Jennifer R Sedlock

I attribute my success to being authentic and real, and listening well to what the customer wants. If the customer comes to me and says, here's what I want in this presentation, whether it be a keynote, or to a board, or the behind-the-scenes things that might be the problem that they define to me, I make sure I address it, and I improve it before I leave. My idea is under-promise and over-deliver. I think that's made me successful, because I always listen well. What do you want? What do you need? What are the goals of this program? I write it all down. I've got a form I fill out as they are speaking, I share the form with them and confirm their most important goals. My goal is that they they walk out with something tangible to change in their business the next day, or in their life, or with their relationships. I also take big concepts and make them concise to bite size tasks. That's what my keynote is about. Vision. Plan. Action. What's the vision? Start with the end in mind, and then what's the plan? Let's strategize. What is the best way for you to get there? And then, how do you actually get it into small tasks to put it in your calendar, so that every day you do one thing towards the goal, or 10 things towards it, whatever you have time for.

The best career advice I've ever received is to niche - don't try to do it all. For example, with Myers-Briggs, people said, oh, don't you do the disc, and don't you do what color's my parachute, and don't you do the strong or the other new hot testing? Nope, I'm only doing Myers-Briggs. Therefore, i became an expert going deeper in the content than trying to do all the variety. When you look on my site, I have 18 programs, but if you really look, it's not 18 programs. There are 6 different Myers-Briggs programs. It's all the basic program; it's just the different titles and different examples. A second piece of advice was multiply yourself wherever you can, however you can. When some of my colleagues were saying, oh, I'm not going let my content out there for free, I felt the opposite, i can put it on Audible. Made for Success is a company that put speaker packages of various programs together. Therefore I am in sets with a variety of famous speakers who people buy the set maybe with them as the major draw, but then they hear all of ours. They get exposed to us through avenues we could not find those customers. If you go on Audible and put my name, you find 20 products. Some of them are my individual products, but also in sets such as, a parenting set, or big goals set, or a leadership set, and more. So, I'm in sets with John Maxwell, Mark Victor Hansen, Laura Stack and others.

My advice would be to get mentors. Don't make your own mistakes, just learn from everyone else's mistakes, and learn what's the hottest thing going now, because the game changes so much. Be yourself and add your personality. There's a whole other layer that I added after a while, a running theme. So instead of the keynote program i wrote being Do Your Dream, that was mildly successful, but when I changed it to Running toward your dream, and I put medals, my own medals I'd earned from running from high school, all of a sudden, it took off, so to speak, and I used a lot of the language, hurdle your challenges, jump into your goals, pass the baton, etc.. By layering in a piece of who I am - and I'm not the best runner out there, but I am a runner, and I am a coach - so I layer that in when it works. It's just paying attention and watching what other people do, and if they're successful, then learn from that. If you keep asking questions, networking with other people, seeing what works, you don't have to be an expert in any of it, but go to a seminar on it. Being on the cusp of, you know, reading, paying attention, listening to your customers, listening to your competitors, being a good listener helps.

The biggest challenge is time. I just want to do so much more. Time is the biggest challenge. Plus, you're the jack of all trades, so you have to find ways to prioritize and then hire out and delegate what you aren't the best at and be okey with not doing it all. I have found ways to get into tips and networking groups, and, you meet a lot of people who can help you. I'm working with 3 publishers right now to figure out who to publish, 2 graphic artists to update my flyers, different webmasters, and different women who i bounce ideas off of. Get into a network of people where you have different skills, then you can help each other out. I love what I do, but when I don't love it, it's time to delegate!

I always want to be inspiring. The values most important to me are being trustworthy and dependable, I always want to serve my customers well, and my family. I have 3 kids, so service to both my clients and my family is a core value for me.