Latest / Business Roundtable / Beyond the Gut: Why Assessments Drive Smarter Business Decisions with Dr. Tony Alessandra

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Beyond the Gut: Why Assessments Drive Smarter Business Decisions with Dr. Tony Alessandra · Business Roundtable

0:31
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Business Roundtable podcast. I am your host,
0:35
Speaker 1: David Carr, founder of Steward your Business bringing teams together
0:38
Speaker 1: to accomplish great things. And this week we have another
0:41
Speaker 1: fantastic guest, one that I've followed for many years, doctor
0:45
Speaker 1: Tony Alessandra. I'm super excited to have him here and
0:48
Speaker 1: to share with us his background and you're going to
0:51
Speaker 1: get just a wealth of knowledge, understanding, practical insights here.
0:57
Speaker 1: We're going what I'm tit on this, I all be
0:59
Speaker 1: going on on the gut why assessments drive smarter business decisions.
1:04
Speaker 1: So welcome to the podcast, Tony, Thank you David. Absolutely, Tony,
1:09
Speaker 1: You've been around, you have been you know, working with
1:14
Speaker 1: as a speaker. People may have known you, they may
1:16
Speaker 1: have followed your emails and speaking for years, and now
1:20
Speaker 1: you've been the founder of Assessments twenty four to seven,
1:23
Speaker 1: which I'm super excited to get into that are really
1:25
Speaker 1: about a set of tools and resources that really drive
1:28
Speaker 1: alignment and results. But before we get into Assessments Themseelves,
1:33
Speaker 1: I always love to have our guests give us a
1:34
Speaker 1: little bit about your journey as a business owner, as
1:37
Speaker 1: a leader and what brought you to assessments twenty four
1:40
Speaker 1: to seven today.
1:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let me go way back, David. I grew
1:46
Speaker 2: up in the projects of New York City. Growing up,
1:49
Speaker 2: went to Catholic school. In Catholic school, every month we
1:53
Speaker 2: had a new thing we had to sell, you know,
1:55
Speaker 2: to our relatives and or to door you know, candy cars,
2:00
Speaker 2: you know, chances to win a car, whatever, whatever, and
2:05
Speaker 2: I would always always do well. So it started instilling
2:10
Speaker 2: in me that I was a good salesperson even as
2:13
Speaker 2: a little kid. As the years went on, I went
2:18
Speaker 2: away to college and my parents only had enough money
2:23
Speaker 2: saved to pay for my freshman year. And my mother
2:26
Speaker 2: said to me, don't worry. Something will something will happen.
2:29
Speaker 2: My mother, you know, had this vision something will happen.
2:33
Speaker 2: And here I was now between my freshmen and sophomore year.
2:36
Speaker 2: Parents didn't have the money to pay for my sophomore year.
2:39
Speaker 2: So I got a job doing construction and within one
2:44
Speaker 2: week the contractor, the general contractor came up to me,
2:48
Speaker 2: knelt down beside me. I was on the roof hammering
2:51
Speaker 2: and nails. He knelt down beside me, put beside me,
2:53
Speaker 2: put his arm around me, and said, Tony become a doctor.
2:57
Speaker 2: So that was just way of fire in me. That night,
3:02
Speaker 2: I was at a party and I was telling the story.
3:05
Speaker 2: I'm a storyteller, so tell the story making people laugh.
3:09
Speaker 2: And one of the guys who was on the football
3:12
Speaker 2: team with me at our high school, Tom's Over High
3:15
Speaker 2: School in New Jersey. He was a year behind me,
3:17
Speaker 2: but now he had graduated, and he said, Hey, why
3:20
Speaker 2: don't you come work for my uncle? And I said,
3:22
Speaker 2: doing what he said selling cookware door to door? I said,
3:28
Speaker 2: I know nothing about it. He said, money, you know,
3:33
Speaker 2: Come try it? So I did. I tried it out.
3:37
Speaker 2: In the nine weeks I had left for that summer,
3:40
Speaker 2: made several thousands of dollars enough to pay for my tuition,
3:44
Speaker 2: room board, spending money, everything. And I did that for
3:48
Speaker 2: two more summers. It's interesting that as I was doing
3:53
Speaker 2: that and earning all this money to pay for my education,
3:56
Speaker 2: my parents never had to pay another penny. The top
3:59
Speaker 2: salesperson from Texas I was in New Jersey, the top
4:03
Speaker 2: salesperson from Texas. Are you ready for this telling cookwear?
4:08
Speaker 3: Zig Ziggler, Oh my gosh, seriously.
4:11
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now we both sold salad Master cookware back in
4:16
Speaker 2: the mid to late sixties. So Anyway, I graduated Notre Dame,
4:22
Speaker 2: went to University of Connecticut, got my MBA, decided to
4:26
Speaker 2: become a college profit with an MBA. Did that for
4:29
Speaker 2: three years, and then I decided, no, I really like
4:33
Speaker 2: this college teaching, but in order to really stay in it,
4:36
Speaker 2: I have to get a PhD. I looked around. I
4:39
Speaker 2: found Georgia State University in Atlanta. The reason I chose
4:43
Speaker 2: that is when I was a kid, there were a
4:46
Speaker 2: couple of books that I read. I was I really
4:49
Speaker 2: was into motivational things, and one of the books with
4:54
Speaker 2: Psycho Cybernetics, which I loved. I don't know if you
4:57
Speaker 2: ever read that, by Maxim Law. The other one was
5:00
Speaker 2: The Magic of Thinking Big by doctor David Schwartz, multimillion
5:04
Speaker 2: best selling book, and he was a prophet Georgia State University.
5:08
Speaker 2: So I called him up, said look, I'd like to
5:10
Speaker 2: come there, which would be my dissertation chairman. He said yes, State.
5:15
Speaker 2: They gave me a teaching position which helped pay for everything.
5:20
Speaker 2: Got my PhD, and then got a teaching position at
5:24
Speaker 2: the University of San Diego. So I live in San
5:26
Speaker 2: Diego now, but came out here in seventy six after
5:31
Speaker 2: two years of teaching. And at the time, by the way,
5:36
Speaker 2: I should say, in November of seventy four, I had
5:40
Speaker 2: finished all my course work and I went to this
5:43
Speaker 2: little workshop about personality styles, which I had never been
5:49
Speaker 2: exposed for. This was November of seventy four. I sat
5:53
Speaker 2: through this and if you believe in love at first
5:56
Speaker 2: sight but for a concept, and this is what I
6:01
Speaker 2: want to do. So you know, I started doing some
6:07
Speaker 2: training and speaking around these four styles. And so now
6:14
Speaker 2: in seventy eight September seventy eight, the dean of the
6:17
Speaker 2: School of Business in San Diego said, Tony, you know
6:21
Speaker 2: you're speaking a lot and training a lot, you're teaching
6:25
Speaker 2: you know what, You got to pick one or the other.
6:29
Speaker 2: And I said, you know, Dean, I've been teaching now
6:32
Speaker 2: for eight years. I'll finish out this semester, but I
6:35
Speaker 2: will give my my a go at being a professional,
6:40
Speaker 2: full time professional speaker. So on January seventy nine, full
6:44
Speaker 2: time professional speaker did that average probably one hundred paid
6:49
Speaker 2: speeches a year for about forty years. But I will
6:52
Speaker 2: tell you so this is it started January seventy nine
6:56
Speaker 2: where I actually was. Now I'm not a teacher anymore.
6:59
Speaker 2: At least academic teacher, and now I was a speaker.
7:03
Speaker 2: But the travel was killing me. It really was. So
7:07
Speaker 2: I decided in two thousand, I took my entire staff,
7:13
Speaker 2: my office, everything, my speaking, spun them off into their
7:17
Speaker 2: own business, sold it to my VP of marketing, and said, hey,
7:22
Speaker 2: I'll work for you rather than you working for me,
7:25
Speaker 2: and I'll just pay you in percentages. So I started
7:28
Speaker 2: doing that. But at that moment, that was in two thousand,
7:32
Speaker 2: I had already either late ninety nine or early two thousand,
7:36
Speaker 2: said you know what, I'm going to make a business
7:39
Speaker 2: of the assessments. I really was intrigued with it because
7:42
Speaker 2: in ninety six, from seventy four to ninety six, everything
7:46
Speaker 2: was paper based. In ninety six, I decided to put
7:49
Speaker 2: it online, The Platinum Rule Assessment Online was getting thousands
7:53
Speaker 2: upon thousands of people taking it every month for free
7:56
Speaker 2: because I wanted to sell my book, The Platinum Rule.
8:00
Speaker 2: And it took me a while. You know, again, I
8:02
Speaker 2: was actively speaking, making good money, you know, my focus
8:07
Speaker 2: was there. I was still watching, you know, this platinumal assessment,
8:12
Speaker 2: and I started saying, you know, this could be a business.
8:16
Speaker 2: So I was on the phone with a company I
8:19
Speaker 2: had hired out of Florida to build the platform for
8:23
Speaker 2: me so that I can sell the assessments. And I
8:27
Speaker 2: got on the phone with them. I just realized that
8:30
Speaker 2: it wasn't going to work with them, and they told me,
8:34
Speaker 2: you know, you can't use anything we've already done for you.
8:36
Speaker 2: I said, no problem. I hung up the phone. This
8:39
Speaker 2: twenty two year old kid was in my office working
8:41
Speaker 2: on my website and he said, excuse me, Tony, I'm
8:45
Speaker 2: sorry I overheard the conversation. Could you give me a shot? Wow,
8:50
Speaker 2: we try to develop this. You know, I had nobody else.
8:54
Speaker 2: I said, way to go. So he dug into it.
9:00
Speaker 2: He built something. Our first customer, Ken Blanchard.
9:05
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, the author of The.
9:07
Speaker 2: One Minute Manager, talk about luck. Yes, I will tell you.
9:11
Speaker 2: I say that my life was has been filled with luck,
9:15
Speaker 2: filled with luck. I honestly think I have an angel
9:18
Speaker 2: on my shoulder.
9:20
Speaker 3: You're blessed.
9:22
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it just has been incredible. So I built it
9:27
Speaker 2: Ken Blanchard the University of Phoenix, which was a big client,
9:33
Speaker 2: and this kid, you know, kept improving things, and then
9:38
Speaker 2: he started hiring some people for me, other it people.
9:41
Speaker 2: And that was in two thousand and here we are
9:46
Speaker 2: now in twenty twenty five, and that young kid who
9:50
Speaker 2: now is getting ready to turn forty eight this summer
9:54
Speaker 2: is my CEO of the company.
9:57
Speaker 3: That Wow, what a journey, guys, guy.
10:01
Speaker 2: Brandon Parker, And I mean he does an incredible job.
10:06
Speaker 2: The employees love him. He handles everything in the company.
10:10
Speaker 2: I mean we have a COO and so on, but
10:13
Speaker 2: he just does an incredible job. So there came a
10:18
Speaker 2: point where I had to actually stop speaking because I
10:23
Speaker 2: figured as the business, the assessment business, grew, I cut
10:26
Speaker 2: back little by little by little. I was waiting for
10:28
Speaker 2: the right time. I wanted to do a mic drop speech.
10:34
Speaker 2: I wanted to go out on top David. I didn't
10:37
Speaker 2: want people to be saying, jeez, I remember when he
10:40
Speaker 2: was good. I want to go out where people would
10:44
Speaker 2: be saying, what are you crazy? So that happened. In
10:49
Speaker 2: April of twenty two. I gave my mic drop speech
10:53
Speaker 2: in Las Vegas and that was it. I haven't spoken since.
10:57
Speaker 2: So it's been over three years. I have not given
10:59
Speaker 2: a speech, and all my energy and devotion is to
11:03
Speaker 2: this company. But again, Brandon runs the company, not me anymore.
11:08
Speaker 2: You know, I'm there. I jokingly tell brand and every
11:12
Speaker 2: so often, Brandon, I've taught you everything you know about
11:14
Speaker 2: this business, but not everything I know. It's still some
11:19
Speaker 2: things I have. You know that I'm not necessarily holding
11:23
Speaker 2: them back, but the occasion hasn't come up for me
11:26
Speaker 2: to convey that additional knowledge to him. I love the
11:32
Speaker 2: assessment business. And the reason I love it. I was
11:36
Speaker 2: just on the phone with somebody this morning, actually a competitor,
11:40
Speaker 2: but a lot of competitors in the assessment industry, our friends.
11:44
Speaker 2: We've won each other for many years. I've been in
11:46
Speaker 2: the business now over fifty years, and I was talking
11:50
Speaker 2: to him and one of the assessments that he sells
11:56
Speaker 2: is called a strong vocational assessment. I took that assessment
12:01
Speaker 2: back in nineteen seventy three.
12:03
Speaker 3: Oh wow, And it tells you what.
12:06
Speaker 2: You'd be good at. So when I took it, I
12:10
Speaker 2: was a college profit at cal State Fullerton, and it
12:13
Speaker 2: said number three. It said it had a whole list
12:15
Speaker 2: of things. But number three said I'd be good in
12:17
Speaker 2: marketing and merchandising. Well, hey, yeah, of course. Number two
12:22
Speaker 2: said I'd be good at sales.
12:24
Speaker 3: Well of course, yeah, there you go.
12:26
Speaker 2: But number one I looked at it. I said, this
12:30
Speaker 2: is absolutely crazy. Remember this was nineteen seventy three. I said,
12:33
Speaker 2: I can't believe how absolutely wrong this was, and I
12:38
Speaker 2: filed it away. So, as you know, I became a
12:41
Speaker 2: full time professional speaker in January seventy nine. I was
12:45
Speaker 2: gifted enough to be inducted into the Speakers Hall of Fame.
12:49
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty five, I was doing one hundred plus
12:52
Speaker 2: paid speeches a year. And then in the early nineties
12:56
Speaker 2: I decided to get this multi paid each facts and
13:01
Speaker 2: that facts scanning machine A zero and I wanted to
13:05
Speaker 2: take all my file the file cabinets, and one folder
13:09
Speaker 2: at a time, one drawer, one folder. I would I
13:12
Speaker 2: would scan it and then save it on my computer.
13:16
Speaker 2: One day I'd come across that strong vocational.
13:19
Speaker 3: Oh you found it again because I filed.
13:22
Speaker 2: It away and I look at it and I say,
13:24
Speaker 2: oh my god, I can't believe this number one professional speaker.
13:32
Speaker 3: And back in seventy three, and you just file it away.
13:34
Speaker 3: Huh yeah.
13:35
Speaker 2: But in the at seventy three it was a frame
13:38
Speaker 2: of reference.
13:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, who's yeah?
13:41
Speaker 2: Accurate? Was that?
13:42
Speaker 3: Wow? And there you did it for.
13:44
Speaker 2: Just told me that you know the right assessments can
13:48
Speaker 2: be life changing. So that strong vocational I really, even
13:53
Speaker 2: though we don't market it at all, I'm a real
13:56
Speaker 2: advocate of it. But you know, assessments, David, they're like
14:02
Speaker 2: I described them as an MRI of the mind, right,
14:08
Speaker 2: just like you know, when you go into a medical
14:10
Speaker 2: thing and you get an MRI, it kind of really
14:12
Speaker 2: gives you an insight, a deeper insight than even an
14:15
Speaker 2: X ray to what may or may not be wrong.
14:18
Speaker 2: And that's what assessments do. And there are many different assessments.
14:23
Speaker 2: We have several We have emotional intelligence, We have motivators,
14:27
Speaker 2: which tell you why you do what you do. Are
14:30
Speaker 2: you're more economically motivated, more theoretically motivated, more esthetically or
14:36
Speaker 2: you know, altruistically. But our biggest seller is the DISK assessment.
14:42
Speaker 2: And that was when I went to that little workshop
14:47
Speaker 2: in November of nineteen seventy four. This is what it
14:51
Speaker 2: was about. It was about the four style model. It
14:54
Speaker 2: was something that was so near and dear to my heart.
14:57
Speaker 2: It was my number one speech that I have been giving,
15:01
Speaker 2: you know, since nineteen seventy four all the way through
15:03
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two. So the DISK assessment is really really significant.
15:10
Speaker 2: One of the best selling, if not the best selling
15:13
Speaker 2: in the world. Assessment. So one of the problems David,
15:19
Speaker 2: and why some people are not really into some people
15:23
Speaker 2: or companies are not into assessments.
15:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
15:27
Speaker 2: You know, it's hard to tell you one reason, but
15:31
Speaker 2: I think some people equate some of these assessments. If
15:34
Speaker 2: you ever remember, you know, in some magazines they used
15:37
Speaker 2: to have these little quizzes you know, yeah, right, answer
15:41
Speaker 2: the quizes, and they sometimes equate it to these you know,
15:45
Speaker 2: pop psych Yeah.
15:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're very simplistic.
15:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, very simplistic, which is so far from the truth.
15:54
Speaker 2: And then even if they don't believe that, a lot
15:58
Speaker 2: of people when they use assessments, they use what's called
16:01
Speaker 2: one and done. The assessment is taken, they look at it,
16:04
Speaker 2: they read it, maybe even get a little bit of
16:07
Speaker 2: a debrief, but then file it away and that's it.
16:10
Speaker 2: And to me, that is taking incredibly valuable information and
16:16
Speaker 2: just stuffing it in a draw and forgetting about it.
16:20
Speaker 2: We believe in using it in many different ways, using
16:24
Speaker 2: it for team building, using it for conflict resolution, using
16:29
Speaker 2: it for leadership development, using it for sales development, using
16:34
Speaker 2: it for actually taking candidates, and using it from a
16:39
Speaker 2: hiring perspective. Now, not as you don't want to use
16:43
Speaker 2: an assessment. I'm just telling you my opinion here. Use
16:46
Speaker 2: an assessment to say you're hired or not hired of
16:51
Speaker 2: the puzzle, right, David, another piece along with your resume,
16:57
Speaker 2: your background, your education. Absolutely, but but then again let's
17:03
Speaker 2: look at a resume. A resume to me is like
17:06
Speaker 2: a balance sheet with no debits. That whereas like a
17:13
Speaker 2: disk assessment is much more objective and a disc assessment
17:18
Speaker 2: is very difficult to gain because you're not really sure
17:23
Speaker 2: how to answer these questions what are they looking for?
17:26
Speaker 2: Uh And there are ways where the assessment gets thrown
17:29
Speaker 2: out if you know, pull.
17:32
Speaker 3: It too much.
17:33
Speaker 2: We you know so uh and uh So there's a
17:38
Speaker 2: lot of different ways that you can use it within
17:40
Speaker 2: a company, and we encourage that, you know, for all
17:43
Speaker 2: the things that I just mentioned. But here we are
17:46
Speaker 2: today with the the growth of artificial intelligence and what
17:52
Speaker 2: that does. So what we did is within the last month,
17:56
Speaker 2: we just came out with our own uh art official intelligence.
18:02
Speaker 2: It's AI assessments intelligence, and so we have a closed
18:09
Speaker 2: system and what it does is absolutely incredible. So let's
18:15
Speaker 2: let's talk about it for a company so a company
18:18
Speaker 2: decides to and let me just use with this because
18:21
Speaker 2: it could be used with our motivators or emotional intelligence.
18:24
Speaker 2: So let's just talk about this. So let's say everybody
18:28
Speaker 2: in our company, and I'm going to make believe you
18:31
Speaker 2: and I are in this company, h and everybody in
18:36
Speaker 2: our company has the disk assessment. You run a division,
18:39
Speaker 2: I run a division. We don't report to each other.
18:42
Speaker 2: We're peers. But yet I need to influence you. Wait,
18:48
Speaker 2: let's say that I'm I'm I'm sales. I run the
18:52
Speaker 2: sales department. You run the production. And you know sales
18:54
Speaker 2: and production are always like this because well sales is
18:57
Speaker 2: always promising yeah we can do.
18:59
Speaker 3: That, Yeah we could do that, and.
19:00
Speaker 2: You've promised them what by when? But so now I've
19:04
Speaker 2: got to try to convince you to go ahead and
19:08
Speaker 2: do this custom project. So I can now with our
19:13
Speaker 2: artificial intelligence, with our AI. Now that I know your
19:20
Speaker 2: we have your disk and my disc, I can ask
19:23
Speaker 2: our AI. Look, I'm going into a meeting with David
19:29
Speaker 2: and I have to say, David Carr.
19:32
Speaker 3: So it's the rate, Yes, yes, there you go do And.
19:37
Speaker 2: I need to convince him about doing this this and
19:40
Speaker 2: this what is the best way to approach him, and
19:45
Speaker 2: what should I avoid, and it will tell me exactly
19:49
Speaker 2: what to do with you. And it doesn't do it
19:52
Speaker 2: based on D I, S C. And for those who
19:55
Speaker 2: are not familiar with DISC, it's dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientioussiness.
20:00
Speaker 2: It goes much deeper than that, even to the way
20:03
Speaker 2: you answered the questions in the report. So it goes
20:08
Speaker 2: a whole bunch deeper than just oh a d No.
20:11
Speaker 2: It looks deeper, and it will tell me exactly how
20:14
Speaker 2: to deal with you. If I'm a salesperson and I
20:18
Speaker 2: need to sell somebody and that person has taken the disc,
20:22
Speaker 2: let's say a customer, I can actually let's say I
20:24
Speaker 2: have a customer. Hey, look before we start working with
20:27
Speaker 2: each other, Hey, I have a free disc that you
20:30
Speaker 2: need to be interesting. So a person takes the disk
20:34
Speaker 2: and I say to our AI with an assessment's twenty
20:38
Speaker 2: four to seven. Hey, David is a new customer. What's
20:43
Speaker 2: the best way to approach him, What's the best way
20:47
Speaker 2: to present, what's the best way to ask for a commitment?
20:49
Speaker 2: What's the best way to assure long term customer satisfaction?
20:56
Speaker 2: It will tell me exactly what to do with you
21:00
Speaker 2: will not believe what we have fed into our AI system.
21:06
Speaker 2: It's a major undertaket. It's a closed system because all
21:10
Speaker 2: of our data is in there. And when I say
21:12
Speaker 2: all of our data, we're talking about multi, multi millions
21:18
Speaker 2: of different assessments.
21:21
Speaker 1: So this is so powerful, Tony, I wanted to get
21:25
Speaker 1: I wanted to go back because what you said was,
21:26
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of people there's a lot
21:29
Speaker 1: of information. A lot of people take an assessment or
21:31
Speaker 1: watch a video or get the book, but it's a
21:34
Speaker 1: lot more about that. Like what you're saying is you're
21:35
Speaker 1: actually taking the data, and in this case of the AI,
21:38
Speaker 1: you're actually working it. You're like, how do I leverage
21:42
Speaker 1: this to help me make better decisions? How to show up?
21:45
Speaker 1: And I think that's the real power of these assessments.
21:49
Speaker 3: And I agree with you.
21:50
Speaker 1: A lot of people, I feel like gets stuck in
21:52
Speaker 1: and they take it, but they don't really understand how
21:54
Speaker 1: to leverage the power of the tool and the resource.
21:57
Speaker 1: And that's why I love having you on here because
21:59
Speaker 1: as coach consultant myself having taken I actually have taken
22:04
Speaker 1: multiple assessments from you, the disc and the motivators among others,
22:08
Speaker 1: and so I find revelation and then it's like, Okay,
22:10
Speaker 1: I apply it to myself and then how do I
22:12
Speaker 1: help my clients?
22:14
Speaker 3: You know?
22:14
Speaker 1: So it's it's extremely powerful. I hope folks that are
22:17
Speaker 1: listening to this resistance to assessments. It's not about like
22:21
Speaker 1: putting people in a box. It's just like they say,
22:24
Speaker 1: how do you understand how people naturally show up? And
22:28
Speaker 1: how I can better manage and lead and communicate more effectively.
22:31
Speaker 3: That's what I'm hearing from you, Tony.
22:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, yeah.
22:36
Speaker 3: I mean, so the fact that you have this and
22:40
Speaker 3: I love how you pair up and.
22:42
Speaker 1: The way that with this is with with other business
22:44
Speaker 1: owners and coaches, and we can we can help bring
22:47
Speaker 1: it to our clients because it's it's fused. We still
22:50
Speaker 1: have at the end of the day, we still need
22:52
Speaker 1: human connection, I think more than ever in our in
22:54
Speaker 1: our world today, you know, we want to be known, understood,
22:58
Speaker 1: and the computer is great, but at the end, how
23:00
Speaker 1: what's my relationship like with having you here, the people
23:03
Speaker 1: in my life, the coworkers, you know, we want to
23:05
Speaker 1: have better relationships and I feel like in our world
23:08
Speaker 1: today we're really struggling with having real, deep, authentic relationships.
23:13
Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's interesting you use the term authentic because
23:16
Speaker 2: we were toying with the idea of calling our AI
23:21
Speaker 2: authentic intelligence, because that's what it is. And you know,
23:26
Speaker 2: I know, I've been talking about this from a business
23:31
Speaker 2: point of view, but it works in personal relationships, so
23:35
Speaker 2: with your spouse or significant others, with your children, with
23:38
Speaker 2: your children and their teachers. It just goes on and on.
23:44
Speaker 2: We actually have an assessment called the Kids disc which
23:49
Speaker 2: is incredible. It's a whole different questionnaire that's aimed at
23:55
Speaker 2: kids typically in the third through eighth or ninth grade.
24:00
Speaker 2: Port is a three part report. Part one describes the
24:04
Speaker 2: child based on how the questions are answered. Part two
24:08
Speaker 2: is for the parent, now that you know the child style,
24:11
Speaker 2: what should you be doing?
24:13
Speaker 3: Yes.
24:14
Speaker 2: Three is for the teachers or coaches that now say, okay,
24:19
Speaker 2: now that you know about the style, this child's style,
24:22
Speaker 2: what's the best way to coach them or teach them? Uh?
24:26
Speaker 2: And and it's it is unbelievable, really unbelievable. And with kids,
24:32
Speaker 2: instead of using d SC, we use little birds an eagle, owl, dove,
24:38
Speaker 2: and parrot. You know. So because so the kids that
24:42
Speaker 2: you know, remember it much more and you know it's
24:47
Speaker 2: it's very colorful. So we really dig into this. We
24:50
Speaker 2: are really into the assessment business because we believe it
24:55
Speaker 2: not only helps people, it helps them communicate, It helps
24:58
Speaker 2: it helps them connect, helps them persuade. It just goes
25:03
Speaker 2: on and on.
25:04
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, I love how and you talked about it.
25:07
Speaker 1: I mean, so influence. We're always talking about influence, right,
25:10
Speaker 1: how do we don't we can?
25:12
Speaker 3: We don't understand that? Number one.
25:14
Speaker 1: I think sometimes Tony, the assessments give you maybe a
25:16
Speaker 1: reality check of like you said, I didn't even think
25:18
Speaker 1: about the speaking, you know, when you did that one
25:21
Speaker 1: assessment of like, I don't even think that's real for me,
25:23
Speaker 1: but it really ultimately was. You didn't even recognize it
25:26
Speaker 1: in your at that time, like that was even in
25:28
Speaker 1: your purview. And I think a lot of times we
25:29
Speaker 1: get closed off assessments. To me, at least, it's like
25:32
Speaker 1: a mirror back and saying, oh wow, I didn't realize that,
25:36
Speaker 1: because at least for me, Tony, I I growing up.
25:40
Speaker 1: I will adapt and try to show up in a
25:41
Speaker 1: certain way because other people want me to show up
25:44
Speaker 1: that way. And I've learned that's a more you know
25:47
Speaker 1: it's it's not my preferred way of being. It's because
25:50
Speaker 1: I've been cultivated in a way in our world, and
25:52
Speaker 1: I think assessments can cut through that. Like you said,
25:55
Speaker 1: you can try and game it, but it's going to
25:56
Speaker 1: cut through. And you're like, I never, I didn't think.
25:59
Speaker 1: I didn't see it that way before.
26:01
Speaker 3: Right? Have you had those aha moments with people? Yeah,
26:04
Speaker 3: you're like, wait a minute.
26:06
Speaker 2: We rarely, rarely, if ever, have somebody tell us this
26:09
Speaker 2: did not describe us the right way. In fact, the
26:12
Speaker 2: last time, some guy said, you know, I took the
26:16
Speaker 2: assessment and it doesn't describe me at all. I want
26:20
Speaker 2: my money back. And we said, fine, we're going to
26:22
Speaker 2: give you your money back. But before that, uh, why
26:25
Speaker 2: don't you go because he had mentioned, you know, he
26:27
Speaker 2: was married, why don't you go ask have your spouse
26:30
Speaker 2: look at it and asked her if it describes you?
26:33
Speaker 2: And he came back to us and said, I don't
26:35
Speaker 2: want my money back, you know, so you know, she said,
26:39
Speaker 2: this is exactly like you. He didn't see himself that way,
26:43
Speaker 2: but she said, this is exactly who you are. It
26:46
Speaker 2: is absolutely uncanny how accurate the assessment is in describing
26:53
Speaker 2: people and you mentioned you know, your business being a
26:56
Speaker 2: consultant and how you help other people and businesses. I
27:00
Speaker 2: would say our biggest customers at Assessments twenty four to
27:03
Speaker 2: seven would be business coaches, yourself, companies that want to
27:13
Speaker 2: develop their employees. We have numerous universities, universities that use
27:19
Speaker 2: it for development of staff and faculty, but also using
27:25
Speaker 2: it in certain business and psychology courses with their students.
27:32
Speaker 2: We have the government, my gosh, one of the big
27:36
Speaker 2: ways for the government. You know, the government has a
27:38
Speaker 2: lot of people coming in and let's just actually, let's
27:42
Speaker 2: talk more specifically about the military. The military has a
27:46
Speaker 2: bunch of new people coming in. How do I get
27:49
Speaker 2: the best out of these people? And a whole bunch
27:51
Speaker 2: of people coming out? How do we take the people,
27:54
Speaker 2: particularly coming out of the military and giving them suggestions
28:00
Speaker 2: and advice on what they should or could do. Here's
28:04
Speaker 2: an interesting thing, David. I don't know if you've tested
28:06
Speaker 2: our our ai yet, but why don't you ask, you know,
28:13
Speaker 2: with your disk, ask our ai what are the best
28:18
Speaker 2: occupations for me? See what it says I would love
28:20
Speaker 2: to do.
28:21
Speaker 3: I've got I've got my assessments.
28:22
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go back in there, ton You've give me
28:23
Speaker 1: a challenge, So I'm going to go test your AI.
28:26
Speaker 2: Do it. And you know, if you're married and you
28:29
Speaker 2: and your spouse take the assessment, go in and say, hey,
28:33
Speaker 2: what's the best I mean, look, look it's our twentieth anniversary.
28:36
Speaker 2: What's the best present I can get from my spouse?
28:38
Speaker 3: Oh? There you go.
28:39
Speaker 2: You won't believe what you can ask and how accurate
28:46
Speaker 2: the answers are because it is AI but using our
28:51
Speaker 2: it's using the AI out there in the world, but
28:54
Speaker 2: our data it's more precise to an individual person's assessment.
29:02
Speaker 2: I mean, it really is unbelievable.
29:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, Tony, I mean you're this you're teaching the acquire teaching.
29:09
Speaker 1: I love this stuff too. I'm with you, I'm all,
29:11
Speaker 1: but I hear a lot of business owners what I
29:15
Speaker 1: found as a coach. He told in guiding them and
29:17
Speaker 1: saying you and I know how valuable this is. And
29:19
Speaker 1: I think sometimes they're like, well, I just want to
29:21
Speaker 1: get another tool or system, like something else in the
29:23
Speaker 1: marketplace that's going to fix the problem of my company.
29:26
Speaker 1: And it's really their people. We all need systems and processes,
29:30
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, we need those things. But sometimes
29:32
Speaker 1: I feel like that they feel like that that's going
29:34
Speaker 1: to be the answer instead of investing, like we're talking about,
29:38
Speaker 1: so speak maybe to the business owners just thinking for
29:40
Speaker 1: a minute, like why should I invest the time?
29:42
Speaker 3: Because I don't have time to do the assessment. My
29:44
Speaker 3: people are going to take it out.
29:45
Speaker 1: They're going to like speak a little bit to that
29:46
Speaker 1: tony of like what you've seen, because there's a resistance
29:49
Speaker 1: there of like wow, we don't have time for this
29:51
Speaker 1: learning and development stuff and you know.
29:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, so and really it's not that much time. Yeah,
29:58
Speaker 2: in fifteen minutes to do the assess I would say
30:00
Speaker 2: that you're there.
30:01
Speaker 3: You go look at that.
30:03
Speaker 2: And again, if you have your whole all the employees
30:07
Speaker 2: in your company take it. It's their fifteen minutes, not yours.
30:10
Speaker 2: But when you get all the data back, it's just
30:15
Speaker 2: it's so enlightening because we could you can create these
30:19
Speaker 2: graphs to show where all the people land. See where
30:22
Speaker 2: there are where you have an over abundance of employees
30:26
Speaker 2: and where you're lacking in a particular area. You know, hey,
30:30
Speaker 2: I lack in this area which is you know, checking
30:33
Speaker 2: detail whatever, or I'm over extended in this area where
30:37
Speaker 2: we're all, you know, high eye sales types, so everything
30:42
Speaker 2: is all great, when in fact it's not necessarily all great,
30:47
Speaker 2: you know, so you really it doesn't take that much time.
30:51
Speaker 2: And of course, you know, I don't know if you've
30:53
Speaker 2: been through. We have some audio programs that that are
30:57
Speaker 2: not audio video. We call it a virtual training, virtual training.
31:01
Speaker 2: You can go through this disc virtual training. Everybody can
31:04
Speaker 2: go through it on their own. You don't have to
31:06
Speaker 2: have a separate session there. It gives them at least
31:09
Speaker 2: a basic background. Our reports, by the way, as opposed
31:15
Speaker 2: to reports from let's say, competitors, A lot of competitors'
31:20
Speaker 2: reports it's pretty much all about you, whereas our reports
31:25
Speaker 2: it's about you, and then there's a whole section on Okay,
31:30
Speaker 2: now that you know about you, here's how you use
31:32
Speaker 2: it with other people. You know, when I was growing up,
31:37
Speaker 2: I was, and still to this day, my two big things.
31:40
Speaker 2: I keep saying this to our staff simplicity and practicality.
31:46
Speaker 2: Make it simple so that people understand it and show
31:49
Speaker 2: them how they can use it on a day to
31:52
Speaker 2: day basis. And that's what our reports do. Simple and practical.
31:56
Speaker 1: Yeah no, that's great, Tony. I hope everybody's hearing that.
32:00
Speaker 1: And I agree it's important to understand you by yourself,
32:03
Speaker 1: But then what is it like to be on the
32:04
Speaker 1: other side of you? And I agree with you, those
32:06
Speaker 1: those the assessments that's just about you aren't as it's helpful,
32:10
Speaker 1: but it's much more practical, like you said, and using
32:12
Speaker 1: those and those are the ones I like. And that's
32:14
Speaker 1: why why have you here, Tony, Because the value that
32:17
Speaker 1: you're bringing, the assessment that I got, you know, just
32:20
Speaker 1: from running that you gave me, there's just so much,
32:23
Speaker 1: so much in there. It's it's it's amazing. You've done
32:26
Speaker 1: a great job of putting that in there. We want
32:29
Speaker 1: to make sure everybody that's listening to this podcast, you guys,
32:32
Speaker 1: you know Tony and I are connected on LinkedIn.
32:33
Speaker 3: We're gonna put you know, Tony the links.
32:35
Speaker 1: Here to the website and all of that, so you
32:37
Speaker 1: guys please go check it out. Tony's just again got
32:42
Speaker 1: just so passionate about this. It's so impactful, like we
32:45
Speaker 1: talked about, from hiring the leadership, development team, building, customer engagement, sales,
32:50
Speaker 1: you name it, just a culture. And I'm a firm believer, Tony,
32:53
Speaker 1: when you create this and your intentional like this your
32:57
Speaker 1: example of you know, CEO, bring it, you get employees
33:00
Speaker 1: that will stick around. From a business perspective, my experience
33:03
Speaker 1: is that when you invest in this, people will stick around.
33:06
Speaker 1: If they don't feel understood, if they don't feel like
33:09
Speaker 1: you're saying appreciated, they'll leave.
33:12
Speaker 3: And I think it's so, and it's very costly.
33:16
Speaker 1: So keeping that that team intact, it really makes a
33:21
Speaker 1: huge difference in the longevity of your business. The fact
33:23
Speaker 1: that you had you know, this core team, Tony, just
33:26
Speaker 1: speaks to your leadership number one, but you know, and
33:29
Speaker 1: being intentional about that and knowing where your strengths are.
33:32
Speaker 1: And I'll give you an example, Tony, because what you
33:34
Speaker 1: brought up was, you know, knowing the difference and appreciating
33:37
Speaker 1: these things. I had somebody that was very detail oriented
33:40
Speaker 1: did the QAQUC, which I could do wasn't my strength,
33:45
Speaker 1: and so that was great. He came into that position,
33:47
Speaker 1: but he didn't value what I brought from as a
33:49
Speaker 1: connector in a relationship side and said, why do you
33:51
Speaker 1: need to be like this?
33:52
Speaker 3: We just we just got to do the system and
33:54
Speaker 3: the process, and I said, we need both.
33:56
Speaker 1: But what happened is the company shifted and really just
33:59
Speaker 1: focused only on the qaku. See before you know it,
34:02
Speaker 1: people left left over time because like I don't feel
34:04
Speaker 1: appreciated understood, and so.
34:06
Speaker 3: You need both.
34:07
Speaker 1: And that's where I feel like you make, you know,
34:09
Speaker 1: using these assessments, working together and seeing that just is
34:12
Speaker 1: so insightful, like you're saying, Tony, it can be. It's
34:16
Speaker 1: just such a reverberation throughout the life of your company
34:20
Speaker 1: and what is ultimately the legacy you're leaving. I love
34:22
Speaker 1: what you've created, Tony. I mean, what a life of
34:26
Speaker 1: design and intentionality that you've done, knowing and leaning into
34:29
Speaker 1: your your strengths.
34:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, uh, what what I think I I'm leaving
34:37
Speaker 2: is helping people build stronger into personal relationships, the ability
34:44
Speaker 2: to communicate more effectively, the ability to listen and understand. Uh,
34:52
Speaker 2: you know the platinum rule, which was really my baby.
34:55
Speaker 2: The platinum rule is do unto others as they would
34:58
Speaker 2: have you do unto them. So it's a whole concept
35:02
Speaker 2: of understanding the other person and trying to meet them
35:06
Speaker 2: at least halfway understand them. That's why travel for kids
35:14
Speaker 2: is so crucial. Travel not just around the country but
35:16
Speaker 2: around the world because you get to see how other
35:19
Speaker 2: people are and you start saying to yourself, you know,
35:23
Speaker 2: they're really not that different from us. But if you
35:26
Speaker 2: don't know that, you think, wow, they're you know, they're
35:28
Speaker 2: like alien, you know. But the whole thing is about
35:35
Speaker 2: really helping people connect. And by the way, if people
35:39
Speaker 2: want to connect with me on LinkedIn, obviously they just
35:43
Speaker 2: go to LinkedIn dot com slash and my last name Tony,
35:47
Speaker 2: not last name, my full name, Tony Alessandra. Don't put
35:50
Speaker 2: the doctor there. Just all one word, all lower case
35:54
Speaker 2: t O N y A L E S s A
35:55
Speaker 2: N d r A. So that's how you get to
35:57
Speaker 2: my site, and then just say that you want to
36:00
Speaker 2: connect with me. If you want to really see our website.
36:04
Speaker 2: For the assessments, just go to www dot assessments two
36:09
Speaker 2: for X seven dot com. And uh, if you want
36:15
Speaker 2: to just contact me, just say Tony at Assessments two
36:20
Speaker 2: for X seven dot com. So Tony at assessments too
36:25
Speaker 2: for X seven dot com. I'll be more than happy.
36:27
Speaker 2: And I answer my own emails, you know, so I
36:32
Speaker 2: don't have somebody looking at them and answering them for me.
36:35
Speaker 2: You send me an email, I will answer it.
36:38
Speaker 1: Look at that. I love that, Tony, Well, that's why
36:40
Speaker 1: what have you? I mean, you and I have made
36:42
Speaker 1: this connection. Like I said, I'm so glad you're here.
36:44
Speaker 1: I know we're getting to the end of the podcast,
36:46
Speaker 1: but I'm so glad you're here because, like I said,
36:48
Speaker 1: being following you for years, getting.
36:49
Speaker 3: To have you on the Business munt People podcasts through honor.
36:52
Speaker 3: You know.
36:52
Speaker 1: I hope everybody's hearing loud and clear how important these
36:55
Speaker 1: assessments are. If you would, in part, if they if
36:57
Speaker 1: they take one thing from this this podcast, Tony, what
37:01
Speaker 1: will you say if you've got nothing else, what would
37:03
Speaker 1: you say be with them today our listeners?
37:06
Speaker 2: Well, I would say, uh, you know, knowing more about
37:11
Speaker 2: yourself is absolutely crucial. Knowing more about other people is
37:17
Speaker 2: as if not more important crucial. I used to teach listening,
37:22
Speaker 2: and one of the phrases I had is when I talk,
37:26
Speaker 2: I only know what I know, But when I listen,
37:30
Speaker 2: not only do I know what I know, I now
37:33
Speaker 2: know what you know. And listening is power. Assessments are power.
37:38
Speaker 2: Assessments are sort of a digital way of listening and
37:43
Speaker 2: understanding people.
37:45
Speaker 3: Love that. I love that. Thank you so much for
37:48
Speaker 3: being here.
37:49
Speaker 1: Ever again, you guys know how to reach Tony directly now,
37:53
Speaker 1: but of course you can leave comments, think your review.
37:55
Speaker 1: We'll really appreciate that sharing this with others that you
37:58
Speaker 1: felt out of that really helped to get the message
38:02
Speaker 1: out there.
38:02
Speaker 3: Thank you again for being here County.
38:04
Speaker 2: With us my pleasure, David.
38:05
Speaker 1: Thanks for inviting me absolutely everybody time to help there.
38:11
Speaker 3: Thanks again for listening to everybody by now