Leveraging Personalization to Drive True Loyalty w/ Shep Hyken
Episode Details
Transcript
Discover how childhood magic shows and a gas station job laid the foundation for a legendary career in customer service and experience. This episode features Shep Hyken, the Chief Amazement Officer at Shepard Presentations, as he breaks down the "I’ll Be Back" philosophy and the distinction between repeat business and true brand loyalty. Gain actionable insights on operationalizing feedback, leading through a crisis, and why the most successful organizations prioritize a "hospitality mentality" to outshine their competition.
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Credits: Host: Lisa Nichols, Executive Producer: Jenny Heal, Marketing Support: Landon Burke and Joe Szynkowski, Podcast Engineer: Portside Media
Lisa Nichols
Chromosomes. Little strands of nucleic acids and proteins are the fundamental genetic instructions that tell us who we are at birth. Most people are born with forty six chromosomes, but each year in the United States, about six thousand people are born with an extra chromosome, making them a person with Down syndrome. If you've ever encountered someone with Down syndrome, you know that they are some of the kindest, most joyful people you will ever meet. They truly have something extra. My name is Lisa Nichols, and for thirty years, I have been both the CEO of Technology Partners and the mother to Ally. Ally has something extra in every sense of the word. I have been blessed to be by her side as she impacts everyone she meets. Through these two important roles as CEO and mother to Ally, I have witnessed countless life lessons that have fundamentally changed the way I look at the world. While you may not have an extra chromosome, every leader has something extra that defines who you are. Join me as I explore the something extra in leaders from all walks of life and discover how that difference in each of them has made a difference in their companies, their families, their communities, and in themselves. If you like this episode today, please go to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and leave us a five star rating. Lisa Nichols
Before we get started, I'm excited to share that my book Something Extra is now available. It is rooted in the remarkable spirit of our daughter, Ally, and the heartfelt conversations we've had on the podcast. You'll find wisdom and practical tools to ignite the leader within you and uncover your own something extra. Visit something extra book dot com or find it at Amazon or in all major bookstores to order your copy today. Lisa Nichols
I'm grateful to have Shep Hyken on the show today. Shep is the chief amazement officer at Shepherd Presentations. Well, Shep Hyken, I am so delighted today to have you on the something extra podcast. Thank you so much for making the time. I know how busy you are. Shep Hyken
Well, thank you. It's a pleasure and honor to be here, and great to see you again after all these years. Lisa Nichols
I I think we figured it out. It's probably been about twenty years. So you and I first met, but we haven't aged,Shep. That's the remarkable t thing.Shep Hyken
And guys like me without hair, you can't tell. It's is it gray? Is it not gray? Who knows? And then one day in the future, I will start to look old. Lisa Nichols
Yeah. Well, you look great, but we did. We met about twenty years ago, and, you werespeaking at a YPO event. Shep Hyken
Yep. Lisa Nichols
And that's why when you and I met. And I've just kinda followed you and, thought, gosh, I wanna have Shep on because you talk about stuff that's really near and dear to my heart in customer service. But, I'm just grateful to have you on the show today. But, you know, let's kinda go back a little bit. You're a Saint Louis guy, grew up in Saint Louis. Right? Yeah. But I want to go back and just talk about your first paid magic show. That that's like my first Shep Hyken
paid gig in front of a live audience. I was twelve years old, and it was a birthday party magic show, and it's the toughest audience I've ever had. There were about twenty some odd screaming six year old kids. And, boy, that's a tough audience. There have been discerning audiences, but that was a tough audience. Lisa Nichols
That was a tough one. Shep Hyken
Yeah. And I worked in comedy clubs as well, in high school and college. And even dealing with hecklers, nothing compared to those little kids. Lisa Nichols
Those little kids. Well, what did that teach you about the customer experience? Shep Hyken
Well that's, you know what? It's funny. Most people wouldn't even think. What can a twelve year old kid learn in a birthday party magic show business? And I came home. And by the way, of course, on the way out, my mom picks me up at school, drops me off on the way out. I say thank you. They give me money. Sixteen dollars is what I earned that day. That was a long, long time ago. And, I I said thanks, and I thought that was it. My mom said, what are you gonna do after dinner? And I thought, homework, it's school night, but she said not till you write a thank you note. So that was a great lesson. You know, show appreciation, a little more than just the genuine thank you on the way out the door. And then my dad takes the step further and says, you know, that's a great idea, but why don't you take it to the next level? He was always trying to one up my mom, which is probably why they got divorced later that year, but that's another story. So the, he said, about a week after I send this thank you note, call up the parents who hired you and thank them again and ask them, how did you like the show? And you're gonna get feedback and get specific. You said ask what tricks they really like. And it's important to recognize over a period of time, you'll hear the same tricks. You'll notice they there's certain tricks people don't talk about. He said, get rid of those tricks, replace them with tricks they do talk about, and then you'll get a better show. Now little did I know, my parents were teaching me show appreciation, teaching me get feedback, and teaching me to operationalize the feedback to make a better product. In this case, it was a show. You know, when I talk to my clients today, I ask them, do you do that? And they go, oh, yeah. That's really important. Wow. Lessons that I learned when I was twelve. And this may be why I just, throughout my whole life, have been so passionate about taking care of customers, guests, clients, whatever you wanna call them. Lisa Nichols
Oh, that's so good. Well and I do believe in that too. And I will even if we win a deal or if we lose a deal, Shep, I will ask for the feedback. Shep Hyken
Yeah. Lisa Nichols
Why did you choose us? It it's so such a gift. Right? Shep Hyken
Well, why didn't you choose us? And now like we said, you ask when you don't get the deal. Lisa Nichols
Either one. Yep. Either one. Right? And what could we have done better? How could we have made the experience more amazing? Because I know that's, like, one of the things that you talk about is making the experience amazing. You know, it was funny to me too because I can't remember. I've I've got I've got a few of your books here. Shep has written eight books. He's coauthored five books. Go out and find his books. He's a New York Times best selling author. Wall Street Journal, best selling author. Great, great books. I can't remember which one, but I remember, one of your parents saying, well, what time are you gonna get there? Yeah. Shep Hyken
That's in that book, Be Amazing or Go Home. Lisa Nichols
Be Amazing or Go Home. And I thought this was so good. They're like, oh, no. You don't show up right when you're supposed to be there. You get there early. Because the parents are already a little nervous about this. And if they're sitting there thinking, oh my goodness, our act, you know, the the Shep Hyken
Is the magician gonna be here on time? Lisa Nichols
The person, yeah, are they gonna show up and take that angst off the table? And I thought that was so good. So they taught you to get there early. Right? Shep Hyken
So And my dad so I was booking, like, eight to ten magic shows a week, and it was so busy that my mom and dad had to hire me. And, actually, it was my mom because by that time, like I said, they were divorced. But my mom had to hire a high school kid to drive me around. We gave him five dollars for every show I did, which was back then, gas money was was nothing compared to what it is today, and they were happy to do it. And, I would just book them one right after the other, and I had my box of tricks. So if I opened up the box, the tricks were in exactly where they needed to be in the right order. And as I finished each trick, I put them right back getting ready for the next show. So I would show up maybe, you know, three, four, five minutes before it was time for me to perform. And my dad said, at what point do these parents start to worry about whether you're gonna show up or not? And I go, oh, wow. Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes before he goes, exactly. So you need to be there at least fifteen or twenty minutes before you're supposed to be there. And that was a great lesson. You know, there's that, old saying or it's called Lombardi time. Vince Lombardi talked to his football team and said that if you're on time, you're fifteen minutes late. Lisa Nichols
Mhmm. Shep Hyken
So on and they actually have a clock in, Green Bay, at the stadium that's off by fifteen minutes. So when you know? And you're looking, why isn't the game started yet? Well, that clock's running fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. Lisa Nichols
Ahead of schedule. Well, my dad said that all the time, chef, but he was a marine, you know, and I always thought it came from his training in military. But he would say the same thing. If you're, you know, fifteen minutes earlier, you're already late kinda thing. So, but I have to say, I mean, as a child, I was never late because I lived under his roof. Sometimes now I'm late, but I try not to be. Shep Hyken
It drives my wife crazy. Why do we have to be why do we have to be there early? Because we're not going to be late. That's why. Now it's okay at a party to be fashionably late. Lisa Nichols
Okay. But Right. Yeah. Right. Yep. But not when you're the main act. Shep Hyken
Yeah. Lisa Nichols
Not when you're the main act for sure. Well, let me ask you this because and we're gonna talk a lot about this, but you are all about customer service today. When did you first realize that customer service and not magic was gonna be your lifelong calling? Shep Hyken
Well, great question. While in college, I did not know what I was gonna do for a living outside you know, and I graduated thinking, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? Went to work for my family business. That was, like, we graduated at the end of May in college. And so June one, whatever the first Monday of that week was, I start working for the company. In September, they announced they are selling the company. And so I'm going, what does that mean to me? You better go find a job. So but one of the things I learned so they own gas stations, and I worked in those gas stations from the time I was fourteen, helping people pump gas, collecting money on the drive. And one day, it was super duper cold in the St. Louis day. I'll never forget this. It was, like, one of the coldest days on record, and we did have to go outside to collect money. This was before the electronic digital Lisa Nichols
Yeah. Yeah. Shep Hyken
You know, bath pumps. So, there was a lady, and she had to be eighty years old. And she went to get out of her car. I said, ma'am, let me take care of that for you. And I pumped the gas. And I came in. My manager said, what did you just do? And I thought about it. What did I do? Did I do something wrong? He goes, you pumped that lady's gas for her. And I go, well, yeah. She's like an older woman. I see her in here all the time, and I just thought it'd be a nice thing to do. He goes, now she's gonna expect it the next time. And I remember my response. It was a little flippant. I said, yeah. Maybe she will. But that means she's coming here and not to the gas station across the street or the one catty corner to us. And he got upset with me, walked out, slammed the door. And I thought, uh-oh. I'm done. By the way, you know, I'm you know, this is I'm just a kid. You know, I'm still in college, I guess, because I was working with them, that winter. And, anyway, I thought that's the way I live. That's the way I am. We wanna take care of the customer in the best way we know to get them to say. And the words of the famous philosopher Arnold Schwarzenegger, we want them to say, I'll be back. Exactly. Do it in the Austrian accent, but, you know, I wrote a book. That was actually one of the last books I wrote titled I'll be back, how to get customers to come back in again and again, which and when I started it, I wasn't even thinking about Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Terminator, but about three sentence in into the, outline, I go, oh my gosh. There's a guy that made this line famous. It has nothing to do with customer service, but let's play off it and riff off it a little bit. But here's the point. What are we doing? And if there's a lesson, there's lots of lessons we can share today, but one of the things I'd love to talk about is what is the I'll be back philosophy? And there's lots of things that you can do in the process, in the entire experience. But individually, one on one, we want everybody who's working for a brand that's customer focused to be thinking as they're interacting with the customer. What am I doing right now at this moment? Not to create a lifetime of loyalty, but to get them to come back the next time. That's all. Just the next time. And if you do that every time, it does turn into a lifetime. Lisa Nichols
Oh, I could not agree more. And you want repeat customers. It's so much easier, Risa. Really, truly, taking that extra time to to have an amazing experience, an amazing moment with that customer. It's so much easier to do that than go out and get a brand new customer too. Shep Hyken
Right. Now we need to define for your audience, we need to define the concept of what an amazing experience is. I don't know if that's on your list of questions.Lisa Nichols
Let's talk about that. Let's talk about it. Shep Hyken
It's not what everybody thinks. When I say, oh, you you know, when people, oh, they're amazing. What does amazing mean? It might mean they go over the top and they did something super special, but most of the time, it means they did exactly what was expected. Customers say things like and by the way, I'm using that term customer. Could be client, guest, member, patient, whatever you wanna call the people who do business with you. But, you know, when when that customer says, I love doing business with them because and then they use the word always in front of something we want them to say. They're always so helpful. They always get back to me quickly. They're always knowledgeable. They're always nice or friendly. And even when there's a problem, I know I can always count on them. When that word always is used in that context, you're operating at the zone of amazement. When something falls in your lap, when there's an emergency or there's something for example, if you're a restaurant and a server overhears, oh, it's their ten year anniversary, I'll surprise them with a cake, you know, and a little piece of cake and a candle. You can't do that unless you know it, so don't count on it happening every day. But day in and day out, if you can meet the expectations that customers have, consistently and predictably, they think that you're amazing. And by the way, there's two ways I look at amazement. If what you do is the tiniest bit above average, that's a way of creating amazement. As long as you don't drop to mediocrity and average, it's just a consistent, predictable, little bit above ex average experience. I had a chance to work a number of times with Horst Scholz, who's the first president and cofounder of the Ritz Carlton organization. And we have same philosophy, a little better than average is what made his organization iconic throughout the world known for customer service experience or guest service as they call it. And I said, what does that look like? A little bit average. How much better do you have to be? He thought about it, and he goes, maybe ten percent better. I go, what does that look like in real life? I mean, it sounds like okay. There's a concept, but what's how does that operationalize? He goes, we use the guest name. We use it as often as possible in the right way. They show up at the door. We look at their luggage tag. Whoever's working the door says, are you mister Hiken? Yes. I am. Well, welcome to the Ritz. Have you been here before? Yes. Come on in. Let me take you to the check-in area. This is mister Hiken. He's here to check-in. He's been here before. So the next person says, well, welcome back. And they pull up my record without having to ask my name, which is in a sense using my name. And then later on, I walk through the lobby and one of these nice people say, hey, mister Huyken. How's your room? Everything going well? Whatever. They go, wow. They're using my name. They they, when I ask where's the bathroom, they don't say down there to the left, make another right, you'll see a sign. They actually take me there. They don't walk into the bathroom with me. They get that far, okay, and then they say you're on your own. But Right. The the point is most people would just say go down there and to the left. I work with Ace Hardware quite a bit over the years. I actually wrote a book where I use them as a case study throughout the book, and they talk about helpful versus friendly service. Anybody can deliver friendly service. They wanna be the helpful hardware place. And I tell me what that means. It means when you come in, we say, what can we help you find today? And when you tell us, we take you there. We don't tell you what aisle to go to. On the way, we might say, what are you using this for? And once we learn, we can make suggestions on how to better use the product and create an experience that's helpful, not just friendly. And I thought, wow. That is outstanding. By the way, I decided to use them as the case study because when I interviewed, one of the executives prior to a speech and he found out that I was getting ready to write this book, he says, write about us. I go, do you think you're one of the top iconic brands in customer service? He says, yes. I go prove it. If I walk down the street and I ask ten people, would they say Ace Hardware? Yes. They would. Okay. And he showed me an article in BusinessWeek, and it listed the top twenty five brands worldwide known for great service. Number ten was the or no. I'm sorry. Number ten was was Ace Hardware. Number eleven was the Ritz Carlton. They beat the Ritz. Lisa Nichols
What which is just crazy, isn't it?Shep Hyken
I love it. Lisa Nichols
Gold standard. Oh, I love so much about that story. And, you know, as far as yeah. I had horse on my, horse and chariot friends of ours and had him on the podcast, and it was just honestly one of my most favorite episodes ever. He's just such a hoot. And I think he's, what, eighty six now? Shep Hyken
Years and and still strong, man. He's still Lisa Nichols
Still strong. Yeah. Shep Hyken
Consulting. He owns his own brand. I mean and and by the way, he left the Ritz to start. I believe it's called Capella. And I said, tell me about that. He goes, well, you take the nicest room at the Ritz, that's our worst room. Lisa Nichols
Right. Yeah. I think there's only twelve of them in the in the world, so that kinda gives you a little bit of an indication. But, yeah, he and Sherry are just incredible. But, you know, I love the story that you told about the name because really and I know you say this in your one of your books that I've read. I've got be amazing or go home, and I've got the cult of the customer. But, again, listeners, go out and get Shep's books. They're Thank you. Really incredible. But, yeah, remember you saying in one of those, really, the most precious word in the English language? Shep Hyken
It's it's sweetest yeah. It's a Dale Carnegie quote. Yep. It's using the customer's name or using anybody's name. Right. And I believe you're referring I I call it the cheers effect, where, you you know, cheers was the TV show, the sitcom, and the theme song was, you know, it's a place where everybody knows your name. And the power of of that personalization not abused and overused, but used the right way. You know, have you ever talked to that customer support person that uses your name again and again? Well, Shep, I'm very sorry. Well, like I said, Shep, I said it. You know, it's like Right. Okay. You can stop using my name. Lisa Nichols
Though. Right. Shep Hyken
And stop apologizing for every single thing. I don't care about the apology the more you did it. Let's move on with what you're gonna do about it. Lisa Nichols
Yes. Yes. Yeah. So so there is a balance there. There is definitely a balance there in using it. Well, I know, you know, and, Shep, this is cool because, you know, you have a communications degree, from UMSL here in St. Louis. Shep Hyken
University of Missouri St. Louis for those around the world who have no idea what UMSL means. Lisa Nichols
Yes. Very, very good education system, I I will say. But, you know, so now you're speaking and writing and doing all kinds of things. But I love, you know, that you went to a seminar, I think, that Zig Ziglar was speaking at. Shep Hyken
That's where that's where the career started. You know? You you Lisa Nichols
That's where it started. Shep Hyken
So I knew and we're all the way back to one of the first questions you asked. Like, how did I get so interested in customer service? And I didn't have that job. Remember, my family business said September. You're and I I stayed with them a few more months. And they did give me the company car that I was driving, but it did have a hundred and seventy some odd thousand miles on it. And when I traded it in, I got four hundred dollars for the car. And I think the wheels were worth that, but the rest of the car was was junk. So, this is what happened. I thought, what am I gonna do? I don't wanna be a magician. I did that. I love the business. When I worked for the family business and thought one day I might actually run it, I was learning so much. I'm intrigued by business. I saw Zig Ziglar and Tom Hopkins. Zig Ziglar talked about goal setting. Tom talked about sales. And I bought a book from Tom, and I bought the audio cassette tapes, which a lot of the younger members go, what's that? Okay. For the younger listeners. They don't know. Audio cassettes. It's kind kind of like a CD but with tape. Yes. And now it's all streaming. But, anyway, I listened to those, like, right away, and I read the book. And this is, like, not even a few months after, finding out I I wasn't gonna be working anymore. And I thought, wow. I could do that. I could do a speech. And I love, you know, the idea of the entertainment background supporting me, being comfortable to do that. Now what am I gonna talk about? I go to the bookstore, which at the time, the business book section might have had thirty books on the whole shelf, and I bought three books. One by Tom Hopkins, and, it was coauthored by him and another gentleman, and it was called In Search of Excellence. And it was a best Lisa Nichols
seller in nineteen yeah. But back in the day, I love the book. Shep Hyken
And two other books by Ron Zemke and Kara Albrecht. All of them had to do with creating that experience, you know, the three books. And I said, this is what I'm going to talk about. I wrote a speech. I I called it moments of magic. How you avoid moments of misery, create moments of magic, and, eventually, I blended into the idea of what does it take to create that amazing experience because some people think of magic as amazing. But, really, when I define the moment of magic, it's anything that's better than average. The tiniest bit, maybe ten percent, or maybe it's over the top. It doesn't matter. You avoid moments of misery, and those are complaints, problems, just bad experiences. And you definitely avoid mediocrity, average. Because when people, are having an average experience, they don't complain. They just disappear one day because somebody gave them a better one. And Right. I joke about the word fine. Like, how was everything? It was fine. And what does fine really mean? It doesn't mean it's fine. It means it's okay, average. Average. I I I made an acronym, f I n e, fake smile, insincere feedback because that's what that smile is. Never coming back and emotionless. So we stay away from the word fine. We want now if they use an adjective in front of it, like, your hair looks mighty fine today, then that's okay. You know? But when you so Yeah. Like, how's my hair look? Lisa Nichols
It's fine. Fine. Yes. And Shep Hyken
you're talking to your husband, and he notices something's amiss, and he says, is everything okay? And you say fine. You better follow-up with why fine is the answer.Lisa Nichols
Yeah. I love I I'm just thinking, here kind of sidebar because you and I talked a lot about sales Shep Hyken
Yes. Lisa Nichols
Before we even jumped on the podcast today. And I love that, you know, Tom Hopkins was all about sales, right, and the customer experience. And so getting those two, you know, getting to to hear from those two people. Shep Hyken
In one night. Lisa Nichols
In one night. Yeah. What a what a, treasure that was. Yeah. I remember reading both of Ziggs. And then, this is kind of a sidebar too, but I remember when we started having kids, I devoured, Zig Ziglar's, book on raising positive kids. Yeah. You know, I would use all of his little tactics to try to make sure I was raising positive kids. But Shep Hyken
Well, here's something interesting. From Zig, now I realize I'm twenty two at the time. I graduated college, and the year I graduated, I turned twenty two. So this is less than a year later. I'm seeing these guys. I'm twenty two. I wrote a ten year business plan starting when I turned twenty three is when I got my first booking to do a speech, and I said, I'm gonna be a speaker and talk about customer service experience. Back then, it was just customer service that morphed into experience. And I wrote a ten year plan because that's what Zig told me to do. Very financially driven, x number of dollars I wanna make. I'm gonna do this many speeches. And then I took the Tom Hopkins book to determine how I was going to get these potential clients and eventually turn them into clients. And between those two books, I don't know if I needed anything else to I mean, I for the next and and then I eventually joined, the association, National Speakers Association, which is the industry that I was in, and that took me to a whole another level. I thought I was doing well till I went there and then, wow, so much. And then, of course, in the early nineties, I joined an organization, you're familiar with it, called EO, the Entrepreneurs Organization, which is kind of the cousin of YPO, the Young Presidents Organization. And I was so fortunate to be able to be in that environment to start learning about all kinds of different businesses. So it's just been a a great run, and I hope it continues. It would be really cool. I'm about year forty two in my business right now, maybe forty three. And wouldn't it be cool if on my fiftieth year, somebody still wants to hire me to do a speech? Lisa Nichols
Oh, I am sure they will. I know. You know? And that just I you we're gonna take a quick break here. But when we come back, let's talk about that. I want to I wanna dig more into your books. I wanna dig more into, you know, you've been inducted now into the National Speaker Hall of Fame. So I'm sure people are still gonna wanna hire you, Shep. But That's cool. We do need to take a quick break, and we'll be right back on the Something Extra podcast with Shep Hyken. AD
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Well, welcome back everyone to something extra podcast with Shep Haikin. We've been having so much fun. But Shep, you know, I had mentioned that you've written eight books. You've coauthored five. I wanna just kind of talk about a few of these and maybe if you can just give us a little nugget from each one of these. Okay? So, you and you talked about the I'll be back. I love that. I love that you use Arnold, and the Terminator for that. But, you know, you talk about repeating repeat customers. So what do you what do you think is the difference between repeat business and true loyalty? Shep Hyken
Right. Well, repeat business, there's many reasons a customer comes back to you. What you wanna find out is why. And the reason behind that is maybe they come back simply because you're the lowest price. And if that is what they're interested in, the next company that has a lower price, you lose, they win. Maybe they come back to you because you're closer than a competitor in a retail environment, and they just want, convenience in that fact. And if somebody moves in closer, you lose. So if you find out the reason the customer loves you is because of something you're doing right, that you can maintain that that relationship, you get loyalty. So we wanna make price less relevant. It's always gonna be relevant at some level. And we wanna make sure that we offer, we wanna be competitive in every possible area. And that's what the focus on I'll Be Back. And there's a great conversation that's six questions, like, you know, why do business with us? Why are you doing business with the competitor? If what we learn from a competitor, can we do it in our business? Questions like that set you up for the the I'll be back conversation. So it's important to understand why customers love you or why they don't. Lisa Nichols
Yeah. No. That's really, really good. What about, the convenience revolution? Shep Hyken
Ah, this is powerful. I still believe even though COVID forced companies to become more convenient, not enough companies think about the friction points they cause for customers. Convenience is a competitive differentiator. It's so important. Customers, fifty nine percent, basically six and ten, customers pay more for customer service, but they'll pay even more if the experience is convenient. Convenient trumps nice and friendly as well as general overall great service experiences. And by the way, convenience is a great service experience. So there's six convenience principles. You can either go on my website and look at my articles and learn about them or go buy the book through Amazon, The Convenience Revolution. Lisa Nichols
Yeah. And I was thinking shameless plug. Yeah. Shameless plug. It's good. It's good. And I was thinking about convenience and somebody that does it real well, and you and you just mentioned them as Amazon. Shep Hyken
Yeah. They're the most convenient company on the planet. Lisa Nichols
Most convenient company. Yes. And another one would be Instacart. Love Instacart. You know, that was developed by a woman. That was her brainchild. Now that that totally makes sense to me. But, yeah, convenience and especially in today's world when we're moving so fast. Right? What about this one? Amazing or go home. There's seven or go home. Yep. Yeah. Be amazing or go home. There's seven different habits. Shep Hyken
Yeah. And it's interesting seven. That's a magic number. But there's actually, I think forty nine because within each of the seven, there's seven ways to deliver on each one of these that I came up with. And it my focus is always on creating a better experience, but these ideas are good for anybody in any business in any position that will help them create a better relationship with the people they do business with or work with. Lisa Nichols
Mhmm. That's good. That's good. Amaze every customer every time. Shep Hyken
Why not? Right? This is the book I mentioned earlier. I used Ace Hardware as a case study throughout the book. I interviewed almost I'm gonna say about eighty, ninety people, all their leadership team plus a number of the owners of Ace Hardware stores to get the information to find out how do you compete, not just with somebody that's a direct competitor, but how does David go up against Goliath when a little tiny hardware store gets, all of a sudden Home Depot or Lowe's or one of the big huge box stores moves in next door? And there are some great examples of how to be uber competitive using the experience as your competitive differentiator. Lisa Nichols
Good. Good. And another one that I have right here is cult of the customer. Shep Hyken
Yeah. Cult is not a dirty word. I mean, a cult is we don't wanna be part of a cult. Yes. You do when it's this cult. And it's a a number of different ideas on how you can create, a customer focused culture and how you develop that, internal mantra that drives the experience. And within that, and I know in your great book that you have something extra, I believe it's called. Is that right? Lisa Nichols
Yes. Shep Hyken
Yes. You have, at the end of every chapter, examples, exercises, conversation starters. I do that in almost all my books, but what I put in the back of this book are the same training exercises that our trainers when they hire us to go out. I have a team of trainers that go out and deliver my content in a training format, not necessarily a keynote speech, And it's the same exact exercises that we use. We put them in the back of the book for people to use. Lisa Nichols
Oh, I love that. I love that. Well, let's talk about let's kinda move into, you know, I mentioned it right before our break that you were inducted into National Speaker Hall of Fame. You know, Shep is an amazing keynote speaker. So if you're looking for somebody, make sure you reach out to him. He's got lots of different things he can talk about. But I wanna talk about this. You, I don't know what year this was, but I just wanted you to kinda just, like, touch on this, because this definitely taught you a few things about leadership under fire. And that is Shep Hyken
I don't know. Where did you get that? Because that's not I don't think in any of my books. Maybe Lisa Nichols
it is. I don't know. You know? Just, found it somewhere. So, the president of the National Speakers Association, you faced a major crisis. Shep Hyken
Yeah. So what what happened is I was president in two thousand fourteen, fifteen, and, great honor, traveled the world, and, you know, four thousand speakers think they're my best friend, and that they are. They are. Okay? But we changed the name of the organization, and, we had no idea that people were so invested in the name of our organization. It was a nightmare. Within the period of about twenty four to thirty hours of announcing this, I received over seven hundred emails. And other than the ones that cussed me out, and they did, nasty words, I answered every single one, which was close to seven hundred. And I did it over a holiday weekend. It was that July fourth weekend. I said everybody's gonna get a response. And we talked to the the the executive, who runs our board or who runs the organization, the board. I was chairman or president of the board. And we said, what are we gonna do? We hired a crisis management company, and they said, you're gonna get through this. We're gonna show you how. I go, I'm gonna tell you how we get through it. We need to listen to our members, and we need to start over. We have to roll back the rollout of the new name and make sure the members buy in. What I learned is this. We're sitting up here in this office with, you know, a dozen other board members, and we think we know what thousands of people want. Lisa Nichols
Yes. We Shep Hyken
really thought we knew. We even asked past presidents. We brought in a few branding experts. We were dead wrong. And it was really an interesting process how he brought everybody around, and even the biggest naysayer finally agreed we need to change the name. Unfortunately, we couldn't come up with the right name. So what we did is we kept our name, and we made sure that each year, our annual conference was consistently named. And we came up with a great name for that, so which is influence because that's what we do. The spoken word, the written word, the platforms we use such as speaking from a stage, training, podcasts, that type of thing. This is all about creating influence in the right way. Lisa Nichols
Yeah. I love that. Okay. So because you just said that, I'm gonna pivot, and I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you something totally different. Shep Hyken
Okay. Lisa Nichols
Okay. Influence. How do you define influence? Shep Hyken
Wow. Influence, there's well, I'm a huge fan of, Robert Cialdini, who wrote the book, influence, which we were the first that year was the first year our conference was named influence, and we decided as a board that it would be moving on. And by the way, members didn't care what we called the conference, but it made total sense. And we gave everybody one of, doctor Cialdini's books. Yes. Which is, I, by the way, highly recommend the book. One of my favorites. So I believe influence is anytime, for the right reason, you get somebody to do things for the right reason. Influence could be, I want you to buy from me. How do I influence you to do that for the right reasons if it's the right product? If you're a leader, influence is how you influence and motivate your people to do the right thing for their customers. And I think it's so important that everybody be thinking about not just the job they have, especially leaders, your listeners. They need to think about where can I influence people for the right reasons at the right time? And, so I think it's a powerful powerful word. And It's Lisa Nichols
it is. I don't know if you know, you may or because he's on the speaker circuit too. Tommy Spalding is a good friend of mine. Yep. Both the gift of influence Yep. And another terrific book, but I'll get the one that you just recommended too. But, you know, it's just really yeah. But you can influence people for good or for bad. Right? We wanna be influenced For Shep Hyken
the right reasons. I I I made sure that was very clear. Lisa Nichols
Very, very important. Very important. Well, let me let me just do a few lightning round questions here, just some fun stuff, and then we'll talk about something extra. But, I know, Shep, that you read something like thirty to forty books a year. Shep Hyken
I do. And A lot of airplane time. Lisa Nichols
A lot of airplane time. You're a voracious reader. I am too. I've my whole you've got books behind me, but my whole wall here is books. So my my dream would be to have a library like in Beauty and the Beast. You need a big house. Yes. That would be my dream though to to have that kind of library. But, you know, you you say that that's truly been, you know, one of your secrets to your success is just how much you've read, one of your secrets to success. But, you've already given us one, but can you give our listeners one or two more, that you would highly recommend that it Shep Hyken
Sure. Sure. My favorite book of all time in well, I've told you doctor Cialdini's book influence is a great book. But, my personal favorite book of all time is The Experience Economy by Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore. And, the gist of it is Starbucks took a coffee bean and figured out how to charge five dollars for what everybody else was charging a dollar for. And I go, wow. This this book speaks to me, and it's exactly everything that I believe. I also mentioned Tom Hopkins' book for sales. And even though it's outdated, there are pretty very many, what I would call, basic principles that are not only were timely for me, but also became timeless, and I think they are. So Lisa Nichols
Oh, those are good. And since we were talking about horse, you know, his book, Excellence Wins. Shep Hyken
Yes. Love the book. Lisa Nichols
Love the book. Shep Hyken
In in the hospitality mentality is what every business needs. Lisa Nichols
Mhmm. Could not agree more. Well, what about this, morning routine? You know? I mean, there's so many studies out there. Really successful people, you know, are not just haphazard. Shep Hyken
Yep. Lisa Nichols
Usually, they have a routine. What is one habit, chef, that you do in the morning that you won't compromise on? Shep Hyken
I wake up. Okay. Wake up, get out of bed, run the comb across my head, go down the stairs, get a cup. No. That's a Beatles song. Anyway and I don't have the hair to run across, the the the Coney River. But, no, my habit four days a week, if I'm in town so I believe when you get up, you have to really get up. You gotta get you gotta get your body going. You gotta do something. And there's no doubt that a little bit of physical activity actually helps reduce your age and the way you think. It makes you sharper. So if I'm in town, this is my morning. I did it this morning. I get up about five, five fifteen. I clean up. I stretch a little bit. I go to the office for about a half an hour, and then I go to the ice rink, and I play hockey with my buddies, which is not only a great workout, but what a fun way to start the day. And I am back in my office usually around, oh, somewhere around quarter to nine or so, but that's how my favorite morning start. I do that when I'm in town four days a week. Lisa Nichols
That is awesome. I love that. I thought you were gonna say you go to the gym or something, but going to play hockey with your buddies, you're getting that that social interaction, the relationship relational piece of that. Shep Hyken
It's so great. And by the way, I still, will go to the gym, you know, and I have a Peloton in our home, so I I do that. But I forgot to go to the gym the other day, which now that's three years I've been forgetting to go to the gym every day. No. I'm just kidding. But no. That's important to do. You know, I think if you can do four or five days of great physical activity, that's great. I like to do it early in the morning because that gets me going. For some people, it's hard to do that. So their routine may be getting that cup of coffee, watching the news, and starting the day out that way. I don't know how exciting and motivating watching the news can be. Lisa Nichols
Right. Right. Exactly. Especially now. Yeah. But we won't go there. We won't go there. Alright. Well, you know, do you have one personal habit one personal habit where people walk away from you, Shep? I could, like, surmise a few things. I could put a few things in your brain, but I wanna hear from you one habit that people walk away going, I'm so glad I met Shep. That was an amazing experience. Shep Hyken
You know, I think, nobody's asked me this quite this way. I'm thinking a number of ideas, but I think I do what I say I'm gonna do. You can count on me. Yeah. I don't return a phone call, call nine one one. It means something really wrong. Lisa Nichols
It means something. Oh, that's good. That's good. Yeah. And that's amazing. Well, Shep, this is called something extra. Mhmm. What do you believe is the something extra that every leader needs? Shep Hyken
Great. Well, you know, I I'm gonna tie to the customer experience thing. I believe that when it comes to creating a great experience in a company, it starts with the leader at the very top. I interviewed in one one time I interviewed three hundred some odd leaders of all size companies. You were in YPO, so number of YPO leaders all the way up to, CEOs of major Fortune one hundred organizations. And I asked them, what's the one thing, the most important thing that you do in your job as a leader? And one of them was so powerful because it was something I believed in when it comes to creating the culture of a customer first or customer obsessed or customer focused mindset. This is what this gentleman said. Big company. He said, my job you know, of course, there's deals to be made and that kind of thing, is to defend the culture of the company. What we created and what is working and what our customers want and expect and love about us. If I see a person, a region, a division, a group that's out of alignment, I have to defend our culture. That's part of my job, and it's probably the most important job. I went, wow. Oh. There you go. Lisa Nichols
That's good. That is really good. That's gold right there. Well, Shep, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for making Shep Hyken
Thank you. Lisa Nichols
What a a delight. What a been a delight to be with you, and I just really encourage our listeners to go out, follow Shep. Go, he he writes for Forbes. He, you know, has articles out there, but his books are great. And, again, if you need a keynote speaker, he'd be a great one to to bring on board for that. So thanks so much for being with me today. Shep Hyken
Well, thank you. Can't wait to do it again. I'm gonna have you on my show next. Lisa Nichols
I know. I'm excited about that too. Alright. Take care now. Shep Hyken
Thank you. Announcer
Thank you for listening to today's show. Something extra with Lisa Nichols is a Technology Partners production. Copyright Technology Partners Inc two thousand and nineteen. For show notes or to reach Lisa, visit tpi dot co slash podcast. Don't forget to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever you listen.