REAL AF with Andy Frisella - ASK ANDY: Product Development and a Primer on Core Values

Episode Date: August 13, 2015

(1) Why are core values important and (2) How do you make a good product great? In this ASK ANDY episode of The MFCEO Project, Andy Frisella answers questions from listeners.  Vaughn Kohler joins him for the conversation.

All I do is work, work, work. Never run the sidelines, I only hustle. I'll never take a day off, I only work, work, work. I don't mess around, kid, I only care. Lordy never seems to get you. All I do is work. All I do is work. All I do is work.

Hey, guys, what's up? It's Andy. You're listening to the MFCEO Project Podcast. Thanks for tuning in. We're here. Going to hit some Q&As on our Thursday episode. I'm here, as always, with my host, Vaughn Kohler. What's up, dude?

This is a great day. It is. It is a great day. It's just beautiful out. It's been ridiculously hot in St. Louis the last couple days. Yeah, man. You know, it's like 90 today. It feels like it's 75.

Yeah, it feels really good. I don't realize how fucking hot it gets here. Like I tell people, like I've got my friends in California and my friends in Florida, and they're like, you know, oh, it's hot. You don't know how hot it is. First of all, my mom lived in South Florida for a long time. I know how hot it gets.

It does get hot, but it does not get like here. Here is different. There's no ocean breeze. It's fucking 1,000% humidity. There's really nothing cool to look at. Right. You know, it makes it worse. There's asphalt everywhere.

Yeah. You know, it's like you walk outside. I mean, for me, man, I'm a big dude. I walk outside, and I'm like, I've got to change my underwear after walking outside for 30 seconds. It fucking sucks. Yeah, yeah. And, dude, today, I did cardio outside

today, 90 degrees. Seriously, it felt like it was like 75. It felt really nice. Of course, I'm flying out tomorrow, so I'm excited. Well, I'm going to tell you where I'm going, and then I'm going to try to think if I know you well enough to anticipate the

question that's going to follow. I'm flying to Colorado. Oh, you're going to go out there and smoke some weed? I'm flying to Denver. I was going to go out there and get this little sticky green on. You know what? I was in Deerbrook's for people who are not. They don't sell weed at Deerbrook's. No, they don't. They don't. I was at Deer's. For people who don't know what that is, that's a local supermarket.

And I was ordering some salmon from the deli area. And there was this high school kid. And I have to stay away from gluten. So I asked him, as I said. Hey, man, how much for a dime? No. So there's this salmon, and it comes with a glaze. And he says, do you want extra glaze?

And I said, is there wheat in it? And I think he heard me wrong. He's like, dude, that'd be awesome. And I go, what? And he goes, what did you say? I go, I said, is there wheat in it? Like wheat, like gluten. He goes, oh, no, I don't think so.

That's funny. I think funny. Damn kids these days. Yeah, I know. It's crazy. Anyway. Smoking all that weed. Did you do the intro? I don't know. I think so. Okay. If I didn't, if you're new, we're going to say bad words and we're going to talk about things, answer questions in regards to business.

This is the MFCEO project, if you didn't already know that. If you're continuing, you know that we're unorganized and we're going to get off track and we're also going to say bad words. Andy is. Yeah. I'm going to...

All right. Well, if anybody's still with us, we should probably answer a more serious question. But those are fun. Okay. And you know what? I'm hesitant to ask this question simply because I'd like to spend a whole podcast on it. This is a good question. This is a question from James from OKC,

home of the thunder. All right. Hey, Andy, I'm a huge fan and big believer of your thoughts and beliefs in business. I thought I was one of the only ones that thought this way. I was listening to the podcast the other day, and you were talking about your core values in your company that you hire and fire by. Could you run down your list of core values again and come up with, let's see, so that I can review them and come up with a couple new or borrow a couple of ones?

And can you also tell me how you came up with those core values? I kind of butchered your question, James. Yeah. I think you got it. Dude, that's like a 40-minute answer, to be honest. So maybe, how about we do this? How about I narrow the question and say, why do you think it's important to have core values? Okay.

So the idea behind what you want to do is you want to create a culture in your business. All right. You want to give your business a living, breathing culture that is your company. Okay. And if you want an example of a living, breathing culture of a company, look at a company like Harley Davidson. Okay. These guys, they don't care if you're black, they don't care if you're white, they don't care if you're gay, they don't care if you're black. They don't care if you're white. They don't care if you're gay. They don't care if you're straight. It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. It doesn't fucking matter as long as you live by the core values of live to ride, which is I'm passionate about Harley Davidson motorcycles.

And even some guys stretch it out to I'm just passionate about riding motorcycles. So you show up at Harley Davidson on a Sunday or a Saturday for these group rides that they do. And there's dudes that are six foot five, 280 pounds with beards down to their belly button, you know, and then there's, you know, the regular doctor dude, you know, um, they're dressed, you know, in his Harley shit, you know, you know know he's going to some fancy dinner at that night but for that three hours he's a fucking harley guy you know what i'm saying and those two guys find connection in that culture and you the way you really want to get your business going is by developing a culture amongst your employees and your customers so that not only do they use your

products but they're proud to use your products and they stand for what your company stands for. And if your company is going to stand for something, you have to identify what those points are going to be that your company is going to stand for. And that's what your core values are. So developing the things that you stand for and making it something that you hire and fire by, if you think about it the way I just explained, it becomes a very natural thing to do because if you don't hire and fire by those core values, the core values in the culture will die eventually and you'll lose that cool quote unquote X factor that you created that is really your most valuable asset as a company. So in terms of like listing them out and all that,

I've told a couple of people on Periscope and here that we'll put them up on the website. And then like our description of them. But by no means do those have to be your core values. But I will say they're very good core values, not only for business, but for life. And I think that's why people relate to our personal culture here at first form so well and at supplement superstore so well. And they want to be a part of the team because the core values don't represent just making money in business and growing a business. It represents how to actually live and be a good person and do the right

thing. And people dig that, you know? And it's true. It's how we operate here. So, you know, I'm not going to get into them because you're right. That could be a whole episode, but I hope that I explained why that's

important. Yeah. So that's your teaser, James. Yeah. Uh, so, uh, most people don't get what core values are. Like you can ask companies, like if you, if I ask people what their core values are when I'm in my consulting situation and they can't answer i mean i know i'm in for a fucking a battle yeah you know what i mean yeah there should be strong identifiable values that your company stands for that you live breathe and enforce in your day-to-day operations i mean and that and they're and they're important you know a lot of companies don't think they are. You know, they are. Right. They're everything.

Right. Okay, so you want to do one more? Yeah, we'll do another one. Okay. This is a question from Danny. And Danny actually works for a technology company. And by the way, it's D-A-N-I. She says, let's see here. you have said multiple times to listen to your

customers respect your customer and deliver what your customer needs basically happy customers equals happy returns so wait wait let me stop right there yeah because i haven't said that oh you haven't said that i haven't said said, listen to your customers, make what they want. Because a lot of times, customers don't know what the fuck they want. What I said was, make what you think is the best, and customers will relate to that. So I don't go out and try to take customers' feedback. Dude, okay. You know what? I think I misread.

Just in fairness to her, I said, said i think i wrote deliver what your customer wants no you she wrote respect your customers and deliver what they need yeah solve their problem right right so that was my fault i'm like for example i'll just finish what i was saying you know we flavor products right not everybody's gonna fucking like the way you flavor a product people if you ask 100 people they're gonna say it should be sweeter it should be less sweet um it should be thicker it should be thinner it should to say it should be sweeter, it should be less sweet, it should be thicker, it should be thinner, it should be this, it should be that. I can't make a product for everyone. I've got to make the product that I think is the best and put it out there. You know what I mean? And people will like it. And I might ask four or five

people, but I'm not asking everybody. You just can't do it that way. Right. So here's her question. Yeah. So how do you turn a product from what appears on the bottom line to be a great product into a product that is truly a great product that people continue to rave about? So I guess she's just talking about how do you improve a product? Read that again. Okay.

This is what she said. So how do you turn a product from what appears on the bottom line to be a great product into a product that is truly great that people start to really rave about? If I understand her correctly, I think she's just talking about how do you take sort of an objectively good product and turn it into something people – I mean, what are – Well, I mean, the reality is great product development and great products cure everything, you know, the better they solve the problem and the better they solve the problem with like a certain wow factor, like, wow, did that not only solve my problem, but it was fucking awesome. The more people are going to talk about it. So, um, you know, for example, I mean, if you take a fucking bandaid and it's, you know, I mean, look at band-aids, it's the most boring fucking you know, I mean, look at band-aids.

It's the most boring fucking thing on earth. All right. But band-aids used to be like that ugly brown. Right. Right. And then all of a sudden somebody came out and they made fucking Snoopy band-aids. Right. Or Superman.

Right. Or Superman or whatever. And guess which ones sell? The ones with the shit on them, the logos and shit on them. You know why? Because it gives people like some sort of little extra thing, you know? Um, so if your product can't for your first focus should be on getting your product to solve the problem that it's supposed to solve the best possible way. If you're solving a problem at 80% because the cost of manufacturer is too expensive to get it

to solve at a hundred percent, you're likely going to miss a big opportunity for word of mouth to be wow, because you're trying to cut that corner of that 20%. You get what I'm saying? So if you were just to spend a hundred percent and do it fucking perfect, you're going to get that extra wow factor and probably make up that mark, that production costs on the backside. You know, people always short, short circuit themselves with that kind of thinking. Let me make, especially here in the supplement world. I mean, people always short, short circuit themselves with that kind of thinking. Let me make, especially here in the supplement world. I mean, I can tell you everybody's trying to make the cheapest, the cheapest, the cheapest, the cheapest, the cheapest. Well, why does it make any fucking

sense to put the cheapest thing into your fucking body? It doesn't make sense, right? If you want, if you're putting something into your body, you want the best, you know, and that's where we built our whole company off of. So, and I think that's, I think that's encompassing to almost all products. You know, people want within their budget, the product that's going to solve their problem, the fucking best. And you have to realize as a manufacturer of a product or producer of a product that your product may not be for the guy who's going to drive a $10,000 car. And you may not get those guys. Your product may be too expensive for that. And I think people get caught up and they may end up with these products because they try to include everybody

in the price point and everybody in the, uh, you know, in the funnel. But the reality is, is most products that everybody can fit into the funnel on. And by the funnel, I mean like a potential customer, most products that fit potentially everybody are fucking so vanilla that people will never fucking talk about it. So you, you squeeze your funnel a little tighter, exclude some people and make your product better. And then all of a sudden it's good enough to where people say, holy fuck, that's awesome. Right. You know, and you have to understand something too. I don't know what product, but there's, there's an aspect of something potentially costing more that people actually appreciate.

You know, when things are more expensive, sometimes the mentality can be, look at Apple computers. Apple's a great product, but they're fucking three times as expensive as pc right so there's our timer to get done but you know somebody who's making you know barely enough money to get by and they work their ass off to afford that apple and they buy it they're fucking proud of that they say fuck i'm an app And that won't work with every product because there's commodity products, you know? Um, but it works a lot of times, you know, it says, man, I'm proud of this product. And there you get word of mouth. Right. Cause it create pride because they had to earn it. You see what I'm saying? And I don't think Apple's three times as expensive, better than PC. I mean, I prefer Apple, but you know, and I still buy Apple because I'm in the

position to do that. Right. But, uh, you know, I mean, there's definitely a premium in there and they're smart. They get it. They get the people brag about, they want that little light up Apple at fucking Starbucks with their latte. You know, they'd want that. They want to sit there and they want to put their fucking black frame glasses on. I got my laptop. Look, man, they want to put their fucking black Harry Potter's on and they want to sit in starbucks with their fucking coffee with the little apple lit up and pretend like they're fucking you know getting shit done yeah i mean dude and apple sells that to them yeah yeah you know so it makes people feel important it makes people feel good it makes people be productive and i'm not saying that's even a fucking bad thing. I'm just saying they understand what they're selling.

Right. So understand what you're fucking selling. What are you selling? You know, I don't know what she's selling. She didn't say what she's selling. I don't know. I can only answer the question. I didn't read the whole thing.

Guys, if you ask questions, include everything that you're, include the details because that helps me answer the question better. If I don't know the product or I don't, these generalized questions are very hard to answer, you know, because. Well, your co-host didn't read the whole email. Well, I'm just saying, you know, I, it would help if I knew the product because then I could fucking say, you know, Hey, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. No, that's good. Okay. So we are past our time, but I do want you, if you can answer really succinctly, here's a question. I mean, this is anecdotal.

This isn't based on any hard research, but I don't know if you've ever heard a lot of people say early iterations of Microsoft Word were great, so then they tried to improve the product, and people kind of got the feeling like, dude, this is so bloated. So what was the mistake that they made? You know what I'm saying? Because a lot of people thought here's the difference the new improved version was just too much look here's the difference and again that's just anecdotal here's the difference don't come out with a new version of your product

unless it's a legit improvement because a lot of companies will come out with a new version because they need to generate the cash flow apple's starting to do this every and they've been doing it every fucking year there's a new ip it's no different you know I mean a couple years ago they got fucking you know oh I'm gonna take the phone jack from the top and I'm gonna put it on the bottom I'm gonna create a new charger that's not a superior charger that's just to get us to go buy the fucking new one you know and companies people get like for me I get pissed at that. You know what I mean? Because you're not genuinely improving your product. So new features do not mean improvement. No.

Do not release or promote a new version of your product unless it's genuinely better than the old version. Don't think that you're going to trick the consumer just to generate cash flow. That's what these people think. And it works, but it's not going to work for very much longer in the way things are. People are getting smarter.

Right, you lose integrity. Yes. Yeah. And they lose, by Apple doing that, they're losing that super, little by little, they're losing that super culture they created. You know what I mean? Every year they come out with iPhones,

the same fucking thing, and it's $700, and you've got to, you know, it might have one or two little features on it that are different, but isn't an improvement. That's debatable. Unless it's a non debatable. Yes. This is a fucking improved product.

You shouldn't come out with it. If you want to maintain the integrity of your following. Right. You know? So, um, I think there, yeah.

I mean, there are a lot of people who for a long time have just been like, oh, if Apple releases it, I'll buy it. But that's only going to go so far. Over time, people are going to start thinking, okay, why am I doing this? Well, not only that, their sales are going to continue to decline, decline, decline, decline. And they're going to get on a slippery slope to where once they do that for so long and their sales start to slow

and slow and slow and other companies are truly innovating and bringing out better improvement products they're gonna what they're gonna lose is that fucking passionate apple you know coolness that they which is what i said a minute ago is what they're selling and when they lose that and and then they and then they try to start innovating again it's like starting from scratch right you know what i mean they've tainted their name the the company's not going to come back the way that it did so right um you know i i see a lot of companies that do that shit just generate sales and i get that but it's i don't know maybe i get that, but it's, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, man. Maybe it fucking works. I don't know. It seems to work. They're the richest company in

the world, but you know, I also know that on the ground floor, which they can't fucking see from their tower that they've built, people get tired of that shit. You know what I mean? And eventually people get enough tired that they give somebody else a shot. Right. So it might be a good strategy for now, but where is it going to be in 20 years? Right. Right. You know what I mean? And with that question, we're going to wrap up. Ask Andy at the MFCEO.com.

I mean, that's a good question, man. That's a debatable question. I'm sure if you had somebody like Seth Godin in here or Gary Vee or any of these guys. Oh, we'll have to get those guys in there. Dude, it would be awesome. They'd have other opinions that might not, or other points that might prove me wrong on that. That's just what I see.

No, that's good. And I'm a small business guy. I'm not a fucking multi-billion dollar. I mean, yes, we do a lot of business, but we're still small business. So I could, that answer, that's how I see things. I don't necessarily, I don't fucking know everything. It's just how I see things from my perspective and experience. When you're up here in this, you know, trillion dollar building that they fucking built or whatever,

and you're looking down on the ground floor, you can't always see what's actually going on from that perspective. You know, I see people producing products all the time that are not necessarily any better, uh, just to generate sales. And eventually people are like, dude, fuck that. They're just trying to get my shit. Right. And that's not, that's not how, you know, you build a long-term passionate following, right? You know, Harley Davidson has a long-term passionate following. They've had some of the same models for 20, 30 years because there is no improving it. You know what I mean?

Yeah. No, that's true. I don't know. Good stuff. Maybe. Could be. No, it is good stuff. Like I said, ask Andy at the MFC... I can't talk today. Ask Andy at the MFCEO.com. Thanks for tuning in guys. Or I guess you didn't really tune in. You kind of downloaded or

I don't know, linked. Guys, thanks for the reviews too. We're getting more and more reviews. Still, still some of you guys are slacking. You know, we don't ask for much. We don't charge. I asked that you leave a review. I would appreciate it if you guys did that for us. Uh, and I'll say it the other way, leave a fucking review because people seem to get a kick out of that. But yeah, you know,

I mean, what the fuck, man, we're in here putting in this time trying to answer questions and give some good info for free. There's some great reviews though. Some of you people have really taken it to a next level by your reviews. They're amazing.

Yeah, it seems like we have either people that are just willing to pour their heart out and be awesome, and then we just have people that are like, fuck it, I'm not doing a review. Yeah, definitely. All right, well, that's it. All right, guys, we will see you on Tuesday. Bye. Bye.

Bye. All I do is work Hustling