Why did you choose to become involved in the human development industry? If you are like most people, you realized there is nothing more exciting than coaching people who are eager to learn, highly motivated to win, and charged by the fact that someone finally believes in them.

Most of us like to know what people do to be successful. But, equally important, is the way people are successful. We have all had an opportunity to meet successful people. You know — those who seem to be natural-born teachers, athletes, or leaders. 

Think of yourself. What do you do innately well? If you’re inclined to answer “nothing,” ask someone who knows you; I am sure that person will have a better answer. 

You see, as a coach, trainer, or HR specialist, one of your roles is working with someone who feels stuck and wants to get out of his or her rut. 

Obviously, the first place to start is getting yourself “unstuck.” Exactly what do you need to be to excel as a leader for the twenty-first century?

According to Dr. Gary Collins, great coaches have certain characteristics. While the following list isn’t the complete picture of those characteristics, it’s a good place to start. We at Consulting Resource Group are here to provide you with all the necessary resources you need to get unstuck in your personal and professional development business and to move forward. If, after going through the list, you see some areas that you identify as needing work, we will be glad to help. So here goes.

The Best Coaches are . . . 

• Aware of their values
• Growing in self-awareness
• Always learning
• Forward-looking
• Realistically optimistic
• Enthusiastic about change
• Action-oriented
• Flexible
• Courageous enough to be forthright
• Genuinely caring
• Trustworthy and respected

1. Outside Entrance (Or what’s the newest happenings at CRG)
2. Gate Entrance (A tool to take on your journey)
3. On the Path (Someone out there who is doing it)
4. Back Home (Clean-up time)

Corporate Locker:

The Corporate Locker is now in beta test mode. In the next few days, your clients will be able to go online, take an assessment, then have their scores stored in your corporate locker, as opposed to their personal locker only. You will have access to their scores as soon as they complete the assessment(s). In fact, you will be able to assign assessments directly to them. 

The Corporate Locker will allow you to review them whenever necessary. The scores can be sorted by client or department or geographical location. Your clients’ score results will stay on a secure site; you need not worry about having email intercepted or inadvertently read. Watch for an email about this in the next couple of weeks.

Ken Keis on the Road Again!:

Access to our new Platinum Program is one of the benefits for people attending our 3-Day Train-the-Trainer event. While I can’t spill all the beans here, a number of attendees have been able to gain access to Ken and his expertise for a day; he will work with them and their clients. In some cases, these individuals can invite people to attend from outside their client group.

Ken has a couple of engagements coming up that you are all invited to join.

April 17, 2004
Irvine, CA
9:30 am to 3:30 pm
Winning With Style: The Personal Style Indicator Seminar
Cost: $25
Limited Seating (only 40 people)

June 26, 2004
Denver, CO
8:30 am to 4:30 pm
Building a Successful Coaching Business
Early Bird Special: $87 (until May 1)

For information on these or other opportunities, please contact us in the office at 604-852-0566 or email Neal at neal@crgleader.com.

 Entrepreneur Workshop Packs Sheraton Ballroom:

At the beginning of March, CRG had the opportunity to present at Peak Potentials’ Guerilla Business School in Vancouver. For three hours on a Saturday night, 1059 enthusiastic businesspeople took part in our workshop, Discovering Your Entrepreneurial Gifts & Pathway To Success. At 1:00 am, hotel personnel finally asked us to clear the room so they could clean up! Participants didn’t want to leave; many of them, for the first time in their lives, had at last begun to understand how to succeed in business, based on who they were! It was truly an amazing evening. If you would like to find out more about this incredible training opportunity for you and your group, please contact Neal at neal@crgleader.com. If you are interested in finding more out about the assessment we used, please see January’s Leading the Way.

No one likes to do it. No one wants to admit he or she is one. Yet without this area of business activity, there wouldn’t be a business. That’s right — it’s SALES! So often we hear from our Associates that this is the one part of their business they hate to think about — that and paying taxes. (I guess if you have no sales, you won’t have to worry about taxes.)

We have also heard stories about people being hired for sales and not being the right fit. The individual may have been a good salesperson but perhaps lacked the suitable personal style to deal with clients. If a Job Style Indicator had been performed on the position — part of the problem may have been solved. (See the February 2004 Leading the Way for more information about the JSI.)

As mentioned at the beginning of this e-zine, self-awareness is a key component to success as a coach — and coaching is really what sales is all about. Sales is coaching people to make the right choice for their needs. At CRG, we have developed a program entitled, Why Don’t You Sell the Way that I Buy? based on our popular assessment, the Sales Style Indicator.

The Sales Style Indicator(SSI) is a learning and communications tool used to select and develop relationship-building sales professionals and sales managers. The purpose of the SSI is to help individuals learn how to identify and utilize their natural preferences for completing the sales process. It assists sales professionals to assess their preferred way of selling, then challenges them to increase their sales-style flexibility.

By doing so, salespeople and sales teams establish better rapport, trust, and credibility with current and prospective clients, as well as other team members. Individuals learn the importance of creating long-term relationships to ensure repeat business and increased sales.

The SSI then covers 21 different sales-style patterns. It brings to the table an understanding of the different selling and buying styles and ends with an action plan participants can use to increase their strengths and decrease their limitations, thereby ensuring a more effective sales career. 

The Sales Style Indicatoridentifies individuals that are suited to a sales position, ranging from service-based selling situations to competitive selling. It has been used in a variety of selling environments, from automotive to high tech and financial groups to the airline industry.

Here are some of the strengths of the SSI.

1. Quick and easy to read (You don’t need a college degree to complete it.)

2. Self-assessing, allowing participants to assess their perceptions of themselves as salespeople (This tool is something you do with salespeople, not to them.)

3. Self-scoring and self-interpreting 

4. Informative and personally revealing (Allows individuals to describe themselves the way they see themselves in sales positions and not to be pigeon-holed into some forced style.) 

5. Compact in design, yet full of useful information (Can be completed in 10 to 15 minutes.)

6. Occupational characteristics introduced

7. Information about sales-style preferences

If you are wondering how you could become more effective in the selling process or if you need to hire someone for sales, don’t take another step until you take this assessment. 

For a complimentary online access code for the Sales Style Indicator, email me at neal@crgleader.com; please put “SSI” in the subject line.

The Selbst Group Inc. is an international sales training and consulting organization dedicated to helping clients grow their top line. Founded in 1974, Selbst Group serves the financial services industry exclusively. Their mission is to enable their clients to provide their salespeople and sales managers with the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve their potential. They do this primarily through sales, sales management and product training, and marketing support programs.

Working with institutional salespeople and managers of a global bank, they have used the Sales Style Indicator to enable training participants to understand their own selling styles and how they might be the same or different from their colleagues. This has implications on how they might use/modify practices that work for colleagues and the internal team, resulting in more cross-selling and cross-referring opportunities.

As well, from an understanding of the primary selling styles, Selbst teaches how to extrapolate this information to identify their clients’ buying styles, which might be very different from the salesperson’s own selling style. They then teach style-shifting techniques to enable the salesperson to communicate more effectively with the customers. This training has resulted in Selbst’s clients being able to do business with prospects initially perceived as difficult.

The Selbst Group also uses the SSI when working with sales managers in managing, leading, and coaching their salespeople. It is applied in very much the same way. First the manager's style is determined. Then each salesperson’s style is determined through the use of the instrument, resulting in an accurate style definition. Selbst then shows managers how to understand and work more effectively to lead, motivate, and coach their salespeople.

If you would like to find out more about the Selbst Group and the work they are doing, please contact Mark Tilley.

The Selbst Group Inc.
175 Main Street
White Plains, NY 10601

Phone: (914) 946-3480
Fax: (914) 946-4863
info@selbstgroup.com

A characteristic of a great coach is continuous learning. If you want to maximize the impact you are having with your clients and/or employees, you need to attend our 3-Day Train-the-Trainer event that focuses on professional and business development. You will totally transform the way you do business. July Ono, a participant at our January event, said this to her newsletter subscribers.

I remember when I was running a multi-million dollar corporation spanning 3 continents and 5 countries, when all of a sudden I was assigned HR (human resources) duties. My skills at hiring and firing were dismal. Candidates never seemed to fit. The interviews went great but their job performance didn’t measure up. And there never seemed to be a way to permanently resolve the interpersonal conflicts in the workplace environment. IF ONLY I’D HAD THE CRG ASSESSMENT TOOLS. It would have saved me so much time, money, and stress. What incredible communication tools! It’s not too late to register for their next 3-Day Train-the-Trainer event and experience — an AHA! experience in your life.

https://www.crgleader.com/trainthetrainer

Affiliate Sign-up Reminder:

• To receive credit for signing an Affiliate, please enroll each individual through your partner link.
  • Please do NOT send us a list of names you want to qualify as "Affiliates under me."
  • Note: When we discover that an individual is one of your Affiliates, we will honor your Affiliate relationship.
     

• If you are using our tools and have a unique story to share, please let us know: neal@crgleader.com.

Until next month, keep Leading the Way!

Neal Diamond
VP for Business Development and Associate Relations