Legendary Leader: Tony Alessandra

Hello everybody. I'm Cliff Jones, chief executive officer of Harvey McKay Academy. I'm delighted to have with us today Harvey McKay, of course, chairman of Harvey McKay Academy and Dr. Tony Alessandra. Tony, good morning and welcome.

Thank you, Cliff. Looking forward to this interview and spending some time with Harvey.

Good to have you guys together. I want to make sure our audience is clear Tony, on who you are. So forgive me for taking a look here at your bio and sharing it with everybody because you've got quite a background and we're excited to have you today on the Academy. So Dr. Tony Alessandro helps companies turn prospects into promoters. He has two speakers in one, a professor and a performer and is a one client put it delivers college level features in a comedy store format. I love that Dr. Tony offers audiences the opportunity to enjoy themselves while learning practical immediately applicable skills that positively affect their relationships with prospects, customers and co workers. Your focus, Tony, is on how to create instant rapport with prospects, employees and vendors. How to convert prospects customers into business apostles. Great word. Who will preach the gospel about your company and products and how to out market, outsell and out service the competition. You're a streetwise college smart perspective on business. Having been raised in the housing projects of New York City to eventually realizing success as a graduate professor of marketing, Internet entrepreneur, business author and hall of fame keynote speaker. You earned your BBA from Notre Dame, an MBA from the University of Connecticut and a Ph.D. impressive marketing Ph.D. georgia State University, 1976. Holy cow. No wonder Harvey wanted to was so excited about having you today with us. Let's start with this. What got you into this profession of yours? Help our audience and everybody understand how that started.

Well, as I was going through college, I. I worked my way through college selling. I sold cookware, I sold life insurance, I sold burglar and fire alarms, I even sold mausoleums. And I had a lot of success in those industries. And it sort of led me into not just majoring in marketing, but going all the way through getting a master's and PhD in marketing. I became a college Prof. Taught at the university level for eight and a half years. But then I had to make a decision, you know, sort of the crossroad, you know, do I stay at college. Prof. Or do I go out and practice what I've been preaching to my students in the business world? And that's when I decided in 1978 to quit teaching, become a full time professional speaker. Mostly on the subject of sales. That's been near and dear to my heart. January of 1979, I published my first book, which is called Non Manipulative Selling. Try to say that fast three times. But, you know, my whole career has been sales and speaking. But then in 2000, I decided to develop this online assessment company. And I lucked out, Harvey. My first customer was Ken Blanchard talking about luck. And that really propelled that business. And as the years went on, as that business, the assessment business, grew, and primarily to help salespeople. But then it expanded beyond just salespeople. As that business grew, I cut back on my professional speaking just so that I can devote more time to building this online Internet business. And here we are today, where the bulk of my time is spent developing the online assessment business.

I would be remiss if I did not say the following. Congratulations on a brilliant career. And not only that, but back in 78, you made a great decision. And that's what life's all about, judgment and decisions. Because what could be further than the hottest topic around Lee Iacocca? He was, to go back to the 50s and 60s, was the icon CEO. Chrysler turned it around, took it through the roof, through the moon. To the moon. And what did he say? One little sentence, that's all. Anyone who doesn't get along with people has earned the kiss of death because you've got around people. And, boy, are you in the people business. And when you can. We know all the stats. 60%, 70, 75% people. All right. People do not leave companies. People leave managers.

Exactly, Harvey.

I'll just let you continue on with the questions. Can't wait to hear your answers. But you are in a hot industry. I salute and applaud all you deserve, all the accolades you've received and more.

Thank you, Harvey.

Well, gentlemen, what we're talking about today is hiring. Harvey, you've written the book, in a way, on hiring. You talk a lot about it and everything you teach. Tony, this is really about hiring and the power of assessments in the hiring process. So I'm going to ask you both this question. I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit. Mentors. Tony, if you had to pick one mentor. Harvey, you can think about this for a minute. If you had to pick one mentor in terms of helping you get where you are today, who would that be?

Well, for me, it would be probably Dr. David Schwartz. Dr. David Schwartz was the author of a multimillion bestseller called the Magic of Thinking Big. And he was my doctoral dissertation chairman at Georgia State University. So, I mean, I really had a lot of interaction with him. And at the time, he was not just a professor, but also a motivational speaker. And I think that really had an impact on me. So he was my first big professional mentor. But I've had many, and I have to say, rather than naming all of them, one of them, you might know, is a gentleman named Harvey McKay. And, Harvey, your concepts, particularly the one about gathering all the information about your clients, both business and personal, is something that I've carried with me. It's something that I preach. I often quote you and your book, and it really has had an impact.

On me so very succinctly. Before I answer that question, Cliff, as far as mentors, very briefly, when I was 21 years old and I got thrown into a sales organization selling envelopes, I was calling on two to 300 different accounts. I came up with what you referred to as the 66 question, customer profile. And you wouldn't believe how much we know about our customers. IRS would not believe how much we know about our customers. And I'm not talking about their taste in envelopes either. We just want to know, based on routine conversation and observation, what a customer is like as a human being, what he or she feels strongly about, what he's most proud of having achieved, any status symbols in his or her offices, and that is carried swim with the sharks and the six following books I've written, quite frankly, to 80 countries and 50 languages, which, of course, I'm very proud of, as do mentors. I got very lucky. My father, Jack McKay, headed the Associated Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, for 35 years. He was a writer and a national syndicated columnist. I lost my mother at age 21, right after I graduated college to breast cancer. And so I lived with my father for five years. And my father was three things. Number one, he was a hungry fighter. Number two, hungry fighter. And number three, hungry fighter. You can't be a newspaper man unless you've got scoops. And was he resourceful and did he teach me all the street smarts? So he was my number one mentor. And then just one more thought for the audience. Most people think that mentors have to be older than you are. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have mentors in their 30s, and they're techies, and a few of them are from China. And I just want to tell you, they have really helped me, of course, with the transition into what we call 1984 fast into 2018. So just a thought again, mentors do not. And you change mentors over a lifetime. And they do not have to be older than you are.

Gentlemen, let's transition into the power of the Golden Rule. Tony, you have something known as the Platinum Rule. Help us understand what that's all about, please.

Well, again, the Golden Rule, just so everybody remembers, is do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And I believe in that rule 110%. When it comes to values, ethics, honesty, consideration, there's no better rule than the Golden Rule. But when it comes to relationship building, in a world of increasing diversity, sometimes that can backfire. I mean, it happened to me. I grew up in New York City and the projects of New York City, eventually I moved to San Diego. And treating the people in San Diego as if they were New Yorkers backfired. I rubbed them the wrong way. Came on too strong, too fast, too aggressive. So I came up with my Platinum Rule, which very simply stated, is do unto others as they would have you do unto them. In other words, treat people the way they want and need to be treated.

Harvey, what would you have to add to that? Because you also wrote the book on relationships and networking.

It's a fabulous philosophy and you can't go wrong. I would just piggyback on that and talk about my philosophy again back to my father, Jack McKay. And I've been doing it ever since I graduated from the University of Minnesota. But he told me that every person you meet the rest of your life. Hi, I'm Harvey. Hello, I'm Tony. Write to my brain bank, I say the following. What can I do for Tony? Alessandra? And then I carry that one step further. I not only say that to myself now, but I also add, and expect nothing in return. If you live your life that way, as I have, it's just unbelievable, the opportunities. Now, you have to love people. You have to believe in them. You have to trust them. And the persons that you're saying that to are. Once you meet that person, you know, spend a second or two, then you would tell them that and be thinking about. You want to keep in touch with this contact, personal friend forever. So you take Tony's philosophy plus mine. I don't think it can go wrong, gentlemen.

I think what you're both saying then is if we embrace and practice the Golden Rule, the Platinum Rule, especially in the workplace, especially if you're a sales professional, a manager, a leader, and everybody is a leader. I think we all agree on that. You guys set the example, but that shows up at work. And what we're really talking about today is creating a culture and hiring process. And Tony, you're the expert. When it comes to assessments. And you built the company called assessments 24 by 7, 24x7 dot com. Everybody, I want everybody to know about that because you picked assessments for a reason. Tell us what that's about, and then I'll have Harvey share his philosophy on that.

Well, assessments, you know, if you go to a doctor and something's wrong, one of the tests that they might have is a CAT scan or an mri, something that really looks inside of you to see what's wrong. But what do we do in terms of looking inside of an individual? In a business environment, assessments are like an MRI of the mind. An MRI of the mind. You get inside to understand what makes people tick, particularly in the hiring process. And, Harvey, you can give us your take on this, but many of the aspects of the hiring process are very subjective. For instance, you submit your resume. The old saying about a resume, a resume is like a balance sheet with no debits, you know, no liabilities. So a person submits a resume, they go on an interview. An interview is like a first date. You always show the best part of yourself. There's a bias in terms of the interviewer. Do I like this person? Don't I like this person? So many aspects of the hiring process are subjective. The beauty of assessments is that they give an objective aspect to the entire hiring process. I'm not saying to use assessments as the only aspect you should not, but as an additional aspect to give us an objective look into the individual. Harvey, what do you think?

No question. And my tool is going back to the 66 question customer profile. If we're interviewing, I want to CAT scan them as well as MRI them. And I have those 66 questions. You know, how do they really feel about A, B, C, and D? What was their last job? Who reported to them, and what did you do? What did you learn on the job? What did you learn when you were terminated? I go back to kindergarten, quite frankly, and I actually call kindergarten teachers if, Tony, I'm interviewing you to get the job. So the 66 that's my 66 is a great tool. And one on one, of course, when they come in, I've got a favorite question that I ask. I've been doing this for over 40, 50 years. And, Tony, if you're coming in for a job, here's my first sentence. I say, if I were to go to a doctor and I had migraines and I had heart problems, okay? And I only told you or the Dr. Tony, about my heart problems. Didn't tell you about migraines Guess what? Okay, that doctor can't help me. What I'm saying to you is, you can't help me, Tony, unless you tell me everything. So that's how I get them to relax immediately. No question you can ask me that. I won't try to give you an answer if I know the answer and vice versa. So that's just a little trick, but it works for me.

Yeah. And Harvey, the interesting thing, and I would say almost a sad thing, is that the vast majority of interviewers do not use your technique. If they did, they in fact would get deeper into the person's psyche, what makes them tick, why they do what they do, how they do what they do. But they do not. And as a result, there is where the assessments come in. I really believe that if we can blend the two of them, the assessments, with McKay 66, we've got the answer.

Let me blend one other thing. The person coming in, okay to see you and get the job, he or she, okay. Has to prepare to win. They must do their homework. I call it humanize your selling strategy. So once again, if I'm coming to you, Tony, and I want the job, I want to do everything. Social media, I want to go back, call everybody I can. I want to see if you graduated from Michigan, for example. Call up the Michigan Alumni association, find out what's going on. All different things I want to know about you. I'm cat scanning you.

Yes, exactly.

How are you? Before I come in for the interview, that will dramatically increase the probability I will get the job. One other little thing. After I leave the interview, this is the best thing that I've learned on a street smart strategy. After I've interviewed you, I'll go out to my car. I won't even start it. I'll just. Because you forget 50% of what you hear in four hours. But I'll jot down everything about the interview. Then if I really want the job, I'll write you a short brief note and it'll say, Dear Mr. Alessandro, okay, I've been out there three and a half months in the marketplace. This is the job I really want. Here are the reasons why from our interview. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And then the home run is. Here's what I think I bring to your company.

Superb.

Gentlemen. Let's talk about attracting recruiting, training, retaining top talent. Today, I think it's fair to say it's hard to find great talent. Is that a fair statement, gentlemen?

Absolutely.

Okay, so let's talk about how assessments, whether they're Assessments in the pre hiring hiring process, or your 360 degree assessments, feedback, surveys, your. You're both talking about doing the same thing. It's humanizing and getting to know people, manager to employee, in a way that creates a culture. So you look at Harvey McKay, McKay, Mitchell, Envelope Company, huge tenure in people. And the company culture is rock solid. No turnover in sales. Harvey, the last three years, which is almost unheard of, that has to do with hiring practices and how people perform at work. So Tony, and then Harvey, please address how assessments and what Harvey's talking about creates that company culture and that unity.

What I would suggest is, let's say I'm going to use Harvey's company as an example. So what I would suggest is to benchmark the top salespeople. Let's just say we're looking at hiring salespeople, so we benchmark. And I say the top salespeople. We could benchmark everybody. We have everybody. Take this mixture of assessments. It could be two assessments, three assessments, doesn't matter. And what we do is we look at specific accomplishments, how long these salespeople have been on the job, what's their client retention rate, what are their sales. And what we do is we try to differentiate. This is what benchmarking is, differentiated the top 20% of performers from the bottom 20% of performers. Now, when we get a profile of the top 20%, that can actually help us write ads to attract candidates who fit the profile of the top 20%. And if we then for all the candidates, if we then use the same assessments that we use to benchmark the top 20%, we could match the profiles of the candidates to the top 20% to see which ones come closest to matching that top 20%. When we hire them, we now have in depth reports about their behavior, about what motivates them, about how they make decisions, their thinking style. And that can help us in terms of onboarding the and training, which will help us retain those salespeople so in depth. But that's what I would do.

Okay, so Harvey, you have your own process because you've been doing this for decades. Talk about this in the context that you've made McKay Mitchell so successful.

First of all, Cliff, if you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters. So it all starts out, of course, with the word trust. And when you're trying to attract people and keep them, if your word isn't your bond, you will have a company with a revolving door that will process down to chapter 11. So the integrity and the trust. And of course, everything that Tony says, he's spot on. I mean, I agree with every single word, which improves. His tools are incredible. I have a street smart strategy that I do with candidates. Number one, okay, I will take them to different venues and interview them. Not just in their stuffy suit and tie, but I'll take them to a restaurant. I'll play golf with him or her. If they're golfers, I'll take. If it's a key position and a cfo, HR or whatever, I'll take him and his wife or spouse, vice versa. All right? Out to dinner. I will play golf with them if they're golfers. So I see them in different venues. That's number one, the acid test. And Tony, you mentioned if you're hiring a salesperson. I've been doing this for a long time. But if I'm hiring a salesperson, they don't know how long the meeting's going to be, whether it's going to be five or 10 minutes or an hour. But after five or 10 minutes, right to my brain bank, what do I say? This is the acid test of hiring. How would I feel if this person. Okay. Was not. How would I feel? I'm sorry. If my competitors. Okay. Are not worried about him. How would I feel if I hired him and he was selling against me? And then that's the end of the interview. If I'm not fearful of him walking across the street going to work for my competitor? All right? And I'm not worried. So that's the end of the interview. That's number two. I do, as I told you, I go back to kindergarten and I start. You see, when a person comes in and they say, here's my five references. I throw that right away in the wastebasket. What I want to do is during the interview, learn about a few things about him where before he walks out or as he walks out, I'll be calling that person right away so he hasn't had an opportunity to get to him or her. Again, just another little street smart in hiring. Then my biggest is probably, and I don't know, I don't have any idea, Tony, whether you agree with me or not, but I've been using industrial psychologists for all of my key hires over my lifetime. Now, they do not make the decision for you, but if you've got one or two areas that you're worried about, you ask that industrial psychologist. Here's what I'm concerned about. What about A, what about B? And then they come back. It's your decision, not theirs. But boy, I want to tell you, even the Lone Ranger had Tonto. And I feel sometimes you can't do it all by yourself. And then on top of that, of course, I let them interview anybody on our payroll once we're into the second or third interview. And then lastly, very quick, and I could go on and on, but very quickly, I just want to tell you about the last CEO I hired. I hired Heidrick and Struggles. Do you remember them, Tony? Yeah, And Korn Ferries also. I've used them. Mostly I use Korn Ferry. So they came up with candidate CEO. Took three months, got it from 12 down to three. I've interviewed the three off and on during the process. I now bring them in final day, morning, afternoon and evening. And I interview all three of them. And then I call up the Hijack and cycles guy and I said, well, I got three nines on a one to ten. Oh, which one? Which one did you hire? Start the process all over again. The 280 million living Americans. And there's a tent out there. I will not lower my standards. And you could hear a thud at the end of the phone.

It's a great, great story. Gentlemen, let's talk about. We get it right in the hiring process. In the beginning, we get them on board. Tony, help us understand how assessments and training help in the retention process. Because we all agree losing people, good or bad, is a major cost. So how do you address that?

Well, one of the beauties of the assessment is that it tells you the strengths and the struggles of the individual. Again, whether it's a salesperson, whether it's a manager or a line employee does not matter. The assessments should be able and ours do point out the strengths and the struggles of people, and that helps in the actual training process. Typically in training over the years, and I've been a trainer for many, many years, what we typically would do is we go in and we do a sales workshop for all the salespeople, whether they needed it or not. Now, maybe some salespeople needed work on prospecting and others needed work on the presentation. Others needed work on after sales service. But we would cover all the topics for everybody. What assessments allow us to do is to target the training specifically to each individual employee based on their unique strengths and weaknesses. So it really allows us to laser focus our training specifically to each individual's needs. So that's one of the beauties of assessments.

Well, Harvey, clearly you know, training and talk about your philosophy on training and retaining people because you've done incredibly well with that at McKay Mitchell Envelope Company.

I'm waiting for Tony to say something I don't agree with. He is right on. Well, I have several philosophies. You don't go to school once for a lifetime. You're in school all of your life. And the biggest room in the world. Okay. Is the room for improvement. So in retaining people at our particular company with 450 employees, approximately, okay, we call it over here, TGIM. Thank God, it's Monday. We know that our people, 80% of them, can't wait to get to work on Monday. How do we know that? Well, because there's an open door policy here. Anyone can talk to anyone. Anyone can go over the head of their boss. And if their boss gives them trouble, then they are terminated. That's the philosophy of our company. So the training, of course. Train, train, train. You cannot train enough. And of course, it's beautiful when you grow your people. And that's what we're trying to do all the time through training.

Excellent.

Gentlemen, let's talk about behavioral types. How people behave when they show up at work. Because what Harvey just mentioned is 80% of the people can't wait to get to work on Monday. Well, the more shocking statistic is that 60% of the people who go to work in America every day don't like going to work. So what you guys are talking about, what you're teaching our audience and everybody as you speak and publish around the world, is the mastery of retention. But that relates to personality types. Let's talk about them. You have four big ones, Tony. What are they?

I use the DISC model, which is influence, steadiness, conscientiousness. And what's important is each, as I mentioned earlier, each of these styles have inherent strengths and inherent struggles. For instance, the dominant style, which, by the way, that's my style, I'm a high D. So one of my unique potential weaknesses is a lack of listening. Now, now that I know that, can I in fact improve that aspect of my behavior? And the answer is, yes, I have. So what we need to do is understand that each of the four styles, the D's, the I's, the S's and the C's have their unique strengths and weaknesses. And I think one of the reasons. Harvey, you mentioned one of the reasons for turnover was possibly a conflict between the employee and a manager. People don't leave companies. They leave people, they leave managers. But another aspect of those 60% of the people, Cliff, that you mentioned, that just don't like their jobs, maybe they're in the wrong position within the job. For instance, take a high I style, the influence, the interacting person. Put that person in a position in a company that has little people contact and is very detail oriented and they will struggle, they will not be happy. Put a C style, the cautious, conscientious thinker style, in a position where they have to go out and persuade people and be up and motivate people. That is not their natural strength. Now, it's not to say they can't do it, but they have to get outside of their comfort zone, which increases their stress level. When people have stress, especially over long periods of time, when they're in a job that doesn't suit their natural style, it creates internal stress. And over a long period of time, unhappiness.

Harvey, how do you get people to get along so darn well for so long? 80% of them are still happy to come to work on Monday. How have you done it? You highlight a couple of things that relate to what's Tony talking about in terms of personality types and getting everybody to live and work together.

Well, well, first of all, let me put it in reverse and tell you quickie about listening. As long as Tony underlined that. And that's a story about my wife. She talks to everyone. Very, very friendly. We're in Los Angeles, she jumps into a cab and I wasn't with her. She has to go one hour across Los Angeles. She always talks to the drivers. First question, where are you from? He says, he's from Pakistan. Oh, she said Pakistan. Well, we just got back. My husband and I just got back, which we did. And she starts talking about the Khyber Pass and all the problems in Pakistan and yet all the people that she loved just for 2 minute opener from her. And then he talks. You know the question, why did you come here and when did you come here? He goes for 58 minutes. My wife never says one single word. Taxi stops. She gets out, gives him a gratuity. He says to her, ma', am, you're the nicest person I've ever met in my entire life. She never said a word. He just talked. So that's a listening lesson there for our viewers. All right, now back to your question. Cliff, how do I get our people engaged? How do I get them to like each other? Well, guess what? Got another invention. And as you might have guessed, it's not an envelope. It's not the 66 question customer profile, it's the 33 question profile. For our managers example, we have 20 people say, in our printing department. And our manager, okay, is the head. He has 33 questions over a period of time that he wants to know. He wants to know whether that daughter is graduating or how many children they have. He wants to know how many jobs they've had. He wants to know, again, the husband, where does he work or what does the spouse work? Whatever. So those 33 questions, and when he studies them, he is cat scanning again, the people, the report to him. Example, all right, all of a sudden, he's checking out his people one day, and we get a complaint, and bingo, 10 million envelopes are smeared, okay? Too fast through the printing presses, whatever, operator error. And he has to go up and talk to that operator, and he or she, whomever it is, okay? He has to tell him what's happened. We have to do it over the responsibility. In other words, he has to be quite critical. But when he says goodbye. Oh, I see. Mary graduated from high school last week. Bingo. All right. He's got the production out of that employee, but he's also humanized his selling strategy with the people that are reporting to him.

That is wonderful because you're talking about a company culture that begins with hiring process. Now, Tony, you talked about personality behavior types. Excuse me. How can somebody figure out what their own unique style is?

Well, they can take an online assessment. That's the easy way to do it. Or they can answer a couple of questions. Am I more guarded or open? And am I more direct or indirect, based on those two answers. And there's a series of behaviors for each of those. You know, what are the behaviors of a guarded person? What are the behaviors of a direct person? But if you make those two simple decisions, it will lead you to one of the four styles. So, for instance, if I determine that I am direct but guarded, I am a high D, a dominant style. But if I am direct and open, I'm an I style. Interactive, influencing, more expressive. If I am indirect but guarded, I am a high C, the conscientious thinker, analytical style. And if I am indirect but open, I am that steady style who is more amiable and more of what we would call a relator. I do want to. Cliff, if you will allow me. Want to play off something that Harvey mentioned? We have a new piece of software that allows people to use the assessments day to day in their work environment. One of the problems over the years with assessments is the problem of what they call one and done. Somebody takes the assessment, they read it, they say, hey, yeah, that's me, they file it away and that's it. How does a company actually use assessments on a day to day basis? Make it part of their culture? We have something that is called Teamkeeper and Harvey, I think you'll be interested, we've taken some of your ideas and in this Teamkeeper, it has all of the results of the various assessments that people have taken. The DISC assessment, the motivators, which indicates what moves and motivates this person, what their thinking style is, etc. But a lot of personal information. What's your favorite coffee, let's say at Starbucks, what do you like? What's your favorite pizza toppings? What about your children, your school, your sports, what you do as a hobby? And it allows every employee to see this picture of every other employee to get to know them not just in a cursory way, but in a deeper level that you've talked about that your people already do. So it's a way to blend all of the McKay's 33 with the assessment data that allows people to really get to know each other at a deep, deep level.

Thanks for that. So I'm going to go on just a minute, but I want everybody watching this to know that there are two ways that Tony just highlighted we can learn about our behavioral types. Number one is an online assessment. There's a URL on the page below this video and available on Tony's website, assessments24by7 24x7.com so get that URL first. And the other thing Tony, you highlighted is Harvey, you do this all the time. I've watched you. I'm a student. You listen to people, you ask them questions and through conversation you're saying we can learn a lot about people. Helps us build a good team. If the team in the company culture is aligned, people stick around, profits soar, everybody loves coming to work on Monday. Let's talk quickly in closing, gentlemen, about the key business applications that DISC does relevant to behavioral styles and assessments.

I would say personal development, where I can really get a sense of my strengths and my struggles. Team building. This is crucial. Putting together a team that understands each person's contributions to the team and clarifies that differences are not roadblocks, but differences. You know, if we're opposites, your strengths compensate my weaknesses and my strengths compensate your weaknesses. So the whole team building process, the selection process, conflict resolution, we actually have two people have taken a disc and they're not getting along. Let's say it could be an employee and a manager or even two managers who are in different departments but they have to work together. They don't see eye to eye. We can do what's called a collaboration report where we have look at one half of the page as one person, 1/2 of the page is the other person and sit them down and let them understand each other a little bit better. There are so many aspects to this. How to adjust your selling style to fit the customer's buying style. You name just goes on and on. How a variety of assessments disc only being one of them, but a very popular one. It's our biggest seller. But a combination of assessments really help you manage the employees of your company and manage their interactions with your customers and your vendors.

Harvey, comment on team team building because I've heard you teach and you write about it often.

Team building sounds corny, sounds sophomoric, sounds corny, sounds ho hum. Nothing could be further from the truth as Tony just said. And that is as follows. What is teamwork? What is team building? It's a collection of diverse people who respect each other and are committed to each other's successes. When you get that, you'll slam your competitors into the pavement and you'll hand them their heads. And so that of course is very important. Let me just two things. Let me make one suggestion to our audience and then let me wind up with a brief little story. And that is what we've been talking about off and on. There have been a lot of great books written in the world over a period of time and I think the number one book that nails what Tony and I are sharing here is Dale Carnegie's how to win Friends and Influence People. And if you haven't read it, then I urge each and every one of you to go out and buy it. And I think you'll send Tony or me a thank you note for that suggestion. If you have read it, listen up, it's more important than you go back and read it again. See when you get a great self help book, you don't just read it, you study it, underline it, highlight it, post it notes. That's what you have to do. And then read it every two, three years. Why? Because a person's life equals the total sum of his or her experiences and what you learned three, four, five years ago, five years later might have been double crossed by the all kinds of problems that didn't fit them five years ago. So you have to pick up those self help books. Tony's got some great ones out there also want to read them but don't read them Study them, then let me end up with teamwork, team building story. There was a driver 10 miles outside the city and just a rain came up. Rainstorm. Immediately, his car gets stuck in the mud. And he sees the farmyard about two minutes away. Hustles over the farmyard, knocks on the farmer's door. My car stuck up on the highway two minutes from here. Might you be able to help? Well, he says, I got a blind mule named Elmo out in the back. Fine. They trudge Elmo across the muck and mire. Farmer hooks him up to the car and he hollers out, pull, Sam, pull. And nothing happens. Pull, Bessie, pull. Nothing happens. Pull, Jackson, pull. Nothing happens. Pull, Elmo, pull. Elmo rips and roars that car right out of the mud. Driver's confused and perplexed, and he says, I don't understand. Why did you have to call out all those different names for? Look, if he didn't think he had any help, he wouldn't even try.

Harvey, thanks for that story. Tony. Thank you for your time today. In closing, Tony, you're out there climbing mountains all the time. Help everybody understand. Harvey was talking about the power of learning and reading and biggest room in the world being improvement. Share some additional resources in closing for our audience. And again, if you're watching this video, their URLs, the websites will be listed for you if you miss what Tony's saying. But, Tony, help every understand how they learn more about what you're doing.

Okay, so if, for instance, if you want to look at any of the books that I've written, you can probably just go to Amazon.com put in my name. Tony Alessandro. You'll see a variety of books, and some of them certainly influenced by Harvey, and I appreciate that. Harvey, you and I go back many, many years, people. If you think this is the first time we're on together, it is not. We go way back. And two of our colleagues, or one colleague for both of us is Lou Holtz. You know, being from Notre Dame, he was a coach at Notre Dame. Wasn't he also a coach over at Minnesota?

Well, here's a little irony. 90 seconds before I went on, I just talked to him in New York. My best friend joined at the hip outside of my family. And he is, of course, as everyone knows, one of the greatest speakers.

Fantastic. Fantastic.

I was going to razz you when he left. Notre Dame's has some down years.

Some down years? No. How about 25 down years since he's left?

I want to be kind to the Notre Dame alumni out there.

That's right.

We're talking about managers, okay? One person can make all the difference in the world. Hire. And that's why your work is so important. Hire the right person in the university, the school, the business goes to the moon. Hire the wrong one. Bingo. Straight into bankruptcy. Yeah. I love your.

Well, thank you, Harvey. So, Cliff, they can go to Amazon, put in my name. You can go to alessandra.com if you want to learn about me personally, which is A l, e, s s a n--r-a dot com. But most importantly, because of the focus of our conversation today, it's the assessment site. So, assessments, that's plural. A, S, S, E, S, S, M, e, n, t s 24x7 dot com. Look around, see the variety of assessments that we have. And if you want to contact me directly, it can be D, R, T O N y, which is like drtonyssessments24x7.com.

Thank you, Tony. Pleasure to have you. Harvey, any comments in closing?

Just in closing, I love sharing the screen with Tony.

Tony, we'll have you back very soon. Thank you again.

Okay, bye bye.

Goodbye, everybody.