Nov 25, 2019
Introducing Womens Careers Expert Bettina Arnafjall
Today's guest joining us on the Join Up Dots podcast is a huge delight for me, as once again she was a listener of the show who was inspired to take action. So inspired was she that we worked together through the Join Up Dots business programme, to find the business that she wanted to bring forward to the world. Bettina Arnafjall is the founder of the womenscareerlift, where she helps ladies (and a few men) to really give themselves a huge lift in their career. You see it's not just a catchy name, but says exactly what she does through women’s career coaching, Resume review and writing, Cover letter review and writing, job interview preparation and salary negotiation preparation As she says "I don't have a typical career path. I studied translation science for French, Italian and English but never actually worked as a translator. After only two years of work experience as a team assistant and customer support agent, I was promoted to be a team manager. I managed several teams of three to as many as thirty employees with vastly different cultural and educational backgrounds. Now the time has come for me to share my many years of experience and help you with your applications. But I noticed there are a lot of women around me who feel like that they are not being given the same opportunities as men because they are women. Whether this is the reality or just their perception, I couldn't say. In any case, I have noticed things that women could do to improve their chances and I want to share my experience to help women with the next step of their careers. I did have several eye opening experiences however with regards to differences in salary expectations and negotiations between men and women. During my many interviews I observed that men usually ask for a much higher salary than women. I actually almost made this mistake myself at some point in my career. Luckily I asked some men for advice and then went into the negotiations with a higher sum than I would have asked for. Guess what: it worked! So now with this amazing insight to what works in the recruitment process, she had the skills to make things happen but how did she do it? And where has been the biggest obstacle to overcome as she brought her dream to the world? Well let's find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Bettina Arnafjall Show Highlights During the show we discussed such deep weighty subjects with Bettina Arnafjall such as: We share the steps that Bettina first took to get her business off the ground by understanding what she really had to offer the world. Why it's so important to potentially talk to your current employees when you first start your own business to check they are ok with you doing it. Bettina reveals why for her business, referrals are so important for continued growth. Dont forget about word of mouth. and lastly...... Why Google Classroom is such a brilliant resource to get an online course up and running for free. How To Connect With Bettina Arnafjall Website Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Return To The Top Of Bettina Arnafjall If you enjoyed this episode with Bettina, why not check out other inspirational chat with Clayton Morris, Dorie Clark, and the amazing Niall Doherty You can also check our extensive podcast archive by clicking here – enjoy Interview Transcription Of Bettina Arnafjall Interview David Ralph 0:01 Once upon a time there was a guy with a dream a dream. He's Jobs for himself online and have a kick ass life working when he wanted him where he wanted across the world. Little did he know that dream would lead him into a world of struggle, burnout and debt. Until he found the magic ingredient and knows drunk was became a thing of the past, of course, was bad person. And now My dream is to make things happen. for you. Welcome to Join Up Dots. Intro 0:31 When we're young, we have an amazing positive outlook about how great life is going to be but somewhere along the line we forget to dream and end up settling. Join Up Dots features amazing people who refuse to give up and chose to go after their dreams. This is your blueprint for greatness. So here's your host live from the back of his garden in the UK. David Ralph. David Ralph 0:56 Yes, hello there. Good morning to you. Good morning to you. Good morning. Hello and welcome to Join Up Dots. Thank you so much for being here. I am all excited today because but me, this is a special show. This is one of those shows where well you'll find out as we proceed through somebody Listen, somebody took action, and he's now rocking and rolling across the world now, our guest joining us on the podcast is, as I say a huge delight for me as she was a listener of the show, who was inspired to take action. So I'm inspired was she that we work together through the Join Up Dots business programme, to find the business that she wanted to bring forward to the world. She's the founder of the women's career Lyft where she helps ladies and a few men she says she's not a man hater, but I'm not sure do really give themselves a huge lift in their career. You say it's not just a catchy name, but says exactly what she does through women's career coaching resume resume early in the morning, resume review and writing cover letter review and writing, job interview preparation And salary negotiation preparation. And she says I don't have a typical career path. I studied translation science for French, Italian and English, but never actually worked as a translator after only two years of work experience. As a team assistant and customer support agent. I was promoted to be a team manager and I manage several teams of three to as many as 30 employees with vastly different cultural and educational backgrounds. Now, the time has come for me to share my many years of experience and help you yes with your job applications. But she noticed that there were a lot of women out there who felt like they weren't being given the same opportunities as men, because they're women. Now, whether this is reality or just the perception she couldn't say, and in any case, she's noticed things that women could do to improve their chances, and she now wants to share the experience to help women with the next step of their careers. She says, I did have several eye opening experiences However, with regards to different is in salary expectations and negotiations between men and women. During my many interviews, I observed that men usually ask for a much higher salary than women. I actually almost made this mistake myself at some point in my career. Luckily, I asked some men for advice and then went into the negotiations with a higher some, but I would have asked for and guess what it worked. So now with this amazing insight to what works in the recruitment process, she's got the skills to make things happen, because how did she do it? How did she build her business? And where has been the biggest obstacles to overcome as she brings her dream to the world? Well, that's why now as we bring on to the show, to stop Join Up Dots with the one and only Bettina. Morning Bettina, how are you? Womens Careers Expert 3:49 I'm good. Good morning, David. That was good with it. You managed David Ralph 3:57 it that is that is honestly Is that 99%? Right? 100% right 200% right because your surname looks nothing like I've got you my thing. I've been going ostrich feathers yet, Is that good? Womens Careers Expert 4:15 I would say 99%. My surname is from the Faroe Islands. My husband is from the Faroe Islands and you actually put a little bit more of air on the pronunciation since David Ralph 4:28 I can't do that. I can't do that. I'm just gonna call you Bettina for the rest of it. It's a delight to have you on the show because yes, we work together through the process and I want to go back right to the very early stages because Miss I have to say to the listeners, this is a moment I never thought would happen because when Bettina first connected with me, she was so secret squirrel, she was so Oh, my boss is gonna find out all the HR teams gonna find out. You were at totally different person, you would never have come onto a podcast and really put yourself out there, would you? Womens Careers Expert 5:05 Yeah, well, it's because we have a company policy. And I mean, I'm still in a full time job. And the company policy says that you need to get approval for any side business. So I needed to figure out what I wanted to do and then get the approval. And once I had the approval, I could go full, full steam. David Ralph 5:24 Now, of course, you going full steam, which is great, but for the listeners out there, is this something that they've got to be aware of up because I would have just gone? I'll just do it, do it and don't tell anyone. It's fine. You know, they don't care about you outside the office. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe more companies nowadays do care about what you're doing outside the office? Womens Careers Expert 5:45 Well, I guess it depends. I mean, in our company, it just is written in the word contract that you actually have to tell them if you want to do a side business and then they give you a little letter, it says you're allowed to do that. And then you're fine. David Ralph 5:58 Yeah, but who reads contract No one reads it. So how are you gonna know I say, anything that comes in front of me, because you don't want them to go up to the HR people and bingo, you know, oh, I'm starting this new business and red flags and warning signs flush out when they could have just done it because they weren't aware how how's the way that they can tiptoe around this? Womens Careers Expert 6:21 I guess most companies won't really care. I know that in in my company, it is like that, because people who work that could do something that is competing with the actual business, and then it would be an issue. So I mean, just if there's nothing in the contract, and nobody ever talks about things like that, I mean, just go and do it. In my case, I had read my contract contract, so I need to make sure that everything was in order before I got started. And I mean, if you really want to promote your business and promote it on like LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram and all over the place, there are chances that people will find out So be open and honest from the start, right? David Ralph 7:03 I think so be open and honest. It's not the way I operate. But I think he's good advice. I remember when I started Join Up Dots, right, the very beginning, I was so embarrassed by it. It was literally and I've said this in a few podcast, but it would have been easier for me to say that I was a pornography addict, you know that that would that would have been understandable. But it opened up so many questions up, you know, why are you doing that? What was wrong with the last bit earlier and I just saw that secretly tiptoed around, even though I had this voice I was putting out into the world. It's strange, isn't it? Because online business is so powerful. And even now I talked to guys and ladies who have created big businesses, but they're not visible in it at all. They're absolutely hidden because they don't feel comfortable enough to put themselves in there. Womens Careers Expert 7:56 Yeah, I guess this a big step to take in. I mean, knows it took me a little bit to get there but it took you a long while David Ralph 8:03 just by Unknown Speaker 8:08 year David Ralph 8:09 365 days of tiptoeing around you know how many episodes i'd released by that time before you finally did it. So so let's get into that moment though. Because what was what's wrong with your job? Why do so many people now want to start side hustlers but don't do anything about it? You know what, what's the difference between you, myself and so many people but they actually do because I speak to so many people that go Yeah, I really love this. This is really what I want and I don't do the first thing about it. What was different about you? Womens Careers Expert 8:46 I guess it's not really that is something you know, wrong with my job and I don't like my job because my job is cool, and I like it. But I just felt this need to do more and I felt this need to help Women in some way and I figured out that in my job, I cannot really do it to the extent that I want to do it. So, I started thinking about what I can do I also move from my team manager role then into more like project manager role because it could have been a conflict of interest, you know, me being a team manager and then coaching people with job applications and so on. so on. So, yeah, when I had done that, I started focusing on you know, what can I do for other ladies, I discussed it with friends. I helped them a little bit was there Java applications turned out that it really worked well. And then I did a little test run and yeah, figured out that can also work with strangers. So then I thought, now we can get started. David Ralph 9:50 with that. I love the fact that you tested you pre test DG before you even got websites and profiles and URLs. You already stepped into helping other people to confirm your talent, your skill your superpower. Did it surprise you how rubbish people actually are at the things that you can do naturally? Well? Womens Careers Expert 10:16 Oh, it always surprises me. I mean, I have I don't want to sound arrogant, but I have many things that I'm good at. So when I look around, and this is both now, you know, with the job applications, but also sometimes I'm in the day job. I'm surprised how hard some people find it to do certain things when they come really easily to me. I guess it's just because I figured out what my strengths are. And now I'm focusing on my strengths and building on them and not really, you know, trying to push through walls where, yeah, it doesn't make any sense. David Ralph 10:51 I remember back in the day, I was very good at helping people do their resumes in SC bees, and they would come to me and say, how baby could you go through it? I'll go Yeah. And I changed things. And I've moved this bit here and move up it and increase certain things. Yeah, not lying, not lying, but just kind of, you know, emphasising certain points, and they would go off and get these amazing jobs. And when it was me, I couldn't do it myself. I couldn't do that sort of beat myself up CV writing even though I could do it for other people. And it's a kind of it's a mindset that I think most people have a have a problem in of actually boosting their own career prospects don't like Womens Careers Expert 11:35 Yeah, because we don't like talking about ourselves. Then we feel like we're, I know you do. David Ralph 11:41 Yeah, I do. I love it. I love the business out of it, you know? Womens Careers Expert 11:47 Yeah, but most people don't. So you know, they they feel kind of embarrassed to talk about their achievements and their strengths and what they do well, so then they will stick to very formal resume and cover letter and formal way of presenting themselves where they hide between and behind a lot of jargon and phrases and will not really put their personality and their skills out there. David Ralph 12:14 And so with that, because obviously we're going to talk about, you know, how you actually started the business and stuff like this is interesting to me. So, can you bring humour into a CV and resume? Can you make it sparkle? Because Yeah, most of them I actually worked in recruitment for about six weeks, I worked for a recruitment company in London. I won't say their name, but they're still there. I hated it. I hated it with a passion because people would come in looking for work, and these guys would go, yeah, I tell you what, I don't want to just get you any job. Give it to me three weeks and we will get you the right job and literally take this CBS and then put them in the bin. As I walked out, it was a real commodities based business, and I just naturally want to help people. So is this something But you know, they can help themselves by sprinkling human personality and putting pictures on it, or does it have to be formal? Womens Careers Expert 13:09 Well, I guess I mean, humour is probably a bit difficult, but especially in the cover letter, you can put a lot of your personality and I noticed this, particularly when I was managing a very international team, and I was getting applications from people from all over the world. And I noticed that German applicants used to write like, very formal, boring, standardised job application. I haven't sorry, but that's just how it is. And then I noticed that, you know, like, other nationalities, but particularly like English speaking ones, they were all over, you know, I am good at this. And I love doing that. And this is my passion. And I was like, Hey, you know, this reads much better. From a manager perspective, I will much rather invite somebody tells me about what they really like and what they enjoy, rather than somebody who's just saying, I have this experience. And I have done this before. And basically, it's just a repetition of what is already on your resume. David Ralph 14:13 When I used to interview people, and I was very, very good at interviewing people, because I never went really with their skills. It was more about how they made me feel. And one of the first questions I used to ask people, it was always one that I didn't expect, because I'd come in, ready for the professional. And I remember saying to this girl as the first one, what makes you laugh? And she said, when people hurt themselves, and I thought, brilliant, that's for me, that's for me, because I laugh at the same thing. And she was like a Terminator, but work she was absolutely brilliant. And so is this something you know, before we spin it around again, into your career path? Is this something that companies should focus in on more about the personality and how they make them feel because they're going to teach the person how to work in their office isn't it is not that they're just gonna put them on a desk and away they go they're gonna have some kind of training and development period is about all the feelings. Womens Careers Expert 15:10 Yeah, it's a lot about you know, getting to know the person really Who are you and, you know, how do you pick? Because it's I mean experience is one thing experience you can have or you can gain I mean you can learn so much I learned a lot that I had not studied for just on the job, but the important thing is really to find the person with the right mindset. So what I learned and that really made a change in my hiring as well is to ask behavioural based interview questions because there you can really see how people reacted based on a concrete example and you can get real feeling of what kind of person they are and how they will pay for One day on the job. David Ralph 16:02 Now, let's take you back in time then because you was a listener of Join Up Dots and then we connected and you signed up for my, in those days. It was a four week course we went twice a week for four weeks. Now we do it over eight weeks to get people breathing space in between. How did you find that process? Was it something bad actually, because certain people say to me, I overload on certain things. Other people say, you know, it was just right. Did you find it a pressurised or weeks? Womens Careers Expert 16:35 No, not at all. And the only issue was that I was actually sick with the flu for about a week so I could not think straight, but luckily I could rewatch the video so all good. David Ralph 16:45 So with the process that we went through, it was basically an hour half hour, so an hour and a half to two hours of me twice a week, and then videos to submit that information. Now I remember when you first came to me one day Things that I always say to people is, let's try to get traffic from every source. Let's try to flood your business with traffic and you came up with women's career Lyft. And I said, I hate it. I hate it because no one is going to type in women's career Lyft let's find a name. And you went against me. And you said, No, this is it. It's what I want is my branding. Now I look at it, and I like it, because I can understand it. But why were you so passionate to say, David, I don't agree with what you're saying. And I'm going to do my own thing. Womens Careers Expert 17:35 Well, a I had been thinking about a name for the business because as you already saw my name, my own name is a bit hard to pronounce and to remember so I wanted to something that easy, David Ralph 17:49 easy to say. Easy. Womens Careers Expert 17:57 I wanted something that people can remember you know, and also So that they can understand both in English and in German, and gives them an idea of where the business is going. And also, I had already purchased the URL when we did the course. So I didn't really want to switch. David Ralph 18:15 You didn't want to waste 10 pounds or whatever it is to take my advice and move it forward. But what you've done, which is very clever, is it's it's a branding, you know, it's a branding, but when you look at it, it makes sense. Now, a lot of people come to me and I had these really esoteric sort of names, I suppose Join Up Dots is one of those ones. Now I look at it and in many ways, it makes perfect sense for so many avenues of my business, but for Wow, it was just the Steve Jobs speech. And if you hadn't listened to that, it didn't make any sense. Now, with that, having those three words women's career live, does that make it been easier to bring your content and your branding and your your profile. does everything for lot from that easy. Is that something that people need to think about? How do those three words cascade down through everything that I'm doing? Womens Careers Expert 19:15 Yeah, I mean, I think it makes it clear, you know, who is the big target group, let's say so I don't get too many people coming to my website and then figuring out only after reading through see three or four pages that it's not they are not really right for me or I'm not really right for them. David Ralph 19:38 What Well, I'm amazed with you as well. And I'm amazed every as I'm doing that little IoT business with my fingers. Every phone that I speak to, is how brilliant you are at English. And I it just blows my mind. You know, I'm possibly English. I've been studying it for many, many years. But every other language no I can say hello, goodbye. And that's about it. Now, when you decided you decided quite strongly that you wanted to focus in on German speaking women. Was that a market that was prudent to go into now you're in but have you found it difficult to crack that code? Womens Careers Expert 20:22 Well, actually, because we did the course together in English, I started my website and all my online presence in English and I still have not launched a German website. So all my German speaking clients have just come through recommendations. David Ralph 20:40 Now this this is brilliant, man. Okay, so let's talk about this. So you because so many people think I got to grow a huge audience, I've got to grow a tonne of traffic, but I'm really fascinated. In joining up the dots. You see what I did there, finding the very small pockets of traffic, but actually kept K through, I would much rather have one customer a month that pays me thousands of dollars more than 100,000 customers that don't really pay me anything and take so much time to manage now with yourself, those referrals, bear in mind that you were and you still are full time employed. Was that something that was an open gift? Did you look at? Obviously brilliant, this is fantastic, or did you think to yourself, hang on, hang on? I'm not quite there yet. I haven't quite got the website done. I haven't quite got the the Twitter feed going and all the other stuff that we think we have to have. Did you embrace it easily? Womens Careers Expert 21:39 Oh, I was ready to go. I mean, I was really really happy and I still am really, really happy every time somebody refer someone to me. I also noticed that you know, when people come in via referral, they will never discuss with you about price or whatever, because they know already what they will get. Whereas you know, I found a couple of customers A via Facebook or online and they will always try to negotiate, which makes sense because they don't know me yet. And they don't know if they can trust me and if I really can provide the value that they are looking for. David Ralph 22:13 So So do you think that you actually don't need any online presence? Can somebody get a business up and running just by doing stuff for somebody and saying, Tell your mates about me. Womens Careers Expert 22:27 I think you need, at least in my case, an online presence because even though my friends talk about my services, they don't know somebody or they don't meet somebody everyday who wants to change their jobs. So I mean, the target group is not so big in amongst my friends and family. So, of course, I need an online presence, but I also now do some local networking and meeting people and just getting the word out there about what I'm doing. I think this is a Also very important, because only online is not enough, I think, especially here in Austria, and also in Germany, I would say, there's still a lot of mistrust about everything to do with online and this new technologies and so on. And people trust their neighbours and their friends and whoever they know. And, yeah, their word of mouth is really, really important. David Ralph 23:26 I'm going to play some words pain, and then we're going to delve back into what Bettina is saying, his Oprah, Oprah Winfrey 23:32 the way through the challenge is to get still and ask yourself, what is the next right move? not think about, Oh, I got all of this. What is the next right move? And then from that space, make the next right move, and the next right move and not to be overwhelmed by it because, you know, your life is bigger than that one moment. You know, you're not defined by what somebody says is a failure for you. Because failure is just there to point you in a different direction. David Ralph 24:03 Now let's get back into the Ripper or because something that is is really prevalent in my life at the moment, is how powerful local search is. It operates in such a high level in Google, Google now will know where you're based. You can do Google My Business, you can start getting traffic, even without a website. Google will give you a free website. You just have to post on it and and connect your cell phone, your mobile phone and all those kind of bits of details. I find Oprah Tina, what you're saying makes total sense because you're networking. You're getting out there in your local community. So you become the expert in that local community. You find the people that are there's a lady just down the road who does bad. Why don't you speak to her people trust locally, but I speak to once again so many people that think that they've got to get a client in new York before they can get their next door neighbour to sign up, it's a mistake, isn't it? Womens Careers Expert 25:06 I mean, if you find the client in New York more easily than your next door neighbour, why not? But I guess you know locally because people know you it's easier to find the first clients and from Derek pendants snowball. David Ralph 25:22 snowball in Austria is quite easy to get right imagine. Womens Careers Expert 25:26 But right now it is. Yeah, it started snowing about two weeks ago. So now in the mountains, there's already a lot of snow. David Ralph 25:34 Now what point do the Austrians and the Germans been mistrust online work? I don't understand that. And it's the first time any guest has mentioned anything like that nowadays. I I push people to say online and offline aren't separate. They're the same thing. You've just got to, you know, find your traffic in both sources. Why do you think the Austrians and Germans are new Point of View mistrust it Womens Careers Expert 26:03 it's all about privacy. It's they're all afraid that their data will be leaked to I don't know which company who will do I don't know what with it and you know, they are very private people. And this was also one of the challenges I had to overcome was really to put my real name out there and because there is nobody else in the world with this name, so it's just me and also to put my real address because in Austria and Germany, you have to actually put your real address on your webpage otherwise you get a problem. So that was that was really one of the main challenges because I know the fan you know of, yeah, having all this information out there and and maybe just people showing up at my doorstep or something like that. You never know what can happen. David Ralph 26:52 It's not gonna happen, though. Is it me? It's not Womens Careers Expert 26:54 gonna happen. I know. But these are the things you think about, right? David Ralph 26:58 Yeah, I can. I'm just it because I did a similar thing when I started off at Join Up Dots, I gave a fake address. And because I thought to myself, you know, what happens is somebody comes along, and Nick's my microphone and you know, it's stupid really thinking about it because I just buy another microphone. You know, it's not a game changer, but they were the kind of fears in my head. And most of the fears with business is about what's in your head, isn't it? It's very much you when the inner game to win the outer game. Have you struggled with that? Have you struggled with the who's gonna trust me? Who's gonna hire me? Who's going to base who's gonna be back? Womens Careers Expert 27:38 Well, a bit.