Getting to Aha! with Darshan Mehta

In this episode of Getting to Aha!, Darshan Mehta is joined by Rebecca Brooks, CEO & Founder of Alter Agents. They discuss Rebecca’s aha! moments, how to improve customer experience by making it more powerful and emotional for them, the revelation of customer truths, the future of brand loyalty, the emotional side of customer experience, product innovation, experience innovation, augmented reality, brand response to feedback, and more.  

Rebecca Brooks is a consumer insights researcher who is passionate about revealing consumer history. She has always been interested in the motivations beyond human behavior, what people say and what they do, and why they are doing it. She uses insights from her research to find explanations and provide solutions to modern-day consumer problems and help businesses and brands make better decisions. Rebecca is the CEO & Founder of Alter Agents, a market research consultancy providing innovative quantitative and qualitative solutions that deliver consumer insights to businesses. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

👉 “When people are answering questions, they're answering kind of an idealized version of themselves”

👉 Rather than asking people, “What will you do?”, ask them what they did and why they did it

👉 Brands should always think from the consumers’ perspective, not from what you as a brand want to know, but what is their experience?

👉 There is no defined path to purchase 

👉 With Gen Z, we’ve come to a point where customer loyalty is incredibly hard to hold on to

👉 “Shopper promiscuity” in customers is due to the ease of access to information about several existing brands and markets, and the constant pursuit of the best products 

👉 The increase in customer research is due to the societal and self-imposed pressure to make informed decisions in purchases

👉 “[Brand] is packaging. It is advertising. But it is also who you are, what you stand for, how you are seen in the world, how you handle controversy, how you talk about things that have gone wrong. All of that is now part of the brand identity, and all have to be given equal attention"  

👉 Customer experience is “not only about innovating in terms of the products in your category, but it's also thinking about innovating the customer's experience so that you are living up to experiences that they're getting from other brands, even if those brands aren't in your category”

👉 Understand the emotional driver behind customers' purchases

👉 Creating an emotional connection between customers and your product is a great way to improve customer experience and aid customer retention

👉 “Understand who your shopper is, and where are they on the scale and kind of what are their needs at the moment. Are you really serving what their emotional health is?” 

👉 The ability to connect to customers' emotional side, figure out the driving force behind them, and make them happy are powerful components in the enhancement of customer experience 

Listen Now!

bCast - https://bit.ly/3ACsRBz

Apple - https://apple.co/3gsuA31 

Spotify - https://spoti.fi/3B0lVy6 

Youtube - https://bit.ly/3KYAHtd 

RSS -  https://bit.ly/3AFrUs6 

Getting to Aha! with Darshan Mehta is hand crafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include: Luca Popovac, Senior Executive, Abhilasha Sinha of Open Secret, Laura Beavin-Yates, Stephen Griffiths of Level 2, Kristin Luck or ScaleHouse, Melina Palmer of The Brainy Business, Nicolas Zeisler of We’re Doing CX Wrong and How To Get It Right, Pricilla McKinney of Little Bird Marketing, Brooke Sellas of B Squared Marketing and Joseph Michelli of The Michelli Experience.

Check out the 3 most downloaded episodes: 

• Changing the Direction of Customer Experience with Luka Popovac, a Senior Customer Experience Executive
• Innovation, Curiosity, and Being Human with Abhilasha Sinha, Chief Growth Officer at Open Secret
• [Greatest Hits ] Emotions & Consumer Behavior with Laura Beavin-Yates
  
  

If you are interested in joining Getting to Aha! as a guest, please complete this form

In this episode of Getting to Aha!, Darshan Mehta is joined by Katie Anderson, Author of "Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn.” They discuss Katie’s aha! moment from her meeting with Isao Yoshino, a leader from Toyota. 

They talk about the cycle of learning to be a leader to leading with a learning mindset. They also talk about the Kaizen mindset, the Toyota Way, the importance of reflection, asking the right questions for easy problem solving, and many more.  

Katie Anderson is the founder and principal consultant at Katie Anderson Consulting. She is also an internationally recognized leadership and learning coach, professional speaker, and the author of the international best-selling book "Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn: Lessons from Toyota Leader Isao Yoshino on a Lifetime of Continuous Learning." 

Katie has over 20 years of experience creating and supporting change and improvement in many industries. Her passions go beyond just learning and spill over to her love for travel. She has lived in 5 different countries outside the United States, including Australia, the UK, Japan, Spain, and the Dominican Republic. Katie is a B.A. holder with honors from Stanford University, and was a Fulbright Scholar in Australia, where she was awarded a Master’s degree in public health from Sydney University.


KEY TAKEAWAYS

👉 Develop a passion and attitude for learning

👉 “We need to learn how to be a leader. And then we need to lead with a mindset and intention of learning, not just learning for ourselves and our own sake, but helping others learn”

👉 Leadership is not just about how to achieve results; it’s about how you are helping people get more effective in the process of learning to achieve those results

👉 Develop a mindset of curiosity and how to lead to inspire learning in people  

👉 “When you move into a leadership or in a consulting or coaching role, your responsibility, your purpose is no longer about necessarily you being the expert with all the answers, but it's about you helping other people move towards the answer”

👉 A leader’s role includes not just command and control, but also directing and providing  support to others and simultaneously looking for opportunities for improvement 

👉 The simplicity of leadership is explained by answering the questions ‘Where do we need to go?’ ‘How can I help you figure out how to get there?’, and ‘What do I need to do to improve myself as well?’

👉 Creating a culture and attitude towards learning is not as complicated or complex as people say it is, but it requires putting intentional effort into showing up in a different way 

👉 “‘Pay attention to the quality of your questions”

👉 “Develop a habit of daily reflection because reflection is where the learning happens”

👉 Know what your role or your purpose is  

👉 Be intentional and purposeful about how you're having conversations. Learn to have open, blameless, and engaging conversations 

👉 Asking questions helps us avoid making assumptions, helps us understand and fix the root problems, and makes us better teammates

👉 Stop telling people what to do as it takes away their opportunity to go through problem-solving and puts the burden on your own back

👉 “When we connect with purpose and can align our actions, then we have a real positive and meaningful impact in the world”


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Instructions on how to follow, rate and review Getting to Aha! are here - https://bit.ly/3JbocJi

Getting to Aha! with Darshan Mehta is hand crafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include: Luca Popovac, Senior Executive, Abhilasha Sinha of Open Secret, Laura Beavin-Yates, Stephen Griffiths of Level 2, Kristin Luck or ScaleHouse, Melina Palmer of The Brainy Business, Nicolas Zeisler of We’re Doing CX Wrong and How To Get It Right, Pricilla McKinney of Little Bird Marketing, Brooke Sellas of B Squared Marketing and Joseph Michelli of The Michelli Experience.

Check out the 3 most downloaded episodes: 

• Changing the Direction of Customer Experience with Luka Popovac, a Senior Customer Experience Executive
• Innovation, Curiosity, and Being Human with Abhilasha Sinha, Chief Growth Officer at Open Secret
• [Greatest Hits ] Emotions & Consumer Behavior with Laura Beavin-Yates
  
  

If you are interested in joining Getting to Aha! as a guest, please complete this form

Jamie Flinchbaugh is a lean thought-leader, an entrepreneur, a senior executive, and a consultant. He assists teams with accelerating their journey by creating solutions to their problems and providing the tools and education needed to make lean leaders successful. Jamie is a board member,  co-founder, advisor, or angel investor to multiple companies and has 30 years of learning-oriented experience in various industries. He is also the author of “People Solve Problems: The Power of Every Person, Every Day, Every Problem,” and the founder of JFlinch.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

👉 Strategic thinkers are good problem solvers
👉 “…Tools sometimes get in the way of the thinking”
👉 Cultivate the right mindset to engage with a problem with a sense of curiosity, exploration, and humility
👉 Develop a thirst for knowledge  
👉 It is impossible to teach a person to be a critical thinker if they are satisfied with who they are and unwilling to open up their minds
👉 “...You learn through discovery…”
👉 Get comfortable with challenging your thought processes and decisions
👉 You need to create an inflection point for yourself or have it created for you. This inflection/feedback provides you with a new perspective to try again in a different way 
👉 If you can develop and maintain your sense of purpose and the drive to grow, your critical thinking and problems solving skills will only continue to improve exponentially  
👉 Practice deep reflection through deep structured thinking 
👉 Integrate both analytical thinking and intuition into your problem-solving process
👉 “...Get it out of your head and make it real.” Write your thoughts and conclusions down, as this simple act solidifies the idea you have conceived 
👉 The problem-solving process starts with asking yourself first what you don't know, what you need to learn, and how to learn it 
👉 Think beyond the template. “The template is just a job aid. It's just a starting point. It's not the goal itself.”
👉 We constantly look for formulas to get things done, but the ultimate formula is thinking, exploring, and continuous learning 
👉 “There's a lot of things you can't control. Roll with it, always be curious, and move forward.”

Listen now!

bCast - https://bit.ly/3ACsRBz
Apple - https://apple.co/3gsuA31
Spotify - https://spoti.fi/3B0lVy6
Youtube - https://bit.ly/3KYAHtd
RSS -  https://bit.ly/3AFrUs6 

Getting to Aha! with Darshan Mehta is hand crafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include: Luca Popovac, Senior Executive, Abhilasha Sinha of Open Secret, Laura Beavin-Yates, Stephen Griffiths of Level 2, Kristin Luck or ScaleHouse, Melina Palmer of The Brainy Business, Nicolas Zeisler of We’re Doing CX Wrong and How To Get It Right, Pricilla McKinney of Little Bird Marketing, Brooke Sellas of B Squared Marketing and Joseph Michelli of The Michelli Experience.

Check out the 3 most downloaded episodes: 

• Changing the Direction of Customer Experience with Luka Popovac, a Senior Customer Experience Executive
• Innovation, Curiosity, and Being Human with Abhilasha Sinha, Chief Growth Officer at Open Secret
• [Greatest Hits ] Emotions & Consumer Behavior with Laura Beavin-Yates
  
  

If you are interested in joining Getting to Aha! as a guest, please complete this form

Gerard Ibarra is a consultant, author, speaker and a serial entrepreneur, who uses his experience across multiple spheres of life to help companies and businesses make well-rounded and informed decisions for companies. Using several methods and analyses, he helps to bring company stakeholders together to improve their processes and reduce costs. Gerard, the Principal Consultant at Ibarra & Associates Business Consulting, received his Ph.D. in Logistics Systems Engineering and Operations Research from Southern Methodist University’s (SMU) Lyle School of Engineering.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

👉 Perform risk analysis; it is a method of making decisions in order to eliminate risks and evaluate the risk/benefit ratio of every task
👉 “Don’t let your emotions get the best of you”
👉 In every decision you make, have your true goal in mind. Have a clear image of what it is you’re trying to accomplish, as it will help you achieve that goal
👉 Consider the totality of all the factors that will make your final decision a good one, i.e., put everything into consideration and leave no stone unturned
👉 Negotiation is a great skill to have in decision-making. It helps narrow your options down, thereby giving you a clearer picture of the choice you're about to make
👉 Avoid walking into the confirmation bias trap. Get your  ego out the door and evaluate your options objectively in order to make the best possible decision
👉 “...There are things that you know, there are things that you don't know. But the worst ones are, there are things that you don't know that you don't know…”
👉 Getting people involved in a decision-making process helps create a balance because "if everybody's guts put together, then you'd make a better decision" 
👉 Get perspectives, viewpoints, and opinions different from yours from key players in your business or life. Doing so will help you make informed and better decisions and reduces the risk of making a wrong decision
👉 Draw up a chart to separate your needs from your wants so you can easily tell if the decision you're about to make is rational or emotional
👉 Have an exit strategy; a plan B. “...Part of that exit strategy should be, if this is not what was right, what do I do next?”
👉 During the process of critical thinking, when you’re making a life-changing decision, you have to stay focused

Listen now!

bCast - https://bit.ly/3ACsRBz
Apple - https://apple.co/3gsuA31
Spotify - https://spoti.fi/3B0lVy6
Youtube - https://bit.ly/3KYAHtd  
RSS -  https://bit.ly/3AFrUs6

Getting to Aha! with Darshan Mehta is hand crafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include: Luca Popovac, Senior Executive, Abhilasha Sinha of Open Secret, Laura Beavin-Yates, Stephen Griffiths of Level 2, Kristin Luck or ScaleHouse, Melina Palmer of The Brainy Business, Nicolas Zeisler of We’re Doing CX Wrong and How To Get It Right, Pricilla McKinney of Little Bird Marketing, Brooke Sellas of B Squared Marketing and Joseph Michelli of The Michelli Experience.

Check out the 3 most downloaded episodes: 

• Changing the Direction of Customer Experience with Luka Popovac, a Senior Customer Experience Executive
• Innovation, Curiosity, and Being Human with Abhilasha Sinha, Chief Growth Officer at Open Secret
• [Greatest Hits ] Emotions & Consumer Behavior with Laura Beavin-Yates
  
  

If you are interested in joining Getting to Aha! as a guest, please complete this form

Randy Krum is a Data Visualization & Infographics Designer, Author, Consultant, Speaker, Instructor, and President at InfoNewt. He is also the owner & author of Cool Infographics and is passionate about communicating insights through visuals. He liaises with multiple companies to visualize internal data such as internal processes, marketing strategies, consumer experiences, product differentiation, qualitative and quantitative research, website statistics, and so on.


KEY TAKEAWAYS

👉 Visualize your data because visual information is not only easier and faster to understand, but it's more memorable.

👉 “Go beyond (software) defaults.”

👉 “Focus on one thing that you're trying to communicate, don't try and throw everything into one chart.”

👉 “Try to minimize the text as much as possible and make as much of that communication visual as you can so that they're paying attention to you, to visuals, to where we're trying to focus your attention…”

👉 Be different. Think outside the box. Approach all work with a fresh perspective and tap into something simple yet unique that will resonate with those employing your services. 

👉 People like to feel like they belong in a story. They like to feel like the message is meant for them alone. Communicate to that part of them. 

👉 Make your visuals relevant to the data/message you're trying to pass across and make them memorable for the audience.

👉 “Data visualization design is not about making your charts pretty. It's really about communicating the data.” Data visualization is more about storytelling; therefore, tell a great story through your design. 

👉 Help clients figure out the insights they want to communicate and access the thought processes behind them by walking them through a design process.

👉 Know your audience and what you want them to do with the data you provide them. People only need you to tell them what to do to do what you need them to do. Instead of a heavy sales pitch or a heavy-handed persuasiveness, a simple call to action will do the trick most of the time.

👉 Get involved in trials and market experiments to gauge your market’s understanding of your data and their response to it. 
Listen now!

bCast - https://bit.ly/3ACsRBz

Apple - https://apple.co/3gsuA31 

Spotify - https://spoti.fi/3B0lVy6 

RSS -  https://bit.ly/3AFrUs6 

Getting to Aha! with Darshan Mehta is hand crafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include: Luca Popovac, Senior Executive, Abhilasha Sinha of Open Secret, Laura Beavin-Yates, Stephen Griffiths of Level 2, Kristin Luck or ScaleHouse, Melina Palmer of The Brainy Business, Nicolas Zeisler of We’re Doing CX Wrong and How To Get It Right, Pricilla McKinney of Little Bird Marketing, Brooke Sellas of B Squared Marketing and Joseph Michelli of The Michelli Experience.

Check out the 3 most downloaded episodes: 

• Changing the Direction of Customer Experience with Luka Popovac, a Senior Customer Experience Executive
• Innovation, Curiosity, and Being Human with Abhilasha Sinha, Chief Growth Officer at Open Secret
• [Greatest Hits ] Emotions & Consumer Behavior with Laura Beavin-Yates
  
  

If you are interested in joining Getting to Aha! as a guest, please complete this form

Whitney Dunlap-Fowler is the Owner & Independent Brand Strategist at A Touch of Whit. She is a freelance cultural strategist, semiotics expert, and future-proofing brand strategy maven. She has almost ten years of experience with fortune 500 companies from across the globe and uses her knowledge to build up brands. Whitney, a researcher and historian is also the Founder at Insights in Color. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

👉 Take a step out of your comfort zone to amass knowledge

👉 “…The past is necessary to understand where you’re going, and it helps you kind of contextualize why something might exist”

👉 Take a moment to ask yourself what you like doing and why you enjoy doing it. The answers you come up with have the potential to change your life

👉 Be receptive to feedback. Always find ways in which you might be wrong, have limited vision, or have a scope not broad enough for what you’re trying to create. Seek other people’s perspectives on what you're working on

👉 Challenge yourself

Listen now!

bCast - https://bit.ly/3ACsRBz

Apple - https://apple.co/3gsuA31 

Spotify - https://spoti.fi/3B0lVy6 

RSS -  https://bit.ly/3AFrUs6 

Getting to Aha! with Darshan Mehta is hand crafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include: Luca Popovac, Senior Executive, Abhilasha Sinha of Open Secret, Laura Beavin-Yates, Stephen Griffiths of Level 2, Kristin Luck or ScaleHouse, Melina Palmer of The Brainy Business, Nicolas Zeisler of We’re Doing CX Wrong and How To Get It Right, Pricilla McKinney of Little Bird Marketing, Brooke Sellas of B Squared Marketing and Joseph Michelli of The Michelli Experience.

Check out the 3 most downloaded episodes: 

• Changing the Direction of Customer Experience with Luka Popovac, a Senior Customer Experience Executive
• Innovation, Curiosity, and Being Human with Abhilasha Sinha, Chief Growth Officer at Open Secret
• [Greatest Hits ] Emotions & Consumer Behavior with Laura Beavin-Yates
  
  

If you are interested in joining Getting to Aha! as a guest, please complete this form

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, passionate about delivering amazing experiences for his customers. He is a keynote speaker and authority leader on giving customers the best possible experiences and customer retention in business. He is also a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today bestselling author of seven books, including Moments of Magic®, The Loyal Customer, and Be Amazing or Go Home. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

👉 The customer experience entails a lot of things, from showing appreciation to getting feedback and making improvements based on these feedbacks

👉 Insight is more than just a thought; it is internalizing and turning observation into action

👉 Do not let life go by you. Pay attention to the goings-on around you and seek out opportunities. Condition your brain to seek out opportunities linked to what you’re doing

👉 Customer experience begins the moment the customer starts thinking about what they want and how they’ll get it. It begins when want is just a figment of the customer's imagination

👉 “The best businesses recognize it's not about getting a customer; it's keeping a customer and getting them to come back over and over again”

👉 “Recognize all of the different ways customers interact with you, plot them out, and understand the journey that they take.”

👉 Remember; “Interaction over transaction, because the interaction is part of something bigger, the transaction means there's a finality to it.”

👉 “Customer loyalty to me is not defined as a lifetime. It's really defined as every next time opportunity” 

👉 Every company employee needs to be adequately trained on their role in contributing to customer experience. They need to understand what the vision of service and experience is for the customer

👉 “Amazement isn't about being over the top and blowing people away with the most incredible service they've ever had…it's just consistently and predictably a tiny bit above average…”

👉 “Train the customer to use the tools that will make them happier when they do business with you”

Listen now!

• bCast - https://bit.ly/3ACsRBz
• Apple - https://apple.co/3gsuA31 
• Spotify - https://spoti.fi/3B0lVy6 
• RSS -  https://bit.ly/3AFrUs6 

Instructions on how you can follow, rate and review Getting to Aha! are here: https://www.fame.so/follow-rate-reviewGetting to Aha! with Darshan Mehta is hand crafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include: Luca Popovac, Senior Executive, Abhilasha Sinha of Open Secret, Laura Beavin-Yates, Stephen Griffiths of Level 2, Kristin Luck or ScaleHouse, Melina Palmer of The Brainy Business, Nicolas Zeisler of We’re Doing CX Wrong and How To Get It Right, Pricilla McKinney of Little Bird Marketing, Brooke Sellas of B Squared Marketing and Joseph Michelli of The Michelli Experience.

Check out the 3 most downloaded episodes: 

• Changing the Direction of Customer Experience with Luka Popovac, a Senior Customer Experience Executive
• Innovation, Curiosity, and Being Human with Abhilasha Sinha, Chief Growth Officer at Open Secret
• [Greatest Hits ] Emotions & Consumer Behavior with Laura Beavin-Yates
  
  

If you are interested in joining Getting to Aha! as a guest, please complete this form

Kristin Luck is a serial marketing measurement technology entrepreneur with over 20 years of industry experience, an investment banker, advisor, and consultant. She is the Founder & Managing Partner at ScaleHouse, where she uses non-traditional growth strategies for marketing technology firms and market research companies. A woman of many passions, Kristin is the Founder of Women in Research, the President of ESOMAR, and is passionate about helping businesses scale and monetize their businesses. She is a guru at growth strategy, in-market optimization, product launching and positioning, data monetization, and turnarounds, among others.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

👉 “...I'm a big fan of lifelong learning and learning new things, and so I don't really shy away from that at all. And I think that's been really fundamental to my success as, not just an entrepreneur, but just having a lot of work, work satisfaction on top of that”

👉 A common thing among many successful people is their genuine curiosity and drive to learn, keep learning, and keep exploring

👉 An insight is “any piece of learning that you have…any kind of aha! moment that you have”

👉 “I think that is the key to being successful at anything is; are you passionate about it enough so that you will work on it day and night/ and that you think about it and obsess about it all the time?”

👉 At first, learning a new thing might make you feel dumb, but the key to overcoming that feeling is to keep learning and acquire as much knowledge on the subject as possible

👉 Read a lot and do it daily until it becomes a habit

👉 “...Just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean that's a good use of your time” Learn to prioritize your work and focus on what matters the most to you. Direct your energy to that and watch your productivity burgeon

👉 Follow your passions with all of your heart  

Listen now!

bCast - https://bit.ly/3ACsRBz

Apple - https://apple.co/3gsuA31 

Spotify - https://spoti.fi/3B0lVy6 

RSS - https://bit.ly/3AFrUs6
 


Getting to Aha! with Darshan Mehta is hand crafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include: Luca Popovac, Senior Executive, Abhilasha Sinha of Open Secret, Laura Beavin-Yates, Stephen Griffiths of Level 2, Kristin Luck or ScaleHouse, Melina Palmer of The Brainy Business, Nicolas Zeisler of We’re Doing CX Wrong and How To Get It Right, Pricilla McKinney of Little Bird Marketing, Brooke Sellas of B Squared Marketing and Joseph Michelli of The Michelli Experience.

Check out the 3 most downloaded episodes: 

• Changing the Direction of Customer Experience with Luka Popovac, a Senior Customer Experience Executive
• Innovation, Curiosity, and Being Human with Abhilasha Sinha, Chief Growth Officer at Open Secret
• [Greatest Hits ] Emotions & Consumer Behavior with Laura Beavin-Yates
  
  

If you are interested in joining Getting to Aha! as a guest, please complete this form

Getting to Aha! with Darshan Mehta is hand crafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include: Luca Popovac, Senior Executive, Abhilasha Sinha of Open Secret, Laura Beavin-Yates, Stephen Griffiths of Level 2, Kristin Luck or ScaleHouse, Melina Palmer of The Brainy Business, Nicolas Zeisler of We’re Doing CX Wrong and How To Get It Right, Pricilla McKinney of Little Bird Marketing, Brooke Sellas of B Squared Marketing and Joseph Michelli of The Michelli Experience.

Check out the 3 most downloaded episodes: 

• Changing the Direction of Customer Experience with Luka Popovac, a Senior Customer Experience Executive
• Innovation, Curiosity, and Being Human with Abhilasha Sinha, Chief Growth Officer at Open Secret
• [Greatest Hits ] Emotions & Consumer Behavior with Laura Beavin-Yates
  
  

If you are interested in joining Getting to Aha! as a guest, please complete this form