Commanding Business

Best-selling author of three customer service books, John DiJulius shares how a company can make their customer service approach and their customer experience their single biggest competitive advantage. Training is the #1 factor in an employee's ability to recognize and deliver world class customer service. In order to extract the gifts of a millennial workforce, an organization must include them in the corporate purpose.

Key Takeaways:

[1:32] Is it possible for a business to make price irrelevant, by competing in experience wars?

[7:36] A real business example of how Lexus breeds customer loyalty by reducing a 'grudge by' factor.

[10:24] How to reinforce the customer service vision statement using the 3 pillars:

● Quality

● Customer Interaction

● Going above and beyond.

[13:03] The Starbucks example — A customer service vision statement must be MOAT:

● Measurable

● Observable

● Actionable

● Trainable

[16:49] The currency for millennials is purpose.

[17:57] E-commerce giants give us whatever we want instantly.

[22:34] How to measure the service aptitude of a company.

[27:55] Training is the only way a business can proactively shape an employee to increase their awareness of what a world class customer experience is.

[30:55] The always and never list.

[34:39] The secret service component is the ability to collect customer intelligence and utilize it to personalize their experience.

[35:30] How FORD represents the most important things to the person you are serving:

● Family

● Occupation

● Recreation

● Dreams

Mentioned in This Episode:

The DiJulius Group

The Customer Service Revolution

Praxent

@PraxentSoftware on Twitter

New York Times bestselling author and applied neuroscience expert Christine Comaford knows what it takes to move people from the Critter State into the Smart State, where they have full access to their own creativity, innovation, higher consAciousness, and emotional engagement. When an entire culture maintains that state, it becomes what she calls a SmartTribe. Focused. Accountable. Collaborative. Imbued with the energy and passion to solve problems and do what needs doing, again and again and again. Today, Christine Comaford unpacks those ideas for us, offering practical tools for business leaders and managers.

Key Takeaways:

[1:53] Christine Comaford shares the big idea behind the predictability of building a company.

[3:09] Leaders should assist employees in moving from the critter state to their smart state.

[6:55] Christine outlines key questions for creating an Outcome Frame:

● What would you like?

● What will having that do for you?

● How will you know when you have it?

● What of value might you risk or lose?

● What are your next steps?

[17:24] The Outcome Frame helps leaders teach others to arrive at insights and aspiration.

[19:40] Advocacy shows a lack of trust in an organization. Leadership development is much more effective in the long run.

[23:07] Christine explains how to deal with conflict via the Feedback Frame:

● What's working is…

● What I would like to see more of is...

[30:48] Christine outlines a tool for helping teams operate in their smart state by focusing on high-value activities, as opposed to low-value activities.

[41:02] Revenue inflection revolves around people, money, and business model. Christine describes the characteristics that are present at each major level of company growth.

Mentioned in This Episode:

Smart Tribes Book

Smart Tribes Institute

Praxent

Tim welcomes Christine Comaford to the Commanding Business podcast. Christine is a leadership and culture coach and the author of the New York Times Best Selling book, Smart Tribes. Christine shares her proven insights and tools to help organizations regain valuable and productive work hours, align the right people with the right roles and have effective feedback sessions. She warns that advocacy shows a lack of trust within an organization and that people who remain in their “Critter State” are ineffective in the workplace. She believes business leaders should follow the guidance of a coach who has dealt with similar experiences. 

Key Takeaways:

[1:53] Christine shares the big idea behind the predictability of building a company.

[3:09] Leaders should assist employees in moving from the critter state to their smart state.

[6:55] Questions to create an Outcome Frame:

● What would you like?

● What will having that do for you?

● How will you know when you have it?

● What of value might you risk or lose?

● What are your next steps?

[17:24] The human brain must help people to have insights and to aspire.

[19:40] Why advocacy shows a lack of trust in an organization.

[23:07] Dealing with conflict via the Feedback Frame:

● What’s working is…

● What I would like to see more of is...

[30:48] Understanding high value and low value activities.

[41:02] Three areas to navigate to and through a revenue inflection point.

● People

● Money

● Model

Mentioned in This Episode:

Smart Tribes Book

Smart Tribes Institute

Praxent

Tim's guest, David Evans, is one of the world's leading authorities on multisided platform-based businesses. Many of the most dynamic public companies, from Alibaba to Facebook to Visa, and the most valuable start-ups, such as Airbnb and Uber, are matchmakers that connect one group of customers with another group of customers. Don't let the flashy successes fool you, though. Starting a matchmaker is one of the toughest business challenges, and almost everyone who tries to build one, fails. In today's episode, David Evans explains how matchmakers work best in practice, why they do what they do, and how entrepreneurs can improve their chances for success.

Key Takeaways:

[1:03] The 3 big ideas behind the book Matchmakers.

[3:15] David Evans describes three scenarios for overcoming the critical mass challenge that platform entrepreneurs face.

[8:01] Scenario three requires pre-commitment from one side of the match to encourage investments into the platform. David gives an example from the video game industry.

[11:37] The crux of the platform-based business is that there's reluctance on both sides of the platform, and entrepreneurs have to overcome that reluctance.

[14:09] David Evans describes how Apple used the self-supply strategy model to gain commitment and users.

[20:20] Developing the right pricing model is crucial to a successful matchmaker business. David Evans offers some pointers.

[24:37] David Evans offers a description of the history and future of the payment card industry, which all started with Diner's Club.

[36:50] Using mobile devices and payment platforms to move money can transform economies in developing countries.

[42:38] Why haven't mobile devices and payment platforms taken off in the United States? Friction must exist and be big enough to make consumers change habits and adopt new technologies.

[47:25] How to best connect with David Evans and gain additional insights on Matchmaker businesses.

Mentioned in This Episode:

Matchmaker Economics

Praxent

The smartest, most successful companies are using radically new membership models, subscription-based formats, and freemium pricing structures to grow their customer base―and explode their market valuation―in the most disruptive shift in business since the Industrial Revolution. Today's guest, Robbie Baxter, unpacks The Membership Economy: Find Your Super Users, Master the Forever Transaction and Build Recurring Revenue.

Key Takeaways:

[1:09] The big idea behind the membership economy.

[2:47] Cost certainty is part of the appeal to subscribers of membership-based organizations.

[8:18] Robbie Baxter unpacks three components within the membership economy: suspension, community, and loyalty.

[16:02] Businesses who adopt the membership economy business concept experience major benefits, including recurring revenue.

[22:27] Incumbent businesses in classically organized industries can adapt to the membership economy by focusing on and building off of the mission of their members.

[30:42] Robbie Baxter explains how a manicure business demonstrates the difference between fixed cost and incremental cost and why this matters in the membership economy.

[36:24] How to best Contact Robbie at Peninsula Strategies and read The Membership Economy.

Mentioned in This Episode:

Peninsula Strategies

The Membership Economy

@robbiebax on Twitter

Praxent

Today's guest, Jay Harman is the CEO of PAX Scientific and author of The Shark's Paintbrush. In The Shark's Paintbrush, Harman introduces us to pioneering engineers in a wide array of businesses who are uncovering and copying nature's hidden marvels. He shows business leaders and aspiring entrepreneurs how we can reconcile creating more powerful, lucrative technologies with maximizing sustainability. Jay Harman injects a whole new vocabulary and way of thinking into the business sphere that speaks to both small start-ups and corporate giants.

Key Takeaways:

[1:14] Biomimicry looks to nature to determine how nature has solved a problem humans are facing.

[2:48] Jay Harman designed a boat based on the "using the least to get the most" techniques used by nature.

[7:23] Examples of breakthrough innovations that are fundamental game-changers.

[16:59] PAX Scientific projects may allow for energy savings of up to 50%, meaning we may be able to reverse the negative effects of climatic change.

[20:40] The opportunities to optimize the energy requirements of automotives are endless.

[22:57] Reverse engineering a frozen whirlpool allows for an inventory of variables to study.

[26:16] How to best reach Jay Harman.

Mentioned in This Episode:

Praxent

PAX Scientific

PAX Water

The Shark's Paintbrush

Sangeet Paul Choudary is co-chair of the MIT Platform Strategy Summit, an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at INSEAD business school, and author of Platform Revolution and Platform Scale. In this podcast episode, Sangeet Choudary defines the concepts and drivers behind the platform business model, including the three trends that gave rise to this type of business entity. He also explains why he created the metaphor of the shift and how intelligent central platform businesses re-circulate learned data to create more efficient markets for the future.

Key Takeaways:

[1:07] Sangeet Choudary contrasts the platform business model with the pipeline business model.

[5:59] Apple and Android versus Nokia and Blackberry―an example of the shift.

[10:28] Intelligent platform markets encapsulate the flow between the producers and the consumers.

[13:54] Not all platforms are benevolent, but they should be.

[17:50] Sangeet describes three trends that have given rise to this new type of economic entity.

[21:32] Platform opportunities differ by market structure, consumer division and new forms of production.

[31:17] Sangeet describes the network effect―a phenomenon where the utility of a system increases its value as it is used by more people.

[34:37] Learn more about the platform business model discussed in this podcast.

Mentioned in This Episode:

Praxent

@praxentsoftware on Twitter

Platform Ed

Platform Scale

Platform Revolution

Sangeet Paul Choudary on Youtube

Jack Daly is a worldwide expert on sales and growing sales. He has built six companies into national firms, is an Amazon bestselling author of Hyper Sales Growth, and has completed 15 Iron Man competitions in eight countries. Jack Daly's proven methodologies focus on people driving the business. On this episode, Jack speaks with Tim on how to build an invincible sales organization, the four legs to a strong culture and the 'hire slowly, fire quickly' technique.

Key Takeaways:

[3:45] Eliminate everything from your calendar, except for High Payoff Activities.

[8:02] Sales are created by human relationships.

[16:56] To build an invincible sales organization, put people first.

[20:04] What are the four legs of a strong culture?

[24:37] Invest in explaining the long-term strategies of the company with new hires.

[29:36] Hire slowly, fire quickly.

[33:13] How does implementing the firing quickly method impact other team members?

[36:02] Recruit as a process, not as an event.

[47:14] Is it wise to turn a rock star salesperson into a sales manager?

[52:06] How to best contact Jack Daly.

Mentioned in This Episode:

Jack Daly

Hyper Sales Growth

The EMyth Revisited

Praxent

Praxent on Twitter

Marshall Van Alstyne is a Professor at Boston University and a Digital Fellow at MIT. He co-authored Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming The Economy And How To Make Them Work For You, and is a father of the theory of two-sided markets. Marshall joins Tim today to discuss how cutting-edge businesses are built on platforms: two-sided markets that are revolutionizing the way we do business. Tune in as they dig deep into the brilliant future of platforms, revealing how they will irrevocably alter the lives and careers of millions.

Key Takeaways:

[1:06] Marshall Van Alstyne explains how the rules that managers use to navigate the competitive landscape are changing from a Porter, 5 Forces way of thinking about the world to a Peter Drucker way of thinking about the world.

[1:26] In a platform business, the mindset shifts from managing a product to managing a community.

[10:21] How to create a market, value and wealth from an area in which there are spare capacity and resources.

[13:19] What is the macroeconomic impact of platform driven markets?

[18:48] The launch problem is made easier by borrowing existing users from another platform, or by seeding the market.

[22:48] It's easier to add a technology to a community than it is to add a community to a technology.

[26:37] Thoughts on how business schools are teaching management practices today, and how it should be taught in the future.

[32:05] Tips to use as guidelines for managers who want to leverage their external resources.

[37:28] Contact information for Marshall Van Alstyne.

Mentioned in This Episode:

Platform Revolution

@InfoEcon on Twitter

Praxent

Praxent on Twitter

Today's guest is the multi-faceted and uniquely talented Adam Richardson. He is the author of the book Innovation X: Why a Company's Toughest Problems Are Its Greatest Advantage, and is a contributing writer for the Harvard Business Review. Adam was formerly a design lead at Frog Design focusing on strategy and user research practices and today, he works as a product manager at Financial Engines. He shares his insights on how companies can continually bring innovation to the market, start solving 'wicked' problems and truly understand the customer experience.

Key Takeaways:

[1:14] There are common problems within certain business segments. If your company is able to solve the problems you have the advantage.

[5:44] Instead of attempting to solve problems with a purely internal, operations perspective, bring in an external, customer-oriented perspective for a balanced solution.

[11:48] A wicked problem is a type of problem that is very systemic in nature. You know there is a problem, but the fundamental challenge is trying to figure out what the problem actually is.

[12:26] To understand wicked problems you need to first start forming solutions. It's an iterative process where your understanding of the problem develops as you come up with initial solutions.

[15:35] Ethnographic research is working with a small number of customers in an intimate, emotional way.

[23:08] How can leaders adopt the challenge of the unknown to solve wicked problems?

[27:37] 'Design Thinking' is neither universal among designers nor exclusive to them.

[38:11] Leaders have to manage internal and external communications, and reinforce the company's vision.

[40:54] Customer journey mapping is one of the most powerful tools a company can use.

[45:44] Relinquish some control in order to provide the customer a unique experience.

[50:06] Contact information for Adam Richardson

Mentioned in This Episode:

Adam Richardson

@richardsona on Twitter

Frog Design

Financial Engines

Jobs to Be Done

NPR One

Praxent

Praxent on Twitter