The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 036: Chris Johnson – "The Relationships You Have Will Define The Quality Of Your Life" | Working with Seth Godin, Ariana Huffington, and Ryan Holiday

Starting point is 00:00:00 The relationships you have determines the quality of your life, and if you're not obsessed with making those the best they can be, then you're depriving yourself and depriving your friends of all the stuff that you can have. Are leaders born or are they made? Our host, Ryan Hawk, believes that leaders can be made through determined, focused work on learning the art and science behind the makeup of other successful leaders. Now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success. You're listening to The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. And welcome to The Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk extremely excited about the featured leader tonight. It's Chris Johnson, the founder of Simple Film or Simpla Media as it's being rebranded.

Starting point is 00:00:58 Chris is a very intelligent, deliberate thinker in his process for everything that he does. He actually does book trailers for all of the big time authors like Seth Godin, Ariana Huffington, and Ryan His work is incredible. He's very smart also when it comes to sales, communication, negotiation. We got into a number of great topics. A couple of them were building a world-class network. We talked about his 52x group in exactly what that means and how he defines it, and how he's very deliberate in building and giving to that network.

Starting point is 00:01:32 I love that part. Also, his process for creating these videos. Again, Chris is very detailed-oriented. oriented, has a process that's laid out perfectly to make these world-class videos for his customers. Again, that leads into the exceptional customer service that he provides. And again, his thought process around how he provides that for each and every customer he has. I absolutely love this one. Without further ado, it's Chris Johnson. All right, Chris, you have been fortunate to spend time with a lot of very, very successful people.

Starting point is 00:02:20 people of the likes of Ryan Holiday, Seth Godin, Ariana Huffington, among many others. And I'm curious, if there is one common characteristic or theme or trait that those successful people all have in common, what would it be? I can say easily it's the way they treat other people around them. That's obvious. I'll give you three examples. I'll say that all of them have been gracious and kind to, you know, There's this myth that the successful people steps on people, and they're all about themselves.

Starting point is 00:02:54 Ariana treated us. We were vendors for Ariana Huffington's company on an incidental part of a book marketing launch that she had a couple years ago. And she treated us as well or better than we treat our customers. And we were just vendors taking her money, you know, doing a video for her. And I was blown away. They sent us some stuff from New York, from her office, some autographs, remember Bribilia. She thanked us. She remembered who we were.

Starting point is 00:03:18 She called my then co-founder directly just to say thanks for your hard work on the project, all of that stuff. Brad Feld has been amazing to work with. He's the busiest guy. He's answered just about every email I've ever sent him. And he has introduced me to more people than I can count. So every single person that succeeds at, and Ryan Holiday is the same way. Every person that succeeds at a high level has always been super generous and super willing to invest in others and be kind to the people that they encounter.

Starting point is 00:03:48 And it's not to say that they're not demanding. You know, Ariana and Seth Godin and other people that we've worked with have been super demanding as well, you know, pushing us to make the work better, but it's always about the work and it's never petty or personal or anything like that. Interesting. That's a characteristic that I've asked a question a lot because I think it's really, I'm just,

Starting point is 00:04:08 I'm curious about the fact of success and what do those people have in common, you know? And it made me immediately think of something that I talk about all the time in this podcast. It made me think of Adam Grant and his book, Give and Take. Because I don't know if you read that book, but it's all about what you just said. It's all about the fact that you don't have to step on top of other people to get to the top. You can do it by being a giving or what he calls being a giver, looking out for others, trying to help people. The way you treat other people, just being a decent human being. and it's really cool for me to hear those names share that one characteristic because there's a lot of things you could have said about all those people and I really wasn't certain what you were going to say.

Starting point is 00:04:54 No, I mean, everybody that I've encountered that's had the kind of success that I don't yet have but want to have has treated me better than I treat others. And it's just a way, it's a wake-up call. Wow, if I treated other people, maybe that's one of the keys to success at a high level. if I was easy to work with, if I was kind, if I, you know, they've all been candid. They've all had revisions and stuff that they didn't like about the initial presentation of the work. And there's some uncomfortable, you know, this isn't right. This is, they're frank, but they weren't unkind.

Starting point is 00:05:24 And that's, you know, we've got to get there for sure. Yeah. So let's, now, I appreciate you answer that question because I like to get it kicked off with some umph to it. And you did that for me. So, Chris, let's take a step back, though. And I'll give you. the floor here to talk a little bit about what you are currently doing and how you've gotten to this

Starting point is 00:05:46 point. All right. Well, I run a company called, that's currently called Simplfilm. By the time you, this goes live, it may be rebranded to Simpl Media. That's our intention right now. And we are the understanding company. We create understanding and other people. So if you have a difficult product, a difficult idea, a difficult concept, we take the time to do the discovery, to do the research, to create a brief and to allow your customers to understand your product or idea, no matter what it is. And we're known for a lot of book trailers, product demo videos, explainer videos, and that sort of thing. We're a four-year-old company. I started it with a partner.

Starting point is 00:06:24 Last fall, we had different ideas of what quality was. And so we split. I brought them out, and it was amicable. I mean, we're still going to work together on select projects. We didn't burn the bridges. I'm not angry. and moving forward we are, I've never been more optimistic about both our country and my company. You know, I'm just thrilled about the progress that entrepreneurship has made over the last five years.

Starting point is 00:06:49 We're in an absolutely great period for entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, just a great time to be alive and working. And that's where we are right now. How did you get to this point? What led up to this company of Simpl Film or Simpla media where you're working with these world-class authors and entrepreneurs to create. I mean, they could have anybody create their videos for them or do trailers for them and probably some of them would do it for free. How did you get to this point?

Starting point is 00:07:17 You know, that's an interesting question. I am passionate about books, okay? One of the things I always give credit to Ryan Holiday, he's a good friend, and his reading list literally changed my life. He has this reading list. You just Google Ryan Holiday reading list and probably be in the show notes and, you know, all that stuff. and it's got a list of great books.

Starting point is 00:07:37 I was broke, and I was at the nadir of my existence in about 2010 or so, and I picked up this book and read it, and it was, boy, I'm drawing a sudden blank. I can see the title. My Bondage and My Freedom was the title, and It was My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass, of course, and I just had one of those brainwave problems. But my bondage and my freedom and the fact that a former slave could write was, such compassion about his captors, about the world, and have such optimism changed my life. You know, here I am. I've got a wife and two kids. My life should be going great. I can make

Starting point is 00:08:15 money and somehow I find myself self-absorbed and depressed. And I started reading and obsessively for a couple hours a day, or for an hour a day, or forever long it is. It's like meditation. It gets you out of your own problems and into somebody else's head, you know, especially if you're reading about the great people like Teddy Roosevelt or Frederick Douglass or, you know, America, you know, Alexander the Greek or great or whoever, you know, you just escape yourself and you realize that other people had bigger problems and they were able to manage. And then that's kind of a path forward and away from, you know, away from being depressed or sad or overwhelmed or whatever. So that was kind of where I got started. And then from there, no, no, and that's,

Starting point is 00:08:58 That's why I love books. So we charge less for book trailers, even though they're twice the work, that we charge for other stuff because the economics of a successful bestseller don't support, you know, the $25,000 projects that we get for an app. You know, they just don't support it. The margins aren't as good. There's, you know, there's more risk involved. So we, you know, we're more modestly priced for books and we think they deserve our best. Yeah, that makes sense. and it's a really cool niche that I've watched the, obviously, as I was preparing for our time together,

Starting point is 00:09:33 I watched the videos that you've created that you put out there. And they're obviously incredibly well done, fantastic attention to detail. And I got to believe that's why these people keep coming back and probably a ton of your business is purely based on referrals now, I'm guessing. Yeah, and you asked a specific question. Why would they work with me as opposed to somebody else? For a top performer, the currency isn't money. Okay, the money is trivial. The difference between $10,000 and $25,000 for a project that somebody at that level believes in is trivial.

Starting point is 00:10:06 Okay, it's not that much. And that even though it's two and a half times different, what they want is it to just be handled and to not use energy on the wrong things. Okay, the wrong things are like, I got to repeat myself. I got to get somebody that cares. I got to get somebody that spends the time, energy, and effort on the right details. you know, I got to get somebody that's technically fluent. If they don't have to worry about that, then paying me, you know, $10,000 is better than getting it for free,

Starting point is 00:10:33 even though the money's, you know, way different. Yeah, no, it makes a lot of sense. And through, so through your work and doing great work, you have built an elite network. Talk to me about, I mean, that's, I think, a topic that a lot of people, are really, really interested in. I mean, some of the other guests, you know, Jason Gainer, who's one of the best in the world at that. John Corcoran, who introduced us, by the way.

Starting point is 00:11:01 John, just let me take one second. John is literally maybe in the greatest, one of the greatest givers I've ever known. I mean, just such a great, great guy who introed us. But between him and John Levy, another guest, who also runs influencers in New York City. So there's been some, I would say a lot of people who I would say are really, really adept at building fantastic networks almost always through giving. And that's something you've been able to do too, is build an elite network.

Starting point is 00:11:29 Can you talk a little bit about that? Well, yeah. So I have sort of three buckets in my network. And an individual's primary network can only be so big. So you want to have three people, three buckets or three groups that are grouped together and substantial. So we have a 52x group. And this is the group of 12 or 15 people.

Starting point is 00:11:49 And you have this group in your life. and you may not be just deliberate about it, but you know that they have your back and vice versa. So at least once a week, everybody that's in the 52x group hears from me. And if everything's going right, it gets value from me. And it's not an email list. It's, you know, 10 to 12 people. You know exactly what their businesses are doing. And if you see something that might be a lead, hey, thought this might be interesting to you.

Starting point is 00:12:11 Hey, I don't know if this is a fit. But here's an article on TechCrunch about one of your competitors. That's the sort of value ad that you can do. Hey, here's an intro. in all of those currencies, you know, a lead, an article from TechCrunch or wherever, an intro, all of those are free, and you can keep your posse as close together as you can. And in your, you know, in your 52x group, which is 10 to 15 people, you want to have five people that are above your level, five people that are around your level, and five people that are up and coming, and that may not have been at your level yet. And then it'll always be a healthy group, and it'll always be able to perform for you. And you've got to be obsessed with it.

Starting point is 00:12:48 I spend 10 or 12 relationships. You know, we have a seven-figure business, 10 or 12 relationships, not even that. Six or eight relationships is 60% of my business. Wow. So you are very, very methodical in your approach to this. This is not just something in passing. Oh, yeah, I got buddies with them. I mean, that's incredible.

Starting point is 00:13:06 I love that. You have to be because that's table stakes for respect. If you want somebody in your network, you know, if you want to have somebody in your network, you just got to perform for them. You got to give to them more than you get, and you just got to trust that the world will repay you in spades, and it does. You know, you've got to, they'll forgive you if you're laid, though. They'll treat you correctly. You've got to do that.

Starting point is 00:13:29 It's just the relationships you have determines the quality of your life, and if you're not obsessed with making those the best they can be, then you're depriving yourself and depriving your friends of all the stuff that you can have. So 52x group. Why is it called that? Yeah, because you talk to them once a week. It's 52 times a year. The next group is the 8x group. You talk to them eight times a year. Every four to six weeks, you on purpose add value. And there is some, you know, you don't, you know, you don't know that you're in this group. There's some back and forth between the two groups, obviously, somebody might be in the 40x group and somebody might be somebody that I talk to 20 times a year or whatever. But that's the next group and that's going to be 30 to 50 people that you, you know,

Starting point is 00:14:11 you are completely in their group and you have their back and you make sure you know their business, understand their business, and the rest. And then the last group would be the two-x group. It's a group of people that you've met and you want to stay in touch with and you just want to make sure you talk to them twice a year. Every CRM can handle this for you. And working this network is enough for any provider of any service to make hundreds of thousands of dollars and all you have to do is give to your network and respect it and treat it kindly.

Starting point is 00:14:41 Wow. So you use a CRM for that? Oh, yeah, of course. I can't do it myself. Do you use Contactually? I have used Contactually in the past. It is a good CRM. I think I encountered contaxially when they were having some technical hurdles. So I left and I'm using Close I.O. right now. Close I.O. is pretty excellent. Every CRM is imperfect. Every, you know, I'm, every CRM has flaws and Clos AO has some flaws. So, you know, I like it. For what it does, it's, it's a fast sales cockpit for top performing salespeople. And that's what I

Starting point is 00:15:14 love about it. It's not perfect. Nothing is. So this is great. I didn't know it's like this detailed. So I'm really enjoying this already, Chris. Now, let me let me bring up something that might be a little bit, I don't know, a problem at times. And I'm talking about tension within these because these are friends. Like they're not just contacts. It's your relationship. So they become friends, especially the people in your 52x group. Talk to me about tension in friendships or tension in relationships. Have you had to, I don't know the better way to put it other than say quit somebody. Have you had to just tell them, you know, I mean, how does that work? You are always going to weed your garden, okay? And, and, you know, some of the people in my,

Starting point is 00:15:58 so every year or every so often, I look at my 52x group. And if somebody's a bummer or if I have a natural tendency to skip them, or if I don't want to bother them because I don't know what's going on on their world, then, you know, I've lost them and they get demoted or whatever. You don't do it with petulance. You don't say, hey, I got to quit you. You don't lecture anybody, right? That's not, that's not how you do it. You just, you just, you just back off. And they still, and it doesn't matter because you're not worried about the symmetry of this group. You know, so for example, I make sure I I am in touch with Bradfeld eight times a year. And if I wasn't in touch with him, he wouldn't be in touch with me.

Starting point is 00:16:35 I go to him. He doesn't go to me. And I'm totally cool with that. You know, if you're obsessed with, well, I've given you all this crap and you're just not giving back. You've got the wrong thinking. I've given you all this crap. So you'll listen to whatever pitch I have two years from now in case I need to pitch

Starting point is 00:16:49 you is the right thinking. Wow. So, yeah, I was going to ask next. in regards to these people, these 10 to 15 people who you have each other's backs, are these people, you know, how do they become one of those 10 to 15 people? Like, where would, I don't know, where would Ryan Holiday, Seth Godin, Ariana Huffington be in your, in your groups? Well, you know, Ryan and I work together on a lot of scripts, so we have a natural reason

Starting point is 00:17:17 to do business and, you know, there's back and forth business. He refers us to projects. We send him scripts, that sort of thing. So that's a natural working relationship that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that moves it into, you know, one of the top tiers. Somebody like Seth is a little more, not hard to get, but he's a little more, you know, there's not always a natural excuse to talk, so it's a little more work on my end to email Seth or whatever.

Starting point is 00:17:40 And we don't have a natural, we have some overlapping close friends, et cetera, so there's no, you know, he would be in a different group. And there's no, you know, there's no formal announcement. They're just marked in my CRM with a what group they're in. and then I do a query and then I basically try to contact 10 or so people from my network every day and add value to their lives. And I have Google alerts and other things set up so I can be trolling the Internet for things that might be valuable to the people that I know pretty well.

Starting point is 00:18:10 That's cool, man. I'm fascinating. I can talk about this for hours. No, I really, really, really appreciate. So it's a fairly technical. I mean, look, I have, I forward stuff into Evernote. I have a bunch of subscription lists. I have a bunch of articles that I get.

Starting point is 00:18:24 And the currencies are, you know, and I try to send them something physical once a year, if I can. You know, I'm not always as good as I want to be about that. But the currencies are the free currencies, introductions, okay, valuable introductions. If you know somebody, you should be able to make a good intro. John and I introduce us, and I'd never heard of you and vice versa. That's a good, that's a benefit to the network. Another currency is information about tangentially related to their industry. So if somebody is in the e-signatures business and we find an app that has a different spin on it,

Starting point is 00:18:59 and they might not be aware of, you would send out a different use of e-signatures to them or whatever. You know, something that you would know, if you're in the mortgage industry, you might be able to help an ad agency person with a technique for a workflow that might be able to be compatible. You know, that's the second kind of easy, free thing to do. And then the third one is leads, man. You know, leads are everything. You send somebody a lead that has a good, you know, that fits the profile and has a good chance of working out. Then you've just benefited the world.

Starting point is 00:19:34 Yeah. No, absolutely. So in addition to this, one of the things that you are known for is exceptional customer service. Talk to me about your thought process around how. how you treat your customers. So there's a few ideas there. One of them, we have some rules that we live by, and customers should never have to repeat

Starting point is 00:19:55 themselves. If you tell one person in our company, you've told the whole company, it should be a low effort experience because we want to spend our energy on making the best videos we can, not on project management. Project management has to be done, and done badly, it's everybody has to repeat themselves, nobody knows what now and what next, all that stuff happens. done right, it's a breath of fresh air and it's, man, it saves, it gives you the opportunity to do work on a high level because you're not focused on, well, I got to call this person back.

Starting point is 00:20:29 You always know what now, what next and when, you always know everything about your, what's going on in your business. Does that make sense? Absolutely. So if you're, if you're, if you nail that and spend a lot of energy up front, nailing it, then you can spend all of your energy on making great creative. of work, you know, I'd rather spend five hours making one line of a script better than chasing down a file or whatever.

Starting point is 00:20:53 And a lot of agencies don't have, you know, they do the same thing over and over again. They say, where's the file? We don't have the file yet. And we've got to handle all that stuff in an organized methodical and elegant way in order to be able to serve customers. Yeah. Does that make sense? It does.

Starting point is 00:21:09 It makes a lot of sense. So I'm curious about the process that you go through from start to finish when you you're making these videos. So let's say I, you know, I have this podcast and I've been very fortunate to get great feedback. It's doing really, really well. And I want to invest to in my, in my podcast, which is like my little business here, right? And that I provide for free to listeners. But I wanted to continue growing at the rate that it's growing at here. And I've been, this has been around for three months now. So, and I go to you and say, hey, Chris, you know, I'm willing to invest to create a video that I put both on my website

Starting point is 00:21:52 and YouTube and we, you know, get it out to PR people and things like that. What's the process like from start to finish? Well, let's talk about it two ways. First of all, we start from the end and work backwards. Okay, so I would say what result do you want to have? That's the question. Okay. What at the, Ryan, at the end of a year, what result do you want to have from this podcast?

Starting point is 00:22:20 Okay. So I would answer, you know, my goal is to, and I haven't said a number, but let's say I created some type of number. I want X amount of people to be listening to my show every day. Okay. And how is a video then going to achieve that goal? I think the more people who are unsure of one, the space of podcasting, maybe they're more visual so they see a video and then they're thinking, oh, maybe I should give this a shot because while podcasting is big and growing, it's not to the point to where everybody's listening to them yet.

Starting point is 00:22:58 Right, right. Okay. Fair enough. And you think that, and you're going to determine whether or not a video can do that. Okay. So we have a goal at the end of the day. And then what we would do is determine whether or not we are the right fit. That's the first step because sometimes we're not.

Starting point is 00:23:12 You know, sometimes if somebody wants to, you know, there's certain great books that I would have no idea how to make a book trailer for. There's certain great ideas that I have no idea how to do this. For you, if you're, you know, looking at growing your podcasting audience, I don't know how that would happen. So I would just give you the, you know, what I would plan on doing and and the hypothesis that we're testing. Okay, so we're going to try to get your podcast featured on Entrepreneur Magazine. And we're going to make it really easy and, you know, 10 other places as one of the best. best podcast. We're going to make it really easy for a stranger to understand the gist of your podcast with this video. And then when they watch it, we'll see, we'll see what's what. Does that

Starting point is 00:23:48 make sense? Yeah, makes a lot of sense. Okay. So, so then that's the goal. Then we have a brief, and our briefs are super specific. So if you, if you write down the word grat with two T's, G-R-A-T-T, you have a goal, okay? Then you have requirements. So you might have been sponsored by HubSpot in your podcast. And you have to mention them three times. That's a requirement. Or you might have to, you know, talk about the Mac version of an app is different than the PC. Those are requirements.

Starting point is 00:24:17 So goal requirements. And then action. After somebody watches this video, they're either going to know, they're going to do or they're going to feel a certain way. What's the action after the video? Then tone. Okay. So there's a million podcasts out there.

Starting point is 00:24:33 They all have different tones. We want to make sure your tone, the tone we create, is consistent with your brand. You know, that's the tone. Okay. And then the target. Who specifically are we targeting? Give me a name of an actual person. Give me a name of a hypothetical person.

Starting point is 00:24:50 Give me what they want, what they fear. So it's, you know, goal requirements, action, tone, and target. And that will make, that's five sentences, and that will make an excellent brief on almost any project. And that'll make, you know, scripts better. That'll make everything understandable because then we're all working, towards the same goal. We're aligned and we are not arguing over what we should be doing, but arguing over how to execute and how to achieve that.

Starting point is 00:25:17 And that's a much more fun argument to have than maybe I should do this because everything's all out on paper beforehand. Does that make sense? That's awesome. I'm taking notes. Did you create that acronym or did you borrow that from somebody else? Where did that come from? It's mine.

Starting point is 00:25:35 It's one of the new and exciting things that's going to be happening to our customers when we rebranded Simple Media in about a month. So I'm going on a vacation. We're going to do some more thinking on this, but we've been using it for a couple weeks, and it's had a tremendous response. And it's allowed us to do less work in, more work and less time, not less work and more time. More work and less time. So yeah, for sure. Wow. Okay. So you get to that point, you fill out a brief and then what happens after that? Yeah. And then we can agree on a brief or we cannot agree on a brief and then we would have business arena. So you pay me this money during this time and it's going to be this cost and this is going to be what's up front. This is going to be what's

Starting point is 00:26:14 when we're done and we have a deal. And then we go into production and you will know what now, what next and when and who. So you've got a, you know, we've got the brief in hand. We're ready to go with this. Here's the treatment that we're going to use. We're going to make a, we're going to show a football on the field. We're going to pan out of it and we're going to talk about how a former college quarterback is now, now a, you know, running one of the best podcasts and why you can't too or whatever, you know, that's, that's the idea. And then we'll all be in alignment. So you'll, you'll, one of the things that I believe is that no client should ever have to chase their, their project. If, if, so we have a production manager and she does not get, she gets a

Starting point is 00:26:58 bonus on every project unless the client says, hey, I need an update. The client should automatically already have had an update on every detail of every project under every circumstances, and that's just table stakes. That's minimum viable service right there. Client should never wonder, ever. Yeah. And so how long does this process take from first conversation to video is ready to go? It can take as little as 10 days now, so that was our biggest challenge of 2014 was we were,

Starting point is 00:27:31 we had a 45-day waiting list before we could start, then it was taking about 60 days to do that. And I got obsessed, you know, quality of service. And so we were turning away customers that wanted a video could pay us a lot of money because we weren't ready. So we focus on quality of experience first, which is this stuff that we're talking about right now. And then we talked about quality of work second because we're doing great work. Everybody's doing great work. Lots of companies are like Simplfilm in that they can produce good videos. Nobody is doing what we're doing as far as creating a great experience for the client,

Starting point is 00:28:06 never having them chase us, never having to worry about anything under any circumstances ever. And that was sort of the first thing that we did to eliminate lag. So getting from like 100 days from cash to, from quote to you have a video to 10 was what's what. The typical client takes about 40 days, you know, a month and a week, roughly six, seven weeks. but we can get stuff out there. Yeah, we can get stuff out there a lot quicker than that

Starting point is 00:28:33 because we know exactly what the steps are now. We broke down our process into we don't have to chase that stuff. We educate our clients on what they're going to expect. They know who they're dealing with. They know what's going to happen and they just hopefully have a good ride. You know, one of my competitors said we make two promises. You're going to love the video. You're going to love the ride.

Starting point is 00:28:52 And the videos were great, but the ride stunk. And that was the disagreement about quality that Jason Moore and I had. you know, he would do anything to make a video 2% better. And he's not wrong. But my belief is that if a video is only as good as a service that surrounds it. So if you have to stress out on, is this going to get done on time? Is it going to be done by release date and all this stuff? That makes the whole experience bad and the whole thing is tainted.

Starting point is 00:29:19 And we just didn't agree. So we had to make a decision on, you know, what direction we were going to go. And we determined that I was going to buy him out. and that's what it was. Yeah. And so that's how you got to where you are right now. So thinking of your business and how you treat your customers and what you do, this, it doesn't obviously doesn't only relate to somebody who says,

Starting point is 00:29:41 oh, I want to go in business and make videos for book trailers. Right. This applies to literally any business, big and small. And so if you're talking to somebody who is the leader of whatever business, whether it's a one-person business or a one-million-person business that they're leading. What is the biggest or the best piece of advice you would give to that person to, you know, have a successful company, to have a growing, thriving, successful company? I would say have empathy, okay?

Starting point is 00:30:17 Understand what your customer actually wants. They don't want to go through, they want to pay money, get a video, contribute a little bit, and have a good time doing it and feel like they were a part of a really nifty production. That's what they want. Okay, but to get there, you know, if you're a website provider or if you're a legal services provider, what does somebody want? Somebody doesn't want to chase details. They don't, you know, they don't want to, they want to have it just handled for them,

Starting point is 00:30:43 and that's what they're paying for. And so the customer service that you provide, you know, it scales across businesses. figure out what the heck your customer wants, profile them. Do all of those exercises. You know, Google customer profile. There's 20 different sites that show you out of profile customers. Brian Eisenberg has a good one. I think it's buyer heroes or buyer legends.

Starting point is 00:31:04 I don't remember the title, but there's lots of great ways to figure out who your buyers are. And then tune your business to exactly what they want. You want to serve a VIP like we do. Then what you do is you make it so they don't have to spend any energy on anything other than the video. You have people handle every detail gathering the files, getting the, you know, chasing all this stuff down, and you do it in advance of when you need it so that there's no disruptions caused by basic stuff. So many companies are like, oh, we didn't have the file so we couldn't start. You are going to take responsibility for stuff that's not even your fault, and you're going to, you know, if you don't get us the logo file or the jacket art for your book, we will chase it down and we will be. obsessed every 24 hours, every 15 minutes, you know, we'll be on the phone getting that from

Starting point is 00:31:54 whoever we need to get it from until it's the most important thing in their life, uh, because we can't do a book trailer without it. Yeah, this is, this is, this is, so most, so, so, so let's take this, let's take this apart one more time. Okay. You go to these, you go to these, this is important to me and I'm real passionate about this. You go to a site called clients from hell.

Starting point is 00:32:12 Okay. That's, that's like all these clients didn't want this stuff. You know, these are the people that are paying you money. And, and all of these problems are predictable. Like the fact that a client is going to want there are 10 minutes after they give you their logo is predictable. So you have to chase their logo and make sure that they know that and make sure that you stay on the hunt for that thing. If they need to provide you with some assets or whatever, you've got to get after that and be hardcore about it because what's going to happen next is you're going to be held accountable for their delays. If that's the reality, we don't want to talk about justice here.

Starting point is 00:32:48 we want to talk about how somebody feels about working with you. And justice is, you know, well, technically we were right, you know, whatever. That's technically true. But we want to have a higher standard than technically true or just justice or whose fault something was. Does that, I can't be any more direct about, you know, that. That's the, if you're starting a business, you've got to do everything for them. So all they pay attention to is you're deliverable.

Starting point is 00:33:15 Have you had to fire a client though and say, sorry, you're unreasonable? I'm not going to put my employees or my team through what you're what you're asking. Well, yeah, less than less often now than before. So yes, absolutely. We've sent preemptive refunds to one or two percent of our clients over our history. It was five or six before before. And when I was delivering low quality websites five years ago, it was a bunch. The preemptive refund happens.

Starting point is 00:33:42 But that's generally speaking our fault. And sometimes unfortunate things happen. okay and something unfortunate happens and it's a bummer and the the deal will either go sideways or it'll have to die so as a provider you just have to send your money back and don't get obsessed with the $7,000 or whatever you're sending back to somebody get obsessed with how much free you're going to be you know if if there's anything that we could be blamed for we'll generally refund the client if they're unreasonable and say you know are gone on two-week vacation and don't respond to emails and then are mad that they didn't get their delivery on time,

Starting point is 00:34:20 then obviously we'll expect to be paid and we'll, you know, sue somebody if necessary or whatever. We'll collect our money. But, you know, if, man, if you just got to get that out of your hair. And you know the kind of guy that always gets in a fight with somebody at a restaurant? There's always something wrong. Don't be that guy. Be the guy that makes everything cooler and smoother and is forgiving and gracious. You know, some client's going to say something snarky and nasty.

Starting point is 00:34:46 you can either take the bait and go crazy with them or you can say, yeah, that's one way to look at it, sure, and move on. You know, yeah, yeah,

Starting point is 00:34:54 this has been great, man. It's jam pack. Chris, I have one more, one more question now. And the question revolves around this show, my podcast.

Starting point is 00:35:04 And the podcast obviously is called the learning leader show. And it's called that for a specific reason. It's because, you know, I've been in leadership positions my entire life. And I love it. I love stuff. I love learning about the journeys of other great leaders to help it positively impact my own,

Starting point is 00:35:22 and then in turn try to help other people as they develop their leadership skills. And nothing makes me feel better than to hear that somebody listened to this podcast and it helped improve their life or their leadership journey in some way, shape, or form. It really is the coolest thing ever, man. And so when you hear the phrase learning leader, and let's say I asked you or I am asking you to define a great learning leader. What would you say? Like, describe or define?

Starting point is 00:35:57 A learning, describe or define? Actually, both. Okay. So if we're going to define a great learning leader, that's somebody that comes batteries included, which is a phrase from the strategic coach, that comes batteries included that's going to succeed no matter what, and they're going to pay attention to the world around them and create feedback loops that give them what they need to go to the next level for their entire career. That's a description or a definition somewhere in between.

Starting point is 00:36:30 A great learning leader is going to be somebody that has the humility to always know that there's somebody better, somebody with more information, and they're always going to be obsessed with making themselves, excuse me, making themselves the best that they can possibly be. Now, if you think of, I know I said one question, but I have one more because it's making me think of this. Names, if you had to name an example, somebody that we may or may not know this person, but if you had to name a person who would it be, maybe it's more than one too. Sure. In military history, I would look at William Tecumseh, Sherman, who won the war, the Civil War in the South.

Starting point is 00:37:07 I would look at, I would study that life, what he actually did, you know, We remember that Sherman's March to the Sea, but we also know that he saved lives by showing the South that they were defeated because they didn't believe that they were defeated in the Civil War. That's one person that I would study. He grasped the war before anybody else was the first modern general, et cetera. Another person that shows good leadership would be, you had him on your podcast early on. Pat Flynn does an awesome job of being a leader, of being transparent, of learning. some companies that do the same thing. I would say Buffer is doing a wonderful job.

Starting point is 00:37:46 And one of the best blogs out there is Groove. I think it's G-R-O-O-O-V-E-H-Q.com. It's a help desk software that I don't use, but I love their blog. And their blog talks about their journey to $100,000 a month or $250,000 a month or wherever they are in their world. And it talks about their failures and successes. So those are some places to go, you know, for leadership. This is great, man.

Starting point is 00:38:11 This is like actionable tips. Like I love, love, love when there are things and actionable items, things people can do literally right now because they listen to the podcast, listen to a great guest like you, Chris, to say, hey, here are some things I've learned. You can implement them right now. Like your 52x group, your 8x group, your 2x group, you know, or a great blog or great leaders to go study. I think that's just awesome. man, I really, really appreciate you being here. And I'd love to continue talking, man. Yeah, let's do that.

Starting point is 00:38:45 Let's do that. So you're part of my network now. We'll respect each other's networks. And if there's anything I can do to be of service, if there's anybody that I know that you don't know yet, don't hesitate to ask. I'll make the introduction. There's probably a lot of those.

Starting point is 00:38:59 No, well, sure. But some of those people you don't want to know. And, you know, when you're making an intro, when somebody asks for an intro, you have to make sure you time it right, and you have to make sure that you preserve your relationship and put that in front of other folks. But yeah, absolutely. Respect your network.

Starting point is 00:39:15 If there's anything I can do for you, let me know. If you want to reach out to Simplefilm, go to Simplifilm. Go to Simplifilm.com. We may change our name. We are probably going to change our name. It just hasn't sunk in yet. And contact me for whatever. And I'm always around and I always love to hear good pitches.

Starting point is 00:39:32 So feel free to pitch me for anything. Good pitches will get listened to. Awesome. And that will obviously be in. the show notes. And if this, depending on when your name changed, I can update it on my website to learningleadershow.com and obviously the show notes of the, uh, on iTunes and the podcast episode. So now thank you so much, uh, Chris for being here, man. And, uh, I, I definitely look forward to keep it in touch, man. All right. Thank you. Oh, all right. Bye. Bye.

Starting point is 00:39:57 This episode of the learning leader show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until next time. Head over to learning leader show.com for more information. and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO, world-class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you. You can also talk to Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time on The Learning Leader Show.

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