Building Leadership Through LinkedIn

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and lightly edited to remove filler words and obvious repetitions. It may contain transcription errors.

Barry Moline (00:07)

Welcome to Leadership Secrets, where we explore the key elements of leadership, communication, and teamwork. I'm Barry Moline, and I believe everyone can lead from anywhere in an organization, no matter what their job title may be. Let's learn some leadership secrets together.

Barry Moline (00:25)

Today, my guest is Judi Hays, and Judi is the CEO of Judi Hays Incorporated, and she's based in New York, and she has clients all over the world. Judi and I met on the Forbes Business Council. We're both members in the Forbes Business Council, and which is a way where CEOs engage from all over the world. It's a fantastic way for CEOs to learn from each other and find out what's going on in each other's worlds and share ideas. So, welcome, Judi.

Judi Hays (00:56)

Barry, thank you. I am delighted to be here.

Barry Moline (00:58)

So, Judi, describe your journey to become the CEO, and along the way, talk about a few of the big lessons you've learned.

Judi Hays (01:06)

It's been an interesting journey. I started out my career in the late '70s, early '80s, working for New York City Advertising Agency, and I was involved in a trade association. It would be the Art Directors Club, and there was an opportunity for leadership to create an event. And so I created an event called a Banquet of Good Taste, and that was basically an exhibition of menus. And what happened was I handled my own public relations, and I got the attention of Interior Design Magazine. They published a piece on it, and a publisher contacted me, and they said, "Judi, can you take that exhibit and put it in a book? Now, at that point, I didn't know that this was going to change the whole trajectory of my my career. Of course, I said yes, I can do that. I had no idea what it was doing, but I put it together and I published my first book. It was a trade book distributed through Itzoli, and it was called Menu Design. And right after that, I relocated to San Francisco to join another ad agency. And one thing led to another, and I wound up producing 12 books for that publisher in restaurant design, shopping bag design, retail design, and that really set the stage because I wound up opening up my own branding consultancy in San Francisco to work with names like Marriott, TGI Fridays, Bennigan's, the like, all kinds of companies like that, and and I did that for a couple of years, and it was very interesting. But I really I didn't have the the basis that I have now for running a company, so I decided to go back and start working for companies again, and I wound up getting involved in trade associations. I'm sure you can relate to that, Barry, being an executive of your own association. And and what I learned in trade associations is really taking care of members and providing resources for the membership, you know. So it was more like interesting how there's a parallel when you're working for a restaurant, you know, you're serving your customers. When you're in a trade association, you're serving your membership. So I, I really learned what it means to be of service, and I would say that that's you know one of the underlying principles of how I approach working in my business is I am of service to my clients. You know, I am there to anticipate their needs and to to be proactive and to bring new thinking to them. So how this evolved is I I started in the associations. They really weren't utilizing LinkedIn, and this was in the early days of LinkedIn, so I started to really engage with the membership on LinkedIn, and use it as a way to provide resources. And you know, one thing led to another. Members were asking me, "Can you help me with my LinkedIn profile? You know, and I started doing that. And then I moved over to a chamber of commerce, the Austin Chamber of Commerce, and started running workshops, teaching companies how to use LinkedIn. So anyway, when I finally relocated back to New York, I lived in a lot of different places. It became apparent that I had this interest in LinkedIn. It was kind of a an unusual platform in that not everyone knew how to use it, and that's when I launched my company. And so now, what I'm doing is providing LinkedIn marketing strategy to professional service businesses and and entities that work with other companies, and and I'm absolutely in awe that I get to work with the people that I do and I get to help them make a difference. So that's how I got here today.

Barry Moline (04:39)

There's so much there that I want to unpack. So let's let's first mention that you've written a book. It's called you're going to have to explain the fill in the subtext here. But but the big words on the cover are elevate, expand, and engage. But it really is it's bigger than that. So. So tell me the full title of the book.

Judi Hays (05:02)

Yeah, it's it's basically a framework, and elevate is elevate elevating your brand, expanding your network, and engaging with your most powerful relationships. And it's a book about really how do you form relationships on a digital platform, you know. In this case, I focus on LinkedIn, but but there there really is a certain art to finding people and to showing an interest in people and and genuinely engaging with the goal of taking it offline. Okay, so you and I are technically taking this offline, we're taking it off LinkedIn, and we're on this conference. And I know someday I'm going to meet you, and you know, and and so this is how you use the principles of you know visibility and credibility and trust as you're building relationships, and it goes a long way, really does.

Barry Moline (05:59)

Social media in general is a mystery to me, and it may be to a lot of companies. Probably because, well, let me let me say this kind of amusing anecdote from my world, and that is, I work in the energy world. So that there's a a little bumper sticker phrase that we talk about in the energy world, which is, if nuclear power hadn't started out as a bomb, then it probably would be more accepted today. And you know, nuclear is like I don't know if I like that or not. It's got this bad waste. It's radioactive. You know, they say it's safe. I'm not really sure, but it started out as a bomb. So how could it be safe? Anyway, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram-you know-it feels like it's the domain of the stars or the domain of the influencers, and like, what am I doing on on these platforms that could possibly, you know, have an impact? And it gives me some fear for engaging because you know, hey, I might feel like good for three days. Like, wow, I'm posting things. Something happened in my world. Something happened in our business, and we're talking about it. And then we sort of go away for a few weeks, or maybe you know a month or two. And bottom line is, no good strategy. We we don't have a good strategy for for doing it for engaging in. Actually, we don't know what platform to engage in. So, so let's explore, you know, getting involved in LinkedIn. I want to come back to to leadership issues in a little bit, but but let's talk about LinkedIn because it's it's what you do. It's obviously it's it's a big part of what you wrote about, and and it's a I think it's a mystery to a lot of folks. Okay, so let's let's see. Let let me give you an example. I work at a company. It's a trade association. You know, we want people to like our ideas and listen to our ideas. We want to get to know potential partners in our industry, and we so we want we want to put goodness out in the world, and we want to engage with good organizations and good people, and and have a positive exchange. Do we have a huge goal to make a ton of money, you know, there there's no question that that having you know an income stream is important, but I think our main goal is influencing and and then meeting quality relationships along the way where we can both elevate whatever it is we do, and then maybe find some common ground when it comes to to our business relationship. I'm not sure if that's the exact profile of every business, but you know, for an organization that's just dipping its toe in the water, you know, on on LinkedIn, you know, I'm not sure that we should have really bigger goals than that. You know, if we had a big goal that was like we're going to make a ton of money and we're going to use LinkedIn, I was like, now I really have no idea and really am fearful. So if if my goal is just simply put good ideas out in the world, talk about the goodness of our organization, and then hopefully meet some people along the way that might become good business partners, is that well? First of all, is that a reasonable goal, and and two, you know, what are some of the things that I could be doing, and what are some of the things me and my company could be doing?

Judi Hays (09:29)

Yeah, no, that I think one thing that that you said that really stood out is fear, and I and I find that is quite common because it's fear of how you're going to be interpreted, fear of saying the wrong thing, fear of making a mistake, fear of looking stupid, you know. So when you're in fear, you know you're paralyzed. So I think that LinkedIn, if you look at the evolution of LinkedIn, when it first came out, it was really a career website. You know, it's where people. Found jobs where employees and employers connected, and and that worked out pretty well. And then it moved into because of the nature of the digital rolodex, you know this huge database of user entered data. You know your name, where you work, where you went to school, what your skills are-you know-all those things that come together-it started to become very attractive for people wanting to use it for lead generation, and so there was a lot of that going on. Not as much as there is now. It's gotten to to a annoyance level of late, but there was a lot of that in. So it was kind of like the the the wham bam thank you ma'am kind of you know connect connect connect you putting the stuff out and it was just you know no substance. So now LinkedIn has moved into what we call a creator platform, which is really where you know a lot of people are publishers and creators of content, which touches a little bit on what you were talking about the influencer platforms. So now you have you know programs that LinkedIn has put together to encourage people to be creators, and so what that means is it's a huge opportunity because statistically wise, out of the I think it's over 800 million members now. They call them members people that have accounts are a member. Out of the 800 about 40% are actively engaging on the platform, like like their active accounts. And about 1% one to I think it's one to 5% now are posting. So you've got you know out of those 800 million people, about 40% are real genuine accounts. There's a lot of duplicate accounts and dormant accounts and whatever. But then you got a very small percentage that are actively engaged, and and that is increasing. More and more people are starting to publish on LinkedIn. So there's a lot of opportunities for you as a company and you as an individual. So if you're a company, know this: LinkedIn is a it's a high authority website. That means it has a lot of credibility. So, when somebody searches, if I were to search your organization, Barry, chances are, if it had a LinkedIn company page, that would show up on the first page result because it's indexed, and so that shows. Wow, that must be important because it's showing. And most people don't go past page one. If you had a website, that would show up. If you searched your name, chances are the first or second result is going to be your LinkedIn profile. So that's how important LinkedIn is, and and about 80% of businesses and people that are in decision buying making positions are searching online before they are ready to engage or spend money with somebody. They're doing their you know they're back in research. So again, there's a lot of importance in LinkedIn in terms of showing up and being visible. Now LinkedIn is just a tool.

Barry Moline (13:00)

So wait, but so just just to to clarify that, if I search for something like my company or something like myself on Google,

Judi Hays (13:10)

yes

Barry Moline (13:10)

I'll find a bunch of things that are thrown in because of ads and whatever. I I'll be there, but I might not be first because a bunch of ads are listed first, but on LinkedIn, I'm popping up first. Like if people know me or they know the company, it's like they're gonna find me, right? You know

Judi Hays (13:29)

what's interesting, Barry? I just put your name in here. The first thing that came up: 1.2 million results. First thing that came up is BarryMoline.com. The second thing that came up was your LinkedIn profile. The third thing that came up is your CMUA. So yeah. Now because I put your name in there, I didn't get ads because unless you're running ads for your name, it's it's fascinating. So your website, your LinkedIn profile, and then your company, and then a bunch of pictures. You're looking good. Then your Forbes profile, your speaker hub, and then again your organization, and then your Facebook. So I recommend to people two things. One is search your name right now. Just type your name in a Google search and see what comes up. And number two, create a Google alert for your name. And this way, whenever something is mentioned for your name, you will get an alert. And I put it in quotes when I put my name. If you have a common name, that could be a little more challenging. Like if your name was Barry Manilow or something like that, you know that you're going to have a lot of other stuff there. So, but yeah, it's interesting to see what shows up. So, yeah,

Barry Moline (14:37)

yeah. So that's interesting. But still, on LinkedIn, if people are looking for me if we've met at a conference or at a meeting somewhere, or they'll they'll look for me on LinkedIn and and I'm unique on LinkedIn. Yeah, and they'll look for my company and I'm unique in LinkedIn. Yeah, and they will will be able to connect fast through LinkedIn. Because obviously there's the message button, and you know we can just start a conversation, right? So, so LinkedIn is for. I think what I heard you say is that it's it's evolved, and it has now come to a place where business people actually do meet and engage with each other, and and I think I heard you say to then take the relationship offline through email, pick up the phone, you know, meet in person same neighborhood.

Judi Hays (15:31)

Yeah, you're you're getting together through Zoom, and yeah, yeah,

Barry Moline (15:33)

so that you can actually see what kind of you know overlap, what kind of interests you have together, and you know whatever. Take the relationship from there. But LinkedIn is at least that initial platform where you can start to meet. Whereas, you know, when I think about, I don't know, Facebook or Instagram or whatever, it's all about let me show the world what a great life I have, and and then you know who cares what people think, or we'll or we'll go down the toilet with some you know some very controversial topic, and LinkedIn. It appears as though there are many fewer of those negative political debates, and or I've seen some of them where people will respond and say, "Hey, take that over to Facebook.

Judi Hays (16:24)

There's a lot of that happening. I think it's there's a couple of different schools of thought on that. What I say to my clients is that if if you were giving a talk at a professional conference, would you say that on the stage? And the answer is well no, then don't say it on LinkedIn. It's it's only putting fuel to the fire, and and you just you know it's not going to help you business wise. It really isn't because there's always going to be people that have opposing points of view. So keep it professional. Use LinkedIn to to educate, to inform, to delight, to make people curious-you know-I think of my LinkedIn engagement as a series, as like a little string of breadcrumbs, you know, because the profile photo obviously is the most important. It should look like you. It shouldn't be something from your college, you know, or high school yearbook or crazy. You shouldn't have somebody's arm cut off, whatever. It should really look like who you are, and that's the first breadcrumb. You know, oh, nice face, smiling, good, okay. And then the next breadcrumb is is going to be your title, and it's really it's it's your headline. It's not your job title, so it's really like who am I talking to, and what do I do for them, and why does it matter? Because when it comes down to it, and this might sound totally contradictory, but your LinkedIn profile is is not as much about you. It's about what's in it for the person that's looking at it. So they say, "Oh, I want to meet you, Barry. When I looked at your profile, I see all these great things you did. I like what you say. I like what you're involved in. You're very helpful and resourceful, and I'd like to get to know you. And so that's that's the kind of thing. It's like you know you want to be presentable and you want to be inviting. You know you don't want to be standing there like with your back to somebody. That that profile that's like basically your CV or your resume. It's like blah blah blah blah. Doesn't tell me. It tells me where you've been, but it doesn't tell me where you're going. LinkedIn is aspirational. LinkedIn is not a resume, so when people use it as a resume, that means they really haven't updated it since 2009. But if they think of it as aspirational, it's how do I want to be perceived? You know, where do I want to go with this? And that's how you can present yourself.

Barry Moline (18:40)

So I can imagine that I want to be posting things about what my organization is doing. So, or an idea that's out there in the world, something we're working on, and we might have an opinion. So we write a blog or a short blog or or a post. You know, something that just says, you know, this is going on, and here's our opinion on it, and whatever, trying to start a conversation. So, and and I want to get your reflection on this. You know, we we will produce occasionally a a document, you know, a policy paper. So we LinkedIn is a good place to to publish that. But in the meantime, you know, in between every three or four months, we're not producing a policy paper. We might have some other things. You know, what are the kind of of posts that I should be focusing on for my company so that I'm becoming that I don't know thought leader. Thought leader may be too strong of a of a word. You know, I'm just engaging with with my connections. I was going to say friends, but with my connections on our topic, and and not necessarily saying, you know, for 995 you can get this, you know, new widget. You know, we don't want to be doing that. We want to be this relationship. What are the kind of posts that we should be focusing on?

Judi Hays (20:06)

I'll speak to you as a trade organization. You know, let's just say a membership organization, right? There's a lot of things you can do, and and you can do this as a company too. You can showcase your members, so you can, and that really helps the members, and it also builds retention, so that's one thing you can do is you can showcase a certain member. You can you can do a news roundup. So this might be the news in the industry, and here's our here's our weekly roundup of what we're seeing. Here are the conversations going on, things that you think are important. You want to position your group, your association, to be the go-to resource for the media. So instead of them, you know, if they're writing an article, you want them to come to your association and say, "Hey, can we get a quote on this, or what's your position on this? And you do that through establishing that that the word thought leadership. If you think about it, thought is the thinking, right? And the leadership is taking the lead on putting that out there. You know, so you're taking a position. So if you're on top of what's going on and you're putting that out there, you're going to get the attention of the media. So that that's another thing you want to do. You can also educate. You know, you can say, you know, here's the the insight of the week, or you know, case studies are a great way to do that. You know, here's here's an example of of a you know a member that's gone through or a customer that's gone through a challenge, and here's their end result. Here's some things that we have in the works. You know, you might want to think about throughout the year what's important and timely. You know, like I have a client in the retail industry, and in July, in the summer, is when we're planning the fall, you know, holidays. All the purchasing has to be done now. So that's the kind of content that we're putting out. How are you planning your Black Friday? What are you doing? We're talking about that in in June. You can't be talking about that in October. You know, to understand the industries that you cater to and what their timing is, you know. So again, if you become really rich with this kind of a variety of information, and and sometimes something fun, it could be you know like I have a fun fact Friday, you know some crazy random fact, you know, I don't know. I mean, sometimes it's nice to just have a little laugh, you know, just mix it up and see what people engage with. But it has to. The first and foremost thing about LinkedIn is understand who your audience is. Now, a lot of people have said to me, "Yeah, but I do this and I do that and I do that. I said, "You know what? You need to just focus on one right now and see how far you can penetrate this particular audience and see if they are active on LinkedIn because you cannot be everything to everyone, and if you are, you're confusing. So it's like if you go into a restaurant and there's two, it's like I go to a diner, you know, and the menu is like, oh my gosh, your Cheesecake Factory. It's like 600 pages. I don't know what to get because there's so many things here. I'd rather go to a place where it's a little bit more focused, so I say, "Oh yeah, this is interesting. I'd like to try this, you know, and I'm much more apt to do that. So that's what you can do as a as a company on LinkedIn. Now, if you're if you're a business providing a service or a product, and you have employees, one thing you can do is you can use the advocacy of your employees, and that is allowing them to spotlight themselves through sharing content. Now, you know, some companies will will have we have like an idea file with with one of my clients.

Judi Hays (23:33)

We use Teams, and you know Microsoft Teams, and and we'll come up with some topics that are relevant to the end user, the the you know the client of the client, the customer of the client, and will create content around these themes, and then I will create some talking points, and I will share that on the Teams channel, and then whoever feels comfortable that wants to jump in, will take it and run with it. Because again, I don't want it to be forced. If you force people to do things, they're not going to do it, and you know then I can see who's engaged and who isn't. And one of my clients, you know, top performers, he just got invited on a podcast, and a really high high visibility podcast because of the way he's been engaging on the platform because he got the attention of the podcast host. So good things happen when you when you thing I learned as a leader is that you hire the best. You hire people that are better than you, because the only way you're going to succeed is if you have really good people that you're surrounded by. And I learned that early on in my career is don't be intimidated by people. Hire people that are better than you. Hire the best you can, and the other thing is really be a problem solver. You know, and and that comes across in the content that you're sharing, in the way you're engaging as a leader. But you know, you're a leader on LinkedIn, so problem solve. You know. I talked. I just published in Forbes yesterday on you know how do you leverage the data that's in your LinkedIn account? You know the problem is nobody does it. I have like three quarters of the people that I've surveyed have never downloaded their data. It's like wow, you know let me show you what you're missing. You know here's here's a problem that we can solve and it's business opportunity, so

Barry Moline (25:21)

yeah, very interesting.

Judi Hays (25:22)

Sorry, I went off a little tangent there, but

Barry Moline (25:24)

that's all good. Well, let me just ask you a clarifying question on a couple of those really great ideas that you that you listed. When you talk about providing a news roundup, and that's a great idea. There, you're taking information that is probably coming through your own email inbox, folks that are updating you on what's going on in your industry. Do you just write a sentence? You know, let's say you want to highlight five articles. You know, news roundup, and sort of like I think it's you know, Apple News has five stories. You know, every morning something like that, and am I am I just doing two or three sentences on each story, or do I do a headline and then a link to that story so people can see the full story if they want to? And I guess the question is, should I include the link that moves people away from LinkedIn, or should I just write the you know two or three sentences on each story. Here's here's what I'm reading in the news. You know this story from Wall Street Journal. You know said something like this, and you know it was a headline, and then you know one sentence explanation, and maybe do that for five stories. And now you've got a you know a sort of a solid LinkedIn post, you know, should I be moving people off the post with links because I want to make sure that they get you know I may feel like well I'm not the expert on that story maybe they want to go see the original story I don't know links no links what are your thoughts on that

Judi Hays (26:59)

well you know there's a couple of ways that you can work around the nature of the platform because I think we talked about earlier when you have an outbound link, LinkedIn treats that as leaving the platform and and it's not in fact even if it's on another page on LinkedIn, it doesn't distinguish. It just is like, oh, it's a link, it's a link. You know, a workaround would be this: if you were to publish LinkedIn now has newsletters built into the platform. You have to turn on creator mode. So, say you were to publish a weekly flash, and in your newsletter you could list here's the top five for this week, and you may break it down in your industry, regulatory, innovation, investment, you know, industry, whatever it is that you want to kind of break it down into whatever buckets they fit into, and then you could create a post that says, "Hey, we just published our our five of the week. You know, check it out on our company page. You could put a link there, or you could just mention that, and then the people that look at it will then naturally go to your feed to see that. And if you get subscribers that go to the newsletter, they're going to get a notification in their inbox and in the notification bell that a new edition has been published. So there's there's a way to work around it. Never tell people, oh, we're doing a new series because I can't tell you nine out of 10 times you only see one or two and then they they don't follow up. So I would think about what would be first of all, what do we see out there? What's timely? I like one of the newsletters I do for a client. We round up the upcoming events, industry events. Now that people are doing events again, we round up. Here are some of the top conversations on LinkedIn. So there's a couple of thought leaders in the industry, influencers that are talking about things, and I'll round up the top five. And what I'll do is I'll push these out in a newsletter, but I'll bring the links back to LinkedIn. So I'm using another tool to bring people into LinkedIn. You know, so I use all different platforms to create kind of a 360 approach because, like, if you have an email campaign and you get a you know a 50% open rate, what about the other 50% Where are they? If you're on LinkedIn and you're getting a certain amount of engagement, typically it's about 10% of your followers. Where is the 90% Where are they? How do I reach them? So I use all of these platforms because people go to different places to consume content, but I want to bring them all in so they're like, oh, you know, you guys are pretty visible on LinkedIn. You're active. You're posting things, and I like what you do on Twitter, and you've got a great newsletter, and I like your website, and you know, I want to join your organization. So,

Barry Moline (29:32)

well, and of course, as you said, you don't necessarily need to put a link in. People can see your link from your profile, so if they want to learn more about you, then they will just go to your website on its own. Some of those other ideas are really good for getting eyeballs. I like the idea of profiling. In my case, as a trade association, profiling a member, I presume an organization. You know. A company with with clients can profile a client or a customer. Also, great way to summarize and and then get get eyeballs and but more than anything, produce something that is of value to other people on who are also watching on LinkedIn?

Judi Hays (30:22)

Well, here's the thing, Barry. If if you look at your own habits, when you're going through your your news feed and when you're looking at your email and you're looking at whatever channels that you go to, what is stopping you? What what is like thumb scrolling stopping you and getting you interested? And think about that and say, oh, you know, yeah, this is where I go for stuff. Now you are not your customer, so that's the other side of it. So some people I've worked with said, well, you know, I don't use this platform. I don't. Well, I will tell you that your customer does. So that's what you have to understand first of all who it is that you're targeting. That's first and foremost, and then where are they going for information? And from there, then you can and you test. I'm always testing. You know, my my first job was with a direct response ad agency. Rap Collins was was a very well known agency, and I worked on these A B split tests where we do two different offers and see which one pulled better, you know. And we were constantly trying to better our best. And so I do that a lot in my marketing now. Is I I will test things. I will test a doc upload versus a JPEG, you know, and see does the image perform better or does the doc perform better. I will test something as text or text and image, you know, and see, it could be the same thing, and say which one is performing better, you know, because it doesn't go out to the same people. People just don't remember if they've seen it. They don't, you know. It's like, oh, or if they see it again, it like reinforces it. So

Barry Moline (31:52)

I think what I'm hearing you say is whether I'm promoting my business or just me alone as whatever it is I'm trying to do, I also do some speaking about teamwork and and leadership, and I think the techniques are similar. You want to put goodness out into the world. You want to you know think about some of the ways that attract your own eyeballs. You know, do some of those kind of similar things, and you know, so the strategy is is in the same ballpark.

Judi Hays (32:24)

Key word there is strategy. It's a little different. That the at the end of the day, people do business with people. Okay, so if I'm buying a a service and I'm looking at different companies, it comes down to who's representing that company and who I like and trust that I know is going to take care of me. Now, if you're if you're an association, that's a little different because they're not joining because they like the executive director. They're joining because it's going to help their business. So I would say that your profile as a person is is probably the starting point, and if people are curious, they may look at well, what does he do or what does she do? But I think the key word is strategy. You know, I ask people before we engage in in working together, what what is your purpose on LinkedIn? What are you trying to do? Well, you know, I really would like to get more speaking engagements, or I would like to find, you know, I'd like to be acquired. I'd like to, you know, come up with a succession plan and have somebody buy my business. Okay, or I want to, you know, I want to get new clients. Well, do not sell on LinkedIn because nobody wants to be sold, and and that really turns people off. You know, you get those messages, and it's like, yeah, and they want to, you know, go over your financial blah blah blah. It's like, no, not going to do it. So use LinkedIn to build the trust, to have the visibility, the trust, and then when you have a conversation, always think about. I always put my and this is what I've done my whole career is I've always put myself in my client's shoes or the client or the customer of my client's shoes. So who are they marketing to, and how are they going to be perceived? You know, it's kind of like in the early days when people would organize websites, they do it like according to the org chart, and it was like people don't look at your website like your org chart. You know, they they really go in for certain things. You have to understand what is drawing people in. You know, and that has to do with like you're teasing people all along. You're making them curious. You know, it's kind of like if you're walking by and you smell some really good food. You know, go by a bakery. It's like, ooh, I want to go in there and see what's going on. What are they cooking? What are they working on? You know, same kind of thing with your profile and your content. You know, you want to create that sensual, sensory experience where people see and they, you know, by the way you write, they could hear. You know, so it's a little bit of storytelling. In a sense, you know, I just put a post up the other day about I had a client that he's selling services in a very limited market in South Florida, on the East Coast. Okay, very limited to engineering firms, so that gets as specific as can be, and that's great. And you know, it's like well, you know, maybe there's like 26 firms here. That's not a lot, you know, to work with. So I said, okay, who else is selling to engineering firms? Well, there's architects. You know, there's construction companies. There's, you know, they're working together in one degree or another. Commercial real estate. You know, and then we said, okay, and and what kind of organizations are supporting engineering? Well, there's trade associations, there's trade shows, you know, there's there's so now we have a much bigger universe to work with. Now we're going to be looking for referral partners. I can help you. You can help me. You know, if you come to me and it's like, you know what? I know a perfect architecture firm that can help you. I'm an engineer. I can help, you know. Or the architect says, you know what? We work with this engineering firm. They're great. I think you should talk to them. So you know, he's selling IT services.

Judi Hays (36:09)

He can sell to all of those people. My client, but it's really finding like how do you expand who you can market to, and that's what that's what I call puzzle solving, right? Because it's a jigsaw puzzle, and I have this piece, and it's like, how am I going to make this work? And I only have a limited amount of space. Well, you know, maybe I need a bigger board to work on. You know,

Barry Moline (36:32)

yeah. Well, like like everything in the operation of our businesses, strategy. You know, you you talked about it a few minutes ago, and you got to start with what are we trying to end up with. So let's develop the roadmap to try to get there. Yeah, and of course that involves trying a few things to see what works. So strategy is key.

Judi Hays (36:55)

Well, and I will tell you this: people, I've I've talked to people. I say, well, LinkedIn doesn't work. It's like, all right, well, what have you done? Well, you know, and and when you start to look at that, it's like, well, what was your goal? We were, you know, we just wanted to get, you know, new clients. It's like, okay, well, that's not really a goal. I mean, obviously, everybody wants to do that, you know, but strategically, how are you positioning your company? You know, I was talking with a prospect yesterday, and he provides refurbished computers, and I said, "Well, that's a commodity. I said, "You know, so what are people buying on price? He says, "Yeah, they're buying on price, they're buying on service, and they're buying on parts. I said, "So what two are the most important? He said, "Well, probably service and then price. Parts they can get anywhere. Okay, all right. So how do you stand out in terms of service? You know, and and he had great content. He just wasn't sharing it. I said, how can you educate? He he's working with call centers and educational, you know, K 12 people that need computers, right? And it's like, well, how can you educate them how to go about making the most of their, you know, capital expense. You know that that budget that they have to acquire. You know, a computer is a capital expense in most cases. How how can you educate them on whether they know if they need laptops or desktops? How do you educate? I said there's so many things that you can almost provide this service where the price isn't the driving factor, then you can actually charge a little more because you're providing this expertise, and now you've separated yourself from the cattle of all those other, you know, generic refurbishers. So again, it's positioning. It's a really understanding. Okay, yes, that's the position I want. So now my strategy is to educate and really help the end user, so then I become the go-to person, and we build relationships, you know, over time, you know. So as they're upgrading their equipment, guess who they're coming back to, you know. So it's thinking like that. So it's you know that strategy, knowing who you're targeting, and then understanding where they go, what types of content they consume, you know, and then taking it from there. So it's fun to me. I'm a jigsaw puzzler. I do jigsaws all the time, and and I'm always like, you think you got this thing solved, and then it's like, that doesn't go there. What about here? Oh, you know.

Barry Moline (39:15)

Yeah, and of course, you know, staying in front of people is really important because you never know. At the today, they may not need your service. They know of you, but in six months, they're like, "Wait a minute, where did I see that? And you've got to stay in front of them.

Judi Hays (39:30)

That's so important. So important, Barry. Yeah.

Barry Moline (39:34)

So let's talk a little bit about Judi. As as a child.

Judi Hays (39:39)

Oh gosh.

Barry Moline (39:40)

Did you know that you wanted to do this when you grew up? I mean, clearly you have a design perspective because in Austin you were working on that, and you know you're a creative, right?

Judi Hays (39:53)

Definitely, definitely. I would say esthetic. I'm much much involved in esthetic and and and. Visceral type of marketing,

Barry Moline (40:02)

but but but going back as as a child, is this where you were as as a kid? Were you more of a creative kind of a person?

Judi Hays (40:10)

Yeah, I mean, I excelled in school in everything that was creative, so I didn't I didn't spend much time in in the things that required a lot of bookwork. I was very good in art and and very good in the creative English and things like that. Yeah, you know what's funny? I used to keep. I think it was about nine or 10 years old, and I was fascinated with cars. I loved the design of the late 60s and 70s. Okay, so I'm dating myself, but anyway, cars were beautiful then. So I kept a matrix. We'd be driving around, you know, all over, and I had a matrix, and I could identify any car. You put that. I and I used to tick off like how many I saw, and so I was collecting data before it was even a thing, right? And when my dad was going to buy a car, remember he wanted to buy. He was going to buy a 1970 Torino, and I had read that you know, Dad, it's not a good move. It's not a good move. I think you should get a Buick, Buick Skylark. And he listened to me, his 10-year-old daughter, right? He listens to me, and turns out that that year Torino had a big recall. The 1970s got recalled, and and so you know they had a bowling league, and they would all say, Judi, what do you think about this car? What? And here I am, 10 years old. They're asking me about cars, you know. I wrote to the car companies. I got brochures from them. I studied the brochures. I built models. You know, I was really ensconced in it. I love cars. You can see in my background here, I got puzzles of cars and little cars, and yeah. So, but you know, I think I was always on the creative side. I just like to see how things were made. I like to take things apart and figure out how they're made. Can I get them put back together? But it was always about, I guess, design is a common thread. But I think of design as esthetic. You know, it's the esthetic, and it's something I can touch, and and I can, you know, it just there's something tactile about it. I don't know. I don't know what it is I like about it, but I still like cars. I don't take them apart anymore.

Barry Moline (42:03)

Yeah. Wow. What a fascinating, crazy, crazy stuff story from your childhood. Yeah, that's great. You you you dispensed a little bit of leadership advice a few minutes ago. I'm curious if you have a leadership philosophy, some overarching, you know, bumper sticker, something that you live by.

Judi Hays (42:21)

Well, I think that when I work with, I have a virtual team, and and the way I built my company is I don't have employees. I subcontract a lot, and I subcontract with with specialists. And what I do is I tell them what I'm looking for, but I don't tell them how to do it. So, and I think that's really important. Is if you hire people to do a certain have a certain responsibility, just tell them what you want, and and you're hiring them for their expertise. They will figure it out, and and I tell them also, if you can't figure this out, I want you to think it through because one of the lessons I got in my very first job in an advertising agency is I worked for the executive art director, and I was his administrative assistant. And you know, if there was a problem, I'd come to him and say, "Hey, you know, Fernando, what are we going to do about this? And I remember one time he snapped at me, and this is New York, so you expect this. And he says, "Don't come to me with problems. Come to me with solutions. And I never forgot that. And so that meant what that meant was okay. Here's a problem, and I'm stuck. So what am I going to do? I'm I'm going to stop, or I'm going to go to my boss, you know, or I'm going to think about here's some alternatives. So I would go in and say, Fernando, we have a problem because this we couldn't source this. Here, here's what I think we can do to accomplish this. Is this okay? He said, "Brilliant, or he said, "No, or he might give me his idea. But the point is, instead of just coming and stopping with problems, employees need to take the time to think through some solutions. And then I don't see a lot of that happening, you know. I do get frustrated. I have a very, very short attention span, and I do some of the people that I'm working with. I've had to go over some of the details again and tell them, here's my expectation. You know, if you get stuck, do a Google search. You know, whatever it is, find the answer. It's there. I know it's there because I saw it, you need to find it. So, I think that's the one thing: is is be a problem solver, you know. And then the other thing is in terms of leadership. Like like, I am a leader with my clients because they expect me to be ahead of, you know, in the know. So I have to be a leader that way. So what I try to do is anticipate, and I think I talked about that earlier, is to be of service to them and anticipate how I can be proactive in terms of growing their business. I have a client whose next year is going to be their 20th year, and I said, you know what? There's a lot we can do with this. Let's start thinking. Now, 20 years in your industry would have been some of the innovations. 20 funny things that have happened, or 20 things you would do different, or 2020 companies to follow, or all these different things. But let's really work on that 20 because that's huge. But let's make it fun, you know. So then people start to follow it, you know, and and just engage with it. So, I hope I answered that question. I'm sorry if I went off on a tangent. I'm just very passionate.

Barry Moline (45:28)

Oh no, no, that you you did very well, and and I'm wondering if that idea of bringing solutions and not problems, and of course, I think the example you gave, where you may not be able to see the entire waterfront of solutions, but at least you've thought about one or two or three ideas. Bring that to a supervisor, a boss, and say, you know, here's the problem. Here's a few ideas that I've brainstormed. I'm not really sure if that's the best direction. You know what are your thoughts? It allows that that boss to you know also brainstorm on top of the ideas that you're bringing, and and also I think as you alluded to to then bring in new information. You know, sometimes you know the boss has a different perspective. They're on a different level and understand different nuances that we may not see. So bring that into the conversation as well. At least you've you've come to you know that boss, your client, with ideas to further the conversation and the solution. So is that that what you would say is a is an element of what just employees, people in general need to bring to work?

Judi Hays (46:56)

Yeah, I think that that's how you groom future leaders is teaching them how to think and how to solve problems and how to be proactive. That's a future leader, and your job as a leader is to always be grooming the future leaders. And I think it's really important. So I do it in my organization. I train people that work with me as an account manager or an account director, I lead the strategy, and then we work together. And before I will hand them off to a client to work with one of my clients, I need to make sure that they have those qualities where where they're going to take initiative, where they're not going to get stuck. Where if the client asks them a question and they don't know it, you know, I think one of the the underlying principles is honesty and integrity. If I don't know that answer, I'm not going to, you know, make something up. And I'll say to the client, you know, that's that's a really good question. Let me do a little bit of research and see what I can come up with. That's one thing. Or the other thing I think, in terms of a leader, is is being willing to, as you teach your team, own up to something. If something goes wrong, which it does, I mean, there's stuff that happens. You know, you got to own up to it, and I think that's how you get respect: is when you own up to mistakes, and and then again, you learn from it. Obviously, you know, a mistake should only happen once; otherwise, it's a problem. But you know, really, really making sure that okay, what happened? Why did that happen? How can we prevent that in the future? And again, a good leader will give the team the tools to work through that. So you, if you're going to be a micromanager, you might as well just do it yourself, and then you're not a leader. You're, you're, you know, you're not productive. So it's really trust, you know, and grooming your team to become leaders. I think is the best thing you can do.

Barry Moline (48:46)

Great advice. So let's talk a little bit about Judi. What do you do outside of work that helps to clear your mind? You know, you you mentioned you know puzzles. You mentioned cars, but when you just really want to disconnect, what do you do?

Judi Hays (49:01)

Well, I live on the water. New York is is an you know there's islands and there's water all over the place. So I'm lucky enough to live on on the water. We have a little private beach and a dock and all that. So I do start my day. I go down to the dock and and the boats are out there and I just take it in and just kind of just like set the intention for the day, and I love that. And sometimes I'll I'll do that at the end of the day. We always have beautiful sunsets, so getting out and being around water is something that restores me. I love to just experience new things, you know. And and so I'll take a trip upstate, or I'll go into the city, or I'll do something different, you know. Go to an exhibit or a concert or meet friends, and you know, I just kind of mix it up. What else do I do? I I used to be a crafter. I actually used to. I had a TV gig that was going for a while where I was called the Crafty Crafter, and I I would do a demo on how to create things. I worked for Michaels. Company for about eight years when when I was raising my daughter, and when she was in elementary school, so it was a good part time gig, and but I haven't crafted a lot lately, and I was just thinking about that. I think I need to get back into some crafting, you know, creating things and sharing it.

Barry Moline (50:15)

Yeah. So would you can you boil what your perspectives are into a brand, you know, like what what does Judi Hays stand for? What's the Judi Hays brand? Is there a word? Is there a phrase?

Judi Hays (50:30)

Well, yeah, I would, yeah, I would say that integrity is probably if you're working with me, I'm going to be totally honest with you, and sometimes people don't want to hear the truth. It's like I'm not going to sugarcoat it. This isn't working. So yeah, integrity, honesty. I think that I don't mince. You know, I'm a New Yorker. How can I say I say it like it is? But

Barry Moline (51:02)

that's good.

Judi Hays (51:02)

No, it's funny because everywhere I've lived, I've lived in West Virginia, I lived in California, I lived in Texas, and they're like, "You're so New York. You know what is it with you? You're so New York. I said you got a problem with that, you know. But it was it was kind of a fun thing. And what I learned about New Yorkers is that they don't have any patience, but they are really-they've got big hearts. New Yorkers will always help people, like real New Yorkers, and you know I love that, and I love the fact that you know they say it like it is because there's not a lot of time, you know, and it's like just just get to the point, you know. So I like to have fun. I like to laugh, and I am always the one. I mean, even I just went through a loss of a loved one, and it's been really hard. But I'm trying to see the the bright side of it, or or the the upside of it, and that's been my whole life. I've always seen the upside of things, even in the most dire of situations, because I think if you dwell on the negative side, that can spiral, you know, and that that can get really dark. And and I and that's not me, so I you know you cope with things. I mean, not every day is sunshine, but you try to find you try to. I try to smile at least at one person a day to the point where it's contagious, and they smile at somebody else. So as my mom would say, do something nice for someone today, pay it forward, and it it does enrich your life when you when you give. You are open to receive, and that's so

Barry Moline (52:25)

agree with that. That's absolutely so. You just maybe you answered the question that I was just about to ask you, which is what's some good advice you've received, and and that was just some good advice you received from your mom. Any anything in particular that that maybe is different? What's some good advice you've received in your life?

Judi Hays (52:45)

Well, you know, it's interesting. I've been I don't want to say fearless, but I remember when I was the very first one in my family. Again, a close knit Irish Italian family in New York, and I was the first one to leave the nest and move out west. And what it was was, if this doesn't work, I can always come back. You know, so it was always like, let me try this, and I have a fallback position. You know, there's always a plan B. If that doesn't work, okay, so let's try this. But if you never try it, you're never gonna know, you know. And not not everything becomes a wild success, you know. But some things are. Some things are beyond what I ever expected. So I think it's being open to trying things, but being practical to some degree, you know, and and having a fallback position helps. Can't always plan that, but you know, it's good to you know be resilient.

Barry Moline (53:42)

Yeah. So that is, yeah, that is great advice. And don't be afraid to try your people.

Judi Hays (53:48)

There's no sure things in life. There are not. I mean, everything that you think you can plan out. I remember when my daughter was born, you know, and we were going through the Lamaze training and all this stuff, and there was this whole thing on C-sections, like, well, we don't. That doesn't apply to us, and turns out she was born six weeks early, and it was an emergency C-section, and and the whole birth experience was nothing like we had planned, and it was just like wow, you know, and just there have been other things in my life that I've come in hindsight. I was like wow, I had no idea it was going to work out like that. Don't have regrets because another thing my mom would say is today is the present because it's a gift. You can't change the past. You have no idea about the future. You can have goals and dreams, but live in the moment today because that's all we got.

Barry Moline (54:34)

Yeah, that is great advice. Okay, so we've talked about a bunch of really good advice. You could circle back to almost any one of those things. In particular, I really love the you know don't bring me problems, bring me solutions. But even still, what's some advice that you would give to sort of a new college grad? You know, just starting out in their careers. You know, what what are some what's a good foundation for them to have? Any advice for them?

Judi Hays (55:01)

Well, don't be too dependent on technology because we had a big storm here last year, and we we lost power for a week. And you know, I see a lot of people coming out of school, and they're so dependent on technology, they don't know how to write longhand anymore. They just, you know, it's like if the computer's off, they go, "What they're doing. So it's like you need to go back to some of the original skills. Pick up, be able to to use other things. I mean, that's what I'm saying. Is is if you're so dependent on technology, and I work totally digital, you know, not fun when you can't get an internet connection and your work is on LinkedIn. Well, you know, there's other things that you can do. You can call your clients and have conversations with them. You can do some planning, you know, stuff like that. But I think that that's one thing is is being being resilient and being resourceful. So you know, like I said, we were a week and we didn't have a generator, so it was it was definitely a challenge. First thing I did was I was honest with all my clients, and I said I am out of business for the next couple days till we get the power back on. There's no internet, there's no electricity, there is no air conditioning, and and then I also thought of how can we use this time to maybe do some planning with what I could work with, you know, and and some creative brainstorming, and so then when we got back online, finally, you know, we we hit the ground running. So that would be one one advice is is not dependent on technology. The other thing I would say is I learned my work from the ground up, and and I you know my mom used to say kids these days. Well, I think coming out, the expectation is that they're going to go right into leadership, and not really do the the the sort of you know dirty work. And and let me let me say that when something breaks, if you don't know how that thing works or what to do with it, you're going to be in big trouble. You know, so I'm I'm really resourceful in that way, so I can I can pretty much figure anything out. It's all figureoutable, as as someone once said, Marie Forleo would say it's figureoutable. You everything is figureoutable. Yeah,

Barry Moline (57:14)

yeah, that's excellent. Great advice. Well, Judi, it's been great talking with you. Okay, so to contact you, let's see at your website, judyhayes.com. Right, we'll spell it J-U-D-I-H-A-Y-S.com, Judihayes.com, and on on LinkedIn

Judi Hays (57:34)

is it the same? I go by Judith Hayes on LinkedIn. It's a long story, but you can find me as Judith Hayes. My book is Elevate, Expand, Engage. It's available on Amazon. It's you know again, it's it's a quick read. It's 200 pages. It's meant to be a you know something you can highlight and mark up. Reach out to me. Connect with me on LinkedIn. Let's have a conversation.

Barry Moline (57:56)

Well, Judi, thanks so much. I've really enjoyed the conversation.

Judi Hays (58:00)

Thank you, Barry.

Barry Moline (58:05)

Thanks to Judi Hays for being our guest today, and thank you for listening. If you want to get in touch, or if you know someone you think would be a great guest on the show, send me an email at bmoline@cmua.org, and please leave a five-star review, which helps others find their way to leadership secrets.