Roadmap to the Executive Suite

Building A Strong Career Through Integrity, Diligence, and Empathy

April 08, 2021 Claudia Miller Season 1 Episode 10
Roadmap to the Executive Suite
Building A Strong Career Through Integrity, Diligence, and Empathy
Show Notes Transcript

How do you get three salary raises in just a year? Seems impossible? This episode will prove that you can build a strong career and get that executive position with diligence, integrity, and empathy.

In this podcast, we have Erna Blooms of Blooming Aces, and her story is amazing and inspiring. She will share how she got into her executive position from being a graphic designer. She will share how taking in responsibilities, curiosity and integrity helped her in her journey. She also has words of wisdom when it comes to empathy and how to deal with difficult people in an organization.

In This Podcast We Talk About:

  • How Erna started her career in working behind the scenes of marketing global brands.
  • Erna shares her journey on how she started from being a graphic designer and climbing up the corporate ladder.
  • How did Erna take on responsibilities and how did she get a 3x salary increase in just a year.
  • How did Erna build strong and lasting relationships?
  • Erna shares her trick when struggling with some people.
  • Erna shares an interesting interaction with her CEO and how empathy made a difference. 

Connect With Erna:
Blooming Aces Website
Erna’s IG
Blooming Aces IG

Links Mentioned:
Roadmap to the Executive Suite
Get to know more about My 90-Day Job Offer Program here.
Application to Work With Claudia Miller.

About me:
I started my career like many people do: in an entry level role making around $35K a year, was the first to arrive and last to leave, putting a 110% into my job…But it wasn’t enough. 

I was consistently being passed up for promotions and realized I was being underpaid compared to my colleagues. 

I knew that in order to get ahead in my career and be able to make the money I wanted… to support the lifestyle I wanted…something had to change. 

So, I started investing in myself. I worked with a career coach, resume writer, read every career book that I could get my hands on, enrolled in career courses, and studied colleagues wo seemed to be crushing it in their careers. And after investing over $20,000 in resources, coaches, and books…and spending thousands of hours over five years…I realized that many of the common advice out there did NOT move the needle when it came to advancing your career! 

Instead, I handpicked and carefully selected what worked to create my now signature program, 90-Day Job Offer, that is unlike anything that is out there. I wish a program like this existed when I was going through my career advancement and salary negotiations. If so, it would have been a fraction of the cost and saved me over four years of frustration of trial-and-error. 

Since then, my clients have taken my ready-to-use resources to advance their careers in 90-days or less, and secured on average a 56% increase in salary (to date my clients have received $30,000 - $120,000 in additional earned income per year)!!

I help women in technology land fulfilling, high-paying jobs at a company that values and appreciates them. I’m on a mission to help women in tech collectively earn over a $1M in the next year. 

Will you join me?

Claudia Miller:

This is roadmap to executive suite podcast, a place where we talk about accelerating your careers and how to get to the C suite all tailored to the ambitious woman. We're here to have fun, feel empowered and get actionable steps to get you closer to your dream job and salary, no matter where you are in your career. I'm your host, Claudia Miller, and I'm a career coach who helps ambitious women get the jobs they want, all while getting them up to $50,000 in salary increases. I've been featured in Forbes MSNBC, and a one of the top 23 Most Innovative career coaches of 2025 Business Insider. Welcome to the show, and let's get started. Hi, I am so excited for today I have earn up balloons. You know just a little bit about her. She is a brand expert and girls action coach, as the founder of blooming aces.com Arena is on a mission to help over 10 million entrepreneurs fast track their vision and business revenue growth past the six and seven figures while growing their social impact. With over 19 years of experience in launching six to seven figure product launches. Ernests work and clients have been featured with global brands such as Ralph Lauren, Kate Spade, New York, The Body Shop fossile, Pottery Barn Amazon and many more. When she's not in her creative mode, bringing visions to life coaching clients or behind the mic hosting blooming Asus podcast, she's with her two girls on the hunt for the best sushi spread. And delights in LA are immersing herself in anything Simon Sinek I'm so excited to have you on the show Erna.

Unknown:

Thank you so much for having me, Claudia. Yeah, of course.

Claudia Miller:

So Erna and I met through this program, we're together to really help us advance in you know, in our business, but you know, when I spoke to her, and I'm like, I knew I had to bring her on a podcast, you've actually had quite the accomplishments also, when you were working in corporate, because right now you run your own branding agency. But beforehand, you actually used to run the branding for companies? Could you tell me a little bit more share with our listeners, like, you know, what was your role beforehand? And how did you navigate like through the corporate scene?

Unknown:

Yes. So I actually graduated from like Art Center in Pasadena. And right off the bat, this is kind of like one of the first job that I got up, you know, when I first as a graphic designer, and I just like, starting at the corporate job, and then a support company that actually is a private label that produce a lot of different global brands, you know, and so we were kind of like, behind the scene. And I thought it was really cool to be working on something that's, you know, I see all the time at the mall. So I thought like, it was really cool. And then yeah, so that's how I started with getting that job. And then I love the fact that we work on a lot of different brands, you know, like one day you will be working on reference, and they will be different, like, the gap or Banana Republic. And so I thought it was kind of really fun. At that time, when I first started, my role was graphic designer. So I was just handling like all the graphics, you know, artwork and processing all that. However, our team were very small. The company was only like, I think, at the time, the company was like, Oh, 20 pretty good income, you know, like about, like, maybe I want to say eight to 10 million. And then when I first started, you know, and then but at the time, so we only have three people in our like creative department. So I was a graphic designer, and I have like, my supervisor who's like a product development director and then another like, popery designer. Yeah, so I actually ended up taking on more roles, you know, because our team is so small. So when we have like, when we were growing, I was just okay, when they asked, you know, this, this project, and until my supervisor said, you know, hey, can you help me with this? I just do that, you know, I just I, I asked questions, I just learned my roles, and then expanding it to like, sourcing expanding into, like, product development, and I was listening a lot about sales, because I was sitting next to my supervisor talking, like, doing sales and stuff. So I'm like, I was just like a sponge, you know, so that's kind of like how I started my role. But then after a word, password, like if it's 15 years later, I actually was able to, like move up the ladder to like, art director, and then at the end of my corporate career was like, Creative Director, you know, making six figure. So yeah, there was like a lot of things going on in the middle of it. But at the end of the day, like, I basically the majority of my work, were to help basically execute, you know, the project briefs that the clients wants, you know, like, they wants to come and create their product collections, you know, and then I was basically working on concepting on like, some of the presentation like, for example, if it's candles, you know, you have like the vessels to contain the candle and also the packaging. So, I come up with presentation for that. And then after the client likes it, then we I have to work with our sourcing team. And we got to kind of find the products you know, actually create the samples and get approval to the clients and just managing all the cycle and at the end of the day, like I was getting more involved with the sales side to, you know, securing POS at the same time. So, yeah, so it's gonna like it changes, you know, my role can I change over time?

Claudia Miller:

Yeah, that's quite the journey starting as a graphic designer and it's slowly moving up. You know, one of the things that really caught my attention was, you know, tell me a little bit more on like, how did you navigate moving through the corporate? Like, obviously, you lived in LA, and you still live in LA, it's very competitive out there. But just, you know, can you walk me through? Like, how were you able to move up the corporate ladder from graphic designer to all of a sudden be like a creative director?

Unknown:

Yeah, so answer that is a mix of personal or personal drive. Because I was at a time I was like, just a new mom, I have a baby, you know, like to also help support, you know, so yeah, we were like a young family. And then so that was kind of my fuel. You know, like, basically, I have to be able to support the family. So I kind of stick around and like, do whatever it takes, you know, for me to, like, just basically survive, survive to come and work. So if you think about this movie that will work product was associated with that, you know how, like, you're, you're wishing that you can survive in that fast paced environment, and you don't get fired?

Claudia Miller:

Yeah, that sounds right.

Unknown:

When I first like, my first one was like that. And thankfully, I have, like, you know, good colleagues, you know, that kind of, hey, you know, giving me pointers, you know, like, just getting along. So I think the mindset was, like, making sure you don't make enemies you get along with people. And then just do your, you know, I always have this checklist. And I was like, checking on my list, make sure I don't drop the ball ever, you know, and I was very focused, and I don't make personal phone calls personal email throughout the whole time. Okay, yeah. So that's what I was very disciplined, getting stuff done. And, you know, and also, I had a commute, actually, you know, for like, an hour and a half each way. So it was a really hard long days. But I think it was more driven in learning, you know, learning about roles and doing it well, and make sure we serve the client. So

Claudia Miller:

okay, so then walk me through, like, how did you start as graphic designer? What jobs did you have in between before you even got to like the creative director role?

Unknown:

Yeah. So actually, when I first started, I was replacing an art director. So I was filling in the shoes of an art director, but I only got the title of graphic designer. Okay, so I was gunning for art director, because when I graduate from college, that's the role I want to be, you know, I would like to orchestrate a team, I would like to, like, be on the conceptual side, you know, so but at the time, you know, that was the job that they had, right? So, I'm so glad that actually, my boss did not just give it to me like that, you know, she challenged me, like, she didn't want to give it to me for like, three years. So I had to prove myself and I pushed myself, he gave me a little bit of like, political promotion called Create the project manager. And we're just like, basically managing time and a little bit more in charge, more bigger scope of things, you know, so that really helped me allow a timeline, you know, understanding, like planning and everything. So that's really helpful for me, like, for now, you know, and after I did that, you know, like, the key thing is, I think, paying it forward. To me, it's like, a couple things, paying it forward, and being very reliable, you know, and also respectful to your chain of command. So to me, like, sometimes, you know, like, let's just say, My supervisor will give me something that outside my role, I don't just say, like, Oh, that's not my role. That's not my thing. Yeah. Good team member, just go for it. Because you know, when the team is successful, like our creative successful, the boss can recognize that and then, you know, then my boss got, you know, my supervisor, get, you know, the recognition, and as you'll be happy to give me some good, you know, words, when it comes to the reviews, you know, so I think it's kind of like, just be respectful, you stand off command, make sure that, you know, C looks good, and then you know, make sure you have built good relationship, you know, and I understand like, sometimes, you know, in corporate world, sometimes you don't have that kind of like, the best kind of supervisor or something, you know, but at the same time you do your best, you know, to basically make them look good, you know, and make sure that you also do your part and then just get along with a lot of people. So when it comes to like reviews, I feel that everybody starts talking good things about you, you know, saying so, it's easier for like your upper management to say, Oh, yes, this is a great thing. No problem. You know, I'm saying that was kind of like how I navigate in general.

Claudia Miller:

Okay, yeah, that's one of the things that I recommend to clients, or professionals out there. I know, sometimes it can get hard, or it can be like, you know, why are they giving me I already have a lot on my plate. And I don't want to have to help this is actually not even part of my responsibility. But, you know, there comes a time where you kind of have to make a decision. Do you want to stay where you're currently at? or you're looking to elevate yourself to the next step? Now, if it's something like, well, actually, even if it's like, there have been times where I was like, You know what, I'm willing to help however, I can help to make our team successful. There are going to be times that you're just going to have to do it, but there are companies that can take that, you know, to their advantage for like for example, I had a client where they were doing a job interim director level interim, so they were still doing their job, plus doing the director level job. And they're still interviewing. And within a year, he was still doing that same job. He wasn't getting paid extra or anything. So at that point, I'm like, it's just having a good understanding of like, do they have the right intentions? And how are they acting towards it? Because once they just wouldn't promote him, even though he was had a great accomplishment and everything, um, he ended up finding a job elsewhere. And once he told the company that he had another job offer, now all of a sudden, they said, Oh, yeah, we can give you a promotion. What do we need to keep you do, we just give you the title, we'd be happy to pay you. All of a sudden, they were had limitless resources, but yet the whole year was like a battlefield. So it's always understand, like, where this company is.

Unknown:

Yeah, that is a good pilot. Oh, my gosh, like my sister actually happened. It happened to my twin sister, where she actually like, kind of like the other guy that you mentioned, you know, like, she just, you know, just do her thing. And I never asked anything. And then when she was about to leave, that's, like, Hey, here's the race, you know. So there are times I think you there are two things, you know, knowing your worth, you know, I think you just brought a good point, because it made me realize that one thing that you need to know is like, number one, you stay focused on your goal, too. Like, for example, I was focused on my goal, I want to be an attractor, pedal, let's say, right? I still like even though I'm doing other stuff beyond my thing, you know, beyond my actual role. I, although I'm taking on, it's driving me there, you know, you're driving me towards that, like being seen as art director, I can, I'll be making more decisions and things like that. I was acting like art director before I got the title, you don't say so you have to edit. There are some things like it's not really, really our thing. For example, someone in a different department was asking me at that time, like trying to tell me like, Oh, you have to write a P Oh, that's like a purchasing job. Yeah, he's trying to make me like, computer. So like, and I'm gonna make a mistake, you're not right about doing that. I don't know what that entails. And so I have to ask my supervisor, it's like, hey, so and so told me to do this, you know, I don't feel comfortable doing this. What do you think I should do? You know, so I ran it by her? And she's like, No, you don't have to do that. So that, you know, so can you kind of like double check your gut too. And I was like, I'm not gonna do good job. Don't do it. You know, I mean, and that's gonna, like, actually suit during the flop towards where you're going. So you know, where there is that, you know, balance of like, knowing? Yeah, I can't, you know,

Claudia Miller:

yeah. And I think that one of the things too, is we want to make sure we communicate with like, our managers, or whoever we're reporting to, letting them know what your career goals are. I've had clients that by the time they get to me, they'll say, Claude, I was passed out for my promotion, and two, three times. Now I was like, Okay, well, you know, what did your boss say? And they're like, why actually didn't talk to them? What did you communicate? You wanted that promotion? No, I just assumed because I've been in this job for two years. I'm a hard worker, I'm always delivering that they should know. And the secret is, date don't know. I also feel like the squeaky wheel, what is it that say the squeaky wheel always gets oil, whatever you have? That's

Unknown:

it, you know what you're talking about?

Claudia Miller:

Yeah. So it's like having them letting their manager know, like, Hey, by the way, I've been enjoying doing my work. And I'm very excited. You know, I'm also looking to I want to be considered for the team leader, the manager role, I would really appreciate if you can give him the opportunity. But you know, based off of that, since, you know, want to be a manager or team leader at this point, what can I be doing today, in order to help me get to that point? Yeah, that way, for sure that it becomes like a partnership. So now they're kind of invested. Now, I'm not gonna say it's gonna be 100% successful, there are going to be managers that are just going to more rigid or more hard or whatever they may be, but kind of like I least asking, at least, you said, you ask them and give them a timeline. One of the reasons why that client wasn't getting the director level positions, because they said they wanted to be in a director level position, but they never gave a timeline. Once you give people a chance to I want to become director or I'm happy to take this on. But I want to let you know that I want to be director in the next 12 months, how can I get there within the 12 months, and if you keep reminding them that the 12 months is coming up, then it's almost like if you're going to do something, do it now. Otherwise, I will start looking outside the department or within another company. And if you're a true valuable candidate, that's when they'll start pulling the trigger and saying you know what, Erna I think you know, it's time you've done everything we've done. We want to offer you the promotion, or let's have you start prepping you or interviewing you for this role. And again, if now, if they keep kind of like leading you on and giving you the job, then you as a candidate to, you know, have a choice to do you want to stay there or do you want to go and start applying for other jobs and other opportunities.

Unknown:

And nothing you know, it's important also, like so me like walking back, I can give this advice. You know, like, I think when I was trying to I wasn't really intentionally like, picking on a lot of things. I was just trying to like, not get fired, you know? But during the whole process, I grew you know, Even like when my direct supervisor went on maternity leave, she actually like I ended up taking on her role, you know, mind, you'd probably get paid like three times. My salary was, but I wasn't like I was clueless about that, you know, but I was just making sure that oh, my gosh, I have to hold the fort, you know, kind of thing. And as, during that time, I actually gained a lot of experience with clienteles, you know, and so suddenly, I think I accidentally gained this, like, indispensable status, you know, in the, in a group, like they saw, like, oh, my gosh, she can handle all this with this this month salary suddenly, like, my race is no brainer to them. But at that time, I didn't know this, you know, I know it after I become higher level. I know how they think, you know, it's, I can talk about it right now, you know. So looking back, I'm like, wow, that was like a blessing. in disguise. You know? So yeah. So at one point, when my supervisor got hers, she was on maternity leave the second time. That's when I get the my race three times in one year. That's amazing. When I actually asked, like you said, I actually asked for that one, you know,

Claudia Miller:

so Okay, so I think that, you know, I wanted to talk a little bit more about that. So walk me through, like, how did that look like three races in one year? Honestly, it's a great accomplishment. So tell me a little bit more like, how did you go about these races? Like, how did you have these conversations?

Unknown:

First of all, it's not happening the first year. I was probably there, like, over five years, you know what I mean? So I was already like, CRM, you know, they know what to expect of me, like I was consistent in up doing myself, you know, so they saw we had this consistent race, like every December, right, so they have a review, you know, and then so that's one of the ways that was going, but the thing is, my supervisor happened to have maternity leave at a time. So that's when I actually asked, you know, for a race, you know, so that's the second one, I wasn't sure if they're gonna give it to us, you know, but since only, like, the two of us, you know, there's like three of us in the department. So one of them's going to go on maternity leave, and then only me and the other lady, you know, and water was asked for race at the same time. So we bought that somebody. So that's got a little bit bummed, you know, and then in the middle of the whole year, there is also a mural, kind of, like, you know, because what they call our company has been bought by another company. So, and then actually created opposition. I was creating my own department, basically, I had to create, like, first I asked them, you know, like, before I ask them backtrack a little bit, you know, what did they need to see from me to see if this is just viable, you know, and so I actually work on a proposal for like, a couple weeks, and I'm thinking about, here's how I paint the picture for them, here's how I department going to look like. So I agree, like, here's my role, you know, now, you know, like, I'm going to be doing this, I make sure I list of everything that I can do, letting them know that I know how to run this department and how to grow the revenue. You know, I mean, so and then the second thing is, I also created a job for like, my graphic designer that I'm going to hire, you know, so then I was like, basically justifying, okay, the good news is, because I think the company was very open in showing, like, their goals for the year, they will tell you and like, here's our stretch goal, how many million and like, this is our must hit goal kind of thing, you know, and we have this like, sales order report that they show to all the departments, so they know, like, we can track how many orders are we getting in and how we're hitting the goals on. So I know that when I see that the goal is going to be hit. And we are part of that, because we're at the front end, you know, without our department, there's no sales, there's no design, there is no business, you know, so we know how important our department is. So I think knowing your positioning is so important, you know, you know, to for to, for them to say yes. So when I was doing my proposal, I actually like was thinking about, okay, if I want to have this kind of salary, which is like a past my five figures, so it's like going into six figure now. So I have to justify that and I'm doing the math, you know, kind of backtracking. Okay, so that means like, this is what I have to do, and this is what my team can do. And then this is the projection I can give you. You know, I mean, I think I can have this or they can see that I'm thinking as a business owner, you know, like being like, this is my own company, like my sense of ownership of that, you know, like making them realize a Klaus is really thinking about this, you know, and at first they were like not saying right away, yes, you know, but then I was telling them, like, you know, like you said, you know, like I just said like, hey, you know, I really want to know if there's any more growth, you know, opportunities in this company. Like the way I say it, almost, like, if you don't give it to me, I'm gonna leave, you know. Oh, boy, you know, so they actually gave me that, you know, gave me the new pedal. And then gave me like, I think that that time was not good record. The other time was marketing services or marketing directors, Director of Marketing Services. So that's when I actually get my six figure for the first time. And then yeah, so then I hire my first you know, team member under me, you know, actually then later on, let me hire to you know, so, so that's kind of like how I did it.

Claudia Miller:

So I kind of want to go back a little bit, because I feel like I want to give our The listeners a little bit more actionable steps. So when you went to your manager when they went on maternity leave this time for the second time, and you're gonna be, you know, almost like taking care of like two roles within that timeframe. What is like how could you say like, rephrase it or kind of tell us what did the conversation look like?

Unknown:

Yeah. So, you know, I want to batch take you a step back before before that happened. Because I think the first thing the moment you get a job, okay, you have to focus on building your trusting network. You know, that's the first thing because when they say yes, it's not the Yes, because I did it that day. I built that reputation. You know, I'm saying, because the first time when my boss had her leave, I did not ask for the thing. You know, I didn't ask because I cannot, I don't have leverage, because I don't even know if I can do the job. You know, so I was just learning. So you have to kind of understand this now, entitlement here, you know, I'm saying you have to make if you know that you can do the job. And you can propose, like my second time that are you know, I can do the job. Before that I didn't ask because I did not know if I can do the job. So you have to make sure that you put yourself in the employer shoes as well, you know, if they're going to invest more money into you, what can you guarantee for them to get in? I mean, so I think being proactive about that. It just pleases like business owner, I know that because I came from, like, entrepreneurial background where my parents built like, for businesses from zero. So I just know that how, I think a lot of business owner, I want to say I want to believe that they like giving racist, because if they were able to give raises, you know, they're gonna make the team happy, which meant I'm growing as a company. And as, like me, for example, if my own company, I will have to give my team races and everything. So which mean we're growing, but at the same time, you, you know, you have to kind of measure in order to do that. Because once you get some race, you don't want to reduce it down. So there's a commitment there. So it's like both ways, you know, saying, so, to me, that's kind of like my mindset on that one.

Claudia Miller:

Yeah, it's really like building that business case. And then sometimes you're like, Well, I'm not a consultant, or I'm not a business owner. But kind of like, to your point, start thinking like a business owner, or, you know, what do you need to do or guarantee the results? Like, for example, I tell like, professions that I worked with, like or sales, you bring in two to $3 million a year. You know, I can justify making two to 300,000, because they're making two to 3 million out of you.

Unknown:

Yeah. So back to your question about how the conversation look like, right? To be honest with you, it wasn't hard, like for me, because I have built like, I already know that the company was moving up, like we, I think, before the company was bought by another company, the friends company, we actually, I think, since I started there until like, that time, it grew like 8 million, basically, you know, so electro ambulance 18 million, basically. So I knew like, during that time ago, we were making good progress continuously. You know, so when my boss, my supervisor, was just going on maternity leave, I already knew the kind of roles they need, you know, and if they were to hire someone out at a time, it's gonna be more training to do right, more leaving my boss gonna come back anyway, you know, my supervisors gonna come back, and I mean, so there's no point. So they were able to, like, give us that grace. You know, I mean, just to make sure that because they know, like, what me and my colleague, we perform, you know, consistently, like, professional and everything, you know, so they were like us, it's just an easier thing. So when I asked this, I just put on my VP and then, as our first and this is like, my direct mentor, in a way aside from my supervisor, as a hey, you know, can I talk to you for a sec, you know, you know, that, as you know, like, there's going to be a lot of responsibility I'm taking whilst he's going on maternity leave, you know, is there any chance for me to be able to get some ways to compensate that? I love it, you know, and then see us? And then yeah, they know they need us, you know, we're on the front end, you know, they cannot help us, you know, so yeah, so that's how that simple actually, for that one.

Claudia Miller:

And I love it's the simpler and easier it is, the more it is for people to actually do it. Like, I tell them sound negotiation is not hard, like, all I have clients really is like, well, first, I position them to be like at the top end of that salary range. But when it comes to like actual negotiation, all they say is, you know what, I'm actually looking for a salary of 140,000, especially, you know, because of my background, my expertise and the responsibilities that seems to be aligned to what the market is paying, you know, how can we close this gap? Yeah, that's it and just stay quiet. Let them get creative, how they want to pay you in pennies. That's fine as long as you get to that 140,000. But I love the simplicity of like how you said, it is something simple to say, but you had already done five years of work into it so and it also sounds like based on everything you said to is you've always had a positive attitude. You weren't like that's not my job. I'm not doing that. It was more of like I'm happy to help I get to learn new skill sets right when? Yep, when your manager went on maternity leave the first time you got to learn more about her responsibilities started to get almost act We've made it and exposed to that, that when the time came, you were able to say, I already know what this is going to take. And I'm more than happy to do so. And, you know, I want to make sure that we continue to department, but I just want to make sure that I'm compensated for that work. And then at that point, you've already built your brand, your reputation, and you've been with the company already, they know you can deliver it that it was an easy yes for them.

Unknown:

Exactly. Exactly. So it's like, it takes time to build that application. I think, what are you in corporate world? What are you entrepreneurial? You know, same thing, you know, it's how to build that trust factor, you know, like, ongoing, you know, like an ongoing, like, relationship, you know?

Claudia Miller:

Yeah. Yeah. And I think another thing that you did very well, too, is you said that the VP was almost like your mentor. So I think that, you know, sometimes, so I guess I first I want to talk on ask you, like, how did you build this relationship? And it sounds like that person ended up becoming your advocate and helping you with those salary increases, which is very important. When you're working with a company, you want to have mentors that are outside. But you also want to have mentors within the company that can advocate for you when you're not there. When they're making hiring decisions or restructuring. You know, you want to have that person say like nope, Erna is no, we need to keep her. So we need to find a way to keep her and actually looks like we're gonna need a director level position, why don't we move her into that role? And that way, she can take two, three people under her. And, you know, they're doing the heavy lifting for you. They're the ones promoting you. So tell me a little bit, how did you approach and create this relationship?

Unknown:

Yeah, you know, so I have actually two bosses, you know, the big boss, you know, my CEO, and the VP, they're friends, you know, and one of them always travel and sees the salesperson, you know, and the other person is actually the one holding the fort, you know, sits there all the time at the, you know, at our facility. And so see, see everything she was very detail oriented, thankfully, I'm very detail oriented. So I think that's why we kind of connect, you know, because we want our youth oriented, you know, and we care about people. So I think C is such a good manager, I feel like something member doesn't. But I see that, you know, I see that she is very patient says very good mentor. So I always feel comfortable to make me feel welcome, you know, to like, ask her questions. You know, this is the kind of person that I have open door policy, you know, so I'll see just like, sounds like, Oh, can you help me with this? I don't know how to make this. popery. You know, I'm not like a product designer at the time, you know, but I was supposed to, like, fulfill this order for like something. And then I'm like, but I don't know how to put this together. So she will teach me how to like, do profit margin and she want me to, like, actually sit next to me. And I was like, also very good at not making a mistake twice. So I continued to improve. So I think that's there's that kind of give and take, like, you know, that we give to each other, like, obviously, teach me something, I bring her result. And I was like, so in a way, I think, you know, you don't want to be like one of those mentees is like, keep taking or taking and I'm not giving this on the you just like, Yeah, I feel like

Claudia Miller:

you're exhausting me.

Unknown:

I was trying to be respectful for her time, when I'm asking for help, it's really going to grow into something like profitable, you know, saying for the company, or just being a relationship, you know, I think she was such a nice, nice person. You know, I think it's easy for me to respect her, you know, it's easy for me to respect her. And I think it's good for you to remember, like I said, you will always have a favorite manager, you will always have that favorite manager and be developed that you know, and there's some energy that you feel like, you know, you just gotta be cool with me. You know, it's like some of them like you just like you know, your cup of tea, but you know, you feel like I do try you know, I do try to like think about groupings about what they do, you know, and I want to actually I have one trick to do when you have struggle with some people

Claudia Miller:

Yes, please.

Unknown:

There's this thing that I was actually doing like one time I was really really mad about some someone for some reason that day, I was just like really, really pissed, you know, like I was, I don't know how to get out of it. So I actually ended up picking up a piece of paper, I draw the line in the middle and I said positive negative, you know, of course when you're upset you will put a lot of negative on another sheet of paper. So I want to do is I pause and think you know, why? So I for example, I'm like, why is he so short? You know, I mean? Or something like that, then might challenge myself at a time is like, Why is she so short? So I'll try to justify why she's maybe she's very busy with me like that is a positive then I start putting in positive and then another thing that annoyed me and then I put a lid on another positive so suddenly I'm have more positive LIS than the negative. So like three and like probably like the six or seven. So then I see the perspective of my pops up the whole process actually calm yourself down to you know, I mean, and now you just can stay positive, you know, and then I think a lot of you know, business owner they want the team to be positive. So I think being self sufficient to back yourself positive value, you know, you don't drain their energy. You know,

Claudia Miller:

I agree. I mean, I was in my previous roles, there are times where people are just gonna make you very angry. And you're like I did, they just really say that did this person just cut me off. And what I used to do is I used to write, I never put the person's email. So like, it would be like me sending an email, but I never put it to send to anyone. So I would write a little, I felt like you did this, and I just wrote everything, I want to send that email. And then I just put it like, saved it in draft and then walked away whatever I needed to do, whether it was listening to music, and just calm myself down. And then afterwards, the next day, I was like, Oh, thank God.

Unknown:

That is a very good point. Like, I have to do it sometime, you know, because you just have to worry about, yeah, you just, you know, and then you feel like, Oh, I was so angry. And then when you come down, if like, that was not actually a big deal, and I was making a big deal. It just trigger you. Right. So

Claudia Miller:

yeah. And then to that point, I mean, like, when I announced that I was leaving the company, that person said, you know, by the way, you've always been so great and supportive, I'm really gonna miss you. And I was like, that even you will not have been saying those nice words about me. But I mean, it happens, we're dealing with people, not everyone's perfect, um, there's times where we may be short, or just not in a good mood, and things happen. And it's about, you know, try to control that yourself. But again, you can't control other people, but you can control how you deal with that situation, and how that may impact your career as wise, because they might have had a had a bad day, you never know what's happening, then you get back short at them. And they're gonna say, you know, there's so many things that need constant reminders, like, I can't believe that my employee just said that to me, or my coworker just said that. Now that's rude. You know, I've had a bad day, or whatever that may be. And it just creates like that negative relationship. And especially if you have to work with a person very closely, you want to make like you say, you're not trying to make enemies, you want to make friends, you want to create advocates where, you know, they're rooting for you, because they might be your employees. And you don't want them hating you already, because you've already had a negative relationship. So it's just been able to be composed. And I mean, I'm so happy you shared the story with me. And you know, with the listeners, like, you got promoted three times or got three raises in one year. I, by the way, I hope you did something really fun with like, your additional income you had going on? Did you go like on vacation? Or did you

Unknown:

do? I have to admit, I don't think I did. I did a good job in 3d. Probably I went out to dinner, maybe, you know, with my family, you know, splurging on a lunchtime, you know, as far as I go.

Claudia Miller:

Well, I love food. So it was like, anytime good excuse to go to a nice restaurant, or something. I mean, for sure, yeah, you're in LA. So you can have like, the nice weather you can be outside? Or?

Unknown:

Oh, yeah. For sure, actually, what you're just telling me just remind me of something that, you know, I'm big on Simon Sinek stuff, right? So he's talking about US leadership and about having empathy. Empathy doesn't go just for your employee, or your team members, it also go up, go to your top, you know, your your leadership. So it's at some time, your boss might not be the nicest, let's say, you know, and you just assume that they're just not a good people. You know, but that's not the case. You know, empathy is everybody's human, right? Everybody have their moments, their personal life and whatever, you know, you don't know what's going on. So actually have one example. And one time, you know, my big boss, not my VP, but my big boss, she actually like, seems very, like, short, with everybody, you know. And then so I was like, almost be like, she hate me. But then I'll say that I had the courage to, like, go up to her. I don't know why how, you know. This is I'm reflecting about this at the time, I didn't understand it. And, you know, I didn't. I didn't have those books and stuff. But I was just like, Hey, are we good? Are you okay? And I like, do I do something wrong? I just asked her, I was like, oh, no, no, no, it's like, I would just stress about something. So she actually ended up telling me what her problem was, you know, as a CEO, and me like, just, you know, just because I asked, and I mean, and as he explained to me, like, yeah, there's two times when I actually come to her when I don't understand her decision. Out of a sudden Weiss is acting that way, you know, just kind of like, Hey, are you okay, you know, and, you know, and then just say, like, you know, did I do something wrong? And she's like, No, you can always find, you know, just and and, yeah, so I think it's important for us to not assume that people just, you know, they're, you know,

Claudia Miller:

maybe they just hate us. Yeah.

Unknown:

You just never know, you know, just ask the direct question, and hopefully they care and respect you enough to tell you the truth. Not everybody's like that. But at least you can try you know, I

Claudia Miller:

mean, Yeah, and I think it also has to do with personalities, you know, people that tend to be CEOs are like that dominant. They just want to get to the point, they don't want to hear about the details like, what do you want? What do you need and get to the point? Now, like they're being rude. It's just that's how they receive information. Of course, when you're high level, you have to make so many decisions. While there's others where they're very analytical, they want to know everything. Oh, you, you know, you finish the report. Did you do this? Did you do that? You said you had this number? What did this number come from? Can you show me your work, and those are analytical people, they tend to be more on the engineering types of roles where it requires a lot of detail. And I think you might be in that analytical person, because you said you're very detail oriented. And you're creating brands, and like making products look beautiful and captivating, and stick to the brand. So like, so you have to be very detail oriented. So with dealing with that personality, you want to make sure that you everything you have taken care of and that you can backup all the information or products or projects that you've done because they want to dive in, while others might be more of like, oh, how are your kids doing? And how's your kid? I knew just kids just turned three years old. And they're more of like, I want to get to know you like, you can't just come to them and ask them for something because they're gonna say like, whoa, this person doesn't care about me. So I get to a point everybody's so different. I think also we have to be cognizant of like, what's their personality and speak their language? If you know there's to the point?

Unknown:

Yeah. Yeah. Both ways. You know, you are management and also your team member. I think that's a very good point. Right there, Claudia.

Claudia Miller:

Yeah. Well, I mean, I was so happy. I'm so happy. I had you on the show today. And thanks for sharing so much with us. If somebody if all some of our listeners wanted to connect with you, where can they find you?

Unknown:

Yeah, I'm actually on Instagram, just like an app or now blooms, you know, so you can DM me there ask me question. Actually, I'm gonna have, you know, IG live sometimes that I also always announced, you know, some Fridays at one o'clock, you know, on my ID, where people can ask about brands or just any random question, really, they can always DM me, you know, so yeah, they can find me there. And there is a link on in my bio to, you know, where you can join my community, Facebook community, or like, just look up my services, you know, to help them with anything that one like, I can help people with balancing work and also life, you know, navigate that. So that's something that I actually do for people like two hour session type of thing that people can just feel like, how do I like balance my life with this career? Yeah, I can do it for entrepreneur. I can also for like, corporate, I've done both. That's awesome. Yeah. And so that's how they can connect with me. And then

Claudia Miller:

I'll have all the links where they can contact you in the show notes as well. So in case you didn't get like her Instagram or the website, it'll all be in the show notes. So that way, you can click and start DMing Erina.

Unknown:

Yeah, we'd love to hear from you guys. I love connecting our people with their superpower fulfilling business alive. So that's my mission.

Claudia Miller:

Well, it was such a pleasure having you around. And thanks again for sharing with us your career journey, your accomplishments, your achievements. How are you able to get through three raises all in one year? So I really do appreciate it and hopefully the listeners to find this information helpful for wherever they are in their careers. They can feel comfortable having those conversations and start creating those strategies around it that will help them accelerate their careers. Absolutely.

Unknown:

Thank you so much for having me, Claudia.

Claudia Miller:

All right, Erna. Thank you. Thanks for listening in. If you liked this episode, you can go to our website roadmap to the executive suite.com For show notes and sign up to get alerts. All new episodes will be posted every Thursday. Talk to you next week.