SIMPLE brand With Matt Lyles

This week's SIMPLE brand  episode features a "From the Vault" discussion with Stacey Hanke about her book, Influence Redefined: Be the Leader You Were Meant to Be, Monday to Monday!

When it comes to providing simple experiences to your customers, or your team members, you’re either helped or hindered by your level of influence. And many leaders are mistaken about what it means to be influential. In this episode, Stacey and I discuss methods for improving communication and producing the ideal type of influence—one that moves people to action long after an interaction is over. She dispels the most common influence myths and shares how leaders can stop sabotaging themselves in order to leave a positive, lasting impression with everyone.

RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE

• Stacey’s book: Influence Redefined
• Stacey Hanke, Inc.

In this week’s episode of the SIMPLE brand podcast, I talk with Joey Coleman!

Joey’s an award-winning speaker and a customer experience and employee experience design expert. He’s worked with hundreds of companies to help them deliver remarkable customer experiences while dramatically improving their profits.

You may remember ​Joey’s first appearance on the SIMPLE brand podcast when he taught us how to successfully retain and grow our customer base. This time, we discuss his latest bestseller about how to apply those same principles in our own house – ​Never Lose an Employee Again: The Simple Path to Remarkable Retention.

Joey and I discuss what you can do to help your employees feel heard, understood, and valued in their first 100 days and beyond.

Here’s what we discuss:

• Why brands spend more time acquiring and hiring talent versus retaining talent
• Most brands have a gap in who’s responsible for creating a remarkable experience on a new hire’s Day 2 and beyond 
• If we don’t hold our employees’ hands and help them acclimate they’ll leave
• The cost of an employee leaving is 250% of their annual salary
• 45% of new hires won’t make the 100-day anniversary: 4% leave on Day 1!
• When one employee leaves, there’s a snowball effect on remaining employees 
• If you create remarkable employee experiences, your employees create remarkable customer experiences
• Joey’s 100-day 8-phase employee journey to focus on
• You can gauge your employee advocacy by the number of employee referrals you have
• While you’re focused on your new hires’ journeys, don’t forget your existing employees

RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE:

• Joey’s site
• Joey’s book - Never Lose an Employee Again
• Joey on LinkedIn
• SIMPLE brand #73: Joey Coleman – Never Lose a Customer Again

In this week’s episode of the SIMPLE brand podcast, I talk with Scott McKain.

Scott’s a globally recognized authority on how organizations and professionals create a distinction to attract and retain customers. He’s a member of the Professional Speakers Hall of Fame. And he’s one of 24 members of the “Sales and Marketing Hall of Fame.” 

And Scott’s the author of eight best-selling customer experience books including his latest - The Ultimate Customer Experience: 5 Steps Everyone Must Know to Excite Your Customers, Engage Your Colleagues, and Enjoy Your Work.

Here’s what we discuss:

• Scott learned the value of customer experience from his father’s grocery store
• While customer expectations have changed, the basic premise is still the same
• Customer loyalty is only created through emotion
• What James Cameron’s The Titanic teaches us about word of mouth
• Customers don’t want you to make it right - they want you to get it right
• The ultimate customer experience drives customers to repeat and refer
• Customers compare you to every great experience, not your direct competitors
• How the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess resort created the ultimate experience with golden retrievers
• The right way to be empathetic to customers
• Leaders need to model the behaviors they expect from employees

RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE:

• Scott’s site
• Scott’s book - The Ultimate Customer Experience
• Scott on LinkedIn

In this week’s episode of the SIMPLE brand podcast, I talk with Heather R. Younger, author of The Art of Active Listening: How People at Work Feel Heard, Valued, and Understood!

Heather’s an international keynote speaker, and she’s the Founder and CEO of Employee Fanatix, a leading employee engagement firm.

She’s also the host of Leadership With Heart podcast.

And she’s the author of three best-selling leadership and employee engagement books including her latest - The Art of Active Listening: How People at Work Feel Heard, Valued, and Understood.

Here’s what we discuss:

• How active listening helps people feel valued
• What’s causing the barrier for people to be able to listen effectively
• The five steps needed for active listening
• “Closing the loop” motivates people to be comfortable sharing with you in the future
• Most employees and customers hate surveys because they feel nothing will come from it
• What to do when you can't actually give someone what they're asking for
• How to help your employees become better listeners

RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE:

• Heather’s site
• Employee Fanatix
• Heather’s book - The Art of Active Listening
• Heather’s podcast - Leadership With Heart
• Heather on LinkedIn

This week's SIMPLE brand  episode features a "From the Vault" discussion with Dee Ann Turner discussing her book, Crush Your Career!

Dee Ann is the former head of Talent with Chick-fil-A. She was the company’s first female officer and was instrumental in building and growing Chick-fil-A’s well-known culture. In her 33-year career with Chick-fil-A, she was responsible for franchisee selection, talent acquisition, management and development, diversity and inclusion, culture and engagement, social responsibility and sustainability. Today, she’s a speaker, consultant and author where she helps organizations create and strengthen culture and talent to better serve their customers.

With all her experience, it’s safe to say that Dee Ann knows what it takes to teach people how to develop, build and manage a fulfilling career.

RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE

• Dee Ann ‘s book: Crush Your Career
• Dee Ann’s book: Bet On Talent
• Dee Ann’s site
• Dee Ann on Instagram
• Dee Ann on Twitter
• Dee Ann on Facebook

In this week’s episode of the SIMPLE brand podcast, I talk with Jeannie Walters.

Jeannie’s an award-winning customer experience expert, international keynote speaker, and Founder of Experience Investigators - a firm helping companies increase sales and customer retention through elevated customer experiences. And she’s the host of the Experience Action podcast.

From the importance of creating and instilling a Customer Experience Mission to approaching your customer journey map as a verb, and not a noun - Jeannie and I discuss the right ways to help you and your team demystify the process for improving your customer experience.

Some of the topics we discuss include:

• How to create fewer ruined days for customers
• What customers expect from brands today
• Understanding a customer’s journey helps you know what they want at each interaction
• Customer journey mapping is a verb, not a noun
• How to use “micro-mapping” to truly understand customers along each interaction
• If you recognize a poor interaction across the customer journey, there’s no need to validate it with data
• A CX mission statement empowers your employees to know exactly how to deliver on your brand’s promise
• A focus on customer experience helps create a better employee experience

RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE:

• Jeannie’s site
• Jeannie’s podcast - Experience Action
• Leave your question for Jeannie to answer on the Experience Action podcast here
• Jeannie on LinkedIn

In this week’s episode of the SIMPLE brand podcast, I talk with Emmanuel Probst.

Emmanuel’s the Global Lead of Brand Thought-Leadership at Ipsos. He’s an adjunct professor of Consumer Market Research at UCLA. And he’s a Wall Street Journal and USA Today best-selling author of two brand strategy books including his latest -  Assemblage – The Art and Science of Brand Transformation.

Just like a master blender uses the art of assemblage to know how to orchestrate, assemble and combine all the right elements to make a fine wine or cognac, a master brand strategist can do the same with their brand. But they have to be able to recognize and understand which elements to use and exactly how to combine them to craft meaningful, impactful brands.

That’s the art and science of creating a transformative brand.

Some of the topics we discuss include:

• Not all brands need to demonstrate a purpose, but they do need to help their customers transform
• How your brand can be empathetic, relatable, authentic, and genuine
• Your customers need to understand “the one thing” your brand can do for them
• What the history of James Bond can teach you about assembling and evolving a brand
• There is nothing original. Most creations are remixes and recreations of existing elements 
• Brands are now open-source and need to allow for co-creation with customers
• Your brand is not the hero of the customer story, but there are important roles it can play
• Your brand is what people say it is, not what you say it is
• What’s driving a decrease in consumer trust of brands 

RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE:

• Emmanuel’s site
• Emmanuel’s book - Assemblage: The Art and Science of Brand Transformation
• Emmanuel’s book - Brand Hacks: How to Build Brands by Fulfilling the Consumer Quest for Meaning
• Emmanuel on LinkedIn

In this week’s episode of the SIMPLE brand podcast, I talk with Robert Patin.

Robert’s an international best-selling author and he’s the founder of Creative Agency Success, a consulting firm dedicated to helping creative agencies scale. And he’s the host of the Agency Blueprint podcast. Robert and I discuss lessons on how to take your team’s operations from complex and out of hand to a simple, scalable machine. A machine that helps you ultimately have more time to focus on the right work to move your business forward.

If you want to simplify and make things much smoother for you and your team, this episode’s for you.

Some of the topics we discuss include:

• Giving your team space and frameworks to solve problems is much more valuable than solving problems for them
• Our desire to be immediately responsive causes us to complete work 5x-10x longer than necessary
• The approaches to work that drive complexity across most teams
• How you can accomplish more by focusing on doing less
• The steps and framework to take to eliminate complexity from your team
• The ideal method for delegating work to others
• The value of videoing all of your processes as processes documentation
• Your processes have typically been put together by everyone else except for you
• Connecting with community outside of your business can help you learn how to simplify

RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE:

• Robert’s site
• Robert’s book - The Practical Agency (get it for free here!)
• Robert’s podcast - The Agency Blueprint

In this week’s episode of the SIMPLE brand podcast, I talk with Greg Kihlström, author of House of the Customer: A blueprint for one-to-one, customer-first, employee-driven business transformation.

Greg’s a speaker, entrepreneur, and consultant to top companies on marketing technology, customer experience, and digital transformation initiatives.

He’s the host of the Agile Brand podcast.

Greg and I discuss:

• What customer-centric brands do that are different than all the others
• How customer expectations continue to rise
• Too many brands misunderstand what it means to create a customer-first approach
• Focusing on intrinsic and extrinsic values motivates employees to focus on the customer
• Agile principles help create an employee-driven culture
• The value of creating a culture of experimentation
• Greg’s 4 North Star goals that brands should have for a customer-first experience
• Where most brands get personalization wrong
• The 7 elements of Greg’s "House of the Customer" blueprint
• Greg’s take on who in an organization should own and govern the customer experience 

RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE:

• Greg’s site 
• Greg’s book - House of the Customer: A blueprint for one-to-one, customer-first, employee-driven business transformation

In this week’s episode of the SIMPLE brand podcast, I talk with Erik Huberman, author of The Hawke Method: The Three Principles of Marketing that Made Over 3,000 Brands Soar.

Erik’s the Founder and CEO of HawkeMedia, the fastest-growing marketing consultancy in the United States that’s helped develop marketing strategies for more than 4,000 businesses. Erik and I discuss the Hawke Method principles along with how any brand can apply them, no matter their budget.

Some of the topics we discuss include:

• The first thing brands need to consider if they want to grow
• How to understand your customer’s purchase cycle and consideration period
• Erik’s 3 principles of marketing simultaneously needed to acquire and retain customers
• The right tactics to take to grow awareness
• Don’t confuse your target audience and your brand persona - they can be different
• How to balance nurturing tactics alongside awareness tactics
• The need for using content as a way to nurture and create trust 
• Why 3rd party validation is an ideal way to build trust
• Over time, what you deliver consistently becomes your brand - good or bad
• How marketers can use AI in the right way to help cut through all the noise

RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE:

• Erik’s site - Hawke Media
• Erik’s book - The Hawke Method: The Three Principles of Marketing that Made Over 3,000 Brands Soar