IAM1945 – Entrepreneur Teaches Sales Teams How to Identify and Manage Their Fears

Why it was selected for “CBNation Architects”:

In this episode, the guest is Kristy Ellington, a consultant specializing in sales, marketing, and fear management.

Key Points:

Kristy's Story: With experiences working with top brands like Target, Hilton, and Nike, Kristy identified fear as a common barrier to personal growth, success, and sales performance. Having personally lived most of her life in fear, she knows its implications firsthand.

Kristy Ellington Consulting: Kristy's consulting firm mainly aims to teach sales teams how to identify and manage their fears. Additionally, it helps harness the power of emotion to optimise sales performance.

Role of Fear: Kristy underscores that fear stands squarely between individuals and their success in sales and personal growth. Identifying fear and learning to manage it is a unique approach to achieving higher productivity and results.

Leveraging Emotion: Kristy believes in the power of emotion to close more deals more often. By identifying, managing, and harnessing emotions, sales teams can leverage this often-overlooked aspect to their advantage.

Transcription:

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Kristy Ellington Teaser 00:00

When you have these real-world examples, and it's not just a concept of fear, it's not just the idea of fear, it actually shows them how it shows up. That's when people get invested and they realize, Oh, I could be performing at a higher level if I could manage this.

But it is a little bit of building a market for it because I think it is something that people talk a lot about in concept, but not actually, practically understand how to manage it.

Intro 00:22

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is the I AM CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:46

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you've been listening this year, you know that we hit 1600 episodes at the beginning of this year. We're doing something a little bit different where we're repurposing our favorite episodes around certain categories, topics, or as I like to call them, the business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, business owners, and what I like to call CB Nation architects who are looking to level up their organizations.

This month, we are focusing on finishing it out, fighting the good fight and closing out the job. I think just as important as it is to start something, it's even more important in how you conclude it or finish it out. So if you think of the different things that you can finish out, it could be everything from a project, it could be from a day, it could also be from a business in and of itself and it can also of course be for the year. So when you think of finishing out, I want you to really think of these episodes, because what we're going to really focus on is the last question that we really asked, which is defining what it means to be a CEO.

All the creative, innovative, and I think truly insightful questions that we received from this question is really what we want to highlight during the show. But of course, we want you to enjoy the entire episode and think about how you're going to finish things out and how you're going to finish things out strongly. So sit back and enjoy this special episode of the I AM CEO podcast.

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Christy Ellington of Christy Ellington Consulting. Christy, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Kristy Ellington 02:17

Great to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Gresham Harkless 02:19

No problem. No problem. What I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Kristy, so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing.

After closing multi-million dollar deals with brands like Target, Hilton, and Nike, working with Fortune 500 companies, entrepreneurs, and influencers alike, Christy Ellington found the one thing that connects us all is fear. After living most of her life in fear, Kristy, knows firsthand that fear is what stands between you and sales, personal growth and success.

Kristy spent 10 years in sales and marketing, but now teaches sales teams how to identify and manage their fears and harness the power of emotion in order to close more deals, more often.

Kristy are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Kristy Ellington 03:00

I am very ready. Thank you.

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Gresham Harkless 03:02

So the first question I had was to hear a little bit more about your CEO story. What led you to start your business?

Kristy Ellington 03:08

Oh man. So this is probably my third or fourth business that I've started, but because of the aforementioned fear, I wasn't showing up completely for my businesses or my audience or my customers. And it really just led to me just like crashing and burning multiple times. So this iteration really comes after kind of a personal growth year where it's just like you hit rock bottom and then you start to rebuild and you realize all of the things that look behind you and see all the mistakes that you made and all the wrong moves that you took.

And so this year with this business, it just felt really well times just because of all of the experience that I've had with my own side businesses. This is the first time I'm in 100% with the company starting from ground up. So yeah, it's windy road. I was definitely a failure before but now, it lead to being a stronger person and a stronger leader once you actually go full in and fully show up.

It's been such a wild ride, but I wouldn't change anything.

Gresham Harkless 04:07

Awesome. Awesome. I know you touched on a little bit, so could you tell us a little bit more on how you're supporting these clients, how you're helping us to work with fear, be okay with fear and be able to tackle that?

Kristy Ellington 04:16

Yeah. So, my experience comes just from being in fear myself and seeing how sales teams and just people in general are held back from their success. So what I do is a combination of online coaching programs, which is a four-week program that another session is starting next month, where I take people through my curriculum. But I also teach in-person courses and classes for sales teams and like a summit situation. So full-day courses or are at summits. So it's a combination of both.

I started as an online entrepreneur, but this is my first time really wanting and feeling the call to work with people one-on-one. So I do take some one-on-one coaching clients as well. Executive leadership, for example. So there's a myriad of different ways that I work with people. I like to keep things small. So my group coaching programs are small. I think that talking about fear is just really scary in general. So keeping the group small is really important to me so that it becomes a safe environment so people can really share their information.

I get to know people a lot better and we can deep dive into this curriculum in a lot more thorough manner versus just talking at 50, 000 people or 1,000 people or 500 people. So my programs are pretty small. They're like 20 to 30 people max.

Gresham Harkless 05:20

Interesting. So do you find that a lot of people have to deal with that and have to come to terms with it actually being fear?

Kristy Ellington 05:25

Yeah, I think people have to be ready for this type of program. I think a lot of it is understanding that I give a lot of examples in my work and through the content marketing that I'm doing for the business and through the conversations that I'm having. It really is just identifying what the actual problem is. The problem could be as simple as you get really nervous before you go into a sales conversation and you try to ignore it. But then you can't really think clearly when you're actually in that conversation. Your brain is always focused on how are you performing or how you're appearing to your clients instead of focusing on your client and their problem, how you're gonna solve it.

So that's actually fear and fear itself is a biological response. There are definitely experts out there that say you can ignore fear. You can get over it. You just have to take action, but not actually dealing with it is part of the problem because it's there. It's underlying everything. It bubbles up during your conversations. It bubbles up during whatever you're trying to, whatever you're trying to present or the phone call that you're on or before you pick up a call, the cold call someone and it just slows down your thinking because our body goes into survival mode, which literally like resources are diverted from our brains into our heart, our lungs and our limbs to fight or flight.

When we're ready to fight or flight, we're not thinking clearly. So it's all biological. And so like these very simple examples that I know everybody goes through, like everybody does it. I've talked to the leaders of fortune 500 companies and even when they're going into conversations with other leaders in their space, they get nervous. It starts to slow down their thinking and it hinders their ability to communicate or to analyze the situation. So it really does affect everyone. When you start to bring in these really practical examples of how it shows up, people understand and they realize, oh yeah, that is fear. It is holding me back.

Or maybe it's just like having a tough conversation with your spouse about how you're feeling or what's something that you want or something that you need that gets really you know, scary too. I experienced that myself. So when you have these real-world examples and it's not just a concept of fear, it's not just the idea of fear, it actually shows them how it shows up. That's when people get invested and they realize, Oh, I could be performing at a higher level if I could manage this. But it is a little bit of building a market for it because I think it is something that people talk a lot about in concept but not actually practically understand how to manage it.

Gresham Harkless 07:27

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I think another big point that you touched on is that often, especially entrepreneurs and business owners, you hear or see the fear, feel the fear and do it anyways, but you never hear a deal with it and then do it.

So it's like that one step is very important.

Kristy Ellington 07:42

It's missing.

Gresham Harkless 07:43

So it's great that you're shining light on that.

Kristy Ellington 07:45

It's so funny, too, that most of our fears actually come from past experiences. Our brains remember painful experiences from our childhood or our youth. Our fear is just a way of protecting ourselves. It's our body's way of protecting us from pain. So, for example, I had a huge hang up with presenting. I was afraid of presenting in public. Public speaking was a big fear of mine. Once I realized that it actually came from an experience when I was a child, I was teased before and during a book report that I was giving in the fourth grade that really stuck with me because it was a person who I actually really liked.

It was like my fourth-grade crush that was keeping me in front of everybody. It's traumatizing for a young person, especially a young girl that's going through like changes in life and her body and trying to get used to all those things. So that actually just really stuck with me. So once you realize that your fear is illogical and it's something that is coming from a place that's not real, it's not real now. Like I'm not being teased in front of a sales leader who I'm presenting to, you to try to get on my programs. You understand that it's not real.

So you can start to reshift the focus back onto your client and really just be the provider of the service that you're trying to provide instead of just focusing on yourself and your irrational fears.

Gresham Harkless 08:53

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. This is what distinguishes you or what sets you apart.

Kristy Ellington 09:00

I think fear is such a hot topic right now. Everybody's talking about it saying, but no one has the tools to do it. And so a major part of my program is actually walking you through this is why because we actually get to workshop our way through our fears and learn how to manage them properly. My program isn't teaching methodology. I don't teach methodologies. I don't teach process. I teach things that people can apply to the methodologies in the process they already have. It's just a layer on top and it really stems from being mindful and aware of how you're feeling and actually embracing your emotions instead of pushing them away or trying to ignore them or work your way around them.

It's actually just feeling your way through them, which is something that I had to learn the hard way. To consider my teachings and my style and my secret sauce is I am almost like life coaching and business mixed together. So it's a little bit touchy feely just because we are talking about emotions, but I want these things that I'm teaching, these sales teams to be practical advice they can apply to the rest of their life too.

So I think it's not just about business for me. It's about full life which I think sets me up in my programs and my teachings apart from other sales coaching right now.

Gresham Harkless 10:11

Yeah. Now I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This might be an app, a book or a habit that you have, but something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Kristy Ellington 10:20

Oh man. So the biggest shift in my life came when I learned that the director commentary that's going on in my head all the time is like it was throwing me off and I wasn't the only one experiencing it. Like I didn't realize that not everyone had this going on. So this also stems from from like the mindfulness stuff that I've learned. I would say that the power of now was a huge book for me and shifting my thought process.

But once I learned how to turn off or slow down or just quiet the director's commentary in my head that was going on saying I wasn't good enough, that I'm never going to be okay, that just judging everyone and everything, including myself and just picking apart everything that I was seeing, even when I was walking down the street. I once I learned how to quiet that, it really did change my life and being able to just sit and watch, listen to nothing.

So many more creative ideas come to me. So many more solutions pop in my head. So many more inspirations come to me when I'm able to quiet that voice. So I would say mindfulness is a hack that I would say definitely shifted the way that I deal with things in life, but also how I operate my business.

Gresham Harkless 11:24

Yeah, absolutely. Now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget, and this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice, or if you can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Kristy Ellington 11:33

What I would tell my youngest business self is that the things you're going through, you're going through them as lessons and not to be a victim of your own life. I think we often say a lot of why me or why is this happening to me instead of what can I learn from this experience. Once I shifted that in my mind, everything that I had gone through up into that point became such a huge lesson and something to be grateful for because it got me to this point now.

If I hadn't gone through those things, I wouldn't be able to teach people what I'm teaching them now. I am so grateful for that. So once you shift from being a victim of your life and turn yourself into a student of your life, I would say that things really start to change for you.

Gresham Harkless 12:13

Awesome. Awesome. Now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of being a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote and quote CEOs on the show.

So what does being a CEO mean to you?

Kristy Ellington 12:22

I knew this was going to be your favorite one. I put some thought into this one and I really believe that being a CEO isn't just about leading the business and making sure you hit your business goals. It's about creating a shared vision with the people that you work with. I often have found that CEOs, they do a really great job of leading the team and having their own vision. But I think it's really going that extra layer to have to ensure that the people that you're working with and the people that you hire and your leadership team have a shared vision of what you're doing.

Because if anyone is, you can hand out your brand book, you can hand out your goals, you can hand out your voice and tone and you can hand out your mission and your values. But if your leadership team especially doesn't share in those with you and aren't personally invested in those things can get squirrelly real quick because they're responsible for hiring people underneath them who are responsible for hiring people underneath them. So if you're not all responsible for creating that shared vision of what this company is, it's not just mine as a CEO, it's everybody's because everyone's working with me.

I feel like that's a really big piece and it's huge responsibility. Some people might say that if you spend too much time doing that, then you're not spending enough time building and growing the business. But I think it's just as important to get your entire team on board with this vision and make sure that they understand their role that they're playing in the company and have a personal stake in that because people take jobs, not just to go to a nine to five. I don't believe that people want to just go to a job and go home and have two separate lives.

I believe that they want to be fulfilled at their job. I believe that they want to have a purpose. If you can give them that purpose, even if it's just selling advertising space or pixels on a webpage, make sure that you understand how this job is impacting their lives and help them get on board with the vision because once you all have a shared vision, I feel like things just like 10 X in terms of success and growth and trajectory.

Gresham Harkless 14:06

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Like you mentioned, if you don't have that foundation where you understand everybody's why you're dialed into that, and it all becomes, one cohesive goal, you can have massive sales and massive growth. But at the same time, if your foundation isn't there, it can all fall apart.

Kristy Ellington 14:21

Yeah, exactly. And I've been at companies where, especially the sales organization isn't on board with the mission that maybe the marketing team is on and they need that alignment. And if everyone is just building a different message for each vertical that they're in, like sales has a different message and marketing has a different message and accounting or finance, all of these things, it's a cluster.

It not only slows down growth, but it actually really takes down the morale for the teams because they're all, like talking amongst themselves on how this team isn't on board with the mission. And it's maybe their mission is different than yours and that doesn't make any sense.

Gresham Harkless 14:54

Yeah. You hear it all the time. Marketing gives us bad leads on the sales people and sales people don't know how to close.

Kristy Ellington 15:00

I listen to a lot of podcasts and I've listened to a lot of sales podcasts recently that are like really down on marketing. And they just feel like you guys are on the same team, sit probably two feet away from each other, talk to each other.

Gresham Harkless 15:15

Exactly. No, that's awesome. Kristy, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out and all the awesome work that you're doing. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know.

And then of course, how best they can get ahold of you.

Kristy Ellington 15:28

Yeah. The only thing that I could say further is that, fear really is holding you back from your success. You may not even realize it. On the other side of fear is your greatest potential. On the other side of fear is more success and fulfillment than you could ever imagine.

So you can get ahold of me and learn more about my programs or just what I'm all about at kristyellington.com. I'm launching a new online four-week group coaching program in January. So, be sure to subscribe to the email list if you want to be alerted for when that launches. I also have a freebie on my website, kristyellington.com forward slash free dash guide, which you can get the 13 trigger emotions behind every sale which is really interesting because part of my practice is to harness the power of emotion and help people understand how people really think and the fears behind buying.

So yeah, it could be interesting.

Gresham Harkless 16:10

Awesome. We'll make sure to have those links in the show notes. So Kristy, again, I appreciate you for all you're doing, and of course the time you took today. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Kristy Ellington 16:18

Thank you. You too.

Outro 16:20

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast powered by Blue 16 Media tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co.I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and everywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe and leave us a five-star rating. Grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless.

Thank you for listening.

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