Selling with your strengths introduction
Selling with your strengths – introduction
A while ago, I have created a live training with Mark and also created a podcast series for you. Here is the transcript of the first episode of the podcast. Enjoy!
Christine: I’ve met Mark actually online at a networking event that is taking place in the UK if you want to. But obviously it was online, we discovered we lived in the same city, you can say it’s a city, it’s a small city in England, but we have not met whilst I was living there. But probably that’s one of the reasons why we get along so well. Another one is because he’s fantastic at what he’s doing. And we decided to do also a marketing and sales training together, which is amazing. So Mark, I’m going to hand it over to you. Can you introduce yourself to the listeners a bit more? Who are you? And what are you doing?
Mark: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I’m Mark, as Christine said, and for 30 years I’ve been working in learning and development, predominantly in training. So I started out all those years ago in training. Before that I was a salesperson, I had about three different sales roles prior to moving into training, and I’ve got made redundant from one of them. And I thought, What am I going to do? What am I going to do with the rest of my life, never dreamt of a trainer, I’d actually done some training, delivered some training as a salesperson, and I really liked it. So I managed to get a job with the people that train me I, I did a bit of fun telephone prospecting, I guess. And I phoned up one of the companies that trained me and just to see if they had any positions. And being in the right place at the right time, I was fortunate to get a job in training, and I couldn’t believe it, because it was another kind of selling I’ve never dreamt of doing but always thought, well, I quite like doing this. So to actually phone someone up, find out they had a vacancy and get the job, call him within a space of four weeks was I found quite amazing. So I learned a lot in my first couple of years working there. And I ever since really, I’ve learned I’ve learned a great deal. I was doing sales training, which is what I’ve done most off in my training career. And I’ve got made redundant from there as well. So about eight or nine years after joining I’ve got made redundant. And I decided with two other people that got made redundant to set up our own training business partnership, which we worked together for four and a half years. And then I know I’ve ventured out on my own. And I’ve been on my own working on my own for the past 17 years now. Yes, 17 years on my own mind about so I was doing the same work. I was always doing a lot of sales training. I was doing some product launch training as well for people that the organizations that were launching new products. And about eight, nine years ago, I started working around the area of leadership and management. What slowly became apparent to me was that training the sales people is great. But actually, if they don’t get supported back at work, because they haven’t got the right environment, the back at work, the training they’re receiving is goes out the window, nothing happens. So I thought I better take a look at what managers and leaders do. And I started working around that area as well. And my belief today still is there. There are lots of managers out there. But there aren’t enough leaders. And the challenge is to turn some managers into leaders which knowing what I know now actually quite a challenge. So when we look at Clifton strengths, which we’re going to talk about shortly, I’m sure, it’s a challenge for a lot of a lot of managers to become leaders and vice versa, the leaders to become managers. So there are some really big challenges. But people can do it, they can get to a reasonable standard in most things. And in some things, they can be great. And that’s what we should look at what we can be great at. So I’ve been working with a model called Clifton strengths I, I became certified by Gallup in the organization who provide Clifton strengths and created that I became certified by them a about six years ago. And I’ve recertified you have to recertify every other year. And when I first found out about it, I was quite amazed. And when I went to learn properly about it, and I went to get their education for a week in London, it was just astounding, and it kind of changed what I want to do and how I do things now. So yeah, now I tend to work with individuals, because it is coaching. Because everyone is so unique, that coaching probably works best. But we can also do it in small groups, but there has to be really small groups with to work to get a group of 20. Unfortunately, individuals in that group generally don’t get anything honed into them. So it needs to be quite small groups. And another great thing for this time, Christine, is that we can do it virtually. So it doesn’t have to be face to face. So that’s what I’m doing now.
Christine: I’m experiencing that firsthand, because of the training that we both set up the marketing and sales training, where I do the marketing bit and you do the sales training, it’s amazing. I do actually started recording and it will come out probably a month or two after this podcast is someone else who is a gallops coach, but she is focusing really on leadership, like you mentioned as well. So it’s a model that apparently can be used in all kinds of ways. Yeah, can you tell us a bit more how people can help first maybe how you work with people, and then tell us a bit more about the model the gallops strengths and the Clifton strengths model? I’m probably not putting it in the right terms. And how can we be use it for sales? So a bit more about how you actually work with people? And what kind of steps people need to go through? And then how the model can help people to become a better salesperson as well?
Mark: Yeah, that’s a good question. So I guess one of the first things initially is to assess or to find out from people what, what it is they’re trying to achieve what you know what they want to where they want to be in the future. So when you look at a coach, a coach is someone who takes a person from where they are now to where they want to be. So it’s actually knowing where you want to be one of the key things surrounding any coaches is there needs to be a goal, there needs to be an outcome. Now, some people actually do Clifton strengths just to discover. And that’s all they want, which is fine. But it works best when you’ve got some that you want to aim it at, whether that’s improvement in what you do, or whether it’s to get a new job, whether it’s to get a job, or whether it’s to get that promotion. But as you said, it could also be for other things as well. So it could be how do I get to get that new home? How do I get that car that I’ve always wanted. So it’s not just within work environment, although most of what I’ve done almost what I do is, is within a work environment. And the way I work with people is that once they find out about it, about what I do, and it always seems to resonate with people. I’m not saying everyone does it, but it resonates with people when you start talking about finding out about their talents, that that kind of resonates with most people. And what it is it’s not actually finding out about their talents, but it’s finding out about their most intense talents. Because largely we’ve all got the same talents and Gallup have identified 34 different themes of talent that we all have. But what makes us unique is we’ve got those 34 talents in different intensities. And it’s actually finding out which ones are most intense in us. So which ones are the strongest and they’re the ones that are easiest to work with. And they’re the ones where you can get the best success and results. And they’re the ones that enable us to sell. So the way that I would sell would probably be totally different to the way Christina do it. And that’s because our talents if we use our talent And we’re using them in the correct way, yet their greatest asset in doing a job really well, or to near perfect performance, as Gallup would say, within the Clifton strengths framework, so I tend to work one to one, as I said. So it works best over at least three different coaching sessions to cover three different areas, I guess, of learning about yourself, because that’s what it is. Certainly the first two are about learning about yourself. And then the third one is, now you’ve learned that about yourself, what you’re going to do with it
Christine: So the what would interest me as well is when people do this assessment? And what comes out of it? Do you have people who are very surprised what comes out? Do we have even people that deny that this is true? Because they don’t like the outcome and they want to be someone else? Or do you have mainly people that say are interesting, let’s have a look. And like I think you mentioned and also what it’s all about, it’s working with your strings, and there’s different, more strings, more apparent than other ones that you probably should focus on, instead of trying to increase the strings, factor on the ones that are at the bottom? But how do people react usually to the results, because I will be very interesting to see what my results will be when I do it.
Mark: So usually what happens is there is an element of surprise people are, are somewhat surprised if people have done a lot of this type of, I guess assessment before, then a lot of people when they read about them, they think Oh, yeah, yeah, I can see that that’s similar to what I’ve learned elsewhere before, although strengths goes into a lot more depth, there’s more depth to that. So occasionally, you get those. Now, there are two levels of assessment that you could take, we go up. So you can take the assessment that reveals your top fires. So it will show you your top five strengths or top five talents. And then you can do another one that cost a bit more. And that will show you all 34. The most challenging thing is when people reveal all of their 34 initially, because they can see all of them. The first thing they do look at the bottom. And then sometimes from that they get strengths envy, they call it and they say, Well, I want that one at the top. I want that one because that sounds like what I should be, that sounds like what I need. So that initial response of lack, if you like usually comes when people see 34. But when you only see your top five, it’s actually I think it’s an advantage, because you’re only focusing on the stuff that’s really, really natural and intuitive to you.
Christine: Yeah, I understand that. Interesting. So you were talking about the different phases in sessions that say if we talk about three sessions, and I know we will look into each session over the next three podcasts, basically. But if you just summarize a bit, okay, what’s happening in the in the first one, what’s happening in the second, what happens in the third, but really just a short summary. So people can already get like a little glimpse into what’s coming in the next episodes.
Mark: So in the first coaching piece, if you like the first time that I would meet, probably face to face on zoom, or teams or whatever it is, on that one is about kind of getting to know your top talents. So prior to that first meeting, the person that participant, so it could be you, Christine, you, you would have, you would have taken your Clifton strengths assessment online. And you’d have done that a few days before our meeting. And we would have done you’d have read the reports that come out of it. So you get two reports. One of them’s quite a generic description of your top talents. And the other ones a unique description of your top talents based on you your top five talents and the order that they appear in. So everyone’s different because the chances of you meeting someone that has the same top five shoe in the same old days one in 33 million.
Christine: That is an amazing number. And I know you mentioned that to me before and I think it’s quite nice to know this number because That means you are really unique. And it also means you have to find you unique way for anything you’re doing but also in sales.
Mark: Yeah, exactly. Spot on. So you so you’d have that report. And what I would ask you to do before is I’d ask you to read the report. And particularly, I’d ask you to read through it and underline or highlight in the report, the words and phrases that most resonate with you having those descriptions, what is it about those descriptions and most recognized so that when we meet, that’s one of the things we can talk about. And then I’d ask, I would ask some questions of that individual that point to their strengths or point to their talents. So the idea is, is that the questions that are being asked are clues if you like, and a connection to that person’s talents. So we would do that we would get kind of used to each other, I’d give some information about strengths and talents. And then I would find out about that, that person, I would find out about you. And at the end of that, so that normally takes about 75 to 90 minutes, that session, and then at the end, I would ask that participant to do something. And what would ask them to do is between now and the next meeting, which is usually a couple of weeks away, I would ask them to read out that report that insights guide, and ask them to read it out to three other people and ask for their response, what they thought. And the idea behind that is, is that if there’s anything in there that you think well, that’s not me, you know, I don’t think that talent is me. Often the the perception we have of ourselves is different to the perception of others. So if you read with someone else, invariably they’re going to say, Well, actually, yeah, that is that is you. And that’s the idea is, is that you get used today, you get used today, those five top talents, if we’re talking about the top five, we get used to those top five, and it gets confirmed by the people. So then we then we start believing that hang on this is this is me. So that’s the first one. The next one is all about thinking about times situations. We’ve been in fairly recently where we’ve used those, those talents. So in what situations What happened? Maybe Why did you use that? That particular talent, you didn’t know it was a talent, you just did it? But what was it that drove you to use that particular talent. And then what ask the person to do at the end, and that’s 75 to 90 minutes conversation as well. So it’s two ways. So I’m not what as a coach, what I don’t do is I don’t sit and tell people what to do. That’s not what a coach does. So a coach gets the information from that participant will get it from you. So at the end of that, what I would ask that person to do, would be to start noticing those future looking, again, to start noticing when they’re using their talents, and actually make a bit of a record between now and the next meeting on what situation they were in in that moment. And the talent that they recognize their use, which you might have to kind of look back at that at the end of the day, end of each day. So what I did today was x. And I use why talent. And it’s just recording that and thinking about it and ideally thinking about how it is you were doing it because most women use their talents, we should be at ease. And then when we meet up for the third time, what that’s about is now I know this, now I know this, what am I going to do with it? Where am I going with it? How am I going to get from where I am now to where I want to be using one of my talents? Probably the top one, how’s that going to help me? That has to be the top one, because you might have a mix, you might have a mix of five and actually the number four is more suitable for getting to where you want to be. We’ll say we’ll say it’s the number one talent. So it’s about it’s really about how am I going to use my talents together. I’m not going to do now ideally there will be some follow on from that, because it’d be really good to focus on a talent time. So rather than on that last number three session rather than saying what you’re going to do with all your talents, it would be to say, Okay, well let’s focus on one. And then when we meet for the fourth time, we’ll talk about a different talent. So that would be the ideal, but actually, to get into the get into the talent world and start thinking about strengths. You probably take about three meetings, and people go away and put this stuff in place. And it’s, it’s amazing the change it makes in people
Christine: And that I think it’s a lot of work that people have to put in. But there will be a lot of rewards for that. Because you at least know exactly who you are you find out more about yourself, and you will know what are your strengths. And how can you use them. For the sales, people will even see financial rewards because they will be able to close sales and retain customers even better.
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