Photo taken at: Asheville, North Carolina
I’m feeling grateful to have had the opportunity to speak at WordCamp today. Such a privileged to join the other speakers empowering, elevating and engaging the design community! Big Thanks to the team at Wordcamp Asheville who put in a ton of hard work to make this event possible and AB Tech.
This was my first time doing this talk specifically, in a forum like this, though it used material I’ve been using for training sales teams for a while. I wasn’t sure if there would be much interest or how it would go over. So I was really pleased and humbled to have a pretty full room and to get so much positive feedback afterwards. In prepping the talk and giving it I’ve realized I really have two talks prepared as I couldn’t fit in all the material into one talk. So I can currently deliver a 101 and a 102 version of this talk. I can definitely see putting together a whole series on this topic as I have much more content, tips and tricks and personal stories around this subject to fill many more hours.
Here’s a nice recap by local website designer Lydia Robert’s, of this year’s WordCamp.
WordCamp Asheville 2018 recap
Interested in having me give a talk like this at your next conference or a training series with your internal team? Contact me today! Scroll down below for the synopsis and take away description.
Sales & Customer Service for the Introverted Designer 1.0 Talk Synopsis:
Sales is all about relationships and managing expectations. We are all in sales, where we realize or not, like it or not. I’ll share some personal story around my start as an introverted artists and designer who was socially awkward and how I overcame that to become a top producing salesperson. How not being a salesperson can be your strongest asset in actually making sales, if you find your authentic voice, know your craft and get interested in the art and science of creative communication and psychology.
Though I have a framework for this including practical scenarios, it will be somewhat interactive and focus driven by preferences of those in attendance. We’ll be looking at the why behind methods from which you can build on. The first step is getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. We’ll do some of that, but I promise not to make it too scary.
This is not a talk about funnels, prospects, conversions and the like though that all is super important and we’ll touch on it. This is focused on communication tools and self work to overcome your internal roadblocks.
Takeaways:
- You’ll get a copy of the slide deck to include a list of common sales and communications “challenges” and how to deal with them.
- A process map of the anatomy stages of a sales cycle, (what to communicate when, how and why) specifically tailored to creative work.
Sales & Customer Service for the Introverted Designer 2.0 Talk Synopsis:
Building on the content of the 1.0 talk, this can be a second talk on day 2 of a conference or training session. Again, I’ll share some personal story around my start as an introverted artists and designer who was socially awkward and how I overcame that to become a top producing salesperson. How not being a salesperson can be your strongest asset in actually making sales, if you find your authentic voice, know your craft and get interested in the art and science of creative communication and psychology.
Though I have a framework for this including practical scenarios, it will be somewhat interactive and focus driven by preferences of those in attendance.
There’s a little overlap with the first talk but then we move onto understanding different personal styles and hoe best to adapt your own authentic style to interact with them. Though frames as a talk about sales and customer service, this information is extremely relevant to building and maintaining healthy teams and relationships.
Takeaways:
- You’ll get a copy of the slide deck to include a list of common sales and communications “challenges” and how to deal with them.
- A process map of the anatomy stages of a sales cycle, (what to communicate when, how and why) specifically tailored to creative work.
- Some basic personality assessment tools to clarify your personality and communication style, how to identify your clients and then how to adapt accordingly.
Interested in having me give a talk like this at your next conference or a training series with your internal team? Contact me today!