The 10 Builder Talents

Introduction

You know yourself well and understand others. You have a strong sense of self-belief. You have what it takes to be successful. You have confidence in your ideas and your ability to make things happen. You influence others through your ability to get results.

You present yourself effectively. You clearly understand and can influence others. You are action oriented and take initiative. You have conviction in your ability to be a successful builder.

You believe that you have what it takes to be a successful builder. You choose courses of action that have a high probability of success. You build large, successful, mission-driven organizations.

Outcomes - How do I see this in my business?

You likely help create and commercialize new products. You come up with new innovations to make your business better. You like to be early in your market. If you are high in the Confidence talent you are 3X more likely to hire employees creating more jobs. (Born to Build, p. 26)

Blind Spot

As we look deeper into the Confidence talent, we need to recognize that we may not always see our blind spot. As we develop each talent and the unique way we use our talents to grow our business, we do need to watch for areas that can limit our success.

Maximize - What can I do to effectively use my talent?

Plan ahead. Set milestones with your anticipated outcomes. Be sure to prepare for contingencies.

Take a moment and do your homework. Invest time to review industry information to understand where your product or service meets a need or creates a demand.

You like to go full speed ahead. Take time to gain affirmation of your certainty with your next step.

Get multiple points of view. Work to see the whole picture. Hear what the feedback is from others.

Take your sound decision to others who will challenge your logic to find gaps, help you refine your solution, or help you see if there is an issue you need to address before stepping out.

You see the great in people. Share what you see to build respect and trust.

When you share the power of your business, passion, product, or service to the market be bold and specific.

Use your insights as you build your team to align their best talents to their roles to drive growth in your organization.

Success

Caution - What should I watch out for?

Sometimes when we are fully committed to what we are building we forget to take care of ourselves. Take time to care for your body, mind, soul, and spirit.

High confidence helps make decisions quickly. Take a breath and secure a variety of input before making your decision.

You may underestimate the effort and resources to grow and build a long-term business.

Be watchful about overcommitting your resources without considering your competition and the market.

You like to be early to the market. Be attentive to customer needs and readiness for your product or service. There may be a tendency to launch early costing money and resources.

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Introduction

People who are especially talented in the Delegator talent can trust and empower others to help grow their business.

You recognize that a growing business requires a shift from a do-it-yourself style to a handing-it-over-to-others style. You can collaborate proactively and delegate to others who are better equipped for certain tasks.

You know what your employees do best and position them to take responsibility for tasks at which they are most likely to excel. You can relinquish control and focus on growing the business.

Your Delegator talent may look like proactive collaboration, delegating authority to help team members grow, or quickly recognizing strengths in team members.

You are passionate about working on your business and not just in your business.

Blind Spot

As we look deeper into the Delegator talent, we need to recognize that we may have blind spots that may limit our success.

The caution for individuals with high Delegator talent is they may abdicate responsibility when believing they are delegating activities. When delegating, remember that you are ultimately responsible. Help your delegates by setting milestones, hold regular updates, and provide constructive feedback and then more freedom as your delegate successfully completes tasks.

Success

As a builder you are 3X more likely to build a business with over $1 million in revenue. You see that your team members are more productive and more engaged as they use the talents you see in them. You are also more likely to continue to expand your team by hiring new talent year over year.

With the growth of your team and your business it is important you continue to develop your Delegator talent. Regularly review your activities and the activities of your team to be sure you are delegating all you can. Refine your communications to help your team understand the expectations and outcomes you anticipate in their area of responsibility. Build a purposeful network of people who can help you meet your business needs or connect you with those who can.

Your reward for being a good delegator is being able to work on your business and not just in your business every day.

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Introduction

Determination is a superpower for you in your business. Let's see if this sounds like you.

Do you pursue your goals with tenacity? Are you intensely committed to the success of your business and like to take quick action? Do you see beyond roadblocks visualizing a better future? Do you have a tremendous work ethic regardless of obstacles? Do you do whatever it takes to achieve your business goals?

If you answered "Yes" to one or more of these questions, you may have the Determination talent.

Blind Spot

As with all talents, there can be a blind spot or challenge for those with high Determination talent.

I am high in Determination, and I do see the challenges with having high Determination talent. What stands out to me is the personal cost I feel when I make a difficult decision or if I try something and it does not work. I feel the disappointment of not meeting my expectations. We need to understand that outcomes and the results of hard decisions are part of growing our business.

Beyond the personal impact, being high in Determination we need to recognize when we put too much commitment into a failing strategy. We need to have specific goals, monitor our outcomes and adjust until we find a solution that accomplishes our business goals.

Success

You have natural talents you are now recognizing. Let's develop these talents to help you grow your business. Work on your ability to see possibility when others see barriers. Share your optimistic outlook with your team to help them through difficult times. Sort through ideas from business partners or other team members to hone in on the best ideas. Set milestones focused on your long-term goals. Use your milestones to know if your strategy is working.

With the growth of your team and your business it is important you continue to develop your Determination talent. Your vision, your ability to see more opportunity, and your ability to align your team to reach the next milestone or strive to achieve your vision - this makes all the difference in your business.

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Introduction

Does this sound like you?

Do you imagine beyond the boundaries of what exists now? See possible futures? Do you have a curious intellect that helps you constantly imagine new products, services, and solutions? Are you a quick learner who explores various options and considers novel solutions to meet your customers' future needs?

You have the unique ability to take an idea and quickly transform it to help your business generate new revenue and stay ahead of the competition.

You might even like to work autonomously or outside established organizational practices where you can think and create freely.

If one or more of these traits sounds like you, like me, you likely have the Disruptor business talent. Let's harness your Disruptor talent and grow a new business or your business.

Blind Spot

Having high Disruptor talent does have blind spots or challenges. Each of us experience our blind spots in unique ways.

Do you find yourself wanting to implement a new product or service without communicating with and including all the team members? Do you sometimes struggle to communicate your ideas and strategies to your team? Do you find yourself misunderstood by others who appear comfortable with the status quo or the current pace of growth?

How do we recognize our blind spot and help minimize the impact?

Consistently share your ideas with a variety of people, get their input, and share a vision of how the ideas add value or benefit to what the person does.

Bring team members together to gather new information and knowledge. This will fuel your creativity and help you use their input to create a new idea or solution.

Consider starting creative efforts through the lens of growing your core business or helping your company meet its main mission and purpose.

Success

What do we do to drive success with our Disruptor talent? We set aside time to feed our creativity and consider our customer's future needs. We measure the success of our ideas. We iterate quickly using measurement tools as we set up our plans to meet our customer's future needs.

One of the best parts of our Disruptor talent is our people focus. We actively look for ways to increase employee involvement, encourage employee creativity, and help our team understand new ideas resulting in quicker execution of our plans.

As quick as we act, we need to pursue diverse experiences to provide us with new thoughts as we drive innovation and identify new alliances. Our failures are another learning and iterating tool. Using post-mortem reviews fosters our energy to dream into the future.

With our Disruptor talent we are not only more likely to hold patents but also twice as likely to plan and start multiple businesses. Our businesses and patents change markets, move our companies in new directions, and capture new market share ahead of others.

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Introduction

Could this be you?

You do whatever needs to be done to build a successful business. You believe you can single-handedly start and operate your business. You autonomously set goals and take action. You have a strong sense of responsibility.

If you said yes to one or more of these questions, you may be especially talented in the Independence builder talent.

Whether you are helping a company grow or growing your own business you are motivated to make things happen. Your wholehearted dedication to the business ensures its survival and success. Be excited about this business growth superpower.

Blind Spot

Are there blind spots or challenges with having high Independence talent? As powerful as Independence is, can our Independence get in the way of growing our business or even our own talent?

I have Independence in my top 4 Builder Profile 10 talents. I have had the opportunity to learn from my talent and take steps to work around some of these blind spots or areas of caution.

Be aware of your desire for complete autonomy and control of all aspects of your business. This desire for control can hinder your business growth and your personal growth.

Be watchful in your focus on a specific idea or product. Too tight a focus may prevent you from seeing other products or activities that can drive higher value for your organization.

You can't do it all yourself. Overcommitting can lead to burn-out.

Related to the last caution, we can be slow to delegate or transfer responsibilities.

Finally, we can lose objectivity about an idea or product that does not create value or meet our customers' needs. If we are not adding value or meeting a customer need, we do not have a business.

Success

Builders high in the Independence talent are often the principal reason their business or the business team they lead is successful. Do you see yourself as the glue leading the team forward? Your ability to identify people with similar passion or skills helps you scale or sustain your business. Your singleness of purpose helps you filter through the daily details to stay on course long term.

Here are a few ideas we can use to help us maximize our Independence talent.

Let's check ourselves each week. Are we holding onto our why and the purpose we started our business or chose to help build this business? Hold onto your why or your purpose. Do I break down my long-term goal to short-term goals? Let's set or review our short-term goals to be sure we reach the long-term objective. What new relationship can I foster to help us learn more about our customers or help me access resources that will help us grow? Make the call, send the text or send the email to break the ice with the new contact. Who have I met or heard about that is passionate like I am and would be a great member of our team? How can I draw them to our business?

When we build ourselves, see the talent others have and bring them into our business team, we all grow.

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Introduction

Each of us bring our unique talents to our business.

Do you acquire and protect information about your business just like you do your most valuable business assets? Do you have an innate desire for in-depth learning about every aspect of your business? Does your search for new information drive you forward until you can solve a problem in your business regardless of the current business atmosphere? Are you obsessed with your business, keeping you up at night and waking you up each morning? Do you continually invest in your personal development or education to enhance your expertise in your field? Are you able to use your vast personal library of information to plan for future products and services, map your industry landscape, understand what differentiates your products and services, and excel against your competition?

If you answer yes to more than one of these questions, Knowledge is likely one of your top Builder Talents.

Follow along with us as we continue to explore the remaining Builder Profile 10 talents and share stories from top builders.

Blind Spot

Does your team act like they are confused during a meeting or presentation? Are your customers asking more questions than buying your product? Confusion whether from customers or your team may be an indicator your Knowledge talent is in overdrive. This may be one of your blind spots if you are high in the Knowledge talent.

Have you ever come up with so many ideas or insights that you or your team may not know which way to go? This could be a blind spot.

You may be in a blind spot if you find yourself pivoting quickly from one idea to another without getting input or letting others catch up with you.

Have you noticed team members hampered in making day-to-day decisions? This may be a blind spot as the team grapples with your changes in direction or strategy.

Have you ever had a stream of ideas but not slowed down to see if there was value in one of the ideas for your customer or your team? These may be reflections of your Knowledge blind spot.

Lastly, have you implemented too many ideas without reflecting on how to measure their outcome or considered the impact on your customer? This can be a form of blind spot for your Knowledge talent.

Success

Builders high in the Knowledge talent constantly learn more about their business to apply their expertise across their organization. Your constant improvement gives your organization a competitive advantage in your market. Invest in yourself to grow and extend your competitive advantage.

One way to improve your Knowledge of your business is to study all your business processes and activities. The more you know, the more you will be able to bring together the information you gather from your own business with the information you gather from across your industry.

The information you have acquired and more importantly how you apply it to grow your business is an asset. Protect this asset. Recognize your value to your business and to your industry. If you are asked to share your knowledge, consider your value before you share it for free.

One other way to enhance your Knowledge is to regularly get an outsider's point of view on your business or your industry.

How might your Knowledge talent show up in your business? Your team tells you that you can look at complexities of the business, solve problems, select the best course of action and stay ahead of the competition. You can imagine unique solutions for your customers. You implement new ideas that disrupt the status quo moving your business out front. Your knowledge of your customers means you stay ahead of their needs and they come to you as their best solution. And while you are imagining the next best thing, you are still able to help create a road map your team can follow to take you from where you are to where you want to be.

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Introduction

If you have always had a fascination with making money. If you have always had an eye for business, your top business talent may be Profitability.

You have been told you have sharp business instincts. You evaluate decisions through the prism of profitability. You weigh your decisions about relationships or opportunities against the potential to make money or have a return on your investment for your business.

Other traits of the Profitability talent include establishing financial goals throughout your business and measuring your progress in financial terms. You can see opportunities in the data that others around you do not see. You are profit oriented.

You are able to help your team members connect what they do each day with how it impacts your company goals and supports your customers. And perhaps most importantly, you have a long-term view of your business. You start and operate your business with your long-term goal always in mind.

Blind Spot

Profitability does have its own blind spots. What do you think about these?

• As I drive to maximize profits, I sometimes lose sight of my customers as real people.
• I can be impatient with unnecessary costs caused by delays, detours or obstacles.
• I am not always aware of my team's morale.
• I put pressure on myself and my employees to maintain the highest levels of performance.
• I forget to let my team know that I value their work.

Who can we partner with to help us recognize when we are in one of these blind spots? What processes can we put in place to keep us out of our blind spots?

Do you have another talent that acts in balance with your Profitability? Do you have a business partner or other person who helps you minimize these blind spots?

Success

Begin with the end in mind. Write down your vision for your long-term goals and refer to your goals often.

Once you have written down your vision, find ways to share your vision often with your team. Create a visual road map. Tell stories of customer successes and team member successes. Establish action plans for each person that help them see their role impacts the goals. Work with your team so they see themselves as part of the vision.

Give yourself specific timelines and key measures to gauge how well your business is progressing toward your goals. Be sure each person has a role in meeting the short-term goals. Establish regular, at least monthly, progress checks.

Have a personal development plan. Learn everything you can about your industry. Look for new technology that you can implement in your business. Meet with and talk to other experts in your field to gain new insight. Be challenged to grow.

Together, by understanding your Profitability talent, using others to help minimize your blind spots, and growing your talent, you can maximize the profitability in your business. You will run an efficient business with clear financial goals having growth and opportunity insights that carry your business forward.

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Introduction

Imagine your potential to grow your business if you have high Relationship talent that naturally gives you the ability to build trust and understand your customer's needs.

Do you have the talent of high social awareness where you are able to see the dynamics of a group or customer need? Do you have diverse networks of contacts across verticals or segments of business?

Maybe you can bring together internal and external resources to accomplish a common business goal. Do people tell you that it is easy to open up to you because you have a positive attitude and are easy to trust?

Are you able to quickly exchange experiences and ideas with new contacts inside and outside of your business that drive success in both of your businesses?

These ideas of building trust, high social awareness, and bringing people together to accomplish more than they can individually are just some of the traits of builders with high Relationship talent.

Blind Spot

Even in our relationships with people, as builders, we do have blind spots where we need to look twice before moving forward. One difference in these blind spots is that they can impact those around us more directly than some of the other talent blind spots. Builders with the Relationship talent often build trust quickly, but a blind spot can directly impact the trust we build.

Here are what some of the Relationship talent blind spots look like:

• Growing a larger network for the sake of a larger network.
• Overinvesting time in your network or your team without focusing on outcomes.
• Shutting new people out of your network, insulating yourself from outside ideas.
• Leaving people in your network untended. You maintain non-productive relationships.

Do some of these blind spots feel familiar? Will you share your thoughts on how to overcome them? Who do you think would be a good partner to help you overcome your blind spots?

Success

So, what can you do to help maximize your Relationship talent?

Purposefully grow your personal network by investing time with people who are in different fields or have different experiences. The new connections give you opportunity to bring more value to your current network.

On the theme of connections, be purposeful in providing mutual value to your network to maintain the health of your network relationships.

To grow your business now and later, be selective in who you invest your time with. Invest with your best people, your best clients, and the people who build you up.

What are some of the ways you can see your Relationship talent in your business?

Those with high Relationship talent work with their customers and outside contacts to grow the business or align new financial resources to grow the business.

The strong relationships with customers, the public, and their business team generate trust in the company brand.

Maybe one of the most powerful impacts of your Relationship talent is the ability to connect emotionally with team members and customers advancing longevity. Both team members and customers feel significant. In team members this often results in improved outcomes in their roles. Long-term customers perceive the value of your product or service and are more loyal to you.

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Introduction

When I first learned about the Builder Profile Talents, I was working with my friend Brad. When Brad took the Builder Profile 10 assessment, Risk came up in his top four talents. It was great to learn about the traits of the Risk talent and seeing the Risk talent in action.

Let's look at some of the key traits of the Risk talent:

Do you find yourself embracing challenges with enthusiasm? Do you focus on the rewards of success? Do you take an analytical approach to challenging decisions? Do you instinctively know how to manage high-risk situations?

If this first set of traits did not resonate, let's try another set:

You calculate the odds of success before taking action. You see patterns and make connections that others do not make. You methodically gather information and calculate the options for success.

When you have high Risk talent, these traits help you succeed and help prevent you from bumping into future challenges.

Blind Spot

Having high Risk talent often means you are able to see around some corners that others cannot, but there are blind spots that can impact builders with high Risk talent.

If Risk is one of your top talents, be aware of these possible blind spots:

You may have an exaggerated sense of your ability to control the destiny and future of your venture.

You may hold yourself in high regard or have an extreme positive self-assessment and therefore overestimate your ability to manage risk or the use of capital.

You may underestimate the uncertainties or potential perils for your business from the external business environment.

Consider these additional potential blind spots:

You may engage in impulsive risk-taking.

You may find yourself sticking with strategies that are not delivering the results you hoped for.

You may not know what the company is doing or the direction you want to go and therefore your team will not know the direction they need to go since they are not receiving clear guidance from you.

Success

Let's look at what we can do to improve our Risk talent and what business outcomes our Risk talent drives.

Let's begin by taking time to evaluate opportunities rationally and thoroughly before acting. We naturally see past certain risks. We need to take a few moments to be sure those around us see the path and that we respond versus react.

A couple ways we can evaluate opportunities is to get feedback or input from others. Asking for input or feedback adds a level of conscious consideration for taking actions others may consider risky before we move forward.

Use your team to construct scenarios that give you perspectives on different directions and minimize negative risks in growing your business.

Focus your time on projects and opportunities that are important to your core business or company purpose. Staying focused drives business value. Let other smaller less aligned ideas fall away.

Know what you know and the areas that are not in your talent set. Develop the team around you who can help you predict success, model impact, and allow you to maximize your talent.

Builders with high Risk talent are 5 times more likely to grow their business over $1 million in revenue. The amazing thing about reaching this scale of business is that most high Risk talent builders are still 4 times more likely to aggressively grow their business in the number of team members and revenue beyond the $1 million mark.

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Introduction

Selling - of all the Builder Profile 10 talents, this is the one that most of my clients have a challenge with when they first see this talent in their personal profile. One of the first things I hear from builders with high Selling talent is, "I am not in sales." The other thing I hear is, "I don't see selling in what I do."

Here are a few of the key traits of the Selling talent:

You speak boldly on behalf of or about your organization to friends, customers, or supporters.

You are able to clearly communicate the vision of your business to customers and team members.

Your open and authentic behavior helps you form deep relationships.

You are able to influence others to follow your well-defined business growth strategy.

Let's try another set of Selling traits if the first set did not resonate:

You are able to communicate the value of your business, product or services through stories.

You are persuasive and able to help people see your perspective and the value your business brings.

You find that you are able to easily speak to your listeners' needs.

You are able to establish close connections with people across the business spectrum.

Blind Spots

This is the final look at blind spots in the Builder Profile 10 talents.

Do some of these blind spots feel familiar?

Have you found yourself so close to one of your ideas or products and you desire to see it succeed that you were "blinded" by its faults?

Do you regularly lose objectivity about your company's products or services?

Have you been asked if you are always the best face of your organization?

Does your overwhelming presence make it difficult for customers to work with anyone else in the organization?

Who do you think would be a good partner to help you overcome your blind spots? Let's consider how to do things better so you can minimize your blind spots.

Looking for a next step? The Fundamentals

To continue this journey, be part of a small group of business owners in our course, The Fundamentals. We invest six sessions to discover your builder talents, establish your business goals, take action toward your goals, and begin to achieve success. Click here for more information.

Development and Success

As we wrap up our exploration of the Selling talent, let's focus on how you can develop this powerful talent and the business outcomes it drives.

Here's how you can develop your Selling talent to maximize your impact on your organization:

• Use your natural ability to connect with people to anticipate customer needs and position your product or service to meet those needs.
• Refine your storytelling skills to build trust and position yourself as the expert in your field.
• Practice delivering your message clearly and authentically to help your organization achieve its goals.
• Embrace multiple communication channels - social media, public speaking, podcasts, and more - to expand your reach and amplify your voice.

When you maximize your Selling talent, here are some of the ways you can see the results in your business:

• Long-term customer commitment that drives repeat business.
• A distinct and memorable identity for your business that sets you apart from competitors.
• Secure financial resources through strong connections with investors, donors, or partners.
• Emotional investment from your team members, creating a shared vision for success.

As your talent grows to a full strength, strong builders have 3X more impact on the company's revenue growth compared to others who do not lead with the Selling talent.

The Selling talent is more than just making a sale. It's about influencing, building trust, and creating lasting relationships that propel your business forward.

If you are ready to take your journey further, consider joining our course, The Fundamentals. In just six sessions, we'll help you discover your builder talents, set business goals, and take action toward achieving them.

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