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Kathi Burns  0:04  
Hi there, I'm board certified professional organizer Kathi Burns. I'm really glad you're here. This podcast is designed for busy entrepreneurs just like you who want to take better control of your business and move forward with less stress and more success. If this is your first time listening, then thanks for coming. The Organized Energized podcast is produced for your enjoyment and show notes are found at ThePodcast@OrganizedandEnergized.com. Come back often and feel free to add this podcast to your favorite RSS feed or iTunes. You can also follow me on Twitter at organized energy and Facebook. All links are in the show notes. Now let's get into the show. Hi everyone, I am with Mary Fain Brandt today, Mary teaches entrepreneurs of business leaders and other sales teams how to fufill and fill their pipeline using Linkedin strategies. She is a trainer and she advises financial advisors, coaches and business owners to increase your visibility. And importantly learn how to connect, cultivate and convert because guess what, if you're not converting, it don't matter. So thank you, Mary. I really appreciate you being on the show today.

Mary Fain Brandt  1:17  
Thanks for having me. And I'm sorry, it had we were talking before going live here that it took us a few years to actually make this happen to actually reconnect because now I'm in a different state. But it's all good we're here now.

Kathi Burns  1:31  
Yeah, you even move seats on me while I was trying to connect. So yay. And Arizona is a good place to be I've heard I've heard a lot about it. I'm hearing you've had a life before you were the LinkedIn queen. So tell me what you did prior to that?

Mary Fain Brandt  1:47  
Um, so my professional trade, I was an executive assistant at a law school and at a private school in San Diego. So, you know, my last boss, he called me, the gatekeeper. You know, I was the color coded queen, everything was color coded. I'm super organized, and nobody got to see him without going through me because he was a very busy man. After that, I became an executive assistant and marketing person for someone through that school and at a community bank. So that is what I do without missing a beat is being an executive assistant.

Kathi Burns  2:22  
Okay, and that makes sense that now you're moving into your new rule. And what what challenge do you help your clients solve right now?

Mary Fain Brandt  2:32  
Oh, so when I work with clients, I take them from unknown to unforgettable from boring to branded, I help them become a badass on LinkedIn so they can get known get found and get clients.

Kathi Burns  2:48  
Love it. Love it. So after it how long have you been doing this by the way?

Mary Fain Brandt  2:53  
We I started this business in 2014. Didn't know what I was doing. Let me just put that out there.

Kathi Burns  2:59  
Yeah, I'm sure there has been times where you're like burnout and stressed out and you need some new energy around your business. What do you what do you do to recharge yourself as an entrepreneur?

Mary Fain Brandt  3:12  
I like to dance to YouTube videos in the living room with my husband with a little glass of rum. Like literally, like dancing in the living room is my stress reliever that or being on a boat on a lake. Take me to a lake where my cell phone services isn't or I don't want to have my phone out, right. So it actually forces me to unplug. So I think unplugging getting outside or dancing.

Kathi Burns  3:38  
Yeah, put me on a boat to I'm a happy girl even just put me on any kind of water where I can float. Yeah. I'm happy about that, too. And yeah, they apparently charge and you know, you don't have you don't really want to be connected with any kind of electronical device anyhow, at that point. So there you have it. Yeah, that's that's good. That's good. So do you have a favorite hack or anything besides the dancing in the boating to keep people more organized within their business? How do you do it yourself? Because you get a lot done?  

Mary Fain Brandt  4:12  
Thank you I think I do. Sometimes I don't feel like I get enough done. And then I talked to my friends and they're like, oh my gosh, you're like knocking it out of the park, getting things done. So I think a couple things is, you know, when I started off, make sure you have a business email and a business calendar. Get a booking link, if you're in the service. You know, if you're in the service industry where people are booking appointments with you get a booking link right away. Don't be trying to do all that yourself. Send them a link, say booked some time. Use Google Calendar, use Google Drive, those are my favorite tools to write time blocking so my new thing from the last 18 months and I haven't mastered it. So you know, let's all be real here. We're all a work in progress, but time blocking is important. And also the other thing when you're just starting off, set up the schedule that you want, it's your business, you set the boundaries. So it took it took me quite some time to get to that point. But what I did last year is I decided client calls were on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Videos like I was online doing a show on Wednesdays so that's like hair and makeup day, right? And then Mondays and Fridays, no appointments, like you can't even book an appointment on my calendar. I try to keep that open. So when we're traveling, and Monday is like, get me started for the week. You know, what's my social looking like? What appointments do I have? What presentations do I need to work on? And Friday is the wind down. All you know, I try my goal is to only work four days a week.

Kathi Burns  5:56  
Yeah, hey, spoken by a preferred by an organizer girl, you're very organized because I teach the same things. I'm very curious, what type of time blocking do you do what how many hours in a little chunk of time do you allocate for things?

Mary Fain Brandt  6:09  
Um, so like on Mondays, I like to block two hours to go over the social, like my emails, my social posts, what's going on? What do I have to promote. And then for presentations, it's like two hours to know, I can't work longer that you also okay, you also have to understand when you work best and how you work best. So I did like human design. I don't know if you've ever heard of the human just, I have a degree in organizational leadership. So let's let me just tell you, I have taken every personality test out there twice, not once, because my master's is an O L as well. So I took it in my undergrad. And then I go to the masters. And I ended up taking all those tests again. But the human design kind of tells you like, how you work with clients and when you work best. And so I worked best in like two hour chunks.

Kathi Burns  7:01  
Okay, that's really good. What test if you have someone that was going to strike out into a new career, which is happening right now. What tests would you recommend that they would take? What the human design you think? Or is it?

Mary Fain Brandt  7:15  
Well, I like the human design, I think it's important to know I mean, there's Myers Briggs cruisers, Posner leadership, you know, I think it depends on the person and where they're at what stage are they at? What industry? Are they going, you know, are they in an industry that they like, but they just want to move on and get a higher role, like a new title at a different organization. So I think, I don't think you always have to take those tests, I have career exit exercises that I've created myself. After working with clients. I was like, well this is always coming up and this is an obstacle. So I've created some of my own exercises when I work with clients to do like, one of them's a red flag list. Hmm, that's super simple exercise, but it has saved clients from saying yes to a job when we've created this red flag list, and they're like, Oh, nope, wait that I hear Mary's voice that is on my No, no list. So even though the job looks good on paper, like money, you know, team the responsibilities when you have a red flag lists created, right, then you know, what you don't want as much as what you do want.

Kathi Burns  8:24  
Which is a very big sign of being professional is being able to say no, when you should be saying no, I love the idea of the red flag list. I like to use it when I first started and became a professional organizer, I actually really fell upon what color is your parachute? And then oh, yeah, figure out what I wanted to do when I grow up. Right? Yeah. You know, so being I love change. So hey, how do I help people change? So yeah, there's so many different things out there. If you are looking for guests who are listening, if you're looking to switch, just check out whatever you feel resonates with you as far as figuring out who you are, and take a few of these tests because you know, I did the whole thing too. And as you did multiple times, I think that's so very important.

Mary Fain Brandt  9:07  
Do some inventory, take some inventory on yourself. If you're my biggest advice, right now what we're going through, you know, with the the job in the industry, right? The landscape of the job market has forever changed. It is a job seekers market right now, if you are thinking about even if you're like slightly thinking like I might want to do something else, now's the time to think about it and really prepare for that plan for it and package yourself up. Because like I it's it's ridiculous the number of jobs out there. And it's also ridiculous the number of people that are thinking about it, but not taking action.

Kathi Burns  9:46  
Plan, prepare package by Mary. Mm, the same training.  Okay. So if you had an organizing obstacle in your life, what would it be? What's the biggest thing that you've had to overcome as far as being organized yourself?

Mary Fain Brandt  10:01  
My digital world. Yeah, a lot digital files, duplicate files where the hell are my files. So like from the get go, I wish I would have organized my business files better. So if you're just starting off, invest in the time get someone to help you if you're like, I don't know what to name things, there are digital organizers out there my friend April Merit does that. And she actually helped me probably three years ago, four or four years ago and you and just to, you know, set up, what is it, what makes sense to you. And the other thing is, you have to realize that just because someone does it this way, doesn't mean it'll work for you, you have to figure out what works for yourself. And so that I think, like getting organized digitally from the get go is so important from your, you know, your files, your photos, your accounting, like get that set up from the get go, you know, get an accounting program, whatever it is that you want to use, I use zero now I've used several, I can tell you all the programs, I've used what I'm on now, I'm like on my third every iteration of all programs.

Kathi Burns  11:17  
Well in in your contact database to like as you're, you're first starting out, and you have all these contacts, make sure that you're classifying them and putting them into buckets, so that you can find them later. Because as we started as you that all these people, right? And then oh, who was that? I'm not sure. But you know, I agree about the digital files, they have to kind of be if you start out even small with even some small semblance of an idea of how you want to organize them, it's gonna help you as you create more and more and more and more.

Mary Fain Brandt  11:48  
It's a lot harder to go back and try to put all this together once you're established, like, you've got the history and all those files and all those contacts. And in all transparency, I didn't have a CRM, I just bought a CRM system last year. Like it's crazy. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I need to start using this. I bought one. And then there's another LinkedIn program that I'm testing out for LinkedIn, CRM.

Kathi Burns  12:18  
Yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. That'd be perfect for you. What CRM Did you jump into when you when you started?

Mary Fain Brandt  12:25  
What did I buy? So I'm an app sumo junkie. So I buy a lot of programs on App Sumo. Because I love a lifetime deal, right? I was Sam. St. Does Sam. Okay. Now it's real basic. Is Sam doc, Sam, Doc. Excuse me, dot app.

Kathi Burns  12:47  
Okay, good, good. Good. We can put that down below too, for people who want might want to know. And yeah, it's good. So if you had, if you had an entrepreneur sitting in front of you, and you had to give them a piece of advice, that they're feeling like they have zero sense of freedom anymore, their their business is taken over their life, what advice would you give them to get that life balance again, that they started their business to start out with, right to get that freedom?

Mary Fain Brandt  13:15  
So I, I would say, do a Planning Day, block off a whole day, grab a business bestie, a coach, whatever, you know, always have to hire a coach to go through some of this stuff. I did this in December with my girl Tisha, we're business besties. Here, we're doing monthly check ins. But we had half a day at a library with poster boards that I could show you. And just went through what we are. We talked about what we have on our plate, what we liked, what we didn't like, and what we were going to let go of, and so I let go of my show bite size tips for busy entrepreneurs. Were not after four years, I was like, You know what, I think I need a break from it and it opened up space for something else. So go through, you got to take an inventory. Where are you busy? Is it your fault that you're busy? Are you scrolling on Tik Tok? or Facebook or Instagram during your work hours? Like I try to, I might go on for like a minute as a break. But I try to only do that at night and I don't do it that often. So take inventory of where you're spending your time. And then if you're truly that busy with business, like work, maybe you need a VA, a VA is pivotal. It's life changing, you guys and everyone says I can't afford one. You're right. I get that that was me. So start with like two hours a week. Test them out. Then you'll go to four then five then 10. And then you'll realize you can't live without them.

Kathi Burns  14:47  
Yeah, you'll never give them up.

Mary Fain Brandt  14:50  
So a VA when you're that if you're making money and you're super crazy busy, and this is not the roller coaster that you wanted to be on then you probably need a VA and you You need SOPs, your standard operating procedures, you need all that typed up, but a VA was critical for me.

Kathi Burns  15:07  
Yeah, and you know, your real after my heart as far as planning goes, right, so plan and then let go of what that busyness is that you don't need to be doing anyhow. And that is with a VA or something.

Mary Fain Brandt  15:19  
You know, I had two shows, and I was like, I don't need two shows. It's a lot of work. And it opened up space for me to do a free monthly training instead. So saying goodbye, letting go is allowing space for something else to come in.

Kathi Burns  15:36  
Man space to your life. Hmm. Okay, had to just put that one in, sorry. Okay, so Mary, you have a valuable free resource, I know that you're going to offer our listeners or viewers as they maybe whichever their chooses to do, what would you like to offer?

Mary Fain Brandt  15:55  
I would really like to offer you guys my PDF called the three C method. And that's how to connect, cultivate and convert. And I go over what each of those mean. And when you read this document, you're going to understand that convert has a different definition than what you probably think it is. And I'm going to leave it at that because I really do want you guys to read it. It does help you with business, on how to connect, cultivate and convert on LinkedIn. Of course, I'm a LinkedIn trainer and strategist. But if you take this philosophy, this method that I created, because of all the noise of 2020, I saw a lot of bad stuff on LinkedIn, I was like, I can't handle this, I've got to do something. And that's when and why I created the three C method. But it'll help you learn how to grow a strong and strategic network. It'll teach you who you should connect with and how to cultivate those relationships. And how to convert to opportunities.

Kathi Burns  16:53  
Perfect, perfect. Okay, so to wrap this up and circle back around, is there something that I should have asked you that was super important a message that you want to get out there to the world?

Mary Fain Brandt  17:07  
Yeah, the little changes create big results. So I would have loved to been asked, What book did you read that made a big difference? And this is, as you can tell, it's a very thin book is packed full of value. And it helps us to remember that as an entrepreneur, newer when we don't get those big clients a we can't see the end of the tunnel, as my mom used to say, I can't see the end of the tunnel, there's a light coming, and it's the train gonna hit me right, run me over. It's these little steps that you take every day, they're gonna get you the big results.

Kathi Burns  17:48  
Thank you. And I'll put a link to that as well down below in the show notes. So if anybody can wants to pick that up so there's all sorts of resources here at the organizing energize podcast and you have been just a gem to offer your words of wisdom and bite sized pieces that we can partake upon. And I really appreciate your time, Mary, for anybody who's interested in learning more about LinkedIn and getting it zeroed in so you're effective go to this girl. She knows what she's talking about. And yeah, I appreciate your time. Mary, thank you so much. I'm glad we finally connected after a year.

Mary Fain Brandt  18:25  
Finally. bye everyone. Don't give up.

Kathi Burns  18:28  
See you later.

Hey, thanks for listening to this podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode and if you want to hear more, feel free to subscribe on the platform of your choice. Also, if you feel so inclined, I would truly appreciate a good rating from you, to me. Have a stellar day.