Focus on Strengths

Focus on Strengths SLIDE: My Scentsy Story

Happy to be on the call again I think it was last October I did a training call and I had a great time doing it. As you mentioned I was presenting at the Lexington Spring Sprint a couple weekends ago and I realized that my Scentsy story started a long time before I even began selling Scentsy. Back in 2008 I was gone travelling for work somewhere and my wife had told me that she had been to this party and that there were these wickless candle things and she was really excited about it. So when I got home and actually saw what the warmer was and the catalog and was looking at all these neat products I was like wow this is something that was exciting to me. Jina and I had been big candle users always went to Yankee Candle and bought tarts and all kinds of stuff. We also had a couple of mishaps where we actually almost had candles create a fire and fortunately nothing really bad happened but some serious scares with it.

So we had become attuned to Scentsy and had it in our home and really enjoyed the products a lot. Then in January of 2010 I had come home from work one day and my wife had this nice little dinner planned and the house was all clean and picked up and I was kind of thinking ‘hmm I think she is up to something.’ Then we got done eating this dinner and I got up to help her clean up the kitchen and she told me “no go sit down” and I knew that she was really up to something that night. She came out and she said that she decided that she wanted to sell Scentsy. It wasn’t because we needed additional income or anything like that she just wanted to do something to be engaged with other people so I figured what would it harm?

So we signed up, we bought our Starter Kit and that night I went online and I just started ordering a bunch of stuff so we had a few things that we needed. I got really involved in the business with her helping her sort orders and placing orders and organizing the catalogs and putting labels on things and I just got really, really involved with her doing these things. Come to find out after we attended our first Scentsy Convention that we could be a business entity together. So in August of 2010 Jina Ballard Scentsy Consultant became Jina and Mark Ballard Scentsy Consultants. Shortly after that we became Directors in October of that same year. The reason I choose Scentsy is because it has been something that has brought my wife and I together it has been a hobby, it has been fun and we have built this great expansive network of family and friends and we couldn’t imagine not having them in our lives now. So that is my Scentsy story. I am going to get into the meat part of the call and talk about developing your personal strengths.

SLIDE: Self Development

As I was preparing for this doing a lot of research and looking at professional development and personal development and all these different things I have always been an advocate to people that I work with and people that I nurture or I coach that they have got to go out and they have got to learn new skills and they have got to improve upon their weaknesses. It always seems to be one of the big stigmas that we face in academia or in social circles is when you have a weakness people always talk about how you have got to get outside that weakness or to overcome it you have got to develop yourself and you have

1 | Focus on Strengths got to grow. What people tend to not think about is what are the things that I am doing now? What are the strengths I have? What are the skills and attributes that I have that I can put to my maximum effect?

One of the things that we look at in performance coaching and things like that is to always look at what are the things that you do well. What are the strengths that you have and how do you use those to exemplify your performance? Not so much focusing on your weaknesses but how do you use your strengths and make them better? What are the things that happen if you don’t grow and why do you want to develop yourself? Obviously you don’t want to be a stagnant person. You have got plans, ambitions, things that you want to accomplish in your life, your goals and a lot of that deals with personal development and you have to learn new tricks and you have to find new skills in order to become better than what you were. So don’t lose sight of always trying to learn something new and develop yourself because that is probably one of the most important messages that we have got to put out there is don’t ever stop trying to develop yourself, to learn new tricks make your businesses better, to make your families better and make your relationships better. It is very important.

SLIDE: Identifying Your Strengths

Today we are going to talk about identifying your strengths. We heard it in the presentation when Joel was talking at Spring Sprint about getting back to your passion. Why did you sign up to become a Scentsy Family Consultant? What were the passions that you have? So you want to sit back and really do an assessment of what are the things that I do well. Before you can use those to make yourself better you have got to think what are the things that I do well? How do you determine what those things are? A lot of people we have a habit to look at our shortcomings or our faults but we have a hard time to look at ourselves and see the things that we do well. So in order to start identifying your strengths we say what is your passion? What are the things that you like to do?

We all have strengths and we all have experiences there are things that we just love to do whether they are hobbies or interests that we share with our friends or things like that. We have the skills and we have the abilities that we are good at and to try to identify those is as simple as going out and thinking about what is something that people compliment me on a regular basis? Or what are the things that I really enjoy doing and when I am done doing them I know I have done a good job because I have that full sense of accomplishment from doing it. Using some of these types of questions to identify what our strengths are will help us to narrow down that list.

Another tool that is out there is called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Test. You can go online or Google MBTI and it is just a series of questions that you go on and answer. It really kind of defines in your preferences as a person as to how you use different dichotomies as they call them for making decisions and what not in your lifetime. It deals with things from your level of introversion or extroversion. It is not are you a people person or are you a shy person but where do you draw that energy and that vigor that you get in your daily life that keeps you going? Do you draw energy with engaging and interacting with people or do you recharge your batteries by sitting back and reading a book and enjoying a little bit of quiet time. It also looks at your attitudes towards sensing and intuition.

2 | Focus on Strengths Do you have a sense for being able to gather information or do you just get that gut feeling that ‘hmm I think this feels right so I am going to go with it’ and it serves you well. It also looks at thinking versus feeling, it looks at how you perceive things versus how you judge them. It kind of gets into do you like to have a very structured list of things that you need to accomplish during the day and then check them off or do you just kind of say ‘hey I am going to get up and I am going to go with whatever the way the wind is blowing today’ and you take advantage of that.

Understanding how your type indicators are gives you an understanding of what kind of situations that you are best suited with. So if you are a person who needs to have a lot of structure in your day you have to plan things out and you have to make your to-do list that is a strength for you so you set out your goal of what you want to accomplish and you develop that list. Or understanding that if you get your energy by interacting with people or if you get your energy by having your quiet time and your cup of coffee or reading a book it just kind of helps you understand what your preferences are so that you can go out and start using this knowledge about yourself to engage other people and to accomplish the tasks that you want to. Kind of setting the stage that is your comfort level so that you can go out and interact and relate to other people.

Another really important thing about identifying your strengths is ask a friend in doing some reading and research and some different websites it talked a lot about going to talk to people that you know and trust saying “what am I good at?” “What are my strengths and what are my values that I have as a person?” “What are the skills that I have that other people wish they had or would like to emulate?” Then once you have identified this list you can begin to start thinking about how now that I know the things that I am good at and the things that I am strong with how am I going to use those to improve myself and accomplish the goals that I have set forth.

SLIDE: How to Use Your Strengths

After we have identified our strengths how do we use our strengths better ourselves? The first thing I really need to say about using your own strengths is be your best. Once you have identified the things that you are good at figure out how you can use those to grow your business, to promote your business, to develop yourself, to put yourself in the situations that you are going to succeed in. Everybody feels really good about themselves when they do a job well and when they get recognition for doing that job.

So identify the strengths that you have then apply those strengths to your teams, to your work, to your family and use those strengths to ensure that everybody else is getting the mutual benefit from it. If you are really good at developing a spreadsheet and keeping track of customers share that with your team. If you are really good at how you close a sale or increase your sales when you are having a party and talking to customers. Share that with your team. Give them ideas that you have and things that work. When you have somebody else on your team that is really good at a particular area maybe they are really good at public speaking have them get up and talk at your team meetings about doing public speaking. Share the strengths that you have within your networks. Develop those amongst your teams.

It is kind of like when you are in business with a partner or your wife and you each have your strengths and your weaknesses and you each bring something different to the business. So you let that person

3 | Focus on Strengths who has those strong people interaction skills take care of that piece of the business and those people that have the knack for being very detailed and able to organize things and that is when Jina gives me the buckets of wax and makes me label them and put them in alphabetical order so we can find them after we have had a big party or something. So you just take those skills that you have and those things that you are good at and focus on using those and even becoming stronger at those skills and making them work for you. Like I had said also sharing your strengths with your network, your team, your customers whatever it is that you have people are going to come to you for assistance and resources and they are going to respect you for your ability to do the things that you are good at so share that with them and help them grow by sharing your strengths.

One of the things that we had talked about earlier is finding your passion. At Spring Sprint we got back into the basics of why did you join Scentsy? What were the things that you loved about the business that made you sign up and become a Consultant? How did you use that passion that you have to share the excitement and go out and promote yourself as a Consultant and the business that you had. Think back to those things and why you signed up. What were the root reasons for it? What do you love about the product? What do you love about the programs? Go back to that passion and focus there.

Rekindle your skills and the things that you have in mind on what you want to accomplish with your business. Go back and use those core foundations and kind of do like a self-relaunch if you will to promote your business and share the excitement and accentuate the things that you know that you are good at and the things that you are comfortable doing. When you are looking at addressing weaknesses or learning a new skill you are not comfortable with it and you tend to be apprehensive and you don’t focus as much energy into it because you have got this fear of failure or this nervousness that it is not going to be your best. When you know what your strengths are and what you are good at you give it the full amount of energy that you have and you give it that excitement and that passion it is easy to drive in your interactions with other people. So identify those skills and things like that that are going to make you successful and capitalize on that.

When we talk about personal strengths there are a few things that people are like what really is a strength? How do I know if it is going to be a strength? You can do a lot of different kinds of research and there are books that have been written about identifying your personal strengths and how do you increase the strengths that you have but here are some common things of strengths and talents that individuals have. Are you an achiever? Are you adaptable? Are you analytical? Can you analyze things and see relationships between them? Are you an arranger? Do you have the ability to be a leader command is the actual term for that strength? Do you have the ability to communicate? Can you communicate with different people through different mediums? Competition is actually a talent and a strength. Do you use your desire for competition to motivate others and to achieve goals? Connectedness is a talent do you have the ability to connect with people? Being deliberate, direct in how you do things. Being a developer and coming up with ideas and helping people solve problems. Empathy is a strength and a talent that people have that they tend to not look at as being a strength but can you be empathetic to people? Do you have the ability to focus? Are you harmonious? Input, intellection these are all strengths that a lot of people may not think of that they have. Are you a learner? Are you a maximizer? Are you a relater? Are you a responsible person? Self-assurance, can

4 | Focus on Strengths you give yourself that pep talk when you need it? Are you strategic in nature? Are you able to show the significance of things that you are talking about or are interested in? These are some strengths that a lot of people tend not to think of as being their strengths but a lot of research has shown that these are things that a lot of people have the ability to do they just don’t think about it when they are trying to identify their strengths and what are the things they are good at. Any of those words that I just read off you can think about one or two of those things I know you all have in you and how can you use that to increase your business and develop yourself and make yourself a stronger person.

So that really kind of ends my pep talk on identifying your strengths and maximizing them but just a couple of other things that I wanted to share with you. There are a whole bunch of different inventories or questionnaires out there that can help you identify what your strengths are. I personally like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator myself because it has that scientific assessment and when you do a snapshot test like you will find on the internet don’t go pay $69.95 to take the full blown test you can get the 20 question test and the immediate feedback for free but it just kind of lets you think about when it gives you the description at the end of the test you are able to go back and say “yeah these are the things that I am really comfortable about” and it has really time over time been consistent for me and described me and my preferences.

Then the other thing is when you really want to get down to what your strengths are again think about the things that you have passion for. What are the things that you enjoy doing and what are the things that you are good at? If you can’t think of it then call a friend and ask them because your friends respect you for who you are and what you do and they are going to give it to you at face value that you are very good at this and you are very good at that. Then take those things and think about them and how can you use that strength to make yourself better or make your business better. Keep playing up on your strengths. Like I said in the beginning it is always important to grow and develop yourself and I don’t want to say that you don’t need to focus on improving weaknesses that you may have but a lot of people waste a lot of time worrying about how they are going to improve their weaknesses and they don’t focus on the skills and the strengths that they do have and putting those to use for the immediate benefit and then continuing to make those strengths even stronger for them in the future.

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