Second Act Success: Business Tips & Career Change Advice for Women
Welcome to the Second Act Success Podcast, a top 2% globally ranked show designed to help ambitious women like you who are ready to change careers, start a business, and create a fulfilled life you deserve.
Hosted by Shannon Russell, business coach for women, author, and entrepreneur, this podcast helps you transition from employee to entrepreneur with clarity, confidence, and a strategic action plan.
Listen and Learn:
- How to quit your job and start a business that lights you up
- Strategies for career change after 40 and designing your second act
- Business planning, marketing, and personal branding tips for women
- How to validate your business idea and find your ideal clients
- How to use your career experience in your role as a female entrepreneur
- Success stories from women who’ve turned their side hustles into thriving businesses
Whether you’re planning an exit strategy, exploring midlife career pivots, or ready to become your own boss, you’ll find actionable steps, real-life inspiration, and expert guidance here on the show, so you can start your second act.
Is this podcast for you?
- Are you dreaming of quitting your corporate job to start your own business?
- Do you want advice on launching a business, marketing your offers, designing your personal brand, and putting your business strategies in place?
- Are you ready to overcome fear and turn your skills and experience from the corporate world into your second act business where you are the boss?
- Do you crave a flexible lifestyle that allows you to focus on your family and your creative passions while still bringing income into your household?
- Are you ready to become your own boss and build a business that is all yours?
- Is it time to turn your side hustle into a full-time business?
If you answered YES, then you’re in the right place and this podcast will teach you everything you need to know.
🎧 Listen to new episodes every week to help you build your second act.
🔗 Book a free Second Act Strategy Call with host Shannon Russell and download free resources at https://secondactsuccess.co.
Subscribe now and embark on a journey towards your second act!
Second Act Success: Business Tips & Career Change Advice for Women
She Got Laid Off… Then Built Her Dream Business Instead | #249
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
👉 Start Your Second Act Strategy Call with Shannon here.
What would you do if you were laid off tomorrow?
In this episode of the Second Act Success Podcast, Shannon Russell sits down with Kelly Schuknecht to talk about turning an unexpected layoff into a powerful second act career.
After years climbing the corporate ladder in publishing and marketing, Kelly found herself at a crossroads when her company was acquired and her role was eliminated. Instead of panicking, she leaned into the idea she had been quietly building on the side and launched her own business almost overnight.
Today, Kelly runs a thriving marketing and thought leadership company, helping entrepreneurs grow their visibility through speaking, content, podcast interviews, and book publishing.
In this conversation, we cover:
- How to turn a layoff into a business opportunity
- Why building your personal brand now is critical for career security
- The power of saying yes and figuring it out as you go
- How to create a thought leadership platform that attracts clients
- What it really takes to go from employee to entrepreneur
Kelly’s story is proof that your next chapter can begin when you least expect it, and that your experience is never wasted, it’s the foundation for your second act.
If you’ve been thinking about starting a business, navigating a career transition, or building a personal brand, this episode will give you the clarity and confidence to take action.
🔗 Get the full show notes here!
Subscribe now for actionable insights on how to shift your mindset, take control of your career, and build a thriving business.
--------
Book a free Strategy Call with Shannon
➡️ Let's Connect: Instagram | LinkedIn | TikTok
More resources & discounts:
Home Chef Meal Delivery - (free shipping & $4.99/serving)
Flodesk Email Marketing - (25% off 1st year)
Stitch Fix Personal Stylist - ($25 off 1st order)
Buzzsprout Podcast Hosting - ($20 off)
(*Some affiliate links)
Transcription:
Second Act Success Podcast
Season 1 - She Got Laid Off… Then Built Her Dream Business Instead | #249
Host: Shannon Russell
Guest: Kelly Schuknecht
Transcription (*created by Descript and may not be perfectly accurate)
Shannon Russell: [00:00:00] Hey there. Welcome to the second Act Success podcast. I'm Shannon Russell. As a business coach helping women start and scale businesses, I created this podcast to give you the advice and inspiration you need so that you can start your second act and create a business and life you love. Let's dive in.
Shannon Russell: Kelly Schuknecht. Welcome [00:01:00] to second Act Success. It's so exciting to have you here.
Kelly Schuknecht: Thank you Shannon. I'm excited to be here.
Shannon Russell: We've talked a lot. We know each other pretty well and I've been on your podcast and your story for so many reasons just is so perfectly aligned for my audience that I wanna really dive in, not only your whole career, but really what you've built along, the past year or so.
Let's take it back to the beginning. Where did everything start for you? Where did your career begin?
Kelly Schuknecht: I actually started in nonprofit I got a degree in Spanish I wanted to be a missionary. And when I graduated from college, I was like I don't really wanna travel to foreign countries by myself.
And I was not married, and I decided instead to go into nonprofit in the US. And so I got a job in nonprofit. I worked in a domestic violence shelter I was the women's advocate working with the Spanish speaking women. And I quickly learned that was not a good fit for my skills. Although I wanted to learn Spanish and and I wanted [00:02:00] to help people, I was not good at like client service and being almost like a therapist for clients.
That was. I was not good at that, but I quickly found in the nonprofit world, I was good at doing the stats and the administrative work. So I ended up. , Being the person who would do our stats every month at the shelter, , we had to report to our funders and then went into, onto the grant side and was helping with grant writing and reporting.
So it was an interesting shift. I went in with one expectation and learned so, so much about myself and what I was actually good at and where I should have been in that work.
Shannon Russell: It's almost like you went in with your heart and wanting to help, but realized your strengths were more in the backbone of nonprofit and helping on that side, and that's great.
Listening to that. Voice inside. Yes. To know, okay, let's just pivot over here. And
Kelly Schuknecht: Yeah. Success. And I think it, it's good to know, [00:03:00] like there's nothing, there was nothing wrong with me. I just wasn't, that wasn't a good fit for me. I know about myself not to be a nurse or a therapist or something like, like that is, I'm not good at that.
But I am good at being the heads down person on the computer, writing things organizing things like that kind of thing. And yeah. That was like the first. Five years of my career and at that point I had my first two kids. I had my daughter. While I was working there, I was pregnant with my son and when I went on maternity leave, I was just desperate to find a work from home job.
I did not want to go back to the office. It was a 30 minute drive every morning to work. I would drop off my daughter at daycare and I was just miserable because I was like, I hated being away from her nine to 10 hours a day. And only seeing her in the evening I don't know, I just, that was really hard for me at that time.
So when I had my son. I was looking for anything to be able to work from home. And this was 18 years ago, Shannon, work [00:04:00] from home was not common back then. But I ended up finding this job where I really, it wasn't even a job, it was like a contract role where this publishing company was looking for somebody to help them with.
It really random niche kind of thing, they were looking for somebody with experience in Microsoft Access to help them process the royalties every quarter. For their authors. And so that was my foot in the door. Like I had used access at the shelter that I had worked at. I had I was the go-to person like running the database in the background of all of our client information.
And then that led to this role in this publishing company. That as soon as I had my foot in the door, then they were like, can you do this? Can you do this? Can you do this? And so by the time my son was born, I started when I was pregnant and was like trying to figure out like, what, what options do I have after this?
And pretty [00:05:00] quickly on the side, I was making more money than I was making in the nonprofit and I was able to quit my nonprofit job, stay home with my two kids and work. Very part-time and it was a great fit. I was there 10 years. So I stuck with it. I ended up going from those random contract.
Roles to becoming one of the first directors in the company. The company was growing fast. They needed a leadership team. So I became the first, one of the first directors and then became the executive vice president. I reported to the family that owned the company and then I oversaw the directors.
So it was a really weird shift in my career, but it was this, I didn't really understand what I was good at until I started working. And then it led to this path that I was able to grow this amazing career without really being intentional about it. It just happened because I was following what I was good at and then I was, opportunities were opening because of that.
Shannon Russell: You were saying yes when they were asking you, can you try this? [00:06:00] Can you do this? And it's that whole being open to opportunities and saying yes, and figuring it out as you go. That is key to so many successes in life, is just saying, yep, let me try.
Kelly Schuknecht: Sure, let's try it. Yeah.
Shannon Russell: And for you to be able to build that with two little ones and be home with them is something that I think almost every mom, listener just wishes that they could find.
So what a unicorn you stumbled upon at the perfect time.
Kelly Schuknecht: Yeah. I remember those days of feeding them in the morning and just being on my computer, checking my email, and then, put 'em down for a nap and I could work during that time. I loved the YMCA, I could go to the YMCA and get two hours of childcare so I could work out and then work for an hour.
I was just squeezing in work throughout my day and. I know that like the perception can be like, oh, you work from home and you're, you're with your kids, you're not really working. But the reality was because I was able to fit it into my life in a way that, that worked for me at that time.
Clearly I [00:07:00] became seen as the person who was capable of doing things because I was promoted to executive vice president in the company within. I would say within the first two years, I think it was maybe a year and a half, so that was a fast path to being the family's go-to person to run their company.
It was work from home, very flexible, and it was just an ideal fit for me as a young mom with little ones at that time.
Shannon Russell: And this company was helping authors, right? Yeah. So that kind of got you into the world of book publishing and book marketing. Talk to me a little bit about that and how you became really interested in that world.
Kelly Schuknecht: Yeah. So it was a publishing company and, it was, so we helped the authors with the publishing the book. And then where really where I became specialized was on the marketing side. What the company found was they would help all these authors publish. They would, they had thousands of authors who published a book, and then they were like, now what?
What do I do? And so I became the person that built out the marketing department. I [00:08:00] would, we would come up with these ways of helping, helping them with a virtual book tour, helping them get their book into book fairs, helping them order.
Bookmarks and postcards and all these things to promote their book. And so I was the one kind of packaging up those services, hiring the people to help produce, the whatever that product or service was. And then I oversaw all of that. With no background in marketing, became very specialized in, in the book marketing side of things.
After 10 years I just, I knew it was time to leave. It was like that, like what is my career path from here? I couldn't see myself there forever. I just started getting antsy what should I do next? And so I left without really having a.
Plan I took on some freelance work and was like, okay, I'm just gonna feel some things out. Which then led to, I met my my, my next boss I went to an event. We were talking, he heard about my experience in book publishing and [00:09:00] marketing, and he was like, Hey, can you help me publish my book?
I just wrote a book and I was. Sure, yeah, I can help you. And then that led to more opportunities in that company. Again, just saying yes to what was coming my way. But it was the, now I look back and I realize I had built this personal brand around what I was doing, right? I became known for being in the publishing world for, helping people with publishing, with marketing.
So that led to this opportunity where, , they connected the dots of oh, you have this background, you can help me. And then because of my marketing experience, I ended up becoming the marketing director for his company. And built a department of I had six or seven people on my team.
It started with just me and then we grew to that as the company grew from 4 million to 12 million. And so was, that was the next stage of my career. That company was acquired and I lost my job. And I, that's where the real
Shannon Russell: second act begins.
Kelly Schuknecht: Yes. I I like to joke that I did my [00:10:00] job too.
Well, we grew to this point where the company became well known and then was acquired. And being in marketing, that's often one of the parts of the company that is. Pretty easy to cut because the company had another, had their own marketing department. So yeah, so then I ended up.
Having to decide what to do next. I think I told you when I had you on my podcast. I wish I would've met you a year before I met you. Really? I met you after I had already had to take that leap and start my business. I wish I would've had your guidance along the way sooner.
Shannon Russell: I know, because you really find yourself in this position where you're high up and you're running everything and you've got these clients and everything's going well, and then all of a sudden. There's a layoff. Yeah. And it's unexpected. And that often happens when companies are acquired and there we're seeing that a lot across so many industries right now in the world that you think you're all great and then something happens and you're really at this crossroads of, what do I do [00:11:00] next?
What were you feeling at that point? Was it really truly a shock?
Kelly Schuknecht: Yeah. Yes and no. It was two years into the acquisition. So for two years I was thinking this was gonna happen, right? I was like, I think I'm gonna lose my job. But I kept being told no. They need you.
They love what you've done here. I was being told it wasn't gonna happen, but I was preparing, I think my mind for, I think this is gonna happen. And so really I had actually, I had dreamed up this company while I had the freedom to dream and, wasn't under pressure. Started thinking about what I wanted to do.
Starting my own company. I had named the company. I had a website, which was terrible at the time, but I had a website,, I was taking these baby steps towards, and again, like I said, it would've been great to have somebody's guidance along the way. I just was like, just hoping and dreaming, it was just like, okay, you know what, what might happen?
So the day that I was laid off, I had a meeting with my manager and then HR popped in and I was like, [00:12:00] oh, I know what's happening.
Still shocking because even if you think it's gonna happen, even if you know it's gonna happen or you suspect it's gonna happen, it still is pretty shocking to go. What is gonna happen to my income? I am the provider for my family. So it was like, how is all this gonna work?
And it's a pretty shocking, and I can't even tell you the feeling of relief that I had in that moment, even despite the shock and the stress of it. I closed that computer and I was like, i'm done. Yeah.
Shannon Russell: But Kelly, I think it's because you let yourself dream and start building this almost at the time.
Pretend business. Yeah. Getting things up and testing it. That is what I always advise clients, like we were talking about earlier, is like start building it while you have that paycheck. Let that paycheck be your runway. So you were doing it and maybe not even. Thinking it was going to be something that would come to fruition anytime soon.
But then that sense [00:13:00] of relief is, was probably because you knew you were somewhat prepared.
Kelly Schuknecht: Yeah.
Shannon Russell: And excited for that next chapter. Because that led you to so much in this past year or so.
Kelly Schuknecht: Yes. And it's been, it's been a amazing year. I am, I'm so grateful for what did happen because I I wouldn't have taken the leap.
I, I just, I wouldn't have done it. I was too scared. I, I couldn't see. Future. I just couldn't see what was gonna happen.
Shannon Russell: Yeah.
Kelly Schuknecht: And it was the being pushed off the ledge that was just like, now you gotta figure it out. And I, I do think, I, looking back, I wish I would've just made the decision to leave.
'cause it's, it hurts to be laid off. It hurts to know that somebody decided to cut you. And not somebody but multiple people. And that it's really hard to take emotionally. I dealt with that for many months, and I'm probably still dealing with that, right? But but looking back I'm like, [00:14:00] man, I should have just done this myself because I was fully capable.
I just didn't, I didn't trust it until it. It just was forced on me.
Shannon Russell: I just had this conversation with another guest on my podcast Aransas s and she talks about the same thing. She put March 1st on her calendar to say, okay, I'm giving you my two weeks notice.
And she was too scared and she stopped herself. But on March 3rd, she was laid off.
Kelly Schuknecht: Oh my gosh.
Shannon Russell: But same thing, it's just that fear of jumping off that ledge and taking that leap and betting on yourself. But that's okay because sometimes it's a blessing in disguise and something that we just, we needed, she needed it.
You needed that little kick to say, Kelly, go for it. You've already got this plan and you have all the confidence. Let's see what you can do flying on your own.
Kelly Schuknecht: Yep. Yep. Absolutely. And yeah I do look back and I know that was, it was what was meant to happen. I know that I'm in the exact place I was supposed to be in.
I told somebody in a [00:15:00] conversation in the early months of starting my business was like, I feel like myself for the first time in my career, for 20 years of my career, I worked for other people. And, I am somewhat a people pleaser. I want to, it was like, whatever.
Kelly Schuknecht: The boss wanted, I was going to say yes, and I was gonna make it happen. Even if I didn't think it was the best choice or didn't feel right about it, it was like I was the person that was gonna make it happen. And finally, I get to make the decisions myself. I get to decide how I wanna move forward.
There's downsides to that, but there's also a lot of upsides to that. And and I do, I feel like I'm finally able to just. Be me in my career and not what somebody else expects of me.
Shannon Russell: When did you after that decide, okay, this is official, my business is going out there in the world and I'm gonna start making it happen?
Kelly Schuknecht: I took about 24 hours to be mad and grieve. Yeah. And all the feelings, and. I told my husband, I was like, I'm [00:16:00] gonna sit down and I'm gonna apply for 10 jobs a day, and then when I'm done applying for jobs, I'm gonna work on my business.
The day I was laid off was a Thursday, and so Friday I got up and I did that. I started applying for. 10 jobs. And I was like, this is soul sucking. Like I cannot do this. I cannot hope and pray. Send all these things out and hope and pray that somebody sees value in what I can bring. And so that was Friday and Monday I was like, I'm not applying for jobs.
I am all in on this business. And I just started going down that path.
In that week I was talking to people. I was trying to get my head around.
What to do next. I was trying to decide if this was something I really should pursue. Like I, I wanted to, but I was also just I don't know how to, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to do this. And yeah, so November 8th, I registered the business and I actually got my first [00:17:00] client that started on November 11th.
And second one started December 1st, and it just went from there. It just started it started building because I started putting it out there. I was so scared at first. I was so scared to say online that this was what I was doing. And then when I finally did it was like I was talking with people. I was telling them what I was doing, and it just started happening.
I think that mindset made a big difference.
Shannon Russell: You knew what you wanted and which direction you needed to go. So tell us about your business and what you decided to really focus on.
I know you've got, a couple different arms of what you do, so
Kelly Schuknecht: Yeah. So again, like through a lot of it came through a lot of conversations with people and I think whether that's a coach or your professional connections or whatever, that, that was the most helpful part to me is just talking to people and just getting my head around, even though I had been dreaming about this business, I was gonna.
Start, I still wasn't super clear about what that was actually going to look like. It was like marketing, right? That was
Shannon Russell: right.
Kelly Schuknecht: I'm gonna provide marketing, right? And then, so then when it came down to it, [00:18:00] it was like, okay, but how do I tell people what I'm doing and what does this look like?
So I thought about, my experience. I spent 10 years in publishing. I spent seven, eight years building a marketing department, and the marketing that we did was inbound marketing focused on having, positioning the CEO as a thought leader.
And so what that looked like was we were helping him get speaking events.
We were helping him with content putting content on LinkedIn, article writing. We were getting him on podcasts. We were managing a podcast that he was running, so these things that we were doing for him, I was like, these are the things that business owners should do. And so I decided within that first couple weeks that the way I wanna go to market is not just.
Marketing, we help people market I wanted to help business owners develop their thought leadership platform. So I was very clear about what that was gonna look like. I wanted to help business owners get speaking events, do [00:19:00] their LinkedIn content, get podcast interviews, and if they're interested.
Write a book. So I had the experience with ghost writing. I wanted to be able to include that in what we do. So if somebody, the people that we work with tend to be busy entrepreneurs and they don't have the time to sit down and write a book. But they have it all in their head, right?
I had that experience of interviewing people and helping them write their book. And so that's part of what we offer as well. I think that part of what made that take off so quickly was when I would tell a business owner that this is what we do. They would say, oh. We know that when we go out and do speaking events, that we get clients from it, and we know we need to do that more often, but we don't have the time to be thinking about what events are out there and what we should be pursuing and putting in the applications.
So it resonated with a lot of business owners where they were like, that's exactly what we need. And it just seemed like a really great fit. My skills and experience and then what a lot of owners need. And it was unique, right? There aren't a lot of companies out there doing what we do.
Kelly Schuknecht: So it just it [00:20:00] stood on its own and, it stood out to people.
Shannon Russell: And the fact that you got clients so quickly after announcing this business is a testament to that of what was needed out in the market.
Kelly Schuknecht: Yeah.
Shannon Russell: I love that the business has just taken off. And then you decided to start a podcast called Beyond the Bestseller, which I was lucky enough to chat with you on.
Tell me about that aspect of your business as well.
Kelly Schuknecht: So I started the podcast right away as a, I know that, and you know that podcasting is a great source for networking. It's great for developing content. I wanted to start interviewing female authors. So my, podcast is focused on female authors of nonfiction books. I originally thought that my.
That my target client would be female business owners, but I learned pretty quickly that, that wasn't what was happening. That it was a lot of men who were coming to me saying, can you help me write my book? 'Cause I think that women tend to be the ones who say, I'll do it all myself.
Shannon Russell: [00:21:00] Yeah.
Kelly Schuknecht: And so anyways so the original intention with that podcast was to reach my target audience. And I am learning that I probably need to shift a little bit on that and maybe have a different podcast that's specifically for thought leaders, even though. The women that are on my podcast are thought leaders, but it's just a little bit of a disconnect as far as, the services we provide. So just trying to make that a little more clear. , So I started the podcast and a community for women authors. I have a, an online community. We meet every Tuesday. It's for women who are writing a book or have written a book and wanna just network with other women and learn more about how to.
Promote their book. And then we also are doing a retreat. So we have a, our first writing retreat early next year. And then we're gonna try to do a couple a year, but that's all in development now. All of that kind of going along with my focus on thought leaders, business owners who wanna have that book in hand and develop their platform [00:22:00] and be seen as the expert that they are.
Shannon Russell: It so perfectly encompasses everything that you've done in your career. You've been able to create this business. Just taking all of your experience and everything that's worked, and congratulations on that, because that's not always easy for people, especially if they are laid off and they're sitting here not sure of what to do next.
You had a plan that you had been thinking about and you were able to execute it in such an amazing way.
Kelly Schuknecht: I will say though, like I, I had a plan, but it came together piece by piece day by day. It wasn't clear to me on day one. And and even as I mentioned, now I look back and I look at the podcast and I think maybe I should a adjust that slightly.
And we're actually talking about how we might create a season two of the podcast that has a kind of a different different approach. And that's okay. I think the best thing for me was to make decisions quickly, right? So even if. Every decision wasn't a perfect one. It was making decisions quickly and acting on things and moving [00:23:00] forward and doing that every single day instead of dragging my feet and overthinking things to the point where I couldn't act if it wasn't perfect.
I think people get stuck in these places of I can't here's a perfect example. My website was a mess when I first, I told you I had it designed, but it was like, it was. It was not good. The logo I created myself on Canva and I am not a designer.
But I was like, it doesn't matter, like how many people are actually going to my website, it doesn't really matter. I need to bring in the clients first, and then the next thing I can do once I have some revenue coming in is I can pay somebody to update the branding, the website. And we did all of that, right?
I've seen people do this where they just get so focused on, but the website has to be perfect and I have to have this and that and and you don't. What you need is money coming in. So focus on the getting money coming in and then fix the other stuff as you can and don't worry about everything being perfect.
Don't worry about everything being exactly right. Just make decisions and move forward. And you can always adjust as [00:24:00] you learn what's working and what's not working.
Shannon Russell: I was gonna ask you your advice, but that is the perfect advice because it's true. And businesses can evolve, podcasts, books, it can all evolve based on what the market wants, what your customers are asking of you.
And it's okay to change things. So you're right, it's just get started, get that revenue coming in, and then you can tweak and move as you go.
It's done is better than perfect and getting it out there. And one of
Kelly Schuknecht: my favorite quotes.
Shannon Russell: Yes. But you did it and that's amazing. Yeah. So for any listeners who are sitting here and maybe they're thinking Okay. A layoff could be down the road or I've always thought about doing this side business, what advice would you give them to start making moves and taking action now while earning that paycheck?
Kelly Schuknecht: What I talk about a lot is developing your personal brand, so nobody is going to know that you exist if you are not showing up in ways that [00:25:00] whether it's networking, going to events posting content on LinkedIn or whatever platform makes sense for what you're, who you're trying to reach.
I think that anyone in any stage of their career should be doing that, whether you think a layoff might happen or not because you just never know what opportunities that might lead to. Down the road for you. Like I mentioned, I chose to leave the publishing company I'd worked for and because of a blog that I had for.
I don't know how many years at that time, several years At that time I was writing about publishing, I was writing about book marketing, and then that led to somebody knowing who I was in that space. I think that it's really important to get out of, not be thinking of posting on LinkedIn to promote your company, but be thinking about how you show up and what you can teach other people.
Not trying to get anything out of it, but just to develop a presence and engage with people online. And again, like going to networking events and things like that just so people know who you are because you just never know. I think that's what I [00:26:00] teach people right now because I learned from my own experience how valuable that was for me in really catapulting the business.
Once I did start it.
Shannon Russell: And LinkedIn is free, so really just there should be no reason that you're not on LinkedIn and that you're not keeping your profile up to date. And then you made a really good point. Don't promote the company you're at. I had a client come to me, Kelly once, she was right outta college.
Young, just learning. And her boss wanted her picture to be her work shirt, her company shirt, and everything was directed to the company. And I said, absolutely not. This is your personal brand. This is your LinkedIn page. So that next company you're applying to doesn't wanna see you rocking. An outfit from your, the company you left.
Kelly Schuknecht: Yeah.
Shannon Russell: Yeah. And it's free and it's easy. So if that is one takeaway from this podcast episode, it's really start building your brand. And you can do it on LinkedIn and you can do it on any social media, but I think [00:27:00] LinkedIn is the place because so many employers, business partners, whoever will check there to see who you are and who you've been in the past.
Kelly Schuknecht: Yep.
Shannon Russell: Yeah.
Kelly Schuknecht: Absolutely, and just, one or two posts a week. It doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be a huge time commitment, but commit to one or two posts a week on a topic that is of interest to you and something that you feel like you can share, something that you can teach somebody around.
We take our own skills and experience for granted but. What I learned was not everyone has 10 years of experience in publishing. Not everyone has seven years of experience building a marketing team, right? So the things that I had learned, I had that, that I could share that with people, and people were learning from what I was posting.
And and I became known for those topics. So it's, yeah, one or two posts a week, that's all it takes. Just start doing it.
Shannon Russell: Kelly, tell us where everyone can find you and reach out and connect because you are just so full of knowledge and have so much to share.
So [00:28:00] tell us all the places.
Kelly Schuknecht: I'm on LinkedIn, it's my name, Kelly Schuknecht. Like you said, you can put it in the show notes 'cause it's not easy to spell.
Shannon Russell: Sure.
Kelly Schuknecht: But I love connecting with people on LinkedIn 'cause that is where I spend most of my time on social media.
And then if you're interested in developing your thought leadership platform if you go to my website, two mile high marketing.com, that's the name of my company at the top there is a quiz and you can take a quick quiz. It takes three minutes. And it walks you through some questions. It will give you your score as a thought leader and it will give you some some things to work on if you want to further develop your thought leadership platform.
So great resource. If you're thinking I don't really know where to start, or, I don't know where I am or what to work on, it will give you some tips and advice around that.
Shannon Russell: Ooh. I love that. I'm gonna take that myself. I think that sounds great. Thank you Kelly. I will put everything in the show notes, and I'm so happy that you were here and that we were able to have this conversation to really share everything you've been through and that you can continue to grow and help [00:29:00] others show up in the world in their best way.
Kelly Schuknecht: Thank you. I, like I said, I'm so glad we have connected and I wish that I would have met you about a year before I did, but I love the work that you're doing to help people figure out their next path or their next step in their career because it's really. We all go through career changes.
Yeah, thank you for what you do and wish that I could have worked with you and when I was going through that.
Shannon Russell: We have each other now, so that is exciting. And hopefully we'll see each other at a speaking event soon and continue to collaborate. So thank you so much, Kelly.
Speaker: Thank you for joining me for another episode of the second Act Success podcast. If this episode has you thinking about starting a business or growing the one that you already have, I offer free second ACT strategy calls. This is where we map out what makes sense for your business and your life. You can book yours now at second act success.co/strategy, or grab the link in the show notes below.
As always, thank you [00:30:00] for being here. Until next time, I'm your host Shannon Russell wishing you the best day ahead as you plan your second act. I'll see you on the next episode.