EPISODE 29: HOW TO FIND AND KEEP A MENTOR WITH MORGAN BARSE AND Heather Adams
Live Date: December 6, 2021
Show Description: Friends, we’re going to do something a little unusual on the show today and you are going to LOVE IT! Heather gets asked all the time about mentorship – why it’s a passion of hers, how to find a good mentor, how to be a good mentor, how to conduct a mentor/mentee session. So that’s exactly what we’re going to do today. We’re going to have a LIVE mentor session right here on Make Me Known with Morgan Barse, founder of Wing Woman, a public relations agency for executives, investors, and organizations.
This Episode Will Teach You:
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Who and what to look for when seeking a mentor
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How to build relationships with people in the community and the media
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Trends and tricks for securing media for your clients
Biggest Takeaways:
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Heather and Morgan walk through how to go about finding a mentor, how to be intentional, what questions to ask, and how to manage those expectations so that booth people are benefiting from the relationship.
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Morgan asks Heather how to go about building relationships with the media in a genuine and concrete way. Heather shares her insights from her career and the value of establishing a personal connection with writers and producers so that the relationship is not purely transactional.
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The pair discuss the top task of publicity: managing expectations. Whether internally or externally, Morgan and Heather share their insight on how to handle client expectations, media expectations, and ROI.
About the Guest: Morgan Barse leads the brand development of notable organizations, media networks, Emmy-award-winning journalists, and CEOs. Morgan has been featured in multiple online publications such as Fox, the Tampa Bay Business Journal, and Voyage Magazine. She was also named one of Tampa’s “25 under 25. “She founded Wing Woman Brands with a passion to build out the big dreams of women. To her being a Wing Woman is about having that person in your corner building your big dream as an extension of you while you are dropping your kids off at soccer practice or walking in the door from a long day of calls
Quotables:
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“We know better than anybody else, the environments that we learn best in the ways that we’re productive, what appeals to us, what we’re passionate about and going after that, and really advocating for yourself is exactly what you did in that situation.” – Heather Adams, 10:29
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“I would just go on LinkedIn, find CEOs of some of the biggest companies around here I would offer to do like three months for free. I would offer to try to get them booked on additional things. And I mean, I did this for like over a year for free and don’t give me, there were moments where I was getting a little worried because I was thinking like, okay, is this going to pay off when I graduate college? Is there going to be an opportunity that I can actually pay my bills with it comes out of this, but yes, very lucky.” – Morgan Barse, 11:59
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“My initial piece of advice is always to be really specific about your request. So don’t just go and say, Hey, Heather, can you and I have coffee one afternoon? Because that tells me nothing about what you’re needing, what you’re wanting, what my commitment to you is going to be.” – Heather Adams, 13:05
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“Managing the expectations, telling them what their commitment would be, and telling them what you want to get out of it, I think is huge. But the other part of that is you being the one that drives the agenda. If you wait around and you get there, and then you look at her or him and you expect them to drive the agenda and what is going to happen in the conversation, again, you’re not getting the benefit of what you’re looking for out of this relationship.” – Heather Adams, 14:59
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“Substitute teaching was not what I thought I was going to do. Long-term but here’s what it did for me. It showed me what I valued and what I was excited about because I loved going into the classroom and leading people who were younger than me coming behind me.” – Heather Adams, 18:48
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“I had built a really beautiful career at that point and had a lot of experience, much more so than when I lost my job the first time, but I’ll never forget. I had been in New York pitching the most recent catalog to like major national media, and I got home on a Thursday, and on Friday I walked in and got laid off and I was a nervous wreck.” – Heather Adams, 20:41
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“And so those two times in my life, you could have looked at as really tragic grief-stricken because they were hard, right. I, all of a sudden didn’t have a job at two different times, but what I learned out of those is what I valued. I learned what I was passionate about. I learned what was important to me.” – Heather Adams, 21:37
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“And I learned later in life, women should occupy more seats at the table. All the seats can be women. We don’t have to fight for just one and we should be linking arms helping each other advance because your success does not diminish my opportunity. Right. And so that is something that if I could go back and do it differently, I absolutely would, I would have learned that lesson earlier on.” – Heather Adams, 25:50
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“And that just speaks to the importance of mentoring too, because now you have the confidence to step into that version of yourself, not like is the version you’re supposed to be.” – Morgan Barse, 28:36
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“If I’m ever frustrated with how a specific scenario played out, I like to think about, in some children’s coloring books, they have the connect the dot exercises. I always think like, ‘okay, well you have to connect some of the dots, like down lower to build out the whole picture.’ So I always feel better.” – Morgan Barse, 29:34
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“I have come to the realization of wherever I am, I need to be fully present and invested, and that is going to change depending on the season and what I need to prioritize in that season.” – Heather Adams, 30:11
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“I am the best version of Heather when I am prioritizing and protecting my five non-negotiables.” – Heather Adams, 34:52
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“I feel like I can just take a deep breath because that structure, those five tips you outline is maintainable. For me being so ambitious, I want to be the best in every possible way. I want to go to the gym six days a week for an hour. And I also want to run a full-time business and team and do all these things. But like, it’s so comforting to hear you say that because I can like move and change those things week to week.” – Morgan Barse, 38:36
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“You might have a really busy season in your business where you have a lot of clients launching things and a lot of campaigns and stuff. And so that needs to be prioritized during that season. But if you are not taking care of yourself, then that’s not going to be sustainable long-term in that season.” – Heather Adams, 39:01
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“So that’s the first thing is figure out who they are and who those people need to be. The second thing is don’t just go to them when you need something from them.” – Heather Adams, 42:52
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“You want it to not feel like you always have an agenda when you’re doing it right? And so that’s why you can’t do it with everyone. That’s why you have to be selective, targeted, strategic about the ones that you’re trying because five really great contacts at the right outlets could be a game-changer for your business” – Heather Adams, 49:28
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“For me as a business owner, learning to still have firm boundaries. And just because you’re not always available, doesn’t mean that you’re not still providing excellent service for your clients. You have to protect those boundaries.” – Morgan Barse, 55:25
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“The very first thing we do is definitely manage expectations. We try to level it out. And I like to be very clear. That’s why I call myself a wing woman, I’m by your side, we’re going to figure it out together to get to that very top feature that you want to get to. But I need to bring them down to earth a little, walk them back. So that’s the very first thing.” Morgan Barse, 58:57
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“I think next year, one thing that will be a trend is media trying to inject more joy and humor into their coverage. I think the news landscape in particular has been so hard for so long and it’s been so negative for so long.” – Heather Adams, 1:01.38
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