During the Iranian Revolution of 1978, Shaahin's family had to escape to survive and ended up finally migrating to Los Angeles, California. At 15 years old Shaahin left home with nothing but the clothes on his back and created over a BILLION dollars in revenue by inventing the legendary smart drug known as Herbal Ecstacy. These childhood experiences had a major impact on his perspective of freedom, hard work and entrepreneurship. Later Shaahin went on to invent Digital Vaporization (the forerunner to today's vapes) and start a number of successful businesses with a couple of notable failures.
Today, he is the Founder and CEO of Accelerated intelligence Inc, a major Amazon FBA seller with millions in sales, the lead coach at Amazon Mastery where he teaches entrepreneurs how to CRUSH IT! on the Amazon platform and an active YouTube creator.
Shaahin is considered one of the leading global minds on what's next in e-commerce, Amazon and the internet. He is described as the “Willy Wonka of Generation X” by the London Observer and Newsweek and is one of the most forward thinkers in business - with his Amazon Mastery Course he acutely recognizes trends and patterns early on the Amazon platform to help others understand how these shifts impact markets and consumer behaviour.
Questions
Highlights
Shaahin’s Journey
Shaahin shared that they moved to the United States as refugees, political refugees in the 1980s. By the time he was 15, he had started his first business, he left home, left family, no friends, basically sleeping in abandoned buildings, abandoned cars, trying to figure out what to do with himself. He got involved in the electronic music scene, he found a mentor and he invented an alternative to a drug that was very popular at that time called Ecstasy. It became a global phenomenon and by the time he was still in his teens with a grade school education, he had 200 employees, and it created over a billion dollars in revenue.
And so, he had 200 employees working for him, he had a lot of customer service people, he knows it's a show about customer service, he knows a lot about that. And from there, he went on to inventing Digital Vaporization technology, all the vapes and eCigs that you see came from technology that he developed and invented and patented. And from there, he went on to master the Amazon landscape. And so, now he teaches people how to create recurring revenue streams by starting Amazon seller accounts, and selling products through the Amazon platform through his Amazon Mastery Course.
Keys that Needs to be Present for You to Be Successful in this Channel – Amazon Reselling
Shaahin shared that interestingly enough, he thinks one of the things that's important when you're selling on the Amazon platform, is that you have to know how to tell the right story. One of the things that they learned from platforms like Amazon, is that the form of marketing as it was known in the past as disruption marketing, changed dramatically. And whereas in the past, marketers were disrupting you to get your attention, Amazon changed that game.
So now, instead of being disruption marketing, we are permission marketing. And not only that, when you sell something on Amazon, when you're a seller, you have to know how to speak the language of conversion for that platform and it's very different.
And so, the work they do is based on the work of a guy named Professor Robert Cialdini, who wrote the book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion and another book called Persuasion. And what they do is they teach people how to use influence in creating their listing, how to become Decision Architects so that when people arrive at your listing, they're already sold. He likes to say often that the sale is made before the person even lands on your listing. And that's so true. So more true today than ever.
Me: Amazing. I like the phrase or the coin that you just term decision architects. It sounds so eloquent.
About Shaahin’s Book – Billion: How I Became King Of The Thrill Pill Cult
Me: So you have a book out or is it out yet, Billion?
Shaahin shared that the book just dropped called Billion: How I Became King Of The Thrill Cult, it's available on Amazon Kindle, Apple, and you can get the audio book now. The audio book just dropped too. So it's called Billion: How I Became King Of The Thrill Pill Cult, he’s super excited about that, they just got to film deal for that.
And then anybody that's interested, he has an Amazon course where he teaches people how to start Amazon businesses from anywhere in the world. He’s got people in Africa, people in Saudi Arabia, people in the United States, Canada.
And for any of your listeners, if you guys mentioned Yanique, he will give you that program for free. It's a $200 program, it's a one hour course A to Z, how do you get reviews?
How do you do great customer service?
How do you do all those things that go along with finding a product and selling it on the Amazon platform?
How do you start a seller account?
And anybody that wants to can reach out to him, his email is darkzess@gmail.com.
Me: Amazing. So tell us a little bit about the book.
Shaahin shared that the book basically just goes through his journey and his story that he told you now that was basically going from being broke and sleeping where he could lay his head to creating over a billion dollars in revenue. And there were some very exciting times during that period of time, but he was a kid and he didn't know much about business. And all the lessons he learned he kept in a journal and he has those in the book, so it's very interesting. The book is part autobiography and part personal development, where he teaches and coaches people how to become the best versions of themselves, using lessons that were hard fought for him.
Things That Helped to Manage Customer Experience That Forms the Customer Journey with Their Expectation
Me: Now as you mentioned, our show is about navigating the customer experience and I know Amazon is a brilliant platform, really, really great. Of course, I'm sure everybody in the world uses it. But a lot of industries that maybe tapping into the Amazon platform I'm sure are affected by let's say, the shipping and logistics issue that has been impacted by the world globally because of the pandemic. What are some things maybe that you've experienced that has helped to kind of manage the customer experience because that does form parts of the customer journey when their expectation is x, but the actual experience is y, how do you go around that? How do you navigate that to kind of come up with still a very good experience?
Shaahin stated that this is really interesting. And he’s glad Yanique brought that up. So, he'll say this, he thinks there's a couple things that have happened. So Amazon, this company that was started by this little guy, Jeff Bezos, little at the time, now he's huge, disrupted the industry of commerce. And he did this very similar, he (Shaahin) likes to use the example of Piggly Wiggly. Piggly Wiggly was a disrupter.
Why?
Well, back in the turn of the century, if you wanted to buy something in America, you'd go into a store and the man would say, “What do you need today Mr. Jones?” You'd say, “Well, I need some bread. I need some beer. I need some sundries. I need some rubber bands, whatever.” He’d put them in a bag, he tells you how much it was and you would leave, you would have no choice.
So this guy comes around Piggly Wiggly, he goes, we're going to disrupt this entire industry. How are you going to disrupt it?
Well, we're going to build these things. What are these things, they're called aisles. They're going to allow us to have more than one brand, allowing competition in the marketplace.
And we're going to allow customers to come in and pick whatever they want and bring it up to the front and check out. It'll give them an opportunity to see touch and feel the product. Not only that, we're going to have these things called carts where people can go through the aisles, put stuff in carts, and then check them out. It changed commerce forever.
Similarly, Jeff Bezos has done the same thing with his marketplace. Now what's the important thing from a customer service standpoint that he's done is that he's taken the friction out of the sale.
In the old days of the internet, we tend to forget, especially people who are his age, he’s 46 now and he remembers the first days of the internet, younger people might not remember it. You didn't know who to trust, you felt more secure going to a brick and mortar store where you could touch and feel the product and buy it. You didn't know if you bought it on a website, if they would take your credit card number, if you'd never see the product, if you'd see it in three weeks, all those variables have been taken out.
So again, Jeff Bezos is being proactive with his customer service, the best customer service is done before the consumer ever even buys the product. He made sure that the products on the site were of high enough quality, he made sure that there was plenty of selection, and most importantly, the lowest most competitive prices, which he realized was very important, people wanted to save money. Now, from a customer service standpoint, what Jeff Bezos did was he said, “You know what, we're going to let the customer handle their own returns.” Insane, nobody had ever done that before.
He said, “Yeah, we believe that customers can handle most of their issues, and they don't need us. And besides, the cost for us to pay a representative, whatever it is $5, $10 an hour on the end of the other phone to deal with a customer for an hour or two may be more than the cost of the goods.” So what he did is he created easy returns. If you go on to Amazon to this day, you'll see easy returns. If you buy something and you don't like it, you go into the app, or you go into the back end, and you click return, it says what's your reason, you say other, you're good to go, they refunded right back to your card. In many instances, you don't even need to send it back. So it's a form of efficiency.
Now, it's a dual edged sword because it has also created greed within customers. People are needlessly returning things, and people are more expectant now for the silliest reasons. Somebody might order a can of a food product, eat the food product, and then return the tin because it has a dent in it, half empty and this is much more commonplace.
Now Amazon, interestingly enough, doesn't care, unless it's their own product and even then they don't care because they've got such higher margins. But if it's a third party product, Amazon just builds the third party company, it becomes the sellers issue that their product was returned and they handled the customer service from that end.
And nowadays, when they do customer service, he has a policy where they just refund people's money. But every once in a while, every occasion, when they get a ridiculous customer, somebody who is absolutely ridiculous, he will personally call them up himself and they're always shocked that the President of the company is on the phone. And not only will he get them on the phone himself, he will let them know how silly they are being, in a very polite way and this goes against everything in customer service. And then he will sell them something else, he will make it a point not to leave the phone call without having sold them something.
And it always leaves a great experience, a great story that they're going to tell people. And, he doesn't do this with reasonable customers. So if you get a product that's bad, or you have a bad service experience, or there's an employee that maybe treated you unfairly, then of course, they just refund your money and they take care of you the best that they can, always.
But occasionally, you will get somebody who's being unreasonable and the best way to approach somebody who's being unreasonable is to confront them with their unreasonableness and to just call them up and have a real adult conversation. And more and more he’s finding that that's a very effective tool because people who are trying to cheat the system, people who are trying to take advantage are generally cowards.
So when confronted, you can come across that. Another issue that they have is reviews. So this is one of the big things, Amazon has one of the largest blog networks in the universe. Why? Because they've got you and me buying things on there and writing content for them in the form of reviews, making videos in the form of reviews. That's all searchable content, though you're producing for free and giving to Amazon as their property. They own that work that you just created and put on their site and for it, they give you back nothing.
Now, reviews are a dual edged sword. So, you get some people leaving honest reviews, and you get some people leaving fake reviews, some competitors may leave reviews for your product because they don't like you and they want people to think that your product is bad. They've had competitors leave reviews saying, “Hey, there's a fly in the product. Literally, there's a fly in the product, there's a this or that.” They had one guy putting magnets inside some tea and being like, hey, look, it sticks. We're like, static electricity, it's a thing. So, there's a lot of that going on. But at the same time, consumers are now learning that they can use their reviews, their social proof against the companies as a tool for them to get free things.
So what they will do is they will leave a bad review, and then sit back and wait. People do this on Twitter, they do it on Facebook, that's why they take to social media. And they'll just sit back, maybe they'll do something weird. He heard of a guy who tore his shoe laces or tore the soles off his Nikes and posted it on social media and was waited for Nike to call him back and give him a new pair. But it's this ecommerce 3.0 that has spoiled the consumer at the end of the day. And it's for those ridiculous types of things where he feels compelled to call those people back. Now, he doesn't encourage anybody to do that because you'll never get what you want if you're trying to cheat them. And it's unfair to other people that have legitimate grievances. But there's a whole faction of people that leave negative reviews for other people just so they can engage them, and then get a free thing or get a refund or not have to pay for their product.
And as any business, especially a small business, you have to have a way to address that in your business. And his way is just have the CEO call them, you won't get very much of those kinds of calls, but you got to call them. And sometimes you just have to reason with people because people are unreasonable in general with their expectations.
So, they have another brand of glasses that they make of sunglasses, and it's a special type of lens that you wear at night, and it blocks the blue lights, and it's one of the best in the marketplace. And with that product, they offer an unlimited money back guarantee, they're called Sleep Doctor Glasses. And the website is sleepdoctorglasses.com and they offer an unlimited warranty. And the reason why they did this, and it's not just a defect warranty, it's a run your car over warranty, it's a grab a hammer and drill holes through it warranty, whatever you do, run over it with your truck warranty.
And the reason they do this is that most people don't want to damage their personal property, most people love the product so much that they don't want to damage it. But if you're one of those people who does, they're going to use that as a story and they're going to tell that story. And not only are they going to tell that story, you're going to tell that story to everybody that you know, you're going to go, “Man, I bought these glasses for $40 bucks, $50 bucks, from sleep doctor glasses, and my 400 pound gorilla that I keep as a pet sat on them and smashed them. And they just sent me a new pair. And they said as many times as he sits on them, I'm going to get new pairs.” And that creates more marketing, more promotion, more social proof than any marketing that they could do.
So you can't do that for every product, especially if you have a product that's not as high quality, but it's a great hack to offer that to them. When he was in the vaporizer business, they offered extended warranties, electronics, a lot of companies make a lot of money on the extended warranties, and they actually made more money on the extended warranties than we did selling the product because what's your cost on an extended warranty zero, and you get $100, $125 bucks on a $400 product is 25% pure profit that you're making with the product.
Yeah, you're selling it for $400 but you got parts, you got to manufacture. So warranties are beautiful, and rarely, by the way for you guys who are watching this work in the favor of consumers. So if you just always say no to any extended warranty, and at the end of the day, you use that money to fix the thing that breaks, once you'll be in a better place. So the rule of thumb is do not buy the extended warranties, they don't work in the favour of the consumers.
But they had these vaporizers and they had this guy who and remember these are the first vaporizers, they were huge, they were not the eCigs that we see today, this was the original stone age vaporizers.
And they had this guy who bought the extended warranty and then he bought the additional, he wants to say slip and fall, he bought the original water damage, they had different levels of the warranty. So one level was just protects you against defects and other one was drop it in the pool and they cover it. And he bought the extended warranty and he would do crazy things, he would drag it behind a car, he would light like all kinds of objects inside of it, and make them explode. And he would call without fail every month and be like, “Hey, I broke my device, time to send me the new one.”
And finally, he called him personally, he was shocked, again that the CEO was calling him, he said, “I love this. Thank you for making these videos, people love them on our website, here's what I'm going to do for you. Anytime you want a new device, just call me. I've refunded your money, I've refunded you for the extended warranty, you no longer have an extended warranty but here's what you have. Call me anytime, here's my cell phone and anytime you break your device, for whatever reason, I'll just send you a new one. You don't even have to send it back.”
And he was so pleased, he did it maybe three more times after that. They never heard from him again but he continued to make videos about how great their device was.
And so, it's another great practice he thinks that people don't do specially CEOs of companies or people that are running companies, even if you're a mom and pop is that we lose touch with our customers, we lose touch with the people that are paying our salaries, people that are paying for our livelihoods.
And he thinks it's great to reach out and get to know them. He knows it's taboo and if you're a hothead, you probably shouldn't be the one doing that, somebody else on your team should be doing that. But if you're cool and you like people, you like humans, what a great thing to do, not everybody likes humans, depends on the day he’s talking to people, his patience runs thin.
App, Website or Tool that Shaahin Absolutely Can’t Live Without in His Business
Shaahin shared that he uses lots of great tools. So, he loves Evernote, which he thinks is fantastic, he uses Evernote. He loves 1Password, they use that company wide to maintain passwords, which he thinks is really useful. They're big fans of Asana as far as task management for his managers that he does. He loves the website Upwork and Fiverr, they're big fans of that, and they use that in their FBA seller course. So if you guys go to www.fbasellercourse.com or if you email him, darkzess@gmail.com, he'll give you the Amazon Mastery Course for free the one hour crash course.
So, those would be probably his top tools as far as like personal productivity. He loves a VR app called Tripp, it's awesome. It works on the Oculus ecosphere. So if you use the Oculus VR headset, it's a fantastic app that gets you in a flow state in under 10 minutes. And it's one of the most beautiful meditative apps; he thinks out there, it's really a game changer. So, he really recommends the Tripp app, he thinks it's really fantastic. And he also loves the Muse Headband for meditation as well; those two things are really great.
Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Shaahin
When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Shaahin shared that he’s going to say his own book Billion: How I Became King Of The Thrill Pill Cult. Again, available on Amazon and audible check it out if you guys liked his story, if anything he said here inspired you or rang true with you, check out his book and leave him a review. But he’s a big fan of David Allen Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, he thinks he's an amazing, probably the best person in personal productivity if you're in customer service, that'll be a great book. I like Richard Koch, The 80/20 Manager: The Secret to Working Less and Achieving More, which would be great for anybody who's managing customer service people or managing any people of any kind. Unreasonable Success and How to Achieve It: Unlocking the Nine Secrets of People Who Changed the World by Richard Koch as well. And always the books by Robert Cialdini Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.
What Jeff is Really Excited About Now!
Shaahin shared that he wants to come to Jamaica. He has been many times. He’s been to Negril, he’s been to Montego Bay, he’s been all over Jamaica, actually. He loves the island, loves the people, and loves the culture. Such an amazing place, he’s been to Kingston, he’s been up in Strawberry Hill.
Me: You are a Jamaican veteran. Well, the next time you come to Jamaica, make sure you hit me up. I am in Kingston.
Shaahin stated that he loves that, they can drive up to Blue Mountains, get some of that coffee. It's such an amazing place right now.
Right now he’s busy teaching people, inspiring people how to get out of the grind. The greatest crime that has been done to the average person in the last 100 years is this concept that you have to sell your hours for money. And they're changing that now, they're changing that paradigm with the work that they're doing on Amazon, anybody can start an Amazon business for little or low cash, very little money, and to grow that business to a seven figure business in a couple of years by following some very simple paint by number recipes that they teach you. So, his goal for the next year is to inspire 1000 people to start 1000 Amazon companies, becoming a seller on the platform, creating great products and selling them and then creating amazing companies in the next two years and selling those to create recurring revenue.
Where Can We Find Shaahin Online
Shaahin shared that if you guys are interested in this content, and by the way, they’ll rebroadcast this on their channel, they're up to about 67,000 subscribers now. So they'll share this and they'll try to send some subscribers to Yanique’s show. He knows they have a lot of customer service people who watch their show, who would be very interested in the content Yanique is putting out. So with your permission, they'll do that as well.
So they have a show called Hack and Grow Rich, it's available on Stitcher, Spotify, Apple podcasts, wherever podcasts are found, and also on YouTube if you prefer video content. So make sure to check them out on those channels like subscribe, dislike, put rude comments in the comment section whatever you want to do.
Also, his book once again Billion: How I Became King Of The Thrill Pill Cult is available wherever books are found and on Audible. And additionally, if you're interested in that course, reach out to him by email, that email is going to be darkzess@gmail.com and to learn more about his course, you can go to www.fbasellercourse.com FBA of course standing for Fulfillment by Amazon.
Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Shaahin Uses
When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Shaahin shared that he’s got two going through his head. His intuition tells me go this one.
Why do angels fly? Because they take themselves lightly. “Seriousness is a disease.” And he’s noticed Yanique laughed a lot during this show and you laugh and you smile, and that's great.
Well, we all have to remember, this is not serious and business is not serious. Customer service is not serious, none of this is serious. Seriousness is a disease of the ego, so when you get that angry customer on the other end of the phone, when you get that disgruntled employee, when you get that person who you have to deal with, remember to smile. And remember why angels fly.
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Jeff Rosenblum is a co founder of Questus, a digital advertising agency that has worked with many of the world's most influential brands, including American Express, Apple, Capital One, Disney, The NFL, Samsung, Starbucks, Universal, Wyndham and Verizon. Jeff created a groundbreaking documentary about the advertising revolution called The Naked Brand and the book Friction which explained how passion brands are built.
Jeff has lectured at some of the top universities in the world, including Yale, Cornell, Columbia, and the London Business School. He has won some of advertising’s most prestigious awards, and presented at many of the industry's largest conferences.
Questions
Highlights
Jeff’s Journey
Jeff shared that he took a pretty unique path to where he’s at, he didn't necessarily go to some of the finest educational institutions in the world, he was a pretty crappy college student, to be honest with you. And when he graduated school, he had to beg his way into an internship at a research company and they gave him a three month shot and he applied a philosophy that he continued to apply every single day now three decades later, which is “First one in, last one out, every day.” First one in, last one out.
So eventually, that internship turned into a full time job and this was around the birth of the internet. And as a researcher, his job was to collect data and they had very traditional ways of collecting that data, it was through the mail and through the mall surveys and phone surveys, in focus groups. And his job was to figure out how he can collect the highest quality data possible at the lowest price. And then when the internet came along, he had this crazy idea, which was why can't we start collecting all of that data through the internet, which seems grossly obvious now. But really, nobody was doing it at that time, or very few people were doing it at that time.
So, he was lucky enough to be one of the few people pioneering the field of internet research. So, he’s still like a 25 year old zit faced kid, and next thing you know, he’s got Microsoft, Netscape, Sun Microsystems, Walt Disney, Levi Strauss, all as his clients, because he was one of the very few people who knew how to collect data via the internet. But what was interesting is they didn't just want data, what they wanted was to understand the implications of the internet for their business. And what he quickly realized is that everything about business strategy was about to be revolutionized. And perhaps even more importantly, from his point of view, everything about advertising was about was about to go through a complete and total revolution.
So at that point, he realized he no longer wanted to simply collect the data and tell brands what to do with the Internet, what he wanted to do is actually do something about it, he wanted to blend the world of data and creativity under one roof and create the next generation of advertising agency. So, his college roommate was a world class artist, he had art gallery openings, celebrities, like Johnny Depp were buying his paintings and he had shifted a lot of his focus into the world of digital design. So the whole idea was to take a team of outsiders, him (Jeff) from the data and analytics background, ‘he’ from the creative background, and start an agency that's focused less on interrupting people through traditional media and more about empowering people through digital media.
Jeff’s Book Exponential: Transform Your Brand by Empowering Instead of Interrupting – What the Book is About – Who is the Book Geared Towards Helping
Me: Amazing. So, you really got into it. And you've been in it even before a lot of the organizations that are currently trying to tap into that feature, have been into it. Now you have a new book, Jeff. That's the things that really, really sparked my interest, your book and it is entitled, Exponential. I love the name. So, could you tell us a little bit about that book? I know subtitle for the book is Transform Your Brand by Empowering Instead of Interrupting. Could you tell us a little bit about what the book is about? Who is the book geared towards helping and what do you mean by empowering? And what do you mean by interrupting?
Jeff shared that he’s always been fascinated by brands that absolutely dominate the competition, brands that grow exponentially in size, in influence, in financial performance. Brands like Warby Parker and Sweetgreen, and Apple, and Google, and Amazon. So, really what he’s done is focused in on how advertising has gone through a revolution and we can no longer rely upon interruptions, meaning buying 30 seconds spots on TV ads, buying full page print ads in magazines, buying pop up ads, and banner ads, in pre rolls.
All of those tools are fine, there's nothing wrong with them, the data and the mathematic show that they work. And as an agency, they leverage the hell out of those techniques, those are very powerful techniques.
But what they drive are good results, they don't drive exponential results and what they realized is brands that move beyond just interrupting and expand into empowering people, improving their lives one small step at a time, giving them the content and the tools to move their lives forward, those are the brands that drive the exponential results. So, that's what the book is about is how data and creativity, how content and technology can be used to empower an audience and dominate the competition.
What Does Empowerment Mean in Practical Steps or Practical Implementation
Me: Now, you also have in the book that empowerment drives exponential bottom line results. For a business, empowerment, it embodies a lot of different things and I would just like for you to break down to our listeners, what does empowerment really mean in practical steps or practical implementation? When you say you empower your team members, what does that look like? Could you give us maybe one or two examples?
Jeff stated that that's a great question. Because empowerment really comes in two sides of the equation, how do you empower your customers in your target audience? How do you give them the content and the tools to make sure that they're getting more out of the products and the services that you create?
But also to the question, empowerment comes in the form of culture, how do we help people on our teams do the best work possible? And he thinks a lot of people have confused culture to mean fun. In Silicon Valley, where their headquarters are out in San Francisco, there was the trend of foosball tables and ping pong tables and bars and right in the office and there's nothing wrong with those ideas. Having music and some beers and some games is certainly fun. But that's not culture. And that's not empowerment.
And what they've realized is great culture is really just about putting people in position to do their best work, that's what people want. If you hire the right people on your team, what they really care about is how can they advance their career as effectively as possible? How can they advance their entire team as effectively as possible? So, great culture is really about giving people those tools, giving people the tools to do their best work.
Me: Amazing. So, we're giving our employees the tools to ensure that they're doing their best to work.
How Factors Like Culture and Transparency Help Companies Build Exponential Growth
Me: Now, you spoke a little bit about culture, and you made reference to the fact that a lot of organizations mistake the whole process of culture as being fun and as you said, pool tables and lots of other things that they may attach to the whole vibe of culture. How do factors like culture and transparency help companies to build exponential growth?
Jeff shared that the world is just much more complicated than it's ever been before, at one point you could get by by having some really good TV ads to drive awareness and interest and then you can have a good retail store with some good retail staff members to turn those people who are interested into customers. But the world just really exploded. Now, you don't have just those two critical channels and maybe a couple other channels, the world has literally dozens and dozens of channels where you need to not only communicate with your audience, but actually transact with your audience.
So think about Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, your desktop website, your mobile website, your mobile apps, your retail stores, which should be connected to all those digital touch points, as well as all those traditional tools like TV, radio and print, and that's just a few. By the time we're done with this podcast, there's going to be three or four emerging new, great tools and channels.
So, for brands to really succeed, they need to be able to break down the silos that exist internally. You can't just have great creativity sitting in one silo to create a great 30 second spot. And then great salespeople in another silo who are converting folks.
You need technology and creativity and data and analytics, and project management and finance, all to work together seamlessly. And the only way to do that is build great culture, which is based upon safety of communication, which is built upon process with communication, which is built upon tools for communication, ultimately, breaking down those silos that exist, recognizing that the world is just so much more complex than it's ever been before.
And the target audience is more demanding than it's ever been before because although things get really complex in the way that we want to tell our brand story, in the ways that we can tell our brand story, the target audience ultimately, really wants simplicity, they will not stand for any friction in that purchase journey.
Recommendations for a Brand to be Active on Multiple Channels
Me: Now, you mentioned that there are multiple channels that exist nowadays. Let's say a brand is looking to be present on all channels, but they just don't have the resources to be active on all channels. What would your recommendation be to them? Because I find that a lot of brands are everywhere, but they're not responsive everywhere and of course, that will impact the whole journey if it is I'm trying to get in touch with you and it's just a dead end.
Jeff shared that that is a really great question. And that is the question that all marketers are going to be faced with in perpetuity. And it's why we also see this addiction to TV in other traditional forms of advertising, because it's just so much easier to say, “Look, all we need to do is be great at TV, and then maybe great at retail, and we're done.” But that's not consistent with the way that people shop nowadays, the way people conduct research, the way they interact with brands and obviously, much more so with a younger audience.
So to answer your question, it really does come back to that culture question, which is, are you breaking down silos so that you can communicate internally, share the data that you have internally, and ultimately, leverage the channels that are most effective for you.
So, the beautiful part of everything that we're doing right now is we've got more data than ever before, unprecedented and unparalleled levels of data.
The problem with data is you can really have information overload, you can really have paralysis by analysis.
So the key is to really streamline your data down to the key performance indicators, there's probably only one, two or three really critical KPIs that you need to track and through that have honest conversations about where you want to be and what's most important for your brand and your target audience.
There's really no reason to be mediocre at Facebook, mediocre at Instagram, mediocre at Twitter, mediocre at LinkedIn, when you can be really great at one or two of those channels.
So data is going to be the answer and understanding that target audience from not just a data standpoint, but also a qualitative standpoint so you understand what is your target audience really value and then couple that with the data to show what's driving your business results.
App, Website or Tool that Jeff Absolutely Can’t Live Without in His Business
When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without, Jeff shared that he doesn't know if he has one. But he'll tell you he thinks the key to their success is based upon a few things and one of them is education, they really preach collaboration, celebration in education.
So, he thinks the apps that enable them to get educated are probably the most important. And there are just a few content sources that he thinks are really powerful. He’s just a huge believer in reading the Wall Street Journal from cover to cover every single day, particularly in the world of advertising, where it's too easy for us to get caught up in Ad age, in Ad week and other stuff that really just talks about their own industry.
But he thinks as advertisers and marketers for them to be most effective, they need to step back and look at the overall business experience and the overall business strategy because that's what marketing really is. So, he thinks reading the Wall Street Journal cover to cover is one of the most important things that anybody can do. But there's also some great newsletters out there, he’s a huge believer in Allen Murray, from Time Inc., from Fortune, he has a world class, daily newsletter. But he thinks for anyone who's listening, you got to find two or three resources that you can go to, not occasionally, but virtually every single day so you can watch how these stories unfold and how these trends and metrics unfold. But you can never be too educated in a world that's as dynamic as it is today.
Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Jeff
When asked about books that have had an impact, Jeff shared that that's also a great question. He’s a pretty voracious reader, if he’s honest with business books, he very often will just hammer the first three chapters and find that books often get redundant so he doesn't make it all the way through. And that's one of the things they tried to do with Exponential, is treat it like the layers of an onion and make a key point, but have every chapter deal with a new topic as it relates to leveraging the consumer journey or leveraging culture so that the book continues to unfold.
And he thinks a couple of books that have been really influential for him is one of them, which was written by Bill Walsh, posthumously, meaning after he passed away, his family took his notes and the name of the book is, The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership. And he's one of the greatest football coaches ever; he was the single greatest coach ever until Bill Belichick came along. And his idea was really based upon the concept of putting the ball where the other team isn't, which really is a great business strategy, meaning don't follow what everybody else is doing, find that whitespace and let that dictate where your business strategy goes.
But the bigger thing about The Score Takes Care of Itself that you can get from the title is, he really focused in on culture and when he first took over the 40 Niners, before he won a bunch of Super Bowls, he was focused on all these little things like how do secretaries answer the phone? And everyone was like, “What are you doing your football coach? And why are you worried about how people answer the phone, that has nothing to do with what we're trying to accomplish here.” And he almost didn't make it, they almost fired him. But his point was like, “We're going to take care of all the little things, we're going to take care of the culture. And when we do that, per the title, the score will take care of itself.” And that's just an absolutely amazing book.
Another great book is a Who: The A Method for Hiring by Geoff Smart, which has been really influential for him. And really what he gets down to is this point about culture. But culture really starts with one thing, which is hiring the absolute best human beings possible.
You can't really build culture, unless you first build a team of A+ players. And the point of the book is, if you want to get A+ players, there's a process that you can follow, it's not just a goal, it's not just a philosophy, there's a methodical process that can be used to find those A+ players. And to be honest with you, they don't always nail the process and you can never be too process oriented for things like that. But it was a real game changer for them in regard to how they approach recruiting and bringing on world class talent.
What Jeff is Really Excited About Now!
When asked what is one thing that he’s really excited about, Jeff stated that that's a great question. There's probably two things, the obvious and maybe the less obvious, but much more important, which is, from a business standpoint, this idea of marrying together data and creativity, this idea of building brands through empowerment, instead of interruptions, they started their agency 23 years ago based upon this principle, and now the whole world, the whole business world is really waking up to this is it, this is the model, this is how great brands are going to be built now and in perpetuity. In a lot of ways COVID didn't change business, he thinks in a lot of ways COVID expedited business and advanced it about seven years forward.
So one of the really exciting things for them is that tons of amazing brands are reaching out to them and they're in conversations with some of the biggest and the best brands in the world who are really excited about this concept of looking at the entire consumer journey, creating content and tools and empower people rather than just building brands through interruptions. But really, the less obvious, and perhaps even more exciting thing is, as their business grows and they take advantage of these opportunities, the exposure on getting to world class team members and the opportunities they're creating for their team members is probably the most rewarding and exciting experience he’s ever had in business, just watching young folks on their team take on bigger challenges, get promotions, do some of the best work he’s ever seen in his career, fundamentally and completely outperform him in every way, shape, or form, and then recruiting in new incredible team members who are starting that journey also, that to him is so incredibly rewarding, fulfilling and exciting.
Where Can We Find Jeff Online
Website – https://www.questus.com
Instagram - @thejeffrosenblum
Twitter - @JRQuestus
Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Jeff Uses
When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Jeff shared that that's a great question. But no, not really, he doesn’t think there's any quote that he rely upon that becomes a mantra for life in general. It's, “If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.”
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Ethan Beute is the Chief Evangelist at BombBomb and he is a co-author of Rehumanize Your Business and of Human-Centered Communication, his newest book. He is also the host of The Customer Experience Podcast. Ethan Beute has spent the past decade helping business professionals be more personal and human through simple video messages.
Questions
Highlights
Ethan’s Journey
Ethan shared that he built a career in local television, so he ran local marketing teams inside local TV stations like your local ABC, or NBC or Fox station, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in Chicago, and out here where he is now in Colorado Springs, Colorado. And he was kind of bored of the work; he had been doing it for some time. And so, he started doing project work with a variety of different people that he knew, including the two co-founders of BombBomb and he just really liked what they were up to, he thought it was interesting. And so, he joined them as the first and only marketer over a decade ago as you were kind enough to mention in the introduction.
And in that time, just the growth in team size, customer base, revenue, it's been this dramatic journey of transformation and that's been happening at the same time that he’s been really in a front row seat of this movement to replace some of what is typically faceless typed out text, think about emails, social messages, text messages, Slack messages, all this faceless typed out texts that we rely on every day, replacing some of that with simple personal video messages.
And so, he’s done a lot of learning, teaching practicing, he’s sent more than 12,500 videos himself now, as you already mentioned. He’s written a couple of books on the topic. And it's just been a joy because as it says in the title of the first book Rehumanize Your Business, this really is about restoring some of the missing human elements that have been so useful to all of us for so long, that have gone missing as we've increasingly gotten digital and virtual.
Ethan’s Book Human-Centered Communication – What the Book is About – The Main Pillars the Book is Built on and How it Can Help Up Your Customer Service Game
Me: So, your most recent book, Human-Centered Communication, that was released in September, right?
Ethan shared that in October, they were definitely telling people about it a lot in September, and it started shipping in in early October.
Me: So, could you share with us maybe, I would say the main pillars that that book is built on? Like, who is the book for? What is the book about? And how can it really help you to UP your customer service game?
Ethan shared that if you rely on connecting and communicating in digital, virtual and online spaces, then this book is for you.
He knows that's really, really broad. But really, it is loaded with philosophy, and then more practically strategy and then more practically tactics to help anyone connect and communicate more effectively in the face of ever increasing digital noise and pollution.
So, we all know that these spaces that we operate in are noisy. Inboxes are overloaded, message boxes are overloaded, and we’re getting spam texts and spam calls now bleeding into pollution.
It's difficult to know who and what to trust, we feel some sense of overwhelm, just keeping up with all the notifications, but he’s in like five Slack channels and they always seem to be loaded with more new messages than he can possibly keep up with.
And so, this is obviously unsustainable for individuals and for organizations. And so, Steve, who is his long time friend and team member, their Chief Marketing Officer at BombBomb, his co author on Rehumanize Your Business, wanted to take this on directly.
Obviously video does play a role in it, we can get into the nuance there. It specifically helps fill in the void of the visual and emotional impoverishment of so much of our digital communication in addition to the layers that it adds in terms of communicating your identity and verifying it because it's you on the screen, there's no one that can fake being you, at least at this point.
And so, they roped in 11 of their expert friends, they have a number of sales and marketing leaders, they have a marketing futurist from Salesforce, they have an emotional intelligence expert with seven US patents in the analysis of facial coding data, they have just a number of different people that they brought into this conversation, to figure out how to make sure that the way they're reaching out and engaging people puts those people's needs and interests first in order to generate better results for everybody.
And so, that's what they're doing. They're blending human centered design with their daily digital communication, it does rely on Steve's and his (Ethan) expertise and experience, but they also involve many other people in the process. And the feedback so far has been very, very positive.
How Can a Company Be Customer Obsessed and Get Customers to Want to be Intrinsically Loyal
Me: Very nice. So, one of the terms that you use in your book, customer obsessed and cult followed. Apple came in at 7.8, the most human brands across all industries. And then you had USAA a nearly 100 year old financial services organization with a score of 9.4.
What does a company need to be to be customer obsessed and cult followed that people want to follow that brand?
And then I'd like you to also talk a little bit about loyalty. Because I know a lot of companies have loyalty programs, but to me, they're more like, I don't know, I just don't see them as true loyalty programs, because what they're doing isn't necessarily making me want to be loyal to them.
So how can you really get your customers to want to be intrinsically loyal to you?
Ethan shared that these are great questions. And the answers to both are remarkably similar. So, he'll put them together.
For folks who are listening, what Yanique is referring to is a study that he and Steve leaned on; he thinks it was in chapter two of this book. But it's the Lippincott Human Era Index or something like that.
And it was a survey of hundreds of company leaders and 1000s, if not 10s of 1000s of consumers. And they were trying to identify the most human brand and he doesn't remember off the top of his head and he doesn't have the book. But they asked three particular questions. But really, he can answer both questions without listing those, is a really interesting study.
If you just search Lippincott Human Era Index or something, you'll find it, it's not hidden behind a gate, you don't need to type in an email address or anything to get it, it's a really interesting study.
It really comes down to how we make people feel.
And he’s going to go to Shep Hyken, who they featured in chapter 11 of Human Centered Communication, he's a customer service and customer experience expert. And one of the things he's been talking about lately is the difference between repeat business and loyal business. And the primary difference is the emotional connection that we feel.
Now, the emotional connection, one of the reasons that he thinks USAA that 100+ year old financial services business beat out companies like Apple or Southwest Airlines, or some of these brands that people really, really like, and respect and feel connected to, and would rank as human is that they, this is an interesting one, this isn't the only way to do it, but they answer their phone. He’s actually a USAA customer, their hours are pretty broad, so if he wants to call them at 6:00 am in the morning while he’s drinking coffee before he gets into the work of the day, or if he wants to call them in the evening or any point during the day, you can actually talk to somebody and they’ll answer your questions and they won't rush you off the phone and they're just very available and approachable online and on the phone etc.
They also have an interesting thing where the only way in to being a USAA customer and he say he’s getting a little bit too specific about their branding and positioning. But it's for US military and their families. Now, his father was in the Air Force, he (Ethan) has no military experience himself but because he is his direct descendant, he’s able to be a USAA customer. But they have this other layer of in and out and it doesn't have to be as clearly defined as being a military member for example, or a formal member of a group but the more you can create this kind of in group, out group scenario, the more people who are in feel like they're a part of something, the more you treat them as individual human beings as opposed to sources of revenue, the more you treat them as human beings rather than as numbers, customer numbers, account numbers, the less you make them restate themselves over and over again. The less you make them verify their identity over and over again, because they've already done at once.
There are a lot of things you can do to make people feel valued and appreciated, like you respect their time and attention and like you see them as a partner in success, whose questions you want to answer and problems you want to remove and opportunities you want to help them capitalize on.
It really comes down to how we make people feel, how we make people feel about themselves, how we make people feel about us, and our sales reps, or our service reps, or the other humans, they come into contact with, the way they feel about their problem or opportunity, the way they feel about our product or our service, the more we can keep in mind as we're making decisions as we're designing systems and processes. As we're designing messages and digital experiences, now he’s getting into kind of the what they take account in Human-Centered Communication, the more we can keep people's needs and wants and the way that we make them feel, the emotional resonance that they leave each of these individual experiences with, the better off we're going to be.
Indications in an Organization that Will Guide You to Know that You’re Truly Connecting with Someone
Me: Brilliant. So, that definitely answered both of my questions. And I'm so glad that you've been touching so much on emotional connection, and authenticity and just being really connected with another human being.
Are there maybe two or three indicators as a representative or a manager or an employee in an organization that will kind of guide you to know that you're truly connecting with someone?
Because I imagine connection looks different depending on each individual, it's not the same; you wouldn't connect with each person the same way. But is there maybe some guiding principles or triggers that you could use possibly as indicators to know that you're on the right track to connecting with this individual?
Ethan shared that a number of different people will do it in different ways. Some people do it through survey mechanisms and other feedback, NPS and going beyond just the number but getting to kind of the scores and the sentiment.
Some people use retention or expansion, or other financial measures to suggest loyalty. There's no foolproof answer to this, he wished he had something better and more concrete for you. But he will give you some concrete steps that he knows some people he really likes and respect are taking which big idea here, it is difficult to create customer loyalty. He will add it is difficult to create a remarkable customer experience without creating a remarkable employee experience and without employee engagement and employee loyalty.
So, something that he’s heard from a number of people is that they do some form of course, (a) being very thoughtful about what it's like to be on the team. What does it feel like to be a team member here? Do I feel valued? Do I feel appreciated? Do I feel like I'm making a contribution, not just to the world at large, but am I making a contribution day to day, week to week to the improvement of the business and to the improvement of customers lives.
And so, something that he’s heard really good, thoughtful, engaged managers and leaders doing is that as part of their meetings, let's just assume you have like a daily or a weekly stand up, or some kind of a team meeting.
They'll come up with different questions but they're all kind of around the idea of tell me a story that happened this week where you're able to solve a customer's problem or answer a customer's question. Or maybe where you broke the standard rules of the playbook, where you went a little bit out of your way, or where you got an amazing piece of feedback. And you know what you're looking for there isn't those amazing over the top surprise and delight stories. What you're trying to do is just create this culture where there's an ongoing internal conversation about putting other people's needs first, sometimes people are asking needs about helping out your fellow team members as well going out of your way to save someone time or to pick up where they left off or maybe a team member had a personal challenge or a personal crisis during the week and you filled in for them or covered for them or that kind of thing.
The more we can keep this top of mind by asking people to share stories, either in a one on one or a group setting, the more we're establishing that other people matter. And that the feedback people provides us matters, the way that we make other people feel matters. And so, it's a very simple practical thing to do.
And he thinks for maybe a hard driving, hardcore manager, it might feel like a waste of time, but he promise you, you will have a much more engaged team, one month, one quarter, one year into a habit that looks something like that.
Me: So, we really need to ensure that we are truly having those kinds of conversations that we can connect to people. And I love the fact that you mentioned that it's all about having a remarkable internal employee experience, because everything starts from within.
Why is Video so Impactful and What Kinds of Messages Can You Give With a Video?
Me: Video is something that is mentioned predominantly, of course, because BombBomb is all about video messaging. But let's say our listeners that have tapped into this episode didn't hear your previous episode with us last year and they're not too familiar with video messaging and how it really works.
I can attest, give a testimonial in this interview and say, each time that I interact with Ethan and I send him an email, he responds with a video message, and it blows me away every single time.
So Ethan, could you share with me why video is so impactful? How does it work? And what kinds of messages can you give with a video? Is it only for tutorial based kinds of conversations? Or can it just be simple responses and messages instead of actually written communication?
Ethan shared that this is a really good question. It's a big one, too. So he'll take it on. He'll start easy and try not to go too deep, and then let you redirect me as you would like. But in general, anyone listening can imagine how many times they receive or send a typed out message during the day. Usually, it's in the dozens or so. And so much of what we're trying to do, some of these are important and valuable messages and yet, we're restricting ourselves because it's just become normal to a form of communication that isn't ideal for many of those messages. And he’s talking again about faceless typed out text, the same black text on the same white screen that doesn't differentiate you, doesn't build trust and rapport and doesn't communicate nearly as well as when you simply look someone in the eye and talk to her or him.
And so, this video messaging movement is just looking for opportunities to record a simple video, it might be 27 seconds, it might be two and a half minutes, and sending it to one person or more people in order to do one of three things in particular.
One, establish or re- establish personal connection. So him and Yanique have never met in person, he hopes to one day. But in the meantime, you can feel a little bit like you know him, because he’s sending a full version of himself, the next best thing to being there in person. Because they don't communicate all the time, they've been privileged to communicate back and forth quite a bit over the past year or two. But it's not like they talk every day.
And so, it's been a while since you heard from me or since I've heard from you. So he’s going to initially establish and then now it's re-establishing some degree of psychological and emotional nearness, you feel a little bit connected to him. And this they can do this with their team members. So many people are working remotely; they can do this with their prospects and their customers. They can do it with their partners, their vendors, their suppliers, integration partners, all kinds of different people in their business ecosystem can feel like they know them before they meet them, or be reminded of what it's like to be with them. There's just a simple joy and benefit in that. So, number one is personal connection.
Number two is managing our emotion or our tone. There are so many things we try to do and typed out texts that are just really, really hard to do. Because text doesn't capture the richness of human communication, it doesn't connect; it doesn't capture subtlety or nuance. It doesn't capture excitement, or sincerity or gratitude, or concern or appreciation; all this kind of soft, wonderful human stuff, if we need to provide corrective feedback to a team member and we don't want to wait until the next one on one because that's scheduled four days from now, we need to provide that corrective feedback sooner than later.
So much better to do that when you can communicate it in a way that your intent and your sincerity and your interest cannot be confused. If you type out a message and send it to someone, it's up to them to determine, do you really mean it in a positive constructive way? Or does it come across passive aggressive, it doesn't really matter, you can try to control it the way that you write it, but it's really up to the other person to make the decision. When you send a video, there's no mistaking it. This is how humans have been communicating for millennia. We express emotions through our faces, and we read emotions from other people's faces. As a parent, or as a leader, or manager, you've probably had some version of this conversation with your child or with your direct report. No, it's not what you said, it's how you said it. And so, we all know that the way we say something matter. So, number two is emotion or tone.
And number three is detail or complexity, there are a number of things that we try to explain whether we're answering someone's question, whether we're just adding an attachment to the email, and pointing someone to page 12 to look for something in particular, we can break down detail or complexity, we can explain things in laypersons terms, we can show and tell with a screen reporting, we can walk with a screen recording where we can put ourselves in a little box or a circle and put a document or a report or a contract or a proposal on the screen, and walk and talk someone through it. And so, whether you're in sales, whether you're in marketing, whether you're in customer service, whether you're in account management, whether you're in leadership or management, no matter your role, or function, there are opportunities throughout your day, and throughout your week to do these things. You can still enjoy the benefit of the asynchronicity of digital communication.
He clears his inbox when it's convenient for him and some people are getting his message and engaging and responding immediately, some people are doing it an hour later or a day later, sometimes even a week later, whenever it's convenient for them. There are a number of benefits to all of this digital communication, but we need to look for the spots to restore the real human to human elements and the human to human qualities that make the communication, this is the key, more effective. This isn't about video for video sake; this is about using video because it's better at certain jobs, in terms of helping other people out, making ourselves clear, etc.
Me: Amazing. Love those three points that you brought across why video is so important and we will definitely have them highlighted and singled out in the show notes of this episode so our listeners can really gather and gain and feel the impact of what video messaging can really do for your business.
Ethan shared that simple, casual, conversational, this is just you and your webcam just like if you're getting on a Zoom call or a Skype call or a Microsoft Teams call or a Google Meet call, this isn't fancy, this isn't scripted, this isn’t edited.
This is just you talking to other people or kind of showing and telling what's on your screen, this is very approachable. You can do it in email, you can do it in LinkedIn messages, you can do it in Slack messages, you can do it in all kinds of different places. He just want to walk it down so that anyone that isn't familiar doesn't think, “Oh, I need fancy equipment, I need to edit video, this is going to be really slow and cumbersome.” This is just quick, easy, lightweight video communication for the benefits we already described.
App, Website or Tool that Ethan Absolutely Can’t Live Without in His Business
When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without in his business, Ethan shared there are a number of things that come to mind. Some of the easy ones that are kind of like layups, obviously email, he knows that's really old fashioned and it's silly to say, but there's just so many benefits to it and I find it so manageable. At some level, he uses it as a to do list at some level. He uses his phone as the screening tool, so he can swipe and delete the emails that aren't so important or that are there quick to deal with. And so, when he gets to his laptop, he only has the good ones. So that's kind of an old fashioned one.
LinkedIn is obviously super useful for meeting people and exploring ideas and even exploring your own ideas and creating conversations around them. In terms of a hot app or a hot tool, he’s not really a tech gadget app person so he’s not really looking to stay on the edge there. He keeps it pretty simple and whatever his team is using, he’ll wind up using. One of the tools they're using more and more is Miro. It's kind of a visual collaboration tool, think of it like a Google Doc or a Google Sheet but with a lot more different, unique, collaborative functionality. And again, it's a bit more visual, so that's one he'll offer.
Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Ethan
When asked about books that have had an impact, Ethan shared he reads a lot; he'll go with an old one and a new one. He doesn't remember what he mentioned the last time Yanique asked him this. So hopefully, the old one is not a repeat, but a book that he just absolutely loves; he found it in a used bookstore in the mid 1990s.
It was printed in 1973 and it literally fell apart in his hands finally. As he was doing the research for Human-Centered Communication, and this book is called Small Is Beautiful and the subtitle is Economics as if People Mattered. So, it's a human centered approach to economics in the financial system at large. It's actually a collection of essays by a gentleman named E.F Schumacher, Ernest Schumacher.
And he was writing in this era where people were really trying to figure out how do we evolve out of this industrial mindset of mass markets, mass production, and anonymity, inter changeability, standardization, a lot of dehumanizing work for the people executing it. And so, he found that really inspiring and informative. Again, he’s read it several times. But he reread it as he was doing the research for Human Centered Communication. So, that's an older one.
And then a much newer one is called Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data by Rishad Tobaccowala. And he gets into the same divide and he speaks to a really current tension that we would all recognize is what is the proper place of people? And what is the proper place of machines? How are we to work together?
It has echoes back into this kind of industrial revolution, industrial mindset that was dehumanizing. And of course, now, it's manifest again between robotics from a physical standpoint, automation and AI from a thought in an analytics standpoint. Just wrestling with what makes humans uniquely powerful, what brings humans to life? What do people find engaging both on the employee and on the customer side. And so, the more recent one is called Restoring the Soul of Business by Rishad Tobaccowala. And love that book, too.
What Ethan is Really Excited About Now!
Ethan shared that they're doing kind of a hard reset on a lot of their training. And so, right now he’s in this mental state where he’s taking this broad sweep of all the things that he’s learned and taught over the past decade at BombBomb. And it's a lot obviously, and it includes two and a half books. There's a half book in between these two, that turned out to lay out in about 128 pages and just updating it, making it more contemporary because this opportunity is for everybody as he already mentioned.
It's easier to do than most people think there, are 10s of 1000s, if not a couple 100,000 pioneers actively engaged in this and it brings him to life every day to know that he can help more people (a) Understand the opportunity. And then (b) Start going down this road where they actually try it, “Am I doing it right?” People don't seem to be responding or people are responding incredibly well and just getting people on the right track and moving them forward.
And so, he’s just kind of in this reflective review state in order to update and recreate, along with some team members, it's exciting and encouraging. And if anyone ever has any questions about any of this, he’d love to hear from them directly.
Where Can We Find Ethan Online
LinkedIn – Ethan Beute
Instagram - @ethanbeute
Twitter - @ethanbeute
Instagram - @bombbomb
Twitter – @BombBomb
Website – https://bombbomb.com/book/
Podcast - The Customer Experience Podcast
Email – ethan@bombbomb.com
Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Ethan Uses
When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Ethan shared he doesn’t have any, he probably shared a philosophy that they developed internally at BombBomb which is, “Be of value and abundance will follow.” This idea that the more we lead in a spirit of service and support and help, the rewards come subsequently.
Another one he’ll add, this is just a mantra sometime. He runs, walks and hikes a lot and often times he’ll listen to music or listen to a podcast but he will also take the airbuds out for extensive periods of time just to be with his own thoughts.
And sometimes he’ll just cycle on a mantra which is, “Being kind to myself and being kind to other people.”
He knows it seems simple, but it’s so easy to get caught up in what other people need, what other people want, the pressures you’re putting on yourself, different things that are on your calendar and your schedule. And things can feel busy and overwhelming and if we stop and think about why we’re really here, it is to be in a relationship with other people and he thinks leading with kindness is not a soft thing to do, it’s actually a very challenging thing to do and it is foundational to all good things.
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