Emotional Intelligence: How To Enhance Your Leadership Skills w/ the DISC Profile

0:00A lot of people look at my successes, what they don't see Brad is all my failures and there's many more failures than successes Dr. Tony Alessandra, literally giving hundreds and hundreds of speeches across the world. You need to learn about the audience, who they are, what they do, and how your speech might impact it. The guy is an absolute genius on the subjects of persuasion, the ability to move people, sales, understanding people's behavior. Give me somebody who's not a born salesperson. Let me train them, and I will tell you they will succeed. Sales, one of the subjects you've taught on for many, many years.

0:39How do you succeed at sales? First of all, you need to learn the basics of sales. Even people who, quote, are considered born salespeople, if they don't have the process down pat, they'll do okay. They may even do well, but they're not going to do great. Give me somebody who's not a born salesperson. Let me train them. Let you train them, Brad. And I will tell you they will succeed. So first of all, it's knowing what to do in sales. For me, success in sales was always getting that big account. I love to get the big account. You may or may not remember this. In fact, in 2013, I wanted to get the Action Coach account for my assessment business.

1:23And I somehow I don't know how I did it, but somehow convinced you to book me as a speaker in Berlin at one of your big meetings. And the topic I wanted to cover was DISC. Well, you remember Vic Cufatelli said to me, Tony, everybody knows DISC. Do not speak on it. And I did convince him to let me speak on it. I did a little bit different presentation than I would normally do. But, you know, if I had not done that and persisted, I don't think I would have gotten your account. So it really it's making sure that you have the persistence, the education. Know that eventually, if you keep trying, you're going to make a sale.

2:07So let's talk about DISC then. Understanding people like you've talked about. You can read people real fast. The profiling tools, all of that stuff. How how do we succeed with that? First of all, you need to know what DISC is. First, when it comes to DISC, you need to know how to differentiate who you're talking to or who you're selling to or who you're managing. And in selling in particular, I like to open up a sales meeting or sales presentation with asking open ended questions such as, Brad, I know, you know, you started Action Coach. Tell me a little bit about how that happened. So I want to be able to ask those questions to get you to give me the opportunity to read your verbal, vocal and visual behaviors.

2:55Once I can identify, even on one scale, I can then adjust what I'm doing. I can speed up, slow down. I can get right down to business or I can build rapport a little bit more. But the key is you've got to do some things to know the other person's style. Yeah. Let's jump into relationship building. What's the success secrets of relationship building, especially in business? Well, I think, number one, building trust and credibility. People do business with people they like and trust. So the first thing I want to do is to get people to trust me and hopefully beyond that, like me. It makes things a lot easier.

3:35If somebody doesn't like you or doesn't feel comfortable with you, they do a what may be a negative bias of everything you're presenting to them. Yeah. Whereas if they like you and they feel comfortable with you, they put a positive bias on everything you're saying and doing. I like to think that I have emotional intelligence. I know this because I've been teaching it for weight. I mean, 48 years, but I've had to develop my listening skills. It's not something that came naturally to me. But I'll tell you, when it comes to listening, when I speak, I only know what I know. But when I listen, I not only know what I know, I also know what you know.

4:17And that's one of the keys to influencing other people, whether it's in sales, leadership, or even parenting. If someone wanted to get the top two or three tips to being a great public speaker and succeeding in that realm, what would you say to them? The first tip, Brad, be yourself. Make sure you allow you to come out on stage. Another area that I learned from my buddy Jim Cathcart, one of the greats of speaking, he said, Tony, just getting up there and giving your speech and not doing all the prep work in advance is hurting you. And when he said prep work, he said, first of all, you need to learn about the audience, who they are, what they do, and how your speech might impact them.

5:02Secondly, you need to look at everything in the room that you're speaking with, speaking at. So look at the staging, the microphone, the slides, the lighting, everything. Work all that out. And he said all of these things about the setting of the speech is the ambiance of you giving a speech. So I would say make sure you do your homework. You are prepared. You know about the audience. You get there early. You do a run through in terms of lighting, staging, sound, slides, everything. That's it. Those are two of the key things. Dr. Tony Alessandro, let's talk about leveling up, going from good to great.

5:47What do you think's the keys from moving to good to being great or amazing in success world? Well, that goes back to my mother's going the extra inch. I believe no matter how good you are, you actually can get better. I remember coming home one day from school so excited to show my mother I got a 99 on my exam. And my mother, who is the classic, you know, New York Italian mother, looked at it and said, what happened to the other one percent? Yeah, I knew that was common. Yeah, but that was my mother. You know, so that that created that mentality of always trying to get better and better and better.

6:30A lot of people look at my successes. What they don't see, Brad, is all my failures. Yeah. And there's many more failures than successes. To go from good to great is to make sure that you are constantly, constantly going through that extra inch, always looking for ways to get better and better and better. How did you go from thinking, OK, professor, 200 speeches a year? I mean, you scaled. You went from a normal income to a ridiculous income. How do you scale that thinking? What happened for you? Well, what happened was I studied the people who were already there. I had mentors and role models build the relationship and get them to be willing to help me, you know, push me along.

7:19And that's a big success podcast for today. Hopefully you took a lot of notes, learned a whole bunch. And if you need to go re-listen to it, we dropped a lot of information right there today. Big success is what it's all about. And by the way, if you haven't subscribed, hit that subscribe button so you're here with us every single week on the Big Success Podcast. I'm Brad Sugars. That's BS. Big success is what we're shooting for. Check the show notes for all the links. Make sure you follow through. Keep learning. Keep coming back. Oh, and by the way, share this with any of your friends who you know are up for success.

7:51I'll see you next week on the Big Success Podcast. You've been listening to the Big Success Podcast with the number one business coach in the world, Brad Sugars. To learn more about how to achieve business and personal success, as well as how to level up or listen to past episodes, visit www.bradsugars.com.