Today is quite an important topic. I’ve discussed this before and I will discuss it again. Your team and you and me, all have a unique ability, an innate and in built ability to do a particular type of work.
Do you know what it is? If so. How do you know? Are you guessing? Is it because it’s what you’ve done for a long time?
Well, let me tell you this my friend, how about if you’ve got it wrong? What if you’re not doing the best work that you’re suited for?
How about if you hired someone to be your personal assistant? What if they are not built to be a personal assistant?
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They don’t know that because they’ve never been one before. How about you promote someone to be a manager?
And you don’t know that it’s not built into their psyche to be a manger or to be able to manage people systems. What if you get it wrong?
Let me explain how you can get it right. Now.
Myers Briggs
The most common test of this is a psychometric personality test called Myers-Briggs.
It’s done from research from Carl Jung and Isabel Myers Briggs.
Now what it tells you is how you see the world. So it tells you what you’re like, what you can do. Okay? So this is not like a, like an IQ Test. That is completely different.
That’s nothing related to this whatsoever. It doesn’t matter who you are, what job you do, what your abilities, your education or anything of that.
It is very very clever, because if I remember rightly, there are sixteen personality types and it will tell you yours.
At the end of it, you will read, about how it explains what you are like. If you want to know me, I am an INTJ. Which means apparently, I have a great ability to analyze things very very quickly, and I want to continuously fix the world.
So now you can see why it’s in my personality to want to help others, be the better them and to create a better business.
It’s because it’s what I do in mine and I have an ability for it. Can’t help it. So I am an INTJ. There are fifteen others. You’ll find out what you are, but I guarantee, when you’ve done it, when you’ve read about it, read about your type afterwards, you will be amazed.
If you haven’t done one of these before this, you’ll think, “How on Earth did it figure it out? That is so me.” This is not like astro, you know Zodiacs and birth signs and all that. This is scientific.
So that’s not the only one. So I am going to tell you others.
How to Fascinate by Sally Hogshead
Next is Sally Hogshead and How to Fascinate.
Now what she would explain, if she was explaining the difference, she would say that an IQ test will tell you how clever you are. A Myers-Briggs test will tell you what,and how you see the world.
And her “How to Fascinate” test will tell you how the world sees you. Now that is better.
Because how you see the world is very very important to know but how the world sees you, because it’s not all about you. Alright? It’s not about what you think. It’s what they think. That’s important.
Now I’ve done the Sally Hogshead’s one. It doesn’t take long by the way. It’s very clever and there’s nothing scary.
Nothing to be worried about. And in the end, it gives you the result. There is also a little video where she’ll explain what this all means is.
There’s lots of data. And she started her stuff years ago. I think they did the initial research over a quarter of million people or something like that. And since gone on to, I think six hundred thousand or so, on her website have taken this.
But Sally is brilliant. She’s a fantastic speaker, incredibly popular speaker. And she herself is fascinating. This stuff is fascinating. Very very good product. Very good for your business.
Kolbe
The next one is Kolbe. This is from Kathy Kolbe. Again it is a further development, so the difference with this one and, I recommend by the way is that it is not free.
This is the one I recommend you to look at, but you need to pay for it, so. Not a lot of money but worth the expense. It’s the Kolbe Index and it will tell you what you are willing or not willing to do.
Now that is very important for work.
So to give you an example. Its comes out with a score in four areas. So in the Myers-Briggs, the INTJ – each letter stands for something. I cannot remember them all, but for example, the “I” stands for introvert.
In Sally Hogshead’s How to Fascinate, she has four versions. In the Kolbe one, two of them are the Fact Finder, which is first column and the third one is the Quick Starter.
So someone like myself is going to be very much based on wanting details, on fact finding and so I am a 10 in that one.
And I would be very low on the Quick Starter.
So let’s talk about the people who work for you and me.
So I have people who work for me who are the type, if I ask them to do something, they don’t really look into the detail. They just dive in and get on with it.
It’s good to have a mixture of these people in your team. It’s great because if it’s up to me, we’d spend forever researching it and we wouldn’t get on with it.
Someone else can get on with it. They have to be tempered by somebody or slowed down by somebody. Who says ‘Whoa? Let’s just check that, let’s just check that.’
So you can build your team on people that are gear to working with each other. If you want to promote someone to a supervisor or a manger or to do some other task, isn’t it sensible to know if they are capable of doing it.
This stuff is in your nature, you cannot change it. It is very very difficult.
Strengths Finder
The last one is from Gallup. It’s called the Strengths Finder. They have a book of the same name and they have a system.
According to their thing, over 12 million people have taken this. There are, the one of the test is the Entrepreneurial Test.
They call it something like Profile 10 or something and any cost, it costs less than $10 I think, to take it online.
But imagine, you’re thinking of changing your job and starting working for yourself, and you have never done it before, and it’s not in your nature to do that.
What if you did a test? And a personality test like that, like the StrengthsFinder, and it told you, that you are not geared to be an entrepreneur. What would that do to you?
Now will that make you think, ‘That’s rubbish, I don’t know what they are talking about’. Or would it make you think, ‘Oh interesting. Wow that saved me a lot of time. Perhaps, I should be working with somebody else.’
It doesn’t mean you can’t be an entrepreneur on your own. But it possibly means that you need someone with you to help you out in other areas.
For example, in your business, who’s doing the accounts? If you’ve a small business, just a couple of you. One of you decides to do the accounts, the other one does the sales.
Are you best suited for those? All these kind of things are important. I would strongly recommend that you take one of those.
Mine, is say for the Kolbe. That is one full, and then read the research afterwards. Trust me. It is fascinating, and it will improve your business and you. It’s just what we’re all about.
Friendly Follow
Now it’s a Wednesday and that means it is time for a Friendly Follow. Today it’s Sonia Simone.
Now Sonia, she had her own businesses for years but these days, she is better known as the Chief Content Officer and co-founder of Rainmaker Digital.
Rainmaker digital is the new name for copy blogger media. For those of you that are more familiar with copy blogger.
And if I remember rightly, I am pretty sure that Sonia wrote the Teaching Sells Course, which has been synonymous with copy blogger for quite a while and a very very popular course.
She also has a podcast called The Pink Haired Marketer. She famously dyes her hair pink.
But she is a very smart cookie. I love what she says in her twitter feed and on her social media. And the best thing about Sonya is writing is her thing.
She’s blogging and writing. And she teaches how to write properly. She hates it when people don’t write properly or to their strengths. So what you read from her is helpful, fascinating and it’s well written.
Sonia Simone is wonderful. Go follow her. I’ll be back tomorrow.
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