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Navigating Personal and Professional Growth Through Assessments with Dave Skoglund

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Welcome to "Struggles: Navigating Challenges, Together," the podcast dedicated to helping entrepreneurs across all industries tackle the common hurdles they face on the path to success. Join host Chris Inman as he dives deep into the real-world challenges of entrepreneurship, exploring leadership tips, scaling challenges, and financial management strategies through engaging conversations with industry experts and real-life entrepreneurs.


In this episode of "Struggles," host Chris Inman talks with Dave Skoglund from Multi-Dimensional Services about the role of assessments in personal development and sales strategy. Dave highlights the importance of recognizing individual strengths and communication styles through tools like the DISC program, which can improve workplace relationships and efficiency. The conversation also explores how certain personality traits relate to career roles and how assessments can enhance client interactions, emphasizing the value of self-awareness in professional dynamics.

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That's where if you think of the golden rule, do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. Really doesn't work in sales because what you want isn't what your client is looking for. People have defined the Platinum rule, do for others as they would like done for them. And if you keep that in the back of your mind, it's through conversation, but it's also there. Assessments allow you to have trigger points that you can identify characteristics that say, I want to go off in this with, I want to go off in this direction with Chris. I'd like to do this with Bob. And it just helps you stay aware. And again, that's really what life's all about. The more you're aware of you, your surroundings and the people you're working with and helping, the better you're going to feel at 5, 6, 7 o'clock whenever you call, call it a day. Welcome to another episode of Struggles presented by ncbi, the podcast where we navigate challenges together. Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of Struggles presented by ncbi. I'm Chris Min with Idea Cleveland and. Joining me today is Dave Skogland with Multi Dimensional Services. Awesome. Well, thank you for joining me today, Dave. Today we're going to talk about assessments and how they can be used for personal development, development of your employees and for sales and growth. That sounds awesome. I know that I just recently like discovered some of these things because I never really worked in the standard corporate world and corporate communication, those people always take these things. Absolutely. It's almost forced upon you, isn't it? It's forced upon them and I never lived in that world. So this whole conversation is going to be kind of like, kind of new to me and it's going to be very interesting. Well, good. So you're saying that some of these assessments could be really used in your sales cycle? Absolutely. Can I go back a step though, before you get into sales? Because I think it'll help understand why sales, it's really critical in self development. You'll see it in leadership development programs in the large corporate world. What I found personally and using it with my employees is that it gives an understanding of what makes them tick and also helps them focus on not worrying so much about where their weaknesses are, but utilizing their strengths. And within an organization of any kind, whether it's a chamber or a company, that's important that you can come up and say, I'm good at this, I'm good at media communications. So in that regard, once you understand where you are and how you work. I think that the second piece of that gets flipped in that once you understand that, if you can then start to understand how other people react. Why is it that we connect? It may be because we like certain things like Golf or we're part of ncbi, but more than likely we share some of that commonality of that overreaching operating system that we have. And that's where disk kind of comes in that the disk program. And Wiley is kind of the known main provider of it or main originator of it. It's like your operating system. It's where you're hardwired and people go well, can I gen the system? If you're working through it, it allows you to say am I a Windows based? Am I an Apple Mac type based? That's what makes your decision making and things happen. Other assessments like strength finders standout would be another example of that. Are typically the most used programs that your operating system works off of. So in those cases, by having both of those, if your operating system matches somebody else's and you fit that category, you're probably going to automatically start. And I know we've had conversations in the past where you've said I don't get along with somebody. More than likely they're opposite the categories. Their strengths may be other, they may be more empathetic and you're more results driven. So that's where once you understand that, it's like Dave doesn't hate me, Dave just acts differently because. And you all of a sudden have that aha moment. Absolutely. That's a great, great. Now for all of our small business owners that maybe have not thought about this, like how could they integrate it into their day to day, maybe employees, maybe their externals. How do we really implement this? How do we learn about other people's. There's a number of different ways tells, if you will, the types of questions people ask, the what, why, hows. I'll share just a brief look. Do people think logically or more interpersonal? Are they more people or logic focused? You can kind of see that when somebody says I want to see the numbers first and then I will let you explain why that's important. Or another person will say I made the last five decisions based purely because I like the way you smile or you come here prepared and it's just, it's different styles. As a salesperson and as your employees, whether it's customer service or internal sales, you need to be able to pick up on that because if the more you can, I don't want to say match, but the more you can understand, the better that relationship is going to be and you'll be able to get to the point that's important so that whatever interaction is at that point in time. So do certain careers titles, departments that they work in, are they more lean, most likely to one of these? Absolutely. And I think you can. There's always outliers. Use nurses as an example. My wife's a nurse and my first business was a staffing recruiting business for healthcare. Nurses tend to be the type of person that has to follow the rules. And if you think about it, whether it's the doctor telling them to do something, just the need that if you don't, you could cause a patient grief or death. And then you have administrators on top of that. They have to be that kind of person. Otherwise they have to be empathetic and they have to play within the game. If you don't, you may be a pharmaceutical rep with that different. You may be a nurse, but you have to be in a different area to be comfortable. Accountants would be another one. If they are all interpersonal and no detail, how happy would you be with the results of your tax return prep or an audit support. So by nature, and entrepreneurs tend to be more of the type of person we look at. Do you stay within the bounds of the rules and regulations or do you look to change the rules? Entrepreneurs tend to look to change the rules. Yes. So I would say maybe and probably too generic, maybe somebody within a franchise because there's rules could be a very successful business owner, but somebody that's going off on their own and starting off, it's probably going to be more of that risk taker and it's just so you kind of get that. Very interesting you said that. Because many things are going through my head but like people that buy a franchise are buying a system. Exactly. And they want the system to work for them. Entrepreneurs aren't buying systems, they're not buying anything. They're not buying anything. They have a vision, they have a mission and they want to drive it with their own challenges and they're willing to take it on. And so I thought it was very interesting what you said that like the franchise owners have a certain way of thinking. Thinking and it's true. Entrepreneur is a unique way that clicked instantly in my head. Like that's very interesting. There's always exceptions. Oh, there's always exceptions. Because like a good franchise owner, you'll see they'll have multiple franchises, they'll think about situations that how do I move to get. Maybe not outside the franchise arrangement, but with work within it. And they are still that creative and. But they're more data driven too, on that, probably. Because I'd say that's. Yeah, they're looking at the numbers. So when you, when you talk about assessments, regardless, if you're in a job, you're a business owner. If you don't know who you are and where you're trying to go and some of the things that are holding you back, how do you get there? Aren't you just a ship in the ocean, just kind of spinning? So the assessment gives you that and then as you leverage it with your employees, with your vendors. Yeah, like your employees. I was thinking about this with your employees. Like if you had a veteran employee, they are wired to follow directions to a T. Like, that's why I could never be in the military. I couldn't imagine just blindly following somebody else telling me what to do. Well, and think about it. If you were that person and they just, you handed them a blank sheet to say, all right, I'd like your thoughts on. They may be able to do it, but they're probably going to ask for more ground rules than somebody that has been in project development or something else where they've been a free thinker. Yeah. So it's, it's. But you can use those as your advantages. Absolutely. And that's where the strengths come in. If you have certain skill types, why would you want to force somebody that you've been working with to bring up something that isn't necessarily good? Maybe just average versus cutting that, giving it to somebody else and letting that person use their strengths where they could produce 25, 30, 40% more for your organization, whether it's in a charity, whether it's in your business. So that's where Gallup has done employee engagement research for years now. And it's probably at an all time low. People have just gotten frustrated, whether it's work at home versus work at the office. But it comes back to we're not taking advantage of the strengths of the people, their desires, their needs. So you can talk about formal assessments or just the verbal assessment. If you don't fully understand, how can you set up to have the people do the things they're best at and enjoy and leave each day going. I feel fulfilled stereotypes are based off half truths. Absolutely. So the idea is, if you do have an accountant across the table and that's who you're selling to, you should be more numbers driven based off the Disc, right? More than likely, yes. So how would you recommend salespeople and business owners to really get started thinking about that in the person? Like how do you figure out what they are and what path would you take to advise them? Before you even take an assessment, if you just go back and think of. Thinking about the person across the table, how would you. But if you're sitting there saying, where do the walls come up? Okay, where. Before you even have to do anything, you know that certain situations trigger. If you look back and say, hmm, maybe I was too anticipatory or too much involved with. I know this is a great idea. Why don't you know it? That might be more of a researcher. It may be more of. So the questioning you've used the statement of can you keep asking and. Or what more is there behind your decision? Those are all things that will help. But I think I started with the self assessment for a reason. You come into a sales from your vantage point. I am a high D and C. I'm on the pure logic side. I have to show empathy and it's hard, I'll be honest. Even in the strengths, empathy is kind of down at the bottom. As an introvert, so it's important that I don't just rush in and say have I got the greatest thing in the world for you? I can help in these ways. It's making them feel that I really do understand and can connect with their feelings on that side. The logic part makes perfect sense. But if they're more of an interpersonal feelings type of person, it's just going to go haywire. So you think of the person that is the most dynamic extrovert with, as you said, the accountant, which is generally an introvert. You're going to clash heads just because they want to do the things that they have fun doing. Are not the same things that likewise in business, the way they make decisions. It's a very common coexistence, if you will. So how. How do we figure that out on the other side and use that like, how do we use this knowledge to our advantage? There's a couple things that can be done really. It's building. Everything is about know like and trust. Or I've heard somebody change the like to love. You know, you can like something but you know, do you really have that commitment and in relations type types of businesses like we have, that's critical. So getting involved with I think just some triggers which would come from doing the assessment. You'll understand that usually they say here's how to work with other people in other categories. That's a piece of it. We went to the extreme. We had a very gifted coach in banking that helped us rewrite our proposals. We literally scrapped what we did. We said we're going to touch all four categories of DIS for the high driven results. We had Cliff Notes. We moved our margins for the eyes. We said if we knew that organization was going to have somebody that was main decision maker. We did a formal presentation because they wanted to have the touch for the people that were also logic at the C level in the disk model. Those are the people that will balance things to the penny. I'm a dc I will assume the way the world balance things to the penny. I'm a freak of nature, unfortunately, is what I was told. But those folks need all the details. They need all of the supporting notes. If you think of your term papers, they want to see every one of the footnotes highlighted in detail as to where, what and why. And then the other folks, the S's really are about how does it impact the group. So quick story there is. We had a situation. We wanted to eliminate some of the processing in our company when I worked there. And the person in accounts receivable was up in arms saying we absolutely couldn't give it to the bank. We couldn't figure out why. It made no sense until we realized she thought the people would be cut and let go. And we said no, it's just the deposit piece. They still get to do all the. Once that was made known, it was like oh, okay, never mind. But that's the issue is her issue wasn't about at that point the company. Well, it was about the company. But she realized the value of those employees and that was what she put as the priority instead of maybe efficiency or bottom line numbers. So that's everybody comes at a. I'm sure you've seen that everybody comes at a situation differently. The idea is, can you figure out through your talk and conversation. I don't think most people can go to the client. Have you ever done disc or strength finders before? But when you do have that conversation, it's a fascinating thing to say, okay, how do you use it and where do you go with it? So when you do meet somebody and you start talking like we are, it does lead to a whole lot of aha moments to say I can improve my sales by or I can improve my employee engagement by A, B and C. Yeah. Well, this has been really interesting and I hope you guys all got something out of it. If you need to have a deeper conversation with Dave about disc, I'm sure he's happy to. Oh, absolutely. How do they get ahold of you, Dave? Well, my website is mdsohio.com my email is dscoglund, which is S K O G l u n dsohio.com or just show up at an NCBI meeting and share a drink. Awesome. And we'll put that all in the show notes and thank you for listening. Thank you, Dave for joining us. Chris, thank you for having me. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Struggles presented by ncbi, where we navigate challenges together. Don't forget to subscribe, listen and share this podcast with others who might benefit. We'd love to hear about the struggles you're facing or have overcome, and we'd be thrilled to have you as a guest on a future episode. Let's continue this journey together.