Project Distinct Podcast

Yesterday’s episode generated several questions about where soft skills are in relationship and importance to hard skills. On today’s PROJECT DISTINCT, Scott McKain takes a look at the question…asks if perhaps we need different names for those qualities…and expands on why both are critical to success, but one is more important in today’s hyper-competitive world.

There’s an old business cliche that says, “You can only manage what you can measure.” On today’s PROJECT DISTINCT, Scott McKain reveals why that saying is a blatant lie in today’s marketplace. Citing research from Harvard Business Review, this episode is how a focus on metrics can actually create significant problems for you and your organization!

Everything you want is currently controlled by someone else. The money for the future of your business is currently in the hands of customers and prospects. The promotion you desire is under the control of someone else in your organization. The college where your kids want to attend gets to choose whether they will be admitted or not. So, how do you get chosen for what you want in business and life? On today’s PROJECT DISTINCT, Scott McKain outlines four steps that will help move us toward the type of performance and achievement we need to attain to get chosen for what we want in business and in life.

Just curious — do you suppose that pushy salespeople like dealing with aggressive sales types when THEY are the customer? Probably not. Yet, it continues to happen. So, how do you make sales when no one wants to be “closed”? Today’s PROJECT DISTINCT agrees that sales is a numbers game. The problem is, most sales people don’t examine ALL of the numbers! You’ll learn what that means on today’s episode!

At the recent Ultimate Business Summit, an important and insightful point was made: “Displaying your understanding of the customer’s problem is more important than presenting your solution.” This means that we all must be constantly learning and listening to ascertain the real problems that our customers — both external and internal — are facing. How can we accomplish that? It’s the topic on today’s PROJECT DISTINCT!

What if you could ask three primary questions that would help you discover how to deliver an Ultimate Customer Experience ®? On today’s PROJECT DISTINCT, Scott McKain reveals these three simple — but fundamentally important — questions that you should ask yourself to help enhance your ability

If you think exactly like everyone else in your industry, you won’t have the creative ideas required to create distinction. So, what if you started looking at what other iconic organizations do to serve their customers? Scott McKain noticed a recent blog post that used World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) as a model — and, believe it or not, it makes a great point! On today’s PROJECT DISTINCT, you’ll discover three reasons that you should be taking concepts from the WWE and applying them to your business!

If you’d like to read the original post by David Law, it’s at: https://www.focusonthecustomer.net/what-customer-service-professionals-can-learn-from-wwe/

In his recent book, “It’s All About CEX: The Essential Guide to Customer and Employee Experience,” Jason Bradshaw — Chief Customer and Marketing Officer and Director of Customer Experience for Volkswagen Group Austraila — points out that we “must transcend the obvious” as we deal with our customers. On today’s PROJECT DISTINCT, Scott McKain reveals this viewpoint of his friend and client...and discusses what it means for you to go beyond what’s obvious to generate a higher level of experience for YOUR customers.

If you’d like to read more about Bradshaw’s book:  Click here!

After a month of travel, Scott McKain is back with a NEW episode today — and it focuses on FOCUS.  Not only was that the name of the conference for wealth managers of LPL Financial where he was a speaker, it’s also related to the First Cornerstone of Distinction: CLARITY. It’s one of the most important aspects any leader needs to understand in order to stand out and move up.  And, it’s the topic of today’s PROJECT DISTINCT!

We’ve been trained to think we must have a positive approach to business — sometimes to the point that we think anyone who brings us negative information must be a negative employee! Sadly, that means many organizations and managers create a “shoot the messenger” approach. This means we sometimes aren’t learning of friction we need to eliminate to deliver an Ultimate Customer Experience ®. On today’s PROJECT DISTINCT, Scott McKain discusses what he learned in his research for the book, ICONIC, and the importance of “positive negativity” to eliminate the points of customer irritation.