Strong Communication Mastery: Leverage the Power of DISC in Leadership -14

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Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:00:02

Do you know why some entrepreneurs seem to effortlessly close deals while others struggle? Today, you're going to meet our guest who is a powerhouse leader who's transformed herself from Argentine immigrant into one of Venezuela's top 50 most successful women. In this episode, she reveals the hidden psychology that separates high performing business leaders from the rest. Whether you're a solopreneur looking to land your next big client or a business owner trying to motivate your team, Valeria breaks down the exact communication strategies that have helped her clients multiply their influence and impact. She'll share the counterintuitive insights that helped her build a thriving international consulting practice, including the crucial advice from her mother that changed everything. Get ready for a masterclass in authentic leadership. As Valeria shows you how to read people like a pro, adapt your communication style for maximum impact, and develop the one skill she says is non negotiable for entrepreneurial success. If you've ever wondered why some people seem to have natural sales ability, while others don't, this episode will open your eyes to what's really going on beneath the surface. I'm so glad you made time to be with us today.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:01:12

Welcome to Authenticity Amplified, your resource for attracting and connecting to your ideal client, the go to podcast for entrepreneurs on the go to grow their business. I am your host, Shawna Rodrigues, podcast strategist, and the founder of the Solopreneur Sisterhood. I'm here to bring community to the entrepreneurial journey and learn alongside you as we tap into knowledge and insights from experts to help you grow your business. I know how much effort you put into your business, and this is useful and practical information coming straight to you wherever you are whenever you have the time to listen. I'm thrilled to introduce to you all the Valeria Grunbaum. And our conversation today is going to be around effective communication and the 3 skills that can make or break a leader, which is gonna be so valuable for all of us that are listening today. One of my favorite things about Valeria is that she came to the US from Argentina. And when she was only 26, she was recognized as one of the top 50 most successful women in Venezuela due to her work in marketing and sales.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:02:23

So she has experience that is all over the place. There is more about her in the show notes, which you will learn about. But I just wanna touch on a couple of my favorite things. One of her superpowers is taking complicated things and making them simple to understand. She even gave me a great tip to go slow in the beginning because I was telling her that I always have a challenge with my intros, and those type of simple tips are so valuable to be able to make things so much better. She became a certified leadership speaker and coach on the Don Maxwell team in 2016 and has done a ton with them since then, and had her own radio show that she launched in 2016, Elivando to Capacidad, which helps people to grow personally and professionally. She no longer has that, but still has a lot of skills to offer, and I'm so excited that we get to have this conversation with her today. So welcome, Valeria.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:03:18

Thank you so much for having me. It's really a pleasure to be here with you today.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:03:22

Thank you. I would love for you to tell us a little bit about who is the person in your life that has been the most supportive of you reaching these goals and dreams you've had and be able to accomplish as much as you have in your career?

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:03:36

I will say my mom and my dad. They're always looking forward to support me. They're always asking questions, and my mom, she's my, I will say she's my number one coach. She has so much wisdom, and every time that I have something to share with her, she always has a way to share with me how to do it better.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:04:00

Oh, that's wonderful. Well, that's perfect because one of our first little segments is wisdom worth sharing. So what is the advice that you've been given that you think has made the largest impact on your career that you'd like to pass on to others?

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:04:13

By my mom specifically was when I was about 21 years old. I just graduated from, from college. I studied marketing and advertising, and I was looking for a job. I was working part time with my mom and dad. They used to have a real estate company. And I was searching for the ideal job, right? So I went to many places and the answer was always no, no, no, because I was young, because I didn't have the experience, all of that, until I got a job, and it was a temporary job with Intercontinental Hotels, and the position was a sales position. They wanted, me to basically, one of the girls was pregnant, she was going on maternity leave, and they were going to give me the job only for 6 months as a sales agent. And I remember telling my mom, mom, I don't think I'm going to take the job because I didn't study to be in sales.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:05:21

I started to do marketing and advertising. And my mom said, Valeria, sales is the most important skill that anyone should have. Because once you learn about sales, you can get the job that you want, you can get to work with the company that you want, you could even create your own company. You can even work anywhere in the world because sales is universal. So of course, I followed my mom. I said yes to that job. Turned out that after 6 months, they wanted me to stay and then, you know, 1 6 months turned out into a year. A year later, I became the sales director for that company.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:06:09

And the next job that I found was as marketing coordinator for DHL, and that came because of the work that I did in sales. And then after that, I created my own company that was a marketing and sales consulting company, and I got to work with all these companies that said no to me because I was too young and didn't have the experience. Now I was the consultant. Now I'm making a lot of money as a consultant, doing consulting, work for them. And then I came to the US and I was hired by a company to work on their sales. So so basically everything that my mom said, if I didn't take that job, I wouldn't be here right now, you know, doing what I do. That was the best advice ever. And the truth is, to me, and I see it now that I look back, is sales is in everything we do.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:07:07

So that was the best advice ever, and that is the number one advice that I give to everyone every time that I have opportunities, because I get to work with a lot of entrepreneurs. Like, for example, if I work with a dentist, they, they didn't learn how to sell, right? They didn't learn how to do marketing for their business. And then they go and they start working, but they don't get enough patients, so they need to learn how to do the business per se. And that happens with attorneys, with accountants, with everyone. Every entrepreneur, they study a career, but they didn't learn how to sell themselves for what they do. I think that is a number one.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:07:48

Yes. To have a business, you have to be able to sell. So learning sales is important, very important. I love that.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:07:54

Yeah. Exactly. No sales, no business. So that I appreciate so much that advice that my mom gave me.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:08:01

Yes. No. That's great advice. Thank you. It's good wisdom to share. I appreciate you sharing that with us. So talk with us more about these three skills that can make or break a leader.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:08:12

Well, the first one, first one would be communication because how we communicate, we are going to be able to impact people or to even influence them to do what needs to get done. So the skill of communication is one of the top ones, if not the number one. Number 2, when we work with people, we want to make sure that we have a high level of emotional intelligence. And this is also a skill that you can learn and we need it because we're working with people. In the past, in the past, we thought, oh, you know, you come to the office, you leave your problems at home. We know that that's not real. That is not truly the case. People come with everything they have.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:09:05

Whatever is affecting them at home, they will bring it to work. And now that a lot of people are working, are still working from home. I mean, I have many of my clients that they still have like 2 teams, the team that is working at the office and the team that is working from home. So we know that that line that we used to put between work and home is not there anymore. It's very gray and we have to learn how to see what's going on with people at the emotional level and at the same time, handle our own emotional intelligence, right? So our own emotions, because our emotions affect how we communicate with others and affects what we do. Now the number 3, of course, I just talked about cells, so I'm not going to tap into that, but I will say out of those, I will say cells will be the number 1 because of what I just shared with you from my perspective. But let me give you the number 3 that I believe is very, very important, which is and this tapping into communication, tapping into sales, and tapping into emotional intelligence, which is developing the skill of communicating with people the way that they need to be communicated. So understanding that they are different personality styles and, and developing the skill of, I will say something like wearing the glasses that lets you see like an x-ray, you know, behind the words, behind what people are saying, to understand the personality style of that person.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:10:55

So we know what they need, what they want, what motivates them, and so on. So I do believe those are the main three. On top of that, the cherry of the cake, which is sales.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:11:06

Yes. I think that sales is like that's just for not just leaders. It's for entrepreneurs and business folks that that's, like, number 1, like, above. So leaders, those 3. And then for entrepreneurs and business people, you need to have sales.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:11:18

Think about leaders, they need to sell their vision. They need to sell the idea. They need to influence their people to do what they what they need to do. And that requires sales skills because you are, you are sharing something that would move people into action. Yes, you communicate with people, but if you have sales skills to do so, your influence goes up.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:11:45

Oh, that's beautiful. I like that. And I really like that third one and having that lens of seeing who you're talking to. So do you think that that just changes based on individuals or, like, even, like, groups of folks? So if you're talking to different groups of customers or different groups of workers that, like, trying to know what their needs are, what their wants are when you're talking to them is how that changes.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:12:08

So I use a methodology called DISC. A lot of people know it. I have explored many different personality styles, assessments, and I do believe that's the one that I have found is the easiest one to understand and to implement. So that's the go to for me and I've been studying this for over 28 years. And, and by the way, the creator of this is one of the inventors of the lie detector.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:12:44

Really? I did not know that.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:12:46

Yes. And there is a fun fact too. He was the one that created Wonder Woman. Right? Now, do you remember what is one of the superpowers that woman Wonder Woman has?

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:12:59

To tell you the truth with her last, though, she makes you tell the truth.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:13:03

Exactly. And that's what this, to me, is that that is what this does, right? I learned, I became an expert on identifying, asking the right questions at the beginning of the conversation and paying attention to the answers, right, to identify what is the personality style that the person is showing in the moment so I can communicate with that person the way that they're communicating, that that person needs to receive the communication. So it changes completely now you see people.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:13:35

I'm not as familiar with DISC because I've done some other personality tests and stuff, but I don't think I've done the DISC one. So what are some of the type of personalities that come out of the DISC profile?

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:13:47

So doctor Marston said that there are 4 main personality styles. The D, the I, the S, and the C, right? I never like to say the names of those four because people get hooked into the meaning of the name instead of really what is behind the letter, right? The letter for example, people that are high T's are task oriented. They are very fast paced. They are, result oriented. People that are high I's are more people oriented. They are very out there. They're motivators. They move their hands a lot.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:14:24

They love to make friends. They can go to a Starbucks and sit down right in a table and make friends with the 3 tables around it, right? They will go around the world making friends all over the place. They pressure relationships. The high s are also people that are oriented towards people. They care about people, but from a little bit different perspective than the high I's. The high I's are more extroverted, the high I's are more introverted. So they love to help people. They are servants.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:14:59

They are, they love to nurture people. It's like mom, right? It's like the mother that wants to take care of others. So they're great, for example, for customer service because they, they pay attention, they, they listen to the conversation, they love to mediate, right? So they are great people to mediate, when there are problems between 2 people. But also they avoid rejection, or they avoid, I would say more than rejection, they avoid conflict. So they're really loyal. They are kind of people that can be 30 years working in the same company. And then the high Cs are more step by step processes. It's like more about, I need proof that this worked, before I say yes.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:15:49

I need to know all the steps before I move to the next step, right? Or before I say yes or before I agree. So they are very task oriented and they are very introverted. So see how this is so important because let's say I'm going to give you an example. I have one of my clients, they call me because they were having issues with 2 employees and they told me, Valeria, we're going to fire them because they are not losing results. And so I started asking questions, what's going on? So they had a guy that was on customer service and they had a lot of complaints by customers because he was very rude with them, with the clients. And then they had another employee, it was a girl, that she was on the sales department and they put her to do cold calling to prospect, right? And they said, but she's very weak. We found her crying more than one time on her desk. So they said, they don't work.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:16:57

They don't do what they have to do. They're creating problems. So I said, wait, let's do the disc first. So we did a disc that is specifically for communication, okay? And because there are different discs, then you can focus on different things. So I provided them with one that is specifically for communication. And we found out what I already saw when I was looking at them, how they were working and the results and everything, and how they were communicating. So the guy that was in customer service, he was a high D. He's someone that he's very direct, very straightforward.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:17:35

He doesn't have time to waste. And what happens is if someone is complaining and he doesn't have the patience to listen to it, right, it's going to create more conflict. And by the way, the high Ds drive with conflict. So they love to create drama and conflict because that's how they fuel, right? How they fuel, in what they do. So this guy, it's not that he was a bad employee, it's just you know, his personality style was not for customer service. But he was great for, guess what, cold calling. Because the IDs, they are not afraid of rejection. They can go take the phone, call someone, and if they're so that that person hung up on them or, you know, say bad words to them or scream at them, they will say, Oh, okay, don't worry.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:18:29

They hung up and they go to the text and they don't have an emotional connection with that because they are focused on the task, not on the person. On the other hand, this girl that she was doing the cold calling and was suffering doing that job, turned out that she was a high S, and high S is someone that, they get too many no's and people scream at them. I mean, they, they need stability. They are against confrontation. They can even become passive aggressive if there is confrontation, right? So then you have this girl doing cold calling to people that, if you have done cold calling in the past, when you call someone that you don't know, most likely they are going to hang up on you or think about when you receive a call from someone you don't know offering some kind of service and you are like, kind of like, where did you get my phone?

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:19:28

Yes. That's exactly what I say. Where did you get my phone number? How did you get this number? How can I get off this list? Yes.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:19:35

Exactly. And you get upset because they are calling you and they are interrupting you and so on, right? So that was that is what she was getting, and it was affecting her emotions, right? She didn't feel good about it. It was tapping into her biggest fear, and I said, but you know what? She will be great for customer service because she will take that customer that doesn't feel good about what's going on with your product or service and will make them feel good again. She's going to take them in a journey where they're going to start, the customer is going to start feeling that somebody cares, because that's one of the virtues of the high F. So we switched them and now there are employees that they have won awards. You know, they're happy doing what they love. If you could see that before you put them in those positions, imagine if you could see that before you talk to them. I know that if I'm going to meet with the high D, I just need 10 minutes, the most.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:20:42

If I'm going to meet with the high S, I need probably a good full hour.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:20:48

Yes. Oh my goodness. Yes. I think that I would do that with with customers if I knew which one's needed and which would be such a big difference because different people need different amounts of nurturing and support and but how can you so you can figure that out just by questions early in conversations? Is that where the effective communication stuff comes in?

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:21:09

Yes. Asking questions is, it has to be your superpower, and asking questions from the perspective of asking questions and then listen to understand. Most people listen to respond, right? So we ask the question, we start listening and we start preparing the answer. And usually the answer is to justify whatever, you know, we believe to be different or to push people to convince them to what we believe to be the truth, right? And if you pay attention, and I will challenge everyone that is listening right now to pay attention in your conversations for the next 2, 3, 4 hours, you will see that showing up. When you ask a question, what happened in your mind? Usually your mind is going to go to, as soon as a person says something that you disagree or says something that challenged you, you're going to go either to judge or to justify. And that takes away from the communication process because communication process should be a 2 way, right? But what happens is when we judge or we justify, then we lose the power of influence, number 1. Number 2, we lose the power of understanding where the other person is coming from because with you and I, we could be saying exactly the same thing with different words. And just because we're different words, then we start judging or we start justifying and then there is conflict, the communication breaks.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:22:50

Once you break the communication, trust is broken, and how you're gonna work with somebody that doesn't trust you.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:22:56

And so the first thing we need to do is listen to understand and to be able to understand what they're saying and repeat back what they're saying when we're listening to them.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:23:06

Yeah. It was a a step deeper than that. It's not only to understand, to be able to repeat, but it's to understand, to be able to understand really what they mean behind what they're saying. If we don't have that clarity, then we can ask a deeper question. What do you mean with, when you say XYZ? Right? So, so clarification is important during the communication process.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:23:33

So going back to the disc and using that to have more effective communication, are you trying to figure out where they fall on that spectrum to be able to understand your interactions with them and how to better communicate with them?

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:23:46

Yes. Yes. And this is what happened. Most people that know about this, they usually put a sticker on the person's forehead saying, oh, this person is a high D or a high I or a high S or a high C. And it really doesn't work that way because what happens is you can have, a specific, this profile that shows, because out of these four, there is a combination, we all have the all 4. And we have one that is on the driver's seat, like imagine that you are a car, one is on the driver's seat, the other one is on the co pilot. And the other 2 is on the back, maybe sleeping or something, but, but they are there. You have all 4.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:24:29

But the thing is, you have 41 combinations on how you have them, right? So in what order you have them. So what happens is that a lot of people think that this is about DISC, and the truth is that you may show a high D behavior, let's say, in a conversation when you are under stress. Like for example, right now, based on our conversation that we had before the show, I noticed that you were showing a high eye behavior. But that doesn't mean that that's who you are, it's how you're showing up right now, because probably as a podcaster that's how you show up. Like for example, you may have, and this is something that I will put my money on this, right? You may have a different personality style at home versus what you do for a living. Okay? I see it, for example, in my husband. I I have exactly the same personality, but my husband, he has 2 different personality styles. 1 is when he's working and one is when he's at home, and that's okay.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:25:45

And then the other thing that happens is that sometimes when you get under stress, your personality style will shift or will change. For example, when I'm in a regular day, like today, I have a high I D, the combination of the I and the D, my C and my S are really, really low. But if I get under stress, my I goes down and my C goes up. And if you find me in a day that I'm under stress, you will see me more high DC or CD, depending on what I need to get done. So I do believe that people, and I try to avoid, instead of saying these people is a high D, I will say these people is showing a D personality style. Because I need to be aware that that personality style may change based on the role that the person is playing, number 1. Number 2, if the person is, you know, having a good day or is having something that is very stressful. And if your job, think about that, if your job is a job that generates stress for the person, you need to know this, right? Right? If you're an accountant, you may have a client that shows up as a high I, but during tax season, that high I may become super stressed and may shift to a D or to a C or to IS.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:27:21

I don't know, depending on the person. So having this awareness, I think, and I don't want to lose everybody with all these concepts because, like you said, one of my superpowers is to get things that are complicated and make it easy. One of the things that we teach is how to identify the first letter, which is the one that is on the driver's seat. And based on that, we communicate with the person to fulfill the need of that specific personality style. And if we just do that, we will shift the whole communication process.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:27:59

That's incredible. And how does it play into because, like, you mentioned the founder was somebody who's did the lie detector test and did those pieces. Do you feel like it finds the kernel of truth once you kind of understand that piece? Like, how do you think those two things interplay together?

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:28:15

Okay. I'm gonna give you an example. If I'm having a conversation with a high yes, they like to avoid conflict. So if I'm confronting the high yes and I come full force high D or full force high C or even high I, because we can be very strong too, and I go to the high S and I confront the high S, the high S may say what I want to hear instead of what they truly think. And because of that, they become passive aggressive in what they do or how they feel. So I have already, you know, the knowledge that that person is a high S. I know that I cannot go full force high D on that person. I need to lower my D and I need to go with that person at the same level that this person is, as a high S, so this person feels comfortable to say no, or this person feels comfortable to tell me the truth.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:29:24

With experience, you can start seeing things that can be red flagged in the conversations that are not aligned with the personality style and you may say, oh wait, this is not how someone with this personality style will respond. So now I know that maybe there is something else here going on that I need to address. But for that, you need to have the experience, right? But if we will say someone that doesn't have the experience, if you only learn how to identify first what personality style you are, number 2, how to identify the other person, number 3, how to adapt your communication style to their communication style. Once you do with that, you will transform the communication to the point that you will have more influence. And leadership is that, is the influence. Mhmm.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:30:15

The first step then is to really to identify what yours is and to understand that yours changes potentially at your work environment, your home environment, and when you're under stress and so you can understand what you're leading with when you're trying to have conversations and how that might be affecting how others are treating you. That's a big first step. Is there an easy way for you to get testing done? Is it, like, free tests on the Internet? Is there something you need to go to somebody with? Or

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:30:41

Yes. Yes. Yes. I mean, there are many places where you can get the test. Obviously, if if you come to me, I will provide you not only with the test, but we have different we have the the basic disc, which is what you will find everywhere, but we go deeper. We go with the communication disc. We go with the entrepreneurial disc, which is one specifically for entrepreneurs. We have, one for sales.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:31:07

We have one for sales managers. We have one for careers. So depending on what the person needs, then we do the want that is aligned to that specific need because either the role is different, you know, the questions that comes on their own assessment are different. So they can reach out to me, via LinkedIn and I will be more than happy to guide them in the process. Yes.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:31:33

Well, we'll definitely make sure that we have on LinkedIn that we have your resource on the show notes so folks can get in touch with you to do that because that's fabulous. It's very, very helpful.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:31:42

And imagine this. Imagine when you take this assessment for yourself and then you put all your team through it. And then at the end, we put together all these personality styles into one document where it shows what is the personality style of your team, how you have to lead them, who will show up at their best when you need people that are, you know, that the when you need people for creativity, to think out of the box? Who will show up are the best when they need to do something like, let's say, a project? So imagine that you have the power to assign people in the right place, so they are happy, they're working on their strength, and then you have the results you are expecting. No.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:32:33

And that's what it really sounds like with your example of the customer service versus the person finding leads, that when you get the people in the right place that they can flourish and that aligning with their personality is key for their roles to be what they need to have them at. That's very exciting. So is that really you feel like that is the key to effective communication is understanding the personalities or that is the key?

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:32:57

To me, yes. I mean, that, you know, it's all about perspective. Maybe our listeners that they believe to be something else, to me, that's it. I've been working with this methodology for 20 over 28 years. The years that I was working in sales, when I started working in sales in the US, I was closing, out of 10 customers, I was closing 2. After I implemented the methodology, this methodology within my sales process and I shifted my whole communication what is sales? Sales is a communication process. That is intentional. That's it.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:33:34

That's the only thing in sales. The communication, the intentional communication process to exchange a product or service for money. That's it. So when I started to apply the TISC into my, communication process by understanding my client and understanding who I was or who I am, my sales went up to out of 10 customers, I started closing 8. It went from 2 to 10 to 8 out of 10. So I am the best proof. Look, I'm not the smarter person in the world. I came to this country, my English was like really, really bad when I, landed here, like probably 30%, 40%, But once I started implementing this, well, that became more important than me not speaking English perfect, right? That became, I understood at that time that my problem was not my English, that my problem was not not having good pronunciation, that my problem was not experienced, that my problem was none of that.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:34:41

My problem was to not understand the communication style of the customer. And once I did that, I increased myself and I realized that you can be really, really, really bad in what you do, but if you understand how to communicate with people, people will follow you and people will stick with you and people will buy from you and people will grow with you. I mean, it changed the way people see you once you communicate the way that they are expecting or want to be communicated.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:35:18

That's amazing. I love that. That is so valuable. They're really being able to communicate with them the way that speaks to them. And so that's the glasses you're speaking about, and that's what you're using as that tool is that disc and that ability to see their personality and what's gonna actually connect with them. Yeah. I love that. That's so valuable.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:35:37

That's perfect. So as we're we're winding up our conversation, because we are looking at amplifying, which is great because it's amplifying your message and how to do it is to better be be more effective in your communication. But as you look at that authentic piece, can you tell us about somebody in your life that is really authentic and that you feel like they live really authentically and what you admire about them and see as authentic in them?

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:36:00

I would say, for example, my mentor, John Maxwell. I mean, he walks the talk. He's the best example that I have close to me that he doesn't have anything to prove, right? He has over a 100 books. He could be retired if he wants to. But he said something one time that I was like, wow. He said that every morning, that every day he thinks about adding value to other people and putting people first. And to me, as a leader, that's the number one thing we should be doing.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:36:39

I mean, he could be doing whatever he wants. And still, every morning, the first thing that he thinks is, who can I add value to today? And how can I add value?

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:36:53

Yes. And I think that's perfect because the next piece is about the advice we would give to our listeners about trying to make it in business and to better connect to the clients. And I think that trying to add value is the perfect message. That's perfect.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:37:05

Exactly. Adding value is the number one priority that we all should have. It doesn't matter what you work, what you do, what you sell, if it's a product or it's a service, it has to be about adding value.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:37:20

That's perfect. Thank you so much, Valeria. This is so beautiful. What is the best way for people to reach you? You mentioned LinkedIn. Is that the best way for people to be able to connect with you?

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:37:29

Yes. Search for me Valeria Grunbaum. So search for me, I think, is the only Valeria Grunbaum that you will find, hopefully. So let's connect through LinkedIn is the easiest way.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:37:41

Perfect. Thank you so much. It has been so valuable to have you on here today. I appreciate you sharing this about effective communication and learning more about DISC.

Valeria Grunbaum [: 00:37:49

Thank you so much for inviting

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:37:54

me. Isn't there so much to learn on our entrepreneurial journey? Thanks for spending time with me here on Authenticity Amplified. Be sure to hit that button to follow or subscribe so you'll be alerted as new episodes are released. Here in this 1st month, they are coming out frequently. If you are a solopreneur and want to get to part of this podcast launch, we are doing a fun activity with authentic business voices. Go check it out on YouTube. The link is in the show notes. And if you go to bit.ly/authenticbv, capital a for authentic, capital b, capital v as in business voice, You can grab a quick time to record your video with me and be part of this fun event as our launch.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:38:35

I'd love to meet you. Entrepreneurship can feel like an isolating journey. After all, 80% of small businesses are solopreneurs. That doesn't mean you had to do it alone, though. We're here every week to be part of this adventure with you. Until next time.