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If you are a woman over 50 or plan to be one, this one's for you. Viveka Von Rosen has 19 years of experience in LinkedIn marketing and sales and is an accomplished speaker and author.
But after an epiphany, which happened while she was in the hospital by the way, she decided to pivot and pursue her passion, helping women transition from corporate positions to entrepreneurship. Viveka, welcome to the podcast. I can't wait to hear more. Thank you so much. I am excited. We have so much in common.
We do. And we both read each other's books. And as you said, we're very in alignment about all of that. So I would like to talk to the women in the audience who are listening, many who are sales professionals, but also entrepreneurs and business owners, uh, women that don't think they're in sales. And as we just discussed, we're all in sales.
And if you're going to have a business, of course you need to be in sales. So why don't you talk about where that pivot mindset came from? Yeah. And I, I love what you just said because Ironically, when I was in my last company, which was called Fingresso, um, I was the chief visibility officer and the, and basically the chief learning officer, and I taught most of our classes and worked with our clients, um, and I taught sales, but I didn't have to do sales because, I had a different role and then I made my pivot and to your point, I'm like, Oh, and now I don't have a team to do this and a team to do that and a team to do this.
It's all you. It's all me. Now, I, I actually could hire a team, but I think when you're first starting out in, you know, your new position, your new job or your new career, you or your new business. If you're starting your own, um, it's really good to kind of dive in there and utilize the relationships that you have already created on down the line.
Yes, I can create, you know, I can create products that I can hire salespeople to sell for me. But I think when you first start out, it's important to really dive deep into what you're doing and have those conversations with. People you already know who, as you've said, as I've said, who know, like, and trust us.
Right. And, and how do you know then when it's time to consider pivoting? And again, we're talking about, uh, women over 50, and I, we talked about some stats, uh, earlier, which I got from ChatGPT, which I know you are a huge proponent of using. We will talk about that in a minute. Yes. But every day, approximately 1800 new women owned businesses are created in the U.
S. And they are started by women over the age of 50. Can you believe that? That's awesome. Clearly I am in the right market. You are. And, and of course in the uncopyable framework, we were just talking about, uh, your target market is your moose and you got a great herd of moose. I do. Yeah. So how do these women decide to pivot first of all?
Well, you know, we all. probably have that little voice inside us going, it's time to leave, it's time to leave, which we all ignore, or at least most of us ignore. Um, and then eventually you get the big God smack. It's, you could end up in the hospital like I did. You can, you know, like be confined to your bed in stress.
You can, you know, End up having a divorce your, you know, it's usually something in your life. If you don't listen to that, still small voice that comes along and wax you upside the head and says, Hey, it's time to pivot. It's oftentimes, especially for women in our 50s, 60s. Um, it's your own company. Going, yeah, you're not really relevant anymore.
Right. And I have actually a couple of friends who are in the corporate world and they, have given their everything, worked so hard, raised kids, whereas I've always been an entrepreneur and that of course affords you a lot of flexibility.
But yeah, they've talked about the fact that they are kind of seen as the older generation. I remember when my dad retired, I mean 65, back then he worked in a male dominated industry. All the men would retire and Within a year, I swear, half of them were dead. Yeah. Oh. And 65 seemed so, you know, older. And so now here we are, looking at a next chapter of our lives.
Uh, there are so many examples of women who, you know, looking for their next chapter. So I agree. There's a still small voice or a loud voice that we ignore that is either it's divine or our own intuition that tells us it's time to move on. So what are the possibilities there and talk about what it takes and really any specific skills or actions that you can do to make this work?
Well, one of the things. And thank you for that question. One of the things that's so hard is women in their 50s, we got into the workforce in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. And I always visualize, like, if you remember Grace Jones back in the 80s, um, she, like fabulous, huge shoulder patch suits. Yes. feel like we put those suits on and they were really our armor, you know, with the little bow ties in your book, right? You pinned that bow tie, right? If you're old enough to remember that John T. Malloy dress for success, I always pinned my bow tie on. Right. And I totally had shoulder pads. So, right. Oh yeah, we had the shoulder pads and I almost visualize it like this Teflon business suit, which over time.
began to feel like a second skin for us. So for women now in their 50s, 60s, 70s, and even 80s, who are wanting to leave the business world, like, first of all, we got to peel off that Teflon shoulder padded business suit that we have figuratively and maybe literally still are wearing because it's not serving us anymore.
It absolutely, we had to wear that Teflon suit. We had to blend in with the boys. We had to become mini men back then, if we wanted to survive. In many, many industries, not all industries, but in most industries. Mm-Hmm, many. Yep. Right. And so a, we have to take that off and that's really hard because it's, it has melted into our skin.
Like it is hard to discern the difference between our skin and this, this suit that we put on in order. to succeed. Number two, or B, I was going AB, wasn't I? B, um, the glass ceilings we broke. Like, we worked so hard to break those glass ceilings, to be a role model, to rise up in our companies, like, and we're supposed to walk away from that?
Are you kidding me? C, We, in doing that, a lot of us have demonstrated our thought leadership with, we're subject matter experts. Some of us are influencers in our industry. We're supposed to walk away from that, like what? And then finally, I can't remember what my fourth point was, but those three are probably three is the magic number anyway, probably enough.
So how do you walk away from that? And that, that's exactly where I was at. You know, I had spent 18 years positioning myself as the LinkedIn expert, speaking all over the world, writing all kinds of books. And now I'm supposed to just let that go. But I had to, um, I had many opportunities to let that go.
And I didn't. And then. There I am in the hospital bed going, what the heck am I doing with this life? Because as you get older, you do realize the time to the end is shrinking a little bit, and there's got to be more to life than making the money, buying the shoes, you know, buying the houses, buying the cars, whatever.
Um, we, we definitely need more or better use of the time that we have left. And so that's kind of what I went through. Now, the great thing about being in our 50s, 60s, and 70s is that we have so much experience. And I'm not saying throw the baby out with the bathwater, you know, don't delete your LinkedIn profile.
Don't like burn all your, all your bridges. You'll have to burn a few of them. Don't burn all your bridges though. like take a minute, sit back. You do have a wealth of, of knowledge that you can now bring into whatever you want to do next. You do have an amazing network of people that you can tap on the shoulder and say, Hey, I'm thinking about this.
What do you think? Or I've done this. Who do you know, right? We don't want to drop those things, but we do need to make it very, we do need to be very, very clear in our own minds. I am shifting. It is time for me to make this change. And there will be people who don't want you to. heard so many people go like, how can you walk away from being the LinkedIn expert?
How can you like, change your URL on LinkedIn? Which is one, one, you know, nice little, one nice little strategy that you can do. Yeah, we should probably delve into that when you're done. And I have one comment. Yeah, let's, let's go. Yeah, yeah. And I'm pretty much wrapping up that, that, but, uh, but yeah, so there's a lot that you can do.
So now you have to ask me again, because I do go down rabbit holes. Well, that's okay. Uh, that is totally okay. And one thing that came to mind though is, as I told you, I'm almost 65 and people do tell me now that I look really good for my age, but I could retire. I could retire. I, but I might have 20 or 30 years ahead of me, and I need a purpose.
I need to contribute. So I, I like to golf. I love to ski. I love to hike. I am able to fit those things into my life, but I think it's good as you, come to this point of your life, you want a work life balance, which of course is a cliche, but at this age, you do have the opportunity to do that and, uh, pursue your passion.
So, so there will be some steps to do that. And, and one of them, of course, is deciding what what kind of business you want to be in. So do you have any guidance or tools on how to explore that and decide? Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, my business, I named my business beyond the dream board because when I was, you know, COVID time, right, we're all cleaning out everything.
So I found my old dream board. I'm like, wow, did that, did that, got that, have that, you know, I'm like, And I'm not happy. And it wasn't just because of COVID. So what was beyond that? What was beyond the dream board? Where could I, you know, where, what was next? So that was the, the name of the, the company, the book, the program, all of that, the podcast beyond the dream board.
com. Exactly. So to your point, we go from working so hard and then all of a sudden at whatever 55, 65, 75, whatever age we are. We're faced with. Okay, I can retire. So we go from all the work to none of the work. So it's interesting. We're kind of turning it on its head. Work life balance is actually life work balance because a lot of us still want to leave our mark.
We still want to do something that leaves an impact, has an impact, leaves a legacy. And you know, working harder at the company we're at might not be that thing. So one of the things I do, I've got a meditation called beyond the dream board that I actually bring all my first thing we do new clients.
They're like, Oh my God, that's so woo woo, but whatever, you know, where we actually go and move through the dream board to what's on the other side. And it's just, It's just open intuition and what is showing up for you. It might be a symbol. It might be a person. It might be a fully detailed plan. It might be a color.
It might be a smell, but we know what we were put on this earth to do. We know what our calling is. It's just, we've covered it up with Teflon. Business suits and other things and other people's opinions and what the idea of success is. So we've, we've covered that, uh, like for me, I've always known I, I loved being on stage.
I thought I was going to be an actor. That didn't work out, but I love being on stage. I love speaking. I love writing. I've been writing my whole life. I but my message, and what I was talking about just was off. Right. So for me, it was kind of clear what my skills are. Most of the women coming to me now, they have that in them.
They have a book in them, they, they want to get on stage and, and, uh, share their, their message with the world. Um, in fact, that's kind of my one calling to the world. My, my one message to the world is women's words will change the world because it needs to happen. So, and not everyone wants to be an author or a speaker.
Like, There are many of you out there who are artists, who are dancers, who are like phenomenal strategic business minds, who can do wonders with money and know, you know, and love the world of finance. That is so cool. But don't diminish your gifts. in order to fit into a box. Now is the time that we take our gifts out, we blow the dust off them, and we start to show them to the world.
And then we let our gifts lead the way. So it's interesting because I do have many, many years of, of sales and marketing experience, and I'm 100 percent letting the woo out because I feel that it is our deep intuition that will show us the way and really show us what we need to do in order to leave our marks on the world.
And, you know, mindset is huge.
Yeah.
There's a quote that I cannot remember. It's a classic author, Jane Eyre is that that's the name of the book or the author? I can't remember. Yeah, Jane Eyre is the book. Yeah. Yeah. Jane Eyre. So the author is Charlotte Bronte?
Bronte. It's probably it's one of the Bronte sisters. Okay. I don't have an English major. I should totally know this. Oh, I'm not, but there is a quote that I'm also going to screw this up, but if we would only listen to ourselves, we would be our best guides instead of asking other people. If you really ask yourself, and I just had a woman on who talks about neuro linguistic programming, NLP.
And she said, ask your subconscious. What the answer is and listen, so
I
do think it's hard to slow down and really go internal with that But all of that is huge before you get into the logistics and how this is all gonna work So mindset self reflection is really huge.
Yeah,
so let's say and by the way Grandma Moses didn't start painting till she was in her 80s, by the way.
I know that one. Maya Angelou. I mean, there are so many powerful women who, who didn't even start exploring their gifts until they were, until they were in their 50s or, or beyond. Or beyond, we'll say 50 plus. So once you make that decision, You know, how do you proceed to tell the world? You talked about network, but also you mentioned changing your LinkedIn profile.
Yeah. Branding, getting a new website, branding yourself. So what are some steps, you don't have to go through all of them, but what are a couple steps? Yeah. I'll share what I'm doing and, and yeah. What my clients have done too. But before I do that, like thank you so much for bringing the, going inward. One of the things.
Could there two things that have have launched me to where I am right now. One of them is my morning practice. I meditate and journal every morning. Now, maybe you're not a journal or maybe you're a drawer or whatever it is. You're a singer or whatever, but tap in like you got to tap in. The other thing is chat GPT.
There's no way I would be where I am right now without chat GPT. And it was really interesting timing because The last big gig I did as the LinkedIn expert, I was speaking at this event and it was like I was outside of my body watching myself speak. And I was just like, this is not what I'm meant to be doing.
Like I'm meant to be speaking. Yes, but not on LinkedIn. I felt so Dis What's the word? I'm like, dis, not disconnected. Disconnected. That's maybe disconnected. I'm like, disorganized, disconnected. No. Something dis something disconnected. Yes. I felt so disconnected and everyone came out, oh, that was great.
I learned so much, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, really? Because I felt fake. up there. Now, at that conference, I first learned about ChatGPT, and I had no idea it was going to be the game changer that it was. Um, so, uh, what I learned at that conference from, from my friend Jordesh Johnson, is you gotta season the pan.
And that was the, the make or break with, with chat GPT. And what he means by that is you've got to get as much information about you as possible into chat GPT, into your chats or whatever generative AI tool you want to use, I happen to use chat GTP and. Um, but you want to get as much as your personality in there as you can, like copy and paste blog posts, or if you've got the paid version, you know, put in links to blog posts just so it can get your voice.
Ask it, who do I sound like? That way, even when you make your pivot, your true voice comes along with it. Otherwise you get, you know, Delving deeply. Don't ever use the word delve. We all know you use chat GPT. And here's another one. I have to just throw this in. Um, apparently, chat GPT emails almost always start with, I hope this email finds you well.
So don't ever say that. Even if you hope that email finds you well. Don't do that. You can literally tell ChatGPT don't ever say that. Like never use the word dwell again. So now it's diving deeply. I'm like, uh, anyway. Um, so I learned about that and I put in, fortunately for me, I have quite a voice and I've written lots of books.
So I put my books in there and I put my blog posts in there. But if you don't have that, talk about something you love into your phone. And have it, what's the word I'm looking for? Into words? Transcribe. Transcribe. Thank you. See, we are over 50 people. We are. Let's wait.
Transcribe it. Pop it in there. Like, talk about anything you love. Just give it your voice. so I knew I had to have a new website. I found referrals. I love referrals. Referrals are the way to go, both for getting business and giving business. Um, so I got a referral from someone who worked with women, entrepreneurs.
Um, and she gave me this questionnaire which sat, you know, on my computer for three months. 'cause I looked at that questionnaire and I was just like, Ugh, don't make, yeah, too much. Ah. So then I'm like, all right, CHESY, pt, let's see how good you are. I would feed the questions in and. Oh my gosh, the answers were like right out of my brain, but with better spelling and better grammar.
I couldn't believe it. So I literally wrote my entire website using ChatGPT in a matter of maybe four or five hours. Of course I went in. I know! Like normally that would take months and months and months. four or five hours. I had to go in. I had to change things up. And I have since, you know, refined my offer and, and changed a lot up, but just to get started, that was huge.
So then I'm like, okay, people need to learn what I'm doing. write some blog posts for me, like all of these blog posts. Now, again, I'm using more sophisticated tools now, content at scale, great tool, but it got me started and it got some of my content out there. Um, LinkedIn, obviously, you know, did a complete rebrand on LinkedIn.
And then here's a little ninja trick for you. Couple ninja tricks for you. So first of all, change your URL. So I changed my URL, which is what everyone, like, they couldn't believe I did this. From LinkedIn. com forward slash in forward slash LinkedIn expert, which I'd had for over 10 or 15 years, however long.
Custom URLs. I got it right at the beginning. I remember exactly the day what I was doing when I got that URL. And I changed it to my name. And that was such a psychological move for me, like that. was huge because I knew a, I was giving away LinkedIn expert, right? I know it's scary now. I know. Yeah.
Although it still takes you to my profile, whatever. But also like I was claiming my name, which had been given away and I won't even get into all of that. So change your URL to your name if you haven't done so yet, or to your new business name if you want to do that. Obviously the background image, the photo, um, the, the headline, the, uh, the about section, ChatGPT did a lot of that.
I won't say for me, I'll say with me. Um, and as, you know, as a LinkedIn, and I know you've had Brent on and she's. It's phenomenal. Yes. And I'm Brynn Tillman. Brynn Tillman. I don't remember which episode, but man, did she ever deliver so many specific tools. So much value. I had no idea. So check out that episode.
Yeah. So much value. Like, listen to what she says and apply it. Um, what we She was with me at Vingresso too. So what we always said is, you know, your, your LinkedIn profile needs to be a resource, not a resume. You always come at it from your, your buyer's point of view, because you want to build that know, like, and trust.
You want to attract people to you. I am a huge fan of leads coming to me. They're not going to come to me. I'm like, I'm like a rock star and awesome. And I've got 25 years of right. if I can, if I know who my buyer is, my buyer persona, my ICP, your moose, if I know, thank you. Yes. If I know who my moose is and I can talk specifically to my moose's point of pain and what their needs are, what their wants are, what their desires are, what their feelings are, what they're thinking, what they're saying, and I can solve some of that for them, they will naturally be attracted to me.
I don't have to sell myself because I am providing value and I'm giving them answers, which is exactly what I started doing. My whole profile is basically, I recognize you. I understand where you're coming from. Let me help you. Here's some free ways I can help you. Here's some paid ways I can help you, but let me help you.
So I will mention that I will put all the resources that you mentioned, including your, website and your book, which I'm going to talk about in just a minute. But yeah, with Brynne, that does stick with me. She said, why wait to provide value you provide value up front. Yes. And then something very compelling and valuable.
And you know, I think a lot of people put teasers in, but if you look at her profile, she really does provide value. Yeah. And, and I'm sure you do too. Um, I do want to mention your book, One Hundred and Ways, sorry, One Hundred and One Ways. to rock change. So this is a really great, powerful book that gives you so many things to think about as you build 📍 your new website, profile, uh, pictures, you need that brand. to go back to ChatGPT because I also love ChatGPT with the caveat that, yes, you do need to edit it, but as the author of a book And check your facts.
Yeah, check your facts for sure. And I didn't check these, but I just pulled this off of, you know, ChatGPT about the 1800 new women owned businesses. Yeah. Are created in the U. S. We'll assume that's correct, but it would be a good idea to check that fact. But you had recommended, uh, some specific prompts, um, in your book.
And, you know, I, I. Tried one on myself. Tell me about Kay Miller, author of Uncopyable Sales Secrets. Oh my gosh, I'm apparently a dynamo. Dynamic. All these great, you know, descriptions, but you know, I can tweak that. But boy, starting with that versus just starting with a blank page. Yeah, so many things from writing emails, content.
As you said, it will scour the internet for things that you have written. So it, it has your voice. So
yeah,
really chat GPT. I've used something called Jasper. Um, I noticed on your website, your new website, a lot of the art looks like it's generated with AI. Is that correct? Yeah, I'm graphically impaired.
Like, I can't make a good graphic to save my life. And I had to bootstrap this. I won't go into details, but I had to bootstrap this business. And I didn't have a team. I didn't have a marketing team anymore. My old marketing team at Vengresso, phenomenal. Like, and I was like, Oh man, it's going to be hard to go from that to this.
But then I discovered ChatGPT and then Magi has, um, some really good graphic creation features. And Problem solved between, you know, ChatGPT and Magi and Canva, um, because I really, I am so graphically impaired. Like, I can appreciate a good graphic, but I cannot create a good one. So, templates, templates, templates.
Right, and Canva's awesome, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully everyone knows about Canva. We'll put that in though, just in case. So, yeah. Yeah. I remember when it first started, I was speaking at Social Media Marketing World back in, um, I don't know, it was maybe 2009, might've been 2012. But anyway, they had just started and I'm totally forgetting his name right now, which is awful.
But he was, um, Max, Jack, I don't remember. Anyway, he, he was, he was like 12, number one, but he was their, you know, chief marketing officer, but it was just such a small company back then. And he was like so, you know, out of Australia, he was so like excited about everything. And now, you know, stand back and like Canva is like, everything it is.
It's been amazing watching this industry transform over the past 15 years or so. So many, so many advantages that we didn't have earlier. Like you said, in our career, we're looking at books to, to tell us how to dress. And now we've got all these tools. Um, And I can't ask, you can, by the way, ask chat GPT.
I'm going to this meeting with this, like, how awesome would that have been for you, right? I'm going to the, this meeting with this construction company. Um, it's my first meeting. I'm a 24 year old woman. What should I wear? . Yes. You could ask it anyway and or you could ask it anything. And, and one thing I do with all my clients, why should you choose this company over the competition?
It's just crazy. Uh, yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing. And so chat, GPT. to the people who use it. We are, you know, enthralled with it for good reason. There are scary aspects to it, but always be polite because when it takes over the world, you want to remember. Remember me. Thank you. I say, please. So we are actually out of time.
As I said, that I try to keep these to 30 minutes and we just blew through a lot of topics and there are a lot more. We might need to talk again because we want to give. the listeners, all the resources and, encouragement and inspiration. I'm finding that huge for business owners, entrepreneurs, sales professionals, a lot of us work alone.
So to have the encouragement of people who are passionate and succeeding is awesome. So I will say, Viveka, I have totally enjoyed our conversation. Look forward to talking further. To those of you listening, remember I will put all these resources in the show notes. So, Viveka, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Thank you.
