Alon Zaibert, a business relationship consultant in Atlanta, says leaders win by being themselves and sharing personally. His philosophy, Emotional Relevance, centers on following your innate drive for connection rather than corporate rules. A grocery store job taught him early that people matter most.
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This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.
My name is Alon Zibert. I'm originally from Israel, these days based in Atlanta, and what I do is I work with business people about business relationships.
Alon, it's great to have you on the show. Question number 2: What is the best thing about working in your industry?
People, hands down. Love the connection, the people, what I can do for people. Just people.
A people person. I think you've mentioned before to me that you're a people connoisseur, and I love that title.
Thank you. I have a story behind it. Maybe we have some time later to talk how I got to that title.
Perfect. Question number 3: I have a fictitious book with all the answers for business. What chapter would you think most companies should read?
I would recommend most companies to read The chapter about the instinct, follow your instinct, follow the humane instinct to be yourself. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
The humane instinct, do you want to elaborate a little bit on that?
Yeah, you know, corporate America these days is kind of limiting us to follow the dance, follow the rules. And unfortunately those rules are against our innate instinct of the emotional connection, the social aspect of it, the making friends. We all heard about HR-related stories and, you know, my last corporate job, HR had me on speed dial. And so unfortunately, if we just let people be themselves, right, follow the humane instinct, the innate instinct of us needing to be together and share emotions and relation and feelings, feelings. I think that's a great chapter.
I agree with you. Very good suggestion. Question number 4. Other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude and care for customers, advice or insight would you give to other business leaders?
So it's kind of following the same footsteps of that chapter. You know, a lot of people talk about trust and relationships. And yes, this is in my book, you know, definitely the fundamental need. But let yourself be who you are and share, be personal, you know, share beyond just the business relationship. You know, we all live here for a short period of time and make something out of it. So my biggest thing for business leaders is, you know, come down, be you, and you'll see how others will reciprocate.
I really like that a lot. It's, and it's, it really reinforces going back to that human touch that we were talking about earlier.
Yeah, for sure.
Question number 5. What other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?
I would like to invite Jesse Tedesco to this podcast. Jesse is just a tremendous human being. He's in the financial world and he has a tremendous story. He's a veteran who has, you know, as he says it, not even supposed to be here these days. You know, and just, just a great, great human being. And he's, uh, he has offered me a virtual hug for the last couple of months, and I've taken it. And he's just— so Jesse, you're up next.
Perfect.
I'll reach out to him.
Thank you for that referral. Of course. And question number 6: please tell me about your first job.
So my first job was, uh, in San Diego. And when I moved after 3 years in the military overseas in Israel, I went to college in San Diego and I had to pay my own tuition and had to find a job. And, and I worked at a huge department store, huge grocery, grocery kind of store. And my job was actually to go, you know, between the aisles and pick up the products that weren't at the right spot. So people would just misplace them or, you know, open a pack of cookies and shove them somewhere between the toilet papers. And I remember the lesson that I learned from that experience. First couple of weeks, I got so frustrated with people and, "Come on, people, what's wrong with you?" And I would hate it, etc. And after a couple of weeks, you know, my boss told me, "Hey, if they wouldn't do that, You wouldn't have a job. So that was my first job.
I love that lesson. Yeah, because you, you wouldn't have the job if everybody was putting things back where they were supposed to be. They wouldn't need you. That's a great learning experience. Exactly.
Yeah.
Before we close, do you want to tell us quickly how your People Connoisseur title came up?
Former customer of mine from Hallmark, Kansas City. Yeah, Hallmark customer of mine. And I got to know the person there, the procurement person there. Which is, again, I'm a big proponent of build relationships and make them a personal relationship. So a couple months later, I was spending the weekend in Kansas City with my daughter's volleyball team for a tournament. And I met my friend there, Prakritsha, for coffee at Starbucks. And we just talked and she sat down at a table and I said, "I'm gonna get you coffee, what do you want?" And I go to stand in line And typical me, you know, 40 seconds later, I'm best friends with a guy who works behind the counter and the lady behind us, and we're all having a conversation and it's emotional at that moment and we get to know each other and smiling and laughing. And I turned back and I put down the coffee and I say, here it is. And she was watching the whole thing. I didn't know, but she was watching the whole thing. Taking place. And she said, you know what you are? I said, what? She goes, you are a people connoisseur. I said, wow, that's awesome. Do you mind if I use it in my title and my business consultancy? She said, no, go right ahead. So there you have it.
Love it. Great story. And Alon, thank you so much for being on the show. How can people find you?
alonzibert.com is my website. Emotional relevance is my philosophy. I am happy to say that recently I got it trademarked after a long period of research. And so emotional relevance, that's my philosophy of how I do my training and coaching, etc. AlonZybert.com, that's where you can find me.
Perfect. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.
