Richie Jones has experienced both client side and agency life across multiple sectors. Having spent the majority of his career to date being just in front of the curve, he is now in the sweet spot having found his niche. Launching vvast has allowed Richie to blend his agency experience and brand expertise to deliver an innovative, low-capital entry to market for brands but crucially plugging them into a relentless R&D roadmap to accelerate revenue. He is passionate about the concept of creative destruction and feels genuinely privileged to have seen the inception and gradual impact of the internet on society and brands. 

Ritchie builds teams with a shared love of brand, a stoke for surfing, mountain biking and music, and drive to deliver epic work. Having embarked on B Corp journey in 2021, Richie has discovered how aligned it is with his purpose for vvast, it is so much more than environmental impact, it's about considering our contribution to the wider community, and understanding the way we do business through an ethical lens.

Questions

• We read your bio, your formal bio that they sent over to us, but we always like to ask our guests to share in their own words, a little bit about your journey, how you got to where you are today?

• So, could you share with our listeners a little bit about vvast? What kind of clients do you have? What kind of work do you do? so they have a better idea of what your organisation is about? I know you mentioned just now that it was formed six years ago, and it's about 35 employees that you have in your complement.

• So, I'm sure many of our listeners may have different organisations that they are a part of, and they may outsource some aspects of their business. And so, when you outsource a lot of times, the customer may not necessarily have the same experience across the board, could you share with us maybe two or three things that you found has made your team successful to make that experience so invaluable for the customer that they're not even able to pick up that you are a third party? But you're just all one.

• What are maybe I would say, two things that you believe is important to grow a profitable and purpose led business focused on transparency, and communicating values, because especially the values part?

• Can you share with us what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business?

• Could you also 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 even one that you read a very long time ago, but it has had a very big impact on you.

• Could you also share with us one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people.

• Where can listeners find you online?

• Now, before we wrap our episodes up, we always like to ask our guests if you have a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you will tend to revert to this quote if for any reason you feel off track or you get derailed, this quote kind of helps to get you back on track, remind you of as you said that Simon Sinek says, “Why are you doing what you're doing?”

Highlights

Richie’s Journey

Richie shared that the bio really sort of summarises the journey he’s been on. And he thinks the concept of being in front of the curve for quite a long time in his career has definitely been something he guess, paid for in the early parts of his career, because he was almost too early with the internet and technology. So, what's amazing now, having first founded a company that was about 20 years ago, he sold it about 10 years in, that was an amazing experience to see what it's like to start something and take it all the way through to selling to a A-listed marketing group. So, it's what you do when you've sort of found things and see what it turns into is really exciting.

After that, he went brand side as they call it for a five-year period where he was on a private equity, and also venture capitalist funded board, where they selected brands and kind of took them to a whole next level really. After that, he went what they call brand side and worked, got a big learning for how brands operate, some of the challenges they face. And the crucial thing he kind of learned on that long sort of period as well was how to create amazing brand and consumer experiences, what will actually really make consumers want to buy again from a brand and why they enjoy doing it. 

And most recently he founded vvast six years ago, and they’ve now grown to sort of 35 people that handling approaching 15 million pounds worth of revenue for their brands at the moment. So, it's been a really great journey. And crucially within that they have a whole customer services or customer centric elements of what they do as well. That's what he’s done in a nutshell so far.

About Richie’s Company - vvast

Me: So, could you share with our listeners a little bit about vvast? What kind of clients do you have? What kind of work do you do? So they have a better idea of what your organisation is about? I know you mentioned just now that it was formed six years ago, and it's about 35 employees that you have in your complement, correct?

Richie affirmed, yes, that's correct. So, what they do in sort of summary is they’ve created an approach to be able to bring brands to market, initially in the European marketplace, but they’re expanding into the Middle East, they actually have some brands in Australia and New Zealand as well. And fairly similarly going into the US, as well. So, it will be a global thing they’re doing. But in the early stages, what they’re doing now is they’ve set up the business so that a brand, some of the brands they work with brands, like Yeti and they have Stance, they have some of the Truly brands, so Truly Designs and brands like Jansport, which is one of the VF brands they work with. 

And all of these brands, they operate in the European market, primarily, they set them up. So, it's actually, this is crucial on the eCommerce channel, but also on Amazon as well. It's actually a very complicated channel to navigate. And if you're saying based in the US and you’ve worked with a lot of California West Coast based brands, it's actually very quite risky setting up an entity and trading in the European market in the first place. They have all of the teams, the infrastructure and crucially the technical platforms to be able to launch a brand in Europe, navigate all of the challenges around the 28 countries that exist in the main sort of European Union trading block, things like language, how to price correctly, how to go to market, and also creating amazing customer and brand experiences. So, they’re able to do that. And it's actually very low cost for a brand to use them, compared to them setting up the sort of one to 2 million US dollar cost of setting up your own local team and market. So, instead, they can talk to them and they basically act as the brand, they don't see themselves necessarily as an agency, they see themselves as a genuine extension to what the brand does, and in sort of customer facing side of what they do, especially, they're trained by the brands that they work with as well. 

So, if you were to contact one of the brands they work with, you might talk to someone who works at vvast, but actually in effect, the consumer or customer is none the wiser they are being dealt with as they are the brand. And they take great pride in that and they feel like they’re huge sort of custodians of that as well. This year, they’re going for a B Corp as well, as mentioned in his bio, and they’re particularly excited about that, because they were able to apply a lot of the learnings from their B Corp, to the brands and make recommendations and how they can be more sustainable and more ethical.

Strategies Found That Has Made Your Team Successful to Make Experience Invaluable for the Customers

Me: Amazing. So, I loved what you said about talking to someone from vvast but you didn't know you're talking to someone from vvast, because it was almost like you're talking to someone from the actual company, because that experience was just so seamless. So, I'm sure many of our listeners may have different organisations that they are a part of, and they may outsource some aspects of their business. And so, when you outsource a lot of times, the customer may not necessarily have the same experience across the board, could you share with us maybe two or three things that you found has made your team successful to make that experience so invaluable for the customer that they're not even able to pick up that you are a third party? But you're just all one.

Richie stated that is really crucial with the kind of brands they work with as well. So, a lot of high end. So, the expectation from a consumer point of view is that it should be a like a premium, incredible experience. So, the real challenge of it is that if there's if common issues that are coming up, but it's having good software to track, so they use Zendesk as their main platform, but there's others out there, obviously, they're having really good software to track what are their consistent problems that the consumers are contacting them about? And that's where because they own the full 360 user experience, they call it 360 so they can actually change if it's a problem with how you're describing the sizing, for example, on the website might be one specific product. 

And that's particularly important when you're importing products from say, the US where sizing is completely different, and they don't use it, they use Imperial not metric to do it, making sure all those things you address. If it's a really common issue, and it's reoccurring, making sure they have a really clear process that addresses that, so you can actually reduce the amount of inbound you're getting around that particular issue. That's a real kind of big advantage that they have, because they will have visibility. That's definitely the first thing he'd say.  

He thinks as well. The other one is what is really immersing their brand team, sort of customer experience facing team in the brand itself. And again, with a premium brand that they’re working with, they’re very fortunate that they actually extend the training, the onboarding, and also product update training with their team. And that's been really instrumental in terms of their success. So, often the US team will just treat their team exactly as an extension, which is exactly what you need. And likewise, they will share their excitement. So, if there's a product update, for example, that addresses one of the key issues, because a lot of these products, they're driven by the consumer. So, if there's a key issue that comes up like the latch is too tight or too hard to close on a key kind of piece of luggage, for example, when there's an update, and there's a really great accessory that comes up that addresses that issue, their team are the first to know from those brands that there's a brilliant kind of solution to this. And that is just a great example that the brand is listening to the consumer, which is again why consumable repeat with a brand. 

He thinks the third one he'd say is that glue that exists between the trading team that they have who actually trade the eCommerce websites and also things like Amazon, and the insights that team kind of getting so there’s a great trust there. So, if there's an issue with a website, which he’s happy to say doesn't happen very often, they their trade team will be the first to tell their customer experience team that there's an issue. 

And it might be on one particular payment type, for example, like Apple Pay has gone down or MasterCard isn't working in Germany for some reason, or whatever it is, their trade team are very quick to tell the customer experience team just say really quickly, “Okay, we're aware of this issue. We're working on it, here's a resolution, can we help you with an alternative payment method?” That kind of thing really. So, those are probably the kind of biggest things and it really leverages their 360 model, because they've got that visibility across the entire business, so to speak.

Me: Amazing. So, you mentioned the glue, the technology and the training and development. And that's kind of how your methodology works in order to ensure that seamless experience. That's really, really good.

Important Factors to Grow a Profitable and Purpose Led Business Focused on Transparency and Communicating Values

Me: Could you also share in working with your company vvast and all of your high end clients and brands across different countries across Europe, what are maybe I would say, two things, let’s narrow it down to two that you believe is important to grow a profitable and purpose led business focused on transparency, and communicating values, because especially the values part. Because you're working with many different people, many different personalities, we're all socialised and grown up differently. So, how do you kind of get everybody on that same page, and then your consumer buys into those values that you have for your organisation and they can see those values permeate in your day to day interactions with you?

Richie stated that it's such a kind of question of now. And often it's very pertinent to the kind of the zeitgeist of purpose led really, and we're in a smoothness age now, especially the internet and post COVID, where the brand is the biggest brands in the world, and even the smaller ones and operations like vvast do as well. If you're going to embark on a purpose led mission and use things like the amazing movement is being fought to make it a transparent process, you absolutely 100% have to live and breathe your kind of company vision fundamentally, that's the most important thing. And he thinks anchoring it back to your company vision, and reminding your team of what you're doing and why you're doing, it not only creates a feeling of belonging and excitement in that you're on this bigger mission, it isn't just about making profit, it's actually about what excites their team so much, him especially that really makes him happy about that, it's not just making money thing, is that you can really feel like they're on a mission that is going to potentially not just influence the brands they work with, but ideally, also influence everybody else, their peers in the industry. And our peers could be either competitors to what vvast does, and there's not many at the moment, or the actual competitors of some of their brands that go, okay, that's a really good idea that if, for example, they deploy a type of version of Shopify, there's much more low energy for the end user and also for the hosting environment that they use. 

So, they're willing to share how they've actually achieved that, in the same way that Volvo did when they designed the seatbelt, they made the Payton open source that meant the whole car industry could then adopt that and save millions of lives.

So, they feel like they're in a place where they can create just a great passion for what they did in terms of like, they can address the climate emergency, they can start to, or at least be part of that solution to the climate emergency. They can start to say to people, that they've got a way of engaging ethically in eCommerce selling techniques.

And all those things join back to this kind of common purpose that exist in the business itself, it's phenomenal how the B Corp kind of framework gives you this, what it does is literally a framework to actually implement some of the findings and learnings to actually get you to turn your company mission statement into a set of values that then your team will do and live day in day out and you can attach those to the team objectives. 

So, if someone has a team objective for that particular quarter, for example, an individual has an objective, you can say what company value are you actually going to attach that to and you can benchmark it. And they actually have an award that they give out once a month, it's called a vvasterfy award, it’s quite bizarre in a shaped you mentioned surfing earlier, he’s not sure if you're familiar what a shackle is, which is you stick your two fingers up on each end of your palm, but your thumb out and then your finger out the other way and you sort of do a shackle, which is a surfing thing.

Me: I've never surfed before, but I'm a good swimmer.

Richie stated that It's basically a golden shackle that they give to people each month who have demonstrated the best, they've exemplified their values in the best way. And an example of one of their values is for planner and community. And it's like demonstrating how they've managed to lower impact to improve their impact on obviously on the planet, but also on their community as well. 

And those are great ways to meet. They’ve given away a month's worth of charity days in terms of their teams, so each team member can spend a day and maybe two, if it's a great sort of thing if the workload or allows working at a charity that they believe in, or an NGO. And that's another example, they are just living that example by their kind of company mission, really. And it's all made possible, really by that whole B Corp sort of framework that they can then report against, really. Those are probably the biggest ways that they demonstrate that purpose, really.

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

When asked about online resource that he cannot live without in his business, Richie stated that that's a great question. So, where they're at now, and he promises, it's not an advert. He thinks a tool that is a kind of a playbook, where they store all of their insights and their processes in terms of a new product launch, or a new starter joins, or someone leaves or whatever it is, is a platform called Asana. And they've gone through two or three tools that have a similar to Asana. But they now using it to a point now where they literally can just fire up all kinds of processes and tasks, simple things that if there was a data, he’s just thinking now in terms of the more customer centric stuff. If someone did a data request, “Okay, I want you to delete all my data that this brand has on me. Can you confirm your do that within in 48 hours?” Which is what the legislation says they need to do. So, they have a process, they just fire up in Asana and bosch it’s done, the team, they are pulling in the right sort of way. He thinks that that has been a game changer for them. And it exists the costs in a web browser and also in app on desktop as well. So, that's probably the one he would choose out of all of them.

Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Richie

When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Richie stated that the classic one at the moment, he’s referencing quite a lot at the moment is The Power of Why, which is a Simon Sinek book, which is was probably his first kind of big mass market success, he'd say. And that talks about going right back to what is your purpose? Why does your company even exist? What gets you out of bed? It literally will pull you right back out of all of the kind of mode you’re in to a to go on that journey about literally why is so important, and is definitely worth a follow on LinkedIn, if you can, Simon Sinek he's really great. And he is now really sort of taking things, his success with COVID was phenomenal, is taking it to the whole next level, and what you can do, but that's a great, great book to start with. 

He thinks another one is one called Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike, which is the story autobiography, actually, written by the founder of Nike. And just on a personal level, but also, we all know about the kind of sacrifices you have to make when you start a business. 

And he encapsulates that whole summary. And also, he should say, is also the founder of Nike as well, which is Phil Knight. And in that book, it takes you on such a journey about him going from bedroom start-up literally from his, his classically educated academic dad questioning why on earth he wants to set up a trainer brand in the first place, all the way through to the end where the business is obviously worth billions.

The most successful kind of shoe and apparel business on the planet, so to speak, really. And he thinks it's a fascinating read, and it's actually very inspiring. He relates to it because of how he's engaged in community in such a clever way, especially through active sports. And they obviously started in running but when diversified, obviously, all kinds of areas like basketball as we all know. So, that's a really inspiring read or recommend that to anyone, even if they're not in the kind of lifestyle, fashion businesses. It's a great read.

What Richie is Really Excited About Now!

When asked about something that he’s really excited about, Richie shared that they are like six years old and that feels like they're older, but feels like at the moment, they're going through the stage where they're really going up from being like teenagers who are probably coming home late at night, and their parents are worried about them sort of thing, to actually go in into this amazing stage where they're going, they're really, really accountable. They've always been accountable at this next level of accountability, where they're now doubling down on their processes, how teams are iterating things. And they've been on this amazing journey with an external company, he’s going to name drop them, which they're based in Bristol, a company called Lunos. And a good friend of his who runs it as well, two friends of his, and these guys have done an amazing job in terms of coming in and evaluating where they're at as a business and in providing them krushi with these really simple tools to help them transition into this grown up versions of themselves. And the process is called Launchpad. And it's been an amazing, it's gruelling as well, he'll be honest, in terms of how he’s running the company at the same time, you got to keep all your people on the same page, that this journey is worth it. 

But he can really see already from the green sheets, he’s seen already that this process is going to be transformative in terms of how they get on to the amazing work they do for their brands that he internally call this the gold that they're creating, out into the ether to demonstrate all of the value to their brands, because they don't talk about it enough. They see so many things, but the passion doesn't always come out sometimes. And that's just purely a product of people just delivering the day to day and not taking that time, like Simon says to ask what the Why is and go, “Oh, by the way, we've seen this, look at this solution we've got, would you be interested in doing it with us?” So that probably is the single biggest piece and he can't wait to continue on the journey to keep on delivering against that.

Where Can We Find Richie Online

Website – www.vvast.net

LinkedIn – Richie Jones

Lunos - www.heylunos.com

Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Richie Uses 

When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Richie stated that he thinks it's probably a quote he just tell himself so when adversity strikes, and sometimes you'll be on top of something that's even more, you've been dealing with, just for the business, you might be in peak trading, or whatever the challenges are, he just tells himself that, “This is what you do, you can do this. You can face this adversity.” And the saying that comes in his head sometimes, it's kind of “This is what you're here to do. And you can do this, you demonstrate this to yourself multiple times that you can just navigate.” If you'd have to stay up until 3:00 am one day and just navigate something because you have to do something you need to do last minute, you can do it. And he thinks it's that reminder that we've got the ability to push on through to that next level, way beyond what you think you can do, mentally and also physically. He learned that from sports especially. So, it's that thing that it's what you were meant to do. And if it's meant to happen, you will be able to do it. That's the kind of thing he tells himself and at the moment he seems to be proving to himself that that he can do that which is a cool feeling.

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

Links 

·  Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight

The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience

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

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!

The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience Webinar – New Date

Register Here

 Jim Oliver founded Create Tailwind in 1988 in Denver, Colorado. Originally, a full-service financial planning firm, Jim and his team weathered two major corrections on Wall Street and pivoted Create Tailwind’s focus to building wealth beyond Wall Street. Teaching clients to create wealth without Wall Street brokers and financial planners took off, to most people becoming their own banker was something they couldn't envision.

Most people park their money in qualified plans or with a broker and hope that the money grows. Jim reminds his clients that hope is not a strategy. He teaches his clients that becoming their own banker means they accumulate money, and they deploy it to make it even more money, this is the mind shift.

Under Jim's leadership Create Tailwind exploded to become a multilocation nationally recognized firm helping 1000s of individuals and businesses around the United States. 

Questions

• So, we always like to give our guests an opportunity to share with our listeners a little bit about their journey, how they got to where they are today. So, could you take some time on share that with our listeners, Jim?

• Could you take some time to share with our listeners a little bit about your company – Create Tailwind? I know I read about it in the bio, and in terms of what you help them doing, just share with us, what are some of the value-added opportunities that you are offering to your clients?

• What are some of the key things that you try to do with your clients in terms of supporting them? I know you offer the courses and you're teaching them a theory. But let's say for example, you're working with a client, this mindset that you're trying to encourage or envision, it's not clicking for them. What are some strategies or techniques that you utilise, to kind of get those persons on board to transition them from where they are to where you want them to be?

• What are some things that you found, give me three things that you find tend to be general obstacles that prevent persons from reaching their maximum potential when it comes to wealth? And then you listen to all of these podcasts and you listen to all of these or read these books, and they say there's a difference between being rich and being wealthy. How do you get people because if you look them up in the Oxford dictionary, they pretty much have the same meaning. So, how would you differentiate?

• Could you also share with us what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business?

• Can you also share with our listeners, maybe one or two books that have had a great impact on you, it could be a book that you read a very long time ago, or even one that you've read recently.

• Could you also share with our listeners what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people.

• Where can listeners find you online?

• Before we wrap our episodes up, Jim, we always like to ask our guests, could you provide us with a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you will tend to revert to this code, it kind of helps to get you back on track, if for any reason you got derailed.

Highlights 

Jim’s Journey

Jim shared that he was born in Los Angeles. And he has five siblings, and he was a middle child, but he was given up for adoption. And this is kind of the PG version, but his mother, his birth mother said that she was raped, and her husband thought that she had an affair. He (Jim) found out at 55 years old that he was actually his father. But he grew up in foster care and then he grew up in a very poor area of Los Angeles. 

And he became fascinated with money and he also became fascinated with business owners because he started working in a casket factory when he was 13 years old, swinging a hammer and he watched the business owner and he knew that he lived on the hill of Palace Vertis, which was a foreign country to him. 

It was where people had wealth, they had abundance, they had all of these things, that the people in his neighbourhood, they didn't have any of those things. And he really just was driven by what do those people that live on the hill know and by the beach know and in Beverly Hills know that the people that live in Inglewood and neighbourhoods like that, that they don't know. And he went to school, did everything the way that he was supposed to, learned about Wall Street and investments. And he did that, and he was very successful at building a financial planning firm. 

But then he realized that his clients weren't getting wealthy in Wall Street. And he analyzed all of his clients and he threw out all the ones that got lucky. They were the janitor at Google and they just made millions of dollars. He threw the lucky ones out and he said, “What is it that my clients, my really wealthy clients, what have they done to become wealthy?” And it came down to two things, business owners and real estate. And he changed his whole focus to teach people how to be business owners, and how to own real estate, and how to build cash flow and assets, instead of Wall Street instruments and government-controlled plans.

About Jim’s Company Create Tailwind and Value-Added Opportunities for Clients

Me: Could you take some time to share with our listeners a little bit about your company – Create Tailwind? I know I read about it in the bio, and in terms of what you help them doing, just share with us, what are some of the value-added opportunities that you are offering to your clients?

Jim shared that the other thing that he realized is that every financial planner in the world is trying to sell something to their prospects, clients, customers, and he didn't like that, he didn't want to sell. So, what he decided is that the reason that he decided to personally start to build cash flow instead of instruments, assets instead of instruments, and not try to build up this lump sum, nest egg, is he became more and more educated about cash flow and assets, and banking, and becoming his own banker, and how he could control the banking function in his life. 

And so, he decided that what he would do is he would just educate other people. So, the way that they serve their clients, and really help them understand the landscape out there, and how to build wealth, is they educate them. They have a community, that's Create Tailwind community. And it's Create Tailwind, because they’re all fighting a financial headwind, and he’s showing you how to turn that around so that wind will actually push you forward, instead of fight against your progress. 

And at the community Create Tailwind, they just teach people, they teach people and the community members teach each other. But they have courses, they have discussions, they have book recommendations, they have book reviews, they have all of these different things that is intended to do one thing, educate their customers, and anybody really that is interested, anybody can join the community for free. And they learn about taxes and how to be more tax invisible, they learn about becoming their own bank, how a bank works, and how you can control the banking function in your life instead of the commercial bank. How your need for finance over your lifetime is much greater than your need for an investment. All of these things, they’re basically teaching people so that if they choose, they can change their mindset. And they can change their path to where they're on the path of wealth, instead of the path of financial slavery, like most people are.

Strategies and Techniques Utilized to Transition from Where They Are to Where They Want Them to Be

Me: What are some of the key things that you try to do with your clients in terms of supporting them? I know you offer the courses and you're teaching them the theory. But let's say for example, you're working with a client, this mindset that you're trying to encourage or envision, it's not clicking for them. What are some strategies or techniques that you utilize, to kind of get those persons on board to transition them from where they are to where you want them to be?

Jim stated that that's a great question. And what they do is they do Zoom meetings, even way before COVID. They did Zoom meetings, and originally it was WebEx back in the day. And they will get on there and they will do Q&A…whatever questions you have….whatever things aren't making sense. And he has this board that he draws on, it's a graphics board.

And he finds that people learn visually, a lot more than they learned verbally and so, when you're thinking about money and the way money flows, and the way that money works, they need to see numbers, they need to see the flow. So, he draws that out, or the team draws that out for them. 

And they can see it and they can say, “Hey, but I don't understand this. I don't understand that.” They can ask any question they want. They do that individually and one on one on a Zoom meeting, so you don't have to ask the question in front of a group. 

They also occasionally do live Q&A meetings where the community will ask questions live, and they answer those questions live. And so, that's really the big focus is that and they’re always building more content, more content to help their clients understand what they need financially out there in the world, and how to protect themselves and their families and their businesses.

Obstacles Preventing Persons from Reaching Their Maximum Potential When it Comes to Wealth

Me: Now, Jim, you've been doing this for quite a bit a years now. What are some things that you found, give me three things that you find tend to be general obstacles that prevent persons from reaching their maximum potential when it comes to wealth? And then you listen to all of these podcasts and you listen to all of these or read these books, and they say there's a difference between being rich and being wealthy. How do you get people because if you look them up in the Oxford dictionary, they pretty much have the same meaning. So, how would you differentiate?

Jim shared that the first is show them what is happening now. If you put money in a 401 K, or an IRA, or some government backed programme, that has rules, penalties, all this stuff, or if you put money in Wall Street, here's what's happening to it. Here's how inflation works. Here's how fees and expenses inside those funds work. Here's how commissions work. And so, it's kind of like, if you know what's happening, you'll know what to do. So, the first thing if somebody doesn't realize what's happening to their money, he has to show them how a bank works. And so, they kind of show them what really is going on. 

The second thing is, the second obstacle is that we've been filled with noise. And the funny thing is, he heard this number, and he really think that it's accurate, is that we see 5000 marketing messages a day. Now, it could be on TV, it could be a logo on somebody's shirt. But all of that is designed to get our money to flow away from us. We see a shirt that we like on TV and it has the logo, and you think I want that shirt, I want those shoes, somebody is wearing shoes, they're driving a car, if you think of all the input, all of that noise every day, but there's nothing that's designed to help us increase our cash flow. It's designed to get us to flow our money away from us to someone else. And the difference between wealthy people and poor people, is wealthy people get money to flow to them. And poor people, all their money flows away from them. And so, that's the second obstacle. 

And then the third obstacle is, “Okay, I understand what's happening, I get that I've been taught the wrong things about money. But I don't have anybody to help me, I don't have anybody to help me get from where I am to where I want to be.” So that's the third thing that he would say is that you have to find a coach. Whatever community that you're in, it doesn't matter whether you're in a lower income community, inner city, rural, it doesn't matter. There are people in that community that are buying assets that own the apartment complexes, the mobile home parks, the RV parks, the businesses, they own those things, and they are more than happy to help you if you ask. 

So, the third thing and how what he really believe that you have to have is you have to have a guide, you have to have a coach, if you think about it, in every movie that you've ever seen, the person that has a problem meets a guy, they need a coach and that coach helps them overcome their dilemma. Tiger Woods, the greatest golfer of all time, he has a coach and the reason is, is that so the coach can help him learn how to do what he does better and better and better and give him the confidence. 

So, those are the three things that he believes that are obstacles for people to grow their wealth and have everything in life that they want and have that abundant mindset that is limitless in creating cash flow to them.

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

When asked about online resources that he cannot live without in his business, Jim shared that he would say that it’s Zoom, because that's how they communicate with their clients and there are other competitors, but he finds Zoom to be the easiest for his clients and customers to use. It doesn't require that you join or login or anything else, you can just go to the www.zoom.us and plug in the meeting and plug in the password if there is one, and you're in the meeting. And you could be meeting with anybody at any time 24/7 and you could see the person, the person can share and use a whiteboard, and they can do all kinds of things. So, that's the one thing that he wouldn't be able to operate his business without.

Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Jim

When asked about books that have a great impact, Jim shared that he'll give one from a really long time ago and it always kind of surprises people, but it's Jonathan Livingston Seagull: The Complete Edition and it's by Richard Bach. He's the author and they used to, he’s (Jim) 57 years old, so they don't make kids read this anymore. But here's the gist of the book is Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a seagull and seagulls don't have very exciting lives, they eat, they fly from here to there, they don't do anything.

But Jonathan, he wanted to fly and do stunts, and he wanted to go out and see what was out there in the world. Well, when you grow up poor in Los Angeles, and you think, is this it? Do I just have to stay here and accept my life as it is, and be poor the rest of my life? Well, Jonathan Livingston Seagull taught him, “No I don't, I can go out and do other things. I can be anything that I want to be.” And so, that book had a huge impact on him. 

And then the second one is Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! By Robert T. Kiyosaki, because it gave him an example, he didn't like school very much. And so, if the path, the only path was to study hard, get a good job, get straight A's in school, and then work his way up the ladder and hope that he was in the good old boys’ club. He doesn't think he could have done that. But Rich Dad, Poor Dad showed him an alternative, it showed him a different way that it didn't really matter about his formal education, it was how he educated himself outside of school, the mentors that he had, the people that had what he wanted, and that would share with me how they did it.

What Jim is Really Excited About Now!

When asked about something that he’s really excited about, Jim shared that the one thing that he’s really excited about is he has a book coming out in June 17, 2023. And like he said, he struggled in school. So, he was a stutter, he didn't write very well. So, for him to write a book, he’s really excited and proud of the fact that he’s telling his kind of life story in the beginning, in his humble beginnings, and kind of where he is now. And then if he can do it, you can do it. And so, he’s excited to share that message with people and give them the foundation of how to start today to change their lives.

Me: Nice. So, we will definitely ensure that we are able to keep in touch with you so that we will have first dibs on that book when it is released.

Jim stated that he would love that.

Where Can We Find Jim Online

Email – jimoliver@createtailwind.com

Website – www.community.createtailwind.com

Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Jim Uses

When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Jim shared that one thing is there's an old quote that he changed it was, “Adversity introduces a man to himself.” Now, that's an old quote. So, he says, “Adversity introduces a person to themselves.” And it reminds him that in the Bible, it says that we are going to have trials.

And that trials, it says that, that those trials will introduce us to ourselves, that it will create confidence, that it will create strength, that God is like stirring this pot of silver and getting rid of the impurities until He can see His reflection in us. And so, getting rid of those impurities is adversity and obstacles and they just make you stronger, they make you who you are, so when you're in the middle of it, just remember that that adversity is going to introduce you as a person to who you really are and it's only going to make you stronger.

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

Links

·  Jonathan Livingston Seagull: The Complete Edition by Richard Bach

·  Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Rheir Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! By Robert T. Kiyosaki

The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Service

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

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!

The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience Webinar – New Date

Register Here

Lisa loves a good puzzle. After witnessing the confusion that ensued after new technology systems were integrated into offices in the 90s, she didn't panic, she saw an opportunity to establish effective processes that support employees and businesses grappling with evolving technology. Then a pattern emerged: internal teams kept failing to communicate with one another in the wake of change. To respond, Lisa founded Lcubed Consulting. As CEO of Lcubed, Lisa helps companies align people, processes, and technology to utilize agility as a strategic advantage and acknowledge change in a business constant.

Her secret sauce to success is leveraging key elements of Project Management, Process Performance Management, Internal Controls and Organisational Change Management to build teams with the skills and capabilities to drive strategic results.

Lisa is the #1 best-selling author of Future Proofing Cubed, a book she created to share her insights on productivity, profitability, and process refinement in business. Lisa's goal is to prepare her clients with the skills, capabilities, and self-reliance they need to thrive in the future without Lcubed’s guidance. With this notion, she has broken the typical consulting model.

Lisa holds her Bachelor of Science in Electronic Media Management from Northern Arizona University. She is a Project Management Professional and Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt. Lisa enjoys spending free time with her family and basset hounds.

Questions

• We'd like to hear in your own words, did you arrive on this journey? How did you get to where you are today? Could you share that with our audience?

• Now, could you tell us a little bit about your company, Lcubed Consulting and also your book, Future Proofing Cubed?

• If you could share with our audience maybe you could skew it down to a particular type of industry, maybe 1 to 3 things that if you're really trying to run a successful business with the right people, what are 1 to 3 tips that you'd recommend in terms of the culture and the environment needs to be existing for you to attract and keep the person that you want?

• Emerging out of the pandemic, what has been your experience with some of your clients in terms of customer experience, have you seen customers maybe be more demanding for service experiences or delivery? Are they putting on their foot to ensure they're getting a certain type of service? Or have you seen maybe a more relaxed type of customer, what has your experience been with your clients as well as you as a customer yourself?

• So, I would also like for you to share with our listeners, Lisa, what's the one tool, website or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business?

• Could you also share with our listeners, maybe one or two books that you've read recently, or even a book that you read a very long time ago, that has had a big impact on you.

• Could you also share with our listeners, Lisa, let's say, we have listeners who are business owners and managers who feel like they have great products and services, but they lack the constantly motivated human capital. So, the people are just not motivated. If you're sitting in a room with that person right now, what's the one piece of advice you would give them to have a successful business?

• Could you also share with our listeners, what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people.

• Where can listeners find you online?

• Before we wrap our episodes up, we always like to give our guests an opportunity to share with us a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you will tend to revert to this quote, it kind of helps to get you back on track if for any reason you got derailed. Do you have one of those?

Highlights 

Lisa’s Journey

Me: Now, we always like to give our guests an opportunity to share in their own words, a little bit about how they got to where they are today. So, I know that your bio kind of gives a pretty good summary of how it is that you got to where you are today. We'd like to hear in your own words, did you arrive on this journey? How did you get to where you are today? Could you share that with our audience?

Lisa stated that because the journey really is the story, it's what matters in our personal lives, our professional lives. She is an accidental entrepreneur, she left college with the desire to find safety and security in a corporate job, she was looking for a place where she would go to work, she would have paid vacation time, she would have bonuses, she would have things that seemed like they would give security. And those were important to her because her parents were entrepreneurs. And that journey isn't always a smooth one. 

And so, she wanted something that she perceived at the time to be easier and to be safer. Fifteen years into that journey, she realised it was the early 2000s. And actually, things were a little difficult. And it was in 2008 and 2009, she was working for a start-up, it was her dream job, it was everything she had hoped that it was going to be, she was building a project management team, they were growing and scaling and going to do amazing things until she looked around and realised that every executive leader had built a fiefdom of external consultants who are coaching and guiding and advising them on how to protect their fiefdom. And none of them were working with each other and it was not safe and it was not secure and the economy tanked. 

And she looked around and said, “Oh my gosh, I can do something better.” And in that moment, she became an entrepreneur, and started a business and it’s 14 years later, it has not been seamless, it has not been without obstacles and challenges. But it's been fantastic because she’s the one designing the journey and the bumps in the road are learning moments, and she wouldn't change anything. It's been great.

About Lisa’s Company Lcubed Consulting and Lisa’s Book Future Proofing Cubed

Lisa shared that Lcubed was born out of that frustration that she had watching consulting teams come into environments over her entire career and land and expand. And she would see that they were in these environments under the auspices of helping the client, but really what they were doing was growing their revenue stream. And she finds that somewhat abhorrent and counter to what consulting is supposed to be about. And she decided that she wanted to do things differently. She wanted to take all of the knowledge and the skills and the experience that she had built up in larger corporations, learning and understanding the impact of Project Management, Process Management, Organisational Change, and using all of those tools and capabilities to help her clients deliver better products and services for their clients, while building self-reliance so that she can take herself and her team eventually out of that equation. She didn't want them to become dependent on her. 

The book Future Proofing Cubed: The Definitive Guide to Improving Productivity, Refining Processes, and Bolstering Profitability takes their business model, what they call adaptive transformation, and sort of explains how they use all of those baked best practices in a much more effective and efficient way so that companies can build those skills and capabilities without large investments in internal teams, or large consulting groups.

In Running a Successful Business - Tips to Attract and Keep the Person That You Want

Me: Now, in an organisation, as a consultant, I'm sure you know, there's some key things that a lot of companies still struggle with, having the right kind of synergy among the team. A lot of organisations struggle sometimes with recruitment, getting the right person and actually keeping them. And so, if you could share with our audience maybe you could skew it down to a particular type of industry, maybe 1 to 3 things that if you're really trying to run a successful business with the right people, what are 1 to 3 tips that you'd recommend in terms of the culture and the environment needs to be existing for you to attract and keep the person that you want?

Lisa stated absolutely, it may be an oversimplification. But she thinks that knowing what success in the environment looks like. With some of her smaller companies, they do work and they use Lencioni’s idea of hungry, humble and smart, that if you have an employee who has the ability, they're hungry, they want new opportunities, they want to learn, they want to grow, they want to make an impact. If they're humble and able to say I don't know what I don't know. And they're smart, meaning that they can pick up and reader a room and understand what's going on with internal and even with your client engagements. If you have those three things, any technical capability can be taught. But if a person shows up hungry, humble and smart, you can build a team of people who can do anything.

Experiences Customers Are Desirous of Now

Me: Great. So, I love those three points that you just brought across. So, we've identified the three things we want to ensure that the team member has and as you mentioned, you can teach any technical skill, I guess it kind of goes back to you really want to ensure you have persons with the right attitude versus aptitude. Because you can't train on attitude, right? But even getting further and deeper into that, our programme is about navigating the customer experience and the experience that the customer has is not just on the outside, but also on the inside. And I'm a firm believer that if you really want to have a strong customer experience, it starts from within. If it's strong internally, then it's quite easy for your employees to perpetuate, and relive that externally with your actual clients that are paying, they're the reason why you're in business. 

And so, what has your experience been? We've just emerged out of the pandemic, some countries are still feeling somewhat of the effects of it. I mean, COVID is not completely gone. But what has been your experience with some of your clients and wherever you are in, in which part of the world in terms of customer experience, have you seen customers maybe be more demanding for service experiences or delivery? Are they putting down their foot to ensure they're getting a certain type of service? Or have you seen maybe a more relaxed type of customer, what has your experience been with your clients as well as you as a customer yourself?

Lisa shared that there's so many things in that to play with. She wants to play with the language right, that the experience starts within. She absolutely agree with that, that internally, we have to understand the experience we want our customers to have. There's a disconnect, more often than not, when we think from the inside out and think that we know what our customers want and need. And she likes to sort of flip that upside down a little bit and teach her clients to think from the outside in. 

And what she means by that is actually asking their customers what they want, what they need, so that they’re not making guesses. And they’re not making assumptions, and they’re not applying their own wants and needs onto potentially what their customers wants and needs are. Because oftentimes, when we do that, on the inside, we're really wrong and we don't truly understand. So, starting on the outside and understanding the customer, where are they at? What do they need? And with her clients in the pandemic, they had to do a lot of that because all of their wants and needs in March of 2020 changed dramatically. And so, polling and getting that data and asking the questions so that they can adapt their products and their services to those needs. And it's the need they have today, but the big impact is what does their needs going to be tomorrow, in 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. 

During the pandemic, she had the opportunity to watch one of her clients respond to the shutdown. So, the company is a food distribution organisation and they have a national presence in the United States. Their primary job is to take food from a warehouse and deliver it to restaurants, and service providers in hospitals, in airports, in large conference centres, getting food to places where it's going to be cooked and served and sold. Overnight, their business shut down for two weeks or so they thought. And they had the opportunity, they basically froze and did nothing initially, until they brought the leadership team together in this world called Zoom that they had never interacted in. There were people meeting each other, seeing each other in face to face interaction for the first time in 20 years, they've just never been in the same space together. They're panicked, they’re at home, everything is a nightmare. 

And one person is raising their hand literally shaking their hand in front of the camera trying to get everybody's attention to say, “Hey, I have an idea. We have all this food in our warehouses. And it's not getting to people who need to eat, we have produce, we have things that are going to start spoiling and serve no use to anybody if they're rotting in the warehouse. How about we figure out how to take our food and deliver it to shelters, to food kitchens, to places where there are people who cannot get to food, we're going to spoil it off, we're going to write it off, it's going to waste one way or another, why don't we make it a donation.” And for the first 30 days of the pandemic, that national company donated food because their customers, people who need to eat needed food. It had nothing to do with their bottom line, it had absolutely nothing to do with anything except doing the right thing. 

In that first interaction where one individual had an idea, they all thought about it, they experimented about how to make it actually happen. They learned how to innovate on the fly. And that's important because they were speaking to the customers need and for them, it wasn't their customer, it was their customers’ customer, a hungry person. And they were solving a problem that did absolutely nothing to drive their business forward except they did the right thing. 

What they learned from that was how to innovate and how to think outside of the box, think from the outside in. And as a leadership and management team today, they are still doing that on a quarterly basis and trying to evolve their business model in a way that it hasn't in 40 years. It is wow because they thought from the customer's perspective wants and needs, they solved the problem. We need to solve problems.

Me: And as you mentioned that, Lisa, that we need to solve problems. That's the primary reason why everyone is in business. I remember when I started my company in 2009, it was because one of my greatest pet peeves was I thought service was just so poor. And I said, I'm going to stop complaining. And I'm going to start being a part of the solution, and try to help these organisations to improve on their service delivery. So, when I go and have interactions, I can walk away with a better feeling than the one that I'm currently having. So, I think every business is solving a problem, whether you're selling a pencil or a fan, or you're servicing somebody's motor vehicle, or you're providing some innovative solution or product that's going to revolutionize the industry for aviation, or whatever it is. I think all businesses are solving a problem for someone. And I think, if we come, as you mentioned, from the outside in, to kind of understand where the customer is coming from, and how can we ease their frustration? How can we make life easier for them, that we can definitely create a better experience, both internally and externally.

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

When asked about online resources that cannot live without in her business, Lisa shared that there are so many, but she’s going to go with the one that surprises her the most, because she would never have imagined this, she cannot live without Canva. She would never in a million years have ever thought that she would use a marketing tool, a graphic design, well, now it's kind of an everything tool, right? Presentations, video, audio, whatever, it does it all. She loves it, it makes everything so much faster, so much easier. She’s doing work for herself that she probably should be outsourcing but it's kind of fun to do it and it looks really good. So yeah, she cannot live without Canva.

Me: Agreed, Canva has definitely revolutionised the industry and it's made graphic designing not seem like, “Oh, my goodness, I can't do this.” Because simple things that you'd have outsourced as you mentioned, you can do on your own. And they look pretty good. So, you're saving a few bucks there for sure.

Lisa stated that saving a few minutes of time even right? So, you outsource it and things turn into, hopefully days, not weeks. But it's easy enough that a person who has no skills in graphic design can turn something out in minutes, it's fabulous.

Me: My daughter is in her final year in high school and she's a part of the school newspaper and she sees me use Canva and she asked me if she could, like play around with it a bit to put out some stuff that she wanted to do promoting for the newspaper and for the school. And I guess at that age at 17, you're creative and innovative. But she wasn't even using the platform for like an hour and I was just so surprised that the newsletter that she produced, the video that she was able to generate from all of the pictures that she had taken. I mean, just simply amazing, I'm not saying that she couldn't have used other applications but as you mentioned, Canva kind of found a way to bundle everything in one so you could just do all the things in that one platform.

Lisa absolutely agreed. And they made it easy for an end user who has no skills in those areas. There are lots of applications out there and she’ll use video editing as an example, but you have to be very, very, very skilled in the application to make it work properly. And Canva just sort of magically does it for us.

Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Lisa

When asked about books that has had a big impact, Lisa shared that the number one book that always comes to her mind first and foremost is Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson. As leaders and as people, we need to understand how to communicate effectively and that one, it's so foundational to everything that it affects your personal life, your business life, how we show up, how we support others. It's always kind of the first thing that pops to her mind. 

There's another book called Flip the Script: Getting People to Think Your Idwa Is Their Idea by Oren Klaff. And as her business was growing and evolving, and off the top of her head, she can't think of the author's name. But it's taking people who run and have their businesses, sales is part of what we have to do. But we may or may not have ever been trained to be salespeople. And we may or may not even like the connotation of being a salesperson, and Flip the Script really did a lot in her mindset to help her understand that selling is a by-product of building good and effective relationships. 

And that is far more comfortable to her than the idea of going after and creating a sales pipeline and all of the technical things about what selling is, and reminding her that after now 14 years, she obviously must be able to close a deal, or she wouldn't still be doing what she’s doing. And she doesn't have to have the traditional sales process to make it work, because relationships are really where business comes from.

Me: Agreed. I liked that statement you made, Sales is a by-product of building effective relationships, that's really, really true. And you said that you got that mindset, or it shaped your mindset towards that from the book called Flip the Script.

Advice for Business Owners and Managers who Lack Constant Motivated Human Capital

Me: Could you also share with our listeners, Lisa, let's say, we have listeners who are business owners and managers who feel like they have great products and services, but they lack the constantly motivated human capital. So, the people are just not motivated. If you're sitting in a room with that person right now, what's the one piece of advice you would give them to have a successful business?

Lisa stated that there's a challenge in that question because if we have a room full of employees who aren't motivated, there is a very flippant part of her personality that wants to say, “Do you have the right people in the room to grow and scale your business?” 

And that's a very scary question because if the answer is, “No, I don't”….then what. 

So, and then, the then what mindset we need to understand what motivates our employees and if we have really good people that have been with us, and are no longer performing, do we understand what's changed in their world?

Do they need a new opportunity, internally within the organisation in a different role? Have they lost the drive to contribute to this type of business?

Do we need to help them find an opportunity outside of this business? 

Which is a scary thought, but sometimes the right one, and just because we're separating from a relationship doesn't mean that we're ending it poorly. And Lisa’s experience, she’s had several examples of times when she’s taken employees, help them find their next opportunity. 

They were so much more successful, her existing team was more successful, and they’ve maintained a relationship over time. So, finding that alignment of what's in it for me, and why are they still there? And if they aren't being fulfilled, are there opportunities to train them, coach them? Give them the opportunity to make a change inside or is it that it's time for them to move on onward and outward?

And there's nothing wrong with that, if that's the right choice.

Me: Love it. I've asked this particular question, I don't ask it very often. But I've asked it a few times since I’ve started podcasting and I must say your answer, I really like it's different. Most people didn't take it from the angle that you took it from and I liked the fact that you focused on the fact that maybe we just don't have the right people. And if so, even though it's scary, what can we do to make that transition? Because that's the only way we're going to be able to have success, right?

Lisa agreed, absolutely. And the reality is, it's a little bit of everything. You're going to have some people who probably need to move on, you're going to have some people who probably need upskilling….training new opportunities. There's lots of different things, it's never going to be just one thing. But taking on the scary one of “Oh my gosh, I don't have the right people in the right roles.” That's totally addressable.

What Lisa is Really Excited About Now!

When asked about something that she’s working on that she’s excited about, Lisa shared that the one thing that she’s working on right now that's exciting for her is taking the stories that she has from her business and starting to share them as a keynote speaker, and having the opportunity to inspire through some of her great foibles and some of the successes. 

But the very real journey that she’s had over the last 14 years to help other emerging leaders, potential entrepreneurs, or business owners, be able to attribute and say, “Oh, gosh, I've been there done that.” or “Oh, my God, thank you for sharing that story. I never want to have that experience.” 

And that opportunity and sharing to larger audiences is really a lot of fun. And it's eye opening for her to hear and get the response that something hit and it was meaningful. And hopefully, she’s sharing some golden nuggets along the way that will help them learn lessons from her mistakes rather than having to make them for themselves.

Where Can We Find Lisa Online

LinkedIn – Lisa L. Levy

Website – www.lisallevy.com

Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Lisa Uses

When asked about a quote or saying that she tends to revert to, Lisa shared that there's a quote, but it's a Hemingway quote that has been butchered by many. And so I'll continue to do it. But it takes from the idea that if we break something, if we break a bone in our body, when it heals that spot on that bone is stronger than the original bone around it. And so, when we're having difficult times, the purpose and the reason that it resonates for her is that we can learn from our hardest moments. She likes to think of everything as an experiment and it's not about success or failure, it's about what we learn from the outcome of the experiment. 

And so, all of those things are always kind of in her mind whirling around in a not coherent fashion, the way that she’s talking right now is very much what's in her head. But it's about being willing to take the risk, do an experiment, if something breaks, it'll heal, and it'll be stronger. And we don't really necessarily fail, we learn things so that we can make different choices the next time. And those are the things that drive her forward every day.

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

Links

·  Future Proofing Cubed: The Definitive Guide to Improving Productivity, Refining Processess, and Bolstering Profitability by Lisa Levy

·  Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High by Kerry Patterson

·  Flip the Script: Getting People to Think Your Idea Is Their Idea by Oren Klaff

The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Service

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

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!

The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience Webinar – New Date

Register Here

Scott Baradell is a writer and entrepreneur who grew his PR agency Idea Grove, with business generated by its popular blog. Idea Grove is one of the top 25 tech PR agencies in the United States, a three-time Inc. 5000 company, and an inc. Best Workplaces in 2021 and 2022. 

In 2020, Scott started a second blog, Trust Signals, to provide news, analysis, and practical advice on what it takes to build trust with customers and the public in today's post-truth world. The blog inspired and culminates in this book.  

Before Idea Grove, Scott was the chief communications officer for two Billion Dollar companies. He's the co-founder and CMO of a venture-backed start-up and an award-winning journalist. He lives in Dallas, Texas with his wife Maria, and children, Juliet, Benjamin, Jack, Christopher and Maggie.

Questions

• Even though I read your bio, which is a formal description of who you are, we love for our guests to tell our audience in their own words a little bit about how they got to where they are today. So, could you share that for us?

• So, can you tell us a little bit about your book Trust Signals, maybe two or three themes that the book talks about and why it's important if you're running a business to be aware of some of these things?

• What do you mean by post-truth world?

• Why do you think trust is so crucial for people when they're making a decision? And do you think it has increased or decreased in recent years?

• What are maybe three to five things that consumers look out for that gives them that confidence that they can trust, they can rely on this organisation?

• We have some listeners who are not very savvy in the online space, but they want to be known as a subject matter expert, what are some steps or trust signals that they could be successful in that online space?

• Could you also share with our listeners what is the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business?

• Could you also share with our listeners, 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 even one that you've read recently.

• Can you also share with our listeners, Scott, what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people.

• here can listeners find you online if they wanted to reach out to you?

• 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 get you back on track if for any reason you got derailed.

Highlights 

Scott’s Journey

Me: Okay, so we always like to ask our guests at the beginning of the conversation before we even delve into the real juice of our conversation a little bit about your journey, Scott. Even though I read your bio, which is a formal description of who you are, we love for our guests to tell our audience in their own words a little bit about how they got to where they are today. So, could you share that for us?

Scott shared that like a lot of people, a lot of things happen by accident. He started out, not really interested in business, per se, he was a writer, he was interested in history. In college, he was editor of a college newspaper, and then he got tired of spending time in the library and decided not to become a history professor. So, he had to go find a job, his parents basically said, find a job within two months of graduation or your cut off. So, he use his clips, his writing from the newspaper that he was editing to get a newspaper job. And it kind of went from there. 

He was a journalist for 6 years before he kind of saw the writing on the wall there. And then he went into corporate marketing, which he did for about 15 years and then decided back when blogging and things like that on the corporate side, were first starting to emerge that he wanted to be part of that. 

So, he started his own business at that time. But from one space to the next, it was definitely a journey in an evolution where it wasn't all planned out, it's what he likes to tell his 15 year old daughter as well as just young professionals, it's okay, if it's not all planned out, just go in the direction of what you love, and it should work out.

About Scott’s Book Trust Signals

Scott shared that trust signals are just defined as evidence points in the book, he primarily focuses on evidence points online that make you more likely to trust a brand. So, for example, it could be coming across a positive review of a company where the use case sounds similar to how you might use a product or someone you trust, a creator you trust on social media endorsing a company or a media story in which puts the company in a positive light, these are all things that kind of can create a breadcrumb trail that can lead you to a company's website or hopefully, you've reinforced that website with lots of other trust signals like testimonials and case studies and other third parties saying good things about you. 

So, that's really the book is about that idea. And he wrote the book specifically with PR people in mind, because PR people have for 100 years primarily defined their roles as getting media coverage, getting their clients mentioned in the media. And in today's post truth world, there's so much fragmentation that there aren't any shared sources of truth anymore. 

People go to the media and the other sources of information influence that they trust. And so, what he tries to communicate to his profession since he was a PR pro after he left journalism is, in this day and age, you have to move beyond just trying to get stories for your clients in the media, you have to look at all these other kinds of trust signals that together, help to help your clients to win over audiences and to grow their businesses.

What Does the Concept Post-Truth World Mean?

Me: So, trust signals are critical as you mentioned to grow your business. You mentioned post truth world and I have kind of an idea of what that concept means but I’d love for you to share with our audience, what do you mean by post-truth world?

Scott shared that what he means, is simply that in today's world, as opposed, as recently, as 30-40 years ago, the public doesn't rely on shared sources of truth. It used to be the New York Times was all the news that's fit to print, but now you've got probably a third of the country that says they don't believe a word in that publication. People get on the internet, and algorithms all pointing them towards information that confirms what they already think about things. They go into rabbit holes where they can dive deeper and deeper in a one perspective on things, which could be very different from someone else's and someone else's. And it didn't used to be that way. It used to be that you had a relatively small number of large media organisations that served as kind of the gatekeepers for information, the gatekeepers for public opinion, and it's not like that anymore.

The Importance of Trust and Has It Increased or Decreased in Recent Years

Me: And in an organisation, right, you have customers and well, there is the popular saying that people buy from people who they know, like and trust. And I still believe that to this day, despite all of the technology and artificial intelligence and just so much that has advanced I think that concept still remains whether it's an individual or an organisation. Why do you think trust is so crucial for people when they're making a decision? And do you think it has increased or decreased in recent years?

Scott shared that well, it's crucial to not just business but everything, you're not going to get in your car and drive to the supermarket if you are worried that the red light at the traffic stop is not going to work or that when the green light goes that a car coming from the other way is not going to go, you're trusting that they're going to stop.

Our whole society, everything we do, is built around this intricate system of trust. Most of the time we don't even think about and you're simply not going to buy anything from someone who you don't trust them, because it's impossible to vet almost any product unless you've already used it and it’s the same product thoroughly enough without believing in the source of the product you're buying in. 

That's kind of the shorthand that all of us use every day to figure out who I should buy from, who I should work with, who I should work for. An employee is going to potentially someone who's looking for job is going to look at their employer’s glass door ratings before they go work there, that's a trust signal. And if they did find a company they want to work for and they put their resume together, they're going to put in all the best endorsements and kudos they can think of and those are trust signals. So, it makes the world go round.  

But you asked, do you think it's decreased? He doesn't think it's decreased because he thinks it's kind of immutable. He thinks that we need it. 

Studies go back to even before the earliest days of mankind, and even to primates and stuff in their hunting rituals, they do trust building rituals before they go out and hunt in a group to make sure that they will support each other and share their kills, for example. So, it's just intrinsic to every form of human relationships. So, a lot of people said, “Oh, it's post-trust, not just post-truth, but post-trust, people don't trust anymore.” And he would say that it’s not trust, a trust deficit so much as a trust displacement. 

In other words, you used to trust certain big institutions that you don't trust anymore. And so, you have to go find something else to trust. It's like, a big example in politics would be Donald Trump, for example. Donald Trump is someone who many, many people would consider very untrustworthy, however, in looking at his following, it's important to understand that clearly one of the reasons he's been able to develop this following is that many of those people had faith and trust in institutions that they lost that trust in. And people can't be without trust, they had to find somewhere else to put it. And they invested their trust in this person. So, in that way, he says trust is displaced, sometimes you're confused about where to put it. But you almost can't live life without putting it somewhere.

Things Consumers Should Look Out For That Gives Them Confidence to Trust an Organization

Me: So, could you also share with our listeners, maybe, I would say, three to five things that as a consumer you should be looking out for or what are maybe three to five things that consumers look out for that gives them that confidence that they can trust, they can rely on this organisation?

Scott shared that he can give you an actual example, from someone who works for him. She had a baby recently, before she had the baby, she and her husband had been planning a nursery and they'd gone over budget for the nursery. And so, they still hadn't bought a crib mattress and so, they just said, “Let's go get the cheapest crib mattress we can find because we busted our budget already.” So, Laurie is her name, she was going to go do that and then she remembered that like a year earlier, before she'd even become pregnant, that there was an influencer, creator that she followed on Instagram, who was talking about the importance of getting a non-toxic crib mattress, and that had stuck in her mind. 

And so, even though her inclination was to just go buy something inexpensive, that stuck in her mind, so she did a Google search on safest crib mattresses. And, sure enough, she could recognize the name of the crib mattress that this influencer on Instagram had mentioned a year earlier. And then once she found that then she looked and looked up all the reviews she could find online, found a bunch of 4- and 5-star reviews. And then that drew her in further and then she found that there was an article in Parents Magazine, saying good things about this crib mattress. 

And then finally she went to the company's website and found out they had a seal from the certifying organisation that was vetting non-toxic, environmentally friendly products. And then finally, she was already on the website and she bought the product. And all of those are examples of things that consumers use as a collection of trust signals that they follow to either make a purchase or whatever destination they’re trying to go to.

Me: Brilliant, that's really good. And she did quite a few steps. She did her due diligence thoroughly.

And most people do and when he tells PR people and when he tells that story to them, he says, but would she have bought the crib mattress if she had just seen the Parents Magazine article? Probably not. So, why are you only focusing on that? Why don't you give your customer what they want, your customer wants you to help them build trust.

Trust Signals that Can Be Used to be Successful in the Online Space

Me: So, let's say for example, we have some listeners who are not very savvy in the online space, but they want to be known as a subject matter expert. Similar to what you were saying, that Instagram influencer was able to lodge that piece of information in her mind, right? And it stayed with her up to a whole year later. What are some things that you could do online to establish trust in an online space? Because it's so hard, there's so much noise, there's so many different platforms. And I mean, I know everyone has their own audience and at the end of the day, if that customer is meant for you, they will come to you because whatever message you're sending out there, your message will be attracted to them. But what are some steps or trust signals that they could be successful in that online space?

Scott stated that if someone's interested in becoming a subject matter expert or influencer or building their own personal brand, there's really no substitute for producing great content. People don't know you, they haven't met you in person and they're only going to know who you are, if you show them who you are online. So, he would start by two things, figuring out what channel is most important, are most relevant to your goals that can be LinkedIn. His agency works primarily with B2B tech clients. So, LinkedIn is typically the most important channel. But on your audience, it could be Tik Tok, or Instagram or Twitter or something else. So, it can seem definitely overwhelming out there. So, it's always best to start with a single channel. 

He’ll tell you a channel that he used that helped him tremendously when he was starting to write the book is Quora. Quora is a great channel for questions and answers. And maybe you don't always want to talk about PR and marketing, maybe you want to talk about a movie or something like that, it kind of gets your juices flowing in terms of writing. And what he likes about Quora is that, generally, the comments and the engagement is respectful compared to like a Twitter or somewhere where it can be so nasty. So, for him, everyone's different. But whatever channel you choose, choose one channel to start with, and build out from there. 

He’s seen again, and again, people that start out on TikTok, for example, build a following, they move over and add Twitter, they move over and add LinkedIn or start on Twitter and then add LinkedIn. So, that's definitely the way to go. Don't try to do it all at once. That's the first most important thing. 

And then just like you want to be focused in terms of your channel, be focused in terms of your content. There's so much content out there, it's overwhelming, and half of its being generated by ChatGPT now, so how do you stand out the two ways you stand out, are by talking about the same thing, not the same exact thing, but the same general thing that you're building over and over and over again, because what someone told him once is, by the time you've talked about something 100 times, maybe you might feel tired of it, but the people you're trying to reach are just now hearing it. 

So just keep going, keep trying to find new wrinkles, find new ways to stay excited about it, don't move on to some totally different topic before you even build an audience for the first one. So, he thinks being focused in terms of your channel, and focused in terms of your content are the most important things.

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

When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without in his business, Scott stated that in his business, they produce a lot of content and content is not very valuable if people aren't seeing it so for him, he’s a huge fan of Google Search Console in their everyday for sure for checking their own two websites. They have Idea Grove, which is his agency, their website, the agency website, as well as the Trust Signals website. He’s looking at that everyday for insights into what content is resonating, what content to produce next, and really helps to inform and drive strategy and they use it for their clients too. He’s got a lot other tools he uses, but that's probably his favourite.

Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Scott

When asked about books that have had impact, Scott shared that there's a book he read a long time ago, actually in college, which unfortunately, was a very long time ago for him but it stayed with him. And it informed a lot of choices he made since actually. It's a book called Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality, it was written by a historian named Richard Kluger. And he encountered this book, which is a very long one, it's thick, in a yearlong legal history class in college at University of Virginia, and the book was basically a history of illegal cases, which sounds extremely boring. But what it was, that was so amazing, was it was a sweeping history of the entire African American experience as told through the American legal system. 

So, in other words, from Dred Scott to Brown versus Board of Education, everything in between, before and after. He took all of these court cases and told the human story behind them in such a way that it was like reading a novel that you couldn't put down and told him that taking something that someone would inherently think, is not that exciting and making it exciting, is really fun, it's a fun challenge. 

He works in B2B Tech, or his agency, and they work with some clients that work in very arcane spaces, they do this fairly obscure stuff, sometimes they think they're boring, they're like, “Oh, you can't do anything for us, we're too boring, you can’t get PR for us we’re boring.” But to unlock that and capture the story in there, because there's always a story in there somewhere, to capture that, and to have the client kind of light up, because you help them find that is really exciting. And he kind of, in a lot of ways, goes back to that book and how he went from “Oh, boy, this long book of legal cases to wow” this book that he couldn't put down, it's definitely had a big influence on him.

What Scott is Really Excited About Now!

When asked about something that he’s really excited about, Scott shared that something that’s exciting that they’re doing now is they've began offering their first package product, they're a traditional agency, so like lawyers or accountants, they build by the hour, basically, they sell their time, that's what most agencies do. They've never had a product per se, but they found they've had a lot of success with a specific kind of digital PR campaign where they kind of combined PR and SEO, they put out this really cool piece of content, which is a survey, a base piece of content that ties to their clients, industry, and got it gotten a tonne of media coverage and links back to their client site from them. 

But they realised that they could package it up and just sell it separately and do it the same way every time to increase margin on it. And so, they've been having a lot of success selling a product as an agency, this offering and they've never done that before and Idea Grove has been around a long time now and they're all really excited about, doing something they haven't done before, that's always fun.

Where Can We Find Scott Online

Website – www.trustsignals.com

He did a lot of the work that led up to the book on that site. Not only that, but if you're interested in the book, but don't want to go out and spend $20.00 on it. He’s excerpted the entire book chapter by chapter on that site for free, and he’s also now started a podcast where he’s breaking down the audio book into chapter by chapter, so, that's available for free. So, all of that if you go to www.trustsignals.com, you can find links to either the audio or text version of the book or Kindle version as well. As well as a lot of other stuff, as well as contact information if you'd like to reach him directly.

Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Scott Uses

When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Scott shared that there's a great quote by a Japanese poet named Kenji Miyazawa from maybe 100 years ago, but he said, “We must take pain and use it as fuel for our journey.” At times, where he’s had loss or other setbacks that are very hard, and you just kind of want to give up. It's a really good statement of what life really is. 

Life is about resilience, and no one goes through life without having things that they have to endure and suffering. And if you can come out the other side, and burn it as fuel for your journey, he thinks that's a great way to take something hard and turn it into a positive.

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

Links

·  Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality by Richard Kluger

The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Service

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

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!

Our Next Webinar – May 16, 2023 at 10:00 am

Register Here

Romaine Piper is the Founder and CEO of Call Center Escape - an “Upwork” built for BPO companies. Known for his cross-dimensional approach to company growth, he has helped some of the fastest growing start-ups across Silicon Valley, the U.K, and Europe to identify and hone their top growth levers - adding millions to their bottom line. 

No one would’ve guessed his 6-year remote work journey in customer success, sales and growth hacking started in the Jamaican BPO industry as a customer support agent for Microsoft - which is why he's back to his roots to make BPO companies that are scaling remotely 1.5 to two times more profitable with an industry-first solution.

Questions

• So, we always like to ask our guests in their own words, if you could share a little bit about your journey, how it is that you ended up on this path?

• So, the BPO industry, it's a very evolving industry, an industry with a high level of attrition. What has been your experience as an owner in this industry for attracting the right talent, and actually keeping the right talent?

• Could you share with our listeners, seeing that you're helping the BPO to strategically position themselves as a value center versus a call center, what are two or three things that you do to help them get to that point?

• What are your views on Artificial Intelligence (AI) replacing human capital?

• Could you share with us what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business?

• Could you also share with our listeners maybe one or two books that you've read that have had a great impact on you, it could be a book that you read a very long time ago, or even one that you've read recently, that has definitely left a strong mark on you.

• Could you share with our audience what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people.

• Can you tell our listeners where they can find you online?

• Now, before we wrap our episodes up, we always like to ask our guests do you have a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you'll tend to revert to this quote, it kind of helps to get you back on track if for any reason you got derailed.

Highlights 

Romaine’s Journey

Romaine stated that as Yanique mentioned a lot about his background, and the whole tech industry and everything. But here's the plot twist, he actually started off pursuing his career in medicine. And he had really high grades, he got a scholarship from St. John's University in New York. But the thing is, even though they're willing to pay half tuition, he still couldn't afford the other half, so anybody out there that's listening, it's not easy to give it up a scholarship that you've worked really hard for, it's very emotional, he experienced like weeks of crying. 

And so, the BPO industry was to him a quote, unquote, fall back period, if that makes sense, where, he just wanted to like dust himself off, put some experience on his resume, and just try to figure out, “Okay, what's next?”

Then he realize this is actually a blessing in disguise, because he worked for Sutherland Global Services, and they placed him on a Microsoft account. Being on the Microsoft account, like fresh out of high school, it's a whole tonne of learning for him. And just to give you like the idea of what it's like, at the time, across all of their customer support teams, they had over 500,000 articles, which is the most he’s ever seen in a knowledge base, ever. 

And so, this was what pushed him from liking the tech industry to literally loving the tech industry to craving, to for having that passion, and also into what allowed him to work with start-ups around the world. Within those four years, customer success, sales, growth, hacking, etc, and to be advising start-ups. He remembered to that his mom, he thinks around 3 or 4 years ago say, “Hey, now that you can actually afford to pay the tuition for medicine, like do you ever consider going back?” And he said, “Hey, I'm pretty good at what I already do. I love it.” And like that ship was long sale. So, anybody else out there with the BPO industry being your fall back period, literally, you just take it serious, do really well, and you'll figure it out.

In the BPO Industry – Attracting and Keeping the Right Talent

Me: The BPO industry, it's a very evolving industry, an industry with a high level of attrition. What has been your experience as an owner in this industry for attracting the right talent, and actually keeping the right talent?

Romaine shared that Call Center Escape is radically different because they are a call center, they aren't a BPO. What they instead do is they help contact centers to evolve. In other words, to increase their profit per hour per employee, by 150% to 200% by focusing or helping them to strategically focus on two core things, which is their payback period for every new hire. In other words, how quickly can they break even in all the things that they used to invest in that new hire, as well as the employee lifetime value. In other words, how much is their ROI for each employee over the duration of their tenure at the company. 

And so, this is what allows them to help to take contact centers to break away from this traditional cost center model, it just no longer works in this post COVID and post ChatGPT environment anymore, this is a new era. 

So, they help them to shift away from that, and to shift into the new era of what he calls earning more with less. So, that's also why they call themselves quote, unquote, Upwork for BPOs in terms of like to describe what they do, because everybody's familiar with Upwork, even if they're not, they're familiar with their virtual assistants. So, they certainly know the autonomy, they know the approach that they will take now to having a person on their staff, etc, it’s the same exact process when a contact center partners with them is just that the reason why they added built for BPO part to it, it’s because they optimized for those two core things that makes them more profitable.

Helping BPOs Strategically Position Themselves as a Value Center versus a Call Center

Me: Could you share with our listeners, seeing that you're helping the BPO to strategically position themselves as a value center versus a call center, what are two or three things that you do to help them get to that point?

Romaine stated that to understand that, they first have to mention, what are the core money sucking areas that contact centers usually have to struggle with. So, it's usually three areas, its operations, or what he calls like focusing on pleasing the client, whether it's customer experience, solutions, or investing more in coaching, etc. 

And then you have retention is the second one, which is the largest one. In other words, employee replacement costs. And then also hiring, and training, which is also a huge part of the pie. The thing is, the contact center industry hasn't really been innovative at all since the foundation in most of the areas, it's only been innovative in one area, which is operations. Polishing how they deliver that CX experience, but not really focusing on hiring and training, not really focusing much on retention. In other words, if every single Contact Center Executive wants to wake up tomorrow, and see a 10% yearly annual attrition rate, or $100 new employee costs, the industry wouldn't be in the mess that it’s in today. 

So, those are the things that they focus on, the two core things that especially when you're scaling remotely, it's just harder to solve. 

So, he’ll give you an example of how they do it more strategically. So, let's take hiring. When you add up internal recruiting costs, external recruiting cost, the fact that around 30% of new hires don't make it to production, he even remembers seeing some numbers of around 50% of new hires leaving within 30 days. 

He thinks it's best or in other words, he and his team have decided that the best way to really approach hiring would be from like, how you would see like a grocery shop grow. A grocery shop, for example, which is a really good analogy they tend to use would have a variety of different customer segments, whether it’s from like low value to high value customers. 

So, some customers would spend $100 for the month, some would spend $600 for the month etc. What if you market to only one spending $600 per month. In other words, the high value wants. That same principle can be applied to HR, that same principle can be applied to talent acquisition, where the high valued ones, at least based on their guidelines are the ones over three years of experience and have already been working with like previous Fortune 500 clients.

So, when you market to them, it requires you understanding their motivations and not trying to go after the motivations of everybody across the board. You cannot fight Goliath using the resources that you don't have, in other words, the ones that are at the top, they have all the resources that they need to build these gyms or health centers or anything that you normally see, like the huge corporate BPOs using to attract a lot of people. But if you do the same thing, you're going to crash and burn as a smaller company. And so, what they’re saying is don't try to mimic them, try to out compete them, by competing differently instead of similarly. So, that's one of the ways.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Replacing Human Capital

Me: So, you mentioned at the beginning of our conversation about artificial intelligence and ChatGPT, that's a big thing now since November of last year, what are your views on AI replacing human capital? I do recall us having a previous email conversation where you mentioned that they're building computers with human brain cells.

Romaine stated that he doesn't know why he always love talking about this topic. But growth hackers, we tend to see these things like very regularly, whether it's Google Glasses, or even with Crypto, we tend to see these new things and the hype built around them, he thinks ChatGPT is the same thing. 

It's a good product, but they have even better marketing. Because they use the fear of people possibly losing their jobs, to drive the exposure to your product. But growth hackers they always try to realign back to reality. 

In other words, they ask themselves two things, does it move the needle for our business? And another thing that they ask is this something that can be easily adopted amongst the masses?  

They knew that cryptocurrency wouldn't grow radically as other people would put it, because it has a lot of friction just to be a part of it, it’s the same thing with ChatGPT, it doesn't really move the needle when it comes to customer service, because customer service, more has to deal with customer relationships. 

These are things that businesses rely on to get more revenue, to get higher customer loyalty, and all of these other things. When you put something that is at the ceiling or near to the ceiling of what it can do in terms of mimicking humans, in control of your customer relationships, it's not going to end well. 

And a team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University mentioned this, they didn't call ChatGPT, but they said AI is nearing its ceiling. And it takes he believes the research said like over a million times more energy just for it to perform exactly like the human brain for 40 minutes, which isn't sustainable at all. 

So, the only way that they can really get to that next level of AI is to merge human brain cells with artificial intelligence, in other words, they call it organoid intelligence, where they use themselves to mimic brain cells or tissue that can operate like the human brain cells, and then to try to configure that or merge that with AI to enhance automation abilities. So, unless that is done, which is around decades from now, or if not a few years, ChatGPT and any other AI tool that's going to be created will just be good at automating processes, and not so good at automating relationships or being creative as human beings because it just doesn't have that ability, it's more of a process based thing and less of a, “Hey, I know exactly what I'm doing” type of thing, because it's only mimicking, that's all it’s doing.

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

When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without in his business, Romaine stated that definitely Webflow for sure, it's better than WordPress, in his opinion. WordPress has a few kinks when it comes to like plugins and SEO, especially with technical SEO, etc. but Webflow is more, you’re like, hey, just handle design and we take care of all of that, all of that backend stuff. So, definitely the Webflow.

Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Romaine

When asked about books that have had a great impact, Romaine shared that the one that he always resorts to is Hacking Growth: How Today’s Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success by Sean Ellis. So, Sean Ellis is literally the person from Silicon Valley that coined the term growth hacking. 

This book will allow people just to understand the realities of growth hackers, and why is it that we tend to always aim to look beyond the surface of things. Why is it that we tend to always focus back on the question, does it drive the needle? 

And also, why is it that allows us to be change agents within organizations like with Volkswagen hiring growth hackers to lead their innovation team so that they can take on either Musk and Tesla. So, this book can literally help you to just have a greater appreciation for the work of growth hackers across the world.

What Romaine is Really Excited About Now!

When asked about something that he’s really excited about, Romaine shared that he knows this is going to sound a bit cliche, but definitely Call Center Escape and it's a good reason why, not just because they’re helping contact centers to do what was once impossible such as influencing external retention factors or just finding more innovative ways to increase profitability. But also, because one of the solutions, or upcoming things on their immediate roadmap, at least within this year, is it solves a problem that contact centers usually face that would allow or would push clients to cancelling their contracts. What they’re doing is they’re turning this thing, because he can't really reveal too much right now. 

This solution they’re pushing, they’re enabling for this problem that's been there for decades to no longer have an impact on any contact center that partners with them to scale remotely, which is a huge deal, because that means that they can go into their sales meetings and say, “Hey, we've partnered with Call Center Escape, we have this guarantee. And just like our other clients that are benefiting from it, you're going to benefit from it as well.” 

That's going to lead to them literally closing more deals, and even capturing some of the clients that's been just shopping around for just more providers, so better providers, which has been a lot according to Everest Group's Research. 

And then the last one is, he would say, one of their big hairy, audacious goal. And that is to follow up on research that was released recently, which stated that when you increase employee engagement significantly, you can boost revenue by 50%, and profit by 45%. 

This is a very notable piece of research, because the Head of Global Growth for Salesforce was one of the persons on a team of researchers, which is a huge deal. And so, what they want to do is to partner with researchers of their own to do a follow up on that report with the help of the contact centers that they’ve partnered with to scale and to present this research to her, as well as to Salesforce, so they can get their endorsement to get Salesforce endorsement. 

In other words, to get the leader of the customer experience space endorsement, this would mean that they’re no longer just putting contact centers at the front runner of the contact center of evolution, but it would also mean that they’re changing the way in which they assume instinctively work, which is a pretty big deal. And he thinks with a prestigious universities such as the University of the West Indies that's in the top 1.5% globally, by their side to help with that research, he thinks this quote, unquote, dream will be much easier to achieve. So, to answer the question, he’s very much excited about it.

Where Can We Find Romaine Online 

Website – www.callcenterescape.com

LinkedIn – Romaine Piper

Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Romaine Uses

When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Romaine stated that definitely. He’s not sure how many of the listeners know Charlie Munger, he is Warren Buffett's best friend, they're both billionaires. He has a quote that goes, “Spend each day becoming wiser than you were when you just woke up.” This is powerful.

And Romaine tends to literally live by this quote. It's also why he was able to break into the growth hacking industry. It's an industry where there are lots of people in their 40s and 30s, he hasn't yet hit his 30s and yet still have gotten in only because he spends each day just becoming wiser and wiser at what he does. So, it works.

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

Links

•      Hacking Growth: How Today’s Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success by Sean Ellis

The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience

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

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!

Our Next Webinar – May 16, 2023 at 10:00 am

Register Here