The Home Service Expert Podcast - Strategies for Building an Exceptional Workplace Culture and Customer Experience

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

Joey Coleman is the founder and Chief Experience Composer of Design Symphony – a customer and employee experience branding firm that assists corporations, non-profits, and small businesses in creating breathtaking interactions for the people they serve. He is also an award-winning speaker at both national and international conferences and is the author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller “Never Lose a Customer Again” and the recently released “Never Lose an Employee Again.” In this episode, we talked about employee retention & appreciation, customer experiences, engagement strategies…

I think there are great people out there all day long. I think there's great people that are working for companies that aren't treating them great that would happily come work for your company if the pain of changing wasn't greater than the pain of not changing. See, here's the problem. When you're in a job that you don't like, it has to get so bad before you'll decide to quit. And in this day and age, with the way most people

are running their personal finances, the responsibilities most people have, the obligations most people have, it's going to take a lot for them to leap and hope the net appears. They'd much rather leap into the next thing almost immediately. And so I think there's an opportunity, to your point, to begin with the employee experience from a place of recruiting. What is the experience going to be like if I come to work for you, Tommy, if I haven't even applied? How do I get a feel for what that experience is? Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week, Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host,

the home service millionaire, Tommy Mello. Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text NOTES to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299. And you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy.

Now let's go back into the interview. All right, guys, welcome back to the Home Service Expert. Today, I got Joey Coleman. Joey lives in the greater Minneapolis, St. Paul area. He's an expert in personal branding, public speaking, customer experience. He's the chief experience composer at Design Symphony. He's the chairman of board of directors back in the day at Affinity Lab and also worked at Capitol Hill's Arts Workshop. Joey Coleman is the founder and chief experience composer of Design Symphony, a customer and employee experiencing branding firm that assists corporations, nonprofits, and small business in creating breathtaking interactions for the people

they serve. Over the last years, he served on the board of directors for many organizations like Affinity Lab, Lab Hill Arts Workshop, the George Washington University Law Firm, and more. He's also an award-winning speaker at both national and international conferences and is the author of two Wall Street Journal bestsellers, Never Lose a Customer Again and recently released Never Lose an recently was released. Never lose an employee again. It's an honor to have you. Tommy, it is a pleasure to be here. Thanks so much for inviting me and thanks to everybody who's listening in. Super excited to get a chance to connect. I am all about customer service and satisfaction, but I think we all start

on our internal customers, which are the employees. And so talk to me a little bit about the books you've written, what you've been up to, where you came up with these ideas, and what you talk about on stage is about. Yeah, I appreciate that, Tommy. So I've been involved in teaching organizations how to keep their customers for over 20 years. And I had been in that world, in that industry, as a speaker, as a consultant, as an author, for about all of five minutes when I realized that you can't have a great customer experience if you don't have great employees to deliver that experience. So the reason I wrote my newest book, Never Lose an Employee Again, is really twofold. Number one, if we want to create great customer experiences, we got to have great employees and we got to keep those employees if we want them to be able to deliver those kinds of

experiences. In addition, we have seen more change in the state of the employee in the last three years than we've probably seen in the last 50 years. And the landscape is evolving quickly. The game has changed for everybody that's playing it, whether that's as employers or as employees. And while I know there's a lot of business owners that are longing for yesteryear and hope it goes back to the way it was, that's just not going to happen. And there's a number of reasons for that. So what I'm trying to do is prepare business owners and business

leaders to have the real conversations they need to have with their employees today to keep them tomorrow. And so we can continue to serve our clients and our customers and run our businesses by creating remarkable experiences for the people who are on our team. Fantastic. And I hear this all the time, like these millennials don't want to work, Gen X, like you just hear the baby boomer mentality was, I'm going to work hard forever, not really enjoy my job, but I'll retire when I'm 65. Millennials are like, hey man, I want to feel included. I want to know that I'm part of something. I have feelings. I want that work-life balance. I want to know that I want my wife or husband to know what's going on.

And I love it. We have about 800 employees here. And we've got rock stars. And every meeting, I'm like, listen, we only hire the best of the best. It takes 100 applicants to hire one person. But opening up the floodgates of hiring, I think it starts with hiring. And then we do a very, very detailed orientation. And then we train, train, train, and then we focus on retention. And with a KPI-driven company, it's merit-based. It's not tenure. I don't believe in tenure. But everybody knows where they're at at every minute of every day. And I think, what would you tell, we're in the home service space, and I work with a lot, a lot of companies. And I hear this all the time, you can't find great people. But I just don't believe that. I'm with you, Tommy. I don't believe it. I think there are

great people out there all the day, all day long. I think there's great people that are working for companies that aren't treating them great, that would happily come work for your company if the pain of changing wasn't greater than the pain of not changing. See, here's the problem. When you're in a job that you don't like, it has to get so bad before you'll decide to quit. And in this day and age, with the way most people are running their personal finances, the responsibilities most people have, the obligations most people have, it's going to take a lot for them to leap and hope the net appears. They'd much rather leap into the next thing almost immediately. And so I think there's an opportunity, to your point, to begin with the employee experience

from a place of recruiting. What is the experience going to be like if I come to work for you, Tommy, if I haven't even applied? How do I get a feel for what that experience is? I can get a feel for that by looking at your social media pages. I can get a feel for that going to the About Us page on your website. I can get the feel for that by talking to my friends who work for you and hearing how great it is to work for you and work on your team and get excited about what that potentiality

and possibility is. I think many leaders wait until they're looking for a position before they start recruiting. And the reality is you need to be recruiting, recruiting, recruiting all the time, whether you have a position to fill or not. You need to have your fingers in the marketplace. You need to have your finger on the pulse of what's going on. You need to be out in the marketplace, letting people know you're an employer of choice. You're a fantastic employer. You have a great culture. This is a great place to work. And when you do those things, you create an environment where when you do say, we need to hire a new salesperson, we need to hire a new account manager,

we need to hire a new person to come and repair an HVAC system, suddenly you've got tons of people flooding and being interested in your offering because they've already heard about you. Yeah, I agree with that. And I think one of the biggest mistakes most companies make is they do not take the time to teach their people how to recruit. Even if you're great at sales. I mean, I'm at Cheesecake Factory, Melting Pot, P.F. Chang's, Chili's and Applebee's, and I'm recruiting the busboy. Everywhere I go, the Amazon guy, if there's a great teller at the bank, I think you should always be recruiting. People say always be closing.

I say always be recruiting. And it's a skill. I take a selfie with the person. I say, let's get you on for a ride along. You're awesome. I learn about their life, their wife, their kids. Typically, we've got more male technicians at this point. So I usually say the guy.

But one of the things that I wanted to ask you about is I tend to go to Yelp and Google when I want services and employees go to, they go to Glassdoor and Indeed. And I don't think people understand that. I go, have you ever even Googled yourself on Indeed and like, like saw what your score is? Yeah. You don't have any videos. There's nothing about you. You don't have a picture of the CEO. And it's amazing. They got three bad reviews because the only person left to review are the people that got fired or quit because of something, right? So how do we stand out in the marketplace? Obviously, social media is huge.

The average person under 40 is two and a half hours a day. It's not just Indeed, Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, Craigslist. I mean, you can't just go on the forums when you need somebody and expect great applicants to pile in. Absolutely. And I think your idea, Tommy, of always being recruiting is spot on. You've got to be looking for great talent. And I think the best leaders are talent spotters and they are talent nurturers, right? They're spotting the amazing

person before they're on the payroll and saying, hey, you need to be aware of us. We're excited in you. You've got some interesting traits that we think would serve you very well at our organization. And then when they join, we need to actually continue to nurture the relationship. So many employers, once the employee is in the door, they think the job is done. Friends, not at all. The research shows 40% of new hires quit before the one-year anniversary. 22% quit in the first 45 days. 50 plus percent of hourly workers will not be there on the 100-day anniversary of being hired. 50%. That's the turnover we're dealing with. 4% of people will show up for day one. They'll spend

the day working with you. They'll go home that night and never come back again. 4% of the people you hire will work for one day and that's it. These numbers are staggering. But what's scarier than that, Tommy, is that the typical business leader has no idea what their numbers are. They have no idea how quickly their people are leaving and they have no idea why their people are leaving. And the main reason their people are leaving is because they're not being properly onboarded. They're not being properly brought into the organization, welcomed, embraced, trained, given the tools and the resources they need to succeed, nurtured, and the relationship isn't built over time.

Last statistic, because as you can tell, I'm a guy who likes research, right? Last statistic. If we were to look at all the companies worldwide and the amount of time they spend training a new hire, more than 50% of companies, again, across all industries, spend one week or less training their new people. One week or less. And they get to the end of the week and they push them into the deep end and they say, hey, swim, figure it out. You'll sort it. If we want them

to stay for more than a week, we should be willing to invest more than a week training them. 100%. I used to play a lot of sports and this is something I talk about a lot on the podcast. In football, we used to do what's called two-a-days, two practices for three-hour days. So with six hours a day, we'd do that five days in the week. So we'd practice 30 hours to play one hour or it's a three hour game, right? So we practice literally 10 times more than we play. That's how sports work. That's how the Navy works. That's how the military works. That's how professionals work, Tommy. That's how professionals as a speaker, I prep for one hour for every one minute I have on stage. 60X.

So if I'm going to give an hour-long talk, I'm going to prep for that talk for 60 hours. That, to me, is the difference between somebody who's just dialing it in and someone who is focused on honing their craft, focused on delivering a remarkable experience. You see it on the football field. You see it in sales. You see it in speaking. You see it in every industry on the planet. The people who are willing to practice and put in the time and train and add to their skills and learn and research and dive deeper and hone are the ones that succeed. It's that simple and it's that complex. I read a stat and I don't know if it's super accurate, but if a person were to take 15 minutes

out of his or her day, and whether it's playing a musical instrument or working on a foreign language, by the end of that year, they're 70% better than everybody else around them. By 15 minutes. 100%. 100%. And I say, our technicians spend two months training before they are allowed to practice on a real client.

I say practice. And people hate the word role play. I teach operational, technical, and sales. And those are the three things that all of our trainings combine into those three buckets. But the training's never over. There's certain ride-alongs you got to come back to phoenix certain dates we got a morning mojo call we've got a two-hour meeting every single week and i think people think training you're done you're through the training phase when you look here's what people don't understand is the variance between a top and a bottom is usually

such a great amount. It's ridiculous if you look at the difference. And I always say the worst employee is a good employee. Bad employees get fired. Great employees move you straight up. Good employees just kind of get by. And it's our job to either motivate them up or, and I hate to say this because I'm not a big fan of just giving up on people. If they got a will, I'll find a way, but if they don't have this better, their best mentality, it's really hard for me to, if your mindset's broken, it's hard for me to want to work with you. Absolutely. I'm a big fan of hiring for attitude over aptitude. I can teach you whatever I know. No one was born. No one came into the world knowing how to service a piece of hardware.

No one came into the world knowing how to fill out a spreadsheet. No one came into the world knowing how to do Google AdWords. Every skill that we do in our workplace tasks is something that we didn't know that we learned on the job. We learned in school, we learned on the job, we learned from training. What is very difficult to train and is really more hardwired to who we are is, are you someone I want to hang out with? Are you someone when you walk into a room, the room feels better?

It feels lighter. It feels more energized. Or are you the kind of person who's a vampire, who just sucks the energy and the life out of a room and out of every conversation? I would much rather find the person who has the right personality and teach them the skills than to have this job listing that says, you got to have this experience and this experience and this experience, and then we'll decide whether you're the kind of person we want to work with or not. First, figure out if they're the kind of person you want to work with, and then you can teach them all the rest.

Most of these companies in the blue collar space don't have a really good training program. So the idea is if I could steal other people's top guys, but they also come with bad habits, they're pre-Madonnas, they want equity in the company, which is fine. I'm a big fan of equity for top performers, but I look for eye contact.

Are they funny? Can they tell me a story? What's their tonality? Like you give me a 20-year-old busboy. I was a 20-year-old busboy, by the way. I washed dishes. I've done it all. That's like just smiling the whole time.

Eye contact, dead eyes. Like I want that guy. I want him so bad. If I was getting a haircut a couple weeks ago and the gal was cutting my hair, I said, have you ever thought about customer service? You sound amazing. Like you make me smile. Like everywhere you go is an opportunity. Everybody's like, I can't find anybody. I'm like, where have you looked? You're not looking. Exactly. And it was a bad ad. Let's be candid. It was a pathetic ad. The ad looks like this, Joey.

Must be only eligible if like, it looks like a death sentence. Exactly. Like you look at requirements, requirements, requirements, drug test, background check, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think an ad should talk, first of all, have videos and pictures. Secondly, talk about how amazing this, you're going to be able to have your dreams come true when you work here. We're goal setters. We're going to literally re-engineer your dreams and we're going to help you accomplish them. If you want more out of life, this is for you. I don't even put the position until the very

last sentence. And there's not cookie cutter templated that this is what the ads should look like. We spent a lot of time writing good ads. Yeah. I mean, a couple of thoughts on that. Number one, if you are advertising for multiple positions, there should be little if no overlap in the language and the verbiage in those ads. Number two, I should be able to look at your ad and feel that it's different than the ads from all of your competitors. If I can take your ad and replace the name of your company with one of your competitors' names, and somebody could still think that that's a job that's open at your competitor, you haven't done a good job creating your ad. In my book, Never Lose an Employee Again, I talk about eight phases of an employee journey.

And the first phase, the one we're talking about where the advertising is going in the universe, it's all happening at the beginning, is called the assess phase, right? The reason I call it the assess phase is because we're assessing the candidate to see if they're going to be a good fit in our organization. But we often lose sight of the fact that they're assessing us as well, especially in this day and age. It used to be back in the day that they were like, oh, I hope I'm good enough to qualify. Now, most employees are coming into the conversation saying, what's it going to be like? What are you going to do? Why should I give up my time? What's in it for me? And not only what's in it for me in terms of my salary, my benefits, those things are

important, but more importantly, am I going to be a better version of myself because I work with you? Am I going to advance my career? Am I going to get skill sets? Am I going to get new opportunities, new possibilities, new experiences, new exposures? If you're not delivering those things, your employees aren't going to want to stay. I've got an employee who's been with me for 10 months, hasn't even been here a full year. We just had a conversation last week where I said, okay,

what do we need to do now? Let's talk about what's worked and hasn't worked in the last 10 months, but let's talk about what are the things you want to accomplish next? We've gotten a lot of things learned in the last 10 months. We've got a couple of things we still need to work on, but more importantly, where do you want to be at this time next year? Where do you want to be three years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now? And let's be candid, Tommy, with some employees, especially maybe your younger employees, they don't have that time horizon unless you ask them, unless you ask them to get clear on it and say, look, I'm not holding you to 10 years from now, you want to be running this division, but do you know what you want to do 10 years from now? Well, Joey, I don't know what I want to do 10 years from now, but I do know what I want to do two

years from now. Awesome. Tell me about that. And not only professionally, but personally, where do you want to live? What kind of house do you want to live in? Do you want to work remotely or do you want to work in person? Do you want to be married? Are you married? Do you want to have a family? I'm not saying you have to do these things. And I would ask these things once they're already an employee, not when you're interviewing them, right? Because you run into some legal issues there, But once they're already on the team and you start to get curious, you can even share what your goals are. I said to my assistant earlier this year,

here are my personal goals for 2024. This is the time I want to spend with my wife and my two kids. You control my calendar, make sure it's happening. If that means kicking a project further down the road, I'm empowering you to a project further down the road, I'm empowering you to kick it further down the road because I have this as a top priority and I need your support doing it. Then I've opened myself up to say, and by the way, what are some of your top priorities

for your personal life? How can I support those? Oh, you're trying to get out of debt. Oh, you're hoping to get this additional skill. Oh, you want to take this course. One of my employees came to me the other day and said, Joey, I've been thinking about taking this course. I said, what's the course in? They're like, project management. This is not a project manager on my team. Like project management. I said, oh, that's interesting. Why are you intrigued? They said, well, I end up doing a lot of detailed stuff and calendaring stuff and scheduling stuff in my job. And I thought if I got this certification as a project manager, I might learn some new skills that'll help me do my existing job even better and have additional skills that I can bring to bear here in the company. I said, what's it cost? They're like, it's like $300. I said, sign up today. Like what?

I said, sign up today. You want me to invest $300 in you to dramatically increase your ability to manage projects, manage a schedule, manage timelines? Oh my gosh, I will pay 10x that if that's the skill that you every single of my co-workers' dreams inside. And they start with why. Is it a big enough why? And I'm like, don't just want one house, want 10 houses. What does the house look like? Does it have a basement? What street is it on? How many square feet? How big is the lot? You're taking your kids to Disney World. You're going to go first class. You're going to cut all the lines. You want a 10-year anniversary to renew your vows. Where are you going in Hawaii? Four seasons. Okay, so here's your budget. Let's build out your budget. Now, instead of doing a performance improvement plan, which I think is bullshit, we say, remember, remember these dreams you told me, remember how you wanted to take your dad on this fishing trip. Listen, and I've got a whole calculator built out

that if we improve this by 3% and this by 5%, we hit your goal six months earlier. Now you make it about them. And I'll tell you, for me, when I look at someone's, if I look at your calendar and your credit card statements, I'll tell you what's important to you. 100%. 100%. You know, there's this fantastic book

that is actually written about a friend of mine's company. The book is called The Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly. Oh, no, I've got a dream manager. I love that. I love it. I love it. Oh, no, I've got a dream manager. I love that. I love it. I love it. And here's the great thing about a dream manager. This is based on the team or the company Jancoa, which is a commercial cleaning company, right? And I know the founders, they're fabulous humans. And their whole vision was no one wakes up saying, oh, I hope I grow up to clean office buildings when I grow up, right? That's not anybody's main goal.

They recognize that. They acknowledge that. But what they say is, if you're part of our team, we will help you achieve what your goal is. Is that goal to get a degree? Is that goal to get a different job? Is that a goal to be able to afford a house? Whatever it may be, we will help you get your personal dream, your personal goal, if you can help us by being an awesome employee.

And now they're off to the races. They're the biggest commercial cleaning company in the country. They had a book written about their dream manager program because they're so focused on their people. You look at that and you don't really know what people want until you ask them. And they said, why am I losing all these people? Well, we have a hard time getting to work, so we'll start a carpool. Boom. What else is important to you guys? Well, we want to learn to speak English better for ourselves and our kids. Boom. We'll have English training. All of a sudden, retention went through the roof.

Continue that. And it's not always the group. It's sometimes individualized. And everybody's different, but there's a lot of group therapy that can happen too. Like our people want to know how to budget, right? Our dream manager program, we run 50 to 60 at a time. 75% of them within the six months always buy a house because we get their credit fixed. We get them proof of their W-2 forms. And it's like, it's amazing. And now they need to perform at work because they got something big that they're, this is an investment. So it's so true. There's a case study in the book that's about Ablett cleaners. It's a dry cleaning company in Santa Barbara, California. And one of the things they teach their people as part of their onboarding process with new employees is something they call the game.

And the game is how does our dry cleaner make money and how do we spend money? What is the game we're playing? People drop off their clothes. We dry clean them. We take them back to them or they come pick them up and they teach their employees finance and they teach their employees budgeting and they teach their employees how to manage the resources of the company. What they found is a lot of their employees are also the person who manages the checkbook at home.

So these people now are getting skills to say, wait a second, what's our income? What are our expenses? What's our budget? How are we managing against those? Can we cut some cost here? Can we pick up some extra hours there? They're helping them improve their financial life skills, which by default helps the business run more effectively and efficiently. And they've tied the incentives to taking care and being good stewards of the

company's money to the bonus payouts that happen with the team. Everybody on the team, if I were to walk into Ablett's Cleaners right now today and ask anybody who works in their dry cleaning shop, what are this month's numbers and what numbers do we have to hit by the end of the month for everybody to get their bonus earn out? Everybody knows that. And they know it in real time every single day. That's how you get your employees actually bought into what you're trying to do as an

organization. I love that. And I think I've always had open book management that, you know, they say, man, you make a lot of, you know, A1 makes a lot of money. A1 Garage is for a service. And I'm like, would you like it to have it the opposite way? I was like, a healthy company should have healthy EBITDA numbers. Absolutely.

I've got this massive goal. And I've already started working on software. Because the thing that I didn't like about the Dream Manager program is we could only handle efficiently 60 people at a time, leaving the other 700 waiting for the next one. So I said, how can we build a program? And I'm not a huge fan of Dave Ramsey because I do believe in leverage, especially as a business owner. But it's a mix between personal finance, budgeting, credit card scores, and that financial piece mixed with the goal setting and just getting your significant other on board, getting the accountability, accountability partners, making sure we're

talking through and becoming better communicators. And if we could come up with a better software to kind of keep track of it all, pull from the bank statements, the credit cards and the bills, all of a sudden it makes it a lot easier to be able to manage a lot more people. And ultimately that's what I think is it. I'm a big software fan, and especially with AI, but there's this whole feelings and emotions that tie into it. And that's why you need somebody really, really good that they look up to that cares. Absolutely. And I think to your point, if we spend all of our time focused on the tactics and techniques, and we don't pay attention to the

emotions and the feelings, we're not going to succeed. I'm sorry. We're just not. You've got to pay attention to both. I'm not saying you need to be all touchy feely, lovey dovey, hugging them, but you've got to acknowledge that human beings aren't robots. They aren't machines. They aren't just what's my task, do my task. What's my next task? They have good days. They have bad days. They have hopes. They have dreams. They have fears. They have concerns. How are you speaking into those and being aware of those and making that part of your style when you support your team? they work with us and I think the best leaders are the ones who are obstacle removers the best leaders are the ones who come in and say how can I empower you to achieve your goals because if you're achieving your goals and you feel that I care about you as much as I'm asking you to care about me or care about the business we're now in symbiosis everybody's working together now it's powerful how do you feel about disk assessment or the five languages of the workplace?

There's about 10 tests I've done. Breyers, MIGS, I mean, Myers-Briggs. There's a lot of them, and I'm a big fan of them. I don't think it tells the whole story, but it tells you if they're an introvert. It tells you what they might be able. If they're going to be in a sales role, they've got to be able to communicate.

How do you feel about these tests? I think these tests are fabulous if you approach them as additional insight as opposed to defining reality. So if you are, you're like, oh, what's your Myers-Briggs? Oh, you're an extrovert. Guess what? You always want to be with people. No, no extroverts don't want to be with people all the time.

It just says that when they're with people, that's an energizing experience for them the majority of the time. I'm an ambivert. I can play extrovert or introvert depending on my mood. And if you look, there's about 20% of society that are ambiverts. So people presume because I'm on stage giving speeches, oh, Joey's an extrovert. He loves it. I do. But if you saw me on the weekend, I don't leave my house. I come in on Friday night. I'm like, I hope I don't have to leave till Monday. Let's keep it quiet. I don't need a lot. I've had my fill of other people. I want to just have quiet time. So I'm a big fan of Myers-Briggs. I'm a big fan of Enneagram. I'm a fan of predictive index. I'm a fan of disc.

And we actually just, and we also take them with our team every year. We retake the test. Why? Because you change, you evolve as a human. My wife and I take the five love languages test every year. And over the 15 years we've been together, our scores are mostly the same, but they've changed a little. And as seasons change, we've kind of changed a little. And I look at it as giving you additional insight, additional perspective on the humans you're interacting with. And I don't know about you, Tommy, but I've never felt that learning more about someone has been a negative thing. It's always allowed me to have a deeper interaction, a better conversation, more personal and emotional connection. So I'm all about it.

My problem, as I shared earlier, is people who are like, well, I took the test and I'm a quick start. That means I'll never be able to do anything long term. No, you misunderstood the test. You boiled it down to two words. Instead of seeing that that's what you're predisposed to do, that's not a sentence for how you have to live the rest of your life. I love it. Taking some notes. So you mentioned the first one, which was assess.

Can we run through those eight? Yeah. So the eight phases that relates to the employee experience all start with the letter A. And the idea here is if you're getting all of these phases right, it's like getting straight A's on your report card from your employees. They're loving you. They think you're fabulous. So the first one's the assess phase. This is when a prospective employee is trying to decide whether or not they want to come work for you. They're looking at your job description, your one ad. They're going to

your About Us page or the careers page on your website. They're getting a feel for your culture. They're going on social media to see who they know that also works at your company to get the real truth. They're probably reading some Google reviews or some Yelp reviews. They're submitting their application. They're going through your interview process. Some people are saying, geez, Joey, there's eight phases. All of that's happening in the first phase. Yeah, the assess phase is really front loaded with all of these first impressions

and most companies aren't paying any attention to it. We then come to the accept phase, phase two. The accept phase has two components. We as the employer accept that this candidate is the one we want and we extend a job offer. If we're lucky, that candidate accepts our offer. They transition from being a candidate to being a full-time employee. They sign on the dotted line. They accept the offer. We then go to phase three, the affirm phase. Now, Tommy, I'd be willing to bet that most of your

watchers, most of your listeners are familiar with the phrase buyer's remorse, where we begin to doubt the decision we just made after we buy something. Let me introduce them and all of you to a phrase that may not be as familiar, which is new hires remorse. It's the exact same thing as buyer's remorse, but it happens with a new employee. They begin to doubt the choice they made to come work for you before the ink is dry on their job offer letter. Okay. And here's what happens in the typical company. We accept the job offer. And then do we start work the next day?

No, we start work a week later, two weeks later, right? There's a transition period. During that period, what most companies do is nothing. They say, what's your start date? Oh, it's the 15th. Great. We'll see you on the 15th. And then there's no communication. And in silence, our newly hired employee only has the

sound of their own voice, which is a voice of doubt and uncertainty. Wow, what if I don't like this place? I interviewed with the boss and he seemed really nice, but I'm not going to be working with the boss every day. I'm going to be working with coworkers. I never even met any of my coworkers now that I think about it. Oh my gosh. Or, you know, I was interviewing for three other jobs and I hadn't heard back from them yet, but I accepted this one because I didn't want to lose the one I had in front of me. But did I miss out? Was one of those other jobs going to be a better, maybe I should have waited a little while. And all of this doubt and all of this fear and all this uncertainty is brewing in their mind while we're back at the office going, guess what?

Sally's going to be starting next Tuesday. It's like, well, maybe or maybe not. The most recent research, forgive me for digressing, but this research is brand new. The most recent research from Gartner looked at 3,000 employees who accepted new job offers in 2023, 3,000 people. And they went to them on the first day on the job and they said, okay, you accepted the job offer. How was the first day? 50% of the people who had accepted the job

hadn't shown up for the first day at work because they'd accepted another job in the intervening period between accepting the first job and their start date. 50% of the people that did show up for the first day on the job, they went to them and 47% of them said that they would be willing to entertain a different job offer right then

to go somewhere else. Now, some people look at that and they're like, oh, these millennials. I'm like, no, this is across all demographics. This is the state of employment in 2024 and beyond. Okay, forgive me, I'm digressed. Back to the eight A's. Okay, the next phase is the activate phase, phase four.

The activate phase is the first official day on the job. It's not day one of the first hundred days. Day one of the first hundred days is when you accepted the job offer, right? So this is usually like day 15, day 18, when you actually show up for the first day on the job. And the secret to making a remarkable experience in the activate phase is to remember the immortal words of the country music legend, Bonnie Raitt, when she sang, let's give them something

to talk about. Okay. You got to give them something remarkable on that first day. Because here's what we know. They're going to go home that night to their spouse, their significant other, their parents, their children, their roommates, whoever they live with. Or if they live on their own, they're going to be calling someone on the way home. And the first question that loved one is going to ask is, how was your first day? How's the new job? We know they're going to ask that question. And yet how few employers

actually think strategically about giving them a good answer, giving them such a great experience on that first day that they've got a story to tell, that they're excited, that they're going to tell that loved one, I may have found a place where I'm going to work for the next 20 years. This place is amazing. It's even better than I thought. What are the story they're going to tell? We then come to phase five, okay? Phase five begins on the second official day on the job and lasts for weeks, even months, as they acclimate to our way of doing business. They get used to the requirements of the job, their role, the responsibilities they have, and even the relationships within the organization that they're going to have to maintain to

be successful at this job. As I shared earlier, in the typical company, they spend less than a week acclimating their people. If you did nothing from listening to our conversation today, but to look at the information you're trying to cram into two or three days at the beginning of a job, and you said, I'm going to spread this information, this training out across the next two months. Instead of spending two days on it, we're going to spend two months on it. That alone will dramatically change the experience your people are having. We then come to phase six, the accomplish phase. This is when the employee achieves the goal they had when they originally decided to accept your

job offer. Every employee has a vision of what this new job is going to be. They have goals they want to accomplish, responsibilities, skill sets they want to acquire, things they want to be able to do. Do you know what every employee is hoping to accomplish next and are you tracking their progress towards it so when they achieve that milestone you can celebrate with them? Most organizations look at, well, their goal is to get a paycheck and their goal is to still be working here a year from now. You got to give them a good paycheck and you want to keep them long-term, but that's not their goal. Their goal is bigger than that. Their goal is how is this going to make me feel to come to work? How am I going to build my resume? How is

this going to set me up for the next job I want to have? We need to track and pay attention to those things. If we do a good job of doing that, and if they start to experience some accomplishments, we have the right to move them to the next phase, phase seven, the adopt phase. This is when an employee becomes adopt, right? Adopt. And adopt is phase seven. In the adopt phase, the employee adopts us. They become loyal to us. They're committed. They're bought in. These are our tried and true folks who are, they are our culture. When you are in the adopt phase, you're not picking up the phone. When the headhunter calls you're you're out to dinner

and someone says, Oh, you should come work for us. You say, no, I got you. I work at the best place in this town. I'm not going to come work for your place. They are your most committed people. The problem that most organizations face, Tommy, is they take their adopters for granted. And then one day their adopter walks in and says, I know I've been here for four years, but I feel underappreciated. I feel overworked. Guess what? Deuces. I'm out of here. Here's my two weeks notice. And the information we lose, the productivity we lose, the connective thread of our culture that we lose when those people leave, it breaks our business. It's terrible.

And only if we get them to phase seven, the adopt phase, do we have the right, the privilege to invite them to the final phase, the advocate phase, phase eight, where our employee becomes a raving fan singing our praises far and wide. They're going on Indeed or Glassdoor and they're writing reviews without us even telling them. We have a new position available. They're actively recruiting the smartest people they know, the best people they've ever worked with to come work at our organization because they love it. They're bought in. They are an advocate. Now, here's the pro tip, friends. I gave you the eight phases. Some of you are thinking, oh my God, Joey, we only pay attention to three of these phases. That's okay. You've got room to grow. You've got room to improve. Every time you promote an employee, they go back to the first phase. When you take your top salesperson and you make them a sales manager, they go back to the assess

phase. They assess, do I really want to be a sales manager? Okay, I guess I do. It's pay raise. It gets more responsible. Boom, they accept the job. They show up the next day for the job and you're like, there's no training for the manager. You've been doing the job. You know how to do this.

Just now also manage the other people in your territory. They're, oh my gosh, I don't even like this job anymore. They go home. They begin in that doubt phase saying to their spouse, their significant other, this is ridiculous. I thought this was going to be a good idea. Yeah, I'm making more money, but oh, there's a headache. There's no support for this. Now they're in the acclimate phase and they're like, who am I supposed to ask these questions? You promoted me to lead this team and I don't even know what I'm doing, but I don't want to admit that to my boss. Otherwise I look like an idiot. So what do I do?

I just fumble along and try to figure it out. We've now taken someone who is an advocate, who is an adopter, who is amazing, and we've thrown them back down to the early stages with no support. Yeah. Eight phases. I love this stuff. This is gold.

I just made a list of all the people I'm going to send this podcast to. I want to play this little thing for you. Hopefully you can hear it. It's Gary Vaynerchuk. I saw this on Instagram about a week ago and I sent it out to my team and I want to hear your could hear it. It's Gary Vaynerchuk. I saw this on Instagram about a week ago and I sent it out to my team and I want to hear your take on it. How do I know that the person I'm going to hire? You don't. Take it, Gary. I've got really good hiring advice. Learn to fire

fast. You guys have your ego tied up in your hiring. You think you're so good at hiring and then you hire somebody and they're shit, but you may pretend they're not because firing them admits that you were wrong so it's your own ego that's holding you back my ego is only balanced by my humility i hired so i'm not a big fan of i do say hire slow and fire fast but you pick that person and a lot of people will they'll go to the war to save this person because it it's embarrassing that you might have picked the wrong person. And especially C-suite or VP level, director level. I mean, what is your take on that?

Because I always want, we picked the person, we did our research, we checked the references, we hired them, but some people just aren't a fit. So what is your take on that? My fit is I don't agree with everything Gary says, but I certainly agree with what he just presented there. I do think a lot of it is tied up into ego. I think we're all looking for catchy phrases. We're all looking for things that we can just rely on. And the whole idea of it's kind of cute, right? Hire slow, fire fast, right? It's more complex than that. Hire intelligently and fire intelligently. Just because someone makes a mistake doesn't mean they're not a good fit for your organization. Just because someone isn't

performing doesn't mean you need to fire them. It might mean that you've got them in the wrong seat on the bus. If you actually did a good job of assessing them and taking them through the interview process and getting a feel for who they are as a human being, you might be right that they're a good fit, just not in that specific role. My favorite thing to do, Tommy, whenever... So I hired a new employee last year. And as you might imagine, we got into it a little bit and something happened that wasn't the way I wanted it to happen. Now, there's two ways as a leader we can respond to that.

The way most leaders respond to it is, oh, they screwed up. Look, see this employee? They didn't do their job. My first question always is with everyone on my team, what could I have done differently to make this not happen? And I'll be candid, Tommy, nine times out of 10. And I'm a guy, respectfully, who wrote a book on this stuff. Nine times out of 10, I'm going, I didn't do a good job of explaining that.

This is all me. I didn't explain to you that when we're sending an email to a top client, while speed of response is important, accuracy of response is even more important. Most of my clients are CEOs of major companies. They're not sitting there going, I just sent the email. I better get a response within the hour. But what they are saying is when I get a response, it damn well better be accurate. I would rather have my team pump the brakes on speed to check and make sure they understand

the full question that's being asked and give the answer in both the succinct way, but with additional opportunity to clarify and explain later in the answer in both the succinct way, but with additional opportunity to clarify and explain later in the email, then have them be like, oh, we've got to respond to emails within five minutes or else we aren't hitting a KPI. Get rid of those stupid KPIs and get everybody focused on what is our intention? What are the goals of every communication we have? What are the goals of every interaction we have? When we start to do that, I think most organizations realize, or at least I certainly have, is there's an opportunity for me to do a better job of explaining to my team what our main goals are, what our main focus is,

what our core principles are. Not only our core values, our core principles. How are we driving the behavior in our organization in a way that is repeatable? And then giving folks the space to make a mistake. Because here's the thing, leader who did the hiring and now has their ego involved, you've screwed up plenty. You continue to screw up. The problem is there's no one in the organization that can fire you. Okay?

You might be the person that needs to be fired. Fire yourself. Fire yourself from the hiring process. If you're not good at assessing people and let's be candid I say this from a place of love. I'm an entrepreneur. I've been an entrepreneur for over 20 years Most entrepreneurs think they're really good at a lot of stuff Most entrepreneurs aren't really good at a lot of stuff. They're good at like two or three things Get clear on what your two or three things are And bring people around you

who are awesome at the other things and give them the responsibility of paying attention to that. Give them the authority. Give them the autonomy to do those things. And then don't second guess them every five minutes. If something comes up, say, hey, by the way, help me to understand why you did it this way. Get some clarity. I like to get curious before I get critical. I like to figure out why you did something before I tell you, you did it wrong. I try to do this with my children. I hope people try to do it with me. Lord knows I make mistakes all the time. I hope somebody is going to be more curious before they're critical. Why did Joey say it that way? What was the backstory on that? Give a little more grace. It goes a long way. Love it. I heard a stat that, and don't quote

me on this, but it was 70% of people that choose to stay at a company do so because they made a best friend there. And I explained this stat to people and I say, you can make a best friend at work, but if you're busy working, you typically make best friends after the beer afterwards or at a picnic party or a bowling. So I think it's important. People are like, I can't afford all this stuff. I'm like, can you afford Bisquick from Costco and have pancakes? Can you afford to get everybody together to have a breakfast or a lunch and get to know each other a little bit more? And everybody's excuses, it's just, I can't afford that. And I'm like, a volleyball contest

costs nothing to bring some Capri Suns and maybe some Bud Light. I don't care what you're bringing. Maybe you don't have a no alcohol policy. It doesn't always have to be alcohol, but maybe some gummies. No, I'm kidding. Yeah. But no, I mean, I agree with you.

Guess what? You can't afford it, but you know what you can't afford even more? The cost it's going to take to replace that employee when they quit. All the research shows, all the research globally, every position, every piece of research I've been able to find. And if somebody listening or watching has found data that counters this, please send

it to me, joeycoleman.com. Come and find me, send me the information. I want to see it because I've looked, I've been looking for years. The research shows that replacing employee costs somewhere between 100 and 300% of their annual salary. That's the cost it's going to take you to hire someone. So you've got a person who's working for you for $50,000 a year and they quit. It's going to cost you somewhere between 50 and $150,000 to refill their seat.

That's before you start paying their salary. I'm not talking about, oh, we get the salary goes to another person. No, no, no. That's before you start paying their salary. I'm not talking about, oh, we get the salary goes to another person. No, no, no. That's the cost of running ads, of doing the interviews, the lost productivity, all the additional things you're going to do. You can't afford not to care about your people because not caring them is going to cost you a hell of a lot more than to your point, the case of beer, the volleyball trip to the volleyball court, the night at laser tag. I don't care what you and do different things.

Don't always do the thing you like to do. Okay. When you mentioned earlier that I had the pleasure of serving on the board of Affinity Lab, Affinity Lab was started by my now wife. I was on the board before we were married. So first coworking space in the United States. And we had at Affinity Lab, I say we because I was a tenant. She started the co-working space.

I was one of her tenants. That's how we met. We had our culture ambassador. And our culture ambassador's job, it was a full-time paid position in the co-working space, was to create opportunities for connection. So we had a board game night where all the geeks would come out and play Settlers of Catan. We had movie nights during the summer where we would go to movies, not films, right? The difference between a film and a movie, you go to a film, you feel you learn something

about yourself. You go to a movie, you see some explosions, you see some exciting stuff. We would have movie nights that we would go to. We would have laser tag night where we would go and play laser tag. We would have arcade day where you would show up the arcade and you get a roll of quarters provided by the company. They'd say, go play whatever games you want, but ideally play with someone else. Go play a two player game. All of these activities were designed to foster connection. In fact, the final piece I'll share on this story is she, our culture ambassador, made

this hysterical board one day where she wrote everybody's name around the board. And it had a bunch of markers and the markers were different colors. And on the legend, it had like a green line. I've done business with this person. A dotted blue line. I've pitched business with this person, but we never closed the deal. A yellow line. I've hooked up with this person, you know, an orange line, all the different things. And it was hysterical because everybody wanted to draw the lines. And what you saw is that the more you leaned into the organization, the more lines you had connecting you to the other people, the longer you stayed, the more you were part of the community, the more you not only contributed, but the more you got out of it. I love that. Yeah, I think. And then bringing in their

significant other, their families to buy in, because when they go home every night, they're talking about if you've got, in this case, I'll say a technician's wife saying, this has been a great company. They care about you. It's okay if you got to pick up a Saturday because you're working on our goals and our dreams. It's like if they're behind that, I think a lot of people, they lose that side of it to say, you got to get the whole family on board and remember why you missed your son's baseball practices because you're trying to buy a house to put a roof over their head and sometimes there is sacrifice so that's okay i i think a lot of the home home business owners home service business owners i talk to they're like what is your give a shit meter like how do you tell that you can call

references but the references now with with with hr and lawsuits is like yes this person is able to rehire that's the only thing they're allowed to answer so you can go on their linkedin and their facebook page you could ask them great questions you could do ride-alongs you could have them sit there but where do you what what is the best meter you've seen other than personality and all this stuff? Like, how do you know, like this person is going to be a good fit? Well, I think there's a couple of ways you can know a person's going to be a good fit. And I think the, to me, the bigger question, you mentioned football earlier. So let me use a football analogy, if I may. The best college football coaches in the United States know that at best, they're going to

have a player for six years. And more likely, if it's a rock star player, they're going to have them for three. And in this era, the transfer portal, they might have them for one. Okay. We need to stop thinking that our employees are going to be with us for the rest of our life. Just release that. Let that stuff go. If you get lucky and a couple want to stay long-term, awesome. You're doing a great job. But instead say, I'm going to play a role in their life for two to five years. They're going to play a role in my organization for two to five years. What can we do to serve each other and maximize the time? How can we get the best out of them? How can we give the best we have to them? You mentioned earlier, you know, looking out for significant others and spouses.

Here's my pro tip. Anybody listening in who decides to do like, oh, we're going to do an annual gift, a Christmas gift or a holiday gift to our staff. And let's say we're going to spend, and I'm making this up to illustrate the point, a hundred dollars. We're going to go crazy this year. We're going to spend $100 on each staff member. Don't go buy sweatshirts with your damn logo on it. Okay, that's not a gift. It's not a present. It's a marketing tool.

None of your people are sitting at home going, oh, if I only had a sweatshirt with the company logo on it, man, my life would be rocking. They're not saying that. Instead, reach out to that employee's spouse and say, and do it on the down low, and say, hey, we're putting together some fantastic end-of-year prizes. And instead of giving your spouse an end-of-year gift,

we wanted to give your kids an end-of-year gift. Can you send us a couple of things that are on the wishlist to Santa that we can help fulfill? And then you invite the families to the holiday party. Okay. You probably have to cut down on the alcohol and gummies. That's okay. Just try it once as an experiment, invite the families to the holiday party, have someone dress up as Santa and have them give out prizes and gifts that are exactly the gifts the kids wanted. Let me tell you, you do that for your people, that technician isn't quitting next year. And when that technician does have a bad day at work and they go home to their spouse and they're like, oh man, today just sucked. Can't believe it. My boss is such an idiot. I did 17 calls today and only four of them were the people there. And oh, I can't believe it. And do, do, do.

They're significant. Others are going to say, say but yeah do you remember that christmas party they took care of our family they took care of our people we come on buck up you can deal with this tomorrow we'll be back so so what i do in this you could judge me on this but uh i'm a good buddy with uh john rulin oh john rulin is an amazing human being he's a featured case study in my book i'm a featured case study in his book he's a great human i love it so i said i did the old cutco with their name on it because listen i i couldn't i can't tell you how effective that's been and uh they've got their family name on it and they but it's it's every time they look at the knife doesn't say a one garage or a service on it and that's another thing if anybody wants to

give me gifts around christmas or my birthday or wherever it is even if you got the coolest logo in the world i've got about 25 pairs of shoes with people's names on it cool nikes i've gotten a lot of gifts with their logos on it they'll send me a swag bag of everything they have with a thermos and all the pens and I'm like, we'll keep the pens and it's cool, but your customers don't want that stuff. I'm sorry. It is cool as you might think you are. You're not.

You're not that cool. You think you're a Stanley Cup? You're not. You think you're a Nike sweatshirt? You're not. I'm sorry. You're just not. So acknowledge it. I love it. Yeah, if you're going to puthirt? You're not. I'm sorry. You're just not. So acknowledge it. I love it. Yeah. If you're going to put a logo on something, put their logo on it.

Put their family name on it, not yours. And to your point, Tommy, and I love this about the Cutco and John preaches this. If you haven't read John's book, Giftology, folks, go out and read it. It's a fascinating read. It will help you think more strategically about the way you use gifts and presents in your organization. But one of the things I love that is one of John's main messages is if you give a good enough gift, a gift that is personalized, a gift that is special, a gift that is unique, a gift that feels meaningful to the recipient, you don't have to put your name or logo on it

because they'll never forget who gave it to them. It's real simple. If I asked you to think of the greatest gifts you ever received, you can tell me who gave them to you. Didn't have their name on it. It may have been years ago. Why? Because it moved the dial when you got the gift. A hundred percent. And I was on a podcast when I first started the Home Service Expert, and I had a guy out of Canada that had the most successful restaurant in all of Canada. And he said, here's what we do. When we interview the server, busboy, dishwasher, whatever it might be, bartender, in the interview process, we say, if we gave you $20, what would you spend it on? And it was a bubble gum. Is it a movie ticket? And then they said, what about $100?

And after on the first day, they gave him the $20 gift. On the first year anniversary, they gave him the $100 gift. And it's remarkable. He said the reaction is extraordinary. And then we had a book club where you check out the books and gave the top books, whether it's self-help or whatever it was. And just these little things at a restaurant, of all things, hospitality industry. And those things go a long way because it's thoughtful, you listen, and it's process-oriented where you had a way to get the information, pull it into some type of ATS or whatever you're working on and actually fulfill that gift. And I think that was pretty powerful. And I haven't thought about that in seven years, but one of those things where, and the 1,501 ways to change the workplace like gifts.

And some of it's just gamification and getting involved and like having contests and like just words of affirmation or a hug every now and then, or a little sheet of paper that says, I'm watching you and I'm really impressed. I just wanted to tell you how much you mean to this organization. People think they have to give so much money to people and bonuses and raises all the time, which are important, but it's just the thought sometimes that goes a long way. 100%, Tommy. Let me throw down a gauntlet for all the listeners, okay? I'm going to give you a challenge. And I promise for those of you that do the challenge, you'll have a positive result.

So this is one of the few challenges in life where if you do it, I guarantee you'll have a positive result. If you don't have a positive result, message me joeycoleman.com, right? Go on my website or send a message to joey at joeycoleman.com. That's my email. Really difficult to figure out folks. Send me a message and say, Hey Joey, I did your challenge. It sucked. Give me a gift. I'll give you a gift. Okay. Here's the challenge. Pull out your phone. Now, before you turn your phone on, I want you to think about one member of your team, one of your employees, somebody who is just awesome, somebody who you love working with, who just does a fantastic job, who's a rock star that you're just, you're really proud of.

Okay, that first name that just came to mind, that's the one. Once you take your phone, open the camera, select over to video, flip it to selfie mode, and you're going to shoot a selfie video. And let's pretend in this instance, Tommy works with me. I'm making a video for Tommy. So I'm going to paraphrase what the script is. It doesn't have to be exactly this, but it's something like this. Hey, Tommy, I was listening to this podcast the other day. Oh my gosh, there was this crazy guest on the show and he threw down this challenge and he asked us to think about the employee who our business couldn't operate without, the team member who shows up and delivers in a

remarkable way. And I got to tell you, I immediately thought of you. You're phenomenal. I don't say it enough. You show up with a smile on your face and a spring in your step. You always get the job done. Customers rave about you. They think you're amazing. Your coworkers, when they're doing ride-alongs, they're like, oh my God, I love doing a ride-along with Tommy. He's incredible. Whenever I'm thinking like, oh my gosh, the chips are down. Who on our team can we rely on? I immediately think of you.

And the reality is I don't say that enough. And I'm sorry that I don't say that enough. And that's why I wanted to shoot this video. You mean the world to me. You mean the world to this organization. Thank you. Thanks for being you. Thanks for showing up the way you do.

I love working with you. Thanks, Tommy. And then, and here's the pro tip, folks. This is where everybody messes up the challenge. Text it to them and hit send. Don't watch the video. You're going to want to re-watch the video. You're going to be like, how did I sound?

How did I look? What's my hair like? No, you're going to watch the video and then you're not want to rewatch the video gonna be like how did I sound how did I look what's my hair like it no you're gonna watch the video and then you're not gonna send it just send the video I have done this with audiences around the world live and here's what we found the typical video gets viewed in full within 90 seconds of receipt, the person responds immediately. I've had people respond with videos. I've had people respond with, this is the nicest thing anyone said to me in 40 years of my life.

I've had people cry. I've had people send back videos of them crying. I've had people send back and say, I'm sitting here with my spouse and I just showed them the video. And God, we are so thankful. Thank you for being such an amazing boss. We love working with you. Do, do, do. It cost you less than two minutes. It was free. You had the phone in your pocket. All you had to do is shoot it and send it. And you have given them a digital artifact.

You have given them proof that they matter. You've given them something that they are going to watch again, that they are going to share with their loved ones. And when the chips are down and when they're having a bad day, you know where that video is going to be saved in their phone. And they're going to call that video up and they're going to watch that video and say, you know what? My boss does care. The people I work with do like me. I am making a difference and they're going to double down and come back to work the next day. You know, it's interesting because I, I built, it was very primitive. It was out of Monday and it grabbed their phone number and it was like three steps. But I was sending out 10 a day and now I'm making it so it connects with payroll because you want to make sure that people still work here when the company gets a certain size.

Because like, hey, you guys let me go two weeks ago. Sure, sure. So there's some things that go into this but uh what i found was and this wasn't the plan this was just a great effect of it is a lot of these ended up on facebook and if you look at the comment section people were like where is this that you work it was like that was validity that they're you know they want to share that with friends, family, neighbors, and anybody in their Facebook group or TikTok or Instagram. And it was like, I want to work for this company. So it just didn't make them feel good.

All of a sudden, it has this lasting effect of everything you said and more. Absolutely. And this is how you turn any employee into an advocate. They get that video, and what do they want to do? They want to share it. That's advocacy. That's sharing with other people. Now, by the way, they're sharing that they're awesome. But the implicit understanding when anybody watches that video is, gosh, you work somewhere awesome too. The first thing people say when they do this exercise in workshops, they come back and they'll be like, Joey, I've never received a video like that.

Wow. But imagine what your life would have been like if you had. And isn't that proof that it's another reason why you should do something like this? Because if you've never received it, I can almost guarantee that your employee, your team member has never received anything like that either. There's no reason not to do this. It's inexpensive. It's easy to do. And the last thing I'll say on this, don't give this gift of a thank you for who you are video expecting a return thank you. All too often when we give gifts, we're waiting for the thank you note. I gave them a present, but they didn't say thanks. I gave them a bonus, but they didn't appreciate it. I sent that video. They didn't send back the crying back version to me. That's not why you're

doing it. You're doing it because in this era, most leaders aren't telling their people enough how much they value them. Most humans aren't telling people enough. I saw a video, and I don't spend a lot of time on social media, but I was on Instagram the other day and I saw this video about mom time. You may have seen these videos about boy time and girl time or boy math and girl math. This was mom math. Okay. And people are like, oh, okay. I know what you're talking about. What mom math? I haven't heard that one. And it's this mom basically talking about how there's no such thing as time in her world because she wakes up early and she thinks it's going to be her time, but no, she's getting the kids ready for school. Then she has this time from 7.45 to 8.15 when it's

like it all happens in two minutes because it's running around. Brush your teeth, get dressed, get to the bus, do all these things and talking about all the thing and run through the time. And it's funny. It's a comedic bit. I saw this video and I immediately copied it and texted it to my wife. And I said, I don't fully appreciate what your mom time looks like, but I do appreciate you and what you do to get our boys out the door and what you do to keep our family moving and all the things you do and all the things I'm not even begin to be aware of what you are doing. It took me 15 seconds to send that text. And I meant it honestly and send the link. I got a response back right away. Oh my gosh, thank you so much. And I talked to her later and she's like, you know, I really felt seen when you sent that. And I'm like, that's

what we are all dying for as human beings. We're dying to feel seen, to feel valued, to feel appreciated. It's funny. So there's this older gentleman and he's like this dad that could fix anything. And he's a bigger guy. And the son is pulling the lawnmower. And these guys are in their 20s. And he goes, I can't get this lawnmower started to his brother and he goes maybe we should call dad he goes i already did and it shows the

dad with uh white new balances walking out of the car flipping the hammer in the air smiling with the tool belt with a drill in his hand and i sent it to my dad and my uncle and all my aunts and i was like this is totally dad and it just made his day because if we see a message, just so much as I just, uh, I was thinking about you and, you know, Sims talks about this too, is I love that. You know, Sims Sims is a great guy. Oh my God. Classic. We chat a lot. I talked to John Rula more, but these guys are great guys because they figured out you don't have to send expensive gifts. It doesn't need to always be cutco. It needs to be, listen, I'm at a bar right now in Italy. And I was able to get this margarita recipe.

Next time you're in Italy, I'll be here with you with these cocktails. Until then, enjoy this drink. Cheers, your mate, you know, Steve. Yeah. And he's like, give a hundred of these coasters with these recipes and here's what i'll get for you in return is i guarantee you 30 of the people i'm sending it to will come here in the next two years and so the restaurant owner uh in this bar in italy is like hell yeah and it's just these little things go a long way and everybody thinks

man i don't have the time so for me if it makes it on my calendar, it gets done. You got to make the time to do these small things because it could make such a deep impact. You never know when someone's... I gave a... On a Southwest flight seven years ago, five years ago, I can't remember the exact date. I gave a lady a $20 tip. She wrote me this long letter. She took out Southwest napkin and cursive. She wrote, I was having a horrible day. I'm a single mother. This gift of $20 just lets me know that God is keeping an eye on me. It's a kind gesture. And you have no idea how much this means to me and my family. Like it was 20 bucks. Okay. It's not money. Yeah. And you just never know how far these things are going to go. 100%. And I'm with you, Tommy, you got to schedule it. You got to put it in your calendar. And here's

all you need to do. Find 15 minutes in your calendar every week, 15 minutes. And one of the ways I recommend it is, you know, like little touch Thursday or a little touch Tuesday, and you just put 15 minutes recurring meeting in your calendar. And when you get to that, the first thing you do is you say, who's someone that means a lot to me that I haven't talked to in a long time. With that prompt, almost all of us will immediately think of someone. And then you say, am I going to send a text? Am I going to send a video? Am I going to send an email? Am I going to do a handwritten note? I don't care which it is. Do any of them. It doesn't matter. And then spend the next 10 minutes writing a thoughtful message, recording a thoughtful message, sending, and then hit send, and you're done. If you do that every

week for the next year, that's 52 touches to people who I promise you, a year after you sent it, if you said, hey, do you remember that voicemail you got from Tommy? Do you remember that coaster you got from Steve? Do you remember that little thank you note you got from John? They will absolutely remember it. Why? Because no one is doing this stuff. This is not rocket science.

But it does require your commitment and your commitment of a little bit of time, a good amount of intentionality, and the carry through to make it happen. I'm going to tell you a little, this is a cheap move because I try to find efficiencies. And if anybody in the podcast gets a letter from me, just know it's a genuine letter. But I work with a company called Simply Noted and it's all my handwriting and I voice memo it in there and it's got auto-correct and makes sure it's right. But it's my handwriting. And I voice memo it in there and it's got autocorrect and makes sure it's right. But it's my handwriting because I got to be honest, I write like a three-year-old. I don't have the best handwriting. But it is my writing.

It's my thought and it's my words. And it makes it a lot easier and a lot faster for me. I could type faster than I could write, but I could actually voice things faster than anything. So a video is easy for me. A voice memo is easy for me. And if there's ways to put this multiple communications, it's good. And I think this day and age,

a letter goes a long way. Like you get your mail. It's like the cable bill is something from the HOA. It's all bills and marketing flyers. That's all it is. I don't know about your house, Tommy in my house, kids go out to get the mail. If we come in, if there's a handwritten note, I don't care who it's

from. That's the first thing I'm opening. I got a handwritten thank you note from our dry cleaner. We moved about 18 months ago. So this was our first full year with this dry cleaner. And we got a handwritten note at Christmas. And all the note said is, hey, it's the end of the year. And we just wanted to let you know, you're one of our favorite clients. Now, I may not be their favorite client. I may be the, I don't know. But even if they're not 100% telling the truth, I'm okay thinking that I'm their favorite client, right? And all it said is, thanks so much. Didn't include a coupon for a future discount. Didn't say, oh, because you spent X dollars with us, you're now at this Platinum.

It just said, thank you. We are so desperate for a thank you that getting one handwritten. This is the third podcast I've talked about on it. I've scanned the thank you note. It's in my speeches now. And total time it took them them probably less than two minutes total cost less than five dollars to buy the thank you note and post it in the mail impact on me huge marketing that's coming from it huge these are little things but they go a long way yeah you know

it's interesting because you're in minneapolis i uh one of my good buddies keith mercurio he got off stage and I said, that's one of the nicest jackets I've ever seen. You look great in that jacket. And he goes, you got to call my guy. He goes, you call my guy up and it's right across the street in Lake Minnetonka. And I literally flew out to this suit maker and the guy's like 92 years old. And it was awesome experience. Now I just tell him what colors I want and he sends me my exact size. But it's just interesting because those things go a long way. The word of mouth travels so fast when you get people believe in your brand.

They believe in you. That really I wanted to talk a little bit about never lose a customer again, because you got six tools you recommend for creating remarkable experiences. When it comes to home service, which ones do you really think are spot on on the six tools? Well, I think let's give a quick overview of the six tools first. So the first one is in-person interactions. Making the most of the fact, and this is the crazy thing about home services, forgive me, but you're the ultimate in-person business.

99 times out of 100, the homeowner's going to be there while you're there. And you're coming into their castle, their home, their most sacred space. Are you capitalizing on those in-person interactions? Are you making the most of that? Are you creating an experience that is so remarkable that if they ever need help again with anything in their house, they think of you? Or are you saying, well, I've got this job allocated for 45 minutes. If I can get it done in 30, I get 15 extra minutes in the truck. Let's hustle through. How are you spending that in-person time? We then come to email. No one on the planet wishes they

were getting more email. Literally no one. And yet this is the number one tool that most businesses use to communicate with not only their customers, but their employees as well. I'm not anti-email. I'm anti the way you're currently using email. Email should be a tool for connection. Email should be a tool where we get to actually brighten someone's day,

where we can stand out in an overcrowded inbox. We then come to physical mail. You and I have talked about this a lot already. What comes in the mailbox? As the electronic inbox has gotten more crowded, the physical inbox, the snail mail, the OG inbox has gotten a lot less crowded. Send a handwritten note, do something special. Phone, that includes both phone calls and text. Now, some of you are like, Joey, I don't like talking on the phone. I get it. But the research shows that more than 65% of humans prefer the phone as their mode of communication. So if you don't fall in that 65%, that's fine. But 65% of your customers do. Send them a text

message. We then come to the next tool, video. Shoot them that customized, personalized video, like I mentioned in the challenge. And last but not least, the other one we talked about, gifts. What are you doing to give a gift? And with the gift, it's not about the cost of the gift. It's about the thoughtfulness of the gift. Now, when we look at these six tools, which by the way, incidentally is aside, you can use the same six with your employees to wink, wink, nudge, nudge, same six tools, just apply them internally to your team instead of externally to your customers. When we look at these tools, what I'd love you to be thinking about is which tools are we currently using? Which tools are we overly using? Which tools are we not using at all? Which tools could we be using more strategically? We have videos on our website showing people our service offerings, but are we shooting custom videos to send to customers?

Imagine somebody goes and they come and they repair my water heater today and they get my heater up and running. And that night as I'm getting ready to go to bed, I get a text message. I was already texting with the technician to confirm that they were coming to the house and make sure I'm good there for the appointment. I'm already in the system, friends. They get a little video from me that says, hey, Tommy, hope that hot water heater repair is working well. You had mentioned you were hoping to get a shower in before the end of the day. I was super warm and everything's working fabulously.

If it for any reason, it's not. Do not hesitate to call us back. Do not hesitate to text me back. I'll turn around and come back. We'll get it sorted for you. It was a delight being in your home. I really like what you've done with the living room, the way you've got that set up with the Vikings jersey above the TV.

So cool. Loved every piece of that. Thanks for inviting me into your home and giving us the chance to work on your equipment. We really appreciate it. In the history of home services, that video hasn't been sent. It just hasn't. It hasn't been sent. It just hasn't. It hasn't been sent. If you start sending those videos,

if you start making those kinds of touches, you will be like Tommy's business. Hundreds of employees, amazing A1 plus reputation, doing an incredible job. You know, it's interesting because I always tell other business owners, nobody leaves a review for the business. They leave a review for the individual that served them. whether you're at a restaurant, at a bowling alley, or a home service. So I'm getting these like an A-frame made, and I got five of them with

five technicians. And I'm putting a picture of their whole family on one side with a Google QR code for the review. And on the back set, I'm putting a door with Deco hardware. And basically, I'm asking my technicians to say this simple phrase when they walk in, just so you know, Joey, I want to give you five out of five service today. If at any time you feel that I've given you less than five stars, I want you to let me know because it's so important that I leave you feeling that this was a good shake and that I did everything you needed on your garage. And then right at the end, the A-frame set up, they're cleaning up the tools, they're doing the paperwork.

And they say, I wanted to show you real quick, Joey, my why. The reason I work this job and work hard, I come in on weekends. I've worked last Thanksgiving. It's to provide for those two kids, my wife, and that's my dog. His name's Max. And I wanted to show you every time we get a review with my picture in it, people, they actually call us and they ask for me by name. This is job security for me. And if you would take five minutes, the owner and the management

will give me, I'm not paying you off. I just want you to know that. But whatever review you give me for your time, I have the ability to give you a Deco Hardware Kit. It really makes the garage door look amazing. After all, the garage door is the smile of your home. We'll make this look good for the time you're willing to invest to leave us the review. All I need to do is just show me you left something. I'm not going to look if it's a five-star or not. I don't really care because hopefully I gave you the service. But if you could explain the why and what that does for the individual and you started by telling them five out of five service, what are the chances you're not going to get that?

And what are the chances you're not going to leave a glowing review with a picture that counts more for the algorithms? A hundred percent. And here's the thing, Tommy, about reviews, because I know we got a lot of people that worship at the altar of reviews listening in on this. And I get it.

And I understand why and how it affects the algorithms. It's okay to get four-star reviews. star and three star and two star and one star because here's the thing. None way do they make you better. But if I go on a website and they've got 80 reviews and they're all five stars, you know what I think? You lie about other things too. They're fake.

You made that up. I want to see the one star review from somebody who's clearly a fool. A lunatic. Yeah, they're like, oh my gosh, they came to my house and they actually wanted to talk to me. This was ridiculous. What? Of course I'm going to talk to you. I'm working in your house.

Or here's the worst ones, just so you know, Joey. I just got to interrupt for a second. I found it cheaper on Amazon. Those are the ones I say, and I'm very, very good about responding in a way that's not obtrusive to what their statement was is, you know, you want to be very careful and say, you know, obviously you could have got it probably at a better price if you didn't want to do it yourself. We really appreciate your business. And if there's any way we can make this right, and I'll try calling them and say, listen, if you feel like, try to make it right, but you got to

respond in a certain way because that's like saying, hey, I was able to buy flour and marinara sauce and make pizza cheaper than Pizza Hut made it. Of course, if you're going to diagnose it yourself and fix it yourself, it drives me crazy because that one review out of 101% of clients are going to be upset no matter what. That's never going to be good enough. And here's the thing, Tommy, I actually like those reviews because here's the thing. If I've got a prospective customer, who's the kind of customer that's going to go run everything and see if they could buy it cheaper on Amazon, I don't want them to ever schedule an appointment. I want them to read that review and go, oh, see, yeah, I knew I could find

better. Great. Don't call me. That's not my target market. My target market isn't people that are do-it-yourselfers. My target market is the kind of person who says, I own my home. I want my home to function well. I want to hire an expert. And I say this from a place of love. I'm one of seven kids. I got four brothers. We grew up in a farming community in Iowa. All right. We used to live in Colorado and I lived on top of a mountain. My house was at 8,500 feet. I came home to visit over the holidays. I was talking to one of my brothers and I was like, yeah, I had to get a break change. I had to get new breaks before I came home for the holidays. The old ones were kind of get mad. He goes, what'd you pay for that? I told him,

he's like, Oh, I could have done that for you. I was like, Hey, I love you dearly. I live on a mountain. If I lived here in Iowa, if your breaks go bad in Iowa, you coast past two more cornfields and then you stop your breaks, go bad on an 8,500 foot mountain. You're going off the cliff and dying. I'm like, I care more about your sister-in-law and your two nephews than I care about saving 200 bucks and doing this myself. This is insane. Talk about your target market though.

The person that did my brake check and my brake repair is not seeking my brother as a target customer. They're seeking me and that's okay. Know who your customers are, serve them. The rest will sort itself out. That's a hundred percent. I was on the phone with Dan Martell the other day and we were talking. We know all the same people, Tommy. We know all the same people. Dan's book, Buy Back Your Time. Fantastic read. One of my favorite books of 2023. The interesting thought he told me was, you're thinking too much of dollars. Because I said, I know a lot of home service people.

If something goes bad at some of the apartment complexes or my rentals or whether it's my house, and I've got a house manager, I've got all these systems in place. But I said, it bothers me because I might be able to save 10 grand. He goes, $10,000, Tommy. He goes, how much do you make a day?

And I told him, it's a pretty fantastic number. And I'm not bragging. It's just, it's a lot of money. And he goes, what's 10 grand to you? And I go, it won't change my life. I respect money. I'm frugal. But he goes, do me a favor.

Start thinking of your life as percentages. The percentage of your wealth, whatever that might be. And he knows what it is. He said, it's a percent of a percent of a percent of a percent. So quit sweating the small things. And I'm learning to be a customer. What I've learned is he said to me, he said, you need to learn. He goes, Tommy, I'll give a price to consult somebody 200 grand for four hours. He goes, a lot of them don't do it, but yet they want somebody to pay a hundred grand for their service. He goes, I hate it that people don't buy. Like they want to be bought from like, they're all frugal. They want to tighten up. They want to get a deal. They want

a discount. But yet when the customers do it, they, they bitch and complain. So I wish people, because if you start to change your buying patterns and you make money and you're making compound interest, you start to change the way you buy. You'll start to actually change the way people buy from you. 100%. I couldn't agree more. I was on the call earlier today with someone who's going to do a project for me. And we got to the point where, and I know this guy, I know the quality of his work.

He's fantastic. That's why I'm on the call with him. I decided to reach out to him. I want to work with this guy. I know the quality of his work. He's fantastic. That's why I'm on the call with him. I decided to reach out to him. I want to work with this guy. I want to hire him. And we got done and he's like, all right, so Joey, what do you think your budget for this project is? And I said, you're going to tell me.

He said, excuse me? I said, I trust you to give me a fair price. You tell me. I told you what I want to accomplish. You're the expert. Tell me what it's going to cost. Now, my gut instinct is I'm going to be able to cover that in short order. If you come back with a number that I'm not going to cover in short order, what I'm going to tell you is we're still

doing this, but I need X number of weeks or months to be in the position where we're ready to make the investment, but we're already sold. I'm doing this. Now, some people might say, Joey, that was foolish. That guy's going to give you top price now. But you know what? I don't know about you, Tommy, but when a client calls me and they say, Joey, how much does it cost for a keynote? And I say, it's $30,000 to have me speak on stage for an hour. And they go, oh my gosh, can we get you for a couple hours? I'm like, yeah, but just do the math. And they're like, okay, yeah, we want four. Those are going to be the best clients ever because they value it. They appreciate, who do you think is going to bring 110% of his effort to the person that's like, yeah, I value

what your chart, this is great. Me. And that's how most humans operate. And I agree with you. If we change our buying patterns, we start to appreciate just how much we're shortchanging ourselves. A hundred percent. We have five green lights when we're going to sell somebody a garage drawer from a service call. And one of them is price desensitize the client. And so if you were to ask Tommy, what does a garage drawer go for? Like a high quality, I'd say, well, we've got some clients that spend $40,000 and you can get a pretty good door for about 5,000, but we anchored at that 40.

So when we give them a $7,800 and I'll never say 7,800, I'll say 78 and I'll show them. And it's amazing how these little things I'm actually meeting tonight. I got dinner with Robert Cialdini. Oh, nice. Nice. Yeah, exactly. We share an agent. We have the same book agent. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. I'm actually meeting tonight. I got dinner with Robert Cialdini. Oh, nice. Nice. Yeah, exactly. We share an agent. We have the same book agent. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. I love it. That's awesome. It's just these things you take these psychology and you could apply this. A lot of what we're talking about just makes sense, but we don't do it. Exactly. And I'll be the, yeah,

I'll be the first to say nothing in never lose a customer again, nothing in never lose an employee again, nothing in any of my speeches is stuff that is rocket science. It's all stuff that probably at some intrinsic level you already know and you may have done when you were first starting out in business. But the problem is as we spend more time in business, as our businesses grow, as we increase the size of our team, as we serve more customers, as we have more employees, the things that we know work kind of fly out the window. We don't do them as much. When you had two employees, you knew their names. You knew whether they were working for you. You didn't have to check payroll before sending them a video because there were only two of them. You saw them today.

You know they're going to be there tomorrow. When you have hundreds, you're playing at a different game. I get it. But it doesn't mean we can't go back to the things that worked for us in the beginning and do them again. Or we can't try to do these personal touches. Last story I'll share. I was given a speech to a group last week and the surveys came back in and the surveys, I was very proud of them. You know, five star, five star, five star. I got a survey that was three star and I was very proud of them, five-star, five-star, five-star. I got a survey that was three-star and I'm very curious about it. I'm like, oh, three-star, let me dive into that. The person says, Joey's examples were absolutely incredible. I can totally see where they would move the dial. And I'm quoting, caring for people like this doesn't scale.

I was like, oh my God, you know what? I'm never going to be able to convince you. I'm never going to be able to convince you. If you don't believe you can care at scale, we're the wrong fit. That's okay. Don't care at scale. And I'll set a top stopwatch on how much longer you're going to be in business. How about we do that? No, a hundred percent. Joey, here's the deal. We partner with a lot of companies, like a couple dozen, right? And the owner says, I only care about my team. I care that they're in good hands. And then they get the transaction, sometimes tens of millions, sometimes a few million.

And how much of that money do you think goes towards their team? And all the transactions I've done, zero. Zero dollars. They only care about the team. Well, this is ours. This is what we've worked for. We created an equity incentive program. When I did a partnership with A1, with PE, I gave a hundred million dollars away and I'm not bragging about it, but there was 25 millionaires that came out of that deal of who helped me get there. And I just ask, if you care so much about your people, I think everybody should have a plan to sell their business within five years and have an equity incentive program, take some chips off the table. And some people have this 20 year plans. And I'm like, in this day and age, this technology, robotics, AI, you cannot plan 20 years out. Five years is about the tip of where I think you could actually make

a plan. Max, max five years. Absolutely. I tell people three years is about the tip of where I think you could make a plan. Max five years. Absolutely. I tell people three years is much better. And it's just interesting. I'm like, what have you done for profit sharing? What have you done for equity? And you just don't hand out equity like candy. But what does equity do? An equity incentive program or phantom equity, or there's a lot of names for it. Number one, they're not going to leave as quick because they've got vested equity. Number one, they're not going to leave as quick because they've got vested equity. Number two, they're happier. Number three, they're running in the same direction. Number four, it becomes a recruiting tool because wait a minute,

these guys are not very different to good leaders, but this one's not only paying better, but now I've got to invest in it, into the company to see that it does well. So I just think it's the only way to go. I agree. And when we see that happen, we need to celebrate it. This is why I don't know if you saw this news story in the last week. The owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban, just sold right before the holidays a big piece of the equity in the Mavericks.

Yep. He came out, it came out, I think yesterday, the day before that he's earmarked $35 million for bonuses to the staff and the team members, not the players, the support team, but yeah, $35 million to Mark Cuban is a rounding error.

Yeah. Yeah. 35 million to those team members, those employees who are getting that money. Most of that is going to be not only life I've read Never Lose a Customer. I'm going to read Never Lose an Employee. And this podcast, I think it's going to do amazing. And let me ask you this, Joey, is there any books, obviously those two books, everybody needs to read these books. I can't tell you enough, just caring a little bit more, but is there any books, you know, the E-Myth, obviously Dale Carnegie, you know, there's some common ones, but is there any books that moved you in a big way that you recommend reading? Maybe it's a newer book. Maybe it's an older book. Maybe it's a fiction book. Maybe it's. Yeah. Tommy so many. I mean, I'm a voracious reader. I love reading. I try to read a book about every 10 days. So I love, love, love reading. This is an incredibly difficult question because there's so many that come to mind. So let's maybe throw out some categories. First of all, you mentioned fiction. I believe that the best business owners

in the world read one fiction book for every nonfiction book they read. Now, some of my business entrepreneur friends out there are going, oh my God, Joey, fiction, I don't want to do that. Here's the thing. Fiction teaches you empathy. Fiction teaches you to stand in the shoes of people who are not yourself. Because when you read a fiction book, you become the characters, you feel for the characters. It will make you a better leader if you read fiction. So I highly recommend reading fiction. I don't care what kind of fiction, science fiction, narrative fiction, historical fiction, whatever fiction you want, go read some fiction. It is going to change your life in an appreciable way. When it comes to, I spend a lot of my time reading in the customer experience and the employee experience space because those are the two worlds I navigate the most in.

Some of my favorite recent books in the customer experience space include include Brittany Hodak's book, Create Superfans, which is great, quick read, beautifully designed. She's a rockstar, amazing stories in there. And the book, Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Godera. Will Godera ran the number one restaurant in the world. And I don't care what your business is, when you think of what it takes to run a business

where a customer might come in to see you once a quarter, maybe, and they're going to come for a single meal, you've got to be remarkable. You've got to be delivering to attract that kind of attention. Those are two of my favorite customer experience books that have come out in the last year or so. On the employee experience side, I want to point to two, one that came out last year and one that came out last week. The one that came out last year, Michael Bungay-Stanier's book, How to Work with Almost Anyone. Michael's a brilliant soul. He's a Canadian guy. He really gets it. And he's written a great book about how do you build within a team and a culture and work with people who may not quite see the world eye to eye the same way you do, which we're all going to have employees that are like that. The other one is Mike Michalowicz's newest book, which came out days ago called All In. And All In is all about the remarkable things you can do. I can tell you there's a concept he has on page 185 of his book. I was reading an advanced copy. I got to page 185. I read about this concept. I stopped what I was doing. I messaged my assistant immediately.

And I was like, buy this book, put it on the company account, go straight to page 185, read those next three pages. We are doing this next week. It is chock full of ideas. That's going to make people get the book page 185. Go right to it, baby. It's right there. It is phenomenal. I've never heard of any company that did this. We did it. And it is already dramatically changed the interaction we have because it helped me to understand her better. And it helped her to understand me better. It goes back to, you know, the disc assessment and Myers-Briggs and all that. It's a different take on that by asking people, how do you operate?

What are, how do you want to receive criticism? How do you want to receive praise? What lights you up? How do you want to be criticism? How do you want to receive praise? What lights you up? How do you want to be communicated with? All those things. It's world class. Love Mike's work. Yeah, I do too.

I've had him at a couple events and Profit First was a game changer for a lot of businesses. And he wrote a lot of great books, Pumpkin Plant and whatnot. Oh, yeah. Lots of great books. Here's one thing that I'd recommend everybody think about doing. There's this little red book and a little Oh yeah. Lots of great books. Here, here's one thing that I'd recommend everybody think about doing. There's this little red book and a little blue book and once your mom, once for dad. And as you flip the pages, it says this, these are the words that remind me of you. This is the story I think about of how I became like you as I grew older. This is one of our most

special, special moments. There's like 15, 20 pages of this stuff. And a guy called me up about a year ago and said, my son got me this book and me and him haven't been close in two decades. And now we've rekindled our relationship. I had no idea he felt this way about me. And it takes hours of deliberation and thinking and writing. And I'm taking it to the next level.

I'm putting in a lot of pictures. Hopefully my mom's not it to the next level. I'm putting in a lot of pictures. Hopefully my mom's not listening to this podcast, but I'm putting in a lot of pictures and a lot of those magic moments. And then I'm narrating and putting some videos to make it even worth more. I'm putting it into a bigger scrapbook, but I just, I think that goes a much longer way than just buying people gifts. It's just the thoughtfulness of it.

And mom and dad and your kids, I there's this book called, I'm so glad you were born. And I give that to a lot of the people when they have a baby. And I'm like, give this to them when they're one or two years old. It's just a kid's book. But these things, it's kind of thoughtful to think, I'm not giving them an A1 little bib. It's like, give this to your kid. And I think these things go a long way and I need to double down. I need to do 10 X more. And after this podcast, I have no excuse. It's just make it to the calendar. Allison's going to listen to this and we are going to make more time. So I like to close out like this. How does people reach out to you? I mean, you've gone over it plenty of times, joeycoleman.com. Is there any other ways that you like people to follow you? Yeah. So a couple of things, Tommy, and I appreciate again, the conversation and you

having me on the show. The two books are called Never Lose a Customer Again and Never Lose an Employee Again. They're available in whatever format you like to consume books. We've got hardcovers if you want to hold it and feel the pages. We've got eBooks if you like to highlight in your Kindle. There's an audio book that if you've enjoyed the sound of my voice on this podcast and in this conversation, I read the book to you. So those books will dive much deeper into everything we've talked about. My website is joeycolman.com. That's J O E Y like a baby kangaroo or a five-year-old, you know, Coleman-M-A-N, like the camping equipment, but no relation. JoeyColeman.com. My email is Joey at JoeyColeman.com. You can send me an email if you have

any questions. And really, the social media platform that I spend the most time on is LinkedIn, so don't hesitate to connect with me over there. But yeah, if there's anything I can do to support any of the listeners or the viewers with your efforts at creating great customer experiences, your efforts at creating great employee experiences or your efforts at just trying to create more personal and emotional connections with the people you interact with. Please don't hesitate to reach out. I'd love to be a resource and help.

Love it. And finally, the last thing is that we talked about so many great things. We talked about employees, which are the coworkers. We talked about clients. Just, you could close us out with whatever subject maybe maybe we all need to hear something maybe there's a plan to take action maybe it's just something off the wall that you just didn't get to talk about but i'll let you close us out yeah so uh we're recording this not to date it

because i'm always gentle when i issued or share dates in a podcast because people get worried about the evergreen nature. But we're recording this at the beginning of 2024. And this is a time of great uncertainty. It's a time of great uncertainty on the planet. But it's also a time where it is better to be alive today than at any other time in human history. There are more opportunities. There are more possibilities. I'm not saying we don't have work to do. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying there aren't problems in this country and globally. Don't get me wrong. But it's a great time to be alive in many ways. Consider what it would be like to walk through life with a little more grace, a little more grace for the people you interact with,

a little more grace for your spouse and your kids, a little more grace for your coworkers, a little more grace for your clients, a little more grace for the person in front of you at the traffic light, a little more grace for the person behind you who's honking at the traffic light, okay? If we all show up, I think, with a little more grace,

it becomes an even better planet to live on. And my wish for everyone is that the people that interact with you will show you more grace. And my hope for everybody who's listening in is that you find an opportunity even just once a day to give someone a little more grace than maybe they deserved, or maybe you want to give, because I promise you it'll move the dial. Oh, powerful. Well, I'm gracious to have you on joy.

I appreciate that, Tommy. You're the best. We're going to stay connected. Thank you for taking the time and we'll definitely get together. That sounds great. Thanks, Tommy.

All right, Joey, have a great day. Thank you. Hey there. Thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states.

The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization. It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high-performing team like over here at A1 Garage Door Service. So if you want to learn the secrets that helped me transfer my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700-plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast and grab a copy of the book.

Thanks again for listening, and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.