Being in sales you know that it’s not necessarily about you when people say “no.” It can range from a hard NO to a soft “not now, but I’m interested.“ When you’re great at closing you also know what questions to ask, how and when to ask for the sale, and when to walk away. When nothing is working despite all that, how do you get more yes’s?
As with most, if not all, things in life, it starts with you. When you know what your strengths are it becomes easier to be more intentional in all of your interactions. People’s experience of you will shift and that too will affect your sales.
Authentic selling SELLS, it’s what you bring just by being your best self. Your talents and strengths provide you with clues of how you contribute in ways that you may not have thought about before. When you dive deeper into how your strengths show up for you, your life to date will start to make sense in a different way and you’ll have the language to express your talents and how they contribute to you, and those around you.
When you craft a personal tagline that is created from how you contribute that includes your needs and what you bring it’s easier to stay connected to what makes you special, as a person and professional, and with that, you can sell yourself without telling people and simply show up.
Who are you?
I spent many years trying to find an answer to that question. And while there are many methods for this including reinventing who you are, why not start with how you’re uniquely wired independently on growth, transformation, titles, career, etc.
Allow your talents to guide you to what comes so easy for you that you don’t think about it.
For example, when you have Strategic® you bring creative anticipation, imagination, and persistence, and an ability to find the best route forward. One of your needs is to have the freedom to make mid-course corrections
Market these parts of you. Your specific talent lineup is unique, your top 5 in your exact order is 1 in close to 34 million! Just knowing that makes any internal monologue about not being enough silly.
Some talents are more common than others, like Strategic® which happens to be the #5 talent theme globally and in the US of the close to 22 million people that have taken the assessment so far. Yet, while many may share this specific theme, the talent themes surrounding your specific theme lineup make how you express it unique to you.
In other words, how you serve your customers and who you are is not something that can be replicated, and even if you tried the experience of interacting with you vs. someone else would be different. When you add your skills, experience, and education, it makes the odds of finding someone just like you close to impossible.
Stand out and show the world what you bring!
So how do you do that? Start by looking at what you bring and what you need (you can find this in your reports and on your Gallup® dashboard) for each of your dominant talents. Your dominant talents are who you are 24/7 – which tends to range from your top 8-15 talents.
Narrow down the words until you have the top-level word for how you would describe how each theme is expressed in the world for you. You can create a word cloud and plug in all the words in your customized report (All34 or Strengths Insight Report) to get started and notice similar words that stand out throughout your lineup.
What you will start seeing is a theme or a vibe. Maybe sayings and phrases you’ve often expressed throughout life will start to make sense and take on a deeper meaning. What often happens is a deeper understanding of what your drivers are with anything in life. You realize that it’s not a coincidence even when how you express seems random.
When I created my own tagline I started seeing patterns quickly (my #1 is Strategic®). Prior to that, I had also read the book, “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek and later the exercises in the book “How to find your why” by Sinek, Mead & Docker only to find that the end result of these exercises “finding your why and how” is spelled out in my strengths reports. When you know what your strengths bring and need you understand how you do anything and with that also your why. The bigger scope of what you’re here to create and contribute.
Find your compass
From the theme/vibe you see emerging through the words you’ve narrowed down for each of your dominant talents you’ll be able to create a tagline that speaks to you. This is what you bring to anything you do on and off the clock. Let that serve as your main compass in life and with that stay true to you.
What I created for myself is “Connecting People to Possibilities,” and that includes my main BP10™ role of Conductor. For me to be my best I need to be with people that actually have a desire to change, evolve, grow.
With that tagline alone I know what I bring and who I serve (my ideal client), what and who to say yes to, and with that increase the likelihood of closing a sale, and more which I’ll talk about in later blog posts.
- List your top-level words
- What do your talents & strengths each bring and need?
- What sayings, mottos, etc., have you spoken or lived by that connect with these words?
- What are your Top 4 BP10™ talents?
- What is your main BP10™ role (Conductor, Expert, Rainmaker)?
What is your personal tagline?
Try it, and let me know how it goes!
Learn how we can work together HERE.
