023: Mike Kim and the Power of Career Capital: Show Your True Value

Christopher Nelson (00:00:00) - Here's where it compounds when people realize that you're different and you can tell your story in this way. Those same recruiters, two years after I was in a roller coaster, they're going to call me back and say, What are you working on? Knowing that I was going to tell them a nice, rich story, that they were going to get to know me and they could go advocate for me for different roles. So it compounds over time. 

Mike Kim (00:00:19) - There are a lot of people who teach what I teach in similar ways, or maybe in their own way. People decide who they're going to work with because they resonate with the story around it. It's almost intangible.

Christopher Nelson (00:00:35) - Welcome to Tech Careers and Money Talk. I'm your host, Christopher Nelson. I've been in the tech industry for 20 plus years, and after climbing my way to the C-suite, working for three companies that have been through IPO and investing my way to financial independence, I'm here to share with you everything that I've learned and help you get the information that you need to get there to.

Christopher Nelson (00:00:58) - Today, I am actually going to be interviewed by Mike Kim. Mike Kim is an expert in personal branding and if there's anyone that can help me articulate career capital, what that is, what that means to you, how do you really articulate your value around a brand and around results, he's the guy that can help me do it. So we're going to spend the first half of our conversation really talking about what is the personal brand. How do you really need to articulate your value? The second half, we're really going to go into some tactics that you can leverage today that can help you start articulating your value. Documenting the stories that you need to so that when you go into negotiations, you can get the most salary and most equity that really represent the value that you bring to the table. I'm excited to bring this conversation to you. Let's go talk to Mike right now. 

Welcome to this episode of Tech Careers and Money Talk. Today we're going to do something a little bit different. I'm excited to introduce you to Mike Kim, a good friend of mine, also a personal branding expert.

Christopher Nelson (00:02:04) - He did write the book on personal branding called You Are the Brand. It was a Wall Street bestseller and New York Times bestseller as well.

Mike Kim (00:02:13) - Wall Street Journal, USA Today. Yeah. Oh, everything.

Christopher Nelson (00:02:16) - Great. And so Mike is coming here to help me out because as I've been explaining to you in the concept of going from equity to exit, there's this key concept of expertise. Expertise involves marketing yourself and knowing yourself. I want to be able to tell you exactly what that is, what that means. Nobody is better to get that information from me than my friend Mike Kim. All right.

Mike Kim (00:02:40) - I'll try my best, everybody. Thanks for tuning in, Christopher. Personal branding. The way I teach it is something that's been around way longer than people realize. That language is kind of seeped into corporate culture. Now I'm doing some consulting on it. It's really interesting, but my background was in entrepreneurship, building a personal brand around your expertise, your ideas, your reputation. And yet when I look back on my journey, I was the chief marketing officer of a company, and I think I understood some of these concepts before I really distilled them to get ahead in my company, right? Because, you know, like roughly around the same age, like dude branding and personal brand, it just meant your reputation at work.

Mike Kim (00:03:27) - Like, are you lazy? Are you a go-getter? Are you good with communication? Are you a bull in a China shop? Right. And so when I hear about personal branding at work, I think it's so important. What are things that you did when you were working in roles that you were in to really establish yourself as an expert, as a leader, where there are things that you intuitively did and anything like that just come up.

Christopher Nelson (00:03:51) - Not not intuitively. I think it was something that I thought about quite a bit because I'm analytical. I'm also very strategic. You know, I pop high on those in the strengthsfinder and especially working in technology companies. I think what was really important was being able to demonstrate the depth of my expertise. Part of that was being able to articulate where I gained my experience and then also turning that into results. What does that mean? Results? Results are really how what I'm doing on a tactical level is affecting business strategy. Those were some of the things that I found really heightened my value to the company because when I was able to articulate internally, here's what I'm actually providing for the company, here's how I'm helping them move the ball forward.

Christopher Nelson (00:04:39) - That's what then resulted in promotions and raises and all those things that we look for when we are working our 9 to 5.

Mike Kim (00:04:45) - Yeah. And you never start out at the top, right? You're always working your way up. I remember when I was kind of going through that journey, there was a time where I felt like I was an intermediary. Right, Right. And you mentioned business strategy. So the folks who are up top kind of guide the direction of the company and they're a few steps removed downstream from the folks who are in other roles. And you've got to kind of bridge both. And you're trying to make both happy. Yes. Right. And you're kind of really an intermediary. So when you relate to, let's say, the folks who are above you positionally in different roles, how are you trying to position yourself to them? And then versus how are you trying to position yourself to those who you were leading and guiding? Like, were there differences there?

Christopher Nelson (00:05:32) - There was.

Christopher Nelson (00:05:33) - And I think and it's also interesting how it's evolved over time. And I think back to the beginning of my career in the early 2000, I think a lot of that was really how I display my expertise in my impact. And so when I rolled that up, it was translating and making sure that everyone knew that tasks were on track, that quality was being delivered. And then also. We were helping them move the ball forward as time went on. What I realized is as cultures changed, as society changed, it was more important that I displayed not just what I was doing, but I talked about what the team was doing. I talked about the health of the team. I think as leadership has changed from more of a command and control to a servant leadership and how the team is doing, this is something that how we roll up has changed and I think people need to have their ears open to what that message needs to be like today.

Mike Kim (00:06:30) - Yeah, I want to talk about that a little bit because.

Mike Kim (00:06:33) - A long career. Especially in this generation, we've seen a lot of that change where it was like hard skills, hard skills, hard skills, and it's soft skills. It's communication. It's leadership. You were really results driven. Were there areas that you're like, Oh, snap, I've got to work on communication or I got to work on like, what were some of those softer skills maybe that you didn't realize early on, right? When you're coming out of school , you need to develop well.

Christopher Nelson (00:06:59) - So I think one of the biggest skills that I had to develop was having difficult conversations, okay? Because, you know, and I think we were talking about this recently is when you're an individual contributor and you do what you do really well, then people then management says, we want to make you a manager to teach other people. And what I came to understand really quickly is I can easily tell you, here's a piece of work that I need you to do in the quality that I want you to come back with.

Christopher Nelson (00:07:29) - And that's one dimension of management. But then there's two other dimensions. Number two is I have to coach you on your soft skills. Oh, okay. How do I give Mike feedback that maybe he's not doing something very well? Or how do I, you know, give you the appropriate praise that doesn't make you an egoist, you know, moving forward. And then the third thing is one of the biggest challenges of management is how do I actually tell you that I'm going to give you money or I'm going to take money out of your pocket.

Mike Kim (00:07:57) - Like even in hiring or raises.

Christopher Nelson (00:08:00) - All That's right. That's right. Because that happens annually, right? Annual reviews. Right. If you have to do those things. And so being able to have difficult conversations, understanding how to structure them in a way that was going to be encouraging and helpful for people. And then also how to have those. Because what I learned over time is that you want to regularly have those conversations. So when you get into the money or the coaching conversation, everybody knows what that conversation is going to be like.

Mike Kim (00:08:27) - Yeah, I mean, this is true in every team setting. Like no management never knows fully what you're doing. They never fully understand the contributions that you're making, the areas that you're growing and the level of conversations that you're having that are difficult. Right? They never know. Right. Right. Were there instances where you had to be really intentional about letting them know? And I think that's a big thing, right? Like you don't want to be boastful like, Hey, guys, I did this, this and this. Right? Right. But sometimes if you don't speak up, it just doesn't get recognized because they're just unaware. Were there ever instances like that where you had to kind of take the initiative to let them know you might think I'm this valuable, but here's what I'm really doing. I'm really this valuable.

Christopher Nelson (00:09:09) - And yes, 100% in one of the techniques that I used is I use this technique. I created this concept in my mind that I was the caretaker of their team.

Christopher Nelson (00:09:21) - And so what I wanted to be able to report to them on is what is the emotional well-being of the team? How does the team feel about what's happening in the company, what may be happening in the particular environment? Right. As we're building products or testing products, those things that are going on? And then I wanted to be able to communicate how I was taking care of the team, how I was managing the team, and sometimes I would do it in the form of I want to get your feedback on this. Here's what I'm doing. Can you provide me some feedback to let me know whether you would do it like this or you would do it differently? I wanted to make sure that messaging was very nuanced, where I'm not telling them to manage my team, but to actually coach me around how I'm managing my team. But that provided me that opening, that door of here's how I'm managing and taking care of this team and setting them up to be a high performing unit allowed them to see that I was building and managing a team.

Christopher Nelson (00:10:15) - And not just they weren't just looking at the result that was delivered, but the work that was going into that.

Mike Kim (00:10:20) - I think over, you know, over the years when I was working in the chief marketing officer role for the company. Right? I look back at those experiences now. I'm like, oh my gosh. Like the world of work has changed so much, right? And I've got a friend, a good buddy of mine, we're about the same age and he's recruiting Big dude, lovable guy. He's like one of the most empathetic understanding. Pretty big dude, right? Yes. And so he's using his 40s and he's now working with all like 20 somethings. Right. Which communicates completely differently. And he's like, Yeah, I've been doing some of the performance reviews and he's like, Yeah, the team is telling me that I can be a little intense at work. And I'm like, Well, I can see that, but not in a bad way. He's just a big guy and he can be a little loud, but he's not like putting people down.

Mike Kim (00:11:14) - He's, he's not like that kind of person. So I said, Let me pull a page out of my personal branding book and see if you're willing to try this. And I was like, What medium do you communicate in the most amongst your team? And they had gone remote because of Covid and all that and then kind of came back. He's like, email. As I see you send out a ton of emails. He's like, Yeah, emails all the time. And I was like, All right. So that means in my mind, in the marketing world, I'm like, That is your most common billboard email, right? Right. So I go, Just try signing every email off in your signature warmly, warmly, comma, Hank. Right, right. He started doing this for a couple of months. Right? Every email warmly, Hank Warmly. And it started to become a joke among. Hey, warmly, warmly, warmly. And it, like, changed the tone around him.

Mike Kim (00:12:04) - Like his team started. It became a running inside joke. Like they're like, warmly warm and it's just sort of like it really showcased a part of his character, his personal brand in his communication. It's just funny I'm like, I can't believe that worked, but I kind of can't believe it worked. Yeah, because that is branding, right? Personal branding is like it literally comes from the farm world. You brand, you sear a mark on a cattle and that's what it is. When we talk about context, like leveraging this stuff, like you really had a goal in mind too, I'm going to build up my reputation in the company, my stature in the company. I don't just want a salary. I want to be able to build up equity and exit. Well, there is that's very different that is unique. I think most people don't think that. They think through things like, I want to get a career package and leave and go, You're playing for a bigger game.

Mike Kim (00:13:03) - Can you outline a little bit of the framework? And you've talked about this a lot because this is your show, but like kind of unpack that for folks and like what? What that was, step by step.

Christopher Nelson (00:13:12) - For you, right? So in technology, we have the ability to go to work for companies that provide equity as part of the package. So what I came to realize is after the first half of my career in consulting, I had built up these skills. And with these skills, I could go to these early stage companies and I could trade that for equity. And I think what's relevant to today's conversation is that as my career went on, what I realized is that my experience, my education, my results became this asset. And when I say education, I'm not just talking about where I went to university, but, you know, additional ongoing education, technical certificates. ET cetera. In the in the point I'm trying to make is this became this asset that if I position that if I marketed that if I built a brand around that is rare and valuable and guess what, I can negotiate for more because ultimately my goal, what I envisioned is I'm going to sit down across from the chief marketing officer.

Christopher Nelson (00:14:11) - I want to be the director of product marketing. If I can position myself as unique and valuable in this role or be able to make your life easier or other things, you're then going to go back to h.r. And say we got to sweeten the pot for this guy. And so that was really the concept that went into this and the intentionality of how do I continue to build this over time so that then every role that I get into, I can get potentially more equity or, you know, more salary or bonus.

Mike Kim (00:14:40) - And you mentioned all these assets. Is that what you kind of mean by career capital is like, Can you unpack that a little bit for everybody?

Christopher Nelson (00:14:46) - Yeah. So career Capital is really and I talk about this a lot, but I think this is a great context to unpack. This is the framework that I use. So, it's a term that comes from Cal Newport. He wrote this book So Good they Can't ignore you. And he talked a lot about wanting to build skills that are valuable and that's your career capital.

Christopher Nelson (00:15:05) - What I wanted to create technology employees is this framework of education, experience and results as ways that you could really articulate your skills and your experiences and the value that you're able to bring in a very cohesive way and almost a a template in a formula way so that you can pull that out and be able to describe that.

Mike Kim (00:15:32) - Many professionals face challenges like remembering and articulating their company, or they just feel like I'm being arrogant, I'm being boastful, right? How do you coach them to kind of articulate that and kind of navigate that?

Christopher Nelson (00:15:45) - Well, it's interesting that people, I think, think sales and selling yourself is slimy when really when it's really your you're trying to convince somebody of something for money when I think we have to look beyond that. So when I coach people, let's not focus on things like the result is to be able to get higher wages and more equity because that's truly the value of what you're bringing. So the conversation you want to have is what are you going to deliver? What are the results? I think for myself later in my career, what I was able to bring to the table is if you brought me on board, I was going to build a team of this particular capacity.

Christopher Nelson (00:16:25) - I was going to create this type of culture and add this type of value to this organization and I think positioning. It is really important. And this is where I know you talk about marketing as is. It's not closing a sale. It's about opening a relationship. And so that's where I think about that positioning, too, is how are you, you know, open handed networking and sharing with people that here's what I here's the value that I can bring to the table, here's the knowledge. And even if things don't work out, I want to create an open door and let you know that I'm the type of person that is in this space building this career and want to be able to to partner. Yeah.

Mike Kim (00:17:03) -   A personal story like your story, like your journey. I don't know that I was ever coached on that stuff, like early on, but in retrospect now, looking at my life and career like in my 20s, I felt like.

Mike Kim (00:17:35) - Somehow I had branded myself as a guy who just had a lot of potential. Like I was young, I was hungry, I worked hard like I was. I was willing to build my talents. And there's kind of this window when you're in your 20s that like, people will just invest in you even if you've not done anything yet, they will invest in you based on your potential, not what you've actually built. And then as you kind of grow older, like potential goes down, you've got to like the show. It's like any athlete that you follow, right? That's right. Like, hey, highly touted rookie. But by year for the meet if he's not like whoopin like the media's all over me they're not balling out right but I look at how that story changed in my 30s I was just kind of like I was. I was strategic, I was growing, I was able and I was still willing to grow. And then now it's kind of full circle. The last company I worked for as our CMO just recently rehired me to do consulting work for them to like fractionally CMO, like what they were doing.

Mike Kim (00:18:33) - It's kind of crazy. I'm like reuniting with a bunch of people I used to work with and like, look at what you've done in all these years, like you've written a book, blah, blah, blah. And it's just storytelling. And I know that's a big thing for you, and I think it's very innovative in that role. Like, share with us a little bit about what you've done there and how you've seen that be such an asset for you, your personal story?

Christopher Nelson (00:18:52) - Well, and I think let me talk let me talk about where where I learned this, because I think that's really important to the story is where I learned this is when I started pursuing when I left my director role at Splunk, I was senior director. When I left after five years, I wanted to pursue a CIO role, which was the C-suite level role in my particular division, if you will. And so I realized that as I was meeting with recruiters, I had these great artifacts. I'd gone to a professional resume writer.

Christopher Nelson (00:19:21) - They had written all of the different facts that I knew. My education experience and results were written there on LinkedIn on this paper. But what I quickly realized and I lost a couple roles that I really wanted is because when I got into the interviews, I couldn't articulate those stories really well. I couldn't understand them. And so realizing that these key results in my career couldn't just live on a page, I had to actually tell that story. I went and did a couple key things. Number one is what I wrote down. And so the way I think we asked the question earlier, how are people supposed to remember that you need to spend some time journaling your stories, write them out. Write out. What were some of the key pivotal stories in your career? Also, write down what were some of the successes that you experienced and what were some of the failures? Because like any good story, if you're just giving the highlight reel, people are going to read that and say, this little BS, You have to be able to tell the highs and the lows of those particular things.

Christopher Nelson (00:20:20) - And guess what happened? As I then went out and I started taking more interviews, I started getting offer after offer, and I was able to then be in that position where I could actually choose the ones that I wanted to because I was getting 2 or 3. And then here's where it compounds when people realize that you're different and you can tell your story in this way. Those same recruiters. Then in two years after I was in a role for three years, they're going to call me back and say, What are you working on? What's going on now? Knowing that I was going to tell them a nice, rich story, that they were going to get to know me and they could go advocate for me for different roles. So it compounds over time.

Mike Kim (00:20:59) - I think that's so important because like and I would say this from a personal branding role, like all things being equal, there are a lot of people who teach what I teach in similar ways, or maybe in their own way.

Mike Kim (00:21:11) - All that being equal. People decide who they're going to work with because of the story around it, because they resonate with the story around it. Right. It's almost intangible. Example is Taylor Swift that much different than Katy Perry? Let's just know. But both have diehard fans and they just say, I like that person better. I resonate with her better. We were talking just now about athletes. If everything was based on how high of a quality person you are skill wise, that would mean Michael Jordan would be everyone's favorite basketball player. I personally think he's the best of all time. Right. And there's debate, but he's not everyone's favorite player. That's right. There are a ton of people who like players who weren't as. Accomplished as Michael Jordan. They'll say, I don't like his attitude. There's just something I don't like about it. I like this other player. And you're like, when you look at that from a marketing standpoint, I'm like, that's fascinating because it's not just I'm the best.

Mike Kim (00:22:18) - I'm the best. I'm the best. Like you said, the resume. I did this, this, this, this, this a lot of times. This is kind of where I want to go with that, is that a lot of times I found in my career I wasn't selling just my expertise, all things being equal, expertise being equal across the board with all the candidates. It was a feeling that I was selling, right? They wanted to know I could be trusted. They felt at peace. They felt hope. They felt like they had potential. They felt forward movement. This company didn't rehire me just because of my accomplishments. There was a sense of familiarity and calm. We know what he did when he was here. It's going to feel good to have him lead us through a transition in the next six months. Like that's a big deal, like that feeling. And so you can't just be nuts and bolts and analytical. It's got to have that story. And stories evoke feelings they do.

Christopher Nelson (00:23:09) - And then when you tell the story and you combine that with your career, the results that you deliver, that's also going to allow you to negotiate for more. And so this is where ultimately when we think about, you know, your career capital, your education, your experience and results like being able to document that in a way that's not just telling what you did, but also the so what then you need to make sure that you have the lessons learned. You have those key stories in the package.

Mike Kim (00:23:38) - I share a little bit about my story, but as we kind of wanted things out, can you give us an example of someone who did a good job with career telling, if you will, and just kind of negotiated a better outcome? It might be your story? I don't know.

Christopher Nelson (00:23:48) - Well, it could be my story, but I'll tell you, when one of the most compelling stories that I always tell in this, I arguably believe changed this gentleman's life forever, was actually an intern that came in and applied for a role when I was working at Splunk.

Christopher Nelson (00:24:04) - So I got the resume. So my team was putting together a list of interns and this was the final interview as they interviewed myself, senior director of the department, to choose like three interviews. I think we had something like 300 applicants. It was crazy. And my project manager puts on my desk this particular gentleman's resume. And what he had done was he was the president of his fraternity. Right. Right. So, yeah, you're the CMO. And somebody was like, here's the president of the fraternity. And we were looking for a project management intern. So he didn't require technical skills, but that was his big role that he had done. And so, like you, I spun it around. I said, you know, Kelly, I don't think that this is going to work out. No, we're not going to hire this guy. And she said she looked me in the eye and she goes, Trust me, we trusted my team. You're going to want to talk to him.

Christopher Nelson (00:24:57) - I said, okay, okay. I trust my team. I'm going to take the interview. So in comes this gentleman. We'll call him Josiah. So Josiah sits down across from.

Christopher Nelson (00:25:06) - Me.

Christopher Nelson (00:25:07) - And I start asking. I just sort of dig in. I say right away, say, look, I've seen this on the resume. I don't even understand why you're here. Like, seriously, like the president of a fraternity. And he says, Let me tell you why I'm here. I go, okay. He goes in my role, just like in what I applied for. Right? You're going to need somebody who can understand complex and chaotic situations quickly when I have to manage this house. Sometimes if we have parties or things get out of control, I'm going to be the responsible one. I actually have legal responsibility that I'm responsible for. I have different liabilities. I have to make sure the rent is paid. I am somebody who can step into these situations, make order out of chaos very quickly.

Christopher Nelson (00:25:53) - And that's really how he kicked it off. And that was like a key opener. It was a light bulb moment. And then what he did systematically is he had taken down the results that we were looking for, and he tied it to experience that he had in managing a fraternity house of. Okay. He had to run spreadsheets to manage the rent and the profit and loss statement, which meant we needed somebody to run the finances of the projects. He also then had to go in, stand before different review boards where he was with, you know, senior leaders of the, I guess, the fraternity council. And there were also some members of the administration there, the school administration there, and present if things went sideways. He walked down step by step. At that point, I said I walked out of the interview. I'm like, we got to.

Christopher Nelson (00:26:40) - Hire this guy.

Mike Kim (00:26:42) - No, I told you we did.

Christopher Nelson (00:26:43) - And so then here's the end of that story.

Christopher Nelson (00:26:45) - Is that guy then interviewed with us or. Sorry, interned with us for two summers. Then he took on an entry level role after that became a big part of the team. And I can just say that in anonymity that he worked for that company for six years and he just came out of high school and he walked away. With probably high six figures in equity. Wow. In addition to a salary. All because, I mean, all came from the fact that he came in there and he told a compelling story that also mapped his results to the job description.

Mike Kim (00:27:19) - I love it. I love it. No, the storyteller always wins. That's what I always tell people. You put the reader first, right? And that's what he did. You do the difficult work of making it simple, and the storyteller always wins. And that's, I think, what we all need to understand. It's such a compelling part of it's just how human beings communicate. It really is. It's easy to turn it off.

Mike Kim (00:27:40) - But yeah, personal branding wise, that's what I tell my clients. And I would say to you guys, all you guys and gals listening here, those are elements that have really, really elevated and accelerated the success of people I've worked with. And I can see so many correlations in your world and in everyone's world here. So I hope I could contribute something here along those lines. But it was an honor, man. I just had a lot of fun. And to be able to kind of share along these lines in this context.

Christopher Nelson (00:28:11) - So I appreciate it so much. And I think for everybody here, you know, my ultimate goal was so that you could understand from this conversation that ultimately you need to be able to articulate your career capital, your education, experience and results. If you want to position yourself as that asset. That's rare and valuable to maximize equity, to maximize bonus, to maximize salary. And ultimately, as Mike just said, the storyteller is going to win.

Christopher Nelson (00:28:39) - If you can take that and you can wrap that together with a good story and you can understand your audience and tell it well, you're ultimately then going to find yourself in a point where you can position yourself for exit. Thanks so much for joining us today on Tech Careers and Money Talk. See you next time.