In this episode, I’m joined by Amanda Kwok, whose specialty is helping introverted leaders find their voice and make their greatest impact without needing to adopt extroverted behaviors. We explore essential mind shifts for introverts in consulting, strategies for managing networking and client acquisition, and the importance of embracing one's natural strengths.
Notes from the Show
1. The Power of Self-Reflection and Coaching:
Amanda shares her journey from management consulting to leadership coaching, highlighting how her personal experiences with burnout and a lack of fulfillment led her to pursue a career helping introverted leaders. She emphasizes the value of self-reflection and how coaching has played a crucial role in her development.
2. Importance of Talking to Your Target Audience:
Amanda stresses the importance of conducting interviews with potential clients before deciding on a niche. Through these conversations, she discovered that her true passion lay in supporting introverted leaders, leading her to focus on this specific group.
3. Mind Shifts for Introverts in Leadership:
One of the most powerful shifts for introverted leaders is moving away from trying to emulate extroverted behaviors and instead embracing their natural strengths, such as deep listening and curiosity. Amanda discusses how introverts can use these strengths to build meaningful connections and succeed in leadership roles.
4. Strategies for Networking and Client Acquisition:
Amanda offers practical tips for introverts who find traditional networking uncomfortable. She suggests asking more meaningful questions like, “What’s it like to be you these days?” instead of sticking to surface-level small talk. She also highlights the importance of preparation before networking events, balancing curiosity with self-disclosure, and how to effectively approach potential clients on platforms like LinkedIn.
5. Idea Promotion vs. Self-Promotion:
Amanda introduces the concept of shifting from self-promotion to idea promotion and self-disclosure. She explains how this mindset can make it easier for introverts to share their work and experiences without feeling boastful, ultimately making their message more relatable and impactful.
Quotes to Remember:
"Introverts think to speak, while extroverts speak to think."
"To be interesting, be interested." – Dale Carnegie
"Sometimes, not asking a potential client if they want to work with you can make them feel like they’re not qualified."
What’s Inside:
Amanda’s story: From corporate to coaching.
Mindset shifts for introverts in consulting.
Strategies for managing networking and client acquisition.
Having interesting and meaningful conversations as an introvert
Mentioned in this Episode:
Transcribed by AI Susan Tatum 0:38
Hi everybody. Welcome back to stop the noise. Today, my guest is Amanda Kwok, who is a founder and leadership coach at quiet leader co welcome Amanda,
Amanda Kwok 0:48
thank you. I'm excited to be here.
Susan Tatum 0:50
You know, I reached out to you to join me on stop the noise because of your LinkedIn headline, which says helping introverted leaders find their voice, advocate for themselves and make their greatest impact without acting like an extrovert. I love that. I truly love that. And we're going to talk about mind shifts for introverts in consulting, and also some strategies for managing, networking and client acquisition. And these are topics that I get so many questions about and have so many conversations about. So I'm really excited to dive into this, but before we do that, tell us a little bit about your story and how you got from corporate yourself to coaching, and why did you decide to focus on introverted leaders and helping them find their voice?
Amanda Kwok 1:39
Sure, yeah, it's a great question. I have been obsessed with personal development since high school, when I went to a leadership development focused summer camp, so I have been journaling and doing personal development exercises since I don't know, grade nine, I think. And yeah, I have always loved that world, but I started my career management consulting, and when I left, three and a half years later, I decided to take my first swing at entrepreneurship, and I found that I needed just more accountability and more clarity, and so I hired my first life coach when I was 25 I've worked with over 10 coaches since then, and I've always seen the value and the power of coaching. I never thought that I'd have enough confidence to do it on my own. And then during the pandemic, I was at a FinTech company leading a Customer Experience team, and I just hit this point of burnout and depression where I realized that I no longer felt fulfilled by the work that I was doing. And in this moment of clarity, I realized that what would feel fulfilling for me is helping people connect more deeply with themselves. And so coaching just felt like a really obvious fit for that. So I went to get my coaching certification, and that was the beginning of my coaching journey. As for why I decided to focus on introverts. I actually originally thought that I wanted to coach senior leaders in tech, kind of the role that I came from. So what I did was I decided to interview 10 people who fit that kind of client profile, just to get a sense for what are the challenges that they're facing. And you know, what types of problems do I actually get excited to support people on, and which ones do I not? And through that set of interviews, I realized that the person who I was most excited to coach was another introverted leader. And so I ended up doing another set of 10 interviews specifically with introverted leaders. And it just it really stuck with me, I think because I got to experience the power of what shifted on my team when I fully let myself embrace my introverted nature, rather than feeling like I needed to be allowed to be a good leader or more extroverted or outgoing, which is what I did for the greater part of my career, and so now I get to help other introverts do the same, and that feels really fulfilling.
Susan Tatum 3:46
So yeah, I mean, that's interesting, that well, first of all, that you went out and actually talked to people. That's why you were deciding what it was that you wanted to do and where you wanted to focus. And I just want to make sure everybody that's listening caught that, because that's so important to get out there and just talk to people, was that difficult for you to do?
Amanda Kwok 4:08
You know, it's, it's funny, I feel like I've always been most comfortable in one on one conversations, so it doesn't feel as as uncomfortable for me. I've also just naturally been really curious, and I I think I just that lends itself well to kind of interview settings where I'm the interviewer asking questions, and I think as an introvert, I tend to be, you know, a good listener and really observant. I'll pick up on small details, and then I'll get really curious. So the interviews were, they weren't hard in terms of actually having the conversation. I think in some instances, it's hard for me to reach out and ask for help and feel like I'm burdening someone, but all the interviews really just felt like I was helping other people get more clarity. Which was which felt good on my side as well.
Susan Tatum 4:50
And that's what I try to help my clients and people that I talk to with is that getting those conversations by asking asking somebody to contribute their expertise to helping somebody else. I mean, people are just so open to doing that. Do you find that curiosity is kind of a natural a lot of introverts are naturally curious. That seems to be something that follows, yeah, they go together.
Amanda Kwok 5:17
Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of introverts shy away from small talk, which means that we love having deep conversations. And I think the way to get into deep conversations is to ask questions and get really curious. So yeah, I think by virtue of that, a lot of introverts tend to be more curious. And I mean, one thing that I found as an introvert is sometimes I ask questions, not just because I'm curious, but because it's almost a security blanket. So I don't need to talk about myself as much. So it's actually just a comfortable state for me to be in a lot of design, but I know that I need to share more about myself as well.
Susan Tatum 5:50
Yeah, a lot of independent consultants struggle with sales, you know? I mean, it's just an icky, icky feeling, yeah? And especially selling ourselves, right? And so but if you've read all of I mean, I can't tell you how many sales books and I've read and sales consultants that I've talked to over the years, and one of the things that really makes a good salesperson is curiosity and the ability to listen. And these are things that are natural to introverts, that the extroverts, who we've been watching get ahead or whatever, for so long because they were making all that noise that actually works against them?
Amanda Kwok 6:26
Sure. Yeah, that's interesting.
Susan Tatum 6:28
It really is. So let's talk about when we had a conversation before you brought up a concept of self promotion versus idea promotion versus self disclosure and and in relation to a mindset that is very helpful, if we can make that mindset, let's dive into that a little bit more.
Amanda Kwok 6:48
Yeah. So one thing that I find for a lot of my clients, and myself included, a lot of the time, is that introverts tend to shy away from the spotlight, and so when we're told that we need to self promote or self advocate, or, you know, build our business in a more showy way. It feels really uncomfortable. And this one idea that I shared with you, I heard Adam Grant talking about on a podcast, and the idea is that self promotion is what we typically think of. It's kind of that boastful look at me and how great I am. He encourages people to kind of shift your mindset towards idea promotion instead, which is, you know, I either did something or I learned something that I'm proud of, that I think you'll find valuable as well. And so it shifts the focus from yourself to helping other people learn. And the last part is self disclosure, which I find I lean on a lot as a coach. And it's really about, you know, here are all the ways in which I've struggled in the past or made mistakes in the past, and here's what you can learn from it. So it's kind of using your own experiences and vulnerability as a way to help others not make the same mistakes that you did in the past.
Susan Tatum 7:54
So that is a that is something that really, I can't figure the words that I want to use right now, but it really permeates through everything that we do, that if you can, because I know it's really uncomfortable to say I, I, I on everything but your point about if you're sharing that I was told this idea, just like you're sharing about this idea that you got from someone and and maybe you could tell us a little bit more about how that affected how you operate, that could be helpful.
Amanda Kwok 8:26
Yeah, I for a long time, I have had this narrative that I'm not good at thinking on my feet, and part of that, I think, is because introverts do need more internal processing time than extroverts. So extroverts, they often say they'll extroverts will speak to think, whereas introverts think to speak. And so for a long time, I've hidden behind almost the introvert label and made an excuse that, you know, because I'm an introvert, because I'm not good at thinking on my feet, I'm not going to do things like go on podcasts. And actually, for the last four years, I have been actively avoiding podcasts for that reason. But one thing that my coach has reminded me of over and over is the idea that it's not about me and it's really about shifting the focus off of my discomfort onto serving others. And so if you know me, saying no to a podcast is actually going to stop me from serving other people and helping you know, share ideas and wisdom or anything with them, then to a certain extent, I'm being selfish by saying no, and so that's been a really helpful reframe for me. Just to it's my discomfort.
Susan Tatum 9:28
I'm making a note, because that's really good for people that are uncomfortable sharing their ideas when they're like posting on LinkedIn even. You mentioned a book when we talked before that, it had something to do about thinking, yeah, do you know what I'm talking about?
Amanda Kwok 9:42
Yeah, it's called Think faster, talk smarter. I cannot think of the author right now.
Susan Tatum 9:50
We'll get it for the shownotes.
Amanda Kwok 9:51
But yeah, I really loved reading the book. It's really all about how to get better at thinking on your feet, and it talks both about how to work with the symptoms of anxiety as they come up in the moment. As well as how to tackle the underlying sources of anxiety.
Susan Tatum 10:03
Interesting, interesting. So we also talked about, and you mentioned it earlier here in the podcast, that you're very comfortable with a one on one conversation, but getting in front of a bunch of people, or feeling like you have to go into this networking situation where you're you're talking to a lot of people can be extremely uncomfortable. Now I am a racer with you, if you put it that way. So what about how can introverts address that?
Amanda Kwok 10:29
Yeah, it's a great question. I honestly think the biggest thing is we we live in an extroverted world, and I think as introverts, we assume that we need to approach all these situations the same way an extrovert would, and I think the secret is really just to own our preferences and our needs as introverts and embrace them rather than judge them. And so in a networking session, for example, for a long time, I used to stay at the surface level and ask the same generic questions, like, what do you do for work? Because I just assumed that's what everyone would expect, and like I shared, because I feel allergic to small talk that never resulted in the outcome that I wanted. I always ended up leaving these events feeling really drained. And finally, I just gave myself the permission to ask different, more interesting questions. And so one of the questions that I love asking now as an opener is, what's it like to be you these days? And it kind of breaks the script. I think when you ask someone, how are you, we go into autopilot, and you just say, Good you. And it just ends in this dead end conversation. But when you ask, what is it like to be you these days, I think what happens is it gives people the permission to open up and go as deep as they want to. And what I find is that more often than not, it causes people to stop and reflect and share both the positive and some of the challenges they're going through, which just leads to a richer conversation.
Susan Tatum 11:53
Yeah, and you break the expected. I mean, like you said, you know, how are you or how's it going? I mean, that's like, that's like, waving. It's not, nobody really expects anybody to answer that question. But then when you turn it into something like, what's it like to be you these days, that makes a huge difference.
Amanda Kwok 12:09
Yeah, the other thing that comes to mind and kind of ties into your question about curiosity earlier is, I think when we meet people for the first time, we feel this, this need to be really interesting and witty, and it comes out of a desire to be liked. And Dale Carnegie has this expression that to be interesting be interested, which I think actually lends itself really well for the introvert personality. And for me, one concept that's been really helpful is this idea of shift responses versus support responses. Have you ever heard of that?
Susan Tatum 12:45
No
Amanda Kwok 12:46
okay, so a support response is something that you say or a question that you ask to encourage the other person to continue talking and sharing their story. So it could be anything like, Tell me more, or, you know, wow, that's so interesting. How did you feel about that? Just something that encourages them to keep going, whereas a shift response is something that brings the attention onto you and shifts the attention onto you. And so that could be something like someone shares their experience doing a certain thing, and you say, Me too, and then you tell your own story. And what they find in the research is that a good ratio of support to shift responses is three to one. You don't always want to just have the other person talking all the time because they don't learn anything about you. That's the case, but you need a good balance. But if you are really focused on making the other person feel interesting and just being interested in what they have to share, I think a great tip is really to focus on having more support responses.
Susan Tatum 13:38
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And what was going through my mind, as you said, that Amanda was and something I saw recently, or not too long ago, was about human we have a tendency, when somebody says something happened to them, they're talking about that, then we gotta, like, talk about it's almost like trying to one up them.
Amanda Kwok 13:55
Sure, yes, there's actually a great article that it was on the TED website, I think, by Celeste Hadley, and she spoke about the same thing, you know, in her effort to, I think, she shared a story of, I think, her friend's father passing away, or something like that, and in an effort to kind of empathize and show her friend that she knew what she was going through, she shared the story of, you know, her dad passing away, or someone close to her passing away. And what ended up happening is, to your point, her friend felt kind of one upped, and like her, her experience was kind of, you know, not as valid, because, you know, this other person had this different experience. And so I think, I think sometimes we are, you know, well intentioned in, yeah, sharing that story, but it doesn't always lead to the the outcome that we want.
Susan Tatum 14:39
Well, you because you really what you're trying to say is, I know how you feel because I've been there, right? Yeah, but that's not always the right thing to do.
Amanda Kwok 14:47
yeah. I think there is a way to share your experience and not hug the spotlight. I think you can first. I think don't interrupt their story, let them continue and ask those support responses until they get to the end, and then you. If you do share your story, share your experience, but then ask a question to bring the attention back onto them, versus just sharing your story and hugging or taking the attention back onto you.
Susan Tatum 15:09
So let's turn that into how you might be talking to a prospective client. What tips do you have for or thoughts do you have for how we might be better at doing that?
Amanda Kwok 15:23
Sure, that's a great question. I mean, in my discovery calls, I focus a lot on just helping my prospective clients get really clear about where they're facing a challenge in their life and what it would look like to transform that, what's possible for them if they were to work through that. So I think a big part of it for me is, you know, asking those having those support responses and asking questions to help them get even more clear on what the challenges are and what's standing in the way of them, you know, turning that around. Yeah, I think a big part of it really is not having it feel scripted and templated, just, you know, asking the questions in a way that might that make the other person feel really seen and heard and and just validated in what they're going through.
Susan Tatum 16:08
Well, you know, one of the things that I see with, I mean, consultants, by definition, really are problem solvers, yeah, and they're helping their clients solve problems, and that's no different from what you're doing when you're before they're a client, you're helping them to understand what their what the challenge is, and see how they might might solve it. And there really is, if we can control ourselves, no reason to shift personalities or shift approaches in there just stay in problem solving mode. You don't want to give them the whole answer, of course, but I mean, but there's no reason to shift into feeling you don't have to feel uncomfortable because you shouldn't be selling it.
Amanda Kwok 16:48
Yeah, I love the idea of, to a certain extent, selling through the lens of letting someone experience the like, what, what it would be like to work together, versus just talking about a concept. And so the idea is, you know, if, over the course of your discovery call, they have a positive enough experience that they want to work with you, and they will ask to work with you, and you don't feel like you're pitching, it's almost an invitation to share more about what it would look like to work together.
Susan Tatum 17:12
You know, that's an interesting thing that you bring up there, because I have with some sales consultants that I've spoken with who I do, most of them, I think, have completely the wrong approach for selling a service or offering a service, but one, one in particular that I do respect the approach that she has, but she said that a lot of people, we feel uncomfortable asking for you were saying You feel uncomfortable asking for help, or you feel uncomfortable asking for business or whatever. But there are times when people, if you don't ask that question, the other person may think you don't want to work with them, or they are not qualified to work with you, and so we do so it is fair and important, I think, for us to let them know that they passed the test.
Amanda Kwok 18:03
Yeah, sometimes what I like to do to kind of build up a client pipeline is on LinkedIn. When people engage with my posts, I'll reach out to them and just start a conversation. And before I even talk about working together, I just ask if I know them. I'll ask. I'll just say, you know, it's been a while since we last caught up. Like, would you be up before hopping on a call in the next few weeks? And if I don't know that, I'll build a bit of rapport before I propose a call. But either way, first call is generally just a 30 minute getting to know you call. I'm not pitching, I'm not coaching. It's literally just to see if there's any challenges that surface over the course of that conversation that I feel like I can support them with. And if they do share something, then I'll ask, you know, do you want help with that? Or, you know, would it be helpful to have a complimentary coaching session to work through some of that together? And and again, even on that call, I'm not selling or pitching until they ask me directly what it would look like to work together.
Susan Tatum 19:00
Yeah, and then let's just not even call it pitching. You're answering a question exactly.
Amanda Kwok 19:04
I love that.
Susan Tatum 19:05
That's awesome. Do you think that is there value in preparing for calls and networking events and things like that? For introverts? Yeah,
Amanda Kwok 19:15
it's funny, because the book that we reference the think best, think faster, talk smarter, it talks a lot about how we assume that people are just naturally, really, really witty and spontaneous, but really the key to getting better at speaking off the cuff is to prepare. I think you want to prepare to the extent that you have either talking points or questions that you want to use to start conversations, but not to the extent that it feels scripted, and, yeah, you're memorizing, because I think that takes up cognitive capacity as well. And every time you deviate from a script, you're you're judging yourself. And so that's not a helpful mental loop to have playing in the background.
Susan Tatum 19:54
Yeah, you don't want to sound robotic. And that can that's, that's not just for a live thing. That would be for a. In person, thing that could be for a phone call or whatever, but I think there's a great value and having an answer for questions that you might get asked, and then also having things that you can say to start the conversations that like your you know, what's it like to be these days? And it doesn't sound like what everybody else is saying to awake at night, right?
Amanda Kwok 20:18
Right? Yeah. I, you know, it's funny. I went to a networking event, I think May 2021, the first networking event since the pandemic started. And it was very rusty. And someone came back to me and asked me the first question was, what brings you alive, which I loved, and just was a great question to answer. And his second question was, what do you do for fun? And I realized that I'd gotten so boring over the course of the pandemic, I couldn't really answer the question. I was like, you know, read, coaching,
Susan Tatum 20:45
puzzles.
Amanda Kwok 20:48
Yeah, it was quite funny.
Susan Tatum 20:52
Yeah. Well, this has been really interesting, and I wish we had more time to go into it a little deeply, but, but I have two pages of notes that I took here and for listeners that want to follow up with you. Amanda, what's the best way to do that
Amanda Kwok 21:04
on LinkedIn is where I tend to post the most So Amanda Kwok, you can just search on LinkedIn and you'll find quiet leader, CO and you can just just follow my personal LinkedIn profile I post three times a week, and can feel free to DM me or reach out from there.
Susan Tatum 21:19
Okay? And that's k, w, o, k and we'll have that in the show notes, everybody, folks that want to look it up. Thank you so much for for being here and sharing. It's energizing and informative.
Amanda Kwok 21:30
All right, I'm so happy that I got the chance to chat with you.
Susan Tatum 21:33
Have a great rest of your day
Amanda Kwok 21:34
you too bye. Susan.
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