In this episode of the Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about getting more visible in the workplace. Visibility can be challenging for many because of values around humility, concerns about backlash and lack of effective tools or role models. But as my guest this week, Sue Barber, shares, there are simple steps that any of us can take to expand our visibility at work. In this conversation, we re-frame visibility and share strategies and insights to help you get started.
About Sue Barber:
Susan M Barber, Author, Podcast Host, Former Fortune 500 IT Director, turned Certified Executive Coach helps business leaders to play bigger, increase their visibility and finally, shine a light on their leadership strengths so they can elevate their position in the workplace. She brings a depth of business knowledge to her coaching from her 25+ years of leadership experience at Kraft Heinz. As the author and podcast host of The Visibility Factor, she is creating a visibility movement for leaders to show their value and be seen for their true talent. Susan is married with three children and lives in the Chicago area.
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Connect with Sue:
Website: https://susanmbarber.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanbarbercoaching/
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Transcript:
Kim Meninger Welcome, Sue, I’m so excited to have this conversation. You and I have been chatting before we hit record. So can’t wait to jump in and let everyone in on our conversation. Before we do that, I would love to invite you to introduce yourself.
Sue Barber Thank you for having me. Yes, we decided maybe we should share with the audience all these things that we’ve been already talking about. So. So hi, I’m Sue Barber. I live in the Chicago area. And I am an executive coach, I am a consultant. I do a lot of different things with companies and also do one-on-one coaching with people, mostly around visibility and leadership and authenticity. I want people to understand that being visible isn’t as hard as they may think. And it was definitely my own story. I had to learn these lessons for myself. I was the person who was the impostor, sitting in the back of the room and meetings and not speaking up. And thinking that everybody else in the room was smarter than I was or that they knew more, had more experience. And now looking back on it, I can see that that wasn’t true. But at that moment, that’s what it felt like. And I luckily had a mentor who helped me realize that I wasn’t being visible enough. And it set me on this journey of figuring out how to be visible in an authentic way for me. And because of that I was able to help my team and now as a coach, help, you know, other people who are clients or in groups, help them learn how to be visible. My career, the Kraft Heinz, formerly Kraft Foods, Kraft Inc, whatever you want to call it. I was there for 26 years. And so I had a lot of experience in sales and supply chain and IT. But I haven’t learned this lesson. There’s no class that talks about visibility. And so I took every other leadership class and every other leadership opportunity. But that wasn’t one that I had. And so I had to create one for myself. And that’s what led me to write The Visibility Factor book. And now I have The Visibility Factor podcast because I want to try to help as many people as possible not struggle the way that I did with visibility.
Kim Meninger I’m so inspired by that mission because visibility is something… I often joke that it has such an ick factor for so many women in particular and so, you know, I’m really interested in hearing more about your story, because you mentioned feeling like an impostor. You also mentioned having a mentor. When you were in the moment, let’s just imagine that you, before your mentor intervened. Did you see it as a problem? Did you know you didn’t have visibility? Like what, what did it feel like at that point?
Sue Barber So I walked into a one-on-one with her, and she was someone who climbed the ladder, you know, was very direct as a person but had always been very helpful to me and given me a lot of good advice. And she was on the executive team. And I thought, you know, I can trust her to help me with things. And we chit-chatted for a moment. And the first thing out of her mouth is, “Sue, why are you being invisible?” And before that moment, in my head, and in real life at that moment, I was a top talent. I was part of the head leadership program that they had for the organization. I was one of the founding people they chose for it. I was the person who was supposed to be getting promoted. And now she’s telling me I’m not being visible. I’m not doing the right things. Why do I even bother to come to meetings? That hurt a lot when she said that. You know, and I realized, there’s nothing I can say right now in my defense. Because she’s right. I don’t want to admit that she’s right. But she is. And all I could think of is my career is ruined, what am I going to do? Do I have to leave? I mean, all of those things were just like rapid fire in my head, as I’m sitting there with her. And I describe it in the book is like being a caged animal, like you just want to leave the room, but you can’t. You have to sit there and let them talk to you and explain why they think you should change and what’s wrong. And so I just thanked her for the feedback. And then I left and I went home and I talked about this in the book too, like I got home and laid on the bed. And my husband was sitting there and I said, I may have to leave the company. I don’t know if I can recover from this. It felt that bad to me to go from the highest high to the lowest low in you know, the span of eight hours was just a lot. And so it took me some time to just process and understand how to be visible. And I met with a business mentor then and just said to her like, what does this mean? What does that mean to you? How do you take action against this? And she was very smart. I still talk to her to this day and just said, think about why you’re here. Right? If you’re not speaking up in the room, your leadership cannot make the best decisions. You were hired for a reason. You have knowledge that they need because they don’t know it all. And you also have to think about your team like you’re not giving your team visibility either and I hadn’t even considered that. Honestly, I was so thinking about me just being scared and not wanting to say something that I had unintentionally, you know, kept my team in the dark. And that was just not fair to them either. So once I had that lens to look through, it just allowed me to start to think about, how can I do something different/ And the first big move that I took was sitting at the table where everybody else had normally sat as an executive. And I would get there early, and I would get the table sit there. And they looked at me, like, what’s she doing there? And I just made sure every meeting, I was there first, so that they couldn’t kick me out of the chair. And then I made my team sit there next to me as well. So I brought them along, too. And they were scared as well. I gave them opportunity to speak, I gave them opportunities to start to lead projects to get them to have a different perception of them. People didn’t even know who they were. And I had just inherited the team. So I didn’t know them that well, myself. But I thought this is an opportunity for all of us to start to shine.
Kim Meninger I want to take a moment to really emphasize what you said about what visibility means and why it’s important. Because I think, based on the experience that I’ve had, and I always start every presentation or workshop that I do on self-promotion and visibility with a question about what does it mean to you. And I always get the same responses. Bragging. Bragging is the big response that I see or it’s obnoxious. It’s self-serving. It’s, it’s distasteful. There’s so many negative adjectives used to describe this whole idea of visibility. But you really defined it through what I consider to be a lens of service, right? For me, it’s about being available, bringing your skill set to the table so that other people can take advantage of it. Right? So how do you think about what, what’s the business case for visibility in your mind?
Sue Barber I mean, to me, there’s just a lot of value that a lot of people have and are not sharing because they feel like they’re not smart enough, they’re not good enough. Other people are more important than they are or higher level in the organization. And, to me, there’s just a waste of a lot of creativity, a lot of innovation, a lot of ideas that can be shared. And I found for myself, I was hiding behind some of those stronger voices, that I probably at the time would even have told you I don’t think that they know as much as they think. But you know, they sound better. They explain things better than I do. They seem to have a better voice. And they probably have the ear of our executive team. And I thought, well, if they have the ear, they must be the right people, right? What do I have to offer? And because my style of leadership was a bit different, too, I felt like did I really fit in? I cared about results, I cared about delivery and execution, those were very important things to me. And I made sure that we did them well and with high quality. But I also cared about people. I also wanted to make sure that the impact of people was not going to be in any way a detriment to them, right? Are we looking out for our people when we make these big, strategic decisions about the organization? And I’m sure that they thought about them too. But I seem to always think about these other impacts that no one seemed to think about. And so for me, that was kind of paramount. I always saw through the lens of our people, and how can we keep them engaged and ready to go. And so all of those things, to me, just allowed me to have, you know, a bigger opportunity to share my value, and the things that I was doing. And then I just started to make sure that I gave that to others. Because if we’re hiding all of that stuff, we’re just not showing up with the highest potential that we could. And maybe we do get the opportunity that we didn’t know we could get it or the new promotion. I want people to play bigger, and realize that they have a lot of talent and a lot of value if they just start talking about it, or letting others talk about them, you know, either way.
Kim Meninger Yes, exactly. And I think a lot a lot from the perspective of what’s the motivation? Because I think there is, again, for women in particular, a sense of shame that comes with feeling like the reason why I want to be visible is for my own personal gain, that there’s this sense of, well, I, I should be happy with where I am or it’s not appropriate to want more attention or more recognition. We may want that but we don’t think it’s socially appropriate to say that we want that. And so then a lot of the behaviors that we associate with gaining visibility, reinforce that more negative perception of it. And so I think it’s something too where we haven’t had good role models or like you said, there’s no class really that we can take on this to understand what’s the positive side of visibility and what are the behaviors that are associated with that so that I can do it in a way that feels authentic and productive and service-oriented and not entirely about stroking my own ego and making myself look good?
Sue Barber Yeah, I mean, for me it was, I spent some time observing others because I was trying to find a book at the time. I really couldn’t find a book that… I found a couple things, but they just weren’t meeting the need of helping me understand how to do it in a way that would work for me. They talked about, you know, the other things that you just mentioned. And so I started observing other people in meetings. And I realized that all they’re doing is offering to help. Like, there’s a problem. I’m offering to help. My team and I can take that on and help. And how many times have people done that, and I missed the opportunity to offer to help, right? What am I doing? So that was a big aha moment for me to realize that and then just that visibility can happen in any place at any time. So I describe it in like the classes I teach and stuff that it’s just taking little baby steps every day, but being intentional and consistent. So having ideas ready to go that you can talk about, sharing opportunities with people about what you’re doing, just literally share the facts about what you’re doing. It’s not bragging. Hey, I’m working on this project. My team and I are so excited, it’s going to make it on time, we’ve got the best resources, whatever it is. You’re just sharing information. And when you, when you take out all the stigma around it, that it’s negative, or that you’re bragging, it starts to bring it down to just, I’m just having a conversation with another person. It’s another human, it’s not even looking at what level they are, I’m just having a conversation with them. And it makes it so much easier because you’re taking all the pressure off yourself to say things in the right way, to do things in the right way. And it just allows you to be yourself. And that’s the thing I think we hide from for a really long time, at least I did, I wore a mask for a really long time, and was trying to be what I thought everyone else wanted me to be. And that wasn’t coming from them that was coming from what I perceived was the right thing to be or the right thing to do. And when I go back and think about it now, that was just all my own doing, my own stories that I made up in my head, that I had to do stuff in a different way that I really didn’t have to. But that’s what caused me to get in that situation. And then I had to figure out how to get out of it. So
Kim Meninger Obviously, the book is a great resource for anybody who’s listening. But you had to write the book, right? So how did you know how to get… You got that feedback? It really challenged you and made you question whether you needed to leave. How did you move forward from there? What was the first step you took?
Sue Barber Well, I met with a business mentor first. And then I started observing people. And then I just started trying things. I got myself a coach, actually, as well. And at that point, I was kind of questioning whether or not I could stay with the company, whether or not I had to move into a different area like could I recover from this perception that I had. And so we just started working together and taking some actions. And some of those actions that we took are the things that I tried first. And then I just kept paying attention — what works, what doesn’t work. And I just started making a list. So there’s, I just taught the class last night. And there’s 100 million ideas that I have in the book that anyone could take advantage of. And it’s 30 pages long if you print it out in Word, and I just didn’t want to cut it. I didn’t want to take anything out that might be helpful for someone. So I tried to organize it according to people’s strengths, according to their own level of what they think their visibility is to give them different ways to think about it. And they can adapt them in any way that works for them. But a lot of them are my own things that I tried, or now that I’ve coached people, when I’ve talked to them about trying or they’ve tried on their own and shared what didn’t work or what did work. And then just keep that running list. So I could probably add 10 more pages to it now since I’ve even written the book if I wanted to, but it’s just about taking the opportunity to experiment. So don’t be, you know, don’t be scared to experiment. Try something. Don’t give up on it too soon. Give yourself time to try it. But even if it’s just asking a question in a meeting where you’ve never talked. Even if it’s just having a one-on-one with someone that you’ve never met with before, and just sharing your story and asking them about theirs. It’s about kind of the reciprocity of value between two people in those situations, you know, how can you help them? How can they maybe help you? And the more I just recognized that there’s easy ways to do this, and I wanted to share that. So people didn’t think it was this big mountain to climb. It’s a very, very small step. You just have to take every day, do something different than you’ve done. Because if you don’t do it consistently, people will think it’s a one-off. Like oh, she did something different today, but you know, I haven’t seen anything else from her. Okay, well then you’re not being consistent and they need to see it consistently and then they’ll start to change a perception that they won’t even realize it’s happening for them. They’ll start to treat you differently, they’ll start to include you in things, they’ll start to ask for your opinion, or recommendation. And then pretty soon, like, you’re just the person that you wanted to be. And it doesn’t take, you know, forever to do this. But I don’t want to, you know, mislead people and think, okay, you can just do one thing, and you’re done. This is, it’s a process that you have to spend and take some time to work on.
Kim Meninger I love that you offer a variety of strategies, too, because I do think that it’s really important to find ways of doing this that feel in alignment with your core values and who you are. Because it’s one thing… I often say that it’s one thing to be uncomfortable because you’re stepping outside of that comfort zone. It’s another thing to feel like you have to be someone that you’re not in order to engage in some of these behaviors. And the fact that you share a number of them suggests that there is enough variety that everyone can find something within that assortment that is right for them.
Sue Barber I sure hope so. If they can’t find something, I wish they would please write me, let me know, because I want I’ll come up with something else then. Because I mean, there’s 12 different categories of ideas, there’s different levels, I mean, it just should, you should be able to find something that works. Or even, you may have an idea for yourself that you’ve just wanted to try or what you’ve seen someone else do that you can adapt in a way that works for you. Any of those ideas work, it doesn’t have to come from my book, but it’s what works for you and what feels like you said slightly uncomfortable, but not so uncomfortable that it feels false.
Kim Meninger Yes. And I think the value that you and I really share around this conversation is the how can I help piece. Because I think that for a couple of reasons. Number one is, when it feels like we’re doing something in service of others, we are so much less focused on our, our own inner critic. We’re more confident if we think I’m bringing my gifts and talents to something bigger than myself, we’re just showing up more powerfully. But also, we worry less about the potential backlash. Like you said earlier, right. If I’m sharing information, if I were to go to a colleague and say, hey, I want to let you know about this project that I’m working on, and would love to see if I can bring you into it, right, like let’s collaborate or maybe we can help you in some way. No one’s gonna say, wow, look at her brag. It’s not coming from that place. And so there’s so much more freedom than we think there is to be able to simply make people aware of, hey, this is what I’m working on. This is how I can contribute to whatever it is that you’re trying to do. And in the act of doing that, like you said, people start to become aware of oh, she could be useful over here, we could really use someone with her skill set over there. And it organically develops.
Sue Barber Right. Plus, you also get to show a different side of your leadership. You know, I think if you are in a role, and you’re doing something for a long period of time, they’ve already seen what you can do, right? The things that you’re capable of doing. But if you step out of that, and you do something else, like even I led our women’s ERG group, our Employee Resource Group at Kraft, and that gave me an opportunity to be in front of not only my own department, but the entire organization. And so that showed a different side of me or I would volunteer for something else that we were doing within our organization around charities, something like that. So you have opportunities, there are always, I promise you problems, gaps, issues that no one else wants to tackle that if you step up to the plate and take some ownership of those and drive change, it gets you noticed. And there are a lot of people who want nothing to do with those things, like that’s somebody else’s problem, let them deal with it. I don’t have time. But if you’re the one who says you know what, I don’t have time either. But I think it’s worth figuring out how to fix that problem so that it makes us more productive or solves a problem for someone else, you’re going to get recognized for it, but I want you to talk about it. Don’t just do it. Don’t just do it and not say anything. Let people know that you’ve done it. Make sure that people are aware of it. And I think some people see that as well, I don’t want to take the credit. It’s not about the credit. It’s just you recognized the problem, you solve the problem and you fixed it and you want to make sure someone knows about it. Think about it that way. Because the more you’re doing that, the more you’re getting recognized for being that problem who maybe or being that person who maybe goes in and solves a turnaround situation where it’s not doing well, or the person who comes into a project that’s failing and is able to turn it around and make it successful. You have opportunities every single day if you just pay attention and see where you can step in and take that opportunity to do something.
Kim Meninger Well, and you said something important there, too when you said pay attention. Because I do think that’s a really important part of this. And you had mentioned people listening for what’s the problem, and then saying, I can help with that. And if we’re not present, if we’re distracted, or we’re listening to our inner critic instead of engaging in the conversation, or you know, we’re multitasking, something else is going on, we’re gonna miss the subtleties We’re not going to be tuning in in the same way that we can actually hear those opportunities come up. So I think that’s a really important piece, too, is to be intentional about how we show up in the conversations that we’re part of.
Sue Barber Absolutely. Makes such a difference.
Kim Meninger I want to ask you a question too, just because I’m curious what your perspective might be on this. But I get this question a lot, too What if my manager is insecure about my own visibility? Right? How do I handle working for a manager who feels threatened by my visibility? Yeah,
Sue Barber I mean, it happens a lot. It’s sad, right? Because if I was that manager, and not insecure, I would see this is amazing, I have this great person on my team who’s driving change and doing whatever. There’s a, unfortunately, a lot of insecure managers, which creates almost like a toxic workplace to work in. It makes it really difficult for people to work under them and feel like they can be successful. What I tell people, though, is, I want you to build your own network, your own visibility outside of that person. Because let’s just imagine for a second that they say something negative about you because they’re insecure, or they start talking about the things you’re doing and not in a positive way. If you’ve got your own visibility outside of that person, there’s a lot more people giving you praise, and giving you recognition for the things that you’ve done. And their opinion doesn’t hold as much water. Right. And I think people recognize when there’s insecure managers anyway, so they probably know that that person’s not exactly the best leader. And you can just try not to get in the middle of that drama. You just step out, focus on your own things, make sure that you’re talking to people because at the end of the day, you’re probably going to be the one standing. And they’re going to be the one leaving. We used to talk about can you outlast your manager, for those people who were not great, and most of the time, you would, because eventually, they do show, they make a mistake, they have an issue of their own, or they choose to leave. And I just don’t want anyone who’s under them to be feeling that pressure of I have to do everything the way that they want me to because they may not know all the right answers. And you may have a better option. But if you build your own thing, you don’t have to worry about them as much.
Kim Meninger I could not agree with you more. I think that’s such an important point. Because there is an intimidation factor. Your manager is your most important relationship within your organization, if you feel like you’re doing something that threatens that relationship, that can be an uncomfortable position to be in. But the two things that you said are, my interpretation, right, you neutralize the manager by building your own network because if your manager is threatened by you, you can already count on the fact that they’re not going to advocate for you. They’re not going to be your champion, right. And so you don’t want your brand filtered through them. And if they’re the only people who can speak to what you have to say, or what you have to offer, then you’re going to be limited in terms of how other people perceive you. The other thing too about this is that if you truly are coming from a place of service, and how can I help, it is less threatening, it’s not you going out there and saying, hey, look at how great I am everybody, right? It’s like, here, I’m, I’m legitimately investing in conversations that are supporting the business. And that’s less, I think it’s more difficult for a manager to say, no, you can’t do that. Right?
Sue Barber Right. And if you get other people, you know, support for that, like maybe business leaders support saying, no, we want her on this project. Well, they’re not going to argue with the business, right? Or you get your senior leadership team above them to be people that know you like and trust you and you spend time with them. They’re also going to override that person too. So you never want to be tied to just one person. I did make that mistake at one point. I thought that my leader was talking about me and sharing the best things and found out know that they were actually going to leave the company. And I didn’t know that obviously, they weren’t saying that. So it was a, it was a big surprise. But when I realized that none of the stuff that we had been talking about and sharing was being shared above, that was a big lesson. Okay? Don’t rely on a manager to speak for you, to amplify, amplify the things that you’re doing. Do that for yourself, because you need to be the one answering the questions anyway. You need to be the one who’s showing up in the room. And so that was a huge lesson for me. And that’s what I try to help people think about now is how can you do this for yourself?
Kim Meninger Absolutely, absolutely. And another interesting comment or question that I sometimes get when I have this conversation is, well, what if I share freely with others and then other people steal credit from me?
Sue Barber Yeah, I mean, it’s interesting in this role of, you know, being a coach and having my own business, that was one of the first things I think I thought about too, is I’m creating all this stuff, I’m putting all this material out there, even, you know, my book, for example, right? I’m putting all this good stuff out there, someone’s just gonna steal it. But what someone was really kind enough to tell me and teach me was that it’s not the same without you. Right? Now you’re reading the book, and you’re gonna hear me if you talk about the podcast, you’re going to hear me, you know, on Kim’s podcast, but without me, that content is different. Right? That content is different. So when I teach classes, or if I’m doing speaking, there’s still the me-factor that’s kind of showing up in there. And so, you know, if they want to take it and use it in some way, it’s never going to be as good as if you had done it anyway. So I try to think about that. And just, you know, try to bless and release, right? If they’re going to take it and steal it, then something’s going to come back at some point on them, you know, and I just try to think, you know, that’s probably it’s not, it’s been great, right? There’s a lot of people who do that and pass it off as their own. But, you know, in my opinion, it’s like, you know what, it’s not going to be the same without me anyway. So if you can do better, great, go see what you can do.
Kim Meninger I agree with you. And I also think that if you are consistently out there sharing and talking with people, it’s a lot harder for people to steal credit. Because if you are in your workplace working on a particular project, and you are sharing updates and going to meetings and talking and then someone else tries to claim credit for it, people are going to be confused and think but I’ve been hearing Sue talk about that. How can you say that it’s your idea right?
Sue Barber Yeah, you want other people to say stuff on your behalf and intervene. But one thing you just made me think of which may be helpful to your audience is, you know, there’s always the person in the room who you have just said something. And then they come in right after you and say something almost identical to the way you just said it but it sounds slightly different. And what I want people to understand is that you then need to jump in right after that. Say I’m so glad you reiterated the point I just made. I’m so glad that you agree with me, with what I just said because I don’t want people to just… What used to happen to me is that I would just not say anything, and I would let them get the point across and they would get all the praise and thinking, Oh, my God, I just said that same thing. But if you jump in, you’re letting that person know, first of all, hey, you just said what I just said. And then second of all, the rest of the room now knows that all they did was reiterate what you just said. And what you said was first. So that is also not about stealing credit. But it’s also about claiming your own position of authority and what you said.
Kim Meninger Absolutely, I think that’s really important. And I will say that it’s, it’s important to do that for yourself. But it’s also an opportunity to do that for others. And if we collectively commit to supporting each other in that way and, whether this is an explicit or an implicit contract that you have with your, your trusted colleagues, but to, to really call people out on that so that everybody does get the recognition and the visibility that they deserve. Yeah, that was Sue’s idea, right? Something like that, that sometimes it can be easier to do it for others than it is to do for ourselves. And then we also get credit. There’s visibility that comes with being an inclusive leader, too. It doesn’t have to always be rooted in the subject matter expertise, but just the way that we engage others. And you had mentioned before too, of bringing the human side to the business, having that appreciation. And I think that’s an opportunity for us to think about our own visibility too is what differentiates us from other people. We don’t have to be the smartest person in the room in order to make an impact.
Sue Barber No, and I think especially so I’m going to use my own experience of being more of an introvert. I think for people who are introverted, or for people who are feeling like they’ve been marginalized in any way throughout their career, they are the ones that are probably shrinking back a little bit and not speaking up in a room of people. And so having someone else in the room, you know, who is willing to say, hey, Sue had a point on this. I think we should let her share it and right throwing the microphone, if you will, over to that person who may not get the opportunity to jump in because they’re struggling with this, the more you can do that and help them amplify their voices, it gives them the visibility that they need. And then they’re going to start doing the same for you too. So it’s, I tell people to think about, it’s great if you’re talking about yourself, I love that. But I also want other people to be talking about you because that’s 10,10 times better, right? If someone else says Kim has got an amazing podcast, I so love it, and you guys have got to check it out. Well, the people who know, like, and trust me are trusting my opinion that Kim’s podcast is amazing. And they’re gonna go listen to it, right? So it’s that type of thing. If we can amplify other people who have amazing things to share but maybe just aren’t ready to step out there in the light in the spotlight yet and help them do that, then it’s a win-win.
Kim Meninger Absolutely. I completely agree with you. I want to make one more point because I know you and I could be here all day. But I want to make one more point that just came to mind for me. And I want your thoughts on this is that there’s good visibility and I don’t want to say bad visibility, but I’ll explain what I mean. Sometimes we get known for things we don’t want to be known for anymore. So maybe we’ve been associated with a certain task, or certain kind of work that we feel like we’re outgrowing, we want to rebrand ourselves in some way. And so we’re finding it hard to break the habit that people have. And so a lot of times when I have conversations about this of, you know, be more out there sharing. I try to stress the point that you also need to be strategic about what you’re sharing. Because if you’re just sharing everything that you’re doing, you may be reinforcing people’s perceptions of you that you don’t want to perpetuate. So I’m curious if you have thoughts on how to think about what to share, or how to be more strategic in how we build our own brand.
Sue Barber I mean, I think that’s really, the strategic word struck me for sure is being strategic about what you’re sharing, thinking about the things that you need to share with others and preparing for that. So that’s what I was talking about, like, in the world we’re in today, you’re more remote, potentially. But if you’re walking down the hall, have some things ready to go that you want to share and focus on those things. Could you share a million things that you’re doing? Probably right, but it’s probably not the best use of your time, and it gets the message gets muddled in the middle there. So you want to just highlight the things that are most important that you want people to think about you. And they may still call on you for the old things that you’re doing. But maybe those are things that now you could delegate to someone else and give them the opportunity to do instead. And you’re not known for that anymore, you’re highlighting someone else who’s going to be known for that. So it’s trying to find ways to elevate yourself and the things that you’re doing and the value that you provide so that people continue to see the things that you want them to see.
Kim Meninger So you’re basically curating your, yeah, your brand, which is really powerful, especially for people who’ve been in the same company for a long time and feel like it’s been hard to break out of a certain mold. Or if you haven’t engaged in any of these behaviors before, this is a perfect opportunity to think about what do you want to be known for? Right? What, what do you want people to associate with you? And then to be really thoughtful about how you make that connection.
Sue Barber Yeah, it’s really easy when you’re going to a new company, right? Because you’re starting from scratch. No one knows you, you’ve got a clean slate. But even for those people, what I talk to them about is where, where do you think you wanted to do something different? If you could change the world that you’re in right now and have people see you differently? What do you want that to look like? And then whatever that is, let’s take that to the new company that and show up that way from day one. So start talking about the things, if you want to be bold, if you want to be visible, if you want to be an influencer, start showing up that way from day one. So they see that. And it’s, you’re right, it’s not as easy to change within a company. But I think it’s still very possible. It’s just being strategic about what you’re sharing, being intentional, and making sure that you’re talking to the right people that can talk about you.
Kim Meninger Exactly, exactly. Yeah. Well, this has been such an amazing conversation, Sue, and I want to make sure everybody knows more about where to find you, where to find the book. And we’ll make sure that that’s all linked in the show notes as well. But where can we find you?
Sue Barber So you can go to my website, which is SusanMBarber.com. Someone already had Susan Barber, so I had to put my middle initial in there. So SusanMBarber.com. There’s a page about the podcast, there’s a page about the book. You can link in with me on LinkedIn. So it’s also Susan M Barber there. So I’d love to link in, connect with people. I just, I found that there are so many people struggling with this and I want to just help as many people as possible move past this challenge and realize that it’s far simpler than you think and it’s just these little steps every day and taking those opportunities for visibility with whoever you’re talking to.
Kim Meninger Well, thank you so much. This is very inspiring. I really, really enjoyed the conversation and I hope everybody will check it out.
Sue Barber Thanks so much, Kim.
Kim Meninger Thank you.