Tapping the Potential of Strengths in Your Small Business with Darren Virassammy

Are you clear about where your strengths lie? In today's episode, we're sharing our interview with Darren Virassammy, the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of 34 Strong. Darren blew Dr. Sabrina away with his talk at ProfitCON last Fall, about working and living from our strengths. Darren has been bringing StrengthsFinder into organizations to help team members to gain clarity about where their strengths lie. And Dr. Sabrina has been looking for ways to help her clients deepen what they're already doing that works – leading from strengths.

Did you know that businesses with highly-engaged team members working from their business Sweet Spots have the potential be 200-10,000 percent more profitable than their peers in the same industry? This is because people are happiest when they are working from their strengths. The ability to work from your strength is key to creating a great place to work. Tune in today to hear Darren's conversation with Dr. Sabrina about tapping people's strengths!

Darren Virassammy is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of 34 Strong, comprised of a team that believes everyone deserves a great place to work and that any workplace can be great.  A leading expert in the global employee engagement community, the 34 Strong team leverages the Strengths-Based approach to human development to create massive shifts within organizations, both culturally and on the bottom line. Darren and his team have created sustainable change in small micro-businesses, all the way up to large organizational teams at the FDA, Bank of America, and The California Department of Public Health.  Recently, Darren keynoted for Hitachi Global Women’s Conference, The Rotary World Peace Conference, The Professional Grounds Management Society, and Author Mike Michalowicz’ ProfitCon.

Show highlights:

  • How Darren got into his work and why he's so passionate about what he does.
  • When you work really hard on something that you don't love, it's called stress. And when you work really hard on something that you love, and that you feel is making an impact, it's called passion.
  • Every employee deserves a great place to work, and every workplace can be a great place to work. It takes work!
  • What happens when people become better versions of themselves.
  • Talent is your natural patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior that can be productively applied.
  • Focusing on what's right with people.
  • We can easily overlook our talents because those things come so naturally to us.
  • Creating awareness of how our talents align to create excellence.
  • Moving our frustration to fascination.
  • Learning the language of strengths to identify your talents.
  • The way that tension dissipates in a team after understanding patterns of strength.
  • What happens when business owners take the  StrengthsFinder Assessment.
  • Team awareness starts with self-awareness.
  • Everybody wants to be valued for being valuable.
  • The way that your team interacts is the brand of your organization.
  • Darren shares some data on the level of engagement of employees in America.
  • Dealing with pushback within organizations.
  • Catching people doing things right.
  • Dr. Sabrina and Darren are teaming up together to offer Leading Your Organization from Strengths, to help small business owners build teams that are working from their strengths.
  • What will be included in Leading Your Organization from Strengths, and what you will gain from it.

Links and resources:

Books mentioned in this episode:

How to Hire the Best by Dr. Sabrina Starling

The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz

Destination Unstoppable by Maureen Monte

Free Exercise Download: Grind. Greatness. Genius. 

Discover your areas of Grind, Greatness and Genius

https://www.34strong.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/GeniusZone.pdf

Video Links:

34 Strong Overview video:  https://vimeo.com/300826565

Darren’s Keynote: Creating Excellence Through Strengths (from Profit Con 2018): https://youtu.be/EkLUn9Vpfxs

Website links:

34 Strong website: www.34strong.com

34 Strong Blog: 34strong.com/blog

Strengths-Based Parenting Blog: https://www.analynbrandon.com/blog/

Social Media:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/strengthsfinder/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/34strong/

34 Strong LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/34-strong-inc-/

Profit by Design Podcast: www.profitbydesignpodcast.com

Profit by Design Facebook group

Email: sabrinaandmike@profitbydesignpodast.com

Check out Dr. Sabrina's free 4 Week Vacation™ Jump Start Guide: www.4weekvacation.com

If you are interested in taking part in our 2020 Breakthroughs on The Bayou 4 Week Vacation™ Legacy Retreat in March 2020, you need to get your application in right now! If you're interested in being a part of the retreat, all the information is available at  www.4weekvacation.com. Apply soon, as space is limited, and you may qualify for Super Early Bird Savings that is not listed on the website!

Please help us get discovered by leaving an honest review on iTunes!

To get in on Leading Your Organization from Strengths, go to www.tapthepotential.com/34. Code PROFIT will save you $100 off your registration. If you are registering team members, use the code SAVE100 to save an additional $100 for each team member registered.

About The Author

Dr. Sabrina Starling, The Business Psychologist and international best-selling author of the How to Hire the Best series and The 4 Week Vacation™, is the founder of Tap the Potential and host of the Profit by Design podcast. At Tap the Potential, we work to free business owners from the constant demands of a growing business.

We believe work supports life, not the other way around. Clients in our Better Business, Better Life coaching program have more time for what matters most and more money in their bank account than they’ve ever had. Next, we send them off on a 4 Week Vacation™ to celebrate their hard-earned journey to take their life back!

Dr. Sabrina and her team at Tap the Potential are on a mission to change the story of entrepreneurship from one of long hours, grinding it out, to one of sustainably profitable businesses that support and enhance life. The Tap the Potential Solution™ and our Tap the Potential Family of Business Owners are disrupting small business as usual. We are on our way to making the Tap the Potential Solution™ the mainstream model for growing business.

By 2023, 150 Tap the Potential clients will have taken 4 Week Vacations. These are the trailblazers, role modeling what’s possible for entrepreneurs. In many entrepreneurial circles, it is becoming more and more common for one entrepreneur to ask another, “Have you taken a 4 Week Vacation™?” (as opposed to asking “How many employees do you have?” or “What is your annual revenue?”). Taking a fully unplugged 4 Week Vacation is rapidly becoming the recognized symbol of entrepreneurial success.

Never one to accept the status quo or back down from a challenge, Dr. Sabrina’s How to Hire the Best series grew from her desire to solve the toughest hiring challenges interfering with her clients’ growth and profitability. What sprang from her experience working with entrepreneurs in rural areas catapulted her into becoming the world’s leading expert in attracting top talent in small businesses—no matter what hiring challenges those businesses are facing—and earned Tap the Potential’s reputation as the go-to resource for entrepreneurs committed to creating Great Places to Work with thriving coaching cultures and highly engaged team members working from strengths.

As The Business Psychologist, and with her years of driving profit in small businesses, Dr. Sabrina knows what it takes to find, keep, and motivate exceptional performance out of your biggest investment—team members.