Bernie Borges [00:00:01]:
Hello, my midlife friend. This is Bernie Borges, your host of the Midlife Fulfill podcast. And this is episode 145. And I’m releasing this episode on January 1, 2024. Happy New Year, my friend. Happy, happy New Year. Whenever you’re listening to this, I just hope that the New Year is off to a great start. If it’s on the 1st day of the New Year, Then I hope that you had a great time last night and that, you’re ready for an awesome New Year.
Bernie Borges [00:00:31]:
I’m excited about 2024, and this is part 2 of a 2 part series. Part 1, which released a week ago, last Monday, which was December 25th, Christmas day 2023. That was part 1 of a 2 part series where I am covering the 5 steps to Midlife career reboot, which is from my workbook, but what I did was I created a 1 page checklist. Got a lot of help from my Digital marketing strategist, Keri Baker. Shout out to Keri. And we created this 1 page checklist because that’s the feedback that we got. The workbook is where you really dive in. You do the work.
Bernie Borges [00:01:09]:
The 1 page checklist is what really allows you to just kinda keep it front and center, review it on a daily basis if that’s something you wanna do. And so on the 1st part of this 2 part series, I covered the first 2 steps. And let’s do a recap of that and then I’ll dive in and I’ll cover steps 3, four and five. So the first 2 steps of the 5 step reboot, career reboot reboot checklist, which as a reminder, I use this method myself to reboot my career twice in the past 7 years. That’s why I wrote this workbook because I used this This method and the other reminder I wanna give you is that this method, these practices can be used in 2 other use cases. We talk I talked about that in the previous episode. It can be used to build your personal brand, and it can also be used in business development. So this is not These are not practices that are limited to only a career reboot.
Bernie Borges [00:02:05]:
Okay. That said, the first 2 steps that I covered on the previous episode were step number 1, Think of yourself as a product. You are the product. Know your product really, really well. Your strengths, weaknesses, who do you serve? And then get that right on LinkedIn because generally speaking, that’s where the the personal branding and our marketing is done to those that we wanna reach in a career reboot mostly on LinkedIn. I’m generalizing, but I’m comfortable making that generalization. Step number 1, get the product right. Step number 2, Know your target market.
Bernie Borges [00:02:37]:
Who are you trying to reach? Who are they? What role are they? What titles are they? What industries are they in? What kind of companies do they work for? What are their pain points? And then, of course, how do you solve those pain points? Those are the first 2 steps on the checklist. And by the way, let me remind you, the checklist is available on the website midlifeofill.com as well as on the show notes for this episode. So you can just scroll down to the show notes for this episode and click and get the checklist if you don’t Already have it, but I encourage you to have it as we go through this 2 part series. Step number 3, which is my focus on this this episode right here It’s to reach out and engage with your target market relationally, and I really wanna emphasize relationally. So let’s look at the word relationally. What what do I mean by relationally? Well, relation means to actually build a relationship with someone. Do do something or do things, do activities that are building relation or relationship with someone. So when I say reach out to your audience, your target audience, and engage with them relationally, what I’m suggesting is to essentially Avoid the most common mistake that people make after the first 2 steps.
Bernie Borges [00:03:52]:
If they get the product right and they know the target audience, Oftentimes, they skip right to the 4th step, which is asking for something. The 4th step is to ask for something. But what I’m suggesting, and again, this is the method that I use to reboot my own career twice in the past 7 years. What I’m suggesting is before you ask for something, Engage relationally. So how do you do that online? Well, you find these people By doing searches, again, I’m gonna stick with LinkedIn, but you can go outside of LinkedIn and apply these same principles. You find them by doing searches, Just using titles, roles, industries, other keywords that allows you to find these people. You can even do hashtag searches. Literally, like type Hash the hashtag symbol.
Bernie Borges [00:04:41]:
Put a word after it that’s relevant. It could be the industry that you’re looking for. It could be a particular topic or process like artificial intelligence or accounting or, you know, Civic engineering, civil engineering, or whatever the case may be. Find the people that you want to eventually Ask to do something like meet with you. These are people that have potential to be influential in a midlife career reboot. Whether they’re prospects where you might be looking for a job or people that might actually help you get to someone that can help you find your next job, Whatever the case may be and by the way, I encourage you to think broadly. Don’t limit yourself to just the people that you think might be your future boss. Don’t limit your yourself to just thinking that way.
Bernie Borges [00:05:32]:
Think a little more broadly. Who are the people that can help you get to the people that might be your future boss? Those people can be very influential. So as you’re searching for them and finding them, build a list. Maybe you can bookmark them. That’s a simple method. You you know, use a bookmarking function on I use Chrome. Chrome is, I think, obviously, a very popular browser, but I you can do it on any any browser where you can bookmark you can bookmark their LinkedIn profiles. You can bookmark There are websites or anything else that is a digital destination for these individuals, Then reach out and engage relationally.
Bernie Borges [00:06:13]:
What I mean by relationally is what I call and I didn’t make this up, the way, I’m just sharing the the next point I’m gonna make is what I mean why I didn’t make this up. I didn’t make up the the KLT moniker. KLT is an acronym that stands for know, like, and trust. I love that because it just nails the intention. It gets right to the heart of what Step number 3 is all about. You wanna build the know, like, and trust factor, and you do that by looking for places where they are engaging online. Again, I’m gonna stick with LinkedIn is the most common place. And if they’re engaging on on LinkedIn, and I realize not everybody does.
Bernie Borges [00:06:55]:
So you’re gonna find people in your target market that are not active on LinkedIn, but Look for people in your target market who are active on LinkedIn and engage with them. If they’ve if they’re posting on LinkedIn, Like their posts. Say something about their post. And when I say say something, I mean, say something. I don’t mean say Nice post or, you know, something really silly like, I agree. No. Add a comment. Think of yourself joining a conversation.
Bernie Borges [00:07:28]:
Standing around, there’s a group of people, and now all of a sudden, you’re you’re in this group. You wouldn’t just stand there and nod your head and not say anything. If you want to engage with them relationally, you would look for an opportunity To enter into the conversation and add to the conversation, that’s what I mean by engage with them relationally. So, Again, like their comments on LinkedIn. Engage with their comments by adding a comment, Especially, if if the person is commenting or posting on something that you have expertise on that’s really within your wheelhouse, that is a great opportunity For you to add a comment, show your expertise. Now be mindful that you don’t wanna be boasting, but nonetheless, show your expertise. And the key here is to do it in a way where you’re asking for nothing. And the other key is that you’re doing this consistently so that over time, The person or the people that you’re engaging with relationally get to see you have a presence on their activity online.
Bernie Borges [00:08:34]:
So you’re building that no factor. They get to know you. You you you wanna build a like factor by Engaging with them in a way that gives them a reason to like you, that you’re adding value to the conversation. And then the trust factor is that You’re not there to sell or spam or anything self serving. You’re there to engage. You’re there to add value to a conversation. Now again, I’ll state what I said a moment ago, which is not everyone that you find for your target audience is gonna be active on social media, and specifically as I’m referring to here, on LinkedIn. So whether it’s 10% or 50% of the people that you find, whatever that percentage is, those are the people that you look to engage with relationally.
Bernie Borges [00:09:17]:
So that’s step number 3 is to focus on relationally engage with them. Again, building the KLT, the know, like, and trust factor with them. Once you have done that, and I have a general rule of thumb that you should engage with someone at least 3 times before you go to step number 4. Step number 4 is to ask for something. Think of this as here’s another analogy. Another analogy. Okay? Look. I’ve been married 36 years, so it’s been a few decades since I’ve been in the dating scene, but I think we can all remember.
Bernie Borges [00:09:51]:
We can all remember That you wanna ask someone for a date, you kinda have to build up to it. So in this analogy, before you ask for a date, you have to build a little bit of that KLT, know, like, and trust factor. So, again, it’s just an analogy, but you get the point. Once you’ve engaged with someone at least 3 times, And when I say at least 3 times, I mean at least. Maybe it’s 5. Maybe it’s 10. Maybe it’s more than that. Really, you be the judge of that.
Bernie Borges [00:10:18]:
Based on the activity, the engagement that’s going on, you be the judge of that. Then when you feel comfortable asking for something, That could be a meeting, a call, a referral, or even just connecting on LinkedIn. If you have any KLT credentials with, this individual, you stand a great chance of getting what you ask for because you have built some of that know, like, and trust factor, and that’s huge. Again, back to the dating analogy. Right? You’re not gonna ask someone for a date who knows nothing about you. You’ve gotta build the KLT, know, like, and trust. So engaging relationally over a sustained period of time, and then when you feel comfortable, ask for something. Again, It could be as simple as connecting.
Bernie Borges [00:11:08]:
It could be asking for a referral or an introduction to someone who you think can be a good introduction for you. And when you ask for that, make reference to some of the engagement that you’ve had. Something as simple as, hey. I’ve really enjoyed reading about your posts on topic x, y, and z, and it’s very relevant to my career and my experience. And I was wondering if you would be, willing to introduce me to this person or would would like to connect. I would be honored to connect with you. I like the connection request, by the way. I like the connection request because it’s a small ask.
Bernie Borges [00:11:47]:
It’s a small ask. It’s not a big ask. Then after you connect, then here’s another key thing that I recommend, and that is Don’t ask for the the the meeting or whatever it is. Don’t ask as the next step. Give something. Give something. Whatever that is. It could be a link to an article.
Bernie Borges [00:12:04]:
It could be a link to a video that is relevant to what you’ve learned about them. Something that you think might be meaningful and interesting to them. And don’t ask for anything, and then wait a few days. Wait a week. Seriously, You’ve gotta be patient about this, kinda like dating even though it’s been a few decades for me. I remember it well. You’ve gotta be patient, and you’ve gotta be thoughtful about it. Then after you’ve done some of that giving, then you can go back and then say, hey.
Bernie Borges [00:12:34]:
Would you mind making this introduction to me, and here’s why I want this introduction, or I was wondering you know, I I love your company. I I noticed that there’s a a position open or I was wondering if there’s a position open that could leverage my experience in x, y, and z. If you were to do that right out of the gate Very early in the process, back to the dating analogy, if you just ask someone for a date out of the blue, probably not gonna happen. I know that I’m really overusing the dating analogy, but I just wanna stress how important it is to engage with your target market, your target audience relationally, build that know, like, and trust factor, Then then you earn the right to ask for something. So those are steps 3 and 4. Engage relationally, Then ask for something. Step 5 simply is, what’s working, what’s not working? Just examine that. And it it’s not like you have to wait months to get to step 5 and examine what’s working not and not working.
Bernie Borges [00:13:33]:
The point is I just want that to be on your radar. I just want you to be thinking about in terms of what is working and what isn’t working. Maybe you need to change some of the way that you’re engaging. Maybe you need to change your cadence, your frequency, that sort of thing. Just think about it, document it. Again, the workbook enables you to document it, and then modify it however you need to modify it, and then just keep at it. I’ll remind you once again that these 5 practices for rebooting your career. Number 1, they can be applied to business development and personal branding.
Bernie Borges [00:14:11]:
Number 2, these are the same 5 practices that I used to reboot my career twice in the past 7 years. So it isn’t rocket science, but there is a methodology here. There is an approach, and it’s a thoughtful approach. It is an intentional approach. And by the way, it’s very human. I hope that that’s been obvious to you. I hope that you see that All I’m really suggesting in these 5 steps is that you think through who you are as a product, who’s your target market, how can you engage with that target market in a way that allows you to build some relationships, some some know, like, and trust. What’s the right timing to ask for something? And then as you’re going through this, what’s working, what’s not working? That brings this episode to a wrap.
Bernie Borges [00:14:58]:
Part 2 of my 2 part episode on the career reboot checklist. Again, you can get the checklist at our website at midlifeofill.com as well as right here on the show notes. I’m Bernie Borges, your host to the Midlife Fulfill podcast. Again, I wish you Happy New Year, and I look forward to relationally engaging with you as well. And I wanna remind you as I always like to remind you that if you’re 80% fulfilled. You’re doing great. I’ll see you next time.
