Courtney Johnson: Career Cheat Codes to Stand Out, Get Promoted, and Win at Work | Career | E395

Summary

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Young and Profiting with Hala Taha

Episode: Courtney Johnson: Career Cheat Codes to Stand Out, Get Promoted, and Win at Work | E395
Date: April 20, 2026
Guest: Courtney Johnson (Personal Brand Strategist, Author: Career Cheat Codes)

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on breaking the long-held workplace myth that hard work alone leads to promotions and success. Instead, Courtney Johnson argues—with energy, specific strategies, and memorable stories—that visibility, personal branding, and relationship skills are the real cheat codes to career advancement. The conversation delivers actionable steps for both corporate professionals and entrepreneurs looking to stand out, grow their influence, and leverage online presence for big opportunities.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Expensive Lie: Hard Work is Enough

• Theme: Working hard isn’t enough; visibility is essential.
  • “It is an expensive lie to say you have to put your head down, work hard, and everything is gonna work out for you. Because your work…nobody is going to pluck you out of a crowd.” – Courtney (03:59)
• Illustrative story: Courtney shares the tale of a talented band whose refusal to be online means “opportunity” will always pass them by—a direct analogy for silent professionals.

2. A-Player vs. B-Player Mentality

• A-Players: Learn unwritten rules, build relationships, make themselves visible, and “play the game.”
• B-Players: Resist “the game,” focus exclusively on doing good work, and then feel overlooked.
  • “A-players understand that it's a game—and they embrace the game. B-players say things like ‘I don't want to play the game’...but everything in life is a game.” – Courtney (08:32)

[08:24] A-Players Play the Game

Courtney: “A players really understand psychology, relationships… They want to find out their boss’s goal and help their boss achieve that goal.”

3. “Working Out Loud”: Making Your Value Visible

• Post wins and insights on Slack, Teams, LinkedIn, etc.
• Regular updates to your boss: Monday priorities, Wednesday progress, Friday wins (“Monday-Wednesday-Friday Rule”).
• Repeat wins publicly and within the team to remain top-of-mind.

[10:21] What Does “Working Out Loud” Actually Look Like?

Courtney: “When you finish a great project, talk about it in Slack or Teams… Working out loud means being open to speaking opportunities, hosting opportunities. Even if it’s not external, can you host a tutorial with a different department?”

• Perception can outrank pure talent:

Courtney: “It’s not the best, most talented work that gets the promotion or the deal—it’s the one that’s easiest for others to see.” (11:53)

4. Visibility for Entrepreneurs

• Keep clients informed of wins/results; remind them consistently of your value.
• Build in public—sharing your entrepreneurial journey online keeps you top-of-mind for prospects and opportunities.
  • “When our audience comes to a buying decision, they’re going to choose the person that’s the most top of mind.” – Courtney (14:48)
  • “Retain clients by continuously sharing their progress and successes with them, otherwise they’ll write their own (sometimes negative) story about your value.” – Hala (15:23)

5. Building Strategic Relationships with Your Boss

• Learn and prioritize your boss’s personal and professional goals.
• Relieve their workload strategically (“Can I cover that meeting so you can make your marathon training?”)
• Over-communicate progress using the “Monday-Wednesday-Friday” strategy.
  • “Their results are so much better [if they commit to a year]. Just the mindset…they’re showing up way more committed.” – Courtney (56:15)

[17:56] Snackable Surprises & Micro-Steps

Courtney: “If your boss asks you to do a report, do a report and tell them the three predictions for the next report… One extra micro-step above everybody else—that’s really going to make you stand out.”

6. The Modern Job Hunt (2026 Edition)

• Success requires volume (apply to 100–200 jobs, not just a handful).
• Build a LinkedIn network of at least 200 recruiters (“I tell my clients, don’t complain about no job unless you’re connected to 200 recruiters.” – 26:21)
• Personal brand is applicant’s cheat code: regular posting, thoughtful content, strong profile.
  • “The biggest tip to getting a job…is to build a personal brand.” – Courtney (27:22)
  • Run a “three-second test” on your LinkedIn: What biases or impressions are you creating at a glance?

7. Personal Brand Myths (Especially in Corporate)

• Don’t fear judgment—chances are you won’t stay at any company forever.
• If worried, block critical coworkers or proactively communicate your (company-aligned or community-focused) personal-brand mission to your boss/team.
  • “Odds that you’ll be at that company forever are very, very small… Share your mission with your team.” – Courtney (29:59)

[31:22] Internal Benefits of Personal Branding

Hala: “I became more valuable because I was posting on LinkedIn… I became more popular than the CEO at HP and then was given more opportunities.”

[34:06] Keyword Optimization – For Resumes & Online Branding

Courtney: “We just want to make sure our resumes are very keyword-rich… You can use AI to do this. Take the job description, copy it, put it into ChatGPT…”

8. Addressing Imposter Syndrome

• You don’t have to know everything—just be great at problem-solving.
  • “We are literally cyborgs…you just have to be able to figure out the problem.” – Courtney (37:20)

9. Negotiating Raises & Quantifying Value

• Demonstrate how you make or save the company money.
• Use AI and introspection to tie your achievements to business outcomes.

[39:58] Quantify Your Impact

Courtney: “If you’re not making or saving the company money, you probably wouldn’t have a job…Tie it back into the money—nothing else really matters.”

10. Information Equity & Giving Back

• Courtney’s mission: Share knowledge so others can avoid her mistakes and ascend faster.
  • “My vision for the world is: we are not gatekeeping this information—we are actively sharing.” – Courtney (41:58)

11. The Power of Consistency & Iteration

• Courtney’s career launch: a layoff led to her posting daily for 365 days, “completely changing my life.” (45:52)
• Start with “B+” or “imperfect” content; it’s about building muscle memory and optimizing later.
  • “Consistency is more important than anything… There has not been a single person who’s shown up consistently and not seen success.” – Courtney (48:22)

12. Platform Strategy—Start Narrow, Go Deep

• Master and build a system on one platform before expanding.
• Select the platform that fits your natural content style and comfort zone.

[50:35] Content Creation Strategy

Courtney: “I recommend people start with the platform where they’ll be the most consistent…Understand one platform, optimize for it, then pick your second.”

13. Monetization & Revenue Streams

• Early revenue: Freelancing, repurposing blog posts into ebooks.
• Current portfolio: Content Club memberships, online LinkedIn cohorts, speaking, book sales, and select brand deals.
  • “Having multiple income streams just makes me feel so much better… They’re all scaling and compounding independently.” – Courtney (55:39)

14. Speaking Gigs: Hack Your Way In

• Create and headline your own events to start.
• Reach out to organizers directly, not just via formal applications.
• Find creative ways to get paid (e.g., access other departments’ budgets if event planners say there's no speaker budget).

[58:00] Getting Speaking Engagements

Courtney: “You want a keynote? Make the event you’re keynoting at. Make your own conference…Also, if there’s a speaking application, circumvent the whole thing by reaching out to staff directly.”

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Memorable Quotes

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|---------|-------| | 03:59 | Courtney | “It is an expensive lie to say you have to put your head down, work hard, and everything is gonna work out for you.” | | 08:32 | Courtney | “A-players understand that it’s a game—and they embrace the game… Everything in life is a game.” | | 10:21 | Courtney | “Working out loud… brag about your work, because if your work is invisible, we’re not going to be first for the promotion.” | | 17:56 | Courtney | “Go one extra micro step above everyone else—if your boss asks for a pitch deck, also draft the email sending it.” | | 27:22 | Courtney | “The biggest tip to getting a job as easy and fast as possible is to build a personal brand.” | | 39:58 | Courtney | “You really need to understand the value that you bring to the company… Tie it back into the money, because honestly nothing else really matters.” | | 41:58 | Courtney | “My vision for the world is we are not gatekeeping this information—we are actively sharing.” | | 48:22 | Courtney | “Consistency is more important than anything… There has not been a single person who’s shown up consistently every single day and not seen success.” | | 61:58 | Courtney | “Secret to profiting in life is consistency. It's just showing up every single day…Consistency compounds.” |

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Notable Timestamps & Segments

• 03:59 – The expensive lie: why “work hard and wait” holds you back.
• 08:24 – A-Player vs. B-Player mindsets and strategies.
• 10:21 – What “working out loud” looks like in practice.
• 15:23 – Reminding clients of your wins: crafting the narrative.
• 17:56 – Snackable surprises & standing out by micro-stepping beyond expectations.
• 26:21 – Modern hiring: volume, recruiters, and personal brand.
• 27:22 – LinkedIn’s “three-second” test for your brand impression.
• 31:22 – The hidden internal benefits (and career accelerators) of public personal branding.
• 39:58 – Quantifying your value: the only raise conversation that matters.
• 45:52 – How a layoff and 365 days of posting changed Courtney’s life.
• 48:22 – “B” content: Consistency beats perfection.
• 53:25 – Play to your strengths: stand out by breaking content norms.
• 58:00 – Hack your way into public speaking opportunities.

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Actionable Advice & Takeaways

For Corporate Professionals:

• Be visible: Share wins frequently (internally and externally).
• Update your boss: Use the Monday-Wednesday-Friday rule for trust and freedom.
• Go beyond: Always take one micro-step extra on deliverables.
• Connect with recruiters and post on LinkedIn—even if you’re not job hunting.

For Entrepreneurs:

• Remind clients of your impact; don’t expect them to track your wins.
• Build in public: Document your journey and wins to stay top-of-mind.
• Leverage multiple revenue streams for stability; start with freelancing, digital products, etc.
• Play to your strengths—choose platforms and content formats that match your skills.

For All:

• Consistency compounds: Success follows those who show up relentlessly.
• Don’t overthink content: Start, then optimize later; “B” content beats no content.
• Personal brand is non-negotiable in the modern workplace.

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Final Rapid-Fire Tips

• Become more visible today: Post on LinkedIn or share a win on your company’s internal channels. (59:48)
• Profitability hack: Ask 10 prospects about their challenges, use their language in your marketing. (60:47)
• Life ‘cheat code’: Consistency—“the only way to fail... is to quit.” (61:58)

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Where to Find Courtney Johnson

• Book: Career Cheat Codes (Available on Amazon and major bookstores)
• Instagram: @courtlandjohnson
• TikTok: @courtneyjohnson
• Website: [Google “Courtney Johnson” for links]

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This episode is a masterclass in practical career and visibility strategies for ambitious professionals and entrepreneurs, packed with ready-to-implement “cheat codes” for immediate impact.

Transcript

[Hala Taha]

today's episode is sponsored in part by shopify quo indeed and experian shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you grow your business start your one dollar per month trial at shopify dot com profiting quo is an ai powered phone system that brings your calls texts and contacts together in one place try quo for free plus get twenty percent off your first six months when you go to quo dot com profiting indeed helps you attract interview and hire talent all in one place get a seventy five dollars sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at indeed dot com podcast experian is a financial app that negotiates your bills and cancels unwanted subscriptions get started with the experian app today as always you can find all of our incredible deals in the show notes or at youngandprofiting dot com deals it is

[Courtney Johnson]

an expensive lie to say you have to put your head down work hard and everything is gonna work out for the opportunities do not go to the hardest worker the opportunities go to the person who is most visible courtney johnson a personal brand strategist and content creator known for her career cheat codes she helps professionals build visibility online and turn content into real career opportunities i want other people to have a shortcut to where they don't have to go through so many ups and downs and so many problems in their career they just understand the information and they can go i got laid off and so i was forced to post every single day for three hundred and sixty five days and that year completely changed my life consistency compounds the only way to fail the entrepreneur game the personal brand game is to quit it's to come up with an excuse and say i'm going to come back in two weeks for

[Hala Taha]

somebody who's looking for a job what do they need to know about how hiring works to today in twenty twenty

[Courtney Johnson]

six the biggest tip to getting a job as easy and fast as possible is to build a personal brand how

[Hala Taha]

do you suggest people decide what's the first platform they should focus on i

[Courtney Johnson]

recommend people start with hey young and

[Hala Taha]

profiters today we are taking a turn from our usual topic of entrepreneurship and we're going to focus on careers so this episode is especially valuable if you are climbing the corporate ladder but of course we're going to touch on entrepreneurship because we always do at young and profiting podcast if you're working hard hitting your goals staying loyal but still invisible when promotions raises and big opportunities come around this episode is for you today i'm interviewing courtney johnson in the flesh and she's breaking down the real rules of career success she's a personal brand strategist entrepreneur and author of career cheat codes and her message is clear opportunities don't go to the hardest worker they go to the most visible worker she's sharing exactly how to work out loud build strategic relationships and position yourself so opportunities stop passing you by and start coming straight to you but before we get into it if you're just discovering us i'm so glad you're here make sure you subscribe and follow us so you never miss a conversation and by the way me and courtney did this interview in real life so if you like to watch your podcast episodes and feel all that chemistry go check it out on youtube all right let's get into the conversation courtney welcome to young

[Courtney Johnson]

and profiting podcast i'm so pumped to

[Hala Taha]

be here me too i'm so excited for this conversation i feel like you've got so much to share in terms of career advice for people who are professionals and then also for entrepreneurs because you're an entrepreneur yourself so you've got this new book called career cheat codes coming out in april this year which is like super exciting and in the book your premise is really like this old you know adage saying of keep your head down work hard everything's just gonna work out really just isn't true and a lot of high achievers act this way they just think they can work hard and good things are gonna happen to them why is that an

[Courtney Johnson]

expensive lie it is an expensive lie to say you have to put your head down work hard and everything is gonna work out for you because your work like nobody's gonna go out of their way to find your work nobody's gonna search through your google drive and say oh my god that report was so good nobody is going to pluck you out of a crowd and i think we have this idea i used to have the same idea and honestly i think it was from hearing those stories of like victoria's secret models in like a south african mall and they're like you like we're picking you out of a crowd and now we're giving you a career that just doesn't happen okay maybe that worked in like two thousand eight in this one industry it doesn't work right and austin kleon says if your work is not online it does not exist i actually went to a bar one time and that's kind of where this idea came from and the band was really good and i went up to the band after and i said wow that was amazing like can i follow you on spotify and they're like oh we don't have spotify and i was like okay youtube soundcloud like where can i keep up with your work especially since they said it was their dream to share their music with the world to get a record label you know all the all the music dreams yeah they're like oh we're not on online we're not on spotify we're not on instagram but you can come see us at this bar every third thursday oh my god and anybody that heard that would say that is crazy there's no way that you can have a successful music career just being at this bar every third thursday there's not like music skills out and about going to give you the golden ticket right you gotta put in the reps yourself but a lot of us think like that when it comes to our careers we're putting in the reps we're showing up internally but when we're not making ourselves visible externally those opportunities just aren't coming to us and i'm curious if you got that same advice from

[Hala Taha]

your parents from my parents no my parents were from the middle east and so they were immigrants and my dad was a doctor and so for them they were just like you know study hard work hard but they didn't have much career advice to give me like i felt growing up like really alone in terms of how to navigate the corporate world and the business world because they never had corporate jobs neither of them my dad just kind of like studied and went to med school and that was the route that he knew so no i did not you know i was like reading your book and i noticed that you had mentioned that a lot of people kind of grow up at the dinner table learning about how to navigate corporate but no that definitely wasn't me i learned it on

[Courtney Johnson]

my own yeah that did not happen to me either and that's why i wrote this book because i was kind of given the advice like you know working class just keep working hard and you'll get the opportunities but the opportunities do not go to the hardest worker the opportunities go to the person who is most visible because when you're looking for someone when you're looking for a graphic designer to hire you're looking for someone to book on a stage you're looking for someone to bring on your podcast you're looking for the person to to give a promotion to we're gonna choose the easiest choice we're gonna choose the person that is obvious or it makes us look good to our boss we're gonna choose the person that is that is it's easy to enroll everybody into why we're hiring them why we're promoting them and you wanna make it easy for people around you to say yes to you and when you're hiding because oh i'm humble or or because oh i my work speaks for itself you're really robbing yourself of all of

[Hala Taha]

these opportunities yeah i remember i forgot who i interviewed but they told me that humble literally means low to the ground so who wants to look up to somebody who's low to the ground right right so you never want to

[Courtney Johnson]

be humble yeah also like you're robbing the world of your gifts and talents if you're staying humble right some people are like well i don't want to make it all about me me me it's not about you you you it's about all the people you impact right like young and profiting is not just about hala although you weave in your stories and your experience young and profiting is about all of the listeners the millions of people who have listened to this podcast learned something learned something implemented it and changed their life in some way and if you if you were to stay quiet and say well i'm going to be humble i'm not going to do this podcast i'm not going to put myself out there you are robbing those millions of people that that have had massive changes in their life massive improvements in their life their business their career because of you yeah one

[Hala Taha]

of the concepts i loved in your book was this a player b player concept so tell us like what does an a player look like what do they do and what do they not

[Courtney Johnson]

do an a player is someone usually who comes from a family where they were told all of the unwritten rules of work and for me when i got to the workplace i saw all these a players and i'm like wait why are they talking like that why are they doing that i thought i would just do my work and everything would work out i come from very much a b player background so really the book is exposing all of the tips and tricks of the a players and some of the things that the a players do a players really really understand psychology relationships a players understand that they want to find out their boss's goal and help their boss achieve that goal a players understand visibility they understand that visibility is what gets their work noticed a players also understand again relationships how to build strong relationship across your company with your clients et cetera and the main difference between a players and b players is that a players understand that it's a game and and they embrace the game and a lot of times we can be afraid to embrace this corporate game because it's fake it's bullshit whatever but if you don't like the game of corporate just gain power and change it yourself so really a players play the game they notice that it's a game they see it's a game they play the game b players say things like oh i don't want to play the game i don't want to pretend to be someone i'm not they're very resistant to the game yeah but everything in life is a game and we can choose to learn the rules and play to win or we can choose to be pissy about it

[Hala Taha]

and stay stuck and one of the games that a players play is working out loud can you give us some examples of how you can work out

[Courtney Johnson]

loud yeah working loudly would be something like when you finish a great project talk about it in slack or teams or whatever your company communication is share hey i'm super proud of our team and and we accomplished this or that i contributed in this way working out loud is also sharing your work publicly i know a lot of people can't share their exact work publicly but you can still share what you're learning so that means posting on linkedin working out loud means being open to speaking opportunities to hosting opportunities even if it's not external can you host a tutorial with a different department in your organization can you go to a conference record a loom video about what you learned and share that with the team it's really this idea of like bragging about our work because again if our work is invisible we're not going to be first for the promotion we're not going to be first for those opportunities that we really really like another way to flex working loudly is just to update your boss hey boss these are the things i did today these are the things i accomplished this week and start to make a trail of of everything that you've accomplished it makes it a lot easier to get a promotion and it makes them honestly like you a lot more and be a little bit less on your ass because they really trust you because they see that your work is visible it's visible to them it's visible to the broader team so it's

[Hala Taha]

not really about necessarily doing the best work of course you want to do the best work it's about the perception that you're doing the best work totally

[Courtney Johnson]

totally and you're exactly right it's not the best most talented work that gets the promotion or gets the opportunity or signs the deal it's the one that's easiest for other people to see right and listen it's helpful if you can do the best work but the best work just isn't the differentiating factor now a lot of people listening to this probably are rock stars at their work they're amazing at their work so it's going to be even easier but unfortunately some people are kind of shitty at their work and still get the job and the promotion and the deal and i'm sure a lot of listeners listening to this right now are like yeah i've seen those examples and i hate that that happens i wish it went to the best person but it doesn't

[Hala Taha]

a lot of high performers i think fall into this bucket of not wanting to play this game because in school it's not really about politics you take the test you get a good grade you know you get honors and you keep getting rewarded so they end up going into corporate and they think it's the same system when it's really not so even if your work does get you shine and you're really talented it could be the key differentiator where you're going ahead somebody who has really good work and good politics and they're going to get the promotion over you totally

[Courtney Johnson]

yeah and you don't have to be perfect at either game like you're never going to be the top of the top the best at what you do and you're never going to be the most socially intelligent or aware right it's like how do you play into your own strengths and really amplify those i

[Hala Taha]

feel like this is also relatable to entrepreneurs working out loud because it's this whole whole concept of like documenting your journey sharing before you're necessarily ready like everybody thinks they have to be an expert to share online but you can actually share what you're learning talk to us about how entrepreneurs can use this

[Courtney Johnson]

concept as well yeah first entrepreneurs can work out loud with their clients so if you want to make sure you're retaining your clients or your users make sure you're reminding them of the impact maybe you have a marketing agency hey like we're super proud because we're seeing these results this week we just had this major win or a small win you know you might text your client a screenshot of somebody that said hey i loved that presentation i loved that thing right it could be so small maybe you have an app we want to make sure that we're continuously reminding our audience how much time they're saving or how much money they're making or whatever outcome that you're creating so constantly remind your clients remind your users remind your customers the benefit that they're getting from your service or they might forget because they're not thinking about you all the time it's like you gotta make sure that you're retaining these users as well and then also for new users and new opportunity for new clients for new prospects we wanna make sure we're building in public so we are posting consistently and it doesn't have to be crazy you don't have to drop everything and become an influencer just give your audience routine updates of what you're doing what you're celebrating so you can stay top of mind because when our audience comes to a buying decision they're going to choose the person that's the most top of mind in the same way when your boss is looking for someone to promote they're going to choose the person that's most top of mind they're not going to think and sift through and really get in the weeds i wish they did but they don't so constantly remain top of mind this is

[Hala Taha]

so smart i love what you're saying about reminding your clients because they will come up with their own narrative about how the service is going right they'll remember like a few things from few meetings and kind of piece it together and their narrative could end up being a lot more negative than the truth so your job is to kind of craft the narrative for them and share it with them ongoingly which i just

[Courtney Johnson]

think is so smart exactly it's so

[Hala Taha]

so important so how can you make a good impression on your boss because it is usually your boss that is you know helping you get a promotion or moving you along your career so how can people better impress their boss

[Courtney Johnson]

yeah you can better impress your boss first you got to learn what their goal is their personal goal and their professional goal is that their goal is to run a marathon this year okay great what can you take off their plate can you go to that morning meeting to give them time for their marathon training right maybe their personal goal is to buy a house this year can you just give them some encouragement can you say oh great you're touring with a realtor i'll take that over that day or oh my cousin's a realtor here you go so you want to figure out their personal goal you also want to figure out their professional goal maybe they want to get promoted maybe they want a raise maybe they want to achieve a certain outcome or metric and you want to create your focus around helping your boss achieve that goal a lot of times we get caught up in the weeds of what we think we should do maybe even what's best for the company but really if you want your boss to be obsessed with you figure out their goals and help them achieve those goals as your very first priority the next thing you want to do if you want to make your boss obsessed with you is to give them more updates than you think i call this the monday wednesday friday rule so monday you're going to tell them hey boss here are my five priorities for the week wednesday you're going to send them a quick update here's how we're progressing on a b c d on friday you're going to send them a summary of here's what i accomplished they are going to feel like a load is lifted off their shoulders if you do this they are going to be way more hands off let you run on your own because they are always visible into what you're working on and this is going to give you a lot more time because now that you have your priorities you're giving your boss the updates they're not going to be micromanaging you and you could take that extra hour to go work out or go on a walk or go to the park with your dogs take some of your time back

[Hala Taha]

young improfitters raise your hand if you've ever googled one tiny symptom and then five minutes later you're convinced that you're dying i know i have been there done that way too many times but instead of guessing and spiraling i use zocdoc in fact i've been using zocdoc for like ten years i literally don't know how to book doctor's appointments any other way it's a free app and a website that helps you find and book high quality in network doctors based on your needs you can search by symptom or specialty read verified patient reviews and see doctors with available appointments right away if you're a busy entrepreneur and you need to squeeze in a doctor appointment on a random time you you can find the doctors that have availability when you have availability want an in person or video visit it's no problem with zocdoc there are over one hundred fifty thousand providers across all fifty states and over two hundred specialties any doctor you could imagine any visit that you need zocdoc will have you covered and most appointments happen within twenty four to seventy two hours so next time you start doom scrolling your symptoms skip the stress and book a real appointment with a real doctor on zocdoc stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to zocdoc dot com profiting to find and instantly book a doctor that you love today that's z o c dash o c dot com profiting zocdoc dot com profiting and thanks zocdoc for sponsoring this message hey yap fam i'm not afraid to say producing this podcast requires skills i do not naturally have from audio engineering to video editing i have to hire experts who are way better than me in those areas i and as i scale my podcast this becomes more and more important and every time i need to hire my first thought usually is this is a job for indeed sponsored jobs when you sponsor your job on indeed you find candidates with the exact skills you're looking for without the stress of digging through endless resumes sponsored jobs posted directly on indeed are ninety five percent more likely to report a hire than non sponsored jobs that means you're not tossing your post into the void you are connecting with qualified people who can actually help your business grow spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes less stress less time more results when you need the right person to cut through the chaos this is a job for indeed sponsored jobs and listeners of this show will get a dollar seventy five sponsored job credit to help your job get the premium status it deserves at indeed dot com podcast just go to indeed dot com podcast right now and and support our show by saying you heard about indeed on this podcast indeed dot com podcast terms and conditions apply need to hire this is a job for indeed sponsored jobs yeah fam what's your weekday breakfast actually like be honest because for me it used to be coffee and starve myself till noon then i had doctor amy shaw on the podcast and she said something that i won't ever forget she said the number one way to get more energy in the morning is a thirty gram protein breakfast and that stuck with me and that changed everything now every weekday morning i go for my thirty gram protein breakfast and when i'm in a rush i grab for huell black edition ready to drink it's thirty five grams of protein twenty seven vitamins and minerals no artificial sweeteners it's under five bucks and the chocolate peanut butter flavor is just so dang good a complete meal i drink on the way to the studio and i'm full for hours and i do this about three three times a week now i got sick a lot this winter and so i made a decision this spring and summer i'm going all in on my health no more drinking and a lot more huel consistently i'm not very good at remembering to eat let alone taking my vitamins so i've used habit stacking to help me i do liquid vitamins in my coffee like b twelve and my rule is if i don't have a huel protein in the morning i drink my huel at lunch that's the daily greens forty two vitamins and minerals and superfoods and only twenty five calories and it is absolutely delicious it tastes so good in fact i have to hide it from my boyfriend so he doesn't finish them all because i need them for my lunch protein at breakfast multitasking my coffee and greens at lunch done done and done hopefully i don't get sick again this year huel has a limited time offer get fifteen percent off with my code profiting at huel dot com profiting new customers only again that's huell h u e l dot com profiting and thank you to huel for supporting the show you give such cute hacks in the book one of them is the snackable surprises for your boss i love that hack can you

[Courtney Johnson]

tell us about that yeah this is fun because you know we have this there's this concept of like iterative wins or iterative surprises right where if i brought donuts to work in every single day you would start to expect it from me but if i bring in fun little surprises ad hoc you become more addictive as a person this is actually how toxic relationships work but we're just using it for good so for your coworkers bring in a little surprise offer to help somebody offer to help your boss take something off of their plate but if you don't want to be held to it do it a little bit more intermediately rather than consistently but you want to consistently give your boss the monday wednesday friday got it

[Hala Taha]

so in terms of these snackable surprises from my understanding it was basically like surprise them with like information or something that can help them that they just

[Courtney Johnson]

weren't expecting yeah yeah totally yeah this can also be information this can be again something like i think you would love this article it could be again something like you go to a conference or you attend a webinar that they don't know about and and you send them what you learned from it or the three actions that you're taking again it's really being proactive and going above and beyond something else i think is super helpful is there is a i think it's a one percent rule or ten percent rule you just wanna go like a tiny percent above what everybody else is doing so if your boss asks you to do a report do a report and tell them the three predictions for the next report if your boss asks you to make a pitch deck do the pitch deck and draft the pitch deck email like how can you anticipate and take one extra micro step above everybody else that's really going to make you stand out and that also will make you stand out in interviewers so for all the entrepreneurs listening to this of like how do i hire an a player look out for these things in the interview are they going one extra step in the job application process did they you know email you after to thank you did they send you a quick video did they share with you three changes they would make or a you know high level of a thirty sixty ninety plan those are the people we really want to hire because those are the people that are going even just one tiny step

[Hala Taha]

above and beyond as i was learning about some of these strategies i kept thinking about my own journey as an entrepreneur and when i heard about this like you know snackable surprises i realized like this is what i do to get mentors now this is what i do to get like really high level clients because people who join my network have to have like a certain amount of downloads they're typically like really famous and i've got to like stand out and impress them somehow and so what i'll do is just like try to be helpful and not an annoying like spammy way but like if i have a piece of information that they could you know really use or implement i'll like you know shoot a loom video and like send it to them and until finally like they want to have the call with me or they realize that i've got value to share and so you can also use this strategy to get clients and mentors as an

[Courtney Johnson]

entrepreneur totally like introductions is a great way to do this of hey i would love like for a couple of people i've been like hey i would love to introduce you to my book agent i know that'd be really valuable for them that would deepen the relationship it could be hey i have an extra ticket to this conference like do you wanna go i'll give you this ticket for free i love the information i actually had somebody use this on me last week they were like it was somebody that worked at linkedin they said hey courtney here are three things that are kind of under the radar that i've learned like i would love to come and guest speak and they want to guest speak and the way that they're putting their foot in the door is telling me these like kind of three bits of insider information that that only they would know which is really really cool so yeah i love that i love implementing information as a leverage point and as value that you're giving tidbits of value so you were

[Hala Taha]

just mentioning the hiring process for somebody who's looking for a job what do they need to know about how hiring works today in twenty twenty six yeah

[Courtney Johnson]

right now the hiring process the hiring landscape is completely different than it looked even one year ago with ai with massive layoffs i mean it is competitive and it is wild a couple of things i would want somebody to know if they were applying to a job right now first your volume has to be higher than you think a lot of people come to me courtney i'm trying i'm applying and applying and applying and i haven't gotten any interviews and i ask them how many jobs have you applied for they might say oh ten fifteen it's going to take a lot more than that it's going to take one hundred two hundred second you want to make sure that you're working with recruiters and that you're connected with a bunch of recruiters on linkedin so i actually tell my clients they're not allowed to complain about not having a job unless they're connected to two hundred recruiters on their linkedin and people say oh but courtney my inbox is going to be annoying i hope your inbox

[Hala Taha]

is annoying yeah that's the point that's

[Courtney Johnson]

the point i hope all these people are fighting to place you so you want to make sure that you are connected with a fuck ton of recruiters next you want to make sure you're always going one step above and beyond so you're sending them an extra message an extra video you're sending them some things that you would implement or change and the biggest tip to getting a job as easy and fast as possible is to build a personal brand yes the simplest way to do this is just post on linkedin start posting on linkedin weekly it's going to put you above every single other person that's competing for that job because they're glancing at your linkedin profile for maybe a second yeah if it looks really professional if you look like a thought leader you look like you're educating others you post consistently you're immediately going to gain higher favor because i have what i call a three second test on linkedin and it's really like a one second test if you just glance at your profile for a couple of seconds what are people thinking it's not even what they're thinking it's what is the unconscious biases that start to come out and i use the word biased as a neutral term because it could be something like oh you have speaker in your bio and in my mind speaker has positive attributes and sounds like you're really qualified so i see speaker the bias is oh you're probably really qualified right or it might be more negative i might see polka dots on your shirt and you're wearing a college graduation cap so i assume my bias is oh you're young and inexperienced so you also want to make sure that your profile is reflecting the positive biases that if somebody just glances at your profile they're taking away things that are going to support that hiring decision and then once you start posting opportunities are going to come to you so few people do it and so few people stay consistent with it that if you are posting consistently it is going to make you stand out again if you're connected if you have two hundred recruiters in your network you're posting once a week and they're seeing those posts their unconscious bias is oh this person's going to be really easy to place yeah like they're hardworking they're going above and beyond like i'm going to go out of my way

[Hala Taha]

for them yeah and either way if you don't end up getting a job your personal brand can help you you know become an entrepreneur so so either way you've gotta leverage your personal brand i think to get a job or to become an entrepreneur and i feel like a lot of people in corporate they're kind of scared of creating a personal brand they feel like because they're in corporate they don't need one or they even might get in trouble for starting one talk to us about why it's so important to build a personal brand whether you're in corporate and you've got a stable job or you know you're looking for a job yeah this

[Courtney Johnson]

is so important i get the question a lot i'm in corporate but i feel weird because what is my boss gonna say about me posting on linkedin or what if i get fired for posting on linkedin there is a lot of fear that comes up around this but the truth is the odds that you're gonna be at that company forever are very very very small so even if something does go wrong were you gonna stay there forever probably not the best way to avoid any negativity from you posting on linkedin or one block the people that you're afraid of seeing your stuff like it's that simple you can block people second share your mission with your team so if you're a little afraid of what your boss is gonna think figure out what your underlying mission is and share that with them for example holla you're my boss holla i just wanted to let you know like i started posting on linkedin i'm really excited because first i think it's really gonna help us get more visibility into xyz product but two it's always been my passion to inspire young women and my posts are like my intention for my post is to inspire more young women to go into engineering what are you going to say oh you can't inspire young women yeah of course not if you position it in a way that's sharing that your intention is to elevate the whole company not just you and to inspire some group of people i've never seen that not work because they don't want to look like

[Hala Taha]

an asshole yeah and you will actually become more valuable because you're gaining new skills so let's say like you're in finance but now you're dabbling in mark in in on linkedin and now suddenly you're good at marketing and writing and your boss or your company can find more opportunities for you totally i remember when i started working at hp that's when i started posting on linkedin and i became a big influencer and i became more popular than the ceo at hp i love that and then suddenly they were like go to every conference you know interview the ceo at the town halls can you help train our sales team on linkedin and i was actually getting more opportunities because i was posting on linkedin and at first it was really my peers my coworkers were like what are you doing like why are you doing that but all the executives actually loved it and and thought that it was a strength that i was posting on linkedin so i also think there's some benefits to it that people don't necessarily like realize right at first like maybe at first there'll be pushback but if you actually start to gain traction you become more valuable and also you become more visible to other companies who might poach you for a higher salary or something like that totally

[Courtney Johnson]

yeah i think as long as you're getting ahead of the narrative and then again sharing those wins so hey a customer dmed me on linkedin and they said they really really liked this feature that's so cool right like even these little breadcrumbs of positivity again just in the same way we're like we're shifting the narrative and we're controlling the narrative of our customers by sharing wins with them we're going to do that internally and we're going to share with our boss we're going to share in our company wins channel even these tiny things as simple as a customer commenting on your linkedin post a narrative there is simply look i'm fostering relationships with our customers like i'm using this as an additional touch point and and we know the more touch points we have with our customers the longer they retain or whatever it might be and then also i would make sure that you have a good mix of things about your company but also things about you so you were probably talking about hp but you were also talking about the mentorship you were getting the books that you were reading like things outside of that one job because you definitely don't want to be pinned down to one specific job if you're not going to stay

[Hala Taha]

there forever i totally agree now something that's not so obvious to people especially people who haven't built a personal brand before or haven't spent a lot of time with algorithms is that keywords really you know are a big part of strategy online even a big part of resume strategy so help us understand why keywords play such a big part of getting your resume found and then also how that translates to being an entrepreneur and starting an online brand totally well

[Courtney Johnson]

both in our resume and in our content we have ai algorithms that are picking up certain keywords so if you're really into baking it's picking up keywords around recipe around healthy eating around whatever in order to feed it to you because the algorithms want to feed you content of what you like so we just want to make sure that our resumes are very keyword rich in whatever job we're searching for so so let's say i'm a general marketer i'm going to apply to a social media job over here and i'm going to apply to an email marketing job over here i'm definitely going to want to shift my resume a little bit and have more social media keywords over here for the social media job or more email marketing keywords over here for the email marketing job and you can use ai to do this you can put your resume in chatgpt whatever your favorite ai is and say hey can you help me optimize this for this specific job one of my favorite things to do is just take that job description copy it put it into ai put it into chatgpt and ask chat how to optimize your resume tailored to that specific job application there's so many tools and resources to optimize your resume i used to do this manually for hundreds of job applications i'm so happy that you can do this on your own you can do this automatically and then as far as building our personal brands same thing we can ask our friendly ai's what keywords to sprinkle into our content although i find it happens really automatically like if you're talking about software engineering you're probably naturally going to bring up a lot of keywords that people are already consuming and already searching i would say it's more strategic on your resume

[Hala Taha]

yeah on linkedin the algorithm is so like straightforward where basically every user has two clouds one cloud is their interest their profile the keywords that's found in their profile and their content and then one cloud is the stuff they engage on and so the algorithm's just matching people like okay what does this person engage on and who talks about that and it just matches each other so the same keywords you're probably putting in your resume you want to make sure it's in your title your bio your description even your description of the past jobs that you've had on linkedin right all that metadata is fed to the algorithm and then they'll know the algorithm will know like you're an expert in xyz and creates a keyword cloud for you so i feel like if people just understood that they they could get so much further on linkedin yeah it's

[Courtney Johnson]

also important to remember that just because your company has this like crazy word for your job title that might not work on your resume right if your job like i've worked at some startups where the social media manager is like the social media guru like i don't know there's some bullshit names like you want to make sure you have a standard job title or elevate it a little bit like if you worked in you know if you worked as a waitress maybe you're not riding waitress maybe you're riding like hospitality associate or something

[Hala Taha]

yeah totally so what do you think about imposter syndrome you know this is like a hot topic everybody you know talks about imposter syndrome what's your take

[Courtney Johnson]

on it yeah so imposter syndrome is when we feel like we're not qualified enough or we don't have all of the information that we need to do a certain task or to do a certain role or get a certain opportunity and the truth is we are literally cyborgs like we have all all of the world's information at the tip of our fingers and right now in job applications in career in entrepreneurship you do not have to know everything you just have to be able to figure out the problem like problem solving is the most important skill not do you know you already have memorized how to do this thing like that's so silly so to what i would what i would say to people dealing with imposter syndrome is you don't have to know the answer you just have to know how to how to figure it out and

[Hala Taha]

in terms of getting a raise how do you suggest that people approach getting a raise in their job yeah when

[Courtney Johnson]

you want to get a raise you really need to understand the value that you bring to the company so most of the times you're either making the company more money or you're saving the company money if you're not doing one of those things you probably wouldn't have a job and you might think well i work in this other department that doesn't have any revenue attached to it no everything has revenue attached to it or you would not work there maybe you're saving the money because you're mitigating some risk or maybe you're bringing in money you're bringing in users et cetera

[Hala Taha]

yeah retaining clients retaining clients exactly so

[Courtney Johnson]

the first thing is really understanding whether you're making the company money or saving the company money and then starting to quantify that you can just have a conversation with chatgpt and say hey here's my role here's what i've done can you help me understand how i'm saving or making the company money and you want to really have a raised conversation of tying it back into the money because honestly nothing else really matters we think like oh well the client said this nice thing about me and i accomplished this and i worked for this long and i went above and beyond in these ways and although that's all great and shows you have a great work ethic what your company wants to know is a client gave me this compliment and that led to them retaining which led to an extra hundred thousand dollars whatever or you know i instead of taking six months to hire someone as a hr professional i took three months that cut our time to hire in half which time to hire you know it really cost us an extra ten thousand dollars a month so i saved us thirty thousand dollars like you want to really find areas and again i coach people on this and they might say well there's there's no way like i didn't do anything to make or save the company money and you absolutely did or you would be fired

[Hala Taha]

yeah i love that such great tips so you wrote this book career cheat codes why do you feel so passionate about this topic you also like blew up on tiktok initially talking about careers why do you feel so passionate about

[Courtney Johnson]

this topic i feel so passionate because it took me a long time to understand these cheat codes and i had to figure it out for myself and i want other people to have a shortcut to where they don't have to go through so many ups and downs and so many problems in their career they just understand the information and they can go and i think of this as information equity i think we talk about a lot of different types of equity and equality in our world how to make the world more equitable we talk about it in terms of money in terms of where we come from et cetera and the type of equality i've just been really passionate about is information equality because i have seen so many stories where somebody comes from a really rough background somebody comes without without having access to some of these job opportunities etcetera and they can work their way up just by having the information one of my good friends she is from the philippines and she's from like a very small village where the average salary is like dollar two hundred a year and she just through watching youtube videos she learned how to be a va eventually made her own va agency now she has a seven figure business she travels the world she she's literally living her dream amazing because of information equity because somebody decided hey i'm gonna put what i learned on youtube hey i'm gonna put what i learned into a book i'm gonna put what i learned on social media and i just think the more we can give out information the more we can un gatekeep because i know some people like to gatekeep shit yeah some people like to say i'm not gonna share this with others because i want this to be my own special advantage what i wanna see in the world and my vision for the world is we're not gatekeeping this information like we are actively sharing information and education with others so we can level the playing field and have a more equitable world

[Hala Taha]

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[Courtney Johnson]

unfolded yeah so as i actually most of my career has been being a ghostwriter for other people so building other people's personal brands so i was posting on and off very inconsistently but i got laid off i think this was twenty nineteen or twenty twenty and that's what finally catapulted me because i was like i wish i could say that i bravely quit my job and decided to go all in on myself but i didn't it was forced i got laid off and so i was forced to post every day i was like fuck i gotta get a job i gotta figure this out and through that process of just committing i'm like i'm gonna post every single day no matter what no matter if it's a bad post no matter if i don't feel like it no matter if i'm sick i am posting every single day for three hundred sixty five days and that year completely changed my life i mean absolutely insane but yeah i mean that was basically my journey i had seen so many other people succeed with their personal brand and i was like i

[Hala Taha]

want that for myself how did you laser in on your niche like were you testing different topics or were you like i'm just going to start with careers and land there i love this

[Courtney Johnson]

question i actually started posting about everything i started posting about my dogs and living in austin and my house and career and personal brand and all these other topics and i just looked at the data of what are people liking and it was a lot of career and personal brand another way that i would figure out what to post is i would ask my friends hey what advice do you ask me for i would notice what advice my friends are asking me for i would also ask my friends things like when you think of me what do you think of so a lot of times our zone of genius is so obvious to us that we don't even consider it but our zone of genius might be mind blowing to somebody else and for me that was career i thought these career cheat codes were obvious and so i was like i would never post them because like duh people know this or it's easily googleable or there's already a lot of career creators and it wasn't until my friend was asking me throughout her whole job application journey and had a really good result that she was like hey you should share some of this stuff and so i started sharing

[Hala Taha]

it and i know that you're a proponent of like sharing stuff even when it's not perfect you call it b content yes why is that so because

[Courtney Johnson]

i see people all the time overthink overthink overthink their content to where they don't actually post or maybe they'll post once or twice fall off for a couple months do it again and never actually get consistent which that was actually me i was overthinking i was trying to make it so perfect that i never actually gained traction because i never actually was consistent i actually believe there's two skills in personal brand well there's a lot of skills but there's two main skills one is the skill of consistency second is a skill of optimization you cannot optimize if you're not consistent so some people they try to make like a twelve point strategy with their seven content pillars and the perfect time of day and the perfect whatever before they even get started but the truth is that is that's not that's gonna be completely irrelevant in like a couple of weeks or a couple of months so i believe you should start posting consistently even if it's bad even if it sucks even if it's just an instagram picture of your dog every day and like what you're feeding them i don't give a fuck just start posting consistently every day once you have the habit down of posting consistently then optimize i love the book atomic habits and it talks about a similar example of if you really want to get really fit build a gym habit have the best technique the very first skill is just driving your car to the gym can you do that every day can you drive your car to the gym and literally sit in the parking lot okay now once you've mastered that habit go into the gym it doesn't matter if you're walking on the treadmill for five minutes and you leave you're just doing something then you're gonna slowly optimize but the reason why people fail at the gym is because they get this crazy seven week program where it's super hard and they're so sore after the first day it doesn't integrate into their life but consistency is more important than anything like there has not been a single person online that that has showed up consistently every single day slowly optimized and not seen success it just doesn't happen it doesn't exist yeah how do

[Hala Taha]

you suggest people decide what's the first platform they should focus on and did you focus on one platform or did you focus on linkedin tiktok and instagram at the same time i started on

[Courtney Johnson]

linkedin and i was only on linkedin for about a year before i went to tiktok and i was on linkedin and tiktok for like two years before i went to instagram so i recommend people start with the platform where they will be the most consistent and where they will actually start because then when you move to the next platform you have a lot of content you can repurpose it makes it a lot easier but a mistake i see people make when they're building their personal brand is trying to be on ten platforms at once it's best to really understand one platform optimize for that platform and then once you're in a good rhythm once you've built the habit once you've really optimized then pick your second platform and your third platform now if you have a whole team or you're hiring a massive agency you can skip the step but most people don't have those resources for most people it's just them i

[Hala Taha]

totally agree and i feel like the other thing that we need to talk about is everybody's strengths are different so a lot of people are like you know i can't do social media cause i'm not good at video and linkedin doesn't need video substack is huge that doesn't need video school is blowing up that doesn't really need video so i feel like there's other avenues for people who don't necessarily wanna be on video

[Courtney Johnson]

do you agree yeah totally i have a client right now that's like making a ton of money on instagram threads and does not require any wow any video at all yeah i mean first of all i'm bad at video is just not true it's a skill it's like saying i'm bad at guitar i've never been to a guitar lesson i can't say i'm bad at guit guitar right if i go to a guitar lesson three times a week for the next ten years i will be good at guitar totally see in this video if you create a video every week three times a week every day for the next few years you will be good at video it is a learned skill however starting with video can be very scary very overwhelming and you might not get very far if it's not something that's sustainable for you so like i said i have a client right now that's just absolutely killing it on threads start with the thing that's most comfortable for you so if that's writing great if that's photos great if that's linkedin if that's substack what is the most sustainable start there build the habit and then slowly grow and it's also like our comfort zone right like we gotta push the edges of our comfort zone in our nervous system and if you overwhelm your nervous system and go straight to like i need to create all these fancy videos it's going to be really overwhelming and you're not going

[Hala Taha]

to stick with it yeah and i feel like sometimes you approaching a platform differently like everyone's posting reels on instagram but then you have like case kenny who posts like little like handwritten quotes and that's his thing and he puts posts a handwritten quote every day and he's got like millions of followers now from doing that it can also help you stand out to think about what's your strength and how can you apply

[Courtney Johnson]

that to the platform totally yeah it's like what are you obsessed with like for him he's obsessed with like visual art topography writing that's incredible like what what is somebody else obsessed with maybe you're obsessed with long form content maybe you're obsessed with video editing sunsets and landscapes like that whatever you're obsessed with your obsession will lead you down the path that's the most authentic to you and i love that you bring up that example because there is also no right answer everything i have said today about career about content there are some people it's not gonna apply to there are some people that a different way is going to suit them by doing it the wrong way is going to be better so it's also important not to think that i got to find the perfect formula that is proven to work that always works that will work perfectly for me that does not exist in anything that we do not in entrepreneurship not in career so figure out what's authentic authentic to you and take baby steps towards that how did you

[Hala Taha]

make your first dollar online oh my

[Courtney Johnson]

gosh the first dollar i made online was freelancing i started posting on linkedin and somebody reached out and said hey can i get on a call with you to talk about linkedin and i think i charged him fifty bucks the first dollar i made from something outside of me was from an ebook mm i i wrote an ebook i didn't write an ebook i wrote linkedin blogs and my top performing linkedin blog i copied it pasted it into a pdf and that became an ebook amazing i listed it on gumroad and yeah that was my first digital product sale and

[Hala Taha]

today how do you like what are all your different revenue streams today yeah

[Courtney Johnson]

i've narrowed it down a lot i'm glad you're asking me this today and not a year ago cause i simplified so i have my content club where we meet every single day on zoom and i give you a content prompt we work on it together um i have level up on linkedin which is my linkedin cohort that's very much around mindset of building your personal brand on linkedin and overcoming any visibility blocks um i do speaking i have my book and i do brand deals and that's

[Hala Taha]

all that's so cool so what kind of freedom do you get from having all these diversified income streams yeah i

[Courtney Johnson]

mean it's so helpful because if something isn't going great one month another another income stream will will help and i even have things outside of my business too i have like real estate and investments and all that and it's really helpful because the market can change social media can change so to have backups and have that security of multiple income streams just makes me feel so much better and they're all kind of scaling and compounding on their own independently which is really really beautiful what's the thing

[Hala Taha]

that's like working really incredibly well right now either platform wise or revenue stream

[Courtney Johnson]

wise great question what's working well right now for recurring revenue is getting people to commit to a year i've tested a lot in my content club and i just find that when people commit to a year and having really solid offers of like yes this is a month to month subscription but when you upgrade to a year you get all these extra bonuses their results are so much better just the mindset of them being locked into a year they're showing up way more committed they're so much more excited they're excited to bring in other people and it's a win win because that helps my revenue a ton because now i'm creating much larger arr

[Hala Taha]

yeah and consistency yeah and then platform wise in terms of like getting leads to your content club what's working what's

[Courtney Johnson]

working really well right now is two things one on linkedin storytelling especially sharing personal stories the more vulnerable i am on linkedin the more people want to work with me and i find that true for a lot of people around me it can be really scary to be vulnerable on linkedin yep but i

[Hala Taha]

highly recommend that it's back to standing out and doing what everybody thinks is the wrong thing to do on linkedin

[Courtney Johnson]

exactly exactly yeah i mean the thing that you struggled with is the thing people are going to connect with you over right something else that's working really well is just giving free resources on instagram i love manychat adding a keyword that goes to a free resource and bringing them into my top of funnel is really valuable right now very cool

[Hala Taha]

so i know one of the things that you're known for is public speaking and a lot of people who are creating online brands that's really their end goal they want to get speaking engagements maybe they want to become an author what is your best guidance for somebody who wants to get started in speaking and get these gigs if you want

[Courtney Johnson]

to get started speaking this is a little bit of a problematic tip you start by creating your own events you want a keynote make the event you're keynoting at make your own conference put together a get together with others and speak at it make a retreat that you speak at this is one of the best ways to get speaking gigs because you're guaranteeing it last year at south by southwest i applied to be a main speaker i didn't get it so i made my own south by southwest event and i had a ton of people come and i got to keynote my own little mini conference that i made so that's how i would get started as far as how to monetize your speaking you gotta be posting every day that's so so important and when you're applying to speaking speaking make sure you're following up with everybody on linkedin you can circumvent like anytime there's like a speaking application you can circumvent the entire application just by reaching out to one of the people that work on staff seems kind of sneaky it is sneaky in the same way that if you're job hunting you gotta be connected to two hundred recruiters if you're looking for speaking gigs you gotta be connected to two hundred conference organizers yeah event planners they will reach out and then also get sneaky with the budget so sometimes they're not going to have they're going to say they don't have a budget to pay you but they do have a budget from some other department they might have a consulting budget a marketing budget whatever and you can offer them something else throw in something there's always a budget that that you can find so yeah those are my

[Hala Taha]

speaking tips okay so before we go just a couple last questions for those in corporate what would you say is like one easy thing they can do today to become more visible at work

[Courtney Johnson]

ooh mm i mean if you wanna be more visible at work one thing you can do today go post something on linkedin it really is that simple

[Hala Taha]

post on linkedin and just put yourself

[Courtney Johnson]

out there yeah post something on linkedin what's amazing is that if you haven't posted on linkedin in a while that initial post is gonna remind so many people of you and linkedin often will send out that post more right like if it if it if it's been a while yeah um another thing you can do is just share one win on slack or teams or whatever today just one tiny win share it with your boss share it with your team just elevate your work a little bit

[Hala Taha]

yeah well i loved your book career cheat codes it was awesome i feel like it's gonna be so valuable for those in corporate i also feel like entrepreneurs can learn a lot from it so i end my show with two questions that i ask all my guests the first is and this could be related to the episode or whatever you want what is one actionable thing our young and profits can do today to

[Courtney Johnson]

be more profitable tomorrow ooh one actionable thing that young and profitters can do today to be more profitable tomorrow love that question set up a free call with ten prospects or clients it could be a fifteen minute call what you're going to do is you're going to ask them their problem so hala i know you really want to build a personal brand like what's in the way like what are you struggling with i really want to understand your language i'm going to transcribe all ten of these interviews on zoom or otter or whatever put them in a chatgpt and pull out the language of my audience so a lot of times when we're creating our landing pages we're creating our social content it's from our perspective and our words when you flip that to your customer's perspective and words you're gonna get way higher conversions and thus be way more profitable so go give out some free interviews ask people their problems take their exact language and start to sprinkle that language into your marketing materials so

[Hala Taha]

smart you always wanna talk like your audience so they feel like you're a like minded friend yeah they're like oh

[Courtney Johnson]

my god how are you in my head right now like that is what

[Hala Taha]

you want and what would you say your secret to profiting in life is

[Courtney Johnson]

mm secret to profiting in life is consistency it's just showing up every single day even when you don't feel like it consistency compounds the only way to fail the entrepreneur game the personal brand game is to stop it's to quit it's to come up with an excuse and say i'm gonna come back in two weeks right show up with a micro step every single day and it's going to compound and you will be

[Hala Taha]

successful consistency is everything it really is the only founders it really is courtney where can everybody find more about you and everything that you do yeah you

[Courtney Johnson]

can find my book career cheat codes on amazon and all the places books are sold you can find me on instagram at courtlandjohnson or tiktok ortney johnson if you just google courtney johnson all my stuff will come up so i hope to see you on my socials

[Hala Taha]

amazing and i'll put your links in the show notes thank you again for joining us on young and profiting podcast thank you hala well young improfeters what a masterclass from courtney johnson today she shattered the biggest myth we've been fed that if you keep your head down and work hard you'll automatically get rewarded you won't not unless people can see your work the real differentiator is visibility courtney calls it working out loud and it's simpler than you think start with the monday wednesday friday rule tell your boss the top five priorities on monday give a progress report on wednesday and see send a win summary on friday that single habit builds trust reduces micromanagement and puts you front of mind when promotions are handed out next stop optimizing for effort and start optimizing for impact specifically your boss's goals know what they're trying to achieve both professionally and personally and align your work to that then add one micro step beyond what's expected it's not always about being perfect it's about being the obvious truth choice and finally build your personal brand now yesterday in fact post on linkedin weekly connect with recruiters strengthen your profile with the right keywords you don't really need to go viral but you do need to stay consistent because consistency compounds and invisible talent stays overlooked so stop hiding yourself and if this episode inspired you help young and profiting get seen too share us comment on our show and leave us a five star written review that's how we grow this movement you can now watch all of our live and in person interviews just like this on spotify video and youtube i also love connecting with you guys personally so come say hi to me on instagram yapwithhala or connect with me on linkedin by searching my name hala taha this is your host hala taha aka the podcast princess signing off