REAL AF with Andy Frisella - Harnessing Humanity: The Key to Building a BILLION Dollar Brand, with Andy Frisella - MFCEO227

Episode Date: April 3, 2018

What's the key to building a billion dollar brand? What's going to give you that edge over your competition? The so-called "gurus" will tell you it's the latest hi-tech silver bullet...that new platform or software that will make everything easy & efficient & will streamline & automate some aspect of your business so that customers will just come rolling in. But that's the true. The key is not easy or efficient, but it costs a lot less money & will make you FAR more. What it is? Listen & find out.

I can stack them hundreds to the roof. I ain't stopping till they stack to the moon. Without me, my family wouldn't have food. Anybody go against me, gotta lose. What is up, guys? You're listening to the MFCEO Project. I'm Andy. I'm your host. And I am the motherfucking CEO. This is a little old-fashioned, but I wanted to send you a handwritten letter thanking you. It's easy to hit like on a post or comment. It takes some effort to write it out, especially with my handwriting. Bro, I feel you.

I need to tell you the impact your movement has made on me. I've owned an insurance agency since 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia market. We've been successful and have grown every year. I started listening to your podcast consistently around January of 2017. I noticed right away that your potential messages had me thinking differently and more aggressively. Basically, I reached down, I grabbed my balls, and I got to fucking work. Since that time, I've taken my company from $2.3 million to $4.8 million in premiums. We are nowhere near where we want to be, but we're making some serious progress,

and you've helped me realize that I'm capable of doing this. This is a fucking movement. Thank you for what you do and allowing me to be a part of it. James D Chapman. That's what's up, bro. James D Chapman. You're the fucking reason I do this podcast. You're the reason that I spend hours upon hours upon hours a week not getting paid, not selling a project, giving my time to help people like you, James D. Chapman. It's people like you, James D. Chapman, who make me realize that I'm on the right path. Anything that we do, anything that we attempt to do outside the norm, we are going to have people hate on it. We are going to have people talk shit. We're going to have people not like it. We are going to get frustrated. We are going to get

angry. We are going to get pissed. We are going to feel like quitting. But things like this, this letter that's written on yellow legal pad paper, and quite honestly, some of the shittiest handwriting I've ever fucking seen besides my own is what reminds me of why the fuck I do this. So thank you, James Chapman, because today I didn't feel like doing a podcast. I didn't feel like sitting down and talking about something that I was passionate about, that I care about, that I feel strongly about. But you changed my mind, bro. I sat down at my desk about an hour ago. I was going through mail.

I opened up this letter. And by the way, I read all your letters. I don't respond to everyone because it's impossible. I can't keep up with it. The love that you guys show me is overwhelming to the point where I just can't do it so don't think that I don't read the messages but sometimes just like a lot of you guys tell me messages come at the right time and today was one of those days today was one of those days where I was thinking about like how fucking stupid people are and how annoying they are and

how much I want to punch everybody in the fucking mouth. And I don't really feel like going to record a podcast. Um, I was feeling selfish because I was actually feeling like, Hey, I don't really want to record a podcast because, uh, you know, it doesn't fucking matter. And I'm not getting anything out of it. And that reminded me of something that I talk about with you guys all the time, which is providing value without expectation. All right. Lots of people these days will talk to you about value. Value equals dollars. Value is how you get paid. You got to create value blah blah blah blah blah blah fucking blah right we hear it all the time and we hear it so much that we forget what it

really means and the asterisk there is is without expectation right i truly feel like that the more you give without expecting anything back, the more people feel obligated to give back to you. You know, it's like when you do a really fucking great job for somebody, like if I, if I came to your house and I fucking did over the top job landscaping your yard, I mean, dude, it is just fucking beautiful, fucking beautiful. There's a point where you walk out and you look around and you're actually get a fucking boner looking at your yard. And for you girls, it would be a cloner. All right. So you're so excited about how great your yard looks that you literally can't fucking wait to tell everybody about it

but then i come up to you and i ask you for a recommendation i get asked this a lot i get i get dude do you do you uh do you think that asking for a recommendation cheapens the actual chances or the actual quality of the product and the chances that they will give a recommendation? I think it depends on the circumstances. I think sometimes when you do a really, really great job, I think that if you know it, you're better off not asking for the recommendation. I think you just let it happen organically. Sometimes I think it's okay to ask. I think it just let it happen organically. Um, sometimes I think it's okay to ask. I think it just depends on, on how you feel. You know, um, I found really good success

with, uh, not asking for the recommendation in my business and people just do it cause we go over the top. Now with the podcast, I have to remind you motherfuckers on a consistent basis to fucking push it out there because we don't advertise and we don't do anything. So I don't know. I think it just depends on the context. Um, but I know this, I know that you have to understand that value, real value is what's going to get you paid. You know, people talk about this shit all the time and they talk about it in a, I don't know, cheesy fucking way you know what I'm saying like people just say that shit over and over again I feel like it becomes almost like we don't even hear it yeah I mean it's it's a catchphrase nowadays wait who are you oh I'm Vaughn why the fuck are you here why is Vaughn's

voice sounds so sexy now that's true much sexier than Vaughn dude Why the fuck are you here? Why does Vaughn's voice sound so sexy now? That's true. Much sexier than Vaughn. Dude, I just feel like people get... It's one of those buzzwords that people are driving. Do you think people really understand fucking value? No. I think that they just parrot that shit. I don't think that they actually grasp the concept of it. I mean, dude, we go around and we speak to fucking people oh i mean you come with me to every event we see

these people all over the fucking country and it seems like the same thing over and over again their product just fucking sucks and i'm not talking about their product like they might have a great product but the way they deliver it the way they fucking present it the way they go about communicating to fucking people just sucks and that's why they can't get it to fucking catch, catch, uh, catch on, or they're trying to nickel and dime and monetize every little aspect of it. You know, they're like, well, you know, if I, if I were to go out and do this, it would cost me this and there's no return on that. And I just feel like people just don't grasp the idea of giving value, real value to create an experience and having faith enough that it's going to come back.

Well, and I think that's where they get lost a lot is visualizing how it's going to come back to them. Yeah. They look at it like it's a, like I've got to pay a dollar and I've got to get a dollar back. Otherwise it's a waste of fucking money. And when we talk about customer experience and we talk about providing value, we're not talking about, you know, something that's completely measurable. You might not be able to measure what you're doing for, for years to come,

because you don't really know what growth that's going to create. So like you might be spending X amount of dollars and resources. And like, some of you guys are like natural born, like, um, accountants, right? Like you're bean counters. That's what you fucking are. And you cannot grasp the idea that what you're putting out in expense and dollars and cents to create a great customer experience is actually going to come back to you, but it's going to take, you know, 90 days or 180 days or a year for it to come back and, and, and for you to see that financial return. And I think a lot of people fucking discount, uh, you know, just shit like this. Like, like, you know, dude, how much, how much time would it take? It took this guy a year to go from fucking two point. What'd he say? 2.3 million to 4.8 million. That's fucking over double. It took him one year. That seems like a

long time, right? Like I'm planting these ideas. Not to us. I know. But what I'm saying is, is like, I'm planting these ideas in this motherfucker's head, you know, and he's going out and executing them. And in one year he doubled his fucking sales. So that sounds like, you know, when you talk about a year from now you're going to have a return people think that that's forever like that's fucking fast you know what I mean and uh I don't know man like that's the reason we do this fucking shit you know that's the reason we we do this podcast but but I think when when you when we talk about most people having the perspective of what aggressive patience means and what it means to be putting value out there

and what it means is to drive extreme over the top customer experience over and over and over and over again. You know, I feel like most of these motherfuckers they like do it once or twice and they're like oh it didn't work didn't work so i'm gonna pull back and i'm gonna fucking you know not do it dude providing extreme value and building great customer experience is something that you have to fucking make a habit you have to ingrain it into your culture of your business you You have to have every fucking person that puts on a shirt with your logo on it or represents your brand in tune with the over the top mentality. You know, you can't try it for a day. You can't just like try it for a

month. It has to become what your business is and who you are and the truth of the matter is is that if you don't make this part of who you are and you don't make delivering extreme value part of what you are and what your business is forever you're going to come across somebody that does and they are going to beat you and that's just a fact of the game that we're playing these days. We're playing in a completely word of mouth driven market where customer experience, testimonials, whether online or in person or text or fucking social media or whatever drive business. And if your product sucks and your service sucks or your experience sucks or something about anything that you do sucks, guess what? Your results are going to suck.

And that's just the way it is. You know, people ask me all the time, when's the best time to advertise? Let me tell you when the best time to advertise is. The best time to advertise is after you've worked out all the bugs, your product's good, your service is good, it's responsive, it's quick, it solves the problem, your customer experience is good. You have people out there who are going way out of their fucking way, like James D. Chapman did here,

to thank you for what you do, no matter what it is. You might be listening, You might be saying, well, I changed oil for a living. Well, if you don't figure out a way to make it fucking amazing, guess what? Somebody's gonna, and they're going to fucking beat you. All right. You guys who are in business right now are, are 98% of you are perfect examples because we're in the beginning of this shit, by the way. This is the beginning of this revolution, all right? What you guys don't fucking understand is that while social media seems to you to have already gone and taken off, we are really in the midst of something that's much, much bigger than that.

And we're in the midst of a customer experience revolution. Okay. If people don't love to buy from you, if they don't fucking feel passionate about you, if they're not excited about you, if you're not doing something to make them fucking incredibly over the top loyal to your brand, you will not last. This is not an option. This is not something that you can pick and choose. Your product has to be great. Your service has to be great. Your experience has to be great. Your follow-up has to be great or you're going to fucking lose because what's happening now, and this has already happened by the way, but there's so few companies taking advantage of it that you have a tremendous opportunity. And that opportunity is this. You have an opportunity to beat everybody

that you compete with in business. All right. And a lot of people will say, well, you're not competing with any bullshit. You're competing with a bunch of other motherfuckers. All right. And a lot of people will say, well, you're not competing with any bullshit. You're competing with a bunch of other motherfuckers. All right. Now the way to beat them is to focus on what you do and do it best. So when people say to you, oh, well, don't worry about your competition because it doesn't matter. No, it fucking matters a lot. What they're really saying is that you need to not worry about your competition and be reactive in nature. And what you need to do is to think about what you offer, how can you be the best, and you have to go fucking make that happen. That's what people say when they're saying, don't worry about your competition. It's irrelevant. No, it's fucking very relevant.

But the way you beat your competition is by being fucking good, concentrating on your product, building the best product, building the best service department, creating the best experience over and over and over again on purpose by design, being strategic and tactical about every single step that you take to provide something that makes people say, holy shit, that was the best experience. Not the best experience in your little niche. That was the best experience I've ever had shopping anywhere. And I think if I say, hey, what was the best experience you've ever had shopping anywhere? Most of you can think of it within five fucking seconds, probably two seconds, because it's so far above and over the top of everybody else.

And what we have now is a situation where it takes literally seconds for our customers to tell every single person that they possibly know from the time they were in fucking preschool until now with the click of a mouse how great you are or how bad you are okay now are you smart enough to take advantage of that are you smart enough to take advantage of that? Are you smart enough to understand what value really means? Most of you are not. Most of you are perfect examples of what's wrong with society. You don't like that? Tough shit.

It's the truth. Because here's what I mean by that. Most of you look for every little opportunity to cut part of the process out so that you can make it easier on yourself. That's what most people do. It's human nature. Okay. I've got to get from here to a hundred miles away. Well, I could walk there or I could invent a wheel and I can make a cart and have a horse pull me. That's what we do. We learn to make shit easy on ourselves. It's human nature. So I'm not criticizing you personally. It's just how we are. We as humans are fucking lazy and out of laziness comes pretty incredible solutions. But when it comes to running a business,

the true value of what you offer is going to be found in the inefficient things. I want you to think about this for a minute. Think about what it looked like to go into a grocery store 15 years ago or 10 years ago. You would walk into the grocery store. There ago or 10 years ago. You would walk into the grocery store. There would be a checker and a bagger at every single fucking checkout station. If you went to Home Depot, it was the same thing. If you went to the bank, it was the same thing.

All right, but what do we have now? We've got one fucking checker. What does that checker do? That checker is there to observe the computer system to check us out, to make sure that the computer is working properly. All right. And most people are like, well, yeah, duh, that's more efficient. Well, here's the thing. What if, what if a store were to open up next to Home Depot? let's just say it was Lowe's. Lowe's and Home Depot are pretty interchangeable in my opinion. One doesn't supersede the other too much at any given time. What if one of them used automated checkers like they do, like they both do? And what if the other one were to say, fuck these automated checkers. You know what we're going to do?

We're going to station every single lane with a person who's not only going to be just checking them out, but is going to be well-trained in every project that's going to be there to help them have a great customer experience that's going to be trained in how to be polite and not be annoying and have sensory acuity to create an awesome experience for the people that are checking out. Okay. Now I know that a lot of you like me fucking hate people and checking out with a computer is fine, but most people like personal interaction. Most people love it. And when it's being taken away more and more and more by technology, that creates an awesome opportunity for us to create a better experience because automated experiences are for the most part, sterile.

They're indifferent. Nobody cares. But with a person, which by the way, you have your ability to do this. With a person, we can create memorable experiences. We can create situations that people talk about and quote unquote, as Seth Godin says, sneeze about. That means they're going to talk about it quote unquote, as Seth Godin says, sneeze about. That means they're going to talk about it. All right. And you guys who are inherently lazy, like all humans, look at your

business and you say, where can I cut this cost? And where can I cut this cost? And where can I cut this? And what can I do here? And what can I do here? And what you're doing is you're creating a situation where you're no different than your competitors. And what I would encourage you is to really think hard about what bringing value truly means. It's not just about your product. It's about your entire fucking brand. And I would encourage you to really think what you could do to stand out from the companies that you compete against. What can you do? And the answer, luckily for you and unluckily for you, lazy motherfuckers, is going to come in the form of some sort of human inefficiency, meaning that it's going to take fucking effort. It's going to take effort like James D. Chapman did right here where he took out a fucking actual

pen and instead of leaving a comment or sending me a DM, he wrote a fucking letter. And guess what? That got my attention. And now I've said James D. Chapman 47 fucking times. I've said it to prove a point that inefficient things create real value. Inefficient things grab attention. Inefficient things make people say, wow, inefficient things make you fucking money. And if you can't grasp that concept, because we are talking about going against the grain right now, what's the grain? Everybody's going towards automation. Everybody's going towards drip campaigns. Everybody has a click funnel. Everybody has this. Everybody has that. Everybody has this. And I'm not saying those

tools aren't useful, but everybody's inherently going towards the easiest automation techniques possible and removing the human element. And the human element for you, the small business owner, is the most valuable element that you can have. And guess what? It costs the least amount of fucking money. All right? You guys have to learn to harness the human element. You have to learn to make the humanity of your brand work for you from a product standpoint, from a service standpoint, and from a culture and overall experience standpoint. And if you want to know what brands are going to do for the next 20 fucking years that are going to create the biggest, most valuable brands on earth,

they are going to be the ones that harness humanity. They are going to be the ones that step out from behind the logo and say, Hey, we're just like you. How can we help you? How can we make your experience better? Hey, how are those products working out for you? Hey, are you still enjoying the new tires on your car? I know it's a boring subject, but look, your satisfaction and your appreciation of that product means a lot to us. So I'm going to call you on the fucking phone and I'm going to ask you about it. And a lot of you guys will cop out on this shit because you think it doesn't fucking matter. But I'm going to tell you right now, we're going to do over $200 million this year. And next year we're going to do

400. And the year after that, we're going to do a fucking billion. And you know how we're going to do it? By harnessing a fucking bunch of fucking humans that give a fuck about what we do and what our customers experiences are and what our products deliver and what the service behind our brand stands for we're not going to do anything that is like sending somebody to the fucking moon or creating some sort of situation that is like so out there that it's impossible to fucking fathom this new technological breakthrough. We're not, we're not, we're not inventing a fucking wheel, but what we are doing is bringing back the value of the actual human experience. So when you talk about value and you hear the word value and you hear the words, you know,

deliver value and get fucking paid from all these motherfucking gurus that have never actually built a brand and don't actually work inside their companies and don't actually stare at a warehouse full of product like I do right now when I'm fucking doing these podcasts and don't actually deal with employees every day and don't actually fucking do anything other than sell you the idea of success. Remember that when they talk about bringing value, even though they don't know what the fuck they're talking about, that bringing value is exactly what's going to get you fucking paid.