Tribute to My Two LinkedIn Coaches

Who coaches you? We all can benefit from asking others in our field for their insights, perspectives and strategies.

Recently, I engaged the services of LinkedIn coach, speaker and trainer Clarene Mitchell for a two-hour consulting session. Not long after that, I took a two-hour class from Wayne Breitbarth, a LinkedIn trainer, speaker and consultant. Both of them are from the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area. Since I lived the first 46 years of my life in Wisconsin, that makes them even more special to me.

Another commonality between these two awesome folks is that they both found me on LinkedIn. This fact alone shows the power of LinkedIn in terms of bringing people together who are in a similar line of work. In addition, I know I can rely on them to comment on my posts and continue to be enthusiastic supporters of my contributions on LinkedIn.

Clarene Mitchell

I’ve only known Clarene for two months, but I feel like I’ve known her forever. What especially drew me to Clarene is her drive to help others, especially women, rock their LinkedIn, and as she says, “shine online.” She’s very strategic in her approach to effectively using this powerful platform, and her methods are starting to rub off on me.

The most powerful part of our time together happened when she convinced me to completely revamp my About section on LinkedIn. As a result, this section is primarily my story of how it took until I was 61 years old before I found my calling.

When I asked a new LinkedIn connection of mine what prompted her to reach out to me, she wrote:

“I love that you kept training and exploring options until you found what you really love, and I love that you found it at 61! Your 'About' section interested me because you are living proof that women not only don't have an expiration date, but we get to be everything we want, and we can change our minds whenever we want.”

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Wayne Breitbarth

When I met Wayne through LinkedIn in August 2010, my business was in its infancy. In fact, it didn’t even have an official name at that point. So, that’s why when Wayne reached out to me that summer, I was so honored.

We hit it off immediately, and the next time I was in Milwaukee we made a point of meeting for dinner. What a treat to meet someone like him in person. What I learned from Wayne was to keep putting one foot in front of the other and continue to follow my dream of helping my fellow baby boomers be more confident in their use of social media, especially LinkedIn and Facebook.

Also, I gained so much information about LinkedIn, especially when changes were made to it, from the weekly emails I received from Wayne. When he published his book, “The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success: Kick-start Your Business, Brand, and Job Search,” I ordered a dozen copies so that I could give some to others. Now in its fourth edition, this book has been invaluable to me.

Recently I took his two-hour virtual class “Use LinkedIn to Generate a Steady Stream of Sales Prospects.” This class included some tremendous tools, which are already helping me in using the search function of LinkedIn in a more powerful and effective way.

How About You?

Who are the colleagues in your field who are your trusted advisors? How do you interact with them? What differences have they made in your life?

About Joyce

Joyce Feustel helps people, especially those age 50 and up, to become more effective using social media, especially LinkedIn and Facebook. She works with business owners, nonprofit organizations, job seekers, consultants, and many others.

Find her at www.boomerssocialmediatutor.com