linkedin.com/in/chantelsoumis

chantelsoumis.com

Russ Johns 0:32
Holy cow what is happening another piratebroadcast here on a Tuesday, who would have thought it? And Chantel is in the house today we're going to have a great time we're going to have a lot of fun, good conversation, talking to interesting people doing interesting things. And I love the opportunity to share some conversation with you. In the pirate broadcast. As you know, it's streaming live LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter as well. So if you can't catch us here, catch us there

Chantel Soumis 1:04
Woo Who!

Russ Johns 1:04
That's all i got to say that I'm trying to attempt to find us live here. So I can actually follow some of the content.

Chantel Soumis 1:13
Right? It takes a while does it?

Russ Johns 1:15
It does take a while. And if you get in there too soon, and you get in there too early, then you can't follow the comments, but Gabriel's here from Facebook.

Chantel Soumis 1:24
What's up Gabriel!!!!!!

Russ Johns 1:27
Yeah! Oh, yeah. There you go. Good morning, Russ Johns, the wonderful and talented. Chantel

Chantel Soumis 1:34
Oh, yeah! I'll take it Russ!! Thanks!

Russ Johns 1:38
There you go. There you go.

Chantel Soumis 1:39
How's life in Arizona?!

Russ Johns 1:41
Life in Arizona is I went out yesterday and I was so happy. I had to pick up. I went with my sister. We had to pick up some prescriptions for mom and dad because they were care. We're all here, hunkered down, and the weather the temperature in the weather was just perfect. And so just being outside in the sunshine and the and there's just that big that the temperature you feel and it's just like, Oh, this is perfect.

Chantel Soumis 2:10
Yeah.

Russ Johns 2:10
It's not too hot, not too cold. It's just awesome.

Chantel Soumis 2:15
Love it.

Russ Johns 2:16
We are doing well. And thank you for asking because, as we know, we're going through these things we're going through the process of identifying what the new next step is for us. Everyone watching the news at some point in time, I try to avoid that a little bit. Only because my life hasn't really been interrupted too much. I mean, I still got the client work I got I still got the piratebroadcast that I get to share.

Chantel Soumis 2:47
Oh yeah!

Russ Johns 2:49
I'm going to be doing some LinkedIn lives or live broadcasts, talking about how to work from home. How to zoom how to use video how to use some tools that make it a little easier. So I think I'll just start that just offer to the community and.

Chantel Soumis 3:09
oh, that's lovely. Absolutely. I think there's a lot of value there a lot of people who are confused.

Russ Johns 3:15
Yes, yes. So tell me get me cut up what is going on in your world?

Chantel Soumis 3:24
Wow, where to begin? Ah, life is bananas. I'm not slowing down at all I feel like the more time people have in front of a computer in front of their technology now more than ever is more demanding in terms of people working on brands and their websites and their personal brands and all of that jazz so things are definitely not slowing down for me. I got a little dude who's home from school originally last week for spring break and now he

Russ Johns 4:00
Extended?

Chantel Soumis 4:01
Extended. Yeah, for the rest of the year we're doing Elearning. So it's exciting because I get to like, put on my kindergarten hat and be a kindergartener again and figure out cool science experiments. I mean, we made a volcano out of a paper plate, painted it and made it all look super cool. And did the vinegar baking soda thing. So it's really fun. It's an opportunity to just be a kid I am. I'm excited.

Russ Johns 4:31
I think that's how people have to look at it as an opportunity. I get to do this rather than this.

Chantel Soumis 4:37
Yeah!

Russ Johns 4:38
Because a lot of times it's all in our mindset.

Chantel Soumis 4:43
Yeah!

Russ Johns 4:44
How we approach it. So what are the things that you found as a result of being home with your little one?

Chantel Soumis 4:50
Well, it's a lot of pressure to, right? because now I'm not just working from home. I'm momming and on conference call, so if I have a little dude come through here you know why we're still working out the kinks of understanding personal space, but that's okay.

Russ Johns 5:06
I really do appreciate you being here. And thank you so much for for taking time to do this.

Chantel Soumis 5:12
Sure! Absolutely, it's too much fun.

Russ Johns 5:13
It's so much fun. So, is branding. Were all to some degree branding in our lives, right? We're attempting to put our best foot forward, how to present that how to message that. There's different ways we can do that. What, and you've been on LinkedIn, I mean, you're a rock star on LinkedIn. So I would love to get some of your tips to share with the community here and maybe some of your best use cases of how we can brand and in the search, in the situation we're in right now. I mean, it's like how do we put that out there because it's evolving,

Chantel Soumis 5:57
Right?! Well, we're always evolving. That's just thing is that as humans, that's what we do in our career in our life. Everything is evolving. And it takes reflection and building in mastering that brand over time, especially with organizations as well, right? You think about culture and how culture evolves and how that is a big part of your brand. So there's so many moving elements there and being more taking this time that we have, and using it as the silver lining, right and having that attitude of gratitude, but really focusing in on who you are, and being more insightful and aware, that'll help you really perfect who you are and what makes you unique. And so you can highlight those elements in your brand, even though it's kind of buzzwordy right and it feels like magic when you include personal brand on your personality, but it really is a huge benefit, right. It helps you stand to out and be more unique and how people connect with you who you are not just your business and what you offer.

Russ Johns 7:08
Well, you know what I've discovered? I've done a number of pirate broadcasts now. And there seems to be a theme across all of the episodes. And really, it's about interesting people doing interesting things. And everybody that's on typically has their own personality. It seems the closer we are, or the more we work on being ourselves. It seems like that's what brings out our true gifts.

Chantel Soumis 7:42
Yeah.

Russ Johns 7:43
Just be yoursel and then people will recognize you for what you are.

Chantel Soumis 7:47
Right.

Russ Johns 7:47
When you're trying to someone else it doesn't last.

Chantel Soumis 7:52
Right.

Russ Johns 7:53
You're always trying to do something to fit in or to do something for someone else or to be someone else.

Chantel Soumis 7:59
Not only that, But people can see right through that people can read through the baloney, a lot better than we think they can. Right? I learned that as a kid, I used to love lying about the dumbest things. Chantel, did you take the last cookie that was supposed to be for daddy? No.

Russ Johns 8:16
NO!

Chantel Soumis 8:16
I dont know where that went! They can see right through that.

Russ Johns 8:23
Oh, man, it's crazy. And brands are the same way. Right now a lot of brands are challenged by what's happening around the world and some brands, do you see any brands that are really doing an amazing job at managing the communication and the outreach and some of the public? Oh, how do you want to describe it? managing their people and staff and things like that. You see anything?

Chantel Soumis 8:56
Yeah, there's so many people. I mean, look at what happened with South By Southwest right away on off the gamut there was Facebook taking control of things and big organizations that were really employee centered, which is a great brand to have, especially when you've been in turmoil like Facebook has been dealing with things for so long now. And then Boeing as well as a big, it's got a lot of damage control to do. And, like with this pandemic, and with everything going on in the world, I am not a solution or a problem dweller, I'm a solution thinker. So thinking about how much opportunity is out there for getting your business in line and taking advantage of this time to really pivot and be as strong as you possibly can is the ultimate goal. Right?

Russ Johns 9:45
Well, yeah, I mean, that's kind of been your story is get past it. Go through it. get around it. And keep going.

Chantel Soumis 9:54
Yeah, yeah. It's like are you ever really through it, right? Because it's always holding on to you no matter what. And it's a lesson learned, which is great. But it's important to really keep that eye on the prize and that attitude of gratitude and optimism because nobody wants to be around a Debbie Downer, right?

Russ Johns 10:17
No, no, no. And I think right now more than any other time in history, it's interesting to me because I've been doing video and I've been promoting video and sharing the pirate syndicate, and some of the things that allow people to get on video and do a show just like this. And it's really interesting to me because it was before this thing hit. And now it's really even compounded because all of a sudden you have a necessity that you're going to have to get comfortable with, video in a lot of cases to deal with communications And looking at empathy and really having a hard conversation at times. And it's different than it is if it were just on a phone. It's different than a text message. It's different than email.

Chantel Soumis 11:14
Yeah.

Russ Johns 11:14
I think the better that we adapt and respond and become resilient around this is, it's necessary for many people and the people that have realized that early and grow with it, I think will really take advantage of the technology and.

Chantel Soumis 11:36
Yeah!

Russ Johns 11:36
No worker.

Chantel Soumis 11:38
Oh, totally. And it's important for us to lean in right now. Right and being more conscious and maybe backing off and slowing down but leaning into the changes that are going to happen, not being so resistant on what's going on because, face it, everything evolves. Everything changes to me. is inevitable. So making sure that as humans as businesses, as family members and friends, we are there to be supportive, present and obviously know that we're all human. Darn it. It's humans who run the businesses. It's humans who are we're all humans behind the profiles behind the digital reputation. So it's easy to be stuck and hurt and slow, but it's okay. We're all human. Humans have failures or mistakes.

Russ Johns 12:30
We're all human. I love that. I'd really like you to kind of share your thoughts about this because this is universal. There's no geographic, demographic, any kind of boundary here and we're fighting against something that is universal. It is unique. It never happened in our lifetime and hopefully, it will never happen in The rest of our lifetime. We don't have a crystal ball. We don't know what, where it's gonna go. So I think that attitude of gratitude and reaching out and making connections and following up, I've had so many people ask me, Hey, how are your mom and dad doing? How are you guys doing? How are you holding up? And it's heartwarming, it really makes a difference. It makes it matter. I'm a kindness freak, I truly believe in kindness. It's like, that's who I am.

Chantel Soumis 13:29
Everybody should I mean, why not? Right.

Kindness is the gift that keeps on giving. I totally agree. We undervalue the power of the simple check ins and for the first few couple days last week, I was getting checked in on by a few people because as you know, I have a lot of health conditions and it was okay at first but I started to really feel it the last few days, like my treatments are going to be postpone, which means I'm more susceptible to relapse, and there's a lot Other cancer patients that are having their chemotherapy regimens held back because of the severity of having a low and in suppressed immune system. So it's challenging and those check ins really due last night, I just needed to vent and two people reached out and we just chatted and caught up. And it was nice because there isn't just there's that like guilt, right? That guilt of being a business owner and running a business and making sure that you're as productive as you possibly can be, as well as being a parent, right, and making sure that you're present for your children that are now completely thrown off guard. I mean, especially a kindergartener who just got used to being in school is now home all the time. And there's video games and there's guilt there and screen time and it's just really challenging. So yeah, please check in with your friends and your people and your colleagues and except people checking in on you too, and start that dialogue. It's important.

Russ Johns 13:32
Yeah!

It is important And maybe somebody that you haven't checked in for a while. And I'm in an area in Arizona where a lot of retirees are and where a lot of people don't have resources in. So I get a little concerned, I was thinking about this the other day in the grocery store. There's always people waiting for a cab or waiting for a ride or they're isolated. And I'm just thinking, we need to reach out to people, and hopefully, help each other out and do what we can to support each other. It's just, it's a time of reflection, it's a time of growth, it's a time of receiving help, and sharing our gifts. And I think that's really what it's all about. It's going to be even more so as we get through this because it may take a while.

Chantel Soumis 15:56
Yeah.

Russ Johns 15:57
It may take a while. So it's all about

Chantel Soumis 16:00
I know.

Russ Johns 16:02
So what else? What else are you working on? What are you excited about in terms of online, offline branding media

Chantel Soumis 16:13
Oh there are so many things. So what I volunteered to do this year is I volunteered to be a candidate for a woman of the year for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society because cancer so important to me in my life. And when you find a treatment for one thing, it usually coincides and spilled into another. However, with this going on, it's going to be ridiculously difficult to run campaigns. So my campaign is supposed to officially launch on Thursday and two days here, so I'm freaking out because I had half a dozen events, planned big events to bring in thousands of dollars. And now all of those are kissed goodbye and I am scared, and I don't feel comfortable asking for donations at this time. So I have to pivot. We're doing some other things. We're going to do a LinkedIn campaign hopefully would love to have you in the community here. Join us on Thursday. And it's really, what's that?

Russ Johns 17:21
Send us the links!

Chantel Soumis 17:22
Heck yeah I'll send you the links! We're doing a hashtag give back challenge and it's about how everybody gives back and what fills their cup, especially right now when we're all trying to give and be better people and help our neighbors out. It's a good way to highlight different associations, right. And the thing that stinks about all of this is that cancer doesn't sleep and cancer is not taking a break, and that's why I'm still rooted to this cause and I'm not giving up because it is important to keep those funds coming in. For supporting these families that are extremely affected by this, yes, yucky stuff going on in the world. So, ugh! Help!

Russ Johns 18:10
I guess this situation does prompt a bit of creativity right?

Chantel Soumis 18:15
Oh yeah!

Russ Johns 18:15
We have become very creative about how our outreach programs are going how we actually reach people and communicate with them on a regular basis. And I don't know about you, I know you do. You're doing Was it 20 tips for 2020?

Chantel Soumis 18:32
Yeah, still going strong on that!

Russ Johns 18:34
All right. Good for you. However, like LinkedIn live I feel like video has actually dropped off, it's the viewership and some of the things that have dropped off. And it's always awesome to see people in the room you know, it's like okay, we got Sherry Lolly here. We got Angie. Gabriel is always here it's like, awesome. Jeff young in the house.

Chantel Soumis 19:00
Rock on!

Russ Johns 19:01
Rock on. Laurie Knutson, Sherry Lolly all of these people that are in in a regular basis I'm just overwhelmed sometimes by the gravity

Chantel Soumis 19:12
Sherry's amazing! Sherry is such a supportive person.

Russ Johns 19:16
Yeah, yeah she's so supportive and it's just incredible to see how many.

Chantel Soumis 19:23
We need more Sherry's in the world.

Russ Johns 19:26
Yes!

Chantel Soumis 19:26
Come out of the woodwork!

Russ Johns 19:29
So the creativity side of, campaigns and how to outreach it's really hard to have a fundraiser without an event. So it's like okay. It could still happen it's like a massive Zoom Room.

Chantel Soumis 19:52
Right so I we're gonna start my birthday is this weekend and my son's birthday is this weekend. Yeah. Birthday and quarantine, I'm gonna whip together homemade cake and we'll see what happens whatever decorations I can throw up for Christmas cards and christmas decor will come up! But we are going to do like a virtual beer tasting, which will be interesting.

Russ Johns 20:17
OOOOHHH!

Chantel Soumis 20:17
And yeah,

Russ Johns 20:19
Sounds Awesome!

Chantel Soumis 20:19
That's all because I we picked a bunch of local breweries to support at this time, which would be cool. And if people make a donation of $50 Plus I hand deliver the beer to their doorsteps in Madison. Heck Yes!

Russ Johns 20:36
That's fantasic! That's fantasic!

Chantel Soumis 20:36
We're pivoting a little bit but for the most part this fundraising is gonna be a lot of personal asks, and it's gonna be taxing and time consuming. But the mission is there. There's a reason why I said yes, originally and when you see these little kids that are affected are it's just a parent's worst nightmare seeing your children struggle with their house. So That's why we're doing this.

Russ Johns 21:01
Yeah.

Chantel Soumis 21:03
Well do it!

Russ Johns 21:05
Applaud for you silent round of silent applause for Chantel.

Chantel Soumis 21:10
I love it.

Russ Johns 21:13
I love that! And I love the creativity that's going into it. And yes, it does take some additional effort. However, the effort isn't necessarily in the long term. Because obviously doing an event it takes a lot of efforts. Well there's a lot of energy that goes out into that, and then meeting and greeting and making sure that everything's there and the tables are set up and whatever it happens to be, there's a lot of energy that's going to go out regardless. Soif we can actually put it in perspective and make sure that we have that mindset, right.

Chantel Soumis 21:52
Yeah! Oh, it really is and having a good team to. I have a few volunteers here that are really on board with this and the mission and supporting the cause, and I couldn't be more thankful. So hey, if anybody watching this is interested and helping me out for this,

Russ Johns 22:11
we can click below or you can actually follow on LinkedIn and her website, you can actually reach out and get involved and engaged. And if you can actually offer a little bit of assistance, maybe a few connections, maybe some visibility in your network, there's always something we can do. It doesn't take a lot of time and it does help a lot of people. So, this is not necessarily the primary fundraiser However, she will pass that around and get some information

Chantel Soumis 22:47
I will reach out to you just FYI. You know, get a personal message from me in the next few weeks.

Russ Johns 22:53
Yeah. And be open to it because we all can assist in and support each other along this process.

Chantel Soumis 23:01
Yeah.

Russ Johns 23:03
gratitude and appreciation and kindness go such a long way.

Chantel Soumis 23:09
It does that good energy that's contagious, the best kind of contagious.

Russ Johns 23:14
So what's, so after the fundraiser and the rest of the, I mean, we're kind of in a strange area where we're gonna have to figure this out in the short term blasts.

Chantel Soumis 23:26
I know. So I'm the host of LinkedIn, local, Madison, Milwaukee and Chicago. So we had so many events planned and we had a pause all of them and might do some virtual ones who knows it would be cool to do. I have a friend who's doing a LinkedIn global so she's trying to get a big Zoom Room and getting people from everywhere. We'll see how that works. But having so many people in one zoom room trying to talk. Hey, give it a shot. Nothing's impossible.

Russ Johns 24:00
well maybe youll meet Eric from zoom to offer a couple of virtual rooms you know where you could actually go off and have conversations?

Chantel Soumis 24:06
Yeah, that'd be

Russ Johns 24:08
cool. You can do that side rooms and say okay, okay, you, you these four people go into this room and solve this problem, then come back and we're all coming in. You can

Chantel Soumis 24:19
think problem solving pretty nice. Yeah,

Russ Johns 24:23
well, yeah, we're all gonna have to work on solving problems, what's the biggest problem we have to solve is staying connected with our community number one,

Chantel Soumis 24:32
yeah.

Russ Johns 24:32
and then and then making sure that we maintain communication with our, you know, our clients and our our friends and family and everybody around it.

Chantel Soumis 24:43
Absolutely

Russ Johns 24:43
So we have to get used to using video we have to use to be being on camera and maybe jumping on a zoom session instead of a phone call. And, you know, everybody has FaceTime. You know, there's lots of different ways we can communicate through here. Right. It's just make it almost gamification is the way I look at it, you know, make it fun. You know, it's I think it's, you know, if I'm talking to my kids or if I'm talking to my, my parents or if I'm talking to family members across the country, we live in a different time that we're gonna have to adapt

Chantel Soumis 25:21
Absolutely. I know making a fun is what it's all about. I mean, what's life if you can't enjoy it? right?

Russ Johns 25:27
yeah Exactly. Exactly. I'm all about that. Yeah, let's go out and enjoy the world. Well, so as we wrap up here, and I know you have you have a student in place today.

Chantel Soumis 25:43
Yeah, watching unikitty on the television. Great.

Russ Johns 25:48
Nice. So as we wrap up here, I know we've talked about, you know, circumstances positive outcomes, you know, attitude is gratitude. What would you like to leave with everybody today as we get any big thoughts, big ideas?

Chantel Soumis 26:13
Yeah, definitely reinforcing the fact that people should be checking in, we should be nurturing all of our relationships at this time and making new relationships, I mean, take this opportunity to use the incredible platforms that we have access to including LinkedIn, because there are so many incredible people out there that have more time and they are more active and you will see that they're engaging on content and your feeds going to be shifting and changing which was exciting to so connect with those people that you see commenting on posts, because they're there, and they're active and they could be new best friends. You never know how one conversation will change your life. Right.

Russ Johns 26:50
Absolutely!

Chantel Soumis 26:51
And also, in terms of, I feel like I'm not doing my part and doing my due diligence and building awareness. for inclusion and accessibility, I don't talk about people with chronic illness and how susceptible they are right now to these really contagious illnesses, right, including flu season and run a virus. So making sure that we're all doing our part we're staying home if we can stay home doing my public service, right, but also understanding that we're all differently abled and a lot of chronic illness and autoimmune disease goes undiagnosed for so long, so we could be affected and not even know it yet. Anyways, that's my soapbox. Okay.

Russ Johns 27:39
Stay safe and sane. That's all I got to say. Stay safe and sane. So We got some we got some more comments here. Learning to be more fluid Wendy. Ever changing that changing again.

Chantel Soumis 27:55
It is

Russ Johns 27:57
Jill Sullivan. Hi, Russ, Thank you so much for being here, Jill. Then we got Let's see who else is in the house before we get. Oh, Angie's here. Good morning pirate broadcast. Yes. And Gabriel, love this.

Chantel Soumis 28:17
Gabriel

Russ Johns 28:18
Gabriel is going to be a pirate here. He's coming off. He's like he's on top and not tapping into this thing. So it's really important for us to to really stick together and support each other in this whole process. So yeah, I don't know. I just love it. CHANTELLE, thank you so much for being here. And like I said, look for some live stream videos I'm going to be putting out for just helping answer questions, going on zoom and I'll put it out in live I'll probably do it in stream yard here and go live and share some, tips and strategies you can use to stay connected. Some platforms you can use and answer some questions for using video to stay to maintain outreach.

Chantel Soumis 29:08
I can't wait I have so many people who need your help including my parents that do not know how to operate a zoom call HELP!!

Russ Johns 29:16
Well it's getting easier than it used to be. I mean go it was it was even more of a challenge in and now I just upgraded my internet. My internet was down yesterday it was no I lost my internet and I so went and purchased a new router and a new cable modem and then there was an outage so I couldn't get back on. Oh no.

Chantel Soumis 29:44
Right No, no everything is slowing down even like Xbox consoles are like stop. We have too many people.

Russ Johns 29:51
Yeah. So everybody have a little patience,

Chantel Soumis 29:56
patience. We will be tested at this time for patience

Russ Johns 30:01
This is a test for the next 30 days, we're gonna get to conducting a test

Chantel Soumis 30:05
We are going to come out so patient. So patients and kind, we got those guys.

Russ Johns 30:12
It's awesome. It's awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. I look forward to your messages in offering support and initiating whatever I can do to help out. And I always say never you're a pirate, you're part of the pirate community.

Chantel Soumis 30:33
Grrrr

Russ Johns 30:34
Group join. You can find us on Facebook or there's a group of us on Facebook. So the pirate group, podcast and then we'll get it out there and have fun. And as you know, kindnesses cool. smiles are free and you enjoy the day.

Chantel Soumis 30:58
Deal. Thanks Russ

Russ Johns 31:00
Take care



Historically, pirate broadcasting is a term used for any type of broadcasting without a broadcast license. With the internet, creating your own way of connecting has evolved.  

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