This post is part of a series where we’ll be getting to know members of our outstanding Fascinate Certified Advisor™ (FCA) team. Our FCAs are expertly trained to coach individuals and groups on how to use Fascinate to improve communication and build better relationships, as well as add unique value by embracing our core message: Different is better than better.
Finka Jerkovic is a model Fascinate Certified Advisor. She was personally certified by Sally Hogshead in 2013 and for the last five years has held the role of Coaching Director at Fascinate. She has worked with more than ten thousand leaders, sales professionals and entrepreneurs–from Fortune 500 companies to start-up businesses of all sizes–to shift from a transactional to a transformational business model. In 2020, she published her first book, Sell From Love: Love Yourself – Love Your Client – Love Your Offer and lives with her family on 85 acres of farmland outside of Toronto.
We wanted to learn a little more about what brought Finka to Fascinate, how she uses the Fascinate test with her clients, and what she loves most about leading our FCA training program.
What value have you received from taking the Fascinate test?
I took the Fascinate test in 2012. I was at a point in my corporate career where I was looking for more; and my 9-5, while rewarding, wasn’t fulfilling. I felt like something was missing or rather a part of me wasn’t showing up fully.
Then I took the Fascinate test and it was as if the clouds broke open and I could finally see the light. The results of the test revealed parts of my personality that I had over time dismissed and devalued.
Taking the Fascinate test was the reminder I needed that “different is better.” I’m a Trendsetter and often offer up unique perspectives and ideas. When my ideas or points of view weren’t accepted with the same zest and zeal that I felt about them, I came away thinking my ideas were bad. If you get enough “nos,” “not nows,” or “not that ways,” you internalize all that negative feedback, thinking something is wrong with you.
The test took only a few minutes, but was the turning point that transformed not only my career, but my life as well.
My life today is unrecognizable to the person I was nine years ago. Since taking the test and embracing my differences, I pursued my lifelong dream of teaching and inspiring others. I run my own coaching and training company and have had the opportunity to travel across the globe helping others be more of who they are, in their leadership, career, and business.
Plus, these changes aren’t limited to your work life alone. Because, guess what? You show up everywhere. A few years ago, my family and I packed up our city life and moved to the country. Today we live on an 85-acre nature oasis, where you’ll find us living a farm to table lifestyle, brewing up essential oil blends from our lavender field, riding horses, and beekeeping. None of this was in my paradigm, until I started allowing myself to be more me.
What is your Anthem, and how has it helped you grow your brand and your business?
My Anthem has shifted as I’ve grown. It started with Ambitious Creativity. It was who I needed to be and how I wanted to show up in my corporate career. This Anthem gave me the courage to raise my hand, share my voice, and offer up my different ideas.
Eventually that started coming more easily and naturally and I was aspiring to make the leap from the corporate world to entrepreneurship. This required a new Anthem – Breakthrough Transformations. I was having one myself, and at the same time building a business that promised transformational, versus transactional, results to my clients.
Your Anthem is your North Star, it’s what tugs at your heart and anchors your soul.
Sally always says “Different is better than better.” What does ‘different is better’ mean to you?
Working in a sales environment for most of my career, we were always ranked and rated. There was a constant feeling of striving and driving and not being good enough if you didn’t hold the first position. There is only one spot for the many that strive to be seen, heard, and valued. “Different is better” offers us a new perspective that allows us to accept that all of us are first in our own differences. One difference isn’t better than another, they are only different. As a result, that is better because everyone has an opportunity to be seen, heard, and understood for the difference and value they bring.
Why did you become an FCA, and ultimately take on the role of Coaching Director?
Becoming an FCA meant that I could help others uncover what makes them different and how to best use their gifts to create a meaningful life, career, and business.
From those early days when I first took the Fascinate test, I created workshops using Fascinate. My goal was to help people and teams within organizations better understand how to bring their Advantages to their work and leadership. Participants would walk away reconnected, energized, and ready to take action to work better together, deliver results, and make a bigger impact.
Over the years I learned what worked well using the Fascinate tools in one-on-one coaching engagements, speaking to large audiences from the stage, and working with teams in person or remotely. When the opportunity came in 2015 to take on the role of Coaching Director for our FCA program, I jumped in with two feet, excited to share all that I’d learned. It was important for me to pay it forward and offer shortcuts to help others aligned to the Fascinate philosophy do the same. This hasn’t stopped. I continue to teach on the tools of Fascinate and every time I create a new way to help clients and teams use their differences to grow their businesses, expand their leadership and make a difference, current and new FCAs get those new strategies too!
In what ways do you use the Fascinate tools in your business and to help your clients?
Fascinate has been my #1 go-to tool. Today, Fascinate plays an integral role in my signature program Sell From Love Academy. This course helps students get clear on their unique talents, expertise, and personal brand so that they can grow their business and communicate more confidently and authentically. Using Fascinate they walk away understanding the one personality trait that keeps them stuck and how to improve key areas of performance and grow their profits.
In addition, Fascinate provides insights no other tool I’ve come across does for teams and leaders. The number one reason teams get stuck is that people on the team disconnect because they feel like they aren’t being heard, and the skills and expertise they have to offer are being ignored or discounted.
Fascinate changes all of that. In my live, online workshop and group coaching programs, teams and leaders learn to identify new areas of potential for employees and inspire each person on the team to perform at their best as they learn to leverage these strengths and differences, so all lines of business are working seamlessly together to knock down silos!
How is the FCA Coaching Program different from other certification programs? What advice would you give someone considering certification?
If you’re looking to grow your business, start one, attract more clients, or offer new solutions to existing clients, or if you’re a certified coach looking to both meet your continuing coaching education (CCE) requirements and acquire a new, proven methodology for your toolkit, Fascinate is a perfect fit. Not only will you learn how to coach your clients, but you’ll also experience the transformation for yourself. You’ll walk away being more confident in who you are with the words to describe your distinct value.
At Fascinate, we practice what we preach. We’re not creating Fascinate-only advisors. We want you to be YOU and to bring all your expertise and experience and use that as you integrate Fascinate to fit into your business model and with your clients. You keep your brand and programs, and learn how to seamlessly incorporate Fascinate into what you are already doing so you can expand your offering, increase sales and build stronger relationships with your clients and network.
If you’re new to the coaching, training, and consulting world and haven’t yet figured out your ‘signature’ offerings, you can lean fully into Fascinate. Make it the one tool and program you offer. You will walk away with everything you need – PDF resources, PowerPoint presentations, program outlines and agendas, pricing frameworks, proposal templates, program workbook samples and evaluations, and so much more.
Either way Fascinate aims to support you fully so you can use the tools of Fascinate to make a difference and grow your business.
One more thing, this is not a one and done training. You don’t have to go it alone. You will have the continued support of the FCA Community, Fascinate team and myself in our private community group where we share ideas, resources, and best practices. If you’re facing a client pricing conundrum or proposal overwhelm or preparing for a workshop and need ideas, join our monthly Mastermind calls to get the answers you need to get unstuck so you can move forward and get out there helping your clients and making money doing it.
Is there anything else you’d like us to know about your business, mission, or your relationship with the Fascinate system?
I believe that a world with people who are more conscious, authentic, and aligned to who they truly are creates better businesses, environments, leaders, climates, parents, communities, economies…and the list goes on.
Fascinate helps people get closer to the essence of who they are and acts as a guiding force on the impact they are here to have. My mission today is to elevate human consciousness to evolve the human condition. Currently, I do this through my work which is focussed on the sales and marketing arena.
Using Fascinate I help my clients increase self-awareness so they can be more conscious of who they are, identify their purpose and make a positive impact, creating a better world for us all.
You can learn more about Finka and her new book, Sell from Love, on her website.
