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Navigating the Customer Experience

Join host Yanique Grant as she takes you on a journey with global entrepreneurs and subject matter experts that can help you to navigate your customer experience. Learn what customers really want and how businesses can understand the psychology of each customer or business that they engage with. We will be looking at technology, leadership, customer service charters and strategies, training and development, complaint management, service recovery and so much more!
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Navigating the Customer Experience
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Now displaying: August, 2017
Aug 15, 2017

Sheree Martin, is an experienced Executive with a strong result oriented focus. She has spent the last 15 years driving strategies geared towards increasing business value, known as an inspiring and strategic leader with the proven ability to establish effective teams. She has a track record of achievements in the areas of business strategy, marketing, risk management, organizational transformation and corporate innovation. After a distinguished career at The National Commercial Bank Group, Sheree decided to join The Jamaica Public Service Company Ltd. in January 2014. She was appointed to the Executive team to lead human resources, government and regulatory affairs, revenue management, customer service and communications. The company recorded significant improvements in its survey ratings, employee engagement and customer satisfaction while she headed those portfolios. During her time overseeing HR, Sheree placed an expanded focus on leadership development by spearheading a new high potential programme called JPS iLead, which exposed select employees over a 12 month period to advanced leadership competences, knowledge building, executive mentoring and targeted on the job training. Recognizing the intrinsic value of productive and well-rounded employees, Sheree also introduced the first company wide corporate wellness programme at The Jamaica Public Service. The programme, which started in 2015, has been a contributing factor to improve staff moral and reduce health care cost.

Question

 

  • Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey
  • Can you tell us 3 successful factors you find that have made you successful as a leader to yield the kind of results that you’re looking for, not so much the financial result but more so the inter personal result?
  • Why these dimensions of wellness are so important and how does this relate to customer experience and customer service?
  • Can you share with us 1 or 2 success stories that you’ve really seen the individual transform because of exposure to this kind of strategy?
  • How do you stay motivated everyday?
  • 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?
  • We have a lot of managers and business owners who feel they have great products and services but they lack the constantly motivated human capital, what’s the one piece of advice would you give them to have a successful business, specifically as it relates to constantly motivated human capital?
  • 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

 

  • Sheree Martin shared that she listens a lot to what her heart tells her, in a lot of ways she tries to passion and purpose in what she’s doing and if there is resonance with a particular path or an activity, she finds that she typically pursues it, that started as a very conscious way of living. Around 1997, a year after her first daughter was born, she came up on a book called “The Power of the Subconscious Mind” by Dr. Joseph Murphy and it really led her down to insights that really spoke to her about opening up herself to be more specific about her visions and her goals and being more purposeful about how she creates her future and so she will typically engage in activities or pursue paths or form alliances and partnerships with companies, people, teams that are just consciously put into her space because of what she’s trying to create and what she’s trying to create is just this sense of being able to give back, being able to have others think of themselves as empowered creatures and just being able to manifest their desires and their goals and she brought that over to the corporate world in a very conscious way, JPS has allowed her to do that, NCB was wonderful in a lot of ways, as far as her learning and growing on her own self but at JPS she has been able to extend it to others and so, in a round about way, what has happened over the last 20 years of her career really represents an unfolding of herself and sharing that with others.

 

  • Sheree Martin stated that it’s amazing that what she just shared that Yanique took away was the fact that you start with self and in service and customer experience she feels the same way for companies because a company is an entity and she thinks that one of the elements of successful companies is that they are driven by a service culture internally.
  • What are the processes?
  • What are the policies that are not customer friendly?
  • How are your employees able to be served internally, across departments, across teams, across the visions?
  • Sheree Martin has seen and lived the example of teams and companies and departments where internal service is taken as first pillar towards an ultimate external customer experience that the company can boast about. She also thinks that companies that look at taking feedback from their constituents both internal and external in a structured way and in a sustained way and using that feedback along with other strategies to drive their business actually continues to execute have found success and sustainably so. One of her most favorite TV Shows, she remembers when it was just launched and she was just fascinated and wondered if it was staged but only to learn that it was actually real and that was “Undercover Boss”, she adores that concept of bosses going out into the field, interacting with their own employees, listening to what their issues are on the ground, possibly interacting with customers as well and using that to take back to the board room or to take back to their executive team and talk about how the company is showing up, she believes this is very powerful. Just like self, in terms of your own development as an individual, companies should start internally, looking at how the first line of service which is internal is actually being handled, treated, given focus, what are some of the pain points, how can you address those pain points, how is the flow internally because what you get on the outside is as a result of a lot of internal work and getting feedback constantly and in a structured way from your constituents really does help you to drive better decisions.

 

  • Sheree stated that using the analogy of what we put inside our body is what we see on the outside and typically when we think about wellness, we think about physical wellness or nutrition, so you have to be conscious of how you are feeding your body with energy and the food that you choose obviously impacts your ability to manifest, your ability to perform, your ability to execute on your goals and your ability to show up the way you want to show up. Physical wellness, nutrition, fitness is absolutely critical but typically what you find is that companies or individuals stop there, most cases they think that that’s the extent of wellness, “I just need to make sure I eat properly and I’m exercising.” She finds, however, that we are missing out on other dimensions which has to do also with energy, which we don’t typically hear about or learn about, but are just as important and energy is everything. Even your thoughts can affect how you eventually show up and what you’re seeing around you, what you’re thinking about, so what are you consuming mentally and how are you feeling emotionally as a result of thoughts and perceptions and receptions you’re getting from the various stimuli in your environment, that is an aspect of wellness that at JPS they now have consciously started talking about more and more. She stated that she read something interesting the other day and she re-tweeted it, just talking about What’s App and how it is so popular and how many messages, over 50 Million messages being transmitted everyday between people yet 40% of persons claim that they are lonely. https://twitter.com/SherMart/status/892418979637194752. So we talked about physical, we talked about emotional, we talked about social wellness, how are we integrating internally and how are we making connections that are meaningful and vibrant with each other, those things are important. Intellectual wellness, are we learning, are we mentally stimulating our minds on a constant basis, she is very wary of people who call themselves experts because things are always changing and there are new paradigms and new versions coming out in whatever field that you’re in and so this habit of continuous learning and wanting to consume additional information and not really claiming that you’ve done and that’s it, “I’m now an expert.” There’s layers to that and she loves when people are talking about how they are continually trying to improve their knowledge, so there’s intellectual wellness and there’s a whole business that we don’t talk about in environmental wellness, she’s a big fan of your physical space representing your mental space, so when she goes into areas whether it’s a company or department or a car and it’s cluttered and it’s dirty, she doesn’t want to pass judgment but she immediately get a sense of what could be impacting this persons ability to be able to think clearly or to just perform flawless and clean execution because if their environment is cluttered, invariably 9/10 times their mind is also cluttered and so environmental wellness and just being conscious of how we are integrating with nature, those are things you don’t typically talk about in the corporate but companies that she have found and read about are seeing success when they look at wellness in a more holistic way because now they bring this to their employees, they facilitate programmes that allow the employees to think about all dimensions of wellness not just open a gym or have a salad bar at the cafeteria, that’s not the extent of it, they go further and then that shows obviously on the outside and impacts their service with their customers. Spiritual wellness means whatever your relationship resources, whatever you call source, it is something that you want to consciously cultivate, consciously develop, consciously maintain and use it as a source of power, a source of comfort. She finds that it allows her to refresh, she meditates everyday and she makes sure that she is constantly trying to keep in touch with source and the results are just really astounding.

 

  • Sheree shared that one of the measures of success in terms of the programme is the extent to which a number of these persons get selected for promotions or other leadership roles at a more senior level in the company and to date, they have been very successful to the extent that the persons that they see are performing at a higher level and are showing up and are being given more responsibility have come form the iLead Programme, so that is a measure of success for them. She personally has a team of 6 individuals, not all members of the iLead were selected for the but 4 out of the 6 are and she have watched and have been privileged to be apart of seeing them develop their leadership competence because one of the things she talks about in JPS is they are great technically, there’s no question about their energy expertize and their ability to master the industry from a technical stand point, what she does find that they struggle with is their leadership ability, just the hallmarks of emotional intelligence, how to create teams and how to build teams that can move mountains, they don’t teach that in engineering school, so you come into an environment and you start to talk to people about their responsibility to harness the potential of others once they’re leading a team and people look at you funny but they get it and they start to talk more and more of how can they show up and it has been a pleasure to see how leaders now take responsibility for their teams, some were naturally doing it, others are really seeing the benefits of focusing more on managing their teams with that sense of heart and that sense of purpose and invariably they’re getting that exposure through iLead and the Corporate Wellness Programme and she’s convinced that it has contributed significantly to JPS success in the last couple of years.

 

  • Sheree shared that by staying motivated, her family is her biggest source of motivation, she has an amazing support network, she could not ask for anymore in terms of her husband and her daughters and her parents and just this sense of, “I can do anything, I can go after any dream, I can chase any aspiration.” And every day she thinks about that support network, she feels fearless and she comes into an environment not nothing fazes you to the extent that you know that you’re going home to this sanctuary, once she turns into that drive way, she can breath and that is so important and has been a critical part of her success, her family and that keeps her because she just refreshes….she resets, it’s like a reset. She also finds that she makes a conscious decision to find things to appreciate and to be thankful for, so whenever there are issues and road blocks, anything that might be coming at her that might cause her to put up some negative reaction to or feel negatively towards, she tries to do what she calls this process of pivoting where she tries to understand what is it that she is reacting to in this moment and why? And then she deliberately try and focus on something that makes her feel good, so she will say, “Okay, this is really bad but there is something great about this.” You’re learning, “That person had on a wonderful pair of shoes, I wonder where she got it from?” so even if she’s barking at you, she always try to find something to appreciate and that helps, it gives her a sense of perspective and a context that says, “Listen, this too shall pass.” Nothing is permanent and it keeps her focus.

 

 

  • When Sheree was asked about an online resource, website, tool or app that she cannot live without, she stated that her daughters are Millennials and they are very much driven by their smartphones and what they find. She shared that they went to the country last week and it was amazing how they’re the ones insisting that they stop and play a board game. They were like, “Put down the phone mommy and let’s play Taboo.” She stated that her online resource is Twitter, she finds that Twitter is very effective for her industry because there’s a lot happening in energy right now and even when she was in banking, it was the same, she was in charge of innovation and that was a new part of banking at the time, so she would keep abreast with some of the things that were happening in other banks or the whole concept of innovation and she is just so proud of NCB how they have done an amazing job at transformation and digital investments. So Twitter is a must do tool and a must have, she uses it for a lot and she also keep up on the news, she doesn’t get to read the papers so she usually go to Twitter for news both local and international and she can see how everybody is commenting. So she would say Twitter from both a professional standpoint and a personal.

 

  • Sheree mentioned that how she got on her journey, that she read the book The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Dr. Joseph Murphy. She mentioned that there is also Gregg Braden who is a cross over scientist mystic philosopher, he makes that bridge between science and spirituality and she always watches his videos and the book that comes to mind is The Divine Matrix: Bridging Time, Space, Miracles, and Belief, he talks about the connection of the heart to the mind and just how powerful the heart is as an electrical and magnetic field for energy and she went down that rabbit hole after Joseph Murphy many years ago and was influenced by those thinkings and those perspectives. Anita Moorjani, Wayne Dwyer, Neale Donald Walsch, John Randolph Price, there are so many authors out there who’ve had personal experiences or who through their own insights have really started to show us a different way of thinking about who we are when we come on to this planet and what we’re here to do and she found herself gravitating towards those considerations and moving away from the typical views of, “You’re here, you must suffer to get everything you want.” It just makes sense to her to think about something else.

 

Yanique stated that you control and at the end of the day you have a choice as to what it is that you’re going to feed your mind with. In any situation, you’re not forced to go according to what’s happening around you, you can choose what it is that you want your mind to be thinking about, what you want to expose yourself to and with the age of technology, it’s right at the finger tips either through your phone or your computer. You can feed your mind with any content you choose to feed it with, whether you want to watch news everyday and hear about people being killed and the world is coming to an end and is just terrible or you want to focus on the fact that there are a lot of opportunities and positive things are still happening despite the crime and violence that exists.

Sheree agreed and stated that we need to shout that from every rooftop in Jamaica and across the world because it is that sense of empowerment that we need people to start embracing. She believes in a collective consciousness and when you have societies, towns and cities caught into a mindset of lack, a mindset of doom and gloom, it does reflect on what that city, town, and country can eventually achieve and how they continue to evolve. So we need to start telling people that they do have a choice.

 

  • Sheree shared that this is really important; she doesn’t believe that the consciousness of an organization can rise above the consciousness of its leadership. She would say, focus on your leaders. At National Commercial Bank (NCB) they had 2500 people and they had possibly 10% of that as leaders, at Jamaica Public Service (JPS) it’s a similar percentage, similar ratio, they have around 200 leaders and one of the things that Kelly Tomlin and her spoke about when she was there was that, “We can’t effect change just cart blanch across the entire workforce, let’s focus on the leaders in the company.” And that would now start to send a different message because your cascading a certain philosophy and you’re even looking and cultivating certain talents and a certain way of being that defines the culture and it comes through the leaders and so she would recommend that companies start first by paying far more attention to persons who are being given responsibility to lead others and even from the head, she’s saying this to the Board, Directors and to Shareholders, you talk about your leaders from the top and how does that cascade down to the front line supervisor because there is a constant thread running throughout leadership around how that culture is built and it’s going to come back to the decisions leaders make on the ground everyday, how they treat their staff, what they prioritize, how they’re measured, what is valued, what is given discretion and autonomy, it really for her starts with leadership.

 

  • Sheree mentioned that energy is very exciting right now, it’s a wonderful time to be in the energy business because there is so much, you’re in an industry of significant disruption and transformation, a very one way model of delivering energy to customers have been around for 100 years and now we’re seeing that being turned on its head and so, alternative energy and what does that mean for energy independence in particular for Jamaica that so blessed with natural resources just as sun and wind. She is part of a team now that’s looking at alternative energy far more strategically and far more intently than even 5 years ago and we’re still struggling just to keep energy prices down and to get Jamaicans to start to conserve and to even think about how they can put the power in their hands, now we’re saying, “What other solutions can we provide them?” and renewable energy, different options of delivering energy in a distributed way has her very excited and has her very hopeful and optimistic for Jamaica’s energy future.

 

  • Sheree shared that listeners can find her at -

Twitter - @SherMart

Instagram - @martinsa876

LinkedIn – sheree-martin

 

  • Sheree shared that the quotes that she always reflect on is by Neale Donald Walsch, “Nothing has meaning except the meaning you give it.”

 

Links

 

The Divine Matrix: Bridging Time, Space, Miracles, and Belief by Gregg Braden

Aug 9, 2017

Before Jeffrey became the founder of Select ‘n’ Start on a mission to help make Jamaica, and the world a better place, he was and still is many other things. He is a Businessman, Entrepreneur, Martial Artist, Toastmaster, and Game Changer are just a few of the titles held by Mr. Azan. He possesses over 18 years of experience in the retail industry having been raised in his family’s business, Azan’s. Upon completion of his Bachelors in Business Management at Boston University, he stepped into a top tier management role as a Director for Azan’s and served in that position for 6 years. In his own right he has also been a franchise owner in Organo Gold, and Amway, a café owner under the brand Café Moments, a consultant on the Brand Profit team, General Manager of the brand solution company, It’s Pixel Perfect, and the organizer of the live music show, A Moment of Jazz. Jeffrey currently spends the majority of his time working through his passion for the development of others in an effort to see a better Jamaica and a better world. He does this by providing motivational keynote speeches, group skill training, and one-on-one coaching. He founded the self-development brand, Select ‘n’ Start back in 2013, with a vision of it becoming the number one personal development brand to be birthed out of the Caribbean. The brand has taken to titling its coaches and speakers as “Game Changers” which is a title Jeffrey holds proudly. His motto is a simple one, “Change your game, Change your life.”

 

Questions

 

  • Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey
  • How do you believe customer experience has been for you over the years with so much experience that you have under your belt, what is your definition of customer service/ experience, do you find that it’s different in the Caribbean versus in the first world countries that you’ve been exposed to and if there’s any short comings or limitations that we’re faced with in Jamaica, what do you think they are and how do you think we can overcome them?
  • What are 3 characteristics that you think any human being would need in order to be truly a server?
  • How do you stay motivated everyday?
  • 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

 

  • Jeffrey Azan shared that his years in retail was specifically in the housewares industry, as a toastmaster which is one of the other many things he does, he has not just been a toastmaster in terms of speaking but he has also been a competitor and recently he accumulated a win of the Caribbean Championship of Public Speaking in the category of "Impromptu Speaking." As well as competing in Martial Arts he recently went to Curacao and represented Jamaica at the 31st Pan-American Games hosted by the WKF which is the first Olympic qualifier in this region and that was a big honor to represent Jamaica. In all the titles and all the jobs, he can say at the core he tries to be all that he can be in each of those categories and so far putting his all forward, he has reaped many challenges and he manages to turn those challenges into either successes or learning opportunities and if anybody wants to know Jeffrey, that’s one of the key aspects to know is that if you involve with him, he’s going to be full force, he’s going to be full of passion, he’s going to expect you to deliver and there’s not going to be any challenge that isn’t going be for the benefit of himself or for the team. Jeffrey stated that he grew up in a very interesting household, he was a big Ninja Turtles fan as a kid and that led him to look into Renaissance, all the ninja turtles were named after Renaissance Men and it led him to look into what the renaissances was and when he looked into Leonardo da Vinci, he found that he did it all, he was a Sculptor, Painter, Doctor, Scientist, Inventor, Engineer, Martial Artist and covered so many areas and he said to himself, “If one man can do so much, what can’t I do.” So it’s really just discovering each talent that he has and working to bring those talents to full fruition through whatever means necessary.

 

  • Jeffrey Azan stated that it is so interesting to look at customer experience and really analyze it because just in the very sense that we are placing a label on it creates the first problem in his understanding. When he worked in retail he always told his staff that, "The customer is never right", that was the first key, they are coming into the store, they don’t know what they are looking for, they don’t know how to describe it, they don’t know the function of it and it’s this guessing game to kind of figure out what it is that they want and what he tries to push is that base knowledge knowing that the customer isn’t right, what he was trying to do is pre-empt the frustration with the customer and so in getting them in that thinking to know that the customer isn’t going be right, it gives them almost an added bonus to service to a higher level, it’s not that anybody is going to come and say, “Oh, I want a green curtain for a blue bathroom” you’ll have to say, “What shade of blue it is? What type of curtain do you want? How tall is the window? How far from the ground is the window?” and all of these questions would have to come in because the customer isn’t right, you cannot give them a green curtain because that’s what they say they wanted. And from there the idea evolved and he heard it best at a customer service workshop he went to where the speaker there said, “The customer is king” he paused and reflected on that and he had to question it, and he said, “Please explain it.” And he gave him his thought process on the customer is never right and what the speaker said to him is that he agreed with him that the customer is not always right but it doesn’t change the fact that the customer still has the power, the customer is still the final boss, they are the king of the domain, if there are no customers, there is no business, nobody gets paid. What he said is that if you think of the customer as king, then what happens is no matter how wrong they are, you still have a duty to service. He stopped and really reflected on that for a long time and he thought, “Wow, what an amazing little concept that if you always think of the customer as king, you will always be of this higher level of service.” But here’s the problem with that, is that we draw this huge distinction between two (2) humans. In regards to his experience internationally, he did not just go to school overseas in the USA, but he had fortunate opportunities to be apart of programs and summits and conferences that have carried him around the world. He has been to Australia, Western Europe, he has been all over the Caribbean, all over North America and he’s sure that there’s plenty more to come. One of his most eye opening experiences in customer service was when in Australia walking on the pier, somebody soliciting business for their food stall and as he was passing, he didn’t push a sale, he engaged him as a person, he immediately recognized that he was a tourist and began having a conversation with him and they had a big conversation about Jamaica and what he was doing all the way from Jamaica over there in Australia and because he engaged him as a human having a conversation, Jeffrey was quicker to look into what he does and what’s his business and that was the first step. We as both the customer and the one serving the customer needs to remember that we are not dealing with a uniform, we’re not dealing with a title, we are dealing with a person and he hates seeing when he goes to a restaurant and somebody deals with the waiter like garbage because they’re the waiter, they’re supposed to serve, they are human, they have the same trials, same tribulations, they went through the same schooling system that you went through in a many cases. Maybe they have been dealt a hard break, maybe they have not made the best of decisions but at the end of the day, they’re still a human and real customer service starts there in recognizing that the other person is another human and if he’s going to serve that other human as the server, as the person providing the service, that’s step one on an international scale and very often, especially here in Jamaica and the third world countries that he visits is that we don’t serve humans, we serve uniforms, we serve titles and we are treated accordingly. There are some doctors that he met who are probably first class doctors but they are horrible people but the point is that they expect a certain level of service because, “I am doctor so and so”, “I give you all props and credit for being doctor so and so, I’m sure it wasn’t easy to become doctor so and so, however, at the end of the day, I am still Jeffrey, I am not server number 2, I am not in the back credit of a movie as staff number 3, I am Jeffrey.” And the second that we as the customer or we as the server forget that element, the whole interaction and relationship has gone out the window because at the end of the day that’s what it is, a relationship between two people, it just so happens that one is providing service and one is in need of that service.

 

Yanique stated that what she took most away from all of what Jeffrey said was that we’re all emotional beings regardless of where we are from, regardless of our background and at the end of the day, if we all look at each other as people with the same level of feelings and emotions that the customer would have, that the employee would have, that the employer would and employ that level of understanding to really see where the other person is coming from, treat them with the same level of courtesy and respect that you would treat anyone else, the quality of our relationships would improve which by default would improve customer experience.

 

Jeffrey stated that in Select ‘n’ Start, what they tell people they provide is motivation, inspiration and personal development and at the very root of it all, that is what it is. He stated that he cannot serve you if he’s not willing to connect with you and what you’ll recognize as humans is that we’ve grown this very disgusted outlook of a sales person because we feel like a con is coming and yet the greatest sales people in the world are some of the best humans he has ever come across. They take the time to build that relationship and in building a relationship, he has had a customer who bought nothing when they came to buy, they took 3 hours of his time and he genuinely thought it was wasted, the next time they came to the store, they came with their entire community and they only wanted to deal with him and that happened because they had a connection, he asked about the family, he asked about the home, he wasn’t just providing a product but he wanted to really understand what he needed and in understanding what he needed, he could make suggestions, in fact, there was a particular item that they had in the store at the time but based on the situation that he was in and he explained and he told him where he could get it cheaper and he couldn’t believe that he was sending him out of the store and because of that one comment in trying to help another human, he brought the whole community and he said, “What ever the prices are in here, this is where you should shop.”

 

Yanique shared that she did business with a company recently and the sales representative took the same approach. He said, “We don’t have that item at the moment but I know that this particular organization has it.” And he took up the phone and called them and sent her to someone specifically after calling and telling them to expect her and she thought that was really awesome because it wasn’t a branch of their business, it was a completely different company, their competition and he was willing to ensure that she got served, even if it meant her going to the competitor and she really appreciated that and she would go back again because of that experience.

 

Jeffrey shared that some characteristics that a person would need to truly serve. He stated that Select ‘n’ Start provide customer service training and he developed the customer service program when he had the café, so he ran the café with a partner of his for about 1 ½ years and when they got into it he was coming from the retail background and he has never done anything other than retail at the time and his partner said to him, “You’re great with people, you should train the team.” He did have a clue of what he was about to do, he knew how to sell, he knew the intrinsic knowledge but he never taught sales and what came to him through that is that the root of sales is relationships and people. He recognized that if somebody’s going to be a fantastic sales person, a great customer service person, the key of that is just to be a better person. If you’re a better person, if you have done all that you can do to keep your life in check and put it on a path of improvement, naturally you’re going to be more pleasant, naturally you’re going to want to serve more, naturally you’re going to be willing to engage with another person because you have taken care of your own problems you can now help another. You can never help another if at the forefront of your mind you’re thinking, “How is this going to benefit me.” And so what they came up with is what they call, “The Select ‘n’ Start Core” and these are things that anybody can apply and if you can work on these things and fall back on them, some people have taken it as their ethical and moral compass in life as somebody has called and told him that, is that by utilizing these things, it’s not a one size fits all but it’s a guideline to say, “Am I improving, am I getting better?” and if they do that, then everything else starts to fall into place. What those five principles are, the first one is “Real Recognizes Real”, open up yourself, be honest, he’s not telling you to go out and tell everybody your story but don’t put on a show either, people only like a show when they know they’re going to a show. Nobody likes a show spontaneously in a store, so be yourself and what will happen is, in being yourself people naturally open up to you. One of the great ways he does a motivational speech is that he shares his pain and in sharing his pain and his genuine belief, other people come and share theirs. The next logic is that “You Can Learn Anything From Anything at Anytime”, a lot of people think education is only in the book but education is around us in all sorts of interactions and stories and sharing’s and observations and if your going to be a great customer service representative then that’s what you need to do, you need to be a great observer, “What can I learn?”, you’re serving a elderly person and you’re realizing that they can’t keep up with you, get them a chair, if you’re just aware of that observation and that observation comes with the desire to learn, you’ll know that they need a chair because they can’t keep up with the pace you’re moving at. If it’s a mother with a child, he has had mothers handing him their children on a first meet basis because he engaged and he recognized and the child would even reach and the child reaches because that realness, they know it’s not a show, children are way more intuitive than we give them credit for. So by just having the desire to learn, we develop the skill of observation and if we develop the skill of observation, we’ll naturally know what to do in a situation. The third one is, “You Can Never Be Kind Enough to Somebody for Them Not to Hurt You”, so you can give the best customer service to somebody, you can take all day and sell them a $1.00 at the end of the day and anybody who’s in customer service and sales know that that’s the most frustrating sale and that person can still come back and say you gave poor service. No matter how kind you are to somebody you can never be kind enough for them not to hurt you but the flip side of the coin is that it should never stop you from being kind. In that sense, don’t worry about what the other person is going to do, don’t do it to get their reaction, don’t do it for the consequence to come from them, do it because you know you should do it and because it’s right, you don’t need a manager to tell you that but what happens is that you have 2 bad sales experiences for the day and your manager is upset with you so guess what, “I’m not serving anybody else for the day because it’s going to lead to a problem.” But the fact is that those people, no matter how good you are to them they have no reason to be kind to you. If they chose to be kind, they’ll be kind but you have that choice as well and so he always says, “You can never be kind enough for somebody not to hurt you but that shouldn’t stop you from being kind.” The last 2 points is, “Level Up”, always seek ways of improving yourself, people hate being pushed, people love being pulled, so if you stand on top of something as the expert, as the champion, people want you to pull them up, nobody wants you to be underneath them or behind them pushing them forward, so if you’re going to really serve somebody, you need to be a champion in the particular industry, you need to pull that person up to your level of understanding and expertize and anything you say, they’ll follow. Jeffrey shared that the last thing is, “Always Share What Is Uniquely Yours”, all of us have gone through life with particular stories and troubles and challenges but those stories, troubles and challenges have built a certain perspective that only we have, that only each individual has their perspective, you could have a twin and your twin can be totally different from you, same mother, same father, same school, same opportunities, same education and yet you’re 2 totally different people because of one little change, one little biochemistry and those changes create unique perspectives and it’s in unique perspectives we create unique connections, so you must always be ready to share what’s uniquely yours which goes full circle back to "Real Recognizes Real."

 

  • Jeffrey shared that for motivation, they serve inspiration, motivation and personal development and it took him a long time to figure out the difference between the two. Motivation is the target and it’s easy when you have a target, when you say, “I’m going to get fit” and not just say you’re going to get fit but print out an image of what you want to look like, write down the measurements you want to have, see a picture of yourself, put a mirror, buy the gym clothes, get the membership, all of that can help to motivate you but if in your core, if in your soul, your root, your gut, whatever you want to call it, there isn’t a fit person there then no amount of motivation is going to help you. You must believe that you are called to be a fit person. What happens with motivation is that very often motivation is set as a goal and once the goal is achieved...loose sets in, so you have people who are world class athletes, they’re the champions, they’ve won the belt, they’ve won the medal, they’ve won the trophy and so they reach number 1 and very soon after they’ve reached number 1, somebody took it away from them. It’s because they were motivated to be champions, they weren’t inspired to be the best because if you’re inspired to be the best then every challenger, no matter your position, is a challenger that’s stopping you from being the best. And so what he had to find in himself was that inspiration and that inspiration came during that time of all the businesses that he was going through and all the changes he was making, at that time he was looking for motivation, he was looking for gold, he said, “If I get more money, I’ll get the better girlfriend, I’ll take care of the girlfriend, I’ll drive the car I want, I’ll live in the house I want.” All of that was great motivation but it was on bad days it wasn’t enough, on rough days it’s not enough and for a lot of us, we don’t recognize how rough it is sometimes for people. Depression is a real thing and depression is never depression of finances, it’s never depression of lack of food because when you lack in food your not thinking about depression, you’re thinking about lack of food. So what happens is that your soul, your gut, your being, your entity, your spirit is lacking and many people aren’t making the conscious effort to fill, they’re trying to distract, they’re trying to achieve and in achievement they will find happiness but money doesn’t soothe the soul, money can create opportunities, in fact, the bible says, “Money is the solution to all things.” A lot of people like to quote the bible and say; “Oh, money is the root of all evil” but literally couple verses down from that one it says "Money is the solution of all problems." Jeffrey says, "I am not saying don’t go after it because you can take it and create something from it but money won’t soothe the soul" and that was what he was looking for at the time as he said he grew up with a big fascination with the renaissance men and he grew up with this idea that he can and could do anything he wanted to do, if he decided to be doctor, he would be a doctor, he had no question whether he could or couldn’t be a doctor but it doesn’t soothe the soul and what came is on this journey and consistently searching and fight. He had a vision and it was clear as day and he was parked in his car at a red light and he saw himself on stage speaking to an audience, he was so clear, he was wearing a black suit, white pinstripe, it was a night show, open air venue but when he looked out on the crowd, he couldn’t see the end of the people, the people met the horizon. And in that vision he found his inspiration, so on the day when he’s not motivated because a lot of us are trying to use motivation to keep going, what he does is that he has to fall back on that inspiration, he has to fall back on, “Jeffrey, what is your soul calling you to do?” “Oh, I can’t sprint today, I haven’t eaten right, I haven’t slept right, I haven’t train right, I haven’t stretched right, I cannot sprint today but I can walk.” And if he can walk, then he can move into the direction to which his soul is calling him and the funny part about that story is that happened to him at 25 years old, he had that thought when he was 8 years old and many of us have that same thought around the same time as well, when you get asked the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and many of us throw out these phenomenal ideas like Astronaut, Scientist, Leader, Prime Minister, President, own my company and for one reason or another we give up on it and then we settle, we become employment seekers rather than value creators. What happened to him was that when he was 8 years old, he decided that he wanted to be a teacher and he told his mother and his mother said to him, “That’s great, that’s noble but just remember that teachers don’t make a lot of money.” And he went in his 8 year old brain and said, “Well if I can’t have money, then how am I going to be happy?” and gave up on the dream of teaching, fast forward 17 years, what did he turned around to do again? Teach, what more is a teacher than a single individual standing before an audience sharing knowledge, information and inspiration.

 

Jeffrey stated that once he acknowledged that...that was his calling, he has never not been able to take a step no matter how poorly, demotivated, no matter how much in the hole he is, his finances at some points are abysmal, you look at the books and go, “Jeez, how am I going to get out of this one?” and all it really is, is a challenge to say how bad do you really want it and what happens is a lot of us are pursuing goals and motivation that we don’t really want, we are not answering our true calling and the thing is, if we answer our true calling, we’re happier, we’re going to find other people interesting in it and if we do it long enough, you’ll become experts in it and people will pay for our expertize, it has been proven time and time again as abstract and as cliché as it sounds, it is not easy, if it was easy and Eric Thomas says this all the time, “If it was easy, everybody would do it.” So he’s not going to jump up and say it’s easy but he is going to say, everybody can do it, it’s can you dig into that grit to push through the challenges because life is going to consistently ask you, “How bad do you want it?" And that’s what gets him going in the morning; it’s that inspirational thought that he searched 17 years actively looking for, unfortunately many people haven’t even spent half an hour looking for it.

 

  • Jeffrey shared that Youtube is one of the tools he cannot live without. He stated that a business partner of his, Fred Robertson and Fred asked him one time, “Jeffrey, you put out so much, you’re always willing to share, you’re always willing to contribute, who gives Jeffrey? Who puts into Jeffrey?” He had to pull on other speakers, he had to pull on other motivators, he had to pull on other lines of thought and the best place for that kind of collection is Youtube. There are certain magical qualities about a video, it doesn’t allow the imagination as engaged as reading would because with reading, the brain goes into over drive and does the imagination. He does his best to read a lot but immersing the senses, the hearing, the sight and the colors, you can almost feel certain peoples videos and those boost mean push him in a big way and teaches him a lot. He has learnt so much listening to other speakers just on Youtube alone much less when he goes to actual conferences and workshops, so if he has to jump on one thing off the bat and before the interview he was listening a speech on Youtube.

 

  • Jeffrey shared that one of the books that have had a big impact on him is “Who Move My Cheese by Spencer Johnson” he would recommend that book to everybody, anybody that comes and say, “Jeffrey, what’s a good reading?” that book for sure, you cannot move forward without reading Who Moved My Cheese. It was the book that created the business, it’s the book that took the vision and made the business. He went to a mentor of his at the time and told him about the vision and he told him about the desire, the calling that he had and his mentor said, “Okay, what’s next?” and he told him, “I don’t know” and his mentor gave him his copy of Who Moved My Cheese, he doesn’t know where that copy is, he past it on to the next person who was in his situation and he hopes that it’s still making its rounds. The book is about being resolute and just taking action as you see, if you’ve never read it, he strongly recommend that book. It is about making a decision and taking action which is where the company name got its idea, “Select ‘n’ Start”. It sets such a solid mindset, you can’t do without it. Jeffrey also recommend “Acres of Diamonds by Russell H. Conwell” It is about finding wealth where you are, too many times we look at our situation and it’s such abysmal situation that we say we must go somewhere else to find it. Acres of Diamonds go through a number of stories that shows that wealth is right where we are if we have the open mindedness and the creativity in which to extract that value. So making a decision, taking action and doing it where you are, he couldn’t recommend bigger lessons for people starting out and as he said this goes right back to customer service because a lot of the time we blame people for poor customer service or we say they are poor customers so both sides of the coin have the complaint and yet what it is that we are not mining the opportunities that we have right there. Jeffrey shared a story that a elderly woman goes into a outlet store and she looks like she can’t afford and so nobody pays her any attention except for one young man who truthfully, he’s not even a server in the store, he’s more an errand and clean up guy but he takes the time and he serves her, she buys nothing, about 3 months later she comes back and she comes with a long list, they found out that she is actually European royalty and she’s looking to buy for her parcel and the only person who she would allow to sell her was the young man and she insisted, not only does he get full commission but he gets a service fee to come to the castle to make sure it’s properly installed. That’s the kind of opportunity that lay around us and we let them slip because of poor customer service, so if you’re going to serve, go for it full force because you never know that you maybe uncovering a acre of diamonds.

 

  • Jeffrey shared that when he was 13 years old, he spent a lot of time questioning what’s wrong with Jamaica and spoke to many people double, triple, quadruple his age, got a lot of input, got a lot of thoughts and you’ll hear all sorts of answers, corruption, education, poor health facility, poor services, poor government agencies and what he boiled them down to was two major factors that any country in the world having problems, it’s probably these two factors as well. The education system and family unit structure, what happens is no matter how good you make the education system, if you have a poor family unit, the family unit undoes what the education tries to do in many cases. The teacher tells you that you can do anything you want, you go home and your mother tells you that you’re not going to amount to anything. He recognizes those two from a very young age and he still holds that strongly today that those are the two major factors holding back any third world country and so the big project Select ‘n’ Start is working on in summary is to fix those two things. When they started Select ‘n’ Start, the mission is to help people maximize their potential in an infinite number of ways, digitally, mentally, emotionally, physically, unlocking potential and they recognize that they can fix those two systems, they’ll accomplish the mission. Jeffrey stated that if they get other contracts and speaking engagements, establish people, coming up people, entrepreneurs, they’ll going in, they’ll motivate, they’ll share, they’ll develop and for the big part, that may be the bread and butter but the mission is how do they get everybody to unlock their maximum potential and that can’t be done by doing one off corporate gigs, it must be a project bigger than him, it must be a project bigger than Select ‘n’ Start, it must be a project bigger than Jamaica and that’s what they are working towards.

 

  • Jeffrey shared that listeners can find him at –

Select ‘n’ Start Facebook

Select ‘n’ Start Instagram

Jeffrey Azan Instagram - @jj.azan

Select ‘n’ Start Twitter

 

  • Jeffrey shared that he has a lot of his own quotes that he reverts to in times of adversity. He stated that sometime when you do a speech as a speaker and you didn’t intend to say something and it flow together and he has two things that keeps him going and that is, “If I depend on others for my success, I’ll only have myself to blame.” He doesn’t want anyone to misconceptualize that he’s saying that does everything by himself, he knows he not a master of everything, he’s trying to be but he’s not. The point is if he depends on those doing the other jobs, if he makes his success sit in their hands then if they fail, he can’t blame them, he can only blame himself because his success is his responsibility. The second one is, “Your story matters.” It speaks to the knowledge that even your most minuscule action can change somebody’s world, some of us don’t recognize that when we make somebody smile in what was a nonchalant exchange to us but we made that person smile, it might have been the first time they smile for the day and it might be the only smile they get for the day, so we must be very conscious that all of our minuscule actions, from the smallest action, the smallest interaction, the smallest exchange, it matters and those small exchanges bill our story.

 

Links

Acres of Diamonds by Russell H. Conwell

Aug 1, 2017

Daniel Edwards is the CEO of Total One-Eighty Image Consulting, a business initiative and service tailored for the motivated, modern male professionals, which Mr. Edwards created to productively combine his three (3) passions - personal development, psychology and fashion. A trained public speaker and presenter, Mr. Edwards recently launched his series of Total One-Eighty workshops, the first being through corporate client Sagicor Life Insurance Jamaica Limited to further his holistic approach to image consultancy and personal development. With over two decades of successful experience in the sales industry, Mr. Edwards is also currently a Senior Sales Executive at Caribbean Assurance Brokers Limited. Prior to this, he was a Financial Advisor at Sagicor Life Jamaica Limited where among other things his achievements included being seated at the international acclaimed, “Million Dollar Round Table." During his time at Sagicor, Mr. Edwards also created, ran and marketed his High Street Clothing brand. An experienced performer and lover of nature, Mr. Edwards is also a proponent and practitioner of meditation and diverse self-improvement practices.  

Question

 

  • Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey
  • In terms of customer experience, how has that been for you since you started business and what is your view on customer experience as a business owner?
  • What are some of the challenges you believe young men face why it is that you are compelled in this business?
  • Do you think it’s because of our culture why you think the men are challenged in such a way, outside of the parenting aspect predominantly being exposed to female influence, does the Caribbean culture impact that as well?
  • Can you tell us a little bit about why you think image is so important and how does that impact customer service?
  • Getting somebody to attire themselves in a particular way and have a particular image, how long those that take and is it just the physical or is it like a mind set change as well in terms of how they feel about themselves?
  • Who are some of the role models you would use to drive inspiration in the persons you’re trying to transform?
  • How do you stay motivated every day?
  • Do you think it’s important as a businessperson to really be passionate about what you’re doing in order to be successful?
  • 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?
  • If you where sitting across the table from another business owner and they said to you that they feel they have great products and services but they lack the constantly motivated human capital, what’s the one piece of advice would you give them to have a successful business, specifically as it relates to constantly motivated human capital?
  • 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

 

  • Daniel Edwards shared he is a Financial Advisor, he sells primarily insurance and investment products with Caribbean Assurance Brokers but he’s very passionate about his new venture which is Total One-Eighty Image Consulting and he feels that it is an initiative that is very necessary right now in Jamaica where men are really falling behind in a number of areas, he feels compelled to push this mission to reinvigorate the males.

 

  • Daniel Edwards shared that he always believes in under promising and over delivering, he tries to extend that to his venture and that’s what it is about and focusing more about being of service and adding value than about money because if you do that first, then the money will follow.

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  • Daniel Edwards stated that a significant percentage of males in Jamaica today are raised without fathers and as a result, there are a lot of men being raised by women so they don’t get those little extra tips and instructions that a man should give another man. The daughters are okay because their mothers can teach them how to dress and how to put themselves together as women but they fall short with the men. Such example include seeing men attending a graduation in sneakers or going to a job interview like they are going to a dance, they don’t have a male figure to show them how to really put themselves together.

 

  • Daniel shared that he doesn’t think that our culture had an impact on the way our Jamaican men dress. He stated that our parents’ generational practices that but it’s a recent departure.

 

  • Daniel Edwards stated that it’s not just about the image, it’s about the image plus communication skills but everything begins with the visual and our impressions are formed within seconds of seeing someone and often times these impressions are set in stones within seconds and barring you doing something exceptional, they don’t change. So the first impression is the only one that matters but beyond that we have to have the communication skills and the service to solidify that reputation and really give the client a great experience. So they have to be all rounders, they have to have the look and the package.

 

  • Daniel shared that his ultimate goal is to have a holistic approach but you have to start somewhere, so he started off by creating a workshop on dressing for success. In this workshop, they look at the psychology of the first impression, the psychology of color, they look at how suits should fit, the power of a suit, the psychology behind wearing a suit, how you think different and feel different wearing one and people treat you differently. They go into accessories, they show you what colors to wear as in suits, what suits to wear and not to wear, accessories because male fashion is all about details. He stated that he wants to get into other areas such as public speaking and all of the components that are required to make you successful and make a bold impact when you step into a room.

 

  • Daniel Edwards stated that for inspiration, Steve Harvey is a good example, also P. Diddy and Michael Lee Chin. He stated that he’s a fan of all of the self made black Millionaires.

 

Yanique added that you want them to connect with someone who looks like them so that they can see that this possibility exists.

 

  • Daniel Edwards shared that by staying motivated, he uses "Operant Conditioning", he stated that we all do things to gain pleasure or avoid pain, so operant conditioning is where you try to avoid pain and pain for him would be living a life of judgery, getting old, getting sick and then dying. Operant conditioning is a type of learning where behavior is controlled by consequences. Key concepts in operant conditioning are positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment and negative punishment. He wants to live a purpose driven life on his terms and have an amazing life, and he can only do that by running his enterprise and perusing his dreams and his passions.

 

  • Daniel stated that he doesn’t know anybody who is hugely successful whose purpose isn’t aligned with their passion, those are prerequisites. There are millions  of businesses ventures out there that can garner money but every entrepreneurial enterprise requires grit and determination and preservation in the early years to turn a profit, so if it’s just about making money, they are not going to put in those extra hours and deal with all those disappointments and the failures and near misses unless you are passionate about it.

 

  • Daniel stated that he likes Pinterest a lot as well as Instagram but he doesn’t think that there’s anything he could live without, as he’ll find a way regardless. He stated that they are extremely helpful for example if he’s doing a wedding for someone, as he does weddings on what to wear, he can go on Pinterest and get an outfit together, he has an internet platter of ideas he can find.

 

 

  • Daniel shared that the advice he would give another business owner is that you must incentivize your workers, they need to feel like they have a vested interest and they need to know if they put in a little more effort, they can dictate their paycheck. If the guy comes in and he’s getting a flat salary, he’s very aware that he’s building your empire for you, why is he going to stay there for 12 hours or why is he going to go above and beyond, as soon as 5:00 pm comes he wants to go home, that’s it, he’ out. They have to feel that they have a vested interest and that they are apart of the enterprise, they need to know that they put in a little extra, they will get some money.  

 

Yanique asked Daniel if he believes that most or all employees based on his experience are motivated financially, does motivation comes from something else as well?

 

Daniel Edwards shared that it is a combination; feeling like you have a vested interest doesn’t necessarily only translate to more money. Apart of the business, you’re invaluable and that your input will leave an indelible mark in the company. And if you have a system where your staff is rewarded base on merit, then they will work a little harder too, so one person is a superstar and one person is just slumming it and everybody is getting the same paycheck, after awhile the guy who is the superstar is going to take it down a few notches because there is no incentive for working so hard. There’s a motivational speaker called Max Moyan who said, “If you’re doing just enough not to loose your job, your boss is going to pay you just enough to keep it.” Also, empower your employees, put them on a plan immediately, and create a situation where they are aware of this is where they are beginning but 5 years where they should be, you should be empowering them to be on a trajectory towards success and you get a next set, it’s not a static situation.

 

  • Daniel shared that what’s exciting for him right now is the business blossoming, he did the Caribbean Speakers International recently and it was a mind blowing experience because he has never done something like that before. He has done talks before but he has never spoken without a script so he felt like he grew 5 years in one day.

 

  • Daniel shared that listeners can find him at -

totaloneeighty - Instagram

Total One Eighty Image Consulting - Facebook

Total one Eighty - Twitter

 

  • Daniel shared that he had some slumpy years in his career so now that things have turned around for him, when he’s about to make major steps, he resorts to the bad memories and then he starts to have the limiting self talks where he says, “Three years ago this wasn’t working, what makes you think this is going to work now?” Les Brown who is one of has one of favorites quotes, “Operate using your imagination not your memory.” Once you go back to your failures, it’s crippling to you.

 

Links

 

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