Selling with your strengths – The NAME phase
Selling with your strengths – The NAME phase
In the last blog post you could read more about the introduction to selling with your strengths. In this blog post we are talking about the NAME phase. Here is the transcript of the second podcast episode I recorded with Mark. Enjoy 🙂
Mark: The first phase is called NAME. And it’s about really high levels, about participants being able to name the top flyers and have both a connection and an understanding of what it means quite a high level in this first meeting. So what would have happened prior to this, I just go by and I did mention this before is, the person being coached the participant could be Eucharist being you, you would, you would have gone on to the Gallup access website, and you would have put your code in that you’d have from me. And you would access the assessment. And you take that assessment, it takes about 45 to 50 minutes. And it’s best if you do it in a really quiet environment where you’re not going to be interrupted. And you’re on the screen. What appears on the screen, when you take the assessment are two words, one on the left side, one on the right side, and in the middle is the button. And what you do is you pull the button towards the word that most resonates with you. And you do that 177 times. Then once you’ve done 170/7, time you finished while you’re doing it, it’s all about your kind of gut instinct, it’s not about thinking deeply about it, which is why you only get 20 seconds to answer each question.
Christine: Oh, so you really they there is a timing and you have to answer it in 20 seconds, you can think
Mark: If you don’t answer within 20 seconds, it moves on to the next question. And that one’s redundant that questions. But there’s never been a case where there has been enough information to well not in my experience, there’s not been enough information to formulate a really accurate result at the end of it. So people do that. And then what I asked the people to do once they’ve done it, is to send me a copy. So there’s two when I say copy a copy of the two reports that come out of it. And as I mentioned last time, one is a generic report and the other one’s all about you. Just you so it’s your strengths and talents and the order that they appear in. So there’s a remote chance that there’s someone else you’ll meet someone else exactly like you that you are you are unique, very unique. Just based on your top five, you’re unique, let alone the other 29 because there are 34 themes of talent. And we’re only initially looking most likely only initially looking at the top five. That makes you pretty unique. So I would ask people to send me the reports so that before we speak, I get a chance to have a look and have a read through so that when we do meet up, then we’re I’m slightly acquainted with you slightly because I want to know everything and be acquainted.
So when we do meet, I would ask I’d ask some questions. So in our last things like, because I base it a lot on work, like doesn’t have to be work I base, the people I speak to tend to be in work environments. I would ask things, questions like when you’re at work, what really gives you a kick? You know, what do you love doing at work? And ask people that question, isn’t that awesome? Well, what is it a work that drives you mad, you know, the things you don’t really like doing at work, but you have to do. And I work with quite a lot of people that run their own business. So they could work on their own, or they could have a small business when I work with people. And so we get a big mixture of responses to that, that that particular question. So all those two questions could be a mix. And what this is doing is it’s kind of confirming if you like that top five, because what people say here is usually in direct relation to their top five, sometimes I find that there’s something sneaking in just below the top five, we can’t see it. But there’s something else there. Because some of the things they say, I think well hang on that that might not be in the top five, but you say that you really love doing that work that suggested something else. So that’s really interesting. When that does come up, I would really like those people to go and take a look at all 34. That’s what I’d like them to do. But you don’t have to. So I had one fairly recently where this person, one of the top things they love doing is solving problems. They’re a problem solver. In the top five, I couldn’t see that and they could neither that is quite likely that just below that top five, there’s something in there about loving to solve problems. Yes, because when you look at all 34, Christine, you could probably pick and it’s difficult to put a number on it. But if I asked you to look at your top 34. So you’re all 34 if you looked at your top five, if you went down lower than your top five, you’d probably get down to I don’t know, maybe 1012 around there. And you would say well, all of those above there. Yeah, they’re the things I really love doing. So it’s not just your top five, there’s things below that, that, you know, really, really fire you up, and you feel really comfortable with. And then in the middle there called supporting the ones in the middle there, your supporting talents. So they’re the ones that you call on fairly regularly. And they’re the ones who feel fairly comfortable with and then you got the ones at the bottom are your lesser talents. And they’re the ones that you feel are most alien to you. They’re the ones that you you feel a bit clunky and a bit awkward when you use them. So we actually are looking at all 34, we divide them into three, that’s one of the things we would do on that first call as well. I’d ask people to look at them and kind of divide them into just drawing a line on their reports that they’ve got just drawn a line saying I’ve got a line there 12 from the top, and I’ve got a line there 10 from the bottom, or however many it is. And that that gives you some context then of that person and what they’ve got support in and what they’ve got less than. So I would in this conversation, I would ask them questions like that I would ask I’d ask them to describe themselves. Lawson to describe their, how would they describe themselves? Maybe in three words or phrases? How would you do that? And then, and then because it’s about perception, how they think their friends would describe them as well.
Christine: And then finally, just to go in there, because what you just said is, it’s very true. So one thing is that sometimes people have issues recognizing their talents because it feels so natural. And it’s like no, why is this a challenge everyone should do this. I also think that this can be frustrating if someone else that you work with doesn’t have that talent and you don’t recognize that and this is why it’s probably even more important to understand Okay, this is just me, not other people. And then the other thing that you said about things that you like and don’t like, it’s interesting to see from a point of view that what you don’t like is probably less of a talent for you. A lot of people just think like oh, I don’t like it. I need to get better at it or I don’t like it okay for other reasons. But a lot of times it comes even back to you. That’s interesting point of view, I think.
Mark: Yeah, it’s quite interesting, Christine because I thought I had a talent for something and now I’m questioning it. And when I say the talent to something, I mean a skill. I thought I learned this particular thing pretty quickly. So I’ve been I’ve been watching I’ve been learning doing some informal learning on PowerPoint. I’m thinking I’m doing quite a lot of work, virtually. And I really wanted to learn how to make PowerPoint not look like PowerPoint, because I think people are kind of becoming a bit tired of it. So I’ve been doing some informal learning, I’ve been watching some videos on how to do it. And I always saw I was pretty good at that stuff. But actually, I don’t think I’ve got such a talent for it now. Because I’m really struggling with it. I mean, I can do it, but it takes him so long. And usually, the things that we’re most adept at the things that we’ve got most talent that we learn pretty quickly. And I’m not learning this quickly at all this is, this is pretty, this is pretty challenging for me. But you see, what I like about it is I like the outcome. Yes, the outcome I like the bit in the middle I’m really challenged by. But I think that there could be something there because I’m not going to stop doing it. I could just say right, I’m not going to do it anymore. So I think there is something in it. That really I don’t know what talent is, but there’s so something in there that says no, keep going keep going with this where if it was that challenging, I might say, actually don’t do it. Just buy it from someone else. And I think it might be my I’ve got a talent called ideation which is in what top five? And I think that kind of creation and ideas is behind this. So I think that’s what’s driving me. But actually maybe the actual skill in doing it, I need to find somewhere else, I need to have a look at my other talents and think, what can I do? What have I got that might help me do this properly? Well, after I’ve done some samples, and they look, I think they look really good. They look as good as the guys, but he doesn’t he’s in a 15 minute video. Yeah, I did mine in I want to say how long it was, but it was 15. Stopping the video and going back and yeah,
Christine: It’s nice to see it as a way of, okay, you have the resources inside you. And you can look inside. And okay, what is there that I already have? that can support me with learning something new with supporting me with something I have to do or want to do?
Mark: I think if it’s a hassle to do, then sometimes if it’s something we have to do, sometimes we have to look, we can’t we have to go to our list of talents. And we have to say, right, I know this is less of talent, I need to do a bit of work on it. So I can bring it up to a reasonable level, which is probably about as good as it’s going to get. So you can work on a lesser talent. And you can bring up to what might be, I guess reasonable or acceptable level, it’s never going to get in your top five though whatever is. So my, my bottom one is something called achiever. And when I saw that when I because I I did my all 34. When I saw that achiever was my bottom, I had envy, I had envy of other people that had achieved here at the top as achieved exactly what it says it’s about achieving. So I I’ve had to look at what other talents have gotten near the top that can not so much substitute. But kind of a ccommodate. The fact that I’ve got a low achiever, I could I could say, I could say that I have to get a bit. I have to get a bit clunky with achiever. So I could so I need to achieve, I do need to do it. And salespeople might look at this and say, Yeah, well I need to achieve. So if my achieve is quite low, I might have to do some work on it to actually bring it up. If I haven’t got anything else that can help or substitute a might have to do some work around it. Not just salespeople could be anyone really well pick salespeople because I work with clients here. Yeah.
Christine: So this is a way of looking Okay, what am I good at? What am I not so good at? But what can I count on, like you say, the man in the middle as well to support you. And things and also probably goes back to motivation. There’s people who are motivated, towards to or away from, so you are looking forward to getting away from something or you’re looking forward to get somewhere.
Mark: That could also maybe be related to your talents is never occurred to me but could be could be the things that motivate us generally just arrived at top talents using our talents because we find it pretty easy. You know, it’s natural for us to do it. And usually when we’re using their talent, we’re kind of in the zone. We should be is that talent. So yeah, so if you’re, if you’re looking for kind of doing some self-evaluation, which I think it’s a good thing to do. So it may be before you meet me or whomever it is you’re working with, on your own talents. Good thing to do is to read both reports. So there’s two reports one is a generic, perfect, we mentioned this on the last podcast was a generic, look at what your top five are. So if we had if we had the same report H, which is highly unlikely, if we did, and we had the same top fires in, in different orders, so I had empathy is number one, you idiots number five, and a new ad achiever is number two, and it is number four. So they’re mixed up is a one in 275,000 chance that I’ll meet someone like you, you’ve got the same top five as me, let alone the older that’s just in this, that’s just the same top five. So if you read that you my report, and your report in that instance, will be the same, it will say the same thing, because it’s a generic outline of each of their top five talents. But the other one you’ve got, which is the insights guide, that’s about you. That’s the one that’s one in 33 million chance of you meeting someone who’s got the same top five in the same in the same order. So I agree, I recommend you read both. Read both of those. And also read the bottom under each under each talent. So your number 12345 read what it says at the bottom of the page, it gets you gets you to think so that when you come along, you’ve already started thinking about your talents already started thinking about your top five and thinking about them individually. And again, as I mentioned last time, what would be really good, what I’d ask people to do is to identify the words and phrases within that insights guide that resonate most with you. So there will be some things that really jumped out at you. And there’ll be some things that maybe don’t jump out so much. So really identify those, underline them, highlight them, think about them, and maybe think about the other words and phrases that are on that page. And think about more, just ask yourself the question, could that be me up? Can I think about Can I remember a time when I did that, just have a think about it. Because actually what they are all those words and phrases and sentences on there. They’re all different talents. So if you’ve got the talent of this, pick one, it doesn’t matter which one really activator, you’re looking at your activator talent on that insights guide. If you’re looking at that, then in that description, they’re all relative, they’re all individual talents within the activator theme of talent. Yeah, so it’s well worth having a spending a bit of time with it, spending a bit of time. And processing, I guess is the best way for them. Yeah, really. So when you meet your, when you meet, you can use the time pretty effectively, because you’ve already got an idea of pretty good idea of your top five. And you know the names of them, which is what that first meet this first means called it’s called NAME. And that’s not something I’ve created. And that’s not selling operated. It’s a part of the Gallup recommended way of using it is called the first meeting NAME, those fat naming your talents and recognizing your talents.
Additional resources
Selling with strengths Online course