Latest / The Action Catalyst / REMASTERED: Turning Ordinary to Extraordinary, with Mark Sanborn (Leadership, Customer Service, Sales, Author)

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REMASTERED: Turning Ordinary to Extraordinary, with Mark Sanborn (Leadership, Customer Service, Sales, Author) · The Action Catalyst

• 0:00
  Host: Are you in for an absolute treat, we have one of the
• 0:04
  world's most brilliant and premier thought leaders as a
• 0:08
  guest on today's show. Mark Sanborn is one of the world's
• 0:12
  most sought after experts in leadership and customer service.
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  Mark is in the professional speakers Hall of Fame. He's an
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  international best selling author of seven books, including
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  The New York Times bestseller, The Fred factor, which has sold
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  over a million copies worldwide. Mr. Mark Sanborn, thanks for
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  being with us.
• 0:29
  Mark Sanborn: Thank you, sir. appreciate the kind words.
• 0:31
  Host: Yeah, so tell us for those people who don't know who is
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  Fred, and why does he matter to us?
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  Mark Sanborn: Fred is a real life postal carrier here in
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  Denver, Colorado, who takes that ordinary job of putting mail in
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  a box and makes it truly extraordinary. I mean, the guy
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  is an artist at creating value for his postal route customers,
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  or relationship building, and just kind of reinventing what
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  most people would think would be a pretty dull or redundant or
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  dead end job. And the point of the matter is, is that if Fred
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  can reinvent delivering the mail, if he can take a very
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  simple job and make it extraordinary, then you're I
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  have no excuse for taking whatever work we do and adding
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  more to it and doing it differently so that it adds
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  value to the lives of the people around us. The premise of this
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  book is how do you keep that momentum going, you know, how do
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  you sustain it, when, in reality, you don't always get
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  appreciated or recognized or rewarded for doing a great job.
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  If we lived in a perfect world, maybe you would. But as I've
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  talked to people over the years, occasionally, they'll utter some
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  of the saddest words you'll ever hear. And those are the words I
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  used to somebody will say, Well, you know, I used to do that. But
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  then I got burnout, or I used to do that. But I got taken
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  advantage of. And I think so often people end up putting the
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  locus of responsibility outside themselves. But what I find is,
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  is that people that do the extraordinary, they don't do it
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  necessarily for recognition or compensation. That usually
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  follows it often does. But at the end of the day, you do it
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  because A, it's the right thing to do. Be because you can and
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  see because it ultimately enriches your own life. And
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  that's really what the Fred factor is about.
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  Host: One of the things that you you wrote about Mark, which I
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  love is called your signature difference.
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  Mark Sanborn: Well, we all have an opportunity to make a
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  positive difference every day. But the question is, are you
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  able to add your own unique signature to that difference you
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  make and what are the great examples is giving someone
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  encouragement is a difference that we're all pop, we're all
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  capable of making in the lives of those around us. But a man I
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  met many years ago named Fred Stork is a world class gardener
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  and he loves roses. So when he encourages somebody, he sends
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  him one of his award winning roses. Or if someone's facing a
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  difficult time, they'll send him a bouquet of his rose. And so he
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  adds that unique factor. I'm a gardener, I love roses, but I
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  also like to make a positive difference. So the question I
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  always ask people is, what is your unique factor? Where are
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  your talents and passions overlap with the job that you
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  do? So that you can add kind of a flourish that makes it unique
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  to you in the book, I talk about a restaurant owner, may Wiggins
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  who in in the Deep South, who hugs her customers now, you
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  know, not all of us could get away with hugging our customers.
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  But she's the kind of woman that just delights people with her
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  warmth and hospitality. So that's her signature difference.
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  Host: Sure, that is so powerful, just that uniqueness is nothing
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  other than where your talents and your passions overlap, where
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  they where they intersect, that leads to an elevated experience.
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  How do you know if you really hit the mark, of delivering an
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  elevated experience for your customers?
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  Mark Sanborn: In the book I talked about four ingredients,
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  but there's one that's key. And I say, first of all, you know,
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  any experience has to deliver value. The second thing and
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  elevated experience, AWS has an element of surprise. And it's a
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  good surprise, you know, it's not an unpleasant surprise, like
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  you expected, wait 10 minutes and waited an hour. But after
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  you've figured out a way to pleasantly surprise people, the
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  key is is that they leave happier. And I think in
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  business, we often look at what we did, and how the person
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  responded, but we missed the point. And that is an elevated
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  experience elevates your moods. So the NBA is a little bit
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  happier than you started the transaction or the interaction.
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  And when people leave happier, the great thing is an elevated
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  experience gets them to tell others and they don't just say,
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  you know, oh, here, here's a place that you might consider
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  when you need new tires. They say things like Man, you've got
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  to go to Bob tire you wouldn't believe what they do or in real
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  life. A Les Schwab Tire you know, Les Schwab has been a
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  client of mine. They know that one of their their signature
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  differences is they run out to greet you hear car, I mean they
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  literally run out to the parking lot and greet you before you get
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  out.
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  Host: That is so cool. I mean, it's such a simple idea but how,
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  like how warm and inviting so simple, I love it. So for
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  everyone listening What is one thing that you think that we
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  could do today to start implementing the power of Fred?
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  Mark Sanborn: Well, here's one simple idea, but it's very
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  powerful if you do it and that is when somebody makes a request
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  of you today, whether it's a colleague, or a customer or a
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  client, or maybe even your spouse and this works, you know,
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  at home because truth is transferable. Lots of people
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  read the book who don't have traditional marketplace jobs,
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  they still get value because they use these principles with
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  their their spouses and their their kids. That is practice
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  ABCD. Ask yourself, What can I do to go above and beyond the
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  call of duty? What's that little bit extra? If somebody asks you
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  for five minutes of your time, give him 10 minutes and go a
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  little more in depth. Somebody asked you how to get somewhere,
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  walk with him and show him.
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  Host: Mr. Mark Sanborn, thanks for being with us.
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  Mark Sanborn: Thank you, sir.