Fixing Miscommunication at Work with Sarah Elkins

In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Rexhen sits down with Sarah Elkins, founder of Elkins Consulting and expert in workplace communication, storytelling, and Gallup CliftonStrengths coaching. Sarah shares how miscommunication—not lack of skill—is the root of most workplace frustration, and how strengths-based coaching can transform culture, reduce conflict, and boost engagement.


Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thesmileisfree/overlay/contact-info/
Website: https://elkinsconsulting.com/

Transcript

Sarah Elkins: 0:00

I've learned that those labels, introvert and extrovert, really are on a spectrum. So very few of us are all the way introverted versus all the way extroverted. Most of us are somewhere in the middle. And what I find is that I can predict in some ways where you're going to fall on that scale based on your strength. It's pretty straightforward most of the time for any coach that uses any of these accurate tools, whether that's strength finder, discs, real colors, there are there are a bunch out there that are pretty good predictive tools.

Davis Nguyen : 0:30

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career coaches on how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is Davis Wynne, and I'm the founder of Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, and even $100,000 weeks. Before Purple Circle, I've grown several seven and eight-figure career coaching businesses myself and have been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or building your practice for the first time, you'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Rexhen Doda: 1:01

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm your host, Regin, and today's guest is Sarah Elkins, the builder of a workplace communication operating system that boosts engagement, satisfaction, and productivity through storytelling connection. As the founder of Elkins Consulting, Sarah Blends Gallup Clifton Strengths Coaching, Selling, and Active to help teams communicate with clarity and grace on site or remote. She's a speaker, musician, and the host of a 400-episode podcast. She teaches leaders and contributors to share the right story at the right time. So strengths are visible, conflict is navigable, and work actually feels human. It's a pleasure for me to have her on the podcast today. Welcome to the show, Sarah.

Sarah Elkins: 1:58

Thank you, Regin. That was a great introduction.

Rexhen Doda: 2:01

I wanted to go back in time a little bit with your coaching business right at the beginning of it. I know it's been many years since you ran your coaching business, almost 26 years now. At the beginning of it, what inspired you to become a coach and then start Elkins Consultant?

Sarah Elkins: 2:18

I have always had a side hustle. I started this business when I moved to Montana and didn't have a job yet. But throughout my career, I've always had another job that I create for myself because I get bored really easily and that keeps me busy. When I shifted to the workplace communication training, it was because I spent nearly 20 years in public sector agencies from federal government to state government to local city government. I realized that 90% of the frustration in those offices was due to miscommunication. My goal when I left my last job for being self-employed was to help people like their jobs again. I realized that most of the people I worked with at the service provider level cared deeply, not only about the people that they interacted with, but also their communities. And they worked really hard to really do their jobs to the benefit of the communities, the people that they work with and for. But there was always this disconnect between what they were doing on the ground and what the leadership thought they were doing or wanted them to be doing. And there was never or very rarely communication among them that made work go more smoothly. There was a lack of transparency, and leaders seemed to not speak the language of the people that were working for them. And I just found it so frustrating because so many of the people in the public sector really care about the work that they do, but it doesn't show.

Rexhen Doda: 3:52

And so now with your business, how would we have two audiences, but I didn't mention this earlier. There's two groups of people that usually listen to this podcast. It's either other coaches that are trying to learn from coaches like yourself that if we get on the show, but there's also uh borrowed audiences from all of the guests that we've had before. So we might be reaching out to the right people that you typically work with. Um so if they're listening, how would you describe the ideal client profile for you? Is it of a certain industry uh or demographic, psychographic? Um they have common goals or other commonalities that you're seeing?

Sarah Elkins: 4:36

Yes. Um, I love this question because it has taken me years to develop this clarity. Um, over the last couple of years, I started working a lot with engineers and uh scientists. And right now I have a client that is an engineering firm. They have roughly 350 employees and they're growing. They're finding all kinds of opportunities for growth. They're hiring uh entry-level engineers, mid-level, high-level engineers, they're employee-owned, and they have been using Gallup's strengths finder tool at Clifton Strengths for years, but they never had an on-site coach. Um, they took the assessment, maybe they'd talk about it, but then that's all, that's as far as it would go. And a few years ago, they hired me to work with their emerging leaders group, which is a small group of about 15 early stage career engineers. And they work them through about an eight-month program to help them become better uh employees, but also to lead them toward uh that self-leadership that makes good leaders later on. And when I worked with these adults, these engineers, I realized how important it was that we speak the same language. Because even if we're both speaking English or we're both speaking Spanish, we're still not speaking the same language most of the time. And what Gallup StrengthsFinder does is it helps understand how a person approaches projects, problems, and people. And when you can understand how you approach these things, like how your brain works in these scenarios, then you can start asking questions to figure out how other people approach things. And it just reduces conflict so quickly and significantly when we understand and value the different ways people think at the workplace.

Rexhen Doda: 6:46

And how does that work? So, how is the engagement uh that these clients have with you? Is there some sort of a program of a certain length? Um, how how is it like to work with you for those of them who are listening?

Sarah Elkins: 7:01

Well, um, that experience was um they hired me for three things. We started by making sure all of the um emerging leaders had taken the assessment. And then I had a one-to-one coaching session with each one of them so that they understand their own talents. And then I did a series of workshops with them. And I realized years back when I first started using the Strengths Finder tool that if we want it to not feel like a flavor of the week attempt at improving culture, we have to make something, a program that feels sustainable, applied, practical, things that people can integrate into their everyday lives. Otherwise, it just feels it leaves us all feeling like it was a flavor of the week attempt at culture building. So with every group, I start with a one-to-one coaching session with each person. And this can happen over the course of weeks or months. And um, I like to work with smaller groups first, like the Emerging Leaders Program. And then the way that this particular engineering firm has um integrated things with me as their coach, contracted coach, is that they have new employees on board with me by taking the assessment, then having a one-to-one workshop or coaching session. And then sometimes their supervisor will schedule time with me, and maybe they'll bring the employee in so we can talk about how they can prepare for each other's communication style. And it reduces conflict immediately, but it also sets expectations. So we always start with the one-to-one, then we do small group workshops, and then sometimes I'll do full organizational-wide keynotes or workshops at their annual meetings. But so for now, I've worked with um pockets of this particular engineering firm. I've done a workshop with their HR team, I've done a workshop with their finance team, I've done a workshop with one of their um market groups within the organization. But we have to do the one-to-one first so everyone understands their own talents before we launch into the team dynamics related to those talents. Did that answer your question?

Rexhen Doda: 9:32

Yeah, it did. It did. And so when we think about meaningful change, how long would you say that takes typically?

Sarah Elkins: 9:41

Oh my gosh. It depends on the size of the group, of course. I saw meaningful change in um a group of eight that has grown to 22 with a nonprofit here in Montana. Um, because at eight people, everyone took the assessment. We did a three-hour intro to Strengths Finder workshop, and then they would hire me for periodic lunch and learn one-hour reminders. And they have me onboard every new employee, and their supervisor has an opportunity to work with me if they want to. And then they bring me in usually once a year for a full group strengths finder or storytelling workshop. And because they're growing with this tool, it has adjusted their culture in really positive ways. So that meaningful change happened over the course of just two or three years. With this big organization, 350 employees, I am just I've been working with them off and on for about two years, and I'm just starting to see the shift. They had a new hire orientation a couple weeks ago, and a lot of the comments were the new hires talking to the current, the longer-term employees in networking opportunities about how useful that one-to-one conversation was. And they were having conversations about their talents and about how they show up, what they learned, um, some of the snags they hit when they were first starting, and how this tool has helped them. So we're seeing change, but with 350 employees, it's gonna be far more gradual. And especially with engineering and science-based organizations, they tend to attract people who are on the skeptical side about this kind of tool. So it takes longer when you have to start by saying, here's the data, here's why this works, um, here's what I can predict about your behavior, even though you're complicated and I can't predict who you are. I can make predictions about how you're gonna approach things. Um, one of the best lines my husband gave me, he said, just tell them if Google can predict your behavior, so it can gallop.

Rexhen Doda: 12:01

So I I tend to think since your industry is um kind of like uh focused on in in tech. And um I also like I mentioned to you earlier, I have a marketing background, but before that, uh I studied computer science. I wanted to become a software developer. And so um by majority, uh the people are like my friends and people that I studied with uh were usually more introverted, I guess, within this field compared to other uh fields that people study usually. So do you feel like uh being an introvert or being an extrovert has any impact on this?

Sarah Elkins: 12:46

That is such a good question. I've learned that those labels, introvert and extrovert, really are on a spectrum. So very few of us are all the way introverted versus all the way extroverted. Most of us are somewhere in the middle. And what I find is that I can predict in some ways where you're gonna fall on that scale based on your strengths. It's it's pretty straightforward most of the time for any coach that uses any of these accurate tools, whether that's um strengths finder, disc, real colors, there are there are a bunch out there that are pretty good predictive tools. But what I find is that it doesn't matter what your talents are, you can use them to meet your goals. So for instance, if um one of the best examples I heard was from the trainer that I sat in with when I got my certification with Strengths Finder. This trainer said that you have two development people, people who raise funds for a nonprofit. And one of them has the extroverted talent, like woo, winning others over, and the other doesn't. They um if you give them a goal of walking into a room of a thousand people and getting 50 business cards, one will succeed, the other will either fail or they'll succeed, but it'll feel like you've ripped their soul out of their body. So instead of setting a goal like 50 business cards, you make something more meaningful that each of them can reach using their own tools. So you might say, we want to get pledges of $5,000 when you attend this. You look at the one guy, and you know he's gonna get a hundred donations of, I don't know, $50 each, or I'm not doing the math right now very well. My brain's a little sleepy, but um, he's gonna get a whole bunch of small donations, right? He's gonna go make friends with everybody in the room, and it's gonna feel great to him. Just saying the word networking event to the other one is gonna make them sweat. Their hands are gonna itch. They're like, oh, they're gonna vomit a little in their mouth, right? But if I say, I want you to use your tools to have pledges of $5,000, I don't want you to go in and meet everybody, meet the right people. And I set that expectation with this person, they're gonna be a lot less stressed walking into that meeting. They're not gonna feel nearly as slimy when they walk out. They're gonna walk in and they're gonna get two pledges of $2,500 each, or maybe three, right? Because they're going to use the tools they have, observation. Um, maybe they lead by knowing things, maybe they lead by building relationships, maybe they lead by understanding consequences and being a responsible and reliable person. Whatever tools they have, they can use in that room. If you set the expectation or the goal in a way that allows them to use their own tools to do it.

Rexhen Doda: 15:58

Yeah, it does. And it's a smart way to think about it, actually. When thinking about this, it's a question that other coaches who are listening are going to find useful to know. When thinking about how people find you or how you find them marketing-wise, is there any marketing channel that you see that is working very well for you?

Sarah Elkins: 16:19

Again, really good question. It's taken me a long time to develop my tools for marketing. And part of that was finally experiencing Strength Finder as a tool and having a coach walk me through my talents. And she basically said, Well, look at your talents. You don't have anything in the executing domain. This is the people who um lead by setting goals and they're very responsible and consistent and disciplined, and I don't have any of those talents. And I was trying to be a person with those talents, and it wasn't working for me. So, one of the most important lessons I learned, whether it's marketing or business in general, was to make sure I have my personal board of directors that have a diverse set of talents. So when I hired a bookkeeper, within a couple of months, my I generated more than enough income to pay for that bookkeeper because I wasn't spending my time managing the details of bookkeeping. Same thing goes for my social media. When I found the right person to run my social media, changed everything for me. Totally worth the investment. What I'm really good at is the coaching. So the other thing I learned is that by using my talents in my marketing, everything's changed for me. And that means face-to-face conversations. So I tried being somebody who does things more online, but social media makes me sick to my stomach a lot of the time. So instead, I've been going to face-to-face events. I've been um engaging with locals here in Montana, um, I go to conferences, I go to when I travel, I try to meet up with my contacts in different parts of the world. So when I was in Montpellier in France, I met one of my LinkedIn connections that I've had for a long time in person for the first time. Um, and I found that by joining the local uh Society for Human Resource Managers at SHERM and getting involved in our local um co-working space and setting up being participating in online communities like the Momentum Community, hosted by Nettie Owens. All of these things not only help me stay accountable, but they've been my most successful marketing tools that um reaching out specifically to the right target audience every time.

Rexhen Doda: 19:00

And from the coaches that we've interviewed, actually live events have turned out to be one of the best um ways to get new uh clients or like in terms of like conversion-wise, uh the people that actually see you and listen to you either on stage or like in person uh tend to trust you a lot more than if they saw you on social media, for example. Uh, but I like that you have not gone against the current and actually have outsourced the things that you it's not that you're not good at, but just I probably don't enjoy even doing.

Sarah Elkins: 19:39

Well, uh an amazing coach gave me some guidance many years ago. He well, he's not actually a coach, he owns a multi-million dollar transcription agency, which is still a thing, even with AI, by the way, because there are certain trust issues and security issues in transcription, particularly with medical transcription and legal transcription. So he said many years ago, you are really good at A. That's why you started your business because you're really good at this, you love it, it's meaningful work. If you are spending your time on tasks B, C, and D, then you are leaving potential for impact and income on the table. And when he said that, uh my brain just exploded. I realized why am I spending this time? I have two business degrees, but that doesn't make me good at bookkeeping. Um, it doesn't, it doesn't make me good at staying accountable. It gave me certain tools, but um, what I'm really good at, I need to be spending my time doing. And that does not include some of the more detailed work.

Rexhen Doda: 20:48

To switch the topics just a little bit, I want to move into the future of Alkins Consulting, looking into the next one to three years. Do you have any specific business goals that you're working towards off? Even if not business goals?

Sarah Elkins: 21:06

I do have a couple. Um I would like to be doing six to eight speaking engagements a year. I don't want my primary income to be speaking engagements, but I really enjoy that aspect. Um but what I'd really like to do is host these kinds of workshops, public speaking, storytelling, strengths finder, at retreats or summits for small executive leadership teams. So I found that that's really my sweet spot is having the one-to-one strength finder coaching sessions beforehand, and then doing a really engaging, interactive workshop in person. That's my sweet spot. And I want to do so much more of that because it gets people engaged. They're thinking about um where they get in their own way and where they're really strong. There, it's all about the self-reflection that helps build a really solid team so that your culture is um one of successful relationships. It's not just about the bottom line. But if your goal as an organization is to create a team that really jives, that everyone feels satisfied in their work. They feel rewarded, they they feel like they're part of something important, they feel like they belong. If that's your goal, then this kind of workshop can really help get you there, especially because I involve so much of the storytelling aspect in my work.

Rexhen Doda: 22:46

So more speaking and workshops, but workshops in person, basically, not just online workshops. Now, what would you say is kind of like the main challenge in doing these two things? Uh, where do you see the bottleneck?

Sarah Elkins: 23:03

That's a good question. Part of it has to do with developing clarity about who my audience is, and that has happened over time and it's shifted as well. So um, when I first started as a workplace communication trainer or helping people tell their story for interviews, I knew who my target audience was. But that shifted over time, and I'd encourage other coaches to take inventory regularly. Who are the people that I really love working with? I didn't think about that until too late. So I was attracting some of the wrong clients over the years. But now that I know, I can look at this engineering team that I'm working with and pinpoint exactly who my target audience is now. But again, in a year, I need to take inventory again and make sure that's still true. Because otherwise, you end up burning out, you end up getting tied into contracts and relationships that don't serve you and don't fulfill you. Um, so taking inventory regularly about who you're working with, what your goals are in terms of working with them, what kind of impact do you want to have, I think is really important.

Rexhen Doda: 24:20

Absolutely. And actually, it does uh take time to figure out that perfect um ideal client profile because um you need data points. You need to work with the people you don't like to figure out, okay, I don't, this is not it. And then same with relationships, right? Yeah, yeah. Otherwise, if you just like try to go from for one group without knowing if that's the ideal one, uh, it gets harder to find that. Um so right now, when it comes to, and this is a question that goes to that research that I mentioned earlier, when it comes to investments you've done, and you've done quite a few, you've also invested in the team. Um, what would you say have been some of the best investments? Either you learned a lot or got a good return from. Um, and these can be actually investments of time and money or both. On the opposite side of that, what have been the investments that you wish you had avoided if there's any bad investments as well?

Sarah Elkins: 25:25

I would say one of the best investments was getting my strengths finder certification. And um, there are a few reasons for this. One was I took the assessment and was pretty dismissive of it because I've taken lots of assessments in my career and they all just felt like a label. I didn't understand the practical application of understanding these aspects of myself, mostly because when I saw my results, they were always the things people criticized me for. They were the things that I wanted to distance myself from. So seeing strengths finder, having the results, and coming up and realizing, oh my gosh, my first coach, I said these two, they're not strengths. They're my biggest burdens. These are the things that these are my flaws. And she helped me see where they've shown up consistently in positive ways. I was only looking for the bad stuff. And she helped me pick out dozens of good experiences as opposed to the the two or three really bad ones that I was pointing out. And so that the evidence way outweighed the positive evidence, way outweighed the negative experiences. So having that assessment, talking to a coach and having her walk me through why certain things worked for me, helped me understand, like you said, the things didn't work out for me and why. So that training was very expensive. And not only did I it helped me understand my own limitations and the things that I shouldn't be spending my time on, it also helped me get my foot in the door with organizations like engineering firms that really want something with solid data behind it. So that was one of one of the best investments. Now, as far as time is concerned, a woman introduced me to this idea of doing virtual co-working sessions a few years ago, and then I started one, and then I started another one, and then I started an in-person one, and I joined another one. So four days a week, I have accountability partners, and because of the talents that I have, I need that, and I can tell you that within six months of joining accountability work groups, this means we get on a Zoom, I put on some music, and we use the Pomodoro method of setting the timer for 25 minutes. So we do these work sprints and we stop in between, we take a break, we laugh, we get a cup of tea, whatever we're doing, we laugh a lot. And then we go back to our 25-minute sprint and we turn off our video and our we mute ourselves and we work for 25 minutes, we come back. Do we have any questions? Is there anything we can help each other out with? Um, what are you brainstorming now that you that I could help you with? And then we go back to our work sessions. Those investments have absolutely changed my business.

Rexhen Doda: 28:30

That is such an interesting thing to be on the meeting because oftentimes we feel like we're alone uh in doing our tasks or anything. If you're working from home, obviously you don't have that sense of connectivity with others, but you do get that with this method. That is such an interesting way of doing it.

Sarah Elkins: 28:50

And is it like an investment, or just like basically through networking, you met these people that well the one that I started for Mondays are um it started from a conference that I started called the No Longer Virtual Summit. And we had the eighth one in Austin, Texas this year in February. Um, and those anywhere from 25 to 40 people would show up every year for this summit and we would learn from each other. Um, we all share, take turns hosting sessions and just working together and gaining all kinds of confidence and relationships. So the first one was because I knew I needed that accountability help, and I knew some of the others liked it too. And this isn't just for people with my talents, even people with the executing domain, the achiever talent, the responsibility talent, they like this because they feel like they're contributing. And of course, I love to surround myself with people with all different talents, especially the ones that aren't like mine. So that was the first group, and I did I have one that's in person now. On Fridays with just a couple of local women that own their own businesses. And we just needed a place to, again, work together, get shit done with those people. Um, I did join a community, the momentum community that I mentioned, my friend Nettie Owens. And that has really helped me keep accountable because she is a very solid business coach. And by paying a small subscription every month, I have access to her. I have access to this accountability coach that keeps me on task. And that is the other investment is that subscription. And I highly recommend it. Whether you are somebody who is in the executing domain or somebody like me with more the strategic thinking domain, having somebody that you pay to keep you accountable, to meet up with you, that you can ask questions of means that this is the most important thing about coaching. I'm investing in a coach. And as far as I'm concerned, if you're a coach and you are not investing in being coached, then you don't believe in it enough. All of us can improve, all of us could use coaching. And whether that's through barter or through direct payment. If I meet a coach that's not getting coached in some way or another or having coaches periodically, this is not somebody I'll work with.

Rexhen Doda: 31:26

That is so true because you're also like getting people to trust into coaching because you trust into coaching makes a lot of sense. You mentioned the transcription business that you said you're leaving a lot of um impact uh on the table uh by doing the wrong or basically focusing on tasks that were not your strengths. Now, for people for for other coaches who are listening that want to scale their impact, is there any other advice you'd like to give to these coaches?

Sarah Elkins: 32:12

Well, first, knowing what it is that you want to have impact in. What is the impact you want? There's a talent called significance in Strengths Finder. And it is uh people who lead with that talent need to be known and recognized for their impact. The problem is if they don't know that this is part of what motivates them and part of how they approach things, then they may get um feedback for their impact without it being intentional. That's where negative things occur. If you know the impact you want to have, I know that I want people to be more self-reflective, to understand their talents and know where they're getting in their own way to improve their relationships. Because I know that when people have satisfying relationships in their lives, they're kinder, their communities benefit, their families benefit. So that's the impact I want to have. I would encourage every coach to think, what is the impact I want to have? And I go back to a book that Bob Berg co-wrote. I interviewed him on my podcast years ago. It's called Um The Go Giver. And what he says is the goal can't be money, the goal can't be closing the deal. The goal has to be solving a problem for somebody. And then he says that when you do that, when you achieve that goal, the result is greater income, greater impact. So set your goal that way first, and then you'll see the benefits.

Rexhen Doda: 34:00

Thank you so much, uh, Sarah. And thank you so much for coming to our podcast today. For anyone who wants to connect with you or find you, uh, they can go into LinkedIn, look up Sarah Elkins, they'll be able to find your profile. They can also go, if I'm not mistaken, it should be elkinsconsulting.com, the website. All right. We'll put that in the description so people can find it easily. And um, yeah, thank you so much, Sarah. Thanks so much for coming to the show.

Sarah Elkins: 34:31

Thank you, Regin. That was a really fun conversation.

Davis Nguyen : 34:34

That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This podcast was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, or even $100,000 weeks, all without burning out and making sure that you're making the impact and having the life that you want. To learn more about our community and how we can help you, visit join purplecircle.com.