The S.H.E.L.L. Audit is a skills assessment and personal strengths recognition system that anyone can use to mine their background for fun and profit. It is a strengths assessment that business managers, executives and small entrepreneurs can use to get more attention, articulate greater value and increase personal and even business income.
For instance, if your whole department or business organization undergoes a SHELL audit, you have a much greater chance of identifying under-utilized intellectual capital that may be used to attract strategic partners or create profitable licensing opportunities.
The SHELL AUDIT Skills Assessment
Since the SHELL Audit is designed to maximize the intellectual capital monetization in formal and informal settings, it often requires that we customize it to the particular context of individual clients. Keep this fact in mind as you read through the subsequent sections describing this unique skills audit process.
Here are the components of the S.H.E.L.L. Audit.
S - Skills And Strengths
One of the easiest ways to begin with this area is to audit your resume and translate your past job descriptions into skills inventory covering the areas of responsibility and know-how that your jobs involved. In the "skills" section, you want to identify both "business" and personal skills.
Categories of skills may include technical and functional "hard" skill sets like:
Programming skills
IT skills
Administrative (office) skills
Or they may include soft skills areas like:
Leadership skills
Management skills
Organizational skills
Problem-solving skills
H - Hobbies And Habits
Your hobbies may be indoor or outdoor hobbies. They may be lifestyle-oriented or may be common to only certain demographics. In this age of information publishing and digital content publishing, many individuals have found ways to turn their hobbies into very lucrative profit sidelines and even full businesses.
Make a list of your hobbies to decide whether you might be able to create a community or content marketing platform around them.
E - Experiences or Epics
Your life experiences (or epics as I call them) can be highly valuable means of creating value in personal or business contexts. Many consultants have been able to build a base of business customers from expertise developed through their personal experiences.
For instance, John Maxwell who is a Christian evangelical pastor has built a worldwide thought leadership and a massive leadership development and consulting organization based on insights and expertise developed from his personal background.
My coaching clients at MarriageInspiration.com have built thriving marriage coaching and communications consulting businesses on the back of a unique epic of marital dysfunction, acrimonious divorce and blissful reconciliation.
L - Learning And Academic Background
Your academic background or your intellectual pursuits can provide the backdrop for identifying and assessing skills that you could package and provide to the marketplace for promotion or profit. Dig through the transcripts of your college career, or through training and certification programs you have completed over the course of your life and see if there are special and valuable skills or competencies that you can identify from them.
L - Loves and Life Missions
Sometimes, an individual's accomplishments and identity are defined by an all-consuming passion or by a philosophy that they adhere to. The example of John Maxwell above is one of those instances where a person leverages their spiritual background to build intellectual assets and skills that he is being paid for today.
What do you love or believe in so deeply that it can inspire you to deliver speeches, write books and create organizations?
Make a comprehensive list of these things and then see if you can match them to any of the other areas of your SHELL or connect them to a specific need in your company or in the marketplace.
Gogo Erekosima, The Small Business Digital Coach is the CEO and Lead strategist at The Idea Age Business Consulting firm, where he developed the S.H.E.L.L. audit for his clients in leadership positions.
He recommends the resources at www.TurnAttentionIntoDollars.com for small businesses (and professionals) seeking to leverage the internet to attract clients, build profitable email lists, generate internet traffic, win influential partners and grow sales in record time.
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