Identifying Your Core Competencies

If you want to begin to teach other people what you know, get the applause you want and get paid for teaching others what you know, you must first be able to identify and know your core competencies. From those, you can begin to craft your message, recall the anecdotal stories about your personal life that personalize your message, build your speech, and ultimately have people pay you for your presentation.

The most important first step to take in systematizing the booking process is to identify your core competencies. You don't have to have a life changing event that makes headlines and saves lives in order to begin to get the attention of an organization seeking speakers and trainers.

Everyone experiences turning points in their lives, makes choices and grows from those experiences. From those experiences, you develop your strengths and you may also realize the things you need to do to improve your skills and overcome hardships.

Do you know your core competencies? If you cannot identify your core competencies instantly and concisely, get busy. You and possibly a colleague or friend may want to work on this together since you may not remember all of your accomplishments.

When you or your representative calls on a prospective meeting planner who hires speakers, everything that you or she says about you should clearly reinforce your core competencies. In order to build your I AM, I DO statement which defines the value that you would have to any particular group or audience, examine your life and your successes.

A core competency for an individual is something that that individual can do well and meets the following three conditions:
1. It provides benefits to the individual and others
2. It is not easy for others to imitate
3. It can be leveraged widely for multiple endeavors

A core competency can be applied to one or more fields of expertise or achievement. including technical/subject matter know how, a reliable, duplicatable and transferable process, and/or close relationships with customers and suppliers. It may also include product development or culture, such as employee dedication.

Below is a list of core competencies that may trigger thoughts about your own life experience in a way that can serve others. After all, meeting planners hire experts, leaders and inspiring individuals who can serve others by teaching success principles and systems.

For example if you're a top producer in real estate who has exceeded customary sales averages, you're probably very disciplined, willing to follow established daily systems suggested by experts like Mike Ferry or David Knox, willing to invest in training for yourself, dedicated and committed to your goals, a visionary with clear goals and principles for building business and able to communicate in a way to which others relate in a positive manner. Those are your core competencies.

Examine your successes. Here are some examples of core competencies that may trigger yours and resonate with ideals that match your own.

Handling difficult people
Life insurance sales
Residential real estate sales
Financial literacy for young adults
Traffic conversion for on-line sales
Weddings on a dime
Humor in the workplace
Real estate management
Foreclosures
Tax lien certificates
Baby boomer trends
Cost-cutting measures in hard times
Employee health benefits
Debt reduction
Event planning
Reducing work place accidents
How to find an agent to publish your first book
Hybrid leadership for the 21st century
Male/female gender differences
Reading body language
Effective communication styles
male and female leadership characteristics
Women in corporate America
Minorities in the workplace
Performance acknowledgment
High performance leadership
Increasing sales
Reducing credit card debt
Inspiring others daily
Integrity in the work place
How to cook 20 minute meals

In short phrases, list your core competencies. You're on your way to your signature speech! The next step to take is to craft your expertise clearly using 1-2 sentences.