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Think Outside The Bowl- COMPETE AND STAND OUT IN A TODAY’S CROWDED MARKETPLACE

8/27/2019

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Today a great conference was held in Durham called, "Think Outside The Bowl". The event provided both inspirational and hands-on sessions to help companies increase loyalty, word-of-mouth, and most importantly, revenue. At this event they indeed took a deep dive to help your organization stand out in a sea of sameness!  The conference brought together expert faculty to teach approaches to Customer Experience, Brand Experience, and Employee Experience. The point was by focusing on experience design, companies can achieve greater results. Here is some of the top wisdom shared today at this conference:
  • In a world where commoditization is the norm, differentiation is key. The kind of differentiation customers and employees will notice doesn’t come from what you say, it comes more from what you do.
  • More than any other factor, your brand’s customer and employee experience will determine whether you thrive and profit or struggle and fade. There is a strong business case for winning the hearts of customers and employees, especially when it leads to increased retention and referrals. According to Gartner, a 5% increase in retention can boost profits by 25% to 125%.
  • In a world where commoditization is the norm, differentiation is key. The kind of differentiation customers and employees will notice doesn’t come from what you say, it comes more from what you do.
  • More than any other factor, your brand’s customer and employee experience will determine whether you thrive and profit or struggle and fade. There is a strong business case for winning the hearts of customers and employees, especially when it leads to increased retention and referrals. According to Gartner, a 5% increase in retention can boost profits by 25% to 125%.  

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  • Be more human in business and connect more...
  • Be careful of firm policies and rules to not ruin the human element of customer relationships and service
  • Let technology do what tech does best so we can let people do what people do best(Relate to other humans and take care of them uniquely)
  • Remember The Framework- 3 Rs:
  1. Relationships: Have to have good relationships with customers and understand their needs. This is first most basic table steak item to do. Then let technology do the remembering of customer data points and help your people do the connecting and empathizing.
  2. Responsiveness: Be responsive to people to support them timely. People demand improved response time. They want it now.
  3. Readiness:  Be ready to harmonized customer experiences. Bridge tech experience to human experience. Serve the customers where it's needed most.
Improve Readiness:
  1. Train your team. Have readiness culture, tech system, and employee experiences aligned to create that magical experience for customer
  2. Collaborate so departments work together and customer communication flow seamless because to customers their are no departments
  3. Understand not only what your customers need, but also the context within what and how they need it
  • THE MOST HUMAN COMPANIES WIN- Evan Carroll
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  • Warmth and competence is #1 reason per what people buy and become loyal to....
  • Warmth Perceptions + Competence Perceptions trigger resulting emotions and resulting behaviors...
  • 4 Universal way of perceiving and reacting:
  1. Warm+ Competent=Admiration Pride = Attraction, Loyalty
  2. Cold+Competent = Envy/Jealousy= Obligatory Association
  3. Warmth+ Incompetent= Sympathy = Indifference
  4. Cold+Incompetent= Contempt= Rejection
  • Basic human elements of warmth and competence is what leads to trust and loyalty by companies
  • Logos that exude warmth and competence are perceived better by people just like we look at people's faces for a read on situation....
  • People are the first brands, faces are the first logos
  • Don't be cold and impersonal. Warmth and competence drives customer likes and loyalty- Chris Malone
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  • Serving a customer, not a life sentence. Enjoy your work.
  • Great customer experiences start with engaged employees
  • 15 ways to engage with 3 categories:
  1. Building- Build situation where employees can thrive with good culture and practices so they can be primed to be great for customers
  2. Belonging- Recognize teams and peoples' contributions that make a difference to customers
  3. Becoming- Learn, give back, and grow your people so they are happier and healthier to be better fit to serve your customers.
  • Need to have engaging experiences for employees and customers
  • Green means you are growing! When you are ripe you start to rot. So stay green, keep learning!
  • "If you like it you should put a ring on it". Let engagement ring!-Lauren McGhee
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"Take care of your associates and they will take care of your customers"- JW Marriott
  • "Your brand is what other people say about you when your not in the room"- Jeff Bezos
  • The only way to deliver iconic customer experiences is through trust and empowerment by your people to have confidence and ability to exceed customer expectations.
  • Leaders become great, not because of their own power, but because of their ability to empower others
  • Don't micromanage so your team can rise and make decisions and trust you will support them
  • Rules are good, but need to allow for them to be bent or broken so employees can make adjustments to best serve customers individually. Nordstrom motto: "Use best judgement in all decisions to support customers"
  • Nordstrom known for customer service. Built on two components. The devil is in the details so do the little things right. And empower people and show you trust them
  • The Ritz Carlton- "Excellence Wins" every customer relations leader is given $2k to make customers happy! Make employees feel valued and trusted!
  • Chick-Fil-A vs. KFC  
-Chick-Fil-A Sells 3x as much as KFC with 1/2 the stores and closed on Sunday. The customer service experience is better (Clean, good product, employees are nice, smile, happy,and create great experiences. People become advocate and customer for life.
  • "If there is no risk, there is no trust". "Amp up the trust, Amp up the empowerment"- Calvin Stovall
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  • "People don't care how much you know, until they know much you care" -Roosevelt
  • Do you know we spend 10% of our life waiting...
  • Remember the etiquette of being on time. No one in life is ever on time. People are either early or late...
  • Same thing applies in marketing and customers we serve. No such thing as just meeting customer expectation. Either exceed or fall short. You must do the little things to make a bigger difference to exceed customers expectations.
  • A purple gold fish = do little things to give people a better guest experience and you win. For example, "Guppy love" per a pet gold fish given for free in a bowl if you like to have a pet during your hotel stay. Give people a reason to share their experience
  • Remember the one word "Lagniappe". Mark Twain said it's worth traveling to New Orleans to get: Lagniappe. The additional gift or receiving more then expected. ie. The 13th role in bakers dozen!
  • 10 Important Things to remember around two categories of VALUE and MAINTENANCE.
VALUE
  1. Make a good First and last impression
  2. Offer a nice throw-in
  3. Give sampling 
  4. Offer a guarantee
  5. Pay it forward
MAINTENANCE
  1. Added service
  2. Additional Convenience
  3. Better waiting on
  4. Handle mistakes like a pro
  5. Give good follow-up, thanks
  • "Always Exceed Expectations". For example, the Disney Parade! Now the most asked question at park is, what time is the parade? Walt Disney referred to this giving of something extra as "Plus-ing"
  • What is your version of parade or purple goldfish?- Stan Phelps
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  • The smallest differences can make the big change your trying to achieve
  • Be "Loud and Clear" in what you do and say....Can customer clearly hear you and understand you.
  • 5x5= High Clarity and High Quality
  • 4 tips to being loud and clear:
  1. Think the thought! It's the difference between reading a book vs telling the story. Use theatrics and embellishments to bring your message to life. Think about what you say as you say it! This perception makes all the difference!
  2. Be in the moment to keep fresh and convey message well!
  3. Say it out loud. Read your written message and speak your message out loud. Learn what will trip you up and what works. Does it sound like you? Normally takes 3 times to read and talk your message out loud with follow on edits to make your 4th time message all good. You can then shift to focus on a good delivery. The 5th revision time you are ready to perform it!
  4. Transform the Room. Make your speaking stage your room in your house. Then treat everyone like a guest at your house. Welcome them, be hospitable, engage them, and make them comfortable and connect.
  • Remember it's not about perfection in speech, rather it's about connection. The audience knows you are there to connect with them so remember your presentation about the message is more about the connection vs. perfection- Stephanie Scotti 
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  • The Customer Experience is the sum total of all the feelings evoked
  • Customer are emotional. Its' about the "F" word= Feelings
  • Loyalty is emotional. Customers who are engaged and emotionally attached result in customer loyalty.
  • Ask your team and company...How do we want our customers to feel when they interact with us and after? Then shoot for these positive good feelings you are after with these customers.
  • There are 2 Sets of Needs. Both Business/Tangible and Personal/Intangible
  1. Customer needs tool, solution, stuff, price, availability, speed, location, right fit
  2. Then customer has emotional needs like feeling valued, appreciated, loved, acknowledged, and recognized
  • Get beyond customer Satisfaction and elevate to customer joy & happiness
  • Positive emotions make us smarter, healthier, wealthier, and achieve the upper levels of our potential. Happy people have 65% more energy.
  • The F word is about E-Motion "All we are doing as leaders is taking the energy of our people and putting that route into our collective goals"- JoAnna Brandi.
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  • Great brands know who they are and what customers/employees want. They know what makes them unique. Attract what you want and detract things you do not want.
  • Illuminate the imperfections like Kintsui-Japanese art
  • Framework to separate yourself from competition. Main Highlights
  1. Flaunt: To parade without shame. Be proud of who you are and how you do it. Be unapologetic of what you do and stand for. Example, Buckleys Cough Syrup. It does not taste good and they know it so they marketed it like: "People swear by it and at it". Or this slogan, "It tastes awful and it works!"
  2. Lopsiding- Do more of what industry does less of to set yourself apart. For example McDonalds offering fruit and salads to fight the "Fast food bad perception", everyone else is also moving to reduce unhealthy food. Except Hardees! They moved to the THICK Burger...Hot dog on bun and chips thrown it! Then promote it, "Eat like you mean it. Instead of healthier lets make it more fast food yummy so they launched "The Aporkalypse Burrito and Biscuit- Bacon-Ham- Sausage. They launched marketing slogans like, 'Save a vegetable eat a roast beef sandwich". It just tastes better!
  3. Antagonize- Go against people who are not the right fit for you like people who text in movie theaters. The example is Alamo Draft house Theaters that has a rule that if you talk or text during a movie-we kick you out. Repel the wrong people. Who are you willing to anger to satisfy people you want?
  4. Withholding- Remove things that others add to stand out. For example, Black Black Coffee only serves black coffee. They have motto "Death to cream". They serve Black Black coffee because when done well and brewed properly and beans roasted right then less is more, black coffee is best!
  5. Opposing- Go against what all the others do. For example, REI revolted against the crazy Black Friday retail rush. REI did the opposite and launched a campaign, "This Black Friday REI doesn't want you to go shopping. We're closing to spend day outside. Please join us! The result, The REI Co-Op memberships increased.
  • Remember FLOWSOME= Flaunting, Lopsiding, Antagonizing, Witholding. Swerving. Opposing, and Micro-Weirding
  • "Don't try to stand out from the crowd, avoid crowds altogether"- David Rendall
Thank you Stan Phelps for the invite and great conference! One of the best speaking events I have ever attended! And Stan is offering free ebook downloads. Reach out to Stan to receive! Thank you!
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Wisdom on How to Be a Freelancer

8/8/2019

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Ever wondered what it's like to work as a freelancer? Do you dream of setting your own schedule and working wherever you choose? Today the Tech Talent South org hosted a great panel around this topic, "How To Be A Freelancer", where local techies discussed their journey in deciding to work for themselves, their greatest challenges, tips for getting started, and what it takes to be successful. Here is some of the wisdom shared to support your journey!
  • One key to success in freelance model is secure many different clients so you have a variety of projects to support your revenue stream while you also keep learning new skills and apply value in many areas...
  • Recommend LLC to cover liability so your personal assets and keep your personal assets protected. Get a separate bank account all different from your personal endeavors. You can always add DBA "Doing Business As" later to cover your various offerings. Different tax benefits to different structures like S-Corp, C-Corp, Sole Proprietor etc Keep your business credit cards to your business name only and all separate from your personal name. Keep liability separate.
  • Freelance is about doing what you love, giving services around what you are really good at, and work with multiple companies via various projects for many clients to drive business forward.
  • The more you do the better you get. Practice makes perfect. Do as many projects as you can in the beginning to build momentum and a solid base of work and then you can "pick and choose" projects/clients moving forward.
  • Get yourself out there and do what you love and try new things. See what people like and what sticks with the market. Business will then flow from there as you do more things that people value and pay for....
  • You can do freelance as a tool to learn new things, meet more people, drive incremental revenue, do what you love, and utilize freelancing as a tool to drive new career opportunities.
  • People pay for the risk you can help them manage and how you can add significant more value. It takes time to build up your rates by delivering well on projects, showing a good portfolio of work, and growing your rates overtime based on experience and success. Create value by doing things people can't do well or don't want to do that you have expertise and proven success in!
  • Some tools that can help you as freelancer: Zoom for external video/audio communications, Slack for internal communications, utilize HubSpot for outbound messaging.
  • Having an assistant is key as you grow to help you be accountable, keep on top of things, and give you new perspectives to ensure business keeps moving forward effectively & efficiently. Leverage your strengths and know your weakness so you can surround yourself with people who cover your weak spots. (Assistant can help you offload tasks for $15 an hour so you can focus that time on the big revenue activities).
  • Have to have a customer relationship management system (CRM)to keep track of clients and relationships along with the business details around it.
  • Set boundaries. Define your bandwidth and optimize your time and output because your work can become overwhelming and take over your life. Be careful to not burnout. Sustainability is key, keep a good work life balance blend!
  • Some advice points: 
    • Never settle! Always keep pushing yourself to build up. Upward and onward.
    • Find a mentor that you can meet with or have a call with to keep learning from like a professor or former colleague. Have a mentor that can help you figure things out to keep talking and learning. 
    • Always give people value. If peoples lives are getting better because of what you can offer them in feedback, ideas, or services then the better you will be. Add value, sales will follow. 
    • Be nice to assistants. The assistant today is the executive of tomorrow. 
    • Build your brand identity now as it adds up and compounds overtime so post valuable content pieces to show your expertise and value.
    • Be careful of scope creep. Set clear expectations of what will be done and not done for proper work definition to keep everything on track and prevent potential relationship issues from any misunderstandings.
  • Some quotes to remember:
    • *"You can't edit a blank page" so write your idea and concept down to give it life.
      *"Don't live for the weekend" so do what you enjoy during the week to keep healthy and happy.
      *Success is a journey. You only fail if you give up. Pivot or change if need be, but keep rocking forward"
Thank you Tech Talent South for putting on this nice event, the speakers Rob Jordan, Danielle Brycz, Beverly Tan, Sunny Su, and HQ Raleigh for hosting!
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Learn HOW YOU CAN SECURE NEW BUSINESS AND RENEW CLIENTS AT  HIGHER RATES with team selling

8/6/2019

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Tonight thanks to the Triangle Revenue Exchange, T-REX org, we met at WeWork in downtown Durham to enjoy great food, beverages, networking, and learning. T-REX brought in a great speaker Corey Richardson, the Vice President of Sales at Teamworks, who presented their team approach to selling. A great talk around how through collaboration and team work you can secure new business and renew clients at a high rate. Here was some of the wisdom shared:
  • Top 3 things for people to thrive: Air, Water, Food. Top 3 things for companies to survive: Employees, Customers, and Shareholders. Need all three, but focus in order of air and employees first!
  • Avoid internal channel conflict and internal competition that hurts morale so everyone gets along and works together. Need incentives for sales team members to cheer each on and work together! That is why team selling can help you achieve more.
  • Working in teams can help you better take care of customers with more support and if one person leaves still other team members helping account. 
  • Everyone contributes to the win. There is no I in TEAM.
  • Call sales reps advocates and consultants tp keep the right healthy sales perspective and  proper view on the work to help the customer.
  • Keys to success: "All organizations are perfectly aligned to get the results they get"
    • People: Right people, Skills, and Work
    • Structure: Roles & Responsibilities in Place
    • Rewards: Compensation & Recognition (Keep comp plans simple. Reward straight forward and celebrate team wins)
    • Resources: Have the right Tools, Technology, and Use of Time
    • Decisions: Give authority to those closest to the work
    • Processes: Have work processes that support the strategy
  • Keys to sales team success is to have clear roles and responsibilities to have all carry the weight. 
  • Regularly seek 360 feedback from the team. Be in tune with the pulse of how all is going in the trenches. 
  • Remove non-team players. Stop the lone wolves.
  • Over-communicate to  Senior Leadership Team and other department heads so your plan and intentions are very clear.

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A special thanks to T-REX, short for the Revenue Exchange (http://therevenueexchange.com) for event and WeWork for hosting, Corey Richardson from Teamworks, and sponsors!  

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New innovative music & entertainment event providing wisdom around the theme of l.o.v.e

8/2/2019

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Lights, Camera, Action! You don't usually think of innovation and wisdom when it comes to live music & entertainment productions, but certainly Cirque du Soleil and the bigger productions like Phantom Of The Opera paved the way with newness around events and musical theater. Well this new production called "The L.OV.E Show" does both with an innovative experience format both an event and musical theater like show featuring singers, songwriters, spoken word, comedy, visuals, and videos performed and shared by rising star talent along side wisdom story telling all around the theme of LOVE! 

The next show is at The Cary Theater in Raleigh, NC this Saturday August 31st for a 3pm and 7pm showing and has the best rising star talent in North Carolina performing their hearts out all on one stage for one day! It's a great date night and family affair to sit back, relax, and enjoy a memorable experience that will evoke all the wonderful emotions around the theme of love. The VIP seats also include a glass of wine and chocolate! Now that is romantic! 

​If you want to learn more about this innovative event and show sharing wisdom around the theme of L.O.V.E check out their website at www.LoveShowEntertainment.com or their L.O.V.E Show pages on Facebook, LinkedIN, and YouTube! Enjoy and feel the love!

Lastly, as a bonus, you can win two free tickets to The L.O.V.E. Show here: 
https://www.loveshowentertainment.com/enter-to-win.html
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    Author

    Keith Washo, Sales and Marketing Exec & Published Author,  From Silicon Valley To Research Triangle Park

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