expertise Archives - Debra Kasowski

How much is too much? As a business owner and entrepreneur I have asked myself this question over and over. In my mind the voices battle it out saying, “Don’t be too salesy. You are a teacher at heart.” When it is right to sell and when is it right to educate? How much should I be sharing?

I say…give it all away!

No, I am not talking about giving away all your products and services for free!

I am saying you need to be sharing your best stuff! Your best information, tips, and techniques!

I can hear you from here…What? Has she gone mad?

No I have not gone mad!

I want to share with you what sharing your best stuff does!

Breakdown Barriers and Build Trust – As people see you interact online, read your articles or books, or hear you speak; they get to know you, your personality, and what matters to you. Ensure that you are sharing content that speaks to your core values and about what you stand for. People get to know, like, and trust you when you share content that resonates with them. It can about anything from the challenges you face whether it be creating engaging teams to your personal journey of empowering yourself at the gym. They want to know that they can trust and believe in you to do what you say you’re capable of doing. That is when they will consider working with you. Building the connection and relationship is important.

Establish Credibility – When you write articles, speak on stage, write a book, or share information with others even one on one, you are building your credibility. You are perceived as someone knowledgeable and helpful. If people implement what you share and get results, BOOM! You create loyalty. They will want to tell others about you and the VALUE you provide. You never know who you may inspire.

Extend Your Reach. Ideas are abundant. You will be continuously coming up with more awesome high value content. If your content helps people take a leap in the business or take the next step in their career and get the results they are looking for, don’t you think that they will want to share what your information, tips, and techniques have done for them? They will be champions of yours and want to share your content. The more people who have your content, the more chances your content will get shared with others. Be sharable! At some point, you may put out an offer and people may jump at the opportunity to work with you directly because they have gotten to know you and the social proof is already there.

The question comes back to selling versus educating…

It is important to meet the emotional needs of your clients by sharing information with them that will help them make an informed decision. Is that selling or educating? There is a fine line. Can you do both? Absolutely! Pay attention to how you feel in the process and take note of the body language and how your clients appears to be feeling. If you notice that they seem disinterested or they are turning their body away from you, you may have given them too much and they are overwhelmed or you are not meeting their needs. You will know if you hit one extreme or the other.

Ask questions to make sure you are on the right track in meeting their needs. Find the right balance for each conversation you have and have them coming back for more of your great content!

DEBRA KASOWSKI, BScN CEC is an award-winning best-selling author, transformational speaker, blogger, and Certified Executive Coach. She has a heart of a teacher and is certified in Appreciative Inquiry and Emotional Intelligence. Her writing has been published in a variety of print and online magazines. Debra Kasowski International helps executives, entrepreneurs, and organizations boost their productivity, performance, and profits. It all starts with people and passion. Sign up the Success Secrets Newsletter and get your free mp3 download today! www.debrakasowski.com

When people feel pressured by the economic times, they are often doing more with less. They can fall into common pitfalls that can be avoided. They have a number of issues and concerns that absorb the majority of their time and because of they are multi-tasking many important things some things that need to be dealt with getting pushed aside and lead to larger problems later on, such as dealing with conflict or tracking results. They tend to be short on time and feel that they have limited resources and because of this they become short-sighted and only think short term. They fail to recognize that everything that they need is within their reach.

You might think that this is a big claim; however, by using a positive approach to change called Appreciative Inquiry businesses and organizations can get more creative in how they approach uncertainty and the change process. Appreciative Inquiry gives businesses and organizations the permission to dream and design an ideal future by tapping into their greatest resource – their people.

People come from all walks of life carrying with them different levels of knowledge, skills, abilities, and experiences. Imagine what would happen if you tap the into the best experiences and the richness of a person’s story and learn their strengths what that could do for your business or organization. Appreciative Inquiry uses a method of applying what people appreciate and from this, we can discover ways in which we can build it into our current existence and work toward the preferred future.

The process creates a vision for people to believe in and they will have a vested interest in helping your business or organization grow and achieve its goals. This approach gives people an opportunity to participate and engage in a whole new way. This is an opportunity for all levels of an organization to work together and learn together in pursuit of a common vision. Individuals want to believe they can be part of something so much bigger than their current everyday workload. Even though people are working with potentially fewer resources, appreciative inquiry gives them the opportunity to be creative and innovative with a new approach.

We can learn so much by asking positive questions. If people start to vent because they’ve had a poor experience, there is a lesson to be found. They obviously have the vision of what would be the preferred experience. By learning from this experience, and a new way of doing things can be discovered. Skeptics of appreciative inquiry may believe that because we are not focused on the weaknesses and threats facing businesses and organizations that we cannot achieve the greatness of our vision. However, as in positive psychology, you tend to get more of what you focus on. If your focus is on strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results you will be much further ahead because that’s what you will be focused on.

Business and organizational leaders will learn that they don’t have to do everything by themselves and that their people can be trusted to carry through on the vision with their knowledge, skills, abilities, and most of all experiences. They don’t need to do everything by themselves and be the Lone Ranger. They can delegate to people who are skilled and have the expertise to carry through on projects. It is important for business and organizational leaders to have an understanding of how to do something but it does not mean they need to do it. They spend their time being the employee or the technician they are working in the business or organization versus on it and this will limit their growth. They need to be spending their time where their talents and efforts need to be placed in order for things to grow.

Take time to ask yourself what you appreciate. What are some of your best experiences? How can you learn from them? How would this help you avoid some of the common pitfalls that you catch yourself falling into? If someone gave you the permission to dream, what would you ask for?

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