Simple Shifts To Turn Average Speakers Into Expert Communicators

Simple Shifts To Turn Average Speakers Into Expert Communicators written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Michael Hoeppner

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Michael Chad Hoeppner, a political communications expert known for his work with Andrew Yang during the 2020 presidential election. As an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, Hoeppner has conducted deep dive research on the speaking habits of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Joe Biden, Gretchen Whitmer, and others.

Hoeppner is the CEO and president of GK Training, a firm dedicated to giving individuals, companies, and organizations the communication skills necessary to reach their highest goals in work and life. He has worked with some of the world’s most influential companies and their leaders. Hoeppner is also the author of “Don’t Say Um: How to Communicate Effectively to Live a Better Life.”

Our conversation spans the art of effective communication, uncovering actionable public speaking tips and simple exercises to transform average speakers into confident, expert communicators. Whether you want to eliminate filler words, speak with intentionality, or learn how to engage an audience effortlessly, Hoeppner’s insights offer practical tools for anyone looking to become a better speaker and communicator.

Key Takeaways:

  • Effective communication starts with intentionality
    Hoeppner emphasizes shifting focus from yourself to your audience. Understanding that speaking is about serving others, not showcasing yourself, can immediately elevate your communication skills.
  • Filler words aren’t the enemy—lack of clarity is
    Instead of obsessing over eliminating “ums” and “ahs,” focus on increasing linguistic precision. Choose your words intentionally to ensure your message resonates.
  • Public speaking is an extension of everyday conversation
    Hoeppner reframes public speaking as simply communicating in front of an audience. By breaking the false divide between casual and formal speaking, you can bring authenticity and confidence to any setting.
  • Use practical exercises to master intentional communication
    Techniques like the Lego Drill or finger-walking exercises can help you slow down, organize your thoughts, and speak with clarity and impact.
  • Tolerating silence is a game-changer
    Pauses give your brain time to think, your voice time to breathe, and your audience time to process. Learning to embrace silence can be a transformative skill for better communication.

 

Chapters:

  • [00:00] Who is Michael Chad Hoeppner?
  • [01:58] Why Every Conversation is Public Speaking
  • [03:22] Shifting from Self-Focus to Audience Focus
  • [04:20] Understanding Filler Words and How to Replace Them
  • [07:41] The Lego Drill for Organizing and Slowing Down Your Thoughts
  • [10:29] Why You Should Unitask Instead of Multitask
  • [16:18] Tolerating Silence and Embracing Pauses
  • [18:57] Practical Exercises for Better Speaking Habits
  • [20:06] Balancing Rehearsal and Spontaneity in Public Speaking
  • [23:12] Navigating Mistakes with Confidence and Humor
  • [24:48] Tools and Resources from Don’t Say Um

 

More About Michael Chad Hoeppner:

 

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John Jantsch (00:00.878)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duck Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Michael Chad Hoeppner. He is a political communications expert known for his work with Andrew Yang during the 2020 presidential election. And as an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, Michael Chad Hoeppner has conducted deep dive research on the speaking habits of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Joe Biden, Gretchen Whitmer and others.

He’s the CEO and president of GK Training and author of a book we’re going to talk about today. Don’t Say How to Communicate Effectively to Live a Better Life. So Michael, welcome to the show.

Michael Chad Hoeppner (00:41.068)

Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here.

John Jantsch (00:43.578)

Okay, I have to start with the big promise. How is this going to help me live a better life?

Michael Chad Hoeppner (00:49.484)

Yeah, well, it will and I’ll tell you why. Because you speak and you communicate so much more than you actually recognize. I know that seems obvious, but we say, depending on the day, between five and 10,000 words a day. So if people think of this kind of training as compartmentalized into public speaking, it’s a total waste. And it’s not even true. I mean, I often joke that…

Every time we’re speaking it is some form of public speaking. If there’s an audience we’re speaking and it’s theoretically in public. And actually breaking down that idea, that very false distinction between what is public speaking and what is the rest of your life is an important task because it allows you to recognize how much of your life is actually influenced and determined by how effectively you can talk to other folks. And by the way,

If you learn to talk a little bit better too, you’re moving your body differently, you’re breathing differently. So in a very microscopic way, it’s actually a tiny moment of exercise and health and wellness in your day. So those are some of the ways it makes your life better.

John Jantsch (01:58.626)

And I suspect most people, I know I do, I most people do what we do almost unconsciously sometimes, especially we’re having a conversation with a friend one to one. It’s just like, you know, I’m slouching, I’m saying, I’m doing whatever. And a lot of it really is intentionality, isn’t it?

Michael Chad Hoeppner (02:16.204)

Yeah, yeah. Go farther with the metaphor you just talked about. On the one hand, we can kind of have fun with a thought experiment of if I’m talking to my friend, I’m slouching and just being really casual. But there’s a different version of that too, which is think of the really engaging conversation with your friend or even more of the point, think of it when your friend’s having a hard time and you’re trying to help them. And in that situation, how you communicate is entirely

because of your ability to be other focused. You’re not thinking about your presentation skills and am I moving my hands too much or not enough? You’re just thinking about them, which to your point is exactly why we’re able to do it so freely, so dynamically, so unconsciously. And then what happens is we cross this very fraught divide when we shift into self-focus.

whether that’s from giving a speech or being in an interview or any other high stakes communication situation, and it all becomes really problematic as we fixate on ourselves as opposed to the other person.

John Jantsch (03:22.222)

funny, I’ve done a lot of what you’re calling public speaking over the years. And I remember early on, had a mentor, somebody, you know, kind of helping me. And he said, the minute you realize it’s not about you, you know, you will be a better speaker. And it took me a long time to figure that out. It’s like that they’re not there to see me entertain them. They’re there to get some sort of transformation or some sort of message. And boy, it takes a little while, but now I

don’t even think about, you know, speaking to public. I’m like, how am here to serve?

Michael Chad Hoeppner (03:53.174)

Yeah, that service mindset is really powerful. It’s really powerful.

John Jantsch (03:59.002)

So let’s go to the ums, which thankfully now AI can just edit right out. We don’t have to worry about. But we call them filler words, right? And there’s a whole list of them. I’m right is another one. What does that tell about somebody’s communication habits?

Michael Chad Hoeppner (04:20.172)

Yeah. Well, I call my book, Don’t Say It’s a trick and the reader will learn that on the first page when you just look at the preface. It’s a trick because don’t say is the worst advice you can give yourself. It’s self-focused. It’s thought suppression, which we’re terrible at. But I knew because people really want to address this pain point, I knew it’s a way to help them actually recognize I should get this research and I should try to help myself improve in these ways.

I often say that I’m not the police, okay? I’m not saying it’s a sin or a commandment that one can never say In fact, let’s say you say every, I don’t know, 20 seconds, 25 seconds when you’re in that situation with your friend we just talked about trying to help them. Fine. You’re probably using it in the middle of a free form conversation. You’re searching for a word. But what I am very interested in…

is if when you get into the more self-focused situation, the interview, the big presentation, if the number of ums skyrocket and all of sudden you’re saying one every three seconds or five seconds, those ums actually are worth looking at because what they’re coming from is essentially you feeling some kind of pressure to fill silence or speak at a certain rate of speech or strive for some kind of vocabulary to demonstrate how smart you are or something. They’re coming from a not so useful.

So the tool that I often talk about when it comes to is that what you’re really trying to do is develop your linguistic precision. Meaning not the UM’s I’m trying to avoid, but what are all the useful, accurate, potent words instead of the that I’m actually trying to grab onto. And I will often even use what’s called embodied cognition, learning by using your body, to have people walk their fingers

across a desk like this, like I’m doing now on the… You can’t see this if you’re just listening on audio, but if you’re looking at the video, of course, walking your fingers across the desk, step by step, forcing yourself with those small little finger steps to actively choose language. So as opposed to policing yourself to never say any filler, my point really is, sure, you’re probably going to say some filler, but the real battle and the real joy actually is hunting for those words that you do want to choose.

Michael Chad Hoeppner (06:45.292)

as opposed to the little sounds you’re trying to avoid.

John Jantsch (06:49.186)

And a lot of it has to do well if it’s confidence or comfort level I mean a lot of those things like you said they come out when people are nervous more so so that a lot of times they naturally come out when somebody who is a nervous in front of an audience does it but you know, do you and I actually I was gonna go to your Your exercises and I love the attaching a physical thing to doing that because it really does bring you you know right there to where you’re thinking about the fingers

I had another one up there that I’d love for you to go to the exercise. can’t find it here. lay the Lego drill, for again, enhancing kind of memory and, and, and I love, cause I think a lot of people just feel like, I just got to get out there and practice and do it a lot, but there actually are techniques, right? Right. Practice. that gets you there. So talk a little bit about, the Lego drill.

Michael Chad Hoeppner (07:25.879)

Yeah.

Michael Chad Hoeppner (07:41.932)

Yeah, sure. You’re 100 % right to call that distinction about practice. I mean, you’ve heard sports coaches talk about this. There’s very much a difference between just practicing and then also practicing in the right way. So if you’re listening to this, if you know about yourself, when you’re in high stakes speaking situations, you talk a mile a minute, you talk as fast as you possibly can to try to fill out any sounds at all, just practicing doing more of that is actually not gonna help.

So the drill works like this and the preferred tools are in fact Lego blocks. And the reason is, is because of that little clicking function where they click together. First of all, it’s very satisfying. Second of all, it takes some time. You can’t rush it. So it enforces a little tiny bit of time discipline. The way the exercise works is this, is that you’re going to share some content, whatever it is, it could be, you know, an elevator pitch or the beginning of a presentation or really anything.

John Jantsch (08:19.96)

Yeah.

Michael Chad Hoeppner (08:37.152)

an essential answer to an interview question, whatever you want. And as opposed to just opening your mouth and seeing what comes out or trying to remember all the smart stuff you’re gonna say, no. You’re gonna say one idea and then you’ll say another one and then another one, but you’re gonna start with a single idea. So you have a number of Lego blocks with you, five, seven, whatever it is. Before you even begin, in silence, you pick up the first Lego block.

And then you say the first idea you want to share. You could think of this like the first sentence, but humans, think in ideas or thoughts, not so much sentences. anyway, you say the first idea or sentence, and at the end of it, in silence, kind of like where the period might go at the end of that sentence, you put the Lego block down on a table or a desk. Now you have to remain silent as you pick up the second Lego block. Once you have that second Lego block in the air,

Then you can share the second idea, whatever that might be. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. At the end of that idea, in silence, you click the second Lego block in place with the first. And that’s where that moment of clicking takes place. Third idea is the same thing, fourth, fifth, et cetera. Now the brilliance in this, and I don’t mean to say brilliance meaning I’m brilliant. I mean that you’re brilliant, you who are reusing it. The brilliance in this is that it

John Jantsch (09:55.205)

Hahaha.

Michael Chad Hoeppner (10:01.666)

gives your brain the opportunity to unitask rather than multitask. All you have to do is think of one idea you wanna share. Not 25 you’re trying to remember to get through as fast as you can so you don’t forget them. One, confident that at the end of that idea your brain will do what it’s miraculously good at which is considering a next idea you want to share. And so what this tends to do is A, slow you down, B,

John Jantsch (10:07.546)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (10:25.412)

Yeah.

Michael Chad Hoeppner (10:29.886)

structure your thoughts much much better and see make you oftentimes much briefer to a more concise

John Jantsch (10:36.238)

You know, as funny as I listen to that too, I know that as I’ve gone from say a 30 minute talk to a 90 minute talk, but maybe on the same topic, it does become sort of bits that connect together and you just have to get to the end of the bit, you know, is all you have to remember. And then it’s like, no, now it’s the next bit. so it really helps for that kind of structure too, doesn’t it?

Michael Chad Hoeppner (10:48.515)

Yeah.

Michael Chad Hoeppner (10:59.405)

for sure. I mean, I would go one further, which I would say the great impromptu speakers of all time, they have mastered this skill. It’s what allows someone to speak for 20 minutes, totally free form, but looking as though they have memorized this incredibly polished speech. They have just built this ability, almost like an athlete, to share one idea, knowing full well at the end they have a moment to think about what to say next.

John Jantsch (11:26.702)

So you actually start out the book talking about people being that speaking itself is an innate ability pretty much everybody is born with. How do you, I there’d be a lot of people that would disagree with that. So how do you get people back to that, that sort of, you know, starter state that, everybody’s born with, if they just have this fear like, or they society has somehow taught them that they’re not a good speaker.

Michael Chad Hoeppner (11:52.064)

Yeah, well, let me tweak a little bit the question because I actually don’t suggest that speech is innate. I would suggest that the ability to learn speech is innate and that we certainly learn speech over a period of time. But here’s the test of it. If you drop any kid in any culture anywhere as a newborn and let them grow up to age five or 10, they will speak the language fairly fluently. Writing is the proof point.

If you don’t instruct the kid how to write, they don’t learn that. It doesn’t just automatically kind of sink in. There’s a bunch of processes we go through to learn how to speak by watching each other, by mimicry, things like this. Now, to be clear, audience, I am an expert in many things that I do. very good at what I, I should say, I like to think I’m very good at what I do, but trust me, I do not do everything. And there’s a bunch of stuff I’m bad at and I’m not an evolutionary biologist, okay?

So I’m not saying necessarily what our evolutionary trajectory is. What I will say though is when you listen to a six-month-old kid scream all night long and wake up the next day with vocal cords that are ready to scream for 12 more hours, and you think about a full grown adult doing that same exercise and knowing how they would be completely hoarse. And if they did that for a few days, it would begin to already develop vocal nodes.

There’s something going on about how we create sound and language as little kids and how we do it much, worse as adults. So to get people back to speaking how they do when they’re much younger, which is freely expressing and make it very basic, turning air into sound and sound into words, we have to unlock how people talk when they’re at their most other focused. Last thing I’ll say about that, by the way, is

where there’s really interesting crucible moment in our society, which is partly because of devices and screens, some kids aren’t learning as much how to communicate face to face as in previous generations. So even some of what I just said in that answer might actually change over the next half decade, decade and more.

John Jantsch (14:06.626)

I’m curious, and this kind of touches on that, how much of your coaching, of course, is the words that are said and how they’re said, but how much of it is not the words? It’s who you are, who you’re being, your presence, all those things, which again, comes across different in person than it does across the virtual screen.

Michael Chad Hoeppner (14:24.12)

Yeah.

People who are interested in this, as a preview, the entire book is on delivery. This book doesn’t even touch on content at all. So to answer that question based on this book, would be a hundred and zero actually. But in my actual practice, I would say it’s, know, typically of two thirds, one third. So the majority is on delivery, but more than even just the balance of the two or how much time is spent in either one, the thing I’m really just obsessed by

and fascinated about is how, as opposed to fighting about which one matters more, how you can unlock a virtuous cycle in which each one makes the other better. And that you can enter that cycle really from either side, from content to delivery or delivery to content. And you can enter it from delivery to content. In other words, if you just practice speaking with more breath, more vocal variety, tolerating more silence,

John Jantsch (15:19.289)

Mm.

Michael Chad Hoeppner (15:21.954)

Your voice sounds better because it has the fuel it needs to actually sound resonant and full. But with that breath, with that silence, your brain has what it needs to think of smart stuff to say, which is oxygen and time. So the two things exist in this very complimentary dynamic that really can go into a virtuous or also, by the way, bad news, a vicious direction.

John Jantsch (15:48.058)

You mentioned tolerate silence. And I want to go there for a minute because I found that in my speaking, one of the hardest things to do, let alone learn. When I started speaking, you know, and I had a speaking coach and he was like, you need to give this like three seconds before you say another word. And I was like, when I did it the first time, that was an eternity. And I think that a lot of people struggle, but I’ve heard more and more folks like yourself talk about how important that is, how impactful that silence can really be.

Michael Chad Hoeppner (16:18.102)

Yeah, I’ll give you a few things to frame this. The first is that people get all hung up on rate of speech. How fast should I talk? And it’s incredibly intuitive if you actually think about it. Rate of speech is really just three things that frame it or that anchor it. One, how much time you need to think of smart stuff to say. Number two, how much time you want to give your audience to digest the smart stuff you said.

And then number three, how long it takes to enunciate those smart things. That’s what determines it. So pauses when we’re at our most other focused come from this very organic place, which is I need a moment and think about what I want to say or powerfully, I’ve just said something hopefully important to the person I’m talking to and I want to give them a moment to digest it. And I’m watching them like a hawk to see when they are…

demonstrating to me comprehension or acknowledgement or recognition, and that cues to me, okay, they’re ready to digest the next idea. That’s where it comes from. Now, when we’re at our most other focus, we do that seamlessly. And then when we feel like it’s all about us, to your point, we talk a mile a minute and we never pause. And our perception can be off on this, by the way, dramatically. And if you don’t believe me, in some video software tool, run some meeting that you’re very nervous about, all right? Lead the meeting.

record the whole meeting afterwards, watch it back, and tell me how long you thought the longest pause was, and you’re gonna see it was like a quarter of a second, and it felt to you like an eternity. So to your point with the speaking coach you work with who made you tolerate this eternity of time that was three seconds, there’s a bunch of tools you can do to actually quite quickly.

John Jantsch (17:48.878)

and

John Jantsch (17:54.104)

Yeah.

Michael Chad Hoeppner (18:05.41)

Build some skill with us. I’ll give you one. And this was actually, we had a nice little feature in the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks back on this where they used this as one tool that we suggested. On video calls, when you’re asking people questions, do this little trick. At the end of the question, draw a question mark on your desk and be completely silent while you do that little activity. No one can see you’re doing it. Cause we have this, you know, as I’m just demonstrating right now, this.

what I would call a digital cloak of invisibility. People can’t see your hands, but it gives you this physical intervention to force you to actually live through that silence. And it gives you something to occupy your attention, which is drawing the question mark. But here’s a second quick idea. Anybody with a smartphone, you can do this. Open your notes video, you know, not video, what is it called? the voice memo app and record yourself talking.

John Jantsch (18:36.121)

you

John Jantsch (18:57.434)

Right, right, right.

Michael Chad Hoeppner (18:59.852)

and then look back at it and watch the little wave file that has those kind of spikes and valleys. Now look at what is the longest pause in your whole span of speaking. And you probably felt like three seconds, four seconds, bet you it’s half a second long. And so that’s a very quick way to see, wow, these are not nearly as long as I thought. And I actually could afford to have more of them in lengthier.

John Jantsch (19:25.828)

A lot of folks you talk to about speaking, know, practice, practice, practice, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse is, know, especially again, talking about the public speaking. But I’ve found that some of the best moments I’ve heard public speaking is when something happened and went off the rails and I reacted spontaneously. know, those are always the moment that everybody looks back on. Do you feel like people that

that actually practice makes those happen because you get so confident or, know, I mean, again, what I’m really trying to ask, let me get to the question now is how do you keep spontaneity when you know that you have to rehearse?

Michael Chad Hoeppner (20:06.572)

Yeah. This comes down to a little bit of actor training actually, which is people, if you’re trying to really become very solid on some content and you do care that it’s close to almost word perfect, or I’ll give you an example, if you have a three minute pitch, it really does need to be three minutes, it can’t be three and a half as an example, then your script has to be pretty tight. But people memorize the wrong thing. People memorize the wrong thing. People memorize the wrong thing.

People memorize the wrong thing. And no, by the way, don’t stop listening folks. There was not a glitch in the audio. I repeated the thing four times in a row. What they memorize is what actors call a line reading. So they memorize the delivery. They don’t just memorize the words. So their pace, pitch, pause, power, and placement, those are the five P’s of vocal variety, their pace, pitch, pause, power, and placement becomes identical every single time.

John Jantsch (20:39.544)

Ha ha ha.

Michael Chad Hoeppner (21:05.304)

they practice saying those words. So what happens? They stand up or they attend the meeting or whatever it is to do the actual thing and they sound totally robotic because they’ve beaten all the life out of these words by practicing these kind of relentless line deliveries. So if you want to learn the content, practice the content, but this time folks, you have to change the delivery every single time to keep that loose and spontaneous.

Walk around the room and swing your arms like a big slow elephant. And then the next time, say it as though you’re speaking on the top of a cliff to a giant army of people who are extending way back. And the next time, talk into a phone as though you’re at a library and you’re trying not to be overheard by the library. I know this sounds extreme, what I’m doing, but you want to break that muscle memory of

I’m rigidly clamping down on how I talk for the purpose of making sure I remember every word. It ends up sounding robotic. Now to your point about spontaneity, then if you rehearse those things in that way with some freedom of delivery, you’ve ingrained a looser experience of speaking, so it sounds more spontaneous. And then mistakes, we can get to how to deal with that if you want to. That’s a second thing, but that will help come across much less like…

overly rigid and overly polished.

John Jantsch (22:30.434)

I always love those videos of comedians that they’ll just be asking people questions and then they’ll just go on a whole thing, know, based on some of that they build up library, you know, because people ask the same questions, but I always find those really fascinating.

Michael Chad Hoeppner (22:43.79)

Yeah. Yeah. You want to talk for a second about how to navigate mistakes? Is that useful? Yeah, sure. Sure. So people often go into these three F’s when it comes to mistakes, when they’re in an adrenaline response, when public speaking or something. And of course the three F’s are the human threat response, which is, you know, fight, flight or freeze. And so I will often suggest to clients that they replace those three F’s with these three F’s, which are fake it.

John Jantsch (22:48.248)

Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s do it.

Michael Chad Hoeppner (23:12.952)

feature it or fix it. And so the fake it means if no one knows, but it’s not throwing off, fine, fake it. You don’t need to tell us every time you make a mistake in life. But if it is threatening to throw you off, then you can either fix it, which means you just acknowledge it, address it and keep going. Or you actually feature it, which I would guess is what you have developed the skill to do. Because you mentioned sometimes these moments happen and they’re some of your favorite moments that I bet

whether it’s via humor or kind of rapport building with the audience that you actually feature those moments in some way, you spin them as a slightly good thing or a positive accident. But I’m just guessing, does that resonate with you?

John Jantsch (23:56.29)

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, I definitely try to lean towards humor. Yeah.

Michael Chad Hoeppner (24:01.228)

Yeah, yeah. And those moments can create as much humanity as anything else, know? Create tremendous moments of spontaneity and also empathy, because the audience relates very much to you.

John Jantsch (24:13.851)

Yeah. Yeah. Some of them were just as nervous as you, right? About your performance. I’ve always found that too. They want you to succeed. It’s great. Yeah. It’s funny on the mistake thing. I had a music teacher early on in life that said, you know, if you make a mistake on this part, just make sure you make it again. The next time we go through, nobody will notice.

Michael Chad Hoeppner (24:18.52)

for sure.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Michael Chad Hoeppner (24:35.106)

That’s good.

John Jantsch (24:37.207)

Well, Michael, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there somewhere that you’d invite people to learn about your work and certainly find a copy of Don’t Say I’m

Michael Chad Hoeppner (24:48.0)

Yeah, it’s really simple. You can just go to don’t say um.com. That’s where to find me, where to find the book, where to find all that stuff. And I will say that the site is a great place because we give not just information and access to the book and things like that, but we also have a whole bunch of video drills and exercises. So if the ones I was talking about, the Lego drill or the finger walking or even the drawing of the question mark, if these are interesting, you actually get guided videos about how to do them.

So you can just check them out at don’tsayum.com.

John Jantsch (25:21.218)

And we’ll have that URL in the show notes as well. Again, Michael, appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Michael Chad Hoeppner (25:28.088)

Sounds good. My pleasure. Have a great day, okay?


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How To Sell Customer Experiences Not Customer Service

How To Sell Customer Experiences Not Customer Service written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Jeannie Walters

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jeannie Walters.

Jeannie Walters is an award-winning customer experience expert, international keynote speaker, and Founder of Experience Investigators, a firm that helps companies increase sales and customer retention through elevated customer experiences.

Trailblazing the movement from “Reactive Customer Service” to “Proactive Customer Experience,” Walters is the leading authority for improving employee and customer relationships.

Walters is a founding member of the Customer Experience Professionals Association and a trusted advisor to numerous Fortune 500 companies, including Orangetheory Fitness, SAP, Comcast, and JPMorgan Chase. As an educator, her LinkedIn Learning courses have inspired over 500,000 learners worldwide. A Certified Speaking Professional and proud Professional Member of the National Speakers Association, Jeannie has captivated audiences of tens of thousands across three continents with her expertise and insights.

In this episode, we discuss the importance of understanding and improving customer experience—not service, experience! We also discuss the relationship between customer experience and marketing, the role of technology, generational differences in customer expectations, the significance of speed (how soon is “soon”?), and the necessity of building a customer-centric culture. Jeannie emphasizes the need for organizations to adopt a mindset focused on customer experience, implement effective strategies, and continuously test and adapt their approaches based on feedback.

Key Takeaways:

  • Marketing and customer experience are complementary but distinct.
  • Customer experience encompasses the entire journey between a brand and a customer.
  • Technology should enhance, not replace, human interaction in customer service.
  • Generational differences affect customer expectations and behaviors.
  • Speed is a critical expectation in today’s customer experience landscape.
  • A customer-centric culture is essential for delivering exceptional experiences.
  • Organizations must define success metrics for customer experience initiatives.
  • Testing and feedback are crucial for refining customer experience strategies.
  • Customer journey mapping should involve frontline employees and customers.
  • Transparency and alignment with values attract modern consumers.

Chapters:

  • [00:00] Understanding Customer Experience
  • [02:50] The Relationship Between Marketing and Customer Experience
  • [05:51] Navigating Technology in Customer Experience
  • [08:57] Generational Differences in Customer Expectations
  • [12:01] The Importance of Speed in Customer Experience
  • [14:46] Building a Customer-Centric Culture
  • [18:10] Implementing Customer Experience Strategies
  • [21:11] The Role of Testing and Feedback in Customer Experience

More About Jeannie Walters:

  • Check out  Jeannie Walters‘ Website
  • Connect with  Jeannie Walters on LinkedIn

 

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by:

Nobody does data better than Oracle. Train your AI models at twice the speed and less than half of the cost of other clouds. If you want to do more and spend less, take a free test drive at Oracle.

 



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(01:05): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Jeannie Walters. She’s an award-winning customer experience expert, international keynote speaker and founder of Experience Investigators, a firm helping companies increase sales and customer attention through elevated customer experiences. She’s a charter member of the Customer Experience Professionals Association and having worked with numerous Fortune 500 companies, including Orange Theory Fitness, SAP, Comcast, and JP Morgan Chase, just to name a few, we’re going to talk about customer experience. So Jeannie, welcome to the show.

Jeannie Walters (01:44): Thank you so much, John. I’m thrilled to be here.

John Jantsch (01:47): So I start a lot of my shows asking if people to fine terms, and I find that there’s a lot of terms out there that we use every day that maybe people, they have a misunderstanding or I think, well, at least I like to get your baseline. So when somebody says customer experience, how do you define that?

Jeannie Walters (02:06): Well, I’m so glad you asked because it is a term that gets thrown around a lot and often when I introduce myself and I say something about customer experience, people immediately make the mental jump to customer service.

John Jantsch (02:18): And

Jeannie Walters (02:18): They love to tell me their worst customer service story as a customer. And customer service is part of the experience, but the way that we define customer experience is it is literally what happens throughout the entire journey. Every interaction you have between a brand and a customer from before they even know they need you to all the way to when they leave you or become a lifelong customer. And I also like to remind people that your customers are having an experience whether you talk about it or not. And so what we try to really help our clients with and what I’ve been dedicated to for all this time is really helping get more proactive and intentional about designing the customer experience so that you can really relate to what customers actually need in that moment and then give them that so that they keep going through the journey with you.

John Jantsch (03:16): As I listened to you, describe that there would be some, myself included that would argue that sounds like marketing. I knew this was coming. So where is customer experience a subset of marketing? Does it walk alongside marketing? How do you fit that in?

Jeannie Walters (03:34): So I look at it as two different lenses that compliment each other. So marketing is really an act inside the business to help connect with customers and help actually kind of guide them to where we think they should go next. That’s what we’re trying to do. Customer experience is more about understanding from the customer’s perspective, what is it they need when so that we can actually design that inside the organization. A lot of the work we do in customer experience is helping really us as business leaders understand how to even understand the customer journey because we are taught to think about our role and our org chart and all of those things. Customer doesn’t care.

John Jantsch (04:21): Plus, I think a lot of it goes on today without our knowledge, right?

Jeannie Walters (04:24): Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. We have so much less control than we did

John Jantsch (04:29): 10,

Jeannie Walters (04:30): 15 years ago for sure.

John Jantsch (04:34): A lot of times when people think customer experience, they’ll say like, oh, we need to wow our customers, which that could be good, but how do you first align? I know with marketing plans and marketing strategy, we always try to align them with business goals. I assume that there’s a role for that alignment when you talk customer experience isn’t there.

Jeannie Walters (04:53): Yes, absolutely. And this is one of the, I think persistent myths out there is that as customer experience leaders, we need to care about our customer satisfaction rate or our net promoter score or things like that, which absolutely, but those are measurements, they’re indicators, they aren’t outcomes. So what I like to do is look at what are the organizational goals? What are we trying to do here, and what are the levers we need to pull within the customer experience to help us both understand how to get there and also look for opportunities and challenges and ways that we can just make things a little easier for our customers? A little less friction. I personally don’t believe we have to wow every customer every time because that’s not realistic either.

John Jantsch (05:43): It’s exhausting.

Jeannie Walters (05:44): Yeah, it’s exhausting. And some of those things that are held up as those wow moments, they’re not scalable. They’re things that are pr, they’re great PR and marketing, but they’re not necessarily scalable. So what we to look at is really understanding what does your customer need in this moment and how do we know? Because sometimes humans say one thing and they behave differently. So you can have all the surveys in the world and you could still get it wrong. So you really need to be savvy about understanding customer behavior, operational metrics, the indicators that are out there to help us get the business outcomes that we’re aiming to get.

John Jantsch (06:22): Yeah. What was that Henry Ford saying? If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they would’ve set a faster horse.

Jeannie Walters (06:28): That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. And innovation is a huge part of this, and it’s a huge opportunity, but that means that you can’t just ask because humans don’t make any sense.

John Jantsch (06:43): Well, and a lot of the greatest innovations out there, the iPod for example, I mean, nobody was even thinking about that as something that they needed, right?

Jeannie Walters (06:55): Right, exactly. Exactly.

John Jantsch (06:56): So what role do you see increasing role? There’s definitely a role, huge role for good or bad technology playing in customer experience. I mean, you have technology that I think at one point sometimes people look at it as, oh good, we’ll never have to talk to those damn customers again because we’ve got this technology that’ll do it. And then there’s also places where it’s like, no, the example I always love to use is when I go see my eye doctor, I don’t want to have to call somebody. I want to go on there, schedule my appointment, and they’ve got my record there. To me, that was a better customer experience, but when I’m getting examined, I want somebody who’s very listening and different experience. So how do you help people navigate technology?

Jeannie Walters (07:42): Yeah, it’s a great question because I mean, one thing to keep in mind is technology is a tool on the toolkit. You still have to figure out what is the overall strategic vision that you have, what are you trying to do, who are you serving? All of those things. But what I really am seeing that I get excited about is actually exactly your example. We want more self-service options. As customers, we want to be able to have choice based on context. Sometimes I hear people categorize people like, well, the big one before the pandemic, the big one was, well, anybody 50 plus, they’re not a digital customer, right? Well, and of course that is not true. It’s all about context. There are times where you don’t want to call. There are times where you need to call and we need to give customers options. And technology gives us so many great ways to, again, proactively think about this and design those touch points. So if somebody gets stuck with that technology, do they have an option where they can call somebody who knows that they’ve already been through that? Because the most frustrating thing that can happen is you spend your life telling a chatbot your life story, and then they can’t help you and you pick up the phone and call and they didn’t know that happened. They have no visibility.

(09:02): And that’s the technology I’m seeing that I think will vastly improve the customer experience, is connecting the dots inside the organization and giving the right people the right visibility so that when you call and you’re already angry and you’re frustrated because you just went through that chatbot thing, somebody who is answering that call understands that’s where you are in your journey and can respond immediately and say, I have all your information. I know exactly what to do next, and I’m sorry that happened. So I think we have to blend the ease and efficiency of technology with the understanding and empathy of humans on a regular basis, and look for ways that we can basically jump in at either point and give customers the options that they are asking for.

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(10:46): That’s oracle.com/duct tape oracle.com/duct tape. You bring up a good point though, the cliche of the generational thing that you used there, but there are realities in some generational differences into how people want to be treated, or at least what their expectations are. I always kind of tease my kids if I can be cliche, I’m just a lot more patient than they are. If something doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to work, they’re out of there. And I’m like, okay, let’s try another path. Do companies need to try to understand that? Is it possible to understand the generational differences?

Jeannie Walters (11:25): Absolutely. And I think a big one that I’m seeing is that the way we behave as customers is very different. And part of that is, I mean, there used to be an expression that if your mom used tide detergent, you used it, right? There was just no question. And now the younger generations are much more likely to, number one, align their values with who they do business with, and they’re very serious about this. There have been other generations who about it, but aren’t necessarily acting on it. These younger generations are acting on that. So you need to make sure you’re visible and transparent with your values in a different way in order to attract the right customers. The other part of that is to your point, there’s some irony in some of the behavioral assumptions we make because some of the younger generations are actually more savvy about when to call.

(12:20): So they reach a certain point and they know the only way I’m going to get this solved is by calling, but they’re prepared for it. They’re not, not frazzled, they’re just solving their problem in a different way. So we have to again, figure out what’s the best way to serve them in that moment within this context, because I really believe that all of us as humans, I mean the world is changing at such an incredible speed, and we have to learn new things every single day. We can’t just do what we did last week, and we have to keep up with that for customers. But it’s all about the context of the need and where they are in their journey, and also who they are. There are some people who they want quick answers, they don’t want a lot of empathy. They just want you to tell ’em what’s wrong and move on. There are other people who, they want the whole thing. They want to tell you everything that happened. And so we need to figure out how do we recognize those people and serve them in the best possible way in that moment. And some of that is generational, and a lot of that is contextual now.

John Jantsch (13:24): So I’m going to come back to that point, but you mentioned speed, and I would say speed has become a huge driver today of customer experience or at least expectation. I was watching a movie the other day and these kind of teenage kids, their mom had died a few years ago and they found a camera of hers and they had film in it. And so they took it to a place and the guy said, do you want the one hour service? And they were like, it’s going to take an hour.

Jeannie Walters (13:51): That’s a great example.

John Jantsch (13:52): It really is. And I do think so how are you factoring in the idea that speed is just become an

Jeannie Walters (13:59): Expectation? Well, I think in a way it’s always been an expectation, but we’ve learned as customers kind of how to be complacent about it. And so one of the things that I always look for is what are the assumptions we’re making about time? And what I mean by that is, for instance, one of the things I love to ask in these workshops we do is, okay, what do you do really well here? And a lot of people say, well, we get back to people we’re really friendly. And I’ll say, okay, so what’s your definition of soon? And you get 18 different answers. Because if you don’t define what we mean by those time indications, we are going to set the wrong expectations for customers. And that’s where disappointment comes in. So some of this is about setting the right expectations and being proactive when we don’t know something, when we have to call back and say, Hey, I don’t have this yet, but I will. And so I think part of what customers are expecting is the worst. You’re not going to call me back when you say you’re not, or what do you mean it’s going to take an hour? That’s a great example. That’s crazy to them. And so we need to make sure that when we talk about time, we are all speaking the same language. And sometimes that’s just not the case right now.

John Jantsch (15:26): Yeah, because so much of success in life, let alone in business, is just meeting expectations, right? Absolutely. If you thought it was coming Friday and it came Thursday, you’re a hero. But if it came Saturday, it was like, no, the whole thing failed. So how much of this in an organization, when I heard you describing people making decisions about, oh, this person’s already angry, so I need to handle it this way. How much of that is taught? How much of that is just culture?

Jeannie Walters (15:57): Oh, that’s a great question, John. I think, I mean, it’s definitely a combination of both because we can teach and train to so many different scenarios, and somebody will show up with a totally different one the next day because humans have all sorts of crazy stuff happen. So we have to both develop a culture where people feel empowered by a similar value structure. And what I mean by that is we use something called a customer experience mission statement. And the reason we started developing this is because we saw that a lot of people said things like, well, we want to deliver exceptional customer experiences, but you and I might handle those things differently based on our life experience and our judgment and all of that. And neither one is wrong, it’s just different. But if you are inconsistent, that actually chips away at the trust with the customer.

(16:50): So we want to make sure that we are really aligned around a culture that empowers people to make the right decisions in the right moment. Having said that, we need to spend some time on teaching and training and alignment, because otherwise we are just asking everybody. I mean, one of my favorite examples of this is I was looking at the goals of an organization, and one of their big goals was we need to deliver friendlier experiences for our customers. And I said, well, how do you know if you’re succeeding at that? And so we have to spend some time figuring out what are we really saying? What are the stakes in the ground? What are the milestones? How do we know if we’re successful? Because then you can bring that back to the culture and say, this is what we really mean. This is who we are no matter what, and this is how we show up for our customers and for one another. And that alignment is really important too. We can’t treat customers one way and treat each other a different way.

John Jantsch (17:49): And that’s really to the culture point. You’re absolutely right. I mean, a lot of times, I used to say years ago that any way, shape and form in which your business is coming into contact with a customer or prospect, that contact is performing a marketing function. And a lot of times as organizations grow, the leadership has no contact with the customer anymore.

Jeannie Walters (18:10): Yeah, it’s very true.

John Jantsch (18:11): And yet those people are probably treating the customers about as well as you’re treating them, right?

Jeannie Walters (18:20): Yep. Yep. That is definitely something that as people get further up in the org chart, they get further and further away. And to your point, the opposite is true where all of the behavior rolls down the org chart too. And so it is really important that people feel, again, that alignment with values that’s just so important in any culture.

John Jantsch (18:41): Yeah. I know in our organization over the years, I’ve had people that customer, they have a bad experience with a customer, and they’re kind of bad mouthing the customer in front of the team. I’m like, we just can’t do that ever, ever, because it’s not acceptable for them to do. And if we’re saying that’s the behavior, but especially in smaller organizations, that takes intention, doesn’t it

Jeannie Walters (19:05): Does for sure.

John Jantsch (19:06): Tell me a little bit. So if I came to you and I said, Hey, this customer experience thing sounds awesome, you need to customer experience us. How would that start? I mean, are we going to map out journey points or touch points? I mean, what’s the process look like?

Jeannie Walters (19:21): Yep. I always think of customer experience work and really setting the foundation for it in any organization as a three step kind of foundational process. And then we move into, we’ve got all these tools in our toolkit, like customer journey mapping, but I like to start with the idea that it’s a mindset, it’s a strategy, and then it’s a discipline within your organization. So you kind of have to think about it. Any other part of your business, you would never say, for instance, we should really do sales, so let’s bring in somebody, do a workshop. And if that doesn’t work, I guess sales doesn’t work. That would never happen. But we do that a lot with customer experience. We think it’s a magic wand. So we like to think about it as to get the mindset you need that customer experience, mission statement, something centralized within your organization.

(20:09): So we do workshops and strategy and executive coaching on that, and then we go into strategy, which is really what are you trying to do and what are the efforts that we’re going to put into this to achieve those outcomes? So we define those outcomes and all of those things. That’s with something we call a strategy success statement. And then we move into the discipline of it. How are we going to get this done? Who’s involved? How do we actually work together? How do we get our leaders involved and how do we know if we’re successful? And all of those things. So that’s kind of the foundation of it. And then there are things like, yeah, we want to map out what is the ideal experience. I really believe that innovation is experience driven right now. You think about the disruptors of the last 20 years, they’ve all been experience driven. And so we do something called experiential innovation where we help people think about how do they disrupt their industry with experience. So there are all these different ways, and it’s all based on what are you trying to do as an organization and how can we help you be the most successful you can be, while at the same time making it a win. So your customers, your employees, and all your stakeholders love you. That’s really what we’re trying to do,

John Jantsch (21:19): How important. We’re going to run out of time here. So I’ll wrap up pretty quickly. I’d love to know, so I’ve got this roadmap. We’ve identified things, processes, campaigns, whatever that need to be put in place. How important is testing and monitoring and analyzing, this worked, this didn’t work. Let’s try something. I mean, I’m sure a lot of people are senate, forget it people, right? It’s like, this is our process. Here’s our SOP go.

Jeannie Walters (21:43): Yep. Yeah. It is important, and I like to think about it less about testing and more about pilots, because a lot of times you want to test things in a way that you’ll know yes or no, and humans just are very unpredictable. And so what I like to do is take a smaller kind of subset and say, okay, let’s learn from this pilot, because we always get feedback. We always learn something in that. Then you can start applying at scale and see what works and what doesn’t. So we do that as well as inviting customers into the process, making sure that if you’re doing customer journey mapping and you never talk to a customer, you are missing a huge opportunity as well as your frontline workers, your cashiers, your customer service reps, your salespeople. Sometimes they’re left out of the process mapping, and I’m like, no, we need them. So we think about it as customer collaboration. You need to have that along the way every step of the way,

John Jantsch (22:44): And even customer or units inside of an organization. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked to a leader of marketing and sales and customer service, and they’re like, wait, after we get an order, you do that.

Jeannie Walters (22:55): Absolutely. That happens. Absolutely. Yep.

John Jantsch (22:57): So it’s pretty incredible. It’s like, oh, nobody bothered to talk to each other.

Jeannie Walters (23:01): Great. That’s right. That’s right. And that’s what I love about things like journey mapping and service blueprinting, because you get people together and just the act of that can create real change in an organization.

John Jantsch (23:13): Yeah. Well, Jeanie, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there some place you’d invite people to connect you and learn about your work?

Jeannie Walters (23:20): Sure. Yes, please join us@experienceinvestigators.com. We have a ton of stuff there in our learning center. And then you can also find me on LinkedIn, and I’ve got a few LinkedIn learning courses out there too. So I’d love to hear from you.

John Jantsch (23:33): Again, appreciate you taking a few moments, and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.


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Weekend Favs November 23rd

Weekend Favs November 23rd written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but I encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one I took on the road.

  • Notta is a transcription service that converts audio and video into text, facilitating easy note-taking and content creation.
  • SurveySparrow is an online survey platform that transforms surveys into engaging, conversational experiences, aiming to enhance response rates and gather actionable insights.
  • Deckoctopus is a presentation tool that streamlines the creation of professional slides, offering templates and design elements to simplify the process.

These are my weekend favs; I would love to hear about some of yours – Connect with me on Linkedin!

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.

How to Ask The Right Questions Using Thoughtful Curiosity

How to Ask The Right Questions Using Thoughtful Curiosity written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Dr. Amber L. Wright

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Amber Wright. Dr. Amber L. Wright is a communication expert, coach, facilitator, and former communication professor. She helps organizations improve how they make their people feel seen, heard, and valued. As an executive coach and speaker, she guides leaders to express their highest selves with authentic authority and grace. Her popular TEDx Talk, “Ask Better Questions to Build Better Connections,” has inspired people around the world to become stronger communicators in their everyday lives. Dr. Wright has been featured in Fast Company, Essence, and Mashable, and is the creator of Can We Talk? Cards – 50 questions designed to take the guesswork out of small talk.

We talk about the importance of asking the right questions to foster better connections and how self-awareness and active listening are crucial in effective communication, especially in business settings. Dr. Wright’s emphasis on making others feel seen and heard and how thoughtful curiosity can enhance interpersonal relationships. Our conversation also touches on navigating different personalities within teams and strategies for resolving conflicts.

Key Takeaways:

  • Every relationship begins or ends with a question.
  • Asking open-ended questions invites more profound reflection.
  • Self-awareness is essential for effective leadership.
  • Listening to understand is more important than listening to reply.
  • Thoughtful curiosity helps in asking appropriate questions.
  • The relationship with oneself is the most important.
  • Questions can help challenge limiting beliefs.
  • Understanding personality differences improves team communication.
  • Conflict resolution requires understanding the other person’s perspective.
  • Engagement in conversations can be enhanced through thoughtful questions.

 

Chapters:

  • [00:00] The Power of Questions
  • [03:06] Feeling Seen and Self-Awareness
  • [05:54] The Art of Listening
  • [09:02] Engaging in Business Conversations
  • [12:06] Intrapersonal Communication and Self-Reflection
  • [15:03] Navigating Different Personalities
  • [18:02] Conflict Resolution Strategies

More About Dr. Amber L. Wright:

  • Check out Amber L. Wright’s Website
  • Connect with Amber L. Wright on LinkedIn

 



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John Jantsch (00:00)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Dr. Amber Wright. She is a communication expert, coach, facilitator and former communication professor. She helps organizations improve how they make their people feel seen, heard and valued. As an executive coach and speaker, she guides leaders to express their highest selves with authentic authority and grace. Her popular TEDx talk, Ask Better Questions to Build Better Connections has inspired people around the world to become stronger communicators in their everyday lives. So do I call you Dr. Amber, Dr. Wright? Either way, welcome to the show.

Dr. Amber Wright (00:41)

Thank you. can call me Dr. Amber. Amber’s just fine as well.

John Jantsch (00:45)

So let’s start with referencing your TED Talk. Why questions? Why are questions so powerful? Or why do you suggest that’s the medium for better connections?

Dr. Amber Wright (00:58)

That’s because every relationship that we ever enter into, personal or professional, begins or ends with a question. What’s your name? How are you? Are you single? Are you hiring? In the middle of it, what are we doing? Is this working? Is this not working? Is it over? So having that realization is the impetus of my work and in the sense that knowing that right why aren’t we better at asking questions since they’re so important.

John Jantsch (01:28)

Yeah. So as I listed that list of questions you gave as examples there, I mean, in some cases they’re almost punctuation to conversations, right? They’re almost not real questions. Like when somebody says, how are you? Do you ever really give that some thought? Well, let me think about it. But you do talk about the right questions though. can you give some examples of what you would suggest are powerful sort of right questions? I know they’re probably different different situations, but let’s go there for a

Dr. Amber Wright (01:52)

Yeah, I frame a better question or a right question, a good question as one that is open ended, obviously, and that also serves as an invitation. It invites the person to reflect. And I tell often, and I say this in my talk, my TEDx about how when my teenager now, when she was in grade school, I’d pick her up and say, how was your day? That’s technically an open ended question, but a better question is, what was the best part of your day?

John Jantsch (02:30)

Yeah.

Dr. Amber Wright (02:30)

today. That gives her an invitation then to reflect on her day and we can have a richer discussion as a result.

John Jantsch (02:38)

It’s much easier question to answer too, right? I mean, how was your day? I don’t know. Let me think. What did I do all day? Whereas a very specific question, I think, I mean, in a lot of contexts is easier for us. One of the pieces, you know, it’s in your bio and I know you talk about it in the talk is this idea of feeling seen. And I think that’s, it seems like that’s become a pretty common or almost trendy thing to say.

Dr. Amber Wright (02:42)

Dude, yeah.

John Jantsch (03:06)

And I wonder if you could make that practical for us. What does that mean?

Dr. Amber Wright (03:12)

I think when you make someone feel seen, there’s something about kind of quietly saying, I see you. And that comes by way of just paying closer attention. It’s noticing that, you know, someone on your team is tearful on a call or maybe they are off camera for some reason consistently. It’s noticing when it’s the drop of the shoulders non-verbally. It’s the role of the eye in a meeting. It’s being able to kind of notice the things that are happening around you in both times of chemistry and in conflict and be able to say, I see how you might be feeling disappointed by X, Y, and Z thing. How can I support you?

John Jantsch (03:40)

Thanks

Dr. Amber Wright (03:58)

To see someone is to acknowledge them.

John Jantsch (04:02)

So what are some of the kind of most, well, let me back up. was going to ask you for most, like, there’s lots of applications, lots of uses for this technique, if you will. But what are you, what role does self-awareness play in this? Right? I mean, as I listened to you talk about that idea of, I mean, you have to really be very aware of yourself, I think, to understand what’s going on in the other person’s world.

Dr. Amber Wright (04:32)

Absolutely. And that is the harder work that’s at play. I give keynotes and talks to leadership teams all the time. And to be a good leader, think the first thing, the first rule of order is to know thyself. You got to know who you are as a person because then that impacts the way that you show up as a leader. So then just interpersonally, who am I as a person?

John Jantsch (04:50)

Right, right.

Dr. Amber Wright (04:59)

How do I take in information? How am I energized? Do I prefer introversion, extroversion? That’s why personality assessments are so popular because they help give us language to grow in our self-awareness, to describe what it’s like to experience us as people. And I like to encourage people to do that work because it can be such a good investment in all of your interpersonal and professional relationship dynamics. Self-awareness is so key.

John Jantsch (05:26)

So I could create a list. In fact, I have created a list of questions that I plan to ask you, or at least something close to those.

Dr. Amber Wright (05:32)

Yes.

John Jantsch (05:37)

Equally important, as important as, maybe more important than the question is actually hearing what the person said. Right? I mean, so most of us are, I would say the majority of people are not great listeners. How key is that role?

Dr. Amber Wright (05:54)

You’re on a roll here, John. think after self-awareness, it’s listening. I always say we have two ears and one mouth for a reason so we can listen twice as much as we speak. And that is another layer of the deeper work. Are we slowing down enough to pay attention and to listen to understand, not only to reply. Many times we were just listening for that on-ramp to be able to say whether that person is right or wrong about whatever they’re telling you. And that’s not true active listening. And I think that’s why some people are so bad at it because it takes intention to say, I’m going to look you in the eye. I’m going to be present with you and pay attention to what you’re saying so that I can respond thoughtfully.

John Jantsch (06:37)

And let’s face it, you have to kind of care about what they’re saying.

Dr. Amber Wright (06:44)

Yeah, I think that’s relative. Because you might not, but it’s still worth it to pay attention.

John Jantsch (06:50)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you want to give a couple examples? A lot of my listeners are business owners, entrepreneurs, or they work in team leaders and things of that nature. What are some examples of the different places, say, in a business that this is important? mean, we’ve got customers, some of them are happy, some of them are not so happy. We’ve got team members, we’ve got prospects in selling environments.

Dr. Amber Wright (07:14)

Okay, cool.

John Jantsch (07:19)

You know, is this what you’re talking about? Questioning a skill that we ought to bring to every one of those situations.

Dr. Amber Wright (07:25)

Absolutely. You can’t solve the client’s problem if you’re not listening to what they tell you. When you ask them the question, what’s the biggest challenge you’re having right now? And listening intently for the answer. And then that’s where we paraphrase and say, well, what I hear you saying is you’re struggling with your marketing or your messaging isn’t landing with your potential clients. This is how I can help you with that. So listening is paramount just as much as and asking really thoughtful questions as well.

John Jantsch (07:58)

Yeah, and I know just in my own selling situation, certainly in my own leadership role with my organization, if I just lecture, people check out pretty fast. And so certainly questioning is a way to keep engagement, keep attention too, isn’t it? mean, we all, it’s almost like in school, like if you think the teacher’s gonna call on you, you’re gonna pay more attention, right?

Dr. Amber Wright (08:10)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (08:24)

Even if all they’re doing is repeating back what you said. I mean, how much of that is almost a tactic in some ways to keep people engaged?

Dr. Amber Wright (08:34)

It’s a lot of it is and I think that’s why it’s important for us to be thoughtful about how we show up and how we engage. You mentioned earlier the example of how we say things like, how are you doing? Even though that’s a question, we use it as a punctuation statement. I don’t answer. My answer to that is I’m good, thank you. Because I want to pause and say, do I really want to ask this person how they’re doing?

John Jantsch (08:55)

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Amber Wright (09:02)

If I know that I don’t have time to actually listen. And that helps me to kind of slow down enough to be thoughtful about that. And that’s what I think that can be of service to us as business owners and entrepreneurs. Again, are we asking thoughtful questions and are we listening intently for the responses?

John Jantsch (09:20)

How much awareness may be the right word, but I know sometimes people, they’re clearly, they’ve clearly listened to you or had coaching from you. So they’re asking me questions, but I don’t know them well enough to feel like that’s a question I should answer to you. know, somebody before I meet them or even on LinkedIn, you know, will say, what are you most excited about, you know, this year in your business? And I’m like, I don’t even know who you are.

Dr. Amber Wright (09:32)

Hahaha! Mm-hmm. Yeah.

John Jantsch (09:50)

That seems like too far of a reach. So, you know, how do you kind of meter out like what’s an appropriate question given the level of our relationship?

Dr. Amber Wright (10:01)

That I think comes down to being able to just keep your finger on the pulse of the environment. know, that’s such thing as reading the room and engaging. Or if I’m at a networking event or if I’m at a conference, I’m meeting somebody for the first time. I’m not going to tell them my whole life story. I some people do, but you know, I’m going to be thoughtful and going to be mindful. So I use what I call thoughtful curiosity and that is to inquire without being intrusive.

John Jantsch (10:07)

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Amber Wright (10:24)

And that takes, it goes back to that big I word of intention, that takes me thinking about like, all right, if I’m going to this event, how do I want to show up and how do I want to engage with people? And then let that inform the types of questions that you ask. So for example, if you’re meeting someone for the first time, instead of just the, what do you do? You can say, what inspires you about your work? It’s a more thoughtful question, but it’s not intrusive. And it’s a better question, just, so what do you do? Right? So it’s that kind of intention that I’m speaking of.

John Jantsch (10:56)

All right, so let’s say your intention is awesome, and you ask a question like that, and it really goes to like a dark or negative place, you right off the bat. And you’re like, wow, I really wasn’t trying to go there. How do you handle situations that kind of go off, you know, where you were intending to go?

Dr. Amber Wright (11:17)

That goes back to being just a good human, I think. If someone responds and they’re just like, well, you know, I threw my back out, my wife left me, I’m having a bad day. You know, I’m sorry to hear that today’s not going well for you. I hope that it gets better. And then you let it go.

John Jantsch (11:20)

well, we’re done here. If that’s your answer, we’re done here. Right, right, right, right. Yeah. Right. Okay, so we’re talking about asking questions to others. I do a lot of meditation practice and a lot of the teachings around meditation are getting kind of the questions we ask ourselves out of the way or at least not holding us back. How do we frame questions we ask ourselves in a way that are going to be the right questions?

Dr. Amber Wright (11:53)

I love that you asked that question, John. It’s one of my favorite things to do, to talk about, because I say so often we focus on interpersonal communication. We don’t think enough about intrapersonal communication. So the number one relationship that you have in this world is the one that you have with yourself. So these same principles apply to how we talk to ourselves. I don’t meditate heavily, but I’m a journaler.

John Jantsch (12:14)

Right.Mm-hmm.

Dr. Amber Wright (12:31)

And that’s my opportunity to say, what’s going on girl? How are you really feeling about such things or about whatever is going on in your life? what do you want to do about it? What are you thinking about it? And just again, it’s another invitation for reflection so that I can grow in my self-awareness. I love communicating with myself and I talk out loud that, you know, I’m not ashamed to admit it. I talk out loud and I think that all of those things are in service to us getting to know ourselves better, which informs the way that we show up.

John Jantsch (13:04)

So let’s stay on that track a little bit. I mean, some of the questions that I think we ask ourselves, they’re sometimes deeply rooted in what all of our stories have been, right? And some of those really are limiting, that come from limiting beliefs. How do we, let’s say we’re saying, I want to stop doing that. I want to get out of that. Are there questions or are there practices that we can use to challenge our own limitations?

Dr. Amber Wright (13:31)

wow, that’s an excellent question, John. I think is the answer to that. And what I mean by that is what’s my issue? Really? How am I feeling? Really? That’s when we can dig a little deeper and get to the true heart of the matter. And a question that was very helpful to me that I listened, I heard in a book that I listened to last year, the author said, when it comes to defining or deciding what your true wants are, she says to ask yourself. If I knew that it would work out and I knew nobody would be mad at me, what would I want then? Wow, it was such a powerful tool to get me to reflect. So that’s when you can get as honest as you can because you’re the one that has to live with your truth. Yeah.

John Jantsch (14:28)

That’s what’s holding us back, right? All right, so let’s go back to teams again. Sometimes teams are made up of people that have vastly different personalities. So are there ways to, like some people, man, you come in, you ask them the most direct question you can, and they’re all about it. And then there are definitely other people that are like, no, we got to go through about eight layers of this before we’re to get anywhere deep, right? So how do you…

Dr. Amber Wright (14:38)

Yes.

John Jantsch (14:55)

How do you approach those situations where you’ve really got vastly different personalities that you need to communicate?

Dr. Amber Wright (15:03)

This is why I love, again, personality assessments. I’m a certified MyArch Greggs practitioner, for example, and we use those tools because if I’m onboarded to your team and I’m working at Duct Tape Marketing now, we’re sitting down, we’re having this meeting, and I say, you know, the way that I like to take in information is I need a lot of details, but you as the CEO are an idealist person, it’s helpful for me to know that.

John Jantsch (15:06)

Yeah.

Dr. Amber Wright (15:26)

I think sometimes on teams, don’t spend enough time talking about our individual selves and our individual approaches to the way that we work. And then we end up with some misunderstandings, miscommunications, challenges, conflicts, because I’m taking it personally that John is a big ideas person and he doesn’t give me the details that I need in order for me to feel secure to do my job. So I think carving out spaces for us to actually say, what is your communication style? What is your conflict style?

John Jantsch (15:55)

Yeah.

Dr. Amber Wright (15:55)

What is your leadership style? And being able to talk about that, I think can then empower and equip teams to work more efficiently. We just, we’re so busy we don’t have time doing it.

John Jantsch (16:03)

Do you think people know the answers to that? Like, have you asked me what’s my conflict style? I don’t know. Do I know? It’s usually like to run, but…

Dr. Amber Wright (16:14)

Also, you’re an avoider. Avoiding, competing, collaborating, compromising, accommodating. My avoiders are my runners.

John Jantsch (16:26)

Actually, I’ve gotten much better about that. So let’s talk about conflict for a minute. are there particular, I mean, in situations where, you know, sometimes there’s emotions involved, but sometimes there’s just really deeply not agreeing opinions. For example, tomorrow, depending on those of you when you’re listening to this, tomorrow’s election day in the United States, and there seem to be really differing opinions, very strong on different sides.

Dr. Amber Wright (16:43)

Mm-hmm. Yes.

John Jantsch (16:55)

You know, is there a way to mitigate conflict or to try to, you know, try to be seen and see, you know, that other person when you have really strong differing opinions.

Dr. Amber Wright (17:02)

Yeah, that’s a loaded question. But I think that my answer to that is no. I think when comes down to, when we were talking about handling conflict effectively, like a mature grownup is one to consider the other person’s perspective. I don’t think we do that enough. And taking a moment to think about like, if I’m this person or I’m in their shoes, can I see things from where they’re coming from?

John Jantsch (17:10)

You don’t have to name any names.

Dr. Amber Wright (17:38)

Having the wherewithal to name what the issue actually is, because sometimes we get caught up in the sparks of conflict, and that draws us away from the actual issue. And if we can stay focused on what the issue actually is, and name it and frame it in such a way we use this device called iStatements to say, I felt this way when you did x thing.

John Jantsch (17:47)

Yes, yes, yes.

Dr. Amber Wright (18:02)

It’s less about the behavior of the person themselves, but really about how you reacted to the choice that they made. That allows for more fruitful conversation, but we’ve got to tamp all of the sparks down a little bit so that we can get to the heart of the matter and actually resolve the thing. But we’re so impatient. We want to yell. We want to argue. We want to be right. Those are my computers in conflict. Someone’s going to lose and it’s not going to be me, right? So understanding.

John Jantsch (18:26)

Yes.

Dr. Amber Wright (18:28)

There’s such thing as time, place and manner for everything, but just kind of also then making a point to say, I didn’t really enjoy what happened in the meeting the other day. Things got heated. Can we circle back and come back to this tomorrow at two o’clock and have a discussion about it when we’ve been able to both think about our differing perspectives. But, you know, that takes more effort than sometimes we have the time to give.

John Jantsch (18:51)

So you’re saying name calling is like off the table. Is that what you’re saying?

Dr. Amber Wright (18:54)

If you want to, you write that in your journal. Write the name calling in your journal. That’s where you can tell yourself the whole truth. Just for you and you alone.

John Jantsch (19:02)

All right, so I’m going to put you on the spot. What is your favorite question to ask somebody, particularly maybe somebody you’re just meeting for the first time?

Dr. Amber Wright (19:13)

It’s the question that I used earlier, what’s the best part of, what’s been the best part of your day today? Because you’re gonna get a different answer every time. So I’m gonna ask you that if I can. What’s been the best part of your day today, John?

John Jantsch (19:17)

Yeah, you know, I live in the mountains, and we got about eight inches of snow last night and, I just think that, well, it’s, it’s pretty magical to wake up and have eight inches of snow if, unless you just really don’t like it.

Dr. Amber Wright (19:30)

Wow. There you have that. I love that. And that then is going to come from me to ask you more questions like, wow, you know, how do you manage living? Exactly. You got it.

John Jantsch (19:45)

That’s right. I’ve invited you now, right, instead of you prying. Instead of you prying. Absolutely. Well, Amber, it was awesome having you take a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there someplace you’d invite people to connect with you and learn more about your work?

Dr. Amber Wright (20:02)

Absolutely. The hub of all things, Dr. Amber Wright is wordswellsaid.com. I’m also active on LinkedIn. If you search for my full name, Dr. Amber Wright, you’ll see me there, my little pink sweater. So definitely connect with me there. And I’ve had such a good time talking to you today.

John Jantsch (20:19)

Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you taking a few moments and maybe we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Dr. Amber Wright (20:25)

Not in snow in the mountains.

John Jantsch (20:29)

Not everyone’s cup of tea, that’s for sure.

Dr. Amber Wright (20:32)

Absolutely. Thank you, John.


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Why You Should (Never) Play It Safe

Why You Should (Never) Play It Safe written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Chase Jarvis

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Chase Jarvis. Chase Jarvis is an award-winning artist, entrepreneur, and one of the past decade’s most influential photographers. He’s created campaigns for major brands like Apple, Nike, and Red Bull, and directed Portrait of a City, earning an Emmy nomination. His fine art has been showcased globally, and he contributed to the Pulitzer-winning Snowfall story in The New York Times.

As a tech innovator, Jarvis created Best Camera, the first photo-based social networking app, and wrote the bestseller Creative Calling. He also founded CreativeLive, an online learning platform acquired by Fiverr in 2021, where over 50 million students have honed their creative skills.

In his new book Never Play It Safe, Jarvis dives deep into the power of safety and focused attention as key drivers of success. We examine strategies for conquering self-doubt, uncover the transformative impact of play in our lives, and underscore the essential role of practice in mastering any skill. Jarvis passionately reminds us that life’s most rewarding experiences often await beyond the boundaries of our comfort zones and urges us to focus intently on what truly matters.

Key Takeaways:

  • Safety is often a construct that holds us back.
  • What we focus on defines our reality.
  • Attention is a superpower that shapes our experiences.
  • Self-talk is crucial; we must be kind to ourselves.
  • Playfulness is essential for creativity and joy.
  • Everyone starts as a beginner; it’s part of the journey.
  • Success is often a result of consistent practice.
  • Practices and habits are crucial to achieving our goals.
  • Unfortunately we are influenced by those who have given up on their dreams.
  • We must challenge societal norms about success and safety.

Chapters:

  • [00:00] Introduction to Chase Jarvis and His Journey
  • [02:51] Defining Safety and Its Impact on Creativity
  • [05:50] The Role of Attention in Achieving Success
  • [08:49] Overcoming Self-Doubt and Imposter Syndrome
  • [11:59] The Importance of Play in Life and Work
  • [14:54] The Power of Practice in Mastery
  • [17:57] Conclusion and Where to Find Chase Jarvis

 

More About Chase Jarvis:

 

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by: Oracle

Nobody does data better than Oracle. Train your AI models at twice the speed and less than half of the cost of other clouds. If you want to do more and spend less, take a free test drive at Oracle.

 

 

 



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Testimonial (00:00): I was like, I found it. I found it. This is what I’ve been looking for. I can honestly say it has genuinely changed the way I run my business. It’s changed the results that I’m seeing. It’s changed my engagement with clients. It’s changed my engagement with the team. I couldn’t be happier. Honestly. It’s the best investment I ever made.

John Jantsch (00:16): What you just heard was a testimonial from a recent graduate of the Duct Tape Marketing certification intensive program for fractional CMOs marketing agencies and consultants just like them. You could choose our system to move from vendor to trusted advisor, attract only ideal clients, and confidently present your strategies to build monthly recurring revenue. Visit DTM world slash scale to book your free advisory call and learn more. It’s time to transform your approach. Book your call today, DTM World slash scale.

(01:02): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Chase Jarvis. He’s an award-winning artist entrepreneur. In one of the past decades most influential photographers, he created campaigns for major brands like Apple, Nike, and Red Bull, and directed Portrait of a City earning an Emmy nomination. He’s also a founder of Creative Live, an online learning platform acquired by Fiverr in 2021, which where over 50 million students have honed their creative skills. But he’s out with a new book called Never Play It Safe, A Practical Guide to Freedom, creativity, and a Life You Love. So Chase, welcome back to the show.

Chase Jarvis (01:46): John, thanks for hosting. It’s nice to see your face. It’s been a little bit,

John Jantsch (01:49): It’s been a little bit, I have fond memories of Creative Live.

Chase Jarvis (01:54): I

John Jantsch (01:54): Got to do two shows there. It was a lot of fun. You really did something very significant there. Well,

Chase Jarvis (01:59): Thank you. Those were impactful shows that you put together and grateful to have had you on the platform. That was certainly ahead of its time, and it was fun to see the world finally recognized. What would that be? About 12 years after we started the company that, wow, hey, online learning is a really, it’s a big thing. Who knew? Yeah, it’s fun to be on the other side of that as well. That was acquired in 21 as you said, and I got to rest a little bit goof off. And then when I thought, what do I really want to spend my time doing? It was very much writing a little bit about the lessons I’d learned along the way and that gave birth to never play it safe.

John Jantsch (02:37): So as an author, I know that certainly authors and publishers pick apart titles every word in a title. Right? So let’s start, I know this is a crazy question, but how do you define safety, especially safety that holds people back, right?

Chase Jarvis (02:51): Sure, yeah. It’s important to acknowledge that this is not about belts and sunscreen. It’s not about emotional or physical safety. All of things are very important in life. The kind of safety that I’m talking about when I take on this book, this topic is the kind of safety that keeps us stuck living the lives that other people are trying to prescribe for us. The thing that is on this side of our fear and our comfort zone, and part of the reason that I ended up working on this particular book and titling the book as such is I realized when I sort of deconstructed my own experiences and having had a show and a podcast of my own where I’ve done more than a thousand episodes and many of our mutual friends are some of the world’s most creative and talented entrepreneurial people. And it turned out that when I sort of did the research on myself and folks like you and others, that man, everybody reports that all of the best stuff in their lives was on the other side of risk, on the other side of discomfort.

(03:51): So I started to ask the question, well, how can we get better at reliably going there? The word, the sort of analog is safety, because when we are taking risks or we are outside of our comfort zone, we feel unsafe sometimes in our head, mostly in our head, a little bit less in our body. But how do we get good at going there if all the best stuff in life is over there? So that was the topic of the book and how I think about the term safety. Again, the title of a book is meant to get you to pick it up, and it is, I want to make sure that people know it’s like, Hey, seat belts are real sunscreen’s. Good, let’s keep up with that stuff, but let’s, how do we get at the best stuff in life?

John Jantsch (04:31): It’s sort of playing small.

Chase Jarvis (04:33): We get

John Jantsch (04:34): Talking

Chase Jarvis (04:35): Out of living our dreams by people who’ve given up on theirs. So we end up taking advice from the wrong subset of people, the people who haven’t done what we want to do or people who are themselves afraid for us. And sometimes this is our parents, our career counselors, our peers, they have great intentions in mind, which is what makes it tricky and why so many of us fall short of our potential. There’s no evil overlord. Someone is not out there trying to keep you down. People want you to be safe, but what they’re really talking you out of is the safety, the fear that they have for if you took that chance and went after that career that only 1% of the world has. Or it turns out though, that’s again where the best stuff is and how most of us are going to feel most alive.

John Jantsch (05:23): And I wonder since this wasn’t my original question, but since you went down that path, I mean is some of that fear, especially a lot of times, like you said, they wouldn’t do that leap, but is there also a fear that you’ll be more than me, that you won’t need me anymore? I mean, is that the genesis of some of that

Chase Jarvis (05:44): Advice? It is, and it’s generally not. I think people that, especially people that are close to us, they want the best for us, but just their understanding of what is the best for us is filtered through their own filter of what’s good for them or their perception of what’s good for us. So most of those things, while you make a very valid point that some people, this is usually in the peer landscape,

(06:09): Don’t want us to leave them in the dust and go on some grand adventure when they chose to play it safe. But I think the takeaway is that there’s so many inbounds, so many inputs to our decision frameworks and processes, and it’s really managing those inputs and categorizing them appropriately that this book is about. It’s like no one’s out to wants you to live small and most of the people that are giving you advice love you very much. And still the cultural message is we celebrate people who’ve taken great risk and have helped move culturally. Society, technologically, conceptually, artistically helped us move forward, and yet we’re reluctant to take those steps in our own lives. So this is really about how do we untangle the programming and in the same way that we’re largely talked out of our creativity, you know, can walk into any first grade classroom and say, who wants to come to the front of the room and draw me a picture?

(07:12): Every hand goes up. So we get talked out of that stuff, this awareness that we are creative and it’s very similar. We get talked out of our dreams by people who think we should be all the things that their parents and the generation before, and that’s what our aspirations should be. So this is like, wait a minute, who are you to define my aspirations? Realizing that we get again talked into or out of so many of these things and how do we both acknowledge and maintain our own sort of independence and get to do the things in life that really light us up?

John Jantsch (07:50): So the book is arranged around seven, what you call levers, and I was on an AM radio show one time for one of my books, and the host had clearly not read a word of the book. And so they’re doing the interview and he goes, chapter two is called this, tell me about that. And I’ve hesitate to do that, but your book, your titles, your levers all start with one word. And I feel like we could do an entire show on tell me about attention

Chase Jarvis (08:14): Because

John Jantsch (08:16): I mean, it is pretty obvious the way you’ve arranged it. These are things that hold people up. And so I would suggest, because you call it the superpower, that attention is kind of the linchpin to starting this whole process.

Chase Jarvis (08:30): It really is. And yeah, thanks for inviting the reader to know a little bit or the listener to know a little bit about essentially when I deconstructed my successes and failures and the successes and failures of so many of our peers and friends and ordinary people who’ve lived extraordinary lives, there’s a very clear pattern that a handful of things, the same thing sort of creativity that I mentioned earlier that are native within us, but that we sort of give up on or get talked out of by just cultures messaging that man, if we actually just paid attention to some of these things and reconnected with these parts of ourselves, that’s what people who have really tapped into the best stuff in life, that’s all they’re doing. So I do trot out there’s seven levers, seven tools that live net natively within us. And the most important, and the first one in the book is attention because whether, I guess we’re largely taught to get attention, that’s how you stand out and that’s how your business becomes successful.

(09:34): That’s how you find a mate. And yet what we know about attention is that the people who are the best in the world at directing attention, at focusing at paying attention to what matters to them and what is important and can eshoo distractions and are eshoo the things that aren’t important or will make a difference in success or failure or fulfillment, that’s actually where the gold is. Because what we pay attention to literally defines the experience that we have of life. And I gave a really very challenging and heartfelt difficult example in the book Viktor Frankl, if you may be familiar with his work, he wrote an amazing book called Man’s Search for Meeting, which was about his time in 1942 in a concentration camp. And man’s search for meeting is a master class, a master work in what you pay attention to defines your existence.

(10:30): Now Viktor Frankl was in the middle of the most horrific thing that humanity may have ever known and is managing through. He’s a professional trained psychologist, so he’s got some additional skills above and beyond what our normal skill rate is, but he’s unable to have an experience that is filled with meaning and connection even in the most difficult circumstances. Now, fortunately for everyone who’s listening to this, you are not in that situation and yet it’s still true, like what you pay attention to where you direct your attention, it is the experience of your life. If you think things are hard and the world is difficult because all you’re doing is glued to social media, then that’s what your experience is going to be. By contrast, if you spend time doing what you love around people who care about you and in a connected community and get a healthy dose of nature, then you’re going to have a different experience of life so that we can control. That is what I’m calling attention to and that this is a trainable, it’s a skill that we ought to stay connected with.

John Jantsch (11:40): AI might be the most important new computer technology ever. It’s storming every industry and literally billions of dollars are being invested. So buckle up. The problem is that AI needs a lot of speed and processing power. So how do you compete without cost spiraling out of control? It’s time to upgrade to the next generation of the cloud. Oracle Cloud infrastructure or O-C-I-O-C-I is a single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. OCI has four to eight times the bandwidth of other clouds offers one consistent price instead of a variable regional pricing. And of course, nobody does data better than Oracle. So now you can train your AI models at twice the speed and less than half of the cost of other clouds. If you want to do more and spend less like Uber eight by eight and Databricks Mosaic, take a free test drive@ociatoracle.com slash duct tape. That’s oracle.com/duct tape oracle.com/duct tape. You see on social media, as you mentioned all the time, people posing the idea of imposter syndrome, which is really to me is sort of saying, I don’t trust myself or I mean, how much of that do you see playing a role that there’s almost like a self-sabotage that goes on because I don’t trust myself enough to actually do this thing, so I’m going to distract myself with something else.

Chase Jarvis (13:09): It’s so true, John, and I think it’s a smart point to bring up in the book. I frame it as such that, but the world does some dirty work on us by telling us the things that we should be and what we should do and whatnot, but we actually do the dirtiest work on ourselves. The most important words that we say are the ones that we say to ourselves and to me being able, this goes hand in hand with attention. What messages are we giving ourselves? Of course, if the world wants us to be either accountants or doctors or lawyers, when we really want to be a YouTuber, an artist or a race car driver, I’m not articulating one is more virtuous than the other, but there are dominant paradigms and if we buy into that and start telling ourselves stories about who we were yesterday and what we can possibly do achieve or how we can be connected or fulfilled in this life, then again, we are the ones that we’re in conversations with most, right between our ears.

(14:19): So the goal in learning to pay attention or to direct attention is that what you feed yourself matters and choosing to feed yourself not junk food is out. It has a tremendous downstream effect on what’s possible with our one precious life. So as you mentioned, imposter syndrome and there’s all sorts of other, I guess, related things that, look, we can’t pretend that these things don’t exist, but what if we developed the muscle that when we made a mistake, it wasn’t that we talked so nasty to ourselves, but what if of ourselves as experience, what kind encouraging thing would we say like, Hey, that’s not like me. Next time I’m faced with this, I’m going to do X instead of Y. That’s how we would talk to our friends, and yet we don’t have that relationship with ourselves way too often. So this particular chapter is trying to get us to realize words matter, what we say to ourselves, matter matters, and that we’re actually in charge of that.

(15:22): Whether we think so or not, the world is happening for us and it’s our job to do what we can get in the driver’s seat and pay attention to the things that truly do matter. What if you started, there’s that famous exercise and we’ll play it here for anyone who if as soon as you get the gig, then stop playing and listen. If you haven’t played before, then follow along and it goes like this. Look around wherever you are right now and notice for me take 10 seconds and count everything in your field of view. That’s red. Go ahead now just look around and count everything in your field of view. That’s red and you’re kind of going, okay, 1, 2, 3, 4. I mean right now the truth is you’re even calling things that are sort of rust. You’re calling them red too to do as many things as you can to chalk up all the things you’re looking for.

(16:12): Now the question is how many blue things did you see? And you’re like, wait a minute. That’s the punchline. You see exactly the things that you’re looking for. So how does that extend had we extend this metaphor to our lives? Well, what we pay attention to and what we’re looking for, what messages we are telling ourselves between our ears really, really matters downstream to what we see in the experience that we have. So if you can decide that you’re going to be open to a universe of colors or that you are especially going to look for things that light you up rather than the blueprint, as I mentioned earlier, that social media might have us believe or an imposter syndrome would have us believe, then that’s what you’re going to see. So how do we get out of the backseat, get into the driver’s seat, and again, the phrase that stop playing it safe because the world wants you to be safe. Your biology thinks that in choosing to become a YouTuber or to pursue your passion or to eshoo the, let’s call it the career that your career counselor or that your parents wanted for you, that’s somehow riskier. But the truth is it’s all risky. How risky is it to park the desires that you have for this one precious life until it’s too late? I would say that’s the ultimate risk.

John Jantsch (17:30): So a lot of two people when they decide, I’m not going to play it safe, I’m going to go all in, right? I’m going to go for it. Sometimes that leads to blinded like I’m on the goal, nothing else matters. And lever five is play the most important work we do. And I would suggest, especially since you’ve called it the most important work we do, it’s probably the one that people counterintuitively forget.

Chase Jarvis (17:53): Absolutely. And what I like to think about in terms of that is success leaves clues. So think about the time, and this is, anyone can do this right now, while if you’re sitting in traffic or walking on the walking path or on, you’re at the gym with us in your ears right now. Think about the times where you felt the most lit up, the happiest, most playful, the highest version of yourselves. I promise you there was levity in your day-to-day in moment to moment, there was joy, there was connection. And yet whether this is our puritanical roots or the culture, this work hard culture, this grindy culture that we have become a part of or that’s memeable on social media, it ignores that playful part of ourselves and that’s playfulness and joy. That’s the engine of life. It truly is. And the world might have you believe otherwise that the tortured artist is really where the best work comes from.

(18:54): And yet look at the people who’ve had really long, fruitful, rich, connected careers and have been doing what they’re doing for a really long time. This joy, this playfulness, it can be brought to anything even to work. Again, watch an 8-year-old, you say, okay, it’s time to pick up your toys. And they might be disappointed that they’ve got to pick up at their toys, but they’re going to make room noises while they’re running around the room, grabbing the toys and picking up their stuff. That’s our natural state is to seek, find and engage in play. And yet as an adult, we somehow disconnect from that thinking that, oh, it’s all about work and play is something that we only do after all of the work is done. Well, let me tell you, there’s never a time where all of the work is done. So do not deny this great state that it pays dividends to be in for some future time that never comes.

John Jantsch (19:50): So you’re not supposed to have favorites, I suppose. But my favorite is practice. And the reason, I mean, that sounds really boring, the grunt work, right? But you have a set of principles in there that I think by themselves really are a masterclass. And I think a lot of people, I was talking to somebody who’s a writing coach and he said, you won’t believe how many people show up and say, I want to write a fiction book, but I’ve never written one. I’ve never taken any classes I’ve never practiced. And it’s like, no, it’s all practice and it’s being okay with being really bad, but that’s not what people want to hear. It’s like I want the magic pill. But to me it’s my favorite because I think it really is what brings it to the heart.

Chase Jarvis (20:32): Absolutely. And there’s nothing like if you can’t be willing to look foolish beginning something, then you will do nothing because we’re all terrible at everything when we start out. Think of how basic, if you had an able-bodied child watching them learn to walk,

(20:53): It looks like it’s the most difficult thing in the world. And yet we all walk around completely unconscious. If you’re an able-bodied person and without thinking about it and everything, including something as basic as that takes practice, why then would we think that that career we want the outcomes that artistic, the master work of fiction that we completed, why would we think that we could somehow become, do that without a whole lot of stumbling and some really important good foundational habits, IE practices to go with it? And the reason there are manyfold, but one is that now we can see the best in the world do their thing effortlessly at any time by just picking up our phone, staring at it for five minutes. You don’t see the iceberg of work underneath the surface. You just see someone who’s the best in the world that unlike thousands of years ago when we were in tribes and we watched someone start to not know how to hunt, then to become the best hunter in the tribe, we watched it with our own eyes and it made sense to us. Now we just see what appears to be effortless brilliance everywhere. Well, I’ll tell you what, underpins every person you look up to, admire, appreciate for the things that they have done or the people they’ve become in their life is a set of really profound, often very basic practices that they’ve put into play and that’s available to you. It’s just understanding what practices, what habits are going to get you to your desired outcomes.

John Jantsch (22:27): Well, chase, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. It is always so great to visit with you. Another excellent book. Where would you invite people to connect with you or certainly find a copy of Play It Safe,

Chase Jarvis (22:41): Never Play It Safe is available everywhere books are sold and Amazon will ship it to you wherever you are. If you can support your local, that’s cool too. And I’m just Chase Jarvis everywhere on the internet. So Instagram, YouTube, Twitter x, I don’t know what they call it anymore, but I’m just Chase Jarvis everywhere. I’d love to connect with you. I’ve got a popular email newsletter if you like, these tidy bits. But John, just hat tip to you for running such a tight ship and building the community that you have over there. And I love Duct tape and grateful to always be welcome to feel welcome here and to be a guest on the show. Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch (23:15): Alright, well again, thanks for stopping by and hopefully we’ll see you one of these days out there on the road.


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Weekend Favs November 16th

Weekend Favs November 16th written by Jordan E read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but I encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one I took on the road.

  • Albert.ai is an autonomous AI marketing platform that manages digital advertising campaigns across multiple channels. It optimizes campaigns by analyzing data in real-time and making decisions to enhance performance.
  • SalesAPE.ai is an AI-powered sales assistant designed to engage and qualify leads through personalized conversations via email, SMS, or messenger services. It automates lead engagement, qualification, and scheduling, aiming to increase sales efficiency and conversion rates.
  • Ohai.ai is an AI-driven platform that offers virtual meeting assistants to enhance productivity during online meetings. It provides features like real-time transcription, action item tracking, and meeting summaries to streamline collaboration and follow-ups.

These are my weekend favs; I would love to hear about some of yours – Connect with me on Linkedin!

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.

Personalize Employee Benefits By Granting The Right To Choose

Personalize Employee Benefits By Granting The Right To Choose written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Brandy Burch

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I had the pleasure of interviewing Brandy Burch, CEO and co-founder of BenefitBay, a company innovating the employee health benefits industry through Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements (ICHRAs).

With a vision to make health benefits more accessible and customizable, Brandy has rapidly expanded BenefitBay and helped redefine how employers approach employee health coverage by ensuring fair and equal purchasing power.

We discuss the evolution of employee health benefits, the advantages of ICHRAs for employers and employees, and the complexities involved in implementing these arrangements.

From Tech-first inexperienced health benefit startups to the burden of having too many choices, Brandy Burch explains that DIYing health benefits internally is not all it’s cracked up to be and giving employees a say in what benefits they choose from pets to fertility can be an enormous BENEFIT to seeking talent, as an agency.

Brandy Burch also shares insights on risk management, the role of BenefitBay in the market, and the importance of personalization in employee benefits. The conversation also touches on the challenges female CEOs face in the insurance industry and the unique advantages of Kansas City as a tech hub for health benefits innovation.

Key Takeaways:

  • ICHRAs provide employees with more choice in health benefits.
  • Employers can budget more effectively with defined contribution models.
  • The complexity of ICHRAs requires careful partner selection.
  • BenefitBay acts as a software service to streamline the process.
  • Personalization in benefits is becoming increasingly important.
  • Kansas City is a growing hub for health tech innovation.
  • Female CEOs face unique challenges in the insurance industry.
  • Employers can attract talent by offering personalized benefits.
  • Risk management is crucial when transitioning to ICHRAs.
  • The market for individual health plans is competitive in many states.

Chapters:

  • [00:00] Introduction to Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements (ICHRAs) and BenefitBay
  • [01:08] The Evolution of Employee Health Benefits
  • [02:44] Understanding  ICHRAs
  • [05:00] Benefits for Employers: Cost and Budgeting Advantages
  • [06:43] Risk Management in ICHRAs
  • [09:41] BenefitBay’s Role in the Market
  • [10:32] Target Audience: Who Benefits from ICHRAs?
  • [12:27] Mitigating Chaos in Transitioning to ICHRAs
  • [14:25] Attracting Talent with Personalized Benefits
  • [15:47] Trends in Employee Benefits
  • [19:10] The Shift Towards Personalization in Benefits
  • [20:17] Kansas City: A Hub for BenefitBay
  • [22:56] Challenges for Female CEOs in the Insurance Industry

More About Brandy Burch:

 



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Brandy Burch (00:00): Can you hear my dog?

John Jantsch (00:01): I can. This is a dog friendly show.

Brandy Burch (00:03): This is a live dog friendly show. Yeah, there are a lot of rules around ensuring that individuals aren’t discriminated against and ratios are met and affordability calculations based on what’s available in their market and ensuring that their employer is not classing people unfavorably and everyone’s getting equal and fair purchasing power. So it is complex, but really what it means is we’re going to be able to access our benefit dollars and make the choice that’s right for our family.

John Jantsch (00:32): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Brandy Burch. She is a CEO and Co-founder of Benefit Bay, a Kansas City based company innovating the employee health benefits industry through individual coverage health reimbursement arrangements. That’s a mouthful. Hopefully we’ll unpack it with a vision to make health benefits more accessible and customizable. Brandy has led Benefit Bay’s rapid expansion and helped redefine how employers approach employee health coverage. So Brandy, welcome to the show.

Brandy Burch (01:08): Thanks, John. Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch (01:11): I mean, I definitely want to unpack an I-C-H-R-A because I usually talk about marketing and not necessarily insurance, but a lot of my listeners are business owners and employers and it’s certainly a topic that will be of interest. But before we get into that, I’m just curious, was there something that had you sitting around one day and said, I need to start a company that does I ccra?

Brandy Burch (01:38): No, that was not something I was envisioning or thinking about. I was actually at a different software company and was really introduced to the idea and asked to join this startup vision and actually started as the operations lead, not the CEO. So I was part of the founding team and got to build it from the ground up, but our CEO left a year in and then I’ve been leading the Reign since then. So it wasn’t something I was sitting around on my couch thinking about, but it absolutely was something that I was solving throughout my career because I was in business, I was a business operator for my entire career and I was a purchaser of benefits, which are one of your largest spends when you’re running a small company or any size company.

John Jantsch (02:24): So we have, as part of our employee benefits, we have a health insurance coverage for employees. And I imagine most listeners are fairly familiar with how those work. There are different arrangements that you can do in different pays and things, but so how significantly different is an individual coverage health reimbursement or maybe before we even get into the difference, what is it?

Brandy Burch (02:46): What is really defined contribution? So it is an employer’s ability to set a bucket of dollars aside for the health benefit and allowing the individual to choose. It’s much more complex than that because there are a lot of rules around ensuring that individuals aren’t discriminated against and ratios are met and affordability calculations based on what’s available in their market and ensuring that their employer is not classing people unfavorably and everyone’s getting equal and fair purchasing power. So it is complex, but really what it means is we’re going to be able to access our benefit dollars and make the choice that’s right for our family. That’s the definition of what it’s a large acronym. Yeah,

John Jantsch (03:29): So you hit on really probably what’s a key part of it. I mean most, at least in my experience, I could be wrong on this, but most benefit plans are like, here it is, do you want it? Do you want your spouse in it? I mean that’s pretty much the decision. So what you’re suggesting is this is vastly different in that you have a lot of choice.

Brandy Burch (03:49): Yeah, you have a lot of choice. And I know you mentioned you’re in Colorado. I’m in Kansas City, the average market has 68 to 133 plans to choose as an individual. So you’re up to the market of all the carriers in your plan design. You have HMOs and EPOS and PPOs, and you have HSAs and you have the flagship brands and the Aetnas and the Cignas and the Kaisers and the United Healthcares, which you also have option to be in a community health related product. And so maybe you have a Denver Health Plans, maybe you have a Connecticut, if you’re in Connecticut now you have an ability to purchase that and your employer likely wouldn’t have purchased that because they would’ve needed something that fits everyone in all 50 states. So they would’ve had to have purchased a larger network product that is more expensive. You may decide to buy something that is more community-based, direct primary care driven, something that you are really passionate about that’s driven by a hospital system. There are a lot of hospital system carrier plans that are out there, and so that allows that individual to be put back into the driver’s seat, but also make a more conscious decision with those dollars that matters more to their family for access to care.

John Jantsch (04:57): Alright, so theoretically, and I’m going to come back to that, that’s a better idea for the employee because it gives them choice. I mean, we can argue maybe I’m the employer and I’ve done all the research and I’m telling you this is the best plan. Maybe that’s an option, but what’s the benefit for the employer? Is this cheaper? Is this easier? You’ve already said it’s complex, so what’s the benefit for the

Brandy Burch (05:19): Employer? Yeah, I mean, in the Colorado market, it’s cheaper in the Kansas, Missouri market, not necessarily. So in 34 of the states right now, individual products are priced competitively to a large margin to group insurance. So the employer would benefit by going to this model because the employee has higher purchasing power with lower dollars. So that drives the budget down. In addition, it allows you to budget because you set a defined contribution model, it’s always $800 or $450 or $650 for that employee that’s seated in that class that you’ve modeled out. It’s not, oh, does that employee have seven children? Now they’re going to break the bank because I’m doing something over here that’s going to be different. It’s going to be a set defined contribution and there may be an additional child add-on that. You could decide as an employer, but you can budget.

(06:14): And I think that’s the biggest piece. And if you budget significantly higher than lower cost silver products, you do not have to change your budget every year as an employer. They’re having to change it every year because the rates going up 6, 10, 19 31 51. The types of rate increases we’re seeing are pretty significant. And then if you were an employer in self-insurance, you’re now getting out of that risk pool because self-insurance, although it sounded really exciting for employers to manage their risk and manage their cost and drive care saving behaviors of their employee populations, that’s a lot of administration. It’s also a lot of work. And then if you end up with one or two laser claimants, you’re suddenly in a balance sheet risk problem. And so that allows that employer to budget and just stay out of the risk game.

John Jantsch (07:03): So speaking of risk, obviously you just pointed to one, but this versus sort of the traditional one carrier path, does this approach actually aid in reducing risk for employers as well?

Brandy Burch (07:17): It does. I would say the only area of risk for employers in ICR is choosing the wrong partner.

(07:26): Anytime there’s a new market, you’re going to have a lot of startups, you’re going to have a lot of people wanting to disrupt it from different ways. However, not all startups are created equal from a compliance perspective or from an insurance acumen perspective or from an ability to become licensed and appointed with a carrier. Right? Your technology tool set has to meet a certain level of guidelines. Your engineers need to be in the US there are various types of risk that exist out there when you decide to go with something that’s new and a disruptor and you don’t vet your technology providers. I also would say a lot of the technology providers are going direct to the employer and cutting out the broker. I feel there’s a risk there because who is going to be the consultant in that situation? Who is providing that advice and who is holding that technology provider accountable?

(08:17): Now the employer’s back in that business of trying to manage something. So I would recommend that to eliminate a risk, you’re always working with a broker still, and you’re not trying to just go with a technology provider who’s trying to now become an insurance agency and now become a direct to employer sales agent because the insurance acumen and knowledge that needs to be at that table needs to include those other pieces. It needs to be that they’re bringing a quote every year to the employer of what is best for you this year. And icra, even though I’m an ICRA provider, may not be best for you every year. Maybe you suddenly are in Kansas and Missouri and you have 300 employees because you acquired a company. Kansas and Missouri is about 10 to 15% higher unless there’s a certain geographic population that works out there on individual rates. So you need an honest person at the table with you who’s not trying to just cut your consultant out of the conversation to win those dollars.

John Jantsch (09:17): So do you consider Benefit Bay a broker or do you consider yourself a marketplace or a software? I mean, how do you characterize yourself?

Brandy Burch (09:25): Yeah, we consider ourselves software as a service and we consider ourselves the chosen partner of those employers and brokers. So we add value in this chain where we’re taking away that administrative lift, that decision making at a large population. Imagine you’ve got 2000 employees. Your broker nor your HR team, can handle 2000 employees going through a decision that they’ve never had. They’ve never had the permission to make themselves. They’ve traditionally just had a carrier, an HSA and a PO

(09:56): Or maybe a buy up and a buy down. So I’ve got two choices. I’ve got one carrier, I’ve got two paycheck choices, that’s all I’m deciding on now. You’ve got the paycheck choices, the carrier choices, the type of plan choices. So benefit based steps in that gap as a partner to the broker because these brokers as well haven’t been selling individual products. So they were selling group products and they’ve become experts in their states and now they have to be experts in every state. And so we stand in that value chain there and then we solve the technology gap for the carriers on taking a large group population in individual products.

John Jantsch (10:34): So are you suggesting then that there’s a certain size company that this makes sense or does it make sense for a 20 person company

Brandy Burch (10:44): It makes sense for the sub 50 in a certain way? Benefit Bay does not specialize in the on exchange market enrollments. That’s an under 50 lives. You are subsidy eligible, you could remain subsidy eligible for your employees. So there may need to be an on exchange enrollment that’s dealing with healthcare.gov or that’s dealing with an on exchange product. There’s a lot of long wait times and hold times. We are looking to service those larger employers. So I would say for us it’s more of a 200 plus employer size that we service up into the thousands. What we do see is there is a great company called Stretch Dollar that’s doing the sub 30 really well. And so we refer any groups that try to come to us in that area to them, but they don’t utilize a broker, right? Because it’s a smaller group, it’s not going to have enough commission for a broker to, and so they’re able to play as the broker and as the technology system. But in the same respect, they don’t service up over 50 because there’s a lot of compliance laws around the over 50 employer space. Those are called applicable large employers. And we service those well. So we have a partnership. They’re sitting in tech, well, actually I think they sit in Pennsylvania and San Francisco. Can you hear my dog?

John Jantsch (12:00): I can. This is a dog friendly show. This

Brandy Burch (12:02): Is a live dog friendly show.

John Jantsch (12:06): I can’t hear your dog. I was actually going to tell you. I could see you were starting to fidget about it. So let me ask you this then let’s, I don’t know, pick a number. Anything over a hundred. To me migrating to this would seem like chaos, right? And so I assume that I would think that would be one of the reasons a big company might actually go, maybe I see some benefit, but the chaos to change isn’t worth it. So how do you mitigate that?

Brandy Burch (12:34): Yeah, we mitigate that by speaking to how we’ve solved the problem and we’ve thought about it. How does a group insurance experience work? And this individual experience really is similar. The only difference is when they get to that enrolling in your benefits, we’ve all done it. We’ve all enrolled in our benefits and have been admin. When they get to the enrolling in their benefits, it’s just that they get to put in their healthcare providers and they get to search for things that matter to them. And they get to decide, I want a gold product, or I want a PPO, or I want an HSA or I want to only go to this carrier. It matters to me and they take care of me. And so they actually get to filter down what it is that matters to them. Once they select that product, we submit the application to the carrier for them through technology, and then we facilitate the payments in a lump sum for the business. So the business is able to just have one deduction via a CH that we pull. And then each of these payments are individual on behalf of the individuals, but we expose all of that the way the employers used to. So our largest group right now enrolled is 3,430 employees. Imagine 3,430 employees sitting across 49 states. Actually,

(13:46): Those employees are going to make vastly different choices than they would if they were on group. This employer thought about going back to group, they surveyed their employees because they were having a technology solution that wasn’t doing a great job. They ended up just switching technology solutions, which was significantly important for us because we were able to deliver a better experience. But in that scenario, they looked to go back to group and their employees were like, no way we get to choose now. What are you going to dump us in? I get to be in the plan that matters to me here, and I get to have a better product than if you would’ve narrowed us down to a larger network, it would be more expensive. So we have seen it’s a little stickier once it gets going though, once you give someone a right to choose, it’s kind of hard to be like, no, I’m just going to decide for you now. Right?

Testimonial (14:30): I was like, I found it. I found it. This is what I’ve been looking for. I can honestly say has genuinely changed the way I run my business. It’s changed the results that I’m seeing. It’s changed my engagement with clients. It’s changed my engagement with the team. I couldn’t be happier, honestly. It’s the best investment I ever made.

John Jantsch (14:46): What you just heard was a testimonial from a recent graduate of the Duct Tape Marketing certification intensive program for fractional CMOs marketing agencies and consultants just like them. You could choose our system to move from vendor to trusted advisor, attract only ideal clients, and confidently present your strategies to build monthly recurring revenue. Visit DTM world slash scale to book your free advisory call and learn more. It’s time to transform your approach. Book your call today, DTM world slash scale. Well, benefits play a large role in attracting and retaining talent. So would you say that companies would even have the ability to maybe promote that as a differentiator? As a benefit, I mean, and play a role in retaining and attracting?

Brandy Burch (15:39): Yes. I would say that is true. I see that a lot in our Northeast clients because Icra has been around a little longer and competing well in that market. And so we see that they’re advertising that on their websites. They’re saying, you get to choose by over X number of health plans that they’ve given back two and a half million of cost share from the employee’s paychecks with this program. And so also, most of the employers, when they do see this savings, they invest in other benefits. So then they improve the benefits package overall. They’re adding additional disability payments paid by the employer or life insurance at X of your salary, or they’re allowing you to spend those dollars in some other product that matters to you and your family, whether it’s pet insurance or something else. So I find that’s a motivating product to employees to be able to have access to that.

John Jantsch (16:31): Yeah, yeah. So since we mentioned pet insurance, are you seeing it, are there some trends that you’re seeing in employee benefits that people are really trying to push the boundaries on?

Brandy Burch (16:42): Yeah, I feel like employers are trying to have a more engaged employee population. They’re trying to offer a lot of new mom or new parent type benefits. They’re trying to offer infertility. For those that have concerns with infertility, they’re offering mental health, virtual mental health, virtual care, zero access to those types of programs as add-ons. I think all of that’s really important to have access to as an employee. And then individuals can choose which piece of it matters to them. And if they would’ve tried to add infertility to an entire population, it would’ve been insurmountable. But if they’re able to just add it for those who need it, then it is something that matters. And there’s a lot of really great startups out there in these types of spaces. Kansas City has a couple marma and Leva apps that are around surviving that first year as a mom or a nursing mom or a new parent. And those are really engaging and keep your employee feeling like you care that they’re returning to work and they’re not sleeping and all of the things, how do you survive that? Where’s the network online that can help me get those materials? So seeing a lot of those types of engaging and rather than our employer knowing our health outcomes, which happens in current traditional group insurance,

(17:56): They’re able to access through a lot of the big brother tools around drug usage and claims. They’re able to know what’s going on in our family rather than them having that type of overbearing access in the individual side. You just get to make an individual decision with your dollars. They don’t get to know that you’re maybe getting cancer treatments

Brandy (18:15): If

Brandy Burch (18:16): You don’t want them to know. So there’s a little bit of that that I’m seeing as an evolution of this personal choice. Also, holding carriers accountable to deliver actual customer service and to deliver payments on our claims timely to approve services that we need. Because if we’re in the driver’s seat of our benefit dollars, we could be brand loyal or

Brandy (18:43): Not,

Brandy Burch (18:45): But if our employer is or our broker is, we really are voiceless in those types of service outcomes.

John Jantsch (18:53): Yeah. Yeah. And while you talked about the positive benefits of working with a broker, there probably are some negatives where a broker is like, Hey, I get more commission over here. I’m going over here. So

Brandy Burch (19:07): I mean, every industry, there’s going to be motivators that are driven by greed. There’s going to be motivators that are driven by fear. And I think that we have carriers that are motivated that way. We have brokers that are motivated that way, and we have employers that are sometimes motivated by just doing what’s easiest. And if I change carriers and get a better outcome, that’s even noisy. And I’m nervous about that because Susie or Tom may be mad.

Brandy (19:33): And

Brandy Burch (19:33): So sometimes getting that better outcome requires a little friction, and that’s why benefits have kind of evolved to where they are. I think a lot of people just keep status quo, even if it goes up year after year, because it’s all that fear around personal benefits and changing them and causing any type of outcome to anyone on your team. And recruiting has been hard the last five years it’s been employee’s market. No one wants to upset the apple cart,

John Jantsch (20:01): Right? Right. Hard to replace people. It really is. So I kind of hear you saying that if there’s an overarching trend, it is personalization of the benefits, right? I mean, is that a good way to say it? Yeah,

Brandy Burch (20:13): I think it’s personalization of the benefits. I think it’s the last area that we haven’t been able to personalize, right?

(20:20): I describe this as favorable legislation, like when pensions move to 401k and allow your investment dollars and make your decisions after a few poor decisions based on lifelong service to a company and your retirement’s gone, you were able to move to individuals have the accountability to invest their benefit dollars and to invest those appropriately. Now, some don’t do what’s right with their actual benefit dollars, don’t access those. And that does happen on the healthcare side. They may not use all the dollars available to ’em. They may go with the lowest price product because they don’t use their benefits or they don’t want anything out of pocket. And it goes back to a personal accountability. And I think we need to get there, especially for our own health and improving health outcomes. Right.

John Jantsch (21:09): I’m curious if there, you and I talked before we started, I grew up in Kansas City. I’m curious, is there any reason that Kansas City is a good place for benefit Bay two b? Was it started there for a reason or that just happened to be where the players were?

Brandy Burch (21:23): It really was founded in Omaha by Zach Harris, the CEO. And when I took the seat a year later in April of 22, I moved into Kansas City and the reason why I moved into Kansas City is one, I’m here, but two, there’s a great tech hub in Kansas City around health tech. We have a ton of health techs that are of all, we have a lot of investment from larger ecosystem players in this market. It’s a great market to have a work from home role and recruit. There aren’t as many companies in Kansas City allowing the flexibility of working remote.

(21:58): And when you have a remote first company and you’re in Kansas City, I feel like the recruiting is really easy for us. I wasn’t having as much luck in Omaha, and I think it’s because there’s a long tenure of large insurance ecosystems there and a lot of enterprise business where people are very comfortable and confident in their compensation, in their benefits and in their retirements package. To go to a startup I think was a little more risky in that market. In Kansas City, I’m not feeling like people have that aversion. They’re saying, oh, that sounds fun. I want to be a part of this. You mean I get shares, I get to be remote, I get to do the commute with my family or a handle to school drop off. And the motivation here, we’ve been able to hire 26 people in market. So now we do kind of have a hybrid work location downtown, and people can come if they want, but Tuesdays and Thursdays tends to be when we’re all heading in there. No one wants to deal with the commute Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I guess. But I do think the recruiting, the tech ecosystem was really important and the investment ecosystem is really great here. Casey Rise just introduced me to a great partner within CVS Aetna, and you just never know when those types of networks and really support your growing startup. And I feel like everyone’s here to lift each other up in this community.

John Jantsch (23:22): I would agree with that sentiment. My final question really is there probably aren’t a lot of CEOs that are females in your particular industry. Is that first off, is that correct? Is that changing? Has that presented a hurdle? How have you navigated that?

Brandy Burch (23:37): It is correct. You’ve

John Jantsch (23:38): Got four questions by the way to answer any one of ’em you want.

Brandy Burch (23:41): It’s correct. Across all industries, there are limited female CEOs in insurance, even less so in venture backed companies, even less, right? So we are a venture backed company. It is tough to raise capital as a female in a VC world. It is tough to raise capital in a non-original founding role of an organization. You have to survive that transition of a founder nuisance that people may feel that’s on the cap table and they have to believe that you are the one leading the company and that you can do this and you didn’t lose team members talent. The tech didn’t serve it, and you were able to keep your customers. So that has been some things that I’ve had to overcome. I think the biggest thing is there’s one other female CEO in this industry right now. I think the biggest thing is being able to transfer experience rather than I haven’t been a part of the Facebook or some other tech startup

(24:43): And I wasn’t necessarily an Ivy League grad. So those two things have been hard in a tech startup world. What I think has allowed us to be successful is that we are operators as an overall team, and our VP of engineering was in large insurance carrier technical development, and then cancer research, technical development. We come with the expertise to the technology solution rather than come with the technology skillset or background of being in serial startups. We come with various small business, medium-sized business grit and experience. So I think that’s made us successful. It’s made it hard though, to start that journey from here to here. Now here, everyone loves us, but you’ve already got your proof point, so 400% growth. And so it’s a little better when the numbers are black and white and then they can’t really go to all those other things to make a decision.

John Jantsch (25:42): The intangibles.

Brandy Burch (25:43): Yes, exactly.

John Jantsch (25:45): Well, Brandy, again, I appreciate you taking a few moments to share the story with the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there anywhere you’d invite people to find out more about Benefit Bay and your work?

Brandy Burch (25:55): Yeah, I’d go to benefit bay.com or you could follow us on LinkedIn Benefit Bay or Brandy Birch, CEO, and founder of Benefit Bay on my profile.

John Jantsch (26:04): Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you spending a few moments. Hopefully I’ll run into you one of these days when I’m back in Kansas City

Brandy Burch (26:10): For sure, John, Chris Hotten. Now you’re going to be hearing about it all the time. It’s hot in Colorado, so now you’ll have a little experience there. We are going to grow 300% in Kansas City, so it’s starting to move,

Brandy (26:23): But

Brandy Burch (26:23): That 300% is based on, we used to have one to two customers and now have Right. Pulling uphill climb. Yeah. It’s

John Jantsch (26:30): Harder to do that every year.

Brandy Burch (26:32): Exactly. Yeah. Thanks John. Take care.


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Why You Should Read Business Books That Are Not About Business

Why You Should Read Business Books That Are Not About Business written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch

In this episode of the Duck Tape Marketing Podcast, I had the pleasure of being INTERVIEWED by Sara Nay. Sara Nay is the COO of Duct Tape Marketing. She oversees day-to-day operations to support the growth of Duct Tape Marketing and the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network.
She focuses on strategic planning, goal setting, and directing the company’s operations in support of its goals. And on a personal note, she’s also my daughter—which makes me “Pop Pop” to her kids!

In this episode, we change it up a bit as I become the interviewee. We explore my journey into entrepreneurship, why I started my own business, why I didn’t work for someone else (the answer will surprise you), my passion for small businesses, and the evolution of marketing over the years.

I reveal lessons from my polar opposite parents and my former fears about running a business.

We also dive into my favorite topic: the impact of AI on small businesses, the opportunities and challenges they face, and the importance of curiosity and innovation in business.

I wrapped up with a glimpse into my future aspirations—what might life look like after Duct Tape? And I answered the timeless question: What’s my all-time favorite business book?

Key Takeaways:

  • I started my entrepreneurial journey due to a lack of confidence in traditional employment.
  • Working with small businesses is both terrifying and gratifying.
  • Curiosity drives me to explore new marketing trends and technologies.
  • AI is not just a tool but a foundational element in marketing.
  • Small businesses can leverage AI for efficiency and personalization.
  • The buying intent of consumers remains strong despite market changes.
  • Experience helps entrepreneurs navigate ups and downs in business.
  • Marketing and innovation are the two pillars of a successful business.
  • Reading outside of business literature can inspire innovative ideas.
  • I envision a future where I write a work of fiction.

Chapters:

  • [00:00] Introduction to a Unique Podcast Experience
  • [02:01] The Journey into Entrepreneurship
  • [04:03] Passion for Small Businesses
  • [05:49] Curiosity and the Evolution of Marketing
  • [08:03] AI’s Impact on Small Businesses
  • [11:08] Opportunities and Challenges for Small Businesses
  • [13:52] Riding the Waves of Business
  • [16:21] Business Advice and Insights
  • [19:46] Future Aspirations and Legacy

Let us know if you’d like to see us make more shows like this!

 

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by:

Oracle

Nobody does data better than Oracle. Train your AI models at twice the speed and less than half of the cost of other clouds. If you want to do more and spend less, take a free test drive at Oracle.



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Testimonial (00:00): I was like, I found it. I found it. This is what I’ve been looking for. I can honestly say it has genuinely changed the way I run my business. It’s changed the results that I’m seeing. It’s changed my engagement with clients. It’s changed my engagement with the team. I couldn’t be happier. Honestly. It’s the best investment I ever made.

John Jantsch (00:16): What you just heard was a testimonial from a recent graduate of the Duct Tape Marketing certification intensive program for fractional CMOs marketing agencies and consultants just like them. You could choose our system to move from vendor to trusted advisor, attract only ideal clients, and confidently present your strategies to build monthly recurring revenue. Visit DTM world slash scale to book your free advisory call and learn more. It’s time to transform your approach. Book your call today, DTM world slash scale.

(01:00): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsc, and doing something really crazy today. A couple things actually that we’re going to do a little different today. I’m going to be the guest and I’m actually going to be interviewed on my own show by none other than Sara Nay. Some of you have met her. She’s the head of operations at Duct Tape Marketing, but she’s also one of my daughters who has worked with me for 13 years.

(01:28): So we thought, let’s see what kind of questions she could come up with and hopefully you’ll find this entertaining. Now, another thing that we are experimenting with today, so hopefully cross our fingers. This works out there in LinkedIn land. We are actually streaming this live. This is the first podcast that I’ve streamed live, so we’ll see how that works out as well. Love to get any feedback in the comments if you would like to and ask questions in LinkedIn if you are so inclined. And we’ll just see how this goes. But for now, I’m going to turn this over to Sara. Are you going to introduce me or how’s this going to work?

Sara Nay (02:05): I think people know who you are at this point, but I was actually curious as you were talking through that. How many interviews do you think you’ve conducted over the years on this podcast where people have listened to you be the host?

John Jantsch (02:16): Yeah. Oh, be the host. So I started this show in 2005 and certainly have done a minimum of a hundred shows a year, some years actually more than that. So I dunno what that adds up to. But yeah, I think we’re over 2000.

Sara Nay (02:30): So you’ve possibly listened to John interview guests 2000 times or so at this point. So this will hopefully be a fun perspective to hear him being interviewed. So my first question to you, I want to go way back to when you started Duct Tape Marketing as an entrepreneur. And I want to know more about the reason of why you went into entrepreneurship versus getting a full-time job.

John Jantsch (02:52): And I tell this story in my last book, I haven’t been telling it for years, but now that I’m getting old, all the secrets come out. But I often felt like when I got out of school, I didn’t feel prepared to do necessarily anything, any skill. I didn’t have honors in degrees in college that would’ve made me stand out to employers. And so I really think of, a lot of it had to do with a lack of confidence almost that I could get a job I saw that my friends were getting. And so I really thought as silly as this sounds, because a lot of people actually think, no, I’ve got enough years of experience to go out there on my own now. And I actually thought, no, I better go out there on my own. I know I can hustle work and maybe that’ll turn into something.

Sara Nay (03:38): That’s great. And you chose the small business space. I know you didn’t originally start there, but what caused you to make that shift into the small business space?

John Jantsch (03:46): Yeah, like I said, I hustled work, which meant anybody that would talk to me, I’d say I could do that. How hard could it be? Yeah, sure, I could do that. So I got big projects, little projects, whatever came my way. But I did land some small business clients that needed marketing help and I knew I could figure out how to help them, and I just really enjoyed working with them. I often say there’s something equal parts terrifying and gratifying about working with that person where they’re actually writing the check. I mean, they’re making a decision to pay you or maybe some other expense. It’s not the big company that accounts payables just paying the bills and moving on the next day. So I really love that. And plus you got to see the results of your work. I mean, you actually could see that, hey, this is making a difference. And so I think that’s why I really chose to serve that market. And quite frankly, it was a very fragmented market, mean nobody was really serving them in the marketing space. So I saw a lot of opportunity there as well.

Sara Nay (04:45): And that leads to one of the next questions I was going to ask is what keeps you going after all of this time? So obviously I’ve seen a lot of passion over the years towards the small business audience. Would you say that’s been one of the things that’s contributed to you being able to continue this on for 30 or so years at this point?

John Jantsch (05:01): I think there’s a couple things. There’s no question I feel like I’m serving me. I mean, I am a small business, so I feel like I’m one of the brethren, and so that I think is really gratifying. I think another thing too is I really always often talk about curiosity being my superpower. I just love the new stuff. And so to keep doing this, I mean, you think about all the things that have happened in the last 30 years in marketing in technology, and I think if you didn’t love it and weren’t really curious about what’s new and how does this work and how can I apply this, you’d kind of get run over. And so I really think that’s added to my love of staying in this and really helping other people figure it out. And I think people look to our brand for that guidance. We’re not excited about the next new thing because it’s the next new thing, but we’re excited about it because it can help us do what we’re fundamentally here to do as marketers.

Sara Nay (06:01): And that curiosity piece, obviously there’s been a lot of evolution in the last couple years on the topic of ai, and we’ve as a company, been diving into AI quite a bit in terms of increasing our productivity and what we’re doing for our clients. And so just curious, well, I didn’t mean to use the word curious there, but how has this curiosity of yours allowed you to dive into the whole topic of AI on a deeper level?

John Jantsch (06:22): Well, it’s just another thing. I mean, if you think about it, I mean, since I’ve been doing this, I mean when I started this, we didn’t have the internet. We didn’t have websites. So it’s like, oh, the website’s another thing we got to figure out. And then, I don’t know, email, social media. I mean, just over the years some new thing is going to come. I think that AI in a lot of ways is going to be different in that it’s not a platform. It’s not even a tool really. I think it’s going to be a plumbing, it’s going to really be baked into pretty much everything we do. In fact, it’s been baked into many things that we do without our knowledge. It’s just when a tool called chat GPT came along and it was very easy for somebody who didn’t know anything about it, could actually now experience the results of AI that might actually benefit them.

(07:12): So I think that’s why at the last year and a half, you’ve seen so much buzz about it. But I just think that it’s a perfect example of curiosity. I mean, you can make AI do just about anything it seems like. And so now it really is up to your imagination. So to me, it’s like the perfect tool to really explore and find ways that maybe nobody’s even talking about it. Or a lot of times what happens is a new technology will come along and people will discount it because they’ll see the ways people are talking about it. There’s no shortage of get rich quick people that are back out there on the AI train trying to say, oh, take this course and you can make $5,000 a minute in your sleep. And so I think that turns a lot of people off. But what really excites me is when you can go, but I can do this little thing that’s going to make me more efficient, more profitable, is going to take away work that I don’t like doing anyway. I mean when you start looking at all the possibilities, it really is your only limitation, I think is your imagination and your curiosity.

Sara Nay (08:20): And talking back to the small business space as well, which is a lot of who we serve, how do you think AI is impacting that group specifically?

John Jantsch (08:29): Well, I think that, let’s talk about marketing. I mean, that’s one aspect, obviously where it’s pretty much impacting anybody because there are things that AI tools can do much more efficiently, and I would say in some cases more effectively than even humans. It’s very good at doing research, it’s very good at analyzing, let’s say your Google Analytics data. A lot of people look at that and go, oh, good, we had more hits or whatever. And to be able to say, no, tell me what we need to do differently. Tell me what we could do better. Tell me what our best opportunities are. And to have something that is basically a super computer with just very common language requests and prompts can now crush that data and really give you some insights back that are going to help you prioritize or help you certainly work better.

(09:17): We’re going to see personalization going to all new levels to where customer segments will be inside a database and they’ll be able to have AI look at who that person is and what their needs are and where they are in the buyer journey and what segment they’re in. And all of a sudden say, similar to say how Amazon says, oh, you read these three books, you’ll probably like these three books. Well, that’s going to start happening at a greater level for pretty much everybody. And I think that’s one of the things that these advances in technology do is they really democratize some of the things that the Amazons of the world have made an expectation. But at what cost, right? I don’t have tens of thousands of programmers that can make all this stuff work for me. Well, all of a sudden now, even the smallest business has that kind of computing power really in their hands.

(10:11): So I think that every element hiring, it’s certainly impacting for folks. I mean, AI can take 2000 resumes and really analyze them for exactly what you’re looking for. There’s always going to be a human element, but there was a great deal of that kind of repetitive work that doesn’t necessarily require a human element and frankly is work that is kind of mind numbing. There’s not a whole lot of humans that want to do it. And so I think you take things like that and all of sudden, now I know you and I have talked about this, all of a sudden now you’ve got people who were doers who are now really more managers of the doing. And I think that’s actually very empowering. A lot of people talk about, oh, it’s going to replace people. I think it’s actually has the opportunity to not only make people more successful and more efficient in their work, but I think empower them to actually do better and bigger things.

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Sara Nay (12:11): Yeah, absolutely. And on this note too, what do you think are the opportunities for small business right now? And it doesn’t necessarily just have to be limited to ai. It can be anything. And also I’d love to hear what do you think are some common challenges that you see in the small business space as well?

John Jantsch (12:26): Well, I think the opportunity and the challenge are probably the same thing. I’ve been talking about how I think the last 10 years, some marketers have gotten pretty lazy because it was actually easy if you just followed Google’s rules, which they laid out, you could get search traffic. I’m not saying it was like magic fairy dust, but I mean, you did the things that they said you should do. You could get search traffic and you could get leads. The social networks were more than willing to sell all the data on their users. And so you could really target very specifically who might want your products and services. And so consequently, some businesses were able to grow pretty easily. Now of course, what’s happening is you look at the search results, you do any kind of search on Google, and they want you to accept the generative AI answer that they’re going to give you rather than clicking off to the website.

(13:16): That might also, frankly, they might’ve actually extracted that answer from. And so search is going to get much harder across the board. Industries are seeing 25 and 30% of their organic traffic just disappear overnight because people are getting the answers that they want without reading the blog posts that might also have a CTA on your website. And of course, third party data is going away. You can’t sell that data. And so consequently, all the ad platforms are actually increasing their pricing extremely. So that’s going to be the real challenge. But I think the real opportunity is the buying is not going away. The buying intent is not going away. People still need those products and services. And so businesses that I think can figure out how to actually make a real connection with prospects and with customers and really focus on brand strategy as well as campaign or marketing strategy, I think are going to be, I think the ones that really stand out today. So there’s a real opportunity, but it really does change the mindset to being less about demand creation and really more about organizing behavior and focusing very much on strategy.

Sara Nay (14:29): Yeah, absolutely. And building trust and guiding the customer journey and getting referrals, which I’m sure people, if they’ve heard you speak, I’ve heard you on those topics before. I want to take it back to you a little bit at this point. So as we said, you’ve been in business for quite some time. I’ve learned this from you and seen it. There’s a lot of ups and downs in business. And so I’ve struggled with that over the years is to say things are going to be okay, we’re going to get back on track. And so just from your perspective, what has helped you ride all of those waves over the years?

John Jantsch (14:57): Well, I think there’s no question that experience helps you. I mean, when you go through a couple of those ups and downs, you’re like, oh, okay, actually there was an opportunity in that we were, woe is me. But then you’re like, oh, wait a minute. There’s actually an opportunity or we can learn something from that. So you do that enough times, and I’m not saying it doesn’t take some resilience and some grit, and I certainly had times when I was very worrisome about putting you guys through college, all the things that every business owner goes through. But there’s no question that seeing it a few times and realizing, hey, not only is everything going to be okay, but we just actually, we have to start thinking about it differently. We have to start looking for where the opportunity is because it’s always there. And I think that helps kind of say, okay, yeah, this was a down month, but hey, every December is a down month or something along those lines.

(15:52): The experience really comes from that. There’s also an element of mindset that’s a piece of it as well. And I really often, my parents were very different people. My dad was very worried all the time. We had 10 kids, I don’t blame him, but he was worried quite often about something was going to go wrong, and my mom was the complete opposite. She was like, oh, nope, something different. This didn’t happen because it wasn’t supposed to. And I think that sort of optimistic mindset is certainly can be a real tool for entrepreneurs because you do have to really look for, we get very focused on what we want to happen or what we think should happen. And when it doesn’t, you can really get knocked off track. But if your mindset is okay, that wasn’t supposed to happen that way, where’s the opportunity or what is supposed to happen? I think that mindset, while it can be hard sometimes, really can take you a long way.

Sara Nay (16:46): Yeah, I like a lot of what you said there, but I agree with the learning aspect specifically. That’s something that I’ve really tried to shift my focus on is if we don’t reach a specific goal, it’s okay, what can we learn from this versus stressing out about it to do better next time around? So that’s great. I have a couple quick fire questions. Maybe these will be quick, maybe not, depends on what you have to say on ’em. But to wrap us up today, the first one I want to hear is what is the best business advice you have ever received?

John Jantsch (17:13): Dang, I’ve been asked that question so many times on the podcast that I’ve been on, and I don’t know that I have a great answer, but I always go back to early on in my journey, I read a book that was actually written in the fifties. Most people of my age are familiar with Peter Drucker, and the book was called The Practice of Management. And that book, I just remember, I’m not even sure really why I read it to be truthful. I wasn’t trying to understand management of a big corporation, which is what he wrote about, but he had a line in there that to this day, and you’ll see it quoted all the time because a lot of reference it, especially marketing people, but the quote in there was, the only two things in a business that matter are marketing and innovation. Everything else is a cost. And again, you’ll see that people quoting that all the time. But I remember reading that in the nineties perhaps when I was still consuming or when I started consuming a lot of business books. And I just remember thinking, okay, that idea of marketing and innovation, that marketing needs to be a system, that marketing needs to be a high priority, that marketing is everything really infused a lot of my thinking through the years,

Sara Nay (18:25): And this relates to that. It might be the same answer, but what’s the best business book you’ve ever read? Is it that one or is it a different one?

John Jantsch (18:33): So it’s actually sitting right here.

Sara Nay (18:36): There you go. He’s coming there.

John Jantsch (18:38): This is not a business book. And I tell people this all the time, that one of, and this may be just my curiosity bug, but one of the ways that I’ve gotten great business books or business ideas over the years is to read books that are not related to business. And this one is by Christopher Alexander. It’s kind of a classic, I don’t know if my camera’s going to pick it up, but it’s called The Timeless Way of Building. He’s an architect and he was talking about building communities, and there’s so many things that can be gleaned from things like math and science and architecture that apply to the industry that you’re in, but it’s just a different way of looking at it. A lot of times you read out business books, you read marketing books. You and I have laughed about this before. All those books on operation systems basically just are saying the same thing. They’re just coming up with different terminology for it. And I think that’s true of consistently reading business books. So my advice to people all the time is get out and read books that are completely unrelated, not just for your own knowledge, but to read them with a filter of how could I apply this to my business? Or are there ideas or terms in here that would apply to my business? A lot of the things that I think have become cornerstones of Duct Tape Marketing really came from other industries.

Sara Nay (19:59): I think that’s just showing your natural curiosity to go out and explore outside the box and think beyond the typical business world to find out some of these things. Okay, one last one. I lied. I’m going to throw one more in it and then we can wrap up. John’s obviously not going anywhere. Duct tape is his thing. He is been around for a long time, but I’m just curious, what’s next in your future? One day after Duct Tape Marketing Woodworking, there is

John Jantsch (20:20): No after Duct Tape Marketing.

(20:23): Well, maybe somebody who’s very familiar with Duct Tape Marketing will continue the legacy of Duct Tape Marketing. We’ll see if that happens. However, yeah, you mentioned woodworking. I love doing that. I’m really still very much in the amateur ranks, but I do like building furniture and things. I kid, and hopefully my wife can’t hear me right now, but I would like to write another book, but I want to write fiction. I would like to write a book of fiction. And I personally know that it’s a lot harder to write fiction than it is to write nonfiction. So a lot of people would say, oh, you’ve written books before. How hard could that be? But different beast. So I think when I really do wind down kind of daily work on in a business, I will probably try to figure that one out.

Sara Nay (21:06): All right. Well, you heard it here first. Everyone, John Jans is writing a fiction book coming out in 2028. Okay, we’ll say.

John Jantsch (21:16): Okay.

Sara Nay (21:16): All right. Well, that’s all I got for you today.

John Jantsch (21:19): Well, so let me ask you a question.

Sara Nay (21:24): Okay.

John Jantsch (21:26): What has it been like working for your father for coming up on 14 years now?

Sara Nay (21:33): Yeah, I know people actually ask me that sometimes. And it’s funny, I joke that I call you John more often than dad these days because often we’re in a business setting. And so John is just what is easy for me to say, which is pretty funny. I started

John Jantsch (21:48): What you referred to me as Hot pop to your kids.

Sara Nay (21:50): Yeah, my kids, that name. No, I think it’s been a really positive relationship, working relationship over the years. I started as an intern and we were just kind of both like, is this going to work out? Does this make sense? But I think one thing that’s really helped us over the years is we compliment each other well, in terms of our skillset. You’re more of the visionary, the forward thinker. I’m more of the operations systems process person. I’ve become, I think, more of that visionary over the years. But we’ve really, I think, had a positive relationship because we’ve complimented each other and also stayed in our lanes when we needed to as well.

John Jantsch (22:24): Awesome. Well, thank you for taking the host job today, and I’ll take back over and say those of you out there, thanks for joining us. Let me know if you like this chef, you like this idea. Maybe we’ll hear more from Sarah on an ongoing basis to talk about some of the marketing things that we talk about all the time. So again, thanks for taking a few moments to listen to the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, and hopefully we’ll see you one of these days out there on the road.


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Weekend Favs November 9th

Weekend Favs November 9th written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but I encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one I took on the road.

  • Content at Scale leverages AI to generate SEO-optimized blog posts that often pass AI detection tests, producing content with a human-like quality suitable for high-volume content needs.

  • Lexica Art is an AI-driven image generator that creates visually striking and brand-consistent graphics, offering marketers a unique alternative to generic stock photos for enhancing visual content.
  • Skai is an AI-powered platform that optimizes omnichannel marketing strategies by collecting and analyzing unstructured data to provide actionable insights, helping marketers make informed decisions across various platforms.

These are my weekend favs; I would love to hear about some of yours – Connect with me on Linkedin!

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.

Consult with Ease: Personalize Your Customer Stragtegy Using AI

Consult with Ease: Personalize Your Customer Stragtegy Using AI written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with David Edelman

In this episode of the Duck Tape Marketing Podcast, I had the pleasure of interviewing David Edelman, a seasoned digital transformation and marketing expert.

As CMO, Edelman guided Aetna (now part of CVS Health) through becoming a digitally oriented, customer-centric brand. He built McKinsey’s Digital Marketing Strategy Practice and had leadership roles at BCG and Digitas. Repeatedly recognized by Forbes as one of the “Most Influential CMOs in the World” and by AdWeek as one of the “Top 20 Marketing and Technology Executives,” his work has attracted over 1.1 million followers to his LinkedIn blog. Currently, David advises top executives on AI and personalization.

In this episode, we dive into the ever-evolving world of personalization in business, uncovering the game-changing role of AI in redefining how companies connect with their audiences. Edelman emphasizes the importance of creating customer experiences at scale and the competitive advantage that effective personalization has.

Edelman explores the advantages of personalization, while highlighting the ongoing challenges of overstepping boundaries—a pitfall many of us have encountered firsthand. He shares practical examples of how AI enhances customer interactions and tackles concerns about data privacy and the potential discomfort of overly personalized marketing. The conversation also touches on the challenges marketers face in content creation and the need for more thoughtful, effective communication strategies.

Key Takeaways:

  • Personalization is about creating customer experiences at scale.
  • AI enhances personalization by analyzing customer data.
  • The privacy factor in personalization must be managed carefully.
  • 70% of consumers are comfortable with data use for value.
  • Speed of learning is crucial for competitive advantage.
  • Companies often have more data than they realize, but it’s siloed.
  • AI can help integrate data from various sources effectively.
  • Successful personalization can lead to increased customer satisfaction.
  • Content should be bite-sized and easily digestible for consumers.
  • Empowering customers with their data can enhance their experience.

 

Chapters:

[00:00] Introduction to Personalization in Business

[02:59] The Role of AI in Personalization

[06:00] Navigating the Privacy Factor of Personalization

[08:54] Competitive Advantage through Personalization

[12:02] Practical Applications of AI in Customer Experience

[14:53] Content Creation and AI’s Impact

[17:56] Successful Examples of Personalization

More About David Edelman:

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by:

Oracle

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Testimonial (00:00): I was like, I found it. I found it. This is what I’ve been looking for. I can honestly say it has genuinely changed the way I run my business. It’s changed the results that I’m seeing. It’s changed my engagement with clients. It’s changed my engagement with the team. I couldn’t be happier. Honestly. It’s the best investment I ever made.

John Jantsch (00:16): What you just heard was a testimonial from a recent graduate of the Duct Tape Marketing certification intensive program for fractional CMOs marketing agencies and consultants just like them. You could choose our system to move from vendor to trusted advisor, attract only ideal clients, and confidently present your strategies to build monthly recurring revenue. Visit DTM world slash scale to book your free advisory call and learn more. It’s time to transform your approach. Book your call today, DTM world slash scale.

(01:05): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is David Edelman. He’s a long time advisor on digital transformation and marketing, and as a CMO, David guided Aetna now part of CVS Health through becoming a digitally oriented customer centric brand. He built McKinsey’s digital marketing strategy practice and has also had leadership roles at BCG and Digitas currently advises top executives on AI and personalization, and we’re going to talk about his upcoming book, his new book, personalized Customer Strategy in the Age of ai. So welcome to the show, David.

David Edelman (01:46): Thank you, John. Pleasure to be here.

John Jantsch (01:48): So this may seem like a silly question, but I think it’s probably important to set this baseline to start with. How are you defining in the context of business personalization?

David Edelman (02:00): Yeah, sure. In the early days, and this was really early back in 1989 when I first started playing in this area, before the internet, it was really just focused on marketing, using customer data to target to do a bit more matching of a name. And then in the internet area it became retargeting. What we are talking about now though is with all the AI tools that are available, it is not just about marketing, it’s about a customer experience. It’s about creating experiences at scale that use a customer’s information to give them back value and then to constantly get better as you learn what somebody responds to, what they like, what they tell you about. And it’s a way of competing. It’s actually your value proposition, not just simply the way you try to push sales.

John Jantsch (03:04): So you mentioned AI already. So can we give me some examples of how ai, I mean we went from, like you said, being able to put somebody’s name into an email field, a first name field, and now we’re going to ai, which theoretically can say, Hey, I know every data point in this customer’s history or this customer’s journey, and because of that, I can not just put their name in there, but I can actually, it’s kind of like Amazon recommending, oh, these are books you’re probably going to like type of thing. So what are the big ways that AI is really impacting the approach to personalization?

David Edelman (03:46): Yeah, sure. And it’s not just generative ai, it’s a whole range

(03:50): Of capabilities that are coming together. Let me give you an example and just show how AI plays a role in all of this. So you’ve got the digital natives like Spotify, Uber who work with you, but there’s others who are starting to move into this as well. So for example, a few years ago in the town I was living in Lexington, Massachusetts, they offered an incentive for buying solar panels. And that opened up a floodgate of marketing, just crazy amounts of marketing. But one company sent me a physical mailing that said, you Edelman at this address can save 20% on your annual energy bills. There’s a personalized URL in here that’ll explain how with sungevity type the URL into the computer and I get a Google Earth image of the roof of my house with solar panels superimposed on it down the right rail. They calculate how much energy those panels can generate based on my longitude and latitude, the east west orientation of my roof.

(05:03): They even had tree cover examples in there. And then they use Zillow to get the square footage of my house and use that to calculate how much energy I would use over the course of a year. So they had the numerator and the denominator and that gave them 21.3% savings. So there’s a whole bunch of AI going into that. So they’re interpreting, they’re looking at all of these Google Earth images in our town to try to then figure out which are the ones that could generate at least 20% savings. So that’s not generative ai, that’s more machine learning calculation capability, predictive modeling that’s going into that. Then they used a generative AI capability to generate the roof of my house with the solar panels on top. Then on an ongoing basis, they’re monitoring how much energy I actually generate, and they’re using that to balance load and decide when to sell energy back into the grid. What’s the right time for doing that? Again, that’s predictive modeling. So there’s a whole bunch of capabilities here. And then when I actually talked to the chief marketing officer of Sun Jevity, she was telling me how they constantly test and learn to figure out how to even make this work, and they were using AI capabilities to do multivariate testing, to set up the test cells

John Jantsch (06:40): And

David Edelman (06:40): Manage all of the different variables. So there’s a number of different AI capabilities that are stitching together to make these kinds of experiences possible.

John Jantsch (06:51): So that leads me dangerously close to an idea that I was going to present. At what point does that get creepy? It can know too much. Or maybe more practical example. There are industries healthcare that are highly regulated, right? I mean, so at what point does that its ability to know surpassed my, surpassed the point where it’s a good experience for me,

David Edelman (07:15): The creepiness factor comes up all the time, John, and it’s real, and we’ve got to constantly think about what will make somebody feel uncomfortable. I was chief marketing officer of Aetna, so health insurance company where one of the things we were doing was marketing to people help them to encourage them to do healthier behaviors. So if they could do healthier behaviors, they’d be healthier, they’d save money, we’d save money, everyone would be good. But you have to be super careful about how you’re doing that, how you’re identifying people, what information is shared, the security behind it. We were incredibly vigilant about all of that and doing so in a way that had security guidelines through the whole thing. So I think it’s just critical to think about the customer. Too much of where AI could go is just bombarding people who you think have done a certain kind of behavior and then they’re wondering, how did you know this? You’ve got to take the customer’s perspective. How would they react? How are you adding value? As part of the work that I did with the BCG in writing the book, we surveyed thousands of consumers in the US and other countries. 70% of people said they were comfortable with companies using their data to help them get value, but 75% said they stopped doing business with brands who used it

John Jantsch (08:50): Inappropriately.

David Edelman (08:52): So you’ve got to really think through from the customer’s perspective.

John Jantsch (08:58): Well, and I think that’s probably true of all technology. I mean, if it actually makes a better experience for me or makes it easy for me to do something like online scheduling, I’ll do it all day long. But if they use it as a tool to, so I don’t ever have to talk to you the phone systems and things where you can’t actually talk to somebody when you want to do that. I think that it’s similar with ai, right? We’re always going to want something that adds value. We’re always going to resist something that either creates friction or a bad experience,

David Edelman (09:26): And that’s our whole thing with personalization. It’s about experience that make it simpler, easier, faster, enable you to discover new things.

Testimonial (09:36): It’s

David Edelman (09:36): About empowering the customer, and we talk about that in the book that you have to start by thinking through how can you empower somebody using this information about them?

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(10:44): That’s oracle.com/duct tape oracle.com/duct tape. Yeah, so the book presents a lot of examples of personalization that I think a lot of people might look at as, oh yeah, that’s something we ought to be doing that’s clever or that’ll make a better experience. But you really, the main premise of the book is that this is a serious competitive advantage. In fact, you actually have a formula in the book to calculate what personalization might be worth, and one of the key elements of the formula is speed of learning. So you want to take any, that was sort of a question. You want to take any component of that and break it down because you really to focus on the idea of competitive advantage?

David Edelman (11:29): Yeah, absolutely. So one of the most important things about personalization is having data and AI lives off data and you want data to be able to make predictive modeling and to make sharper and more granular and more timely predictions. You also want to be able to just simply know more contextually about your customer. That’s appropriate. And so the formula that we’ve put in, and admittedly it’s a bit of an abstraction, but it’s n which is the number of observations that you have times the velocity, the speed by which you can test and learn and collect more data squared.

John Jantsch (12:17): Because

David Edelman (12:17): The more you can collect data, the more you learn, the more you’re understanding the variations that AI thrives on. AI wants all those variations. It wants to understand the underlying correlations to those variations, and the more you can test and learn, the faster you can get that out the door, the more you can build up your knowledge base. And then the other side of speed that’s important is you can also act faster on it so that when you find out something about someone, often it’s a question of in the moment in real time, well, how fast can you act? That’s a critical area for assessing value. So we say the value from personalization, the advantage you can get is based on how much data you can get on your target customer base and then your speed of refreshing and acting on that knowledge squared.

John Jantsch (13:14): Okay, so what’s the constraint for most companies? I’m guessing it’s n they don’t really have access, right?

David Edelman (13:21): Well, it’s n most companies actually have access to more data than they realize, but it’s broken up all over the company.

(13:30): So they may have some marketing data, customer service data, sales data, product usage data, but they haven’t thought about it from a cross-functional way to bring it together. And AI tools now can actually make the integration of data easier than it ever was before. For example, there’s a tool from a company called Narrative called Rosetta, like the Rosetta Stone, and it looks at one dataset, understands its schema, looks at a second, understands that schema, and writes the code to combine the data sets and normalize them. So companies are using this. The trade desk uses this, for example, for importing data from its clients and mixing it with all its own data to do targeting for personalized, for programmatic buying and others. Pepsi uses this, Nielsen uses this, and it’s a way to leverage the power of AI to bring more data together upon which you can apply ai.

(14:30): So one thing is actually deliberately thinking about how to bring that data together. The second is speed. Most companies take six, maybe even 12 weeks to get programs out the door. And especially if you’re in a business like financial services or healthcare where there are compliance issues, it can take forever, but you can redesign your processes to be faster, still meeting all those compliance hurdles, but it’s a different way of operating. It’s getting people all together in a room with the right kinds of tools to be able to come up with ideas for tests, get them out the door, get everyone together instead of having a waterfall and setting up appointments. Oh, two weeks we can get together. No two minutes we’re together. Let’s just make the decisions. So it’s a different way of operating. So it’s a data mindset and then a focus on speed.

John Jantsch (15:27): Can you give some practical examples? Again, you’re talking about ways in which you would start thinking differently about this, but can you give some practical examples that you’ve seen where people have actually used AI very effectively to create better experiences for customers?

David Edelman (15:45): Yeah, sure. So I mean, one just that we all see, and maybe it’s gone a bit too far, is the Starbucks app. So Starbucks, when you open the Starbucks app in 300 milliseconds, you get a tailored experience that uses AI to know who you are, where you are, you near work, near home, maybe you’re just simply traveling someplace, what time of day it is. So what are you likely to want during that time of day? Do you tend to order food, what you’ve ordered before? Do you order on special, do you have points you can use? And all of that leads to an incredibly simple interface for you to just simply place your order. And there’s examples of that in B2B, Cisco, the food delivery company, S-Y-S-C-O does something very similar. They deliver to eating establishments all over this country, and if you’re a procurement manager for a restaurant, you open your Cisco app. Same kind of thing is happening where the AI is looking at all of those data points and bringing it together. And in the case of Cisco, even knowing what they’ve gotten, the warehouse because it’s food and some things they may want to move and offer on a discount because it might be appropriate for your menu. There’s things like that where you can just see it immediately and it makes your ordering, for example, so much more streamlined.

John Jantsch (17:17): Let’s go back to marketers. One of the biggest frustrations marketers have is that the ever-growing need for content seems to be the beast that they cannot feed enough to. So I think there’s some pretty obvious ways that ai, a lot of marketers, I think are realizing, Hey, AI is great at repurposing, which helps us content at scale. I wonder where you fall on maybe where it is today and maybe where it will be. It seems to me that AI is not very good at producing original content.

David Edelman (17:47): No, not yet. I mean, it depends on your need and the category you’re in. I mean, if you’re just trying to create simple product ads, okay, AI can do that. If you’re trying to create things that have some degree of emotion, there are advances that are making it easier, you should have a human in the loop. I think what AI can do though is unlock a lot of ideation

(18:11): And help you quickly see what something might look like and then you can adapt it. I think the biggest challenge that we all face as marketers from AI is just overwhelming customers because you can create so much more and frankly, so much more crap. And so people are going to start turning it off, they’re going to unsubscribe, and some companies have already started seeing this, and so less is more. It’s got to be smarter about when you’re reaching out, what you’re reaching out with, the way the content actually renders itself versus just simply bombarding the hell out of someone who happened to visit some content on their site.

John Jantsch (18:56): I wonder how, there’s one thing that I don’t think a lot of content marketers talk about, and this is I think both B2B and B2C is I think we sometimes underestimate how the consumers of that content are also using ai. So we write this beautiful 50 page ebook white paper that we spend a lot of time and energy on, and they feed it into chat GPT and say, give me the five things I need to know here. So if that dynamic is as big as I think it is, what does that tell marketers that they need to be doing with their content? Is that just something we’re going to have to learn to live with?

David Edelman (19:33): Well, I think a, it’s something you’ll live with. If you send overwhelming stuff to people, I think again, sending even a 15 page, not 50, but one five even, that’s a lot. So can you make it bite-sized chunks? Can you make it simpler? Videos? I’m a big believer in simple videos. One of the things we did, for example, at Aetna, when you get your health insurance, do you really understand that most people don’t. They’re confused, they don’t understand. So they call into the call center, they go out of network, they’re not happy, and that cost us money. So we use the service that was called Sunday Sky to create personalized videos for every member when they onboarded, you would get John, your specific health plan, who in your family was covered? Who had a primary care relationship with a doctor? If you didn’t, here are five that are near you that are taking new patients. Click here to schedule. That’s a power of content. That’s an experience. 70% of people watch the three and a half minute video, and we got it down to really simple language calls to the call center went down, satisfaction went up. People even opened our emails more often after we sent that.

John Jantsch (20:59): Are there a couple of examples of companies big and small that you see out there that are doing this well?

David Edelman (21:06): Yeah, sure. So I mentioned Cisco, the food delivery company, which I think is really good. Another great example in financial services is Voya. So they do employee benefits and generally you’ve got your 401k and your financial, and then you’ve got your healthcare and you may have personal investments and it’s all over the place and it doesn’t come together. They have invested in intermingling all of that into one interface that they call my voyage, and you can add your own information into it, and then they’ve put AI on it. That is pretty much agnostic, and I’ve seen it in action. It doesn’t bias us towards Voya. It’s just saying, what’s best for you in terms of making decisions of where, for example, to put the next dollar of your benefits, should you be saving in a health savings account? Should you put it in the 401k? And they’ve won most trusted financial service institutions since this has come out. They’ve been growing share, and so they’ve helped people essentially activate their own data, that it was scattered all over and they’ve brought it together, put intelligence on top of it and helped you make sense of it and use it to make decisions. That’s a powerful example of using personalization, just change the value prop.

John Jantsch (22:36): Awesome. Well, David, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Where would you invite people to connect with you and obviously find a copy of personalized customer strategy in the age of ai?

David Edelman (22:48): Yeah, sure. So you can easily connect with me on LinkedIn and you can find the book personalized on Amazon. It’s right there. It’s actually number one in customer relations. It was one of the top new releases last week, so we’re very excited about it. I would love to hear stories of new ideas that the book sparks.

John Jantsch (23:09): Awesome. Well, again, appreciate you taking a few moments. Hopefully we’ll run into you on these days out there on the road. David.


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