Joanna Bloor, founder of Lady Badass, explains why your answer to "What do you do?" matters more than you think. Most career decisions happen in rooms where you're absent, so you need advocates speaking for you. She calls her work "product marketing for human beings" because people buy the person behind the product.
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Alright everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner and today's sponsor is Flipboard. Flipboard curates the world's stories so you can be smarter in your work, life, and play. Choose from thousands of topics to personalize Flipboard and get the latest stories from the best publishers and experts delivered to you 24/7. So you You can get started now at flipboard.com. And now let's jump into the episode. All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have introduction expert and lady badass founder Joanna Bloorz on a mission to get people to talk about themselves in a new way. She asks if you have a great answer to the question, "What do you do?" So welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.
Of course. Grateful to have you on. So Joanna, the first question we ask on the show is, what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
Sure. Well, like everybody, there are hundreds of stories, but the one that I think really sums up my story and what I'm doing now the best was from standing in line at a TED conference. What they don't tell you when you go to TED is, yes, you will get to hear lots of amazing speakers, but it's actually standing in line and getting to meet the other participants that's the exciting part. And 3 years ago, I was standing in line talking to a Microsoft executive about an idea that was ruminating in my head around why it was hard to get into the C-suite and how one got into the C-suite and how one made it to the TED stage and all of those sorts of questions. And I asked them what they were known for and ultimately how she answered the question, "What do you do?" And then, because we were having a fun conversation, was very rude and basically told the executive she was boring. And she had not a very boring job. She actually ran the marketing department around all of their augmented reality products. And I was really surprised that her answer to what she was known for and what she did was quite so dull. And she ended up calling me 6 weeks later and said, "TED was an amazing experience, but the conversation I remember was this one: 'Will you come up to Redmond to help my team?'" understand what you were talking about. And I said, absolutely. And 3 years later, this is where I get to, what I get to do all day, every day. And it comes back to that first impression. That first conversation you have with somebody is so telling on their memory of who you are and what you're all about. And I wonder often how often we think about not only what is our first impression physically, but really more importantly, what is our first audio impression? Because that's what people remember. Hmm.
And then what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
Sure. So the one that always upsets people but is true is that every decision made about you and your opportunities is made in a room you are not in. The decisions about whether you get a project, a promotion, the job, a date, whatever, somebody else has decided and comes back to you and says, do you want? Now, yes, you get to make a decision then. But it's that other room that people are making decisions about you, and that then makes me ask is, one, if you want to be given the job, the projects, the promotion, are you part of the consideration set? And then more importantly, if you are, what are they saying about you? And are they— is there somebody in that room who is talking about why you are valuable to the project, the promotion, to whatever it is? Is somebody they're talking for you and making sure that the conversation about you is the one that you want.
That's big. I really appreciate that. That's really good advice right there. And just like to know that that is what's happening, I think is really big. So I'm really glad our audience gets to hear that.
Thanks.
So it could tie in, but our next one is, is what is your best piece of overall business advice? So not necessarily industry specific.
Sure. Well, it's tied to both because at the end of the day, when somebody says, I mean, when somebody says, what do you do? Of course, I have actually a fairly interesting answer to that. But, you know, if you were going to say, what profession am I in? I'm in what I call product marketing for human beings. I believe really strongly that we buy the, the person who is representing a company as much as we do their products and services. And I think even more so today than we ever have in the past. And so if that's If that's true and you are building a business or even not even necessarily the face of a business, who you are and how you represent yourself can make a huge difference on the success of your business. And while I've said you, you, you probably, I don't know, 10 times in that last sentence, the really hard piece of that idea, like your products, is while it's about you, it's not about you. It's actually about how people react to you. Because if you think about the last time you met somebody and you went, oh my God, they're amazing. What are they all about? And wanted to learn more. It's because of your reaction to them. And so thinking about how you present yourself and how you present yourself within the context of your company and how, why people would want to connect with you as well as your products. I think actually makes a huge difference into your business success. And you look at— I look at executives that I admire today and you look at ones who are actually quite famous for it. And you think about, you know, Richard Branson and, you know, Steve Jobs when he was still alive. I mean, he still has impact. Some leaders that we all admire and go, yeah, that's, that's somebody who I'd want to follow. It's all about who they are as much as their products.
And then if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
Oh, this is a brutal one and I'm going to out myself. Take time for my health. I get very excited about the stuff I'm doing and I deprioritize my health. And, you know, I think this one has been said multiple times, but taking time to take care of you. I say always, you know, pay you both financially and physically at the same time, and then you can function better for other people.
And then kind of going a little bit down a different path here. In your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
Well, so I believe quite strongly that happiness is a choice. You have to choose to look at an opportunity or an experience or something that's happened to you and say, where am I going to find the happiness in this? It doesn't get handed to you on a plate. You know, taking both bad experiences and good experiences and say, like, what am I going to hold in a happy space is, I think, the key to keeping that going. And once you make it a choice, it becomes a habit, and then you run around the world going, things are great.
And then what is the best book that you've read, and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
Ah, this was the hardest question you sent me, but I love a lot of books. And so I went to which book has actually had the most influence on me, and it was a book I read when I was 12 years old. So if any of your listeners have 12-year-old girls, This is— well, it could be good for boys too, but it certainly impacted me. But it's a book called Clever Lazy by an author called Joan Bodger. You can still find it on Amazon, although I think it's hard to find. But it's about a young girl in Ming Dynasty China who is told she is not allowed to be anything other than a girl because culturally that's where it is. But her parents, who were farmers wanted her to have a better life and so taught her that play was important. And what this young girl realized in the journey of the book is that the more you play with things, the more you can figure out how they work. And when you can figure out how they work, you can reinvent a thing. And the character ends up becoming an inventor and invents the vacuum cleaner and fireworks and all sorts of other cool things and has all sorts of adventures with this. But as a 12-year-old girl, I realized that learning about stuff meant that I could figure out how to use it the way I wanted to. And if I could do that, I could figure out an easier way of doing things. And I too could be both clever and lazy at the same time, because it meant I had more time for fun playthings. And I do that today, even within my work, looking at how do we make this easier for us so we have more time to do the fun things. Hmm.
And then what is your favorite quote and why?
Well, so it's one of my own, I will admit, but it's the one that I say very often to people is that when you're crying so hard, when you're lying on the floor crying so hard that stuff is coming out of your nose, that is the time to pay attention because that is the time that you have found that moment to change. And it's about what do you do when you get up and take that next step. So look forward to those floor moments because they do change your life.
Yes, I love it. Thank you so much for coming on. The last one I got for you before we let you go is where can our audience best find you online?
Sure, they can find me at joannabloor.com. That's J-O-A-N-N-A-B-L-O-O-R. And I am the same on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn. We're on all of the socials. Come in and chat or also come chat to us on ladybadass.com and all on those socials as well.
