We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Michele Lando a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Michele thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

One of my favorite sayings is that you can’t Amazon Prime everything. Most things take time, and building a business is no different. I started by doing this on the side of my “day job” in recruiting for about a year and a half before I felt ready to take a leap of faith and work for myself full time. I slowly built up a client base until I felt comfortable that I had enough of a pipeline to support myself. There were a few different factors that went into this, but something that made a significant impact was consistency across channels, and ensuring that I consistently shared the same message whether someone found me through Yelp, through my website, through the professional association of resume writers, or through another platform.

As I continued to build my business, I focused on making a name for myself as an expert in the field. In addition to nurturing relationships with past clients to bring in repeat business and drive growth through word of mouth, I put a lot of content and free resources online both on my own website and through other platforms to help build credibility and get myself in front of various audiences and potential clients.

I wrote for several different platforms as their resume and/or career expert in addition to posting on my own website three times a week for almost six years. This also helped with SEO and searchability when potential customers were looking for professionals like me.

Sometimes I got paid for this content, but otherwise I used it as a way to market myself and build my brand. I wrote articles for platforms five to 10 years ago that are still getting traction. To this day, I have people trickle in saying that they found me on websites other than my own. While it was an investment of my time, I’ve seen a big ROI over the years.
Hard work, consistent communication, and excellence in service are the three main pillars of what helped me scale my business and my brand into what it is today.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m Michele Lando, a certified professional resume writer, LinkedIn optimization expert, and personal branding strategist enabling professionals to attract the right career opportunities based on their goals. I help people tell stories and communicate their accomplishments whether that’s through targeted resumes, LinkedIn profiles, personal branding, or content writing.

Coming from a background in personal styling and recruiting, I started Write Styles to help people present the best version of themselves both on paper and in-person by providing resume writing, career development, and personal branding resources that help build confidence. Over the last 10 years, I’ve supported over 1,000 individuals from entry level to C-suite within startups to Fortune 500 companies through their career transitions, pivots, growth, and rebranding.

Clients can work with me directly for one-on-one support, hire me for a group workshop, or find free resources on my website, writestylesonline.com, that can give insight on how to enhance your resume, LinkedIn profile, personal brand, and articulate your value to succeed in today’s job market. I specialize in helping people navigate uncertainty amidst career transitions, RIFs, and unexpected market shifts to identify the value in their abilities and assist with putting their best foot forward in their job search.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

Yes! I first started my career as a clothing stylist, and when I realized that retail wasn’t the right fit for me, I pivoted into recruiting. I had always helped people present the best version of themselves, whether that was through clothing or help with telling their story, and it was while I was working at the recruiting company that I realized how many people were struggling with this and would pay for a service to help them.

People were calling me asking for advice on what to wear to interviews, how to write their resume, and how to put their best selves forward in the jobs search, which is how the idea for Write Styles was born. From there, I learned that I could get certified as a professional resume writer, which is what I did in 2014. I wrote resumes for clients on the side from 2014 to 2016, and in 2016 it became clear that I was actually losing business by working my “day job”. I was missing out on clients because I couldn’t answer the phone when they called, which sparked me to test out working for myself full time. It was definitely scary, but at that time I had already built a pipeline that made me feel more comfortable with taking this risk. I figured that I could try it out, and if I needed to go back to a corporate job, I could.

There have absolutely been ups and downs over the years, but overall, hard work and consistency helped me build a client base that has stayed with me and helped me grow for over a decade.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

A hallmark of my business is the level of white-glove service I offer and my personal approach to this industry. In an industry that’s rapidly changing with the rise of AI, clients work with me to get a personalized experience, customized content that aligns with their goals, and continual support as they move forward. Working with me is not a one and done situation. Clients who work with me keep in touch, and often stay with me throughout their career journey.

Showing up for my clients and providing consistently excellent service based on each person’s needs has helped me solidify my position as an expert in the field. New and current clients alike know what they can expect from working with me, and many have gotten referrals from people who have seen real results after working with me.

Another thing that has helped strengthen my reputation is that I don’t promise perfection or make guarantees that aren’t real. There are plenty of career development professionals or online platforms who guarantee interviews or job offers. I never guarantee anything like that because there are too many factors that go into a job search that are out of my control.
Being real, telling clients the truth, and helping them present themselves in a way that makes them proud has helped me gain trust. I’m not here to tell you that you’ll get a job in a week when it’s a challenging market. I’m here to set your expectations and present yourself in a way that helps you attract the opportunities you’re aiming for.

Starting my career at Nordstrom taught me the importance of customer service, the impact it can have on business, and how to build trusted and lasting relationships with clients. This leads to referrals and repeat business which I cherish deeply.
Additionally, as I mentioned, I put a lot of content and free resources online both on my own website and through other platforms to help build credibility and get myself in front of various audiences and potential clients.

I feel really strongly that people should have access to resources that explain how to how to effectively write a resume and brand yourself for success. When someone wants to work with me, it’s not because I have a secret method. It’s because I’m taking something off their plate that they are struggling with, don’t have bandwidth to work on, or simply don’t want to do themselves.

I’m always game to be a guest on a podcast, teach a workshop, and have even been published in a book. Showcasing my expertise in a variety of different ways and on different platforms has helped me establish my position in the industry.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://writestylesonline.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/writestyles
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/michelelandoburns
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/michele-lando-professional-resume-writer-del-mar