In his book, The Way to Wealth, Brian Tracy lists ten sales skills that are key to success and results. By knowing what these skills are you can assess your own abilities and see where you need work.

At the FocalPoint International Business Coaching Conference last month we announced the opening of the new FocalPoint Assessment Center.

I thought I should take this blog to give you a sense of what it’s all about.

“The Assessment Center is there to assist clients in improving their communications – to  improve their relationships with associates and clients, to improve their ability to close sales, to increase their productivity and their staff’s productivity – communication has a huge impact on the success of a business.” explains Margaret Maclay, the center’s coordinator.

Margaret is a certified professional behaviour analyst as well as a Brian Tracy Certified Business Coach for FocalPoint.

“By understanding behaviour styles, a person can learn to adapt their style of communication so the person that they’re speaking with understands what they’re trying to say,” Margaret explains.

So why did FocalPoint decide there was a need for their own Assessment Center?

Three reasons:

1. We recognized that improving communications was a foundation of the coaching process – we saw that there was under-utilization of the tools we had at our fingertips, tools that enhanced the effectiveness of our coaching engagement.
2. We felt that having someone internal to the organization would be beneficial to benchmarking the internal practice. It enhances the opportunity to share best practices.
3. We wanted to be more user friendly for our coaches. Prior to the opening of the new center, coaches often sourced out the assessments. For time efficiency, and to have someone who was familiar with FocalPoint and Brian Tracy methodologies, it only made sense to have our own assessment center.

Margaret explains how it works:

“A coach will order an assessment or a set of assessments, which the clients take online – and, from there, a report is generated.

“With the information from the report we do a debriefing and develop an action plan. “That action plan can then be incorporated into the coaching engagement.

“The assessments help identify behaviour styles – they aren’t personality tests, nor are they an indicator of performance but they are tools to help people understand how they behave around other people and how other peoples behaviour can be worked with.

“Another thing we do with the assessment tools is look at a team and how they operate and some of their strengths and weaknesses – and we can identify where there are gaps.

“The suite of Behavioural Style Assessment tools that we incorporate will assess individual and team behavioural styles, skills and key motivators.”

As Margaret mentioned, the center will employ a suite of Behavioural Style Assessment tools. The tools are used to work with clients and we also teach our clients how to employ them within their organizations. The suite helps develop an understanding of communication styles and behaviours.

Some of the assessments that are used at the FocalPoint Assessment Centre are:

• DISC Staff-Management Report – helps managers and their employees leverage their behaviours for success.
• Personal Interest, Attitudes and Values Assessment – helps an individual understand what motivates them and how to use that understanding to become effective and successful.
• Sales Skills Index – helps management streamline their sales team by identifying strengths and focusing training where it is needed to get a results oriented team.

FocalPoint Coaches are professional performance coaches dedicated to bringing their clients success. Our organization provides Brian Tracy Business Coaching Certification, 200 hours of mentor support and solid resources like the Assessment Center.

If you aren’t a FocalPoint Business Coach yet but you think you have what it takes to be one, why not give us a call?