0013: The importance of mastering emotional intelligence if you want to succeed at the C-Suite level with C-Suite Executive, Advisor & Best Selling Author Miguel De Jesus

Ea interviews episode 13 inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round. Seven days a week join Mario Ficcini for today's Expert Authority Effect interview.

Welcome Expert Authority World. I am excited to be here with you on today's episode. I have none other than Miguel de Jesus and he is going to be sharing with you what it takes to to be growing your business at the C suite level. I've known he's been teaching this for years and that's why I invited him onto the show and I'm going to bring him up right after we thank our sponsor.

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Are you doing today?

Mario, Happy new year of 2019 to you. Boy, this is going to be an outstanding year, isn't it?

It's going to be a fantastic year and I'm excited to kick it off with you. It's great to have you on the show. I know your story, but let's take a couple of minutes, maybe 5 or 10. Go as in detail as you want. Actually, please share everything you shared on the phone call we had initially about who you're helping, how you're helping them. Let me ask you what inspired you to start your business?

Well, I worked in a corporate setting for a good 40 years, so I kind of did executive coaching, development, sales, sales management training and helping individuals in a corporate setting grow their businesses. And it is a passion of mine and as the saying goes, it helps to be skilled at it. So I've developed skills over the years and some of which have to do with communication skills and having a reasonably high level of emotional intelligence, which we can cover a little bit of that later because everyone needs that. And upon my retirement from a corporate setting, I decided to start a coaching and consulting career for the last 11 years where I am helping individuals, I'm helping nonprofits, I'm helping for profits and I'm helping college level students breakthrough have breakthroughs in the areas their personal development, their skill development and their ability to really accomplish the goals that they've set up. You know, one of the things I've learned in working with other organizations like Junior Achievement also is who think about it for a Moment. Mario, who. Who takes the time in your career as an individual or as. As a individual contributor, either for yourself or for the organizations that you're looking to grow and or build to help you develop your personal skills? I mean, it falls under the realm of personal development. And I think Brian Tracy did some research and a large percentage of less than 5% of the population in the United States invests in themselves at any point in time in their career development. They really don't know how to stick it. They don't know the concept of mentorship and more importantly, don't know how to be coached because they don't ask the right questions. And in your business, you have certainly learned how to ask the right questions from a coaching and consulting standpoint, because the answers really rest with asking the right questions. And to the degree that we can as individuals and consultants, help people narrow their choices, get greater clarity, and most importantly, identify the gaps that they have before them. That's when transformation begins. And occasionally you're going to have to write a check.

Well, that's good. I am so glad you got into this and had the desire because when we first met years ago, I could tell there was something different about you. And you, like me, like to bring out the best in people. And there's very few people I've noticed over the years of helping thousands of people that really have that desire to want to inspire people and bring out the best. A lot of them just look at it as a transaction. And I've never, I've never liked that. I've never operated that way. I've always liked to have the breakthroughs and transformations like I know you do with your clients. So let's segue into your clients. How do you help them get past their limiting beliefs?

Well, I'm going to take an example this morning. So I met with a graduating senior, and I say graduating senior because he's one unit away from graduation. So he had to register for independent study. For those of you who are familiar with college students, sometimes you got to do that and then he gets the degree. So I am his independent study professor. So the independent study is going to revolve around his developing exceptional and extraordinary skills in the area of business to business selling, which today he does business, to consumer selling. He happens to work for a company called Tesla, and he is looking to move into a different realm of B2B selling. And we're going to work together in the course of 13 weeks to further develop his skills in the area of B2B selling. Why because that's where he wants to formulate develop his career. And the techniques, the strategies, the formats that I'm going to share with him are all teachable and replicatable. Once you've got the student, you know, the teacher arrives when the student is ready. I totally believe that. But the other part of it is that the teacher has to be exceptional at what they do. And I'm not saying that to be braggadocious. I am actually very humble. But I also know my value in the marketplace, as you do, Mario, and to the degree that we can associate with people who can get us to the goal line ethically, morally, legally and quickly. Those are the kinds of people that I love to work with. And this young man is got the here. Mary, you remember the story of the because we've all studied it, Joseph Campbell's the Hero Journey, right?

Yes, I have.

He has got a here. He has got a hero's journey. I mean, even to this day, as a college senior trying to find full time employment, he is renting the garage of someone who will house him. And so this young man's story of grit, which is another great book by Angela Duckworth, is awesome. And and I was assisting him this morning to help him compose his hero's journey, his story, because that's not something that's taught at the college level. I mean, my goal with him is to prepare him to be the best ready, capable candidate for an employment review for a company that he wants to work for. And we spent two and a half hours this morning basically going through a mock interview of questions that he wrote down that I suggested he craft and develop. And a lot of it starts with, as I instructed him with his mission and vision statement, how his personal mission vision aligns itself with those of the company that he's interviewing with. I mean, I had an awesome experience this morning and I didn't bill for it, all right? Because it's not always about the money. It's about how much value add can I give somebody, especially a young person who's trying to make it and all they need is proper mentorship. So that's an example of one of the things that I totally enjoy doing at the collegiate level. And I also do it, as I mentioned earlier, with transitioning active duty military.

Well, I'm glad you do because there are so many people that need it out there. And it's one of the reasons I even wanted to start doing this show is because there are so many, I call them rock star people like yourself, that people want to get into business. They want to, you know, they want to leave their job, they want to grow business, they want to do this. What if it works? What if it doesn't? There's all these different variables. I know what changing that Rubik's Cube is like. Even today. There was a few things that could have went smoother, but that's the fun of it, is it's not mundane. It's not for the light hearted, but for even the ambitious people who have the grit, who can persevere through it, you still need the guidance. And for every 10 coaches that I see out there, there's maybe one that I would recommend and even invite on the show. And you, my friend, are absolutely one of them. And I'm excited to have you here. So for anyone that hears this, sees this, no matter what medium it's in, because I'm doing it big with this. Miguel is the real deal, and that's why he's here with you. So, Miguel, for our audience, let. Let's tell them about some of your biggest success stories. Who is your biggest success story? Where you've taken them from zero to hero on that hero's journey. And they had a massive transformation. It sounds like you have a new one starting in this gentleman who's your biggest one to date so far.

I'm gonna probably say, looking back over the last 30 years, I'll tell you the story of the gentleman who I met. He didn't work in my organization directly. He was one level removed from me. A CPA by training who happened to work in a sales environment. Think about that for a moment. That's almost oxymoronic, but that's what he chose to do. So Steve became a very good cohort, a very good student, excellent at execution, and probably stayed with me and the organization a few years longer than what I advise people to do now in a corporate setting. He was with us probably a good 18 years.

And I'm going to quote his statement to me reiterating the fact that he flourished under my leadership. But he also recognized that in order to accelerate his growth trajectory and pattern, he needed to change companies. He needed to go somewhere else. He needed to take initiative. So he actually did that. He went from my old company, which is still new and fresh, to a little company called Dell, where he accelerated his growth. And then listen to this talk about accelerated acceleration. Got the opportunity to work with Mr. Ellison over at Oracle for about two and a half, three years. So all the way he's accelerating his income, his total comp his potential, most importantly his value in the marketplace. So he leveraged that. All right, Oracle, not, not bad organization, have a feather in your cap. But listen to this. Then he leveraged and got, he hit a home run. He was living in Cleveland at the time for Oracle, running probably a 500 million dollar sales organization and got an offer to go work in New York City for aws, Amazon Web Services. Alright, so I had Steve as a guest speaker to my sales and sales management class, basically tell his story, his journey and from his own lips. And he said if he made any mistakes along the ways, he didn't leave the organization he was with sooner. And that probably had to do with loyalty, commitment and the way he was treated under my leadership. Once, once that, once that happened because I retired. Things change, right? And then he saw the grass is greener somewhere else. And in his case it has been greener. I mean he runs.

A less division by his own admission. In his own words, he said, miguel, I have never made more money in my life easier than working for Amazon Web Services. Now who in your audience has that kind of information? Well, they will through this replay. But that's not a commonly known statistic. And I'm a little familiar what Steve's earnings were. He's done very well for himself, but he had to do what? Step outside of his comfort zone, be capable and willing to relocate and then go to the where the opportunities existed. And Steve today is probably a very youthful young 54 year old still. So he's got a few more years ahead of him. Who knows where he's going to wind up. But the message I want to communicate to your audience is develop your skills, develop mastery around them. Execute at a very high level. Oh, and by the way, have fun along the way and reach out to new things. Feel discomfort. You know, transformation occurs on the other side of discomfort. Many of us as humans are very fearful of going there. Oh, I can't do that. I mean, do you remember the first time you developed a website or Even understood what WordPress was? We all go through it. I'm learning new stuff every day and I'm reduced to being a kindergarten child. Learning new stuff, dealing with failure, learning new stuff. But I always, Mario, and you know this, understand the value surrounding yourself with people smarter than you are in the areas where you have gaps. So that's where it's important to recognize your gaps, develop your awareness and then hopefully connect with people who can help you get to where you want to get to faster, quicker, better.

That's the way to do it. I. I'm excited for you to share about your book and what's coming up, but I want to expand on that because you brought up a good point about people want opportunity, they want to seize the moment, but then they're presented with an opportunity and life is on the other side of our fear. Why do you think most people don't jump in both feet first, head first, all this, what do you think holds them back? Obviously it's fear, subconscious and all of that. But what have you found works best when people are faced with that decision for them to move forward and get past it.

So I'm going to use a couple of metaphors and a couple of acronyms to help guide people, your audience, through this thought process. And it's not difficult. But one of the things in this past semester that I heard regularly in the college campus was the term intimidation. I feel intimidated. And that word doesn't even exist in my vocabulary. I have no idea what that means. So I'd have to ask the students, give me the sensory feelings. What does that word mean to you? Because it means different things to different people. And I don't even agree with the word. I mean, the word doesn't exist in my vocabulary. I would suggest and would like to offer as a substitute a three letter word called fud. F stands for fear, U stands for uncertainty, and D stands for doubt. So what you're really feeling is the FUD factor, as I refer to it, which is fear, uncertainty and doubt. And that all speaks to capability, that all speaks to skill sets, that all speaks to your identification of the gaps that you currently have. But here's the secret. You can overcome all of that once you, with proper mentorship, or through the university or through other means. You know, tomorrow, and as I explained to the students, tomorrow you're going to be identically the same person you are today, except for the books that you read, the conferences you attend, the podcasts you listen to, and most importantly, the people you associate with. Absent that kind of mindset, you'll stay stuck. And you continue to argue that I feel intimidated. Well, I feel bad for you. But there is another way to think about it. And it starts with you changing and embracing the fact that there is opportunity on the other side of discomfort called transformation, to give you the yield that you're looking for. So, mindset. So there's three things. I work with my clients, Mary, and I'm sure you do the same thing. I just happen to try to categorize things very neatly. So I Help them with mindset, which is all the thoughts that have preceded our working together, which came from their parents, friends, priests, rabbis, all the people associated in their lifetime, including students, friends. Right. Mindset, skill set. And the skill sets have to do with actually doing the work. You've got to do the work, all right? So you got to put in whatever amount of hours it takes for you to go from being a novice to developing mastery in a specific area. And if you're on the planet long enough, Mario, the mastery line is elusive and continues to move. Right. Because what you used to be grayed out yesterday was just subsumed by some new technology, new tool, new software, and you know nothing about it. So that's. That's one of the, you know, the. The creative moment in our lives really is, can we rise to the challenge to step up and learn this new stuff? And the answer is, we can't, because it's not over until it's, like, over. Right. And we got a lot of time ahead of us to go learn new things. So, mindset, skill set. And the last one is tool sets. What tool sets you have available to you that'll take you from zero to hero. Quicker, faster, better, legally and morally. I try to whip those all together and then try to guide people through that. Through that. The eye of the needle, as they say.

Well, I appreciate you for sharing that, because that is amazing. You better be taking notes. And I am definitely going to watch this because I honestly feel like I'm an event where you're speaking, and I just want to be taking all kinds of notes down because you are delivering solid gold, and I appreciate you for it. And you're making. Thank you. This is going well. And I'm excited to elaborate on what you said about the books. You're saying it's about the people you associate with and the books you read. So let's talk about your book. How has it helped your business so far?

Here's how it's helped. I noticed a gap in the marketplace. I never studied emotional intelligence until I went out on my own 11 years ago. And I noticed a gap between my learning, my ability to be of service, and the needs of the marketplace. And so I started studying the concept of emotional intelligence with Daniel Goleman, who popularized the term in the 1990s. 93. 94. Based on the work of some other psychologists ahead of him. And I was so intrigued. I said, wow. Something so important which has to do with people, which has to do with relating with people. You know, one of the things in 40 years of a corporate environment that you get a very quick sense of is that some people are liked and some people are disliked. So what's the difference? What's the diff? And those people that pay attention, which is called self awareness, which occurs through a variety of ways, but most inexpensively it occurs by listening, by paying attention, by not having to be, you know, the center of the parade or the center of the universe, because the universe doesn't revolve around you. Now.

Having. Having had an operational background while I was also in sales. So in my 40 years in corporate, five years were in operational setting. So I went from sales and a sales environment for 35 years to five years of operational leadership. And I got to tell you, the motivations of people who work in customer service operations and other service related elements are not remotely attached and at all to what inspires and leads. Salespeople, two different models. So I had to learn very quickly, how do I inspire, how do I get peak performance from people who are here for a totally different reason. They're not here for the bonus, they're not here for the commission. They're here to be the best they can be at servicing a client in the area that they're in. And so I had to sharpen my own skills and to become very effective in those environments because they are different people. I had to walk a fine line between sales organization and operations. Right. Because ops sometimes called the sales killers in an organization.

They'Re not always that way. There are reasons why things need to be slowed down. There are reasons why things can with the quality that are required. Salespeople on the other hand, or what, they want it, they want it now and they want to get paid tomorrow. All right? So it's a different mindset. Our job and our challenge, I think in a leadership role is to identify the two thought processes and bring them together. That's what successful leadership looks like. You're able to have differences of opinion, find common ground, and then make decisions to move forward, unlike our current political situation. So from the standpoint of finding common ground, I find people with high levels of emotional intelligence are more agreeable, easier to work with, and have more success in the workplace and in their private lives than those that don't.

And you share some of this information even on your own videos, correct?

Yes.

So tell me how video has helped your business share and disseminate these teachings.

Well, the videos occur. So let me give you an example. One of the things that I take people through is a live presentation in Fact, I've got a presentation, 14 minutes and 14 seconds.

That captures some of the high level components of emotional intelligence. And those skills are transferable. First of all, you've got to identify and accept the fact that you don't have the answers to all the questions. In fact, you don't even know all the questions. So once you have neutralized yourself into a regular human being, now you're capable of being taught and trained because you are receptive. So you have to approach everything, Mario, I believe with a beginner's mindset. You know, remember the time when you were in kindergarten, you explored the world, everything was like unbelievable. Wow, this is awesome. You know, and then all of a sudden that gets all knocked out of us because you know, we're in a educational system that knocks out creativity out of you because you need to conform. All right, well, I have opinions about how to better train people to their strengths rather than to their weaknesses. And that requires. That's a subject of a different conversation. But if it starts with at least identifying the gaps through registered self awareness, which is measurable by the way, not only through a software package that measures it. All right, so artificial intelligence will measure that there are prescribed situations with prescribed best answers to determine your ei and for that I'm familiar with at least three or four different organizations that offer that. But I also have a very inexpensive as in free tool that asks five questions or 10 questions, you get evaluated on them. It's self evaluated, you don't give it to anybody, you don't get registered anywhere. And you can take a self assessment for yourself which I'd be willing to make available to you and your team to distribute to your listeners. I think it's an excellent first start tool that costs nothing other than maybe a half hour of your time to evaluate the questions and evaluate your responses. And then you self evaluate relative to how high do you score in the area of self awareness for emotional intelligence. It's a great start.

Sounds fascinating. Let's definitely talk about that and we can put it on the webpage for your episode, make it available.

Excellent. So let me give you a framework and your audience of framework, Mario, of what the four key components of emotional intelligence consist of or what it's comprised of. The key and fundamental, and you highlighted it the other day, is really getting a self awareness jumpstart assessment of where you are. Alright. And we can all probably imagine thinking our minds of people that we've liked along our careers and those that we didn't quite love as much. All Right. And the reasons for that, maybe they were abrupt, maybe they dismissed your thinking. Maybe they do. What occurs in a lot of offices is they. They jump your idea. Okay? It's not even out of your mouth. It's in logic. It's called argumentum ad hominem, you know, because the idea is coming from Mario. I'm going to cut him off in the knees early. Why? Why? Who taught you that? Who told you that behavior was good or effective? See, so it is the absence of training and the absence of knowledge that I think becomes an important element, Mario, of the self awareness component. So let's get past self awareness now. We have self aware. We've got the feedback, we know where our gaps are. Now what happens is who's going to train you, who's going to. How do you get to improve the other three quadrants? So the other three quadrants, one of them has to do with.

Self management. Once you've got self awareness, now you need self management. So at this point you understand and you've been given feedback and you can observe yourself. What are your triggers? What are the things that set you off? Think for a moment, Mario. In your career, in your business, in your life, what are the things that set you off? Just one. Think of one. You smiled because you already got it. What are the things that set you off? One thing.

With me or someone other.

Than, other than technology with you, I don't.

I get angry with myself when I know there's something I should be doing that I'm not, or I have a goal and I'm not making progress towards it. And I know I could be, but for whatever reason, I didn't feel like it, or I chose not to or whatever.

Guess what? Welcome to humanity. We all feel that way. We all have our shoulders. Woulda, shoulda, couldas, okay? But we gotta stop shooting on ourselves. And once we stop shooting on ourselves, then we can in fact move forward. So in your situation, that can be solved very quickly. And you know the answer because you're in the. You're in the business, you're in the world, you do it. It's called an accountability coach. Right? So I don't know, talk to him once a day, once a month, once a week. Everyone needs an accountability coach. And I'll share with you, Mario. In my 40 years in a corporate setting with anywhere between 12 to 15 direct reports, we had weekly, what I call plan and review sessions, which actually reverse it. It was really review and plan sessions. So, you know, you said you were going to these 10 things last Friday. So Friday we have our plan, our review and plan session and one hour session. Now you do the math with 12 people is 12 hour days. One hour starting at 8 o' clock in the morning. I had my dashboard of data or metrics and it was a busy Friday for me. I didn't miss a Friday. I've got, I've got logged in excess of 19,000 hours having sessions with people now. Think about that. How do you develop mastery? Well, one of the ways you develop mastery is through perfect practice. And so I practiced and rehearsed for those sessions and they lasted for the continuum of my corporate career. I loved them, I enjoyed them because they gave me several opportunities to catch people doing right things at the right time with the right people while also helping them remove, remove whatever obstacles they had in their way to their personal goals and achievement. And by the way, one of those people wasn't me. I was the accountability person. All right, so you got me. Whether you're performing or not, it helps if you're performing because then it becomes your meeting for an hour as opposed to my meeting. And I did that for well in excess of 19,000 hours.

Loved it. And the reason I loved it is because it reduced the element of fud, fear, uncertainty and doubt. It was very clear to my direct reports every Friday what we're going to do for an hour together. Now I love that. Now here's what I am going to volunteer. That was work, Mario. That was work. You can't be a leader in an organization, any level, and decide you're going to work part time, you're cheating the people that you are expected to help and to lead. Hence my strong feeling about be of service, don't just be a boss, be of service. You know, here, help clear some of the obstacles. And you know what, if your employee can't do something and you're stumbled, humility is a good thing too. Admit it. Just say it. You know what, I don't know what I do with that either. Let me run that up the flagpole because there are other people in the organization. People love that, love to work with people that help them. That way they put themselves in the boat and they say, wow, that's interesting. That's quite a challenge.

It reminds me of the quote where people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

That's a perfect quote, Mario, and you're spot on. So let me rule to quadrant number three and then quadrant number four and then we can go wherever you Want. So quadrant number three has to do with, with social awareness. Now I don't know about you, but I was an awkward teenager. I, you know, who teaches you how to go to an event?

Oh, I'm sure I tapped you and network.

All right, I was awkward. I needed a coach. I asked one of my coaches, I said I can't, I don't go to these events because what am I going to talk to, what am I going to talk about? I don't golf, I don't imbibe. So you know, how do I behave? So I needed coaching around that and I got a great, great mentor to help me in my early twenties overcome that fear that I had. So it wasn't that I disliked it, it was that I was unskilled but unwilling to acknowledge it. So I needed coaching and I needed training and got it. So social awareness becomes an important component. You know, we teach college students today in order to get a job, network. Well.

Other than spelling the word out, you better teach them how to do that because it is not intuitive. And for some people it's going to be very difficult to overcome the hurdle. You know, some students, some people, some adults can't have a conversation with you, Mario, and look at you in the eye. They're looking a whole bunch of different places. Well, they have to be trained.

And they, by the way, they are willing to be trained, but only from people they know like trust and respect. I mean those are the other elements that they're looking for. Can I trust you? Can I be vulnerable with you? Can I tell you I don't know anything about what you just said. Your lips moved, but I didn't understand anything you said. And you've got to help people feel comfortable with discomfort. So that's the third element component of developing your eq. And the fourth one, which is in today's age, the most important one has to do with relationship management. If you cannot manage your relationships with people, you are going to have a short lived business or you're going to be somewhat successful, but not as successful as you could be because again, it is the relationship with people. I think about it today, Mario, just think about today's model of doing business in America for a publicly traded company. Anything you could ever want to know about them available. And you can sit in the comfort of your home half dressed and do all the research you want. You don't have to go anywhere that was unavailable at the turn of the century.

Year 2000 y2k as they referred to it back then. Ooh, Chicken Little, the clocks are going to stop working, our computers are going to freeze. They're all burn out and die. None of that happened. So what's different about relationship today? Well, we become highly more tactile as adults. We become highly more, I'm going to use the word which is charged, but I'm going to say a little more disrespectful of people because we're always pulling out our devices in the middle of a conversation. That's highly disrespectful. I mean, if you're having a one on one, that's what you're doing. You are focused, you are in the moment, all right? You're not looking for the message coming in from somebody else who knows where it's coming from or staying up with social media. You know, hire that out, make enough money so you can hire that out if you need it done. And, but, but be present if, if we're in the people business and in sales, we are definitely in the people business. But the other places that we're in the people business, in corporate boardrooms. So here's the very same tools that serve us well also appear in the boardrooms today. You can get an answer in the boardroom, somebody says, and that device cost 1.3 PI to the third. And somebody pulls out their little, you know, iPhone and does a rapid fact check. Could you imagine, in the boardroom, does that happen? Of course it does. All right, because everybody's fact checking everybody else. Alright, so you got to have your facts together. You gotta have your ducks in a row. But, but, but, so, so the technology piece is a double edged sword. You got to know when to use it, you got to know how to use it appropriately. And then you've got to learn how to be tactful in its occasional use and not overuse it. Because I'll tell you, there's nothing more intimidating, now use the word there than having 12 executives in a boardroom and everybody's on an iPhone. What they're doing, I have no idea. All right, So I know there are rules that say no iPhones in the room or put them on stun or put them away. All right? There's nothing more important than what we're doing here right now. And, and who sets that tone? The executive leader, whoever that is, CEO or their designee. And so those are the four components, Mario. And for that, that does require some forethought. You got to do some, some planning and then you got to do some strategic analysis on the things that you're going to execute in the next 30, 60, 90 days to improve in the areas that you need improvement to or greater sensitivities to. Was that helpful?

It was very helpful and I'm glad you shared it in full detail because a lot of times people just want to give the abbreviated version. But so happy you went into detail and I know when people reach out to you, they can go into even more detail. So we're gonna thank our next sponsor and then jump into the imperfect action round.

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For the imperfect action round. Like I said earlier, earlier and this is my favorite part, we're going to go into 60 second answers and the first one is what's the fastest path to the cash?

Miguel Find a person's problem or gap in performance or goals and help them how to fix it. Show them how to fix it, develop a plan, a strategy, and most importantly, get their buy in that they're going to actually hold themselves accountable by reporting to you whatever frequency you get them to agree. Whether it's monthly, weekly, quarterly, annually is too long. So I would state a weekly, monthly and quarterly updates on progress against those objectives.

Love it. What's the biggest problem you see with your audience that they need to overcome right now?

I'm going to make this comparison. So I work with college students whose average age could be anywhere from 20ish or 18ish to late 20s. I've got some more mature people in there, but let's take that as an average, and I'm going to compare that. Fast forward 20 years to transitioning military people who have served their country for 20 years. The problems are identical. They're both looking for jobs. Those two camps are both looking for opportunities. They're looking for jobs. What's their gap? They have no idea what their skill sets are. In the case of the military, they don't know which of their skills are transferable into the workforce. Civilian workforce. We help them with that. In the case of college students, they openly will tell you because all you got to do is look at their resume. They have no skill sets.

There's nothing there. I just had a class of 33 students, taught them sales and sales management. A good 29 of them were marketing majors. I asked every one of the marketing majors. So what do you do? Tell me what you're different at. They couldn't answer that question. All right, these are high school. This is a college. Juniors and seniors. I said, okay, let me teach you about uniqueness versus sameness. So I give them reality. I said, you guys have been taught here to be same. I'm here to tell you that will get you unhired, that. That will cause you to be unemployed. People want uniqueness. People want to know, so if I hired you, Miguel, what specific skill sets do you have that are different from the other 40 people I just interviewed, all of which have degrees in marketing? And I got to tell you, you guys need to learn how to position yourself with your. In the work that we do together. It's, you know, it's sometimes called copywriting. You need to wordsmith and craft your uniqueness rather than your sameness. Nobody cares that you went to Ohio State University with a degree in marketing. Who cares? But here's what they do care about. And I know how to do great Facebook advertising that will give you a $10 return on a $1 ad spend. First of all, you're talking the language that I understand. You're not using that university gobbledygook on me. You're using reality. And you spoke to me as the hiring manager about what revenue return on investment. Now, if you can prove that and you can deliver it, you're hired. Because there are a lot of people who are pretenders in that space that can't guarantee those kinds of results.

That's fantastic. So you're taking them, get them past their problem, giving them the tools they need. Now the last question is customer lifetime value. How do you help them maximize it once they get hired?

Now that's an interesting perspective because unless you're taking finance, you don't know the lifetime value of a client. Nobody, generally speaking.

Has taken that conversation to the level you just took it. So LTV is a component which in one sense is simple to understand. Once you give them a metaphor, once you give them, to get them to understand how to present themselves.

To be unique. So let me give you another metaphor. I'm going to answer the question with another metaphor. So in the sale of high cost items, let's say like H Vac, you know what an H Vac system costs. Or let me take one of my client situations, a elevator system, right? So when you sell an elevator system, you're selling more than one elevator. It's usually multi storied buildings and they cost a lot of money not only to acquire and install, but also to maintain and train. So what is it that concerns a manufacturer of those types of lines of businesses? What concerns them both? Well, having a sales organization that can talk about, here's the concept. TCO, total cost of ownership, not the cost of installing one elevator. How about the lifetime cost over 35, 40, 50, 60 years of maintenance of an elevator system? How do you make that decision? Well, you better assemble the right people in the room, including some chief financial officers to help you with the terms, the concepts and everything that is not seen by a purchaser of one of those systems. So I use those two metaphors because.

The development really has to do with how well can you educate, how can you communicate without being condescending and without being demeaning. The fact that a decision maker needs more information on which to base a better decision, that's your job as a sales executive, as a CEO, as the chief of that division. And I love teaching concepts. See, people will buy into you, Mario, and your concepts if they know, like and trust you. Wasn't that one of the elements we talked about earlier? Once you achieve that, they're all in. Although they'll try to haggle you a little bit on the price. I get that that's normal, but you've got them, they're on your team, you are part of their team. And that's how you develop long term relationships from the standpoint of ongoing return on investment over the lifetime of the business and the life cycle of the product. Long answer. I tried to make it simple, as simple as possible.

Mario, I love it. That is a great take on it and I'm glad you answered that way because you are demonstrating like you teach. You're not being the same as everyone else. So that's the best answer I think I've heard so far. So last thing before we wrap this up is let's talk about where people can get your information, your book, where can they find you? Feel free to hold it up again and pull it back a little bit. Let's show that baby off.

So here's the book on emotional intelligence. It is available on Amazon and I can send you a link. I think I'm centered correctly, block myself out. I can send you the link to Amazon for this Mario, if that's helpful at the end of the show for show notes.

Absolutely.

I want them in the show notes. We're going to put it on the page people can link. They'll be able to get a copy of the video of this, the download.

And you know what, I'm going to invite your guests, if they want to learn a little bit more about me, to go to my LinkedIn profile, which is probably my best updated information.

So we're talking about the books, we've both published our own. What is your favorite book outside of the ones you've already recommended? What's the best book you could recommend.

To someone that I've written or that I've read?

Both. One of each.

All right, so one, one of each.

I'm going to recommend the sales book that most people will never read. It's been around for about 20, 25 years, still very relevant in today's world. And it's called the Accidental Salesperson. Accidental Salesperson by Chris Lytle. L Y T L E. And that book was written for people like you and me who when we were sitting in either high school or in some classroom, didn't know, didn't understand, didn't have a clue, and knew no one who was a salesperson. Right. The only salesperson I ever saw growing up at, at all and it wasn't a great experience was an insurance salesperson who visited us in our home. Well, I thought it was interesting. It wasn't until about 25 years later that he sold us the wrong product. But I didn't know that. Right. I mean, when you're an 8 year old person and your parents are trying to do the right thing for a youngster, unless you're throwing down some big money that's going to grow to multiple thousands of dollars. The investment was not the right size investment. It was the right size of investment for our Income levels, don't get me wrong, but it was inappropriate product for our income levels.

So he should have never sold it to you, your family, to begin with.

Bingo. And so, but, but in the, you know, back in the day, that's not what they were trained to do. That's not what they did. All right. So again, I don't fault them. That's the way the industry works. It has evolved throughout the years. And so, you know, one of the things that I developed, because I'm curious and also have a propensity to understand numbers. I'm actually a licensed insurance agent, state of California also, because I think I have a responsibility to give people an education on what might be best for them. Whether they purchase it for me or not is irrelevant to me. What is relevant to me is that I'm giving the best information that is available to me to help them make better decisions. So people in the area of financial analysis and financial knowledge make sometimes poor choices because they don't know the alternative. They don't understand the calculations. They don't know how to calculate present value or future value. Are those things important? Well, yeah, in certain industries, they're absolutely necessary. But as a normal human being on today's planet, if somebody could teach you how to. How to use a financial calculator and calculate an interest payment to you at 2.9% versus 17.8%, the amount of time it's going to take your payoff, wouldn't that be something that is teachable? The answer is yes. Is it learnable? Absolutely. And you don't have to be a rocket scientist to do it. But who teaches that, really?

Not enough people.

Exactly. So I think that's. That's one of the things that I would, you know, certainly state is within the realm of knowledge and development of your audience and anybody who's interested. Look, if you got another 40, 50 years on this planet, expand yourself, grow yourself, challenge yourself. But most importantly, surround yourself with people that you know like and trust that might know a little bit more about stuff than you do.

That was awesome. Thank you.

Well, thank you. Well, thank you, Mario. Hopefully I was able to be in.

Informative, educational, and with a little bit of humor.

Oh, yeah, you definitely were. I honestly was I going to rewatch this and take some notes because everything you were saying, I honestly wish someone else was doing the interview because I wanted to be learning.

You were.

It was that powerful.

Well, thank you. You're pretty gracious guy. Just trying to serve. Mario, is my pleasure. Love your smile and your yellow I love the yellow today. It works.

Thank you.

You're already successful.

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