Noob School - Episode 21: Kamber Parker

Episode Date: October 29, 2021

Kamber runs the YoPro Know, an AWESOME network for young professionals in any industry. As a young professional herself, Kamber really understands the pain points and opportunities that many like her are faced with, and she helps make those decisions easier with tons of great resources. Although this episode doesn't feature a Datastream alum, Kamber's insights are excellent for younger folks about to jump into the workforce. Follow John on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/johnsterling_ Facebook: facebook.com/johnsterlingsales Twitter: twitter.com/johnsterling_ TikTok: tiktok.com/@johnsterling_

Hey, welcome back to Noob School. Today, I've got a new friend, Camber Parker. She has a company called Yopro No, Yopro No, with the K, that helps young professionals succeed in the workplace. She herself is a good example of someone who went to college, majored in something that was interesting to her, and now she's actually doing it with her business. So, Camber, I can't tell you how thankful I am that you. you're here with us. Thanks for having me, John.

Yeah, great. So tell us, back up a little bit since I don't know you for 30 years like many of our guests. In fact, you're not even 30. I can't say that I am. You're not even 30. So where are you from? I'm from Baltimore, Maryland originally. Baltimore.

Yep. And I came down south to go to Furman University. And decided to stay. I decided to stay. I loved it so much. Well, that's good. It's good for us. That's good for us.

That's excellent. And tell us, you know, you've got. this company at a young age, yo pro, no. Tell us a little bit about it and why you decided to start this thing, you know, so early in your career. Yeah, great question. So I started this business because of a first career experience that did not go as I had originally planned. Okay. Much like many of us. I mean, think back to your first job. Think back to if any of, anyone in the audience is listening to this, ask them to think about their first jobs because I guarantee they probably weren't exactly like they expected either.

So knowing that, I had this first year out of college, and it was a pretty miserable year, to be honest. It was great in retrospect because it brought me to this, and it brought me so many great things in relationships. But I realized that there were so many job opportunities out there that I missed just by thinking that I had to climb the corporate ladder right away. And so that first year of, you know, being at a Fortune 250 company really wasn't the right fit for me. And so I started interviewing people. I took that communications degree from Furman and put it to good use and started a blog. So the Oprah really started as a blog and has blossomed since then once I realized there were a lot of overlapping themes between young professionals from across the country. So when she says she started a blog, started the interviews, don't you have like 400?

podcast so far? I do. I have a combination. I've interviewed about 400 young professionals from across the country in various stages of life, regions, and industries. So I have a really large pool of people to talk to all between 21 and 39 years old. Okay. And give us some overarching themes that you hear over and over again from those people. That is the million dollar question. And something that I am really excited now that I have so much data to share, one of the number one reasons that young professionals stay at a company is because of the communication from the companies. Communication is key. That is the number one reason people stay. It's also the number one reason they leave when expectations are not clear.

Another thing to look at is this generation, right? the young professional workforce is made up of both millennials and these new Gen Ziers coming into the play. And so we really care about social issues. If your company is not focusing on philanthropic efforts or taking time for, you know, a mental health day every now and then, those things really matter to us. And that's an overlapping theme that I've heard. Interesting. Interesting. Wow. Okay. So how do you measure success for Yopro No right now? Is it like subscribers?

Yes. So we have several platforms right now, one of which is our newsletter. So subscribers is absolutely a way that we measure success. Another thing that's kind of important to mention here is that we really do cater to a lot of different demographics. So our LinkedIn network is a lot of what I like to call experienced professionals. So we've got our experienced pros. And the experienced professionals are over that young professional age. And they really do, they are attracted to our LinkedIn profile.

Whereas you might find the younger college students on our Instagram. You might see some young professionals in their 20s on that platform. And then we have a really large mix on our YouTube channel and our podcast platform. And that's really where we start to see our measures growing. So what about TikTok? TikTok. TikTok is one that I am trying to branch into in addition to reels on Instagram. I mean,

that is a huge way to gain business right now. And I think a lot of sales professionals should start using it if they're not. But I can't say I'm the expert there yet. I'm not either. I'm on it, though. You can, I'm on there. I'm there.

I'm there. But it's, I haven't gotten, you know, I haven't gotten any messages back. Okay. I think maybe. You're still out there.

Yeah. Maybe they see it. They might go in through LinkedIn or something, but yeah, who knows. Who knows? It's crazy. So let's talk about your Colby scores. One of the things I talk about with anyone who's been tested on Colby, 6753. So what did the Colby write up or the video tell you about these scores and how's it helping you?

So the first thing really is about my planning, my level of thoroughness when I plan. and the process in which I do that. And when I read that, I first thought, wow, this is definitely in the right direction. And I know when I was answering those questions so long ago when I took it, it really struck me as being very direct. Because that is why I've been able to do this business and to move forward. Okay. Okay. So you're planning, your planning process.

So tell me about that planning process. How do you normally do? So I am a huge planner from six months to a year out. And one thing, and you might need to diagnose this a little bit, but part of, you're the Colby expert, but part of my planning process really does include a lot of communication. There's that word again. Communicating with people that have helped me along the way. I do like to test things out and I'm not afraid to do that. I've grown much more comfortable doing that.

but unless I have a plan in place, I don't normally do it. So even if I, it's as simple as saying, all right, in two months I'm going to test this out, it has really driven success for me, I think. But I'm also, you tie it in with the fact that I'm not uncomfortable trying and testing things out. That's why I've gotten where I've gotten, I think. Yeah. Well, this is a very common score, not common, but common score to entrepreneurs, you know, where you're very balanced between fact finder follow through and quick start.

And the high follow through is pretty good. I'm sure you get, you probably always got your term papers turn in on time. I did. You can see right through me, but I did find that part to be interesting as well because that is something that many people, when they do, when they compliment me,

they tell me your follow through or your follow up is, is what we admire about you. And so, you know, that's something that I think comes with time. and I once was told, maybe a few times have been told that I am persistent, very pleasantly persistent. And I don't know if there's any correlation there, but I like to think that I am. Well, yeah. I mean, I think the correlation, one correlation, certainly you're strong. You're not afraid to follow up.

But the fact that you're good and follow through means, like a lot of us think, I wish I would stay in touch with Camber, you know, and that would be nice. But people don't do it. And many people just like, oh, gosh, just I wish I'd stay in touch with Frank. You know, I hadn't talked to Frank in four years. You just literally put it on your CRM or whatever you use. And you do it. Right.

Twice a year, four times a year, every month, whatever it is. And, you know, anyway. I do feel like that is me in a nutshell. What do you use to keep track of that kind of thing? So you're going to laugh. But I'm a paper planner person. Really? And I do a combination of.

the paper planner and if it's a year out and it's not physically available in my planner, I have an ongoing reminder that if it's more than a year out, I just put it in. And that's how I keep up with people. I do follow through. And I think those two tools might sound a little antiquated, but I like checking things off. That is, you know, it feels good, doesn't it? It does. It feels good. And that's normally how I get that done. Well, that's cool. If it works for you, I'll keep doing it. That's good. So what are some of the things that you, like some of the things that you'd recommend people coming out of school don't do? Some of the things you've noticed are mistakes or things they should avoid.

Yeah. I would say the first thing, and this is something that I know from experience, but also from the hundreds of people I've interviewed, that it's okay to not love your first job. I think we get into our first job and we immediately are. almost, I think we're groomed to think that it has to be a success or we're a failure. And I think that was my downfall in that first job. So one of the reasons I did start the O pro no was to let people know that, including college seniors and even earlier on. So I think that's the first thing.

The second thing is we get very over-eager in that first job or even in your second job and you're early on. And we get so excited by the fact that we're very over-eager. we're busy that we forget how to be productive. And I see that with a lot of people that I work with, a lot of people I talk to throughout this network. And it's okay to have blocks in your day where you're free. And even though, again, we are groomed just through society

and in college, we're groomed to think that you have to always be doing something and always be on the move, on the go. We're just so custom to saying, oh, I'm busy, I can't do this. But if you actually pause, and really learn to reflect in that first year out of school. And if you're doing it beforehand, great,

then I think you're going to be much more set up for success than you're going to stand out in the workplace. Whereas we always think that the way you're going to stand out is by being busy. That's not the case. Yeah, yeah. I agree with you. I think that the, you know, so many people working remote now versus before

that managers and owners like yourself have to kind of trust just in doing, doing results. Like, I really can't even watch them or even get a sense for how busy they are or how frazzled they look or what time their car was in the parking lot. Right. It's like, what did we check off the list today?

And I like that. I used to be one of those people watching the parking lot. It's crazy. Right. And there's, yeah, it's, we could probably have a whole podcast just about that. I read, I listen to,

I've listened to a few podcasts lately, you know, about that very thing where, you know, one person is saying they have every minute of every day track, like in Google docs or whatever it is. So family time, sleep time, exercise, work, you know, all this stuff. And then another one is saying going for blank slate, right? Where we just kind of, every day we wake up and we decide, you know, what we're going to work.

It's like, who knows, I don't know. Right. It's, again, there's like a science behind it. Yeah. But going back to that original question, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you're going back to that original question, you know, what do young professionals in their early stages of their career do? It's not that. It's not figuring out the rhythm right away. And you're not supposed to get it perfect right away. But if you can actually absorb this information and this advice

now, think of where you'll be so much earlier than your peers. Yeah. Yeah. I would say, if I was talking to all of them right now, I'd say, listen, your first year is not the Super Bowl. Super Bowl's coming up down the way. Just play. Don't get injured. You know, just do a good job. Right. But it's not Super Bowl.

Right. It's not. You're so right. Okay. Camber, what is your favorite word? My favorite word is connect. Connect. Yes.

I thought you were going to say communication. I thought it would be too easy. Connect. It's good. You're good at that. I try to be. And that is something that really brings me the most energy in life. If you actually look on my LinkedIn profile, that is something that you'll see three or four times in that section where, you know, you're talking all about me.

And it brings me the most energy. And I've been very fortunate to have really wonderful mentors along the way, particularly in the last two years, that I've really ramped up my business. and so many wise people have told me that if you don't love what you're doing and it's not bringing you energy, then why are you doing it? And it's the reason I've made a lot of pivots in my business thus far. So connecting is one of those things. And if you look at my entire platform, it's all about connection. It's all about networking. And every interview that I've ever done, each person connects me to the next interview. So at the end of the day, I'm really trying to work on getting one of my

in turns to do a graphic for this soon, but I want to have this big web and see how many of the 400 people that I've interviewed, how they connect in that huge web. And I think that would be pretty cool. It is pretty cool. With that many people, you can, you can get anything you want. I mean, you can meet anybody probably. Well, that's pretty cool. So let's do a little promotional time. I want to just hear kind of your talk about Yopro, know, why people should subscribe. what benefit they'll get, what's available, stuff like that. Yeah. So right now, all of our platforms, like I mentioned earlier, are available.

And we have various information that goes out on those weekly. So we always have our two yo pros of the week. And the best way to get those right away is by subscribing to our newsletter. So that's our blog that comes out every Friday. We normally will share some kind of yo pro tip of the week. And then we also offer, that's completely free. And then we also offer our professional development opportunities. So those are our memberships that are really catered towards the young professional that's

looking to stand out in the workplace. And then last but not least, we do offer consulting with companies. And that's really helping, you know, I mentioned, you mentioned this earlier, that we're here to help young professionals succeed in the workplace. We do that through the professional development opportunities, those memberships, our stories, our interviews and blogs. but we also do that by helping businesses better engage with young professionals. Because at the end of the day, that helps young professionals succeed.

So a business would hire you or your pro know to come in and coach them like a month, on a monthly basis. Let's look for this. This is how we communicate better. Exactly. That kind of thing. Yes. And again, based on the data that I have obtained through these hundreds of interviews and just more than just that, you know, the extremely, extremely wonderful network that I have. created over the last three years. Okay. Well, Camberra's been remarkable. I thought it would be

good. So thank you so much for being here today and proud of what you're doing. Thank you. Right here in Greenville. And hopefully we can continue to collaborate and I can be in your network and we can help each other. Absolutely. Thank you again for having me. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, is John here? Thanks for listening today. Please check out moob school. That's my website. That's where we have other videos and content that can help you get started in sales.