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217: How to Become Your Clients Trusted Business Partner · Customer Service Revolution | Customer Experience & Employee Experience for Business Leaders

• 0:48
  Hey, revolutionaries, welcome back to the customer service revolution podcast with John DiJulius.
• 0:54
  How are you doing, John?
• 0:57
  I'm fabulous, thank you.
• 0:59
  Enjoying the heat?
• 1:02
  if I'm around water, I don't mind if I'm in water, but if I'm not in water, it's hot.
• 1:08
  How about you?
• 1:10
  Neighborhood.
• 1:11
  Yeah.
• 1:11
  Yeah.
• 1:11
  Yeah.
• 1:12
  How about you?
• 1:12
  You enjoy heat, the heat.
• 1:14
  You know, I don't mind it.
• 1:15
  I try to get out early in the morning before it gets too hot.
• 1:19
  for your walk, run, bike.
• 1:22
  walk.
• 1:23
  Yeah, yeah, I try do a good five or six miles before it gets too hot.
• 1:31
  I am, I am, but not in the morning.
• 1:33
  There's too much traffic in the morning and I don't, I don't know.
• 1:37
  I bike on the streets so it can be a little nerve wracking.
• 1:42
  You're the ones that people scream about.
• 1:44
  Yeah, that's why I avoid heavily congested times to bike.
• 1:48
  Yeah,
• 1:49
  So you have an update, I think, on DoorDash to tell us about.
• 1:53
  Yeah, so a previous episode we talked about how DoorDash is kind of forcing their customers to tip.
• 2:01
  And if you don't tip in the app when you order, they warn you that it could be delayed.
• 2:11
  You'll go on the back of the line.
• 2:13
  And so I don't know if I mentioned this, but Bo, my youngest son, is home from college and he's DoorDash in the summer.
• 2:20
  So I told him about that the other day and he goes, oh, good.
• 2:24
  And I'm like, good.
• 2:25
  He goes, yeah.
• 2:26
  goes, he goes, so many customers don't tip.
• 2:29
  So, yeah.
• 2:31
  So it frustrates him and I don't really know where I fall on it.
• 2:35
  why not?
• 2:36
  And we might, again, we might've talked about this, but why not build a tip in?
• 2:41
  Yeah, I guess I thought there was some kind of service charger tip built in.
• 2:46
  I've never used DoorDash, so I'm not familiar with what it looks like.
• 2:52
  But I would think an app that would prompt you at least before.
• 2:56
  sometimes those companies don't share that service charge.
• 3:00
  Whenever I'm at hotels and there's a service charge, I ask and they say, we don't get that.
• 3:07
  Which I don't know if that's the employee just trying to get more or whatever.
• 3:11
  But the other thing it made me think of, and I don't know how psychologically this plays out, but you ever go to, I was at the ice cream store last week and wanted to use my
• 3:22
  credit card.
• 3:25
  and it said there'd be a 3 % charge if you use a credit card.
• 3:30
  And I always get annoyed by that.
• 3:32
  What's worse or better?
• 3:34
  Just building it into your price?
• 3:36
  But then you have sticker shock or...
• 3:41
  a service charge if you use the credit card.
• 3:43
  What's worse?
• 3:44
  well, one way or another, you're paying it, so I'd rather have it just built in.
• 3:49
  Yeah, that's what I think.
• 3:51
  But then you run the fear of the sticker shock of why is your price so much higher than everyone else's?
• 3:57
  I don't know.
• 3:58
  But yeah, my first instinct, it could be because I'm not as price sensitive, is build it in.
• 4:04
  Because I don't know why I get annoyed when there's a 3 % charge for using a credit card.
• 4:11
  I wish we just paid everybody enough that we didn't have to worry about tips.
• 4:15
  Well, that's the argument, right?
• 4:19
  You'd still have to raise the prices in most cases.
• 4:25
  So, I don't know.
• 4:29
  our listeners can give us their thoughts.
• 4:32
  Yeah, yeah.
• 4:33
  I remember being in Finland, Copenhagen, I can't remember where, but somewhere where their taxes are much higher than ours here, and it was built in.
• 4:42
  So what you saw in the price tag was what you paid.
• 4:46
  You didn't get to the register and have 20 % more added on or whatever their tax bracket is there for retail.
• 4:55
  Yeah, I mean, I do empathize with the employee and they deserve to make money.
• 5:01
  And if tipping is a big part of that, I almost feel like it should be included in, you know, and I don't care if it's broken out, that almost that you're forced to tip.
• 5:14
  But I know that raises a whole other argument from, you know.
• 5:20
  point of tipping.
• 5:21
  don't know.
• 5:22
  It's a challenge, especially in today's market.
• 5:25
  uh
• 5:26
  my CFO friend on for a conversation with that.
• 5:31
  why, what would his thoughts be?
• 5:33
  I don't know, but his and mine differ a lot of times in that just because of the way he thinks.
• 5:38
  So not that he wouldn't pay it because he always tips, but uh the way it's shown.
• 5:45
  component.
• 5:47
  Like me, it's psychologically, I get mad when you're charging me 3 % extra or whatever.
• 5:52
  But then there's also the people that are price sensitive.
• 5:58
  They don't want to be forced to pay for things.
• 6:01
  Well, and that service charge, that's not, that has nothing to do with the tip.
• 6:04
  That's just your credit card charge, correct?
• 6:08
  Yeah.
• 6:09
  So yeah, build it in.
• 6:12
  That kind of thing, just build it in.
• 6:14
  Well, and I say I'm not price-sensitive, but I will pull out if I have the cash and pay for it, because I don't want that 3%.
• 6:21
  Again, that's a psychological thing with me.
• 6:23
  It's like I'm standing on principle, which...
• 6:30
  So what do you do in the salons now?
• 6:34
  it's built in or we absorb it or however you want to call it.
• 6:39
  We've never charged extra for people using their credit card.
• 6:44
  Now, I got to believe it's in the 90 % that people pay with credit card.
• 6:50
  yeah, I would think.
• 6:51
  Yeah.
• 6:52
  mean, I don't have cash a lot.
• 6:55
  So when I tip, have to ask someone, a kid, a valet, if they have Venmo.
• 7:02
  And I feel so bad if they don't.
• 7:04
  Because I stiff them because I don't have $5 to give them or whatever it should be.
• 7:13
  Yeah, these things are first world problems here.
• 7:17
  Yeah.
• 7:18
  All right.
• 7:18
  What else is happening?
• 7:20
  Well, today we're going to talk about becoming a trusted business partner that clients can't live without.
• 7:26
  But before we get to that, you did a blog story recently about Klarna.
• 7:33
  So in 2022, Klarna laid off 700 employees to shift toward AI automation, aiming to cut costs and improve efficiency.
• 7:41
  But by 2024, AI handled the workload of those former roles, prompting a hiring freeze.
• 7:49
  So CEO, Sebastian, do know his last name, Simitkowski?
• 7:54
  Yeah, he stated he believes AI could replace all human jobs, which is quite controversial, right?
• 8:04
  And this...
• 8:06
  that back then when he did that, he got rid of the 700 contact center employees.
• 8:16
  So it did come back to bite him.
• 8:18
  This automation first approach led to a decline in service quality.
• 8:23
  Customers complained of robotic in- flexible experiences.
• 8:27
  And he later admitted that cost cutting came at the expense of service standards.
• 8:32
  In response, Klarna began rehiring human staff, introducing a more flexible customer service model, Uber-style remote workers.
• 8:44
  Yeah, so.
• 8:46
  Yeah, that Uber style is you can log on when you want.
• 8:50
  And you could see it's no different than Uber.
• 8:53
  It's no different than DoorDash.
• 8:54
  Bo can look at the app from an employee standpoint and see when peak times are and if they have a shortage of drivers.
• 9:04
  So it's kind of like that.
• 9:07
  Yeah, I think that the knee-jerk reaction to all this AI is...
• 9:13
  like a Klarna going all or nothing.
• 9:17
  And I don't think it ever should replace the human approach, the human option, the human contact.
• 9:25
  I think that's a big thing.
• 9:26
  AI use it to remove the mundane tasks that any customer can get done and employees don't want to do, but have.
• 9:35
  that human option for the bigger task.
• 9:39
  So I think we're going to hear more and more of this where companies reacted too fast, where it was just like five, 10 years ago when chat bots were introduced, companies raced
• 9:51
  to do that.
• 9:52
  Meta, back then Facebook, got rid of their department for chat bots and that blew up on them.
• 10:03
  And so AI hasn't worked out all the kinks and people are running to it.
• 10:11
  Companies are running to it.
• 10:13
  Do you see the CEO of Amazon came out and said they're going to be eliminating, I don't know if he said majority of jobs, but in the near future due to AI.
• 10:30
  And the only thing I give him credit for is he's being honest of their plans.
• 10:35
  I also think that's a precursor to layoffs when they do that.
• 10:41
  But they think that he said, I forget what his name is now, Jaffe?
• 10:45
  He said that in the not too distant future, the majority of their jobs are going to be replaced by AI.
• 10:54
  Yeah, so it's...
• 10:58
  It's exciting, it's frightening.
• 11:03
  Well, Waymo, have you ever taken a Waymo?
• 11:07
  And no, I want to.
• 11:09
  I hear it's unbelievably efficient.
• 11:13
  Tesla just finally launched theirs, autonomous vehicles.
• 11:18
  But if I know that there's millions of rides a day that are accident-free, I'm gonna do it.
• 11:28
  If it means quicker, faster, all that.
• 11:31
  Yeah.
• 11:33
  Yeah.
• 11:33
  At what age will people stop worrying about driver's license?
• 11:37
  I mean, I think it's already started with it's not going to hurt.
• 11:42
  of of.
• 11:44
  Just driverless Ubering.
• 11:48
  But I wasn't even thinking of of personal.
• 11:50
  Yeah.
• 11:55
  Does that mean insurance costs will go down?
• 11:57
  Yeah, I mean, it will help companies bottom line if you don't have to pay humans, right?
• 12:05
  I've seen something in the future that will be like some countries where so many citizens won't have jobs.
• 12:15
  They're just going to collect.
• 12:18
  a stipend.
• 12:21
  I have no idea what's in the future, but sadly as a customer, whatever's most efficient to me in certain industries like an Uber, I don't need the driver as long as it doesn't
• 12:35
  compromise safety or efficiency.
• 12:42
  Yeah, and I guess with so many people being remote in their work now, anyhow, I don't know, how much are we going to miss of the office in these
• 12:56
  we're going to miss it.
• 12:57
  think there's definitely drawbacks to it.
• 12:59
  But I think anything that's black and white, like accounting, like legal, like those things are black and white to a certain degree.
• 13:10
  So it'll start with junior accountants and junior lawyers and all that.
• 13:14
  I don't think you need them.
• 13:15
  I was talking to an older car dealership owner yesterday at Starbucks.
• 13:23
  And I was like,
• 13:25
  I don't see the need for a salesman.
• 13:28
  Like, I just don't know why, I'm talking five to 10 years, but I just don't know why you'd even need car salesmen.
• 13:37
  It's pretty much black and white, unless you want to put people in there to negotiate, which I don't know why you'd want that.
• 13:44
  That's always the most annoying part of buying a car, isn't it?
• 13:48
  Yeah, yeah, but you could just build, you know, today you can build your car online, locate it and have it, you know, whatever, however you get it shipped.
• 13:58
  The last three or four cars I've bought weren't from Ohio.
• 14:02
  just, you know, someone did it for me, but, you know, asked me what I wanted and they, you know, it was shipped here.
• 14:12
  And so.
• 14:13
  last car was from Buffalo.
• 14:19
  I did, but I did it all online.
• 14:23
  Yeah.
• 14:24
  Well, why did you need a salesman?
• 14:26
  I think because I had a car I was trading in.
• 14:30
  Yeah.
• 14:33
  Yeah, so that's the AI revolution that's coming.
• 14:36
  All right, here's another one for you.
• 14:39
  And this is something you wrote about, bore out.
• 14:41
  So I think most of us are familiar with burnout.
• 14:45
  Burnout from overwork is well known, but organizational psychologist Adam Grant warns of its overlooked counterpart, bore out.
• 14:54
  Feeling disengaged due to a lack of stimulation, purpose, or social connection.
• 15:01
  I think this is huge.
• 15:02
  So repetitive work, stalled career growth, especially reduced human interaction in remote settings contributes to boreout
• 15:11
  Yeah, it's the exact opposite of burnout, just underwhelmed with what you're doing.
• 15:18
  so how do we avoid that?
• 15:20
  And just having meetings just for meeting sake, not having employees engaged in the process, not giving a meaningful work, not tying their jobs to purpose.
• 15:32
  All of these things are really, really important.
• 15:36
  you know, adds to the workplace culture, employee experience.
• 15:42
  You know, a lot of this complains about virtual meetings less effective than in-person ones.
• 15:50
  But to your point earlier that so many more people are working remotely, you're forced, I guess, as an employer leader to have these virtual meetings.
• 16:00
  but I think it's leadership being lazy.
• 16:03
  If you're gonna have a virtual meeting, you gotta make them impactful and not just a roll call and going over things.
• 16:11
  But bore out is a thing.
• 16:12
  I don't think bore out's new.
• 16:14
  I think it's just a new term.
• 16:16
  And it just comes back to...
• 16:20
  not engaging your employees, not making them part of things, not asking them.
• 16:24
  I always say the second worst thing you could do is not do employee surveys.
• 16:29
  The worst thing is do them and not do anything about their responses.
• 16:34
  And their responses, feedback could be as silly as the hot water doesn't work in the women's restroom that you filled out.
• 16:43
  then when it's time for another one next quarter,
• 16:47
  you're not gonna fill it out because no one listened to your, yeah.
• 16:51
  And there's more important things, but that is just an easy fix.
• 16:56
  Yeah, well, some of that I think is communication.
• 16:58
  So if it's not fixed, why isn't it fixed?
• 17:00
  And let us know that you're aware of it.
• 17:05
  And this is,
• 17:06
  you lose credibility when it's not fixed of why should I take 10, 15 minutes to fill this out.
• 17:13
  Yeah, but do see what I'm saying?
• 17:15
  If the reason it's not fixed is because the plumbing issue is larger than a part that you can get at the hardware store.
• 17:25
  So it's something that's going to take, this has to be torn apart, this.
• 17:30
  But letting people know that we're aware that this is not working, this is what we're doing to fix it, it will be fixed by July, whatever it is.
• 17:41
  Yeah.
• 17:42
  Or why it can't be fixed.
• 17:43
  Like if you're moving, if the lease is up, that might be valid.
• 17:47
  I've had that before, but we didn't communicate with our staff and they just thought, you know, we were being cheap or lazy or whatever, but we didn't want to invest in, not
• 17:57
  something simple, something more expensive in leasehold improvements because we knew we were going to be there much longer.
• 18:03
  Right.
• 18:04
  So one of the interesting things I think about the bore out is the employees invest less socially at work.
• 18:14
  Treating coworkers as temporary.
• 18:15
  So before where, you know, you were making friends with people, you were going out with them, you know, you have coworkers that become like family.
• 18:23
  Now there's this disconnect, low engagement, emotional fatigue.
• 18:30
  Out of sight, out of mind, there's no connection not only with coworkers, but with their direct supervisor.
• 18:41
  It's easy to quit a company.
• 18:43
  It's harder to quit someone that you have a relationship with.
• 18:46
  It's going back to those Kuerig conversations that innocuous that you don't get virtually.
• 18:55
  So is this tied to the quiet quitting, canceling of hustle culture?
• 19:02
  Yeah, all that, all that.
• 19:04
  that our generation didn't have this situation because we all had to physically work together.
• 19:13
  But again, I think leaders need to do a better job of engaging their employees and give you a meaningful work and find out everything they do can't be, you they do have to do
• 19:24
  things that...
• 19:26
  probably isn't their favorite part of their job, but understanding that hopefully there's a progression, a track for them to do more and to find out what they want.
• 19:40
  In the book, Employee Experience Revolution, I always say every leader should know what their employee wants to do.
• 19:51
  be doing five years from now.
• 19:53
  And that might mean they want your job or they might want to be in a completely different industry.
• 19:58
  Both are fine and help them obtain either with the skillset, building their resume, when it's time, if they're a great employee, making that introduction to your connections that
• 20:12
  could get them in that industry.
• 20:13
  But you have to know those things and the employee has to feel trusted.
• 20:21
  how much harder is that today since you don't know how AI is going to impact things in five years from now that job you want might not even exist?
• 20:34
  Yeah.
• 20:36
  I don't think we should be fearful of AI.
• 20:39
  It is going to eliminate, suppose it's going to create some jobs.
• 20:42
  The first line that was used, I heard all the time a year ago is AI won't replace the jobs that it will replaced, the people don't know how to use AI in their jobs.
• 20:54
  But it's obvious coming out.
• 20:57
  It's one of the top, it's the top talked about things in shareholder meetings and annual reports.
• 21:08
  They count words used in both, and AI is the number one thing.
• 21:14
  You just got to become wicked smart and evolve at every level.
• 21:22
  but there are gonna be some industries that are hurt greater than others.
• 21:26
  Was AI the one counting those words?
• 21:30
  And yeah, I read a study over the weekend how AI is affecting our brains and not in a good way, killing the creativity basically.
• 21:43
  So let me just figure out.
• 21:45
  I wrote about this in the relationship economy, which I'm trying to think when that came out, 2019, 2020.
• 21:55
  I mean, several years ago that Google...
• 22:02
  was a conversation killer.
• 22:06
  because we might be in a conversation, me and my buddies, and we're talking about, who won the World Series in 2005?
• 22:15
  And when you didn't have Google, you would go down rabbit holes and talk about, was it those great Yankee teams?
• 22:22
  remember who they had on it?
• 22:23
  And you'd go down rabbit holes and talk about that.
• 22:27
  Well, now it's like, it was the Arizona Diamondbacks.
• 22:31
  And that conversation was done.
• 22:34
  And, and, and, you know, could be about movie who won the Academy Award or what year did saw it.
• 22:39
  And, you know, so, so getting the answers at your fingertips kills creativity conversation, rabbit holes.
• 22:48
  I always think, creativity and relationships are in the rabbit holes.
• 22:55
  That's a great point.
• 22:56
  Yes.
• 22:57
  and it's a great segue.
• 22:59
  It is.
• 23:01
  Speaking of rabbit holes, let's talk about bomb shelters.
• 23:05
  You often say, are you and your clients bomb shelter?
• 23:09
  What do mean by that?
• 23:10
  So I got that, or I thought about where I came up with this, is I was out to dinner with a Chuck Penzone, Charles Penzone, you know him.
• 23:22
  owns one of the largest salon groups in the US.
• 23:28
  And we were out to dinner and somehow we got on his lawyer or as an accountant, I know how it came up.
• 23:36
  I know how it came up.
• 23:37
  He brought it up.
• 23:38
  And he just said something to the effect that I hope he dies before I do.
• 23:43
  And I thought that was the oddest thing.
• 23:45
  I'm like, what, what do you mean?
• 23:48
  he said, I hope I die before my accountant does.
• 23:54
  And I thought that was so strange to hear.
• 23:57
  And I'm like, what do you mean?
• 23:58
  I don't know if I'd even send a card if my accountant died, right?
• 24:01
  And his exact words was, I don't make a decision without consulting with him first.
• 24:08
  And he says, if I was thinking about painting my office, corporate office, a different color, I would check with him first.
• 24:17
  And I'm pretty sure he doesn't know squat about interior design or paint or anything, but I know he knows someone that does.
• 24:25
  And when he said all that, I'm like, damn, I want my clients to think about me like that.
• 24:32
  I only know one thing, right?
• 24:33
  Two things, baseball and customer service.
• 24:36
  And you really don't want my advice about anything else, but I want you to think of me that I probably know someone that knows something about that.
• 24:46
  And so that's where I started to come up with the bomb shelter.
• 24:49
  Are your clients, are your CEO clients in, are you in their bomb shelter?
• 24:57
  And so I always say we have metaphorically two types of bomb shelters.
• 25:02
  and professional.
• 25:04
  Personal, if we think the world's ending tonight, I'm going to take my significant other and probably all three of my boys in that personal bomb shelter.
• 25:16
  It depends on the day.
• 25:17
  Right now, one of them, if it was today.
• 25:20
  So you take your spouse and your kids and yourself in that personal bomb shelter.
• 25:26
  But here's the trick with your professional bomb shelter.
• 25:29
  Your CEOs, your clients, professional bomb shelter, they only have room for two.
• 25:37
  Two partners.
• 25:39
  How sure are you that you have one of those two seats?
• 25:44
  Right, and if I think about, all right, if I had to start over tomorrow.
• 25:52
  and all my vendors were gone.
• 25:54
  I had to say, I'd find a banker easily.
• 25:58
  I'd found an accountant, a lawyer easily.
• 26:01
  But there's a couple people, not many, a couple that I'm like, oh my God, I could not live without.
• 26:06
  so that, it's like, what you have to be to be that trusted business partner that your client, your CEO, that's a client, can't fathom.
• 26:21
  life without you.
• 26:23
  How do get there?
• 26:26
  So.
• 26:28
  several things.
• 26:29
  Love what you do and make it obvious.
• 26:31
  And I don't know what percentage of people love what they do, but I don't think you're gonna be too successful if you don't.
• 26:36
  But a lot of us love what we do, but we forget to make it obvious.
• 26:40
  We go into, know, here's my 10-30, here's my 11-30, here's my, whatever.
• 26:45
  And you've met people in all walks of life, a few.
• 26:50
  that just, I don't care if they're selling you furniture or a car or whatever, they love what they do.
• 26:56
  it's like, you and I think we have to tell people, don't forget to tell people, I love, you know, helping people with this problem, right?
• 27:07
  You're stressed out about the problem, but I love, you know, because this is something that, you know, I just really enjoy.
• 27:13
  how I love doing this.
• 27:15
  And so it should be from your enthusiasm, but it doesn't mean you have to change your personality and be this, know, charismatic person if you're not, but how obvious if we
• 27:28
  surveyed your clients, you know, what would they rate you on an average of how enthusiastic and how much passion you have for what you do?
• 27:40
  Or are you just really smart at what you do?
• 27:43
  But I can't tell if you love it.
• 27:46
  You've been doing it a while.
• 27:47
  I'm not sure if you love it, but you can give me the right answer.
• 27:50
  I think we gravitate to people that really love what they do.
• 27:55
  versus are really smart at what they do, or you need to be both.
• 28:00
  we needed both.
• 28:02
  Yeah, I always needed to be both.
• 28:04
  Needed to be both.
• 28:07
  Yeah.
• 28:08
  Which is, yeah, your client should never meet anyone smarter than you at your job.
• 28:13
  That goes back to you have to remind them how smart you are.
• 28:16
  Not, Denise, I'm really smart, right?
• 28:20
  But have any answers at your fingertips, being proactive in sending you articles, podcasts, whatever's out there on things that will help your business.
• 28:32
  know, Denise, the last time we spoke,
• 28:34
  you told me and I think this article, this podcast, you'll really enjoy.
• 28:41
  Or I did research and I found some case studies or whatever that may be.
• 28:49
  You also say it's important to go ugly early.
• 28:53
  Yeah, start with bad news.
• 28:56
  I think it's human nature to not want to bring it up, hope the client doesn't bring it up.
• 29:04
  maybe deep down, know, subconsciously, or consciously, I think I'm going to bring it up, but because it never comes up, I got off that call and you didn't ask why the order's
• 29:16
  delayed or the price went up or whatever that is.
• 29:20
  Have you heard the expression, don't give a shit sandwich?
• 29:25
  is that like the nice ugly nice?
• 29:28
  did you lose weight?
• 29:29
  You look good.
• 29:31
  Then you slide in the bad news and then you follow up with the good, yeah, the thing.
• 29:38
  Open with it.
• 29:39
  Open with it, Denise.
• 29:41
  Unfortunately, boom.
• 29:43
  Be transparent, have empathy, and let's focus on how we can.
• 29:51
  You know, whatever, fix it, make it right.
• 29:53
  Help you bridge the gap until the order comes in, whatever that situation is.
• 29:57
  I think you got to be transparent and go ugly early instead of, and you got to teach your staff, especially, I believe the younger, that they aren't trained at having those
• 30:08
  difficult conversations.
• 30:11
  Ooh, well, I don't think there are a lot of people that are good with difficult conversations.
• 30:15
  That's a topic in itself.
• 30:17
  Yeah.
• 30:20
  Um, another one is be a resource broker.
• 30:24
  And that's going back to what Chuck Penzone talked about.
• 30:28
  whatever you're thinking of doing this year, want you to, you know, contact me first.
• 30:32
  Right.
• 30:33
  and I can't help you.
• 30:34
  I'm not trying to get, you know, more business out of you for that.
• 30:38
  Cause that's not what we do, but I'll find the top three people.
• 30:42
  You need a new accountant.
• 30:43
  I'm going to introduce you to three best accountants in your area.
• 30:47
  And now two people owe me, right?
• 30:49
  The client that I got him, a great whoever, and the accountant that I got him, new client.
• 30:58
  Well, I love that it shows that you care about both of them.
• 31:01
  You care about both their businesses.
• 31:03
  You're committed to seeing both of them succeed.
• 31:07
  Yeah.
• 31:08
  Which goes to another one.
• 31:10
  It's almost know that your client's top three goals for this year.
• 31:13
  And so maybe there's two things there.
• 31:18
  Top three goals on what you're doing for them.
• 31:21
  So in our world, what are your top three goals this year for client experience and employee experience?
• 31:27
  Obviously, that's not what I'm really talking about here.
• 31:30
  Know what your...
• 31:31
  and we're talking about C-level people, CEO, what is their top three goals as a business or as a CEO that's unrelated to what we do?
• 31:43
  And then, you know, help them get there.
• 31:46
  And again, not trying to expand our services, not something we could charge them for, but send them a great book, send them a great podcast, send them a great article, send them a
• 31:55
  case study, introduce them to the people that can help them achieve.
• 32:00
  that.
• 32:02
  How do you keep that on your radar when you have dozens of clients that you're working with?
• 32:08
  I mean, whatever your cadence is of meeting with them, that should come up annually.
• 32:14
  Yeah, I wouldn't be talking about what their top three goals outside of our scope is on a regular basis, but annually I would, and then see how I can help them achieve that.
• 32:27
  And it really demonstrates, obviously,
• 32:30
  their top three goals are their top, you know, is really important to them.
• 32:35
  So they're gonna, you know, love that you were a part of that.
• 32:42
  But it also demonstrates that it's just not about the business you give us.
• 32:48
  It's not about how we can get more out of you.
• 32:50
  I think we will, long-term, because we're doing that.
• 32:54
  But you told me this year that you needed, you you
• 32:59
  to improve your AI, let me introduce you, or a net promoter score tracking.
• 33:08
  Let me introduce you to the three best net promoter score companies, survey companies.
• 33:14
  We don't do that.
• 33:16
  We're going to help you improve your net promoter score, but we don't track the net promoter score.
• 33:22
  And you brought up getting more out of them.
• 33:26
  So I think this is an important one too, rather than selling to them, educating them.
• 33:34
  I mean, I think our best vendors and partners spend time educating you on the businesses that they work with or what they do and how they do it versus selling you.
• 33:46
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 33:48
  so that educate versus sell is just building the ticket.
• 33:52
  You call and you want a keynote, but we explore and see if we can turn you into a consulting client.
• 34:01
  And that's the nature of every business.
• 34:04
  That's the nature you bring your car in for oil change and you walk out of there with tire rotation and...
• 34:10
  you know, all the other things, right?
• 34:12
  And that's, you know, the nature of every business.
• 34:14
  But when you educate versus sell, that might mean taking things off the table.
• 34:20
  What's your goals with this keynote?
• 34:24
  We want to transform our customer service.
• 34:27
  And so, all right, so you're asking to have
• 34:32
  John or Dave or someone from the DiJulius group come in at your annual franchisees conference that you hold once a year and you have eight speakers that day and you think in
• 34:45
  a 45 minute keynote, that's gonna do it?
• 34:50
  That's not gonna do it.
• 34:52
  I mean, that just won't do it.
• 34:53
  Now, it's not necessarily an upsell.
• 34:57
  It might be instead of spending $25,000 on a keynote, send your chief experience officer to the customer experience executive academy, which is a master's degree in customer
• 35:08
  experience, make him or her an expert.
• 35:10
  And that's only 15,000.
• 35:11
  Or let's wait or take that $25,000 and have a better change your evening party from a DJ to a band.
• 35:20
  and you'll get more bang out of the buck than thinking that that keynote's gonna transform your customers.
• 35:27
  There's definitely value in keynotes, but you gotta make sure.
• 35:30
  sometimes it's taking things off the table and you're getting a smaller sale, but if it's in the best interest of the client, I think their lifetime value will be bigger.
• 35:43
  Now hang on, I've seen people hear your keynote and say, this has changed my life.
• 35:50
  Ha
• 35:53
  Yeah.
• 35:54
  I don't know if it's going to change a business's life.
• 35:56
  I mean, I believe it will to get people excited and rally, but I also know without anything extra that the company is going to do, with or without the DiJulius Group, it's
• 36:09
  deodorant.
• 36:09
  And the odor is going to come back if you do nothing else but think that one hour keynote is going to transform
• 36:18
  a company's customer experience with a limited number of people in the audience and all that.
• 36:26
  What else do you have that would make a customer not be able to imagine a world without you being in it?
• 36:35
  being as committed to their success, remembering what their success is and being as committed to it as they are.
• 36:46
  I know that's a little bit of a stretch, but demonstrating that you're as committed to their success as they are.
• 36:55
  And it doesn't always mean that you're going to get a bigger ticket, a bigger contract right now.
• 37:05
  We've always said this at one of our KPIs to a successful consulting project is that the project lead who we're dealing with, maybe that company's
• 37:19
  Project LEED, Future CXO gets promoted in the course of working with us.
• 37:24
  We made them look really, really good.
• 37:27
  That's why we've been fortunate that when a company gets sold or whatever and their CEO becomes the CEO at another company, they call us.
• 37:37
  We had great success with a company like ATI, physical therapy, worked with them for years, helped them a lot.
• 37:44
  And then they got bought and a lot of their C-suite people, for whatever reason, CEO, top, all became CEOs of other, and they've all, a lot of them hired us and brought us with
• 37:58
  them.
• 37:58
  Chris Harder.
• 37:59
  a CEO, he's been a CEO of a lot of different restaurant chains.
• 38:03
  Every restaurant chain he's gone to, he's brought us in.
• 38:06
  And I think it's things like that.
• 38:09
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the highest compliment.
• 38:12
  Did you have more to share with that?
• 38:15
  Just the ABCs of business have changed.
• 38:20
  How have they changed?
• 38:21
  Do remember what the old version of ABC of Business is?
• 38:25
  Always be closing.
• 38:26
  Yeah, do know what that's from?
• 38:28
  Glen Gary Glen Ross.
• 38:29
  I think you're old enough, yeah.
• 38:31
  And that cast, do you know, because I played the video in my presentations of, who's the main character?
• 38:39
  um No, no, no, the main character who says always, A, B, C of business, always B, closing, is the Baldwin, Alec Baldwin.
• 38:51
  But there's so many people in that, Lemon, what's his first name?
• 38:56
  Yeah, and I think, my God, I'm having a brain freeze.
• 39:00
  The good looking bald guy that was in the firm and...
• 39:08
  Houston, we have a problem.
• 39:12
  What's the Apollo 13?
• 39:17
  He's aged now.
• 39:18
  But anyway, that's the cast.
• 39:20
  It's no longer always be closing, it's always be connecting.
• 39:24
  Always be connecting.
• 39:25
  I think that's really important with teaching not only the new generation of employees and all that to make sure you're connecting, make sure you're listening, make sure it's not
• 39:36
  transactional.
• 39:38
  meeting today, a transactional interaction, doing your homework, following up all those things.
• 39:45
  Very good.
• 39:48
  I don't know.
• 39:49
  I wonder how AI will contribute to that.
• 39:52
  I think AI helps.
• 39:53
  think you could find out information quicker through the web.
• 39:58
  We used have to go to LinkedIn and say, who's this Denise Thompson?
• 40:01
  Where'd she graduate from?
• 40:03
  Where has she worked?
• 40:05
  Who's our mutual connections?
• 40:07
  I think AI probably will tell me that.
• 40:08
  If it doesn't already, could tell me in a second.
• 40:11
  So before we have a call, I could say, how do you know so-and-so?
• 40:17
  Isn't he a great guy?
• 40:18
  All those things.
• 40:21
  I think we should follow up with this on our next podcast in building connections and client meetings.
• 40:28
  Let's do that.
• 40:29
  So join us next time, revolutionaries, when we're going to be talking about building incredible connections and client meetings.
• 40:38
  All right.
• 40:38
  Thanks, Denise.
• 40:40
  Thanks, John.
• 40:40
  Have a great week.
• 40:50
  Hey, Revolutionaries, did you know that you can join John DiJulius live with his VP of Consulting, Dave Murray, to work on your toughest challenges?
• 41:00
  Coming up in September, we're going to address creating a recruitment experience, how to attract and hire the right talent for your business.
• 41:09
  As part of our live stream membership, you can join us quarterly.
• 41:13
  where we'll work with you live.
• 41:15
  Visit thedjuliusgroup.com forward slash membership for details and register.