form my own identity? How can I build a presence that outlasts my company tenure, while respecting my current role?

Complement, Not Competition

My weightlifting coach is a three-time Iron(wo)man athlete. Last year she got a stress fracture in her foot, and had to take a break from running. “It’s okay,” she said. “It means I can focus on getting even better at biking and swimming.”

This struck me because, distance-athlete-ignoramus that I am, I thought that all cardio exercise was basically interchangeable (I know! You can laugh!). But it turns out you can’t just run to train for a triathlon. You must practice all three skills separately. They complement each other (they’re all endurance cardio) but they’re not interchangeable. Being a great runner doesn’t mean you’re a great swimmer.

Being an asset at your corporate job and being a thought leader are like running and swimming. The skills and outcomes complement each other, but they are not interchangeable and they each require their own investment of time and practice.

Don’t Be Monogamous with your Corporate Career

The problem is we tend to treat corporate jobs like a spouse, as if anything else we do for our career is cheating. It’s not.

In fact, developing your thought leadership is an asset to your company because it:

• Reflects well on your company. It looks damn good for your company if their employee is known for publishing about the latest news, research, and trends in the field
• Primes you to bring fresh insights and ideas to your company that can help them develop corporate assets and provide value to clients
• Attracts new clients to the company, who read your article or heard your podcast
• Singles you out as a candidate for leadership opportunities and promotions, saving management time and resources finding the right person for the role

While it may feel like a risk to publish independent thought leadership, fortune favors the bold. Even in a worst-case scenario in which your company is a jerk and fires you for publishing brilliant work (really???), you’ll be primed to launch yourself to a better position in a better company.

Fortune Favors the Privileged…?

It’s often safer to be bold if you’re white. The unfair reality is that white people are given the benefit of the doubt and assumed to have the best intentions. This is not always true of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC).

If you’re a woman of color, or nonbinary or trans or queer or first generation, positioning yourself as an independent thought leader might sound like a bad, bad, bad idea. If your career situation is dependent on not rocking the boat, that hesitation is understandable.

Regardless, you can develop your thought leadership without threatening your livelihood or workplace reputation. You can start by following these habits of effective thought leaders:

• Commenting on and sharing the latest news, research and trends in your field. It shows you are abreast of the latest updates without any assets you publish being viewable as a threat or conflict of interest by your company
• Publishing on what you’re doing at work. This raises your company’s profile — it’s free marketing for them — while building your reputation and audience
• Privately developing your thought leadership. Like running, magnetic thought leadership comes from practice. You can start a private blog or newsletter as a container to develop your thinking, and your company never has to know. You will greatly benefit from developing your thinking. And when you’re ready and create the opportunity to go public, you’ll be unignorable and you’ll have a rich archive of material.

These are best practices for all thought leaders of all intersecting identities when you’re balancing your work for corporate with building your own platform (or if you’re an entrepreneur). By starting with these practices you can build your confidence and test the water. Then you can debut your industry-related podcast, article series, or videos.

3 More Habits of Highly Effective Thought-Leaders

To start your thought leadership practice, remember these three keywords: commit, simplify, own.

• Commit by setting up a system. Like building any new habit (exercise, eating, crafting) systems are the solution. Think about a day of the week, morning or night, that you will devote to producing your thought leadership. Think about how long you’ll spend. Be realistic about your production schedule — how often will you publish? Think about the steps you need to take from creating to publishing, and write them down. Then commit. Show up with discipline and patience, and watch your thinking unfold. (Remember this is a marathon, not a sprint!)
• Simplify by choosing one medium. Pick ONE container for your thought leadership. Will it be a podcast, where you interview people in your field (including your coworkers)? Will it be articles? Will it be art or graphics? Will you publish them on Medium or LinkedIn or an industry publication?
• Own your media. Wherever you publish them, I recommend you build your own website where they can live too. You want to have a place online where people can learn about you as your reputation grows.

Your wild and precious career

If you commit yourself to developing your thought leadership, it will pay dividends to your career. Leadership opportunities, promotions, and premium priced services favor bold women who take risks and share our insights.

Whether you want to work in corporate until you retire, or you want to move to Colorado and grow an epic vegetable garden funded by your premium-priced consulting services, thought leadership is for you.

Can you hear that inner voice, eager to join the conversation? Releasing her through thought leadership will multiply your impact and your career options. If your inner voice is ready to make your next bold move, I’d love to connect with you for a Discovery Session.

We’ll map out areas for opportunity to develop your thought leadership, harness your existing corporate platform, and build you a voice that will draw opportunities like a magnet.

It’s free, and it’s a lot of fun. Click here now to complete a brief form, and we’ll be in touch to set up your Discovery Session!

No matter where you work in corporate, your thought leadership is waiting for your attention. Sheryl Sandberg did it, and so can you.

Image by Christina of WOC in Tech Chat via Unsplash.

The post How to Create Your Thought Leader Identity while Working in Corporate appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

Lounging in bed until ten o’clock, reading. Starting a new novel Friday night and savoring it all weekend. Staying up until midnight or later, riveted by a story.

But this morning was different. My body woke up at 6:24, and the rising sun made a bright rectangle on the behind my bed. This early in June in Phoenix the heat outside is bearable, so I went for a long walk.

When I got home I crawled back in bed, but I didn’t read. Instead I just… thought.

It made me realize I don’t often give myself time and stillness to simply think my thoughts. 

Instead, I squeeze stimulation into every moment. By reading, listening to podcasts or music, texting, scrolling through Instagram, seeing if so-and-so returned my email yet, checking my texts again.

I hesitated to give myself thinking time this morning. It felt like I was squandering my reading time. Those precious weekend hours to read my favorite fiction!

But I’m glad I did. Because I discovered that my thoughts can be as adventurous and exciting as reading a novel.

This post is part of my 100 Blog Posts in 100 Days series. View the rest here.

The post 84: Sunday Morning appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

Let’s get clear on these terms first:

1. A thought leader is someone who shares her opinions, ideas and insights about her industry based on her experience and/or research. Think Brené Brown.
2. An influencer is someone who encourages people to buy a product or service by recommending it to her social media audience. Think of someone you follow on Instagram.

They are both ways of earning income, through brand partnerships or by attracting clients to business. They are both ways to become a sought-after expert in whatever sphere you’re recommending products or sharing your ideas.

So what’s worth your while?

Both.

In other words, become a thought influencer:

1. someone who shares her product and service recommendations based on her experience and/or research.
2. someone who encourages people to think differently by sharing her hard-won insights, ideas and opinions with her audience.

If you’re an entrepreneur or CEO with experience and a following under your belt, you’re probably well on your way to becoming a thought influencer. Do:

• You advertise products or services you personally vet on your podcast?
• You speak in public or on other people’s podcasts?
• Colleagues and clients ask you for recommendations?
• You share your ideas via an email list, blog, or video series?
• You have a Facebook group or other closed community where you facilitate a braintrust of fabulous people?

To make the impact you’re here to make; to become that sought-after expert and leader in your space, being a thought leader and influencer will help your cause.

And that is whether or not you go the generic “influencer” route and partner with brands on Instagram. Influence is your currency. Influence of thought, of referrals and recommendations, of products and services. You are a purveyor – and a leader – of opinions, insights, and ideas.

The post 78: Is it Better to be a Thought Leader or an Influencer? appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

Interestingly, new research from Duke University discovered another unfortunate effect of passion: if you’re passionate about your work, you may be more likely to be exploited.

The research found that people think it’s okay to make passionate workers do more (unpaid, extra, or grunt) work. Why? It comes from two assumptions:

1. That the work is its own reward, and
2. That the worker would’ve volunteered anyway

Yikes! Nothing can take the passion out of passion than your passion being exploited.

When it comes to entrepreneurship, many an entrepreneur has been quoted saying some version of, “if you’re not passionate about it, you’ll never make it because it’s too hard.” Nice and uplifting, huh?

Which makes me wonder: are you exploiting… yourself?

Do you push yourself to hustle without asking yourself, why am I doing this? Not in an existential way, but in a is-this-really-necessary-or-am-I-doing-it-because-everyone-else-is way.

And if you resent the hustle or the task, do you berate yourself for not feeling rewarded by the work itself? Because isn’t passion supposed to feel good?

Are you volunteering to do more than is necessary? In other words, could you stand to drop some balls or at least delegate them?

Sometimes company-running feels like hamster-wheeling, and maybe it’s unavoidable for some periods to be intense and full. It’s not a sustainable (or desirable) pace, but it’s eeeeeeeasy to get in its habit. You forget to ask yourself do I really need to do that? 

This is a gentle reminder.

The post 77: Are You Exploiting Yourself? appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

No matter how much you do, there’s an unsurmountable amount remaining.

It’s discouraging.

Because you’re doing all the right things: the two-minute rule, planning, prioritizing, time blocking. You’re adjusting your expectations of yourself. You’re making a list of what you’ve DONE, so you have proof of what you accomplished.

And yet… Friday rolls around and your to-do list is taunting you, telling you you’re a failure, you don’t work hard enough, you suck and planning, you’re disorganized. And, you’re letting your clients down and they won’t trust you anymore because you’re unreliable and terrible at your job and maybe you should just quit and work at a restaurant.

You consider working over the weekend, but you’ve promised yourself you wouldn’t. And, you know you need time off. Yet shoving those to-do items into next week doesn’t solve anything; it only guarantees a hellacious repeat of the exact same cycle.

When this happens to me, and if I have the wherewithal, I ask myself these questions: hey Eva, by any chance are you…

1. Inventing or imagining urgency?
2. Doing the best you can?
3. Forgetting Rule #6?

Are you inventing or imagining urgency?

Your integrity – keeping your word, meeting your deadlines, doing what you said you’d do – is important. So important that the word “important” doesn’t describe it.

But how urgent, REALLY, are the tasks on your plate?

Does your client actually need them RIGHT NOW? Or do you want to turn them in now because you think that’s what a responsible professional does?

I find, in myself, my colleagues and my clients, that there’s often perceived urgency where there is no actual urgency. Your client asked for a quote but didn’t’ say when she needs it by. The lack-of-deadline might be your fault for not asking (guilty), but if she didn’t say I need it by THIS FRIDAY, it can wait.

Are you doing the best you can?

If you’re the type of woman with said integrity, the answer is yes.

That’s why I like keeping a list of things I’ve done. Task managers like Asana are amazing for crossing things off, but you’re always left with a dwindling list of tasks that AREN’T crossed off.

Which makes you feel like you suck, even though you’ve already accomplished a ton. Your brain needs to SEE what you’ve done to appreciate it. Give your brain the evidence that you’re doing the best you can.

Are you forgetting Rule #6?

Rule #6 is the only rule, as explained in The Art of Possibility. It goes like this:

“Don’t take yourself so goddamn seriously.”

Ninety-nine percent of the time, nothing will fall apart if you reschedule a few tasks for next week. Your clients aren’t refreshing their email nonstop, waiting to hear from you. They probably aren’t thinking about you at all.

Remember aaaaall the times your clients or former boss or manager didn’t do what she said she would? Didn’t get back to you on time? Maybe it was a little annoying, but it was also fine, right? PROBABLY EVERYTHING IS LESS IMPORTANT AND LESS URGENT THAN YOU THINK IT IS.

Honestly, I kinda love it when I have a call scheduled with someone and they cancel or forget. Because it reminds me… people do this. “Real,” successful grown up adults double-book or get confused or forget. Just like me and you!

You’re in good company.

This post is part of my 100 Blog Posts in 100 Days series. View the rest here.

Image by Tim Gouw

The post 75: Read This if Work Sometimes Feels like Rubbing Your Forehead Against a Cheese Grater appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

“Uh, did you look?”my mom would ask.

No, I hadn’t looked. I didn’t try very hard – at all – to find the answer to my own question. Because why spend my time finding the answer when someone else could just tell me?

When I got my first job I fell into the same habit. I would ask my coworkers how to do something, instead of putting in time to figure it out myself.

After about a year on the job, I started answering the company’s customer service email. One time the company got an email asking, “what is vitamin C good for?” I vented to my coworker and he sent me this: http://www.letmegooglethat.com/ which is exactly how I felt.

It made me laugh, but of course I didn’t send it to the customer.

(Nor did I see the irony of my own frustration at the customer, and my own behavior towards my coworkers.)

Can you answer your own question?

It finally dawned on me that it creates unnecessary work for other people to ask questions when I could find my own answers. So I’ve made myself get in the habit of researching my own answers before I ask. In fact, if I think about my professionally immature self versus me today, a BIG difference is that I try to find the answers to my own questions. 

I screw up and forget or get lazy sometimes (in fact, I just thought of a question I planned to ask my colleague that I haven’t tried researching yet #hypocrite). But I know how it feels to be asked about vitamin C in a customer service email. I don’t want to make anyone else feel that way.

Because this is what it feels like: I don’t feel like spending the time to figure this out so I’ll just ask this other person to spend her time either explaining it to me or figuring out the answer so she can explain it to me, because her time is definitely less full and valuable than mine.

Ugh. Yuck!

On the other hand, consultants and coaches and experts are… experts. It makes sense that they would be able to answer your question quickly and easily in much less time than it’ll take you could wade through the jargon and terminology. The expert will have good analogies and examples to help you understand. Plus, it’s her job to answer your questions (especially if you’re paying her)!

Can you answer your own question in 2 minutes or less?

So yes, sometimes you can’t answer your own questions. But it’s worth trying to find the answer yourself. Because in the seconds it takes to Google your question and scan the results, you might:

• Learn possible solutions that you can mention to your consultant/coach/expert as a starting point
• Discover that there are many answers to your question, and you can ask for insights or feedback from the professional
• Convey to your expert that you value her time and expertise.

Even if you just use David Allen’s 2 minute rule for finding your own answers, you will be more prepared, knowledgable and self-sufficient in doing so. And then it’s great to ask for an expert opinion or feedback! But you can try to start your own homework before you ask for help, you know?

And I get it… it’s hard, because you have a zillion important things on your plate and even 2 minutes spent Googling a question when you just want someone to TELL YOU THE ANSWER seems impossible (even though, if you’re like me, you just spent two minutes mindlessly scrolling through Instagram).

But… you’re not a special snowflake. Everyone feels that way! And we all do each other a respectful and compassionate service by trying to answer our own questions before sending that question in an email.

This post is part of my 100 Blog Posts in 100 Days series. View the rest here.

The post 72: How to be a Less Obnoxious Client to Your Consultant appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

You’ve been writing and speaking and talking about [media and PR strategy, salary negotiation, whatever] for a zillion years. If you have to write one more blog post or record one more video and say the same damn thing one more time, you’ll scream.

But you’ve spent years building your empire. You’ve become known for [media and PR strategy, salary negotiation, whatever] and you’ve worked hard to become the thought leadership and sought-after expert you are. People trust you, people need you.

But your marketing activities are making you want to stay in bed forever. It’s just the same thing in a new format (Instagram, podcast, live videos) and you’ve said everything you could possibly say.

3 Reasons You’re Bored

If you feel this way, one of these is probably going on:

1. It’s a phase and it won’t last. One of my clients talks about her three-year creative cycle. Every three-ish years she gets bored, and she knows it’s time for the next juicy idea. It’s rare (impossible?) to feel constantly jazzed about everything – sometimes you get bored. It’ll either pass, or….
2. It’s time to pivot. Your marketing might bore you to tears, but what still brings you joy about your work? Maybe it’s your clients and relationships. Maybe you’ve been doing negotiation coaching and you’re tired of it, but what you love is helping your clients prepare their negotiation stories. It might be time to pivot your marketing to hone in on what you really enjoy.
3. You’re holding something back. If you’re sick and tired of your own marketing, it could be a cue that you’re playing it safe. You know what’s not boring? Publishing bold, strong opinions about what you believe and think about your industry. I’m talking about saying things that make you a little bit nervous. If you come out and SAY that stuff – and people will disagree with you – you won’t be bored.

(The fourth option is that your boredom and restlessness mean it’s time to blow up your business and do something completely different.)

None of these are wrong or bad. Even though it’s uncomfortable and no fun to be sick of what you do, it’s okay. It doesn’t mean you’re fucking up. It’s good to pay attention to how you feel, yet not every single feeling Means Something.

The best, best thing you can do is give yourself time and trust yourself.

This post is part of my 100 Blog Posts in 100 Days series. View the rest here.

Image by Meredith Hunter.

The post 68: Here’s What’s Going On if You’re Bored to Death by Your Marketing appeared first on Medusa Media Group.