Welcome to the Energize With Bram Podcast Blog Series!

In our latest podcast episode, we delve into the fascinating world of communication, focusing on misconceptions that many business leaders and entrepreneurs have been taught over the years.

Join me, Bram Lagrou, as we uncover and debunk 13 pervasive myths, offering new perspectives and strategies to enhance your communication skills.

Let's explore how understanding these myths can pave the way to better relationships, leadership, and business success.

Listen 🎧 to the podcast here

Watch 📺 the full episode here

Introduction

Welcome back to another exciting entry in our podcast-driven blog series, Energize With Bram. This space is crafted especially for entrepreneurs, business owners, and leaders eager to constantly improve and make impactful changes in society.

Today, I sit down to discuss my book, "How to Communicate for Results and Feel Great," and debunk some common myths about communication.

Myth 1: DISC is about per...

What if you could consistently book high-value meetings, build deep relationships, and close deals with confidence—without feeling pushy or uncertain?

The Business Development Accelerator is our 7-week online coaching program designed for BDMs, small business owners, sales professionals, and advisors who want to master the art and science of sales—from the first call to the final close.

Over the course of 7 weeks, you’ll learn how to engage, influence, and win clients using proven psychological principles and real-world strategies.

Here’s the weekly breakdown:

✅ Week 1: Induction – How to navigate the online portal and leverage resources effectively
✅ Weeks 2 & 3: Preparing for impactful meetings and making the first call with confidence
✅ Week 4: Networking and the first face-to-face—building deep rapport and adding value
✅ Week 5: Qualifying and writing proposals that create mental and emotional buy-in
✅ Week 6: Presenting solutions that resonate—even to a room of different personali...

Can you relate?

I am an emotional guy and yet, business is a numbers game.

What's beautiful about business is that it unifies the human experience with numerical mastery.

Think about it for a moment, using McDonald's as an example:

There is a perfect time to cook a burger 🍔.

A perfect time to deep fry fries 🍟.

A perfect location with the desired traffic to build the store.

My point is: the right process with the right numbers ensures success 🏦, but you also need a fool proof formula to engage people wholeheartedly 💓 

They are two sides of the same coin.

Sometimes, we overdo the numbers and underestimate the human connection.

Sometimes, we overdo the human connection and stuff up the numbers.

Whether we are too emotional or too focused on numbers, both are lethal for the business' long term prospects.

In my latest video, I walk you through how important it is to nail your business development process to cover both sides.

Watch it here

It's been a prolific two weeks in terms of content creation...

I've created 12 training videos and 2 member spotlights to be specific.

You will say "wow" when the latter two are released!

One is an interview with a former soldier in Iraq who turned his adversity into personal development and inspires people now with breath work, yoga, meditation and fire spinning to enter a state of flow.

The second interview is with a former drug dealer who became a corporate healer!? What a story he shared with me that you will soon access too.

Until then, below are the first 6 short episodes out of 11 to help you create winning sales proposals, quote templates, or tenders.

Success tip 1: Do qualifying and presenting in two separate meetings

Success tip 2: Read your audience so that you can cater your approach 

Success tip 3: SHOW it, don’t email! 

Success tip 4: Start off the right way; manage their expectations

Success tip 5: Executive Summary, especially for Ds 

Success tip 6: How to cu...

People judge others and that is their downfall.

Three years into running my own business, I realised that there was a group of people that I easily related to and did business with.

Simultaneously, there was another group of people that I didn't understand or got along with.

Because I was spinning my wheels with the latter, I called them "tire kickers", "time wasters", "bean counters", etc.

What I didn't realise at the time was that I was setting myself up for failure in advance. I shut my heart to them, which caused a disconnect. 

Think of two people being on different radio frequencies. They aren't tuning in with one another.

I wasn't getting anywhere with them and made them wrong for it.

What a coward I was.

We fail to relate to someone and blame them for our inability and lack of skills.

It is the easy way out to make someone else be "the bad one" so that we can feel better about ourselves.

How often do you point a finger at someone else like I did?

Every time you do, yo...

If you live in an Anglo Saxon country, would you start speaking French in a store and expect people to understand?

Equally, imagine going into an Anglo Saxon boardroom to pitch your "grand idea" or solution and do it in Japanese?

My point of the analogy is this: people speak 4 different languages in terms of DISC and yet we keep forcing our native language (D, I, S or C) on others even though we get push back, misunderstandings, fallouts and resistance. 

Even worse: we all heard about the definition of madness, which is doing the same old thing and expect a different result.

Is that smart?

Let's bring it back to business now.

Closing ratios depend on our ability to speak the 4 DISC languages fluently. 

Moreover, our sales process is not a simple "one size fits all approach" as so many gurus wrongfully claim. 

In fact, you want to cater for the differences as you read into each situation.

Here are three proven ways to do so:

1. Adapt your approach by matching their PACE. Exampl
...

It's relevant when you seek new employment and try to land the dream job with the right pay.

It's equally relevant when you trade time for money as a consultant, coach, freelancer or business advisor. Your hourly rate shows how much (or little) you value yourself.

It's applicable for business owners who are ready to exit their business and communicate with interested parties for the right exit fee.

And finally, it definitely is relevant when you are in BD or sales and negotiate favourable terms, volume and profit margins.

The point is: almost everything can be captured with a financial number, which then begs the question:

How comfortable are you in asking for and receiving the number you want, time and time again?

If you are 100% comfortable talking about money, terrific! Well done 👍 

There still is one golden gate which is potentially locked for you.

I call this gate the science and art of effective communication.

The word that matters most is "effective". It means that you ...

Do you prefer straightforward, no fluff, direct talk?

Chances are that you can come across as intimidating, competitive, egotistical, demanding and even aggressive to other people.

This is what we call the high "D" communication style of a "Director".

While it helps to be persistent, goal oriented and fast on taking action, it's a knife that cuts two ways.

Knowing that a country like Australia has roughly 18% of "Directors", it means that your communication style backfires 82% of the time with the general population - assuming that you don't cause friction with other "Directors".

When it cuts that deep that it hurts, it's time to do something differently.

As a leader, you might experience the revolving door with staff coming and going... Costing the business greatly in recruitment fees, marketing and training and development...

In sales, clients will be quick to sign up but take up the cooling off period a lot of the times too because they felt pressured or sold to...

In teams, you will get in...

If an angel knocked your door today to give you the key to unlimited abundance, happiness and ease in your life and business - would you accept it and trust the process?

The reason I ask is because we have the potential to discover something that is of EPIC proportions in terms of the impact it brings.

While many people have heard about DISC, have done an assessment or even attended some training on it before, the reality is that most people scratch the surface with it.

It's like having a $1,400 smart phone and only use it to make calls. 

They don't do the tool justice because it remains heavily under-utilised. 

Therefore, they don't experience the significant benefits it brings to them as

• an inspiring leader of people
• a trusted advisor to clients
• a highly respected BDM or sales professional
• a team player that excels
• a loving spouse, parent, family member, or friend
• a happy human being that isn't phased by what others say or do

Some of the best work we have done with te...

There are 2 different types of people and businesses:

The ones that WAIT and the ones that CREATE.

When a business has no system to generate optimal demand for its products or services, by default, it is at the mercy of random "acts of grace". 

Low hanging fruit falling in their lap, a casual referral coming their way, a less than desirable client knocking their door, a government grant, etc. 

Not that there is anything bad with an "act of grace". The problem is that they are odd, random, unpredictable. 

They are out of your control as a business owner, BDM, consultant or self-employed person. 

Without a system that generates new business to maximise capacity, you are effectively wasting precious resources and losing money.

This is what I call a "flow" problem...

It's like having the best built factory in the world, only to have an empty conveyor belt... With little input, there is little output. 

Smart business people create systems to generate new business on demand. That is...