Speaking and Communicating Podcast

I need to get enough information for me to understand what is your personality style, how you need to receive the information or the communication so I can adapt my communication to what you need. Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating podcast. I am your host, Roberta and Leila.
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If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into. Communication and soft skills are crucial in your career growth and leadership development. Whether you're about to speak in public, make presentations at work, pitch to investors or an entrepreneur looking to showcase your innovation to a wider audience, you'd be glad you joined us.
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By the end of this episode, log on to Apple and Spotify, leave us a rating and a review and what you'd like for us to discuss on this podcast. Let's get communicating.
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My guest today is an old friend. She is the CEO and founder of the International Business Academy in Miami. She is a speaker, trainer and coach, and she helps companies with sales, leadership and communication skills training. Valeria Grunbaum is here joining us today and it's been a while, so I'm really going to enjoy this conversation. Hi Valeria.
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Hi, Roberta. So great to be here with you. First of all, congratulations for your podcast. It's amazing. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. How have you been? It's been great. It's been great. You know, this is a good time to do what I do because I know that what we do, we help so many people with our message. So I'm so happy to be here and to be able to share a conversation that could be.
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changing the way that people do things. I'm excited for that too. And knowing your capabilities and your illustrious career, I know that's exactly what's going to happen. But before we get into that, please tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, I born in South America, moved to the US about 20 years ago, and I am passionate about teaching companies in sales leadership and communication. Now,
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I have been in sales for over 30 years. And I have to tell you that sales to me is the most important skill that anyone should have, either if you're in sales or not. Sales to me is the most important skill that you should have. And now.
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is not that I born thinking about that. Even though, you know, the first lesson that I got in sales was from my grandma when I was like eight years old. But the most important lesson that I got about sales was from my mom. Back in 1993, if I'm not mistaken, I was being offered a job.
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in sales. I just graduated from marketing and advertising in the university and I was offered a sales job at the intercontinental hotels. And I remember going to my mom, saying, mom, I don't think I'm going to take the job. My mom, why? Why not? And I'm like, because I didn't study sales. I don't see myself like a salesperson. I want to do marketing and advertising. And my mom said, Valeria.
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Sales is the number one skill that everyone should learn. Doesn't matter what you do, where you live, is the number one skill. Once you know how to sell, then you can get the job that you want. You can create your own company. You can even work in another country and you can do whatever you want because sales is universal. And guess what? I got the job and then
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Three years later, I got the job that I wanted as a marketing director for DHL. Then I founded my own marketing and sales consultancy firm in Venezuela. Then I wanted to move to the US and I got a job in the US. So I was hired to come here and work. So my mom was right. Such wisdom from your mom. Because first of all,
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A lot of us, we hate sales. I'm using the word hate. I know it's a strong word, but we really run away and cross the street and run the opposite direction the minute the word sales is mentioned. Why? I'm going to tell you why, because you don't, to use the same word that you use. Hate. You don't hate sales. You hate the meaning that you put into sales. The meaning that you put to that word.
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So what those sales means to you that you run away from that word. You're not running away from sales, you are running away from what you believe sales means to you. So what are we getting wrong about it? I believe that is the experiences that we had in the past about sales, like probably we went somewhere and there was this pushy sales agent.
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that tried to convince us to buy something that we didn't like or we didn't want, or we felt, you know, towards the wall to have to say yes or no. We felt uncomfortable with someone that tried to push us to buy something. And then we think, oh, sales is that and I don't want to be like that. It's not about sales. It's about the meaning that we put into the word because we connect the word sales.
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with someone or I should say an experience that was not pleasurable for us, that it was really the other way. It was very uncomfortable and we don't want to become that. And how did you cross that barrier when you went to your intercontinental job? I realized that sales is not more
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than a communication process. That's it. It's a connection and communication process. Do you love to connect, Roberta? Yes. Do you love to communicate? That's why we're here, the communicating podcast. Then you can be great in sales because that's it. That's why I have never even associated myself with loving sales before. That's it. It's connect.
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and communicate. And you know what? Let's add one more thing. Is to serve. Is to serve others. Is to exchange the solution that we bring to the table in exchange for money. So if we want to take it in a corporate level, right? In a company level. As a company, I sell you my services, but what I'm doing is really providing you with a solution to the problem that you have.
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And in exchange, you're going to pay me for that. That last part I like. And yes, it should be that way. But those who press you against the wall, it doesn't sound like service to us. Yeah. And that's not the right way to sell in my world. In my perspective, that is not how we create customers for life. That is in Spanish, we say pan para hoy, hambre para mañana, which is
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the bread for today, but hunger for tomorrow, which means I sell you today, but you are not going to want to work with me ever again because I was so pushy that you said yes because you were pressured, but not because you want it. So in most cases when you find people like that, they are salespeople that they leave day by day that they don't grow too much. They might be top producers, but they are so aggressive.
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that they need to start working with new clients all over again because nobody wants to repeat with them like they don't want to buy from them again. There is no loyalty. No, they don't want to buy from them again, number one. And number two, they don't refer you. Imagine that you could create a world where you sell one time and that person buys from you many times in the lifespan
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Number one and number two refer you with their friends and family because they know that you are the right person for them. You connected to the deepest level, you communicated with them the way that they needed to receive the communication and then you serve them, helping them and providing them a solution that solve a problem that they have. At the end of the day, people buy because they want to resolve a problem or to solve a problem.
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Yes. Now let's look at the other side of this coin of the pushy salespeople. Would you say part of the reason they feel the need to do that is because they have these company targets and being pushed by their bosses to have the numbers? I don't think that is really the issue. I think it has to be with lack of training, number one, or is a different style. Look, it's the old style.
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When I started selling, I do remember a lot of the trainings that they were doing at that time were very straightforward. Go and push, like create the need, push your people to feel that they need you and tell you yes and so on. And that's not how I connected with sales. I realized that I was selling more when people like me.
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Right? When I could connect with that people and they say, Hey Valeria, I want to work with you because I like you. I'm going to share this experience. This that happened to me. Please do. Yeah. When I was working in intercontinental hotels, my job as a salesperson was, intercontinental hotels in Venezuela, in Caracas where I was living at that time, was a corporate hotel. What this means is that companies used to
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bring their executive to stay in that hotel for work. They used to come to Caracas, stay in intercontinental hotels, go to work and then go back home. So our hotel used to be 99 to 100% occupancy from Monday to Thursday. And then from Friday to Sunday was empty because nobody went for vacation. Right. So my job was to connect with the assistants of the...
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presidents and BPs and directors of the companies because these assistants, secretaries and executive assistants were the ones in charge to do the reservation for the executive. So when I started, I started working and I started doing what they told me I had to do and so on. And I remember I was in a building that I had, maybe, I don't know.
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five, 10 clients because there were a lot of corporate offices. And that day I was going to visit all my clients in that building. And as I was getting into the building, I saw two ladies, they were part of the team of one of my clients. And I saw them coming towards me and there was like a mirror on the wall.
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And as I see them coming, but I saw them on the mirror. I didn't see them straight forward, but I see them, the reflection of them coming through the mirror. And I see them that they're coming to me and I got excited. I was like, oh, look, there is so and so. And I look at them when they saw me and they hide behind like a column, like a wall. Oh.
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As soon as they saw me, they run behind a wall and they hide, but I could see them because I could see on the mirror, I could see the reflection of where they were and I could see them hiding and looking at me and waiting for me to pass by before they went out and kept going. And I felt so bad. I felt so bad because I was like, why they're rejecting me, right? I felt the worst. I felt like.
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They don't like me. Right. That's what we all think as well. Yeah. Horrible. To me it was horrible, but that taught me a lesson. Because I realized it's not that they don't like me. They don't like what I'm representing in the moment. So I thought, what do I need to change for them to like me? And that when I go there, they not only like me, but they want me to go there and visit.
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with them. Right. So I started kind of like looking into my sales process and thinking about I don't want to be pushy. I don't want to be that salesperson that people want to hide from them. I don't want to be the salesperson that people ghost. Right. I want to be that salesperson that people grab the phone and say, let me call Valeria because she knows what the solution to this problem is.
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Let me call Valeria because I trust her and I know she will solve this problem for me. And that's what I was very committed to do. In that moment that I realized something that I didn't like about how I was doing things, or at least the result of what I was doing, I made some shift. I thought, okay, what can I do for people so people see me as I have so much value for them that they follow me?
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instead of me pushing them to buy from me. Pushing the sale because that's when they run away when they see you. And that was when I shifted the way that I was doing things instead of pushing people. I started asking myself what can I do to influence them so I can pull them towards me instead of pushing them away. So what is it that you did change that?
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Because I think that's what a lot of people who are afraid of sales would want those tools so that they either don't feel the desperation to push or even start to like the sales. Yeah. How to change desperation into inspiration, right? I cannot exactly remember step by step of what I did, but I can tell you what it become. Like today, 30 years later, to me it's all about.
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The first step is connection is what do I need to do and know about these people? So, so do to connect and know about these people that make me respect this person that make me like this person. Right. I know a lot of sales agents that I train, they say, Oh, I don't like my clients and say, well, that's the biggest problem that you have. Are you sure you're in the right place? If you don't like your clients, then
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Probably you should change jobs. Right. So, so first to be able to connect with someone, like truly connect with someone, you have to find something that you like about them, something that you respect about them, I respect and like all my clients, I may know, like some of the things that they say, I may know, like some of the things that they do, but I like them and I respect them. And to me.
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when somebody, when a client calls me, doesn't matter who the client is, I always think about what I love about them first, because I know that the connection comes when people trust you. And there is no way that you can build trust if you don't respect them first. Yes, which then begs the question for that person who says, I don't even like my clients. Do you think even if you fake liking them, they can pick up? No.
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No, no, no, no, no. People will know. Yeah, yeah. People will know. Yeah. The other day I was doing a coaching for one of my clients and the agent says that they start talking bad between agents. They were like five agents. They start talking bad about one of the clients and say, hey guys, you should stop right now. I said, because if you cannot respect your customer when the customer is not right here.
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you don't deserve to work with that customer. Yeah. So I think one of the biggest lessons that we have to learn, if we want to earn respect from our clients, we need to respect them. And one of the biggest challenges that I have found is that when salespeople believe, and I'm talking salespeople, you know who is salespeople. Salespeople could be someone that works in sales or
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It could be the business owner that is responsible for sales, right? Or it could be even an employee that has to activate sales strategies to get what they want, let's say to sell the vision, to sell the goals, to sell a new position that the person wants to be, right? Even a student, when it goes to their first interview, they're selling
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They're selling themselves. Yeah. So I do believe that we all are sales people. So if we, from the perspective of sales, we don't respect the customer, which is the recipient of the communication, we will never get through it, ever. And they will pick that up. They will feel that this person doesn't even respect me. Why should I work with them? Exactly. There is a disconnect.
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Yes, because if you don't respect me as well, I wouldn't feel like you're serving me because you said service is part of sales. I wouldn't feel that you respect me. So it's the connection part, which is, okay, so do you respect me and I respect you? We trust each other to connect, which is the first step to open the conversation, to trust each other, to have that conversation where we start communicating with each other.
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If you're a wife and you're talking to your husband tonight to take you to a restaurant for dinner, you are selling the idea of the restaurant that you want to go. Right? So we all are in sales and so way, way shape or form. So there it comes to communication process. We need to communicate with others the way that others need to receive the communication. For example, when we are, we were little, we
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People used to say, well, you know, you need to treat people like the way that you want to be treated. I'm going to tell you right now, that's a mistake because every person has a different personality style. So I shouldn't treat you the way that I want to be treated because you have a different personality style that I have. So if I treat you the way that I want to be treated, it's not going to be aligned to the way that you want to be treated.
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and then maybe you will go away and find someone that can provide you with a service in a way that you feel more comfortable in the communication process. Because they first establish how I want to be treated. Yes. So first, in that connection process that I do with you, I need to get enough information for me to understand what is your personality style, how do you need to receive the information
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or the communication so I can adapt my communication to what you need. So the golden rule should be treat others the way that they need and want to be treated, right? And I will change. We had someone on the show call it the platinum rule. Step above gold. Exactly, exactly. Go ahead. When we acknowledge.
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that what other person needs are in terms of communication. And I can fulfill those needs in terms of communication. If you're working with someone that is direct, that is focused on the goal, on the results, and I go to that person and start sharing stories and going to the personal level and how you're doing and so on, maybe the person doesn't want to connect with me.
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at a personal level. Maybe this person just want for me to be direct and to focus on the result and give them what they want and need in the moment. So if I go with a full story of how I feel and how you're feeling and they're task oriented, they don't want me to share my whole story. They don't care about me on the personal level. They care about me solving their problem.
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and give them results. If I'm talking with someone that is result-oriented, then my job is to adapt my communication process for them to hear what they need to hear, which is, OK, this is me. This is what I do. This is the result that I can provide you. Here it is how I'm going to resolve your problem. If I'm having a conversation with someone that is people-oriented,
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that needs that connection at the personal level. Yeah. It's a different story. If I go straight forward to the result, that person will say, oh my God, Valeria is so cold, she only cares about money, or she only cares about selling, or she only cares about the process. She doesn't care about me. So I have to acknowledge that that person need that personal space first, kind of like, hey, you want...
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know what, let's take 10, 15 minutes to know about each other, to connect in a personal level. And then we move towards business. So two different personality styles, two different approach. And if you make the mistake of treating one person differently to the way that they communicate, most likely the probability of you failing on getting to close the sale or getting what you want
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to sell the idea or to sell the restaurant that you want to go eat, whatever that is, most likely the answer will be no. Because they did not receive it according to the way they prefer to be communicated to. And so knowing all this that you've shared with us, if you're a leader and you want to build a superstar sales team, everybody's different.
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We've just covered that. Well, everybody's different, but they are predictable different. Say that again? Everybody's different, but they are predictable different. Predictable different, wow. So how do you create a superstar sales team? If I'm the leader, the first thing that I will do is to understand who I have in my team. What is their personality style? What are their strengths?
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are the areas of growth, because I'm gonna give you this example. You may have in your team 10 different people, and you may have one that is amazing doing cold calls. You may have another one that is great providing customer services. You may have another one that is great relating to people. So if I understand the strength that each of them have, I can assign activities or strategies
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that they will excel. But most leaders, what they do is they just say, okay, this is the goal. Just go out and make it happen. Or this is the goal. This is how you're going to do it. Go out and make it happen. But they forget that they're working with people. You have two things. Number one is the goal, which is the what. What needs to change is the how, which is kind of the vehicle that you're going to use to get that goal.
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Right? So there are maybe the person that is great in call calling can achieve the goal by call calling. Maybe the person that is great in customer service is someone that can achieve the goal for their cells in terms of putting their time in calling all customers and say, hey, we are thinking of you. How can we serve you? And then working.
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towards getting more sales from those past clients, or maybe even refer you to new clients. The relationship building, yeah. So imagine that you can assign to each of your team members or sales agents two different activities. Each of them will be assigned to the activities where they're going to be so strong that the room for failure is little.
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which means be very detailed or have a strategy for delegation. You don't just say, team do this, you know, alternatively. Yeah. But you know what? A lot of managers, they have the perception that they don't have time to do it. They even leave that up to the sales agents or most of the time, the leaders, they don't have the training that they need to identify these that I'm sharing with you. There are strengths.
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and how to delegate based on that. And that is one of the biggest gap that I'm finding when I'm working with companies. So literally the delegation part can be a game changer. If they, if they understand the personality of each team member. Have you had an experience where you saw that at least you brought it to the leader and you saw the changes that it made?
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Yes, I had one of my clients is located in Mexico and they had two people that they wanted to fire. And I said, wait, what's going on? And they told me, well, they had one guy in customer service and they said that this guy had a lot of complaints because he was very perceived as very rude over the phone with the customers and customers were not happy and they were complaining about him. And then
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they had another lady that they wanted to fire. She was assigned to the cold calling department. And they found her many times crying on her desk because she was saying, oh, you know what? Everybody says no. And people are screaming at me and they are hanging up on me. So she was not dealing well with rejection. So when they told me that I said, okay, wait, let's do something. Let's do an assailant assessment and see whether
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sales personality style is to identify what's going on. Because I have the perception that if someone is not performing right, it's because they are not playing on their strength. They're playing in a field where they are not strong. So how can we move them into that, that they feel strong? So first we do the assessment. When we did the assessment, I realized that this guy that was
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having a lot of complaints on the customer service department. He was very direct, straightforward to the result. He doesn't care about rejection. He just wants to get things done. And he works really fast. So I thought, okay, this guy will be great for cold calling because he doesn't have fear of rejection. Yeah. If the person says no, he will say, okay, next move on to the next one. Right. And he will have fun because they are.
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Call calling is a very fast-paced job. You could call maybe 20, 40, 100 clients per day. Now, on the other hand, this lady, the one that was in call calling, the assessment showed that she was great, great with people, that she had patience, that one of the biggest strengths that she had was that she's a great listener.
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Oh my God, this lady is great for customer service. She will listen to the customer, to the complaint or the concern that the customer has. And then because she has patience and she is a great listener and she's a great mediator, she will be able to mediate with the customer to find a solution. And because she has the patient, she will put the time and the effort that the customer needs.
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So I told my customer, let's do this. Let's put this guy in cold calling and the lady from cold calling, let's move her to customer service. And then let's talk in three months. Well, these two guys, I mean, they are excelling in their jobs. Right now they are great. They are happy. Both of them, they are happy. The managers are happy and they have people that are playing on their strength.
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And it's just to understand who they are, do an assessment to know their strength, to know the areas of growth, to know who they are, and then put them in the right position and make sure that you delegate to them things that they can do so well that they are going to succeed. So let's stop putting people in places where we are basically being part of the problem by
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set them for failure. Instead of that, the biggest shift that we need to make with people is know about them, see what their strengths are, and help them succeed by being placed in areas where they can shine. That is amazing. And you know what it has made me come to the realization that I think the problem also starts at the interview process.
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Are we struggling to sell ourselves in who we are and what we're good at that we just want the job and that's why sometimes we are placed in the position that doesn't suit us? Or is it the company's fault that they just thought, oh, you qualify, you learn the job and they just place you in the wrong position? The answer to your question is what came first, the chicken or the egg?
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Because it can go either way, right? Sometimes people in the interview, they say what they think the interviewer wants to hear or needs to hear, right? At the same time, sometimes companies are desperate to hire because they need people. Right. And they hire because of the resume, they hire because of experience that is on paper or because of the experience that people say they have.
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but they don't take the extra step of doing an assessment where you can see the results, validate with them and realize who they really are and if their strengths match the strength needed for that specific job. There is a saying, and I heard this from someone I don't remember who is the owner of the saying, but I think it's very relevant to what we are talking right now, which is some companies hire too fast
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and fire too slow. Whoa. Right? So they go and they hire whoever comes through the door because they are desperate even more, you know, with the crisis that we are experiencing right now with the lack of having the right people in most cases. So they hire out of desperation. And then when they put that person into that position, they don't train them.
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So they don't train them, they don't give them feedback and then time pass by three months later, six months later, the leader complains and say, this is not the right person for the job. Now you have to move this person to another department or fire that person. And then how much money did you lose because of that? Because you lost time, you lost effort? You could have trained the right person now you train this one, that's also money loss. Yeah, and then the question is,
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is the right person for the right job. Because I'm sure he's the right person, but probably it's not for that specific job, maybe for something else. Like you experienced with your client, you mentioned, yeah, they may be the right person for this company, but are you putting them in the right position? Correct. For their strengths. Correct. You are very amazing at this sales, breaking down the sales process for us, even in perspectives we haven't had before.
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Do you have anything that you were hoping to share about sales that I haven't asked you yet? I don't think so. I think, you know, part of my mission is to let people know that we need to stop blaming our employees for our faults. What I mean with these is when people don't perform, the first place that.
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managers or leaders go to? I would say managers more than leaders because there is a big difference between managers and leaders. So the first place that managers go is to blame the employee. But then when I get in and I try to figure out what's going on, you see an employee that has beautiful strength, most cases, but they are not used in the right place or they came to the company.
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and they didn't receive the training. They didn't, never no one told them the expectations. They were just put in a place and say, start work. The managers assume that because they did that in another job or they did something similar in another company, or they were part of the company that were promoted to that position, that they already know what the manager is expecting from them. And I say that there is a big difference between managers and leaders because
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A leader is someone that I will expect seeing this before it becomes a problem, right? And support the employees to get what they need in terms of training, in terms of expectations, in terms of goals, in terms of so many other things. I know there are a lot of managers that has been put into positions to lead people and they might not have the training on doing it right because they've maybe been rushed.
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to be in that position. And that's okay. The thing is, if the company doesn't give you the tools and the training for you to become the leader that the company and that your team needs you to be, then you know what? Grab your credit card, your checkbook, and go and invest in yourself. Because the truth is that the training that you get to become that leader is something that you take with you wherever you go.
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So belongs to you. So it's your responsibility. Yes, the company should pay for it. Yes, the company should provide you with the trainings but I tell you what, it's your responsibility that if the company doesn't do it for you, that you take the initiative and be proactive in investing in you becoming that leader that the company and most importantly, your team members need you to be.
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Invest in yourself for sure. Like you said, wherever you are, that will always stay with you. Those skills will always be with you. Thank you very much, my friend Valeria Grunbaum for being here today. This has been even more awesome than I hoped it would have been. Thank you. Thank you, Roberta. My pleasure. And before you go, where can we find you on the internet if we want to know more?
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The best way to find me is through LinkedIn, Valeria Grunbaum. Actually Valeria Grunbaum is my handler in all the social media. So Facebook, Instagram, all of that. But obviously the easiest one will be LinkedIn Valeria Grunbaum. And yes, I would love to connect with you. Yes. I'm going to put that on the show notes. Thank you so much Valeria Grunbaum, the CEO and founder of the International Business Academy in Miami, speaker.
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trainer and coach who helps companies with their sales, leadership and communication skills. This has been a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for joining the Speaking and Communicating podcast once again. If you have a guest that you think would be a great fit for the show, please email me and my contact details are on the show notes. The Speaking and Communicating podcast is part of the Be Podcast Network.
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where there are many other podcasts that support you in being a better leader and becoming the change you want to see. To learn more about the Bee Podcast Network, go to beeepodcastnetwork.com. Don't forget to subscribe, leave us a rating and a review on Apple and Spotify, and stay tuned for more episodes to come.