Welcome to the Overnight Trainer podcast where each week we talk about all things related to the world of learning and development, including facilitation, instructional design, sales enablement, and so much more. I'm your host, Sarah Kestra and I'm an L and D strategist and career coach. And I'm here to take the guess work out of becoming an L and D professional and show you how to unlock continued success in your learning and development career.
I'm on a mission to quickly develop the next generation of L and D leaders who are looking to create meaningful and engaging learning experiences. So if you're looking to transition into L and D for the first time, have found yourself accidentally in a training position or are working up the ranks as an L and D professional already, you've come to the right place. Hey, everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Overnight Trainer podcast. I'm super excited. You're here.
I'm actually talking to y'all from, I don't know if I can say y'all anymore because I'm in California. Um For those of you that are newer to the show, uh You might not know that I me and my partner Brandon, we moved from Los Angeles to Austin, a great migration along with many others. Um, a few, uh, um, a year ago. Wow, thinking about it off the top of my head a year ago. And so we are back in Los Angeles area for the holidays and we drove here, so we drove from Austin to Los Angeles.
It took us about three days to get here. Um, and some of you probably already know that because I did a really fun ask me anything which I'll do on the way back to that was really fun and uh kept me totally not focused on the very, very, very boring drive from Phoenix to Los Angeles. So thank you all for sticking around for that. And before we get into today's episode, a couple of things, I want to first, I feel like I haven't done a lot of shout outs lately.
So I want to shout out one of my former group coaching clients, Danielle. She is a complete rock star, just an amazing human being, an amazing person. And she came into the group wanting to transition into learning and development and really specifically found her niche around the onboarding space. And while she was in the group coaching program, she landed a role and now it's only been, I think that ended in October.
And so, yeah, she got that role probably sometime around October and now it's December and her company came to her with a promotion offer. So within just a few short months of working there, they saw her potential and that's what happens y'all like it is. This is not a rare occurrence.
I've had several clients over the last year who months into getting these brand new life changing roles, uh roles that are already paying them way more and they're making uh at their current roles valuing them way more that they're already getting promotions because people are seeing their, their value. And that's what happens when you find the right role at the right company, when you have that ultimate value alignment in what you bring to the table, what they expect from you.
And a lot of it has to do about finding your niche. And so I teach you all of this, I teach you all of the strategy inside of the group coaching program. Uh You have now have access for six months so you can take it as slow or as fast as you want. Uh You have unlimited access for life to the modules. So all my modules go through the strategy around how to find and land your dream L and D career.
So we go into everything from finding the right role at the right company and identifying what that looks like for you. We go into the marketing side of things, how to market yourself, crafting a resume that you don't have to redo every single time you apply for a job ringing, you know, bells ringing for you when you're hearing that like explosions going off, right. So we go through that how to, again craft a cover letter.
That's very much a template rather than having to do that over and over again. Uh We also go into how to craft your linkedin. So that way recruiters are coming to you. I had a client just the other day, reach out to me and she said, I never ever thought I would be someone that recruiters are my in my inbox and lo and behold a recruiter in her inbox for a very, very, very cush role. Um And so we're gonna show you how to do that.
We're also gonna go into creating a, a customized networking plan for yourself, what networking looks like for your role for your niche. And lastly, really how to knock it out of the park when it comes to the interviews. And that's what today's episode is gonna be about. We're gonna talk a little bit about the interview process uh today, but that program is live. We're gonna start our group coaching calls. Oh, by the way, you get group coaching calls.
So six months access uh to one hour long calls with me and the rest of the group members once a week. So you get that access to me and we have a private linkedin group that no one else can find and you have daily access to me in there. So you basically have to have a coach in your pocket, which is super exciting. And so our calls are gonna kick off on January 13th, Thursday night. Uh, they'll be each Thursday night at 7 p.m. Eastern and um, yeah, come join us. It's gonna be awesome.
And right now I'm offering a couple of extra bonuses. So if you do sign up by the 24th, so that gives you a couple of days uh this week, if you're listening to it live, you will get a free strength finders assessment. So I'm a certified strength finders coach and I will uh give you uh an assessment. You'll learn all 34 of your strengths and what order they're in. And then we'll do a group coaching session just for, for these exclusive people who are getting the uh strength Finders assessment.
We'll do a group coaching session on how to utilize that to find and land your perfect role. So it's a really beautiful uh component in addition to the work that we're already doing inside the program and you will get access to a mini series that I'm doing in February all around building confidence. I am now a certified confidence coach too. So I'm going to do a mini series around that and you will be able to access that absolutely free if you register by the 24th. So make sure to sign up.
I have extended payment plans. There's a pay in full option. There's a three month payment plan option and a six month payment plan option. So lots of options for you come and join us and the price is going up on January 1st. So if you are interested, you want those bonuses, sign up by the 24th, whatever you celebrate, give yourself a holiday gift this year of a brand new career. Ok. Let's jump into today's episode. I am going to keep it short and sweet.
I know I say this all the time, but I really am because it's dinner time and I'm a little hungry. So um but let's talk about selling yourself. I did a linkedin post about this the other day and so some of you might have already seen it, some of you might not have, but I wanted to go into further detail because I got quite a few D MS about it and some comments around it and I want to go into a little bit more detail around how to utilize this in the interview process.
So for those of you that don't know my background or for those of you that need a little refresher, I come from a sales background. So for many, many years, I was on the sales side of real estate. So I sold apartment homes, essentially rented apartment homes. I was in property management. And so it is a sales job. That's exactly what it is. Uh You have lots of competition.
I have to really stand out from the competition and sometimes the competition that has a lot of newer and nicer things than you do. So how do you sell people on what you currently have? And so I was, I was in sales, I became a sales manager. Um and then eventually moved over to the training side of things. I did some systems training. Um and then really moved into sales training.
So a lot of my original overnight background, uh my early background in learning and development was systems and sales training. And so one of the models that I've always used personally for myself and that I taught people is a very, very, very simple sales model.
And when I go back to talking about how, you know, we we sold rented apartment homes and if you live in any, any area, but especially a metropolitan area, which is where I typically work, you'll know that there's apartment communities everywhere, right? There's, there's popping up every single place and I worked at some communities and we had some communities in my company that I worked for that were not the most beautiful uh communities next to something that was brand new and shiny.
And so when I think about it in terms of job applications, right? A lot of times people get really, really, really caught up in the fact that I don't have XYZ qualification and someone else does, I just went through this with a client earlier today who uh saw a role, they really liked someone else commented or tagged someone in, in that post saying that that person should look into it.
And so this client of mine went and kind of did a little, little recon and checked out that person's profile and the person who was tagged in it as someone who might be interested in the role. And she immediately got in her head around it because she was looking at, oh, wow, this person has this experience and she has this experience and that experience and the reality is, is yes, something could be really shiny, right? I think about it from an apartment perspective.
It could have the best amenities, it could have the most beautiful pool and the brand new fitness center and the most wonderful hardwood flooring and floor ceiling windows. And is that beautiful? Sure. But that doesn't mean it's for everyone and the same thing goes with experience. One of my best friends, my best friend actually, um you know, was, was actually recruited for a role and for a long time was in her head around like I wow, look at all these people who are going to be on this team.
They have all this experience. They have this NBA, they went to this Ivy League school and she's so freaking smart and incredible and the most amazing person uh but doesn't have those things, didn't go to an Ivy League school doesn't have a graduate degree and started doubting and questioning like, why, why would they want me when they could have something like this?
And it turns out the allure, the reason why they wanted her is because they wanted someone who had a different background who thought differently. Right. So I want you to go into this thinking about, it's not about standing out amongst everyone else. Right? Often times we're trying to do that instead of what you're doing is you're trying to say here I am. And here's why I'm right for your organization, not, here's why other people aren't right for your organization.
And I think a lot of times we go into it with that, I need to prove to them that I'm better than these other people. And it's like, no, you don't need to do that. All you need to prove is that you are different than other people. It's not about being better or worse. It's about being different. And how do you sell yourself? And so I'm going to take you through this model that I used with sales that I walk my clients through to sell themselves in interviews.
And it's really, really impactful and very, very simple, right? Simple, simple and sweet. So when we look at this model, there's three parts to it. The first part is selling yourself. So when I say sell yourself, I don't mean literally, OK, I want to keep that in mind here people, we're not, I'll be like, oh, Sarah told me to go sell myself. No, not literally. But when I think about selling yourself, it's all about letting your personality shine through.
And I did an early on podcast interview with someone who I adore. Her name is Brie Burden. And we talk a lot about being authentic in the, in the application phase and in this job hunt because the reality is if you're trying to be a cookie cutter version of someone else or what you think they want, you're not going to get that role and that's what happens over and over again. We show up or you show up to an interview and you are putting on a front, right?
We have to show up professionally, right? So I'm not saying like, yo, what's up like, you know, show up half naked, right? Not, we still have a professional sense, but a lot of people show up as the version. They think they should be not the version of who they actually are. And when you do that, what happens is that it's so inauthentic and even, even if you're trying your hardest, even if you're an Oscar winning actor or actress, right?
The reality is, is that you are putting off what I like to call, approve it energy, right? Trying to be something you're not and that never ever works well. I'm sure we've all been on the receiving end of just knowing someone is not being their authentic self and it just feels off. You can't explain it. You don't know what it is. You don't know them well enough to call them out on it. But you just know this person is being fake and that is an immediate turn off.
And so when I say sell yourself, this is really where you're letting your personality shine through. And I always go back to Simon Cynic and I use utilize him a lot, especially in my group coaching program or even my one on ones. But about finding your why and being very crystal clear on that. And a quote that he says that I live breathe and die by is essentially people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
So having a clear why, knowing why you're here in the first place allows you the opportunity to show up authentic and confident, right? When you're able to clearly communicate your why and it aligns with the values of the organization, you've sold yourself.
So one thing I say a lot and I've recently talked about this inside of the, the Niche workshop series I did a few weeks ago is that the reality is there are probably hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people who have the same exact qualifications and skill set as you. That's it, they have the same exact qualifications and skill set as you what they do not have are your strengths and your values, right? So I'm a strength finders coach.
I talked about that earlier and I utilize that a lot in my group coaching practice in my, in my coaching in general because we really do. Our strengths are so unique to us, right? We have a one in 660 million chance of having the same top five strengths and strength finders uh as someone else in the same order. And so it's a very unique proposition to yourself. So when you're able to show up in your strengths and you're able to show up in your values, right?
And those align with the organization, that's it. But you have to know those things and be very crystal clear in what they are. A lot of people apply for the wrong roles at the wrong companies and they get rejection after rejection after rejection and they're wondering why and they get down on themselves, what, what must I be doing?
It actually has nothing to do with you other than you're applying for the wrong roles at the wrong companies because you're applying to roles that don't align with your values and your strengths. So that's why we focus a lot on this inside of the group coaching program and we spend the most amount of time, the deepest work that we do is all around your niche. And even today, I was working with a, a one on one client.
And I said, I, like we got your niche like we're done now and she's like, oh, ok. Now, the easy part applying to jobs, right. And so we do that hard work. We go slow to move fast and a lot of selling yourself has to do with being very crystal clear on what the right role at the right company looks like what your strengths are, what your values are and how that aligns with the organization. Remember, you don't have any different skill set than anyone else who's applying for the role.
That's the reality, right? If you're all around the same level, replying for this role, what's going to make you stand out or stand apart or just make you shine? That's what we want to do here is make you shine, who cares about everyone else is really being able to communicate your strengths, your values, your why and how it aligns with the organization. So that's selling yourself. Now, let's look into the second part, which is selling the product.
So in sales, we say sell yourself, then we say sell the product and the product is you and your transferable skills, right? So the tangible a product is something you can can see or touch, right? And those tangible skills are something you can actually do, right? Something you, you I don't say physically but kind of phys, right?
Bring to the table and in essence, when you bring yourself And so this is where you're talking about those transferable skills on an interview and what you bring to the table and not only that but how it's in direct connection with the role that you are applying to. And that's why and I will keep saying this and I know my OG listeners are like, I know what you're going to say, right? But why it's so important that you identify what your niche is?
Because once you identify what your niche is and you're able to start to create a community around that, to connect with people who are in that niche and really understand the skills needed to be successful in that. This is so easy to do because you've already done your research, you have already received the hard data, you know exactly what skills are needed inside of your niche. And because they are skills that you probably already have, that is what happens nine times out of 10, right?
It's very authentic to you to speak to. And so really being able to be prepared, I know a lot of people use so many different methods around like how to sell yourself. And the star method. I think the star method is great in a lot of ways. So don't get me wrong with that. But I think where the star method goes wrong, if you're not familiar with it, just go ahead and, and do a quick Google search for the star method.
Interviewing. But I think where it goes wrong is that if you are not comfortable with what you're talking about, if you do not believe in what you're talking about, and if what you're talking about doesn't necessarily align with what they're asking you. Well, then it comes off as you know, either you being nervous or not confident and that is not going to get you hired. And so in order to sell the product, right? Sell your transferable skills and share and share what you bring to the table.
You have to know what transferable skills they're looking for and it's beyond the job description. So I do encourage people when they are preparing for interviews to go through that job description and think about, OK, kind of uh almost um you know, those old school games where you would kind of answers were on one side and some answers were on another and you had to connect, connect which ones are, are aligned, which one is all the same, same type of thing here, right?
As you're preparing for your interview going through and saying, OK, what, what are they asking me to do in this role? What are their expectations and how do my transferable skills, how do my skills transfer and apply to what they're asking for? And what are real life examples of me having done that? Right? That's where the star method does come into play. So selling the product is all about really, truly understanding, not just all of your skills that you have, that's great, amazing, right?
But being very crystal clear on what the skills are for this role and for your niche, right, again, all this becomes so much easier when you figure out what your niche is, but really being able to be super crystal clear with yourself on what your transferable skills are. So you can relay those and that's what selling the product is all about hiring managers, recruiters. They want to know that they don't care necessarily where your skills came from.
It's a very big common mis uh very common misconception kind of uh a mouthful there. It's a common misconception that hiring managers want pure previous corporate learning and development experience. Now do some companies. Sure. Uh but if you don't have that, there are so many companies who will welcome your transferable skills, but you have to sell them. And that's something that kind of gets me a little heated to go off on a little bit of a tangent here.
But I see a lot and for my teachers and educators and my higher educators, right? I see a lot of people posting about how they're frustrated that they're not getting roles because they are teachers. And I do believe there are some jerks out there, some other, some companies out there that don't want you because you're a teacher.
However, what is happening is that you are relying on the hiring manager and the recruiter who most likely doesn't have a teaching background to be able to decipher and to synthesize your experience and translate it for themselves. That is not their job. If you are interviewing, you are selling something and in this case, you're selling yourself.
And right now you're talking about selling your skills, you have to explain to them how your previous experience and the skills that you have translate to what it is. This role is asking you to do and we spend a lot of time doing this inside of the group coaching program because it is very challenging.
And one of the things that you get from this program and it's an added bonus, no matter when you uh when you register is you get access to my signature overnight trainer course, which is a crash course in all things adult learning. And what I ask you to do in that course is to keep an eye out for anything that you are well aware of. And what happens is is that most people go through that course and say, oh my God, I knew most of this. I knew 90% of it or 80% of it.
I just didn't know it was called that. And so you have to educate yourself on the language of learning and development in order to get a role in it and be able to share your transferable experience. It would be like from a sales perspective, if someone were to come in and be speaking French and I don't speak French. Right. I'm trying to sell them an apartment in a language they don't understand.
And so that's what you're doing when you're expecting hiring managers and recruiters to understand your experience and you're not explaining it to them in a way that they understand, you're here to speak their language, you have to explain in a way they understand. So that is looking at your transferable skills, what you bring to the table and how it's a direct connection, a direct connection, you have to be able to connect that line to the role that you're applying to.
OK. So first you sell yourself, then you sell the product and lastly, you sell the value and this is the big money right here, right? Because this is where you paint the picture of how your why your skills, your values can bring impact to the team, the organization, the mission, et cetera, right? This is where you are now showing them, right? The the overall bigger picture of how you can impact, right?
So the transferable skills selling of the product before is saying I see that you're looking for someone to do X I have done X in my last company, right? So being very, it's a very kind of direct answer, right? That product of I have these skills, but the value is all about the impact that you can bring how can you change, impact, create some sort of legacy for lack of a better word? Right?
When you join this organization, how is the organization going to benefit from having you, having your skills is great? But how are they going to benefit? What is their return on investment to paying you to hiring you? What are you going to bring that someone else can't? And again, this goes back to your niche and to your values and finding the right role at the right company. It's very hard to sell value and try to, to, to sell that when there's a value misalignment, right?
So keeping in mind that when you are selling the value, you're selling the impact you can make in an organization and that can happen a couple of different ways, one that can happen in ways where you've been able to impact something similar in the past and sharing that story, um thinking about, you know, hearing what the challenges are and saying, you know, that's a challenge that I've experienced before, but in a different way, here's how I,
I might approach it here in the organization based on what I've learned in the past or, you know, based on what I've researched, this sounds like it would be a great, you know, opportunity to be able to do XY and Z. And so being very specific around how you can impact and what not only what you can bring to the table but what is the return on the investment they are going to get, what is the increase and the impact they are going to see from hiring you that they wouldn't get from someone else.
And it goes back to those that value alignment, that mission alignment and being super, super clear on what the right role at the right company looks like. This is the thing if you are applying to the right role at the right company, these three things come easy because the reality is you might be hearing this and think, wow, this seems very overwhelming to have to do every single time I interview and prepare for every single time I interview.
But if you are crystal clear and I know I've used that 1000 times tonight and I mean, it, I'm really drilling it in for y'all. But, and what the right role at the right company looks like you don't ever have to really prepare for this more than once or twice because a if you're in your niche, right? You're not redoing your resume every time you're only updating your cover letter for a, a few things, right?
You're, you're preparing more to learn more to just have some peace of mind than to actually need to study and it becomes less and less preparation to the point where my last group coaching program, people weren't even preparing anymore. They were, they were just showing up as is I had a client who went from being a chronic over preparer studying, killing herself, racking her brain, like, just absolutely driving herself crazy to stopping preparation altogether. Right.
There's a happy medium here, I promise. But stopping preparation altogether and getting a job making. Like, I think it was something along the lines of $60,000 more per year doing something absolutely incredible for a really amazing financial start up. So that's the power of knowing and being super clear on your niche is the preparation time for all of this goes down immensely. I mean, we're talking like 90% is gone. And so that's the beauty in this process.
And so with this process, one thing I wanna leave you all with and I know I said it was short and sweet, but I, you know, I got fired up uh is that this is a linear process. So a lot of processes I like to talk about are not necessarily linear. This is because the reality is this and you could have the best freaking transferable skills in the whole wide world. You could bring the most amount of impact to an organization. But if your personality is not in alignment, right, that's ok.
It's, I'm not talking, your personality sucks, right? They might suck right there. It might not be in an alignment. It doesn't matter, right? If you're not being authentic and they can suss that out, it doesn't matter what your transferable skills are or what your impact is because you haven't sold yourself and then same thing you might have sold yourself. But the transferable skills that you have don't align with what they need. And that's ok.
That's gonna be the case for many jobs that you end up applying to. It. It's not a, it's not a skill fit. They need something different than what you have. Not better, something different than what you have. So if you can't sell the product, it doesn't matter what the value is you bring, you don't have the skill set that they actually need. So selling yourself, selling your product and then you can sell the value of that impact.
So think about this as you go into your next interview again, I I teach you all of this inside the group coaching program. You have opportunities to ask lots of questions every single week. We do some interview, prep together, some live practice all of those things too. But you know, if you're going on an interview, I really want you to think about how am I selling myself, how am I selling my skills and how am I selling the impact I can bring to the organization?
So I know it might seem overwhelming. Like I said, the secret is getting crystal clear on the right role at the right company and your time goes down immensely. I mean, you'll see it cut down at first, it'll be like 60% and then 70% and then 80% all of a sudden you're getting like 90% of your prep time back before interviews and you're, you, that makes you feel so happy going into it. Right.
And the one word and I talk about this a lot, but the one word that I hear over and over again from my clients and they land their dream role is, wow, that was easy. Easy, easy is the word everyone uses. And it's because they learn to sell themselves, sell the product and sell the value. So this is just one of the ways I'm teaching you how to find and land your L and D role of your dreams. So come join us, we're inside the overnight trainer group coaching program.
Like I said, there's a painful option, but there's also three and six months now, uh extended payment plan. So I would love to have you join us, kick off the new year with a new L and D career. I'd love to have you. The information is inside the show notes uh but get prepared for your next interview and I'll see you next time. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If it resonated with you in any way, please let me know by subscribing, liking and leaving a review.
I'd love to hear from you on how you're using these tools as well as what you want to hear more of. So connect with me on linkedin at Sarah Kister. Send me ad M or email me at, hello at the overnight trainer.com. I can't wait to hear from you and until next week, stay learning.