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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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Now displaying: April, 2021
Apr 27, 2021

Megan Gilhooly, as VP Customer Experience at Zoomin Software, Megan has made it her mission to change how organizations think about product content. Prior to this role, Megan spent two decades managing content teams, driving content strategy, and delivering stellar information experiences at company like Amazon, Ping Identity, and INVIDI Technologies.

 

Her experience includes content for Support, Sales, Product, and Marketing. As a former online retail business owner and Certified Scrum Master, Megan brings a unique perspective to managing information development and content strategy. She has a BA in Speech Communication, a Ms in Journalism, an Ms in Strategic Management, and a Masters Certificate in Technical Communication.

 

Questions

  • Could you share Megan, with us a little bit about your journey, how it is that you got to where you are today?
  • What's going to make me stop on your post or your video, or your content to partake in whatever it is that you're sharing. There's just so much information, you're bombarded with daily from all the different social media platforms plus emails that people are sending you. How do you navigate through that? What would you recommend?
  • How can organizations put marketing and customer experience together to support each other in the best way possible?
  • If you are a company and you wanted to, let's say replicate the Netflix experience? How can other organizations utilize this model in their own businesses?
  • Could you share with us what's the one online tool, resource, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business?
  • Could you share with us maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you, it could be a book that you read recently, or maybe a book you read a very long time ago, but it still is having a great impact on you.
  • Could you share with us what's one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about - either something that you're working on to develop yourself or your people?
  • Where can listeners find you online?
  • Could you share with us maybe a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you’ll tend to revert to this quote, because it will help to refocus you or get you back on track if for whatever reason you feel de-motivated or derailed?

 

Highlights

 

Megan’s Journey

 

Megan shared that she has always been in content of one form or another. She started her career in journalism and then very quickly moved into Technical Communications. So when she really was at the beginning of her career, she spent a lot of time writing very large books that told people how to use technical software or other technical products.

 

And she has kind of grown up through there, she has gone back and forth with some marketing, she calls herself a bit of a closet marketer because she was never fully in marketing, but she always did marketing. The one thing that she really recognized throughout her entire career is that product content really is the best source of marketing for customers.

 

Customers need to have content that's useful, content that's understandable, they don't like marketing fluff. So the marketing fluff of the 80s won't pass today. And so, she has come into sort of this marketing world in that way. She actually implemented Zoomin software twice in her career. And so, after she went to Amazon for a little bit and led global content teams there, she was looking for a new and exciting challenge. And Zoomin was growing. And so, she actually came on board as the VP of Customer Experience at Zoomin because she knows the product, she knows the industry and she is very quickly learning the role of VP of Customer Experience.

 

Using Content to Capture Your Customers’ Attention Through the Different Social Media Platforms

 

Me: So you spoke a lot about product content. Content, that is such a powerful word it encapsulates so many different things. Just thinking about my phone and the amount of information that it pushes out daily.

How do you know what content is going to capture the persons that you are trying to get their attention?

Because what is going to make me stop, I was watching this LinkedIn video a few months and the young lady on it has this thing called a scrollstop or a thumbstop, I don't remember what was the actual ring line that she had to it. But basically what's going to make me stop on your post or your video, or your content to partake in whatever it is that you're sharing.

There's just so much information, you're bombarded with daily from all the different social media platforms plus emails that people are sending you. How do you navigate through that?

What would you recommend?

 

Megan stated that it's a really good question, she would see technical product content being a little lower in the funnel, it might not be the first thing you send to a customer.

Instead, it's a place you send prospects to do their own homework. So if you think about the way that people buy today, people don't buy because a salesperson calls them necessarily, certainly the salesperson is very important in the process. But a lot of times, these prospects will do 80% of their homework before even contacting the sales team.

And so, the product content is the stuff they'll look at to see how your product works exactly, what it is compatible with, they might look up what your support org does to support the product, how well you can self serve.

And if they feel like they can self serve by getting their answers immediately, then they're going to have a better experience and a better impression of your company. So she thinks product content really does come a little further down the funnel. But she will say that one of the companies that she used to work with, they brought on Zoomin and after she left, she heard from somebody who was at the company, that the CEO actually said, “Product content is the new marketing.”

And she thinks that's such a powerful phrase, because it really is, marketers are trying to create useful information that will engage customers. And you know what, it really comes down to, they want to know what your product does. So that's where she thinks it falls into marketing.

  

Using Marketing and Customer Experience Together to Support Each Other  

 

Me: Tell us a little bit about how it is you see marketing and customer experience playing a more supportive role for each other. Because over the years, marketing has always been a separate part of an organization than customer experience or customer service.

As a matter of fact, I think maybe it's probably in the last 10 years that you actually have organizations segmenting customer service and customer experience, because they realize the importance of it.

As we move forward, especially coming out of this pandemic, how is it that you think organizations can really marry those two departments together in a very symbiotic way?

Because at the end of the day, yes, marketing is to get the customer but at the same time, all organizations want customer retention and loyalty and that can only happen after the marketing is done and as you mentioned, is there support?

Can you get in touch with them?

How easy is it to do business with them?

How can we really put those two together to support each other in the best way possible?

 

Megan shared that they are so inextricably tied. The way she thinks about customer experience is it really is kind of a subset of marketing, as well as a subset of customer success and sort of over overarches both of those two things.

Now, when you think about SaaS platforms today, they don't have the luxury of, “Oh, they bought and installed the product. So it's sticky on its own.” Their customers can leave at any time.

So it behoves the customer success team to ensure that they're getting really good retention, that they're providing the experience that the customers need in order to have them upsell and cross sell and expand into their other offerings. So, that's all very, very important from a revenue standpoint.

At the same time, if their customers have amazing customer experiences, that makes it a lot easier for marketing to get case studies to work with the customer success team and their customers on advocacy, and things that will help marketers to more effectively market to prospects.

So, she thinks there's such a big tie today that really customer experience is all about making decisions with the customer first and foremost. So rather than leading by project or leading by product or leading by sales, or leading by anything else, you really have to lead with the customer in the forefront and then everything sort of falls out from that.

 

How Organizations Can Replicate the Netflix Experience and Use this Model in Their Own Businesses

 

Me: So, there are a few organizations that take that approach. Netflix is definitely one of them, and so is Amazon. If you are a company and you wanted to, let's say replicate the Netflix experience? Provide a high level of personalization. I'm fascinated each time I go on Netflix, now found a way to tell you the top 10 movies that are being watched per country, they've broken it down into geographic favouritism.

And of course, automatically you look at those top 10 and you'll probably end up picking something because you're saying hey, well, if this is number one in Jamaica or this is number one in the US, maybe it's worth watching.

I know it's purely data driven because it's clearly the numbers that they are watching and able to put this out to us.

But how can other organizations utilize this model in their own businesses?

 

Megan share that that's a really interesting point, the Netflix experience is really impacting everybody. So if we think about the consumerization of content, Netflix is one of the big drivers of that.

We as professionals eventually go home at the end of the day, and we sit down in front of the TV, and we open up Netflix, and Netflix hands us exactly what we want to watch, without us even really knowing ahead of time what we want to watch, it's just served up to us.

So then we go to work the next day and whether we work in B2B or B2C, we expect that all of our tools that our vendors are selling to us are going to serve up answers in a very similar way.

And this is something where the consumer world is way ahead of the B2B world but the expectations from customers are there. So she'll give a really good example. When she wanted to buy runners, so tennis shoes, whatever you want to call them, she wants to buy athletic shoes. She always, always, always now goes with Brook Shoes. And Brook Shoes was not always her favourite, she always had a different favourite, until she got the app for Brook Shoes.

And the coolest thing about it is, its content but it steps you through a process within the content that explains how you need to choose your shoes but it doesn't give you a bunch of technical jargon.

So for example, it doesn't say, “Do you pronate or supinate?” It says, “Take your shoes off, stand with your feet parallel and look down and see where your toes are pointing.” And then it shows you a picture of one with the toes pointed out and one was pointed in and one of them neutral. And then you pick the one that matches what you see. And so it's very easy.

 

Now, if you want the scientific reasoning behind it, you can click a link, and you can get to it, so that's great. But it makes it so easy to figure out what type of shoe, what type of Brook shoe, she needs, that she has become a loyal Brook’s user to the point where she has four children.

Her children now wear Brook Shoes but it's easy for her to say, “Okay, let's go through this little checkbox and go through it and figure out what shoes are best for you.”

So that's experience that she has as a consumer that has made her a loyal Brook Shoes fan.

Now, at the end of the day, she’s not here to sell Brook Shoes, she doesn't care if people go to Brook Shoes or not but it's just such a compelling example of where content really drove her loyalty.

And now when she goes to work, she has similar expectations of vendors when she’s trying to get answers, when she’s trying to self serve, when she’s trying to figure out what the best overall experiences for her, she keeps that in mind.

And so it's Netflix, it's Brook shoes, it's Amazon, it's all of these consumer products are really driving the expectations that their customers have for them in the B2B world.

 

Me: I totally agree. I talk about that all the time that customers’ expectations are based on four things. They're based on what we communicate to them, they're based on past experiences they've had with you, they’re based on experiences that you've had with other companies that are not similar to them. So as you mentioned, you're comparing, let's say, for example, how your supermarket app is interfacing with you versus your Brooks app, which is two different companies, two different set of commodities. But the reality is, that's what people look at, they're thinking to themselves, well, if they can do it in this space with a product that's a little bit more complicated, why can’t they do it with something like this? I sit and wonder that to myself all the time. So, I do agree with you that what we experience out there, even if it's not similar to what we're comparing it to does drive our expectation of that product or service.

 

App, Website or Tool that Megan Absolutely Can’t Live Without in Her Business

 

When asked about an online resource that she cannot live without in her business, Megan shared that she thinks this is probably the same answer Yanique gets from almost everyone. But Slack, they could not do their business without Slack, especially in this digital world. So that's a big one for them certainly. And there are probably some others in the marketing world, they couldn't do without HubSpot. But ultimately, there's other tools that do that, nothing really quite does what Slack does in the way that Slack does it.

 

Books That Have Had the Greatest Impact on Megan

 

When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Megan shared that she has to admit that because she works full time and they've been crazy busy throughout the pandemic and she has four kids at home, she hasn't read a lot this year.

But the one book she did read, which is a must read for any company that is going through hyper growth is called No Dumbing Down: A No-Nonsense Guide for CEOs on Organization Growth and it's written by a woman by the name of Karen Walker.

She knows Karen personally; she's done some work with some of her teams. But she started her career, she shouldn't say started her career, back in the day, let's say the 80s when Compaq was going through its hyper growth phase, she started at Compaq as the 100th employee.

She left around 15 years later when they had 17,000 employees; she saw the growth and revenue from zero up to $15 Billion. So, might have some of those numbers slightly wrong.

But basically, she has a very, very impressive view of what it means to be in hyper growth and how to do that successfully, they were the fastest growing company in America to date.

And so her book, No Dumbing Down provides five internal strategies for sort of succeeding through hyper growth. And then it also talks about how do you drive those strategies throughout all the levels of the organization. Really, really powerful.

 

What Megan is Really Excited About Now!

  

Megan shared that has she mentioned, they are going through a tremendous amount of growth here. So they're doing all kinds of things in order to support that growth and it's fun to see all of the things that are going on.

So from hiring and ramping people up quickly to trying to ensure that they're setting the right strategies so that everyone has the Northstar that they need to shoot for, to fixing processes, those are all really, really big, exciting projects right now.

So she thinks if she were to pick, there's just so many, but one in particular, that is actually starting this week, is they're building a customer success playbook. And she thinks that's a very important thing that they sort of have pieces of right now but they haven't yet taken the opportunity to sit down and really flesh it out.

And so, starting this week, they have a project where they're starting to work on that. They have some really cool marketing initiatives that are going on that are keeping them incredibly busy. So they've got a ton, but she thinks that playbook is one that she’s most excited about, because it will really help to solidify, what do we expect of the customer experience?

And then how do our customer success managers actually operate in order to get us to that ideal.

 

Where Can We Find Megan Online

 

LinkedIn – Megan Gilhooly

Twitter - @MeganGilhooly

Email – megan.gilhooly@zoominsoftware.com

Website – www.zoominsoftware.com

 

Megan shared that she also sends out a Friday email where she collate a bunch of different contents, Yanique’s podcast may show up on at one time. And so that is at the Zoomin website, so if you go to www.zoominsoftware.com and then you go to the Resources page, there be a place where you can sign up for that.

It's not really marketing, it's very much what's going on in her brain this week and what's going on and oftentimes she tells silly stories about her kids or funny stories about her husband, she puts out a lot of personal things into it.

It's very short and then she brings in relevant content because she does read a lot of content even though she’s not reading books. She spends a lot of time reading really rich and great content, so she likes to send out the best of that so that other folks don't have to wade through all the bad to get to the good, the little nuggets of wisdom.

 

Me: That's nice. And the reality is, I think that's how most people consume content nowadays, there's just not enough time in the day to really sit down and take on long pieces of information.

So when you can get them in bits and pieces, I find, at least for me, it makes the learning experience that much better. I recently joined Tik Tok because of my daughter's influence, and I used to think it was an application that people go on to waste time.

But I actually have learned quite a few things on it, like different tips and tricks in terms of iPhone, maybe there are features on the phone that I was not familiar with, or tips and tricks in Microsoft Excel with different tools that can help me to analyze the data better. And it's short, it's not a YouTube video, that's like 20 minutes, and I'm like, sure there are 20 minutes to watch this video, it's just like a two minute video and you're like, Oh, I got it, and you save it to your phone and you have it as a reference point. And I thought it was brilliant. I underestimated Tik Tok.

 

Megan shared that that's interesting. She tried to get on Tik Tok a couple times. And she just failed, so she’s going to try again. It thought she was somebody she wasn't because it kept serving up the wrong content. But she thinks it's because she just didn't give it enough time to learn who she was. Because she heard that it can be very, very good. But it really thought she was a teenager that just wanted to do dances. So she'll try it again.

 

Me: Because you're very correct. Because what I noticed as I started using it was it started to pick up on content that I was interested in and then it started to push more of that and less of the garbage that was there originally when I just started.

 

Megan shared that there's such an alignment there with how she talks about product content. When we serve up content, when our customers serve up content to their customers, we expect that it will serve up the content that's related to the version that they want to be on that's related to their role in their organization.

We don't want to just throw content out there. And so, Tik Tok, there's kind of this mirror image between Tic Tok and the product content that we deliver. So that's really interesting.

 

Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Megan Uses

 

When asked about quote or saying that helps her to get back on track, Megan shared that for her, whenever she gets off track, or she feels like people in general are getting off track, I go back to very customer focused quotes.

And so there's one by Marc Benioff from Salesforce, who said, and she may get part of this wrong, but, “You need to get to the future, ahead of your customers and be ready to greet them when they arrive.”

And she thinks that's so powerful to think, especially during difficult times. So let's say even through the pandemic, when you think about the organizations that just sort of sat back and said, “Oh, we can't do that, because of the pandemic.” or “Oh, we're gonna do fewer hours because of the pandemic.”

Those are organisations that have now a really frustrating customer experience. But for the companies that actually said, “Okay, we're in a pandemic, but at some point, we're going to get through this pandemic. Now, where do we need to be? And how do we are we going to be prepared to be ready, no matter where we are along the path of this pandemic.” Those are the companies that have maintained a really positive customer experience. So that's a quote that she often looks at, she has it posted on her wall.

 

Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest

 

Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners

 

Links

 

The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience

 

Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience.”

 

The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty.

This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately!

This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others.

Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!

Apr 20, 2021

Robert Nickell is the founder and CEO of Rocket Station, the leading provider of outsourced staffing and process management for the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry. Operating in Dallas Fort Worth since 2013. Rocket Station helps small to mid-sized businesses with efficiency and profitability. Simplified staffing allows operators to focus on core competencies and outsource the rest.

 

Robert started his career as an entrepreneur in the real estate industry which has positioned him to support many real estate entrepreneurs and established firms who are struggling with staffing and human resources.

 

Robert and his team’s strength in evaluating best practices and efficient ways to staff capacity have continued to propel Rocket Station. When not helping clients build better businesses, you'll find Robert traveling the world or hanging out with his nephews in Dallas.

 

Questions

 

  • Could you just share with us a little bit about your journey? In your own words, how it is that you got to where you are today?
  • So tell us a little bit about if a client was to hire you to, let's say, you got a customer who is exactly where you were many years ago. What are some of the benefits that they would get? What are some of the things that they would need to do like maybe one, two or three things that maybe they're not doing that would help them to be more productive?
  • What would maybe two or three recommendations that you have done in your own business or that you've seen other persons do that have really been able to still sustain a strong customer experience where your customers are advocates of your business?
  • Some people genuinely feel like if they don't want jump in their car, or take public transportation and get physically to a location that the work can’t get done. Is that a recruitment issue or is that a leadership mind-set issue? How do they get over that hump to feel like the person is going to be just as productive if they were working from home?
  • What’s the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business?
  • Could you share with us maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you? It could be a book that you read a very long time ago, or maybe something you read recently, but it still has a great impact on you.
  • Could you share with us what's one thing that's going on in your life right now, it could be something that you're really excited about. But it must be something that you're either working on to develop yourself or your people.
  • Where can listeners find you online?
  • Do you have a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you'll tend to revert to this quote or saying, it kind of helps to get you back on track or get you refocused. Do you have one of those?

 

Highlights

 

Robert’s Journey

 

Robert shared that he quit his first job out of college pretty quick, he thinks he only worked a traditional job for a couple years. And he decided that he wanted to be an entrepreneur, because he really wanted to control his own time, he wanted to be able to do what he wanted to do, with who he wanted to do. And he likes to travel as mentioned, so he wanted to be able to take vacations.

 

And so, he jumped right into entrepreneurship and as the bio mentioned, he started with real estate. And he thought that real estate was going to be the answer to his solutions and not being able to control his own time. And really what happened was, he just kind of became a slave to his business, he was a one man show, he was working 60, 70 hours a week and the only way he could do more transactions or make more money in real estate was just to work more hours.

 

And he'd kind of hit a wall, he'd kind of hit a breaking point because it wasn't, instead of his business serving the lifestyle that he was hoping to create, he was totally serving his business every single day. But he was lucky to have some really awesome mentors and some people who had built some amazing businesses and they just kind of showed him that there's opportunities to create a better business and there's a solution, you just can't do it all yourself.

 

And so he started trying to hire people and train people that were friends and family to work in his real estate business and that just didn't work very well. And he really struggled with that and then he tried to do traditional job postings and use the websites like ladders, and indeed, in all the ways that you can wise hire and all the different options that exists. And again, he failed at that. People came in and he would hire people that he dreaded driving into the office every single day because he felt like he had to tell people what to do all day.

 

And he mentioned having great mentors, and one of them really showed him that he was doing the process backwards. He was hiring people, throwing them at a problem and then hoping that they were just going to get to solve it. When really I needed to start with the end in mind, have systems, have processes, have structure around all the tasks that are happening every day. And then somebody knows exactly what success looks like and they can come in and really help.

 

He was just working too many hours, he needed some help, he tried the traditional hiring model, he failed with that over and over again. And so, he kind of started from scratch, started with building systems and processes, which he didn't really have enough of, then hired people and started doing that really well.

 

And today, they're just kind of taking those all the failings that he had early on and that most businesses struggle with. And they just solve all those problems. They like to think they're the easy button to productivity and efficiency.

 

Tips on How to Be More Productive

 

Me: So tell us a little bit about if a client was to hire you to, let's say, you got a customer who is exactly where you were many years ago. What are some of the benefits that they would get? What are some of the things that they would need to do like maybe one, two or three things that maybe they're not doing that would help them to be more productive?

 

Robert shared that he thinks the first thing is just be aware of where you spend your time all day. He can't tell you how many people they talk to that they don't really understand where they're spending their time. Because we all get busy, we have a lot of things going on. So when the phone rings, you answered, or when emails come through, we respond.

 

And so, usually entrepreneurs just have so much going on in there, they're putting out fires all day, but they're not super aware of all the things they're actually doing. So what they like to do is have people list out and write down kind of what they're doing all day. And that usually is a little bit hard for people right out the gate because we rarely take the time to slow down and think about what we're really doing.

 

And from there, now, it's a whole lot easier to identify tasks that really aren't worth your time, or it's not really the highest and best use of your time. And so if you start with awareness, then you can identify some of those tasks that are not great use of your time and effort, researching different opportunities, or finding solutions to those problems becomes a whole lot easier. So he thinks awareness is really the first step for anybody.

 

Me: And Business Process Outsourcing can be applied to any industry, correct?

 

Robert stated yes and that's what's really amazing about what's happened the last few years with the development of technology, most everything's done online, we're having this conversation online, there's Voice over IP phone systems, and everything sent through email and Cloud storage. So there's been a massive shift the last several years to outsource a huge percentage of operations just because it's so easy and simple to do that in itself, and it solves many of the problems that entrepreneurs face every day.

 

So, the pandemic kind of accelerated that process in a lot of ways because people were forced to work from home and think about things a little bit differently. But this has been going on for a while. And part of the reason why he likes Yanique’s show is because Yanique oftentimes really talk about the customer, like what it takes to really build amazing customer experience and the solutions behind that.

 

And there's just so many amazing tools and resources today that can really drive the customer service experience, which ultimately does nothing but improve the business and the bottom line.

 

Recommendations for Sustaining a Strong Customer Experience

 

Me: I'm glad you touch on that, because that was actually my next question. So you outsource to all of these different persons to improve productivity processes to make things smoother for your customer. Typically, in an organization, traditional organization, we're accustomed to having a mission and a vision and a set of core values and cultural beliefs. And people come into our building every day, or they're seeing their manager on a constant basis, they have like pow wows or monthly or weekly meetings, how do you bring all of that together when you are outsourcing with so many different things to take into consideration, culture, mind-set.

 

What would maybe two or three recommendations that you have done in your own business or that you've seen other persons do that have really been able to still sustain a strong customer experience where your customers are advocates of your business?

 

Robert stated that it's a great question because most people think about outsourcing as just like a tool that is over there, it's not tangible. And for them that, there's lots of ways you can outsource. But for them, what they believe makes the process successful is they try to replicate all the things that you just mentioned, culture, intimacy meetings, alignment, transparency, communication, all of those things that seem to just happen in an office, you can replicate the exact same things with virtual teams.

 

So the way they work with dedicated staffing, so it's same people showing up to work, but dedicated to your company, so they're not working on multiple accounts, or multiple companies, they are a dedicated staffing model. So that makes it a little bit easier for them to create and replicate some of the things you're talking about.

 

So, they help facilitate from their company, the first thing that they do is they document all your systems and processes so you have complete alignment and transparency in what's happening in the organization, but that also creates the task maps and the job descriptions.

 

So the team members that are placed have very specific roles and swim lanes and if they're doing customer service and customer support, they've got their scripts built, they’re dedicated to your company and it's going to function exactly like a W2 would. And with technology and tools today, it makes it super easy to replicate the rhythm that you get within an office, all of their teams check in the morning as soon as they get there you exchange pleasantries, you have all the same normal conversations, whether that's in Zoom, they use Zoom as a company, a lot of their clients use Slack or Skype or Salesforce or Custom PHP programmes, whatever it is.

 

They integrate their teams into your organization, and they should be a part of your weekly meetings, they should be a part of your monthly reviews, they should have KPIs the exact same way that all employees should have KPIs. And they believe that you should manage to those outcomes and those numbers and not have to micromanage task. And if you go about that the right way, by building systems and processes, documenting everything that happens on the front end, now you can set expectations for what task management looks like.

 

And culture for him is just when you've got a team that understands exactly what's expected of them, and everybody's performing to expected outcomes, and you have success. Now, culture is going to be amazing in the organization. So there's lots of ways that you can replicate the office experience in a virtual environment and that's part of what their teams do is help you set up every step of the process, and they never leave you, they stay with you for the life of the account.

 

And the purpose of that is to do exactly what you're talking about, to replicate amazing culture, you talk about having raving fans and improving net promoter scores, that comes from a very efficient aligned organization.

 

And today, it's easier than ever to be able to create that process and it's not only doable, but that's what the expectation should be, whether your teams are working in office, or they're working virtually, and you're outsourcing customer service, or any of the other tasks within the business, you can totally recreate and replicate culture the exact same way you can in an office.

 

Being Productive While Working From Home

 

Me: Okay, so it's very possible, as you said, to replicate it in a virtual space. Now, let's talk about on a granular level, employees, because this is a question that I get all the time clients, for example, “You want us to go virtual and we're expected to work remotely. Yes, it can improve productivity, and definitely efficiency, maybe even save us some money. But what if the persons that we're sending to work at home are not disciplined enough, they need a structure, they need to come in to an office space.” I think some people genuinely feel like if they don't want jump in their car, or take public transportation and get physically to a location that the work can’t get done.

 

Is that a recruitment issue or is that a leadership mind-set issue? How do they get over that hump to feel like the person is going to be just as productive if they were working from home?

 

Robert asked if he’s hearing correcting, if it’s that's a leadership issue or if that's a recruitment issue, the answer, he thinks is yes. He thinks it's both of those things, if you have the right team members in play, and we all work a little bit differently.

 

They leverage a tool in their organization called Culture Index and the idea of that tool is a couple things, it's not just to identify 10 trends within personality so that we can really understand each other, but it's also so that we can communicate and coordinate and, and communicate efficiently within the organization. And that's on more the recruiting side having the right people in place but all of us operate a little bit differently and you're talking about people needing structure, if you're going to be forced to work from home, then you need to just try to replicate some structure.

 

For example, like their team’s the same way, they had to reset expectations, working hours are exactly the same and same with dress code because you've got to get on team meetings and calls periodically throughout the day and week, and interact with customers and clients like dress codes, the same the same expectations about having a dedicated working station where there's no food and drink, and you don't eat at the desk, and during calls and those types of things.

 

So that’s definitely, both of those things. But he thinks what's really happening is we're going to have this hybrid working model, where he has got an office in Dallas where W2’s come in, and they work out of the office, and they have an option whether or not they can come in.

 

And then he has a group of people who basically never come in and he has a group that comes in consistently because they need what you're talking about. But with their virtual teams because most of their teams are based in the Philippines, they all have dedicated workstations and it's just part of the process that they create, but for their US based staff, they're really trying to put the right leadership in place with the right team members underneath them, but then give them the option based on what they need to be successful whether they need to come into the office or not.

 

And he thinks you're going to see both smaller organizations have to make that adjustment the same way Facebook and Chase Bank and all these companies are releasing statements saying that that's exactly what they're going to do, is just adopt a hybrid model for now.

 

Because some people if you're going to hire somebody and they need the structure that you're talking about, great. Or often times, some of their team members, they have kids and they don't have the ability with kids at home right now to have workstations that aren’t going to be interrupted and background noise and pets and those types of things. So he thinks what's really going to happen is you're going to continue with this hybrid model where you'll have some part of your workforce in an office and a large part of it will you'll never see or never have to come in.

 

Me: Great, very good answer. I think I totally agree with you; you definitely need a blended approach because we're just not there yet where everybody can just fit into that cycle that we're trying to create. So I totally agree with you.

 

App, Website or Tool that Robert Absolutely Can’t Live Without in His Business

 

When asked about online resources that he can’t live without in his business, Robert shared that for them, they're totally dependent upon Zoom right now. So, they use Zoom as their voice over IP phone system so all of their team members, they have a phone system that functions just like landline phones, but it's done over Zoom that also has their chat feature where all of their teams and groups are in Zoom chatting all day.

 

And that's one of the reasons why they have such great communication is they really put a lot of structure and expectations on their team about the way they communicate and how often they do, they over communicate as an organization so that's mostly done in Zoom. And then it's also their video conferencing tool, so they do their weekly team meetings that are happening right now in the conference room next to each department on Mondays goes through all of the weekly updates. And the same thing on monthly calls that's done on the video calls with Zoom as well.

 

So they used to use three different tools, they had Ringcentral as a phone system, they had Slack as their chat tool, and then they had Skype as their video tool. And Zoom has replaced all three of those tools and gone into one box, and they would be pretty lost without it right now.

 

Me: Wow, that's brilliant. And they clearly saw the need in the market. They really evolved, I must say, because I used to use them before the pandemic and I have a few clients here in Jamaica that use them for online training. And when I look at the interface to what it was, let's say two, three years ago, it's like day and night, they really have put a lot of energy and as you said, the pandemic force a lot of persons to accelerate. I was reading an article yesterday that said; Target’s 2030 goals became their 2020 goals just because of what was happening globally. So, a lot of organizations definitely had to just make that shift very quickly.

 

Robert shared that that's also why competition is good, because it forces people into growth and Zoom hadn't had much competition or much requirement for a last long time. And so, it’s a stagnant programme, he totally agree, it wasn't very good. But now Microsoft Teams is creating a tool that's very similar, Salesforce is trying to compete because they're blending all tools together and so as a result, Zoom had to really step up their game based on the demand and the needs of all of us as their clients. And so, they really have progressed a ton.

 

And to Yanique’s point, he doesn't think the pandemic really changed anything that was going to happen; he thinks it just accelerated what was inevitable really quickly. Their goals changed as well, because this concept of work from home and outsourcing now makes a lot more sense to people just because they had to live it and experience it the last year. And so, he’s so ready for the pandemic to end but it's been fun to see how fast people have been able to change and adapt.

 

Books That Have Had the Greatest Impact on Robert

  

When asked about books that have the biggest impact, Robert shared that what really set him up for success was a book called The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber. And he talks about the ability to work on your business instead of in your business every day and he describes that as a technician, the person who is actually responsible for all the day to day tasks and all the things that have to be done. And if you're always a technician, then you can never actually have the business that you really want. So that was super powerful for him was to understand the impact that systems and processes and really clear structure could have on the business. And so, E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber was huge as one of the first books he read, business books that had just the massive impact.

 

And most recently and it's been on his shelf for a while, and I read it every single year, it's Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio. Ray's skill sets are kind of the opposite of what his are. He’s great at sales and client facing or customer engaging activities, he likes to be travelling and on the road and engaging with people. And so, his natural skill sets have never been around the structure and the clarity of operations and how to build a really successful business that's sustainable, and Principles by Ray Dalio just has so many amazing different topics in there that for him, it's an annual read for him at the beginning of the year, every single year, and he learns something new every single time.

 

What Robert is Really Excited About Now!

 

Robert shared that leadership and inner personal development is a huge thing, not just for his life, but for their teams as well. And so, what he’s most excited about is for what they're working on, it's both personal and their team members, it's their community projects and it's mostly what they have going on the in the Philippines, they call it Rocket Station Cares. And there's just so many different ways that they're supporting and developing communities, both from school service and donation and activities that they're doing to provide for school children all across the Philippines to medical service that their teams are providing and just resources that they're continually providing to the communities to do community engagements totally outside the company.

 

It's just service, selfless acts of service that they're setting up for their teams to be able to volunteer and participate in and it's just been such an amazing thing. And the better their company does, the bigger that platform of Rocket Station Cares becomes.

 

And so for him, that's what he’s most excited about what they're working on, because that's what it's really all about to him is their ability to give back to the community and do some amazing things for people that is totally outside of themselves and their personal goals. And so, Rocket Station Cares is what he’s most excited about right now.

 

Me: Very nice, Rocket Station Cares. It kind of reminds me of my vision for my business, which is, “To create a more caring world,” which came from the cartoon the Care Bears, I don't know if you remember that cartoon when you're little if you used to watch it.

 

Robert shared that their mission statement as a company is, “Enhanced lives through better business,” because that's kind of similar to what you're talking about, it's kind of what it's all about.

 

Where Can We Find Robert Online

 

Website – www.rocketstation.com

 

Robert shared that there's lots of great information on their website, they've been fortunate to be able to get some endorsements and work with some of the shark tanks and some other great companies. So there's lots of great information on the website, it's just www.rocketstation.com.

 

But what most people, when you hear about outsourcing or you're thinking about your business, it's something that you get and you understand, you just don't know exactly how that applies to you and your business and what steps you should be taking and how that works.

 

And so, he'd be happy for their development team to spend some time with anybody that's interested in just having the conversation, it doesn't matter if you hire their teams or not, there's no obligation. But on the website, there's a scheduled time now button and if anybody who's interested at all, just schedule some time with their team.

 

Again, there's no obligation to sign up for their services or anything like that but just to build a roadmap and kind of understand how this could affect you and apply to your business, just hit that scheduled time now button and their development team will spend 30, 45 minutes and answer any and all questions anybody could come up with and if that was a great solution for your business, they would love to work for you. But if it's not a good solution, it's no big deal at all, happy to answer questions.

 

Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Robert Uses

 

When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Robert stated that he doesn't know if it's really be coming off the top of his head. But he has learned in so many different ways from the Tony Robbins stuff and the Darren Hardy, he spent a lot of time with both. But the real message that he tells himself consistently is, “I'm responsible for everything.”

 

So whatever he believes to be true, comes. So whenever he’s happy, it's a choice. Whenever he’s sad, it's a choice. Whenever they're having success, it's because the choices he has made. Whenever he has had failures, it's because the choices he has made. So, whether things are good or bad, he just tries to look in the mirror and say, “It's your choices and your actions, you're responsible for everything.” So, just kind of a personal mantra that he has that it's to be responsible and take ownership of all things that are in his life.

 

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Apr 6, 2021

Antonio Buchanan is the Co-CEO and Chief Strategy Officer. He spent his career influencing some of the world's top brands. His career took off at Y&R Worldwide, where he quickly became a vice president of Strategic Planning working on American Express, Citigroup, Verizon, Evian, Disney and Club Med. He then served as a senior partner and head of Strategy and Planning at Ogilvy Worldwide, American Express and IBM Global Business with assignments in Mexico City, London, Singapore, Brazil and Sao Paolo.

 

In 1998, Antonio and his partner, Paris formed bang! Zoom, a global research and strategy consultancy with offices in San Francisco, Chicago and London. Their form oversaw research initiatives for 3Com, Lucent, BBC, Avaya, American Express and others before selling the company to MDC partners, (a Toronto-based communications holding company). Antonio has been named one of the top creative thinkers by AdAge, named on the top innovative thinkers list for Wall People Magazine and one of the top 100 executives on Black Enterprise’s BE 100 list.

 

Questions

 

  • Could you share a little bit about your journey, how it is you got to where you are today so we can get a better understanding of who Antonio is.
  • So I can imagine strategy has been a bit challenging, maybe for you and your company during this pandemic period that the world is going through, can you share with us how that has been and how you guys have been able to navigate through this time?
  • Do you find that it's been difficult just getting people motivated and inspired during this time, especially across cultures? Because Mexico City, would you say is a different kind of culture, a different set of mind-set people versus those in San Diego? Has it been different across the globe, in a different continent for example?
  • Could you share with us if there is one website, tool or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business?
  • Could you share with us maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you? It could be a book that you read a very long time ago, or it could be a book that you read recently, but it has had a great impact on you.
  • So if you were in a room with one of these managers, or business owners, and you're sitting across the table from that person, what's the one piece of advice that you would give them to improve on the consistency of having motivated human capital?
  • Could you share with us what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about, it could be something that you're working on to develop yourself or your people.
  • Where can listeners find you online?
  • Do you have a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you will tend to revert to this quote, it kind of helps to maybe get you refocused and just get you back on track.

 

Highlights

 

Antonio’s Journey

 

Antonio shared that he started in the financial services industry, he was working as a trader at Merrill Lynch, the ad agency for Merrill Lynch was coming in to do a campaign on the company. And he was one of the people that was designated to be interviewed by the ad agency. And after that experience, he kind of looked at and went, “They seem to be having more fun that I am.” And so he literally switched careers and started from the bottom again. And, mentioned in the bio, started at Y&R and moved on to Ogilvy. He spent a significant amount of his career at Ogilvy with a lot of the international assignments, and then decided to start his own. And so, they've done it, this is the second time around. The first time as mentioned, they started an agency in about three years in, they were approached to sell it. And when their non-compete was over, on the day the non-compete was over, they launched Antonio in Paris. So he’s the Chief Strategy Officer, Paris was also his wife is the Chief Creative Officer, her experience comes out of McCann Worldwide on Microsoft. And so, he kind of do the strategy side, she does the creative side and they've been having a great time doing it. So it's good to be here.

 

Navigating Through a Pandemic

 

Me: So I can imagine strategy has been a bit challenging, maybe for you and your company during this pandemic period that the world is going through, can you share with us how that has been and how you guys have been able to navigate through this time?

 

Antonio shared that that's an understatement. So it's been interesting, he thinks like everybody, February, March of last year, everybody kind of went into a panic mode. His clients went into a panic mode, rightfully so, not many people knew. What do I do now? Business kind of stopped over that period of time. And they made the decision to really look at it, they could have stayed with how do they continue to help companies enhance their brands?

 

But that wasn't the right thing to do at that particular time, he thinks the right thing to do, in hindsight, was the fact that they decided that they're going to look at when was there something like this in the past?

And how was it handled globally?

And what should they be thinking about?

 

So they decided to start a research study globally, during COVID that every six to eight weeks they would go back into the marketplace and get indication on what were consumers thinking?

What were they feeling?

How engaged were they?

How much more engaged were they going to be as it related to streaming videos and entertainment and working from home and what were their stress points?

 

And all of those things that they could kind of give that information to clients, and gauge when was the right time to get back into the marketplace.

 

They also started presenting this to clients and people who weren't clients, companies that they would have loved to work with. They set up calls with them, Zoom calls with them, things like that, and walked them through these results.

 

They also talked to them about let's talk about history as he said. When SARS happened, we had a front row seat into being able to see what happened in China and how it went from China, the resurgence, the comeback happened in Asia, through Europe, and then to the United States.

 

So we had a roadmap of how it happened. And so they are able to talk to people about it's probably going to happen the same way, which it did, we had the bounce back in Asia first, then Europe, then the US, unfortunately, we had a second round of COVID.

 

This is a perfect time for companies to kind of really think about how they're going to attack, how they're going to pivot, and change maybe something small all the way to their business model. So they started talking to companies about that, if you were to start your company today, how would you change it?

 

Because it's not going to ever be the same again. So they started working with companies and helping them change their company from a strategy perspective, too. So it's been an interesting ride but he thinks it’s the right thing to do, because many companies responded to us helping them figure a lot of that out.

 

Me: Where are you exactly based Antonio, are you in the United States?

 

Antonio stated that they are in San Diego. Currently, he’s in their Mexico City office. They've been working out of Mexico now for probably the past six months, but their headquarters is in San Diego.

  

Getting Your People Motivated and Inspired

 

Me: Do you find that it's been difficult just getting people motivated and inspired during this time, especially across cultures? Because Mexico City, would you say is a different kind of culture, a different set of mind-set people versus those in San Diego? Has it been different across the globe, in a different continent for example?

 

Antonio shared that what's interesting is about five years ago they went completely virtual, so prior to COVID they went virtual, the reason why they did it was because for a few reasons.

One, they wanted to get the most talented people that they could get to work for their company, no matter where they lived. And so, that meant getting more senior people but in getting more senior people, it was good that they didn't have to uproot themselves.

A lot of times, you want to hire somebody and they're in another place, and they don't want to move, their kids are in certain schools or their spouses or partners are kind of trenched in where they are so they're unable to move.

But they're the right candidate for your company, from a culture perspective, from a talent perspective and they wanted that to go away. So they went completely virtual five years ago. So it's funny, because they were using Zoom before people knew what Zoom was and that was one reason.

 

The other reason is because it's a point that you're making. They thought that and it's turned out to be true, the culture, if they brought people into our organization from around the world, no idea would be US centric, or if he’s in Hong Kong, Hong Kong centric or things like that, but the idea’s that the agency would bring to their clients would kind of be from this diverse group of people, diverse culture, different attitudes and opinion and when you sit down to try to solve a problem, and all these people come to the table, you kind of ensure that you're coming at this from a global perspective with an open mind. And then when you start to take these ideas from one country to another, they happen to have people who understand exactly the way that people look into the consumer insight from country to country.

 

So that's helped a lot too, in terms of that, but it's a good question because he thinks so often people come to you, you're an American company, and you come at it from an American perspective, as opposed to being sensitive to other people's ethnicities and cultures.

 

Me: Agreed. Do you guys do business in Jamaica?

 

Antonio stated that they do not, and it's funny too, his family is from Jamaica and Panama. And they don't do business there but he would not have a problem to do business there at all.

 

Me: So you should probably look to expand, now is a great time to expand into new markets, especially with everybody doing things virtually.

 

App, Website or Tool that Antonio Absolutely Can’t Live Without in His Business

 

When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without in his business, Antonio shared that it's probably Zoom. Because they probably have in their organization, him alone, he doesn't even know what other people are doing, he probably has 8 to 10 Zoom calls a day.

And they are with people from all over the world because they have clients in Belgium, they have clients in Hong Kong and in London and in the US and Mexico and things like that.

So it's a challenge, where it used to be a challenge before, he had to get on a plane and go do all that.

Now, it's a different challenge in terms of time zones and things, but it makes life easier. But he thinks that's the one thing.

So, another one would be Basecamp. They use Basecamp in order to kind of give clients transparency. So when they get a new client, for instance, they just signed on new client a couple of days ago who's based in Hong Kong, one of the first things they do is open up a Basecamp file for them. It's kind of a pod, and that gives them the opportunity to drop anything that's relevant about their business into that pod. It also gives us the opportunity, anything that they do for them put into the pod, if there are schedules, they put those in there as well. And clients have the ability to go in and look at the schedules, make sure things are happening when they're supposed to be happening or if they need input from them, they can go there instead of having to deal if it's if it's 2:00 am in the morning their time, but some someplace else it's 3:00 pm in the afternoon, they can go to Basecamp and pretty much get a lot of answers before even having to speak to them. So he thinks those two are pretty valuable.

  

Books That Have Had the Greatest Impact on Antonio

 

When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Antonio shared that Bob Iger’s book, The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company, the former CEO of Disney, amazing book gives us the ability to kind of look into a lot of the challenges that he had in growing Disney. And he likes to tell people, whether you're large organization, or small, many of the challenges that you face are the same, it's just the size of the company. And so, how he handled growth and strategy and how he handled disappointments. What he loves is he puts a lot of the disappointments in there, times that Disney tried to do something and fail, that's really important to him because he wants to see how a) You can imagine it's kind of cool knowing that Disney fails at something. But more importantly, how do they handle it? So that's one.

 

The other one is Barack Obama's book, A Promised Land. Fascinating, but also, as a business person when you look at it, the strategy and the planning that goes into running for the President of the United States, it's very similar to in a business when you're trying to launch something and everything that he had to go through, both from a personal perspective, which we can then move over to as an entrepreneur, you go through some personal things too to get your business up and running. From a business perspective, who are the right people that you're going to build for your team. Just like he had to go through what's the team he's going to pull together to help him win the election. And so, he thinks that's a fascinating book.

 

And then he’s reading now, Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention. And it's literally, you don't have to follow any of the rules, create what's right for you, which he did, and a lot of people talk a lot of smack about him. But now look who's laughing now, because he created an organization that was right for him and believed in it and it's worked pretty well. Those three.

 

Advice for Improving On The Consistency of Having Motivated Human Capital

 

Me: We also have a lot of listeners who are business owners and managers who feel from time to time that it's not that they have poor products, they believe they have great products and services. But one of their challenges is that they lack the constantly motivated human capital. So if you were in a room with one of these managers, or business owners, and you're sitting across the table from that person, what's the one piece of advice that you would give them to improve on the consistency of having motivated human capital?

 

Antonio stated that we have a tendency to break rules with our organization, and we do it not just because, we do it because we stop and we put ourselves in the situation of, before you were an entrepreneur, you worked for somebody and he’s sure you thought of the good and the bad with it and how you wanted to be treated.

 

It's more than motivation just from a salary perspective and a dollars and cents perspective. It's, “I'm respected, they understand that there's some other things that could help.”

 

So for instance, he'll give an example. During the summer, on Fridays, every other Friday they shut their business down. And the reason for that is people get three day weekends during the summer and if it's busy, and then a lot of people go, “Well, I can't do that, because I can't have my whole staff out.”

 

His advice would be if it's busy, split your staff in half and don't do half days because people end up not taking them. But split your staff in half and go, “Okay, this week on Friday, you guys are off and then next week, the other half is off.”

 

“You're giving them a head nod. In order to be productive, you need to be able to have time to think, experience, to live, to have balance. And when you give employees balance, when they feel like you trust them, a lot of times that's more important than the dollars and the sense, you can go to another company and make more money, maybe.”

 

But when you get the feeling that these people respect me and get it. Another thing they do don't have vacation time in their organization, if you need to take the time, take the time and realize you're part of a team.

So they hire grownups and he thinks that's one of the things that you need to do is make sure you're hiring grownups, make sure you're hiring people that are passionate about what they do, and they know why you brought them in. If you hire people like that, then he doesn't care if you take days off or what you're doing and things like that, because those people overdo it anyway, those people give you their heart and soul anyway. So you need to take a day off to be with your kid, to be with your partner, whatever, go do it.

And he doesn't care how much time it is, as long as your teammates are respected and they know that they're going to have to cover for you whatever that is.

 

So he thinks that the big thing is respect who you're working for, think about what you would want if you were a dedicated employee, a dedicated player in an organization, what are the things that would matter and he thinks these days especially with what's going on, with COVID and everything else, it's at how can you give up people work life balance, they're going to give it back to you, when they go and they have a vacation, they come back fresh and you benefit from it too. So he thinks that's what he would tell people.

 

What Antonio is Really Excited About Now!

 

Antonio shared that actually it's something that they're doing with a client that's really exciting. It has something to do with their people, too, because their people are so excited about doing this, that it's taken kind of the agency to a next level.

 

They have a client that is a museum, one of the largest museums in the United States, and they came to them and said, “We're about to celebrate a fairly significant birthday and we want to overhaul our brand. So the logo with the messaging, things like that.”

 

They went and did some consumer research, and realized that there were a couple of segments that they were missing out on and they would never get, quite honestly, because this segment is a segment that is not going to walk through the doors of a museum, but they want to deal on a digital basis more than walk through the door.

 

And so, they went back to the client said, “Well, here's what you asked us for in the first place. But if you're open, we have an idea.”

 

And they were like, What's the idea? They said, “We think that you should not see yourselves as a museum, but see yourselves as a content provider. And you should have a streaming service, like a Netflix, like a Hulu, like something like that, that is specific to the type of museum that you are.”

 

And that's a whole new revenue stream, that's a whole new way of looking at the customer experience. Because the customer experience is no longer when somebody walks through the door. Now the customer experience is 365, 24/7.

 

And they actually went, let's present it to the board, which he thought that head of marketing had a lot of nerve to be able to go Yep, I'm with you. Let's take it to the Board of Directors, and which they did.

 

And the board said, “We agree, go.” And so since then, for the last 2 years they've been helping them build out this streaming service and it's been really exciting. But what's happened is, is that it's pulled the team together with their team internally because it's this thing that's never been done before.

 

And so, when he’s done with this, he’s retired, that's it, what is he going to do that’s going to beat this after he’s done with this. And that's a good feeling that you have clients that will give him the opportunity to kind of swing for the fences.

 

Where Can We Find Antonio Online

 

Website – www.antonioandparis.com

Twitter – @apbmoxie

Instagram - @apbmoxie

 

Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Antonio Uses

 

When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Antonio shared that he has a signature on his email that says, “Rules, I'm just not that interested.”

 

It reminds him of don't keep yourself in a box a lot of times and don't look at things and say, “Well, it hasn't been done before so I guess it can't be done because somebody would have done it. That's not true. We all bring something different to the table.” He likes to tell the story like Apple when they created the iPod, iPod was not the first gadget like that. There were mp3 players before and doing the pretty much the same thing. And someone would have probably looked at Apple and said, “Why do you need to do this, there's already a lot of them in the marketplace.” We hear about the iPhone.

And so break the rules, if you're passionate about it, ignore the naysayers and do what you want to do.

 

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Links

 

  

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