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%.  

• 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

"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

• "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

• 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!

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!  

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