 Hey, everyone. Welcome to Tea Time Tuesday Tea. This week, I am thrilled to be joined by one of my favorite people in the meetings and events industry. Stephanie Lynch is the Business Development Account Manager with Explore Edmonton. And Stephanie, I feel like you and I though have known each other for a heck of a lot longer than that. Because you were with Marriott Hotels at one point and I can't remember where you were before that. But do you want to just tell everyone a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your background? Yeah, absolutely. First of all, Leigh Ann, I want to just say congratulations on your personal branding launch. I think it's just fantastic how you swiveled into something new and just, you know, your energy and the passion that you have for personal branding. So, you know, thank you so much for inviting me here today and really a true congratulations to you. Oh, thank you. You're so sweet. Well, you're one of the reasons I wanted to do this. Certainly there's a lot more people out there. But I'm so inspired by what you've done with your brand and I've watched you grow and develop it over the years. And it's a true inspiration and a lot of destinations can really find inspiration in the things that you've done to kind of promote Edmonton. Yes, so yeah, I've been now with Explore Edmonton for coming up on five years. So I do business development for focusing on the auto market. And I just absolutely love it. I have a hotel background, but being able to sell your city as a whole and give options to means planners is just fantastic and connect them to the right people and really showcase the city in a very, very unique way. Well, you know, it all started kind of at the very beginning, you know, almost at the interview process. We were talking about running and just how much I loved running through the river valley and kind of a conversation just evolved into what can I do to really introduce myself into the auto market, no one knows who I am. So what is that going to look like. And then we had a conversation with a video production company and this our whole Stephanie's Diaries series just came alive and the fact that I can be running around the city and telling others and showcasing what the city has to offer by doing my passion. So that was kind of one thing that really started it all off with my own personal branding and aligning that with my career and my passion with the city. So that created such a buzz in the auto market. Once I showed that first one, people are asking like, when's the next one coming and it was really interesting to know how meeting planners love to talk at events. So my video would show everyone the room was silent. So it was just a really, really fun way to show the city and to create that buzz and it was just fun every new there's four in the series you can kind of look at my look at my LinkedIn to see them attach there but it was just a it was just always a fun way to to connect with my with my planners. You know, as we're, you know, still kind of through this pandemic. I think it's really, again, it's going back to aligning, you know, what our city is focusing on right now, which I can't give it away if I tell you exactly kind of what we're looking at doing but really aligning with that and also being solution focused to our meeting planner so what solutions can we offer as a destination to those to those planners so it's and kind of doing it in an engaging way, especially when you're doing it virtually, like how can they experience your city and get your message across and be able to help them all at the same time so I guess it's for me there's a lot of aspects. I guess I'm really kind of humble so always learning and working on myself I don't always, you know, necessarily see what others kind of see about me I think it's going to be a real like soul searching for me. I have your, your five pillars here printed out and you know going through those, those exercises and you know there's certain areas that okay no problem I'm organized and have my red hair and I love my outdoor healthy lifestyle. Other areas can I really amplify and how does that go with the role that I have and, and, you know, within my work family but outside as well so really honestly that soul searching piece. I think we've done that a lot through the pandemic but I think it's like understanding, you know now there's been no races over the past year, and I've been golfing and you know cross country skiing and turning it what I like to do into different things. So how do I now, how do we now share that and show that and, and it's not just about running for me anymore, and what I like you know as one of my, one of my passions so you think you attended PCM PC main Victoria. It was a networking event and I think they asked everyone like, I was at what skill like to ask other people like what their skill is or, and that you know so when you were kind of networking you could go up to them and like oh you know what is your skill and I learned so much about other people I learned like one of my clients love submit another one of my clients has her own jewelry banking business like just asking that one question. It kind of was a conversational starter, and also just it unveiled so much that you just don't even talk you don't really talk to your clients about so last couple of years I've married the two together like I have more clients that are Facebook friends and than ever before because I thought about it a lot and a lot of different ways and you know I really am the same person, whether I'm on LinkedIn or Facebook you're going to get the same Stephanie. So, um, that's that's who I'm projecting so if it took me a while to come to that, that point and be okay with it and now that I am I'm really happy because it, a lot of my clients are people and to have that Facebook that insight into their life it just you get to know so much more about them so when you start your own business there's so much to learn so it's been like I decided in October that I wanted to do this and then it's just been like full on learning every aspect and there's no way to do it like there's no guide or book or you know to go through all those different steps right so it's just been a learning and right now I'm at the point where this launch is like marketing and I don't know much about social media and marketing and all those kinds of things so that's my next area of learning like how do we do the launch and what does it look like and what is our social media marketing plan look like and how do we yeah how do we do that we do some like decluttering videos throughout and all this kind of things so yeah it's been really fun to have that side passion and and let it just flow and and enjoy every part of the part of it as you go along so it's kind of serendipitous that we're doing this tea time on today January 19 because one of my favorite authors, Donald Miller who wrote building his new book comes out today called business. Oh yes. Oh, you've got it. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, you mentioned it. And yeah, I've read it as well. And yeah, his new book. Is it spring but it's today today. I think someone else I was thinking about that's coming out in the spring. Oh, yeah. No I don't know but yeah so business made simple comes out today. Okay, so I'm going to pick it up this weekend. Yes, yes, I'll have to take a look at that but I have a little couple books here so the everything is configurable so this is one that you mentioned about halfway through I'm trying to pace myself because it's so good but one thing that I really like about it there's where she mentions about create before you consume. It's really important right now especially like working from home that kind of after work and I'm trying to focus more on that is to really do things that put me towards my goals and I'm finished work, rather than it's so easy to sit on the couch and scroll through your phone and kind of get in that rut. So now it's like okay go work out and you know focus on other things so yeah just taking a lot of little things away from the book so far but it really enjoying it. So that create before you consume. For anyone who is on Clubhouse, take those words to heart. I don't know if you're on Clubhouse Stephanie but it is a rabbit hole of empty calories. A lot of it is empty calories and conversations where you're not learning a lot. For me that's when I first got on Clubhouse a couple weeks ago, I had to pivot very quickly to the create before consume so to your point I need to make sure that my big three goals for the day are checked off before I spend one minute in a Clubhouse room. No but I just want to share and maybe you've read this and I think it's something that really directs our team are a lot and I think I've read it a couple times but it's essentialism. It's hard to see. Oh, this is essentialism by Greg and basically it helps to guide in decision making, and I come back to it a lot. So basically, when you're making decision, if it's not a hell yeah, then it's probably a no. And I think that helps a lot in just knowing how to proceed with something if he just doesn't feel like yeah I should be doing this, then maybe just you shouldn't be so it's definitely been a way to guide a lot of my decisions and coming back to that. I really do like going through that exercise it for years it's been epic and seriously epic and things like that and last year, last year was be. So like just be present be mindful, and just being aware that business I would be the person that would sign up for race after race and just not not leaving space and time to do other things and and focus on my other goals but this year it's kind of been epic and I didn't do this purposefully, but it's believed so it's almost like that be has turned into believe. Okay, so my word now is believe so it's a lot about like believing in myself a lot more believing in all the hard work that I'm doing that is going to show results at some point, and just really believing in that industry recovery so it's believe in my personal career like all those aspects of my life that you just have to know that you know everything's going to turn out for the best at the end this year so well besides watching you and learning from you. I think it's just you talked about authenticity, and I think that's really important that you know throughout everything we do we need to be authentically you. I know it sounds little cliche but it's just it's really true like really understand your brand, how it aligns with your company brand. It's fun make it engaging. Highlight what's new with your your company. And really, I think what's led to a lot of our success is just the collaboration that we do, like the collaboration that we do internally with our team. And, you know, like, for example the escape room there's things that we do for activations that can take up to six months so that like that playing ahead, really understanding what your end results. We want to have really focusing on the end result and just being open to figure out how to get there, like, don't have the solution, try to find the solution to what you want to want to portray. So it's a process I find depending on what you're doing in the planning and and just I think how you need to have fun with that process to right you know enjoy the journey as you're as you're trying to figure it all out and it makes it it makes it exciting.