We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Shanell Tyus. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Shanell below.
Hi Shanell, thanks for joining us today. Over the course of your career, have you seen or experienced your industry completely flip-flop or change course on something?
For many Gen Xers and Millennials we were raised to be “well rounded” – meaning we should know a little bit of everything and be able to perform moderately well, if not excellently, at a number of different (and often unrelated) tasks. Industry experts started their business feeling like they needed to offer a number of different services in order to attract a variety of clients and be positioned to meet any number of needs. SO MUCH PRESSURE! When I started my business, I offered copy writing services but found as I worked with my clients I ended up coaching them as I wrote for them. As an educator I found myself getting booked for training gigs, so in what felt like a natural progression my business offered writing, coaching, and training services. This meant needing to market three unrelated services at one time to my audience, often leaving them confused about what they needed me for, or unable to focus on the call to action designed for them. It’s the specialist, rather than the generalist, who is perfectly position to know exactly what they do and for whom, and spend all of their energy attracting clients who need what they offer. This in turn sharpens your skills, builds your muscle, and allows you to spend all of your time in your zone as opposed to being merely adequate at several things.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
When my daughter was born, I realized I was short on what felt like two precious resources – time, and money. I was determined to think of a way to generate more of both, and be fulfilled in the process. It came down to a pursuit of freedom – freedom of time, freedom of finances, and freedom of creativity to live a more fulfilled life with my husband and our daughter. I didn’t want to get an extra job that took away time but gave me more money – that would defeat the purpose for me, so I focused first on what I did well naturally that could be done while my daughter slept and didn’t require me to learn a new skill since I was less than 2 years out of grad school and really excelling in my career in higher education.
Writing always came easily to me, even as a child, and it was a skill that friends and family would often ask for my help with. I knew if people were coming to me to help them write their cover letters or statements of purpose this was a clue to talent. Writing is a valuable skill that not everyone has but many people need and are willing to pay for, which lead me to incorporate Well Said, where I helped entrepreneurs craft their personal narratives like About pages and bios for their businesses and websites.
My business has evolved so much since 2011 when I first incorporated my business – as I wrote for clients I ended up coaching them around various parts of their business and life, so I folded coaching into my business offerings. As an educator I picked up a lot of knowing and insight and was able to train different teams and organizations on leadership development topics so I folded that into my business as well! I realized that I was working to hard to split my focus between 3 different avenues and honestly loved coaching more than writing, so I released the writing portion of my business to focus coaching new and aspiring entrepreneurs. I still train as well, but focus on Strengths-based approaches to leadership, which is a main component of my coaching practice.
In my work with my coaching clients I help them do exactly what I did – take their natural talents and the skills/knowledge/experience they’ve developed along the way and turn it into an information-based business. My clients have worked so hard and so long to develop their expertise – going to college, progressing in their fields, and despite so much career success they are still longing for a way to offer up their talent on THEIR terms, rather than an employer’s. I help women go from confusion about what and how they should build a build a business around, get clear on their direction, and get started!
I call myself a Talent AmplifyHER because I help women lean on and leverage what they do naturally well and bring it forward intentionally as a key strategy driver in their newly formed or structured business. I do this using my own natural talents – I am naturally skilled at helping my clients identify and understand their potential for greatness, and then partnering with them to deliver in that area. I’m degreed in Counseling, and am an educator turned coach and trainer, so I bring all of my intelligence about people and holistic approaches to my work with clients, and this definitely distinguishes me from other coaches.
I am so proud of the work my clients go on to do, but I’m more proud of the WAY they go on to do it – with clarity, with confidence, and with an understanding of themselves and their innate talent that they didn’t have before. It’s important in my work that I connect with what I called my “aligned and assigned” clients – those who connect with me, but even deeper than that, those I’m supposed to help and impact so THEY can go on to positively impact others. I want prospective clients to know that people are waiting on what you have – their healing, deliverance, solutions, relief, support, etc are directly tied to you showing up to serve them. We are all uniquely gifted and talented and those talents are just badges of honor we wear, they are calls to action to show up and serve the people we’re aligned with and assigned to.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
The first book that had a major impact on my life and business approach is “big Magic” by Elizabeth Gilbert. This book blew my mind is several different areas and has been so critical to how I approach my ideas and creativity. My three takeaways from the book were on the topics of doing what you love – the place where “Big Magic” occurs – doing something because you love it and it brings you joy, regardless of making money or notoriety from it. The next is the importance of acting on your ideas. Gilbert proposes that ideas are not ours, but are just visiting with us in hopes of being birthed into the world. If an idea visits us and dies (meaning we fail to act on the idea) it will eventually visit someone else in hopes of being birthed. Finally, she talks about genius – not as something we ARE but rather as something we have – like, a stroke of genius. This definitely bucks against the identity some people have about their intellectual capacities, lol, and says instead that we HAVE genius, not we ARE genius. This book has been foundational for me in so many ways and lead me to do what I love and create the thing I need, rather than creating something outside of myself expecting others to have some arbitrary results.
The second book is Strengths Based Leadership. This book is so amazing and a cornerstone of leadership style and my business approach. In this book Gallup culminates decades of research after interviewing thousands of industry leaders, and those they lead, to share how they lead and why others follow. The research revealed three keys to being a more effective leader: knowing your strengths and investing in others’ strengths, getting people with the right strengths on your team, and understanding and meeting the four basic needs of those who look to you for leadership. It is a book all about how leaders lead from a place of strength, and it shaped my own approach to leading people and projects as an emerging leader, but is a cornerstone of how I guide my clients to build and lead their businesses from a place of Strengths.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
So this isn’t a conventional answer about loans and inheritance, or gifts or even crowd sourcing. In my work with clients I focus on helping women start information-based businesses, otherwise known as INFOpreneurs. In infopreneurship you are monetizing your knowledge. With that, I teach my clients that they can start their businesses from right where they are, using what they have – a phone, laptop, internet, and the social media platform of their choice, items you already have and are using daily. When I started my business, I was already feeling so limited on funds given the expenses that came with new parenthood, so I didn’t have a lot of money to spare. I budgeted from salary, and used every client payment to invest in different aspects of building my business.
Because coaching helps guide entrepreneurs to where they’re going in a more direct route, there are costs associated with the knowledge, support, and expertise that coaching brings and some automation services have nominal fees but help side businesses run more efficiently and professionally. For these costs, I tell clients to look to the salary from their 9-5 jobs. I work with women who are established in their careers, so finances are seldom an issue for my clients – it’s more a matter of deciding to invest in themselves, and prioritizing coaching fees for a short time in order to see a big return on their investment through cash-flow in their business. Your job is your equity – you’re going there daily and being compensated for your time and talent and for some people it’s a means to an end…running their own business full time.
Contact Info:
- Website: shanelltyus.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/shanelltyus
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StrengthtoStrategywithShanell
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shanelltyus/
Image Credits
Gwen Coronoa David Coston