Creating Your Competitive Advantage To Outsell Bigger Competitors

Speaker 1 If I don't see any meaningful difference between you and the competition, why wouldn't I go with the cheapest if there's no difference? So then there's differentiation.

Speaker 1 We do something a little bit different. But the problem to me with differentiation is the way we're making our companies different may not really matter to customers.

Speaker 1 And I see a lot of these folks being different for difference's sake, but it's not a reason why customers would choose you. And to me, that's what distinction is.

Speaker 1 Distinction is not only have we found things that make us unique in the marketplace, they're things that really have traction with customers and attract them to do business with us.

Speaker 1 Because at the end of the day, we've all got to be in the business of customer attraction, whether it's an internal customer and hiring great people or an external customer choosing us instead of the competition as the place where they want to do business.

Speaker 2 Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business.

Speaker 2 Now, your host, the Home Service Millionaire, Tommy Mello.

Speaker 3 Welcome back to the Home Service Expert. Today I have a special guest.
I think this is going to be an amazing podcast. I got Scott McCain joining us from all the way out in Las Vegas.
How are you?

Speaker 1 We're hot right now, Tommy. Just glad you are there, right? It's welcome to summer.
As they say, it's a dry heat. My response is, so's your oven.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I just literally got two text messages of my HVAC buddies that this is what they've been waiting for.

Speaker 3 It's been a slow start to the summer, but now that it's kicking in, this is where they make their big money.

Speaker 1 Too bad. Too bad.
And I grew up on a farm in Indiana, and the old line is, make hay when the sun shines, right? So when you get a chance to do it, it's great. Get out there and get it done.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't mind the heat.

Speaker 3 I try to get out of here as much as I can in the summer so I can enjoy it in the winter. But it's going to get hot this summer.

Speaker 1 You know, I was just in Texas for a speech and

Speaker 1 I grew up in Indiana with humidity, but I've been here in Vegas for many years. And you kind of forget how the humidity, too.
It's just 90 in Dallas last week felt hotter than 110 does here in Vegas.

Speaker 1 So to each their own.

Speaker 1 And the bugs. The bugs.
They kill me.

Speaker 3 Literally. I think I got this blood type that just attracts bugs.
But

Speaker 3 yeah, let me just tell them a little bit about you. Scott's an expert in customer experience, creating distinction leadership, public speaking, business management.

Speaker 3 He's the Distinction Institute founder and CEO from 2013 to present and the leading professional keynote speaker for virtual and live events from quite a while ago.

Speaker 3 Smott McCain McCain is the founder of Distinction Institute, consulting training company that helps professionals.

Speaker 3 who work for leading organizations learn how to create competitive space in highly contested marketplaces and how to deliver the ultimate customer experience that will inspire greater loyalty from clients and enhance engagement from associates he's also the author of the amazon business bestseller book create distinction what to do when great isn't good enough to grow your business and forbes inc top 10 books iconic how organizations and leaders attain sustain and retain the ultimate level of distinction

Speaker 3 so yeah let's just talk a little bit about your career and and the CEO of the Distinction Institute. Just a little bit about your journey over it in the last few years.

Speaker 1 I'm very fortunate, Tommy. I grew up in a very small town, a rural community in southern Indiana, and my dad owned a grocery store.

Speaker 1 So I grew up like you would imagine, you know, stocking shelves and waiting on customers and that. And as I tell in my speeches.

Speaker 1 The day will always be in my mind where the guy that owned the clothing store across the street ran through the intersection to tell my dad they were clearing a field on the north end of town to make way way for the construction of a supermarket.

Speaker 1 And, you know, we had the only grocery store in town. So now all of a sudden our lives dramatically changed.
And

Speaker 1 one of the amazing things about it was that, you know, it's funny how much smarter your parents get the older you are.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 some of the things that dad did, I couldn't understand, but he devoted everything to the customer experience. And that little store survived and thrived in spite of big box competition.

Speaker 1 And so the fundamental lesson that I learned from that, one thing he didn't do was try to imitate the big box store.

Speaker 1 We saw local restaurants going out of business because they tried to be everything McDonald's was. And you can't out McDonald's, McDonald's.

Speaker 1 You can't out supermarket a supermarket when you got a small grocery store. So it really formed the formation of what I think about business.
And I've been very pleased and privileged.

Speaker 1 over the last many years to have been selected by groups like Apple, Porsche, Cisco, on and on and on.

Speaker 1 I mean, the biggest stellar companies in the world to speak with them about creating distinction and the ultimate customer experience. But it all goes back to entrepreneurship.

Speaker 1 It all goes back to small business.

Speaker 1 It all goes back to, you know, what I learned is owning a small business myself, but more importantly, seeing it in the face of difficult competition, what entrepreneurs need to do to survive and thrive.

Speaker 3 It's pretty interesting because a lot of people ask about my journey through the last decade. And I feel like it's getting easier.

Speaker 3 I feel like my trainer just literally five minutes ago he told me well it was probably 15 minutes ago he said one of my clients used you guys and he was so impressed that you text him on the way and actually had an uber like feature to track him and he also called and he said i knew everything about his family he used to play professional soccer we've got a bio and it's these little things that add up into a lot And when I think about the things we do for our customers and clients, I also try to think about, I was was on a podcast earlier.

Speaker 3 I actually drove down to the guy's shop. It's a pretty decent sized grouping company.
And he said, you know, where's your time get spent, your brainpower?

Speaker 3 And I said, half of it, I said, it's hard to compartmentalize it, but a lot of it is how to acquire great employees.

Speaker 3 And I think that differentiating yourself in this time is so important to be different about the way. I don't just say.
PTO and bonuses and health insurance. You got to be way different.

Speaker 3 You got to be fun.

Speaker 1 And millennials, they want to be involved yeah what is your thought process because i'm sure the last two years you've just been getting how do i get great employees yes yeah absolutely and you know the thing of it is everything that we talk about the customer experience relates to internal customers as well when you start thinking of your team members as customers of the culture of your organization customers of what you do you start thinking about them a little differently how we think as business leaders is so incredibly important because that's going to determine how we act

Speaker 1 we can't be stuck in that old thing. You know, hey, when I got my first job, if the boss grunted at me in the hall, I thought still employed, you know, I didn't want feedback.

Speaker 1 I just wanted to keep my job going. Right.
And so it's totally different now. And they expect an experience as a part of the process.
I had an entrepreneur come up to me after a thing not long ago.

Speaker 1 And he said, yeah, you know, these people, they want to be involved from day one. I knew I had to pay my dues.
I knew I had to do this. And I said, okay, so let me ask you this question.

Speaker 1 When you grew up and you went to Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas dinner, whatever, was there a kids' table? He said, yeah, of course. It was a big rite of passage that you moved.

Speaker 1 I said, today they don't have kids' tables. Many families sit at the table from day one.
They sit with the adults. It might not be true in your family or my family, but it's true in most families now.

Speaker 1 There's surveys to say, no, everybody sits together now.

Speaker 1 So you can't imagine that a kid that grew up sitting with the adults at the table is now going to come to work and not think they can sit at the table with other leaders.

Speaker 1 Whether that's right or wrong is irrelevant. It's the way it is.

Speaker 1 And so what we have to be thinking about is what procedures, what systems, what activities can we put in place so that millennials, and hey, we need to be talking about Gen Z.

Speaker 1 You know, millennials are in their 30s to a great degree now. We're hiring out of Gen Z now as well.

Speaker 1 So we got to be thinking about what are some of the things that we can do to get them involved and be the type of employer that attracts them.

Speaker 1 We've worried about attracting customers for years, but we haven't worried as much about attracting great employees until fairly recently. And that's what distinction is, if you think about it.

Speaker 1 There are levels to me of business. There's sameness.
Sameness is where I can't tell the difference between you and your competition.

Speaker 1 The only way I become a customer is to make a choice of who I'm going to do business with, right? I mean, that's the only way you become a customer.

Speaker 1 So if there's sameness, then the only way I choose you is because of price.

Speaker 1 If I don't see any meaningful difference between you and the competition, why wouldn't I go with the cheapest if there's no difference? So then there's differentiation.

Speaker 1 We do something a little bit different. But the problem to me with differentiation is the way we're making our companies different may not really matter to customers.

Speaker 1 And I see a lot of these folks being different for difference sake, but it's not a reason why customers would choose you. And to me, that's what distinction is.

Speaker 1 Distinction is not only have we found things that make us unique in the marketplace, there are things that really have traction with customers and attract to do business with us because at the end of the day we've all got to be in the business of customer attraction whether it's an internal customer and hiring great people or an external customer choosing us instead of the competition as the place where they want to do business so tell me a little bit about that because you talk about the ultimate customer experience i've surveyed and i know some things that are important to clients

Speaker 3 but you could talk to 10 clients and they'd say your reputation you're omnipresence you're everywhere you worked at my neighbor's door. I looked at your reviews.
Your trucks are nicer.

Speaker 3 I don't know if we did a lot of surveys, we'd get one answer.

Speaker 1 Right, right, exactly.

Speaker 3 So what is it that you really, how do you figure that out?

Speaker 1 Well, first of all, the magic's in the mix. I mean, there's not a silver bullet that if you do that, it's an ultimate experience because there are so many variations among customers.

Speaker 1 But one of the things I want to come back to something that you said that I think is critically important, and that is you've talked to customers.

Speaker 1 I deal with so many businesses and they they have that cliche about we're going to exceed customer expectations. I said, Great.
What do your customers expect?

Speaker 1 And they come back and say, well, we think, well, no, you've got to be asking customers. You got to be surveying them.
You got to be talking to them.

Speaker 1 You got to base this on evidence, not as much just gut feel. And so, yes, there's going to be variations in terms of what specific customers want.

Speaker 1 But then you ask yourself, okay, what are the main things that our customers are saying? For example, you just said, you know, you worked on my neighbor's doors. Okay.

Speaker 1 So how do we stimulate greater responsiveness? You mentioned earlier too, Tommy, I thought it was really important that when you said that, you think it's getting easier.

Speaker 1 I think about my dad in the grocery store. So how did we let non-customers know that we were the place to do business and you had to buy ads in the local newspapers and radio stations?

Speaker 1 Now it's easier. You know why? Because if you're doing a great job, people go on Yelp.
People go online and they post about it if you're doing great or if you're not doing great.

Speaker 1 And I've seen varying numbers in different surveys, but I think we can agree a huge amount of business is determined by what your evaluations are online.

Speaker 1 So the pressure is on more than ever before to deliver this experience. So it's exactly what you were saying.
You've got to be asking customers, what's really important to you.

Speaker 1 One of the other things, Jeff Bezos said, your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room. Well, by definition, definition, you're not in the room when they're saying it.

Speaker 1 So, the second best question is: if you were going to refer us to one of your friends, what would you say?

Speaker 1 Because when they answered that question, now they're telling you the primary reason that they're going to continue to do business with you.

Speaker 1 And they've already told you what you need to accentuate in future contact with them, but also in terms of your marketing to get more customers like them.

Speaker 3 You know, I saw something

Speaker 3 the other day and i read it to my guys on my thursday morning meeting i said

Speaker 3 when you say to a client do you have any questions versus

Speaker 3 what questions may have come up during my presentation it's it's just the difference of the wording is this like it pushes them to ask a question and i agree with you i i read a book a long time ago it's uh called competitive advantages by james smith And what they do is they send out a survey to a lot of clients and they find out what's important to them.

Speaker 3 And I always talk about this. price was number 10.

Speaker 3 There was all these other things. And it was a double-blind study with 500 garage door companies and they were doing it for the manufacturer.
Manufacturer had a lot more publicly traded company.

Speaker 3 They were more shy about spending 50 grand on a study. And I just use this all the time.
I'm like, we always think it's price, but they care about how quick you cleaned up.

Speaker 3 What kind of warranty do you have? Was the guy safe that you had out at your home around your family? These things matter.

Speaker 3 You don't think they matter until you get a guy out there that literally doesn't have any teeth. He's got tattoos and he smells like liquor and, you know, whatever drugs he's on.

Speaker 1 And then you're like, that became more important really quickly.

Speaker 3 And I think a lot of times apples to apples, but I don't sell apples. I sell oranges.
And I think it's important to want to do that because I don't want to be like anybody else.

Speaker 3 I mean, there's a lot of great companies out there, but I want to be distinct.

Speaker 1 I love it. Thank you.
Like, you know, it's funny.

Speaker 1 There's a plumbing group in a town I used to live in, and they advertised our plumbers will show up on time, they'll smell good, and you won't see their butt crack. That's a pretty good advertisement.

Speaker 1 And their business, their business exploded when they started saying that. You know why? Because

Speaker 1 you let somebody in your house, what do you want to know? First of all, you don't want to sit there all day waiting on them. You want them to show up when they said they would show up.

Speaker 1 Second, saying they said smell good, but we know what that means. It also means they're going to be clean, they're going to be neat.
And they even had special shirts that had long tails.

Speaker 1 And they, as is popular today, you know, their shirt wasn't tucked in. It was a neat uniform, but the back tail meant certain that you'd never be exposed to their butt crack, which sounds small.

Speaker 1 But imagine, you know, imagine some guy walking in. He's gotten off work.
His wife has let the plumber in. And like you say, the guy doesn't smell good.

Speaker 1 He's missing teeth and, you know, his cracks hacking out. Hey, come on.
We don't need that. But yet that's been the standard.

Speaker 1 in some businesses for a while because they just didn't think the customer experience mattered. And it matters more than ever before.

Speaker 3 There's a guy, the wizard of ads out of Texas. And

Speaker 3 one of the things that he promotes is you got to create a villain. And the villain is the guy that doesn't show up on time.

Speaker 3 He's the guy that smells and his butt cracks showing. So they kind of created that.
And the smartest companies in the world, they create a villain, but it's a fictional villain.

Speaker 3 It can't be a true competitor. I mean, I hear all the ads on like Fox and CNN about real competitors, like for political, but it really is.

Speaker 3 And I always tell people, look, you don't sell things that people need. You sell things people want.

Speaker 3 One of the things I always talk about is I always ask people to take out their cell phone when I'm on stage. And I say,

Speaker 3 so did any of you replace your cell phones in the last two years?

Speaker 3 And all of the hands, yes. And I go, so your old one must have busted.
It must have been not operable.

Speaker 1 And they say,

Speaker 1 they say, no, it worked.

Speaker 3 I just wanted a new one. And I say, Exactly.
Why does it have to be busted? How much do you have to wait till your phone doesn't work anymore? It doesn't take a charge anymore.

Speaker 3 It reminds me to charge my phone right now. But I always get confused because a lot of people don't need a new hot water heater at the moment.
They might be able to fix the current one.

Speaker 3 They don't need a whole new roof, but they've got three leaks. And it just makes sense because two more leaks are coming next year.

Speaker 3 And how much is the time for the damage on the drywall and everything else? And if you could paint the picture correctly, one of my buddies, Josh Kelly,

Speaker 3 he taught me this phrase, really smart guy. He said, here's what you need to do.
Here's what you should do. And if you were my mom, here's what I would do for my mom.

Speaker 1 There you go. Yeah, I love it.

Speaker 3 And it's a pretty cool little phrase. You know, how much of what you talk about,

Speaker 3 it correlates to sales, but it really is about an experience, right?

Speaker 1 It's funny you ask that, Tommy, because when I first got started, you know, part of the way to finance the beginning of my business, I did seminars. for a sales group.

Speaker 1 And so they had a program that I would go out and present, but it was their program.

Speaker 1 And one of the lines in their program, and this is 25 years ago, one of the lines in their program was service is the first step of the next sale.

Speaker 1 And now I realize that's a lie in today's world because service is the first step of the first sale. The customer experience and sales cannot be separated in today's world.

Speaker 1 You know, if I walk in a car dealership, for example, and nobody comes up and talks to me and the showroom's a little trashy and the salesmen are off in a corner talking to each other and nobody's coming to approach me.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to stand there and think, boy, I bet after I buy a car, then they're really going to take care of me. I will judge what the service department is going to be like.

Speaker 1 I will judge everything about that dealership based on the experience I have before they've even made a sale.

Speaker 1 So the experience and customer service now in today's world is so intertwined, you can't separate that. And I see that to groups a lot of times.
I say, hey, what's more important?

Speaker 1 The experience or the sale? And they act like they have to choose one or the other. You don't.
You have to have a great experience to make the sale now.

Speaker 1 And that's part of what we have to get to in business is the understanding. You know, one of the other things, I teach programs on storytelling.

Speaker 1 For a decade, I did movie reviews that were syndicated to a hundred TV stations around the world. So I interviewed everybody from.

Speaker 1 Tom Hanks and Arnold Schwarzenegger to directors like James Cameron that did Titanic and Avatar and, you know, the director Forrest Gump and a million others on great stories.

Speaker 1 And what makes a movie or TV show compelling is exactly what makes our company story compelling. And that gets to what you say.
It's, it's, there has to be conflict.

Speaker 1 Conflict comes from the villain or conflict comes from the problem. And I think a lot of times we in business are so excited, our hearts in the right place.
We're so excited about our solution.

Speaker 1 We want to jump into that and start promoting that before we've really made this conflict very apparent and very dramatic in our customers and prospects.

Speaker 1 So all of that is part of the experience, how we create and craft that story, how we tell that story, and how we make that part of a total customer or employee experience.

Speaker 1 I'm on a tangent here, but I got to tell you one other quick story. There's these two guys drinking bourbon in Texas, and they're friends and they want to start a business together.

Speaker 1 So one guy takes his bourbon off the napkin and he draws a triangle on the napkin. At the points of the triangle, he writes D, H, and S A stands for Dallas, Houston, San Antonio.

Speaker 1 He said, look, if we got out and got three planes and we flew them in this triangle, but we made it fun when you were on the plane, that'd be a hell of a business.

Speaker 1 Two guys were Roland King and Herb Kelleher.

Speaker 1 And that is the story of how Southwest Airlines got started. The important point is this.

Speaker 1 Every Southwest employee I've ever met can tell you the story of the bourbon coming off the napkin and the triangle.

Speaker 1 There was a pilot in Washington state named Leon Cuddeback, and Leon flew the mail from Pasco to near Seattle. And then he realized there were people needed to go there.

Speaker 1 So he started selling the extra seat on his plane. And before too long, he got more money from the passengers than the parcels.
So he bought a bigger plane.

Speaker 1 And that was the beginning of United Airlines. And I I have yet to find a single United employee.

Speaker 1 I was the keynote speaker for the United Airlines global sales meeting, and none of them knew the story.

Speaker 1 So the key is, are you telling your story not only to your customers, but are you telling it to your own people?

Speaker 3 You know, you just knocked a few marbles loose here. You give me some good ideas.
I love podcasts.

Speaker 3 You know, one of the things I've always learned from Sandler training is a pain funnel, fear, uncertainty, and doubt. And

Speaker 3 it works to a certain extent. I don't like to sell based on that only, but one of the things I always tell my guys is I was listening to Tom Hopkins

Speaker 3 recently. And so I had Tom Hopkins and then I had Zick Ziggler.
And I put little excerpts into my training for Thursday morning. And I think it was Tom who said, listen.

Speaker 1 Mr.

Speaker 3 customer, and he talks a certain way. He's like, you know, I have a choice to work wherever I want.
I'm very, very good at fixing garage doors, but I choose A1. And here's why I chose A1.

Speaker 3 And then you can tell the story is they flew me out to Phoenix for one month after my internship or apprenticeship to train.

Speaker 3 And I just thought of this is my screensaver, if I'm a technician, should be my certificate of like I graduated.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 So now it's like you're using props and you're telling the story and some of the prerequisites for me to get in is literally literally they interview over 300 people the higher one so you know you start learning these facts and right now we're building a whole learning management system off of recruiting and getting self-generated leads because i can tell the people hey go recruit but they don't know how you didn't train them there's no training solution and some of me thinks man i expect a lot for these people to learn but i'm basically teaching them how to be mini marketers and they win the day if we win that there's that attribution that's assigned with it it's funny because I got the greatest salesman in the world book.

Speaker 3 I think the guy sold.

Speaker 1 Dog Mandino, yeah.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah, there's that one. And then there's how to sell anything to anybody, the greatest salesman.
This one. So, this one is, he sold 10,000 vehicles during his career.

Speaker 3 He just learned how to really, really, really, he get repeat customers. He literally stayed involved with the journey with the client this whole time.
And they've used him again and again and again.

Speaker 3 And he was just no pressure, just a true advocate of the client.

Speaker 3 And if I could correlate anything and tell anybody that's listening that this one big thing is I always say, if I've got you as a client and I say, Scott, here's the thing.

Speaker 3 I'm going to call my supervisor and I'm going to go to war for you. And I'm not supposed to do this, but I'm going to see whatever I could do to get the best price.

Speaker 3 And I want you to tell everybody you know, not only the best price, but the best product. And we go into these different things.
And I always say it's, it's you and the client versus a one.

Speaker 3 It really is because you're their advocate. You're there fighting for them, getting them what they need.
And if you always remember, get them what they want and need, you'll always win.

Speaker 3 But they got to genuinely feel that you want that. I mean, the deal is, is like, I understand it might prevail more in like a supermarket area, like Ace Hardware.

Speaker 3 I go to Ace Hardware versus Home Depot because it's closer.

Speaker 3 But also when I walk in, I know I'm going to pay more, but I know they're going to be able IL4 on your right, five feet down. You know what it is.
Like they know everything in that store down to a T.

Speaker 3 And I guess with garage door companies, I mean, how often are you buying a garage door?

Speaker 3 Not very. So when you differentiate yourself, it's great to be that one on demand.

Speaker 3 And that's one of the things I've learned about Roy Williams is he's like, they don't need you very often, but when they do, you need to be the one.

Speaker 3 You'll save a lot of money on Google if they type in A1 garage door service. versus garage drawer repair Phoenix, right?

Speaker 1 You know, Tommy, years ago, I did some work with a company called Rogers Instruments.

Speaker 1 And one of their divisions, and one of the divisions I worked with, makes church organs, these huge pipe organs.

Speaker 1 And I said, how often does a customer need you? And they said, about once every 50 to 70 years.

Speaker 1 And I said, so there's not a lot of repeat business, right? And they said,

Speaker 1 well, yes, because the minister at one church goes to another church. and at his new church they need a pipe organ.
So we've taken great care of him at the first one. So now we get that sale.

Speaker 1 Or an assistant minister that was the number two person when we built the pipe organ then goes and

Speaker 1 she or he gets their first church and they need an organ, right? And so it's not that we're going to come back and put in new pipe organs or garage doors all the time.

Speaker 1 But if that person that put in a new garage door at this residence now moves to to another residence, they might need a garage door at the next place.

Speaker 1 Or their neighbor will come over and say, man, that door looks great. Are you satisfied? Who did that? And so when you get to the point that your customers are an integral part of your sales force,

Speaker 1 that's when you've created distinction because the word of mouth about what you do is so strong.

Speaker 1 that that literally is part of your marketing and advertising because you're getting such incredible word of mouth in the marketplace.

Speaker 3 And it scales fast. I mean, you're right.
I do think that getting the advocacy, you know, I live in Arizona. I'm from Detroit and those are the two biggest markets.

Speaker 3 I mean, Milwaukee's big and Vegas is big. But, you know, I look at what's been the most successful and it's because I've definitely worked hard to be out there everywhere.

Speaker 3 And I've got a lot of friends in both states. So they help me out and I ask them to.
I say, listen, keep my name handy. If you know anybody, introduce me to them.

Speaker 3 And it's amazing that if I had 500 employees, we have 500 now if i got half

Speaker 3 doing the right things and they got to get trained but each one of them have a wife or a husband or a significant other a lot of them have kids a lot of them are involved in a softball league a bowling league they're involved somehow in the community some of them i got a guy that's handmaking wood flags and giving them to uh soldiers as they return home I mean, these things.

Speaker 3 So I'm figuring out how can I contribute to like 20 a month, $500,

Speaker 3 and then have a really good opportunity. Well, I'll give a guy a percentage of every ticket and that foundation, whether it's a bowling league or a military, something for the troops.

Speaker 3 And there's a lot of work that's going into this. And I've never met a company that trains their people to be sales.
You know, enterprise is a great job, but how do you go into their personal life?

Speaker 3 Teach them how to post on Facebook, how to do TikToks, how to be part of a BNI group and benefit from it. Because right now people say, well, why don't you just do this? Like I do it.

Speaker 3 And they're like, what's in it for me?

Speaker 1 So I think it's I really think you're onto something there, though, because in particularly because of what you said earlier, Tommy, about what millennials are looking for, and we know Gen Z is looking for it multiple times that as well, is what about this job is going to help me grow as an individual, not just grow as a professional with your company with A1, but how do I get better?

Speaker 1 How does my life improve? And I think we're going to see more of that than we've ever seen before from the smart companies is they're going to to be teaching not only

Speaker 1 you know there's training and there's education training is how do i install this garage door because you don't want a lot of improvising there you want them to do it exactly right in exactly the same way education involves thinking and skills and self-awareness and knowing what to do so we want not only to train but we want to educate because the education part is How do you and I communicate effectively?

Speaker 1 But it's also going to be in the future, and it is now with some companies. How do I manage my money? How do I set a goal for myself for the future? How do I become a better person?

Speaker 1 How do I become a better partner to my spouse or my significant other? All of those things are going to contribute.

Speaker 1 We're past that time where we just thought that it was enough just to, you know, show up, put in the hours and get your check. Now customers and employees want significantly more than that.

Speaker 1 And if we're not prepared to help them get there, we're going to lose the best people to the organizations that are.

Speaker 3 I agree with you. We've got a dream manager program.
We got Kelly who runs the program, and we help people come up with dreams, their own dreams, and then we help them find those dreams.

Speaker 3 And homeownership is a big one. Credit repair is a big one.
And then we celebrate those wins.

Speaker 3 And we had a big trip to Mexico where any of the people that did over a million dollars in sales, they got to come on this trip. And we got an article written in their local newspaper about them.

Speaker 3 And I think that went pretty far.

Speaker 3 When these guys seen their name, it's something you're proud about. You could go to everybody and

Speaker 3 a lot of ancillary benefits. I didn't want to kill three birds with one stone, but people realized, man, this company takes care of their employees.

Speaker 3 And so it's something where when you start doing it, you can't stop because now it's like, it's contagious and you want more. And you're like, it just fills your heart up.

Speaker 3 I got to tell you, like, before I used to be like, what's, what are you going to do for me? Why would I go out of my way to to help you buy a house when you're not even good with your money?

Speaker 3 If you can't make money at 40,000, you're never going to save money at 100,000. But then I started realizing they just don't know.
It's like they didn't learn in high school.

Speaker 3 Their family never talked about it. And so if they're willing to listen, you know, I'm willing to help them.

Speaker 3 And I have, and I don't do enough. I will say I tried the best, but I could be.

Speaker 1 Oh, the fact you're doing something is so fantastic, Tommy.

Speaker 1 And I, you know, soapbox a little bit about this, but I think we need to blow things up and start looking at what are we teaching in schools?

Speaker 1 Because I have yet to have somebody ask me how to dissect a frog, but making sure I can balance my banking accounts is pretty doggone important. I don't, I don't remember that class.

Speaker 1 I kind of got in trouble back home a little bit lately because somebody said, okay, the college I went to asked me the question.

Speaker 1 They said, you know, of all the classes you took in high school and college, which one are you using the most today? And I said, typing.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, if you think about what I'm using every day, it's sitting on the keyboard and doing that.
I mean, it's not many of the other things that, and so much of life,

Speaker 1 I was so fortunate to learn in the school of hard knocks, not the formal education. And so the more that we can do that, man, the better off we are.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So let me ask you this.

Speaker 3 When you're trying to create and identify competitive advantages, that form of distinction.

Speaker 3 Obviously, we talked about talking to clients. What's the fastest, best way? Someone's, they're not a big business.

Speaker 3 Your dad, obviously, your parents figured it out with the grocery store and actually there's a great book called raving fans and they talk about grocery store kim lanchery yep i know kim yep absolutely it's a great book so the grocery store is like you walk in and they tell you where everything is they're willing to grab it for you they have someone that brings you out on a the cart for you and and they offer a lot more services that the big box stores don't at all But in a home service company, what's the best way to start to really realize those advantages?

Speaker 1 I think there's four cornerstones to distinction, and these are in order. First one is clarity.

Speaker 1 You got to be very precise about what you are, but the problem for many businesses is it also means you got to be very precise about what you're not.

Speaker 1 You know, what business are you going to turn down? What situations, what will you do? And also, what are you not willing to do?

Speaker 1 Particularly in the beginning phase, it's really tough because most of us, you know, if you can. fog a mirror and clear a check, you're a prospect.

Speaker 1 But the longer our businesses go, we got to think about who we are and what do we want to be known for.

Speaker 1 When someone refers us, what do they say? Let's be really clear about that. Then the second of the four is creativity.
What little twist, what little spin are we going to put on it?

Speaker 1 And one of the fascinating things is we've often misinterpreted this. It's not that we have to be completely unique.

Speaker 1 The example that I use in the book, Create Distinction, is the Taylor family starting a rental car business.

Speaker 1 And they know, not only can they not buy the cars in fleet as cheaply as Hertz and Avis, how are they going to compete? So they put down a list of every point of contact they had with customers.

Speaker 1 They said, let's just change one of them. Let's just do one creatively.
And some folks watching already know they named that little rental car business Enterprise.

Speaker 1 And they said, what if we brought the car to you rather than making you go get the car? And now they're bigger than Hertz and they're bigger than Avis. And by the way, there's zero product variation.

Speaker 1 The Ford I get from Avis is the same as the Ford I get from Enterprise. So it's not about a different product.
It's not about it.

Speaker 1 It's finding something, a little twist, something unique that you can do.

Speaker 1 Third is communication. How do you tell the story?

Speaker 1 And to the point you made earlier, Tommy, how are you using all of the tools out there, TikTok, YouTube, all of the things that now are available to us? How are you encouraging better Yelp reviews?

Speaker 1 How are you communicating? And then the fourth and final is the customer experience focus.

Speaker 1 It's focusing on those things you talked about earlier, that we're going to show up, we're going to look good, we're going to be clean, we're going to be there on time, we're going to clean up after the job is done.

Speaker 1 We're going to do all of those things.

Speaker 1 So when we make the list of those four, clarity, creativity, communication, customer experience, and we work our way through those, then we will find a way to create more traction and stand out in the marketplace.

Speaker 1 You know, we spent a lot of money and did a big survey of customers. And to your point, we were talking about this earlier.

Speaker 1 We asked what were the most important things a company could do to earn your business and then to earn repeat business.

Speaker 1 And this was one of those we did with a survey survey company that was scientific the whole bit. And price was most important only with those people earning at poverty level and below.

Speaker 1 So that makes sense, right? I mean, if you're making 20 grand a year and you're in significant difficulty economically, then that may be the first. But the number one thing for everybody else was

Speaker 1 do what you said you would do when you said you would do it.

Speaker 1 Now, here's the amazing thing. That sounds so simple.
It shouldn't be brain surgery.

Speaker 1 But the thing that we kept finding in the studies that we were doing is that so few businesses do it, that simply doing that is going to make you stand out from the competition.

Speaker 1 Just doing what, and Larry Wingott uses that line in a book of his, and it's the same thing that came back on the surveys.

Speaker 1 Doing what you said you would do when you said you would do it, being consistently high integrity in your business.

Speaker 3 Man, too many notes for one podcast. This is great.
I got like, I'm blossoming with ideas here.

Speaker 1 Oh, you're so great, Tommy.

Speaker 1 I appreciate the chance to join you today. What you've done has been so remarkable and so amazing.
Our mutual friends, Jerry and Cheryl Eisenhower, just can't say enough good things about you.

Speaker 1 And so I really appreciate them making the connection with

Speaker 1 putting the two of us together.

Speaker 3 Really, it's amazing to be just have you on here. You wrote a book.
It's a best-selling book, Creating Distinction.

Speaker 3 Can you share with us a few insights that the book business leaders can use to grow their business?

Speaker 1 The book create distinction really is based on the three destroyers of differentiation, which is copycat competition.

Speaker 1 A lot of people get in business and they think they'll see somebody more successful. So they think if I imitate them, then I'll be okay too.

Speaker 1 And that's a very difficult place to be because that means you're never going to get better than they are because they're the innovator, you aren't. So you have to take that.

Speaker 1 second is how the marketplace has changed you know i used to be i would go into a car dealership well the the ceo of bmw uk told me this he said a few years ago the average customer would make six dealership visits before they made a purchase now it's the 1.3 visits why

Speaker 1 said because our customer already has the information before they go to the dealership right i can get online and i can do research about garage doors now where before i'd have to talk to somebody a lot of your customers and my customers as well they're doing the research online before.

Speaker 1 So that changes the game to some degree. And the third one is, and I think this impacts small business, even perhaps more than bigger ones.
Well, a quick story.

Speaker 1 When I was growing up, my mom always used to say, familiarity breeds contempt, right? Be careful, familiarity.

Speaker 1 And that's not true. Familiarity breeds complacency.
So if I'm familiar with a customer, I tend to take them for granted.

Speaker 1 Or if I've consistently done a good job for them, but they don't see anything new that I'm doing or new ways that I can help them, then they take me for granted too.

Speaker 1 So you put the three of those together and they're synergistic and they are erosions of the differentiation that you hope to establish in the marketplace. So what do you do?

Speaker 1 You've got to be clear about what you are and what you aren't and you have to promote that. You've got to be creative.

Speaker 1 What's something that you could do that would be just a little bit different, just a little bit unique.

Speaker 1 I'm using big company examples simply because everybody understands them but but if you check in a double tree hotel they give you a hot chocolate chip cookie when you check in and man i've gotten to the point that i'm pulling my real car in and my mouse already watering because and notice that has nothing to do with a hotel but it is something unique that you identify.

Speaker 1 It's a creative way that they go, man, that is really good. It's what my friend Jay Bear calls a talk trigger.
It's something that you talk about.

Speaker 1 I've worked with Volkswagen dealers in Australia and they will leave some little gift on the seat that's unexpected, but just thanks for service with us.

Speaker 1 You know, it might be a stick that you can use in your computer. It's just something different.
That's an unexpected gift. Third is your story.
And it gets back to what you said earlier, Tommy.

Speaker 1 Where's the conflict? What's the villain? Here's, I think, part of what we have to persuade our customers on. If I'm looking at a new garage door, there's a part of me that's thinking about ROI.

Speaker 1 What's my return on investment, right? I mean, what's the ROI of me spending the money now now when I want it as opposed to when I need it? We don't talk enough about the other ROI,

Speaker 1 which is the return on inaction.

Speaker 1 What's it going to cost me if I don't do anything? Many times as customers, we assume that inaction isn't going to cost me anything.

Speaker 1 But in sales and in service today, we need to be talking with customers about that ROI.

Speaker 1 Because there will be a consequence if I don't do anything. That consequence might be, and it varies based on the customer, varies based on the product, but what's the return on inaction?

Speaker 1 And how can we move customers through our story from inaction to decision? And then finally, it's about that experience.

Speaker 1 I serve on the in-residence faculty at High Point University in High Point, North Carolina, with Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, with Mark Randolph, co-founder of Netflix.

Speaker 1 And we go in and we talk to students about what the real world is like. But High Point University is such an incredible example.

Speaker 1 When my friend Nito Cobain became the president of High Point University, it was in a rundown area in a difficult, economically challenged community. They had 1,500 students.

Speaker 1 Today, they're going to hit about 6,000 students.

Speaker 1 Campus is unbelievable, ranked as the best.

Speaker 1 And my friend Nito, the president of the university, said, I have two customers. Customer one, parents.

Speaker 1 What does a parent want? The number one thing a parent wants is, when I invest all this money in college, is my kid going to get a job?

Speaker 1 So one of the first things they did was start working with employers.

Speaker 1 And now they're at the point that when a kid graduates, a student graduates from High Point University, over 96% of them at graduation either have a job or they've enrolled in a master's program. 96%.

Speaker 1 But he said, my second one is students. And what do students want? Now, I don't know what your bedroom looked like when you were a high school kid.
There wasn't much in mine.

Speaker 1 And he said, now high school kids have a computer. They've got an Xbox.
They've got a nice screen TV. They've got an iPhone.
They've got. So I had to make dorm rooms look as appealing to them

Speaker 1 as

Speaker 1 their room did back in their house. And so I thought about what the student experience is like.
And when you combine those two, now you've created an experience for your customer.

Speaker 1 that they just can't believe. And that same principle works regardless.
I hope you don't mind me addressing addressing this.

Speaker 1 Somebody wrote, how would you create a system for a business based on a specific skill like a barbershop? Again, it's thinking about what that's like.

Speaker 1 You know, at Dwight's barbershop in Cruthersville, Indiana, there were two barbershops in Cruthersville. Always went to Dwight's.
You know why?

Speaker 1 Because as a kid, A, he sponsored a youth little league team. So I felt loyalty there, but he always gave you candy at the end.
It had nothing to do with how he cut hair.

Speaker 1 It was that he was involved with students and he gave you something like that. I go to a barbershop here called V's.

Speaker 1 And one of the things I love is

Speaker 1 Gretel that cuts my hair knows my name and asks about Tammy, my wife, and wants to know where am I next vegan. So I feel like I'm visiting a friend.

Speaker 1 My buddy Joe Calloway says, my favorite restaurant is the one where they know my name. Right.
When you walk in and it feels like norm walking in cheers, boy, there's an old example.

Speaker 1 But that's how we all want to feel at a barbershop. That's how we all want.
So at the end of the day, the skill is incredibly important. I mean, what if the system worked, but the haircut?

Speaker 1 See, okay, so there's three levels at which we interact with customers. The base level, level one is what I call processing.

Speaker 1 But processing, whether it's a barbershop or garage doors or Delta Airlines, processing consists of what I have a right to expect as a customer.

Speaker 1 If you don't get that right, nothing else matters. So if the skill is a haircut, if I don't get a haircut that I think makes me look okay,

Speaker 1 then nothing else matters. If I go to Delta and the plane is dirty and the pilot hasn't been trained and all of that, then nothing else matters.
So we got to make a list.

Speaker 1 Harvard recently said only 16% of businesses even have a list. of the non-negotiables.
What does a customer have a right to expect every time? So you make the list and start working on that.

Speaker 1 You're in the top 16%, right? What does every customer have a right to expect every time? That's processing. Okay.
Now, once you've done that, I want you to take me to level two. Level two is service.

Speaker 1 Service makes processing efficient and palatable. In other words, the right-hand knows what the left is doing.

Speaker 1 I don't have my salesperson in the garage telling me one thing and the office tells me something else.

Speaker 1 And you answer the phone quickly and you're friendly and my invoice is correct and all of that, you know, the barbershop is clean.

Speaker 1 I don't have to sit and wait, even if I've got an appointment, you don't make me wait for 30 minutes. That's service.

Speaker 1 But then the highest level is the experience.

Speaker 1 And the experience creates personalization.

Speaker 1 And through that, it creates emotion. Okay, so, so here's Tommy in your business.
I mean, you folks sell a lot and service a lot of garage doors, but man, I got one house.

Speaker 1 I want to feel like you care about my garage, right?

Speaker 1 And so that's what makes the experience emotional to me when I can stand back and I'm more proud of my house because now I've got this garage door that just makes my house look great.

Speaker 1 Or when you create this experience where, you know, Greta asked me how Tammy's doing and where's your latest speech. It's like she cares.

Speaker 1 And that makes it emotional. And people want to repeat and refer experiences.
The level of experience is where loyalty and referrals come from.

Speaker 1 Because why should I be loyal to something towards which I have no feeling?

Speaker 1 I'm not going to be loyal to something if I don't care. And why would I refer something unless I have that feeling?

Speaker 1 Because If I have a great experience, Tommy, I'm going to call you and say, hey, man, you've got to experience this. It was great.

Speaker 1 But if I'm indifferent about it, I'm never going to make the effort to tell you, you know, my buddy Shep Hiken says the F-word in business is fine, right? How is the service? That is fine.

Speaker 1 How is the meal? That is fine. How's your haircut? It's fine.
And that's where, Tommy, to your point, though, that's where raving fans come from. It's because we've got everything right

Speaker 1 because customers don't want us to make it right. Customers want us to get it right.

Speaker 1 So we deliver it processing. We serve and there's no friction.
And then we create these emotional experiences that inspire repeat and referral business.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 3 a lot of the PE firms, they really go in and they do a net promoter score and a nine or a 10 is all they accept. So basically, nine or a 10 means outgoingly promote your company.

Speaker 3 And I think that there's something there. And, you know, you spoke about something earlier, clarity, one of the four things.
And I'll tell you this. I meet a lot of these companies.

Speaker 3 They take anything they can get their hands on. I'll do commercial, I'll do Home Depot.
I'll get involved with Costco.

Speaker 1 I'll do home warranties. And

Speaker 3 the best thing I can tell you guys is I took it all on and slowly but surely got rid of one at a time and realized this is where I need to live.

Speaker 3 And every once in a while, it's a whole different system. It's a different training.
It's almost like running multiple businesses.

Speaker 3 And once you get big enough, you can create different departments and monetize them correctly.

Speaker 3 And I'm so glad I got to be involved with all of the mistakes because now I can look at somebody in the eyes and say, I've been there and I used to have a technique for selling home warranty companies.

Speaker 3 I'd say they care about three things.

Speaker 1 It's done on the same day or within that amount of time.

Speaker 3 Number two, it's done for cheap. They actually have an algorithm that runs against that.
And they want the client to renew the membership. They want them to not think they're pieces of crap.

Speaker 3 So I say, Scott, you lucked out. You got the best home warranty company.
in the United States. You're going to have to pay their fee at $70 today and we'll get whatever's going on fixed.

Speaker 3 And then I talk about how they're covering the labor, how long they've been around. So if I'm able to get that customer to renew the warranty policy,

Speaker 3 and I say, listen, they covered all the labor today.

Speaker 3 So here's what I could do. I can go ahead and do all these other things.

Speaker 3 It's just the parts cost, which, or we can wait for it to break, you can pay the $70 five times this year, and you can get stuck in your garage again.

Speaker 3 But I'd get the ticket four or five hundred dollars. I could run a few more of those jobs than the average a day.

Speaker 3 And And then if I could get them to give me a percentage of the membership I sold and pre-approval, because I'm keeping their rates down.

Speaker 3 So that way I don't have to wait for two hours to get someone on the line at their facility.

Speaker 3 So I just, I think everything we're talking about right now, and I love, we're working on a dog toy right now.

Speaker 3 I didn't want to get bones because bones, they were kind of materials that made up, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 I get a really nice.

Speaker 3 A1 from day one, funny squeaking toy. And every guy drinks it.
And what's the great thing about a toy is even if our employees have toys, they go through a couple of them.

Speaker 3 Bones, you can just have the whole world giving them out, which

Speaker 3 is not that expensive. Milkbone actually has a program.

Speaker 1 You know what I love about it? Is if you give them a treat, that's disposable. But a toy sticks around.
I love that.

Speaker 3 You know, and I was just thinking about this damn cookie company that you got me thinking about now. And I'm like, there's a company called Send Out Cards, Cody Bateman.

Speaker 3 And I spoke at their event, and

Speaker 3 they've got a pretty nice API now.

Speaker 3 and what i could actually do is i can take four pictures while i'm in the garage one with the dog one here one here one here and then my installers install the new door let's just say we did it and then we send them a couple brownies with a nice card yeah absolutely what's super cool about that it could be simple

Speaker 3 and it could be just i wanted to let you know mr jones that we really appreciated your work A lot of fun talking to you about your Harley-Davidson. Wish you the best.
And remember, I'm your guy.

Speaker 3 Here's my number.

Speaker 1 And see, that's so much better. People ask me about a thank you card.
A thank you card is great. A thank you card beats no thank you.
But what you're talking about beats the thank you card.

Speaker 1 Because now, see, a thank you card is great service. The card you're talking about is a great experience because now it's my dog.
It's my garage. And that is an experience because now it's personal.

Speaker 1 Now it's what I'm proud of. Let me answer the question here, if you don't mind, just real quick.

Speaker 1 So how do I teach my employees to learn in a way that contradicts what they've been taught until now that's a tough challenge there's no simple answer for that but the best i got in a short time is you get your employees and you say what got us here got us here it's the marshall goldsmith line what got us here got us here but i have a vision that i want to share with you that's beyond that and what got us here won't get us there so from now on we're going to talk about what will get us there We're not going to keep reinforcing what got us here.

Speaker 1 And you're going to have some employees that go, they'll share in your vision if it's described right, because they'll want to be a part of it. And you'll have other people that go,

Speaker 1 let's see how long this lasts, right?

Speaker 1 And so it's your constant reinforcement of the values and the culture and the vision that you have for the future that's going to win out over an extended period of time.

Speaker 1 So it is starting with it now, saying, here's my vision for the future. The training and everything we've been talking about got us here.

Speaker 1 But now we got to focus on how we're going to get to this new level.

Speaker 1 And so all of our education, all of our training, all of our work from now on is going to be to fulfill this vision, the shared vision that we should have of where we go.

Speaker 1 And see, that's the other thing is that so many times, you know, and I see this so often with the groups I work with, you know, I've done some work with music retailers.

Speaker 1 Nobody got into being a music retailer because they wanted to deal with customers. It's because they loved being around guitars and drums and the musical instruments.

Speaker 1 So what we have to do is take the passion that they have, whether it's styling hair or playing music or construction, those kinds of things, and show them how the customer aspect of it is perhaps the most important thing we do.

Speaker 1 So we take that skill that we've developed. I've got some buddies that are musicians, and they can sit in their garage and sound great, but that doesn't make them any money.

Speaker 1 It only makes them money when you build relationships with fans who want to keep buying tickets to come back and see you again and again. And the same thing's true in every business.

Speaker 3 I love this stuff.

Speaker 1 So I got more notes here than most podcasts I've ever done.

Speaker 3 And you know what I love is you must have told a dozen stories. And I think the listeners out there, you talked about the fresh cookies.

Speaker 3 You've got so many stories at the grocery stores of the haircut. And I was going to tell you, I pay a subscription to get my haircut.
I'm going tonight at 630.

Speaker 1 Now, here's the deal.

Speaker 3 There have been twice. that they couldn't get me in when I wanted.
So I went to Great Clips, paid the extra anyway, still got the subscription.

Speaker 3 So for me, I think the most important thing for me is it gets me in when I want that's convenient for me.

Speaker 3 Tell me a little bit about iconic versus the distinction, because there's two different books, two different times.

Speaker 1 The first part of iconic talks about what we talked about with distinction, but the story of how I came up with iconic was one of my early clients for all this was the Fairmont Scottsdale Princes.

Speaker 1 And Jack Miller is the CEO out there at the Scottsdale Princes.

Speaker 1 And we went through this whole thing about how could they stand out from other resorts in the Scottsdale area. So we went through a whole process.

Speaker 1 So we broke the company down saying, what's a distinctive front desk? What's distinctive housekeeping? You know, what's a distinctive gift shop like?

Speaker 1 And we focused on how do we make every aspect of the business distinctive?

Speaker 1 Well, they start winning all these awards and they become the most profitable in the Fairmont chain of all the Fairmont hotels in the world.

Speaker 1 And so I'm having breakfast with Jack and he said, okay, so what's next?

Speaker 1 And Tommy had never occurred to me before. I was talking about how to create create distinction, but not how do you keep it or not how do you come to the next level.

Speaker 1 So here's how I define distinction. Distinction is you're the go-to in your business, right? If you're going to get a garage door, you got to call A1.
I mean, there's nobody else you want to talk to.

Speaker 1 That's distinction in that business. But the level above that is iconic.
And iconic is your business is so incredible. that people that aren't in your business want to learn from you

Speaker 1 because they're going to to adapt part of what you're doing into how they run their businesses. So, in other words, people look at the clichés, Netflix and Starbucks and

Speaker 1 Amazon,

Speaker 1 not because they're going to set up a competing business, but because they want to know what did they do that was so incredible that I could incorporate in my business. So, I'll give you a couple.

Speaker 1 Iconic organizations play their own game. They play offense, right? They aren't worried about what others in the industry are doing.
They play offense. Iconic organizations stop selling.

Speaker 1 By that, I mean they remove the pressure techniques and they focus on the experience and promoting how satisfied and thrilled their current customers are. So they get more into customer attraction.

Speaker 1 They build relationships rather than closing sales. They create experiences rather than the 47 different techniques to hammer a close.
They go negative. That was one of the things that surprised me.

Speaker 1 And Tommy, I know from starting with Jerry that this is something that you do in your business as well.

Speaker 1 I don't mean we're negative people, but you can't be iconic if you aren't ready to hear negative information.

Speaker 1 Right? So many non-iconic businesses, like a customer has a problem.

Speaker 1 Hey, we'll fix it. We'll do whatever it takes to make you a happy customer.
And the problem is that's where they stop.

Speaker 1 They aren't willing to then drill deeply enough in either what was wrong with the process or what was wrong with the the training or what was wrong in what we did to create this dissatisfied customer in the first place.

Speaker 1 I go to restaurants, the service is bad or the food is cold. And what do they want to do? They want to give me $10 off my next trip to that restaurant.
Why would I give them another chance?

Speaker 1 You know, it's not worth 10 bucks to have another bad meal, right? They haven't drilled deeply enough into

Speaker 1 How do we make sure we don't manufacture more dissatisfied customers?

Speaker 1 So the book iconic is really about, yeah, the rule I set for myself when I was writing the book was: no, Amazon, no Apple, no Southwest Airlines, none of the clichés.

Speaker 1 So, I tried to find more entrepreneurial businesses to use. And I'll give you one quick one because I know we're about out of time.
St.

Speaker 1 Elmo's Steakhouse in Indianapolis was just named today as one of the 10 finest steakhouses in America.

Speaker 1 They are based in Indianapolis, and they have more gross revenue than Tavern on the Green in New York City.

Speaker 1 There are eight other steakhouses in an eight-block area. And my bet is St.
Elmo's grosses what the other seven do.

Speaker 1 There are several reasons, but one of the reasons gets back, Tommy, to one of the things that you brought up earlier. Every waiter at St.

Speaker 1 Elmo's has a professional business card with their cell number on it.

Speaker 1 And at the end of the meal, they give you their card and they say, I would love to have you as a guest again.

Speaker 1 Call me and I'll make certain that you get a table and I'll make certain that you're in my section.

Speaker 1 So every waiter is kind of like an entrepreneur, you know, not an entrepreneur outside, but internally. They're building their own clientele.
They're building their own client lists.

Speaker 1 They are doing things to ensure that people come back.

Speaker 1 One of the cool things they do for employees is they have an annual dinner for their employees, shut the restaurant down, have an annual dinner for employees.

Speaker 1 They give you a bottle of wine of the vintage of the year that you started. And they said one of their biggest line items now is people love their jobs.

Speaker 1 You know, you got waiters making six figures a year, easy, and trying to find a bottle of 81 Cabernet, you know, because they've been there forever.

Speaker 1 But that's part of, I mean, the best waiters in Indianapolis line up to get to work there. So they keep attracting better employees.
And they've expanded.

Speaker 1 Tommy, sometime when you're in India, I don't know if you've eaten there before, but you got to go get their shrimp cocktail. They have a sauce there that will tear you up.
It is

Speaker 1 so good. And it's one of the best steaks ever.
But it is the package. It's the total experience.
And so in Indianapolis, you could run an insurance agency or own a car wash.

Speaker 1 And you're thinking, how do I become the Saint-Omo

Speaker 1 of my business? That's iconic. And Tommy, you're doing that.
I mean, people there are looking at what you're doing and saying, okay, how do I take what Tommy's doing in his businesses?

Speaker 1 and learn from that so I can employ that in my business. When you get to that point, you're iconic.
Well,

Speaker 3 here's what I do know about Steak 44. It's a steakhouse here: is there will be a manager stopping off at your table, and they will make sure everything's right.

Speaker 3 They'll make sure everything's satisfactory before you leave. And then the next day, you will get a phone call checking in on everything.
How was your birthday? How was the special occasion?

Speaker 3 And they're training. Now,

Speaker 3 I've talked to several of their managers. Every time I have a manager come by, I get their card.
I've got a lot of stuff here.

Speaker 3 And I'm going to be calling my buddy Jeff in Indianapolis and telling him I need to get out there to St.

Speaker 1 Oh, absolutely. You betcha.
Hey, Golden Steer. Next time you're in Vegas, let's go to Golden Steer because that's another one.
It is the local place that it's off strip.

Speaker 1 And we were there the other night and they're very San Omo-esque in that. You go to Golden Steer.
And here's the other thing. People often ignore their own uniqueness, right?

Speaker 1 There's something unique that customers would love to know about. So Sinatra used to dine there, right? It's off Sahara.

Speaker 1 So between shows, Sinatra would go there for dinner and he had his own booth and he'd bring people frank sinatra booth and so people want to make their reservations early could we sit in sinatra's booth can we oh yeah that's distinction it is it really is

Speaker 1 you can't go to morton's which is a great steakhouse but you can't go to morton's and expect you're going to be in the sinatra booth so it's we run from our own uniqueness what makes you and your business unique in a manner that will bring you greater referrals and greater business.

Speaker 3 You know, Paul Wise just asked, you know, how do you give your technician's number out and not lose to other clients? And we actually have a call forwarding number.

Speaker 3 So we own it through Service Titan and it forwards to their cell phones. So we can hear every single call that goes through.
And it's a great opportunity for us.

Speaker 3 And the one thing I'll add to all this stuff is a systematic approach to where you're taking the human being out of it as much as possible.

Speaker 3 Like when I think about these brownies, I think about what's an easy way to create an API and and have technology do it. I don't need someone sitting there making sure everything.

Speaker 3 I'll automate it into a way that it's so unique and so special, and it never gets forgotten. It never falls behind.
It's, it's using other people. I read something earlier, thought it was pretty cool.

Speaker 3 This guy's philosophy, he's a massive, massive realtor. He said, ready, fire, aim.

Speaker 3 He said, the reason we do ready, fire, aim, and he said, that's what we live by, our philosophy all in our offices, ready, fire, aim, is there's too many people

Speaker 3 that they're aiming forever they're dialing in their scope they're waiting to take the shot and by the time they're ready to take the shot it's too late it's

Speaker 1 already left itself mine should be fire ready aim

Speaker 3 because because i jump in so fast i literally we're working on some partnerships and i text this exact tick tock video to a couple of the guys that I work with that were working on acquisitions.

Speaker 3 And the banks lined up. We got a $100 million line.

Speaker 3 We're partnering with companies making them millionaires and letting their employees stay on and doing all these cool things with these crossroad companies and it's so exciting and i'm like we cannot wait for this thing to be super perfect nike didn't make a fortune saying just think about it

Speaker 1 yeah just

Speaker 1 do it right i mean that's exactly it i mean we get paid based on action not on contemplation And so I would rather be action oriented than process oriented.

Speaker 3 Well, you know, I definitely recommend buying buying your books. I took a look at Amazon.
Actually, I got them both. And they're not read yet.

Speaker 3 I've got a lot of books that are in the line, but, you know, it's kind of funny because I have this guy named Jeffrey Gittemer.

Speaker 1 Oh, who?

Speaker 1 You know, Jeffrey.

Speaker 3 And I have two copies of the Little Red Selling book. And I keep going through these.
And I got like 10 more. I bought every book that he's come out with.

Speaker 3 And the one thing I got to tell you that I took from his just the way he does the quality of the book. And he puts a little thing for to figure out where your place is.

Speaker 3 And it's just the pages are thick and full of color and funny little things.

Speaker 3 I said to myself, I need to buy all this guy's book study just the way he puts his book together because you know you're buying quality. Right.

Speaker 3 So you can't say we're all about quality, sell oranges to then come out with a book that's literally, I know we're trying to get it to the masses.

Speaker 3 And if you look at the first E-Myth book, but now you've got an opportunity to spend a little bit more money. And that's what I want to be known for is quality.

Speaker 3 So, you know, the first thing i'm doing tonight is going to go stop by steak 44 and then we're going to go shoot a video with one of the managers and i love this i love doing these things because how cool is it when the employees or the future employees see me going into a steakhouse that everybody knows in the area and here i am interviewing one of the best restaurants and here's the thing

Speaker 3 they'll promote it now they'll talk about it and You know, I think you have to have 10 years of experience minimum to even get a job as a manager there. And you got to work 18 days on the floor.

Speaker 3 So we talked about a lot of stuff here. Usually I finished up with three main questions.
The first one is: you've got a couple of great books out there. We talked a little bit about those.

Speaker 3 What's the best way to get a hold of you if somebody wants to reach out and touch base?

Speaker 1 Oh, I appreciate that. Just scottmcain.com.
There's all kinds of resources there, from the books to the speaking to professional coaching and all of that. You can find information about all of that.

Speaker 1 As you see here, it's M-C-K-A-I-N,

Speaker 1 a little different spelling on that than the late former senator from Arizona. But yeah, just scottmckain.com has all the info that you need.

Speaker 1 And obviously all the books and everything else is on Amazon.

Speaker 3 And what are the three books that stood out in your life that really, we always get the e-myth and the ultimate sales machine and the richest man in Babylon and how to win friends and influence.

Speaker 3 Is there ones that maybe aren't so world renowned that you think are just, they really make a big difference?

Speaker 1 One that he's a pal of mine, but that's not why I love the book. It's Joe Calloway, and it's called Be the Best at What Matters Most.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 a lot of us try to be the best, but is it really what matters most for our business? One quick story. He tells about the rowing, the British rowing team.

Speaker 1 And they just had a phrase, does it make the boat go faster? So somebody have an idea, and it might be a great idea, but if it didn't make the boat go faster, then it wasn't critical.

Speaker 1 They wanted to be the best at what mattered most.

Speaker 3 What mattered most to the British rowing team is making the bow go faster and it challenges us as leaders and as business people to focus on what really matters most in our business and of that how can we be the best and when you're making your mission vision core values and you really got a goal i find all these distractions i just had an opportunity i don't want to go into details because it's um kind of under an NDA, but there's opportunities that present themselves that sound so good.

Speaker 3 And you think, think, does it help? And I talked to a really large private equity company.

Speaker 3 I talked to the head guy and he said, the opportunity that you're talking about, Tommy, you want to be the largest, most trusted residential garage drawer company in North America.

Speaker 1 That's your vision.

Speaker 3 He said,

Speaker 3 does this help it? Does it get you there faster? And I said, wow. When I really think about it, it doesn't.

Speaker 3 I differentiate some of my investments and whatnot, but when you really come down to it, is it really focusing on the right things?

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 3 And that's, it's like going through your calendar and saying, what do I need to get done to make the most impact? I always make this impact quadrant.

Speaker 3 What's the least amount of time, the most impact in the business?

Speaker 3 And sometimes it's a longer time, but it's a huge impact. And then I say, low impact, long time, just get rid of those.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Because you don't have the time to do it.

Speaker 3 Or you can delegate them.

Speaker 1 Let me give you two more that come to mind. Joey Coleman, J-O-E-Y Coleman, wrote a book called Never Lose a Customer Again.
Yeah, I read that. That's a great one.
It's a great one.

Speaker 1 And Jay Baer, B-A-E-R, Talk Triggers on how to create something your customers will talk about and will use to refer you. Oh, I want to give one more.
This book changed my life.

Speaker 1 I can't believe it was not the first one I said.

Speaker 1 It's by Phil Jones.

Speaker 1 And it's called Exactly What to Say.

Speaker 1 It will change the language that you use

Speaker 1 in an infinitely more powerful manner.

Speaker 3 I love this. I love this podcast.
This is really fun. It's different, you know, a lot of the stuff.
The one thing that I'll tell you is we always, I'm on a lot of podcasts. And

Speaker 3 the one thing I take from this is, trust me, there's a lot here. I got pre-posted on my computer to take care of right away.
But the big thing is, man, you told a lot of great stories. And

Speaker 3 the stories live forever. I could go back and I could recite these stories.
And I think that's the key. And when I think about stories, I think about, you know, testing my guys, just tell me a story.

Speaker 3 Like one of the things I love to do is tell jokes. And I remember every single key, but I include these little things along the way that most people don't.
And I hear somebody say the same joke.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, man, that's horrible.

Speaker 3 Like if you added these little details of, you know,

Speaker 3 it's these little twists, but I will say this has been great.

Speaker 1 And need to do this again soon. I hope so, John.
Be great. uh be great

Speaker 1 and i hope next time you're here or i'm there that we get a chance to get a drink or i would love that

Speaker 1 i'd love to do that my friend yeah i mean vegas i'd rather meet up somewhere else because i can get in trouble but uh vegas is a good city it's just it's prioritizing so well see that's the thing when you live here you learn you know you got to dial it back a little bit you know you got to

Speaker 1 yeah where whereabouts are you

Speaker 1 uh southern highlands area okay if you if you know where the m resort is we're real close to that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, well, if you ever need a garage drawer, we're pretty big in Vegas.

Speaker 1 I love it. All right.

Speaker 3 I appreciate you, Scott.

Speaker 1 We'll see you soon. Thanks, Tommy.
It's really been great being with you, man. Thank you so much.
Thank you.

Speaker 3 Appreciate it.

Speaker 4 Hey, guys, I just wanted to thank you real quick for listening to the podcast from the bottom of my heart. It means a lot to me.
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Speaker 4 You're going to find out all the new podcasts. You're going to be able to ask me questions to ask the next guest coming on.
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Speaker 4 It really helps us out when you like the podcast and you leave a review. Make it four or five sentences.
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Speaker 4 telling everybody our secrets, basically. And people say, Why do you give your secrets away all the time?

Speaker 4 And I'm like, you know, the hardest part about giving away my secrets is actually trying to get people to do them. So we also create a lot of accountability within this program.
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Speaker 4 It's homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash club. It's cheap.
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Speaker 3 I really appreciate appreciate it.