How to Get What You Want
Your career isn’t built by waiting for someone to notice your value. It’s built by learning how to advocate for yourself with confidence.
You’ve been told your work will speak for itself. Yet despite doing everything asked of you—and more—you’re still feeling overlooked and uncertain about your next step. Leadership isn’t just about managing a team; it’s navigating the complexities of internal relationships and consistently advocating for your growth.
On Get What You Want, Susie Tomenchok is your silent partner, empowering you with the mindset and tools to negotiate your career—and life—with intention.
Unlike podcasts that focus on climbing the ladder or hustle culture, this show is for women who want to own their careers authentically. You’ll learn practical strategies for everyday negotiations, from asking for what you deserve to confidently handling tough conversations. Because negotiation isn’t just for raises or promotions—it’s how you navigate every opportunity in your career and beyond.
Susie is a negotiation expert who understands the challenges of being in a male-dominated industry and the struggles women face when advocating for themselves. She’s helped countless professionals unlock their potential and will show you how to do the same.
If you’re ready to stop waiting for your career to happen to you and start creating the opportunities you want, hit follow and join Susie each week to build your confidence, advocate for yourself, and finally Get What You Want.
How to Get What You Want
Amplifying your voice with Kelly Dillon
Do you ever feel like your voice is unheard in meetings or social settings because you're an introvert? This episode features a heart-to-heart with Kelly Dillon, a strategist at Remax, to explore the art of building influence as an introvert. Kelly generously shares her journey of cultivating meaningful relationships one-on-one and gaining confidence in larger groups. She dives into her personal strategies, like challenging herself to be the first to speak up in meetings and ensuring her voice commands attention when she does.
But it doesn't stop there. This episode also explores the pivotal role of mentors in boosting our confidence and aiding our growth. Kelly opens up about how her mentors have encouraged her to navigate difficult conversations and advocate for herself. We delve into the preparation needed for any negotiation, understanding the other party's needs, and beating those negotiation jitters. So, tune in, glean some wisdom, and learn to leverage your leadership, influence skills, and everyday negotiation.
Connect with Kelly:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyldillon/
_____________________
🚀 Ready to Get What You Want?
Listening is great, but real change happens when you take action. Join my newsletter for exclusive negotiation strategies, scripts, and real-world case studies you won’t hear on the podcast. Sign up now at www.negotiationlove.com—it takes 10 seconds and will change how you view and negotiate forever.
📖 Continue Your Professional Growth with These Resources:
Get my Book: The Art of Everyday Negotiation without Manipulation:
www.susietomenchok.com/the-art-of-everyday-negotiation
Work With Me: Speaking, corporate training, and executive coaching:
www.susietomenchok.com/services
_____________________
Remember, negotiation is more than a skill—it’s a mindset.
💕Susie
www.linkedin.com/in/susietomenchok
Welcome to the Leaders with Leverage Podcast. I'm your host and negotiation expert, suzy Tomonczuk. It's time to be your own advocate and negotiate for what you really want out of your career, not simply the next role or additional compensation. I want to show you that negotiation happens each and every day so that you opt in and say yes with confidence. Together with other business leaders, you'll learn the essential skills you, as a leader, needs to become that advocate in growing your professional skills, to increase confidence, gain respect and become the future leader you're poised to be, and when you face a high-stakes situation, you're ready, no matter how high those stakes are. So let's do this. Let's lead with leverage. Hey, welcome to Leaders with Leverage. I'm your host, suzy Tomonczuk, and I'm so happy you're here, and I especially love it when I'm not alone for a solo episode and I have my friend, kelly Dillon. Hi Kelly, hi Suzy. I'm so excited you're here for so many reasons.
Speaker 1:Kelly and I used to work together at a consulting firm. I've done some coaching for her. She's been my strategist. We've known each other for a long time and have a lot of deep respect for Kelly. In fact, I joke a lot when I you know they always say, as an entrepreneur, when you're talking to people just in the ether or you're writing something, you should write it to a persona or somebody that you know, and I always write to Kelly. So if you see me write Kelly, this is Kelly. So tell us Kelly, tell us about yourself. What do you do at Remax? You're an executive, so tell us a little bit about what your job is.
Speaker 2:Yep, so one I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me Suzy. At Remax, I lead the teams that oversee strategic planning for our holdings company. I also oversee the team that executes our strategy. So any of the huge big initiatives that we do whether it's M&A, global expansion, big technology initiatives my team leads those. So I work with a really awesome team, and then I get to do a lot of other side projects too, whether they're having a new CEO, come on thinking about the transition for that Any of the big things that are happening with our company I get to be a part of.
Speaker 1:I feel like when I think of you, I think of a big thinker, like a strategic thinker. If you were going to describe to me your superpower and how your mind works, tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:That's funny to ask because one of the clients I worked with in consulting told me that I think from one to 10, and that he was like I was expecting like three, so maybe build the blocks up there, and it was great feedback. But I am a big thinker. I think about long term three to five years. What are we going to do in big, bold, risky visions for companies or people? And I've learned to build small steps to get there. So that has been a work in process for me and something that I've enjoyed learning to do.
Speaker 1:And I'm just going to call this out because, as you were talking, I was thinking about I'm obviously an extrovert and I know that you're an introvert and we're really different in terms of how we express ourselves, and so it'll be a really interesting conversation around influence, because I feel like to me I built my influence when I was in my corporate role in a way had to do with my personality and bringing people together, and that was definitely a lever point that I utilized a lot. That came really easy for me, and I wanted to call that out because I think when I work with different executives that are introverts, it's something that might need to be a little bit more out of your normal comfort. So what do you think when I say that?
Speaker 2:Completely agree, and it was. The idea of being influential was not something I solved myself earlier on in my career, but to your point. I learned how to be influential through building relationships one on one, because that's how I think introverts build relationships is like deep relationships one on one, and then when you're in a big group of people, you have the relationships, you have the confidence to act as an introvert or extrovert when you aren't truly one, and that's not how you show up initially.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think. Another thing, too, I think about how we really got to build our trust with one another is it's okay to ask somebody that that is different than you Like. If you do find somebody that's an extrovert, first of all, they're going to love to talk about themselves and you say, like what are some of the things that you see in me that you think that I could amplify? That would give me more of a presence in a room, because that's one thing that does build influence, don't you think?
Speaker 2:I agreed, yeah, and it's finding your sweet spot in the room to where you can make a big impact and be comfortable and confident in that is where I've also learned to play. So, instead of being like I'm going to talk about all this stuff, it's I know this space and topic really well and I'm comfortable being in that spot. So, susie, you always say that I am not the first to speak, and you've challenged me to do that, and I have challenged myself to do that too. But I also know that when I speak, people listen because it's about a topic that I'm going to say something that's important about, and that's how I've also built my influence skills too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just want to take a moment to say, if you're listening to this and you see somebody around the table, that's your peer, that you see that they could do something different. Like if you're on camera with them and they're not looking at the camera, or they're in a meeting with them and they they have great ideas, but they wait till after to tell you. Or they're leaning back, like if there's little tweaks. Have confidence to say something to them and invest in them, because I think it's worth it and they'll appreciate it.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 1:All right. So when I talk about influence, influence is important because it's when people have influence, they have a voice and it's important for them and it's important for their team. When you have influence within an organization, it's kind of like chips in a craps game, is the way I like to say. It is, the more influence you have, the more you can make a selection on how to play, and of course, that can go in both positive and negative ways. But today we're going to talk about the positive way of building your influence, and so the five ways, and so, Kelly, I'm going to go through these really quick and then I want you to give us some stories or some some context or reaction to these. Number one is going above and beyond in your role, and what I mean is, especially if it's somebody that you don't work with on a regular basis, if they ask you to do something, think about what else they need, or think about how you can over deliver on that. So you can be memorable, like, get people to know that you do go above and beyond, always do what you say you're going to do, and if you're not able to, for whatever reason, make sure you circle back and let the person know why. That builds trust. That builds honor.
Speaker 1:The third one is advocating for yourself and others. When you have influence that allows you to have that voice to not advocating. To me is is putting something forward that you want to do, but it's also being able to raise your hand and say let's not do it that way or that's not okay. Investing in others that builds influence, even if it's not in that person. When people see that you invest in others and take that time, that builds your influence of from their perspective. And then building and nurturing relationships when you're proactive and reach out to people and even saying to somebody you did a great job in that meeting and this is why this is my takeaway A comment like that can go so far. So what do you think, kelly? What? What are some of the things that come to mind when I when I mentioned those five?
Speaker 2:The first two, I thought of some examples of the above going above and beyond, outside of your role, and then being accountable. I think those two go hand in hand and some of the things that I've done that I have seen work and in terms of being influential, people asking for feedback stuff like that Is when I always ask people what are their top three priorities, what are your top focuses right now? What are things that are keeping you up at night? And then I always find a way to be helpful in that scenario.
Speaker 2:So today I had two conversations with two different executives who were working on two really difficult things and they said, hey, I'd love your feedback on this. And I thought about it and I was like, well, I have a lot of feedback on this. So instead of waiting for it, I put together a quick presentation on what I thought that they could use in different meetings and said, hey, I know you didn't ask for this, but feel free to leverage this, Because I knew it could take me five minutes to do and it would take them a lot of time to do. So I always try to go above and beyond and to be accountable. Say not only do I, am I going to give you feedback, but I'm going to give you a lot of my thoughts too. Take it or leave it, but I always try to be helpful and to anticipate the needs and to make other people's lives easier, whether that's below, across and up for me.
Speaker 1:Hey there, love this podcast. I'm taking 10 seconds out of this episode to ask you to leave an honest review. More reviews on the show help us to reach more professionals who are ready to lead with leverage. Now let's continue the conversation. How do you do that? How do you make that space to do that? How do you? Is that scheduled? Do you think before the meeting? What are the tactics that you use?
Speaker 2:One is I try to own my calendar. So previously it was like I was just in meetings all the time. I felt like I didn't get anything done and I wasn't adding true value. So now I really am very careful of my day and I say what are the things I need to accomplish today, what are the highest things, and I make space to do things like this so I don't have back to back meetings. I always have some kind of cushion in my calendar, whether it's 30 minutes to just either send slacks, like you said, like hey, great job in this meeting for whoever presented, Whether it's putting together a five minute presentation that I know will be super helpful. I always have time in my day for that. And then on Fridays, on my team implemented Focus Fridays. So we still have meetings on Fridays, but we don't have team meetings on Fridays. We don't have reoccurring meetings. We leave Fridays for like make the most of the day and try to focus on the things that you know are gonna make a difference.
Speaker 1:I love that Focus Friday and making that space to be proactive and even thinking about your influence. It's influence time.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Oh, that is so good. All right, so you said those were the kind of the first two advocating for others, investing in others, nurturing relationships. What do you do there?
Speaker 2:So advocating, I think it's a huge one and probably something I've learned more recently. I have. I love advocating for others. That's something that I've just always done. I care about my team more than anything, and everyone knows that that I work with. They know I'm gonna advocate for my team first, so advocating for myself has been something that is as natural for me. But I've learned a lot from Susie.
Speaker 2:But it is to say like, hey, I did these things. These are the impacts I made to the company and here's what I think I should get out of this and tell me when this is gonna happen. So that's something that I've learned to do consistently, and also knowing when the right time to do that is. So when it's not a good time in terms of, like budget cycle or the economy, I don't do it. Then I make sure that it's the right time, the conversations open. We are in a time that it could come up in the right conversation, so I make sure that it's also. I say the right things, but I try to wait for the right time as well.
Speaker 1:How have you gotten over that icky feeling, or how to do it, or making it more of a natural occurrence?
Speaker 2:I talk to a lot of people that are my mentors and tell them about the situation, get their advice and then I practice with them and I've been super lucky to have great mentors who've given me the space to do this, so I share what's going on, get their thoughts I get a lot of different thoughts put my thoughts together and I practice. So by the time that I have to do it it's no big deal and it's almost like intimidating about how not big of a deal it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny how, once you get comfortable with it and I think we all wait until the last minute and what happens is then it feels not comfortable and the longer you live with something, the more it's just kind of like this is not a big deal to do. It's amazing that shift.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And I think that's what happens as we wait until that moment, and we don't want to talk about it either, because who are we to ask for something above and beyond?
Speaker 2:Exactly. But if you're going above and beyond and doing above and beyond and you're confident in that, it's easy to advocate for what you want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so where do you find those mentors? Who are those people and how do you know they're your people?
Speaker 2:That's changed over the years. It used to be who I trusted the most, but what I found is I was my mentors were all the same and they're all the exact same person. They're all people who I loved and looked up to, but I knew I needed to get different perspective and people who challenged me, who were very different than me, who were intimidating to me. So I started asking people who I would have never asked before. Hey, like I look up to you, I appreciate, you know, I respect a lot of what you do. It's not how I would do it, but it's different perspective. So I've asked those people to be my mentors as well and it has been life changing for me, because the way that they do things is so different and it pushes me to do things different and to be more confident in how I do it.
Speaker 1:Can you tell us, like, what is the persona of one of those people and how intimidated were you? And because so many people are like, how did you ask? Or so tell us a little bit more about, like, how did you do it?
Speaker 2:So I was asked to be in a new role and I felt like it's taking on a bunch of new responsibility and I was uncomfortable asking for anything outside of what I already had. So I was talking to my mentor, who is a CEO of a entire region of our company, so he oversees a whole country and I told him about the situation and he didn't even hesitate to hesitate and said just ask for it. And I mean and he said and I was like well, is that how you've done in the past? He's like always. I immediately asked so you're going to ask me to do this? So I need this in return. And that is not how I was thinking about it. You know I overthink everything and was saying like, like, what if this happens? What if this happens? He goes. So what if that does happen? You know, the worst thing that's going to happen is they say no. So having people like that in my mentor circle has been super helpful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's such a great example because I also think that that shows you that other people are doing it around you and so it doesn't feel as foreign to the person that you're doing it to. It just may feel uncomfortable because you haven't done it Exactly, and why would you leave anything on the table? Yeah, all right, this was great. I think we may come back and talk about some other parts of influence, but I wanted to make sure to talk about this with you because I think you practice it really well. I know you're on LinkedIn. You don't mind if people reach out to you.
Speaker 2:Kelly Dylan not at all. I love reaching out to different people and I have had people reach out in the past and have loved to connect and hear their stories and perspectives and offer any advice that I have.
Speaker 1:Thank you, kelly. It's such a pleasure to have you here and your wisdom will be appreciated by many, I know. So thank you. Thanks, suzy, and thanks for joining us. This has been Leaders with Leverage. Feel free to reach out. I'm on LinkedIn as well. Ask me a question, tell me what you want me to talk about. I love getting your feedback. So thanks for joining us today and I appreciate you. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Leaders with Leverage.
Speaker 1:If you're ready to continue your professional growth, commit to accelerating your career development and say goodbye to that anxious feeling in your stomach anytime you need to advocate for yourself, then get my book the Art of Everyday Negotiation Without Manipulation. In this book, you'll learn the essential steps to take before entering into any negotiation or conversation, any interaction. In your day to day. You'll discover what the other party really needs and be clear about what you're going after. You'll bust through your fears and boost your confidence and embrace that negotiation truly happens all around us. Head to the link in the show notes for more, and you can even get a bonus if you buy it today.
