Builders With Selling Talent: Persuasively Communicating

On this episode of Builder Talent Tuesday Season 1, Jim Collison, Gallup's Director of Talent Sourcing, and Maika Leibbrandt, Senior Workplace Consultant, discuss the Selling talent with Jamie Librot, Senior Learning Solutions Consultant.

People who are especially talented in the Selling talent speak boldly on behalf of their company. They consistently communicate a clear vision of their business to customers and employees. They are great salespeople with an ability to form deep relationships and convince others to follow their well-defined business growth strategy.

Selling's power and edge stems from communication. They communicate the essence of the business, their idea, or their new product or service through stories. They are excellent communicators and easily influence others. They are incredibly persuasive and are great salespeople for the business.

Selling provides both inspiration and influence. It is being able to believe something, but also being able to translate that belief into words and excitement. You may think about this as a traditional sales role, or as a liaison between idea, belief and positive action towards a goal. You may see this talent in action with somebody able to speak boldly. They are able to speak their ideas and have you walk away thinking they were your own. Individuals with the Selling talent are skilled at communicating their vision and growth strategy. They have the ability to deal with ambiguity and imagination in a way that seems tangible enough to get others to join them.

Individuals high in selling aren't just winning over customers, they are winning over champions. They are not just transacting and making that sale, but they are transforming those they are selling to with their beliefs and making them salespeople also. Selling is also about knowing how to reach your audience. They are able to leverage several ways of communicating ideas. Sellers can forge relationships with both investors and employees.

There are some blind spots you need to watch out for with this talent. If you are comfortable enough being the face of your business or idea, you may be comfortable being the sole face of it. This is not necessarily a weakness unless it gets in your way. However, a way to invest and maximize giving over the comfort of the spotlight is to think about how you could expand your reach. Think about leading a team of people who can speak from a different perspective than yours. Think about building trusted advisors who can help you contemplate other opportunities you may not have seen. Your belief can lead to a single minded focus, which can cause you to miss ideas. As you are building those trusted advisors, find people who can help you by being experts in the field. This will allow you to expand your area of focus, so that you can still run with the torch that you've got, but make sure you aren't missing any other potential amazing ideas along the way.

Great coaching around the Selling talent is helping someone really influence from behind the scenes as well as in front of the curtain. How are you communicating your message through other people? How are you winning others over, and then helping those people win others along the way? Think about the way you communicate and invest. The biggest misconception about selling is that it is all about talking, but really the number one key towards growing your Selling talent is listening.

Jamie Librot's Top 5 CliftonStrengths are Achiever, Woo, Focus, Arranger and Competition.