We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alejandro Rodriguez. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alejandro below.

Alejandro, appreciate you joining us today. Can you share a story that illustrates an important or relevant lesson you learned in school

I started my career as a performer, and trained at The Juilliard School in New York City. While I was there, I made friends with a small group of other young artists (dancers, singers, musicians) who shared a sense that what we were learning in our classrooms — essentially, the skills of meaningful communication — was valuable to a much broader population than just the people who could afford tickets to plays, concerts and recitals on the Upper West Side. In 2006, I joined them in helping to develop a nonprofit (Artists Striving to End Poverty) which taught critical life skills to young people around the world, in places like Bangalore, India and Johannesburg, South Africa. It was this impulse to make a positive difference in the world through art that led me to where I am now with Alejo, using the tools and techniques of elite performers to help business leaders around the world connect with their audiences more meaningfully.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Alejo Communication is an innovative communications training firm that puts two populations together that rarely interact, but that have a ton of value to share with one another: elite performers and business leaders. The business leaders have a ton of knowhow and experience, but are rarely afforded the space and guidance to work through the tricky “soft skills” that really make their expertise come to life. It’s like Warren Buffet says, “If you can’t communicate, it’s like winking at a girl in the dark — nothing happens.” The elite performers at Alejo are trained to make sure SOMETHING happens, and that something is meaningful connection between leaders and their intended audiences. We do this by creating custom development programs, bundling different service offerings like half-day workshops, virtual group sessions, one-on-one coaching, and more, to meet the specific needs of our clients. Many of the clients we start with – and we work across industries with law firm partners, hospital administrators, technology sales teams, marketing directors, etc – turn into ongoing partners, co-designing with us new ways to level up their talent development pipeline. We become their in-house performance coaches, to to speak. It’s not where I thought my Juilliard education would take me, but I’m beyond thrilled it’s led me here.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

As I was first stepping into the world of corporate training about 12 years ago, I was under the impression that I needed to cosplay having an MBA. I still shudder to think of the shopping trip to J. Crew where I was going to transform my wardrobe from NYC artist to high-paid consultant. Over the years, though, more and more of those performative layers fell away – heck, we TEACH authenticity, we better be modeling it ourselves – and more of who we are and what are real gifts are started to emerge. I remember the first sales call when I decided to shoot completely straight with a prospective client. When asked to share a little about myself, I said, “Look, I don’t know much about your industry (this company manufactured very niche technology), so there’s very little I’m going to be able to add to your technical expertise. But I’ve spent my whole life studying human behavior, and more importantly, learning how to rehearse new behaviors until they start to feel comfortable, even second-nature. It sounds like there’s some critical behaviors you want your teams to display more of, and I think I can help with that.” I saw the client’s head tilt to the side and take me in. Uh-oh, I thought. Then they smiled. “That’s really refreshing to hear, Alejandro. It’s a very unique perspective you’re bringing.” We closed the sale, and I never looked back.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Simply put, we’re doing something very unique and creative, but that produces immediate business results. Often, the thought of bringing theater-trained leadership coaches into your business strikes some as … whimsical, at best, and irrelevant at worst. It’s also something that’s tricky to explain on a phone call (though we’re getting better at it.) That said, whenever we cross paths with an enterprising HR leader, or a business development lead with a genuine growth-mindset, and they take the risk to bring us in – we watch the veil fall from their eyes within the first 30 minutes. “Oh,” you can almost see them say to themselves. “This makes total sense.” Our clientele has come almost entirely through word of mouth, and we have an almost 100% repeat business rate. All this impact in such a short period of time has made us even more evangelical about getting the word out — marrying performance training to leadership development is a match made in heaven, and who better to lead the charge than world-class performers. We’re standing tall on that soap box now!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://alejocomm.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alejocomm
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100023966342691
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/alejo-communication

Image Credits

Photos by Stephanie Mas and others