Authentically Growing Your Coaching With CliftonStrengths®

Gallup Called to Coach Webcast Series -- Season 10, Episode 25.

Below are audio and video plus a transcript of the conversation, including time stamps.

"I didn't really realize how much [of a] role talents played in developing my own business right out of the gate." In building his own executive coaching business during the pandemic, Steve Shrout has found success through coaching within his unique talent themes. He calls it "BRAND" -- Be Real and Never Deviate. What does it take to develop an authentic coaching business that will support the way you live? What else has Steve learned that you can apply to your own business? Join him as he shares his coaching journey and his perspective on CliftonStrengths coaching.

BRAND to me means Be Real and Never Deviate. ... If I'm gonna be real, if I'm gonna use my experience ... plus what I hope to do for the clients, I just always need to be authentic. And the best way to do that is with your talents.

Steve Shrout, 21:47

We can get so distracted with so many things out there. ... Let's not forget to use time as a tool. Let's let time work on your side and not something that you'll just willingly give up to anything, anyone, anytime.

Steve Shrout, 28:06

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for a new coach to just dive into the [Gallup] content, arrange it in a way that makes sense for the people you're trying to serve, and offer that curriculum.

Steve Shrout, 52:21

Jim Collison 0:00
I am Jim Collison, and this is Gallup's Called to Coach, recorded on May 19, 2022.

Jim Collison 0:05
Called to Coach is a resource for those who want to help others discover and use their strengths. We have Gallup experts and independent strengths coaches share tactics, insights and strategies to help coaches maximize the talent of individuals, teams and organizations around the world. If you're listening live on our live page, gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/live, there's a link right above me there to the YouTube instance that has a chat room. We'd love to have you log in and join us in chat. You can ask your questions there. If you're listening after the fact or you have any questions, you can always send us an email: coaching@gallup.com. Don't forget to subscribe to Called to Coach on your favorite podcast app or right there on YouTube, so you never miss an episode.

Meet Our Guest on This Episode

Jim Collison 0:55
Steve Shrout is our guest today. Steve has over 25 years of experience as a leader and senior executive for four major media organizations, including two national news brands, currently owns his own executive leadership and performance coaching business. He's a Gallup Global Certified Coach and International Coaching Federation member specializing in personal and professional strengths development and performance enhancement. Man, that sounds important, Steve's. His Top 5 CliftonStrengths: Maximizer -- yeah -- Input, Strategic, Analytical and Responsibility. Steve, welcome to Called to Coach!

Steve Shrout 1:30
Hey, Jim, thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

Jim Collison 1:33
So great to have you. Thanks for having a great microphone, too, by the way. I always appreciate that.

Steve Shrout 1:36
Just for you. Yeah, just for you.

Jim Collison 1:38
As a guy of the, of media, I always, it's always nice to have somebody else have a microphone as well. So thanks for doing that. Hey, let's get to know you a little bit. I spent some time reading your bio, but always, everybody always checks out during that time anyways, when somebody's reading the bio. I want to hear about it from you. Give us a little bit, a little bit of your background and, you know, that elevator speech, so to speak.

Steve Shrout 2:00
Yeah. You know, some of the talking points that you had, you know, really spent most of my career working in news media and traditionally in the newspaper space. So there's a lot that can be gleaned from that, but spent a lot of my career actually traveling from coast to coast. I am in Canada. For those who don't know, I live in Calgary, Alberta. And later on in my career, my, my geographic regional responsibilities were across Canada. So I was responsible for all the metropolitan cities for this news organization across Canada. And then the last couple of years of my career, I actually went to work for Canada's largest news, newspaper company or publisher, which is the Toronto Star. And I worked for them for a couple of years. So I commuted from Calgary to Toronto every week and had an office there. But once the pandemic hit, things changed, and I, I kind of was no longer in news media. And we can talk about that a little bit. But if I were to kind of just hone it in on a couple things, my passion has always been leadership. So always kind of focused on that and leadership development, training people across Canada to take on responsibility. So that's kind of where my niche and my passions are.

Jim Collison 3:14
I love it. You know, just as a side note, I've been, seems like I've been running into a lot of strengths coaches in Canada recently. And I don't, I don't know what's going on up there. Maybe it's in the water, but it seems like the representation, feels like we're getting a few more up there.

Steve Shrout 3:31
Well, and, you know, I think it's more as we get in, involved with the community, the Gallup community, the strengths community, there's a little bit of a, I don't know if there's something happening where the strengths idea is starting to really catch hold up here; I know it's a lot more prevalent in the U.S. But when we talk about new styles of leadership, new styles of working, new styles of managing ourselves strengths, that whole philosophy of strengths and managing weaknesses is really starting to resonate with a lot of, particularly, younger people. There might be something to that.

Jim Collison 4:08
Yeah, I might have to start a, you know, Canada Meetup group, or, you know, or in the early days of this, you know, I've been doing this 9 years now. And in the early days, we tried, and there just wasn't enough. But lately, it seems like, you know, I had Shelina a couple, a couple, maybe 2 months ago, we talked about ASL and, and CliftonStrengths. She was in Canada. Now she was making her way south. But we've just recently, it just seems to be a trend. Let's, let's talk about your trend, because I think this is important as we think about the pandemic hit, and then you, you completely changed everything. Maybe not the best time to do things, but maybe. So talk a little bit about your kind of career conversion, especially in coaching during the pandemic.

Steve Shrout 4:50
Yeah. So, you know, when you work for a corporate entity, like, you know, you're working, I worked for both public and private companies, you know, you kind of get used to that way of life. You get used to that, it's almost like a security blanket, you know, you got a paycheck coming in, you know, all the benefits and all that kind of stuff. And so you kind of get used to that. And so, after 25 years, when the pandemic hit, you know, just kind of give you why the transition occurred, the company I worked for at that time was actually selling the company; they were going to go from, from public to private. And when the pandemic hit, we lost a pile of revenue in 6 weeks, and I'm talking 30%-40% of revenue. So I was the guy responsible for advertising marketing revenue for this company. And, you know, the prognosis wasn't good, as far as when are we going to regain revenue? And throughout the course of trying to sell the company and keep the share value up, they decided to trim expenses. And I was an EVP for the company.

Steve Shrout 5:56
And they kind of saw that I was the only guy outside of Toronto, like, I commuted every week, and I was an expensive part of what, what happened there. So we talked severance, and they were great to me. I really enjoyed working for them, but they kind of cut me loose, I don't know, a month or so after the pandemic hit. And then you kind of go, well, I just saw our company revenues plummet. Now I'm looking at, How do i restructure myself? And I thought I would try and do the same thing. So I reached out to a bunch of companies, and they're like, Yeah, we'd love to hire you, but now's not the time. Like, it's not happening right now. We're all hedging. We're all pulling back. And one of my, one of my friends said to me, he said, You know, I think you would be a great coach. Have you ever thought of doing executive coaching? I thought, well, maybe. Maybe that's something I could do.

Steve Shrout 6:48
You know, I started looking into that possibility. And I started looking at many different people offering executive coaching training. And I picked executive because that's where I spent my life. That's where I have a lot of understanding, and I know the pressures and I know, you know, kind of what happens with those people. But then I landed on Gallup. I kind of thought, I didn't even know Gallup had a coaching arm. And when I did the research there, I kind of thought, Gallup seems to have what I'm looking for. So I started moving over to that. So that's kind of, that's kind of the short version of how I got from corporate to coach.

Rethinking Your Coaching During the Pandemic and Beyond

Jim Collison 7:25
Yeah. Did you have, you know, there's a lot of challenges associated with just the mechanics of that transition and getting some things. As you, and, you know, we're 2 years-plus post, but I still think there's folks in a new reality. And I think, let's, let's think of this in terms of, there's, we're now in a hybrid workspace. And we may have some coaches rethinking even what they did during the pandemic. What are a few things, if you, if you think just off the top your head, a few things you learned that were key to you in that -- and not necessarily, we got some lessons learned. But I'm kind of maybe thinking about these microexamples. How important was the technology and some of the, some, in the transition -- some of those pieces. Anything in there that you learned?

Steve Shrout 8:18
It was constant learning right out of the gate. I remember when I made the decision to launch my own coaching business. I had a couple of coaches that I worked with, like people that were advising me. One guy had been in the, in the coaching business for about 30 years. So, you know, that's coaching before coaching was a thing, you know. And he was kind of giving me direction and very, very supportive and honest direction, which I really appreciated. But I also had other people that were coaches that were telling me, Oh, man, all my, all my business has disappeared during the pandemic. Why do you think you're, you're going to start this now? You know, we've gone from face-to-face coaching, and now my clients are saying they don't want to do this anymore. You know, they, they can't do the, the Zoom thing, or they don't want to do the Zoom thing. Well, I never experienced the face to face. So I launched with the Zoom thing.

Steve Shrout 9:12
And in fact, today, even now that we're coming out of or loosening up, I'll say, from the pandemic, all of my clients are still Zoom. Like, you know, they're across Canada, but, you know, still, they all do the Zoom thing. So what that meant for me, I remember when I started, I was using the little camera that's on the front of the, you know, the laptop or whatever and using the microphone and had the earbuds in. And I remember thinking, If I'm going to offer quality, I probably have to up my technology game a little bit. And so I invested in microphone and some lighting and camera and stuff like that, because I really thought, If I'm going to do something high quality for executives, their expectation's a little bit high. So I'd better kind of match that. So I had to, I mean, I dabbled and I learned as much as I could. I tend to be a very cognitive Strategic Thinker. So I'm always on to the next thing, right? And solving problems and trying to think of, How can I make this better? My Maximizer gets in the way sometimes with that. But yeah, I really had to up the technological understanding for these things.

Jim Collison 10:23
I was just talking with a coworker the other day -- yesterday, I think. I was in the office. And he said to me, "Man, I really like it when you join the meetings from the studio." He goes, "It just feels like, you know, you got the microphone; it just feels cool." And I think sometimes, this, you know, I alluded to this and beginning and thanking you for having that. I think one of the things, you know, we got better. And I want, I want to encourage coaches, continue to up your sound game in some ways, because if the sound is distracting. You know, we did this event yesterday to launch the CliftonStrengths for Sales Report. And my mic was just a little off; like it had a little fuzz at the end of it. And I was surprised how many people noticed that. But it's important, right? I mean, they were distracted from the message by the noise. And so having, I think, concentrating, you don't know how bad you sound, because you don't listen back to yourself. But if, sometimes, if you record what you think you sound like to other people and listen back, you might be surprised. And I think, do you think that's important in the interaction, as you're working with people? That if you're, you're doing 100% Zoom, have you found that to be important?

Steve Shrout 11:33
Yeah, incredibly important. But there's another reason why it's important to me. And that is, one of the things that I do that might be a little bit different, especially for my executive clients, if I, if I have a top-tier client that's paying the full rate for me, they get an audio recording of each session. So within 15 to 20 minutes of us finishing the session, they get the talking points and the notes and all of the things that we talked about. But attached to that is a link to an audio file so they can actually go back and listen to what we talked about again. So they use it as kind of like their own mini-podcast. And that's where I feel like having good quality audio in this particular case -- I don't give a recording of video, but just audio. It's not edited, which means, you know, I don't want to have to mess with all of the crackles and pops and all that, all of that stuff. It's pretty raw audio. But my thinking is for the fee they pay me, I want to give them as best quality as I can. Yeah. So that's why it's important to me.

Outsourcing What You Don't Do Well

Jim Collison 12:32
That's great. And again, it -- just that distraction factor. And I always encourage folks to, you know, and then in this case, there's folks not good at this. Was there anything you weren't good? Like, did you have to outsource? Did you come to a point where you were like, ooh, yikes! I need to --

Steve Shrout 12:48
You know, there's some things that really kind of, when I started a couple of years ago, that kind of stood in the way. Like, I'll give you an example. I'll kind of talk about one thing, it's different than what you just asked, but it kind of leads into it. One is kind of who I was as an identity was a bit different; 25 years of explaining who I was in the media landscape. In fact, I met people yesterday who said, "Oh, you're that guy from that news company." And I still have that persona or reputation out there, even after a couple of years. But learning how to vocalize kind of what I, what I do was really kind of a strange thing -- to say, "Oh, yeah, I'm now an executive coach." I remember my wife saying to me, she said, "How can you say that in a way that doesn't sound so awkward?" And I said, "Well, it's been 25 years of saying something else. I've got to get used to saying this." I didn't even, when I launched, I don't even know if I thought of myself as a coach per se. I think the impostor syndrome, anytime you start something new. So I really had to kind of accept and promote my new role.

Steve Shrout 12:50
But when I got into the strengths program that, you know, I went through the certification, the training, I quickly realized, well, there's things that I do well and things I don't do well. So to answer your question, one of the things I don't do well, is the nitty gritty detail. I've always had assistants. And I, at one time I had a project manager that was under me that, that really did everything that I did and kept things going. So I spend most of my time thinking in the future and big picture, whereas I need those people to manage the details, which means accounting was not my thing. Bookkeeping, not my thing. So I, after a few months of trying to do it myself, and yeah, I figured, I need to hire an accountant. So now they, they keep me on the right track for all of my finances and things. So that's one lesson I've learned there.

Jim Collison 14:43
I think, we see this a lot with, and especially in the coaching space, very entrepreneurial. It's, it seems to be; we have groups of coaches coming together now to kind of create a practice, so to speak. But generally, it's an, it's an individual sport. And I find a lot of coaches sometimes trying to do everything, and I think the outsourcing, you know, even I here, in the role that I have, making all this media, I've got an editor. I have both video and audio editor and people now who kind of keep me on pace and on track. So I think important to know what you're good at and what you're not. You talked about this idea of building identity. And coming from the corporate space, and now you're a coach, and you're in this individual sport, any, how do you help coaches who feel like, I don't -- you know what, I don't belong here. I don't, this isn't my space, right? It takes a while. How did you work through that process of saying, no, no, no -- I belong here. This is where I belong. And this is what I do.

Steve Shrout 15:47
Yeah. I remember when people, like, so I had just started my coaching business. And people would ask the question, "Well, how long have you been doing this?" And, you know, there's the, there's the actual answer, and then there's the implied answer. And the actual answer would be, like, only a few months as a private executive coach. But in my career, I had coached many people corporately, you know, as intrapreneurs, I'll call it like that, you know, to do, you know, with my travel schedule, I could not micromanage; I could not be in every place at once. So what I had to do is make sure that everybody kind of, kind of was doing the job they needed to do when I wasn't around. And that required a lot of coaching. So that was always the part of the job that I loved was development.

Steve Shrout 16:32
So I took the time to really kind of build my leadership management skill around coaching. And then when the job ended, and I stepped out and became just a coach, so I wasn't just about sales and just about marketing and revenue generation and bottom-line management and all the things that go in between those things. I just focused on coaching. So when people ask me, "How long have you been coaching?" I kind of give an answer that's a bit of a hybrid: "Well, I've been actually doing it for more than 20 years." But privately, you know, for just, now it's up to 2 years, right? So, but you know, I just kind of say that to say whatever -- you got to start somewhere. You know, you, you're new at many things throughout your whole life. And when you change a career, you got to start somewhere, and it's OK to be new at it.

Jim Collison 17:19
Yeah. But did you just have a sense of any impostor syndrome in that, in that thinking? And then Mark, let me throw, because I think this is a good question: Do you, do your clients see greater value because you've been in their shoes in a previous role? And how does that play into, Do I belong here? Do I have a little impostor syndrome?

Steve Shrout 17:36
Yeah. That's a good question, Mark. And good to see you. And thanks for, I saw in the chat the, yep. I do think it has helped. Absolutely. I mean, my experience as it translates over into understanding what executives go through is so relatable. You know, it comes up so often. I mean, when a, when a client shows up to me, and they say things like, "I've been tasked with the responsibility of trimming our workforce by 10%." Well, I knew what that felt like. I knew, you know, kind of what had to happen with that. And it's not just about the operational side of doing those things; it's about the emotional side. That's really tough on leaders. You might not think it is, when you work in a corporate environment, but it's really tough. So being able to work with them and be their strategic partner as we work through some of those things. I mean, it's been tough in the past couple years when a client says to me things like, you know, I got a meeting with my bank or my shareholder, and I'm not meeting covenant right now. So how do, you know, how do we work through those things?

Steve Shrout 18:41
And if you were to have that conversation with somebody who's never done that or experienced that, it might be a little bit awkward. The questions you ask and the things that, you know, it just wouldn't lead down the right path. But I feel like I've been able to understand that environment. Now the other thing I will say, Jim, is I'm not a good life coach. Like I don't, I'm not one of these guys that says I'm a coach for everybody. You know, so when I took my Gallup certification, and we kind of looked at my profile, one of the guys that was our instructor at the time, he said, "What kind of coach do you think you want to be?" And I said, "I think I want to be an executive leadership coach." He goes, "OK, that makes sense." Because I, I don't have those fluffy talents and those soft, feely, you know, real emotional talents. I'm more of the operational, let's-get-it-done kind of guy. So, and I tend to be kind of direct in my coaching sometimes, like very honest. So that's kind of where I've landed. I use my past experience to lead my current.

Finding Your Coaching Niche

Jim Collison 19:40
Yeah, I think sometimes those, those life experience, you know, I would hesitate to call them "soft"; I think they're actually sometimes harder to coach on because they're so emotional. They're so tied in to who you are and in what you do. And it, I think, just as a side note, I think the pandemic changed the way we think about the hard and soft skills, when we, when we define those. And I hear that whole, that whole ecosystem being shaken up a little bit just in the way we think about it. So I always think that's kind of, kind of interesting. As you think about, so you've talked some about, you know, identity building, figuring out who you were, who you wanted to be in the space. Who did you want to reach in that? Where, using your strengths, where you would land. Do you feel like you've found that spot? I mean, listen, you have Maximizer No. 1. So you're, you're always reaching. But in the big scheme of things, do you feel like you've got a good chunk of that identity nailed down?

Steve Shrout 20:42
I feel like I do now. And I'm a lot more comfortable with talking about, you know, who I am, what I do, and how I help people. And it really comes down to, I remember, when I was launching, that I really spent a lot of my time focusing on my brand and what that meant. You know, so I kind of created my own style of coaching and the way that I do my sessions with clients. And I follow pretty much a routine; it's not that it's cut in stone, but I'll go where the client needs me to go. But I do really want to focus on, or I did want to focus more on kind of what, what was real about me, like, what am I bringing to this equation that's unique? And to me, the branding was all about -- and I use an acronym for this -- and BRAND to me means Be Real and Never Deviate. So B-R-A-N-D. And I thought if I'm gonna be real, if I'm gonna use my experience that I've had plus what I hope to do for the clients, I mean, I just always need to be authentic. And the best way to do that is with your talents and recognize them and let them take the lead.

Steve Shrout 21:50
The interesting thing for me, as I think about it actually, is I didn't really realize how much role talents played in developing my own business right out of the gate. So let me give it to you this way. When I started studying talents and developing, developing them into strengths, what I realized was, if I can take my strengths and apply them to a passion or purpose -- so in my case, helping executives get better -- then that morphed into a profession. And I actually feel better about what I'm doing now than what I was doing before, simply because I am playing to my strengths. And, you know, that's a bit of a retrospective look at, well, how did I get from there to here? And using the talent language, yeah, I developed talents to strengths. I applied them to my passion or my purpose. And now it's developed my progression. And I feel really good about that.

Jim Collison 22:47
I think also in that equation is you met the need. I think that need gets left out sometimes. It's like, yeah, I'm doing my passion; I found my purpose. But we got to marry that or we've got to join it to a need. Of course, in, you know, your situation, we're going through, we're going through a very difficult time. You must have used the first year of the pandemic, while things were kind of chaotic, to nail all those things down and then get really active in the second year. George asks a great question, and then, As we think about playing to your strengths of where you came from, how much of your clientele are in sales, marketing, advertising space? Coming out of that space, was that a natural workflow or a natural customer flow for you? Or did, how's, how's that working?

Steve Shrout 23:33
Yeah, George, good question. You would think that would be true, but it's not. I don't know what that says about me, now that I think about it. I think I only have one client in that space, out of all the clients I have. All the other clients, it's funny, I've actually started to get a bit of a traction in government municipalities, which is interesting; also in the nonprofit space, which I think is an underserved community from an executive performance and development perspective. So I'll give you kind of one little thing that I've done over the past couple of years. And I'm not sure if it's the same in all areas or all states or provinces, but in Alberta, where I live, we actually have a government program that talks about job grants. You know, and if a business wants to engage in training for their staff, as long as the training meets certain criteria, then the government will subsidize the funding for that training.

Steve Shrout 24:33
So one of my clients a nonprofit. And she said to me, "Are you part of, you know, have you been accepted as one of the providers for your program?" that I kind of wrote using the Gallup materials. And I said, "What's that?" So she kind of walked me through the process, and she said, "If you can get funding, then we'll sign on for a lengthy contract for you because we'll get subsidy from the government." So I worked with the government and met their criteria; it's a bit of a back and forth. But now what's that, what that's done is opened up the door to the nonprofit sector, because if you know anything about nonprofit, they have to account for every penny, and it has to go back into the organization to support the people they serve. So if they're going to do anything internal leadership development, they want to do it for pretty cheap, or they just don't have the funds available. But now, if you're getting government subsidy, now, it just makes it available. And I don't have to kind of take a wash on it. Right? So that sector has really kind of stepped up. I would say, half of my clients are in that municipal and nonprofit sector -- high-level, high-level execs, like very high level, but they're, they kind of come from those areas. I have other ones too.

Developing, Building Your Coaching Brand

Jim Collison 25:45
It's, the, you're the second or third person who's told me recently, you know, the government sector post-situation we're in right now; we're recording this May of 2022. You might be listening to this 5 years from now, and things have changed. But there is, there are funds available oftentimes in the government sectors, as the government's trying to help in these spaces. And again, going to the need, the need is there. You're responding, reacting to the need. Most of the listeners, Steve, to this program are going to be certified or soon to be certified or want to be certified or they're strengths champions. When you think about brand, what kind of advice would you give to them as they're developing their own brand? Because everybody's got to come at this from their own, kind of from their own perspective, right? What kind of advice would you give to them or some questions they could be asking themselves around building their own brand?

Steve Shrout 26:41
Yeah. You know, I have my own thoughts about it. But you actually had a recent podcast where the whole topic was on branding, which I thought was excellent. So, you know, people can go back and listen to that and, and get some great advice. I'm not gonna say anything better than what you guys talked about there. But for me, the branding, you know, it kind of alludes to what I was saying previously about Be Real And Never Deviate. You know, that's, that's kind of where I landed for myself. I mean, let's face it, when you're in the coaching space, I've had people say, "Well, can you, can you coach this?" And I've had to tell them, "No, that's not actually my strength; I actually don't do that." I recently basically walked away from an RFP, because what they were asking of me to do, to provide a quote for, I just kind of looked at it and went, that's, that's not my space. That's not my jam. That's not what I do. Which is hard to do, especially when you're trying to build a business. You kind of want to get as much revenue coming in as you can.

Steve Shrout 27:42
But I always try to push myself on the brand to be on the side of quality, not quantity. Like whatever I do, I try to do it really, really well. Like I really think about what's the best level of service I can give here. And that always comes back to my talents; it always comes back to my strengths and kind of leads with that. I think the other thing that I would say is, as you're developing your brand, I mean, we can get so distracted with so many things out there. Social media is so fantastic at stealing our time. And, you know, I just recently read something that said, you know, let's not forget to use time as a tool. Let's let time work on your side and not something that you'll just willingly give up to anything, anyone, anytime. And for me, it was, when I was starting the business, it was all about making sure that the time I was spending was producing results to help me grow the business. So I dabbled a little bit with Facebook and some advertising there. And I, I mean, I came from a marketing advertising background on national media scope, but to do it for myself was a little bit different. I got no return. I got a lot of tire kickers, but they weren't the clients I wanted.

Steve Shrout 28:52
So what I decided to do was focus on one social medium, and use it for branding. So for me, my playlist is all on LinkedIn. And do not use it as a marketing tool, you know, hard sales, I'm not reaching out to people to, you know, solicit with their DMs or anything like that; I don't do that. But what I do is try to put out a little bit of content that keeps people understanding in what field I work in. In fact, in the last year, I've actually pulled back on that, because, you know, I need to focus more on the clients I'm serving, not the people that are reading for giggles on social media, right. So that's, that's part of it. And the other thing is, when I was developing my brand, if I could just say one more thing, Jim. I had to offer -- this is gonna sound bad, and people might feel differently about this -- I actually offered free coaching. So when I saw people going through situations in their professional life, and I kind of said, OK, these are, these are the people that meet in my demographic as far as who I would like to attract as a customer.

Steve Shrout 30:01
But I can recall one instance where a person worked for the city here. And they posted something online. And I reached out to him and said, "Hey, would you like a free coaching session? You know, let's just talk about what your next steps are." So he took me up on it, and I did that multiple times. But what was great about that was it gave me practice. It helped me develop kind of my routine or kind of my methodology. The people that helped me get certified, when you go through the Gallup certification process, you have to do 6 coaching sessions with people who are then going to give you a rating or a score or summary, to help you get certified. And all 6 of those -- actually, 5 of the 6, sorry -- are still connected with me. So after 2 years, I'm still working with them as a coach. So I really do think, you know, don't be afraid to offer free; just don't offer it forever. Let it help you get your legs under you.

Jim Collison 30:59
Jess ties that question in a little bit. She says, What advice would you share for coaches looking to start building their client base? Would you recommend working off referrals or hustling with cold calls? You know, you mentioned those 6 coaching sessions. And it just reminded me, I think oftentimes, our coaches, they'll pick family members or some of those, those kinds of things, I think those are great opportunities for potential clients, right. Start right off the bat with those that you, you want to coach, right.

Steve Shrout 31:27
Yeah. So, good observation, good question. I would say, that's where, actually family and friends, I didn't actually get a lot of support there. I mean, I got a lot of moral support. But, you know, you can't go to the bank with moral support; you have to pay the bills with actual dollars. But for me, my best return on time spent was with what I'll call loose contacts -- you know, the secondary contacts. I mean, even in my professional career, there was a few contacts that were very close to me; only one of them stepped up. They're a good client of mine now. But my loose contacts, people that I knew from years ago, or what are you doing now? And we get caught up, and then, Oh, I think I can use your services -- they actually had the best return. So family and friends actually didn't have a lot of return. As far as cold calls are concerned, I actually don't do cold calls unless I've been referred. Like, you know, if somebody arranges an introduction, and they want, you know, that other person has said, "Yeah, I'd like to have a chat with him," then for sure, I'll go have a chat with them. But I'm not, I'm not actually out there soliciting cold calls.

Always Be Coaching; Don't Be Annoying

Steve Shrout 32:41
Now, have I done that? Yeah. I mean, I've tried to navigate through that space. It's pretty tough. And what I find tough about it is everybody's got kind of an idea of what coaching is. So one of the things that, along with the free session, I -- in the sales world, we used to say "ABC" -- Always Be Closing, you know, that Glengarry Glen Ross thing. And we kind of chuckled about that. So I kind of say, Always Be Coaching, but don't be annoying, you know. So when I was starting, I remember giving people just little samples of what coaching could do. Because, you know, when we're talking about what coaching is, I'd say, "Well, let me give you an example. Let's talk about something you're facing right now." And I'd take them through a short exercise. So always be coaching, but don't be annoying. You know, if you're thinking that every time you're going to talk to somebody, you'd better be coaching them, because that's who you are, that can, that can come across differently.

Jim Collison 33:32
Steve, how do you, OK, it's easy to say, but don't be annoying. How do you know you've gone too far? Or what do you mean by it? What are some things to watch for? Because that's a huge self-awareness thing, right? Some of us are, you know, some of us may need to check ourselves and like, am I going a little too overboard with this? What kind of advice would you give? How do I know I'm being annoying?

Steve Shrout 33:57
So there's -- that, that's an interesting question, and I think awareness is a big part of it. You know, if every time I'm talking to this person, I feel like I'm coaching them, they're probably going to think, Is this all this guy does? Like we can't even have just a normal conversation. So they'll probably shorten up the conversation. You can either uncover real situations or issues for them, or you can fabricate them. And stay away from fabricating problems for the purpose of trying to be coaching. Like that's, you know, sometimes people just are doing OK. They don't really have anything to talk about. What I try to do is be genuine and engage with people and listen to them. One of my Top 10 is Relator, and that's the only Relationship Building talent I have in my Top 10. But that, you know, that really just tells me that I actually have the propensity to go deep with people, you know, and get to know some unique things. So it takes active listening, understanding is this a real problem or not? And just kind of nudge yourself towards coaching and ask the right questions. But don't be advice-giving, right? Help people uncover something and walk away with something that matters to them after you chat with them.

A Personal Board of Directors

Jim Collison 35:13
Steve did, did someone coach you? This isn't in the notes, but did someone coach you through this? Who do you look to from a -- because everybody needs a coach, right? I get coached all the time. Now, I'm fortunate that I know some really great coaches inside of Gallup, and I get coached all the time. But who coached you or how did you approach your own coaching?

Steve Shrout 35:33
Yeah, so I attached my, when I was actually launching the business, I did attach myself to this gentleman I alluded to earlier that spent 30 years in coaching. And, you know, he's a seniorly guy that really just took the time to invest in me and told me how to get connected, what to watch out for. He's the one who actually gave Gallup huge credit marks and said, "Yeah, that sounds like an organization you should attach to." I spent a lot of time with him -- not so much anymore. The other thing that, that I've kind of always done for myself in my, in my career path was use what you guys at Gallup have developed that's called the Board of Directors tool. So you can find it in several different areas. I stumbled across it, across the BP10, the business profile, and saw this exercise on building the, you know, your Board of Directors, which talks about putting a coach around you or an expert or a confidant or, you know, like these different levels of people that can help you.

Steve Shrout 36:35
And I've kind of always done that. I can count right now three people that are still acting as my personal Board of Directors that I can rely on to give me great support and advice. And my encouragement for anybody that's a new coach is find your personal Board of Directors that you can ask questions of, and know that you're gonna get honesty and transparency from that. So I do that even today. And I meet with a lot of them actually once a month. So --

Jim Collison 37:06
Yeah, it, surrounding yourself with those folks who will give you open and honest feedback is that, and yeah, we, yes, we have some tools around that. But you can also, I mean, the concept is just who's around you that that you're gonna rely on? And I think the important thing, Steve, is to let them know that they're part of that circle for you, right? Did you, did you have conversations with individuals saying, "Hey, I'm gonna rely on you for this kind of help or this kind of support"? Those aren't the right words, but you know what I mean.

Steve Shrout 37:42
Yeah, do you want to make it transparent as to what you're doing? Yeah. Yes and no. I mean, some of them, I just have a great connection with and they have great experience in the industries that they were leading. And I just ask questions, and I rely on their answers to fulfill that need. In one particular case, a gentleman that's retired, he knows I, I look to him as a mentor. And he's taken on that persona for me, and he act, he actively participates with that. So that, you know, it comes in both ways. You know, it's either formal or informal, as far as your selection on that.

Social Media and Your Coaching Business

Jim Collison 38:18
Any other thoughts on social media? You mentioned it's, it can be a distraction. Now, listen, I live in that world every single day. It's part of my job. So whenever people say that, I always kind of go, well, kind of. Because I have to be out; I have to be out. It's just actually part of my job, right. But any other things that you learn, when you think about that cycle of, and it's not necessarily lead generation but about networking, that you would share with coaches?

Steve Shrout 38:48
Yeah. So that's a bit of the myth. That, you know, when you start, you kind of think, Oh, if I could just get on social media, then the business will come in. It doesn't happen that way, you know, at least from my experience. You know, you think that you're going to put up the right content, you put up the right advertising, and it will start to roll in. That's a bit of the myth of social media. What I will say about social media is, you know, we all know that likes are fun, but they're not currency. Right? It's always great to see, well, who's reading my content, and where are they coming from, and all of that kind of stuff. But that's just more of just emotional currency more than anything. You can't really take that to the bank.

Steve Shrout 39:30
So use social media wisely. Don't think that if you are not on social media, you will not be successful. If you're good at what you do, the word will get around. I'll give you an example. A lot of the clients that I deal with, at the level they're at, aren't on social media. They wouldn't have seen me anyways. Like they don't have profiles. Some do. Most don't have profiles. They're not engaging with it. They're so busy building their business, and then in their off time, managing their personal life, that social media just really doesn't register much for them. And I think even all of us on the call here, if you were to think about the clients that you have in the business or executive space, how many of them are active on social media? Probably not much. So that's why I say don't, don't kind of waste your time on social media; it's not going to give you kind of the return that you think it's going to give you.

Jim Collison 40:25
It has been helpful in, in my job of creating community, and I think --

Steve Shrout 40:30
For sure, yeah.

Building, Maintaining Your Coaching Website, Calendar

Jim Collison 40:31
For coaches, that can be, as you create that community, it can be that area to gather people. I think, for a marketing tool first, well, I know everybody's a little different; I don't want to say you can't, but, but certainly works in the in the, you know, the community building area, it's worked well. And it's dangerous for that as well; one has to be careful. I think George asks a very tactical question related to brand. So, How'd you decide about a website? Have you invested in its development? Has it been helpful in creating your brand? And I'd to add to that, Can you further your brand in a way with your website? And what's, any suggestions on that from a site-building perspective?

Steve Shrout 41:11
Yeah, this is actually really well linked to the previous question. So George, thanks for asking this. When we talk about social media and your engagement there, anything you do digitally needs to be babysat. Otherwise, it becomes obsolete. If you're not babysitting it and continually changing or adapting, it does become obsolete. So you got to watch it. Websites are kind of the same. However, I remember when I was kind of developing the website and thinking about what I wanted to put up on it, and I thought, I don't want to babysit this website all the time. Like I don't want to have to constantly be turning content and, because that's, I want to spend my time with clients. If I'm going to do something, I want to make sure that I'm, I'm spending my time with what returns for me.

Steve Shrout 41:53
So the website to me is just the digital business card. You know, once it's, it's kind of up there, and there's a few additions I'll do every now and again. So when I get a client, it goes into the logo page. And if I put up a new podcast, it goes on the podcast page. But, or if I develop a program, it'll go up on the program page. But as far as blogging and content and serving, and I'm a one-, one-man operation. I can't, you know, I only have X number of hours in a day. And I really didn't want to spend my time babysitting this digital space. So to me, it's, it's very helpful in branding. When I'm talking to people who are asking me questions, I direct them back to the website. And there's a link there.

Steve Shrout 42:34
I, one thing that I have done that's been a game changer for me is I've automated my calendar. So I've opened up my calendar to be accessible that people can book their own time with me by clicking on a link. So I use an app to help with that. I immediately got about 30% busier when I got that. And that's not a joke. Like you might say, Oh, that's a pretty -- nope. My calendar, boom, people were logging in because it's convenient to them. They could book the time they wanted to. And I think I, you know, what is it, a couple hundred dollars a year to be part of this, this program. It has streamlined -- we talked earlier about outsourcing what I'm not good at. That's been one of those things that's been outsourced that I, I will never not have an automated calendar.

Jim Collison 43:22
Steve, that, that automated calendar things scares me to death. Like I am the last, and I'm, listen, I'm super techy. But giving up my calendar has been the last frontier for me. I know I need to do it. I know I need to use one of those services; we have one of them. But for me it's been scary because I, I am a control freak on my calendar. I just, I need to, so I think, I think those areas we need to conquer as coaches, right, there's, that are scary. This one's scary to me. And listen, I haven't conquered it yet. I, I still have to -- we talk about this, I'm like, OK, this afternoon, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get signed up for that and turn it on. And I'm not gonna do it because I'm scared to death, right? I think overcoming some of those things, they're hard. They're real. I mean, we have these programs, and we say these things, but people have real, real struggles in them.

Transitioning From Pro Bono to Paid Clients

Jim Collison 44:18
Theresa asks this question: She says, I have plenty of pro bono clients, and it's always easy to get those. And I'm working to transition to paid clients while I'm still working. Do you have any suggestions on making that shift? And then, as a side note, she's says, still working full time with the goal of transitioning to coaching in about 12 months or so. So thinking, Steve, thinking about the next year, going from pro bono to paid, what are your thoughts on that?

Steve Shrout 44:41
Yeah, that's a great question. So I, like I said, I have done free coaching in the past. And the interesting thing about coaching and, you know, Jim, you said, when you fulfill a need, right, that's kind of what coaching is doing for other people. There's times where I've seen people that are in, even in positions where they would match with what I offer that they can't afford or can't pay for what I want, but I'm, I'm so engaged with them and I think I can help them that I do offer pro bono. But my pro bono, I've decided for me, never extends more than 10% of my time. So I very much regulate it. And as far as making the shift from pro bono to paid, that is a tough shift. Anytime you offer something for free right out of the gate, in the eyes of that person, that's kind of what your value is. They feel great for taking it, but then sometimes they feel guilty for not paying for it. But if you ask them to pay for it, then they're gonna hedge a little bit because they haven't been paying for it.

Steve Shrout 45:45
So my comment to you, if you're starting out, is to take donation even, because that's not free. You know, so, so take something for your coaching out of the gate, and don't be apologetic or afraid to say, "I will do this for you for 2 months or 3 months. After that, we can decide what it looks like going forward." Like, put a timeline on it so the person doesn't think this is an indefinite arrangement. You know, as a coach, your goal is to, if, especially if you're going to transition to full time, your goal is to get your revenue up there that supports you or your lifestyle or what you need out of it. And the more time you dedicate to cheap or free, it takes away from your time that you could be doing it on the other side. Right?

Jim Collison 46:30
You said this, but free sometimes -- pro bono, let's call it that -- gives you an opportunity to practice in maybe some areas that you need practice in, right?

Steve Shrout 46:38
Yeah, when you're new, absolutely. When you're getting the legs under you, and you're trying to figure out, well, what works; what doesn't? What did I do well? What did I not? Get the feedback from the clients -- did this work? Did that work? That's all great. That's value to you. But eventually, that needs to translate into OK, I've honed my skill. I've honed my methodology. And now what, I now know what I'm about. Now I have no problem charging or asking up front for this.

Jim Collison 47:04
I'm getting some coaching of my own out there. Tish says, Take a deep breath, Jim. Take a deep breath. Plug your nose and jump in to, to the calendar world. Mark says, I learned that the calendar tool is great. However, I usually only opened up a few blocks of time. Mark, this is good coaching for me is that I don't have to, I'm not opening up my entire schedule. But I'm being, I can be strategic about that and say, Hey, schedule some time with me. I'm working on something with an interview, and they're in Middle East. And getting those times set up is often a challenge. And sometimes these applications make it easy. Mark, I want to ask about what's next for you. You're here today. As you're looking ahead here for the next, well, let's just say for the rest of 2022, any thoughts on what are you going to continue to do? And maybe, since Maximizer is 1 for you, what are you going to do more of? Or what are you going to do better in that regard?

Steve Shrout 48:02
So looking forward, I mean, I live in the future, as I already said, you know, with my Strategic Thinking and everything. And I'm always looking at what can I do next? And I think I'm gonna continue building the one-on-one client base that I have; I really enjoy that space. The interesting thing is, as I've worked with my one-on-one clients for the past couple of years, they've now kind of brought me into the organization where I'm working down at a lower level. And then when I work with them for a while, like the V suite, I call it -- the vice presidents or directors -- then they want coaching for their staff. And that's kind of not where I go. So I'm looking for partnerships and Gallup-Certified, which I do have some here even in my city that I'm working with, where they will start to take over some of that for me as I go deeper into an organization. So that's, that's one way of scaling.

Steve Shrout 48:52
I do have a couple of programs that I'm currently writing -- believe it or not. I, you know, I talked about the executive side of it, but one of the things that seems to come up often with my clients is, Is there a way that myself and my wife could do these strengths review from a perspective of a, of high-performer executive household, you know, that kind of thing? So I've had that question enough that I started, I'm starting to think, maybe I should develop a program for these people. Because I know what it's like to try to run a family when you're traveling so much or you're high pressure, whatever. And it's not easy. So can strengths help with that? And the second thing is, and this is great, because you guys did the launch yesterday of the sales, CliftonStrengths Sales Report. And so now my head has just been spinning ever since, for the past 24 hours, about, Oh man, my clients need this for their sales teams. Like how can I write a program for this now and include that, and who can I outsource that to? And so trying to, try to build that. So finding partnerships is kind of where I'm at right now but not letting go of my one-on-one responsibilities.

Jim Collison 50:00
For folks who haven't heard about the CliftonStrengths for Sales Report, that will come out June 1, 2022. For our current Certified Coaches, I just recommend, get that report for yourself to begin with. When it becomes available, purchase that. You can use, if you're a Certified Coach, you can use your discount code on it. And really, we're going to, Day One, we'll have some materials for you on the Certified Coaches site, so gallup.com/certifiedcoach. And, and Steve, I think, like anything, just drown yourself in it for a while and get -- it's not going anywhere. And your, your sales folks will be fine as we go. And there'll be lots of things to develop around; I'm excited for it as well, much like we were for the Manager Report when they came out for managers. Boy, the two tools together -- the Manager Report and then this new sales tool could just be a one-two punch, you know, in a sales organization.

Developing Your Own Curriculum With Gallup's Tools

Steve Shrout 50:55
So one thing I want to add to that, Jim, you know, that I really didn't talk a whole lot about is developing -- one of the best things I did when I launched was to develop my own kind of curriculum programs using the Gallup tools. There is so much available from Gallup that you can basically custom arrange many different things to come up with your own leadership curriculum. So I'll give you an example. One of the things that I did was I took things like the 5 Coaching Conversations, the 4 Needs of Followers and leadership branding, and all from a strengths perspective, and created an executive 3-month rapid onboarding program. So when client or when businesses hire a new exec, like one of the municipalities I work for in Ontario, they give me their execs. And I get them for 3 months. And I take them through this curriculum from Gallup. And it starts with the assessment, the CliftonStrengths assessment, and about halfway through, then I make the Managers Report available to them. And then we go through that.

Steve Shrout 51:54
So once they get this, their legs under them with their strengths, and they understand what that's all about, then we make the Managers Report available to them and we work on some of those other topics. By the end of the 3 months, that's a very defined program. And we're also working on real-time issues as they onboard in this new business or this new organization. So, you know, at the end of that, they've had some really great onboarding thinking, talking, coaching, training, and they hit the ground running. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for a new coach to just dive into the content, arrange it in a way that makes sense for the people you're trying to serve, and offer that curriculum.

Jim Collison 52:34
I think onboarding, you know, we did a session, Danny Lee and I did a Called to Coach back, man, I want to say like August of 2020. If you go to gallup.com and search "onboarding," I think you'll be able to find that session. Danny does some masterful, you know, walk-through of some ways to help organizations onboard. I didn't realize how prophetic that would be. While we were recording it, nobody was hiring anybody. Not long after that, all of a sudden, we had the Great Migration is kind of what I'm calling it -- the Great Resignation as has been known by some. And all of a sudden, everybody's changing jobs. And I think, Steve, lots of organizations now are missing an opportunity to increase the stickiness of their organization, one, by developing a strengths-based culture but two, by really infusing that into the organization with onboarding. Haven't you found in the work that you've done that that onboarding is the kind of a key to getting that culture started from Day One?

Steve Shrout 53:31
Yeah, absolutely. Onboarding is so critical. I actually talk about not just the onboarding process, but also the employee experience. You know, one of my clients termed it from -- how did he put it? -- from hire to retire. What is the on, what is the experience? And it starts with onboarding, but it's also about the culture all the way through the organization. And the CliftonStrengths program applies itself so well to each stage of those, as an employee goes through the journey. You know, onboarding, of course, is the starting point for it. Here's the other thing that I'll tell you. I'm finding now, more than ever, that in these organizations, they're hiring younger leaders than they've ever hired before. A lot of their older leaders in the last couple of years have decided, I'm done. I'm retiring. And in some organizations, they just don't have a leadership development program. That's one of the last things that they, they kind of think about. And when they're hiring leaders that are now in their late 20s, early 30s that have no leadership training now, this program that, that I've kind of created becomes a good starting point for that, to help get them some kind of leadership knowledge.

Effective Use of Networking

Jim Collison 54:41
We spent some time with John Sexton at Vibrant Credit Union, I think, at the end of last year on Called to Coach talking about their leadership development program. And I think that's a great opportunity to, as, to think about, in those organizations, another place a coach could provide, build their onboarding program, also help them build their leadership development program -- two pillars of productivity and, and area to do, to build a strengths-based culture. A couple of quick questions on the way out, Steve. One -- Erin asks: What does networking look or sound like when sharing your services with a potential client? How -- generally, how does that work for you?

Steve Shrout 55:20
Yeah. So networking, to me is, I mean, let's, let's just say it's really just arranging introductions to meet people. But sometimes when people introduce me, they say, Oh, he's an executive coach. OK, well, everybody thinks, oh, this is my experience with coaching; this is what I know. So I've come up with a bit of an elevator pitch, you know, this summary statement of what I do. You know, I help leaders and executives increase their potential by using their unique strengths and talents. And that usually leads into, Well, what does that mean? What does, you know, so then I get to talk about it. And Oh, what do, what does that look like for me? What can you help me with? Talk about it a little more. You know, so I just say that, create that 30-second statement that helps identify uniquely, but invites other dialogue. That's the first thing.

Steve Shrout 56:11
And then, a lot of people have the fear of sales, right? They have the fear of, I'm going to ask for money, and they're going to turn me down. That might not happen. I remember the first time, my very first individual client that I signed up, he, we did the exploration. And then he asked me, "Well, how much do you charge?" And I told him. And he goes, "Sounds good." And I thought, "Oh, man, I left money on the table. What did I do here?" Because I'm the sales guy, right? But no, that's the starting point: Just be unapologetic. If you've landed on a price for yourself that you think you can support and deliver the value that supports the price you charge, don't apologize for that. You can always negotiate if you have to, but put it out there.

Jim Collison 56:54
Lots -- I hear this fear of rejection is what you're saying is really hard. It's actually, it's sometimes scarier the fear of acceptance. Like, if they do say, "Yes," then you're like, Oh, now I actually have to do something. Right. And I think for a new coach or for someone going into a new adventure, when you do get that "Yes," there's that, all of a sudden, that moment of accountability,

Steve Shrout 57:17
Yeah. Now you have to show up; you have to produce.

Jim Collison 57:20
And that's when impostor syndrome kicks in a little bit of like, Oh, maybe I'm not cut out to do something like this, you know, maybe this isn't what I really wanted to do, after you've done it for a while. So, Steve, any final thoughts, as we kind of come close to the end here? Anything as you, and you've got the ears of these Certified Coaches, anything else you'd add?

Steve Shrout 57:42
Well, you know, from my perspective, I just want to say how much I've enjoyed just chatting with you today, Jim, and the work that you do. You're so fantastic at leading these discussions. I get that I haven't been in this industry a long time, only a couple of years. And a lot of people that are interviewed are, they have tenure, they have experience with this. I'm still learning. I'm still kind of growing. I've kind of bumped into things along the way. The thing that I would kind of encourage the listeners to do is, don't worry about making mistakes. Don't worry about learning, if I could put it that way. There's so much to learn. You'll always be learning. But find a path that makes sense to you. Take your strengths, as I said before, apply it to your passion and purpose, and see if you can build your profession out of that. Because that, that really, if you work in your strengths zone, I mean, it just makes so much more sense. You're gonna be happier.

Steve Shrout 58:35
And then surround yourself with the people who will backfill your weakness, right, strategic partnerships. So for me, it's accounting and other things. So don't be afraid to do that. Just step out there in confidence and start seeing yourself as the coach, and dabble -- dabble in it. Always be coaching; just don't be annoying, you know, and things like that. And I think over time, what happens is you start to gain this identity. You gain confidence. You talk about yourself. People look to you for that. So that's my last words of, of thought here.

Jim Collison 59:05
Well, Steve, thank you for taking the time, the preparation that it takes. It takes, it takes a little bit of time to put one of these things together as I, as, you know, you reached out to me and said, "Hey, I think I have something to say." And I said, "Let's do a call." So we spent some time, and then you put together fabulous notes. These things don't -- everybody thinks this is me, and it's actually just because the guests bring fabulous notes to this. And you did a great job of that as well. And so thanks for bringing your wisdom, and, and we're getting some, you know a lot, we're getting some, some great thank yous from the audience as well. And so appreciate you guys, for the live audience, coming out as well. But Steve, thank you for --

Steve Shrout 59:44
Thank you.

Jim Collison 59:44
Coming out and being a part of this. Hang, you hang tight for me one second. With that, we'll remind everyone to take full advantage of all the resources we do have available. Steve mentioned a few. If you head out to gallup.com/cliftonstrengths, log in with your with Gallup Access ID and hit the Resources tab. And there's lots of stuff there. I bet if you have a question, we have an answer. Jump in there and get it done. For coaching, master coaching or if you want to become a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach or have questions around that, like Steve is, you can send us an email: coaching@gallup.com. Don't forget, you can, if these have been helpful, and you want to, you want to sign up for more, they're all listed on our Eventbrite page. Go to gallup.eventbrite.com. You can find us on the big Facebook group of 15 or 16,000 people out there now: facebook.com/groups/calledtocoach -- all one word -- we'll get you in there; just, just request to join it, and we'll put you in. And we want to thank you for listening -- oh, and find us on any other social platform. We mentioned those, although we said a little bit, don't get too involved in them and let it steal some time away from you. But you can find us on any other social platform just by searching "CliftonStrengths." Want to thank you for joining us today. Thanks for coming out. We will see you back here, I think, oh, I've got another one of these tomorrow, just as, if you want to join us tomorrow afternoon here in the Central Time Zone. Thanks for coming out today. With that we'll say, Goodbye, everybody.

Steve Shrout's Top 5 CliftonStrengths are Maximizer, Input, Strategic, Analytical and Responsibility.