Michael Webb:     B2B sales and marketing works to find the highest quality prospects, reach decision-makers, and sell value. Operational excellence uses data and system thinking to make changes that cause improvement and eliminate waste. My name is Michael Webb and this is the Sales Process Excellence podcast. In the next 30 to 40 minutes, we're going to destroy the myth that these two groups conflict, and show you how to bring both strategies together to create more wealth for your company and your customers.

Michael Webb:     Michael Webb here, and I am excited today to bring two very interesting people to your attention. We have Adrian and Tiffani Figueroa, and Tiffani has founded a firm called Improv It Up that is devoted to using the skills of improvisation to help B2B salespeople to improve their performance. So Adrian and Tiffani, welcome here!

Tiffani Sierra:         Hi!

Adrian Figueroa:   Hi Michael.

Tiffani Sierra:         Thank you so much, Michael, for having us.

Michael Webb:     Well, you're quite welcome. I think this is going to be really interesting since improv is something that always fascinates people. And how it's connected to B2B sales. Could each of you take like 30 seconds and help the audience understand just a little bit about your background, and in your case especially, Tiffani, go on and say how did you get started in doing this?

Tiffani Sierra:         My background is as an actress. I spent my whole life as an actress in the theaters, San Francisco and New York and L.A. I started teaching an acting class out in West Hollywood, and I was working with actors mainly, because improvisation is vital if you want to audition. It's really important that you're able to be able to think on your feet and just pick up things quickly. But what started to happen was, I was getting non-actors coming into my workshop. So I started to get engineers, scientists, business owners, priests. I'm being honest when I say that. You can imagine that you know all of the jobs they've probably come through our workshop. What was happening was all of these students that were coming to my class were saying that improv was really changing their lives.

Tiffani Sierra:         Just to kind of backtrack just a bit. I went to the Second City, which is a huge improv school based in Chicago, but I went to the L.A. location. And improv really changed my life. I went through a really tragic family situation and improv really became my therapy. It was at that point that I really realized that the therapeutic elements that were happening in improv, that I could help others. So what started to happen was that was translating into people's lives and obviously really translating into the workplace, no matter what job they had. It was helping them to be more confident. It was helping them with so many other skills. But I realized that this was something not only for actors but really for anyone, that these skills could be used.

Tiffani Sierra:         So really Improv It Up was born in West Hollywood through my experience of working with non-actors. Then really we just grew the business over the past several years. We also work with middle and high school students, we have programs. We're a social enterprise, and what that means is, I like to think, is a for-profit business with heart. So the heart part of what we do is our school programs and then we have our corporate and business programs as well.

Michael Webb:     Okay, wow, what a fascinating background. So real quickly, Adrian, your background's quite different, right?

Adrian Figueroa:   Oh yeah, significantly. Tiffani's story's much more exciting than mine. For me, it's going the path of the engineer. My background, engineering, mechanical engineering, then the MBA. Working in the industry, being a part of building products in aerospace, those being my strengths in industries. Then through there just getting certifications with Lean, Six Sigma, supply chain, and so just growing the process side of it. Tiffani and I met each other and she had this business going, and I started sitting in on all the workshops years ago then became a facilitator alongside with her.

Adrian Figueroa:   It was marrying both of our loves and passions where, we like to say, I'm the left brain, right? I'm more methodical and a little cool. Probably tending more toward the hard skills. And then Tiffani comes in as the right brain, being more the creative artistic and the soft skills. What we offer businesses is you get the best of both worlds. Hard, soft skills, left brain, right brain. We kind of complete each other.

Tiffani Sierra:         We're very opposite.

Michael Webb:     Yeah! So some neat people who listen to my podcast regularly may remember Adrian. We did an interview a month or two ago, I think, and your day job is Lean facilitator at Cadence Aerospace, as I understand.

Adrian Figueroa:   Right.

Michael Webb:     So you've been able, it sounds like, to use some of these improv skills in your leadership at the aerospace company, is that true?

Adrian Figueroa:   Yes, every day.

Michael Webb:     That's amazing.

Adrian Figueroa:   Where I'm most effective is being able to use that soft skills side to actually commit to and bring forward the hard skills. Profits and results.

Michael Webb:     Okay, all right. So Tiffani, why did these men and women off the street who are not theater majors, why did they want to attend your improv class and what did you give them that made it so valuable?

Tiffani Sierra:         Well, I think a lot of these non-actors, salespeople, entrepreneurs that have come to our class really have come because there's a lot of fears. You might have the fear of public speaking. We have a lot of students that come to us, believe it or not, that even work in sales. They have fears of public speaking. Or fear of failure is a huge one. We actually, Adrian and I, facilitated a workshop called Fail Into Success. It was really obvious, them trying to get comfortable when they're uncomfortable. So that's something that we see a lot. I would say those two things, and building confidence, really, the confidence to be you. I can't tell you. It sounds so simple. But when someone can have such ownership of who they are and really be their authentic self, I just believe that helps to draw authentic connections with other people. I think that's just such an important piece of being a salesperson, coming across as authentic and genuinely connecting with people. So I would say those are probably some of the top things that a lot of people have come to our classes for.

Tiffani Sierra:         How improv works is, just so your listeners can kind of understand, a lot of people who have maybe never seen an improv show might think that you just make up whatever you want. That there's no structure. But believe it or not, if you watch shows like Whose Line Is It Anyway, have you seen that show, Michael?

Michael Webb:     Yes, I have and it makes me laugh because those guys are funny.

Tiffani Sierra:         Okay, well, they're great and wonderful improvisors. Actually a lot of them went to the Second City, the school that I went to...