Sell From Your Strengths

According to Valerie Atkin of Wells Street Consulting, selling's bad rap is reflected in such cliches as "being sold down the river" or "selling out." Actually, effective selling for coaches invites collaborating to inspire a vision, stay the course, accomplish goals, and significantly improve lives. So don't sell yourself short.

Current-day technology celebrates the subtle strength of so-called "passive" marketing—writing articles or books that attract clients, and especially in these days of Social Media Marketing, having a web site and/or blog that connects us through the Internet with people we might otherwise never have reached.

On any well-done home page, you'll find quick answers to these key questions potential client's will have: (1) "What is it?" (2) "Why do I want it?" (3) "Where do I get it?"

Once you have your initial, clean, clear message that sets you out among coaches, think about other ways potential clients can get to know you. Browsers will go where key words draw them. Several coaches have hired me, for example, after finding a poem in my Poetry and Personality pages.

Where to start? Find your personal vision, one that answers two key questions posed by Stanford's Michael Ray: "Who is my Self?" and "What is my Work?" "When we talk about 'Self,"' said Ray, "we're talking about your higher self... your highest future potential. And by asking 'What is my work?' we're asking what is the purpose of your existence or what are you meant to be?"

Trading Places

CJ Fitzsimons brainstormed with me about his client Hans, an Enneagram Eight.

CJ: Hans was livid that his superiors had decided to send him to their Assessment Center (AC), and if he passed he would lose much of the freedom he enjoyed in his job.

I asked Hans to assign different places in the room for two roles, Hans today and Hans in his new job after the AC. I interviewed him in each for a few minutes, then asked how he felt in his new job. "Not half as bad as I expected," he replied. We agreed to a half-day session before the AC.

People with Hans' personality style have the either/or belief, "either I'm strong or I'm vulnerable." Thus Hans saw the AC as a place "where they torture people for several days by observing how they respond to stressful situations." He assumed he would be at the mercy of the assessors, a vulnerability that triggered his personality's toggle-switch thinking ("If they're not with me, they're against me").

CJ wanted to coach Hans into both/and thinking, which he did quite well, yet in a different way than I might have done. I told him I help clients identify the "X" and the "Y" that are apparently incompatible, explore the underlying objectives, then ask themselves, "How could I do both X and Y?"

Hans did reframe his belief that perceived vulnerability meant he was out of control, but CJ accomplished this with a technique from his training in psychodrama, inviting Hans to do a role switch (similar to the Gestalt empty-chair technique).

CJ: I knew Hans was concerned the assessors would "seek out weaknesses and bore into them," which offended his need for fairness. As I wrote our agenda on a flip chart, I invited him to move to my chair and to imagine himself as his AC assessor. I interviewed the "assessor" about his approach, how he'd treat Hans, what he'd look for in his assessment – keeping the questions and tone light.

Hans relaxed visibly, his body going from hunched/defensive to laid-back/open. He grinned, "It’ll be OK. He’s not out to get me. He’s only doing his job."

My conversations with CJ is a fine example of why we need colleagues, how we learn from each other. I helped him see how both/and thinking can reframe a client's underlying beliefs; he showed me the effectiveness of psychodrama with a business client.

Ten Steps to Workshop Design & Development

This strategic planning model, from educational consultant Dr. Elsa Kessler, has for many years helped me tailor training and team workshops to the needs of specific audiences:

Define the general purpose and/or need.

Analyze participants and their needs as they perceive them, get more data if necessary (age, experience, representation, previous experience with similar workshops or responding to similar problems, personality/ learning style, expectations).

Review your resources and barriers (time constraints, logistics of the planned location, your own/others' capabilities, the minimum amount of rehearsal necessary, your level of authority to make decisions.)

Create a theme. This can then manifest in a logo, handouts, and/or brochures; but also serves as a focus of meaning and energy, in the same way a good book title captures the book's intent.

Define the general objectives and sequence, including general ideas to mix and match topics, methods, and media for interest and variety.

Develop segments. The emphasis here is on first draft -- especially if you're part of a team of designers -- because you want to sketch out enough to make sure the segments work together and support the overall theme, without wasting effort on details that may need to be changed. Necessary changes will become apparent during the dry run:

Specific objectives (for both content and process) and sequence for the segments.

First draft of detailed content, including tie-ins to other segments and to overall theme.

First draft of detailed design. (Lecture? Question and answer session? Group discussion? Fish-bowl demo? Subgroups with large group debrief? Experiential? Case Study?)  

First draft of media. (Slides? Handouts? PowerPoint? Flip chart?)

Evaluation criteria. Most people make the mistake of waiting until after this stage to develop/conduct an evaluation. If the specific objectives are clear, you can also decide at this point how you will know if you met your objectives. This becomes self-fulfilling when you build in a process by which the desired results are observable. For example, if you want participants to be able to name four key leadership qualities, you could either design an activity where they give a summary out loud or solicit their written responses; then you can reinforce or fine-tune their understanding as appropriate.

Dry Run or "walk through." This allows testing of content and process, how long the segments actually take, how the material looks/sounds to others, how well the logistics work, whether or not the objectives appear to be met. A dry run is particularly vital if a team is contributing to the design, because all participants can check out how their parts fit with the rest and adjust where necessary.

Completion of final materials and quality check.

Dress rehearsal (not always necessary, depending upon the critical nature of the event and/or the quality of the dry run).

Conduct session/evaluate/adjust for future events.