Happy Friday!  It has been a great week in my world, thanks in part to two people: Bethenny Frankel and Ramit Sethi. 

No, I am not cool enough to be friends with either of these fabulous people in real life.  BUT, I am cool enough to read their blogs and take their advice seriously on two of most peoples biggest stresses: fitness and money.

What I learned from Bethenny Frankel this Week

I got to work on Monday and decided that my sedentary eat-whatever-you-want slump was OVER.  I stopped saying, “I need to go to the gym” and said “I am going to the gym today” instead.  Getting back on the wagon of healthy eating and going to the gym is the hardest part for me.  Once I get back on track, I’m easily hooked (albeit not always for long!).

Thankfully, Katie (roommate and best friend) sent me this great article by Bethenny Frankel on realistic exercise.  Bethenny recommends adopting health and fitness as a lifestyle, not as something you “have to do.”  Once you feel you “have to” go to the gym or “have to” eat salads, there is a negative association with the task and your motivation isn’t genuine.

In her article, Bethenny also recommended another simple adjustment: do exercise you enjoy.  If you hate spinning classes and running, then don’t do it!  You will never make it a lifestyle if you hate it.

I shifted my thinking this week and asked what I want my long-term lifestyle to look like.  I thought about what I’ve done in the past that doesn’t last long and I decided to go on a different track.  So far I’m loving it and craving fruit instead of fries- weird!

What I learned from Ramit Sethi this week

Ramit Sethi-in my opinion- is a true hero.  Ramit is another twentysomething Gen Y blogger who has blown it out of the water.  His blog (and book) I Will Teach You to be Richis way more than a personal finance blog.  Like Bethenny, Ramit focuses his teachings on lifestyle instead of  dramatic cuts. 

As part of his earn1k class emails this week (that class looks absolutely amazing, by the way) Ramit went on a rant.  He encouraged his readers to stop focusing on cutting costs and focus on making more money instead.  He says to “go for big wins” and to “stop wasting your time cutting out $3 lattes”.  Ramit believes in spending money on what you love- even if that is world travel, $200 jeans or spending $30,000 a year on going out.  Ramit’s advice is the opposite of what 99% of personal finance bloggers will tell you, but it is actually the smartest advice.  

Like Bethenny said, adapting a lifestyle means creating a system that works for YOU.  When you create a lifestyle that you want, your motivation is genuine and it is no longer something you “have to do”.  This means you will have a healthy relationship with fitness and finances.  It means you don’t beat yourself up if you eat an ice cream cone or splurge on something at Nordstrom once in a while.  If you’ve set up a system for yourself that supports your lifestyle, occasional splurges aren’t a huge deal. 

Lastly, Ramit makes one of my favorite points of all- people don’t get rich by cutting lattes, they get rich by cutting out what they don’t value and making more money.

I hope this post gives you some food for thought as you end this week and go into next.  Hopefully by Monday you will think of one or two things in your own life that you can adjust to fit your lifestyle instead of what you are “supposed to do”.

• How has making “cuts” financially or in your diet affected you?  Did it last? Why did you make the cuts initially and why did you stop?
• How do YOU motivate yourself to stay healthy both physically and financially?
• What systems do you put in place to account for “splurges”?

You’ve heard the statistics before…

Gen Y doesn’t trust advertisements; we trust the people in our social networks.  But overall, Gen Y doesn’t trust much at all.  If you’re a big company of any kind, you will have to work much harder to win over the 70 million Gen Y consumers living among us.

How Should Marketers gain Gen Y’s trust?

Well, besides Corporate Social Responsibility, you’ll need to prove your brand to us.  Let us touch it, try it and talk about it.  And let us hear about it and experience it from “real” people. In order to gain our trust, you’ll need to focus on experiential marketing.

Experiential marketing 2.0 means offering your product or service to the right people at the right time. A simple example is the nice lady at the grocery store who hands you a sample of fantastic cheese spread while you are exiting the cracker aisle.  Do that online. 

Technically, paid search campaigns attempt to reach the right customer at the right time. When I Google “smart phone” for example, paid ads for Sprint, Verizon, ATT, wirefly.com and Apple appear. There is one huge problem though:  a vast majority of Gen Y consumers will never look at, trust, or click on sponsored results.

Nor will most Gen Y’ers take the time to go through each of the companies’ websites.  We like instant gratification and that takes way too long. Plus, we’d much prefer to read a short aggregated review of the phones on a blog and buy based on a “real” person’s opinion anyways. 

Here are some ways that companies have used experiential marketing to catch me at the right moment and convert me into a customer.

• WalMart.com.  I thought hell would freeze over before I bought any furniture from Wal-Mart (and then blogged about it) but I did.  And I love my $99 kitchen table.  Why? Because I knew exactly what I was buying before I bought it. Walmart.com had great multi-view pictures, tons of honest reviews and they were willing to ship the product to my local Wal-Mart for free so I could see it before I brought it home.  
• Groupon.  Groupon is the best way to experience something that you never would have tried thanks to HUGE discounts on local products and services.  If I were a marketer, I’d make sure my stuff was on Groupon so people could experience it with for little risk, talk about it and experience it again.
• MattChevy.com. A long time ago I sent out a frustrated tweet saying “can anyone in the Chicago area help me with Wordpress?!” Matt responded immediately with a friendly (and calm!) tweet saying he could help me.  He caught me in the right place, at the right time.  He gained my trust.  We are now close friends and I refer people to him all the time.
• Amazon.com: “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” and “Best Value.”
• Ulta,  Hairuwear.com, YouTube demos, Ulta.  Worst hair cut of my life + obsession with Ulta + panic = temporary solution via J-Simp’s “Hair-Do.”

Readers, where have companies presented themselves to you at the right moment?

What’s the best example of experiential marketing you’ve seen?

I’m very lucky to have the Mother that I do.

Born to Italian immigrants, my Mom did what most 1st generation Italian-American kids do: she joined the family Environmental Drilling business (honestly, she probably started there around age 6- labeling soil sample jars). At the ripe age of 15, my Mom’s boyfriend joined the business as well. He was a manual laborer and she handled office work.

Today that boyfriend is her husband of 28 years and he is also my Father. But, the weird part? These two crazy love birds still work together and even share an office with two desks in one room! They worked with my grandparents for 20 years and have since started two of their own very successful companies.

Not only has my Mom led three multi-million dollar companies to continual growth, she has also led our family to continual growth. Somehow she managed to pull off long days at the office, laundry, planning vacations, making our Halloween costumes, helping us practice the piano, handling all the finances in our household AND cooking fantastic meals. She definitely didn’t do this alone- we had Katie our nanny of 10+ years and we had plenty of friends and family around too- but at the end of the day my Mom was always the leader of the pack.

Perhaps she still sounds like an ordinary working Mom to some.

After 20 years of working together in the family business, family relationships were at stake. My parents reached their “point of no return” and resigned. It was Good Friday. It was not a pre-planned resignation. This was the only business they knew and the only source of income our family had.

By Easter Monday, they had incorporated a new company, worked with a neighbor to get a logo made; they rented a drill rig, had their admin person working out of our dining room and found a small office space to rent. They were back in business.

I was so proud of my Mom for standing up for what she believed in. She put a smile on her face and did everything in her power to make sure our lives stayed as in-tact as possible.

The energy and excitement they had while starting this business was contagious. My Dad was back out in the field drilling holes like the old days and my Mom was doing the work of 4 people. If my Dad had to leave for a job at 4am, she would get up with him, make his coffee and lunch and start working. During the first two years of this business there were many days until they worked until 10 at night. A truck would break and my Dad would have to fix it and then get up at 4am again to do it all over again. My Mom stood by his side and ours through all of it and she never complained or showed fatigue.

There’s something really cool about a Mom like mine. Obviously she is a rare breed: first, her high energy is a rarity in itself. Second, she knows what she wants and she does whatever she has to do to get it. But most importantly, she always kept her family and marriage her #1 priority.

I only remember one day of my K-12 years that my Mom was home for me after school. It was that Good Friday. And it was totally weird. My Mom was not a Brownies troop leader, she did not bake cookies after school, she did not come on field trips, she did not drive us to all of our lessons and she did not go to every meeting or parent conference in High School. Some of you might be saying, “oh that’s terrible,” but I never felt that way.

My Mom gave me so much more than cookies and rides. She taught me the art of multi-tasking with grace. She taught me about positive thinking. She demonstrated what unconditional love and commitment to a marriage and family is. She showed me that sometimes you have to make really tough decisions and stick with them. My Mom made work look fun and exciting. She taught me that being financially successful is a great thing because it provides endless opportunities for your family and for all the other families who are on the payroll.

Although my Mom told us we could do anything, she didn’t even need to say it. Because to us, she was already doing it all!

Thank you Mom! I love you.

Sorry, Penelope.  I’m back.

My fellow career blogger friend  Nick Corcodilos pointed out a blog post written by Penelope Trunk that I couldn’t help but question and discuss here on Ms. Career Girl.  In the post, titled “Why Job Hoppers Make the Best Employees,” Penelope argues the following five points to be true:

1. Job hoppers have more intellectually rewarding careers.
2. Job hoppers have more stable careers.
3. Job hoppers are higher performers.
4. Job hoppers are more loyal.
5. Job hoppers are more emotionally mature.

Really Penelope?!  Do you REALLY believe these statements or was this another way to get more traffic back to your sites and be a career evangelist to lost recent grads?  Why should we believe you?  Or is it just easier to believe you so we don’t have to deal with difficult situations and never learn how to overcome adversity at work?

Nick Corcodilos and I have crossed paths over the last year many times.  Oddly enough, the topic of several of our conversations has been about Penelope Trunk’s odd career advice and strange personal branding strategies.  Well here we are again, looking at more bizarre career advice from the woman who founded my generations most popular career network, brazencareerist.com.  Thankfully companies, including Brazen, have teams of diverse staff- to balance out the outliers.

When reviewing the comments on Penelope’s post, I was surprised (and disappointed) to read that so many people were excited and completely on board with Penelope’s advice.  Groupthink, anyone?  Denial?

For the record, I am 25.  I am as Gen Y as it gets in many ways.  Like most people in my generation, I’m addicted to technology, I love feedback, I’m used to instant gratification.  I’m a bit impatient and I have both a day job and a “passion project.” I’m also a typical Gen Y’er in that since graduating from college four years ago, I have worked 3 different jobs: the first for 7 months, the second for almost 3 years and I started my current position (which is my favorite company thus far and my hopeful long-term landing pad!) 7 months ago.  Heck, it weirds me out but I realize that some may even consider ME a job hopper (even though I do not feel like one at all).

Do I think that having 3 jobs in 4 years is something to be proud of?  Not necesarily.  My job history is what it is, but by no means do I feel it makes me a “better, more loyal, higher performing or more emotionally mature” employee- HA!

In Nick’s recent blog post titled, Job Hopping: Career Crack for Losers, Nick offers some very different advice than Penelope does:

First, toss out your resume. Trash it yourself, before an employer trashes it for you. And I don’t mean you should get a better resume. I mean, Stop using a flyer that says KICK ME on it. Period. No resume. Search for a job strictly through personal referrals and face-to-face contacts which enable you to make your case before your butt is kicked into the can.

Second, find a place to work where you can stay put. Penelope Trunk – who tells you loyalty doesn’t matter and job hopping is good — is sticking a needle in your vein, pumping you full of happy juice, and leaving your career to die while she drives off to the bank to deposit the GoogleAds checks she collects for advertising career crack to confused GenY’s. Stay off the juice. Stay put. Establish a reputation. Then trade on it.

Thank you, Nick, for putting my thoughts into words without me having to do it first.  I really like your first point and think that is great advice for anyone, “job hopper” or not.

Of the 5 points in Penelope’s article, I see SOME truth to her first point: job hoppers have more intellectually rewarding careers.  Well, yeah, I guess, because they are constantly having to get re-trained, and re-acquainted with a company’s culture, procedures and politics.  Intellectually rewarding?  Maybe, for some.  For others?  Terrifying.

Let’s hear it people.

I don’t have to repeat the fact that Corporate America is not what it used to be.  Yes, I always say that everyone needs to create their own “career insurance policy.”  When debating with Gen X’ers and Boomers, I always remind them that Gen Y’ers have been through the crash of Enron, the wrath of September 11th,the fall of Lehman Brothers and a recession- we are scared to trust these institutions that were supposed to be the pillar of security and the foundation of “The American Dream.”

• What do you think: is job hopping career death or a career savior?
• How would you define a job hopper?
• Does Penelope really believe the stuff she “preaches” about?  Do you believe her?
• Would you switch companies every few years to get big raises if given the opportunity?
• Why should (and why do) twentysomethings listen to Penelope Trunk for career advice?

Today’s post is an interview with the one and only, Ms. Emily Bennington.  Emily and I met in person for the first time in Columbus, Ohio about 2 weeks ago.  We spent the day sharing story after story about work, life and our first few years after college.  As you can imagine, we laughed just as much as we talked!

Meeting with Emily was not only a lot of fun, but it also showed me how much I still have to learn.  Ten years her junior, I really admire women like Emily.  She knows her stuff and she does it all: she has a family, volunteers in her community, rocks at work, is a part-time college professor AND writes books.  Um, bring on the caffeine!

I’m very excited to announce and support Emily’s first published book, Effective Immediately: How to Fit In, Stand Out, and Move Up at Your First Real Job. I’ve been reading this little gem and find it fun, easy to read and extremley relevant whether you are still in college or have been working for 5 years.

Emily had a rough start to corporate life.  Her stories are pretty funny and all true.  Emily co-wrote Effective Immediately with her first post-college mentor, Skip Lineberg, who was there to witness and guide her through many “rookie” moments.

There’s also a second reason I want to introduce you to Emily Bennington.  You’ll be seeing a lot more of Emily here on Ms. Career Girl.  Why?

Welllll,  Emily and I are currently working on a proposal for an absolutely AWESOME book for young women in corporate environments.  I’ve done lots of research (and let’s be honest, I’ve probably read 35 of our new book’s “competitors”)  and there is NO book out there like the one we are working on.  Get excited ambitious ladies!

On to the interview, please meet Emily Bennington!

Tell us about your most embarrassing entry-level career moment.

I was working PR on a grassroots advocacy campaign for a regional airport project and I sent out a press release stating that Senator Rockefeller endorsed our position. Problem was, I failed to run the release by the senator’s staff. As it turned out, he didn’t endorse it at all and so my mistake became the story. I knew I was in trouble when the reporter called me for a quote and, sure enough, the next day I was greeted with a front page, above-the-fold article quoting the President of our County Commission saying, “I don’t know who sent that release, but whoever it was should be fired.” I seriously thought I was going to lose my job. Fortunately, my boss understood it was a rookie mistake and let me slide with a warning, but my dad calls me “Miss Information” to this day.

A lot of recent grads have trouble transitioning their wardrobe from “class to classy”.  What was your concept of “business casual” back in the day?

Haha. I know this is a loaded question because you already know the answer! When I entered the workforce, I obviously made a physical transition, but it took me a while to make the mental one.  In many ways, I still saw myself as living the college life (going out dancing on a work night for example) and my wardrobe was a reflection of that. I wore things I thought would easily go from day-to-night, but were really just inappropriate for the office. One time I was changing in the office kitchen and my boss’ husband walked in on me! The first question is, of course, why was I changing in the kitchen? (The answer is: I have no idea.) However, I look back on that and see someone who was still more concerned with having fun than being taken seriously as a professional. I’ve learned a ton since then about the importance of being in control of the image you project, and it definitely starts with how you dress.

You’ve told me a bit about your co-author, Skip Lineberg, who was also your first post-college mentor.  What role did Skip play in your early career and life?

Skip was the first person to take a proactive interest in my success and professional development. At the beginning of my career, Skip really spent a lot of time coaching and challenging me to be better. One example I’ll never forget was when I had my first performance review and asked for a raise, Skip made me “demonstrate I was worth it” by successfully completing a series of projects ranging from writing a review of How to Win Friends and Influence People to finding a logistical “problem” in the office and solving it using TQM processes. At the time, a lot of my friends and family were puzzled by this, wondering why he didn’t just give me the raise I’d already earned, but I knew better. I saw Skip’s challenge as an opportunity to prove to him that I was not only worth more money, but more responsibility as well. Since then, our relationship has evolved into more of a partnership than a mentor / student connection, but I’m so blessed that we’re still able to work together after all these years.

How important do you think mentors are for ambitious young professionals?

Mentors are incredibly important but they are also an endangered species. Businesses are just so lean these days and everyone is busy enough doing their own jobs, so they don’t have much time to coach someone else along. I was talking about this today with a group of friends at lunch. All of us are in different fields, all successful in our own right, yet NONE of us had been trained in the jobs we hold currently. I think this “sink or swim” mentality is an epidemic in the workforce and really reinforces the need for employers to devote more resources to training and staff development. However, young professionals need to know that, sadly, the odds of having a great mentor aren’t good and they should be prepared to invest in their own success as well.

For young women who are looking to become working career Moms in the future, how do you think we can best set ourselves up for this path from the start?

This is a tricky question because the answer is different for everyone. Personally, I was 29 when I had my first child and I can say with complete certainty that – yes – waiting a little longer allowed me to become more established in my career. I’d be lying if I said there weren’t times I wish I would havehad them earlier, but the flip side is that kids are expensive and it’s nice to be able to afford the two I have. I don’t harbor any regrets about being a working mom and I definitely don’t allow anyone to make me feel guilty about it either. So the best advice I can giveto career moms is to be 100% present where you are. In other words, if you’re at work, give100% to your job. If you’re at home, give 100% to your family. I promise you it won’t be a perfect 50/50 split all the time, but your work will make you appreciate your children more… and vice versa.

Check out Emily’s blog professionalstudio365.com, follow Effective Immediately on Facebook and buy her book on Amazon.com!