Digisign MBA Recommendation Letter Made Easy

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[Music] welcome to the touch MBA admissions podcast do you need help figuring out which school to apply to or how to get into the world's top MBA program hey you're not alone join thousands of others on this podcast and on our site touch nba.com as they seek the admissions edge and now here's your host Darin Joe [Music] what's up guys it's Darren welcome to the touch NBA podcast I realize that we haven't done an episode on recommendations which is such an important part of the application so I wanted to get a great guest on the show we brought on Carolyn Dr Kate Edwards who is the former admissions director of INSEAD for seven years and who is now a director at Fortuna Admissions which is an admissions consultancy to talk about how these school admissions use recommendations and we talk about who you should think about approaching to write your recommendations and then we talk about we conclude the episode with how you can best prepare those recommenders so that you know you get these all-star recommendations and that's the big picture overview but we really go in deep so if you have any doubts about your recommendations and have some questions there I think you'll probably get your questions answered in this episode very detailed I hope you enjoy it a touch MBA we specialize in school selection help so for those of you who are still trying to figure out which schools would best fit your career goals and your academic interests go ahead over to touch nba.com we'd be happy to help you out there for free give you some free feedback on your profile and what you can do to strengthen your profile as well as assess your competitiveness at your target schools and also give you some recommendations of best fit business schools based on you know what criteria for school are most important to you I'd also like to take a moment to talk about our sponsor ever wish there was an easier more affordable way to get your MBA loans well now there is common bond is a leading student lender saving members up to $13,000 on MBA loans learn more at common bonds CEO slash touch em be a common bond lending LLC nmls number one one seven five nine zero zero so yeah let's just get straight to this conversation with with Carolyn it was quite open-ended and I often think those are the best podcast so enjoy this is actually our first episode on recommendations and I had to grab one of her most popular and knowledgeable guests get her back on the show to discuss this very important part of your application so I'd like to welcome back to the show Carolyn d'arte Edwards Carolyn thanks for joining us again thank you so much there I'm thrilled to be here so to structure our talk I thought we could first start big picture and talk about how you know admissions officers at top business schools view recommendations and why they include them in the application themselves and then move on to more tactical advice on how our listeners can secure the best recommendations possible and discuss who they should select and how they should prepare their recommenders so let's first start with just big picture right as someone who's seen tens of thousands of applications you know obviously you're the admissions director Vince yet now you're the director of Fortuna consulting how do admissions teams view recommendations and why are they important in the application process yes yeah it's a great question I mean schools are looking for a second opinion an adverse opinion on your candidacy okay so they want to hear from you what are your strengths what are your weaknesses what what do you you know what have you gained from your career so far where are you heading in the future but they also want to hear that from your recommenders and you know they're looking to get the perspective from someone who is senior to you and has therefore likely worked with other people at your level and you know can compare you to a peer group where you know they can comment on how your performance compares to other people at your level so you know they're really looking for that that perspective from someone who knows you very well who's worked with you on a day to day basis over period of time and can you know reflect and share some insights on you know what you've achieved so far in your career what they think makes you stand out versus other people that they've observed at your level and you know what they think you're capable of in the future and so the recommendation is a really critical part of building that picture you know schools are looking to put together an an holistic view of of your candidacy so there are many parts to that there's you know looking a professional track record through your resumes through what you have to say about that perhaps in your essays and the online forms they're looking at your academic track record they're looking at your extracurriculars they're looking at your career goals and they're using different data sources to put that picture together and one of those data sources is to look at the recommendation so you know it's an important part of building that puzzle and putting that picture together to understand overall who are you and what do you bring to the school now absolutely that's that's a great overview so let's let's move into who you should select so you know I think most schools would prefer to have your recommender at least one of them be a direct supervisor correct right yes so that's the ideal recommendation so first of all if schools have a strong preference for professional recommendations sometimes candidates I you know have a professor who they know very well from from undergrad days who would be happy to recommend them but the schools are really looking for professional recommendations even those notes cause obviously academic institutions they're not looking for academic recommendations so really focus on people who have observed you closely in your career to date as you said a supervisor is often they're often preferred or you know even directly requested by the school and and then beyond that you know someone who you know perhaps your previous superb someone who's worked with you he was in a senior position to you in in the last few years it's better to not go too far back so if you've been working for say six or seven years before you apply to business school I remember at INSEAD sometimes seeing applications from candidates where they didn't have a recommendation for anyone who'd worked with them from the last two or three years and that raises a red flag right you start to wonder why don't have someone who's willing to recommend them right it may be that they don't feel comfortable asking their current supervisor but you know surely there's somebody else in their organization who they've worked with over the last two or three years who would be beautiful recommended and so you start to wonder how well things are going and and if you know prax didn't have a fantastic relationship with a current employer and hence going back further in time so I would say you know people who works with you very recently and ideally occurrence supervisor and if you're in a client facing role if you're in consulting or a lot of service role where you're dealing on a daily basis with clients then you know that could also be a good option a current or recent client who has observed you closely in your work with over a period of time that sort of a great option it does the titles matter so the most important thing is that they know you very well all right they do need to be senior to you know sometimes can it's make a mistake of asking someone who's really more of a peer man then or someone who is sort of higher up in the hierarchy and it's much better schools don't give a lot of weight to peer recommendation doesn't have a lot of credibility so it does need to not be someone who's seen as new but it doesn't have to be a stupid senior so you know it's unlikely that your boss's boss's boss would know you very well and sometimes it can it's attempted to go for the most senior possible recommender and and that person may be happy to give you a recommendation but they might not have a lot of examples they might not be able to say missing very specific and then that that doesn't help you at all the schools are looking for details recommendation you know as missions direction sometimes I would see recommendations where you know it was just a few lines each question and it leaves you wondering does this person not want to say anything else because they haven't got anything else good to say and they're trying to try to find line between you know they want to complete the form but they they are not terribly enthusiastic and so they are holding back or do they just not understand what is expected and sometimes that's the case but it can be hard for the school to know so you know you can pull that the recommender is able to really go into detail and give some great illustrations of what you've done and what impact you've had yeah yeah so I'm just going to add a mean so although having said that some schools do give more weight to seniority so for example Harvard Business School does really take note of the seniority of the recommender and and so recommendation you know Harvard definitely gives more weight than INSEAD to how skinny your recommender is so that that's just something to keep in mind that there are some subtleties between between schools but you know the end of the day for all schools the most important thing is that they recommended knows you very well yes and and I love the way you kind of take us into your mindset into what you're looking for from the recommendation and how you're almost reading between the lines as well you know one one thing you mentioned was you know if a recommender can only write a couple sentences right describe other strengths for example yeah what would you encourage applicants like to use in terms of length of a recommendation is it better if the recommendation is two pages or three pages versus one page yeah so depends on the school I mean CN has has a specific template whereas other schools have has the freeform questions but it should probably be at least a couple of pages right so the top us calls are many of them are using the common recommendation questions which yes you know is great progress because it makes it much easier for recommended to to recommend for multiple schools but you know you should let each each question and a lot of schools will give guidelines on word count the way beneath the recommended guidelines but for the word count but I would say you know probably for each question you're looking at least half a page yeah yeah so I think that's a really good advice you know if you're recommended if your recommender can only write two or three sentences to answer each question that's that's a big red flag yeah but I think you mentioned a really key point at the beginning when you were describing the big picture overview of recommendations that admissions officers want to see how you compare to your peers in fact that's the most common question right asked by the top US schools and like there's there's many jobs where you're your boss may have seen or is seeing through your performance compared to your peers or your past peers but yeah what if your boss doesn't have that right maybe if you're working for a smaller company that has brought you in and you know your boss doesn't really know how to compare you to someone else who has done something similar yes yeah that is trickier and you know in situations like that it's important to sit down with your recommender and discuss the questions and brainstorm together it may be it depends on on the individual but it may be that that person you know has worked with people at a similar level to you it doesn't have to be exactly the same role yeah I mean likely you know if they're in a managerial position but the senior manager then they they you're probably not the first person they've managed all right and if they are then it might not be the best choice of recommender so it doesn't they don't have to be comparing you - you know a group of current peers doing exactly the same role they can look more broadly than that yes yep that's clear and what about another kind of problem that might pop up is those candidates from family businesses yeah you can't get a recommendation from mom or dad or their uncle yeah so you know I'm sure you've worked with a number of clients with that type of background what do you advise them yes yeah it is very tricky and you know I've even seen it is yet i've even seen sort of husband or wife right oh my gosh haha oh that's very sweet right let's sweep at Ricky so then yeah then you really have to dig so it may be but that you have a client who could who could comment and you know who could who knows you well enough to write a recommendation maybe you know before you start in a family business you had another job or you've done an internship and that person could recommend you it may be you know someone else who's senior in the company but it's not blood relation right - you know who knows you well has observed you but is tricky and schools understand that I mean they get the fact that you know it's harder for someone in a family business than someone working for you know McKinsey or Goldman Sachs to get the perfect comment recommender but just you know a boy's family members and you know try and get ah you know a business partner or a client and someone else senior in the company or you know a former oh yeah it's somebody who worked with you in a previous position and to recommend you and and for those candidates who you know don't want to get a recommendation from their current supervisor because you know maybe they don't want to tip that supervisor off to the fact that they're applying for an MBA would you adjust that those candidates actually use the optional essay or some other part of the application to explain that or do you think it's fine too just kind of cement other recommendations and yeah yeah sure yeah it's something that often comes up I mean first of all I would say it really think very carefully about whether you absolutely can't bear to ask your current supervisor man you know it's tricky for everybody or isn't yeah it's tricky for a lot of candidate a lot of people will be applying to business school and don't necessarily want the employer to know about it and you know it's very difficult to to bring that up and and you know you feel like they were going to judge you badly they're gonna I'm not committed it might jeopardize your position somehow in the company and it's often very tricky and so my first piece of advice is think about that very carefully and you know if at all possible and try to have that conversation and try to get that personal board and it may be tricky and often candidates were surprised that the boss is more supportive than they they would have expected all right because you know that person probably you know value--the you but also you know has once the best thing for you in the long term and may well recognize that you're going to get some value out of going off to business school so even if it means that they may lose you from their team in in a few months time or you know the short term they may well you know see the bigger picture and you know that the upside for you and want to support you in that so don't first of all don't discount too quickly using your your current supervisor and then if you can't I mean it's not uncommon and schools will understand that but yeah why not put a brief notes in the optional a seat don't have to make a big deal out of it just in a couple of lines explain the situation why you don't feel that you could ask your current supervisor then I'm going to be it's not going to be a big deal it's not that uncommon but it's nice to give a very brief explanation yeah and on the other spectrum of that someone for example maybe I started out a company and but I've only been at this company for say six months is that a naptime yeah to get you know a recommendation is there is there kind of a time together that you recommend yeah I think fixed monocles okay if you know they've worked with you on a regular basis of daily basis for that kind of time I think six months is fine much less than that it can get tricky yeah so you know if it's sort of three to four months or less and and you feel that you just patent it's also that you feel maybe you haven't really had the chance to demonstrate a lot of results in that time it depends on you know what kind of project you'll do while your work is but you might not have a have you know being able to build up much of a track record in that time either so in that case it may well be better to go back to your your previous boss yeah [Music] we've discussed the why we've discussed the who now let's move to the how and the what so you yeah figure it out who your recommenders are how can you best prepare them to write a great recommendation for you what what tips do you have here yeah yeah so first thing is start early all right you know you don't have full control over the timeline for your recommendations because you're counting on them to do the work and you know most likely they're incredibly busy people who have many demands on their time and every school you know deadline time you'll have some panic kind of it contact you thing and I've submitted my application I'm really sorry one of my recommenders can't send it in right now you know they've gone off on holiday or he or she is going to be out sick for a week and you know you should not get in that situation where you need a recommender to be writing that recommendation in in the last two days before the deadline yeah how would the recommender feel I'm telling a female right yeah that yeah that would write last-minute yeah Anna maybe me you've asked them before but you know you need to follow up with them and agree a timeline and because you know they may very well want to it but they have hundreds of other things on their to-do list and you know there may be the cover person who likes the leave things to the last minute and if something happens at the last minute that pulls them away from doing your recommendation then you think you're in trouble yeah so so first of all I mean it's often one of the first things that we have our clients work on is you know figuring out who the right recommend is and then have a discussion with them about it see if they are happy to do it are they going to be money people yes yes and get them on board right at the start of the process or you cannot do that too early so when you're going to early we're talking four months yeah an efficient deadline yes I mean now for example if you're applying a fall now is a great time to be having those discussions yeah and even you know further ahead of time you know sometimes we work with people who are for two to three years out from going to business school right so that they're trying to sort of plan things and further down the line and you know it's good to think ahead you know about who your recommenders might be and just be proactive at building a relationship and maintaining the relationships so there for example if you're thinking right now you know I'm not going to ply to school I probably apply in 2018 you may well be working right now with someone who's going to recommend you or you might have just got a few job and yet your previous supervisor is someone that you're going to need to go back to and asked your recommendation so you don't want to just suddenly you know contact them out of the blue having not been in touched for 18 months and say hey I need you to write six letters to me purposes for you you should have maintained that relationship being captured them and so yeah and it's possible you know even start to discuss with them you know thinking about going to business school maybe next year what do you think get them on board the beam with your plan early know that when the time comes to ask them it's not completely out of the blue and a bit of a bomb you know you haven't heard from me for a long time but has a lot of what you can hear yeah those are always the worst emails to receive it is a big time commitment doing recommend you know good recommendations so you know being respectful at a time and getting on board as early as possible yeah I wanted to this is very technical but I wanted to ask you on about something you just mentioned which was approached them and asked them if they would write you a supportive recommendation that was your advice that's kind of a tricky conversation right because I guess I'm wondering you know what would you advise a client right what question can ask yes yes yeah so if you're not 100% sure I mean some cases you know candidates will know this person is you know absolute rooting for me you know once when you go to business school he or she is going to write a fantastic recommendation or it may be someone where you're not quite sure you know how supported they will be or how keen it will be for you to go to business school so in that case I would have it in a conversation with them very early on and just you know say you're thinking about going to business school what do you think and you know and without sort of perhaps asking them directly will you be my recommender yes or you know I want you to be one of my two recommenders just sound them out about it in a more roundabout way to see how they react and see if they say well that's a great idea I mean you get so much out of going to business school and often they will then say you know I'd love to be a recommender that that will often happen but if you know if they seem a bit more reticent about it you may be sound up some others as well and at an early stage it's good to have in mind you know at least three people who could be your recommender so I would have that discussion with you know three or maybe four people so that you've got a few people who on your side who think you know this person could be ready to jump in if I need them because you know you might find that somebody is suddenly not available in the last you know a few weeks before the deadline and it's not going to be able to submit or something happen so it's good to have two backup options as well so you know in the early stages I would suggest sound out three or maybe even four people I think that's such great advice and then in terms of what to actually give your recommenders what should that be yeah yeah so I would so I would talk them through and you know with our clients we prepare a briefing document now the clients prepare a briefing document for the recommenders and suggests that they you know meet with a recommender to talk it through together so and the thing here is briefed them on you know where you apply and why you're applying to those schools what those schools are looking for you recommended me may know that very well right if they've been to business school themselves it's going to be much easier for them to know what type of things the school is looking for what are the kind of things that they should be saying but if they're completely unfamiliar with the world of business school you know you need to give them the background and to explain where you're applying why you're applying there you know what are your career goals what do you want to get out of the programs give them the history given the contacts so that they know what you want to get out of the experience then and therefore what are the types of things that would make sense for them to write about and then you discuss each of the questions that they're going to be asked and you know discuss with them what are the what are the points that you are highlighting in your application so what do you see as your strengths and ask them you know have it have an open conversation what are they see is your strengths and try to build some coherence between what they're going to say about you and what you're saying about you because you know the schools are also looking to see if there is some coherence between how you present yourself and how the recommenders say you know what are you good at what if you achieved what are your weaknesses if they if the picture that they portray is completely different from how you see yourself and you know there's a disconnects and that that's a red flag for the school so you know you don't have to eat it needs to be complimented you don't want complete overlap either so if you're highlighting three strengths in your application you don't want those exactly same strengths in exactly the same wording here's why both of them recommenders because you know then the schools that one wondering you know have you had too much of a hand in that but yeah brainstormed by them together it's good to you know have an initial discussion with them and give them some suggestions on examples that they can use because now I've written recommendations people have worked me in the past and you know they come to you especially if it's a couple of years since they work for you it can be really hard to remember which project does that person work on and you know what was their role exactly and what did he or she do with the other members of the team and to get all the right examples together can can take quite some time so if you can put that down on paper or brainstorm with your recommender to give them you know to remind them of the examples that they can draw on they're going to find that extremely helpful it'll save them a lot of time and it'll mean that you know they will be better better prepared to write a very strong recommendation for you what should candidates do when the recommender say just a right read a draft for me and I'll you know wash it off go ahead as my tweet would not like to admit it I know it happens all the time right I mean yeah your recommenders are very busy so yeah like is it yeah what's your advice there right yeah it is tricky and it as we say I mean recommended to sometimes say that I mean first of all you need to push back on that because schools are very good at picking up on who has actually written recommender I mean they the file readers are in credit experience they have a sixth sense for picking out you know similarities and phrasing style and so yeah if it's been written by you they're going to figure that out and it completely you know then it's waste of a recommendation so so first of all you know I would what you could offer to do is give them some briefing notes with the bullet point but keep it really short you know so that they they are they then write it up in their own board work and it will save you a lot of time if you give them some talking point but you know it means that they will need to elaborate a bit you know the only to put it into their own words they'll need to put their own perspective into it and that you know that that process is really important so first of all I would say you know it's not an uncommon request but what you need to do is push back on it and if you start this process early enough then they should be able to find you know it hours to write the recommendation over you know four month period and if you explain to them that it's really important that it comes from them it's not written by you then then you know hopefully they will they'll understand that and sometimes candidates worried that you know the recommender doesn't write perfect English yes don't worry about that too much I mean the schools are much more concerned about your English than the English of your recommender yes what they want what they want from the recommendation is the content they want to you know get a key messages if you know there's a few spelling mistakes and there's some grammar mistakes it's not a big deal the schools not going to hold that against you in any way all right so they'd much rather have yet an imperfect in possibly written recommendation and have something but that you have cooked up for the recommender that's great and I love the language you've used to answer these questions because our listeners can use that same language when they approach the recommenders so good and so what about weaknesses yes that's a fine another I'm just going to all the tricky parts right because that's yeah I think that splits and there's mica demo quick let's get straight to the good stuff yeah you know weaknesses admissions officers know that no candidate is perfect no cat is everybody where they thought nobody perfect right so the question is how can you coach your recommender to you know present the weakness is you know what you really feel is your weaknesses but also quote-unquote your best weaknesses that's right I mean it's not going to compete at your case exactly exactly yeah yeah yeah yeah it is tricky and it's something that you know candidates often struggle with a recommended struggle with and you know sometimes you'll see recommendations where they just say there is no weakness rather they don't react to that question that's not very helpful right that doesn't help that it doesn't you know help the case for the candidate at all and then sometimes we'll see recommend recommendations where they will say you know the typical things are Canada is a perfectionist Drive him or herself too hard you know that's something that comes up a lot or so don't don't you do when you're recommended to say something that is kind of not really a weakness you know pushing you're working hard and having high expectations of yourself is not that very bad kid right so you need to find something that is you know is genuine is authentic and and you know candidates often struggle with writing about weakness and failure in that occasion that comes up in one of the questions that they have to respond to in their own application as well and you know what I say to candidates is school you know want you to come they want you to come with an open mindset and the ability to share an ability to acknowledge what you're good at and what you're not good at and somebody who thinks superb and think they know it already is not going to be a good student right they're not going to engage in in in a productive learning experience and so you know that ability to acknowledge weakness acknowledge failure is is really important really poor characteristic the schools are looking for and and the ability to be to show insight and and to be humble about it so it's important you know both in what the candidate says about him or herself in the written application and then you know also quite like too many interviews it's something that can come up and it's also important that it's honestly addressed in the recommendation so so you know sometimes it's something that comes up when you you know injury brainstorming discussion with your recommender it may be that they yeah it might might be something that you've discussed in one of your performance reviews if it's somebody who do my own TV show perhaps you've gone gone through a performance reviews and you know a good supervisor will have identified points where you can improve your performance so that you you know you can develop and growth so it may well relate to something that they've picked up in one of those discussions previously so you know I would say just you know pick something that is real pick something is authentic don't don't worry too much that it's going to make you look bad the school is looking for yeah a genuine picture and they're not expecting anyone to be perfect and if the school I'll be also recommended doesn't answer that question properly if you know it's really a negative for you so you know they're looking for honesty and authenticity there and then also in what the recommender can do is perhaps also comment on whether you are aware of that weakness and whether it's something that you're working on a perhaps you've made some progress so it could be for example yeah perhaps the recommender has observed that when you first started in your role you were shy about speaking up in meetings and you know you didn't you weren't full throat about sharing your own opinions and your supervisor thought you had some good opinions to share but you were lacking confidence and perhaps that something they discussed with you and you've you know you're improving on that point all right it's perfectly understandable that as it you know at an early stage in your career and there are things that you need to work on and and the school just wants to understand what about what are those things I feel like good weaknesses are one that the NBA can help you improve on right example confident or public speaking but a bad weakness could be something like he has anger anger horrible so yeah anger management issues or yeah yeah you know something that would you be a quo okay this candidate might actually be a problem right yeah with their attitude so that's the way I look at it but it is again like it's tricky you gotta tow that line be honest but I really like the idea of the performance appraisals because those are true professional you know most likely to be professional weaknesses that an MBA program could help with yeah when three MBAs struggled with student loans they knew there had to be a better way so they created one now common bond is a leading student lender saving members up to $13,000 on MBA loans learn more at common bond Co slash touch em be a common bond lending LLC nmls number one 175 nine zero zero [Music] is it better to get a recommendation from an alumni of the school you're applying to I forgot to ask you that one under the hood right yes so it can so if that person is otherwise a very suitable recommender then yes it's great to have someone who is an alarm you know if you're choosing between a couple of people and both of them know you very well and both of them have supervised dyou and one of them is in a lot of the school then yes and would definitely pick the alarm because you know the school will it may well remember them and they will assume that that alum knows what the school is looking for an understand fit with a school and if they're recommending you then you know they you know that they carry credibility in terms of you know understanding what makes a good candidate for that school and what they want you to be part of their alumni community yeah yeah and one other question on the what before we close up the episode is many other top programs actually ask recommenders to almost grade you so they'll give you like a grid like a skills assessment and then basically you know they're kind of like 1 to 5 rankings where one is very weak and five is outstanding or like you know top 1% of peers or top 5% of peers what are your advice clients here right because at the top school is obviously you're going to get great applicants and I'm sure we'd all want to recommenders to mark us top 5% in every skill but that also looks really unrealistic too right because what we just talked about so yeah I'd love to hear your thoughts here yeah yeah yes if they tick you know top ranked for every single criteria and that it then honestly it looks like they haven't actually thought about or even really read the question so it's much better that there's a bit of a mix there because you know and again that something that you could discuss with your recommender and there's going to be some areas there where you are really strong and severe where you know it's not your top strength yeah and and so you know definitely it's good to have some ratings there in the very top level but they don't have to all be in the top level and you know in fact it's better if they're not because it just looks more CENTAC it looks more genuine and you know hopefully that that the the points that are highlights there is really your top strengths are also coherent with you know the narrative in your recommendations also you know how you present yourself in your application so you know if you're presenting yourself as someone who you know it's fantastic communicate they're great great people person a great team worker you know those things should be very highly rated in those rating tables and it's okay if yeah maybe you are not the the most organized person that the recommend is ever worked with and so they don't put you at the top category for that that's okay right again you know business calls are no expect you to be perfect and if you try to if your recommenders are trying to make you look perfect it doesn't look real yes yes I mean it's just you know I'm sure some of our listeners will say well if I'm not perfect does that mean I have to be above average top 50% score top 25% I mean obviously the higher the better but I think the mixed the mix is like you said yeah so important right yeah I think this has been a great conversation we only plan to speak for 30 minutes but it's been 50 minutes any last tips to give on this crucial part of the application I think we've gone through a lot I mean to me the most important thing and and in the mistake that can it make most often is you know leaving it too late with and recommenders or just you know a heavy you have a good conversation with them at start of the process but then you kind of leave it up to them and assume that these bases misses just you know keeping part you don't want to be a pest but you know you need to you need to manage them through the process you know it takes some time to do good recommendation so you need to be careful that they don't leave it to the last minute and so you know have a little project plan for yourself in with the timeline you know having the discussion to the recommended going for a briefing document with them you know when do you want agree with them when they're going to write it and when they're going to submit it and you know that should not be the last few days before the application deadline yeah that's great great advice to end on thank you so much : for jumping on the show and I do want to point out to our listeners you can find Carolyn at Fortuna admissions comm and I'll also link to three awesome articles that they have written on recommendations that give really good guidance in the show notes so check those out but again Karen thank you so much and yeah there it is our first recommendation on our first episode on recommendation yeah thank you so much my pleasure thank you very much Darrin [Music] thanks for listening to the touch MBA podcast don't be shy we have a mailing list go to touch mba.com and get yourself signed up and we'll keep you posted with the best tips and insider interviews on how to get 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