The 3 Tiers Of Skill Sets For Business

Sales is a service that if they're interested, they probably need that nudge of that person being you to get them over the finish line to actually follow through with that thing that they need to do. And we're back with another episode of He Said, she Said.

So last night I got to do something cool and I'll kind of set it up for context for all the listeners. But before I do that, you have girlfriends in business. Coming up, your second one that you've done this thing is a smashing success of 60 women getting together to network for an entire day. And how do people get on your list to get the link for it?

So this is a one day workshop and we have incredible speakers who are coming in to not only answer your questions but share their experiences and also give you the shortcuts. And you're going to be able to workshop your own business with other entrepreneurs in the room as well. So this is all about high level networking, breakouts, panels and learning from experts. And it's one day. We really felt like there was a need in between, like a really large one day event with 500 people where you can kind of get lost in the background. You don't really have to show up, you don't speak up, you're not really on, just your business isn't on display. And then the in between of a year long mastermind or a six month mastermind. We wanted something that was just a one day drop in, meet other female entrepreneurs and really find your business besties who are like minded and get that next one step. So you guys, if you want to be at the one day workshop in Scottsdale in September, all you have to do is text the word workshop to 310-496-8363. Ticket sales are open so you're going to want to make sure that you go to girlfriends in business.com as well right away because we did sell out in 72 hours on the last one. So to ticket sales literally just opened up. If you're hearing this right now, you're gonna wanna go check it out.

It's really cool. I know two girls that started an event together coming out of the last one. I know two girls that are working together on like their website marketing. These collaborations wouldn't have happened without them going and meeting at the thing. So definitely a really cool way to go get a lot of impact in one day. Well, the reason why I brought that up is there's three tiers of skill sets that you need in order to really hit your dreams run Your business hit, your goals, whatever it is. And that's the first tier, which is the things that come naturally to you or that you are really good at, Right. And those are what you should lean into. There's the second tier of skill sets. And those are things that you may not know yet or may not be proficient yet at. But you can tell, you could learn them easy. You could tell it's within your wheelhouse if you apply some action towards them, intentionality of learning them. And then the third tier are the ones that you have no business learning because you're not going to be good at them. And this is where most people get stuck, is they're trying to do these third tier skill sets. But the reason why I wanted to talk about all of this is last night I took my original mentors out to dinner. And I've been doing this now every year that we come back to Wisconsin, to the lake house here for context. For those of you that don't know me from a hundred years ago, I grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that area. And when I got kicked out of college, I went and I got a job at a car dealership. And at that car dealership, there were a couple of guys that really took me under their wing and cultivated the skill sets that they saw in me. In particular, they taught me two things. They taught me sales, and they taught me leadership. And they really poured into me. As a matter of fact, one of them, Ron Vigil, really fought for me to get a promotion that other people probably should have gotten. But he saw such incredible skills in me that could be developed. And here we are today, 20, 25 years later. And these are the core skills that I still rely on that made me successful through my banking career, that made me successful through my entrepreneurial career. That made me successful. When we've got something to sell or a team to lead, it's these core skill sets that I learned from those gentlemen of sales getting really good at sales and leadership. And without them, I wouldn't have cultivated these two crutches that I really, really lean on. So that's an example of my tier one skill sets that I lean on. What are your tier one skill sets?

I think the first thing I recognized in myself was the power to connect with people and enroll them into a vision. And the enrolling part did not come right away either. But you start to recognize these little things that you're naturally good at. And I think for me, it was understand people, which also helped me connect with them. So I Could kind of go anywhere or be in any room. And maybe I didn't feel like a crazy personal connection, but I knew that I had the ability to find a commonality between us which then could allow us to kind of chit chat and drop in. And as my life went on, I noticed that I had the ability to connect with anyone.

Yeah, I totally agree. I've seen you do be able to do this since the day I met you. Right. You're a natural connector that turns you into a natural networker. So you've always had everybody in your network that you needed to, all the way back to your fitness days, right. When you needed to network and get the right people to not only mentor you, but get the right people to collaborate with and, you know, help you build your career. In the whole nine years, you've always been, I have to ask, did this come from your religious upbringing, knocking on doors, the ability to connect real quickly?

I'm sure that it did. And you know, that makes me really say a lot of the things we're good at. Came a need to survive and to fit in. And so for me, I understood all the different things I had to do to make sure I stayed in that group of people, and I understood it. And I think that so many people are probably better at connecting than they realize because of that, of having to feel out their environments and really make sure that they fit in with their environments, you know?

Well, so the point is, mine were kind of taught to me. Maybe they were innate to me. Yours were kind of natural to you. But this first tier in the three tiers of skill sets is something that you learned really easily and you can lean on the rest of your life. Or it's something that came naturally to you and you should lean on the rest of your life. Now, the Next tier, tier 2, these are the things that you're going to need to be successful to get to where you're going. And you can tell that they would be easy things for you to learn if you just paid a little attention to trying to learn them. So for mine, sales, totally natural and learned it really well. But leadership, that one took some actual learning, but was already adjacent to my personality. What I would have been able to do with a little bit of cultivation of those skill sets. And so that's what happened, right? At first at the car dealership from these gentlemen, and then quickly at the bank as I got promotions and went to different trainings, I was able to cultivate leadership as the second tier of skill sets that didn't come naturally to me, but definitely was within my ability to master. And that became then a second crutch that I really, really am able to lean on. What would you say your tier two, like, didn't come naturally, but realized you were able to learn it?

Tier 2 is definitely sales. And I had the realization once I started getting interested in making money and something outside of the career of working for someone else, I realized I'm going to have to learn how to close people, how to do sales. And, you know, it's funny, I learned this all the way back when I worked at AT&T and sold cell phones. And my first boss would kind of teach us what it looked like to close because I could talk to people no problem coming into the store, make a connection, have somebody, you know, enrolled in what this product was. But when it came to the ask, like, the actual clothes, I didn't understand how to do that, so I had to learn that. And, you know, anybody listening? I just to share if you're like, okay, well, I'm good at sales, but I'm bad at connection. You just have to go and focus on the thing and go to the places where you can learn that skill. I was just thinking that with girlfriends in business, we actually teach you how to network there. Like, what questions to ask. What does this look like if you've got a focused agenda? And so for me, with sales, I had the agenda of obviously, closing people. So if I could connect with them, what's the next natural closing people? And so with closing people, I had to also learn how to overcome objections and what that looks like to do a natural soft close and help people get into, you know, if they're in the store, if they're coming to your page, if they're looking at your stuff, it means they're interested. What it also means is that they're going to need somebody to close them. People are not naturally going to do the thing that they actually need the most. And that's how I started looking at sales was sales is a service that if they're interested, they probably need that nudge of that person being you to get them over the finish line to actually follow through with that thing that they need to do.

It's. I've watched you. I don't know if you remember this, but when you first got your very first job at that Big Box gym, you had to learn how to sell.

Yeah.

And you didn't know at all. And you brought home these little scripts. Do you remember this?

Yep.

And we had to role play the scripts. And I remember thinking of, oh, my God, she's atrocious. And now you're fantastic at closing, right? And you could. You learned really quickly. I mean, really quickly. And you became the top person there right away. And so that's an example of a two skill set where, hey, this was well within your wheelhouse. You just needed some cultivation to be able to make it one of your strengths.

You know, I think the reason I learned so quickly is because I shifted my mind about what sales was. It wasn't like, oh, I'm winning and I'm getting the money, Even though that was a massive bonus to me and I loved it and that was motivation. But in order for me to come from such a place of feeling great about it and freedom within doing it, not feeling bad about pushing someone was. Because that is how I viewed it was something. Sales is an act of service. If they were coming into the gym, it was clearly because they wanted to be more fit. So it was up to me to say, let me help you get to your goals. Everything up until this point has not gotten you there. But you have not tried this yet. So what is it going to hurt to try this, commit to it, get the accountability you need, come see me and be the person that's going to hold you accountable. Like, let's make this the thing that makes it different. Just like if you have a course, just like if you're selling a book, just like if you're selling an event, just like if you're selling a product, let this be the thing that is different.

So we're going to talk about your Tier 3 skill sets. These are ones you shouldn't try to learn next. And we'll each identify one of those. But right now I'm dying because I wish people could see this. So we had to lock our two big dogs out on the deck up here at the lake house because they're playing and wrestling and barking, and we could not record this podcast whatsoever. So Bananas is throwing a fit. He's literally going bananas. He's pounding at the door, like, pounding. He gets so much like an angry man. And what you can't see, Lori, is he keeps coming. There's a window behind Lori. He keeps coming and looking in this window. So every time you see me start to crack up, he's looking over your shoulder with the most angry face you've ever seen, staring at me like, come open this thing, you little asshole. It's amazing. So I'm trying not to crack up during this Thing, the tier three skill sets, these are the ones that you're never going to learn them, at least not without tons of effort. You probably have no business learning them. They're just going to slow you down. These are where people get stuck because they think they have to do everything in their business, and that's not the truth. These are the ones that you're never going to be good at. Even if you do learn them, it's just not who you are. There's some things that are who we are, and there's some things that just aren't who we are. And we weren't even meant to be that person or have those skill sets. What's your. What would you say your Tier 3 skill set is?

I mean, tech. In the beginning, I had to learn a lot of just little things. Like, you guys, we were on the. We were the beginners in Facebook and MySpace and reels all. I mean, like, everybody has to learn these basic things. I feel like for tech, and I even remember when Reels first came out, I got on the phone with a friend and I was like, walk me through this. I don't understand it. And so I definitely seek out the help for the things that I know I have to get good at. Like, I know I need to do my own social. I need to be there in order to be that person who attracts people. But when it comes to website stuff, I have tried this. I have absolutely tried to walk myself through these things. And let me tell you, if it's something that is taking more than a day for me to do something that could take someone 20 minutes, then that's just a dumb move on my part not to find somebody and pay them. Now, I get in the beginning, sometimes you're not going to be able to even have the money to do that. And we didn't at some point. So I had to trade things out. Like, I had to look for things I could trade out. Like, oh, my goodness, would you be interested in, like, doing a session with me or having a month free or whatever? This.

Do you remember Heidi, our very first employee slash teammate ever? You traded. You said, hey, you can be on my monthly plan if you would kind of formulate and make this PDF look really nice that we send out every single. Because it wasn't in your wheelhouse and it wasn't going to be in your wheelhouse.

Yeah, like tech design, anything like that. I just realized this is absolutely not how my brain works. I get so, so frustrated that I end up not doing anything else because I want to complete it takes me days, weeks, whatever that looks like. And then it just stalls the project. So for me, it's definitely tech. I do anything now to hire that out, have somebody on our team who does it. All of those things where I'm like, you know, I'm really good at the creative, at sales, at teaching, and I'm going to stay in that lane and it just works better for everybody. And that's really when your business starts to thrive, is when you get out of those positions that you're just never going to be good at.

It's funny. Tech is also mine. So. Boy, talk about two people getting married that you had no shot at tech. Yeah. But I think the number one sign that you're never gonna be good at tech is that you said making reels was tech. Come on.

I know there are people who are relating to me right now, though. Now I love it. Now I love it. But in the beginning, if it's techie and I have to, like, figure things.

Out, it won't come naturally.

That's not what my brain wants to do.

And the point is, you would have wasted way too much time trying to learn how to do these things. Tech, design, that kind of stuff. What a waste of your skill sets, what a waste of your personality. What a waste of your natural networking superpower.

Right?

Right. Imagine being in the house trying to learn how to design a website instead of being out networking so you could afford to pay someone to design the website. That's how this is supposed to work. Right. But everyone else gets stuck. I would say mine is like management of details, event management. We're one of the best entrepreneurial events companies on the planet, I think. I think what we run is, are the absolute best. And it's because we put the right people in place to make them go swell. If that was up to me to run those things, absolute disaster. When it comes to the planning, the details, the execution, all I don't have the patience for it. And I think that's also a clue. You'll know that the thing that you're not learning, that you're not supposed to learn is because you just flat out don't have the patience for it. Some things you got the patience to learn when you don't know other things, they are your absolute trigger. And those types of details, for me, are my absolute triggers. And what I really want to share with everybody, though, is these tier three skill sets that you do need to have on your team if you're going to be successful. Not everyone can afford to hire them right away. This is where you do one of a few things. You either hire them out or you trade them out or you call in a favor to have somebody do them for you. And that's why there's no excuse to not be doing these things and doing them well or to get someone else to do them well for you is because you can. If you've built up relationship capital, you can ask Colin some favors. You can trade your skill sets for other people's skill sets, and if you have to, you can hire them out as well.

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You know what I've learned over the years? I used to compare and look at some people who were really good at websites and doing their funnels and things like that. And I thought, oh, God, if I just knew how to do that, I would be where they are or they're going to be so much further ahead than me. No one skill is better than anyone else's. It's really not. Because that same person who's so good at building websites and funnels is not great with closing or is not great.

With who knows what.

So they have to go pay someone to do their Facebook ads or get really good at learning how to attract people. And so you have to, like, get out of that victim mindset of comparing yourself, of thinking, I'm not good at this. They're better at this than me. They have more skills. Who cares? Can you be a better team manager? Can you be better at hiring? Can you be better at surrounding yourself with the right people? And so that's what I really let go of because I used to compare myself left and right to different people. There's women out there who can do so many different things. And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm only good at this one thing. Okay, well then get really good at it and then get really good at getting the right people in place. But don't get stuck there and comparing, because I can look back and say, I definitely got stuck there. And it takes a lot of time and energy out of what you could be doing.

I wish you.

He's such a psycho.

He is a psycho. Oh, my God, he is so funny.

We're gonna get you.

All right, guys. Well, there's tiers of skill sets. Lean on the ones that come naturally to you. Those are your crutches. Develop the ones that seem to develop easily. Add those to your skill set. Bag in the third tier. Trade them out, hire them out. Stop getting stuck trying to do them. Stop getting stuck trying to be someone who you're never going to be. And that's another reason to come to girlfriends in business is because the partners that you're looking for, the person you could trade something out with, the person that you could call in a favor with if you feel like, oh, gosh, I haven't built up a good enough network, I don't know who to turn to. This is how you turn to 60 women that have the skill sets that you don't have.

So all you have to do is text the word workshop to 310-496-8363 or. Ticket sales are open now, so you can go to girlfriendsandbusiness.com and check that out.

Love it. Thanks for listening. Love and appreciate you.

Bye, everyone.

See you next week.

Sam.