Gold Nuggets
- “Time is the ultimate status symbol.”
- “Clients measure value differently. What we too often call customer experience, when we’re working on customer experience, we’re actually working on customer service.”
- “Service is designed to save clients time and effort. Experience is about creating time well spent.”
- “What do the best brands in the world have in common? People don’t buy from them, they buy into them.”
- “If anyone expects to recover, you must be staging an experience. Your in-store experience has to be worth me paying a ticket to get in.”
- “Even experiences are commoditised, so you have to keep refreshing them.”
- “Experience is time well designed, and experience is memory. If there’s no memory, you didn’t have an experience.”
- “Whatever business you think you’re in – you’re not in that business.”
- “There are two types of loyalty. There’s the loyalty of fear and obligation, and there’s the other kind of loyalty which is connection and identity.”
- There’s no Q&A round today.
- “Open, honest communication is the best foundation for any relationship. But remember that at the end of the day, it’s not what you say or what you do, but how you make people feel, that matters the most.” – Tony Shay
Meet Dennis Moseley-Williams
Our guest is Founder of DMW Strategic Consulting, Dennis Moseley-Williams.
Dennis has been a globally sought-after motivational speaker on customer experience for over 20 years. He is the author of Serious Shift: How Experience Staging Can Save Your Practice, and he has a blog that is read by entrepreneurs and business owners globally.
Dennis is one of only two certified Experience Economy Experts in the financial services industry in the world.
Smart Man, Smarter Woman References
We talk about a lot in each episode; however, we don’t want you to miss a thing! Here are some key items were mentioned if you want to take a closer look.
Website Recommendations:
moseleywilliams.com
seriousshift.com
Book Recommendation:
Serious Shift by Dennis Moseley-Williams
The Experience Economy by B. Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore
Linchpin by Seth Godin
Do The Work by Steven Pressfield
Stay Connected:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/moseleywilliams
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dennismoseleywilliams/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennis-moseley-williams/
Learn more about our Cloud Accounting Services here
Transcript
Steve Loates (00:00):
Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the podcast, Smart Man, Smarter Woman, a podcast for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. And thank you very much for giving us a listen today. I am Steve Loates.
Juliet Aurora (00:14):
And I am Juliet Aurora.
Steve Loates (00:16):
And we are your co-hosts. And before we get started with today’s special guest, let’s hear from my wonderful co-host, that smarter woman, herself. Juliet, how are you doing today?
Juliet Aurora (00:29):
I am excellent. Thank you. Spring is in the air. The sun is shining. My pool is opening on Friday. So, I’m good. I’m doing really well. So, I really, am looking forward to today’s episode, because no matter which part of your journey you’re on for our audience, if you’re in business, you’re going to get a lot out of today’s episode. Because if you have customers, the customer experience is fundamental to how well you do, whether you are able to continue in business. And so, that is who our guest is today, an expert on the customer experience. So, let’s just dive right in because I know there’s going to be a ton of great information coming.
Steve Loates (01:14):
Absolutely. And so, as Juliet said, let’s bring our guests into the show. And his name is Dennis Moseley Williams. And he’s joining us today from the nation’s capital, and of course, that would be the Nation of Canada’s capital, Ottawa, Ontario. And welcome to the show, Dennis.
Dennis Moseley Williams (01:35):
Thank you very much, Steve. Nice to be on. Juliet, thank you very much for the invitation. And hello and welcome to everybody, who’s listening out in blog-land. Thanks for giving us some time today. I appreciate it.
Steve Loates (01:46):
Absolutely. So, why don’t we begin the show, Dennis, perhaps you could tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are, what you do, how you help people, and maybe a little bit about your own journey, and we can go from there.
Dennis Moseley Williams (02:00):
Okay. This is the part of the podcast I love the most. Let me tell you a little bit more about me, enough about me. What do you guys think about me? Well, as you say, I live here in Ottawa, Ontario. I’m married with a couple of kids, eight and 13, beautiful little girls. And I’m the founder of DMW Strategic Consulting. I work with small to mid-sized businesses, really, who want to improve their fortunes by better strategy, better operations, and then critically innovation around customer experience and design. I am a recognized expert in the subject of customer experience. I’m a certified experience economy expert. And I’ve been working as a business consultant for over 20 years.
Steve Loates (02:49):
Awesome.
Dennis Moseley Williams (02:50):
And I’m a summer slacker and a mogul skier. I mean, get to know me.
Steve Loates (02:56):
I love that, summer slacker. I think there’s a lot of us who suffer from that same fate, but that’s okay. [inaudible 00:03:06]
Dennis Moseley Williams (03:06):
Time is the ultimate status symbol. Anybody can lease a nice car. Not anybody can say, “I take eight weeks off and go to the lake, and don’t check my email.”
Steve Loates (03:16):
Absolutely. I love that. Absolutely.
Juliet Aurora (03:19):
So, tell us how, it was interesting that you gave a really, really brief bio. I think that’s probably the shortest one that we’ve had. We’ve had some guests where it’s like, “Okay, we do need to talk about something else.” So, but in your really brief bio, you talked about innovation around the customer experience. And I love that. Because when you think of the word innovation, typically, you’re thinking technology, you’re thinking processes even, or a manufacturing process. You never put the word innovation and customer experience together. So, can you tell us, when you refer to innovation around customer experience, what that means?
Steve Loates (04:04):
Yeah. And sorry, guys, before you do, I just, maybe I’d like to even get a little bit basic here. What do we mean by customer experience? What’s a general definition for those in our audience who we’re trying to figure out, “What the heck do you mean customer experience?”
Dennis Moseley Williams (04:22):
Yeah. Okay. Those questions go hand in hand, because so here it is. My hunch is that everybody in the car already thinks that they know about customer experience. They know what it is. And I’m going to float a whole bunch of fluffy ideas at them during this podcast about sending handwritten notes and rubbing vanilla on the light bulbs in your office, which by the way, in the experience economy, we refer to those as harmonizing cues. So, I’m not telling you, it’s a bad idea. I’m saying this is a very big subject.
Dennis Moseley Williams (04:52):
So, let’s start with what is experience. It is not service. And this is critical for everybody listening, because clients measure value differently. And what we too often call customer experience, “And we’re really working on our customer experience.” You’re actually working on customer service, services designed to save clients’ time and effort, it’s to make things easy and frictionless.
Dennis Moseley Williams (05:23):
Experience, what is experience you asked? Is about creating what we call time well spent. It’s not about speeding you through a process. It’s about creating a reason for you to linger. Tim Horton’s drive through window, Starbucks experience, it’s different. They’re not the same thing.
Dennis Moseley Williams (05:45):
So, this is Juliet. This is innovation. What I help everybody who’s listening right now. This is a big statement. If you are listening to the podcast and you have an existing business, and your business sells a tangible product, the best one on the market, by the way, or intangible services, then you compete on price. And even if you sell really good products, and have exceptional services, that is no longer enough to guarantee your success.
Dennis Moseley Williams (06:20):
You must innovate and progress up the progression of economic value, which just, give me one second, everybody, because I can feel you’re reaching for the FM dial right now. You need to understand that since the very first transaction in the history of humankind, undocumented ever happened, one guy, traded a rock for a chicken. That’s the agrarian economy. 150 years ago, we were all farmers. The agrarian economy, we left and we went to the industrial economy, where suddenly it was all about making stuff. From the industrial economy, we went to the service economy, where the predominant economic offering were actions that people take on your behalf. While we’ve left the service economy behind, what happened in the service economy is all goods and services became commoditized.
Dennis Moseley Williams (07:17):
Everybody listening right now that owns a business gets paid less than they used to. And they deliver superior service than they ever did before. We have the benefit right now of looking at each other on Zoom, the three of us. We can guess each other’s age. So, I can say to you, “Do you remember when you could buy a car that was a lemon? Not anymore.” You can buy the worst… Pardon me, that’s a terrible thing to say. My apologies to the automakers listening. I have keynoted their conference twice. You can buy the entry level vehicle of any manufacturer and it has features and benefits in it that were reserved for the top of the line, 15 years ago. A Cavalier to you, General Motors has the same features as a Cadillac. Not as nice, not as plush, blah, blah, blah, obviously.
Dennis Moseley Williams (08:07):
But you get into the entry-level car, you buy it for your child, your teenager to drive around, and it’s got curtain side airbags, front airbags, a radio, a bumper to bumper warranty for a hundred thousand K, and it’s commoditized. Meaning, you pay $284 a month for it. You’re not even buying the car. You’re buying, you’re using it.
Dennis Moseley Williams (08:26):
So, everybody listening, where you need to go, Juliet, innovation is, you got to go from agrarian to industrial, to service. And then up one more, which is to the experience economy. And ultimately, the question your clients are asking when they measure your value is, who are you helping me become? That’s what they’re asking. They know that we’re living through a pandemic, and nobody listening right now to this podcast wants for anything. You can have anything you want delivered to your house by Amazon, and they will fight each other for the privilege of getting it to you before 8:00 AM tomorrow morning, and sell it to you for nothing.
Dennis Moseley Williams (09:11):
The other day, I literally returned an item. Within five minutes, they said, “Okay, the money is back in your credit card.” And then they said, “Don’t bother sending it back.” If you’re a business competing on goods and services, you can’t beat Amazon or Google. Your business has to become something else. Starbucks progressed. They went beyond just the service of coffee and subsumed it up into a larger experience, people will pay a premium for.
Juliet Aurora (09:40):
I love that statement of, who are you helping me become, because it used to be, and probably still is for a lot of businesses, the question that you ask yourself when you’re creating your marketing material, and you’re thinking about your delivery of your service or selling of your product is, what pain point am I solving for my client? And all the messaging is around what the pain point is. So, you’re flipping that completely. And the focus isn’t on their pain, it’s on improving their lives as a person.
Dennis Moseley Williams (10:16):
Precisely. So, now there’s people out there, there’s somebody listening right now, owns a hardware store. He goes, “Oh, damn it, I wish he’d talk about guys like me, that own hardware stores.” I am talking to people like you, that own hardware stores. Depending on what economy, what business you think you’re in, which economy you think you’re in, are you a farmer? Or do you own a factory? Do you deliver services? Or do you stage experiences? You’re answering a different question.
Dennis Moseley Williams (10:41):
So, what question does your client have? When you sell stuff, the question that your client has is, how much and how good is it? How much do you want for that? And how good is it? How long will it last? If you’re selling services, it’s how much, always price, price, price, and how fast, how smooth efficient. If you’re staging experiences, the question that you’re asking is, who do you want to become?
Dennis Moseley Williams (11:04):
Now, just hear me out. Canada’s Wonderland is not an experience, it’s a service. Disneyland is an experience. But they’re the same offering, but the posture is different. They think of themselves differently. Tim Horton’s is a coffee shop, so is Starbucks. If you twist Starbucks arm, they’re going to say, “Okay, fine. We sell coffee.” But they are guided by a different question. And that’s this idea of their themes, specifically, as it relates to Starbucks, their mission statement. I’m nerdy enough to have it memorized by the way.
Dennis Moseley Williams (11:39):
Juliet, I’m not trying to impress you, but it was memorizing mission statements, that’s how I met my wife. So, their mission statement is, “We inspire the human spirit, one sip, one cup, one neighborhood at a time. But their theme, what they’re all about is to be the third place. So, when Tim Horton’s wakes up in the morning and pulls out all of their beige polyester and figures out how they can make it even more painful to get a cup of coffee, they go in and they think all day, “How are we going to sell coffee?” That’s what they think about. And they come up with bundling, “And do we throw a donut in, value pricing, commoditization, commoditization, and speed. Put a drive-through window in. They don’t even have to get out of their car. Just throw the food at the window.”
Dennis Moseley Williams (12:26):
Starbucks goes in with a different question every day. And that question is, “How are we going to make people feel like they own this place? It’s the third place they own, home work, Starbucks.” It’s a totally different business. One guy is thinking about selling coffee. The other guy is trying to give people a story.
Dennis Moseley Williams (12:45):
A question every single person should be asking themselves, who’s listening right now is, “What am I asking my client to buy into?” You guys have a podcast. You have a very obvious ask. You’re asking people to buy in to thinking smarter, thinking different. What about everybody else listening? What do the best brands in the world have in common? People don’t buy from them. They buy into them. Okay?
Dennis Moseley Williams (13:12):
Think about Nike. Every shoe company in the world sells features and benefits, not Nike. They sell what? Just Do It. People buy Nike’s, 99% of the people that buy Nike’s, don’t run. They just do it. They’re a nurse, frontline worker, kicking ass, Just Do It. That’s what they do. What are you asking your client to buy into? That’s what it’s all about.
Dennis Moseley Williams (13:39):
Now, what if you’re listening right now and you own a clothing store? Well, I’m telling you, you’re going to go under. That’s what I’m telling you, oh, you can’t. You’re going to lose. Unless the clothing becomes memorabilia of an experience. Experience is time well-designed.
Dennis Moseley Williams (13:57):
If you own a clothing store, if you own a stereos shop, if you have a store or a medical practice, what if you’re a dentist listening right now? You’re a business, that’s customer experience. “Yeah, but I don’t need to. I’m not selling blue jeans downtown. I don’t need to worry about that.” You’re crazy. Because Costco got dental services yet, how come? Not enough square footage or they hadn’t thought about it, or they’re not doing it for two more years? Either way, it’s coming.
Dennis Moseley Williams (14:21):
Commoditization is coming. “I don’t have to worry about that. I’m an optometrist.” Warby Parker, man, it’s all online. That’s why I buy these glasses. I even did my eye test through my phone. “You’re crazy.” These glasses are awesome. And they were dirt cheap. No, you’re crazy.
Dennis Moseley Williams (14:38):
Whatever you’re listening to right now, I’m going to give you a couple of examples of this. Okay? You got to think about this progression of economic value. You got to every business in the world, I can change. That’s quite a statement by the way, I can change, but I can because it’s not my idea. It’s the law. It’s the way it is.
Dennis Moseley Williams (14:59):
The other day I was getting my haircut. I’m just sitting there. And I have this funny thing happened. I look at my glasses, which I’m wearing, that are down on the counter, and they’re smudgy. I’m just sitting there getting my haircut and I look at my own glasses and realize, oh, the lenses are all like I’m a 10 year old boy, thumbs all over them. And I have this thought, which is, “Wouldn’t it be cool, if there was a guy here that would come around while I’m getting my hair cut and pick up my glasses and polish them.” And then I thought, and wouldn’t it be cool if instead of putting my glasses down on the counter… You hear that, like that. When he pick my glasses up, he put down a little coaster and put my glasses down like that. That doesn’t even make a sound. And that same guy would have met me at the front door.
Dennis Moseley Williams (15:45):
You know how fast your brain works? You have this whole revelation, [inaudible 00:15:50], you walk yourself through the whole story. It takes you two seconds. So, then I think, doorman, then I think progression of economic value, barbering services, subsumed up into something else. Just like Starbucks, doesn’t sell coffee. They sell community. And you buy the coffee, thinking you wanted a coffee, but really you just wanted to belong. And then you walk out with the coffee. It’s just like buying a t-shirt after a Rolling Stone concert. You’re just carrying the experience down the street.
Dennis Moseley Williams (16:19):
Takes me a minute, and I say to Tim, “I picture a membership, a speakeasy, a locker.” And I say, “Tim, do you want to know how you can make a million dollars as a barber?” And for about 20 minutes, then I tell him exactly what I would do.” And then he goes, “Oh my God, you’re amazing.” And I said, every business in the world, take coffee, coffee beans. Yeah. Coffee, that’s agrarian economy. It’s commodity. Yeah. Coffee for sale at the grocery store. Coffee beans means sells for about 2 cents a cup, raw coffee beans. Take a pound of those beans and roast them. And you can sell a cup of beans at the grocery store that you’ll go home and prepare for yourself. And that could be 10 or 15 cents a cup. Any coffee service in the world that sells you a coffee, the 7-Eleven, the Tim Horton’s, the whatever. That’s about a dollar, a cup. It’s amazing.
Dennis Moseley Williams (17:15):
But if you take that cup of coffee and you stage it in the theater of a Starbucks, and you work in some escapist language, grande, venti, and you can come up with 80,000 possible ways to prepare a beverage. How do you want your coffee? Milk, just regular milk, cow milk? How fat do you want it? Okay? Do you want it steamed or cold? Do you want an in it or on top of it? Should we leave the cows behind and go into the soy? Whatever that even is. How about the almond milk? Okay, whatever. They got a zillion things. What happens? They decrease all your sacrifice. They make you feel special. They look you right in the eye and they say 3.50. And everybody listening right now, what do you do? You happily pay it. And then you tip them. How much are they getting for a cup of coffee? It’s the same business.
Dennis Moseley Williams (18:04):
Grapes, wine, wine retailing, wine tourism. Trees, two by fours, carpentry services, carpentry classes, experience economy. Give me another one. Rubber, bicycles. No, rubber, tires, bicycles, tourism. It just goes on and on, and on, and on.
Dennis Moseley Williams (18:28):
How about your podcast? Noise, data, information, knowledge, wisdom, right? Your podcast is a service. Now, how would we get to be an experience? If it’s memorable, it’s an experience, I suppose. But it becomes, you guys host an event and you invite 25 to 50 of all the people that listen to your podcast to go to a place like, I don’t know, the East Coast of Canada and join you in this amazing area where you bring in guys like me and three other people. And you go from Smart Man, Smarter Woman Podcast to the Smart Man, Smarter Woman, Burning Man, Entrepreneur Festival. See what I mean?
Dennis Moseley Williams (19:12):
So, if you’re listening out there, you should be thinking, “Is this guy crazy?” No, I live in a really tony neighborhood here in Ottawa, Ontario, Das Kapital, off the strip, so to speak nice. Some of the best restaurants in the city. No joke, it’s really a nice part of town, Westboro, if anybody listening. 75% of the businesses right now under COVID will never reopen. They just haven’t figured it out yet. When they reopen, what are they going to do? They want me to go to a furniture store. I just buy it online. Maybe the furniture store will be okay, because I’ll want to go sit on it. But how does that stop me from just going home and buying the same couch online for less, now that I’ve sat on it. “Yeah, it does fit. I’m really tall. Oh yeah. It fits. My legs don’t feel all weird on it. Let’s go home and buy it on Amazon, Honey, save 400 bucks.” You got to innovate.
Juliet Aurora (20:05):
That really is so very true, that COVID is going to fundamentally change everything, because everyone has had to adapt for the last year. Everyone has found new ways of getting services that they may have gone into a store for before or realize that they don’t really need that service.
Juliet Aurora (20:27):
So me, for example, before COVID, I used to go regularly every three weeks and get eyelash extensions put in. And it was just part of my routine. Every three weeks I would go. And when COVID hit, my lady closed, her salon closed. It’s been a year. And I will never go back and get eyelash extensions now, because I’ve lived without them for a year. And I realized I don’t need to pay $75 every three weeks to get my eyelashes done.
Dennis Moseley Williams (20:58):
Sure.
Steve Loates (20:59):
Wait a sec, you were paying $75?
Juliet Aurora (21:03):
Right. Right. Yes. No, no, no.
Dennis Moseley Williams (21:04):
It’s a cost worth issue. It’s a cost worth issue.
Juliet Aurora (21:08):
But you’ve reprioritize things. You’ve realized what you can and you can’t live without, or what you want to live without, don’t want to live without. So, the businesses that are going to reopen at some point are going to have to probably fight for all that business again, that they may have had just taken by default, like my salon, now they have to fight for it, again.
Dennis Moseley Williams (21:36):
Correct. Because there’s always, if all you do, let’s now we’ll use your salon, if all your salon was doing was providing you the service of extensions, eyelash extensions, to be clear, okay? Well, then they were always competing on price and against convenience. So, I’m going to tell you the short answer, and then I’m going to tell you a story.
Dennis Moseley Williams (21:55):
The short answer is, if anyone wants, expects to recover, you must be staging an experience. Your in-store experience has to be worth me paying a ticket to get in. Now, I’m not saying you have to, I am saying if you were my client, I’d probably make it a half too, though, because of the way I look at things, however. What you can do, all of you listening, is just imagine you’re going to start charging $10, just to walk in the store. What would you have to do for a person to look at you and say, “Yeah, it’s worth it for me. Thanks.” Do they get a discount on the products? No. No, commoditizing yourself, it’s a choice. Cut that out. I’m saying you sell expensive stuff and you charge them to get in to buy it, because the in-store experience is on.
Dennis Moseley Williams (22:49):
So, I’m going to tell you a story. This is a tale of two barbers. As you can see me, this is not a complicated haircut. Okay? Before the bug blew in and COVID became the only thing we could ever talk or think about, I used to fly 150 to 200 times a year for close to 20 years. I spoke at conferences all over the place on customer experience. When I was home in the city, my time was precious. I had all kinds of office work, and then I also had to recover. And then I had stuff like the dry cleaner and the barber to get to, everything. I had a barber, that was awesome, great service, backdoor of a one-story shopping plaza near my house. This is important, because I could drive and park right at the back door. He opened at six o’clock in the morning, closed at eight o’clock at night. It was one time I counted for the purposes of a blog, it was 150 steps from the driver’s seat to the barber chair. And that day I didn’t even park close.
Dennis Moseley Williams (23:52):
In, out, I get this haircut 20 bucks done. Okay? Commoditized service, selling convenience, “I open at 6:00 AM. Dennis, you’re busy. You can get home before your kids go to bed.”
Dennis Moseley Williams (24:04):
Then I’m having coffee one day with Sherry at this little shop up the street. Other mom walks over to Sherry says, “Hello.” She mentions, she’s bringing her son for this haircut. I’m like, “Oh yeah.” She goes, “Yeah, just down the hall here, down the sidewalk. You know this place?” There was a funny exchange. He referred to her son. She said, “I’m going to get him stirred up.” This is pattern interruption, everybody. If you sell goods and services, you choose to sleep with this monster every night. For 15 years, I went to the other barber. So, I go, “What?” She goes, “Yeah, there’s a place right down here.” I go, “Okay.”
Dennis Moseley Williams (24:35):
She leaves. I say, “Hey, Sherry, I’m going to run really quick, and see if I get my haircut. If it works, it works. And I’ll just run, meet with you guys out on the streets shortly, or I’ll meet you at home or whatever,” I said, “It doesn’t matter.” Sherry goes, I run down the sidewalk. And this is for everybody, when I said you got to be able to charge a ticket.
Dennis Moseley Williams (24:52):
So, now a hundred feet in front of me on the sidewalk is a living room, on the sidewalk. To hell with your bylaws. Okay? We want a little couch out there and a couple of tables. So, I see and I think, “Oh, I hope this is the place.” Now, I’m doing what every customer does in the world with every business. I’m looking at it, and I’m asking myself, whether you realize this or not, everybody, who are they and what are they trying to tell me about themselves? What are they trying to let me know is going to happen here? Okay?
Dennis Moseley Williams (25:25):
And I look at the font. I look at what the place is called, dah, dah, dah. I opened the door and where I’m going with this whole experience, is it wasn’t a service, it was an experience. It was personal. It was stage. They had a motif. It looked a certain way. They handled it a certain way. I walked in. This guy walks up. He gets my name. He uses my name. The moment we confirm verbally that I will stay to get my haircut, the other guy that works there has been watching and listening. All work is theater. Every business is a stage. This guy’s just playing a role. He’s heard me. He’s heard my name. And he’s heard me say, “Right on, 20 minutes.” And he goes, “Hey, Dennis.” Like that. He never talked to me in my life. I look over at him and he goes, “Would you like a coffee?” Encourage them to linger. I said, “I’d love to.” I sat down, soaked it in.
Dennis Moseley Williams (26:16):
Here’s where it’s going. They charged me like more than double for a haircut. I’ve never gone back to the other place in my life. Okay? Literally. And these guys, I’ve never given them the story on, “Here’s how you can make a million.” That place went under, ironically. And yet, not surprisingly, because even experiences are commoditized. So, you have to keep refreshing them. Okay? Look, this is where small is wonderful.
Dennis Moseley Williams (26:45):
If you’re the Sheraton Center Hotel in downtown Toronto, how do you turn that into an experience? You could. There’s lots of ways, believe me. But if you’re a little tiny hotel with 20 rooms or 40 rooms, you could make every room different. You could theme the whole place. Every room is a different city in Canada, is a different province.
Dennis Moseley Williams (27:05):
The Library Hotel in New York city, each floor is a different subject. Each room has a different sub subject. So, to experience the hotel, you don’t go once, you have to go like 50 times. You have to give your clients a reason now, post COVID to want to go see you.
Dennis Moseley Williams (27:24):
“I’m a clothing store.” No, you’re not, you’re art. For 29 days a month, you’re just art. Nobody is allowed to buy anything. They’re just allowed to look in, maybe walk in. Nothing is for sale. Okay? You have to buy a ticket. And slowly you’re filling up the window with obstruction, so they can’t look in. And then everybody attends the big event. And everything you have, you have one of that. That’s it. There’s no like, “Oh yeah, I got more next month.” No, no, no. Well, scarcity and experienced, and they go into, what’s going to happen? It’s an event. They bought a ticket to do it. It’s premium. And they clean you out. And the next day, everyone in the street looks, and the new reveal is on, the new art exhibit for the month is on. It’s not a clothing store. It’s an art exhibit. And the memorabilia, isn’t the playbill, if that’s what you call it. It’s a shirt, a pair of jeans and a ticket stub.
Juliet Aurora (28:21):
That’s awesome. So, I know that we’re probably running out of time, but I have one last question for you. So, a lot of the customer experience that you have been talking about is, where your customer is walking through the door. So many businesses have gone virtual. How can a virtual business have that type of customer experience? Because for most virtual businesses, they’re just focusing on streamlining that customer service, so that there’s no friction for them not having a physical space.
Dennis Moseley Williams (28:53):
Okay. That’s a great question. And here’s an answer I hope is up to it. Here it is. So, at the very, very beginning, we started with the, what the hell is experience? And I said, well, it’s not service. It’s not time saved. It’s time well spent. So, there’s two more pieces now. Experience is time well designed. Okay? And experience is memory. If there’s no memory, you didn’t have an experience. If you can’t remember it, if it didn’t grab your attention. And that was something I meant to say a moment ago, which is whatever business you think you’re in, you’re not in that business. You are in competition not to sell more shoes, boards or consulting services. And in your case, you’re not in competition with other podcasts. You’re in competition for people’s time, attention, and money, so that you’ve got to capture their attention.
Dennis Moseley Williams (29:55):
So, let’s get into your question, you’re capturing their attention and you have to hold. You have to be worth their time. Because if you’re not, they know, “I could just get this faster, cheaper.” And then of course, you want them to talk about it with others.
Dennis Moseley Williams (30:09):
So, here’s what you do. There’s five stages, everybody, of experience, and they all start with an E. So, it’s really easy, enticing, entering, engaging, exiting and extending. So for instance, let’s use your podcast as an example, in a few minutes, we will conclude this podcast and it will be shared with all your friends in the future. So, now we’re on the enticing stage of their experience. How can we start to get them excited about listening to this podcast that we’ll post two weeks later? You pull out little snippets. You pull out a picture. You share some cool stats on customer experience and customer loyalty, and cool things like that.
Dennis Moseley Williams (30:59):
On the entering stage, everybody, so you think about your own customer experience, everybody listening, what can you do on the enticing stage? What do you want your audience that’s going to join you virtually online, let’s say, to be thinking about right now? So, what are they doing in the enticing stage? What part is no fun for them? And how can you eliminate it? What could they be doing that might be fun or interesting, or personal? What questions do you ask them, so they start thinking, “Man, who’s this Steve and Juliet, who are they?” What a fantastically, great question.
Dennis Moseley Williams (31:32):
On the entering stage, let’s say they’re joining you in a Zoom call, what’s your experience now? There’s a title page that says, “We’ll join you shortly.” What could it be? “Oh, I guess I could customize it.” What have you got on early?
Dennis Moseley Williams (31:45):
This is what I do. I go into my Zoom call early. I share my screen. I have a couple of monitors on my desk, of course. So, I share my screen. And whenever I’m dealing with anybody, that’s not in Canada, when they sign into the room, they are immediately delivered to a tragically hip live event. Okay? I figured it’s my duty to share the hip with the world. So, I literally, then I turn my camera on and I say, “I’m here. I just want to give you a couple of minutes of this.” So, right away they tune it and go, “This is different.
Dennis Moseley Williams (32:15):
On the enticing stage, I’m preparing them. And on the engagement stage, then what do you want people to learn? How can you make it more fun? How can you transport them to another sense of reality? How do you release them, exiting back into their life? “Okay. Thanks, everybody. This was a great meeting.” Over your podcast, you have an intro, you do each time. And you have an outro, presumably that you do each time that lets our audience know we’re finished. We’re returning them to normal life now.
Dennis Moseley Williams (32:45):
Well, what’s your customer experience online like? How do you wrap up a meeting, so that it’s not just efficient, it makes the person feel good. “Hey, Steve, Juliet, have I taken care of all your issues today, all your questions? We’re not leaving anything on our list. That’s just goods and services. You say, “No, no, that’s great.” How do I do it? It’s not what I do. It’s how I do it in such a way that also makes you think two things. One is the impression, “No, no, you got it all done. And you’ve got everything, Dennis. We just feel like we’re with our parents when we’re with you. You don’t just get it done, you make us feel safe.” It’s like, there you go. That’s experience.
Dennis Moseley Williams (33:22):
And then extending after the experience, what’s all over. What do you do to keep it alive and keep them talking? There’s the service aspect. I send follow-up stuff and I send everybody a Christmas card. It’s like, “Okay, good. What did you learn from your client when you’re talking to them?” “We shared a little personal stuff, which I’ll keep between the three of us right now. But we shared some stuff at the beginning, right?” It wouldn’t be hard for me with your email addresses to find some really groovy online resources, which even if you’ve already seen them all, what would it tell you about me, if I said, “Hey, by the way, I was listening to you, and this is what you were telling me. And I’m excited about that kind of thing.” “So, you’ve probably seen this, but check this out, check this out, check this out. Here’s this article on this other thing that’s related to that.” What would it tell you about me?
Dennis Moseley Williams (34:12):
And if I had a relationship with you, where I want your loyalty, I want you to keep spending money with me, I’m going to keep that up. I’m going to look for all kinds of aspects in your life, of course, to keep you connected too.
Dennis Moseley Williams (34:27):
There’s two kinds of loyalty. There’s the loyalty of fear and obligation. quite frankly. Fear and obligation, “Yeah. They’re your client. They’re your barber because he’s closed and he’s open at six o’clock in the morning.” And then there’s the other kind of loyalty, which is connection and identity. I think the best way to explain this, I’m holding an iPhone, I’m an Apple guy. I love Apple. Okay? I guess, I like the way they say they see the world. It sounds similar to my worldview, who you are helping me become. Yeah, me and Apple, we see the world the same way. And I’ll point out, I pay a premium because it’s pretty. This sells for way more than it needs to. Price is the story you tell yourself, “Apple is worth more, blah, blah, blah.”
Dennis Moseley Williams (35:09):
You know who I hate? Am I allowed to bash other companies? Rogers. I hate my cell phone provider. I hate them. Fear and obligation, well, fire them. It’s such a hassle, I can’t. They got me bundled in and tightened to everything. They got my house stuff and my house. They got so many hooks in me. I can’t tell them to beat it. It works. It’s grotesque, but it works. Conversely, Apple doesn’t do that. It’s a different kind of loyalty, connection and identity.
Dennis Moseley Williams (35:40):
So, when you’re thinking of customer experience, that’s what it’s all about, sharing a worldview, leading them somewhere, a series of staged experiences that ultimately guide the client to, let’s call it a transformation. Even though it’s a word that makes people really uncomfortable, but I like to use it for that reason.
Steve Loates (36:00):
That is a lot of very, very good information. I just, I think, you certainly lived up to the billing there, Dennis.
Dennis Moseley Williams (36:13):
Right on, man.
Steve Loates (36:14):
That was terrific. And I think if anyone in our audience did not learn something from that, they were not paying attention. That was terrific. That was wise.
Dennis Moseley Williams (36:25):
Thank you very much.
Steve Loates (36:26):
We’re getting a long on time here. So, I’m actually going to skip over my favorite part of the show, because I thought it was more important that we get the information you were sharing with us. So, we’re going to pass on the James Lipton’s, Q&A round. Again, out of respect to our guests and our audience, and staying within our timeframe. But before we shut down, are there any final words you would like to share with our audience of entrepreneurs, Dennis?
Dennis Moseley Williams (36:59):
I would like to suggest that you read a book or three books that changed my life. And then at this is, it’s like these would be gifts, I’d give you. If I was working with you, I’d say you have to read The Experience Economy, by Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore, James Gilmore, two wonderful men, by the way, become friends of mine. Seth Godin’s, Linchpin. That’s a completely necessary book for everybody listening. It’s also a wonderful book for everybody listening to buy for someone they care about. Great book for a 17 year old. And then the final one is, Do The Work, by Steven Pressfield. Those are the three most necessary books.
Dennis Moseley Williams (37:45):
And I’d like to invite everybody to check out the seriousshiftsummit.com. If you liked this, my partner, Tom and I host virtual summits. You can attend my keynote for free, May 11th. And you can join our membership, if you want, and meet a whole bunch of other people like yourself that are creators, freelancers, business owners and join us on once a month little sit in. It’s a hell of a lot of fun.
Steve Loates (38:14):
That’s terrific. Thank you. What about you, Juliet? Do you have any final words for the audience?
Juliet Aurora (38:21):
I’ve made so many notes. We’re just going to be sitting back and revamping our entire customer experience, because we’ve been focusing on customer service-
Dennis Moseley Williams (38:29):
Yes.
Juliet Aurora (38:29):
… not the customer experience. So yeah, tons of great information. Thank you so much, Dennis, for joining us and for sharing all of that knowledge. And you also have a blog that I’m assuming talks about what we’ve talked about today.
Dennis Moseley Williams (38:44):
Yes.
Juliet Aurora (38:44):
And Steve, you’ll include that in the show notes.
Steve Loates (38:46):
Yep. In the show notes, we will have links to all of Dennis’s social places. I think you’re on Twitter and Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Dennis Moseley Williams (38:56):
And various government registrations.
Steve Loates (38:58):
Yes, absolutely. And two websites. So, that will all be in the show notes.
Juliet Aurora (39:04):
Perfect.
Steve Loates (39:04):
Terrific. That brings us, I cannot skip over this part, which is our words of wisdom. For those of you, you know me, I’m a quote nerd. So, here is this episode’s quote. Open, honest communication is the best foundation for any relationship. But remember that at the end of the day, it’s not what you say or what you do, but how you make people feel that matters the most. And that was Tony Hsieh, the former CEO of the super success story of Zappos. But I do also want to point out there that I’m pretty sure that the last part of that quote, he may have borrowed from Maya Angelou, who said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Dennis Moseley Williams (39:59):
That’s it.
Steve Loates (40:01):
I think that fits pretty well with today’s topic. So, again, thank you to our guest, Dennis. Fantastic job. Loved having you on the show. Thank you to my awesome co-host, Juliet. But most importantly, thank you to you, our audience for tuning in and giving us a listen. We hope you found some value. If you did, we would love it, if you were subscribed. We’re in all the regular places, or you can go to the website, smartmansmarterwoman.com. So, thank you. Until next time, take good care of yourself and those that you love. Bye for now.
Song by Adam Vitovsky / CC BY 3.0
