Erica: Hey, girl. By now, you know I have HER Collective, my online community for ambitious women who are done doing it alone. HER Collective is for the women who are smart, capable, and driven, but they find themselves stuck on the sticky floors like self doubt, burnout, and waiting for permission that never comes. Inside HER, you get more than motivation. You get real support, real strategies, and real momentum.

We work on things like clarifying what you want now and what's coming next, building confidence without burning yourself out, navigating hard conversations, career moves, and leadership moments with clarity, and surrounding yourself with women who actually get it. This isn't about hustling harder. It's about moving intentionally with the right tools and the right people in your corner. If you're ready to stop spinning, start choosing yourself, and build a career and life that actually feels aligned, I'd love to welcome you inside HER Collective. You can learn more and join us at www.joinhercollective.com.

Because honestly, girl, you were never meant to do this alone. Welcome y'all to the Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floor podcast, the podcast where we get real about the challenges women face in work, life, and leadership. I'm your host, Erica Rooney, HR executive, keynote speaker, and executive coach, and I'm on a mission to get more women into positions of power and keep them there. This is the space where we call it the paradoxes. Being told to lean in but not too far, to speak up but not too loudly, to be ambitious but not too ambitious.

Erica: Does that sound familiar? We are over all of that. Here, we break down the sticky floors that keep us stuck, from imposter syndrome and perfectionism to burnout and fear, and give you real strategies to shatter those glass ceilings once and for all. So if you're ready to rewrite the rules, own your power, and take your career and life to the next level, you're in the right place. Now today's guest, I am so thrilled about. She is a powerhouse in the world of personal branding, particularly for corporate execs and leaders who are looking to elevate their influence and their impact. Lorraine K. Lee is a highly sought after brand strategist, executive coach, and speaker renowned for her ability to help top tier professionals craft authentic, powerful personal brands.

Y'all, she has a background that covers strategic communications, content creation, and executive coaching. She does it all, but she has this unique understanding of how to translate professional achievements into these compelling narratives that resonate in the corporate world. She's worked with leaders across all sorts of industries from tech giants to financial institutions, and she helps them define their unique value proposition and amplify their voice. Her insights have been featured in leading publications and industry conferences, which has really nailed down her reputation as that go to expert. And y'all, she is the author of this beautiful brand new book called Unforgettable Presence, and I absolutely love it.

You'll see all the pages dog eared and tallied up. It's amazing work. But, Lorraine, welcome to the Glass Ceiling and Sticky Floor podcast. How are you today?

Lorraine: I'm doing so well. Thank you, Erica, for having me. And all those dog ears, that's an author's dream to see. So thank you for showing that.

Erica: Girl, dog ears, highlights, and then, of course, I have little dog ears, but then I have big dog ears.

Lorraine: I did. Yeah.

Erica: I want to dive in because your journey is fascinating to me. How did your extensive experience in corporate communications and content creation lead you to really focus in on personal branding for execs?

Lorraine: It was not a path that I anticipated that I would be on. I have a corporate background, so I spent over a decade of my career leading editorial teams at companies like LinkedIn and Prezi, the presentation platform. I studied journalism, so I was always very passionate about creating content, creating educational content, working at LinkedIn, thinking about our professional presence and our brand there. At the start of 2022, I ended up getting laid off from Prezi.

I was really at a crossroads at that point. Do I apply for another job? Do I go off on my own? I decided to start my own company at the start of 2023. So I'm going into year three now, which is very exciting. It's been trial, error, and experimentation. At LinkedIn, I sort of knew a brand was important, but I wasn't as intentional about it. My brand was very much tied to the company. So I left LinkedIn and I'm like, oh my gosh, identity crisis, who am I? What should I be talking about?

Then at Prezi, I became more intentional about it. And even more so starting your own company, you really are the brand. People will know about your company through you, so you have to be intentional about it. I realized just how important a career brand is in reaching your goals faster, in getting that promotion and being known at work, outside of work. Whatever your goals are, it's such a critical piece. It's essentially your reputation. We all have one. We all have a brand whether you like that word or not. So we need to be intentional about it and not let other people define it for us.

Erica: I'm just fascinated by how LinkedIn has grown and morphed over the years, from just being here's where I am, here's who I work for, to a place where you showcase your entire personal brand. It's not just about who you are professionally, but who you are as a person. The fact that you were laid off, then started your own company, I know my girl here has some sticky floors. In my world, those are the limiting beliefs and toxic behaviors that keep you stuck. You're obviously uber successful, so what were those sticky floors, and how have you worked through them to get to this point?

Lorraine: Oh gosh, so many. I think when you get laid off, that's another identity crisis. What's next? As someone who's ambitious, you want to succeed, you want to do well. So I think becoming an entrepreneur, there are a lot of limiting beliefs that can creep in that can stop you from doing the thing. I was, quote unquote, fortunate in a way in that my layoff happened later on in my career, where I had some more confidence built, and I did have a network and intentionality around my brand to be able to start my own thing.

But I always say to be an entrepreneur, you have to have a little bit of naive optimism. Like, of course this is going to work. But there are times too where it's so much mindset, 80% mindset I feel like, where there's a comparison trap. You see other people who seem to be moving faster and doing bigger things. There's times where you might not feel as confident. Is this the right path, is this working, is this the right thing? Imposter syndrome. Because every single thing you're doing is new. So that comes up a lot as well.

Writing this book, oh my gosh, I've not experienced as much imposter syndrome before as I did writing this book. So all those things have come up many times throughout this journey, and you have to push through them to keep moving forward.

Erica: I absolutely resonate with all that, but I would love to dive in on this imposter syndrome and writing the book, because you've got the skills, you've got the qualifications, you've got the resume. Why did you have any kind of imposter syndrome? How would that show up for you?

Lorraine: It was a lot of me wondering, is this helpful, is this new information to people, is it so obvious? It feels that way because I'm in it. Of course to me it's obvious now because I'm writing it, and I'm like, doesn't everyone know that? But I had to remind myself, no, not everyone knows this. I didn't know all the things in the book when I started my career. That's who I wrote it for, people who were in my position earlier on, who I'm hoping to help so they don't have to go through the same challenges I did. That imposter syndrome popped up during the writing, and then it popped up during the marketing, which was even harder than writing the book.

Always talking about the book, putting myself out there, I felt very self conscious if I was being too loud about it, or just annoying people. My book coach said to me that it was a selfish thing if I didn't put my book out there, because I'm trying to help people. I need to let people know that this thing exists.

Erica: I definitely felt that too when my book went out. I remember feeling like I am just bragging about this. How did you pivot to be like, no, Lorraine, you're not bragging, you published your freaking book, that's a pretty cool thing?

Lorraine: I think the mindset is really important, and we have to remember there's a balance. You can be bragging all the time being like, I did this thing, I'm so proud, and that's okay, you don't want to do it all the time, but you should be celebrating, it is a big deal. You also want to balance it with, here's what you're going to learn, here's how I think the book can help you. When you mix those two things, it's a nice balance where it doesn't feel like it's me me me all the time, and it's instead, how can I be in service for you. Same thing as a speaker. Sometimes we get nervous because we think everyone's judging us, all eyes are on us. But it's really about, how can we serve the audience, how can we help others.

Erica: I love this. Let's talk about this book for a little bit, because it breaks down things that people get really nervous about in their career into these bite sized pieces. There was one chunk where you were talking about using phrases that project confidence, and you had this minimizing language list, things like "oops, my mistake," which I am guilty of all the time. Does that make sense?

Lorraine: Yes. Me too.

Erica: But she tells you in the book, if you say "does that make sense" all the time, try this instead: "let me know if you have any questions." Super simple, super easy. Talk to me a little bit about projecting confidence and why that's important with your brand, looking at minimizing language, but what else can we do?

Lorraine: The whole book talks about this new way that I'm defining presence. I'm talking about professional presence in the book, which is defined as how and where you are seen. When we hear presence, we often think executive presence, a certain seniority level, how I'm showing up in the room, in person, a high stakes situation. What I'm doing is saying executive presence is important, but it's just one piece of the presence puzzle, or the presence pie. Presence is about a lot of smaller moments that happen throughout the day, throughout your career, even when you're just starting out. Minimizing phrases are a very easy fix, and that's something we can be working on every day, because we're always communicating, it's one of the pillars of business. The book is for people who are ambitious and work hard and want to keep getting better, so you're already doing great work. How can we up level your presentations, the way you're communicating verbally, over Slack, over Teams, even over email, how you're leading a meeting? These might be lower stakes moments, but they're equally as important, because they're the moments that are happening the most, that really create and form the impression in people's minds. The book is meant to give you actionable frameworks and things you can implement right away.

Erica: Since this is a podcast for women, what key piece of advice would you give to women who are aspiring to leadership roles and want to build a personal brand that helps them accelerate into the next level of their career?

Lorraine: I think it's really important as you think about your brand to ask the people around you how they're perceiving you. Especially for women, there are some unfair expectations, unfair interpretations of things, so it's good to get a pulse on how others, especially the decision makers, are seeing you. When I was at LinkedIn, I started off talking about the story in the book about struggling to get promoted, struggling to get seen, even though I felt like I was doing all the right things. If I had been intentional and asked around, what are my strengths, what might I need to work on, I probably would have been able to get promoted, because I would have had more information instead of just pushing pushing pushing. Especially for women, it's helpful to get people around you to share, so you're aligned and understand how others perceive you. If it needs to change, if they see you in a certain way you don't want to be seen, then you can know here are the actions I'm going to take to get there. Once you have that brand a little bit more solidified, make sure you have the sponsors to help push you and open those doors. Because we are women especially over mentored, under sponsored. How can we get people really advocating for us, being the voice for us when we're not in the room?

Erica: I love that this is such a powerful question. I don't know if you're listening, but I would never have asked that. It would have ignited so much fear in me at an early age.

Lorraine: Yeah.

Erica: But the more you lean into that, the easier and faster it will be for you to launch yourself into the next level. We talk all the time about what are we doing well, what can I do to improve, and I think that's our comfort zone. But I love this idea of how am I perceived, is it too pushy. And if you get that information, it's okay, it's what you do with it next. I also want to talk about this: one of your steps in your book, you talk about a UPI, that everyone needs a UPI, and I had to read that twice. A unique and powerful introduction. I was like, hell yes, let's talk about a good elevator pitch. But you break down a UPI a little bit differently, and it's not this elevator pitch. Tell me, what is it and how can we leverage that to make the most impact?

Lorraine: I started thinking about this concept of the UPI because, as you mentioned, elevator pitch is what most people think of, short and sweet, snappy introduction, how we show up in networking events. What I was realizing is that in everyday meetings, where you're really creating an impression over time, so many people's introductions are throwaway moments. Oh, I'm meeting a new teammate, hi, I'm Lorraine, I'm an editor, I've been here for three years. What does an editor do, what are you working on? There's just not very much there, and I'm not exuding that confidence, that authority that I could be. A UPI can change and shift depending on your context. It's okay to include your role, to talk about your company, but you can add a lot more and take up fifteen seconds, thirty seconds of extra time to really show your authority, your credibility. Is there a problem that you solve? Do you have a specific mission statement or success metric for your team that's important or helpful for other people to know? You can share a personal fact about yourself, and then we're connecting because you get to know me on a personal level. A UPI is really a call to be more intentional about your introduction, because it is a powerful way to leave a positive lasting impression, and it should not be a throwaway moment. Whether it's a new teammate, whether you're meeting an executive, take up that fifteen to thirty seconds. It will really change how people perceive you and also how you perceive yourself.

Erica: A hundred percent. Something that's been extremely beneficial for me is having a really great question to ask once you get through the UPI that's unique, because we all default to "tell me about what you do, do you have kids," and it's very generic, it doesn't stand out. I was at a networking event one time, and I said, oh, I'm a speaker, I'm an author, and this individual said to me, who are you outside of those things? I was like, I don't know. Then I said, oh, I'm a mom, I'm a wife. And he goes, well, who are you when you're not a mom and a wife? And I'm like, damn, this interview is getting hard. But he forced me to go a layer deeper, to say I'm someone that really cares about traveling and seeing the world and experiencing different cultures, and it took us to a much deeper place and more meaningful conversation. I guarantee you I met 50 other people that night, but he's the one I remembered. So take that UPI and tack on a great question.

Lorraine: Nice, I like that. To your point, so many of us operate on autopilot, we have our canned responses, our canned ways of speaking. Anytime you can break that, the person becomes a lot more memorable.

Erica: I love that. Okay, I do want to take a slight left turn to visit LinkedIn, because girl, you know what you're doing on LinkedIn. Outside of the normal things, make sure you've got your profile picture, your tagline up there, what are the top two or three things we should be doing to maximize our LinkedIn presence?

Lorraine: To your point, yes, the profile is the foundational piece. Make sure you have the background photo, the profile photo, everything kind of optimized and filled out. The first thing I would say is to make sure that you're commenting on people's posts. Sometimes we jump ahead to, oh, I have to post on LinkedIn, and it's very nerve wracking, it can be intimidating. This is a theme I hear a lot when I go speak at companies, people feel they need to have the most original thought to be able to post. So let's put posting on hold right now, and go to commenting, which is really powerful. Comments equal content. It's a really great lower stakes way to get your voice out there, to practice asking interesting questions, sharing your insights, figuring out who you even want to follow, whose content you resonate with. You will grow your following that way, you will also grow your thought leadership that way, and you'll make some interesting connections too. So when you do finally post, LinkedIn is going to sense you're contributing to the community, you're commenting, and hopefully give your actual post a little boost once you get to that point.

Erica: This is where I usually get stressed out, I'm like, well, the algorithm, what's it going to do to me? Is that something we actually need to worry about, or should we just be engaging like you said?

Lorraine: I try not to worry about it too much. I interviewed a senior editor at LinkedIn, my former colleague, Andrew Seaman, because I needed to hear it from the source, since people love asking this question. He basically said, don't worry too much about it, an algorithm's job is to inherently learn and change as we go. Even the LinkedIn engineers can't say exactly what it's looking for. Really providing helpful, valuable content, sharing your experiences, your challenges, your stories, that's what people are going to connect with and resonate with. Don't waste too much time worrying about formatting things exactly a certain way.

Erica: It's like reassurance.

Lorraine: Yeah. People can drive themselves crazy trying to figure out what's going on.

Erica: It sounds like the second you think you have it figured out, the algorithm is going to change, and you're back to square one. Don't waste your time on that. But let's circle back to posting, because I hear a lot from the women inside my collective, they say, I just don't know what to post, or I feel like I have to post every single day. What's your response to that?

Lorraine: Posting frequency, do not start posting every day, you're going to burn out for sure. What I like to say is to set the bar super low for yourself. My goal is to post once this month, you can definitely do that, and you'll say, that wasn't too bad, now let me up that to twice a month. Then you keep building from there until you have a consistent rhythm and cadence that you can sustain. We don't want to burn out too early. I think LinkedIn recommends four times a week to really stay top of mind and build that audience, but I think that's way too aggressive to start for someone who's never posted before. Don't put pressure on yourself, eventually you want to build up that cadence, but you don't have to do that right away. The second thing I would say is that content on LinkedIn, there's no original idea, it's all repackaged, repurposed, it's just said from a person with a viewpoint or a personality or a story you connect with. I talk about communication, presence, leadership, management, and thousands of people have expertise in this area, but people follow me specifically because they like the way I talk about things. So don't put that pressure on yourself, nothing is original, people want to hear from you, think about how can I help people, and that will alleviate some of the pressure. Someone needs to hear your story.

Erica: I'm so glad you said that, because I tell people every day, I'm like, nothing I do or say is brand new shocking evidence, I'm not a scientist, I'm not uncovering research for the first time, 20 people have said this. I think it's going to give people the confidence to be like, it's okay because it's through my lens and it's my story. Alright, Lorraine, when you think ahead to the future, especially with all of this AI stuff going on right now, what shifts do you see in the realm of executive personal branding, and how are you preparing your clients for these changes?

Lorraine: I think presence and branding will become even more important in the age of AI, and I think it will be the thing that really separates you. AI is going to help us execute, get more work done, but when it comes to interpersonal relationships, standing out at work, it's that human element, the soft skills, your ability to collaborate cross functionally, to share an idea impactfully in front of a room, all of that is going to be even more critical. We need to learn AI and learn how it can make our jobs and lives easier, and also understand that these soft skills are even more critical today than they've ever been. The brand, and having people know who you are in a crowded space, in a space where technology is perhaps taking over certain things, is going to be essential.

Erica: Let's connect that with storytelling, because AI can tell a story, but it can't tell your story. I know in your work you really emphasize the importance of storytelling in personal branding. Can you give me an example about a client's ability to tell their story, and how when they did it effectively, it transformed their career trajectory?

Lorraine: For sure. It relates back to your question about LinkedIn. My first thought was, people say AI is going to make it really hard on LinkedIn now because everyone's producing so much content, it's easier for everyone now. But AI doesn't know your story and can't incorporate it the way you would. That's your thing that will help you stand out and be differentiated, so actually it's going to be easier to stand out on LinkedIn, because if everyone's using AI's generic content, the people who lean into their story, lean into their brand, those are the people whose content is going to stand out. I've worked with a lot of clients on LinkedIn, because I think people understand the power of LinkedIn. I would say the About section is a very powerful space that people don't use effectively. It's about 2,600 characters, so a lot of space, and people will either regurgitate their resume, or use a bunch of keywords, or describe themselves in such a way that if I copied and pasted it onto someone else's profile, it would work, because there's nothing specific to you. So leaning into what makes you you, what got you into this industry, what are you passionate about, what makes you different, and putting that on your LinkedIn, that will also carry through other aspects, like during interviews, when you're trying to get that promotion. Those are the examples I've seen where people start thinking about what makes me me, and how can I make sure I'm communicating that in all the various important channels. Presence, how and where you're seen, making sure my story is appearing in all these places, so there's a consistent reputation and a consistent impression I'm leaving behind.

Erica: What's your perspective on people using AI for all of their LinkedIn posts? I feel like there are three camps. Camp one is I don't use it, it's trash. Camp two is I'm going to use it but pretend I'm not. Camp three is I'm using it, I don't care if you know. So what should we be doing?

Lorraine: I like using it for ideas, for sometimes giving me a draft, but you always have to go back and go through it with a fine tooth comb, because it's not going to be exactly how you want to say things, or how you'd write the syntax of a sentence. With my writing background, AI is just not going to capture certain nuances. But there are a lot of really interesting tools out there that will take content you've already written and repurpose it, or assess and analyze your content and come up with new ideas for you. All of those things are excellent, they're fair game to use, you just want to make sure you're letting your voice come through, because people can connect with that, and that's what they're going to know. Human taste is the important piece here.

Erica: Yes. I talk a lot about AI, and I tell people AI is never going to know your life, the deep personal stories of your life, the layers of that onion, it's never going to know your perspectives or your preferences. I use it for a lot of content ideas, and if I have something in my brain I can't quite piece together the way I want to, I throw it all into there and say, make it make sense for me. But I enjoy the piece of it where people are talking about how they're using it. It does seem like we're embracing it on LinkedIn as well, and being proud that we're using it. So I think that's a good thing.

Lorraine: What you said, Erica, you can help organize the ideas, and that's great, but you still need to look it over, because it needs to be the way you would say it, your voice and tone. Only you have that information, of what the truth is and what your story is. AI can never get into your brain like that.

Erica: Oh my gosh, yes. One of the last things I wanted to talk about, because this wasn't something I had put any thought into until I was an executive, don't ask me how I got there without thinking this through. You talked about the five ways to make a strong impression on executives, we don't need to go through all five, but the first one was learning their communication style. I entered the workforce assuming everybody communicated the same way and like me, but especially with all these different generations in the workforce now, we know that's not the case. Why is it important for us to learn their communication style, and how do we do that?

Lorraine: Executives are so busy, so you want to make things as easy as possible for them. Part of that is understanding their preferences. If I'm about to go into a big meeting with you, Erica, and you're my executive, and you really like being in the weeds, and I'm talking high level, we're just not going to connect in that way, you're going to feel like it's a waste of your time, and I'm not going to look great. We want to make sure we're preparing and setting ourselves up for success. There are a few different ways to do that. Perhaps one is I've been in meetings with you before and I see the questions you ask and the things that matter to you, so I can understand you actually like being more in the weeds. Or talking to an executive assistant if the executive is too busy, asking their preferences, or talking to your manager, who should have a better idea of how that executive likes to operate and communicate. It's a form of managing up, where you're trying to make their life as easy as possible. They're context switching, going back to back meetings, they need the information quickly and clearly. So make it easier, make yourself planned out, understand those preferences, and prepare appropriately.

Erica: So many great tips. Lorraine, what's next for you? I know you just launched this book, so revel in that and be super pumped, but what's coming up for you?

Lorraine: That's a good question, TBD. The book is such a big thing, so I'll be promoting that, continuing to talk about it over the next few months, if not next year, as I hear the publicity should last for a while. I want to figure out, I think a course might be tied to the book, I'm still thinking through a bunch of ideas. That's the fun of entrepreneurship, you get to experiment, come up with ideas, and see if it works. So still thinking through some ideas, but a course might be next.

Erica: I like that. Where can people find you? Get this book, Unforgettable Presence, you can scoop it on Amazon wherever books are sold. But how else can they get in touch with you, Lorraine?

Lorraine: Definitely LinkedIn, I'd love for you to connect with me and let me know you heard me on this podcast, would love to say hi. I have a newsletter, Career Bites, weekly bite sized tips to supercharge your career in three minutes or less. I also have LinkedIn Learning courses, you can learn from me for free there in ten minutes or less. I encourage you to check that out. You can access all of that at lorraineklee.com.

Erica: Her emails are amazing, guys, I always take them, and I have a special folder I come back to and look at. Connect with Lorraine, get this book. And y'all, if today's conversation lit a fire under you, here's your next move: do not keep it to yourself, share this episode with a friend, drop a review, and let's keep the conversation going. Remember that your potential is limitless, and the only thing standing in your way are those sticky floors. But guess what, you have the power to break through them. So go out there, take up some space, and let's shatter some ceilings together. Lorraine, thank you so much.

Lorraine: Thank you.