Latest / Crossroad Conversations with the Lewis Brothers / Ep. 84 "Blockbuster Had 60 Million Customers. Then They Stopped Listening."

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Ep. 84 "Blockbuster Had 60 Million Customers. Then They Stopped Listening." · Crossroad Conversations with the Lewis Brothers

0:00
SPEAKER_03: Okay, back in 2000.
0:01
SPEAKER_03: So we got a little bit of time.
0:02
SPEAKER_03: The era of the internet.
0:02
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
0:03
SPEAKER_03: They could have bought the entire company of Netflix for 50 million.
0:09
SPEAKER_03: And I mean 50 million is a lot of money.
0:11
SPEAKER_03: But you look at what Netflix is worth today.
0:14
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
0:16
SPEAKER_03: 50 million that they could have pivoted.
0:18
SPEAKER_03: Well.
0:19
SPEAKER_03: But instead, they led to bankruptcy in 2010.
0:22
SPEAKER_02: 50 million, and they were making 800 million a year on late fees.
0:27
SPEAKER_02: 800?
0:28
SPEAKER_02: That was chump change.
0:29
SPEAKER_02: Think about that.
0:30
SPEAKER_02: They could have just taken it.
0:31
SPEAKER_02: They could have taken the sliver and said, yeah, let's just buy Netflix on what if.
0:37
SPEAKER_02: Right?
0:37
SPEAKER_02: What if they're right?
0:39
SPEAKER_02: But they were just like, we're so locked in on no, we got this handle, we've got 9,000 locations, we got 60,000 customers.
0:45
SPEAKER_02: What do you got?
0:47
SPEAKER_02: Hey everyone, welcome to Crossroad Conversations with the Lewis Brothers, where we aim to share real stories about running a successful family business while working through adversity and pouring back into our community that keeps our doors open every single day.
1:00
SPEAKER_02: We're your hosts, Shelby, Matt, and Taylor, and we'll be bringing you real relevant local business advice, maybe some automotive insights that are sure to change the way you look at running a business or buying a car.
1:12
SPEAKER_02: And maybe even throw on a plug fee to do business with us here locally.
1:16
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Crossroad Conversation Podcast with the Lewis Brothers.
1:20
SPEAKER_02: We're your hosts, Shelby, Matt, and Taylor, bringing you what we think you want to hear about, or maybe just what we see.
1:26
SPEAKER_02: Today we're talking about Blockbuster.
1:29
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:29
SPEAKER_02: The movie company Blockbuster.
1:31
SPEAKER_02: They had 60 million customers and then they stopped listening.
1:35
SPEAKER_02: Think of this: the graveyards of businesses full of companies that had loyal customers, great locations, and amazing name recognition, and still lost everything.
1:45
SPEAKER_02: Not because a better competitor showed up, but because they stopped listening to their people that paid their bills, the consumer.
1:52
SPEAKER_02: Today we're talking about what separates the business from the last ones that don't.
1:56
SPEAKER_02: And it comes down to one thing how well you actually know your customer.
2:00
SPEAKER_02: So we fully break that down in episode 84 today.
2:03
SPEAKER_03: Hey, but before we dive in there, back on episode 83, in case you missed it last week, it was a good one.
2:09
SPEAKER_03: Stealing from the best, how we've learned from every industry out there.
2:13
SPEAKER_03: And newsflash for you, the majority of the stuff we have learned have not come from the automotive industry.
2:19
SPEAKER_03: If you missed that episode, hey, go back wherever you get your podcast from, whether it's on Spotify or Apple or on our Crossroad Conversation website and check out that episode and many more.
2:30
SPEAKER_03: And as always, hey, check out our inventory on LewisSuperstore.com.
2:34
SPEAKER_03: That stuff changes so fast.
2:37
SPEAKER_03: You know, we were looking the other day and over 400 used vehicles that we have in stock.
2:42
SPEAKER_03: It completely turns over.
2:44
SPEAKER_03: That means a fresh new part of inventory in less than a month.
2:47
SPEAKER_03: Every single week we add an additional 100 plus vehicles on the used side, and new stuff rolls in all the time.
2:54
SPEAKER_03: Don't forget about we have our big employee pricing event going on.
2:58
SPEAKER_03: We're in the final days of that, and the Fords have been flying off the shelf.
3:03
SPEAKER_03: Why?
3:04
SPEAKER_03: Because you can pay less than what the three of us can pay for a new vehicle.
3:09
SPEAKER_03: And then, of course, on the Chrysler side, we've got that Jeep that is just blowing the internet up, that two-door Jeep that's just at$34,000.
3:16
SPEAKER_03: So find all that at LewisSupershore.com or any of the podcast stuff on Crossroad Conversation Podcast.com.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: Hey, what's in the garage?
3:25
SPEAKER_01: I always love talking about this truck because in a day and age when we're so quick to, hey, let's build a cost-effective vehicle.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: Let's get our price down on the point.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: A lot of manufacturers are stripping everything away to make that vehicle a price point desirable to uh the consumers.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: So I'm talking about the Maverick.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: What I love about the Maverick is yes, it starts in the mid-20s and it still has all the creature comforts.
3:50
SPEAKER_01: The big screen, they're starting anywhere from a mobile app, the getting up to over 50 miles a gallon with the hybrid towing up to 4,000 pounds, and the list goes on and on.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: We have Mavericks starting in the mid-20s all the way up to the trimmer maverick that's fully capable off-road.
4:06
SPEAKER_01: Come check that out.
4:08
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
4:08
SPEAKER_03: That's really cool.
4:09
SPEAKER_03: All right, let's dive into this.
4:10
SPEAKER_03: This is gonna be a good one today.
4:12
SPEAKER_03: Businesses that stopped listening, and we're gonna go over a few examples here.
4:17
SPEAKER_03: One, if you haven't heard the story before, we're gonna break it down for you today.
4:21
SPEAKER_03: But one of the big ones is Blockbuster.
4:24
SPEAKER_03: We're not talking about a blockbuster hit at the movies, we're talking about the store blockbuster.
4:29
SPEAKER_03: And if you'll remember growing up, you went to a blockbuster, they were everywhere.
4:33
SPEAKER_03: Well, in fact, there were 9,000 locations.
4:37
SPEAKER_03: 9,000 locations and 60 million customers.
4:44
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
4:44
SPEAKER_03: You talk about just think that you're rolling and everything's consistent and somebody can't knock you off.
4:50
SPEAKER_03: When you have guys we have five locations, 9,000?
4:55
SPEAKER_03: It's pretty easy to get in your head that you're a juggernaut.
4:58
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
4:59
SPEAKER_03: And 60 million customers.
5:03
SPEAKER_03: Blockbuster was the place if you weren't gonna go to the actual physical movie theater that you went and got your entertainment for.
5:10
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
5:11
SPEAKER_03: You know, whether that were video games or a show series or a new movie, an old movie, you went to Blockbuster.
5:21
SPEAKER_03: And it's one of those stories that entrepreneurs sometimes they pass by too fast.
5:28
SPEAKER_03: And they're like, Yeah, man, did y'all hear what happened to Blockbuster?
5:31
SPEAKER_03: And silently it could be happening in their own business.
5:35
SPEAKER_03: In their own business.
5:36
SPEAKER_03: You know, at one point in time, and I don't even know if it says it in here, at one point in time, Blockbuster had the chance to buy Netflix.
5:45
SPEAKER_03: And they turned down that opportunity because they thought Netflix was going to be irrelevant.
5:50
SPEAKER_03: It would not be a market disruptor.
5:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
5:53
SPEAKER_02: And it flip-flopped, didn't it?
5:54
SPEAKER_02: Because it stayed hung up on what they knew.
5:56
SPEAKER_02: They did.
5:57
SPEAKER_02: They were like, no, this is what's currently working without like they didn't take their blinders off.
6:02
SPEAKER_02: They didn't look further down the track to say, what does a consumer want?
6:05
SPEAKER_02: Right?
6:06
SPEAKER_02: And like one of the things is one of their biggest things that their consumer told them was we hate late fees, right?
6:14
SPEAKER_02: Because that was the idea to get the product back in the store to be able to sell it again, right?
6:18
SPEAKER_02: We're going to charge you a late fee.
6:20
SPEAKER_02: And as a matter of fact, they made$800 million a year off of late fees.
6:25
SPEAKER_02: And I get why they didn't want to get rid of that.
6:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
6:27
SPEAKER_02: $800 million a year, that's not off the rental, that's off the late fee.
6:31
SPEAKER_02: But they kept telling, hey, you need to get rid of late fees.
6:35
SPEAKER_02: This was the consumer.
6:36
SPEAKER_02: That was the 60 million customers say, get rid of your late fees, get rid of your late fees.
6:41
SPEAKER_02: And when Netflix first started up, they said there will be no late fees.
6:45
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
6:45
SPEAKER_02: There will be no late fees, right?
6:47
SPEAKER_02: And so then the consumer's like, huh, I can still get this experience.
6:51
SPEAKER_02: It's a little bit different, but there's no late fees.
6:54
SPEAKER_03: Not only that, when you thought about it too, Netflix talked about is some people were like, why wouldn't you take advantage of the late fees?
7:01
SPEAKER_03: Well, they don't have 9,000 brick and mortar stores.
7:05
SPEAKER_03: Cost.
7:06
SPEAKER_03: That's cost.
7:07
SPEAKER_02: Coding, rent, utilities, people.
7:10
SPEAKER_02: Are y'all ready for this one?
7:13
SPEAKER_03: Okay, I want you to think about this.
7:14
SPEAKER_03: Oh, God.
7:15
SPEAKER_03: I looked it up here.
7:16
SPEAKER_03: How much Blockbuster could have bought Netflix for?
7:20
SPEAKER_03: Think about the germination Netflix was.
7:23
SPEAKER_03: It was back in 2000.
7:25
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
7:25
SPEAKER_03: Okay, back in 2000.
7:26
SPEAKER_03: So we got a little bit of time.
7:27
SPEAKER_03: The era of the internet.
7:28
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
7:29
SPEAKER_03: They could have bought the entire company of Netflix for 50 million.
7:34
SPEAKER_03: And I mean 50 million is a lot of money.
7:37
SPEAKER_03: But you look at what Netflix is worth today.
7:40
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
7:41
SPEAKER_03: 50 million that they could have pivoted.
7:44
SPEAKER_03: Well.
7:44
SPEAKER_03: But instead, they led to bankruptcy in 2010.
7:48
SPEAKER_02: 50 million, and they were making 800 million a year on late fees.
7:53
SPEAKER_02: 800?
7:54
SPEAKER_02: That was chump change.
7:55
SPEAKER_02: Think about that.
7:56
SPEAKER_02: They could have just started.
7:57
SPEAKER_02: They could have taken the sliver and said, yeah, let's just buy a Netflix on what if.
8:03
SPEAKER_02: Right?
8:03
SPEAKER_02: What if they're right?
8:04
SPEAKER_02: But they would just like we're so locked in on no, we got this handle, we've got 9,000 locations, we got 60,000 customers.
8:10
SPEAKER_02: What do you got?
8:11
SPEAKER_02: You ready for the number now?
8:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what's it worth?
8:13
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
8:13
SPEAKER_03: For a mere 50 million investment in 2000, it would have turned into 368 billion with a B today.
8:25
SPEAKER_03: That's a pretty good return.
8:27
SPEAKER_03: God, this is a slap in the face.
8:29
SPEAKER_03: Just think about this.
8:31
SPEAKER_03: So in a mere 10 years, one decade, they go from 9,000 stores, 60 million customers, how much a year just in late fees?
8:41
SPEAKER_03: 800 million.
8:42
SPEAKER_03: 800 million in late fees, and they go bankrupt.
8:45
SPEAKER_02: And think about this like when it comes down to thinking of all the numbers, it's not because their product wasn't.
8:51
SPEAKER_02: They didn't even own the product.
8:52
SPEAKER_02: Now Netflix makes their own stuff.
8:54
SPEAKER_02: They didn't even own the product.
8:56
SPEAKER_02: It's not because they didn't deliver what they said they were going to deliver.
8:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:59
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't because they did anything wrong.
9:00
SPEAKER_02: It was because they didn't adapt to what the people say they want.
9:04
SPEAKER_02: Like if you're if you are a restaurant and you sell pizza, burgers, and wings, and people said, Man, we'd love if you did this.
9:14
SPEAKER_02: And they constantly, I'm not talking about the one person.
9:17
SPEAKER_02: I'm talking about the constant.
9:18
SPEAKER_02: They said it'd be really good if you offer salads.
9:22
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
9:22
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's like, okay, well, what does that look like?
9:25
SPEAKER_02: And if you don't ever then guess what?
9:27
SPEAKER_02: There's a good opportunity the people that pay you to stay in business will navigate somewhere who will offer what they want.
9:34
SPEAKER_03: I that's so at the root of it, we're gonna talk about some other stories here, but at the root of it, people still watch movies.
9:41
SPEAKER_03: They still watch shows.
9:43
SPEAKER_03: And they still do it at their house.
9:45
SPEAKER_03: It's no different than our business.
9:47
SPEAKER_03: People still buy cars and they still come to the dealership to finalize the transaction.
9:52
SPEAKER_03: But but the communication in between, there's not a newspaper we advertise in.
9:57
SPEAKER_03: You know, there's not a phone book that we're on the front cover or the back cover of.
10:03
SPEAKER_03: We we had to change how we communicate and deliver to the customer.
10:06
SPEAKER_02: It's so funny you say that because we have lots and lots of meetings and we try to make it make sense of why we're having today's meeting, not just because we say we're having a meeting.
10:15
SPEAKER_02: And we talk about customer communication and customer delivery and communicating at their reference.
10:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, where are they at?
10:24
SPEAKER_04: How they want to communicate where they're at.
10:26
SPEAKER_02: And we also talk about give numbers, give the customer numbers, give the customer all the numbers.
10:31
SPEAKER_02: And there's all these reasons why you shouldn't.
10:33
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
10:34
SPEAKER_02: And why we didn't in the past, but we're saying what we see in today's world, yes, Netflix, yes versus Blockbuster, is you better give all this.
10:45
SPEAKER_02: You better just and the managers fight it.
10:48
SPEAKER_03: The salespeople that are veterans fight it.
10:50
SPEAKER_03: At the end of the day, let me just tell you, this isn't monopoly where we own all the railroads.
10:56
SPEAKER_03: We do not.
10:57
SPEAKER_03: We're a small needle in the haystack.
11:00
SPEAKER_03: We have to adapt to the customer.
11:01
SPEAKER_03: It's not the customer adapting to us.
11:04
SPEAKER_03: You cannot.
11:05
SPEAKER_03: I don't care who you are, but they think you get some people that have been in business for a while, like a blockbuster, like some of our sales managers that have been here for a while, and they're like, no, they got to come around and do business how I want to do business.
11:17
SPEAKER_01: So I've got paying the bills.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've got your stat on that, which you'll love.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: Because there's a documentary of going to why majority of restaurants fail.
11:24
SPEAKER_01: People think it's because of bad food or bad product or anything else.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: Over 60% of them fail because chefs refuse to change how they think it needs to be ordered or online presence needs to be.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: It's no different than whenever people come in here and they're like, Well, what are y'all's favorite cars?
11:43
SPEAKER_01: How do you order cars?
11:44
SPEAKER_01: We order cars to what the consumers want.
11:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, hey, let me rephrase that.
11:48
SPEAKER_02: What are you here to see?
11:49
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
11:50
SPEAKER_02: That's what I'll see.
11:50
SPEAKER_02: Like, hey, what's we're in business?
11:52
SPEAKER_02: We're not a collector.
11:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, we are here to suit your needs.
11:55
SPEAKER_02: And so that's one of our biggest things is our needs assessment.
11:57
SPEAKER_02: We want to learn about you.
11:58
SPEAKER_02: And then we can give a little bit of chef's advice.
12:02
SPEAKER_02: But key key here.
12:04
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
12:04
SPEAKER_02: And we're giving the chef's advice, uh-huh, the chef should actually listen to what they like.
12:09
SPEAKER_02: There you go.
12:10
SPEAKER_02: So if they say I'm a vegetarian who is gluten-free, do not offer a cheeseburger with a humongous bun on it because that's really what's good, and that's really what the people doesn't matter.
12:22
SPEAKER_02: Because the bun complements the meat.
12:24
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no, no.
12:25
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, hey, you are going to love our asae bowl that has all this fresh fruit.
12:31
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
12:32
SPEAKER_02: It's locally grown.
12:33
SPEAKER_02: And then the next guy's like, man, I'm looking for something savory.
12:36
SPEAKER_02: And you're like, you are going to love our uh hangover burger.
12:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
12:41
SPEAKER_02: Because it's it's got this meat and it's got this egg.
12:43
SPEAKER_02: And they're like, God, this guy gets me.
12:44
SPEAKER_01: I shout out to our uh local barbecue restaurant, um, Rudy's.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: I was talking to Andy the other day.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: He was here um doing uh handing out burritos and everything else.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: And uh corporate guy was in because they're corporate and they have a guy here local, but how's it going?
13:00
SPEAKER_01: He's like, Well, we're we're going through it, excited for tailgate season.
13:03
SPEAKER_01: But he said, I have to say the one thing, they were here and they opened, and so many people came in and asked for mac and cheese.
13:09
SPEAKER_01: Mac and cheese was not on the menu of a Rudy's national menu.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: And the corporate had said, no, we're not gonna add that.
13:15
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, No, I'm adding it.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: Fast forward, they've added mac and cheese to all of their locations now because they added it here.
13:22
SPEAKER_02: Kudos to both of them.
13:23
SPEAKER_02: Kudos to local guys saying, hey, if I gotta go buy it at Harps or Walmart, doing it.
13:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
13:28
SPEAKER_02: Because that's what the people want.
13:29
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
13:30
SPEAKER_02: And then kudos for corporate not lashing out and saying, You idiot, we said no mac and cheese.
13:35
SPEAKER_02: They said, Oh, we should probably hear what the people say.
13:37
SPEAKER_02: Look at the stats, who's buying it, how much are they buying, is there waste?
13:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
13:42
SPEAKER_03: I said, Let's go.
13:43
SPEAKER_03: That is so important.
13:44
SPEAKER_03: And I'm gonna get into the next story here about just don't have your blinders on.
13:49
SPEAKER_03: Remember, you're dependent upon the customer.
13:52
SPEAKER_03: There, there are options out there, and there's people that are innovative today that are looking for an easier way to whether it's communicate or do transactions to the customer.
14:02
SPEAKER_03: Evolve, please evolve.
14:04
SPEAKER_03: All right.
14:04
SPEAKER_03: Next up, Sears.
14:05
SPEAKER_03: Let's talk about Sears.
14:06
SPEAKER_03: I loved going to Sears.
14:07
SPEAKER_03: Oh, I saw Sears.
14:09
SPEAKER_03: I love going to Sears.
14:10
SPEAKER_03: All right.
14:11
SPEAKER_03: So in 1993, Sears was the Amazon of its day.
14:15
SPEAKER_03: That's what it felt like.
14:16
SPEAKER_03: And in a couple different ways.
14:17
SPEAKER_03: One, going to the brick and mortar.
14:18
SPEAKER_03: I love going to the tool section.
14:20
SPEAKER_03: The tools section in Sears, you know, of just dreaming of having a garage with all these tools in it one day.
14:26
SPEAKER_03: But the other thing they had is they had the catalog.
14:29
unknown: Yeah.
14:30
SPEAKER_03: I don't know if you remember like the catalog with Sears and Roebuck.
14:32
SPEAKER_03: You're going real far back.
14:34
SPEAKER_03: And then we could earmark like what you wanted on your Christmas list.
14:37
SPEAKER_03: Circling up was coming up.
14:39
SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
14:41
SPEAKER_02: We got tools for Christmas.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: Way past Craftsman.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: Do you know between 1908 and 1940, Sears and Roebuck sold over 70,000 homes through their catalog?
14:55
SPEAKER_02: You could buy them in their catalog.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: 70,000 complete homes through their catalog.
15:02
SPEAKER_02: That's like Alibaba.
15:03
SPEAKER_02: You can buy homes on Alibaba now.
15:06
SPEAKER_02: Craig, you want to get you on order?
15:08
SPEAKER_02: Let's go.
15:09
SPEAKER_02: I'm ordering some stuff on Alibaba.
15:11
SPEAKER_03: So they had their catalog and they had a very loyal customer database.
15:14
SPEAKER_03: So they already had that built.
15:16
unknown: Okay?
15:16
SPEAKER_03: And more than even real estate, than any other retailer in America.
15:21
SPEAKER_03: Customers were telling them they wanted convenience, speed, and simplicity.
15:29
SPEAKER_02: No.
15:29
SPEAKER_03: Sears gave them complexity, confusion, and declining in-store experience.
15:35
SPEAKER_03: That was every piece in place before Amazon.
15:39
SPEAKER_03: Just think about that.
15:40
SPEAKER_03: They had a thick catalog.
15:41
SPEAKER_03: They already had their customer database.
15:44
SPEAKER_03: They just wanted to change how they were communicating and adapt.
15:47
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
15:48
SPEAKER_03: It's so easy.
15:49
SPEAKER_03: They actually, in fact, like looking back now, because Amazon doesn't have brick and mortar you can walk into, but they do have plenty of brick and mortar their distribution center.
15:59
SPEAKER_03: So Sears already had that built in.
16:02
SPEAKER_03: They just needed to simply adapt their catalog to an online present.
16:06
SPEAKER_03: That's it.
16:07
SPEAKER_03: And now when you look at companies not Sears, but like Sears, they're all trying to copy what Amazon is doing and what their platform looks like.
16:18
SPEAKER_02: That's all the hustlers do.
16:20
SPEAKER_02: They see what is today's adaptation?
16:23
SPEAKER_02: What died yesterday?
16:24
SPEAKER_02: Where's tomorrow leading us?
16:26
SPEAKER_02: Right?
16:26
SPEAKER_02: That's the hustler that survives.
16:28
SPEAKER_02: That's the 1% of the 1%.
16:29
SPEAKER_02: They say, what's the next thing?
16:31
SPEAKER_02: They do.
16:32
SPEAKER_02: And it's funny, I just I saw this because it was um it was a reel that I saw yesterday.
16:36
SPEAKER_02: I don't know her name, but it was really good because she said, Hey, it's all about work-life balance.
16:43
SPEAKER_02: That's how this reel started.
16:45
SPEAKER_02: And she said, I gotta be honest with you.
16:47
SPEAKER_02: As an entrepreneur, sometimes you got to set the life aside and hustle.
16:53
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, ooh, okay, I'm in.
16:54
SPEAKER_02: I don't know this.
16:55
SPEAKER_02: Let me see more videos.
16:56
SPEAKER_02: Let me see some more videos.
16:57
SPEAKER_02: So I clicked her profile and went to it.
16:59
SPEAKER_02: She was a Shark Tank launch of a some type of a soda.
17:04
SPEAKER_02: Went into Shark Tank, made a deal with one of the guest entrepreneurs.
17:07
SPEAKER_02: He said, But your branding is awful.
17:10
SPEAKER_02: Like, hit her straight in the teeth.
17:11
SPEAKER_02: Your branding is awful.
17:12
SPEAKER_02: Your cans don't look good.
17:14
SPEAKER_02: It was a fizzy sparkling water soda thing, Majig, and said, Your name is awful.
17:19
SPEAKER_02: Well, that was like she had put her soul into it.
17:21
SPEAKER_02: She had set aside her life while she was working.
17:25
SPEAKER_02: She was grinding.
17:26
SPEAKER_02: She said, and I love this.
17:28
SPEAKER_02: This is my kind of lady.
17:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
17:29
SPEAKER_02: She said, I went to the hospital to have my kid.
17:32
SPEAKER_02: I had three Zoom calls while I was having my, you know, not while she was delivering, but while she was waiting, right?
17:39
SPEAKER_02: Six uh centimeters dilated on a Zoom call, right?
17:42
SPEAKER_02: She said, I went home the day after, and within two weeks, I was back in my factory with my kid strapped to my back because the work-life balance was I have to keep grinding.
17:54
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
17:54
SPEAKER_02: And so she adapted to what that shark said.
17:58
SPEAKER_02: Fast forward just a few years.
18:00
SPEAKER_02: Poppy is the name of her company, and it sold for$1.95 billion because she adapted to what they said.
18:08
SPEAKER_02: Hey, let's rebrand, let's remarket.
18:11
SPEAKER_02: Instead of just getting her feelings hurt.
18:12
SPEAKER_02: Instead of saying, hey, and because this guy, she was interviewing another in this same interview, and she said, uh, hey, uh, this guy said, Hey, here's what my day looks like, and at five o'clock, I shut my phone on do not disturb, and I go to the sauna, and then I have yoga.
18:25
SPEAKER_02: She said, Oh, when did you exit?
18:27
SPEAKER_02: And he said, I didn't exit.
18:29
SPEAKER_02: She said, Oh, must be nice.
18:31
SPEAKER_02: Right?
18:32
SPEAKER_02: You gotta grind it out.
18:33
SPEAKER_02: Hear what the people are saying, adapt.
18:35
SPEAKER_02: You do.
18:36
SPEAKER_02: I I loved it.
18:37
SPEAKER_02: I was like, this lady that was good.
18:38
SPEAKER_02: She's my kind of lady.
18:39
SPEAKER_02: Like, we're like, there's gotta be a little bit more to seeing that.
18:42
SPEAKER_02: There is before you just say, Hey, I got 9,000 customers, or Sears said, I've got this catalog, sell 70,000 homes in my catalog.
18:50
SPEAKER_01: That's because there's a disconnect.
18:51
SPEAKER_01: You get up to, and we've talked to this of your upper level management is not having your micro meetings to be able to scope into the business that they're not in every single day.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, oh yeah, it's going great.
19:04
SPEAKER_01: It's going great.
19:04
SPEAKER_01: We have plenty of people that we talk to, and we're like, hey, do you know about this you this issue?
19:09
SPEAKER_01: And it's at a store level and they never even saw it.
19:12
SPEAKER_01: So they're like, yeah, it's going great.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: It's going great.
19:14
SPEAKER_01: Well, you're not checking the temperature of each individual department.
19:18
SPEAKER_03: You're not doing that.
19:18
SPEAKER_03: And if you'll go back and listen, this is just playing right into part here, to last week's episode about learning from other industries.
19:26
SPEAKER_03: There's a pattern.
19:27
SPEAKER_03: And if you look at any industry, there is usually another industry that is a couple years or a decade ahead.
19:34
SPEAKER_03: And it's been that way for a long time.
19:36
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
19:36
SPEAKER_03: We were talking to somebody the other day, and if you look at like retail of like boats, campers, all right, um, RVs, tractors, they're they're about maybe half a decade behind automotive.
19:50
SPEAKER_03: So like somebody else is already proving how the customer is gonna respond.
19:55
SPEAKER_03: So if you look at somebody else like our industry, it's like, okay, well, let's look at Apple.
19:59
SPEAKER_03: Let's look at how people are doing cell phones, let's look at other stuff that's changing at a rapid, faster pace than us, and learn from those other industries so the train just doesn't whack you in the face.
20:09
SPEAKER_02: I'll tell you it's one of those things.
20:10
SPEAKER_02: If we need more examples, I know you don't, but I'm gonna give it to you.
20:13
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
20:14
SPEAKER_02: Think about shopping for furniture.
20:16
SPEAKER_02: Have you ever gone to a furniture store?
20:19
SPEAKER_02: Because you still kind of need to go in and see what it feels like.
20:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it says uh have you ever tried to cross-reference and see, okay, is this a fair deal?
20:28
SPEAKER_02: There is not a general website from the manufacturer.
20:31
SPEAKER_02: You don't even know who the manufacturer is.
20:33
SPEAKER_02: It's a white label.
20:35
SPEAKER_02: And so you can't see what is MSRP.
20:38
SPEAKER_02: But guess what?
20:38
SPEAKER_02: People have learned, and I see it the most in mattresses.
20:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:42
SPEAKER_02: People said people want transparency, they want clarity.
20:45
SPEAKER_02: The last two mattresses, and Taylor laughs at me, but I can buy five, six mattresses for the price of what he's telling me.
20:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:53
SPEAKER_02: Uh and I even did a 60-day swap-out.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: You sent one back?
20:58
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
20:59
SPEAKER_02: Did you put it back in the box?
21:00
SPEAKER_02: No, there's no way you're getting it back in the box.
21:02
SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you what they do now.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: You had to donate it, didn't you?
21:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but they came and picked it up.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: They came and picked it up, and I asked them if I could donate to somebody, and they said no.
21:09
SPEAKER_02: You know, I think they won't didn't want, but what they said is, hey, we can put a price online.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: And it can be a whole lot less.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: Because people are like, hey, they can't shop me because it's that we don't have a website.
21:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
21:20
SPEAKER_02: Like even the biggest ones.
21:22
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, oh, how do we get automotive back to that?
21:24
SPEAKER_02: You know, whatever, but it's not going back.
21:26
SPEAKER_02: Same thing on RV and stuff.
21:27
SPEAKER_02: There's not a lot of that stuff's online.
21:29
SPEAKER_02: There's not a manufacturer to suggest a retail price.
21:32
SPEAKER_04: No.
21:33
SPEAKER_02: And so, but these people have adapted to say, okay, let me take the fear of you don't know what it fits like, what it lays like.
21:41
SPEAKER_02: And so I bought this mattress and researched the fire out of this versus the top name bringing that was$12,000.
21:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
21:48
SPEAKER_02: I bought this mattress for$1,700, had it shipped in my house, and it was in a box no bigger than this.
21:54
SPEAKER_02: Like had to cut it open, and it was like, this blew open.
21:58
SPEAKER_02: And Taylor was like, there's no way.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: That thing sleeps good.
22:01
SPEAKER_02: Like there's no way it has rigidity.
22:03
SPEAKER_02: It was firm as a brick.
22:06
SPEAKER_02: I loved it.
22:06
SPEAKER_02: I slept good.
22:07
SPEAKER_02: My wife didn't love it.
22:10
SPEAKER_02: So it went back.
22:11
SPEAKER_02: And I said, hey, I need two steps down for that.
22:14
SPEAKER_02: You know, I adapted.
22:14
SPEAKER_02: I don't sleep as good, but she does, so that's great.
22:18
SPEAKER_02: But they sent me another one.
22:19
SPEAKER_02: So they removed the customer pain point.
22:20
SPEAKER_02: If they can't come into the store to try it, because we don't want to have 9,000 brick and mortal locations.
22:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:25
SPEAKER_02: But remove the pain point.
22:27
SPEAKER_02: We'll put tons of customer testimonies.
22:29
SPEAKER_02: We'll put tons of stuff on our website.
22:31
SPEAKER_02: We'll kill it on social of this testimony, this testimony, this testimony.
22:35
SPEAKER_02: You don't need to go in the store anymore.
22:38
SPEAKER_02: So that's where someone's adapted to that.
22:40
SPEAKER_03: I'll tell you this next one.
22:41
SPEAKER_03: And this one kind of shocks me as I think through it.
22:43
SPEAKER_03: And I hadn't thought about this company as much, but they were so close.
22:48
SPEAKER_03: They had the right idea, even.
22:50
SPEAKER_03: And they were faster to the market before anybody else was.
22:55
SPEAKER_03: And it was Kodak.
22:56
SPEAKER_03: The camera?
22:57
SPEAKER_03: The camera.
22:58
SPEAKER_03: And think about that.
22:59
SPEAKER_03: Kodak solved an issue of taking a picture and being able to see it.
23:05
SPEAKER_03: They they solved the issue of the customer wanting to see that picture quicker.
23:10
SPEAKER_03: So more instant gratification.
23:11
SPEAKER_03: More instant gratification.
23:13
SPEAKER_03: You didn't want to have to go turn in your role.
23:15
SPEAKER_03: And that first started where they had the, and I don't even know if y'all remember this, they had the one-hour guarantee places, you know, that they would get your photographs.
23:23
SPEAKER_03: And it within an hour.
23:24
SPEAKER_03: So you could go to lunch and then pick up your pictures.
23:27
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
23:27
SPEAKER_03: That was quick.
23:28
SPEAKER_03: They were innovative thinking.
23:29
SPEAKER_03: And then they had the Kodak thing, and you took the picture, and then you kind of flopped it around, some whatever that thing was called, and your picture was gulli.
23:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was there.
23:39
SPEAKER_03: You saw it instantly.
23:41
SPEAKER_03: They were disrupting the market here.
23:43
SPEAKER_02: They made the one-time use ones.
23:45
SPEAKER_02: The one-time use ones.
23:47
SPEAKER_02: They were innovative in a lot of things.
23:48
SPEAKER_03: They were very innovative.
23:50
SPEAKER_03: And then all of a sudden, what happened?
23:53
SPEAKER_03: These.
23:54
SPEAKER_03: Other ways that you could get digital photos and you could see them right then.
23:59
SPEAKER_03: They were so innovative, and that's what made their mark there.
24:02
SPEAKER_03: But then they got what?
24:04
SPEAKER_03: Complacent.
24:05
SPEAKER_02: And they never built a digital camera.
24:07
SPEAKER_02: And I think engineering actually built one for them, and they said that's not our model.
24:12
SPEAKER_03: And that just blows my mind because you take somebody that was so disruptive to the photograph industry and they missed it.
24:22
SPEAKER_03: That's crazy.
24:23
SPEAKER_02: It said they would not develop the actual digital product because it disrupted their film business.
24:32
SPEAKER_02: And so instead of saying this is what we're built on, this is what we do, and they're like, hey, it's kind of turning.
24:38
SPEAKER_02: We should adapt to this.
24:39
SPEAKER_02: Actually, here's a product, try it out.
24:41
SPEAKER_02: And they're like, no, no, no, that disrupts what we're currently doing.
24:43
SPEAKER_02: Well, guess what really disrupts what you're doing?
24:45
SPEAKER_02: Not adapting at all and completely going out of business.
24:47
SPEAKER_03: That's a really disruptive.
24:48
SPEAKER_03: Go ask Blockbuster.
24:49
SPEAKER_03: They were hanging on the$800 million a year and late fees.
24:53
SPEAKER_03: And that was probably a big decision maker on why they didn't want to go at that point in time mailing them back and forth.
24:59
SPEAKER_03: Within a mere 10 years, they filed bankruptcy.
25:02
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
25:03
SPEAKER_03: It's the same thing with Kodak.
25:04
SPEAKER_03: I mean, there was so the infrastructure is a you have the platform to catapult yourself to continue to be able to do that.
25:11
SPEAKER_02: So what's the theme of all those companies that maybe they should have listened to?
25:17
SPEAKER_03: You need to have your eyes and ears open to adapt and change.
25:21
SPEAKER_03: And we talked about it a couple episodes back.
25:24
SPEAKER_03: And I truly believe you have to, I'm not talking about work-life balance here.
25:28
SPEAKER_03: What you have to have a balance of is working in your business and on your business.
25:32
SPEAKER_03: You have to do both.
25:34
SPEAKER_03: We've seen plenty of people that have just worked on their business and they don't know what's going on in their business.
25:39
SPEAKER_03: And then we've seen plenty of people, including ourselves, that were dang good at working in our business, but we weren't good working on our business.
25:46
SPEAKER_03: And we've adapted to that because that's what happened with these companies.
25:50
SPEAKER_03: They were just in their business, in their business, in their business.
25:53
SPEAKER_03: And there were other industries that were giving them signals and signs of you better change, you better adapt.
26:00
SPEAKER_03: I will give a kudos before we go to the next part.
26:02
SPEAKER_03: I want you guys to think about this.
26:04
SPEAKER_03: Walmart was at a pivotal point of they had tons of brick and mortar.
26:08
SPEAKER_03: And they started seeing things like, you know, all the different Instacarts and uh all the different food services and the grub hubs and the all the different stuff of delivery to somebody.
26:19
SPEAKER_03: They already had the distribution platforms.
26:22
SPEAKER_03: So what do they now have?
26:23
SPEAKER_03: They started off with grocery pickup, but now they have grocery delivery.
26:27
SPEAKER_03: And they got a subscription service that then connects you to it.
26:30
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
26:31
SPEAKER_03: They are adapting at a rapid pace where they could have easily said, we're the juggernaut, we're the largest company in the world.
26:39
SPEAKER_02: They most certainly could have, because Amazon ships all your essentials.
26:43
SPEAKER_02: You can get toilet paper, but they said, hey, if we get out of this conversation, if we don't have a card in the fight, then we get missed on the groceries, then we get missed on the clothing, the automotive, all these other aspects of all their brick and mortar.
26:59
SPEAKER_02: But they said, hey, let's just adapt.
27:00
SPEAKER_02: They said, let's try drone delivery.
27:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: Let's try the airplane drop thing.
27:06
SPEAKER_02: Let's do you could place your order and come show up.
27:09
SPEAKER_02: And they could have said, if they don't come into the store, they won't impulsively buy stuff.
27:13
SPEAKER_02: And they said, well, if we don't do it at all, they'll never come to our I would argue that grocery sales are probably up.
27:20
unknown: Yes.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: From I know impulsive, like impulsive items at checkout, but because it's so easy, like an Amazon mentality.
27:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I always say it is just like ding, ding, ding, ding.
27:32
SPEAKER_03: You know, like sitting here talking, what just hit me is that Amazon and other places, there's plenty of other places out there, pave the way with delivery.
27:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
27:42
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
27:42
SPEAKER_03: What that looks like.
27:44
SPEAKER_03: Walmart took their idea and is better at it than they are because they said not only can we deliver it, we can deliver it today.
27:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:52
SPEAKER_03: And we can also give you out of the way.
27:54
SPEAKER_02: Because they have the infrastructure and distribution built.
27:58
SPEAKER_02: They and they go, So they resized some stores and said, hey, let's take a third of our physical location and make that now part of our distribution.
28:06
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
28:07
SPEAKER_02: And let's we need we need a little less space now in the store, but let's use the people we already have, the space we already have, and let's learn from Amazon.
28:16
SPEAKER_03: So then they said, well, what would even be better for the customer?
28:19
SPEAKER_03: Well, the customer is hoping that Amazon delivers it on time, but they're reluctant, you know, UPS or FedEx or whoever else, and it's going to come between two and four o'clock.
28:27
SPEAKER_03: Walmart goes, hey, it's 12 o'clock and you need flour for whatever you're baking tonight.
28:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
28:33
SPEAKER_03: Here's the open time from three to four o'clock.
28:35
SPEAKER_02: And they even learned advanced enough, like I think Sam Walton in his grave is saying kudos, good job.
28:40
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
28:41
SPEAKER_02: They learned, hey, you need something.
28:43
SPEAKER_02: And I know you picked this brand of something, but why don't we, while they're shopping, offer a solution.
28:49
SPEAKER_02: So solution.
28:50
SPEAKER_02: If we don't have this brand of pizza sauce, hey, you can have this one or this one.
28:54
SPEAKER_02: And they give you a window.
28:55
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what it is, but it's short that says, hey, you can accept these or you won't get that product at all.
29:01
SPEAKER_02: They said, hey, it's not all or nothing.
29:03
SPEAKER_03: Let's offer an option.
29:04
SPEAKER_03: I know that was in addition to like what we were talking about there, but I think it's important that like once you break down other companies, you're like, now show me where an older, more mature company learned.
29:13
SPEAKER_03: Learned.
29:14
SPEAKER_02: Adapted.
29:14
SPEAKER_03: Adapted.
29:15
SPEAKER_03: Not just we always talk about these startups and how they find a missing gap or an opportunity.
29:21
SPEAKER_03: But sometimes then they'll get complacent a couple decades down the road.
29:24
SPEAKER_03: It's important to see somebody that evolves over the decades and over the times.
29:28
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
29:28
SPEAKER_02: All right.
29:28
SPEAKER_02: Factor fiction.
29:30
SPEAKER_02: Factor fiction.
29:30
SPEAKER_02: If a customer has a problem, they will tell you.
29:33
SPEAKER_03: I'm going to say no, because I don't.
29:37
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
29:37
SPEAKER_03: I don't.
29:38
SPEAKER_03: You know, if I if I've got a problem, I just find somebody else that already has the solution.
29:42
SPEAKER_02: Aaron Powell Right.
29:43
SPEAKER_02: Like that's time important.
29:44
SPEAKER_02: Don't want to like the hustle bustle.
29:46
SPEAKER_02: Don't want to complain, not a complainer.
29:48
SPEAKER_02: All right, here's the fact to it.
29:50
SPEAKER_02: For every customer who complains, roughly 26 just stay silent and leave.
29:56
SPEAKER_03: Now I I'll back up a little bit there for y'all that are listening.
29:58
SPEAKER_03: If if it's somebody that I have a personal relationship with and I care, especially the local business, I want to help them be successful.
30:05
SPEAKER_03: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
30:06
SPEAKER_02: Send a non-confrontational note, like, hey, by the way, just want to let you know.
30:10
SPEAKER_03: And I say that too, because there are plenty of people who have reached out to me directly.
30:15
SPEAKER_03: I'm not talking about the complainers out there, but they care about the success of our business and said, hey, I know that you would want to know this.
30:22
SPEAKER_03: I would want to know in my business.
30:23
SPEAKER_03: Here's what happened.
30:24
SPEAKER_03: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
30:24
SPEAKER_02: The difference is constructive criticism.
30:27
SPEAKER_03: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
30:27
SPEAKER_03: They're not looking for anything.
30:28
SPEAKER_02: Oh, like sometimes they're like, hey, I don't need anything, or hey, I just thought you'd want to know.
30:33
SPEAKER_02: And then like 38 minutes later, they're still telling you.
30:37
SPEAKER_02: It's like, man, I don't know.
30:39
SPEAKER_02: Bam, down the church.
30:40
SPEAKER_02: She said she was having the same problems.
30:42
SPEAKER_02: Like, okay, this is not constructive criticism.
30:44
SPEAKER_02: You're just beating me over the head.
30:46
SPEAKER_02: But one in 26 will actually tell you that there's an issue.
30:50
SPEAKER_02: The other 25 or 26 are they just move on.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: Just move on.
30:54
SPEAKER_01: They move on, or they're not telling you the issue and they're out just polluting waters or anything.
30:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
31:00
SPEAKER_01: They're not actually leaving a review.
31:01
SPEAKER_01: They're just telling everybody.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: Telling everybody.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: So that's definitely more.
31:05
SPEAKER_01: So I love this of going into what customers are actually saying versus what they're telling you.
31:10
SPEAKER_01: Customers rarely tell you the real reason they're unhappy.
31:14
SPEAKER_01: I I would agree.
31:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
31:16
SPEAKER_02: So think about reviews.
31:17
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
31:18
SPEAKER_02: They're so single-sided and they're so high level, or they get crazy granular and it doesn't cover the whole depth of the problem.
31:26
SPEAKER_02: So I think that's really right.
31:29
SPEAKER_02: That they don't even take the time to tell you all of it, or they don't stop and break the whole thing down.
31:33
SPEAKER_03: I think it's really important, and I'm glad you hit on that, is to take the time to ask another question to make sure that if something's going wrong or if there's an objection, which is what we're talking about here, that you discover what the real objection is.
31:50
SPEAKER_03: And I'd say I don't know what the stats are, but nine times out of ten, what they first tell you is either the issue or the objection is not real.
31:58
SPEAKER_03: It's a byproduct of it.
31:59
unknown: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
31:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
32:00
SPEAKER_02: And I'll tell you the one thing that I've learned in our our training and what we use to teach the team and to handle the problem is we'll ask another question, and it's the theory of de-escalation.
32:11
SPEAKER_02: You know, so I'm like, oh my gosh, Taylor, that that is that is, you know, ridiculous.
32:18
SPEAKER_02: Like that is not acceptable.
32:20
SPEAKER_02: Tell me what else.
32:21
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'm taking notes here.
32:23
SPEAKER_02: So break this down for me, whether I'm in person or whether I'm on the phone.
32:26
SPEAKER_02: It's like, okay, I'm taking notes.
32:27
SPEAKER_02: Hang on now.
32:28
SPEAKER_02: Who was that?
32:28
SPEAKER_02: Okay, now when did you check it in?
32:30
SPEAKER_02: Okay, was there was or was there not a text message?
32:32
SPEAKER_02: Was or was there not communication?
32:34
SPEAKER_02: Uh and so then you start breaking down.
32:36
SPEAKER_02: It's like, okay, and what else?
32:38
SPEAKER_02: When you were here, what else did you experience?
32:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:40
SPEAKER_02: And so I'm de-escalating this, I'm exhausting all the pieces because I want to know that they're heard.
32:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
32:48
SPEAKER_02: You know, I want to know the real issue, and same time I'm deflating the balloon so that I can, when it's my time to say, we messed up, here's how I'm going to fix it.
32:58
SPEAKER_02: There's not any more air out of the balloon, there's not any more water in the pool to say, and I still have this problem.
33:04
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
33:04
SPEAKER_02: So if you really, really, really, really ask all those questions, you'll get to the root of actually what the issue was.
33:11
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: You know, and a lot of times, like I said, y'all already went over it, but they say price when they really mean trust.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: A lot of times, that is we have good customers that have been doing business with us over the years, and a price was wrong or a service was wrong, and they they blame it on that, but they really are coming back and saying, hey, I trusted you through the process.
33:36
SPEAKER_01: I trusted you until this showed up.
33:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what happened?
33:40
SPEAKER_03: They they they want to feel good and they want to feel confident and they want to feel like that they're getting a good deal, and it solves the problem that they came in to solve.
33:50
SPEAKER_02: The price was okay, right?
33:52
SPEAKER_02: The price was okay.
33:53
SPEAKER_02: The r the reason that the price became unokay is because they lost somewhere a link in the trust of I trusted that you were delivering what you said you deliver in the trust of you said this was the best price, right?
34:06
SPEAKER_02: So it doesn't come down to a price, it's they lost trust in the what you said the price was.
34:13
SPEAKER_02: Right?
34:13
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't have to be different if just there was some jickiness somewhere along the way.
34:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:18
SPEAKER_01: The the most important thing about it is you just always have to remind yourself, no matter what it is that you're going over with an employer or with a customer, ask one more question.
34:26
SPEAKER_01: Dig deeper into the situation.
34:28
SPEAKER_01: Don't take it at face value because more times than not, you'll brush it off because it's easy.
34:35
SPEAKER_01: Dive into it a little bit because it is definitely worth it.
34:37
SPEAKER_01: Whether it's your team relaying to your customers or it's your customer that something did wrong, dig into it a little bit deeper.
34:44
SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna go, I know we're not in football season, but I really this relates here.
34:48
SPEAKER_03: Is when you watch the top quarterbacks, they have the play, they've already called the play in the huddle.
34:54
SPEAKER_03: But before they get ready to snap the ball and run the play, they pause at the line, say some jargon to throw everybody off.
35:03
SPEAKER_03: But what they're really doing is analyzing the defense to make sure that the play they're getting ready to run will be effective to the best of their knowledge.
35:12
SPEAKER_03: And that's the same thing that you're talking about is like before you take action, ask one more question just to make sure you're going the right direction.
35:20
SPEAKER_02: And I think that proves the point of being prepared.
35:23
SPEAKER_02: More often than not, when we talk price or trust, you talk about changing the play.
35:26
SPEAKER_02: Is this a proper play we need to be doing in our current business?
35:30
SPEAKER_02: When trust is lost, we had one the other day where management didn't make sure that the salesperson was properly ready to go.
35:39
SPEAKER_02: That when you call the 24 waggle, does the line know what to do?
35:43
SPEAKER_02: Does the running back, does a quarterback know what to do?
35:45
SPEAKER_02: We did a we do our Saturday morning show and go.
35:48
SPEAKER_02: And we had our the day before we'd quoted a customer a crazy good deal on a truck.
35:52
SPEAKER_02: I promise it was losing money.
35:54
SPEAKER_02: Repeat customer, it's a truck we would like to get rid of.
35:57
SPEAKER_02: We've had it for a while.
35:58
SPEAKER_02: We priced it a crazy good deal.
36:00
SPEAKER_02: Salesperson's doing the show and go on it, gets stage fright, or just is not prepared and quotes it crazy low.
36:08
SPEAKER_02: And he doesn't mean it.
36:09
SPEAKER_02: He's just like, oh, this is a mistake.
36:11
SPEAKER_02: $16,000 off.
36:12
SPEAKER_02: Like, wait, hold on.
36:13
SPEAKER_02: That was the XLT.
36:14
SPEAKER_02: The lyriatus$9,000 off.
36:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
36:17
SPEAKER_02: Guess what?
36:18
SPEAKER_02: The customer that was in the night before happens to watch our show and go, Facebook like every single day.
36:22
SPEAKER_02: And then texts us was like, what the heck, dude?
36:25
SPEAKER_02: I thought that was a great price.
36:26
SPEAKER_02: I went home to talk to my wife about it.
36:28
SPEAKER_02: I was ready to sign up on it.
36:30
SPEAKER_02: And we're just like, oh, there's no way that would be$16,000 off because of this qualification.
36:35
SPEAKER_02: And guess what?
36:36
SPEAKER_02: They've lost our trust.
36:37
SPEAKER_02: Doesn't matter.
36:38
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't matter.
36:39
SPEAKER_02: And it's because we weren't prepared, the line wasn't prepared, the team wasn't prepared to be confident in what they said.
36:46
SPEAKER_02: So it's not the pricing.
36:48
SPEAKER_02: They were okay with the pricing, it's the trust loss.
36:50
SPEAKER_03: That's right.
36:51
SPEAKER_02: Because of not being prepared.
36:52
SPEAKER_01: That's so right for sure.
36:54
SPEAKER_01: That's why all there.
36:55
SPEAKER_01: Hey, hit us with our fun fact quiz of the week.
36:57
SPEAKER_03: How much more does it cost to acquire a new customer versus keeping an existing one happy?
37:05
SPEAKER_03: We're talking like what X OneMe X is to acquire a new customer, to go out and get a new customer to do business with you versus maybe solving a problem or where a ball got dropped, or just a feel good to an existing customer.
37:20
SPEAKER_03: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
37:21
SPEAKER_03: It's two to three times.
37:22
SPEAKER_03: It's at least two to three times.
37:24
SPEAKER_03: It's five times more.
37:26
SPEAKER_03: It costs roughly five times more to win a new customer than retained the one you already have.
37:34
SPEAKER_03: Five times more.
37:36
SPEAKER_03: So I think I think think about that.
37:38
SPEAKER_03: Taylor, you were it comes to my mind because recently you were buying grills for one of our incentive programs we had, and they had done an amazing job.
37:48
SPEAKER_03: They solved your problem of the amount of grills you needed.
37:52
SPEAKER_03: They also solved because we paid actually a little bit more to them.
37:55
SPEAKER_03: They gave us a great deal.
37:56
SPEAKER_03: But the reason we paid a little bit more is because they assembled them and they delivered them and they could guarantee us a time.
38:03
SPEAKER_03: And then all of a sudden you're like, great experience.
38:06
SPEAKER_01: Let me go back in there and buy some more accessories.
38:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:10
SPEAKER_01: And I go on the next day, same guy's not there.
38:12
SPEAKER_01: It's Mac truck there.
38:14
SPEAKER_01: Hey, is your whole team on the same path you are?
38:17
SPEAKER_01: I walk in there and it gives me the same discount.
38:20
SPEAKER_01: I told them, I said, hey, I don't need the same discount.
38:22
SPEAKER_01: Just help me out a little bit.
38:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just make me feel good about it.
38:25
SPEAKER_01: Make me feel good about the process.
38:26
SPEAKER_01: You're taking care of me.
38:27
SPEAKER_01: Well, I run to the other manager, and the manager is like, hey, whoa, we way missed price.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: We lost money.
38:34
SPEAKER_01: We're charging you full-blown retail.
38:37
SPEAKER_01: Need you.
38:37
SPEAKER_01: And I stopped and I was like, How'd that make you feel?
38:40
SPEAKER_01: I almost went and got in the car.
38:42
SPEAKER_01: Trust was lost.
38:43
SPEAKER_01: Trust was lost there.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: Way up here.
38:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
38:45
SPEAKER_02: And it took a nosedive.
38:47
SPEAKER_02: And you'd paid more.
38:48
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
38:49
SPEAKER_02: Talked us into it.
38:49
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, no, Taylor, go to Lowe's, go to Walmart.
38:53
SPEAKER_02: You can get this girl.
38:54
SPEAKER_02: And you're like, that thing's trash.
38:56
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, yeah, but we're buying a lot of stuff.
38:58
SPEAKER_02: It still is going to work.
38:59
SPEAKER_02: And so you'd convinced us.
39:01
SPEAKER_02: You was like, hey, my perception of value was high.
39:05
SPEAKER_01: Done good.
39:06
SPEAKER_01: Price was good.
39:06
SPEAKER_01: Came under budget.
39:08
SPEAKER_01: I was a raving fan.
39:10
SPEAKER_01: They'd done great job.
39:11
SPEAKER_01: I was telling everybody to go through there and they missed it.
39:14
SPEAKER_01: And you even told them that they could charge you more.
39:16
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yes.
39:17
SPEAKER_03: You said, I don't expect what you gave me yesterday.
39:19
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
39:20
SPEAKER_03: All that guy had to do is say, Man, thanks for coming back, Taylor.
39:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we really got together and gave you an amazing deal on that.
39:26
SPEAKER_03: Let's pick out some accessories and let me see what I can do there.
39:30
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
39:30
SPEAKER_03: Won't be at the exact same amount, but I do want to take care of you at being a repeat customer.
39:34
SPEAKER_01: And probably being a business owner and the thing I like didn't completely just come unglued.
39:39
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, this is a teaching moment.
39:40
SPEAKER_01: If I was in this place and stuff, I went through and I said, Hey, let me explain this to you.
39:44
SPEAKER_01: And said, I like dad with the case.
39:46
SPEAKER_01: And I went into the other and I said, Do you realize the amount I was asking off?
39:51
SPEAKER_01: And that you'll really love the end of this.
39:53
SPEAKER_01: This is hilarious of corporate that comes in.
39:55
SPEAKER_01: But I said, Do you realize at the end of this, you could have taken 10% off and I just spent$1,500 and been$150?
40:01
SPEAKER_01: You would have discounted$150 to continue to keep me as a happy customer raving failing.
40:07
SPEAKER_01: He's like, Yep.
40:08
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Oh, that makes sense.
40:11
SPEAKER_01: We look like an idiot going through.
40:12
SPEAKER_01: And I said, That's fine.
40:13
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to buy this and move forward.
40:16
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for knowing.
40:17
SPEAKER_01: So I'm checking out and I give them the ace rewards.
40:20
SPEAKER_01: They're like, oh, you got a fun number like, yep.
40:22
SPEAKER_01: And gave me 15% off for being an ace rewards.
40:26
SPEAKER_04: Oh, that's something.
40:28
SPEAKER_02: Let me uh wrap that.
40:30
SPEAKER_02: Is that you have a knee-jerk reaction because you're too involved, and you're like, I just lost, I'm I messed up.
40:38
SPEAKER_02: Because I'm like, Taylor, call that customer back and take that deal.
40:41
SPEAKER_02: And then I'm like, no.
40:42
SPEAKER_02: And you know, it's like, no, we don't need to do that.
40:44
SPEAKER_02: It's like, it's not the customer's fault.
40:47
SPEAKER_02: And you're saying in the past, this happened, we lost this amount of money, this didn't go well, corporate said this, whatever it may be.
40:55
SPEAKER_02: And then you have a memory of that and you take it out on the customer the next time, the next time.
40:59
SPEAKER_02: Instead of saying, A class, customer experience is our goal every single time.
41:03
SPEAKER_02: You can't do it.
41:04
SPEAKER_03: You can't let it roll over.
41:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
41:06
SPEAKER_03: So customers have options.
41:08
SPEAKER_03: And you can't say, well, I lost a thousand on this one, so I'm going to make up another thousand.
41:13
SPEAKER_03: Doesn't matter.
41:14
SPEAKER_03: They'll just go somewhere else.
41:15
SPEAKER_03: It's no different than if you're at the casino and you're watching how many times Reddit hit in a row.
41:20
SPEAKER_03: It resets the next time.
41:21
SPEAKER_03: You still have to deliver the great customer experience.
41:24
SPEAKER_03: Let it stand on its own.
41:25
SPEAKER_01: How many times does it cost you more to go get a new customer?
41:28
SPEAKER_01: Five times more to get a customer.
41:30
SPEAKER_01: So that's that repair.
41:32
SPEAKER_01: If it's going through fixing that problem, that issue, it is well worth your business and your name to make it right for the customer.
41:40
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
41:40
SPEAKER_02: All right.
41:40
SPEAKER_02: So uh core number three, talking about this, how to become a customer whisperer.
41:44
SPEAKER_02: And I already didn't read far enough ahead.
41:46
SPEAKER_02: I already talked about that little bit of our de-escalation, but it's going to be ask better questions.
41:52
SPEAKER_02: Right?
41:52
SPEAKER_02: Generally, you solve most problems by asking better questions.
41:55
SPEAKER_03: First thing is let the customer talk more than you do.
42:00
SPEAKER_03: Shut your mouth.
42:01
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
42:01
SPEAKER_03: Ask questions.
42:02
SPEAKER_03: That's the only words I want to come out of your mouth until the swamp is drained, until you've gotten all the water out.
42:08
SPEAKER_03: The only words coming out of your mouth should be asking questions.
42:13
SPEAKER_03: That is much easier said than done.
42:16
SPEAKER_03: We've gone through years of training and muscle memory to be able to do that.
42:22
SPEAKER_03: Because what do you want to do, especially if you are a business owner?
42:26
SPEAKER_03: It's your baby.
42:27
SPEAKER_03: You want to defend it.
42:28
SPEAKER_03: You want to justify why that was done.
42:31
SPEAKER_03: The customer wants to feel heard and they want to get it all out before you ever put your rebuttal in drive.
42:40
SPEAKER_02: That is so important.
42:43
SPEAKER_02: And you're listening, there's a difference in listening because you said make sure you listen, make sure they completely say everything.
42:49
SPEAKER_02: Are you listening to learn or are you listening to respond?
42:52
SPEAKER_02: You can tell if somebody's listening to respond, like they already know what their response is, and they think, all right, Matt, I listen.
42:58
SPEAKER_02: Like I stopped the whole time and I wanted to just go ahead and say, no, it wasn't done because it's a manufacturer warranty.
43:04
SPEAKER_02: We have nothing to do with that.
43:06
SPEAKER_02: Right?
43:06
SPEAKER_02: That's listening to respond.
43:08
SPEAKER_02: Like no matter what you say, I already know my answer.
43:10
SPEAKER_02: Or listening to learn, taking notes and saying, hmm, I never thought of it that way.
43:15
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
43:16
SPEAKER_02: And then you're like, tell me more.
43:17
SPEAKER_02: I didn't think about that.
43:18
SPEAKER_02: Tell me more.
43:19
SPEAKER_02: Listening to learn will often re uh end up at the root cause.
43:25
SPEAKER_03: I'm glad you bring that up.
43:26
SPEAKER_03: When I'm on the phone or even in a person in person with a customer or an employee, you will see I will sit there and take notes.
43:34
SPEAKER_03: And it does a couple things for me.
43:36
SPEAKER_03: It it takes my brain and flips it into that mode like you're talking about.
43:41
SPEAKER_03: If I don't have that, and if I'm not working on writing it down and listening and putting the details, I already have my canned response.
43:48
SPEAKER_03: I've got to retrain my brain in the moment on how to respond.
43:53
SPEAKER_03: And what I do is like, I don't know how I'm gonna respond yet because I don't know all the concerns yet.
44:00
SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm taking whether it's an employee to bring something up, I'm writing down, writing down, writing down.
44:04
SPEAKER_03: Or if it's a customer, I'm writing down.
44:05
SPEAKER_03: And then when we get to it, I recap it like you're talking about.
44:09
SPEAKER_03: Ask if there's anything else.
44:11
SPEAKER_03: So the customer or the employee, they feel heard, don't they?
44:14
SPEAKER_03: Because I just repeated what came out of their mouth.
44:17
SPEAKER_03: And people want to feel heard.
44:18
SPEAKER_03: And that's the easiest way to do that is to recap what they've said, ask if there's anything else.
44:24
SPEAKER_03: And then you'll start to formulate how you're going to solve it.
44:28
SPEAKER_02: If you can break that down and repeat that, you can you can put to bay 99% of complaints and say, okay, so just so I heard you're right.
44:38
SPEAKER_02: Well, this was an issue, this was an issue, we didn't communicate this.
44:43
SPEAKER_02: This has been handled, this has been taken care of, this you're working on, and these three things we need to work on.
44:50
SPEAKER_02: Is that everything?
44:51
SPEAKER_02: And they're like, yep.
44:52
SPEAKER_02: Okay, anything else?
44:53
SPEAKER_02: It's like, okay, so my here's my action plan when I get off the phone.
44:57
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna go get with this department, this department, this department.
44:59
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna check on this part's availability, we're gonna see if there's other shipping options on this one, and my team or me or this person will call you by the end of day today.
45:10
SPEAKER_02: Does that work for you?
45:11
SPEAKER_02: And so they understand you listen, you're learning, action will be taken, and here's what the expectation of how you'll communicate and when that communication will happen.
45:21
SPEAKER_02: I feel like 90 to 95 percent of things can get handled.
45:24
SPEAKER_02: Even if there's still a problem and if there's cost involved, they still addressed it.
45:28
SPEAKER_03: Aaron Powell That's exactly if you'll just listen to that textbook, maybe just even replay that.
45:34
SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna add two things that I learned that go on top of that is is one, after you get all the way to the bottom, is there anything else and you've recapped?
45:44
SPEAKER_03: That's the point in time that you go ahead and apologize.
45:47
SPEAKER_03: And whether we were in the wrong or we're not, okay, it's just you apologize.
45:53
SPEAKER_03: And then here's where I made a mistake earlier in my career, and I have to remind myself this is when I get to the point on telling them about the response, is to not say, I will respond to you.
46:06
SPEAKER_03: Because there's only so many hours and so many minutes.
46:08
SPEAKER_03: Now, if I can, I will.
46:10
SPEAKER_03: And I always have the want and the desire to, but things happen.
46:15
SPEAKER_03: I have to be involved in other time.
46:17
SPEAKER_03: And then the customer doesn't get the attention that they need.
46:21
SPEAKER_03: So Shelby, exactly what you went over, is it is me or one of my team members, there's a chance that they'll they'll be able to reach out to you quicker than I can because of time availability.
46:31
SPEAKER_03: But just know that I communicated with them and I'm still involved behind it.
46:35
SPEAKER_02: I think that's really important.
46:36
SPEAKER_02: And I I've had to switch that for one, because because we are locally owned and locally operated, people will reach out to us.
46:43
SPEAKER_02: Right?
46:44
SPEAKER_02: But then you have to go through it's better for them.
46:46
SPEAKER_02: They think it's better if they communicate to you.
46:48
SPEAKER_02: But after you go through all the stuff and the steps we talked about, then you say, hey, I'm going to have X in service follow back up with you.
46:55
SPEAKER_02: For the longest time, I felt like I was passing the box, just like you said.
46:58
SPEAKER_02: I did too.
46:59
SPEAKER_02: But uh now I do not say, I'm gonna call you back.
47:02
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna say, hey, this person, I'm gonna go down, we're gonna go over this, and they're gonna come back with you.
47:07
SPEAKER_02: And and if they have a rebuttal to that, I'm gonna say, look, here's the thing.
47:10
SPEAKER_02: Like I can call you back, but I'm gonna have to go to them for the answer.
47:14
SPEAKER_02: And I don't want to give you me, the middleman.
47:16
SPEAKER_02: I want to give you straight to the horse's mouth.
47:18
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
47:19
SPEAKER_02: And they're like, okay, that makes sense.
47:20
SPEAKER_02: I give them value in that person.
47:22
SPEAKER_02: Here's the thing, though, as we're getting beat over the head with the ping hammer, person's down in service, like, oh, I'm doing good.
47:29
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna do that.
47:29
SPEAKER_02: And with the lunch.
47:30
SPEAKER_02: Right, I'm having a lunch.
47:31
SPEAKER_02: And so to be a better operation, I need them to be part of the tapping on the head of the ballping hammer.
47:36
SPEAKER_02: So they're like, I probably shouldn't do that again.
47:39
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
47:39
SPEAKER_02: Listening to learn, listen to respond is we were talking about that.
47:42
SPEAKER_02: I'm thinking when a customer drives up in a 6.7-liter diesel, there's a TSB that says there may be a little bit louder engine noise than normal.
47:51
SPEAKER_04: Good.
47:52
SPEAKER_02: All right.
47:53
SPEAKER_02: In the latest generation of the 6.7.
47:55
SPEAKER_02: So the technicians know that.
48:00
SPEAKER_02: They know it like the back of their hand because they see it often.
48:02
SPEAKER_02: It's a TSB, there's an inspection, inspection, inspection, and if you pat if you fail all of those, then there is a try this.
48:10
SPEAKER_02: But there's like six inspections that say that's normal, that's normal, that's normal.
48:13
SPEAKER_02: If a customer comes in, they got a 6-7, they just spent$60,000 to$98,000, and you say, Oh, we hear that all the time, because they're trying to listen to respond so quick because they're the expert.
48:25
SPEAKER_02: They didn't even hear the customer's concern.
48:26
SPEAKER_02: They didn't even feel like they were hurt.
48:28
SPEAKER_02: So then I'm constantly telling the team, like, actually go act like you care and listen to the engine and actually have a technician look at it and actually drive it.
48:38
SPEAKER_02: And so then you can, with value, say, hey, we went through five of the six steps and it passed this one past those.
48:43
SPEAKER_02: Then I had one just the other day, and the guy was on Facebook.
48:46
SPEAKER_02: He's like, anybody got a good four dealership around here?
48:49
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, guys, what are we doing?
48:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:51
SPEAKER_02: Did we actually put some effort into it to show the customer?
48:54
SPEAKER_02: We're just like, no, the book says it it is what it is, right?
48:57
SPEAKER_02: Is there an issue?
48:59
SPEAKER_02: Did we listen?
49:00
SPEAKER_02: Or did we just sound like, no, hey, our frosting machine's broken?
49:03
SPEAKER_02: Or did you look go see did they fix it this morning?
49:06
SPEAKER_02: Or maybe we just need a little more product in it.
49:09
SPEAKER_02: That oh, there's so many times it's messed there.
49:12
SPEAKER_03: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
49:12
SPEAKER_03: It all comes down to how are you making the customer feel?
49:17
SPEAKER_03: To make that employee feel.
49:19
SPEAKER_03: When the conversation is over, what do they feel?
49:22
SPEAKER_03: Do they feel heard?
49:23
SPEAKER_03: Do they feel like they're cared about?
49:25
SPEAKER_03: And that takes time and it takes patience.
49:27
SPEAKER_02: But that's how you succeed, that's become 1% of the 1% is putting some effort into it and not being cookie cutter.
49:34
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
49:34
SPEAKER_02: Like think about this.
49:36
SPEAKER_02: If you treat complaints as the most valuable data that you receive, like who does that?
49:41
SPEAKER_02: Like your complaint department, is that good data?
49:44
SPEAKER_02: Think because the 26 other customers who didn't complain, they want to hear what happens next.
49:50
SPEAKER_02: Like they want to see, okay, there's an issue, this is a recurring issue, this is an issue.
49:55
SPEAKER_02: And so if you'll treat those complaints, instead of just filing them away and just like, no, today I'm gonna wear a helmet.
49:59
SPEAKER_02: So when the ball ping hammer comes and hits me, I'll be okay, right?
50:02
SPEAKER_02: And I still have a good day.
50:03
SPEAKER_02: Like, no, you didn't actually listen to why the hammer was hitting you with the head.
50:07
SPEAKER_02: Right.
50:08
SPEAKER_02: So that's so important there.
50:09
SPEAKER_02: The most important thing we've talked about, and the things that we have to constantly work on, like daily activities have to be working on daily, is training people to listen as part of their skills.
50:22
SPEAKER_02: You know, thinking about that, not just respond.
50:25
SPEAKER_02: It's what we talked about in the service drive or hey, how much money off or whatever.
50:29
SPEAKER_02: They don't just respond, but they actually hear what's what's being said.
50:33
SPEAKER_03: Here's a tip for you out there.
50:35
SPEAKER_03: Because I know as entrepreneurs and leaders, you get that.
50:40
SPEAKER_03: So how do you get your team to get that?
50:42
SPEAKER_03: A quick brain hack.
50:45
SPEAKER_03: So when you listen, you're not just already have your response to respond, is have your team write down the information that's being said on the other side.
50:57
SPEAKER_03: It will, and I know I already went over this, but it will automatically flip your brain on responding to actually listen and get to the root cause.
51:07
SPEAKER_03: Have them write it down.
51:09
SPEAKER_02: Aaron Powell And you're writing down the complaint and the issues, not just their name and number and putting it on your desk.
51:15
SPEAKER_03: That's right.
51:16
SPEAKER_02: Right?
51:16
SPEAKER_02: There's a big difference there.
51:18
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
51:18
SPEAKER_02: It's going to de-escalate the customer's side and it's going to get them to feel part of it on the other side.
51:22
SPEAKER_03: Trevor Burrus, Jr.: And the more times I'm glad you brought that up, earlier on, and we've got most people trained now, but if they gave me a customer's name and phone number, that employee, I would sit down in front of me and I'd start asking them all the questions.
51:35
SPEAKER_03: All right, what vehicle is this at?
51:37
SPEAKER_03: What store was it at?
51:38
SPEAKER_03: What was the issue?
51:40
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
51:40
SPEAKER_03: What research have you done?
51:42
SPEAKER_03: Have we tried to solve the problem?
51:43
SPEAKER_03: And they're like, no.
51:44
SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, okay, we just go gather that information for me, please, because you always say you want to help me and try to take some off my plate.
51:52
SPEAKER_03: Here you go.
51:52
SPEAKER_03: Bring that back.
51:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
51:54
SPEAKER_02: And so if you're still getting tons of notes, it don't be mad at them.
51:59
SPEAKER_02: Be mad at yourself.
52:00
SPEAKER_02: Enable your team.
52:01
SPEAKER_01: Enable your team.
52:02
SPEAKER_01: Go back and put the trust and everything else in your team with properly showing them.
52:07
SPEAKER_02: Love that.
52:07
SPEAKER_02: All right.
52:07
SPEAKER_02: So final question, Dallas.
52:09
SPEAKER_02: Both you guys grab an aspect and throw it back.
52:11
SPEAKER_02: What's a complaint, a comment, or a customer issue that you have faced over your years or here lately that has helped you improve your leadership or business skills?
52:21
SPEAKER_03: I'm going to go a layer deeper on communication here.
52:25
SPEAKER_03: Because we live in a college town, especially in service, we will have one person's name and contact on the repair order.
52:35
SPEAKER_03: And not all the parties involved.
52:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
52:38
SPEAKER_03: Not a mom or dad and the student.
52:41
SPEAKER_03: So we're just communicating one way, and the other part of the party that's involved in making the decision, they get frustrated saying, I haven't heard anything, I haven't heard anything, I haven't heard anything.
52:51
SPEAKER_03: So that complaint has allowed us to go, let's gather some more information on who else should I contact and what are all the best ways to contact them.
53:00
SPEAKER_02: And you got to think about there's a proper and improper way to do that.
53:04
SPEAKER_02: You know, the old uh the old commercials like, hey, when's your husband gonna be in?
53:08
SPEAKER_02: So we can go over the details.
53:10
SPEAKER_02: Like so identifying that.
53:12
SPEAKER_02: So when somebody drops off a car, it's like perfect, we're gonna get this, we're gonna handle this, this, and this.
53:16
SPEAKER_02: Hey, when I contact you, one, how do you want to be contacted?
53:18
SPEAKER_02: Call you, email you, or do you want me to text you?
53:21
SPEAKER_02: Text, okay, perfect.
53:22
SPEAKER_02: Is there anybody else I need to loop into this that would be part of this decision that would help this move more frequently?
53:26
SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, please attach my husband.
53:28
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
53:29
SPEAKER_02: Don't just my husband, but attach my husband.
53:32
SPEAKER_02: Or, hey, you that's a great question.
53:34
SPEAKER_02: My dad's gonna be the one paying for this.
53:36
SPEAKER_02: You might want to loop him in as well.
53:37
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so I'm gonna text both of you and uh what's going on?
53:42
SPEAKER_02: This, this, and they're like, oh man, thank you so much.
53:45
SPEAKER_02: Like you still value me.
53:46
SPEAKER_02: You haven't just deleted me.
53:48
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
53:49
SPEAKER_02: Right?
53:49
SPEAKER_02: But most of the complaints are, eh, you didn't talk to me.
53:52
SPEAKER_02: I don't feel valued.
53:53
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
53:54
SPEAKER_02: All right, Taylor, something you've learned.
53:55
SPEAKER_01: It's got a there's multiple things.
53:57
SPEAKER_01: I never have people who are like, hey, you're running your business terrible.
53:59
SPEAKER_01: Like, because we have a really they do, but they're one-off situations of um we have really good values and we take good care of our customers.
54:07
SPEAKER_01: But I'm piggybacking off communication because nothing, nothing irritates me anymore, even being outside of our industry, than communication.
54:16
SPEAKER_01: And good, bad, nothing change, just communicate.
54:21
SPEAKER_01: And customers share that with me.
54:23
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and that's something we continue to evolve and try to help with our team of good, bad, nothing's changed, communicate.
54:31
SPEAKER_01: It's so simple and easy.
54:33
SPEAKER_01: And in the form of customers remind this, but whenever they check in vehicles, it should be something that we're going over, whether it's sales or service.
54:41
SPEAKER_01: Hey, what's your form of communication?
54:43
SPEAKER_01: Some people love talking on their phone.
54:45
SPEAKER_01: 95% of people don't.
54:47
SPEAKER_01: So text or email, whatever it is, but good, clear communication.
54:51
SPEAKER_02: That's good.
54:52
SPEAKER_02: Those are great things that you're built those on listening.
54:56
SPEAKER_02: You built those on listening on customers.
54:58
SPEAKER_02: All right, that's episode 84 of Blockbuster.
55:02
SPEAKER_02: What we learned from big companies that had it figured out and didn't listen, the customers and the employees that did listen, the companies that listen, how they adapted and learned, what we see in the everyday.
55:13
SPEAKER_02: As always, check us out, Lewis Superstore.com for latest, greatest vehicles for service, whatever it may be.
55:18
SPEAKER_02: We want to take care of you.
55:19
SPEAKER_02: Tell us how we can improve, right?
55:20
SPEAKER_02: Bring us some criticism, what works, what doesn't work.
55:23
SPEAKER_02: Check us out, all of our latest episodes, Crossroad Conversation Podcast.com.
55:26
SPEAKER_02: Make sure you subscribe so you see that every single week as we bring relevant content.
55:31
SPEAKER_02: Thanks and have a great day.
55:33
SPEAKER_02: Hey, if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to give it a like, share with your friends and family.
55:37
SPEAKER_02: You can visit our website, send us the questions about what you want to know, what you want to hear, tell us about the automotive industry, family business in general.
55:44
SPEAKER_02: Who do you want to hear from?
55:46
SPEAKER_02: Send them our way, and we'll do our best to answer any questions you have.
55:49
SPEAKER_02: But make sure you tune in next time where we bring in another guest and we talk more about the automotive industry and all the great things going on within our business.