S2E13 – The Don’t Be Ordinary, Be Extraordinary Edition with Mark Sanborn

James Nathan  0:54   Hello and welcome to the only one business show with me your host JamesNathan and my guest today is a best selling author and recognized by globalgurus.org as the number five leadership expert in the world today. He writes an award winning blog and is author of The Fred Factor, which has sold more than 2 million copies to date, and has established him as an expert on turning the ordinary into the extraordinary. He’s featured in by Crestcom in DVD based training taught in 90 countries. And he’s also leadership expert in residence at High Point University, the premier life skills university. His list of over two and a half thousand clients includes the likes of Harley Davidson, Costco, Cisco, In & Out Burger and now The Only One Business Show, please welcome from Denver, Colorado, Mark Sanborn. Mark. Hi, how are you?

 

Mark Sanborn  1:49  I’m great, James. Thanks for having me on the show. It’s good to be with you.

 

James Nathan 1:52  Oh, it’s it’s lovely that you could take the time for me Mark. Thanks so much and listeners really appreciate especially when you have to get up so early on the other side of the of the like to to catch up with us. It’s lovely just chatting with you beforehand, you’re reformed motorcyclist, a reformed flyer, you’re a man of many talents.

Mark Sanborn  2:12  Yeah. Now I mostly try to just go fast in my pace of daily living rather than driven by things with engines.

James Nathan  2:20  It’s probably a really, really sensible way to do things. And talk to us about the Fred Factor Mark because it’s sold over 2 million copies and appreciate you’ve brought out Fred 2.0 now, but for those who haven’t read the book, what’s Fred all about?

Mark Sanborn  2:36  You know, Fred, he’s still alive today. He’s just retired. When I met him many years ago, he was a postal carrier for the United States Postal Service. And I’m not sure how your postal service’s evaluated there in the UK, but frankly, in the US, when you think about customer service, the United States Postal Service usually doesn’t come to mind. Fred did such an extraordinary job of delivering my mail, as simple as that may sound, that I wrote a book about it, I used him as the real life living example metaphor for what great service looks like. By the way, if anyone would like to read the first chapter for free, they can go to fredfactor.com. And the actual story, the details, if you will, or when I first encountered Fred can be found on there. But basically, the reason I think it became a successful book wasn’t because of my Hemingway like prose. You might appreciate this James, I had a review on Amazon and it said, this book is so simple. It’s written at a seventh grade level, then I thought, I wonder what level it is written at. So I took a block of text and I went online and I found an analysis tool. And you know what, it’s not written in a seventh grade level. It’s written at a fifth grade level.

James Nathan 3:49  You know, someone was talking to me about newspapers recently Mark and they are all written at seventh and fifth aren’t they? So it’s right on the money.

Mark Sanborn 3:57  Well, and the thing is that Fred, you know, you he has a simple job until he retired, he sorted and put mail in the box. So most people would say, you know, that doesn’t lend itself to being really extraordinary or creative or masterful. But if Fred can bring that kind of artistry to his simple work, then you and I have far more to work with on the palate that we call work than Fred did.

James Nathan  4:21  What was it about him? What was it? Was it Fred himself or what Fred learned to what my friend so special?

Mark Sanborn  4:27  Well, first it was was Fred and, you know, I learned an important lesson and it’s one of the principles of the book, everybody makes a difference. The only question is what kind. I think neutrality is a myth. When you encounter a postal carrier or someone at the grocery or a lawyer or a teacher, they impact you either by being interested and engaged and willing to help or by being in different disengaged and we always interpret that neutrality, if you will, as indifference. It may not be fair, but you know, you don’t turn to your spouse when you get bad service and say, well, honey, they were just neutral. You know? No, you said they didn’t care. They didn’t like…. they weren’t interested in us. And so the first thing I learned is that no matter what job you have, nobody can prevent you from choosing to be extraordinary. That to me is one of the big messages because Fred worked in a system that didn’t encourage or reward or teach excellence. And yet, he made that choice himself. The second thing I learned from Fred is Fred was the first postal carrier I ever got to know. I mean, most of us see our postal carrier maybe know his or her name, wave. But Fred really took time to understand if…. you know what I did for a living, did I travel and because I did travel that would impact how you would deliver my mail and keep an eye on my home so that I wasn’t, you know, the victim of a burglary. And so, you know, I got to know Fred, and, you know, we’re coming up on a…. well, we’ve been in a continuous political system now for about four years, but we’re coming up on an election and I’m always reminded of something they say in politics and it’s so true in customer service and that is it’s hard to hate in person. You know that person who you get email from or a letter from or even sometimes that you talk to on the phone if you were to meet that person face to face and just spend a few minutes you’d probably find out they’re not such a bad person you know, they’re just like you they got their their flaws and their strengths, but it’s important that as much as possible if we can’t build a relationship with our customers, we at least connect with them. And I say a connection is a moment of shared affinity where we recognize something in them that is like us and that we can appreciate. So the second part of that is relationship.

James Nathan  6:41  I love what you said there about text and armchair warriors because you see so much that these days of people getting very kind of hot under the collar about different things and knocking it out on a keyboard and one of the big sadnesses for me I guess when I work with a lot of my clients, I’m sure you see this too is the reliance on email and messaging systems, rather than the phone and face to face and the reduction in quality of relationship that you you end up with as a result of that.

Mark Sanborn  7:15  Let me just interject James because I think, you know, certainly generational differences come into play. But one of the things I’ve learned is even with email, it’s possible to be a little warmer and a little less sterile. You know, I’m a, I’m a left brain economist by training. So you know, I’m I get to that point, get the job done. I would often send emails that would say, you know, Hey, can you send me that address? And I found that just by putting, you know, hey, Bob, how’s it going? Can you send me that address? As superficial as that seems…. It’s it’s almost a symbol for saying, hey, you’re still human. I’m still human. So I agree it’s harder. And I think younger people have figured out a way to put a little more personality into texting and email than perhaps those of us that are older, but it is still possible to be relational in these different communication methods.

James Nathan  8:06  So that’s just that’s just choosing to be different choosing to be extraordinary.

Mark Sanborn  8:10  It’s about paying attention. I think so much of anything today is about being engaged and in the moment, not daydreaming and looking at your phone. By the way, I was in a hotel last week for three days and right outside my window and down one floor, there was an office building. And there was a young guy, I don’t know how old he was maybe early 20s. He had a computer on his desk, but every time I checked, it got to be a game. He was looking at his phone, and I almost wanted to walk over and walk upstairs and say what is it you’re supposed to do for a living? Now maybe he maybe, he monitors the phone for the firm? I I shouldn’t be judgmental, but I just remember going, dude, how do you get anything done with your continual fascination with your phone?

James Nathan  8:53  Wish you had. You see this in restaurants these days, waiters wandering around and waitresses wandering around with the phone in the back pocket. And you know, when I worked for Hilton Group a long, long time ago, it was before mobile phones, Mark. But I’m pretty sure we weren’t allowed to make personal calls or what have you while we were working. And a lot of that has to do with focusing on your job. But with that sort of technology available, it does make me wonder how people do actually continually focus on what they should be thinking about and focusing on rather than what they choose to, to be distracted by.

Mark Sanborn  9:28  I agree

James Nathan  9:29  You mentioned, you mentioned choosing to be extraordinary. What makes somebody not choose to be extraordinary and what makes somebody choose to be extraordinary?

Mark Sanborn 9:40  Well, that’s a good question. You know, it boils down to one or two things or a combination thereof, and that is genetics, more environment. You know, one of the things I think it’s important, I don’t know, you know, people ask me, can you make somebody be a Fred? Well, you know, I have grown sons now, but when they were kids, I couldn’t make them take out the garbage so I’m the wrong guy to ask about making anybody do anything you know, I think we encourage and role model and recognize the reward, you can do all those positive things. But at the end of the day, if somebody chooses not to be a Fred, I’m not suggesting they’re not a nice human being, but they’re probably not somebody you’re going to really want in your sales or in your service team. And I think that’s why when we hire…. in my new book, I say hire for for culture, not just for function. And that is if you want a culture that really gives extraordinary service, don’t just hire somebody that’s able to pick up the phone and recite the script. Hire somebody that seems genuinely jazzed about the challenge of engaging people in solving problems and helping because you know, function only takes you partway there you’ve got to hire for cultural fit as well.

James Nathan  10:48  It’s an interesting thing. You mentioned that I talked about it a lot and if you’ve seen any of my previous pods or or any of the blogs that I write, I’m forever talking about understanding core values of business and then hiring against core value and that’s understanding the way you want the business to be or what the business is. And then hiring people who fit with the business as well as people who can do the job. And I want to talk about The Intention Imperative because it’s, you know, it’s brand new and fantastic. Before we get to it, what’s the role of the leader than if you’ve got people in your business who you’ve hired correctly, you think you’ve got the right people in the right jobs. And they’re not quite choosing that exceptional style yet? What’s the leaders role in helping them?

Mark Sanborn  11:38  It’s a good question. Let me give your listeners an acronym. I know acronyms little hackneyed and trite but there’s still a pretty good way to remember stuff. I always say leaders need to remember the acronym Fred. F is for find, because it’s easier to find someone than convert someone. If you can hire someone with that predisposition. Your work is much easier. The second one is once you have someone on your team you’ve got to reward and recognize them for the right behaviour. Often good work goes unrecognized. I mean, think about it James, the people that do good work usually always do good work. And so we kind of take them for granted, don’t we? You know, it’s like, well, you know, that James, man, he does a great job, now Bob’s a knucklehead, so I got to spend all my time on remedial work with Bob and over time, you know, James is like, damn does, doesn’t anyone notice. So rewarding and reward I always say is tangible recognition is intangible. That just reinforces the right behaviours. The E in Fred is for educate, because here’s the deal expectation without education equals frustration. You know, don’t give people innocuous squishy, bromides like delight the customer, what the hell does that mean? People need to understand how concepts translate into behaviour. So you gotta teach people, in our firm, how do we delight the customer? What are some of the things we’re willing to do? Share good ideas that other people on the team use. So that’s the that’s the E for educate. But the D is the most important one, sounds simple. And that is demonstrate because people will listen to what you say as a leader, but they’ll watch how you treat people. If you turn the team to treat people well, and you treat people like crap, sorry, that’s a big disconnect.

James Nathan  13:23  Well, we were talking before we went on air about…. a little bit about parenthood and do as I say, not as I do, but you know, there’s far too many businesses where that is the case, you know, I want you to work this way and then don’t worry about the way I do it. I’m past it or I can’t do it anymore or I’ve lost interest in it that just that just rubs off on everyone around them, doesn’t it?

Mark Sanborn  13:47  Well, it does. You know, in parenthood, we don’t get a great until it’s too late, right? Because after the kids are out of the house and we find out if we got it right or we got it wrong,

James Nathan  13:56  I was told very early on when our kids were… my boy was very little… your job as a parent is just not too stuff him up too much. I thought that was a really awkward way of looking at.

Mark Sanborn  14:09  You always want to teach them to be themselves but to be their best selves.

James Nathan 14:12  Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So you’ve just brought out the new book. Fantastic read. Tell us a little bit about where you’ve got to now.

Mark Sanborn  14:25  Yeah, well, the big shift and the new book. And by the way, let me just mention that the other two principles of the Fred factor besides everybody makes a difference. And, you know, it’s all built on relationship, is you can add value to what you do doesn’t have to cost a nickel. And that’s getting creative and replacing money with imagination and finding ways to delight the customer. And then the final principle is you’ve got to reinvent yourself every day. You know, don’t wait for someone else to motivate you. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. But ultimately, you’re responsible for your own level of motivation. The new book talks about the fact that all success comes down to being clear on what you’re trying to accomplish and taking consistent and correct action every day. That’s what the Intention Imperative is. No long term success is sustained by accident, you might have a one hit wonder, one trick pony. But successful leaders, successful people don’t end up on top of Mount Everest accidentally. It’s very intense, takes a lot of planning and a lot of effort. But the balance of the book, I talk about three big shifts that I believe all businesses globally need to take. And I’ll just focus on the one that’s most relevant to customer service. And that is the shift from customer experience to customer emotion. Not just the experience you create, but how the customer feels about it. For instance, you can have a good experience, but if you didn’t get what you want or expected, you’re still unhappy and disappointed. So what I talked about in the book is to design and deliver for emotion to actually identifying and talk about 16 emotions in the book. Actually identify what is it You want your customer to think, feel and do when they when they leave or they interact with you, and then to design that into the way you deliver your service.

James Nathan  16:08  Right. So give us an example of what you’ve seen that really working well.

Mark Sanborn  16:12  Well, a friend of mine, you know, she had that borrow a car from a car dealership and when she had a flat tyre and she was going to be late for an appointment, so when they bring her a car that she can drive to the appointment, the guy brings her a hot cup of coffee, a charger for her phone, and you know, sends her on her way. So she not only is able to make her appointment on time, but she gets a cup of coffee and her phone which was almost dead, you know, she was able to charge. Now the art cost on that the phone charger, you know was about was a loner, obviously, and the coffee was you know, either $2 at Dunkin’ Donuts or $9 and Starbucks. But the point of the matter is, you know, it was thoughtfulness, obviously the number one tool that any service provider or leader has to be successful is to slow down enough to think about and notice opportunities to be thought. You know, going 100 miles an hour with your hair on fire, you know, if you’re not unthoughtful, you just don’t have time to be thoughtful.

James Nathan  17:18  When you mentioned that I was just just thinking I was in a…. my lad loves skateboarding and he had a skateboarding party last week. And you know, I left them in the skate park for a while and went off to find some lunch and I ended up in a chicken joint. And as I walked in the door, the first thing the guy said to you is, you know, thanks for coming. If you’ve got a laptop in your bag, would you like me to charge it for you? Now he’d obviously taken…. he’d seen I was carrying what look like a laptop bag and he decided to to ask me something which actually I thought, you know what, that’s fantastic. But it was an opportunity he took. I’m sure he’s been trained to do that. How do we look at our staff though? How do we train them to notice the opportunities

Mark Sanborn  18:00  Well, you know, the Fred Factor I call it ABCD: above and beyond the call of duty. Little things make a big difference. I think one of the big mistakes we make is we think, you know, we got to do something grandiose, like give our customer a new car, to really, you know, wow them, but that obviously would wow them. But like I said, the example you gave is fabulous. Because here’s a guy, you know, I mean, at the end of the day they serve chicken and yet, what makes your experience better? And how do you feel when you pleasantly surprise somebody in any environment, they leave happier and happier people buy more tell others? You mean, you just told me all your podcast listeners, and they’re more loyal. And that’s really what the name of the game is. So you’ve got bring this this opportunity into awareness for your team. And then the best way to teach it is to use examples. You know, each This is what I did. Here’s what I experienced. This is what worked, what have you seen, because that’s much more memorable than just the concept.

James Nathan  18:59  Absolutely. And I couldn’t tell you what I ate, but I remember that, which is which is….  I’m you know, you’re probably a bit like me Mark I’m forever looking for examples of great service and I’m also very critical of bad service I think we all are and there’s there’s a big you know, the ability to to rant. We mentioned online, you know, armchair warriors, but you know, things like, you know, TripAdvisor and what have you. They do give us the opportunity to be grumpy, but they also give us the opportunity to thank people and to, and to give them a little, a little nudge and a little, you know, a bit of recognition, I guess for what they’ve done. When you talk before about reward and recognition. Where does praise fit in that cycle?

Mark Sanborn  19:45  Well, I would say praise is a form of recognition. I mean, praise doesn’t cost anything and by the way, you know, as long as it’s sincere, you really can’t overdo it. I’ve never met somebody who said, you know what I need about my boss. He just appreciates me way too much. He’s forever praising me and slapping me on the back you know it makes me crazy. If it’s sincere you can’t overdo it. I think where managers get mucked up as they they you know they go to a seminar they hear I need to be…. I need to get my employees praise and it’s hollow, it’s instance, it’s like good job Bob. The more specific and enthusiastic it is, the more lasting it’ll be. But that’s…… praise is certainly part of the recognition cycle in my book.

James Nathan 20:26  Cool. Absolutely. And when you see the eyes light up when people, you know, in a team meeting or for whatever it is that sort of recognition amongst peers is, is super important. I saw that recently in a hotel or is that where someone was looked after….. I don’t know what happened at the table next to me, but something had happened. And the maitre D grabbed the waiter and just sort of took him aside and shook his hand and told him well done and you know, in front of the whole place, I thought that was that was really fantastic. You talked a little bit, well you mentioned earlier about that keeping fresh and keeping yourself, you know, fresh in your role. Businesses are often seen as, you know, there’s a business here in the UK today going into administration, a big place called Mother Care, and I don’t know if it’s in the States as well but it sells baby gear and what have you. And it’s yet another casualty of the high street. And people kind of like to quickly blame, you know, the online retailers like Amazon and what have you for that, but why are these big businesses not managing to change with the times? What is this stopping them keeping fresh?

Mark Sanborn  21:40  Well, you know, I write a little bit about that, I call it…. Seth Godin called it years ago, the stuck winning model, and that’s, for some reason stuck in my head and that is, you know, we do what works and because it works, we keep doing it and then when it stops working, we do more of it. You know, we’re creatures of habit and if something I did used to work, then and like I’m not getting the same results, I just say, wow, how can I do that better? How can I do more of it when maybe we shouldn’t be doing it or doing something different. In the book, I talk about the world that is. I’m a pragmatist, and you got to look around. And, you know, you may not like social media, but frankly, if you’re in any kind of a customer service business, you better damn well better monitor it. As a matter of fact, I’ve given up on making phone calls, if I want some help, I go to Twitter, because most organizations that are worth their salt have a team that can at least direct you, or help you, you know, get some resolution to the problem that you’re facing. But even if you don’t like customer service, and frankly, I’m not a fan of it, but I’m have a platform that includes all the social media bases because it’s how I go to market. It’s part of my marketing mix. And if I had said you know what social media is great. By the way, we always take an example of somebody who isn’t doing something and then we make it our example. I do know a friend who’s very very successful as a speaker, and his social media is pretty mediocre. But he’s an outlier. He’s an anomaly. He’s not the rule. And if you had the other things going for you that he has going for him, you wouldn’t need to do much more, you know, as a speaker, I or anyone else wouldn’t need to do my social media either. So it’s very dangerous to take that exception and say, well, you know, Bob, he didn’t adopt that new technology, and he’s doing just fine. Well, there might be a reason for that. Or maybe Bob just plain got lucky.

James Nathan  23:31  Well, I think it’s probably a mixture of both. But if you want to ignore the biggest shop window that we’ve got, I think you crazy aren’t you?

Mark Sanborn  23:41  Yeah, I mean, you know, here’s the question, do you want us thrive or you just want to survive and there are frankly, you know, we used to say, you know, you got to change you’ll be extinct. I’ve come to believe that isn’t necessarily true. I see a lot of mediocre businesses that are hanging on, but they don’t look like they’re having much fun and I know they’re not making much money. So, you know, I go back to you know if you want to just survive and knock yourself out, find that balance between just getting by and you know putting in eight hours and if that makes you happy god bless you. But most of us you know we aspire to something a little higher and if we really want to excel then we need to be contemporary with what works best in our respective marketplaces.

James Nathan  24:22  If people sitting listening now Mark and this they’re hearing what you’re saying and they’re thinking well you know, what can I do how can somebody listening now make their their work, their life extraordinary what could they change or how do they go about starting?

Mark Sanborn  24:35  Well, I would just two very two or three very simple ideas. Number one next time you ask somebody Hey, how are you doing? Actually mean it. In other words, I know how are you How you doing? You know, those are common greetings, but every once in a while, inquire into the lives of the people you we live and work with. Take an interest because you know you don’t have to do that with every interaction every day. You don’t have enough time. The problem isn’t we don’t do it every time and so we go weeks or months without doing it at all, really inquiring into you know being interested in the lives of a co worker or customer. The second thing would be that ABCD, ask yourself what little extra flourish can I do, won’t take much time won’t cost me any money. But you know maybe I can charge their computer for a while they eat their chicken. Like your example was. But that’s what ABC D is. Now my favourite technique is what I call the One a Day Principle that is do a good job for everybody but once a day find one person to do some super cool for. Something that will make them go holy buckets. I can’t believe they just did that. You know, so that at dinner that night with their family or when they go back to work after lunch they go you won’t believe what just happened. And you know, again, the idea is you can’t delight everybody but why not find one one person a day, make it a challenge. You got 8, 10 hours in a shift. Find one person and do something super cool for and I call that the one a day principle in is very easy to consistently do something amazing for people when you narrow it down like that.

James Nathan  26:07  That’s a fantastic idea, I really love that. What have you done in your business? When you look at your own business Mark, what have you done to take yourself up another level? What have you done to change to an extraordinary position? How do you serve your clients better?

Mark Sanborn  26:23  I have tried to live by the rule to be an early adopter of technology, technology that benefits my customers. That also means sometimes spending a little more money, early technology tends to be more expensive before it’s pervasive. But I didn’t example year this a long time ago, when you think about it. Speakers would say, have you heard about this new website thing, this URL? Do you have a URL, or do you have a website? Well, you know, people say to me, you’re one of the first guys with a website. Is it getting bookings, I go not yet. But here’s the deal. The reason I’m doing it now is so I can learn the technology before it’s commonplace. In other words, wait until everybody else is adopted something, all you’re doing is keeping up. It’s when you can get on the front edge of you name the technology, whether it’s you know, CRM, or whether it’s social media or whether it’s Slack. When you can learn that technology and master it before everyone else. That’s where I think the competitive advantage lies.

James Nathan 27:30  And who do you look to to understand where that is? How do you keep an eye on everything that’s new?

Mark Sanborn 27:36  Oh, well, you know that that fear of missing out isn’t one of my dilemmas in my older age, but, you know, I have I have really smart friends, colleagues, and then you know, I’m a big believer and professional associations is a way to really couple years off your learning curve. So, you know, and I pay attention. I just, I’m interested in everything. Except ballet. I’m not a big ballet fan, but I’m pretty much interested in everything that I encounter. So I can always learn from new insights from new areas.

James Nathan  28:10  When you look at all the clients that you’ve worked with, and you’ve worked with some fairly, you know, really meaty names, which are the ones that really stand out now to you having thought about them, you know, which are the ones that are really striving forward that we can look to.

Mark Sanborn 28:27  Well, there, you know, there are a lot of I mean, certainly have some some blue chip clients. I just worked for the yeah, do you have Lidl there, LIDL?

James Nathan  28:39  Yep, Lidl, we call it Lidl but who knows how it’s really pronounced

Mark Sanborn  28:43  Today and when I say they’re my client, you go well, how come you don’t know how to pronounce them because it’s been a while since I work with them, but they to me are a really good example of how you can take something that is relatively stodgy grocery and related items and make it really sexy and fun. And actually I had a chance to visit one of their stores. They’re relatively new to the United States. And I just think that they’ve said, you know, there’s still ways to reinvent this business, there’s still twists and nuances and angles that we can use to create value. I just I just toured St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. And that was incredibly inspiring, just to see an organization is so unified by the idea of helping kids for free, that everybody seems to be on the same energy wavelength, whether they work in the cafeteria, or they’re doing research or they’re treating patients and I just remember thinking, wow, if everyone really visited here, they understand what it’s like to have a unity of commitment to a mission and a vision.

James Nathan  29:46  Isn’t that wonderful? Absolutely Fabulous. Mark. It’s so so much in what you’ve said. Today’s get a ring with the people listening and I know our listeners will be really keen to, to hear much more from you. But before we go, I just want to ask you the one question, the one big thing? What’s the thing that people can do in their businesses today to make a difference for them for today and for the years to come? What would that golden nugget be?

Mark Sanborn  30:12  I would say, revisit what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. I’ll go back to what I say in the Intention, Imperative, you know, a lack of clarity. You can’t overcome a lack of clarity with hard work. You also can’t have a successful outcome if you’re clear, but you’re not doing the right things. And I think we are such creatures of habit, as I alluded to earlier that we sometimes go on autopilot. I think, the more we pause and think about our businesses and why we’re doing it, what changes are needed or what we need to start or stop doing. We become more intentional. And I think, as I said, the one thing that that unites all successful people and leaders is are crystal clear on what they’re trying to accomplish, and they take consistent and correct action every day to accomplish it.

James Nathan  30:59  Fabulous Mark, Thank you so, so much for your time. It’s been lovely chatting with you.

Mark Sanborn  31:03  My pleasure. Thank you, James.