When is it Time to Pivot in your Career with Nancy Surak

In this episode, we talk all about being a woman in a male-dominated industry, why it is critical to invest in yourself, knowing what and what not to share on social media, and much more!

Nancy Surak specializes in commercial development and master-planned community land advising and land sales throughout Tampa Bay. As the 2021 #1 Female land broker in the nation, Nancy has an exceptional message to share all about the importance knowing when to pivot in your career, and much more!

“It's so important to know who you are because constantly being someone you're not on Social Media is going to be exhausting." – Nancy Surak

Highlights

💫 1:54   A little about Nancy's career journey

💫 4:00   The biggest lesson Nancy learned from pivoting in her career

💫  7:47    How Nancy has invested in herself

💫 9:50    Why you should be creating a personal brand

💫 23:44   The one piece of advice nancy wants to leave you with

Connect with Featured Guest, Nancy Surak

✳️ Website: https://nancysurak.com/

✳️ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nancysurak/

✳️ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancysurak/

Preparing to Pivot Into a New Career

You had a moment where most people kind of stay in their career, but you did a big pivot. And what's the number one thing that you've learned through your experience of pivoting in your career?

I went from having a salaried position that didn't have any compensation package, like no commission. All the salaries, I had managed to be a great female-oriented or female-owned company. And I managed to get this position to go part-time. So my kids are young and I have a lot of expensive cattle and I was just not fulfilled. So when I decided to switch to commercial brokerage, commercial real estate brokerage, I was going from a salaried position to straight commission. And I sat down and I made a financial plan on my own. It's part of my business plan, but I also sat down with my husband. And so for me, I think a lot of my success has been really paying attention to the financial side of, “Can I afford to do this? What is the reward?” If I'm successful, though, return on investment is to be critical for me. Really any decision I make, I'm like, “Okay, if I'm going to spend time there, what am I getting out of it? Is it passion, or is it money, or is it somebody else?” I would say, that when I pivoted, I planned and I set these goals where I would say, “Okay, the land market has a really long sales cycle. It can be nine months, it can be 18 months, it can be three years.” I've worked on deals that have taken seven years to close. Yeah, so crazy from that perspective. But you have to know that you can, like eat between all of those. So really paying attention to return on investment. And it's been, by far, the biggest thing for me. And then investing in myself through every stage, like personal investment and personal development. And then personal branding, as well.

Stepping Stones to Success and Investing in One’s Self

What do you think led to your success of being a successful woman in a male dominated industry?

I'm a bit of a risk taker. And I joke with people because I'm like, “I don't take risks.” That's a lie. It's a total lie. I am a bit of a risk taker. And I like to say, “You know what, I'm going to try.” And what's the worst that can happen? You know, I always tell them, like my kids, I'm like, “Oh, you want that? Oh, you're interested in that, go after it. What's the worst that can happen? You fail. Okay, so you fail, move on, you know, you, you are going to learn something, you know, there's a benefit that you're going to gain through going through that experience.” So I'm a huge proponent of identifying what you want and going after it. And recognizing to that if you're either a in an environment or room where you’re kind of beating your head against the wall, and you're like, “I can't get past these obstacles” That really could be about the art of pivoting, and that could be either moving laterally into another position, or figuring out or getting a good mentor and figuring out okay, what do I need to do to address whatever the gap is that it can't get over this hurdle? Or sometimes just recognizing you can't get over the hurdle and that's okay. That's just an indication that you need to do something else. Yeah, I always say, “I'd rather fail trying than never do it at all and never know what the possibility could be if you put yourself out there and try to do something that you want to do, that you want to go after.” 

So you talked a little bit about investing in yourself. And I'm a big advocate of investing in yourself personally, professionally. What do you think have been the different ways that you've invested in yourself to set yourself up for success?

In my field, education has always been like a predominant thing where I'll invest. You know, I have a master's degree from the University of Florida. So that was before I started working. So education has always been pretty high up there. But once I got into the land brokerage business, I invested in getting specific professional designations to help me qualify for my audience or my customer like, I know what the heck I'm talking about. I invested in those educational programs. So I'd like little initials after my name, and they mean something in my world. But really, it was about leveling the playing field as a woman; I go up against male competitors all the time. So I'm like, I have to be better than them at every stage, so that my client or the prospective client has a level of trust. So that's why education is one and then you know, I mentioned like, personal branding; but really understanding not only my industry, but how I come across and working on that, and that's continuous progress. I don't feel like it's ever going to end. You know, I'm doing things even now like really looking at my wardrobe and saying, “Okay, well, what does that tell my prospective client?” Blue jeans kind of hurt them, and I don't want to give that up. But I'm like, “Okay, what do I need to do on the upper half to sort of balance that out?” You know, so those sorts of things – just making sure that I'm always kind of paying attention to what the latest is and being looked at in a way that I want to be looked at.

The Importance of Personal Branding

Now, you talked a little bit about personal branding. Let's talk about why personal branding is so important to you.

The land advisors organization is across the United States. There's 26 offices across the US and I am over the office on the west coast of Florida. For me, they do a lot of my marketing and a part of their corporate brand which is critically important for my pick that up, because I have a business background and a public relations background. I recognize that my personal brand is equally important with that connection with my client, if not more important; and now more than ever, you know, once the pandemic hit in 2020, I feel like people got to see people on a much more personal level. And I don't see that ever changing, I think that that is going to be the way of the future. 

People want to know, what does the inside of your house look like? And what is your life like? Because it helps us all have this, like human element and connection that I feel a little bit like social media has kind of pulled away from us as a society. Now I think people are like really leaning in and saying like, “Oh my God, I didn't know Sally had three kids under seven? How awesome is she that she's able to do all these other things?” So I think you know, not that personal branding is leaving into motherhood. But for females, I think it is saying, “What do I want to be known for? What am I willing to share with my clients? And then how do I package that up in a way that's a meaningful, authentic message?” 

For me, it was about recognizing that when I'm not in the room, people have an impression of me. When I'm not in the room, they may say things that I can't control. But if I can be proactive, and get ahead of what it is that they will say when I'm not there, then that's a personal brand. You know, what is it that my client or an associate or someone else will say, when I can't correct them is so important. And we have the ability to sort of not really manipulate when heavily influenced, right? It gives us a relation, but I want to make sure that I drive home the value or the statement of it's not about being somebody who you aren't, it's about being authentically the person you are and sharing that with your clients. For me, I did a huge branding exercise over the last year and my primary goal was to get my clients to learn who I am on a personal level as fast as possible. Because then they feel like they're connected to me on a trust level as a friend first. That's really important. And I'm definitely seeing the difference in my business model.

Yeah, it's creating that trust factor. You know, yes, people buy from organizations and there's a product associated, but really, people buy from people. And in order to create that relationship, people want to know you, they want to like you, and you have to earn their trust. And in order to do that, it's not only how you show up and interact with people in person, it's how you make them feel when you leave the room, and then how they get to know you. 

Maximizing Tools to Promote Personal Branding

And I agree with you leaning into this opportunity with social media. I know that one of the biggest struggles I had when I was a manager at a fortune 500 company was I covered five states. And I got to see, you know, I had a team that was supporting customers, but my top customers I was able to see, once-twice a year. But my customers still wanted to feel connected with me. And so it wasn't until I leaned into social media and said, “Okay, I'm going to connect with my customers on social media. I'm going to give them the opportunity to not only know me when we interact together in person, but also what my life is like outside of that. And it was interesting – from doing nothing to moving forward. I would arrive at a meeting and my customers would go, “Oh my gosh, your kids are so cute and we're all so grateful. You're here today, we know how much you travel. Thank you so much for visiting us.” It created a deeper connection with my customers. Even the only thing that changed was just leaning into social media and just giving them an opportunity to get to know me more.

Yeah, absolutely. Until 2020 I have kept my LinkedIn as my professional profile. It's super polished, right? Like all the reasons why you need to know me and my profession. And my Facebook was all my personal stuff. And I was raised to know not to put your garbage out there, right? Like my parents even then, like the 70s and 80s were like, “Listen, don't put your garbage out for the public. It's hard to recover from that.” So I've always been like this, “Okay, am I gonna post this? How might this come back in a negative way? And if I even had an ounce of this might not go over? Well, I don't post it right?” Even on my personal Facebook; but for me, I'm not being real. It's just that I have another layer of is this going to serve me later? You know, asking that little question and I teach my kids but you all know, that doesn't always work with it when COVID had. I was like, I gotta figure out a way to marry these two things, right? Like, where am I going to marry this because I don't want to go all personal on LinkedIn, that would be weird. And I don't think that my Facebook people, friends, and family really want to see all my corporate stuff. So I decided that I was going to use my Instagram as the place where I would highlight both, because I wasn't super active on Instagram. And I thought, you know what, that's where I'm going to do it. And I won't be heavy in either direction. But I'm going to do both, because Instagram has really taken off. So I don't do anything like, “hire me to sell your land” on my Instagram. But I promoted in those other places, like the big wind, my big billboards, pushing out everywhere, right? But on my Instagram, I'm promoting more of my outbound marketing with my clientele. Because I'm finding that normal people are out there in that space.

And even when I was like talking, interviewing my clients when I was working all of this, and I was like, “Hey, where do you spend time on social media?” And a number of my clients were like, “I'm 60. I'm not on social media.” And I'm like, “Like, not at all?” And they would say, “No, but my children are always on.” And then it dawned on me like, “Okay, you know what their adult children are going to be influencing them, they do influence them.” I go to Google immediately when I'm talking to anyone to like, check them out. Who am I talking to? Where are they coming from? And I would say that most professionals are doing that, I believe that they are. So leaning into that social media, you can always create the narrative. What you want people to know is always 100% up to you. But knowing that you can't pretend to be somebody that you're not is important, because it's going to be exhausting to try to always be somebody who you aren't.

Yeah, I and I agree with you so much when it comes to it's important to invest in your personal branding and creating the narrative when it comes to what you want people to know about you. But it's so equally important to also show up authentically. And there's ways that you can show up authentically and talk about your struggles, but also talk about how you overcame them, and what lessons you've learned because that's very inspiring – to give people the opportunity to hear some of the challenges you've overcome, what you've learned from them and what your successes are. And that's another way that you can show up authentically, while also making an impact and in creating that relationship with people.

Absolutely. I also want to say, you know, for me, creating my first personal brand was not only getting more active on like, all those social media places, but it was creating my own website that was independent of my Corporation's website that really honed in and talked about me. I talked a lot about my career achievements. But instead of it being like a one page bio or two page bio through my corporate program, it's multiple pages where I can say this is who I am and this is what I want for my clients. It's another place for people to go to say, “Is this someone I want to work with?” But knowing that a number of your audience may work for coal operations where they might not allow that potentially, I could say still invest in your own website, even if it's just one or two pages, that gives a snapshot of a really awesome headshot in like a few facts about yourself. Like that shouldn't be off limits. You know. 

And really, one, one thing that I really can't tell you enough is investing in awesome branding photography. Danielle, you have fantastic branding photography. I don't know who did it, but there's a woman who works on the west coast of Florida. Her studio, I think, is Daydream photography. She did all my photography a year ago and I still have images I've yet to use on social media. But it's made a huge difference for me, like people are like – I will go to different industry events or have meetings and people will be like – “Oh my god, I saw that picture of you in this color.” And it was so great. I'm like, people are watching. They're paying attention. So you know, for me, it's like set aside whatever money and if you can't, if you don't have the resources, find a friend who takes like the best pictures and be like, “Alright, I'm gonna buy you a drink. And we're gonna go to this venue, and you're gonna take pictures of me.” And edit that, like the editing tools that are available now are phenomenal, but invest in that. Like, if there's one thing that I can leave your audience with is get really good brand photography, not a headshot, not a $250 headshot, but a brand photography that really helps expose and share your personality.

Yeah, I agree with you 100%. Because definitely, I have a LinkedIn profile and the number one I see as an opportunity on a LinkedIn profile is to have a professional headshot, no doubt about that. And then also what's having branding; it's like lifestyle photos which are photos that show who you are, you know, it could be like you said, wearing jeans but maybe we wearing a blouse and a blazer or something along those lines where it's still professional, but it's a little bit more personality to it. 

But yes, even if you're working for a corporation and investing in your personal brand, it can open up opportunities for your career, it's not only beneficial when it comes to working with your clients and giving people the opportunity to get to know that like and trust factor. Also, it opens up the opportunities where if you're working for a corporation, you can either if you have a really solid brand, either other companies will recruit you, or, or you've got opportunities to accelerate within the organization because you've developed yourself as this really strong personal brand. And I always say people don't get promoted for doing their job. Well, people get promoted for the potential that others see in them. And if you create this strong brand, it can really accelerate your career.

Some Tips and Takeaways

So what's the one thing that you want to leave our audience with based off of your career journey? We've talked about personal branding. I also would like to just touch real quickly on some of the accolades that you've talked about, and why you share that with your clients, and why you share that on social media.

Yes, so I talked about awards. This past year, I won some pretty amazing awards and I've always been one person who's willing to raise my hand to be recognized in that way. But in my industry, there's an application process, if not necessarily in corporate awards. And so what I would say to your audiences, if there are Industry Associations that do recognition, or awards, or rising stars, or whatever, fill in the blank, or even if it's in your personal life, and it's maybe something philanthropic that you're doing. If there are awards in your local community, or a region. or state, or industry that you have the ability to either self-apply for someone else, like a boss, can make the application on your behalf, I would definitely say to do that. Because you never really know. And this may sound silly, you never know who you're going up against. We're all busy. We're all going 100 miles an hour. And sometimes you might only be up against two or three other people. And that award could be so substantial that if you are selected then it just helps propel you either in your company or in your business. I would say you know, take the time to fill those things in. Because you just never know and you never even really know that you might be named as a finalist. Being able to say, “Oh, I was, you know, recognized and won this award,” or I was recognized as a finalist for this award is equally as meaningful. And then, you know, tooting your own horn a little bit, like put the crap out on Instagram or put it on LinkedIn and just say like, think whatever organization it is, or your boss or whoever, like suggested you do this, thank them for acknowledging and recognizing the talent. And then when you see other peers, even another company that are doing this as well in their social media, congratulate them, and highlight them. But sometimes when it is my competitor, I'm like, I don't want to say that and go to my competitor. But that doesn't mean that I won't do it privately. You know, pick up the phone, or send a text and be like, “Hey, super proud of you. You're making a difference.” But I would say, you know, look for those award opportunities, raise your hand for them, fill in the application. Take the time, that's a great use of an extra hour a week. Just raise your hand. Really invest in your education, invest in your personal brand, invest in really good photography, and raise your hand to be recognized. And then share that with your peers and your family and your friends and your professional network.

Yes, and to kind of highlight specifically a little bit in the industry that I come from, it's, you know, highlighting whether you've earned president's circle any year to date, attainments that you've had over 100%, if you've finished in the top 10%. Also, if you've been a part of any advisory boards, or you've been a part of any emerging leadership development programs – highlighting those successes is so beneficial to your career. And it's also good to take inventory and every kind of year reflect back at the successes that you've had. Because that in itself can give you a really good confidence boost.

Which is another thing. I'm glad you brought that up. Because you know, not everybody has great days. And I get that especially in sales like I'm a salesperson through and through like it is in my blood. It's in your blood, like it's just who I grew. I was that person when I was like five, right? But we have bad days, there are days when I wake up and I lose a deal that I put my heart and soul into, and it can knock us for a loop. This, oh, I woke up one day, I think it was this past fall, I think the timber and I'm like rotten , like a couple like 48 hours. And that negative voice was like yelling and I'm like, oh my god, like I gotta turn this off. And I shared that with someone that I trust. And I'm like, I can't I can't get out of my own head. And they said, Okay, well jot down your last five wins. What have you been like two years ago? What are your last five wins? What are the things that you're like, super proud of. And I jotted them down. And it was like an immediate change of state of mind. My confidence, like, came immediately back. I was like, Yeah, I did that. And I like to say, you know, no matter where we are in our life, we all have those little wins. Sometimes they're really big and sometimes or little. And that's okay. 

So I would say in addition to talking about like the major ones, I think it's okay to go on LinkedIn or your stories, whether it's verbally by video, or just posting about it, saying, “Hey, I've been chasing this account forever. And I finally got my first meeting.” Give yourself a pat on the back, or, you know, or you tell your peers, like don't give up or I finally landed that account. And I am like, so excited. It doesn't have to be this big award. Right? It can be something that you've been working on that you're like, Heck, yeah, I want the world to know about this. I put a lot of work into it. And showing that, you know, that it can be done and sharing that experience. For a long time. I thought, you know, people might think I'm braggadocious, right? Like, am I gonna want to be braggadocious. Now, I don't care anymore. I'm like, no, because that's what helps me get into other doors.

Yeah. And there's something to be said. I mean, I there's something you said about not only celebrating your successes, but also celebrating the successes of your customers. So, for example, I've had clients where, you know, they've been searching for a job for six months and then all of a sudden after 30 days of working with each other, they land the job of their dreams or they accept an offer at a higher pay or they've maxed out their compensation plan after working together. It's not really celebrating your successes, but also your customer successes and how you help them achieve it. It's such a rewarding experience.