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Lift up your hands,  to praise Him,  to be held by Him, to receive more of Him.  There's nothing but Him.  So where's fear? What fear? There is none.  I Love you, nik  Support the show: ▶▶https://www.patreon.com/goodmornings _______________________ "I have found Love. Love has let Himself be seen." - St. Veronica Giuliani  "Love makes the heart leap and dance. Love makes it exult and be festive. Love makes it sing and be silent as it pleases. Love grants it rest and enables it to act. Love possesses it and gives it everything. Loves takes it over completely and dwells in it. But I am unable to say more because if wished to relate all the effects that my heart experiences in the act of going to Holy Communion and also at other times, I would never finish saying everything. It is sufficient to say that communion is a ...mansion of love itself."- St. Veronica Giuliani  Them: "Why do you always lift your hands up during worship?" Me: "Because that's what children do when they want to be held by their Father." - @amazinggracecoffee "From the rising of the sun to its setting the name of the Lord is to be praised." - Psalm 113:3 "My main goal in life is genuinely just have a good day. Five year plan? Have a good day. Plans for this week? Have a good day. Why I'm doing what I'm doing? Because I want to have a good day. It's all about having a good day. Nothing is as precious as the present moment. Neither the past nor the future. Therefore I will make sure to spend it having a good day." -@thepositivityplatform

John Livesay, aka The Pitch Whisperer, is an incredible keynote speaker. His TEDx talk: “Be The Lifeguard of Your Own Life” has over 1,000,000 views and was featured in Larry King's Show. He has an innate ability to motivate company's sales teams to turn mundane case studies into compelling case stories so they win more new business. From John's award-winning career at Conde Nast, he shares the lessons he learned. Best-selling author and creator of the online course “Revenue Rockstar Mastery.” He hosts his own Podcast “The Successful Pitch” heard in over 60 countries. John has a new book, The Sale Is in the Tale, is a business fable set in Austin, Texas, and he's about a sales representative whose old ways of selling are not working anymore.   Questions  • Now, John, could you share with us in your own words a little bit about your journey? How would you say that you got to where you are today? • What are the three techniques that you teach, or that you promote, believe in that will help sales representatives or sales professionals to be more customer oriented and be able to really drive the sale home? • Now, as a Revenue Rockstar Master, because you have this online course Revenue Rockstar Mastery, what are some things that you teach in this course to help people to master their revenue? • You have a new book out, it's called The Sale is in the Tale. Can you tell our audience a little bit about that book? • Could you also share with our listeners what is the one tool, website or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business? • Now, could you also share with us maybe one or two books that you've read recently, or even a book that you've read a very long time ago, but it has had a big impact on you? • Now, there's a lot more AI opportunities like platforms such as ChatGPT and Open AI. Are these tools that you believe for organisations, regardless of the industry, that these AI opportunities that are existing can help to propel sales in the business? Do you think it will probably even replace at some point the human interaction and storytelling? • What are three skills that you believe a sales professional needs in order to be successful? • Now, can you share with us as well what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people. • Do you have maybe one or two tips that you would give to our listeners as it relates to sales and customer service, just some golden nuggets based on your experience and all of the different things that you've garnered over the years? • Where can listeners find you online? • Do you have a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge you'll tend to revert to this quote if for any reason you get derailed or something happens, and you need to just use that quote to get refocused and just jump back on. Highlights  John's Journey John shared that he felt that he's always been motivated by connecting with people emotionally and that's where storytelling really comes in. He had a background working for an ad agency, creating commercials for movies when they were coming out on home video and that's really where he learned his storytelling skills and then selling multi-million-dollar mainframe computers against IBM, he learned that whoever told the best story is the one that got the sale, and that people buy emotionally and not logically.   Me: That is so true. It's funny is that people buy emotionally and not logically because I've been preaching that in customer service for ages that the customers emotions are so important to the experience, because it's what they walk away feeling, what they remember most not necessarily what you said, but more so the feeling that they walked away with?  So, can you share with our listeners, I'm sure you have way more experience than I do and you probably even have statistical data to backup this particular principle. Share a little bit about that, in terms of why is it that emotional has such a greater impact on the buying journey?    John shared that we're wired for storytelling. So, if you think back to the days of when we all lived in caves, we told stories like fire. Now, we typically tell stories around PowerPoints at events. He thinks part of the reason is that it taps into a different part of our brain, if you start presenting a bunch of facts and figures to somebody, then they're in this analytical, sometimes decision paralysis mode. But if you tell a story, it taps into a different part of our brain, where people will relax a little bit, they think, “Oh, this might even be entertaining.” And it allows them to retain the information in a completely different way and that solves a big problem because most people after they have a sales presentation, or even a customer service experience, whatever they said is forgettable. But if you told a story that makes people feel seen and heard, that makes you memorable.    Best Story-Telling Techniques to Get the Sale! Me: So, sales and customer service go hand in hand and I think more and more as businesses evolve, and they recognize that they're not two separate activities in a business and they really need to be combined in the best way possible. What are the three techniques that you teach, or that you promote, believe in that will help sales representatives or sales professionals to be more customer oriented and be able to really drive the sale home?   John shared that the premise is that whoever tells the best sale is the one that's going to get the sale. So, honing your storytelling skills, the three things he teaches people are that a good story should be Clear, Concise, and Compelling. So, let's break those down.  Why does it need to be clear? Because if you confuse people with a bunch of acronyms, they're not going to tell you they're confused, they're just going to say no, the confused mind just said, “I don't think so, too much work.”  Why does it need to be concise? Well, you want them to be able to remember and retell your story to other people to become your brand ambassadors. And if your story goes on and on and doesn't have a point to it and isn't concise, nobody can remember, let alone repeat it.  And finally, why does it need to be compelling? Because when you tug at those heartstrings, you get that all-important emotional connection that we talked about. People have to feel something in those stories, the stakes have to be high in order for us to care about what's going on in this story.   Me: So, John, can you tell us what's the best sales story you've heard that had all those three components?    John stated that he will tell a story about a client he worked with, they had a piece of equipment that was making surgeries go 30% faster and they would present that fact to doctors, and they would sell some, but not very many. And they kept saying, “It's so logical, why are they buying?” And he said, because people buy emotionally, not logically even when they're a doctor.  And so, he asked them questions, and they crafted this story that has totally changed how people perceive them and buy the product.  Imagine how happy Dr. Higgins was down at Long Beach Memorial using their equipment when you go out to the patient's family an hour earlier than expected. And if you've ever waited for somebody you love to come out of surgery, you know every minute feels like an hour, the doctor comes out and says, “Good news, the scope shows they don't have cancer, they're going to be fine.”  And then turns to the rep and says, “You know, this is why I became a doctor, for moments like this.” Now that rep tells us this story to another doctor at another hospital, and the secret here is the other doctor sees themselves in the story and says, “You know what, that's why I became a doctor, I want your equipment too.”   Me: Very good. I like examples because they definitely tie into the real part of the show.   Revenue Rockstar Mastery Online Course – what is this course about? Me: Now, as a Revenue Rockstar Master, because you have this online course Revenue Rockstar Mastery, what are some things that you teach in this course to help people to master their revenue?   John shared that one of the things he teaches what he just did there, which is a case story instead of a case study, and teach people how to tell a story that other people see themselves in.  When the client heard that story they said, “Oh gosh, that gives us chills. Not only are we not telling a story like that, it never occurred to us to make a patient's family a character in the story.”  And so, he teaches you how to figure out how to tell that story and how to pull people in, see how he uses that technique, “If you've ever had to wait for somebody you love.” And even if you haven't, you could imagine what it would feel like to wait for somebody you love to come out of surgery that it would feel like every minute was an hour. And so, there are some techniques that he teaches people, so they go from just being a good storyteller to a great one.   Me: And what if you have a sales professional whose storytelling is weak, like they've never communicated like that before. This is definitely like a learning curve for them that is extremely steep, it's not like they've had maybe a few techniques down pat, they just need to kind of craft it a little bit better but it's all new to them. And they're shy, they don't like talking to people very much, how do you lift them out of that?   John shared that it sounds like there's two challenges there. One, being shy, not talking to people is completely separate, maybe sales is not the career for you. But second, he gives people a structure on how to tell a story because the good news is, you don't have to be a gifted athlete or singer to become a good storyteller, there's an actual structure to it.   There's the exposition where you describe, you paint a picture and pull us into the story and then you describe a problem as he mentioned, there has to be some emotional hook there that people care about what's going on.  And then the solution and then the secret sauce is what is the resolution? What is life like for somebody after they've bought something from you or hired you?   Me: Because at the end of the day, every business is solving a problem. So I guess, if you can change the perspective of the story, where the benefit is to the person that you're trying to sell to, and as you mentioned, create an image or a story that they're able to see this problem being solved in the easiest way possible, then they're more inclined to want to make the purchase.   John agreed. And you don't have to be pushy. When you tell a great story that somebody sees themselves in, then they just want to go on the journey with you, you pull them into the story and you pull them into wanting to work with you. It's like landing a plane, it's that normal and expected.   About John's Book – The Sale is in the Tale John shared about his book The Sale is in the Tale, it's set in Austin where he lives. So, it's a little bit of a love letter to Austin. And it's a story about storytelling, so you're being entertained and going on a journey of somebody whose old ways of selling of just pushing out facts and figures isn't working anymore. And they start to learn about the power of storytelling and it helps them not only in their career but in their personal life too.   Me: And where can our listeners access that book? Is it available as yet?   John stated that yes, it's anywhere you buy books, Audible, he's narrating it or Amazon wherever you want to buy a book, you can find it.   App, Website or Tool that John Absolutely Can't Live Without in His Business When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without in his business, John stated that calendar scheduling, it's between time zones, so he just can't imagine going back and forth with five different emails or phone calls trying to book people that way or getting himself booked that way. Those calendar links are everything.   Me: Is there a particular calendar application that you use or just the regular one on your phone?   John shared that he uses something called schedule OnceHub.   Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on John When asked about books that have had a big impact, John shared that a book he read a long time ago, is Tim Sanders, The Likability Factor: How to Boost Your L-Factor and Achieve Your Life's Dreams. And he's done all this research on how the more likeable you are, the more empathy you connect with people. And doctors spend more time with patients they like, teachers spend more time with students they like. And so, it's a great book on how to up your likability factor.  And then he also wrote another one, more recently called Dealstorming: The Secret Weapon That Can Solve Your Toughest Sales Challenges instead of brainstorming, it's about dealstorming and how important it is to collaborate across divisions to get everybody on board to win business.   AI Replacing Human Interaction and Storytelling Me: Now, sales is one of those things in an organization that is the lifeline of the organisation, right? If the company doesn't sell anything, you can't make any money. And if they can't make any money, it cannot pay staff, it cannot reinvest, it just cannot continue. So, could you share with us, we're just emerging out of a pandemic, I know a lot of organizations definitely had to diversify and pivot and take on technology a lot more, especially if they didn't have it integrated into their business. Now, there's a lot more AI opportunities like platforms such as ChatGPT and Open AI.  Are these tools that you believe for organizations, regardless of the industry, that these AI opportunities that are existing can help to propel sales in the business? Do you think it will probably even replace at some point the human interaction and storytelling?   John shared that he doesn't think AI will ever replace the need for soft skills of storytelling, empathy and listening because what they can do is maybe help you write a proposal or a cover letter or a little faster than starting from scratch if you're someone that doesn't have that skill set innately honed in or worked on, but people are still going to want to buy from people is his prediction.   Skills that a Sales Professional Needs in Order to be Successful Me: And what are also let's see, three skills that a sales professional needs outside of the storytelling, the three C's that you had mentioned. What are three skills that you believe a sales professional needs in order to be successful? Because I believe people buy from people who they like and people who they know. And so, how do you get people to like you?   John stated that instead of getting people to know, like, and trust you, which that concept has been around forever. The problem with, “Oh, let me get you to know me” people think they should send more data and more facts. “Let me send you one more email about some data point.”  So, he's reversed that, and he says it's a gut heart head order, you have to start with trust in the gut. Is this safe? Is it a fight or flight? Is this email safe? The introduction he got that's a trust gets transferred, making eye contact. So, you start with trust, and then it moves up to the heart, which we talked about is where the likability factor is.  And the more empathy you show, the more likeable you are. And then finally, it goes to the head. And it's still not the time to get into the intellectual left-brain stuff. But you're answering by telling a story, the unspoken question everybody has when they hear you present or pitch anything, including yourself. Will this work for me? They might trust and even like you, but if they don't think what you're offering is going to work for them, they're not going to buy.   Me: Agreed, that makes sense for sure. So, you said that they need to like you and there's the heart component in terms of the empathy. And I've been asked the question quite a few times in some of my customer service training sessions, how do you teach someone to exercise empathy? Is that something that you touch on in your interactions with sales professionals?   John confirmed yes. An example is what's the difference between empathy and sympathy? Let's start there. Sympathy let's say you are a sales rep and you're walking in and you have an appointment and you see the receptionist has FedEx and UPS and the three phone lines ringing and two other people ahead of you. You could say, “Gosh, I'm sorry to bother you. But I have an appointment.” It's a little bit of sympathy maybe but empathy is you literally put yourself in their shoes. You go, “Wow, you must feel like an air traffic controller today, whenever you have a minute, let me know.”    Me: So, we focus on ensuring that we have more of those types of experiences then.   John affirmed Yes!   What John is Really Excited About Now! John shared that one of the things he's really excited about is he's crafted a new keynote talk called Tell Stories, Recruit Top Talent. And the Society of Human Resources has had him come speak and as well as Berkshire Hathaway Home Services. A lot of people are still struggling to find really good talent and they may be good at selling a home or selling whatever they do but they're not good at telling a story to recruit people to come work there.  And so, once they learn how to tell a story about what the culture is, and what it's like to work with them as a leader, and what stories of other people who've come on board, and how happy they are, then that totally allows them to get the top talent, typically from competitors to come work there.   Me: Is this like in an application or is it more through a website?   John stated that it's neither. It's something that people hire him to come speak at their sales meetings.   Me: Oh, so you're going in physically?   John shared that that's what he does for a living, people hire him to come speak at their sales kick-off meetings, typically on how to tell stories to win sales. And now they realize that HR is a sales function as well.   Me: Very true, because you want to recruit the right persons. And I find with customer service, as well, John, that if you can focus on getting the right people, it will mitigate a lot of the customer service issues that you have in the future. Have you found that for sales as well, if you get the right person to sell, because the hiring process is quite expensive, it's time consuming.   John stated that you want to develop relationships with people that you sell, so that they either buy from you again and/or send you referrals. And so, if you have a salesperson that knows how to do that, then they're not starting from scratch every day to try and find a new sale.   Tips as it Relates to Sales and Customer Service for 2023 Me: So, we're almost halfway through 2023. Do you have maybe one or two tips that you would give to our listeners as it relates to sales and customer service, just some golden nuggets based on your experience and all of the different things that you've garnered over the years?   John shared that one of the things that salespeople struggle with is they get stuck in what he calls the friend zone at work when someone says, “Oh, I'm interested, send me some information” and then they get ghosted, just like when you're in the dating world. And so, He thinks one of the key things to do is to realize that it's up to you to tell a story to intrigue people enough to want to continue the conversation and not get stuck at the friend zone at work.  And so, that's why storytelling is so crucial to continuing that path and also really allowing people to go at the pace that works best for them. One of the he thinks the worst things he's ever seen somebody in customer service do is, “Well, we've never had anybody else complain about this.”  When you say that to somebody, you've invalidated their experience and their feelings, they don't really care, “So what, I'm the first person to ever have a problem with this. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't fix it.” And a lot of customer service people like to say that to people, “Oh, wow, this has never happened before.” If he's a customer, he doesn't care it's ever happened before, it happened to him fix it.   Me: Agreed. That kind of dovetails into my next question. So, I know that your expertise is to go in and pitch to these organizations how to tell a story especially to sell. But let's say for example, you had to go into an organization to teach them.   Well, you wouldn't be really teaching them to pitch but let's say you're trying to get them to convince them to purchase a programme that will help to improve on their service. Because I find a lot of times with organizations buying the product is one but if the product requires a high level of maintenance from the organization, that's where it falls off.  I hear it a lot in Jamaica, you buy a car, the sales rep was running you down to buy the car and now you have the vehicle and you have an issues with it. Maybe something came on the dashboard, you can't get the sales rep, you can't get support at the dealership. How do you get them to that point where they recognize that the service is just as important as the sale because if the person doesn't choose to renew or buy a car again in five years, you practically lost that first sale.   John shared that he thinks it goes back to painting a picture again, telling a story of what happens if you don't have the service, like, “Do you need this warranty? I don't think so. Well, let me tell you a story of somebody who felt the same way that you did right now. And then six months later, something happened and versus a story of someone who did get the warranty and how grateful and happy they are they have it.  So, you have to paint that picture of what happens if you don't do what I'm suggesting versus what happens if you do do what I'm suggesting, and what you're really selling his peace of mind.   Where Can We Find John Online LinkedIn – John Livesay Instagram - @thepitchwhisperer Website – www.johnlivesay.com             Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity John Uses When asked about a quote that he tends to revert to, John shared that it's a quote from Arthur Ashe, the famous tennis pro, he said, “The key to success is confidence. And the key to confidence is preparation.” So, anytime he feels concerned about something or overwhelmed, he realizes he has to think of himself like an athlete. And they practice, practice, practice before they get to the Olympics. And he needs to make sure that he's as prepared as possible for any new situation when it comes up.   Me: Thank you so much, John, for hopping on to Navigating the Customer Experience, sharing all of these great insights as it relates to sales, customer service, some of the key things that you need to be a great storyteller, why it's important to create that picture, create that situation so you can change the perspective of the person that you're trying to sell to. And even in a customer service situation as you said, create that feeling that they walk away feeling good and they can't walk away feeling good if the narrative that you're selling is not one that's giving them that feeling. So, your message was definitely well heard by me, I hope the listeners will get value out of it as well.   Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest Links ·  The Sale is in the Tale by John Livesay ·  The Likeability Factor: How to Boost Your L-Factor and Achieve Your Life's Dreams by Tim Sanders ·  Dealstorming: The Secret Weapon That Can Solve Your Toughest Sales Challenges by Tim Sanders The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners  Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience.” The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience! The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience Webinar – New Date Register Here    

Donna wants to tell you that you were designed for greatness. Don't let the pain and disappointments of life define you. If you let them, they will make you a victim. Instead, focus on how powerful and talented you are. You possess an inner strength that is only waiting to be tapped into. You have been given a gift from above that can change your life for the better. Seek out an answer to the great question: "who am I? Connect with Donna today! https://www.ivibrantliving.com/ Transcript below is machine edited by otter.ai Donna Tashjian 1:53 Oh, that's a big question. Unknown Speaker 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general appear so limited in this process? Rest assured, you are not alone. The world is slowly waking up to what you already know inside yet can't quite verbalize. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the questions you never even knew to ask, but knew the answers to questions about you this world the people in it? And most importantly, how do I proceed now moving forward? We don't have all the answers but we sure do love living in the question. Time for another head of spiritual dub with your host Brandon Handley. Let's get right into today's episode. Brandon Handley 0:40 Hey there spiritual dope. I'm on here today with Donna task Jen. She is an empowering Life Mastery coach, she is down to earth inspirational speaker that has been speaking for over 20 years. She is the founder vibrant living international author and host of the you were designed for greatness podcast. She's been married to her wonderful husband for over 36 years, mother to three and grandmother. She loves flowers time in nature, and you will always see her with a cup of tea was you have a cup of tea there right now? I do. She has a passion to help you reach your full potential. So Donna, thanks for being on here today. By we're able to connect. I usually like me to usually like to start these off with the whole idea that um, you and I, you know, we're vessels for Source Energy, right that uh, you know, the you know, that whatever messages coming through on this podcast today with the conversation you and I have you and I will hear that. But like somebody on the other side, somebody listening and tuning in is going to get a message that they need to receive. And it can be delivered through you through this podcast in this moment. What is that message? Donna Tashjian 1:56 Um, the main point that it's what my podcast name is, is helping people know they were designed for greatness and really stepping in and walking in that. Yeah, that's the main thing I want people to know. It was just Brandon Handley 2:13 so I mean, what does that look like for you? How did you? Let's kind of walk our way to that. How did you come to find yourself to even recognize that for yourself? And then how did you and we'll move forward from there? Donna Tashjian 2:26 Yeah, the way my journey began, is really a pain point. As far as starting back, when I was 14, someone hurt me and I became pregnant. And so at the age of 15, I had a little girl, and I raised her. And so there was a lot of times where I was alone, there was no one else to rely on. And all I had was my faith. And that's where in that pain moment is when things really began to have. I built my foundation, I'll put it that way, to being able to learn how to trust in God and my spiritual walk and learning how to create who I was really designed to be. Through that process, there was all kinds of labels that are put on us and I had them all kinds of labels we put on ourselves. And all through that processes, like who am I really and learning how to discover who we really are. So that and that is a journey, who we are in our 20s is different than who we are in our 30s and so forth. And it's it's a journey as you discover who you really are and the gift you are to the world. Yeah. Brandon Handley 4:06 Yeah, the the whole idea of, you know, it sounds to me like you had faith at a young age. Is that Is that true? I did. So that faith was Christianity was something else. It Donna Tashjian 4:19 was Christianity, it was Christianity. Yes. And Brandon Handley 4:23 do Lean you really leaned into that, with the pain that you were going through? Sounds like it doesn't sound like you had a whole lot of other. I don't want to say it doesn't sound like you didn't have other support, but it sounded like that was what you relied on the most. Donna Tashjian 4:38 Yes, there wasn't a lot of support. And yes, it was something that I relied on that. And as I have gone forward is is learning that how to make sense out of tragedy. One of my programs that I work with some of them My clients is called Turning your baggage into luggage. And so how to make sense out of the pain and our disappointments in our life? How do we have them because I talk about making them become luggage so that you can create the life you dreamed. And so some of the worst days of my life have brought me to wonderful, incredible places that I wouldn't have had, without those painful moments and learning how to understand that. I mean, it doesn't take, to me anyway, it doesn't take much to see that there's something bigger than us at work. I couldn't I mean, the human body in itself, in all of its magnificence, it couldn't have just happened. That's my belief. And so learning that there is something bigger at work, and through all of the things that happen to our life, there can be something good out of it, if you look for it, Brandon Handley 6:05 for sure, but you know, I think that even you, you may agree, right? That if you go back to your 1516 year old self, and you're in all this pain, sometimes when you're in the midst of it, and you haven't had a bunch of life experience, for sure, then you could definitely crumble and fall and you know, you don't see the you don't see those lessons sometimes when you're in it. Right. I think that that can be a real challenge for us as as you and I can see I you see the lessons in the tragedy, you see the light and somebody is in the middle of the tragedy. Yeah. How do you before we can go there? I want to just, you know, Yeah, agreed, right? It's something bigger than URI. Some is at play here, the human body doing what it does, I always make the statement that if you, you don't know how to make your own blood, you don't know how to grow your own hair, you don't all these things that you're you are doing from within? Donna Tashjian 7:04 You can't make yourself breathe either. Brandon Handley 7:07 Right? Right. So I mean, these are things you go to sleep and like, I wouldn't trust myself to do something else with it play. Something else is a play. And, and even that, like the trillions of trillions of different parts, and I have a challenge sometimes, you know, pulling three pieces like eggs, toast and cheese and making a sandwich out of it, you know, and so imagine what it really takes to make all of this work the way that it does. That's great. Absolutely. I think it's a great point. So I mean, I want to I want to hit on that. What are some of the tools that you will so you find you find yourself, you know, you got you have these tragic moments, you rely on your faith where you know, where along the path? Do you begin to see yourself as having this greatness to explore and share? Donna Tashjian 7:56 I think it was, I think for me, it was an ongoing journey to know that there was that there was something that more than I than I could see at the moment that there was something bigger there. I think that's been a journey to be able to discover. And I know I know that at that age, and in through my years, I would not have articulated it, that I was designed for greatness. But I had this knowing that there was something bigger for me to do. And not sure how exactly to get there. The way that I articulate it today, of course, is not the what I would have said in the middle of the moment, I just knew that there was more. And there was also this feeling is blaming on my hair color, perhaps but I'm going to prove you wrong. And lowing that might have been a blonde. Yeah. Brandon Handley 8:59 I mean, look, I get it right I absolutely the ongoing journey and not being able to express this connection and this feeling in the sense that you know that there's something greater out there. And my guess is as you're kind of coming along through your life, it's like you couldn't even really put a finger on it. Right? And regardless of whether or not you know, that is there is where do you feel like you first really began to be able to put a finger on it, so that you were able to begin to express it and what did that look like? Donna Tashjian 9:37 I have done quite a few different things in my life that I think we're building to the place that I am today. But vibrant living and the being a Life Mastery coach in this capacity is when I began to really realize it and that wasn't till I that I would articulate it this way was about 10 years. ago. So it hasn't really been I, I've always had this knowing that there was something but I didn't know what and when I began to be able to put a plan to it and strategy to it that I began to really realize the magnitude of how we were designed for greatness. And my greatness doesn't look like yours. It looks like me and me being me is actually what's so great. It's learning how to be who we are, without having to have people approve of us or having worrying about our performance, or worrying about all of that. It's just being who you are with the gifts because you are important. And so learning to be able to articulate that in a way as hell and help others is my sweet spot. Brandon Handley 11:00 I love that the you know, the idea was, first of all right, 10 years ago, I mean, that's fair, fairly decent amount of time that you've been doing this now this work, right, and kind of uncovering it and developing this Life Mastery coach, aspect. And I think that that's a, it's a long journey. Right now, to your point, you, you spent most of your life working your way up to there. And as you step into this space, you begin to understand that there's so much that you have to uncover, right, these tragedies that you talked about being able to look at them as lessons later. What, what got you what was said to you, what was it that said to you, hey, I want to get into coaching. I mean, Donna Tashjian 11:44 well, I have always had it before, I would have called it mentoring. I've been doing that for over 20 years. So there's always been that capacity there. But it wasn't full time. It was stuff that I was doing on the side. And so my it was one of those moments when I said, What do I want to do now that I'm all grown up? What would I really love to do. And I had started a job at a nonprofit organization, which I worked at a lot of them started on my own, and thought that that would be the avenue to do the thing. But it was actually limiting. And now that I look back at it, but I had put all my eggs in that basket thinking it would be great. And me and the management did not get along, after a while. And so I was I was let go from that job. And so it was a moment of what do I really want to do. And so I did some deep soul searching. And that's when vibrant living, the clarity of the vision of coaching and helping people to step into their greatness to leave the pain and disappointment of the past behind and create the life they've always dreamed was born. Brandon Handley 13:01 So it's almost like there was a moment in there where he doesn't sound like you were fired, but doesn't sound like the job was extended for an ongoing length of time. Right? So there was a moment right there where you felt like you were in a place to serve and benefit others in this in this organization. And having that taken away. Again, this is an area where a lot of people could easily kind of shut down and and give up. Right? What was it? You know, in the question, line of questioning that you took to yourself what I really want what made you even want to continue to go forward and continue to serve what was? Donna Tashjian 13:41 Well, there was a period of time where I was on the floor, so to speak, you know, it's like the rug has been pulled out from me. I doubted my value, all of the things that we do when those kinds of things happen is just wondering, What am I going to do and all of that. But it goes back to my faith again, because that's I went back to God and talk to him about it. And that's where I got my direction. And it wasn't a moment it was little steps. What about this? And what about that, and I just follow the steps. And just because I didn't know coaching was a thing 10 years ago. To me, it was a football coach. It was what I pictured when you said the word coach, and I'm like, I am not that I will not scream at you. I will not do that. And so I didn't even know it was quote a thing. So it was a journey of step by step as I talked to God about what I should do next. Because ultimately, even when we're doing the self doubt that I don't have worth and that inner critic stuff that goes on. There's a part of us that knows that's not true. There's a part of us that knows there's something more than that. And so that's what I followed. And that's how I got here. Brandon Handley 15:05 Let's talk about even listening to that, listening to the eating the small steps, right? Taking those small steps listening to your, you know, listening to God slash, I think a lot of the people that would tune in we call it like your inner guidance, your intuition, following your bliss, what, what gave you the strength to follow that? Right or not know, the strength is the right word. But I think you get what I'm saying? Donna Tashjian 15:37 I, I think so, um, there is our intuition, as you say it, I agree with intuition, it's a place that I believe God speaks to us. And people call it different things. Um, but I, I like, in my strength to coming from him, it's more than intuition. And for me, so that was a knowing and like I said, even though that there's the self doubt, we know, I believe we know there's something more for us, something that pulls, pulling us forward. It's bigger than us. Because everyone has something, an impact that they make, and it doesn't have to be what I'm doing, or you're doing, it's whatever they need to be doing. That's in their heart. So I, that's, that's where my strength come from. I know where my strength comes from. Brandon Handley 16:34 Yeah, I mean, it sounds like you don't have a doubt now. So when you decided that, hey, I'm gonna do this vibrant living bit, I'm gonna go ahead and move forward into it. And I'm stepping into my greatness. I'm helping others do the same. What was the reaction, say, of your family, people that were close to you? around that. Donna Tashjian 16:57 Um, most of the people that were there around me the family is it's about time. You know, most people had saw that in we my daughter said, who is an adult now? said, Mom, there was always women sitting on the couch crying, and you are helping them. And that was one of her earlier memories, so that anybody that really knew me, it did surprise them less than it did me. Oh, what? What I had stepped into with this. Brandon Handley 17:30 That's awesome. So is great sound sounds like there was some support there? Yes. And what about I always think about the idea of kind of stepping into this kind of work. And following your spiritual guidance, your guidance from God can be scary and intimidating for some was there any fear in in? Yeah, I mean, let's talk about that and get in passing through it. Donna Tashjian 17:57 Oh, yeah. There's a constant feeling of what if this doesn't work. And wondering of being afraid of failure, afraid of, I guess not working is the best way I know how to describe it. And the one of the ways that got me through it is I got a coach to be able to help Brandon Handley 18:21 you. You're a coach and you had a coach. Donna Tashjian 18:25 If you have a coach and they don't have a coach, you need to change coaches Brandon Handley 18:29 figure that out for sure. For sure. Donna Tashjian 18:31 Everyone needs someone speaking into their life, and I got a coach that be a to be able to help me see what I couldn't see. That's one of the things that coach does is help you change your perspectives and help you see what you can't see. One of the best advice I got from my coach was to get up every day and proceed as if success was inevitable. When it didn't look like it would work when it didn't look like you knew what you were doing. I don't know how to do this. I've never done this before. All of that stuff, when you start something new, was to get up every day and proceeded as success was inevitable. And that phrase, will there was others. But that particular phrase every day I did that. Now there'll be a couple of days that I wanted to stay in bed because I wouldn't think it wouldn't work. But almost every day, that was my choice to choose to believe it would work. That in itself brings a different outcome. So that's one of the best things is that get a coach Brandon Handley 19:33 for a good coach. And and I love the idea to have Joe act as if, yes, I'm going to act as if right just kind of success is inevitable. You're just walking your path, and as you said, trying to figure it out. Look, I don't know about you. I don't I don't pretend to believe or know that I've had a past life so that I know what to do with this one. This You know, for all intents and purposes, this is my first go round. So I'm doing my best. And you know, I think that if it comes to starting anyone bevor Devere, like you've done with vibrant living. You've made it this far, so why not? Donna Tashjian 20:15 Yeah. All right. It didn't always look like it looks today, you know, when you're starting out, you know, Will anybody hire me as a coach? Those kind of feelings are always there. And, you know, what, if it's a problem that I don't know how to handle, or whatever it's it gets to be it can be scary anytime you start a new endeavor, but it doesn't, it doesn't look like that today. Brandon Handley 20:40 Turned out. So I got to imagine that you did a little bit of let go and let God in your life, what's that look like for you? Donna Tashjian 20:52 Let go and let God I'm the difference between having to control everything. And that is actually for me, at least when I want to control everything, it's because of fear. And, therefore, when I am trying to fix everything and, and make everything work the way I think it should, that's fear based. And that doesn't have a very good outcome when we make decisions from that place. But let go and let God is doing the best that I can with what I can do and and leave the rest to him. That's what it means to me. Brandon Handley 21:32 I like that. I like that. Definitely curious because again, you've got a, a deep a deep faith and what you're doing. So when you're when you're teaching these people, when you're teaching your clients how to, you know, create luggage, what is it, let's walk through some of what that might look like. Let's say for example, I've got some baggage and I want to create it in luggage, walk me through me walk me through the process. Donna Tashjian 21:59 Alright, well, this isn't going to be done in the next couple minutes, just so you know that. But one of the steps is I alluded to before is I call it building our understanding muscle. And that is is that in any adversity, there is a gift. I call them gifts wrapped in sandpaper, baggage thinking when something adversity happens is this isn't fair. This isn't right. This isn't just somebody needs to pay. That's baggage thinking. And when you're thinking that you get stuck in the baggage to repackage it into luggage, you begin to say, I can't change it, it happened. I'm going to use it to grow and become the best me I can be. So the first step is a gift wrapped in sandpaper. The second is learning to get support. The third is having compassion and forgiveness for others. that forgiveness is part of setting yourself free. So those are three steps to be able to build your understanding muscle. And that's one of the things simply and those could be talked about for a little while. Brandon Handley 23:15 Yeah, I mean, first of all the visual of gifts being wrapped in sandpaper, not as visual, I can feel it. Right. I'm like that. Yeah, it's the it's not even like the fine grain. It's, it's the stuff that will cut you if you don't handle it properly. Kind of sandpaper. Right? Donna Tashjian 23:29 Right. Right. Brandon Handley 23:33 And the idea of compassion and forgiveness and forgiveness so that you can, you know, set yourself free. I think that there's a misconception of what freedom is. And I think in this context, when you're setting people free, what would you say you're helping them to do? What are you setting them free of? Donna Tashjian 23:58 Well, when you say freedom, what are you thinking? Brandon Handley 24:02 I think these days, I'm thinking freedom from? In my own mind, right, like, letting my own internal bondages go and just, you know, recognizing something as self limiting, recognizing that I'm the person who wrapped the gift and sandpaper. Right? And so when I think that other people may think of freedom as like, Will I want to go out and do the things I want to do I want to be able to, you know, buy beer at 18 instead of 21 This isn't right I don't feel free I want to be liberated. And that's that's one type of freedom but I think that the the true freedom that you're teaching, at least my perspective would be is teaching people how to free their minds and their hearts. Donna Tashjian 24:57 Yeah, What that's what forgiveness does. One of the people that we often need to forgive is ourself. When we've gone through things, somehow we blame ourselves, we're very hard on ourselves. And when when we begin to forgive ourselves, it causes our eyes, if you will, to lift off of our feet, if you can look at that kind of picture person that's down, and they're looking at their feet, and you lift your eyes up, and you begin to know that this is not, this is a chapter in my book, not the whole book. And not to let it be that whole book. But freedom really is eternal in internal, not external. And if you I can't remember the man, he was a writer from he was in the Nazi concentration camps. And he talked about the freedom that Victor for Yes, yes, that quote that I'm going to misquote but you get the idea that, you know, the freedom is actually internal. And you can be free and, and he, in his estimation, inside the Nazi prison, he was, they couldn't take that away from him. But if he had held unforgiveness, he would have had that weight, and he would not have been as free. Forgiveness is a huge subject. And it means a lot of different things for a lot of different people. And I spend a lot of time helping people understand what that really is, and how that really works. But the biggest point I want to make is, is that you begin to look for something good in the midst of things, it lifts your eyes up, it changes the way your outcome is, because I'm no longer for me, I describe it as my pity party, where I'm feeling sorry for myself. And that doesn't get us anywhere. Winston Churchill, Churchill had a quote, for God's sake, if you're going through hell, for God's sake, keep going. And a lot of times we camp out in our disappointment, we build a tent, we build a house, and we're just going to stay here because this wasn't right. But it wasn't meant to be that way. Journey Through it, not stay in it. Brandon Handley 27:15 Yeah, that's fantastic. The right if you're, if you're in helps keep on going. Who wants to a lot, but you know, a lot of people, I think they feel like they've got to fight that fight. They've got to stay there. There's something for them to write by. And they feel vindicated by by saying they're in that space. And it's almost like a badge of honor. I'm in hell, nobody cares. I'm in hell. Right? Well keep your exits coming up. And keep them going. What is uh, you know, what's top of mind for you right now is like, kind of COVID going through what's your clients? You know, how's your client? Tell Ben through COVID? What are you seeing is helping people to get through this period right now. Donna Tashjian 28:01 Um, the main thing that COVID has done as far as what I'm involved in is it made people seek help that might not have before. But I personally is for in and there's been a lot of loss, not just necessarily life, but life changes that have occurred. And grief is a is definitely something that shows up to help people look through and work through. So that's probably the main areas of loss Ignis, it doesn't necessarily mean people have lost jobs, and people have lost what they consider freedom, and all kinds of situations for them to be able to move how learn how to move through that. And the other thing that has stuck for some of the people I've talked to is, they can get set if I'm not a fan of the news, because there's no good news. But if you watch that kind of thing, you can get stuck in hopelessness and fear. And so helping people to rise above that. Brandon Handley 29:11 Yeah, that's a big one. Do you advise that they turn the news off? Donna Tashjian 29:17 If it's causing them severe anxiety? Yes, absolutely. Brandon Handley 29:22 What's the typical reaction to something like that? Donna Tashjian 29:25 Most the time, they agree with me. If there's other ways of finding out what's going on, then sitting hours watching the news. Yeah, you don't need to do that to find out what you need to know to stay current. Sure. And so there's other means to do that. Brandon Handley 29:42 What do you recommend to to stay current for people that aren't going to watch the news? Donna Tashjian 29:48 There's different online outlets where you can read the captions to be able to do that. And if there's anything big going on there, friends, let them know Brandon Handley 30:00 I was curious. I mean, I think I heard maybe first through Tim Ferriss and not necessarily, you know, Tim Ferriss, you know, but the whole idea that once you turn the news off, now you've got like this great conversation, because your friends will come out and be like, did you hear about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? Like, I didn't tell me all about it. That's, now you've got now you've got a conversation, but Donna Tashjian 30:23 he will tell you, that is for sure. If there's something that you really need to know, somebody will tell you. Brandon Handley 30:31 For sure. What is I mean, is there something that what is something that maybe we haven't touched on so far that you'd want to share with our audience today? Donna Tashjian 30:44 I don't know, if there's anything else I've hit the most important parts is having them real look for the gift in situations to keep their eyes up to get support and help we're not meant to do this alone. And for me, I would encourage you to strengthen your faith, you know, strengthen that part of your life to be able to get through it. So those are some things for sure. Brandon Handley 31:15 I mean, I agree with that 100%, you know, find find that something bigger, greater in your life that we know exists, give it a name, whatever you feel like you need to and lean into that there's something there's something really in there was talking about the let go and let God thing earlier for me. You know, I devised a way where it made sense for me in my mind, and like, the weight fell right off, it was amazing. I was like, like, oh, wait, this, this makes sense. And so I think that that's super powerful to share. One of the things that I guess I'd love to touch on though, too, is is sharing kind of the benefits of connecting with spirituality and source and your greater self. What does that look like in action? Right? I mean, because I'm sure you've run into the occasional person who just doesn't see it yet, and can't feel it yet that just says, Well, that sounds great and ideal, but what's that? How's that going to help me? You know, with my day job? Donna Tashjian 32:19 So your question is, is how do we connect with God? Brandon Handley 32:22 The question is, you know, we're talking this ideal life that's available, right? This this, we're talking, stuffing into your greatness. We're talking, you know, accepting, accepting that we are great, and we've got these gifts to share. Okay. How do you help the person that just isn't seeing that yet, right? The the person's like, oh, yeah, but you still got to, you know, pay the bills, you still got to do the whatever, you still got to do some other working, you know, you don't just become great, just because you said so Donna. Donna Tashjian 32:56 I love that question. Um, I'm glad I asked what exactly you meant. Um, the, the key to it all is remember what we said freedom was, its internal. And so when I, when I have someone who feels hopeless, which is kind of what you were describing, I'm stuck in this dead end job. I don't feel great. I don't feel like I'm accomplishing anything. I don't know that I really even matter, perhaps. And helping them work on their internal beliefs and mindset would be the first step. Because you can't see. It's like, the world looks flat, I can't see what I can't see. And from where my perspective is, it's flat. That's what the world is. And so that just because that's all you can see, doesn't mean that's all there is. It's just what you can see right now. So what I help people do is to see more to be able to see the round of the Earth, so that they can see that there is more than your dead end job as you put it, or whatever limiting things that you feel like you're in your life, there's more to see. And I would help you see that that's what a coach does is help you see what you can't see yet. Brandon Handley 34:14 Thanks. Now, like I said, it's one of those I know that I've run up against it. And people, you know, the it's a challenge, right to just try and help them to understand, was it gonna help them do? Right? What, what exactly is it you're gonna help them do? So thank you for clarifying that for me. So, we're in a little spot of the podcast where I like to kind of think about what this is, is spiritual speed dating, right? Like there's somebody out there who's looking for their next spiritual hookup, as it were. And I have a question or two, I'm gonna go ahead and ask you along that line down. So okay. Spiritual Bachelorette number one. Why are so many people depressed? Donna Tashjian 34:59 Me Because what they're focusing on? Brandon Handley 35:03 What do you mean by that? Yeah. What do you mean by that? Donna Tashjian 35:07 Whatever you focus on you magnify whatever you focus on, you multiply. If I'm focusing on the lack that's in my life, anyone could be 15 minutes away from depression, if you start focusing on what's wrong in your life, your life is always filled with good and bad. Let's look at our neighborhood, there's good parts of our city. And there's parts it's not, there's great things about those jobs. And there's things that you don't like, in the house, you live you like this, but you don't like that. There's always a mixture of good things that we enjoy or we prefer, and things that we would prefer not. It's wherever you put your focus, that's what you're going to magnify and multiply in your life. So if you are, and the other thing is your focus also creates emotions, we think emotions just happen. But they happen by what I'm focusing on. So if I'm focusing on the negative and the lack of my life, I'm going to have negative emotions. If I choose to focus on what the blessings are in my life, finding things to be thankful for, and grateful for, that's the quickest way to pull you out of a depression or anxiety. Brandon Handley 36:18 Thought it sounds like you're saying I might feel to control my emotions, Donna Tashjian 36:22 just a bit. And I talked to women. So you know, I've got there's even more emotions we do is we do have more emotions. Yes. And I will, I will say it. And so teaching women, how not to be ruled by are my emotions, I can actually control them and rule them as well. Now, there are some chemical things going on in women's body that are different. I'm not going there. I'm just generalizing that where I put my focus, my feelings will follow that Brandon Handley 36:53 I think that's a great point. A lot of times we feel like, our emotions come before our thoughts, right, and what we're focusing on, but what you're saying again, here is that what you focus on what you're thinking about is what can help to drive those emotions. Donna Tashjian 37:08 Yes, absolutely. Brandon Handley 37:10 So let's try what are we also afraid of? Donna Tashjian 37:22 I think the most thing that if we really got down to are afraid of not belonging and being loved is probably one of the main things and the other things is I don't I want to matter, I want to somehow matter. And so I think that's probably the main thing. We want to be belong and be loved and matter. Brandon Handley 37:44 Yeah, that's I mean, that's, that's a big one. We want to feel like we're significant in some way, right? We're seeing for our contributions and the kind of like the truth of who we are, we want our greatness shining through. And sometimes we don't, may not feel like that it is and that can cause us to kind of definitely be upset and afraid to make the next step. Nobody's seen the the greatness is I'm contributing, nobody's seeing, you know, you know, the truth of who I am. And that can that can definitely make you afraid to step forward. So thought, who would you say is your ideal client? Right now? Donna Tashjian 38:25 My ideal client and I, I coach women. So that's first criteria. And the ideal client is someone who has had a painful past and disappointments. And they're feeling like they're stuck there. They just kind of keep showing up and they want them they want to move forward and create a life they've always dreamed that would be I wanted to make a comment about greatness since I've said that a lot of thought came to me with the last couple of comments you said, is a lot of times we think greatness is grandiose. And the most important thing that I want to get this across is greatness is just being you. That is great. And I wrote a blog, I'm probably not the first one to say it, but small hinges move big doors. Sometimes the small, we could change the world if everyone was kind, just being kind, it could transform our whole world. So it doesn't mean great doesn't mean grandiose necessarily, but just be you authentically, you can be kind it changes everything. Brandon Handley 39:42 That's a great it's a great point. I remember years ago when I first felt like I was quote, unquote, stepping into my greatness, just feeling all of who I am. Right. And that was it. It wasn't anything bigger or greater to just me Feeling true to myself? And I was at Dad convention dad 2.0 which is like a bunch of dad bloggers go to that. And I was asking him I said, Well, you know what's, what do you think is keeping you from your own greatness? What's keeping you from stepping you in into your greatness and people I think took it the same way that you're saying it right there. They will pool my to be great. Well, you're here to be great. is kind of how I would see that. So Thanks for Thanks for that clarification. Where should we send people to get a little more Donna Tashjian ties? Donna Tashjian 40:37 You did it. My website, my website will be the best place I'm also on social media so you can check you know, check me out on social media, but my website is I vibrant. living.com. Brandon Handley 40:51 Don, I want to say thanks for taking the time to stop on a podcast today. Really appreciate what it is that you're bringing out to the world helping us women to kind of get on stuck and really Unknown Speaker 41:03 hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dove pocket. Stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove.co. You can also join the discussion on Facebook spiritual though, and Instagram at spiritual underscore Joe. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email Brandon at spiritual dope CO and as always, thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality. This includes the most thought provoking part of your day. Don't forget to like and subscribe to stay fully up to date. Until next time, be kind to yourself and trust your intuition.

Megan Gilhooly, as VP Customer Experience at Zoomin Software, Megan has made it her mission to change how organizations think about product content. Prior to this role, Megan spent two decades managing content teams, driving content strategy, and delivering stellar information experiences at company like Amazon, Ping Identity, and INVIDI Technologies.   Her experience includes content for Support, Sales, Product, and Marketing. As a former online retail business owner and Certified Scrum Master, Megan brings a unique perspective to managing information development and content strategy. She has a BA in Speech Communication, a Ms in Journalism, an Ms in Strategic Management, and a Masters Certificate in Technical Communication.   Questions Could you share Megan, with us a little bit about your journey, how it is that you got to where you are today? What's going to make me stop on your post or your video, or your content to partake in whatever it is that you're sharing. There's just so much information, you're bombarded with daily from all the different social media platforms plus emails that people are sending you. How do you navigate through that? What would you recommend? How can organizations put marketing and customer experience together to support each other in the best way possible? If you are a company and you wanted to, let's say replicate the Netflix experience? How can other organizations utilize this model in their own businesses? Could you share with us what's the one online tool, resource, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business? Could you share with us maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you, it could be a book that you read recently, or maybe a book you read a very long time ago, but it still is having a great impact on you. Could you share with us what's one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about - either something that you're working on to develop yourself or your people? Where can listeners find you online? Could you share with us maybe a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you’ll tend to revert to this quote, because it will help to refocus you or get you back on track if for whatever reason you feel de-motivated or derailed?   Highlights   Megan’s Journey   Megan shared that she has always been in content of one form or another. She started her career in journalism and then very quickly moved into Technical Communications. So when she really was at the beginning of her career, she spent a lot of time writing very large books that told people how to use technical software or other technical products.   And she has kind of grown up through there, she has gone back and forth with some marketing, she calls herself a bit of a closet marketer because she was never fully in marketing, but she always did marketing. The one thing that she really recognized throughout her entire career is that product content really is the best source of marketing for customers.   Customers need to have content that's useful, content that's understandable, they don't like marketing fluff. So the marketing fluff of the 80s won't pass today. And so, she has come into sort of this marketing world in that way. She actually implemented Zoomin software twice in her career. And so, after she went to Amazon for a little bit and led global content teams there, she was looking for a new and exciting challenge. And Zoomin was growing. And so, she actually came on board as the VP of Customer Experience at Zoomin because she knows the product, she knows the industry and she is very quickly learning the role of VP of Customer Experience.   Using Content to Capture Your Customers’ Attention Through the Different Social Media Platforms   Me: So you spoke a lot about product content. Content, that is such a powerful word it encapsulates so many different things. Just thinking about my phone and the amount of information that it pushes out daily. How do you know what content is going to capture the persons that you are trying to get their attention? Because what is going to make me stop, I was watching this LinkedIn video a few months and the young lady on it has this thing called a scrollstop or a thumbstop, I don't remember what was the actual ring line that she had to it. But basically what's going to make me stop on your post or your video, or your content to partake in whatever it is that you're sharing. There's just so much information, you're bombarded with daily from all the different social media platforms plus emails that people are sending you. How do you navigate through that? What would you recommend?   Megan stated that it's a really good question, she would see technical product content being a little lower in the funnel, it might not be the first thing you send to a customer. Instead, it's a place you send prospects to do their own homework. So if you think about the way that people buy today, people don't buy because a salesperson calls them necessarily, certainly the salesperson is very important in the process. But a lot of times, these prospects will do 80% of their homework before even contacting the sales team. And so, the product content is the stuff they'll look at to see how your product works exactly, what it is compatible with, they might look up what your support org does to support the product, how well you can self serve. And if they feel like they can self serve by getting their answers immediately, then they're going to have a better experience and a better impression of your company. So she thinks product content really does come a little further down the funnel. But she will say that one of the companies that she used to work with, they brought on Zoomin and after she left, she heard from somebody who was at the company, that the CEO actually said, “Product content is the new marketing.” And she thinks that's such a powerful phrase, because it really is, marketers are trying to create useful information that will engage customers. And you know what, it really comes down to, they want to know what your product does. So that's where she thinks it falls into marketing.    Using Marketing and Customer Experience Together to Support Each Other     Me: Tell us a little bit about how it is you see marketing and customer experience playing a more supportive role for each other. Because over the years, marketing has always been a separate part of an organization than customer experience or customer service. As a matter of fact, I think maybe it's probably in the last 10 years that you actually have organizations segmenting customer service and customer experience, because they realize the importance of it. As we move forward, especially coming out of this pandemic, how is it that you think organizations can really marry those two departments together in a very symbiotic way? Because at the end of the day, yes, marketing is to get the customer but at the same time, all organizations want customer retention and loyalty and that can only happen after the marketing is done and as you mentioned, is there support? Can you get in touch with them? How easy is it to do business with them? How can we really put those two together to support each other in the best way possible?   Megan shared that they are so inextricably tied. The way she thinks about customer experience is it really is kind of a subset of marketing, as well as a subset of customer success and sort of over overarches both of those two things. Now, when you think about SaaS platforms today, they don't have the luxury of, “Oh, they bought and installed the product. So it's sticky on its own.” Their customers can leave at any time. So it behoves the customer success team to ensure that they're getting really good retention, that they're providing the experience that the customers need in order to have them upsell and cross sell and expand into their other offerings. So, that's all very, very important from a revenue standpoint. At the same time, if their customers have amazing customer experiences, that makes it a lot easier for marketing to get case studies to work with the customer success team and their customers on advocacy, and things that will help marketers to more effectively market to prospects. So, she thinks there's such a big tie today that really customer experience is all about making decisions with the customer first and foremost. So rather than leading by project or leading by product or leading by sales, or leading by anything else, you really have to lead with the customer in the forefront and then everything sort of falls out from that.   How Organizations Can Replicate the Netflix Experience and Use this Model in Their Own Businesses   Me: So, there are a few organizations that take that approach. Netflix is definitely one of them, and so is Amazon. If you are a company and you wanted to, let's say replicate the Netflix experience? Provide a high level of personalization. I'm fascinated each time I go on Netflix, now found a way to tell you the top 10 movies that are being watched per country, they've broken it down into geographic favouritism. And of course, automatically you look at those top 10 and you'll probably end up picking something because you're saying hey, well, if this is number one in Jamaica or this is number one in the US, maybe it's worth watching. I know it's purely data driven because it's clearly the numbers that they are watching and able to put this out to us. But how can other organizations utilize this model in their own businesses?   Megan share that that's a really interesting point, the Netflix experience is really impacting everybody. So if we think about the consumerization of content, Netflix is one of the big drivers of that. We as professionals eventually go home at the end of the day, and we sit down in front of the TV, and we open up Netflix, and Netflix hands us exactly what we want to watch, without us even really knowing ahead of time what we want to watch, it's just served up to us. So then we go to work the next day and whether we work in B2B or B2C, we expect that all of our tools that our vendors are selling to us are going to serve up answers in a very similar way. And this is something where the consumer world is way ahead of the B2B world but the expectations from customers are there. So she'll give a really good example. When she wanted to buy runners, so tennis shoes, whatever you want to call them, she wants to buy athletic shoes. She always, always, always now goes with Brook Shoes. And Brook Shoes was not always her favourite, she always had a different favourite, until she got the app for Brook Shoes. And the coolest thing about it is, its content but it steps you through a process within the content that explains how you need to choose your shoes but it doesn't give you a bunch of technical jargon. So for example, it doesn't say, “Do you pronate or supinate?” It says, “Take your shoes off, stand with your feet parallel and look down and see where your toes are pointing.” And then it shows you a picture of one with the toes pointed out and one was pointed in and one of them neutral. And then you pick the one that matches what you see. And so it's very easy.   Now, if you want the scientific reasoning behind it, you can click a link, and you can get to it, so that's great. But it makes it so easy to figure out what type of shoe, what type of Brook shoe, she needs, that she has become a loyal Brook’s user to the point where she has four children. Her children now wear Brook Shoes but it's easy for her to say, “Okay, let's go through this little checkbox and go through it and figure out what shoes are best for you.” So that's experience that she has as a consumer that has made her a loyal Brook Shoes fan. Now, at the end of the day, she’s not here to sell Brook Shoes, she doesn't care if people go to Brook Shoes or not but it's just such a compelling example of where content really drove her loyalty. And now when she goes to work, she has similar expectations of vendors when she’s trying to get answers, when she’s trying to self serve, when she’s trying to figure out what the best overall experiences for her, she keeps that in mind. And so it's Netflix, it's Brook shoes, it's Amazon, it's all of these consumer products are really driving the expectations that their customers have for them in the B2B world.   Me: I totally agree. I talk about that all the time that customers’ expectations are based on four things. They're based on what we communicate to them, they're based on past experiences they've had with you, they’re based on experiences that you've had with other companies that are not similar to them. So as you mentioned, you're comparing, let's say, for example, how your supermarket app is interfacing with you versus your Brooks app, which is two different companies, two different set of commodities. But the reality is, that's what people look at, they're thinking to themselves, well, if they can do it in this space with a product that's a little bit more complicated, why can’t they do it with something like this? I sit and wonder that to myself all the time. So, I do agree with you that what we experience out there, even if it's not similar to what we're comparing it to does drive our expectation of that product or service.   App, Website or Tool that Megan Absolutely Can’t Live Without in Her Business   When asked about an online resource that she cannot live without in her business, Megan shared that she thinks this is probably the same answer Yanique gets from almost everyone. But Slack, they could not do their business without Slack, especially in this digital world. So that's a big one for them certainly. And there are probably some others in the marketing world, they couldn't do without HubSpot. But ultimately, there's other tools that do that, nothing really quite does what Slack does in the way that Slack does it.   Books That Have Had the Greatest Impact on Megan   When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Megan shared that she has to admit that because she works full time and they've been crazy busy throughout the pandemic and she has four kids at home, she hasn't read a lot this year. But the one book she did read, which is a must read for any company that is going through hyper growth is called No Dumbing Down: A No-Nonsense Guide for CEOs on Organization Growth and it's written by a woman by the name of Karen Walker. She knows Karen personally; she's done some work with some of her teams. But she started her career, she shouldn't say started her career, back in the day, let's say the 80s when Compaq was going through its hyper growth phase, she started at Compaq as the 100th employee. She left around 15 years later when they had 17,000 employees; she saw the growth and revenue from zero up to $15 Billion. So, might have some of those numbers slightly wrong. But basically, she has a very, very impressive view of what it means to be in hyper growth and how to do that successfully, they were the fastest growing company in America to date. And so her book, No Dumbing Down provides five internal strategies for sort of succeeding through hyper growth. And then it also talks about how do you drive those strategies throughout all the levels of the organization. Really, really powerful.   What Megan is Really Excited About Now!    Megan shared that has she mentioned, they are going through a tremendous amount of growth here. So they're doing all kinds of things in order to support that growth and it's fun to see all of the things that are going on. So from hiring and ramping people up quickly to trying to ensure that they're setting the right strategies so that everyone has the Northstar that they need to shoot for, to fixing processes, those are all really, really big, exciting projects right now. So she thinks if she were to pick, there's just so many, but one in particular, that is actually starting this week, is they're building a customer success playbook. And she thinks that's a very important thing that they sort of have pieces of right now but they haven't yet taken the opportunity to sit down and really flesh it out. And so, starting this week, they have a project where they're starting to work on that. They have some really cool marketing initiatives that are going on that are keeping them incredibly busy. So they've got a ton, but she thinks that playbook is one that she’s most excited about, because it will really help to solidify, what do we expect of the customer experience? And then how do our customer success managers actually operate in order to get us to that ideal.   Where Can We Find Megan Online   LinkedIn – Megan Gilhooly Twitter - @MeganGilhooly Email – megan.gilhooly@zoominsoftware.com Website – www.zoominsoftware.com   Megan shared that she also sends out a Friday email where she collate a bunch of different contents, Yanique’s podcast may show up on at one time. And so that is at the Zoomin website, so if you go to www.zoominsoftware.com and then you go to the Resources page, there be a place where you can sign up for that. It's not really marketing, it's very much what's going on in her brain this week and what's going on and oftentimes she tells silly stories about her kids or funny stories about her husband, she puts out a lot of personal things into it. It's very short and then she brings in relevant content because she does read a lot of content even though she’s not reading books. She spends a lot of time reading really rich and great content, so she likes to send out the best of that so that other folks don't have to wade through all the bad to get to the good, the little nuggets of wisdom.   Me: That's nice. And the reality is, I think that's how most people consume content nowadays, there's just not enough time in the day to really sit down and take on long pieces of information. So when you can get them in bits and pieces, I find, at least for me, it makes the learning experience that much better. I recently joined Tik Tok because of my daughter's influence, and I used to think it was an application that people go on to waste time. But I actually have learned quite a few things on it, like different tips and tricks in terms of iPhone, maybe there are features on the phone that I was not familiar with, or tips and tricks in Microsoft Excel with different tools that can help me to analyze the data better. And it's short, it's not a YouTube video, that's like 20 minutes, and I'm like, sure there are 20 minutes to watch this video, it's just like a two minute video and you're like, Oh, I got it, and you save it to your phone and you have it as a reference point. And I thought it was brilliant. I underestimated Tik Tok.   Megan shared that that's interesting. She tried to get on Tik Tok a couple times. And she just failed, so she’s going to try again. It thought she was somebody she wasn't because it kept serving up the wrong content. But she thinks it's because she just didn't give it enough time to learn who she was. Because she heard that it can be very, very good. But it really thought she was a teenager that just wanted to do dances. So she'll try it again.   Me: Because you're very correct. Because what I noticed as I started using it was it started to pick up on content that I was interested in and then it started to push more of that and less of the garbage that was there originally when I just started.   Megan shared that there's such an alignment there with how she talks about product content. When we serve up content, when our customers serve up content to their customers, we expect that it will serve up the content that's related to the version that they want to be on that's related to their role in their organization. We don't want to just throw content out there. And so, Tik Tok, there's kind of this mirror image between Tic Tok and the product content that we deliver. So that's really interesting.   Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Megan Uses   When asked about quote or saying that helps her to get back on track, Megan shared that for her, whenever she gets off track, or she feels like people in general are getting off track, I go back to very customer focused quotes. And so there's one by Marc Benioff from Salesforce, who said, and she may get part of this wrong, but, “You need to get to the future, ahead of your customers and be ready to greet them when they arrive.” And she thinks that's so powerful to think, especially during difficult times. So let's say even through the pandemic, when you think about the organizations that just sort of sat back and said, “Oh, we can't do that, because of the pandemic.” or “Oh, we're gonna do fewer hours because of the pandemic.” Those are organisations that have now a really frustrating customer experience. But for the companies that actually said, “Okay, we're in a pandemic, but at some point, we're going to get through this pandemic. Now, where do we need to be? And how do we are we going to be prepared to be ready, no matter where we are along the path of this pandemic.” Those are the companies that have maintained a really positive customer experience. So that's a quote that she often looks at, she has it posted on her wall.   Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest   Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners   Links No Dumbing Down: A No-Nonsense Guide for CEOs on Organization Growth by Karen Walker   The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience   Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience.”   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!

Learned from meBecause when you told me the truthBaby, it killed meThough your mouth did smileYour eyes proclaimedI could see through your heartYou didn't feel the same

You had so many ways to learn the right path, but you chose not to listen. God turns to the nations of the world, indeed to all of nature. Why am I punishing the people who "worship" Me? Because the worship of fancy incense and sacrifices is not the type of worship I want. If you can't get rid of your impurities, your talebearing and your dishonesty, then to Me you are like silver that connot be purified. such people, I will reject.

Daniel Rodriguez is the head of marketing at Simplr, which is upending the traditional customer service model by providing premium brands with flexible, 24/7 on-demand specialists for all digital channels. The company's specialists are unique work-from-home pool of highly educated professionals who use Simplr's, AI-powered platform to replicate tone and brand integrity with speed, empathy and precision.   Danielle has extensive marketing and entrepreneurial experience, having served as the VP of marketing for Seismic and the co-founder of multiple companies, including Indivly Magic and PrizeTube. Daniel earned a BA in Economics from Harvard University and an MBA from MIT. Questions Could you share a little bit with us about your history? I know it says here that you are Head of Marketing at Simplr and that you've gained a lot of experience as it relates to digital marketing and also entrepreneurial skill. But just share with us a little bit about how you got to where you are today. Simlpr recently conducted a study, a customer experience study, where it says 27% consumers say their brand loyalty has wavered during the pandemic due to long customer service wait times. Could you share a little bit about some of the insights that you gained from that study? Let's say our audience; they do have some of these issues that we're talking about. What are maybe two or three things that they should do that maybe they're not doing now in a very practical sense, things they should really be focused on to just give that great customer experience? Could you share with us what is the one online resource, website tool or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business? Could you share with us maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you? It could be a book that you read since the pandemic, or it could be a book that you read many, many years ago. But it still has had a great impact on you. Now, can you share with us what's one thing that's going on in your life right now, something that you're really excited about - either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people? Where can they find you online? Do you have a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you will revert to this quote, it kind of helps you to move forward, to keep pushing. Do you have one of those?   Highlights   Daniel’s Journey   Daniel shared that he spent the past 8 years of his career running marketing teams at start-up companies, tech companies in the B2B space. So, very high growth companies, they're all venture funded and have high growth expectations. And it's been a really rewarding journey, he thinks, for him, because he started his career on the consulting and finance side, and he had this moment as the wise poet John Mayer once said. He had a quarter life crisis and realized that if he didn't actually be the doer, meaning, be actually on the operating side, he was going to have regrets in his own life about the career choices that he was making.   So that really started him down a path and he’s very thankful to Brad Rosen, who's the CEO of a company called Drink, for taking a chance on him and letting him work for him on kind of a volunteer nights and weekends basis and Drink is a wine app. And for him, it was great to be able to dive into on the operating side, dive into something that he was also passionate about just at a personal level.   So that gave him his first taste, if you will, of actually being at a start-up, super early stage start-up and that really scrappy mode. And once he had that taste, he was completely hooked. So, that started his path then to go to business school, which was giving him an opportunity to learn a lot more about entrepreneurship, experience entrepreneurship himself, try to start a company himself. And it was kind of from there and from some of those failed experiences of his own and trying to get companies off the ground that he was able to then get jobs at more established, albeit still very early stage companies. And so, that's where he has been spending the majority of his career at this point.   Simplr’s Insight on Customer Experience Study Me: So, in preparing for this interview, we were informed that your company Simlpr recently conducted a study, a customer experience study, where it says 27% of consumers say their brand loyalty has wavered during the pandemic due to long customer service wait times. Being in customer service myself, I know that's like one of the biggest pet peeves of customers waiting, whether it be face to face or over the phone or even in a web forum if you have to wait on a chat for somebody to give you feedback, could you share a little bit about some of the insights that you gained from that study?   Daniel shared that they've conducted 3 of these mystery shop reports, the survey that they've gone out, partnered with a third party. They've done 3 of them over the past year. So, they did one in June where they mystery shopped about 800 eCommerce retail brands. And they were looking for areas where they could identify the things that are really important to customers and therefore result in customers having an exceptional experience, an experience that they would want to give somebody a 5-star rating about and tell their friends.   And so they looked at dimensions of Reliability, Relatability and Responsiveness. So, one of the hypotheses that they had was and this was predominantly U.S. based brands, although there are people purchasing products from all parts of the world. And they also then interviewed 500 U.S. customers of those brands, consumers not necessarily specific to any of these brands, but just 500 hundred people that are consumers in the United States.   And they asked them, how did they feel about wait times? How do they feel about brands and their willingness to stick with that brand, if there was going to be a longer wait time?   And their hypothesis was and this was something that they have also been feeling themselves during the pandemic. When the pandemic began in March and April, there was a lot of forgiveness. People were willing to say, “Oh my gosh, the world has just been completely turned upside down. I'm not going to hold it against my favourite brand that things are messed up. And they have shipping delays and they can't figure out where things are. And they might be getting slammed with a backlog because people weren't able to go into the office to answer to these questions.”   So, this idea that he thinks we as consumers were permitting, we were okay with the dreaded backlog happening, consumers don't think of it as a backlog. But we, of course, as the providers of a great customer experience, we think of backlogs and the dreaded backlog, which happens to many companies and for various reasons, he thinks reared its ugly head for many brands.   And what they saw then happen was consumers stopped being as forgiving, basically, they were saying, “Hey, now that we're three or four months into this thing, I've gone back to my previously picky ways and I'm no longer willing to put up with this.” And that obviously is concerning because it's still very difficult for many brands to figure out how to provide a great customer experience.   Me: So, your study focused on ensuring that you are looking at brands that were providing a really fantastic customer experience. And the biggest pet peeve that you picked up in this report was wait times. Why do you think customers as the pandemic got more and more deeper, people got less forgiving or patient as it related to giving brands the breather that they needed?   Daniel shared that what's really interesting about this finding is that he does think that part of this finding is cultural. And by that, he means, Americans are not the same as people from other countries. They had a webinar and they had a couple of guest speakers on the webinar, one of which her name is Alex, she runs customer success at Princess Polly. Princess Polly is an Australian brand. So they have a lot of customers in Australia.   And this idea that felt very validated by an American hypothesis in the data by Americans doesn't actually play out anecdotally anyway, in Alex's experience for their Australian customers. They were just very willing to be forgiving still of things being delayed and challenges, a lot of things relating to shipping and the forgiveness around that.   So, he thinks there's a fair amount of a cultural challenge around this. He thinks the American market; you can probably say that the American consumer has a very high bar. And unfortunately, it's harder than ever before to probably deliver on that high bar.   What he means by that high bar by the way, he thinks that high bar is, he doesn't want to use words that are that are either positive or negative in kind of describing the American consumer here. He is an American. He is an American consumer, but he thinks that the American consumer has been very much influenced by a lot of the existing technology and the way that American consumers have been catered to by that technology.   So Amazon, which is absolutely a ubiquitous company in not just the United States, but as he’s speaking specifically about this has he thinks created an expectation of you get whatever you want, whenever you want it, and it comes fast and that whole idea of hyper catered to.   And so, he thinks that's what we're kind of seeing play out here. There has been a very significant trend that was already happening before the pandemic of both his generation, as well as the generation below us, so the millennial.   He’s a reluctant millennial because sometimes the pejorative to call someone a millennial, he’s like the oldest millennial you can get, he’s like, “No, not those millennials. They're all so young and don't respect their boss and all this stuff.”   But as a millennial and then as Gen Z, there is a there's a pretty significant shift in the way that we want to interact with our brands as consumers away from that kind of unilateral, “Hey, here's the phone and we're available when you need us, if you ever have an issue. And by when you need us, I mean, between the hours of 9:00 and 5:00 Eastern Standard Time, Monday through Friday.” So, that expectation that customers then have, “Well, actually, I want to be able to interact with a brand on a different channel. I want to be able to use email. I want to be able to use Instagram. I want to be able to use chat right on the website. And by the way, I want to be able to do that whenever it's convenient for me and it's convenient for me probably not when it's convenient for you.”   And that expectation has been exacerbated actually by the pandemic. And the data that they collected also reflects this narrative where brands have now recognized because of the pandemic that they need to offer more digital options for people to interact with them.   They just have to, it becomes table stakes and then it becomes punitive if you're not actually playing the game. The problem is most of the brands in the study hadn't quite cracked the nut on how do I actually deliver a customer experience that is expected by this customer. I'm offering something, I have chat, but then, sometimes it takes more than 5 minutes to respond to a chat and 92% of the people who experience a 5 minute wait time on chat give the brand a very poor rating on responsiveness.   Me: Because their expectation is immediate response.   Daniel agreed and stated that 30 seconds or less, “If it's more than a minute, I'm starting to really get mad; I'll give you a minute. I might start wavering, but if it's more than a minute, I'm actually going to get mad.”   And this world of CX that we've kind of immersed ourselves in here, it's an emotional world. He thinks of times in his own life where he can remember either good or bad experiences with brands. And his blood gets boiling, really bothers him. And these are things he can remember from like 10 years ago.   So, he thinks it's so important for us to remember that in a time, particularly in a pandemic, in a time where everyone is feeling kind of raw, actually, and we're willing to then if we put our own feelings on a 10 point scale, he thinks that our capacity to feel at a 10 is actually heightened by the fact that we are in this kind of simmering state of anxiety.   And so, providing somebody with a very good experience can make someone feel amazing, providing something the very poor experience can make somebody maybe kind of tip over. And this will finally be the thing that I feel like I can scream about.   Me: Agreed. So, you touched on a few stuff that I thought was really, really interesting. One was you said that you thought that at the end of the day, even though you did a study and it was primarily reflective of the American consumer, you also think it's very cultural. And it's funny you said that because I do agree with you, but at the same time, you went ahead to then allude to the fact that Amazon has kind of set the bar so high and I'm doing some research for a customer experience management program I'm building for a client.   And in my research, one of the things that I realized was, no matter what industry you're in, whether are you're a bank or you're a supermarket or you're delivering pizza. Because Amazon has created technology or an experience by which you can just go online and press the button and within minutes or hours depending on what it is that you're ordering, you can get the item delivered to you. You can see where it is every step along the way, it's almost like consumers expect that same experience in other types of businesses, even if the business model is not similar to yours.   And I don't think that's specific to country. I don't think it's because Amazon is an American brand. I think Jamaicans have that expectation as well. Two nights ago, my godchildren's father called me and he asked me. So a lot of companies in Jamaica, especially the fast food restaurants, have been doing delivery services now. And companies like Kentucky Fried Chicken, for example, that never used to deliver in Jamaica, that was like something that we never thought we'd live to see. I couldn't understand why they wouldn't deliver just like pizza delivers, because when I did some research, KFC delivers in Trinidad, but it doesn't deliver here in Jamaica.   And I was like, well, if they can do it in Trinidad and population is less, why can't they do it here? Anyhow, he called and said that his wife ordered some food from like 6:30 pm and it was like 9:00 o'clock and the food hadn't come. And when he called the lady, the lady at the delivery place says to him, “Oh, but we told you 30 to 45 minutes.” I don't even know how giving that statement to the customer is relevant because we're now way past 45 minutes. Six thirty to 9:00 is way past what you would have told them to expect.   So at this point, he's so mad he wants a full refund and then they further said to him, it's going to take them 7 to 10 business days to process this refund. And remember when they took his money; I'm sure it didn't take 30 seconds to run that money off of his card or whatever payment, well, it would have to be off his card if it was a digital payment, because he did it through an app that he use on the phone.   But I'm saying this is say Daniel, you are correct because of the experience that Amazon has created for us and as I said, I don't think it's necessarily cultural. I think, generally speaking, regardless of the country that you are from, if you know of Amazon and you've done business with them, it's almost like your brain is saying to yourself, “Well, if Amazon has human beings that work in their organization and they're able to create these technologies that create this type of experience, why can't other businesses think like this and operate like these to create a similar kind of experience to make life less stressful for me, because there are other things that I have to worry about, and this would be one less thing for me to stress about.”   So I thought that was really, really brilliant. And I think all organizations should really be looking at benchmarking themselves, not against companies that are in the same industry as them, but even companies that are outside of their industry because that's what their customers are viewing their businesses.   Daniel shared that he totally agreed with that. And thanks Yanique for just sharing that anecdote as well. They actually we work with a large restaurant, quick serve restaurant. And they have an application and it's a very similar type of thing where you see a lot of times confusion that people have. And what was sad, they saw recently this really great kind of interaction with the brand they're helping out on helping them answer these customer inquiries. And somebody writes in with basically that same story like, “Hey, something got messed up with my order. It hasn't been here for way too long.”   And he thinks that the bar is currently so low, actually. Here's the saving grace. We don't want to give doom and gloom to everybody. But maybe the saving grace is that the bar is actually quite low in terms of reality and if you then are responsive to people and you are empathetic and this was another thing that their data showed is the relatability aspect.   So being empathetic, showing somebody that you're a human, which bots obviously struggle to do, and which is why people get frustrated with bots. And he’s not saying bots should never be used, but he’s saying and in certain instances, if you put a bot in front of somebody and they are unable to get their situation resolved, it will make them even more mad than they would have been in any other situation.   But when we talk about just that bar being kind of low, you give somebody a quick response, you immediately tell them, “Hey, I am so sorry that your food did not get there when it needed to. That must have been extremely frustrating. And you're probably hungry right now.”   You immediately have made the person feel validated because being validated is the cornerstone, he thinks, of being able to make somebody feel open to then working with you and coming back, so you start with that validation, which is, he thinks, the cornerstone of empathy. And then you give them that refund, you get that processed much more quickly and then what does that person do? And this is actually a real example, by the way.   So, they saw this exact example happen and this person wrote back 5 out of 5 star review on the CSAT survey. And then they write in and they say, “I just have to tell you, I didn't even think anyone was going to write me back. And you've totally blown me away.”   But that first initial idea that they had actually written in, they'd taken the time to write in to express their frustration and they still didn't even expect to hear back to him shows that there is a real disconnect between where people's bar is in terms of like, if you can get over this bar, you're going to actually satisfy people. And then if you can really go beyond it to just the expectation that we want to have for our consumers, that there's plenty of 5 star moments out there to be had.   Me: Agreed. So, true. So one of the things your study actually said, which I thought was really very important, reinforcing what you just said. So, “AI driven chatbots are making significant strides in providing Real-Time information to solve simple customer concerns. But it still remains important to the customer experience that a company brings empathy and humanity to each customer interaction.”   Because, as you said, bots are here to help us, the technology is there to help us. But at the end of the day, there are some circumstances that require human interaction. I honestly don't think that even though technology has advanced so much that the human element of a customer experience is ever, ever going to be void and null, it's still going to need some form of human interaction.   Daniel agreed and shared that a couple of years ago, they were living in the rage; AI bots are going to be able to completely take over multiple parts of the organization actually, it was customer success, it was also sales. He remembers hearing we're never going to need sales reps because the bots can do all the work.   And the reality is, we think of ourselves as a human enabled technology company and we think that there is a place for technology and we see companies and he’s not even talking about their own customers. They see big brands, there's a place for bots and it has certain limited scope. And it's an incredibly valuable way for them to reduce their overall cost of service.   And we see companies that then are using people to answer questions in an on brand way. And you really got a nail that kind of tone and brand. And you have to have the knowledge and the people have to have that knowledge. And we play that role; we play that role for companies. But there's different ways that companies do that. And then there's also always this like core team internally where things need to get escalated to, if something is really going bad, you really need to have some people that are inside the organization that might be able to move larger mountains if need be.   And so, that's kind of where things he thinks sit today. And he doesn't necessarily see a lot of companies saying, “What we really need is more bots.” He hears them say, “What we really need is fewer backlogs.” Because the backlogs are what is killing their customer satisfaction. And bots don't necessarily take away the backlog, they might give you an immediate quick responsiveness, but they won't necessarily be able to resolve the issue. And of course, if you don't resolve the issue, you don't really change the situation.   So, they see a lot of companies also really focused on resolution, first time resolution. Just resolving something is obviously important but if it takes you, “Hey, we're on chat and I can't help you, now email us and I'll get back to you in a few days and we'll work on this over the course of the next week.”   That's not okay, that is just not okay. And when he says it's not okay, the data reflects that CSAT scores are not good when that happens. So, they're really focused on and he thinks a lot of companies agree with this, really focused on getting that resolution to happen in that first interaction.   Things to Focus on to Give Great Customer Experience   Daniel shared that yes, he would say the First Time Resolution. And you accomplish a first time resolution by making sure that the people who are responding on your behalf are empowered to be able to resolve the issue that they are being asked to resolve.   So that's critically important. He would say another thing to do is around Relatability. Oftentimes, we have people that are doing the customer service response, they’re writing back and yet for a variety of reasons, whether it's the incentives we're giving them or whether it's a lack of directive, we are taking out their humanity from the interaction.   If we're just telling somebody, just get through this quickly and get it done, which is sometimes the way that we align the incentive, we then just get them to just do something really fast. And you can tell when you get an email when it's kind of fast, somebody is just being quick. And so, when he means relatability, he means empowering people to actually show that they're people and using that personality.   So, giving a potential anecdote, being able to be empathetic like we were talking about before, validating how somebody is feeling, it's hard for bots to do those things, credibly. They can do them maybe in a way that will get it right some of the time and then not some of the time. And that not some of the time is really a disaster, basically. So, this is where human beings, we have this capacity to allow somebody to have an emotional connection to what you're saying because you're showing your humanity and we need to encourage people to do that.   And the last that he’ll say is it is important to be able to be Reliable with your customers and where they want to be, the data does suggest this, and this is also where the world has been going. If you have chat and you cannot respond to people on chat, it's like what is worse, having it in the first place or giving people a terrible customer experience. It's like a two sides of the same thing. It's terrible because you're going to miss out on these presale opportunities by not having it and a lot of people just prefer to go in through chat for even for a post sale inquiry. But if you don't service it properly, it's a terrible experience.   Same thing with email. People offer up email and they should because many people like to email and they recognize that I'm going to send you an email and he thinks the expectation from what we can see, is the expectation is a day. If you're getting back to him in 24 hours on an email, that is about what he would expect. That's how he kind of think about it even in his own life in business. He writes somebody an email; he expects them to get back to him within 24 hours.   Me: Even if it's just an acknowledgement.   Daniel agreed and stated that just to be able to say I hear you right. Oftentimes in our customer service world, we end up giving people an automated response, just let them know I received your email and we will be getting back to you.   But, in the survey that they did, the average response time on email was 48 hours. He thinks that people recognize that that's probably not acceptable. He thinks that the bar for what we should be attempting to provide, it is attainable because where things currently are has plenty of room to get better. And I think that when you impress people, so if you then get back to people every time in less than 24 hours, every time, and you never create a backlog.   So, because you never want to have a backlog and because customers feel the backlog, the backlog means you can't get back to them for days or chat if your chats are piling up and he’s not talking about at 3:00 a.m. when for some strange reason somebody doesn't get back to a chat, maybe you can be forgiving of that. He’s talking about during a time where you expect somebody to be able to chat and they're piling up, that's a chat backlog. That's a disaster and those should be avoided at all costs.     App, Website or Tool that Daniel Absolutely Can’t Live Without in His Business When asked about on online resource that he cannot live without in his business, Daniel shared that they use a technology called Gong to listen to their sales calls. And he will say that it has been very powerful. As somebody on the marketing side where they are really trying to support their sales team, make sure that they understand what their prospective customers are actually saying about their pain, what is that language and their ability to then provide the right information to their sales team so that they can be successful in those selling interactions.   Gong has been amazing because it allows them to asynchronously participate in the sales conversation, because they can listen to the calls, they can listen to them at faster than real time speed. So you can make it play at more than 1X speed, which is great, too, because it allows him to catch up on some things that at a faster pace. He can skip forward and listen, what they've done is within the Gong platform, they're using Natural Language Processing to tag what people are talking about.   So, when somebody is talking about pricing, when somebody is talking about positioning, He can kind of see where that is in the conversation so he can kind of skip forward to the things that are going to be really useful for him. If it's 2 minutes or 5 minutes at the beginning of just kind of set up time, he can see what that is because that's tag there so he can move past it. So Gong has been a real benefit to them, and he’s only assuming that also because of the pandemic, that it's even more useful because he can't easily just kind of hop in a room and join one of his sales teammates on a call.   Books That Have Had the Greatest Impact on Daniel When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Daniel shared that on the professional side, Tony Hsieh’s book, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, which he loved, was 10 years ago. He still loves that book because he thinks in many ways, Tony's way of thinking about the business model as customer centric and obviously he also sold the business to Amazon, which at the time felt like, well, maybe that's not a win and if he's been holding onto that Amazon stock, most of us would think he's probably a billionaire at this point. But they were two companies cut from the same cloth because Amazon also has done the exact same thing and he has listened to podcasts and things where people from Amazon are talking about how do they think about solving business problems.   And they always start with the customer perspective. What will make the customer happier in this circumstance? And he thinks that that ethos and Tony just talks about this basically throughout the entire book, that ethos is what makes the whole discipline of CX a reality, it's not just your customer support function. You have to be thinking about this in every part of the company. Well, what would be better for the customer? And that informs what we do on the marketing side too, what you make this easier for the customer to be able to understand our value, understand what we do, how can we give them more useful information that will make their jobs easier? So, he loves that book.   On the personal side, he recently finished reading How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi and it's an amazing book. It he thinks gave him a lot more language to be able to understand the role that he needs to play in the world and how he’s going to be part of change that needs to happen and the role that policy needs to play and what he needs to do to support policy that is anti-racist so that we can dismantle the systemic racism that has plagued not only this country, obviously, but many parts of the world for a long time for centuries.   And so, he’s incredibly grateful for the scholarship of Ibram X. Kendi. He’s actually attending a seminar that he's putting on. So, he’s very, very excited about that book and if anybody else has read this book and is interested in talking about it, he’s very much looking to connect with people who are interested in this as a topic.   What Daniel is Really Excited About Now! Daniel shared that the funny thing about a pandemic is that it can change a lot of the priorities of what you’re able to try to do or not do. One of the things that he’s passionate about is meditation. He started meditating about 10 years ago and has been meditating on a daily basis for close to 4 years at this point. So he's kind of gone on and off in the past with some different ways of doing it. And one of the things for those who have meditated regularly and have done so kind of alone, one of the things that he was realizing he was doing, he has been doing a guided meditation, a daily 10 minute guided meditation through an app called Calm. And there are different apps for this; Headspace is another app. WakingUp is an app that was recently introduced to him. There are lessons that are being broached and he wanted more opportunities to kind of talk about those, talk about those lessons and to reflect on them and hear other people's thoughts on them.   So, he feels like he has been doing this in kind of a siloed, personal way. And recently he brought this to Simplr and he said, “Hey, does anyone want to do a meditation?” He'll talk about why he’s into meditation and they can do one of these guided meditations through the through the app. And to his pleasant surprise, a bunch of people were very interested. And there were also a bunch of people that have meditated, either sporadically in the past or that meditate quite regularly for longer periods of time even more than he does.   So for now, they're starting a company meditation practice where they get together every couple of weeks, every two weeks, and they have a prompt that they are going to then reflect on and then when they get together, they are going discuss what was covered in that prompt as a way of trying to deepen their own practice and understanding. And also just to get to know people on a kind of a different level. So, really, really excited about the things that they can do that will bring them together while obviously, they can't actually see anybody face to face.   Where Can We Find Daniel Online Daniel shared listeners can find him at – LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/drodriguez4/   Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Daniel Uses When asked if he has a quote or saying that he reverts to in times of adversity or challenge, Daniel shared that in meditation, he thinks so much of what he’s trying to do is actually just come back to the present and come back to the breath. So, he actually really like to remind himself to just breathe and then to actually do it. And oftentimes, if he’s feeling overwhelmed, if he just focuses on that feeling of his breath and just tell himself the word breathe, that it has an incredible effect. So, he will just leave everybody with the single word, “Breathe”   Me: That's brilliant. It's funny you said that because I have an Apple Watch and every now and again I see the breathe thing comes up on it and it says breathe. I guess it's reminding me to breathe. I don't know if it's built into the watch like that or maybe it picks up that my body energy needs to kind of cool down, I have no idea. But yes, breathing definitely does help. I don't know if I intentionally sit down and breathe from time to time because I do meditate sporadically. But breathing, it can definitely create clarity for you; it causes you to kind of just slow down and as you said, brings you back to the present. I have actually experienced that on many, many occasions.   Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest   Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners Links Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi In New State of CX Study by Simplr, 27% of Consumers Say Their Brand Loyalty Has Wavered During Pandemic Due to Long Customer Service Wait Times by Simplr   The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience.”   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!

8 yo: I hate coloring. Me: Because you don't get to draw the things? 8 yo: No, because it takes so long. Me: That's because you do such a thorough job. 8 yo: Aha, that's it! Just don't do a thorough job!

My son Isaiah likes to play the “why” game. Isaiah: “Why is my ice cream gone?” Me: “Because you ate it.” Isaiah: “Why did I eat it?” Me: “Because you need food.” Isaiah: “Why do I need food?” And so on. Isaiah naturally wants to know why things are the way they are. We all do. Most of us, however, are taught that seeking these ultimate answers is quixotic. We say either that there are no ultimate answers or that you'd have to know too many to answer them. In this conception, there either is no story of everything or, if there is, no one can tell it. Thankfully, Fred Spier disagrees. His path-breaking Big History and the Future of Humanity (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010) succeeds in sketching the story of everything from the origins of the universe to the reason my son's ice cream is gone. In around two-hundred lucidly written pages he takes us from the Big Bang, to the separation of matter and energy, to the rise of elementary particles, to the formation of galaxies, solar systems, stars, and planets, to the creation of elements, to the origin of life, to the evolution of biotic complexity, to the emergence of humans, to the origin of society, to the invention of ice cream. What enables him to do this is a simple, unifying theory, namely, that all forms of complexity are the result of energy flowing through matter within certain boundaries (“Goldilocks” conditions). Everything with edges, a shape, parts, or an internal structure is the result of energy flowing through matter within certain boundaries and is only maintained so long as the energy keeps flowing and the boundaries don't change. Historiographically, this book takes us into new and promising territory. But even more than that it is timely, for the energy and conditions that maintain our complexity–that is, modern industrial life–are both in jeopardy. We consume much more energy than we produce, and the kind of energy we consume is moving us out of the Goldilocks zone. If unchecked, the result of these two processes is inevitable: a loss of complexity, which is to say the destruction of modern industrial society. That's something to think about, and maybe even do something about. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven't already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My son Isaiah likes to play the “why” game. Isaiah: “Why is my ice cream gone?” Me: “Because you ate it.” Isaiah: “Why did I eat it?” Me: “Because you need food.” Isaiah: “Why do I need food?” And so on. Isaiah naturally wants to know why things are the way they are. We all do. Most of us, however, are taught that seeking these ultimate answers is quixotic. We say either that there are no ultimate answers or that you’d have to know too many to answer them. In this conception, there either is no story of everything or, if there is, no one can tell it. Thankfully, Fred Spier disagrees. His path-breaking Big History and the Future of Humanity (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010) succeeds in sketching the story of everything from the origins of the universe to the reason my son’s ice cream is gone. In around two-hundred lucidly written pages he takes us from the Big Bang, to the separation of matter and energy, to the rise of elementary particles, to the formation of galaxies, solar systems, stars, and planets, to the creation of elements, to the origin of life, to the evolution of biotic complexity, to the emergence of humans, to the origin of society, to the invention of ice cream. What enables him to do this is a simple, unifying theory, namely, that all forms of complexity are the result of energy flowing through matter within certain boundaries (“Goldilocks” conditions). Everything with edges, a shape, parts, or an internal structure is the result of energy flowing through matter within certain boundaries and is only maintained so long as the energy keeps flowing and the boundaries don’t change. Historiographically, this book takes us into new and promising territory. But even more than that it is timely, for the energy and conditions that maintain our complexity–that is, modern industrial life–are both in jeopardy. We consume much more energy than we produce, and the kind of energy we consume is moving us out of the Goldilocks zone. If unchecked, the result of these two processes is inevitable: a loss of complexity, which is to say the destruction of modern industrial society. That’s something to think about, and maybe even do something about. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My son Isaiah likes to play the “why” game. Isaiah: “Why is my ice cream gone?” Me: “Because you ate it.” Isaiah: “Why did I eat it?” Me: “Because you need food.” Isaiah: “Why do I need food?” And so on. Isaiah naturally wants to know why things are the way they are. We all do. Most of us, however, are taught that seeking these ultimate answers is quixotic. We say either that there are no ultimate answers or that you’d have to know too many to answer them. In this conception, there either is no story of everything or, if there is, no one can tell it. Thankfully, Fred Spier disagrees. His path-breaking Big History and the Future of Humanity (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010) succeeds in sketching the story of everything from the origins of the universe to the reason my son’s ice cream is gone. In around two-hundred lucidly written pages he takes us from the Big Bang, to the separation of matter and energy, to the rise of elementary particles, to the formation of galaxies, solar systems, stars, and planets, to the creation of elements, to the origin of life, to the evolution of biotic complexity, to the emergence of humans, to the origin of society, to the invention of ice cream. What enables him to do this is a simple, unifying theory, namely, that all forms of complexity are the result of energy flowing through matter within certain boundaries (“Goldilocks” conditions). Everything with edges, a shape, parts, or an internal structure is the result of energy flowing through matter within certain boundaries and is only maintained so long as the energy keeps flowing and the boundaries don’t change. Historiographically, this book takes us into new and promising territory. But even more than that it is timely, for the energy and conditions that maintain our complexity–that is, modern industrial life–are both in jeopardy. We consume much more energy than we produce, and the kind of energy we consume is moving us out of the Goldilocks zone. If unchecked, the result of these two processes is inevitable: a loss of complexity, which is to say the destruction of modern industrial society. That’s something to think about, and maybe even do something about. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My son Isaiah likes to play the “why” game. Isaiah: “Why is my ice cream gone?” Me: “Because you ate it.” Isaiah: “Why did I eat it?” Me: “Because you need food.” Isaiah: “Why do I need food?” And so on. Isaiah naturally wants to know why things are the way they are. We all do. Most of us, however, are taught that seeking these ultimate answers is quixotic. We say either that there are no ultimate answers or that you’d have to know too many to answer them. In this conception, there either is no story of everything or, if there is, no one can tell it. Thankfully, Fred Spier disagrees. His path-breaking Big History and the Future of Humanity (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010) succeeds in sketching the story of everything from the origins of the universe to the reason my son’s ice cream is gone. In around two-hundred lucidly written pages he takes us from the Big Bang, to the separation of matter and energy, to the rise of elementary particles, to the formation of galaxies, solar systems, stars, and planets, to the creation of elements, to the origin of life, to the evolution of biotic complexity, to the emergence of humans, to the origin of society, to the invention of ice cream. What enables him to do this is a simple, unifying theory, namely, that all forms of complexity are the result of energy flowing through matter within certain boundaries (“Goldilocks” conditions). Everything with edges, a shape, parts, or an internal structure is the result of energy flowing through matter within certain boundaries and is only maintained so long as the energy keeps flowing and the boundaries don’t change. Historiographically, this book takes us into new and promising territory. But even more than that it is timely, for the energy and conditions that maintain our complexity–that is, modern industrial life–are both in jeopardy. We consume much more energy than we produce, and the kind of energy we consume is moving us out of the Goldilocks zone. If unchecked, the result of these two processes is inevitable: a loss of complexity, which is to say the destruction of modern industrial society. That’s something to think about, and maybe even do something about. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices