#CX 69: Marketing To Employees Like You Market To Customers w/ Chris Wallace

WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.160 --> 00:00:07.710 We want our employees to be proud of our companies, in our brands and 2 00:00:07.790 --> 00:00:13.589 what we stand for. Your brand is the promise you make to your customers. 3 00:00:14.109 --> 00:00:20.390 The customer experience will either fulfill or fail that expectation. We can meet 4 00:00:20.789 --> 00:00:24.739 or we can exceed or we can fail the expectations we make. We can 5 00:00:24.940 --> 00:00:28.940 honor our brand promise or not. We get really clear on that. On 6 00:00:29.059 --> 00:00:33.299 this episode of the CX series of B Tob Growth. The conversation is with 7 00:00:33.380 --> 00:00:39.969 Chris Wallace, Co founder and president of Interview Group. I nneer interview group. 8 00:00:40.090 --> 00:00:44.810 So we're focused on the employee experience. How can we connect the promises 9 00:00:44.850 --> 00:00:49.409 that we're making, typically in our marketing, with our frontline employees, the 10 00:00:49.530 --> 00:00:54.759 customer facing employees, so that they can deliver and experience that exceeds the promises 11 00:00:54.799 --> 00:00:57.240 that we're making in the way to do that, in Christ has a great 12 00:00:57.240 --> 00:01:00.479 job walking this out in our conversation, is make sure not only that there's 13 00:01:00.479 --> 00:01:06.469 awareness on the front line, but understanding and buy in and belief. We 14 00:01:06.670 --> 00:01:11.390 need to bridge that gap, that gap between brand and experience. In Chris 15 00:01:11.390 --> 00:01:14.709 is a master of it. My name is Ethan Butte. I host the 16 00:01:14.790 --> 00:01:19.379 CX series on B Tob Growth. I host the customer experience podcast. I 17 00:01:19.540 --> 00:01:23.500 coauthored a book with my friend and team member Steve Passin Ellie rehumanize Your Business. 18 00:01:23.819 --> 00:01:30.019 How personal videos accelerate sales and improve customer experience. Here is my conversation 19 00:01:30.420 --> 00:01:37.930 with Chris. Our company spends so much time, energy and money marketing our 20 00:01:37.969 --> 00:01:42.250 products and services to our customers, in our potential customers, but what about 21 00:01:42.290 --> 00:01:47.239 our employees? Our guest is here today to talk about internal marketing and brand 22 00:01:47.359 --> 00:01:52.719 consistency to this conversation. He brings twenty years of sales, marketing and corporate 23 00:01:52.760 --> 00:01:57.920 leadership experience at companies like comcast, insight sales and the PGA. Today he's 24 00:01:59.040 --> 00:02:04.189 cofounder and president at Interview Group, a firm that helps companies engage their frontline 25 00:02:04.230 --> 00:02:09.509 teams to improve customer experience and ultimately to boost revenue performance. Christopher Wallace, 26 00:02:09.590 --> 00:02:14.669 welcome to the customer experience podcast even thank you so much for having me. 27 00:02:14.710 --> 00:02:16.419 I think that's the best intro I've ever gotten. So great job with that 28 00:02:16.620 --> 00:02:21.020 awesome figure. A small point of pride for me and I want you to 29 00:02:21.099 --> 00:02:24.979 feel welcome and for people to know how beneficial this is going to be. 30 00:02:25.139 --> 00:02:29.699 Based on your experience. But before we get going, in earnest I'm in 31 00:02:29.780 --> 00:02:34.090 Colorado Springs. You are in the Philadelphia Area for acts. What's the current 32 00:02:34.169 --> 00:02:38.409 situation with regard to the to the coronavirus pandemic? How's it affecting you or 33 00:02:38.449 --> 00:02:42.530 your team or your customers? Yeah, wow, we could probably spend the 34 00:02:42.569 --> 00:02:46.560 entire time on just that, but we fortunately had been used to working remotely 35 00:02:46.599 --> 00:02:50.159 over the years. We do have our head course, here in Philadelphia, 36 00:02:50.520 --> 00:02:53.199 which is where most of our staff is, but we do have people sprinkled 37 00:02:53.199 --> 00:02:57.560 all over the country. We were all armed with our zoom accounts prior to 38 00:02:58.360 --> 00:03:01.389 prior to this happening. But I think from our customers perspective it really is 39 00:03:02.110 --> 00:03:06.469 you know, really depends. It's company to company, because you know, 40 00:03:06.669 --> 00:03:09.990 one of our one of our major comp customers is the country's largest Internet service 41 00:03:10.069 --> 00:03:14.979 provider and they're slammed right now. They're they're one of the most important companies 42 00:03:14.979 --> 00:03:19.219 in the country right now and it's putting all sorts of different strain on them 43 00:03:19.620 --> 00:03:23.099 from a capacity perspective that it is on other companies, maybe in the manufacturing, 44 00:03:23.139 --> 00:03:27.250 in the banking space. So it's really kind of industry to industry right 45 00:03:27.250 --> 00:03:30.530 now interesting. Yeah, it's the same for us. We have a number 46 00:03:30.530 --> 00:03:32.849 of people who are coming to us. Like our current lead flow is just 47 00:03:32.930 --> 00:03:38.050 through the roof because we make it easy to stay facetoface with people through simple 48 00:03:38.050 --> 00:03:40.599 videos and emails and and like you, we were, you know, we 49 00:03:40.680 --> 00:03:45.639 were primarily in office together in Colorado Springs. Were about a hundred fifty people 50 00:03:45.680 --> 00:03:49.199 and most of us are in the office physically, but we have enough people 51 00:03:49.280 --> 00:03:52.919 up in Denver and in other cities around the country that we're all equipped to 52 00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:54.990 work remotely and do meetings remotely and all of that. And so is the 53 00:03:55.629 --> 00:04:01.550 transition of the work itself hasn't been to challenging yet, although it's, you 54 00:04:01.590 --> 00:04:04.349 know, who knows? It depends how long it persists as well. Yeah, 55 00:04:04.349 --> 00:04:08.949 I think the only x factor for us is for the people on our 56 00:04:08.949 --> 00:04:12.860 team like myself, who have children, you know, at school age children 57 00:04:13.139 --> 00:04:15.860 that we're trying to manage through some of the homeschool stuff right now, some 58 00:04:15.939 --> 00:04:19.220 of the remote learning, and that's a challenge because the workday is not exactly 59 00:04:19.220 --> 00:04:23.180 a work day anymore. But you know, we're managing. We've got a 60 00:04:23.339 --> 00:04:26.009 a lot better than a lot of people do. So we're happy to keep 61 00:04:26.050 --> 00:04:29.689 on shogging and my team's been great. We know we're talking daily doing our 62 00:04:29.689 --> 00:04:31.610 zoom call, so we're making it work for right now. I love it. 63 00:04:31.730 --> 00:04:35.970 gratitudes. The is the way. So let's get going and we'll start 64 00:04:36.089 --> 00:04:42.000 where we always start, which is your thoughts or definition around customer experience. 65 00:04:42.079 --> 00:04:44.959 When I say customer experience, what does it mean to you, Christopher? 66 00:04:45.639 --> 00:04:47.079 Well, so I'm going to start by saying that one of the things that 67 00:04:47.439 --> 00:04:51.120 when we when we built interview, when we have been in the professional services 68 00:04:51.160 --> 00:04:56.069 business before and had some I had a lot of experience and consulting and when 69 00:04:56.110 --> 00:04:59.230 we started it, we are very intentional with with how we started the company, 70 00:04:59.310 --> 00:05:02.029 and one of those things was this idea of kind of the vision for 71 00:05:02.189 --> 00:05:06.180 the company, and we talked about with the vision of our company is to 72 00:05:06.220 --> 00:05:11.420 take something that seems intangible and turn it into something that can be deposited in 73 00:05:11.500 --> 00:05:14.980 the bank. Okay, that's what that's part of our vision for our company 74 00:05:15.060 --> 00:05:18.819 and I think it translates really well into my definition of customer experience, because 75 00:05:19.100 --> 00:05:24.610 I think of customer experience as kind of the currency for the new generation. 76 00:05:24.689 --> 00:05:29.370 Right it used to be products and features or, you know, kind of 77 00:05:29.410 --> 00:05:31.170 some of your more more, you know, traditional. You know, is 78 00:05:31.250 --> 00:05:35.000 the product better than the competition? Yes or no? There's so many companies, 79 00:05:35.079 --> 00:05:39.160 there's so many options, there's so many ways to get goods and services 80 00:05:39.680 --> 00:05:44.360 that the products are are you the product parity, service parity just about in 81 00:05:44.439 --> 00:05:47.680 every single category, and I really do look at the experience as the great 82 00:05:47.720 --> 00:05:53.470 differentiator from brand to brand. So I guess my definition really is the the 83 00:05:54.110 --> 00:05:59.750 added value that an organization is building into their interactions with customers that separate them 84 00:05:59.790 --> 00:06:01.750 above and beyond their products and services. I like it. I like the 85 00:06:01.829 --> 00:06:05.980 value anchor and I liked that it is in the interactions right, that is 86 00:06:06.100 --> 00:06:10.819 where the experiences kind of most felt, I think. So really good calling. 87 00:06:10.860 --> 00:06:14.339 You're absolutely right and it's a primary thesis on the show. Here's that 88 00:06:14.420 --> 00:06:20.009 hyper competition which you described in product parity render customer experiences as the ultimate differentiator. 89 00:06:20.089 --> 00:06:23.569 So it's what a cool thing to be able to start a company with 90 00:06:23.689 --> 00:06:27.930 that perspective and to make decisions through that, through that Lens. So we're 91 00:06:27.930 --> 00:06:30.730 going to be going, I feel like, a little bit back and forth 92 00:06:30.810 --> 00:06:36.240 between employee experience and brand, branding, brand experience, brand consistency, brand 93 00:06:36.360 --> 00:06:41.160 dilution, and so I just wanted to tea up that I'm really excited about 94 00:06:41.199 --> 00:06:45.199 this one because both of them are truly inside out right. One of my 95 00:06:45.360 --> 00:06:50.310 early mentors around branding really made it clear that it needs to be lived from 96 00:06:50.310 --> 00:06:54.110 the inside before it can be felt outside, and that's the way that you 97 00:06:54.230 --> 00:06:57.750 make it consistent. So I love this connection to the employee. And then 98 00:06:58.189 --> 00:07:01.740 don't know if you're familiar with the service profit chain, which is a it's 99 00:07:01.779 --> 00:07:05.259 available for anyone to read kind of a digest version at Harvard business reviews, 100 00:07:05.300 --> 00:07:09.540 the Harvard business our Harvard Business Book Right. Yeah, correct, it was 101 00:07:09.540 --> 00:07:12.100 an article. I made a book. Yeah, and so that, like 102 00:07:12.180 --> 00:07:15.259 when I when I when I was learning about your company and anticipation of this, 103 00:07:15.379 --> 00:07:19.170 as just really excited because if I feel like that's a significant and intentionally 104 00:07:19.170 --> 00:07:24.250 you're not perfectly consistent with that, which is the idea that you know, 105 00:07:24.329 --> 00:07:29.529 the revenue and the profitability are the outcomes, customers are the midpoint, but 106 00:07:29.689 --> 00:07:33.839 really spending so much more time and energy building that internal service quality and making 107 00:07:33.839 --> 00:07:39.519 sure that the employee experience is fantastic is the necessary precursor to all of it. 108 00:07:39.720 --> 00:07:43.879 So I guess we'll start here, which is the reason I always ask 109 00:07:43.879 --> 00:07:46.990 about customer experiences, that you get a variety of answers, although there's some 110 00:07:46.189 --> 00:07:49.350 things, some consistent themes, and I feel like the same thing is true 111 00:07:49.350 --> 00:07:54.149 of branding. So I'd love for you to talk about brand and brand experience 112 00:07:54.509 --> 00:07:58.550 relative to customer experience, in your view and your opinion, are they synonymous? 113 00:07:58.579 --> 00:08:01.740 Are Their differences like? How do you think about that? Yeah, 114 00:08:01.819 --> 00:08:03.420 so, so I don't know that I would say that there's synonymous, but 115 00:08:03.459 --> 00:08:07.980 I think that they're they're sort of tied to one another. Right. I 116 00:08:07.180 --> 00:08:11.540 think that the way we always talk about brand is a brand is a collection 117 00:08:11.579 --> 00:08:15.930 of promises that a company is making to its customers. That's the way we 118 00:08:16.129 --> 00:08:18.689 think of it. We think of it as the brand really comes down to 119 00:08:18.329 --> 00:08:22.410 the essence of a company. And then essence is why do we exist? 120 00:08:22.529 --> 00:08:26.170 What do we saying we can do for customers? Why do we have a 121 00:08:26.250 --> 00:08:28.600 place in this world? Right, so we always come back to we look 122 00:08:28.639 --> 00:08:31.639 at the brand is the promises that are being made. We look at the 123 00:08:31.679 --> 00:08:35.759 customer experience as whether or not the custom of the promises are being kept right. 124 00:08:35.960 --> 00:08:39.639 That's how we see the two of those things being linked and it's really 125 00:08:39.679 --> 00:08:43.429 important that you look at them in tandem. You know, we found, 126 00:08:43.549 --> 00:08:48.269 both through research and through practical work, that they're just they're disconnected far too 127 00:08:48.350 --> 00:08:50.909 much of the time. And what do you think the primary causes there is? 128 00:08:50.950 --> 00:08:54.899 That is that one of them is overlooked or one of them is undervalued, 129 00:08:54.980 --> 00:09:00.820 like we're where's the disconnect? You think so? I believe the disconnect 130 00:09:00.860 --> 00:09:03.340 and you know, I'm in the process of writing a research we did some 131 00:09:03.419 --> 00:09:07.740 research and or the process of writing the research report right now. But from 132 00:09:07.860 --> 00:09:11.649 that research, what we've been able to see is in the organizations that we 133 00:09:11.889 --> 00:09:18.409 support, and we're typically working with either a business to consumer brand or a 134 00:09:18.570 --> 00:09:22.490 consumer brand that goes to market through be be to be Toc. Maybe they 135 00:09:22.529 --> 00:09:24.759 have distributors or retail partners, but you know, think of like a consumer 136 00:09:24.799 --> 00:09:28.960 electronics brand. They go to market you know be to B Toc, but 137 00:09:28.080 --> 00:09:35.600 they're typically consumer brands and typically what we're seeing is the people who are designing 138 00:09:35.720 --> 00:09:39.669 the brand and and sort of the architects of that brand story, the people 139 00:09:39.710 --> 00:09:43.750 who make the promise and the people who keep the promise or who are responsible 140 00:09:43.750 --> 00:09:50.710 for keeping the promise. The physical and mental distance between those two departments is 141 00:09:50.070 --> 00:09:54.659 probably wider than we even thought. Okay, I'll let me give you an 142 00:09:54.659 --> 00:09:56.500 example and the research that we just did, which it hasn't been released yet, 143 00:09:56.539 --> 00:09:58.899 but I'll share some of the findings. One of of the things we 144 00:09:58.980 --> 00:10:05.860 found was in asking customer facing employees in consumer industries, retail, airlines, 145 00:10:07.019 --> 00:10:11.450 hospitality, restaurants, you your typical consumer and consumer industries, who do they 146 00:10:11.450 --> 00:10:16.330 see is most critical and helping them sort of deliver the customer experience and tell 147 00:10:16.450 --> 00:10:20.970 that brand story right? How do they know what brand promises they need to 148 00:10:20.090 --> 00:10:22.240 keep right? Where do they get that from? Where do they get that 149 00:10:22.320 --> 00:10:28.679 direction from? We gave them six different groups within their organization that they could 150 00:10:28.679 --> 00:10:35.789 choose from. Marketing ranked five out of six. So the mental, again, 151 00:10:35.909 --> 00:10:39.230 physical and mental distance between somebody who works at a register in the person 152 00:10:39.389 --> 00:10:43.590 that that does the Advis is huge. It's even bigger than we thought it 153 00:10:43.669 --> 00:10:46.830 was. To be honest, we knew it was big, but we're seeing 154 00:10:46.870 --> 00:10:50.539 the the data tell us that it's wider than we even thought and to me 155 00:10:50.019 --> 00:10:54.100 that's a big challenge. Right the people who are spending the money on the 156 00:10:54.139 --> 00:10:56.460 advertising and spending the money with the you know, to build the campaigns. 157 00:10:58.100 --> 00:11:01.220 If they are not linked, if they do not have a strong bond with 158 00:11:01.299 --> 00:11:05.809 the people delivering that customer experience, you are bound to have a breakdown between 159 00:11:05.809 --> 00:11:07.809 promise and delivery, right, and that's what so many brands have, is 160 00:11:07.850 --> 00:11:11.570 that breakdown between promise and delivery. So I'm going to come down to they 161 00:11:11.690 --> 00:11:16.490 simply just don't see each other. When I say they, the customer facing 162 00:11:16.610 --> 00:11:20.679 teams and the marketing and brand department and most organizations just don't see each other 163 00:11:20.919 --> 00:11:26.279 as one another stakeholders enough of the time. What do you say that? 164 00:11:26.360 --> 00:11:31.000 That's one of the biggest points of value and engagement when you engage with the 165 00:11:31.120 --> 00:11:35.149 company as interview is that's is that one of the disconnects? That's probably one 166 00:11:35.149 --> 00:11:37.470 of the bigger points that you're working on or like, what's that? What's 167 00:11:37.509 --> 00:11:41.309 the scope of engagement? Yeah, that's really what it is. I mean 168 00:11:41.750 --> 00:11:43.350 a lot of it comes down to an and I didn't say that was the 169 00:11:43.389 --> 00:11:48.500 rift simply because it's sort of dovetails in with what we do, but because, 170 00:11:48.539 --> 00:11:50.500 again, we were seeing from the data that's even bigger than we thought. 171 00:11:50.779 --> 00:11:54.779 But we really do build a bridge between that strategic vision of where the 172 00:11:54.860 --> 00:11:58.299 brand wants to go and the day to day execution. Right the campaign. 173 00:11:58.899 --> 00:12:01.769 Think of it this way. If a campaign is done, you go to 174 00:12:01.850 --> 00:12:07.210 your agency, you reposition yourself. You're going after a new demographic. You've 175 00:12:07.210 --> 00:12:09.250 got to you've got great creative, you got great ads, you have a 176 00:12:09.370 --> 00:12:13.850 great add by and you go out with that campaign and the demand starts flowing, 177 00:12:13.970 --> 00:12:16.480 the phones ring, the foot traffic picks up, all those things, 178 00:12:18.120 --> 00:12:22.519 but the people who actually service those customers are disconnected. Think about how much 179 00:12:22.559 --> 00:12:28.000 of a drag on the results of that campaign and uninformed and uninspired frontline employee 180 00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:31.669 group can be. Right. Think about how big that disk. And we 181 00:12:31.870 --> 00:12:35.549 filled that gap. We've closed that gap for companies and it again, it 182 00:12:35.669 --> 00:12:39.470 ends up being a much bigger than even we thought it would be. Going 183 00:12:39.549 --> 00:12:43.870 in really interesting. It kind of teas up where I wanted to go next, 184 00:12:43.990 --> 00:12:48.700 which is your thoughts on the relationship between the employee experience and the customer 185 00:12:48.779 --> 00:12:54.940 experience. Yeah, so we have I'll call a little I will call controversial 186 00:12:54.980 --> 00:12:58.009 but maybe a little bit provocative view of sort of the employee experience to to 187 00:12:58.129 --> 00:13:03.049 customer experience. The way we look at the link between the two is we 188 00:13:03.250 --> 00:13:09.610 believe very strongly that employee so I would bet you'd get more definitions of employee 189 00:13:09.610 --> 00:13:13.799 experience instant you would of customer experience, because people really look at that in 190 00:13:13.919 --> 00:13:18.080 very different ways. The way we look at it is you have people who 191 00:13:18.080 --> 00:13:20.600 are hired to do a job. If we can put them in a position 192 00:13:22.399 --> 00:13:28.669 to believe in the brand that they represent right and be in a position to 193 00:13:28.909 --> 00:13:31.789 serve that customer to the best of their ability, if they are good at 194 00:13:31.830 --> 00:13:35.789 their job every single day, if they are serving customers well and they are 195 00:13:35.870 --> 00:13:41.620 getting that positive feedback from customers, whether it's just in body language and exchange 196 00:13:41.659 --> 00:13:46.179 or, you know, in good natured interaction, or if it's coming through 197 00:13:46.299 --> 00:13:50.620 literal feedback through customer surveys and things like that, we believe the pride and 198 00:13:50.740 --> 00:13:54.620 what they do is going to grow right. So we believe very strongly in 199 00:13:54.139 --> 00:13:58.929 let's put them in a position to serve the customers the best they possibly can 200 00:13:58.049 --> 00:14:03.330 and in doing so you're going to build their pride and working for the brand 201 00:14:03.370 --> 00:14:07.769 that they represent and their pride generally in serving customers. So we're very much 202 00:14:07.769 --> 00:14:11.720 a. We look at it as help them serve their customers, help them 203 00:14:11.759 --> 00:14:15.720 do their job to the best of their ability and they're satisfaction with the work 204 00:14:15.799 --> 00:14:18.799 that they do and their engagement's going to go way up. A lot of 205 00:14:18.840 --> 00:14:22.759 other organizations look at it as it, which is very, very feasible and 206 00:14:22.799 --> 00:14:26.750 viable, is this idea of let's make happy employees and happy employees make happy 207 00:14:26.789 --> 00:14:31.789 customers. So it's a lot of like employee experience becomes making sure that they've 208 00:14:31.830 --> 00:14:35.590 got, you know, great coffee machine in their break rooms or their snacks 209 00:14:35.669 --> 00:14:41.580 or there's like a lot of like truly like workplace, like workplace empowerment type 210 00:14:41.620 --> 00:14:46.899 programs. Those are all well and good, but we cut straight to the 211 00:14:46.139 --> 00:14:50.500 the the chase and we say put him in a position to serve the customers 212 00:14:50.539 --> 00:14:52.850 better, get them more excited about the products in the brand that they represent 213 00:14:54.210 --> 00:14:58.049 and watch their satisfaction and as an employee go through the roof. So good. 214 00:14:58.090 --> 00:15:01.649 It's a positive upward spiral and it reminds me of this idea that company 215 00:15:01.690 --> 00:15:05.690 culture is not a foodsball table or beer on tap. A lot of companies 216 00:15:05.769 --> 00:15:07.720 think that right. Right, but but to your point, I love the 217 00:15:07.799 --> 00:15:11.600 you cut straight to it. And so what is that? What does that 218 00:15:11.840 --> 00:15:16.279 look like in practice? Is this more internal training? Is this? What 219 00:15:16.360 --> 00:15:20.590 are a couple kind of tangible actionable things around, like how do we get 220 00:15:22.190 --> 00:15:26.029 employee buying, especially maybe for a company that's been operating, let's say, 221 00:15:26.070 --> 00:15:30.470 for years? They had kind of taken a lot of this for granted and 222 00:15:30.629 --> 00:15:33.950 now you have, you know, the culture, what is normal, what 223 00:15:33.110 --> 00:15:37.340 is accepted, what's been tolerated, what it feels like to show up every 224 00:15:37.379 --> 00:15:43.019 day is a certain way. How do you start, from a practical standpoint, 225 00:15:43.100 --> 00:15:46.700 start transitioning that to get that buy in and that belief, like winning 226 00:15:46.740 --> 00:15:50.370 the hearts and minds of the employees so that the customers can feel it? 227 00:15:50.889 --> 00:15:54.570 That's it's so it's a great question. So what you just ask? You 228 00:15:54.649 --> 00:15:58.090 know the line. We always use this. You know people we start talking 229 00:15:58.090 --> 00:16:02.250 about these types of things, marketers typically say we have this challenge, but 230 00:16:02.409 --> 00:16:07.799 fixing it just feel so daunting, right and and the reality is white feel 231 00:16:07.879 --> 00:16:11.279 so daunting is because they look at their employees, they separate their employees as 232 00:16:11.360 --> 00:16:15.879 one group and their customers as another group, and marketers are in the business 233 00:16:15.919 --> 00:16:19.590 of mass behavior change. That's what they do. Their job is to compel 234 00:16:19.590 --> 00:16:25.429 people to act in new ways based on a message that they've heard or are 235 00:16:25.509 --> 00:16:30.110 some sort of stimulus, and we look at it as it's not that hard 236 00:16:30.309 --> 00:16:33.700 and not that daunting if you take the things that you're so good at right 237 00:16:33.779 --> 00:16:37.580 now and you just apply them to the employee group just as if they were 238 00:16:37.620 --> 00:16:41.139 a buyer. Right. The biggest Aha here is to look at them as 239 00:16:41.179 --> 00:16:45.460 a buyer and consumer of your message, not as a messenger, just for 240 00:16:45.539 --> 00:16:48.529 a minute, right. If you can get them to buy it first and 241 00:16:48.649 --> 00:16:52.529 really believe in it, then getting them to be a messenger as a lot 242 00:16:52.610 --> 00:16:56.409 easier. Organizations go the other way around. They try to make people messengers 243 00:16:56.490 --> 00:17:00.929 of something that they don't necessarily believe it. So what we do is just 244 00:17:00.049 --> 00:17:04.039 like any good marketing campaign, we start with market research. We developed a 245 00:17:04.119 --> 00:17:08.119 tool called the brand transfer studying the brand transfer score, and what we are 246 00:17:08.240 --> 00:17:14.920 quite literally doing is we are assessing an organizations message, sort of their core 247 00:17:15.079 --> 00:17:18.349 brand message. What are the key pillars of that message, and we're assessing 248 00:17:18.710 --> 00:17:22.390 the corporate architects of that message and then all the people out in the field 249 00:17:22.430 --> 00:17:26.910 or wherever else inside the organization that represent that message and we are coming back 250 00:17:26.950 --> 00:17:30.380 to an organization with a point of view, just like you would with a 251 00:17:30.460 --> 00:17:33.980 customer, just as you would come back with market research and say, here's 252 00:17:33.980 --> 00:17:37.980 what the customers think of you, here's how the customers view your view you. 253 00:17:37.339 --> 00:17:40.700 They don't think you're good at this. They think your competitions, you 254 00:17:40.740 --> 00:17:42.900 know, kicking your butt here, but they think you're strong here. We're 255 00:17:42.980 --> 00:17:47.890 doing the same thing with the internal audience and we're coming back to a marketer 256 00:17:48.089 --> 00:17:52.769 saying, you believe your brand story is this, but you're losing twenty seven 257 00:17:52.849 --> 00:17:57.009 percent. You're Miss Aligned by twenty seven percent with your retail team or you're 258 00:17:57.049 --> 00:18:03.079 misaligned, you know, seventeen percent, with your with your channel partners, 259 00:18:03.079 --> 00:18:07.559 or you're distributing your distribution partners. So we're coming back to them with research, 260 00:18:07.839 --> 00:18:11.440 market research. It just so happens we're doing market research on a different 261 00:18:11.480 --> 00:18:15.069 audience. But once you have that data in hand, again, what a 262 00:18:15.069 --> 00:18:19.309 marketers do with data? You build a messaging campaign and you drive tactics out 263 00:18:19.309 --> 00:18:22.910 in different mediums, out that are going to move the needle. And the 264 00:18:22.990 --> 00:18:29.259 key here is you have to think far outside hitting send on an email or 265 00:18:29.339 --> 00:18:33.539 posting a product training to really get people's attention and to compel them to change 266 00:18:33.539 --> 00:18:37.900 their behavior. You wouldn't try to train a customer to be excited about your 267 00:18:37.940 --> 00:18:41.089 brand, but that's how organizations that. Again, they're trying to make them 268 00:18:41.210 --> 00:18:45.849 messengers, that people represent the brand messengers before their believers. We want to 269 00:18:45.890 --> 00:18:49.289 flip the script for them. So the internal campaigns that we run they look 270 00:18:49.369 --> 00:18:52.569 more like the type of campaign you'd run to consumers. Then they do something 271 00:18:52.609 --> 00:18:56.079 that you're typically doing through your training department. I love it. What team 272 00:18:56.240 --> 00:19:00.480 is this coming out of? Do you engage marketing departments to do the work 273 00:19:00.559 --> 00:19:04.759 or do you'd provide it as a third party? We work with the marketing 274 00:19:04.799 --> 00:19:10.509 department, so we are typically partnering with it could be anybody from the brand 275 00:19:10.630 --> 00:19:14.109 and in a core marketing team inside of brand. It could also be a 276 00:19:14.190 --> 00:19:18.869 channel leader, somebody that's responsible for channel marketing for a dealer channel or for 277 00:19:18.029 --> 00:19:22.390 a call center channel, or whatever the case may be. So it's typically 278 00:19:22.470 --> 00:19:27.380 the marketing. The way it goes is marketing typically says man, wouldn't it 279 00:19:27.380 --> 00:19:30.339 be nice if I could get my people on message right, because that's our 280 00:19:30.339 --> 00:19:33.500 question to a marketer. How confident are you that your people are on message 281 00:19:33.500 --> 00:19:37.809 and they're like not so confident. So we say okay, great, so 282 00:19:38.210 --> 00:19:41.849 you think you might have this challenge. Then we become partners with the people 283 00:19:41.970 --> 00:19:47.410 like the sales leadership, the training team. We become the glue that sort 284 00:19:47.410 --> 00:19:51.650 of holds those things together. And to your question earlier about working with the 285 00:19:51.690 --> 00:19:55.119 customer facing teams in the marketing team, we sort of become that bridge. 286 00:19:55.319 --> 00:20:00.200 We become the conduit between the marketers that just don't have the internal mechanisms to 287 00:20:00.359 --> 00:20:03.880 link up with those people down at the front lines and we build that bridge 288 00:20:03.920 --> 00:20:07.309 for them and help sort of manage it overtime. Love it. So how 289 00:20:07.390 --> 00:20:11.630 much of this is branding work? I mean say on message, and so 290 00:20:11.910 --> 00:20:15.829 you know, on message could mean why are we all here? Why do 291 00:20:15.910 --> 00:20:18.829 we show up? Who Do we serve and what do we solve for them 292 00:20:19.190 --> 00:20:22.380 at a high level? or it could be, like you know, you 293 00:20:22.500 --> 00:20:26.740 offered before, maybe a new campaign or a new product or a new service 294 00:20:26.220 --> 00:20:30.819 that maybe the front line is in is ignorant of or just playing misunderstands. 295 00:20:30.859 --> 00:20:37.890 And so how much are you talking brand in this scenario? So it's a 296 00:20:37.049 --> 00:20:41.690 it's a really good question. So I this. I will say our focus 297 00:20:41.730 --> 00:20:44.809 isn't we don't build your brand. We always joke we're like be asf we 298 00:20:44.849 --> 00:20:48.890 don't build your brand, we just help you, except were execution people right, 299 00:20:48.329 --> 00:20:51.480 and I think that you know. What we've done is we've tried to 300 00:20:51.559 --> 00:20:55.079 break it down in a sort of six what I'm going to call triggers that 301 00:20:55.440 --> 00:20:57.240 you know, that sort of drive the work that we do. There's product 302 00:20:57.319 --> 00:21:02.119 and service launches. So, as a marketing team, we're bringing something new 303 00:21:02.160 --> 00:21:03.829 to market. Okay, we we haven't. We have a new thing that 304 00:21:03.910 --> 00:21:07.109 we want to get out there. Are Customers need it. We've done all 305 00:21:07.150 --> 00:21:10.549 the research. We got to get it to market. The story we're telling 306 00:21:10.589 --> 00:21:14.750 there is your frontline teams, whether you like it or not, their gatekeepers. 307 00:21:15.269 --> 00:21:17.910 You know. You need them to be offering this, you need them 308 00:21:17.950 --> 00:21:21.579 to be recognizing the customers need in order for this new product or service to 309 00:21:21.619 --> 00:21:25.980 be successful. You've got to open up those floodgates early and not wait until 310 00:21:26.019 --> 00:21:30.619 you're thirty percent your goal to figure out how to engage those folks. Typically, 311 00:21:30.740 --> 00:21:34.049 most brands cannot drive enough demand to their doorstep to make every product and 312 00:21:34.130 --> 00:21:38.049 service launch worthwhile. You've got it you've got to get your front your frontline 313 00:21:38.049 --> 00:21:44.250 team engaged campaigns and promotions. So it's coming up on your your big selling 314 00:21:44.289 --> 00:21:48.240 season. You're making a big push. You've got some promotional pricing, you've 315 00:21:48.279 --> 00:21:51.599 got a key, you know, pricing a promotion out there in the market 316 00:21:51.680 --> 00:21:53.319 place. You really want to get traction for it. You need to get 317 00:21:53.359 --> 00:21:57.599 your team bought in. It's another trigger getting into some of the more philosophical 318 00:21:57.680 --> 00:22:03.509 ones around brand, company rebranding and mergers and acquisitions. Right. The common 319 00:22:03.549 --> 00:22:07.150 theme here is anytime change is coming to your brand, anytime you're pivoting, 320 00:22:07.190 --> 00:22:11.150 anytime you're swiveling with your brand and you're adding something in bringing a new message 321 00:22:11.150 --> 00:22:15.940 out to the marketplace, that's typically where we get involved. But rebrands are 322 00:22:15.940 --> 00:22:18.700 a big one, and mergers and acquisitions. How do you bring two brands 323 00:22:18.019 --> 00:22:22.779 into one? How do you get people, as one of our clients as 324 00:22:22.859 --> 00:22:25.779 to quote unquote, act the brand right? I love that idea of how 325 00:22:25.779 --> 00:22:29.700 do you act the brand and a rebrand or a merger and acquisition scenario? 326 00:22:29.779 --> 00:22:33.049 That's such a key piece. Yeah, just bet, it just begs it. 327 00:22:33.170 --> 00:22:37.849 It's critical especially that you know, with big companies you find that you 328 00:22:37.970 --> 00:22:41.130 know, banks merge and people don't know how to talk about who they are, 329 00:22:41.609 --> 00:22:42.849 you know, on day one, any more than they did the day 330 00:22:42.849 --> 00:22:47.839 before, and it causes a lot of customer confusion. The last two are 331 00:22:47.880 --> 00:22:52.480 customer experience program so off companies are investing in their customer experience. How do 332 00:22:52.519 --> 00:22:56.319 we make sure that their brand truly is built into that program and it's launched 333 00:22:56.319 --> 00:22:59.589 in a way that's going to drive that that excitement and, frankly, it's 334 00:22:59.589 --> 00:23:00.990 going to make it stick at the front lines? And finally, it's, 335 00:23:00.990 --> 00:23:03.950 you know, really dealer and channel support. You've got these programs that you 336 00:23:03.990 --> 00:23:07.710 need to push out to call it a non employee and not employee base. 337 00:23:08.069 --> 00:23:11.309 These are people who don't have to do it because it's on their score card 338 00:23:11.549 --> 00:23:17.420 or their bonused on it. It's people that you have to really influence into 339 00:23:17.460 --> 00:23:19.980 driving the actions that you want. So those are really the six triggers. 340 00:23:21.460 --> 00:23:25.660 That's great. I like the framework and that last step there. I mean 341 00:23:26.819 --> 00:23:30.769 in a lot of cases, depending on the nature of the partnership, the 342 00:23:30.890 --> 00:23:34.970 customer doesn't know or care whether their direct employees or not. I mean, 343 00:23:36.130 --> 00:23:38.970 functionally they are. They are brand representatives, whether you want them to be 344 00:23:40.049 --> 00:23:44.480 or not. So it's so obviously important to to rope them in and make 345 00:23:44.519 --> 00:23:48.200 sure that they understand everything the same way as a direct employee would. Let's 346 00:23:48.200 --> 00:23:52.440 talk for a minute about brand dilution, like what are the costs there? 347 00:23:52.039 --> 00:23:56.750 How do we get more consistent? How does it happen? Just talk about 348 00:23:56.750 --> 00:24:00.390 some of the dynamics there. Yeah, so, so brand delution is is 349 00:24:00.589 --> 00:24:04.470 quite simply the difference between what the brand is promising and what the customer here's 350 00:24:04.869 --> 00:24:10.140 right. We talked about the definition brand in the definition addition of definition of 351 00:24:10.180 --> 00:24:12.900 customer experience. We look at brand ilusitionist the gap between those two things. 352 00:24:12.980 --> 00:24:15.700 Right. How? Why does that gap you know, in the research that 353 00:24:15.779 --> 00:24:21.339 we've done with with senior level marketers and customer experience executives, what we found 354 00:24:21.619 --> 00:24:26.930 was it was really interesting. The people who felt like their organization was poor 355 00:24:27.450 --> 00:24:32.049 at getting that message out in a lined way. They sort of perceived that 356 00:24:32.250 --> 00:24:37.089 the diluted message had at a cost still significant. Right, about about half 357 00:24:37.210 --> 00:24:41.160 of the respondence that we had valued that gap at five million dollars, between 358 00:24:41.200 --> 00:24:45.839 five and ten million annually, or, excuse me, north of five million 359 00:24:45.880 --> 00:24:48.599 annually. But for the organizations that felt like they were good at it. 360 00:24:49.039 --> 00:24:55.829 We ask them to ascribe a value to that consistent message. Sixty two percent 361 00:24:55.950 --> 00:24:59.589 of those people. Know, these were with larger organizations, but sixty two 362 00:24:59.630 --> 00:25:03.910 percent of those people put a price tag of ten million dollars plus on the 363 00:25:03.029 --> 00:25:07.660 value of having that consistent message. And when I say the value we're talking 364 00:25:07.740 --> 00:25:11.980 we're not talking about. This isn't paper value. We're talking about in the 365 00:25:11.140 --> 00:25:15.259 transactions day to day, in the interactions that we talked about earlier. We 366 00:25:15.380 --> 00:25:21.809 are winning more business because our people can represent our brand more consistently, our 367 00:25:22.009 --> 00:25:26.369 brand can stand out, our brand has value and the more we live our 368 00:25:26.410 --> 00:25:30.490 brand and act the brand, the more business we're going to win. That's 369 00:25:30.529 --> 00:25:33.769 what that dollar value is is telling us is the brands who do this well. 370 00:25:34.369 --> 00:25:37.960 Sixty two percent said they would put a value of more than ten million 371 00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:42.839 dollars annually on that attribute of their organization. So it's not even just the 372 00:25:44.319 --> 00:25:48.519 perceived costs or high enough, but the actual value the companies are realizing actually 373 00:25:48.640 --> 00:25:55.630 is greater than the perceived cost of companies that are struggling. Obviously so important 374 00:25:55.670 --> 00:26:00.190 just to the business functioning in general. I was thinking they're about midlevel management. 375 00:26:00.190 --> 00:26:04.500 I would guess that you're engaged by probably executives or senior leadership at some 376 00:26:04.619 --> 00:26:08.660 level, but really where this is going to be made is probably at the 377 00:26:08.819 --> 00:26:17.059 mid midlevel management scenario. Who are they're hiring, they are daily managing, 378 00:26:17.140 --> 00:26:22.049 they're hopefully doing consistent one on one knee eatings and a variety of things there. 379 00:26:22.089 --> 00:26:26.009 I feel like that's probably when I think about the channels available for internal 380 00:26:26.049 --> 00:26:30.490 marketing to employees to keep them engaged to help make some transformation the way they 381 00:26:30.569 --> 00:26:34.400 think about or even behave within the business, that that's got to be one 382 00:26:34.440 --> 00:26:41.480 of the most important gateways. It's the most important gateway and that's, you 383 00:26:41.559 --> 00:26:45.119 know, across all the work that we've done, all the consulting we've done 384 00:26:45.160 --> 00:26:48.390 over the years. I don't care if you're talking about sales and marketing or 385 00:26:48.710 --> 00:26:53.109 accounting, frontline managers are the single most important, you know group inside, 386 00:26:53.150 --> 00:26:57.390 you know most especially large organizations. They just simp there the leverage point right 387 00:26:57.430 --> 00:27:02.700 there there there were, you know, big initiatives and execution, you know, 388 00:27:02.779 --> 00:27:06.140 either lives or dies. So we've seen that across a whole bunch of 389 00:27:06.180 --> 00:27:10.299 different engagements that we've done over the years. Everything we do all the engagements 390 00:27:10.339 --> 00:27:14.900 that we do, we try to account for the leadership in a really unique 391 00:27:14.940 --> 00:27:17.930 way. We try to make sure we can reach that leader on their terms. 392 00:27:18.450 --> 00:27:23.250 And just as we're trying to equip the frontline employee to be a believer 393 00:27:23.369 --> 00:27:26.170 in the message so they can be a good messenger, we also have to 394 00:27:26.250 --> 00:27:30.039 do the same thing. This is a big, big waterfall, right. 395 00:27:30.119 --> 00:27:33.720 The message has to cascade down and man if if it gets down to the 396 00:27:33.799 --> 00:27:37.160 frontline leader and stops there, you've got a real challenge. But most organizations, 397 00:27:37.319 --> 00:27:41.200 most big organizations especially, are only as good as their frontline leadership team. 398 00:27:41.680 --> 00:27:47.390 Yeah, so I see here this this opportunity to probably run into some 399 00:27:47.789 --> 00:27:52.950 existence. You know, one bad manager could probably ruin it for entire department 400 00:27:52.990 --> 00:27:56.069 or team if they are either, you know, speaking out of both sides 401 00:27:56.109 --> 00:27:57.819 of their mouth or they just never get behind the message in the first place. 402 00:27:59.220 --> 00:28:03.500 What are some cautions? I mean, obviously what was baked into your 403 00:28:03.500 --> 00:28:06.700 last response. There's the idea that this needs to work for the company, 404 00:28:06.740 --> 00:28:08.180 it needs to work for the team and it needs to work for the individual, 405 00:28:08.220 --> 00:28:11.740 and we need to create that alignment. I mean that is part of 406 00:28:11.819 --> 00:28:14.809 the cascade it needs to work at all levels and be cleared all levels. 407 00:28:15.210 --> 00:28:19.329 What are some other you know in terms of overcoming resistance and some of the 408 00:28:19.369 --> 00:28:25.369 other things that you run into an any change management or transformation process? You 409 00:28:25.410 --> 00:28:29.160 have a couple cautions for folks, so I'm going to highlight one example. 410 00:28:29.160 --> 00:28:33.079 I've a really tangible example of what you just described. We have a client 411 00:28:33.440 --> 00:28:37.960 who's a national home improvement brand, okay, and we did a brand transfer 412 00:28:38.039 --> 00:28:41.869 study with them recently. We did the readout with their national sales leader and 413 00:28:41.990 --> 00:28:47.269 we found something really interesting. Okay, we did it on they're about to 414 00:28:47.349 --> 00:28:52.109 roll out a new customer experience initiative. So they're overhauling, completely overhauled the 415 00:28:52.150 --> 00:28:55.940 way they engage a customer, from the way the sales process to the inhome 416 00:28:56.019 --> 00:29:02.819 experience to it's completely changing. And what we found was senior leadership was very 417 00:29:02.940 --> 00:29:07.259 keenly aware of what needed to change, the frontline teams were very keenly aware 418 00:29:07.259 --> 00:29:12.450 of what needed to change and the frontline leaders made it very clear that they 419 00:29:12.450 --> 00:29:17.849 were not interested in anything changing. And if you think about it's very logical 420 00:29:17.890 --> 00:29:21.690 and actually our client predicted that would happen, and the reason he predict that 421 00:29:21.769 --> 00:29:25.799 that was he said. If you think about frontline leaders, frontline leaders are 422 00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:30.359 were promoted to where they are today because they worked well in the current system. 423 00:29:32.079 --> 00:29:37.000 So if you introduce variables that take them outside of what helped them get 424 00:29:37.079 --> 00:29:41.430 promoted to this point, they learned how to work in the current system to 425 00:29:41.630 --> 00:29:45.549 stand out and be successful. If you if you introduce new variables, you've 426 00:29:45.589 --> 00:29:48.390 just disrupted their world. You've upset their apple cart, so to speak. 427 00:29:48.750 --> 00:29:53.180 So when we think about so the pitfall there is you create training, and 428 00:29:53.259 --> 00:29:56.339 this is one thing I want to stress. I have no problem with training. 429 00:29:56.420 --> 00:30:00.779 I think the training is needed. The challenge is the way it's applied 430 00:30:00.180 --> 00:30:04.420 and the way it's layered. In an organizations. It's typically marketing. Has 431 00:30:04.460 --> 00:30:08.450 a new product, we want people to sell it. We create product trainings. 432 00:30:08.650 --> 00:30:12.250 They take it online or its instructor last or they get a one sheet, 433 00:30:12.329 --> 00:30:17.930 whatever the case may be. But in most cases that frontline leadership team 434 00:30:18.410 --> 00:30:22.000 is left out of that or they take the same one that their team did 435 00:30:22.079 --> 00:30:22.960 and they just sort of glade. I don't need to take this, they 436 00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:26.799 just kind of click through it. But the reality is there's a whole separate 437 00:30:26.839 --> 00:30:30.759 effort that needs to be focused on them and spoken to them in their language. 438 00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:34.000 It's a separate part of the messaging campaign. You need to hit those 439 00:30:34.039 --> 00:30:38.190 frontline leaders and account for them differently than their frontline teams. So good. 440 00:30:38.230 --> 00:30:44.470 I see the very obvious parallels that you've opened up on between tactics that you 441 00:30:44.509 --> 00:30:48.549 would use to market externally in tactics that you would use to market internally. 442 00:30:48.589 --> 00:30:52.740 Got To meet people where they are and and show them their unique benefit and 443 00:30:52.819 --> 00:30:56.740 value in this situation. How to change gears? Briefly, and then will 444 00:30:56.099 --> 00:31:00.819 I love my closing questions and I'm looking forward to to your answers there. 445 00:31:00.099 --> 00:31:04.250 But you earned an MBA from the Fox school of Business and management at Temple 446 00:31:04.690 --> 00:31:08.529 and you've taught there as an adjunct professor. Just speak for a minute about 447 00:31:08.930 --> 00:31:11.849 and any thoughts that occur to you about that, like what's the value of 448 00:31:12.490 --> 00:31:18.009 higher ed in your opinion, or what are some positive trends you're seeing in 449 00:31:18.880 --> 00:31:22.559 customer experience at that level? Anything you have to share about that? Yeah, 450 00:31:22.680 --> 00:31:26.039 so I think I can share one, you know, one pretty direct 451 00:31:26.119 --> 00:31:30.200 insight. And the class that I taught at Temple I was leading in complex 452 00:31:30.240 --> 00:31:33.309 organizations. Okay, it was. It was sort of a core, core 453 00:31:33.430 --> 00:31:37.990 class for the for the professional NBA program which was the part time professional NBA 454 00:31:38.109 --> 00:31:45.309 students, working adults, and everything we're talking about all traces back to fundamentally 455 00:31:45.470 --> 00:31:51.220 sound leadership. I don't care if you're talking about customer experience or marketing or 456 00:31:51.380 --> 00:31:56.660 sales or the concepts. All sort of trace back to the same place. 457 00:31:57.099 --> 00:32:01.049 Okay, and you know it's sort of goes in conjunction with the previous question 458 00:32:01.089 --> 00:32:05.289 about how do you avoid some of those pitfalls? Well, it's easy to 459 00:32:05.329 --> 00:32:08.609 say good leadership can avoid a lot of these pitfalls. It's not good marketing 460 00:32:08.650 --> 00:32:13.690 leadership or good sales leadership, it's just good leadership. One of the ways 461 00:32:13.769 --> 00:32:15.720 that we found it, and probably the best way to sort of tie it 462 00:32:15.799 --> 00:32:20.079 back in with the lessons that I taught a temple, is this idea of 463 00:32:20.519 --> 00:32:23.720 there's no better way to change behavior, there's no better way to move people 464 00:32:24.160 --> 00:32:30.789 than to move laterally, not top down. The top Down Organization is fundamentally 465 00:32:31.309 --> 00:32:37.069 poor twenty one century leadership methodology. It's just just doesn't work right. We're 466 00:32:37.109 --> 00:32:42.670 working in Matrix to organizations. You're working with an employee based it's more empowered 467 00:32:42.710 --> 00:32:45.740 than they ever have been, or at least they were before a couple of 468 00:32:45.779 --> 00:32:51.980 weeks ago. But the organization that can drive change in a matrix influence based 469 00:32:52.019 --> 00:32:54.019 way are the ones. They are going to be more nimble, more responsive 470 00:32:54.220 --> 00:32:58.690 and are going to have smaller gaps and execution. The delution that we talked 471 00:32:58.730 --> 00:33:02.170 about. delutions just another way of saying gap and execution. So you know 472 00:33:02.410 --> 00:33:07.049 that I would say that's one thing that I in reference to my experience through 473 00:33:07.049 --> 00:33:10.369 higher education, is a lot of the challenges that we face right now as 474 00:33:10.450 --> 00:33:15.200 marketers and otherwise really comes back to just fundamentally sound, not just leadership with 475 00:33:15.279 --> 00:33:22.079 twenty one century leadership really good. The Matrix piece is the key to moving 476 00:33:22.119 --> 00:33:24.720 forward. It's interesting to think about how many businesses are still operating in a 477 00:33:24.799 --> 00:33:30.950 very traditional, top down manner and I would assume that you would agree with 478 00:33:30.150 --> 00:33:36.230 my speculation that they're going to struggle to recruit and retain the best people. 479 00:33:37.069 --> 00:33:39.470 Not only that, it's we've we work with a lot of companies that are 480 00:33:40.069 --> 00:33:45.259 more traditional, the older school type of industries, a lot of manufacturing businesses 481 00:33:45.380 --> 00:33:47.099 and things like that, and you know, one of the things that we 482 00:33:47.180 --> 00:33:52.579 found is people always do the blame the millennials game. All it's the millennials, 483 00:33:52.619 --> 00:33:54.809 or you know, they're forcing the hand on this, and I always 484 00:33:54.809 --> 00:34:00.650 say millennials. All they did was they made it okay to want the things 485 00:34:00.730 --> 00:34:04.250 that all employees want. They just they just weren't willing to take no for 486 00:34:04.289 --> 00:34:07.769 an answer. They wanted to be treated with respect. They believed in a 487 00:34:07.809 --> 00:34:10.039 pat on the back is worth as much as a bonus in your paycheck and 488 00:34:10.079 --> 00:34:14.239 in some cases it's worth even more. We know, we've seen. You 489 00:34:14.320 --> 00:34:16.559 know, I had a a gentleman is late s of sales up one time 490 00:34:16.639 --> 00:34:21.639 stand up and say I've got a couple years left doing this and I'm going 491 00:34:21.679 --> 00:34:23.389 to go out the right way. The stuff you're talking about. This is 492 00:34:23.510 --> 00:34:25.429 the way I want to leave, this is the way I want to, 493 00:34:25.550 --> 00:34:30.429 you know, be as a professional, and I'm getting on board because the 494 00:34:30.630 --> 00:34:35.269 people, people are fundamentally the same, whether they're millennials or or boomers, 495 00:34:35.710 --> 00:34:38.460 and I just give credit to millennials for kind of kicking through the door and 496 00:34:38.579 --> 00:34:42.539 saying we're not going to compromise the things that matter to us as individuals. 497 00:34:43.539 --> 00:34:46.019 Really, really good and I appreciate that so much. We've had a couple 498 00:34:46.019 --> 00:34:52.010 of millennial conversations on here and in on the show, and they typically point 499 00:34:52.050 --> 00:34:55.769 back to what you just shared there, which is they're just regular people too, 500 00:34:57.610 --> 00:35:00.570 and they're just changing some of the norms today, which is fantastic. 501 00:35:00.329 --> 00:35:06.489 Folks are listening and you enjoyed this conversation. You might also enjoy episode thirty 502 00:35:06.690 --> 00:35:10.280 nine with Lanson Levi from Dutch Bros coffee. That one is about company culture 503 00:35:10.280 --> 00:35:15.840 as your competitive edge, and one of my earlier conversations with my longtime friend 504 00:35:15.840 --> 00:35:20.039 Kurt Bartolich on episode eight. Take care of your brand and it will take 505 00:35:20.119 --> 00:35:23.269 care of you. He's all about brand conservancy and protecting what's good about it. 506 00:35:23.789 --> 00:35:28.150 Christopher, before I let you go, I'd like to know two things 507 00:35:28.190 --> 00:35:30.909 from you. First, is someone who is actually more than two things, 508 00:35:30.989 --> 00:35:34.949 but I'd love to give you the chance to thank or mention someone who's had 509 00:35:34.949 --> 00:35:37.699 a positive impact on your life, for your career. Yeah, I appreciate 510 00:35:37.780 --> 00:35:42.139 the opportunity to do that. So I'm going to do I'm going to take 511 00:35:42.139 --> 00:35:45.739 a moment and recognize somebody who's become a really dear friend and mentor to myself 512 00:35:45.860 --> 00:35:52.250 and my business partners. His name is Dr Frank Sespidis and and Dr sespidus 513 00:35:52.329 --> 00:35:57.369 is a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and I want to say with two 514 00:35:57.449 --> 00:36:01.289 thousand and fourteen. Two Thousand and fourteen he released a book called Aligning Strategy 515 00:36:01.369 --> 00:36:06.599 and sales and we read the article in Hbr that was sort of, you 516 00:36:06.679 --> 00:36:08.719 know, hyping up the book, and we bought the book right away, 517 00:36:08.760 --> 00:36:13.800 like a week after it had come out, and I sent Dr Sespidus and 518 00:36:13.920 --> 00:36:16.960 email at like thirty one night and by thirty I had an email back from 519 00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:21.110 him saying I'd love to talk to you. You know, sure be happy 520 00:36:21.150 --> 00:36:23.230 to find some time. And and here we are, you know, almost 521 00:36:23.269 --> 00:36:29.989 six full years later, and Dr Sespidus has helped lead us into we merged 522 00:36:30.070 --> 00:36:32.539 a prior practice with it, with another firm that he had some contacts with. 523 00:36:34.179 --> 00:36:37.179 He's helped us build the thesis and really see through the beginning of interview 524 00:36:37.460 --> 00:36:40.900 as we've sort of taken what we knew from the past and started up again. 525 00:36:42.300 --> 00:36:46.849 But just very generous with his time and truly a testament to Harvard Business 526 00:36:46.889 --> 00:36:51.250 School and in the horse power that they have with their faculty there. It's 527 00:36:51.250 --> 00:36:55.809 unbelievable, fantastic story. I really appreciate that so much. I think so 528 00:36:55.969 --> 00:37:00.440 many of us who are consuming ideas and information, whether it's through podcasts or 529 00:37:00.480 --> 00:37:05.840 videos or books or articles or whatever, are so hesitant, I think, 530 00:37:05.920 --> 00:37:08.159 to reach out to people, even when, like I make my email address 531 00:37:08.159 --> 00:37:13.000 available on every conversation I have. You know what, I'm in your seat 532 00:37:13.360 --> 00:37:16.429 and it's so funny how infrequently anyone takes advantage of it. And you know, 533 00:37:16.630 --> 00:37:21.630 just like millennials, are employees with just different norms. You know, 534 00:37:21.949 --> 00:37:23.989 these people are just doing their own work. They love their work, they're 535 00:37:24.030 --> 00:37:27.829 proud of their work, I would assume, in most cases, just like 536 00:37:27.949 --> 00:37:30.500 we want our employees to be proud of our companies, in our brands and 537 00:37:30.579 --> 00:37:32.820 what we stand for. The so many people are willing to engage. But 538 00:37:32.900 --> 00:37:37.420 that's just above and beyond. I love it. How about a company that 539 00:37:37.500 --> 00:37:40.019 you really respect for the way they deliver for you as a customer? You 540 00:37:40.099 --> 00:37:44.179 know I always use examples when I'm doing sessions with clients. I always talk 541 00:37:44.179 --> 00:37:46.449 about the Nordstrom effect. You know I talked about and I know that's one 542 00:37:46.489 --> 00:37:49.730 of the ones that comes out frequently. I don't want to be UN original, 543 00:37:50.250 --> 00:37:52.809 but you know I look at Nordstrum and say, you know, but 544 00:37:52.050 --> 00:37:55.969 the exercise that I do is, you know, have a group of employees 545 00:37:57.010 --> 00:37:59.440 or leaders in a room and I'll say, okay, who's ever shopped at 546 00:37:59.480 --> 00:38:02.559 Nordstrum? Okay, three cores of the room and go up. WHO's ever 547 00:38:02.880 --> 00:38:07.519 left a norch drum and spent less money than they anticipated? No hands go 548 00:38:07.639 --> 00:38:12.949 up. Okay, you always spend more. WHO's ever left in norstrum unsatisfied? 549 00:38:13.550 --> 00:38:16.110 No hands go up. Right. So you know, with that illustrates 550 00:38:16.150 --> 00:38:22.829 to me is people don't need to apologize for delivering products and services that meet 551 00:38:22.869 --> 00:38:27.980 the needs and wants of their of their customers. So many times, frontline 552 00:38:27.980 --> 00:38:30.579 employees. This is where the I talked about the idea of belief. People 553 00:38:30.699 --> 00:38:35.260 at Norstrom really believe that they're doing you a service. They believe that they're 554 00:38:35.300 --> 00:38:37.739 helping you. They believe that finding you that right suit and right shirt for 555 00:38:37.820 --> 00:38:42.329 that job interview or for that client meeting, they really believe they're serving you, 556 00:38:42.449 --> 00:38:45.809 not selling you, and that belief is so critical. So many organizations 557 00:38:45.889 --> 00:38:52.969 have people that really rob the customer and the company of a larger transaction, 558 00:38:53.010 --> 00:38:57.440 a more fruit for relationship, so to speak, because they're not willing to 559 00:38:57.480 --> 00:39:00.960 go that extra mile. The people in Orchstrom do and they deliver for their 560 00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:02.719 customers. People don't walk away and feel like they were sold, they walk 561 00:39:02.719 --> 00:39:06.559 away and felt like feel like they were helped. So I'll call out norchtrom 562 00:39:06.599 --> 00:39:08.320 as a brand that really seems to do this well. Good one. The 563 00:39:08.400 --> 00:39:15.869 the idea of the belief held and shared by each employee that they are doing 564 00:39:16.110 --> 00:39:21.550 something of real value and it gives a sense of purpose and it gives you 565 00:39:21.630 --> 00:39:24.420 that sense of pride that you've been talking about throughout the conversation, and so 566 00:39:25.179 --> 00:39:30.420 that's a great example to end on. Christopher. Someone wants to to follow 567 00:39:30.420 --> 00:39:32.860 up with you. They want to learn more about interview. Where would you 568 00:39:32.900 --> 00:39:37.420 send people? Yeah, so you mentioned given the personal email. I'd encourage 569 00:39:37.420 --> 00:39:42.050 anybody to reach out to me directly. I am CE Wallace, wall AC 570 00:39:42.809 --> 00:39:46.170 at interview group. Now it's inner as in looking inside, looking at your 571 00:39:46.170 --> 00:39:51.809 inner self. I and Er view, not like a job interview, but 572 00:39:51.929 --> 00:39:57.360 it's interview Groupcom and then another great place to find me as Linkedin Chris Wallace 573 00:39:57.519 --> 00:40:00.360 at interview group in the Philadelphia Area. So I have to caution people. 574 00:40:00.400 --> 00:40:05.840 I have a very common name. It's not a rare name. So if 575 00:40:05.880 --> 00:40:07.750 you are looking for me, look for interview group and look in Philadelphia, 576 00:40:07.789 --> 00:40:10.670 you'll find me. Awesome, I have found you there. I'm pleased to 577 00:40:10.710 --> 00:40:15.949 be connected. I appreciate your time so much. Really appreciate what you're doing 578 00:40:16.190 --> 00:40:21.619 with interview. It's obviously critically important and I think it's you know, the 579 00:40:21.699 --> 00:40:28.500 more people that you serve, the more satisfied and joyful employees I think will 580 00:40:28.539 --> 00:40:30.699 have. Well, I appreciate the opportunity and it's been a great conversation. 581 00:40:32.659 --> 00:40:37.929 I love that Chris mentioned toward the close. They're being nords from effects towards 582 00:40:37.010 --> 00:40:40.849 from is one of those excellent brands in terms of customer experience. They've come 583 00:40:40.889 --> 00:40:45.210 up a number of times. I ask that question at the end of every 584 00:40:45.250 --> 00:40:47.329 episode and they've come up a number of times before. If you want to 585 00:40:47.369 --> 00:40:52.800 hear more conversations like this one about how to bridge employee experience and customer experience, 586 00:40:53.079 --> 00:40:58.719 how to create and deliver better experiences from your seat in sale, marketing, 587 00:40:58.960 --> 00:41:04.039 CS, leadership, management or another position within your organization, we release 588 00:41:04.119 --> 00:41:09.309 these every single week. You can learn more by visiting bomb Bombcom podcast. 589 00:41:09.670 --> 00:41:17.780 Bomb Bombcom podcast or you can subscribe to the customer experience podcast. You can 590 00:41:17.860 --> 00:41:22.500 find it in itunes or apple podcasts, Google podcast or Google play, spotify 591 00:41:22.900 --> 00:41:28.099 or wherever else you prefer to listen to your podcast. My Name Busy Than 592 00:41:28.139 --> 00:41:31.579 Butt, host of the CX series, hosted the customer experience podcast and I 593 00:41:31.659 --> 00:41:39.889 appreciate you joining me and Chris for this conversation. For the longest time I 594 00:41:40.130 --> 00:41:45.170 was asking people to leave a review of BB growth and apple podcasts, but 595 00:41:45.369 --> 00:41:49.719 I realize that was kind of stupid, because leaving a review is way harder 596 00:41:50.199 --> 00:41:52.760 than just leaving a simple rating. So I'm changing my tune a bit. 597 00:41:53.000 --> 00:41:55.920 Instead of asking you to leave a review, I'm just going to ask you 598 00:41:55.960 --> 00:42:00.000 to go to beb growth and apple podcasts, scroll down until you see the 599 00:42:00.039 --> 00:42:04.829 ratings and reviews section and just tap the number of stars you want to give 600 00:42:04.829 --> 00:42:08.309 us. No review necessary, super easy and I promise it will help us 601 00:42:08.309 --> 00:42:13.150 out a ton. If you want to copy on my book content base networking 602 00:42:13.389 --> 00:42:15.460 to shoot me a text after you leave the rating and I'll send one your 603 00:42:15.500 --> 00:42:20.260 way. Text me at four hundred seven four, and I know three hundred 604 00:42:20.260 --> 00:42:21.219 and three two eight