What are your strengths, skills, and resources?

There is no doubt that your strengths, skills, and resources are a major reason for your achievements to date. They are sure to play a major part in the success of your business. They may well be the main reason that your customers choose to use your service or buy your products. Are you aware of exactly what those strengths, skills, and resources are? You can take them for granted because they are with you every day. Being too close to yourself can make you blind to your brilliance.

Why is it important to know?

Your strengths and skills are unique to you and could be a major part of what differentiates you from others in the marketplace. They are also a major reason for the value placed on any advice and consultancy you may give your customers. Your strengths and skills are part of your history, the history that created the business you have today. You may have spent years developing these skills. You may have years and years of experience behind you. Your customers may not necessarily know anything about this. If they did, the question is, would they see more value in what you offer?

An awareness of and the ability to communicate the strengths and skills you have is a very important part of your business marketing. You are at the centre of what you are selling and the more value you place on that, the more others are likely to as well. It can help you to communicate what you do more effectively to the prospects and new contacts you meet. This may form part of the process you go through to help them to appreciate the true value you can offer.

Your challenge

Your challenge will be to become self-aware and find a useful way of making your customers aware too. Your challenge may also be to see the value in yourself and what you have to offer. Many of us are conditioned not to blow our own trumpet and to be modest about those things we are good at. That is fine, but you must not ignore the things that your customers would value and have a right to know about.

Your customers and prospects want the best. They want someone whom they can trust to provide top-quality expertise and deliver with skill. If that person is you, then you are duty-bound to tell them.

SELF-AWARENESS - SPECIAL RESPONSE CHECKLIST

• What do you think your main strengths are?
• How do these strengths impact on your business?
• What are your key skills?
• How have you developed these skills?
• What kinds of experiences have enabled you to gain this expertise?
• How essential are these skills to the service you can o!er your customers?
• Which of your skills is valued most by your customers?
• What parts of your personal history have had an impact on the strengths and skills you are now able to demonstrate?
• What kind of training and education have you had?
• What resources do you have access to as a result of your experiences?
• What is your special story?

How to use this information

Going through the special response questions may make you see the true value you bring to the table. Once your eyes are opened to your brilliance you may find yourself feeling more confident and more self-assured. It is empowering to feel that as a result of all your hard work and effort developing skills, strengths and resources that you are worth something. The benefit you offer your business can be integrated into your marketing messages and materials. There will be plenty of opportunities to find exactly how to do this as you read later chapters of this book.

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Credit by: Jackie Jarvis
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