Building a Winning Business: Strategies for Clarity, Growth, and Team Success

Building a Winning Business: Strategies for Clarity, Growth, and Team Success

Eric Deschamps [00:00:00]:
But your brand is how you show up consistently. Every action, every interaction, everything that you do client facing and public facing tells a story.

Steve Osmond [00:00:09]:
Now we’ve got a whole organization energized by our cause and our purpose.

Catherine Fair [00:00:14]:
Now that frees up the employee or team members mental space for servitude.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:00:20]:
So if you believe in the growth of your staff, but aren’t actually giving them processes that they can get good at Mhmm.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:00:28]:
Like, they can’t know what to grow into. And how do you end that working relationship well so that they come back for the sequel?

Eric Deschamps [00:00:43]:
Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Living Richly podcast. We are so excited today to have the Rhapsody team here again. You’ve you’ve met all of them. Right? We’ve got Trevor, of course, here joining us today who was part of the original 3 that, got the podcast started and, has been on other episodes as well, and Catherine and Steve.

Catherine Fair [00:01:03]:
And this is my first time with all of you.

Eric Deschamps [00:01:06]:
That’s right. Last time we did this

Catherine Fair [00:01:08]:
Last time, I was on a computer screen. I was a talking head.

Eric Deschamps [00:01:11]:
You you had come you had COVID or something. Yes.

Catherine Fair [00:01:14]:
I did.

Eric Deschamps [00:01:14]:
Sick. And so great to have you here. Today’s show is gonna be a very special one, very different one. Rhapsody, of course, sponsors, Living Richly, a big supporter of what we do. And, I was going around the table trying to, do the math on my own, but let’s do this. How long have you, like, in years, have you all been coaching? And let’s add it up and

Rob Dale [00:01:33]:
see how much dog years?

Eric Deschamps [00:01:34]:
Is this a diet? Dog years. Yeah. How many years have you been coaching, leaders and organizations? Start with Trev.

Catherine Fair [00:01:42]:
Formally in Rhapsody? Yeah. I guess I guess 9 years.

Eric Deschamps [00:01:45]:
9 years. Yeah. 9 for you. You’ve been around a little longer.

Steve Osmond [00:01:48]:
Yeah. 10 10 years formally, but like a lot of us, I did a lot of coaching and training in my previous profession. So it feels like a couple of decades for

Trefor Munn Venn [00:01:57]:
me.

Eric Deschamps [00:01:57]:
Right. For sure. Yeah. Same. I would say we probably been coaching one way or another most of my life. It’s almost 14 for me. What about you?

Catherine Fair [00:02:05]:
9 formally and and 12, 13 informally. Yeah.

Eric Deschamps [00:02:10]:
Amazing.

Catherine Fair [00:02:10]:
Same thing.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:02:10]:
And I 13 years because I would’ve come on with you about a year after you, start a breakthrough. And Yeah. And then like all of us, right, pretty much our entire adult lives, we’ve been doing this in one form or another.

Eric Deschamps [00:02:21]:
Exactly. Exactly. So there’s a lot of experience around the table here. Okay. Right? Years years years of it. And we’ve had conversations with, at this point, thousands of leaders, hundreds of organizations, and we’re gonna be talking business team and leadership over this episode and the next. But this isn’t just I I I know someone might hear business and tune out perhaps. Right?

Trefor Munn Venn [00:02:41]:
Yeah. And and, you know, certainly, we talk about it often, on the podcast that we we have episodes that are all about mindful masculinity. We have, certainly Kate and Wendy do their series around women and some of the challenges and and issues that that they deal with. And we encourage people to listen in. Guys should be listening into those women episodes and women to the mindful masculinity. And the same is true even as we focus in on business here. There are gonna be so many principles. At the end of the day, you are in charge of You Inc.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:03:15]:
And in that context, the principles that we talk about during this episode are highly relevant to your personal life.

Eric Deschamps [00:03:22]:
I think there’s price of people listening. I probably would have been one of those people at some point in my life where I wanted to fire the CEO, but the CEO of you me, Inc, was me. Right. Didn’t feel I was doing such a good job, but, thankfully, we Exactly. We got that under control. But, yeah, very special episode. If there are if you know a business lead, if you are a business leader, you’re definitely wanna gonna gonna wanna tune into this. If you know business leaders, out there, you’re gonna wanna share these episodes with them.

Eric Deschamps [00:03:47]:
There’s a couple of other ones that we’ve done, not long ago. We talked about human potential. We talked about the importance of self awareness. But today, we wanna start with business. And when we think of businesses and organizations, so many of them reach out to us because they’ve gotten stuck. Right? They, they’re not growing the way that they would like. They’ve got dreams and aspirations, but they’re being held back. And a big part of that often is not knowing how to stand out in a very, very crowded marketplace.

Eric Deschamps [00:04:15]:
Steve, I know you’ve done a lot of work on that front. What have you seen? What have

Steve Osmond [00:04:18]:
you observed? It’s, it’s noisy, the world. There’s so many competition, variables and factors, and to really stand out from the crowd is really important. And a very simple question is, why should they choose my business over the other guy or over the other gal’s business? And so we we really focus on, this beautiful word differentiation or differentiator. What what separates you from the crowd Or your 3 uniques? And when you position yourself, just a little bit different from from the competition. And sometimes it’s in the words that you use in your marketing. Sometimes it’s a little a little extra in your product or service or just one level higher of of customer interaction that just separates you from the crowd. It’s actually, it just takes some time to work through that. So in a session with a client just the other day, they were feeling like nobody’s paying attention to me.

Steve Osmond [00:05:17]:
It’s just so crowded and so noisy, and so we just spend some time. And this was a really good question was, what’s the pain point in the industry? Right. What is everybody frustrated with? Where are they hurting? And then how can we solve that pain? And that will help us differentiate ourselves from that painful experience in the industry. And then they find themselves, people are paying attention and and looking for them.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:05:39]:
I love what you how you turn that there because one of the most critical things we need to do in order to really figure out the message that we have is to stop looking at ourselves and to look at the people that we’re trying to serve and what really matters to them. And when you made that comment about what’s the pain point, often we try to figure out, well, what’s so special about us? And it’s the wrong question. Right. It’s what is what is what is important to our client, and then how do we stand out from the crowd in serving that. Yeah.

Eric Deschamps [00:06:08]:
I remember years ago reading a great marketing book and the the, I forget what it is now. But the author talked about how we make the mistake of we weing all over our audience. Right? Where we’re so your, don’t start your business. Right? That’s right. There you go. I can’t remember the author’s name, but, great, great book.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:06:24]:
We’ll put it in the show notes.

Eric Deschamps [00:06:25]:
Put it in the show notes. But we make this mistake again of focusing on how special we are, how special our product is, and there’s an aspect of that that we need to get crystal clear on. But to your point, I think the more we can understand the pain, the frustration that the end user, the person we’re trying to reach, the the product or services aimed at them, what are we solving for them? Until we until we can demonstrate that, I don’t think people are really paying attention. Right?

Trefor Munn Venn [00:06:51]:
You know, there’s another dimension to it as well because they I think that focus on, on the client, on your customer, on what they’re experiencing is critical. That, that overemphasis on self gets really problematic. But there is a really core emphasis required around what are you actually doing here. Right. Right? So when business leaders get stuck or lost in the midst and they and they can’t differentiate themselves anymore because they they don’t really know who they are anymore, it’s kind of like, in marriage counseling, the first question they’ll ask you is tell me how you met. Mhmm. Right? It’s not a get to know you question. It’s a diagnostic question.

Catherine Fair [00:07:27]:
Because if you’re able to kinda go, oh, you know, we we met at this, and they were they were a good time. It was a you know? And there’s if there’s energy in life around it as opposed to, listen, I don’t wanna talk about that. It doesn’t matter. That’s water under the bridge. That one, you’re probably not gonna do very well. But if you can go back to the beginning Mhmm. Back to why are you here? Why did you start this? What what is that big why that animated the whole thing from the beginning? And then go deep into understanding that. Couple that with that knowledge about the market and your customers and what’s going on.

Catherine Fair [00:07:58]:
Yeah. All of a sudden, the clarity emerges like nothing else, and your decisions become really easy and fast.

Eric Deschamps [00:08:03]:
Right. Right. Absolutely. It’s the, again, getting back to getting back to the essentials, but it can be that can be complicated when an organization has evolved, over time. Their products and services have evolved, and perhaps they’ve added different service lines. And over time, what can happen is their are their offer is less clear. Right? Like, we talk about less is more oftentimes. I still remember the marketing study that was done, a really successful mom and pop shop who made jam.

Eric Deschamps [00:08:32]:
They made strawberry jam, and they were they couldn’t keep it. Like, they were selling out all the time at their local supermarkets and everything else. And so they hired a marketing company to help them take the business to the next level. Short story, make a long story short, the marketing company recommended they expand their flavors to, like, 12 different flavors. And they did that, and they started to tank, because now it was option overload for their clients. We’re not saying don’t diversify your product line, but make sure that on your for each service, every product you have, you have a compelling way of communicating what’s it actually going to do for, the end user, and how are you doing that differently than perhaps many of your competitors.

Steve Osmond [00:09:11]:
Have you ever done the 5 whys with the Yeah. Yeah.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:09:15]:
Yeah.

Catherine Fair [00:09:15]:
So good.

Steve Osmond [00:09:16]:
When you what’s our purpose, our cause, our passion, and it’s to provide great marketing messaging to businesses? And then you say why.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:09:24]:
Yeah. And why does that matter?

Steve Osmond [00:09:26]:
Why? And then you go 5 times. Yeah. And by the 4th time, the client is usually frustrated. Yeah. But but Right.

Catherine Fair [00:09:32]:
They’re wondering why they hired.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:09:34]:
Yep.

Steve Osmond [00:09:34]:
Yeah. Is this guy have any other questions in his Yeah. Okay. Full suite side why? But by the time you get to that 4th or 5th layer of why you really are energizing a real passion for human success or train changing the world, there’s something really energetic. Mhmm. And then that comes out in your language. That comes out in the products and services. Because now all that energy and, of course, not just for the business owner or the leadership team, but to get that energy of the why cascading down into your team.

Steve Osmond [00:10:07]:
That’s really that’s the the secret sauce or the special sauce as they say when now we’ve got a whole organization energized by our cause and our purpose.

Eric Deschamps [00:10:15]:
Yeah. 100%. Another version of that is the so what. Right? You here’s what we’re doing. So what? Alright. When we, when we coach, leaders on public speaking, often the first thing I’ll teach them is what’s my point

Steve Osmond [00:10:30]:
and why does it matter? It matter?

Eric Deschamps [00:10:31]:
You gotta get really clear on that. Right?

Catherine Fair [00:10:33]:
Mhmm. Well, you know, I was thinking about what Trevor was saying about it, you know, it can’t like you were saying, it can’t be about we, we, we, we.

Steve Osmond [00:10:42]:
Yeah.

Catherine Fair [00:10:42]:
And Trevor was saying you gotta know who you are. Being able to communicate what it is you offer to others, you have to start with yourself. So it’s a bit of an oxymoron, but that comes from the why why why questions when you’re developing the values for an organization. Right? And I remember with one client, they had spent a $110,000 to have a consultant come in and do their mission, vision, and values, and it was garbage. And nobody believed in it, and it wasn’t real. Right? It wasn’t real to them. And so we spent a couple of sessions going through, asking those why questions. And every time they came up with something, drill down.

Catherine Fair [00:11:24]:
Why? Why? Why? And what they came up with were 4 values that are in everything they do now. Right? It’s it’s in how they hire, how they fire, what their marketing messages are, their social media. And and they’ll take those four values, and they have, like, 1 week of 1 value, 1 week of the next value, the third one, and so on. And that way, when a customer and they have a really it was like, the building industry. They have tons of noise in the market.

Steve Osmond [00:11:59]:
Right. Right.

Catherine Fair [00:11:59]:
But when those people, their clients walked or potential clients walked through the door, and then they saw that what was being presented to them in real time was exactly what they had seen and heard in all of the marketing messages, they’re like, oh, okay. So these align. These are the people I wanted. These are the people that are like me, that think the same way that I do, have the same values as me.

Steve Osmond [00:12:28]:
Right.

Catherine Fair [00:12:28]:
And that made for, that company to be able to close the sales so much faster.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:12:35]:
Wow. Wow.

Catherine Fair [00:12:35]:
So much faster.

Eric Deschamps [00:12:36]:
Yeah. Well, they’re attracting like minded people.

Catherine Fair [00:12:38]:
Exactly. Yeah.

Eric Deschamps [00:12:39]:
I think when our message is for everyone, it’s for no one. We talk about priorities to say everything’s a priority. Nothing’s a priority. If we’re trying to speak to everyone, we speak to no one.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:12:48]:
We we went and and, you know, we talked we went through this. We’re we’re talking from our own experience. Right? I mean, there was a point where, I remember us looking at the website, and we were, like, something like 18 different options or services or whatever.

Eric Deschamps [00:13:02]:
I don’t think it was 18. It was close.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:13:05]:
It felt like it was like, oh, yeah. We do that. We do this. We and then when it cleaned it up to the 3 Right. All of a sudden, I think all of us at that time, this was a number of years ago, but we all sat back and went, that makes more sense, that we’re back to what really matters to us as we focus in on 3 areas rather than all of these different things.

Catherine Fair [00:13:25]:
Clarity.

Steve Osmond [00:13:26]:
And and it’s a silly saying, but specific is terrific.

Eric Deschamps [00:13:30]:
Yeah. When it comes

Steve Osmond [00:13:30]:
Good old BNI classic there. You are when you are aiming for I like to tell help my clients. One one in particular is a marketing company. And I say, let’s let’s put that dartboard on the wall, and let’s aim for the bull’s eye. What is the ideal client? Yeah. And if you don’t hit it every time, it’s fine, but you’re close to it. That mean it that means it matches your capacity.

Catherine Fair [00:13:52]:
Yeah.

Steve Osmond [00:13:52]:
It matches what you can offer with expertise. You’re not spreading yourself too thin. Oh, yeah. I do that too. I do that too. And then you can’t build or scale a business when you’re just all over the map or all over the dartboard.

Eric Deschamps [00:14:04]:
I was just listening to a podcast actually on the way here about identifying your ideal client, who who that person is, and who that audience is. And the the the fellow speaking talked about how it’s like bowling. If you can figure out who your your front pin is, right, well, when you hit that front pin, others will follow too. Right? Your message will still speak to a broader audience. I think often, at least for me in the early days, I remember, and I see this with a lot of my clients to this day, is you’re afraid to focus your message because you think in doing so, you’re going to miss out. You’d rather cast a big net on a larger audience rather than a few fishing lines towards a very specific audience.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:14:43]:
Or you’re desperate because you’re, like, I get

Eric Deschamps [00:14:46]:
the money right now. I get

Catherine Fair [00:14:47]:
the scale.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:14:48]:
Yeah. Exactly. And you’re telling me to ignore, entire, client opportunities, and and the answer is yes. Mhmm. The you’re not ignoring them in the sense that, you know, if they come, they come, but you’re not targeting them. And, yes, the more specific and clear you get on your target, the more likely you’ll hit it. Yeah.

Catherine Fair [00:15:07]:
I think I I think for for you you guys pipe in here, but, I mean, in my experience, you see that, or what you were saying, if they’re less than 5 years old.

Steve Osmond [00:15:18]:
Right.

Catherine Fair [00:15:18]:
True. The business is less than 5 years old. They’re still they’re still fear driven.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:15:24]:
I I I would I I disagree to a certain Why? On that only because I’ve seen businesses that are 20 years Yeah. Old

Eric Deschamps [00:15:32]:
And still haven’t figured out.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:15:33]:
Acting like a 1 year old business.

Eric Deschamps [00:15:35]:
Yeah. I’ve heard it said that the three forces that any organization fights over time are apathy, decay, and, complexity. Right? So, whether it’s a under 5 year old business or a 20 year old business, I think over time, what can happen is the complexity thing starts to muddy the water, and our message becomes less and less potent. And let’s face it. In today’s TikTok world where everyone’s a content creator, it’s never been harder to actually get your message heard. So the the having that message be sharpened on point is absolutely critical. Right?

Trefor Munn Venn [00:16:12]:
There’s a a what’s the saying? A confused mind never buys.

Catherine Fair [00:16:15]:
Yeah.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:16:15]:
And the more when you are trying to be everything to everyone, you’re just confusing the market, and they likely will not respond to you.

Steve Osmond [00:16:22]:
Right. So then when we go back to this big idea of positioning, when we think about how we position ourselves, I think anyone who’s listening, any especially any business leader, anyone who impacts businesses, they have to pause and reflect on that question. Because many times people just keep rushing ahead, do the same thing they did last week, last month, last year. So pause, reflect, get a coach, and and have a good conversation about positioning, what separates you from the crowd, and what really matters. What’s your core purpose?

Trefor Munn Venn [00:16:52]:
Yeah.

Catherine Fair [00:16:53]:
When you said that, Steve, the first thing I thought of was that’s the difference between working on the business and working in the business. Those people who are constantly just fighting, you know, every day, just trying to get things done, trying to put out the fires and so on, they’re working in the business. And the ones who are reflecting and doing that homework, they’re the ones who are working on the business. Yeah. It’s so important.

Catherine Fair [00:17:18]:
I have a lot of respect for those people who are still working in the business too.

Catherine Fair [00:17:21]:
Tough times.

Catherine Fair [00:17:22]:
Because they know something has to be done, and so they’re pouring activity energy in the business when they don’t realize the activity required needs to be on the business. And so they they’ve got the instinct. They they know something’s not right. They’re desperate to change it Mhmm. But they’re not quite sure where to put it. And it takes such a courageous act to say, actually, instead of pouring more energy into trying to make the sale or make the pitch or do the thing, I need to take some time to get more clear

Catherine Fair [00:17:52]:
Mhmm.

Catherine Fair [00:17:52]:
Is a courageous decision to make.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:17:54]:
It is. It it’s the it’s the classic e myth, Michael Gerber’s model. Right? It’s their the technician, and they their their business is struggling, so they just become more of a technician.

Catherine Fair [00:18:05]:
Right.

Eric Deschamps [00:18:05]:
Rather than They double down on the double

Trefor Munn Venn [00:18:07]:
They double down on what they know and and and more power to them, like, in a sense, I think you’re right. I’ve got so much respect for the commitment that they they have. They’re just they’re they’re focusing on the wrong area. And if they can focus in on being the manager and the entrepreneur, the other 2 kind of personalities that Michael Gerber talks about in in E Myth, that’s where the real secret sauce of running a business happens. But you’re right. They’re so stuck in the technician role.

Eric Deschamps [00:18:33]:
It’s been said that the greatest mistake we make in communication is believing it’s actually taken.

Catherine Fair [00:18:37]:
Right. So It actually happened.

Eric Deschamps [00:18:39]:
And I think, the more the longer we spend, I think it was, Albert Einstein who referred to it as the curse of knowledge. The longer we’ve been in a space knowing a certain thing, the the harder it is for us to even imagine that other people don’t get it to the same level that we do. The folks that created really made the explainer video, really famous online right a few years back. They talk about, like, on a if if the alphabet, if you take a to zed, you as a technician have been in your space so long. You might be like an x. Right? You’re you’re that level of knowledge and expertise. But the audience that you’re trying to reach and sell to, they might be at the d level, at the e level in terms of understanding what your message is. And if we’re talking to them from this end of the spectrum, trying to reach them, we’re the message isn’t resonating.

Eric Deschamps [00:19:25]:
Right?

Trefor Munn Venn [00:19:25]:
So Mhmm. It’s interesting when you say that. I I think about you know, sometimes one of the questions I’ll get from a from a prospect is, well, what do you know about my industry?

Catherine Fair [00:19:36]:
Mhmm.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:19:36]:
And sometimes the best thing that can happen is I don’t know much about your industry. I know business, and I can come in and help you. But because I don’t know it, now you’re forced to

Eric Deschamps [00:19:47]:
Explain it. Explain it,

Trefor Munn Venn [00:19:49]:
which allows you to get out of that expert level and into understanding probably a lot of your potential clients Yep. Need that explanation.

Catherine Fair [00:19:58]:
I have a client who is very analytical and has a an enormous vocabulary, kind of like you, Trevor, but you know how to use it.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:20:09]:
You use all the big words.

Catherine Fair [00:20:11]:
All the big words. Yeah. But it was painful to listen to him try to

Catherine Fair [00:20:17]:
describe for me too. No. Okay. No. Check-in there.

Steve Osmond [00:20:20]:
No. Actually, it is. It is. It is a painful This

Eric Deschamps [00:20:22]:
is actually an intervention. Right?

Catherine Fair [00:20:24]:
Got it. Use smaller words. Okay.

Catherine Fair [00:20:29]:
Yeah. It was painful to watch this guy try to explain what it was he did. The words he was using and and I like to think I have a fairly decent vocabulary, but the words he was using was just are you sure 90% of the population are gonna know what that word means?

Trefor Munn Venn [00:20:46]:
Right. Yeah. Right.

Catherine Fair [00:20:46]:
Like, how many of those words you just used is some anybody Right. Point and need to use a dictionary and look it up. Yeah.

Steve Osmond [00:20:52]:
Right?

Catherine Fair [00:20:52]:
Well and there’s this there’s this great piece with that. There’s how we explain things Mhmm. The words we use, the level of complexity, the depth that we go to. But there’s also the problem that most of the time, business owners aren’t actually telling their clients what they do. Right. Right. Right. So someone will buy one thing from a client, and then the client presumes that their customer now knows everything about their business and all the things they do.

Catherine Fair [00:21:18]:
And I don’t know how many how many times I’ve had people be shocked, go, oh, do you guys do that too? Because their customers don’t even know what the company does. Yeah. And so they rely on that one touch point. So I don’t know if your garage should say, Yowie, that’s where I go for my old oil changes, but I don’t know if I would go there for my transmission or all this other stuff. You kinda go, you need to help people understand you in a really pragmatic straightforward way as clear again, set clarity word. Right? As clear as possible so that they can actually understand and say, oh, I didn’t know that. I’d like to buy this now as well. Yeah.

Eric Deschamps [00:21:56]:
Right? It makes a 100%. I think the client education is probably one of the lowest, low lowest lying fruit in terms of helping your customers understand the full width of what you offer in terms of your whole menu, when they usually are just ordering one one dish. Right? Alright. Quick lightning round. We’re gonna shift gears in just a moment a little bit. But your best advice for an organization, a company that’s looking to sharpen up their message and get clear on who they are and the difference that they make in people’s lives?

Catherine Fair [00:22:27]:
I would say, identify exactly what people hate about your industry. Mhmm. And focus on getting clarity around how you’re different in the industry. Yeah.

Eric Deschamps [00:22:37]:
I love that. I love isn’t that what Mike Holmes did? Right? He exposed now he’s as of late, his brand is taking a hit, but he built his brand, on really exposing the underbelly of the rental industry and being the champion for the end user. Right? So that’s a brilliant strategy.

Catherine Fair [00:22:52]:
Mhmm.

Steve Osmond [00:22:52]:
Yeah. I would say I would use the phrase shared by all. Is is everybody in your organization singing from the same song sheet? So I you’ve done some work on purpose, core, passion, and maybe you’ve done the core values, but is it shared by all? Right? And may maybe customers, of course, we want that. But certainly, our teams, our leaders, all the way down to the front row people. Is it is it shared by all? And I think most owners would say, not really. We’re too too busy doing other things. So let’s let’s make sure it gets to everybody in the organization.

Eric Deschamps [00:23:27]:
Actually, great test. I love that, Steve. A great test of whether or not you are clear on what you do is ask your team what you do and see if they’re able to articulate it with any kind of clarity and compelling nature in terms of speaking to the end user. Right?

Trefor Munn Venn [00:23:43]:
Yeah. I would say you’re not the star of your business, your client is, your your potential customer is. And if you can filter everything through that kind of mindset and recognize whether I’m building out a mission statement, whether I’m building out, a a mess a marketing message, if we think of our client as being central to the story and the focus, we will likely hit the target.

Eric Deschamps [00:24:08]:
Yeah. There’s a great organization. They test out their content by, using a platform like Twitter. Not that I’m a big fan of that platform anymore, but, because it’s short form. And they’ll post about ideas that they’re thinking that might be get some traction. And then they look at the posts that perform best, and they dive deeply into that content on all other platforms. In other words, what’s resonating with my end user that I’m looking to reach. Right?

Catherine Fair [00:24:32]:
Yeah. For for me, when I think about this, it’s, lowest common denominator. So if you wanna get clarity, you’ve gotta stick with the lowest common denominator. Who’s gonna understand? And it has to be tied in with the ideal client. Right? It has to be tied into the ideal client because lowest common denominator might put you quite a ways away from your ideal client. So you’ve gotta match those

Trefor Munn Venn [00:25:00]:
2 up.

Steve Osmond [00:25:00]:
It’s about matchmaking. Yep.

Eric Deschamps [00:25:01]:
Yeah. A 100%. Let’s let’s shift gears a little bit. The other another area we see, and it’s it’s related. All these things overlap, obviously, but, we’ve been talking a lot about, getting clear on what you do, what you stand for, how you change people’s lives with your product, your service. But there’s also the delivery side of it. Once you’ve got they’ve put their hand up and said I’m interested, and they sign up, delivering that service, really matters. How you deliver that service really matters.

Eric Deschamps [00:25:27]:
So let’s get into that side and some of the perhaps challenges you’ve seen organizations face when they get into, right, serving the client on the product and service that they’ve sold them.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:25:38]:
I I think, for me, certainly in conversations with clients and with prospects, one of the top challenges that they have is the inconsistency of how the service is delivered. Right. And the experience that service is delivered. Right. And the experience

Catherine Fair [00:25:46]:
is different

Trefor Munn Venn [00:25:46]:
with every client. In fact, some of them almost brag about that. When I talk about systems and creating structures, which I’m sure we’ll get into around this context Yeah. Often what they’ll say to me is, well, every one of my clients is so unique, and every one of my processes is so unique that I can’t create sales. Right? Which is bullshit. Yeah. And it also How

Catherine Fair [00:26:07]:
many times have we heard that?

Eric Deschamps [00:26:09]:
Oh my god. All the time.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:26:10]:
Everybody’s unique. But the problem with that is that is that if you’re inconsistent with how you’re delivering your service, then people are not trusting you.

Eric Deschamps [00:26:19]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I would say if if if every single client if you view as every single client as unique, you definitely have not figured out your unique value proposition or your ideal client. Right? I mean, that’s just the way it is.

Catherine Fair [00:26:32]:
When it comes to the consistency of how we deliver, there’s a piece around how people look at all their customers as being different, so they treat them all differently. But there’s also how your staff deliver. And this is where well, this is how I do it. This is how Mhmm. So and so does it. Yep. And this is where the wheels fall off. Yeah.

Catherine Fair [00:26:48]:
Totally. Because, you know, you’ll have talented people on your team, and you’ll have more senior people, and they’ll train new people differently in their way of doing it. And what is essential is there needs to be the organization’s way of doing it. Yep. This is how we do it. Whatever it is. Whatever it is. There was a client I was working with.

Catherine Fair [00:27:07]:
It was a plumbing company, and they were talking about how how they actually drive to their to their client. Oh, interesting. Are you left lane, middle lane, right, like, right lane?

Eric Deschamps [00:27:16]:
Which lane are you in? Are we talking politics now?

Catherine Fair [00:27:19]:
No. We

Trefor Munn Venn [00:27:19]:
talk oh,

Eric Deschamps [00:27:20]:
I thought we switched gears completely

Catherine Fair [00:27:23]:
right down the toilet. Yeah. And and we said, you you actually need to pick a lane

Trefor Munn Venn [00:27:28]:
Right.

Catherine Fair [00:27:29]:
As an organization.

Eric Deschamps [00:27:30]:
Right.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:27:30]:
Because every time your trucks are driving, are you the driving, like, mad down the left lane and trying to communicate that we’re responsive? Are you in the right hand lane saying we’re gonna be very careful with whatever is yours? Are you in the middle lane saying we’ll make reasonable decisions based on what we find, but you need to pick it. Yeah. And the the the staff were apoplectic about it. Like, they were so upset about it. They were just kinda going, no. Well, I’m gonna decide. And, like, we do need to find like, how do we do that? Because these were big trucks with big billboards on the side, and this wasn’t about your personal preference about how you like to drive. Yeah.

Catherine Fair [00:28:07]:
This is how we run this business.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:28:08]:
We we use language, early on Rhapsody when we were a much larger team, and I remember having a conversation with one of the coaches who much preferred paper calendar, using a calendar notebook kinda thing. And we were all in Google Calendar. And, you know, that was the conversation is organizationally, we’re all using Google Calendar. Right. Your personal preference, you wanna use a paper calendar, no problem. But also put it in the Google Calendar because that’s what we use organization.

Steve Osmond [00:28:35]:
Well, I

Eric Deschamps [00:28:35]:
think that well, I back to the point about it, how you represent yourself to your clients and to the public. We were just talking about our the our your marketing message as an organization. Right? Your brand is different than your marketing message. Your marketing message lives within your brand, but your brand is how you show up consistently. Every action, every interaction, everything that you do client facing and public facing tells a story. And if you don’t have consistency, then how do you build a brand? Right? You’re all over the map. Right?

Catherine Fair [00:29:06]:
Going back to what Trevor was talking about, before I even get to the point of making those decisions, I start with, alright, so tell me about what good customer service looks like for you guys.

Eric Deschamps [00:29:18]:
But don’t they all tell you they’re great customer service? They all think they do.

Catherine Fair [00:29:22]:
They start with, they and that’s why I use that word good. Right? I I just very casually throw it out there. And they list all the things that they’re currently doing because they believe that they have great customer service. And then I say, okay. Now tell me what great customer service looks like. And it’s not until they have those two words put in front of them that they recognize that there’s a difference between good and great.

Steve Osmond [00:29:45]:
Yeah. A big difference.

Catherine Fair [00:29:46]:
Big difference.

Steve Osmond [00:29:47]:
Right? It might not even be details. It might not even be a lot of big things, but it makes a big difference, and it’s just the details. I just flew here for the first time on Porter Airlines.

Eric Deschamps [00:29:57]:
Porter is not a sponsor of this show, but

Trefor Munn Venn [00:29:59]:
we would love you to be. You. They can sponsor.

Steve Osmond [00:30:02]:
And and the airline industry has had some rough years.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:30:05]:
Yeah.

Steve Osmond [00:30:05]:
Yeah. It was just a couple of little things that made me feel like I am not cattle. I am there was and it wasn’t big banners and fireworks. It was just some little

Trefor Munn Venn [00:30:15]:
glass of wine. It

Steve Osmond [00:30:16]:
was an extra glass of wine. It was just something that

Eric Deschamps [00:30:19]:
said know that’s all it takes, Steve.

Steve Osmond [00:30:20]:
Yep. That’s all it takes. James Hudson.

Eric Deschamps [00:30:25]:
Well, we we talk about again, it’s it’s we talk about customer service. I mean, that, actually, in today’s world, that language is so outdated. It is, customer service is usually a department you go to now to complain because, something hasn’t gone well. We we have to talk about the client experience, the customer journey. What’s it like for them to interact with the company at every turn? Right? And has that experience been crafted, or is it left up to staff? And and listen. I’m not I’m not we’re not dissing staff here. I mean, I I think every organization prizes those employees that go above and beyond and represent the company really well. But how can you have any kind of consistent brand if you’re depending on the owner and a few star employees to represent that.

Eric Deschamps [00:31:09]:
And then when they’re working perhaps with other members of the team, the experience takes a significant drop because we’re not following the same playbook. Right.

Catherine Fair [00:31:17]:
Well and you can see and it’s complicated.

Eric Deschamps [00:31:19]:
Right.

Catherine Fair [00:31:20]:
It’s not simple. It requires real focus. I I have a a client, runs, a physiotherapy clinic, and a core value really around care.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:31:30]:
Mhmm.

Catherine Fair [00:31:31]:
Deep, deep caring. You can feel it when they talk about it. It’s beautiful. He said part of the way we demonstrate that care is through our service to our to our patients. And I said, well, how does that show up? What does it look like? And he said, we spend more time with our patients than anybody else. And he’s like, that sounds fantastic. Like, that’s an active care. I get it.

Catherine Fair [00:31:51]:
I said, what about the patients who are in a real hurry? Right. Is that caring? Right. Because it like, what if they wanna get, like, in out off to the next thing, and they’re actually nobody get them there. They’re they’re feeling like, oh, you know, why is this taking so long? Mhmm. When in fact, it’s not. It’s things around the therapy that’s being offered, but they wanna create this experience. And so we had to, like, go back a little bit to the drawing board to say, do we understand which clients actually value that Right. And which ones maybe you’re pissing off.

Catherine Fair [00:32:24]:
Right. Mhmm. Because that they’re not thinking you’re caring for them.

Eric Deschamps [00:32:28]:
Right. Well, not to mention the very real business impact of taking longer with each patient. That means your occupancy rate drops dramatically, which will hit your impact your revenue and your bottom line in a huge way. When we’re talking about the client experience, it’s how do you create something that’s memorable, but it’s gotta be profitable. Unless you’re running a charity, the business is there to make profits. Serve clients, make a difference, but, ultimately, it’s gotta make money.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:32:53]:
We we and I think all of us do this. We’ve certainly used, in Rhapsody, we’ve done this internally as well, is looking at the client experience similar to how we look at a great movie or a great book, and figuring out what’s happening when that and I’ve had this conversation with a client just last week having talking about when that when they have a new customer or a new client that joins their organization, who begins to work with their organization, what are they feeling at the intro, at the beginning? What’s the what is what is it that’s causing them to be pulled into the experience with you? And then all through the journey of their experience with you, what are they feeling at different touch points? And then most importantly, the area that almost no business thinks about is what happens and what are they feeling when they’re done working with you? Right. And how do you end that working relationship well so that they come back for the sequel or they share with other people and say, you gotta pick up this book. You gotta experience this customer

Steve Osmond [00:33:52]:
Great point.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:33:53]:
Yeah. Or this client. Right? All of those pieces are all around experience.

Eric Deschamps [00:33:57]:
Well, we’re we’re thinking I think too many organizations are thinking transactionally. Right? So even though they may be relationship driven and care very very deeply about the people that they’re serving, they’re focused just on that interaction. They’re focused just on that transaction. And I think one of the, areas where so much potential is left on the table, and as a result, a lot of money is left on the table, is turning clients into raving fans who keep coming back and when they do bring friends and family with them. Right?

Steve Osmond [00:34:25]:
When I’m in a session with a client and I I ask this question, what is your proven process or customer customer journey?

Trefor Munn Venn [00:34:34]:
Yeah. What is

Steve Osmond [00:34:34]:
your proven process? And we say, we do step 1, 2. Maybe there’s 3, 4, 5 steps. And around each one of those steps, we dig down and say, do we have the processes in place Mhmm. To deliver that? So let’s say the first step in the proven process is to listen deeply to the customer’s needs. Okay. That’s great. But you have the system to do that.

Catherine Fair [00:35:00]:
Yeah. Right?

Trefor Munn Venn [00:35:00]:
Do you know

Eric Deschamps [00:35:01]:
what you’re doing? Right. Do you have

Steve Osmond [00:35:02]:
the question and and can everybody deliver that? Is there a a list of questions that get asked? Or how do you know when you’ve listened deeply and

Trefor Munn Venn [00:35:10]:
What’s the evidence?

Steve Osmond [00:35:11]:
What’s the evidence? So and and sometimes a business owner will say, I I don’t have time to do that. And I will say, you don’t have time not to do that. Right.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:35:20]:
Right. Right.

Steve Osmond [00:35:20]:
That’s where you’re that’s why you’re not scaling and growing, and you’re frustrated. That’s where the inconsistency comes from. So if I was, working with someone who’s feeling that kind of scattered, I’d say, okay. Let’s focus on your proven process. Let’s nail that. And we’re way more likely to get a really positive customer experience.

Eric Deschamps [00:35:37]:
Right. Well, it’s I think it’s like the old saying, you know, if you’re in the tree cutting business, you better slow down often enough and sharpen your ax. Right? Because I think a lot of businesses are swinging a dull ax at the tree, and we’re putting out lots of energy. And, again, we have nothing but admiration for the leaders that we work with and the the vision, the energy they put into what they do. But it can sometimes feel like a little bit of or a lot of methodless enthusiasm where there’s lots of energy for little return because the the the experience hasn’t been figured out. We haven’t really gotten clear on what is our irresistible offer and how are we gonna deliver on it. Right? So I think the time spent there can seem like a a huge investment, but think of the price of not doing it. What is the cost of inaction, on that front?

Catherine Fair [00:36:21]:
It’s it has such a massive impact when you can start to strengthen those processes. Mhmm. When you can improve that efficiency, sharpen that axe. And it and it sounds just like an efficiency argument. Right? And you kinda go, well, yeah, it is. But it’s transformative in terms of the experience of the work for the entire organization. Processes ask the question, what do we do now? Like, what you know, a situation shows up and and a process should answer a question of this is what we do when. Yeah.

Catherine Fair [00:36:51]:
So if a client says, may I have a discount? You Kinda go, this is what we say. Right? And these are the steps you follow. Like, each piece is documented. When that happens and people have clarity, one, they actually know what to get good at. So if you believe in the growth of your staff, but aren’t actually giving them processes that they can get good at, like, they can’t know what to grow into. The second is you get so fast. Right. The capacity of the organization expands because every time a client reaches out to you, you don’t have to send an email going, hey.

Catherine Fair [00:37:23]:
What do we do now? Or let me check with so and so, or how did they do it, or any of that because we know Or

Steve Osmond [00:37:28]:
am I allowed am I allowed to

Catherine Fair [00:37:29]:
Am I allowed to. Yeah.

Catherine Fair [00:37:31]:
Yeah. We can answer it right away and move so fast with confidence, with care, with certainty, and that’s actually better customer service as well. If every time it’s like, I don’t know. Let me get back to you. I’ll go check with someone. It’s like, oh my goodness. Come on.

Steve Osmond [00:37:45]:
Right.

Catherine Fair [00:37:45]:
Yeah. And when when you’re able to go that fast and do it well, now that frees up the employee or team member’s mental space for servitude.

Steve Osmond [00:37:57]:
Right. Right.

Catherine Fair [00:37:58]:
Right? And

Eric Deschamps [00:37:58]:
And creativity, I would

Catherine Fair [00:37:59]:
creativity. And now those two pieces, you you can have great customer experience processes in place, but until the employees are actually, like, thinking and having a servitude mindset, that becomes very difficult to get the results that you’re looking for. So, yeah, the servitude piece is so important.

Catherine Fair [00:38:22]:
Because at the other end of that is all burnout. Burnout.

Catherine Fair [00:38:24]:
Yep.

Catherine Fair [00:38:25]:
Right? And we’re seeing people just burn through staff. We’re seeing so much churn at a staffing level. We’re seeing so much challenge in terms of being able to hire and bring people in, skill them up, equip them up, process them up, get them ready so that they can really deliver well, but they’re just burning out. And if you’re just drowning in volume of work, in part because those processes aren’t clear, that is a failure of the business leadership.

Eric Deschamps [00:38:49]:
100%. And we

Catherine Fair [00:38:50]:
need to take ownership of that Mhmm. To because what happens instead is they start blaming their people. God, these people are incompetent. Yeah. I’m like, let’s test that a little bit.

Catherine Fair [00:39:01]:
I just think it’s just dishonored too that the other day. I bumped into them somewhere, and they were saying, you remember that that gal I told you I had hired? And and I was like, yeah. Yeah. I remember that. And he said, oh, she’s not working out. I’m so frustrated with her, and I I’m ready to fire her. And I said, okay. So let’s back up for a second.

Catherine Fair [00:39:18]:
This is, like, grocery store coaching going on here. Okay? Grocery store. Yeah. And and I said, so let’s back up here for a second. Do you want to fire her? Because, like, there’s some things that are associated with that. Right? You gotta hire somebody else, and you gotta train somebody else. And he’s like, no. That’s that’s just, oh, no.

Catherine Fair [00:39:39]:
I don’t wanna do that.

Catherine Fair [00:39:40]:
And I said,

Catherine Fair [00:39:40]:
okay. So did you when you onboarded her, did you give her clear, clear ideas of what you wanted, what ticks you off, what you don’t want, what what is good work, what’s poor work, what’s good customer service, what bad customer serve. Did you outline all of that for her? And he was like,

Steve Osmond [00:40:05]:
oh, no. Right. Right.

Catherine Fair [00:40:07]:
I didn’t. Right. And

Trefor Munn Venn [00:40:08]:
I

Catherine Fair [00:40:08]:
was like, okay. So until you do that, you cannot blame her.

Catherine Fair [00:40:12]:
I I think You just can’t. I think when an employee is not performing well, we need to look at us first. 1st. Yeah. Look at the business second.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:40:19]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Catherine Fair [00:40:19]:
And then we can start talking to the employee.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:40:21]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Eric Deschamps [00:40:22]:
Yeah. Yeah. The the the first place we tend to go, or a lot of leaders go is they go to they’re blaming they wanna find a person to blame. But usually, it’s a business problem. We’ve just not the business is contributing. Think of, if you’re watching the show and you’re a business leader right now, think of how many staff you’ve gone through. And if you are keep seeing the same problems arise, it’s not the people. Okay? Like, you might have a systemic common denominator.

Eric Deschamps [00:40:49]:
The common denominator is you.

Catherine Fair [00:40:51]:
Or the customer

Eric Deschamps [00:40:52]:
or the other. Right? Like, it’s, like, it’s easy to blame outside forces, but I think more sophisticated leaders that build, like, award winning organizations, the first place they look is I wonder what it is about my leadership or my business that’s contributing to these problems, and look there first. There may very well still be a people problem on the other end, but we’ve gotta start looking at what is the machine that we’ve built, and is it built adequately for the operators to, be

Trefor Munn Venn [00:41:22]:
able to be successful? And we can’t stress that enough. When I when I talk to a solopreneur who is now their business has grown to the point that they’re ready to hire, and they might bring up the conversation and say, okay. I’m ready to start. What’s what’s the first step in the hiring process? And they think it’s putting an ad. Mhmm. Yeah. Woah. Woah.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:41:41]:
Woah. Yeah.

Catherine Fair [00:41:42]:
We kinda pull them back.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:41:44]:
The the first step is have you systemize

Eric Deschamps [00:41:46]:
Right. Right.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:41:47]:
All of the things that you’re about to bring somebody in to do. Because if you didn’t, you’re gonna take forever to bring that person up to speed, and you’re gonna probably go through 3

Catherine Fair [00:41:56]:
or 4 options.

Eric Deschamps [00:41:56]:
I got this great client. I’ve been coaching them for a very, very long time. And I remember years ago, we sat down down because they were complaining, large organization, about 50, 60 employees. And I’m talking to the 4 at the time, 4 partners, and they’re complaining about, you know, the inefficiencies of their team and the mistakes that are made and, lost profitability as a result and everything else. And as I dug deeper, I began to realize that each partner owned a part of the business, and they all did it differently. Although at the end of the day, they all delivered the same product. So I kinda painted this picture for them. I said, so I’ve been listening to you guys here.

Eric Deschamps [00:42:30]:
I said, I want you to imagine you were in a manufacturing. Right? That you’re in the manufacturing business and and you manufacture widgets. But you guys at the ownership level can’t get clear about what manufacturing that widget looks like. So inside your plant, you have 4 assembly lines, all building the same product, and you require staff on a regular basis to move from assembly line 1 to assembly line 3. I said, what do you think that would create? Confusion, mistakes Redundancy.

Catherine Fair [00:42:59]:
Redundancy. And

Eric Deschamps [00:43:00]:
I just let them hang in the silence for a moment, and the penny dropped and they realized, oh my god. That’s what we’re doing in our business. It’s not the staff’s fault. We have built a business that is actually not systematized at all, and people have to guess and remember. When I work with Steve, it’s like this. But when I work under Rob, it’s like that. And which which assembly line am I on today?

Catherine Fair [00:43:20]:
So structural,

Catherine Fair [00:43:21]:
I just work for.

Eric Deschamps [00:43:23]:
Yeah. Oh, they’ve been on Madison now. Yeah.

Steve Osmond [00:43:26]:
The man with the big word.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:43:28]:
I can’t I’m still trying

Eric Deschamps [00:43:30]:
to make out what that means. I don’t know. Right? But this this whole notion, if we’re gonna deliver a a consistent experience. Right? And and that’s part of actually your irresistible offer.

Catherine Fair [00:43:40]:
Mhmm.

Eric Deschamps [00:43:40]:
Your marketing, if we go back to what we were talking about at the beginning, your message may get their attention and help them see they have a need. And so you might be credited with awakening them that they need this in their life or they need this progress, but they may very well go and get it elsewhere. Right? So you awoken them to go do business with someone else. Your offer and the way you deliver your service is the same two sides of the same coin, I think.

Catherine Fair [00:44:03]:
Yeah. That first part was about why and what, and this part is all about how. Exactly.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:44:07]:
Mhmm.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:44:08]:
Right? You you can have, I don’t know. You can have the exact same business as the one next door. I remember I I worked with a large chain for a while, and they all own their own franchise, basically. Same product, same brand, same rules, same process, same everything. And every single one of those was totally different in terms of the experience you would have going in, but not in a bad way. That some were very, you know, very business focused, dollar focused, some were very person relational focused. Some like, each one would feel like a different experience, and it and it just reinforced how different the the how can be even when you’re using the same tools, the same processes, same product.

Catherine Fair [00:44:50]:
Mhmm.

Catherine Fair [00:44:51]:
Right? And so that’s where as, I think as business leaders, we we don’t take enough control over the capacity we have to express what we want this business to be like. Yeah. Right? If if you’re a car dealership, you you have the same cars as the other dealership. Very, very close, very similar. They and it’s interesting because they often all cluster in the same areas.

Catherine Fair [00:45:12]:
Mhmm.

Catherine Fair [00:45:13]:
And but you can go, and you’ll get very different experiences Awesome. At each one. Even if you go to the same brand in the same city, you know, like, that will if you go to Ford or Toyota I drive a Toyota. Toyota, you’re welcome to sponsor the program. Well, the,

Eric Deschamps [00:45:30]:
Toyota no. Not really. No.

Catherine Fair [00:45:32]:
More Jeep crowd.

Eric Deschamps [00:45:33]:
There we go.

Catherine Fair [00:45:35]:
Right. If you go to a different Jeep dealership, you’ll get dramatic. Oh. Is that right?

Trefor Munn Venn [00:45:41]:
All of

Eric Deschamps [00:45:42]:
a sudden, that made sense.

Catherine Fair [00:45:43]:
Like You

Eric Deschamps [00:45:44]:
gotta know well, you gotta know he was he was wee wee ing.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:45:47]:
There’s so much that he shipped

Eric Deschamps [00:45:48]:
it to us, and we lit up. Right?

Catherine Fair [00:45:50]:
You will get a very different experience than you would from a reliable Toyota. Yeah. So the, you know, it’s for us to look and say

Trefor Munn Venn [00:45:57]:
Yeah.

Catherine Fair [00:45:57]:
How do I take this? And and we often think I’ve gotta get really creative with all these pieces. And, actually, no. We can have identical processes Yeah. But express them very differently in terms of how we

Trefor Munn Venn [00:46:10]:
do it. And to your point, it’s proven because we know, we all know people, we do this, is you will drive past 3, 4 dealerships to get to the one that you’ve had an experience with.

Eric Deschamps [00:46:18]:
You Yeah.

Catherine Fair [00:46:19]:
So true.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:46:19]:
You will drive and we know it from the our old world. In in the the church, people will drive past 16 churches to go to the one that they resonate with, that they connect with. So we see it all the time that people will will go out of their way to connect with you if you’ve connected with them.

Eric Deschamps [00:46:36]:
Can we spend a a minute or 2? Because we’re gonna have to wrap up this conversation soon, and this has been a great conversation, and hope that our listeners are finding it very beneficial. But, how do you know if you’re doing it right in terms of the client experience? Let’s talk about feedback for a second.

Catherine Fair [00:46:52]:
Yeah. Yes. The client. Oh, shoot. Thank you.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:46:59]:
There are

Catherine Fair [00:46:59]:
no big words in

Trefor Munn Venn [00:47:00]:
that. Wow.

Catherine Fair [00:47:01]:
I think there’s 2 critical things for for client feedback. 1 is repeat business. That is your number one indicator of organizational success. Yeah. We can do all the other things, and we should, but that’s your number one. Or retention would be. Yeah. The retention or repeat.

Catherine Fair [00:47:17]:
Absolutely. The the second is, very often, we assume we know what our clients think about us. Mhmm. And we write and create all these stories in our own mind about what’s happening. And and I think we need to be more deliberate. All business owners need to be more deliberate in terms of actually asking in an organized way, in a measurable way. You know, we got Google reviews, all those things out there right now as well. That’s a tool and a mechanism.

Catherine Fair [00:47:42]:
Yeah. The but we we need to get deliberate and proactive about actually checking with people.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:47:48]:
Every one of my clients that might be listening to this episode right now is laughing because they know they hear it from me all the time. My number one favorite quote, quote is, Ken Blanchard, feedback is the breakfast of champions. Yeah. If you have not, this is how I say to them, if you didn’t have feedback for breakfast, you’re not a champion.

Eric Deschamps [00:48:06]:
Right.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:48:07]:
And so what are you doing to get feedback every single day in order to make sure that you’re better, your company is better, And so, absolutely, I think it comes down

Catherine Fair [00:48:17]:
And I and I get that too where where some somebody will say, well, my clients, you know, love us.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:48:23]:
How do you know?

Catherine Fair [00:48:23]:
And I’ll say, prove it.

Steve Osmond [00:48:25]:
Right. Like Right.

Catherine Fair [00:48:27]:
Where’s the proof?

Trefor Munn Venn [00:48:29]:
Yeah.

Catherine Fair [00:48:29]:
Right. You’ve gotta be able to provide documentable proof. Where’s your metrics?

Steve Osmond [00:48:34]:
And on that team thought there, if a organization has a scorecard, an internal scorecard

Trefor Munn Venn [00:48:40]:
Mhmm.

Steve Osmond [00:48:40]:
For a particular employee or type of employee. I heard a great story from a macaroni and cheese restaurant in California called HomeRoom, and they are they’re a growing food chain for mac and cheese, which and now I’m feeling hungry.

Catherine Fair [00:48:56]:
Mhmm.

Steve Osmond [00:48:57]:
And, the the scorecard number for all of their servers is 5. So in a week, they they give 5 of their tables the most out of this world, experience than that they’ve ever had in a dining experience. So, not every table. You can’t be perfect and out of the world for everyone. But if there’s 5, so that means they get a free dessert or they draw a picture for the kid at the table on the placemat or maybe they comp the entire meal. But if every one of those servers, that’s 5 of those a week, then you’re getting that word-of-mouth. You’re getting those stories being told. And it also helps that server know.

Steve Osmond [00:49:37]:
I I haven’t done my 5 tables yet. I haven’t I haven’t blown their minds yet. And so now they’re focused on giving. So it’s not just getting, the client to give that feedback, but also establishing that wow experience in the on your team as well.

Eric Deschamps [00:49:51]:
Love that. We’ve talked a lot about, again, your message and how important it is to get clear on what you offer. We’ve talked a lot about how you do that then with excellence. We’ve even talked about how you scale. We haven’t gotten specifically into scaling, but we’ve talked a lot about systems. We’re gonna be talking a lot about team in our next episode and and how they help you scale, but I think it’s central to this whole, this whole piece as your systems help you scale. And if you’re not scaling the way you like, it’s probably gonna show the right systems in place. Final lightning round.

Eric Deschamps [00:50:20]:
One word of advice based on today’s you’re gonna drop one final word of wisdom or advice to our listeners related to something that we talked about today, lightning round, and then we’re gonna we’re gonna wrap it up. We’re gonna start with Trev.

Catherine Fair [00:50:33]:
Absolutely. Collect information from your clients about

Catherine Fair [00:50:36]:
the experience. What happened to what happened to what happened to

Catherine Fair [00:50:38]:
what happened to

Trefor Munn Venn [00:50:39]:
what happened?

Eric Deschamps [00:50:39]:
No. No. Not one word. Just one, like It’s a metaphor of 1 word. Yeah. So

Catherine Fair [00:50:43]:
by 1, I took it as 100.

Eric Deschamps [00:50:47]:
Just Just add a couple digits.

Catherine Fair [00:50:48]:
I think we need to collect that information, but you have to have a process to listen to and understand it as well. 100%.

Eric Deschamps [00:50:54]:
Steve?

Steve Osmond [00:50:55]:
Yeah. Definitely. I I have to go back to this, idea of dig into your why. And that motivation, knowing why you do it down deep inside, I think that energy spreads through all of the other business functions.

Catherine Fair [00:51:09]:
Mhmm.

Catherine Fair [00:51:09]:
Catherine. Clarity. Clarity. Clarity. Clarity. Clarity. Clarity. Clarity.

Catherine Fair [00:51:12]:
Clarity. Clarity on everything. Yeah. And just remove the fog, remove the confusion, then you remove stress, you remove mistakes, clarity.

Eric Deschamps [00:51:21]:
Yeah. Love it.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:51:22]:
Yeah. I would say, just a reminder that you can do this.

Catherine Fair [00:51:25]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:51:26]:
That so often, we get to a point where it feels overwhelming. It feels where you feel defeated. You’ve maybe you’ve been 20 years in your business doing 1 year 1 over and over again. There is a different way of doing it, and you are capable of doing that. Mhmm.

Eric Deschamps [00:51:42]:
Yeah. 100%. Thank you guys for what has been a great conversation, and thank you for tuning in. We’re so happy that you’ve taken the time to watch the show. We hope that, you have benefited from the conversation. We encourage you to check out, of course, the podcast website, which is living richly dot me. You can find out all kinds of great information on the 15 day life vision challenge and the Living Richly nation, a growing Facebook group of people on the journey to living their best life. But we also encourage you to check out RhapsodyStrategies .com.

Eric Deschamps [00:52:11]:
If you’re a business owner or a leader watching this show today, and we’ve piqued your interest, we encourage you to check it out and reach out to us. We’d love to help you take your business to the next level. Living Richly Nation, thanks for tuning in, and until next time, get out there and live your best life.

 

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