Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: SKYROCKET Your Success by Using THESE TOOLS At Your Fingertips with Melanie Borden
Wed, 26 Mar 2025
What’s holding you back from getting exactly what you want? That’s the question I walked away with after talking to Melanie Borden, CEO of the Borden Group. If you’re not asking for it, you’re missing out—CLOSED MOUTHS don’t get fed. Whether it’s LinkedIn, business, or life, being INTENTIONAL is the key. Melanie’s use of AI blew my mind, showing just how much more we can do with the right tools. The truth? You have EVERYTHING you need to ELEVATE, but you’ve got to step up and GRAB IT. That’s exactly why we created the Elevate Your Influence Bootcamp—to help you SHOW UP, be BOLD, and be UNAPOLOGETICALLY yourself. It’s time to stop waiting for opportunities and start creating them. Join us and take your career to the next level! In This Episode You Will Learn About: How to use the tools at your fingertips to SKYROCKET your success Why the time is NOW to take control of your narrative and CHANGE the game How the only thing between you and success is the ACTION you haven’t taken yet Learn why CLOSED MOUTHS don’t get fed Resources + Links Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/monahan Download the CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning at NetSuite.com/MONAHAN. Want to do more and spend less like Uber, 8x8, and Databricks Mosaic? Take a free test drive of OCI at oracle.com/MONAHAN. Get 10% off your first Mitopure order at timeline.com/CONFIDENCE. Get 15% off your first order when you use code CONFIDENCE15 at checkout at jennikayne.com. Call my digital clone at 201-897-2553! Visit heathermonahan.com Sign up for my mailing list: heathermonahan.com/mailing-list/ Overcome Your Villains is Available NOW! Order here: https://overcomeyourvillains.com If you haven't yet, get my first book Confidence Creator Follow Heather on Instagram & LinkedIn Melanie on Instagram, LinkedIn & YouTube: @MelanieBorden
Chapter 1: Why should you always ask for what you want?
When I felt that things were shifting in my business and I wasn't getting the traction that I wanted, I realized I wasn't being specific about my offer and I wasn't saying I'm available to work. This is how I work and this is how you can work with me. And nine times out of 10, when I go on someone's profile or if I'm going through someone's content and they're saying it's not working,
I look at them and say, it's because you're not asking for it. So always ask for what you want. Not to do it every day, but you should ask for what you want. Because if you don't, you're not going to get it.
i'm ready for my close-up hi and welcome back i'm so glad you're back here with me this week okay so you know it's so rare that i have someone on multiple times but today we are back on with my friend melanie borden let me give you a little background on my girl melanie she's the founder and ceo of the boarding group she utilizes strategies and tools she developed for herself to assist founders c-suite executives and leaders in aligning their real life expertise with their linkedin presence unlocking opportunities and building relationships at scale this is what she did
Chapter 2: How can LinkedIn transform your personal brand?
for herself faster than anyone I've ever seen. Her work as a marketing executive naturally led her to recognize the potential of online marketing strategies in developing both corporate and personal brand. If you don't have a personal brand, let me tell you, you need one. The truth is you already have one, but start holding the pen and taking control of it. We're gonna get into that today.
Okay, Melanie's expertise spans a range of areas, including marketing oversight, building in-house agencies, budgeting, strategic vendor utilization, enhancing digital footprints through social media, reputation management, online monetization, and managing advertising processes. She has been featured in publications such as Entrepreneur, LA Weekly, Good Morning America, Daily Mail, CXO Outlook.
There's so many here. I mean, I can't keep up. Wall Street Journal, that was a big one. And also Forbes Agency Council. Let me just say, Melanie, thank you for coming back on the show today. Thanks for having me back, Heather.
what people always want to know from you what is the latest and greatest on linkedin what do they need to be doing why do they need to be there help us cut to it okay so something that i've been seeing lately and it's constantly changing i always tell people when you're putting out content you want to focus on what is best for you but also be aware of the platform and the algorithm
And it's constantly changing. And there's so many people who are talking about it. And when I say, you know, what's best for you, meaning the time supposed, et cetera. So for years, I religiously posted at 7 45 AM. I would be getting my kids ready from school, you know, doing drop-off and making sure that I'm still engaging with content at that set time for almost three years. I did that.
And then I got super busy and I said, you know what? I need to find a different time to start posting. And at first I was really unsure about it. And then now I've been posting consistently. After 3 p.m. in the afternoon, and my posts have been performing so well, and we're seeing the same thing with clients as well as video.
Video has been doing really well and performing really well on LinkedIn too. And there's so much opportunity for every creator. It's like less than 5% of the people who are on the platform. It's a very low number, close to 1%. that are posting. So the opportunity is there for everyone, not just for someone who has a follower base, but literally for someone who's growing.
which is probably the majority.
You never perform well for me, Melanie. It's such a weird thing because my feed does well, but every time I posted a video, it's like, it's such an anomaly if it ever does well. It doesn't seem to.
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Chapter 3: What are the best strategies for handling online negativity?
When you put yourself out on social, you have to find a way to really react and engage with people in a way that you have the best way of doing it. And a lot of times people go to market and they just kind of wing it. Businesses do that. Individuals do it. And my recommendation is to have a plan, have a strategy, and talk about it if it's working for you.
So for me, that's the topic that works really well for my videos. They always perform well when I talk about trolls. Whether it's a video or a static post, to look at the posts that are performing well, then look at other people in your industry who are also posting about topics that are relevant to your market.
It's interesting when you talk about haters, right? And so for myself for a long time, when I was in corporate, I was in the C-suite, I never posted back then for fear of what other people would say, for fear of negativity coming out.
And I know a lot of people listening right now to the show are thinking that, like, yeah, you guys, you've made businesses out of it, I get it, but I don't wanna have to go through people hating on me. And I'll tell you what I've learned, and I actually wrote a chapter about this in my second book, is that there is being negative people everywhere.
If you're not getting haters, you've got a problem. It means you're not reaching enough people or you're not being your unique self. That's not for everybody. I am not vanilla. So I actually try to celebrate when I see some haters coming my way, throwing shade at me, which they do, right? They will come out and make the weirdest comments in the world.
And sometimes I'll leverage that and like highlight it to make a joke about it. Like, well, and here we go with people not liking what I post again. You know, I'll say something about it. I don't ever say a person's name. So I'll use it to my benefit to keep further engagement going, or I just respectfully don't respond. I don't respond to negativity.
But what I've learned is I don't need to take it personally. I don't need to go home and cry in my soup about it because that's about them. It's not about me. And for any person that is going to get excited about throwing negativity at someone they don't even know behind a computer screen, those aren't my people. And I'm fine with that. How do you handle when you receive negativity online?
Well, it's interesting that you asked that because one of the things that I always coach my clients through whenever they're launching their personal brand, specifically on LinkedIn, is that a couple things will happen.
And most people do not necessarily want to be quote unquote, influencers, they have a specific goal, whether they're looking to move their industry, they're looking to get into the C suite, maybe they're looking to launch their consulting or coaching business. And I tell them the first metric that we look at
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Chapter 4: How can you leverage LinkedIn for career growth?
I ask you to try to find your passion.
So it's so interesting because people will say like, oh yeah, you guys can say that because you have followings on LinkedIn. So of course it makes sense for you, but I don't have the time to do it. Or I didn't start seven years ago, which is when I started. I understand. But if seven years ago was the right time to start, now is the only time. And I also like to go back to the example.
I started before you. However, you've grown your community the same size as mine in a shorter window. Like sometimes people lose sight of that. Just because one person did one thing doesn't mean you can't do 10X that, 20X that, 50X that. You don't know until you start showing up and trying.
And the other thing I would add to that is to my own question that I have just asked myself as a podcast host, Heather, that's really impressive. The other thing I would add to that is that, you know, when you want to reach out to someone and you don't know today for everyone listening, because I didn't know I was getting fired, right? You don't know what tomorrow holds.
You don't know if COVID is coming next. Like you don't know what weird, crazy thing could happen. We get fired. The whole world could change. We don't know. Set yourself up for success no matter what happens. And the one thing that you can do differently than everyone else is elevate, raise your hand, be yourself, let the world start to get to know you.
And the best way to do that, I find for business is through LinkedIn, because instead of dealing with a one-to-one conversation with everybody, I get to have a one-to-many conversation. You can have a conversation one-to-millions instead of having to you know, single out individuals.
And that's how I even got into the whole concept of LinkedIn, you know, seven years ago was for my C-suite position because I couldn't find enough talented executives to come on my team. Cause I thought, you know what? I'm not reaching enough people going one-to-one. I've got to start going one-to-many. And so I started elevating my presence, which had a whole domino effect in a different way.
that changed everything for me. But the point is this, you've gotta have a profile where you show up, you've got recommendations and reviews of your work. You have a face, like you have a profile picture. P.S. keep it fresh. I just updated my profile picture. Like you need to change it once a year. Like you need to show up and be a real human online
so that people know you're not an AI bot, which that's a whole other conversation that's happening very often right now. But show up and be that real version of you. Let people get to know you and watch how you start attracting partnership. You start attracting businesses. You start attracting clients. You start attracting employees to you. And it's a lot easier than chasing people down.
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Chapter 5: What content should you create if you're just starting out?
And that's why at an arena like LinkedIn is so important. You're gonna start being exposed to people in all different industries and start learning. Wait, I can do that too. And I can do it better than that guy. Wait a minute, maybe I should start taking a look at that.
It's really gonna open your mind to different revenue streams, different business opportunities and different partnerships for you. Okay, one of the things that people get tripped up on, you know this Melanie better than anyone because you've worked with so many clients around this point, Well, what can I post? I don't have anything. I'm not you. I don't know how to do that. I didn't get fired.
I don't have some big story to tell. What do you say to these people that feel like, I just don't know what to create?
It's so common. It's definitely something I hear all the time. I know you hear it too. And it's funny that you asked that. I was on LinkedIn today and I was scrolling, just seeing what was in the feed and One of the creators in my network had posted something about every week he's posting and he's spending time every single day, certain amount of time a day, just writing.
And I thought back to myself when I first started, similarly like you, I didn't really have time.
not necessarily a network i was in one specific industry i came from the car business so my network was in new york new jersey the tri-state area and one of the reasons for me going on linkedin was to broaden my horizons and to meet more people and to just create a name for myself and so but i was thinking back to when i started and i just started documenting my day-to-day it was during the pandemic it was crazy wild time and i started following people like yourself
I started seeing what other people were doing. I was looking at what was making me feel good because it was at a time where everything was just so chaotic, which is very similar to today. The chaos really hasn't changed much in the last five years. It's just adjusted. But one of the things that I was doing regularly at my job was meeting with all of our vendors. I was working as a VP of marketing.
So I was recording all of our calls regularly. Or the vendor was recording our calls and they would send me the recording after our meetings. And that was something that I was doing every single day. And what I didn't realize at the time was I had this treasure trove of content. I had a huge amount of content that I didn't realize that I could tap into.
So for someone who's just starting, start recording your calls that you have, your meetings that you have, because nine times out of 10, you can go back to that transcript. You can pull some of that. You can edit it. And you can turn it into something for yourself that you can use for content. So another thing you can do is introduce yourself. Reintroduce yourself.
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Chapter 6: How does AI impact content creation and efficiency?
It essentially takes all the guesswork out of everything that you're doing with video because you take an MP4 or a link to a YouTube video, you drop it into their platform, and then you set the parameters of what you want the video to be. How long do you want the video to be? Do you want AI B-roll? Do you want regular stock B-roll? Do you want to take anything out of it?
And it essentially will clip for, let's say for example, a video that's four minutes long, it will clip 25 different videos for you. And so it's so simple. Once you get the hang of it, and you just flex that muscle, it's super easy. But kids, as you know, like my kids are 9 and 10. They know how to use ChatGPT. They know how to use DALI. And I didn't even really train them how to do it.
I just said, tell it what you want to do. And the best way that I would explain any of these AI systems is you just have to treat it like an assistant. You treat it like it's an intern, especially for those of us who run businesses and have people working for us. It's a really easy way to kind of start getting the hang of it.
That was the best analogy someone ever gave me, because then for me, I was like, OK, I can do this. I can do AI. I can go in and I can start the prompts. And now it's really transformed it. We're now, as Heather knows, I mean, we can give my daughter this recording and she will turn it into 25 different clips and opus clips. And she's 10.
10 years old and creating content that we actually use. Guys, this is not something that was like a throwaway that was funny. No, we used it because it was so good, right? So literally your children can go ahead and create content for you. It's that simple through the tools that Melanie teaches on, that Melanie exposes people to and teaches me about all the time.
And I am blown away how simple creating content actually is now just from conversations. And I've seen you do the same thing with these eBooks that you've created. And if you could share with everybody a little bit about how you're pumping out eBooks for your clients now.
Yeah, no, that's a great question. So one of the things that I've learned along the way I mentioned earlier is when you have your calls recorded and they're on something very specific. And when I'm working with someone, we're building strategy and it's usually on a specific topic where I'm getting to know a client and we're having a conversation.
So just like with building out LinkedIn posts, we're doing that same thing with blogs. We're doing that same thing with e-books. Well, we're taking recordings of calls, just like you and I are on right now, Heather. And we're taking these recordings and we're putting it into AI. Then we're editing it. And then we're putting it back into AI. And then we're editing again.
And then we're putting it in, formatting it. And we have a finished piece of work. And it's something where, just as a reference, an e-book before I started using AI would take my team and I probably two to three months to complete. And collectively, it would probably take about 30 hours, okay? Now it will take us less than a day and collectively would probably take a total of one hour max.
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