Today we’d like to introduce you to Stacey McKibbin.
Stacey, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I came to San Diego in 1997 (from St. Louis) with $500 in my pocket, no job, and no place to live. I like to tease I was too naive (dumb) to be scared or deterred. I just assumed it would work out, and 20+ years later, I think that’s proof it did. 🙂 I am now wife to the funniest/coolest dude I know, mom of two rambunctious and loving boys, and CEO of Consilio, a training company that focuses on improving the performance of teams. (Side note, we do that by helping the way they communicate with each other and your high-value prospects and clients.) A bit of background, my career started in account management and quickly pivoted to project management, implementing software and process.
After about six years of that, I branched out to work for a smaller startup company named Groovy Like a Movie. That’s where I got bit with the entrepreneur bug. I had so much fun being creative and building something from the ground up. From there, I went on to start my own businesses as well as helping two other startups grow to their exit strategy, so I love to label myself a serial entrepreneur – (i.e. a glutton for punishment. haha). I love the energy of the startup, the build, the vision, the ‘who we get to become’ phase. This culminated in me starting a coaching/training/consulting practice in 2008 (right at the start of the Great Recession), this was ActionCOACH/McKibbin Enterprises.
During this time, I became a Master Certified in Neurolinguistic Programming, Certified Hypnotist, Master Certified in DISC Personality Profiling… all of these skills to help my clients break through self-limiting beliefs and behaviors that were holding them back from achieving their Joie de Vivre. About six years into my practice, I met my current business partner G.A. Bartick. He is the author of the bestselling book Silver Bullet Selling, and at the time, he was working with giants like Google, Hotels.com, YouTube, Expedia, and Time Warner. He put me to work on Google and over the next two years, I had the pleasure to speak on Google stages across the US and Canada. G.A. and I realized how well we worked together and co-founded Consilio in 2019. Consilio means “on purpose” in Latin, so we are all about creating success on purpose, one conversation at a time. Consilio brings together the best of GA’s sales training and my leadership coaching to provide best in class training and fractional leadership services in the topics of sales, client experience, DISC, middle management coaching, and leadership skills, hiring A players, strategic planning, and more.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Definitely had struggles along the way, I think that’s part of the pride of ownership I have today. The fact that we’ve persisted and are thriving (not just surviving) is incredible. Some of the struggles we faced along the way were things like decision making: deciding which marketing strategies to invest in when trying to grow beyond referrals, deciding when to hire and who to bring on first, deciding what programs to focus on, and which ones to say “not now” to. I always chuckle that I am good at helping others make those decisions and when it comes to pinning myself down, it’s a struggle. Luckily I’ve found my strategies for that! Another substantial challenge was figuring out how to harmonize work and life… being a mom, I definitely felt the pressure of being needed equally at home and at work. I use the word harmony instead of balance because it was never equal on both sides. One side always needed more than the other depending on the “season” of life.
Consilio Corporation – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Consilio is a training company that helps to improve the performance of teams. We do this by improving the way they communicate with each other and your clients/prospects. This translates to sales, customer experience training, middle management training to learn how to become coaches and hold people accountable, and executive coaching to teach leaders how to communicate the what and the why. Our mission is to eradicate miscommunication. We envision a world where people speak their intention, and the other person hears the intended message.
We are known for our customization. The thing we hear most often is: “Consilio really took the time to get to know us and our business. So when they delivered the material, it was so relevant to our specific interactions, people got excited to try it. When they demonstrated skill, they could do it better than our most tenured and skilled producers.” The trainings we do with Consilio are never fads or “flavors of the month” because of how relevant and applicable they are.
What sets us apart is our high energy training sessions that translate to new skills that day! We get people up and out of their comfort zones, practicing their verbal tactics. Participants walk out of sessions with new skills to apply right away on their next interaction… not a notebook with cute sayings that they have to figure out how to apply.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
I would say it’s every time we get a note from a client telling us the impact the training had on their personal lives. It’s too numerous to count, the number of times someone tells us the training was great for business, but the real impact was how it changed the relationship with their spouse, their son, their sibling, fill in the blank. Those are the times when I’m reminded of how we are in the business of changing lives. It’s powerful, meaningful work. I’m proud of our team and our clients every day for doing the hard work on themselves.
Pricing:
- $150 per person for DISC
- $75 per person for online Silver Bullet Selling training is a great place to start
Contact Info:
- Address: 4455 Murphy Canyon Rd
San Diego, CA 92123 - Website: consilioteam.com
- Phone: 858-999-1544
- Email: hello@consilioteam.com
- Instagram: @consilioteam
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ConsilioTeam
- Twitter: @consilioteam
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