Calvin Wayman is a bestselling Author, Keynote Speaker and Social Media Entrepreneur. The most inspiring thing about Calvin is what he has done in such a short time. He shows that where there is a will, there is a way. Seeing where he is now, it’s crazy that in just spring 2015 he was still working an employee job, feeling stuck at a job that he was not passionate about; he ultimately decided to give himself a chance. He suddenly quit his day job to pursue his dream of working for himself and went selling door to door; he’s a man on a mission. He owns Cobbes Media, a Social Media Management Agency designed for small businesses and entrepreneurs to stand out beyond 97% of everyone else on Social Media. He has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, Social Media Examiner, The Huffington Post and was even named one of the Top 30 entrepreneurs under the age of 30 by www.influensive.com. He recently ran in a 50 mile ultra marathon just to challenge himself and he just barely released his 1st book which debuted on the Amazon top 100 of all books in the success category. His book is called Fish Out of Water: The Guide to Achieving Breakthrough and Permanently Transforming Into the New You.
Questions
- Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey
- What are some recommendations for starting your own business and do you think customer experience is something that they should be thinking about from the initial stage or is it something you take into consideration after you start the business?
- How do you feel about customer experience as a customer and owning a Social Media Management Agency, how do you approach it online?
- What are some every day solutions that you would recommend to a small business owner to help them improve their customer experience?
- Can you share a little about your book and how can it really help persons listening to this show, what are the main take away, your purpose and intension was for this book?
- How do you stay motivated every day?
- What is the one online resource, website, tool or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business?
- What are some of the books that have had the biggest impact on you?
- What is one thing in your life right now that you are really excited about – something that you are working on to develop yourself or people?
- Where can our listeners find your information online?
- What is one quote or saying that you live by or that inspires you in times of adversity?
Highlights
- Calvin Wayman stated that the thing that he tells most people right off the bat that is important to know is that he is a regular dude, he’s somebody who just wanted more out of life, wanted freedom and it’s important to know that because when he was getting started on his journey, he would look at people that he admired like Lewis Howes, Gary Vaynerchuk, Grant Cardone even Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, Ellen Degeneres - he would look at all these super successful business people and tend put them on a pedestal and say “Yea, these guys are great, it be awesome to be like them.” Knowing that there is no way in the world he could close to them or have whatever they have, so he put them on a pedestal or on a top of a mountain as a Guru that can’t ever be attained and what he learned over the last 1 ½ year since he quit his day job, being able to connect with so many amazing people is that they are just that, they are people and when that clicked for him he said, “Oh my gosh, here is this person in front of me that’s a multimillionaire or a billionaire having a conversation with them, seeing that they are just a regular human being” then it clicked for him that he can go after this and that excited him. It’s been a crazy 1 ½ year with things he has gone after and challenges he has put himself through and he just wanted people to always know where he came from like less than 2 years ago he was still working at his job, just going through the motion of what we all do, wanting to live a decent life, he has a wife and a 3 year old son. He wants people to realize that if someone like him coming from where he comes from can do it and he’s not come close to arriving where he wants to be but if he can do it, you can do it too.
- As an Entrepreneur, Calvin shared that throughout his whole transition and even when he was in his day job, something that was always in his mind, a quote from Zig Ziglar, “Help enough people get what they want and you can have anything that you want.” So wherever you are at in any stage, whether you’re an employee working for somebody’s company or you’re looking for more freedom, it absolutely comes down to customer experience because it’s coming down to making people feel cared about, loved, taken care of, helping them get what they want because the truth is, if you really want to go after more the way to get it is going to be by giving them what they want so you can have what you want. So you’re thinking of it on whichever side of the isle you’re on, employee or entrepreneur.
- As an Online Entrepreneur, Calvin stated that it’s more important in a lot of ways because customer experience is one of those things that is mandatory, you’ve got to have it and if you don’t have it then it’s horrible, that’s where stuff really get crazy when people don’t feel cared about, they feel betrayed and how he does it online is that part of the training he does on online Social Media often is something that he calls the 4 C’s to Social Media Success and the last C that everything comes down to is Connection, no matter what you do, whether you’re doing it online or in life, the way you’re going to build your business and have it grow and scale is by building those connections. He calls it “Doing the scaling by doing the unscalable.” He thinks that a lot of time what gets in peoples way when it comes to customer service experience or just the whole interacting and giving the customer something that is pleasant is a lot of times it feels like it’s taking time and it is and it feels like it’s taking a lot of investment and sometimes it is but they’re human beings and if you want to take it to the next level, then you have to have that foundation and there are so many great examples of it. A lot of people have iPhones and if he asks this question of “Who still have their iPhone box?” most people will raise their hand, it’s a box but they have it down to the detail of what you feel like when you open that thing, it’s a piece of cardboard but it’s designed so well, it has the phone right there on the top and it makes you feel special and you think you should be keeping the box and most people do, they don’t do anything with it, they just set it in their closet but they feel bad about throwing it away, it feels good so must be something worth keeping. So it touches everything, especially on the online space you have to scale by doing the unscalable, reaching out to your customers when they don’t expect it, even when you’re trying to grow your following and you think of your followers as “customers” - give them a good experience. Calvin stated that everyone that follows him on Facebook, he’ll go back to them and send them a voice memo so that it makes that touch more human because on line, it’s so easy to forget that there is another human being on the other line and so if you really want to stand out and give somebody a great experience, then just do something that makes it human, if they hear your voice instead of just seeing chat, then that’s such an easy way to stand out from everybody else. It’s super important no matter what your business is, certainly off line but also online as well and sometimes even more important because most people just forget about it.
- Calvin stated that some people just do the work and don’t really touch back and they try to get cell phone numbers of their customers and they’ll text them and they can text from their computer system but that’s something that’s more personal, it feels more real. He mentioned doing the voice memo; sometimes they’ll do a quick video for a specific customer and say their name just to give them the results. Anything that he feels that make it more human, that probably one of the biggest thing you can do because that’s what people want to have but at the same time, it’s not making the mistakes because when the experience is bad, that’s where things really get in the way.
- He recently had an experience where he was at the other end of it, he got delayed at an airport for 26 hours and it was unnecessary. This is an example of companies that put policies over people and that is one of the biggest mistakes anybody can ever do when it comes to your customer experience, never put policy over people. He stated that a few weeks ago he went to the airport and everything he does is electronic, he’s a millennial so he doesn’t have printed out itineraries, he has them on his cell phone. He got in the line and he handed the Security his phone; he has the airline app on it, he goes to it and say, “Huh, I’m not seeing the barcode, I’m seeing the itinerary but I’m not seeing the barcode to scan” so he looked through the app he wasn’t seeing it either and his flight is in about 50 minutes so he needed to get things moving and after they can’t find it, they got several other security people over to come look at the boarding pass, to find the barcode, they can’t find it. After several minutes of several people looking through it, they then said he will have to go to a kiosk and print it out and he has never done that before. He went to the kiosk to print it out, the airline that he was flying had their portion of the kiosk turned off, so you couldn’t print it out. He went back to security and said, “Hey, the kiosk is off, so we just need to find it, here’s my itinerary showing my flight, showing my seat number and everything but we can’t find the barcode, what should we do?” And after having 5 different people look at his phone app, they couldn’t figure it out, so then they said, “You better go down to the airline’s customer service.” He went down to the airline’s customer service and said, “My barcode is not showing” and he says, “Yea, we have a little bit of issue, let me see if I can get it fixed” and then he says, “Oh, I actually can’t turn it on because you are within the 45 minutes before leaving” he says, “Even if I could, you’re gonna have to get another flight.” He said that his flight’s not for 40 minutes, that’s plenty of time. He said, “I’m sorry I can’t” and he asked him why and told him that he has a meeting tomorrow morning at 9:00 am, he can’t miss that meeting. The customer service representative said, “I can’t turn it on” and he just kept on saying it would make so that he might be late and it was literally 40 minutes before the plane leaves and he asked him, “How long does it takes for you to walk to the gate” and he said it takes him 7 minutes but he doesn’t have to go through security. Calvin asked him to give him 15 minutes, let him try but he kept giving him all the reasons he can’t and said that he didn’t want him to come back and have to reschedule he would rather me reschedule right now. So here’s someone that could have made one little switch and said, “Yeah, we have had issues, let me turn it on, I understand that you’re under the 45 minutes that me try to get people through but let me get you through.” He talked with him for 15 minutes and then even after he had it booked, several other people way later than him was going through security to get on that same flight. He had so much time and what makes it even worse, he had to sit out that airport for 26 hours missing an entire day, missing his important meeting that he had and when he got the flight the next day, he looked at his watch from the time he was at security to the time he got through and it only took him 9 minutes. Now here is someone putting policy over people and what he learnt from him after they booked it, he asked him, “What made you not want to do it?” and he said, “Well, there’s this manager lady that every time it’s under the 45 minutes, she gets mad at the gate when we turn it back on” and so, he was covering himself to not get in trouble with his own manager and it was enough to have him a customer not wanting to use that airline again because it was such a negative experience, he had never been delayed for so long for something and unnecessarily. That’s an example of having an experience gone bad because what it ultimately came down to a company that has a policy, and policies are important because they help a company function and run more smoothly but when you have policies that contradict the human experience and you put policies over people, that’s where you have a problem and there is a really amazing book that talks about this type of thing that puts it in a great way and it’s buy Dale Partridge, the book is called, People Over Profit: Break the System, Live with Purpose, Be More Successful , it’s such a good book and it shows how you need to be thinking about your business whether it’s online, if it’s an airline or if it’s a brick and mortar, businesses are about people fundamentally not just processes or policies. If you take care of your people, you’re going to take care of your business and where everybody gets in trouble. There’s this big thing happening with Wells Fargo over the last few months in hot water in the United States and the biggest issues that they are having is how they have been treating their people or their customers in not good way. The biggest take away is you got to put your people over your policies.
Calvin shared a great example of Morton's Steakhouse, there’s this guy jumping on an airline and he’s going to go on this long airline flight so he sends out a tweet and he tags Morton's in it and he says, “Man, this is going to be a long flight, I would love a Morton's Steak at the end of this.” He was just joking; he sends out the tweet completely joking almost like if it’s starting to snow, we’ll make a tweet that says, “Dear winter, please go away." He gets to the end of his airline flight, he comes off the plane and guess what he sees right there in the airport, a guy in a tuxedo, bow tie and all with a Morton's Steakhouse meal for the gentleman completely for free. Morton's saw that tweet and if you think of all the logistics that had to come in play for that to happen, for somebody at Morton's to see that tweet, to then get it approved in however long and say “Let’s do this stunt”, and to even find the guy’s airline and see when he was going to land and plan everything to get the food cooked right, to be right there in the airport when he landed, it’s crazy, so many resources were put into that but the question is “Do you think that made a connection with this guy? Do you think it gave him a good customer experience?” Absolutely! And that’s the point, it blew his mind so much that he was so excited about, so impressed, realizing what Morton's did, he ended up writing a blog - posting and sharing his story and it ended up being shared thousands and thousands of time and Morton's business blew up because of that and that’s just one little thing, taking care of one customer, doing one little thing and most people might look at that in the beginning or even the idea of it and say “Well, we can’t do that because that’s going to cost us time, money and resources” but it’s something that you can’t scale and do over and over but it’s when you do those human touches that your whole business will grow and Morton's has that story within their culture and so it just has this whole culture of taking care of people and people over processes, people over policies, people over procedure and that’s how any business continues to flourish is when they keep that in mind that it's the people that matter and give them the experience, they are the reason YOU are in business.
- Calvin stated that January is coming up and that’s when he thinks the book is really going to become heavy and super important because in January everybody sets New Year’s resolutions and they get super excited about it and then come February everyone flat lines or people quit. When he started the book, he was analyzing that and was like, “Why is that? What’s happening here?” and what he discovered is there is this thing that is not talked about in business or goal setting or aiming high in any part of your life and it’s this period where after you get excited, after you start taking action on a goal, you hit this point where it’s not very exciting anymore, you feel out of your element, you feel awkward, You feel like a fish out of water and that’s because you’re doing something that is out of your element jus t like a fish is out of its element when it’s out of water. The tragedy is when most people hit that point, like in February when they become fish out of water, because they are out of their element, they end up reverting back to their old fish bowl of mediocrity and so what his book is all about is recognizing that this is going to happen, so in any business that you’re in, if you’re a business owner that wants to completely change the culture of your business or develop a whole completely new customer experience, then you’re going to go through this growth stage where you’re going to feel like a fish out of water because it’s going to be completely new territory from where you’re at right now. That’s what the whole book is about is recognizing that you’re become a fish out of water but here are the principles that you can go through to not just revert back and flat line and become normal but completely break through and create an entirely new standard for your life or your business.
Yanique stated that there is a section in the book called, SWIM which is an acronym and it says swim like a shark. Shark and development and moving forward in your life, are they connected and can you share with us a little bit about why you would need to swim like a shark and what are the characteristics of a shark that we would need to be inculcating into our lives.
Calvin shared that shark in his book is a really positive thing; he uses the opposite like a "guppy" which your smaller average version of yourself and a shark is something completely different, something you transform into. He did that because when you breakthrough that fish out of water phase, you don’t just become a bigger fish, you become a completely different fish, something that’s confident, you literally transform. One of the main principles he talks about near the end of the book is swimming like a shark and SWIM is an acronym of four things that he noticed with successful people and when you start behaving like a shark then it pulls you in that direction to become a shark yourself and SWIM stands for Success, Words, Improve and Measure.
Success is defining success the right way and he has noticed has he talks to millionaires and billionaire, they think of success completely differently than a guppy does. For example, a guppy thinks that success is arriving at a destination or getting the result but what he noticed is that successful people are masters of the mundane, they are used to doing the same thing over and over and that is success. Said in a different way, they view success as something completely in their control, so they are focused inward on saying, “What can I do?” they take personal responsibility for it and it’s by doing those things and taking personal responsibility that makes the result happen as a buy product but they are not waiting for the result to come before they say, “I am successful” like you might as a guppy, “I’m not going to be successful until that day, until I achieve this.” You can wake up, be successful today, you can have your goal in the distance and say, “If that’s my goal, what action can I take today to get me closer.” That’s the main thing with the S in SWIM in that chapter, is recognizing what sharks think about success and realizing that it’s in your control and staying focus within your control.
Words is showing that people that are successful and they live by success principles are the people we admire whether they are a famous movie star, whether they are Oprah Winfrey, Ellen Degeneres, a millionaire, a billionaire or somebody with a big company, they speak differently than most people, they have a different language, the words they use and the topics they talk about is what Words is all about. A piece from the Words section and it’s something he learned from one of his mentors Michael Bernoff, he is known like the other Tony Robbins, he’s great with transforming people into a new version of themselves. One day he was getting coaching from him and he asked him a question and he said, “Sure” and he completely stopped the conversation and said, “What did you say?” and he said, “What?” and he asked again, “What did you say?” and he said sure. And he said, “Calvin, do you know what sure means?” He said sure means screw you and it shocked him, he said, “What you need to realize Calvin, is that sure and maybe and I don’t know and perhaps, those are all fluffy, uncertain words and if you want to be successful, what you’ll notice is successful people use words that are definite like yes, no, absolutely and they are certain in the things they say, they are absolute.” It was an amazing coaching lesson for him and he said, “Calvin, what you say matters, the words you use matter.” He looks at the word “sure” as a curse word for him because he went through the same process and he saw how he changed his language when he was on his way to becoming a millionaire. That was a major lesson for him, so that’s what Words is all about.
I stand for Improve, this is important if you’re looking to grow your business to always have a better customer experience. You will notice with Apple or any good company that has been around for awhile is that they don’t ever arrive, they’re always improving, and they’re always looking for the latest ways to develop the customer experience. A great example of somebody that finally got their act together was Nintendo. For years they were stuck to the console and in the day that was the thing to give the best customer experience but then these things came around called the cell phones and people were on mobile and it took them forever but finally this year they came out with PokemonGo. PokemonGo was a way of improving from where they were and it created such an amazing customer experience and it exploded and it had the biggest growth of any app in history when they made that switch. That’s what I is all about. It is always continuing to improving where you are because successful businesses, successful people never arrive.
The final thing that helps with everything is M. M stands for Measure and measuring the right things. He went to a mentor and was complaining because something wasn’t happening the way he thought it should or he wasn’t growing as much as he thought he should and he said, “Well, how are you measuring it?” and he replied, “I’m not measuring it.” And his mentor said, “That’s the problem, you don’t know if you’re winning, if you don’t keep score and you get more of what you measure.” Measure is super important it’s what he notices with so many successful people, it’s what sharks do, and they measure the key indicators of what they want to move. So keep score but measure the right things, measure the things you want to get more of. Examples of what you should measure and what you shouldn’t measure, according to his mentor, what most people do if they want to get in better shape or increase their finances and so they measure how heavy they are, if you think you’re going to get more of what you measure, you’re in resistance, you don’t want to measure how heavy you are because don’t want more pounds. People want to get out of debt and yet they are measuring their debt, so they are in resistance. So what do you measure? You measure what he explains as a lead measure, something that if you do more of it, it will change the result. So if you want to lose weight, instead of how much you weigh, you could do a couple of things, you could measure how much weight you lost, so you get more of it or even better, measure the thing 100% in your control like how many days you worked out or how many sets you did or how much you maxed out, how many perfect days you had with eating well. Do the things that if you do them that they are 100% in your control then it can predictively change the result. If you want to get out of debt, measure your income, measure ways to make money and that’s what going to get you closer to getting the actual result that you want. M is for measure, you don’t know if you’re winning if you don’t keep score and to take it one step further, measure the things that getting more of is going to help you win. This is what the sharks do, this what makes them successful and the cool thing is anyone can adopt it. That is how you SWIM LIKE A SHARK. calvinwayman.com/book
- Calvin Wayman shared how he stays motivated everyday; he stated that he is motivated by the I in SWIM. HE believes in Tony Robbins when he says, “Progress Equals Happiness.” That’s what drives him, he wants freedom, he likes impacting peoples’ lives but more importantly, he likes to see where he is at and taking it to the next level and that makes him feel good. When he went from being completely in debt to becoming debt free that felt good, improving in that way. When he went from being an employee to having his own company, that felt good. When he was 30-40 pounds overweight and he lost the weight, it felt good. When he went from running a half marathon to an ultra that felt good. Just getting up every day and saying, “What can I do to improve myself?” just to stretch yourself a little bit because we are all where we are at and to get where it is that you want to go is not as crazy of a drastic change as we might think, it’s like 1% improvement a day but over time, in a hundred day, you are twice as good.
- Calvin stated that the one online tool he uses everyday is Calendly. In an online world where you’re talking to people from all over the world and their different time zones, sometimes it’s hard to meet but when he got Calendly, that just fixed everything so people can go set time with you and it takes out all the guess work. People come to him all the time and say, “We should connect.” And then he can put it in their court instead of going back and forth and being stressed out, he can say, “Here’s my personal link feel free to pick a time and I’ll be there.”
- Calvin stated that the one thing that he is working on right now is his first live event. It is something that he has never done before, stepping into new waters and that’s what he is nervous about but excited about it at the same time.
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- Calvin stated that he has a quote but it is not tied to the customer experience but it’s tied to a business owner, an entrepreneur or somebody that’s leveling up. Sometimes when we are moving or we have a desire to move into a direction, we feel stuck and we feel like we are facing adversity and we don’t know how to get through it and something that has helped him is another thing that he learned from one of his mentors is “Done is better than perfect.” It means just move in any way that you can because often times as business owners or entrepreneurs we are our own worst critic and we want it to look perfect but progress doesn’t happen without movement. Movement requires action and when we are hitting adversity the biggest thing it does to us is the fear freezes us so to break that apart, just give yourself permission that it’s better to look sloppy and do something than nothing. So done is better than perfect and just take that next step.
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