Kim Orlesky is an executive-level content creator, professional speaker, mentor, and successful entrepreneur. Kim has spent the last seven years running her own sales training organization, helping B2B companies find more profitability and productivity through virtual sales.
Now, Kim is up for a brand new challenge. Kim is ready to dive back into the corporate world and transition out of entrepreneurship. Why is Kim making the move? How can her experience as an entrepreneur and her extensive personal brand help her move back into the corporate world? That’s the topic of discussion in this episode of Negotiations Ninja.
Outline of This Episode
- [1:49] Learn more about Kim Orlesky
- [3:59] Kim’s transition out of entrepreneurship
- [7:45] What do you want in your role?
- [11:01] Treat others how you want to be treated
- [14:49] The logic and the process of sales
- [18:15] Personal branding in the corporate world
Kim’s transition out of entrepreneurship: controlling the narrative
Kim was a successful entrepreneur, which gives her an edge as she moves back into the employment market. She has extensive experience building a company: hiring, firing, and creating a personal brand.
The struggle is that some people in the corporate world will try to pigeonhole you and put you where they think you need to be. That’s why you need to understand your value and be able to negotiate better terms. You can use your platform and leverage it to your advantage.
Some brands will embrace and seek to leverage your personal brand and success. They want someone to take that conversation and bring it into their business. The companies that get it are the ones that want Kim to join their team. The reality is that Kim only needs one company to hire her.
If you’re looking to get back into the corporate world, create your own narrative. Don’t let somebody else control your story. Kim was honest about her mindset. She felt like she had taken her company as far as it could go.
Kim points out that Seinfeld ended the series on a high. But people stopped watching the last two seasons of Friends because it fizzled out. Kim didn’t want to be a sitcom that dragged on. She wants to add a brand new voice to a new company and leverage her skill set for something different. Her ability to control the narrative is powerful.
The importance of a personal brand
When you have a strong personal brand, more people are willing to accept a meeting. Why? Because they know you’ll talk about more than just your product or service. If Kim’s personal brand is about sales methodology and work-life balance, for example, she has multiple avenues to get a meeting with a client.
When Kim worked at Xerox, they ran open houses where she spoke about business improvements and processes. The copier was an afterthought to the real conversation. Personal branding is a way of doing open houses from a one-to-many perspective. If you’re not encouraging your team to build a personal brand, you’ll get left behind.
What do you want in your role?
When Kim Orlesky decided she was ready to end her business and transition back into the corporate world, she wrote out what she wanted from her next role. Kim asked herself where she wanted to be in 10 years. Then she started to dissect the skills and experience necessary to set herself up for success. For instance, she loves public speaking and creating content.
How could she take what she loves and bring it to her next role? What would be bigger than what she was creating with her own company? The things she wrote down led to great conversations with companies—and even helped weed a few options out.
Hear the whole conversation about Kim’s transition out of entrepreneurship—and how it is both freeing and challenging—in this episode of Negotiations Ninja.
Connect with Kim Orlesky
- Connect on LinkedIn
- Kim’s TikTok “exit” video
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