Remote Career Development: Melanie Borden Of The Borden Group On How To Advance and Enhance Your Career When You Are Working Remotely
Balance and burnout are closely aligned. One of the positives of working remote is not commuting, which is a huge time saver — and time is our most valuable commodity. The downside is that we have ended up working more since our home becomes our office. I strongly recommend having a space dedicated to work in. And if you don’t have a home office, identify a place where you only work, and try to not have it in the place you rest. This will help you eliminate the emails in bed late at night, creating boundaries for yourself. We also must remind ourselves that it’s ok to rest and give ourselves grace when we are feeling overwhelmed with work. If you need help in any way, ask for it. Sometimes “work/life” balance seems like it isn’t attainable, but that is a matter of choices; so create the best version of YOU.
Career development is the ongoing process of choosing, improving, developing, and advancing your career. This involves learning, making decisions, collaboration with others and knowing yourself well enough to be able to continually assess your strengths and weaknesses. This can be challenging enough when you work in an office, but what if you work remotely? How does remote work affect your career development? How do you nurture and advance your career when you are working from home and away from other colleagues? How can you help your employees do this? To address these questions, we started an interview series called “How to Advance and Enhance Your Career When You Are Working Remotely”. As a part of this interview series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Melanie Borden.
Melanie Borden has worked in various atmospheres from public tech companies to private start-ups, retail automotive, and now has established her own marketing consultancy, Melanie Borden, LLC. As a natural outgrowth of her work as a marketing executive, she recognized the opportunities available to use online marketing strategies to build corporate and personal brands. She provides marketing and branding consulting to both businesses and individuals, as a resource for guidance as well as an outsourced marketing department, depending on a client’s needs and preferences.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?
In 2005 after I graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology, I was working for an advertising publisher in Manhattan (which had absolutely nothing to do with my degree). I also had my real estate license while I was living in NYC and enjoyed the process of marketing myself as an agent to potential buyers and sellers. Then, in 2009 I accidentally fell into the auto industry when I heard about an opportunity at a public tech company looking for new talent. After joining that company, I took on gradually expanded roles within the industry, all geared to marketing and advertising services for car dealers. My roles included consulting, business development, head of marketing, building of an in-house agency, and others. The dynamic, pressured marketing environment in the auto space was a terrific place to learn and develop my skills. I ultimately decided to start my own business, Melanie Borden, LLC. I now work with businesses, executives, and other individuals across varied industries to help them maximize their online potential and digital footprints.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
In early 2020, prior to the pandemic, I created a personal branding and social media workshop for the 70+ sales executives where I was working. It was fun project that I wanted to work on outside of my daily responsibilities as a Vice President of Marketing. My vision was to provide value to the customer facing teams and teach them how they could develop and then leverage their own brands while also elevating the company brand, resulting in increased inbound leads, as well as increasing revenue and profitability. I was surprised at the level of disinterest on the sales team, and I then executed the plan for myself in the hopes that the team would see the benefits and follow. When Covid came upon the scene, I amplified my efforts. Just shy of two years later, I had built my own audience from 3k connections to over 90k. This was a direct result of the daily, focused execution of my original plan for the workshop.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When I was 25 years old, I was doing a presentation on a social media offering for about 40 people and I was very nervous to speak in front of that group. During the presentation, I started asking questions about what the business was involved with locally in their community. I asked the group if they did “Tots for Kids” instead of “Toys for Tots.” My obvious slip got some laughter, and served as a good reminder to relax and take my time when speaking or presenting.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
My favorite life lesson quote is: A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because her trust is not on the branch but on its own wings. Always believe in yourself” — Unknown
This is very relevant to me in my life because for years I let other people’s opinions of me frame who I thought I was and what my abilities were. Over the course of time, I came to understand that seeking validation was not necessary and that the only validation I needed was knowing that I had accomplished what I set out to do. Instead, it held me back and created a lot of negativity and chaos. Once I let go of that, my career took off. Don’t second guess yourself or your abilities.
What advice would you give to other business leaders to help their employees thrive and avoid burnout?
Empower your team by giving them the space they need to get their work done. Working remotely can sometimes mean work and home is blended. Although “work/life balance” is a difficult thing to consistently maintain, especially when one is working from home, and/or the work is coming fast and furious, However, it is important to remember that everyone needs a break, including leaders. Communication and rest is important if you want your team to be firing on all cylinders.
Ok, let’s jump to the core of our interview. Working remotely can be very different than working with a team that is in front of you. This provides great opportunities but it can also create unique challenges. To begin, can you articulate for our readers a few of the main benefits and opportunities of working remotely?
The flexibility of working remotely is one of the greatest gifts you can give to an employee. Unless you work in retail, most industries can create processes where you can have this set up for your team. You can utilize this model to create an efficient environment where there are less distractions, comfort of working from home, and less pressure from commuting.
Can you articulate for our readers what the five main challenges are regarding working remotely?
The 5 main challenges I have identified with working remotely are: Distractions, Burnout, Balance,
Lack of Human Interaction, and Productivity gaps.
Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges? Can you give a story or example for each?
I have found that holding myself accountable is key. Making a plan and sticking to it is a significant boost to productivity. By sticking to a routine, one can avoid going off the rails and reducing productivity. Every aspect of my day is in my calendar, including the time I want to step away from my desk. That is the discipline.
The reality is that working remotely is full of distractions such as package deliveries, family, animals, etc. Last year as I was working remotely, I had to set boundaries to enable to get my work done. This included rules for my family/children, such as when they could interrupt a call vs interrupting every call (although there is no perfect formula for this).
Balance and burnout are closely aligned. One of the positives of working remote is not commuting, which is a huge time saver — and time is our most valuable commodity. The downside is that we have ended up working more since our home becomes our office. I strongly recommend having a space dedicated to work in. And if you don’t have a home office, identify a place where you only work, and try to not have it in the place you rest. This will help you eliminate the emails in bed late at night, creating boundaries for yourself. We also must remind ourselves that it’s ok to rest and give ourselves grace when we are feeling overwhelmed with work. If you need help in any way, ask for it. Sometimes “work/life” balance seems like it isn’t attainable, but that is a matter of choices; so create the best version of YOU.
The pandemic has been a time of isolation. It’s important to recognize this. Make an effort to see colleagues off the screen, and if you can’t, then call a friend, go for coffee, meet for a walk or a run, or catch up in some other way in person.
Let’s talk about Career Development. Can you share a few ideas about how you can nurture and advance your career when you are working from home and away from other colleagues?
One way that I was able to elevate my own career was developing an online presence for myself, specifically on LinkedIn. This has greatly expanded my outreach and contacts. Posting content can be scary and/or inefficient if you don’t have a goal, strategy and execution plan. One way to start formulating content to help elevate yourself is to think about how you can help others in your field. Educational, informative content resonates with almost everyone. Recognize that people are on LinkedIn looking for opportunities, including looking for opportunities to learn to help their own business. Be a resource.
Can you share a few ideas about how employers or managers can help their team with career development?
Encourage each member of your team to develop and nurture a personal brand to showcase their knowledge and abilities. Let them know that you support their efforts to grow. It can only help.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
Share content on social platforms to educate others and help them to recognize opportunities. You will empower them, help them succeed, and you will become their trusted advisor. And make sure they understand this is not a one and done, but rather that you are in it for the long haul.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/melanieborden/
Thank you for these great insights! We wish you continued success.
