13: Joey Coleman | How to Ensure Lifelong Loyalty

Transcript for Joey Coleman | How to Ensure Lifelong Loyalty (Episode 13)

Joey Coleman: [00:00:00] If you are in a business and you don't know how many relationships you're losing, you are missing what has the potential to be the thing that kills your business. I think it's the biggest problem in business today. I think it's the biggest problem in personal relationships today. We're not paying attention to maintaining the relationships that we claim are important to us.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:22] Welcome to The Jordan Harbinger Show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, here with my producer, Jason DeFillippo. Support for this new show here comes from our friends at Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans. Apply simply, understand fully, mortgage confidently and to get started, go to rocket mortgage.com/forbes. That's rocket mortgage.com/forbes.

[00:00:42] this episode is sponsored in part by Varidesk. Try Varidesk products including the new Pro 60 Electric risk-free for 30 days in your own home, your own office, free shipping, free returns if you're not satisfied, learn more at varidesk.com/forbes that's V-A-R-I-D-E-S-K.com/forbes.

[00:01:02] Today, we're talking with my friend Joey Coleman. This is a true Renaissance man right here. He developed his narrative skills as a criminal defense attorney, so you know when I call him. And he's also advised and counseled to Fortune 500 companies. He’s a business consultant. He's a great speaker, great communicator, worked at the White House, worked with the Secret Service, the CIA. We get into a little bit of that and we stay away from a little bit of that today.

[00:01:24] He's also consulted for places like NASA, Whirlpool, the World Bank, Zappos. And today, we're going to explore the eight phases of a customer journey and how this applies to your business, if you have one, as well as your personal relationships. We always make sure to apply everything just in case you're on your way up to being the boss and you're not the boss just yet. And we'll learn about something Joey calls the Experience Mindset, why it's important and how we can develop it. And last but not least, we will discuss the 81 times he's been pulled over by the police.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:01:55] That's ridiculous.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:01:57] He just can't drive 55, Jason. That's got to be the case.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:02:00] No, he can't. Seriously.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:01] But he's only gotten three tickets.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:02:03] It's incredible.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:04] Isn't that ridiculous? So we're going to talk about that. Joey claims it's all about the experience you create for the police officer on the side of the road and knowing your audience. And I'm thinking, “He's got sleight of hand skills,” if you know what I'm saying. No, he doesn't. He doesn't bribe the cops. He convinces the cops. That's even more impressive.

[00:02:24] Oh, and, also, we have worksheets for the episodes. They're not always going to be out right away right now cause we're catching up. We've got a volunteer team doing the worksheets. So special thanks to all those cats. The worksheets will help you solidify your understanding of the key takeaways from every guest, including today's guest, Joey Coleman and that link to those worksheets will be in the show notes at Jordanharbinger.com/podcast.

[00:02:47] Now here's Joey Coleman.

[00:02:49] So, Joey, I appreciate you coming on the show, man. We've been friends for a while and it's cool to pick your brain about stuff, but it's really cool when you are my captive and then you have to give me a really complete answer and you're not running past me in the hallway somewhere at an event

Joey Coleman: [00:03:04] A, I'm thrilled to be on the show. B, I'm mostly terrified cause I feel like I'm strapped in a chair with a spotlight in my face that I'm going to have to answer every question you ask, but I'm up for the game. Let's do it.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:14] Yeah. I mean this is what you signed up for.

Joey Coleman: [00:03:17] This is, this is. I don't, was there a waiver somewhere? I don't believe there was a waiver.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:21] You checked a box a long time ago and that was --

Joey Coleman: [00:03:23] I checked a box somewhere and that was it. Yeah. When I accepted your Facebook friend request.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:27] Exactly. It comes anyway.

Joey Coleman: [00:03:28] Any time in the future you could interview me.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:30] Exactly. Well look, I know you've worked with Whirlpool and NASA, Deloitte, World Bank, Zappos, and I get Whirlpool and Zappos, but why didn't NASA and the World Bank care about a customer experience? That seems like the opposite of what, I mean, this is a tax-base funded and UN sort of organization. It seems like the last place that would care at all what anybody thinks.

Joey Coleman: [00:03:54] Sure. So I, and I totally get it. I mean, I think our, our mutual friend James Altucher talks about the fact that everyone has 11 bosses. And I think there's some truth to that in the sense that everyone has customers. NASA has their customers. They have not only the people that they serve, but they have the people on the Hill that are voting whether their budget gets approved or not. They have the president, who is signing off on whether or not the budget gets approved.

[00:04:20] And so, with both NASA and World Bank, the work I did for them was to try to create remarkable experiences in their product offerings.

[00:04:29] So NASA had this program called the Explorer Schools program. They would try to teach kids in rural communities and, rundown kind of low economic school systems about science and math and space. And so we helped them create some great experiences in way they could package that teaching and present it through the teachers in those schools.

[00:04:50] And for World Bank work. They do an annual report where they pick some big crazy topic that they will do research on for years and then they publish an annual report. The goal is to get people to read the annual report. So they brought me in to help advise them on how they could make an annual report that people actually wanted to read.

[00:05:08] So a lot of fun with both of those. Cause if more people read the annual report, then more people support the World Bank in their efforts. If more people learn about science and math, NASA has astronauts and scientists for the future.

[00:05:20] So I believe everybody has customers regardless of what kind of job you have, there are people that you serve that if you make the experience better, they will think more highly of you.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:30] That makes sense to me. I guess I hadn't thought about that, but sure. Everyone has somebody they got to answer to. And I also realized that we just put you on the whole sort of conspiracy Alex Jones radar now. He worked with NASA and the World Bank. Where's your free Mason tat?

[00:05:46] Yeah. Wait until they find out I worked for the Secret Service and the CIA too then, all hell really breaks those.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:50] I think they just found out about that. Yeah.

Joey Coleman: [00:05:53] I think, Oh shoot. I just said it.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:55] Oh damn.

Joey Coleman: [00:05:55] And this is live. Yeah. There you go. Now I was an overt employee. There's two types of employees, overt and covert. I can publicly share that I work for them. There's not a lot I can share about what I did for them. I did have the opportunity to work for those organizations.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:06:11] Yeah. Those would have been interesting as well. So who does the CIA think is their customer? Are you able to even comment on anything like that?

Joey Coleman: [00:06:19] That, yeah, sure. I mean, I think the CIA has a lot of customers, right? They had the people that are going to read the intelligence they produce, whether that's the military, whether those are operatives in foreign countries, whether those are foreign countries, whether those are the people on the Hill or the people in the White House.

[00:06:34] So, yeah, they have lots of customers that they're trying to make sure that their message or their positioning or their data or their observations or their analysis get seen, read and followed by those folks that are in more of kind of an execution or kind of an act on the information-type position.

[00:06:54] So, yeah, every job I've ever had, you know, I was listening to your very first episode of the show, which as you know, I'm a huge fan of, and you were talking to Mark Geragos and he said, “To be a good trial lawyer, you need to be a constant student of human nature.” And you know you and I share in common that we both used to be attorneys. I was a criminal defense lawyer.

[00:07:15] And all throughout my career, every job I've ever had is about human nature. The things that I learned were about why do humans do the things they do and what can we do to make them do the things we want them to do. And that common thread has run through every job and every position I've had in my career.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:07:34] I like this thread because first I thought, Oh, you know, I'd love to get you on the show, but a lot of people who are listening, we don't have businesses, we don't care about this. But the point here is everybody in every job has a customer even if you think, “Well, I don't have customers, I work in the IT department in the basement and or I work in the middle management level or the C suite, I don't really have to worry about this. We have client-facing people who worry about this.

[00:08:00] And what you're saying from the sound of it is no matter where you are in any organization, you have customers, you just probably need to maybe expand the definition of what you think your customer is or looks like.

Joey Coleman: [00:08:12] Yeah, absolutely. I mean I wholly believe that every person on the planet has customers. And if you are more of that kind of internal facing position, you know, you mentioned the IT person. Well guess what, your customers are more internal than external. Your coworkers are your customers, your boss is your customer. These are the people that you're serving. And if you come at it from a point of view of I'm here to serve, I'm here to create a remarkable experience for you, not only will you be more successful in kind of the day-to-day tasks and operations you have to do, but the research shows that your career will skyrocket because we like to do business with people that we like. We like to promote people who we like, we like to give new job opportunities to people that work for us that we like.

[00:09:00] And so, if you're able to create that level of reputation or experience when interacting with you, it opens up a whole host of opportunities for both your career advancement and your personal advancement.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:14] All right, so what are we looking at from the core of your methodology, if I can call it that, is the first 100 days of a customer life cycle. Tell us what that really means. Because it's obvious to me. Yeah, I go to Nordstrom, I get a shirt, and then the first 100 days really matter. I understand that we've all got little nurture sequences and things like that. Why is it the first hundred days other than it sounds like a nice round number, what are you looking at with this experience? What are you trying to accomplish here?

Joey Coleman: [00:09:44] Well, I think there's a couple things. Number one, the reason why the first 100 days are the most important is because all the research shows that they're most important. I'm a guy who, while I spent a lot of time talking about customer emotions and feelings and experiences, I like to have those ideas and methodologies grounded in science and fact and research.

[00:10:05] And so what the research shows is that the typical business is going to lose somewhere between 20 and 70 percent of their new customers before they reach the 100-day anniversary.

[00:10:17] So this time period right at the beginning of the relationship is the most important time period in the entire relationship. It's where the first impressions are made. It's where the first moments of truth, the first experiences are had and the foundation that you lay early on in the relationship determines whether or not you're building on something that is solid and strong and firm or whether you're building on something that is shifting and shaky and kind of wobbly.

Joey Coleman: [00:10:43] And so, it's really important to focus on this time period. Additionally, the research shows that if you get today 101 in the typical business, you're going to stay for five years. So this period is more dispositive of the lifetime value of the customer than any other time. And that's a fancy way of saying if you care about what happens at the beginning, customers will stay around longer.

[00:11:06] This can be applied to personal relationships as well, right? If we care about establishing a really good relationship at the beginning of the interaction and doing what we say we are going to do, showing up on time for a meeting or a date, being a little thoughtful in our interaction, not making it all about us, making it about them too, that actually fosters the relationship.

[00:11:28] And you mentioned this phrase, while we all have our nurturing sequences, what's interesting is most companies’ sequences that I review are not nurturing at all. They're designed to push you to the next upsell [00:11:39]. They're not actually designed to make you feel welcomed. And I think that's the difference between focusing on an onboarding system that's designed to make a new customer a new relationship feel welcomed, feel special, feel unique and interesting as opposed to, “Great. Let me just run you through the process here so that you'll buy some more stuff from us later.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:12:02] Right. Okay. That's interesting because for me, here on the show, I want people to share the show. I want people to review the show and recommend it to friends. The whole idea is making people feel welcome probably because I don't have any upsells, so it's tempting, of course, when I do start launching events and products, which are of course in the almost immediate future of the Jordan Harbinger Show here, live events and products like that, it might be hard initially for me to remember.

Actually, you still need to make these people feel welcome. You still need to make them feel like part of the Jordan Harbinger Show family because they are, and it's tempting, man, as you know, to take that email list and go, “Oh, you should totally buy this. Thanks for entering your email. Also, you should buy this other thing. And if you don't like those for some reason, here's another thing. Hey, it's been three days. You didn't buy that thing yet. Why not? What's going on? Do you have some question? Here's another thing you can buy that’s cheaper.” That's kind of my experience with every Internet marketer ever, if it's not even more pushy and annoying than that.

Joey Coleman: [00:13:05] Absolutely. And to be honest, this is a conflict I have with some folks on my team on a regular basis. For example, I've got this new book coming out and my thought was, “Why I want to give an excerpt of the book that people can download for free -- to get a taste of what they're going to be able to read.” And I say this respectfully publishers traditionally say, “Oh great, give them the first chapter, or the first two chapters.” I'm like, “That's fine, but I operate a little differently. I want to give them chapters six, seven and eight.” And people are like, “Wait, why do you want to give them chapters from the middle? And I'm like, “Because the first chapters are getting things started and if they come to my website, the relationship has already started.” They want to get to the substance, they want the meat. So I want to give them this stuff that matters.

[00:13:48] And so we put on the website that you can download chapters six, seven and eight. And as you might imagine, our Web people were like, “Great. So we'll do an email opt in. And then we email them the PDF of the sample chapters.” I'm like, “Nope, no email opt in. They just go to the page and they can download the PDF. And it's like, “Oh, we're going to miss so many emails. I'm like, “I get it and I don't care.” Because underneath we're going to have a box that says, “Hey, if you like being able to get this excerpt without providing your email and you'd like to get some other cool stuff that we might have too, go ahead and give us your email and we'll send you book-related specific stuff.

[00:14:24] But if you don't want to give us your email, you don't have to. There isn't a person I know that spends time on the Internet today that doesn't have what I call the dummy email.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:14:33] Yeah.

Joey Coleman: [00:14:33] The fake email that they give out on all these things. And all you have to do is look at your subscriber list and you see like fake email after fake email and it's so obvious. People are nasty about it. I'm never giving you an email@gmail.com you know, and stuff like that. And people could do all this stuff. My subscribers, I get their legit email. And the reason is because they access a lot of information for free. And if after all of that you're like, okay, the rapport is built, the trust is built, now I want to trust you with some access to my inbox, they give it to me. And I trust that and respect that a to a great, great deal, and to a great magnitude. I haven't actually emailed my list to tell them to buy the book and I don't intend to do that until like right before the book comes out.

[00:15:24] And on one hand, that is driving people crazy. But I'm like, “Look, I want to keep providing value, keep providing value. It's Gary Vaynerchuk’s jab, jab, jab, right hook. I want them to have lost track of how many jabs there are and how many things I've given them before I finally ask for something.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:15:43] Yeah. I like this methodology myself because I also, I'm not an email marketer. I like interviewing people. I like getting the knowledge out. And some recent practice that we'd started here on the show is we create worksheets for every episode. So there's going to be a worksheet for this one. There's going to be a worksheet for all the past ones that we may have missed because we are rebooting the show here and you have to go to the website and you enter your email because we haven't figured out a great way to put them on the site that doesn't cause all kinds of other issues.

[00:16:12] That said, if people don't want to give us their email, it's okay. I get it. However, 99 percent of what you will get from us is, here's the worksheet for the episode. Here's something interesting and useful. We very rarely, especially in the newest iteration of the company where we don't have to shill things that to keep the lights on, we can really focus on giving tons of value, which is frankly where my head's at right now anyway. It’s just get those loyal fans back that really loved what we had to offer. Because when we did things the other way, we used to get a lot of notes that were like, “Hey man, love you, but I got like six emails last week and all of them were for sale on this sale on that.” I'm like, “Yeah, I don't have control over that. It's a little embarrassing.”

[00:17:01] And so that was one of the reasons that we've got this reboot here is it's we just wanted to keep everybody at the level of respect we would have for our real-life friends, if that makes sense.

Joey Coleman: [00:17:15] Absolutely. No, 100 percent makes sense for sense. And you and I have many mutual friends that operate in the Internet marketers space. And I think a lot of people when they hear Internet marketer want to run to a shower because it just means you're about to have an interaction with a snake oil salesman. Or somebody who just abuses your email and abuses the relationship. I'm not interested in that. And I think the problem is, and I know you well enough to know if you say, “Hey, we'll give us your email in 99 percent of this is going to be awesome stuff that's not a sale, et cetera, the problem is people have become so jaded because of how the typical business operates and it's frankly part of the reason I wrote the book is I'm on a mission to raise the bar for customer experience on the planet.

[00:18:03] I think the bar for customer experience right now is lying on the ground. I think we live in an era where people have the ability, courtesy of technology, to be more connected than at any other time in human history and yet people feel more disconnected than at any other time in human history. I want to get us away from being skeptical that sharing our email means we're going to be spammed and instead be in an environment where if there's somebody that you feel is providing value, giving them your email or friending them or connecting with them on Facebook messenger or giving them your phone number so they can text you is a good use of you sharing your private information because they're going to respect it. And while many say they respect it, few actually do in practice.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:18:50] This episode is sponsored in part by SmartMouth. Jason, I posted about SmartMouth on my Instagram, which by the way, is at Jordan Harbinger and we had a ton of feedback. A lot of people use SmartMouth based on our recommendation, which I'm going to take a little bow here. I think it's a really good thing to get into people's hands/get into people's mouths because I went to a conference, Social Media Marketing World the past couple of weeks and I got to tell you people had some stank breath and it was kind of gross. And I found myself backing up and Jen went, “Oh does that guy have bad breath?” And I went, “Yeah.” And she goes, “I know because you were backing up from him. And he kept walking forward and I'm like pressed up against the bar and I'm thinking, come on Harvey Weinstein. Brush your teeth.”

Joey Coleman: [00:19:31] You should have slipped in one of the travel packets of SmartMouth.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:19:34] I'm not giving away a travel packet, man. I had to take yours. I'm still waiting for my reload, man. SmartMouth, everything about them I love except for how fast they give us the free stuff. That's my one point of feedback is they're too slow refilling me. Come on. I love buying it. But I also like getting it for free. It destroys bacteria's ability to smell up your mouth because it destroys bacteria’s ability to create sulfur gas. It's got science in it. As we all know. You can find it at Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, Target, Amazon, wherever you shop. You can also check it out at smartmouth.com to see how it all works.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:20:11] And I've got to say I've been trying the dry mouth formula before I go to bed at night because the weather here has been so dry, and I wake up in the morning and beautiful, fresh, minty breath. Don't scare off the dogs anymore.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:20:22] Nice.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:20:22] Yeah, that's great stuff.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:20:23] Yeah. I've got to check it out.

[00:20:24] Support for this new show here comes from our friends at Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans. This is the mortgage company that decided to ask, “Why, why? Why can't clients get approved in minutes rather than weeks? Why can't they make adjustments to their rate and term in real time? Why can't there be a technological mortgage revolution that is actually client-focused?” and Quicken Loans answered all this, of course, with Rocket Mortgage. They give you the confidence you need when it comes to buying a home or refinancing your existing home loan. Simple. You can understand all the details. You can know what you're getting in terms of a mortgage. Make sure you're getting the right mortgage for you, whether it's your first home or your 10th they give you a transparent online process. You can make an informed decision. It's really simple.

[00:21:04] I was just shocked there wasn't another easy way to apply for a mortgage online. Banking stuff is still freaking in the ’90s. So check out Rocket Mortgage. Apply simply, understand fully mortgage confidently and to get started, go to rocket mortgage.com/forbes.

[00:21:21] Jason, tell them the legal stuff.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:21:22] Equal housing lender licensed in all 50 States and MLS consumer access.org number 30 30.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:21:29] That's rocket mortgage.com/forbes.

[00:21:30] it seems like whenever you do this, and we're not just talking about email marketing, I hope people are sort of reading between the lines here with customer experience and with experience with people in general. Once you go down the road of treating people like numbers or treating somebody in your business like a number, whether it's an employee or a customer themselves, it gets easier to treat people like numbers, not just because you're getting used to it because the marketing has to make a shift.

[00:21:55] If I've got an email list or a list of customers or people walking into my shop and I'm just trying to do the volume thing. We end up doing business like an airline or something where it's just butts in seats now. And that is always secondary to whether or not people actually enjoyed the experience because if you focus on whether or not people enjoy the experience, it's a different type of work and you go, “Well, this is hard. Maybe it's not working.” So then you do the numbers game and it just kind of doesn't matter if people hate you because you just go, “Whatever. We just need more numbers of more people and then we'll hit our goals and it doesn't matter.” It's like churn. Right? This is the churn rate that we see in Silicon Valley with a, ‘I have a million customers.’ Yeah, well you're spending $1 million a day on customer acquisition and then there's another organization that says, “We have 100,000 customers, but we spend $1 million last year on acquisition and everybody is staying.”

Joey Coleman: [00:22:48] Exactly. I think that if you are in a business and you don't know how many relationships you're losing, you are missing what has the potential to be the thing that kills your business. I think it's the biggest problem in business today. I think it's the biggest problem in personal relationships today. We're not paying attention to maintaining the relationships that we claim are important to us. There's so many businesses that say, “Oh we treat you like family.” And the first thing they do when you become a customer is literally assign you a customer number. It is the very first act. And then when customers say, “Oh, I feel like I'm being a that I'm being treated like I'm a number.” Well, no kidding. It's because you are actually being treated by a number. You're smart, you figured it out, you have a customer number.

[00:23:33] And so I understand that businesses and organizations need to figure out ways to manage their relationships and keep track of who their customers are and that sometimes a name alone isn’t enough. But you're right, it goes to the philosophy of what kind of relationships do you want to have, what type of interactions do you want to have, and if it's all about churn and burn and get the next one in and fill the seat, here's the thing. It's the modern-day version of a Ponzi scheme. You will run out of people. You eventually run out of new prospects. And then you wake up one day and you're like there are no more new prospects. We've burned every bridge and our company's falling apart. As opposed to nurturing those relationships and saying, “In the beginning, you know what? We're going to take care of you and we're going to spend even more time keeping you in the fold than we did trying to get you to come in from out of the cold.”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:24:27] Got you. Okay, so what is it that's going on here that customers and companies have this sort of desperate need for personal and emotional connection? It's not just customers. This is people in general. And so you're saying from the sound of it that the customer experience, whether you're client-facing in your organization or not as we covered earlier, creates that connection.

Joey Coleman: [00:24:47] I think what happens is we live in a time in an era in human history where technology has us connected all the time. The research shows that a huge percentage of people sleep with their cell phone within arm's reach of them, right? That at any given point of the day, their cell phone is an arm’s reach. I mean I would ask the people listening to the show, you're probably listening to this potentially on your cell phone, right? Or if you're not, your cell phone is probably in your pocket or in your purse or on the counter next to you or on your desk. So we have all this connection all the time. Our email inboxes are overflowing, our text messages are overflowing, our social media alerts and updates are overflowing, and there are all these things that supposedly are our friends and the companies we've decided to associate with. And supposedly the conversations they're trying to trigger with us are value-based and, and relevant to us. But the reality is they're not.

[00:25:44] And so people more and more are feeling the overwhelm of all this connection. And as a result it actually makes them feel disconnection. And so the opportunity for a business or an individual to say, “I'm going to actually double down on meaningful relationships” is tremendous. You know, I'm a big believer in personal and emotional connections.

[00:26:06] So personal and emotional connection is connecting with someone in a way that's personal, meaning it's an experience that they had, and emotional meaning that they have a reaction to it, they feel something about it.

[00:26:19] So for example, where you went to school, you know it's a personal connection as to your Alma mater. Now, depending on whether you enjoyed your time in school or not, that could be a positive emotion or a negative emotion. For most people, at least at the college and postgraduate level, it ends up being a fairly positive experience where they have some pride in where they got their degree. But that's not always the case.

[00:26:43] So when you make a personal connection, the second thing you need to be paying attention to is, well, is this going to be a positive emotional connection or a negative emotional connection? You're talking to somebody who's gotten married, it's a personal connection, yes. Is it positive or negative? Well, it depends on the marriage. Someone who has kids, oh that's really personal. It happened to them. Are they excited about it or not? Well then, in the first few months they're probably a walking zombie. It feels really not fun. But then you kind of get to these moments where you get a little dose of oxytocin or you kind of feel you get that first smile, the first ma-ma or da-da and suddenly things shift and it's like, okay wait, maybe this is worth it. And you can go a long way on a little bit.

[00:27:26] One of the things I've learned throughout my career is these small little touches make all the difference. And everybody always worries about, “Oh, I need to do some grand gesture.” No. If I were to ask you the most meaningful moments of your life, what you remember, nine times out of 10, they weren't the grand gestures. They were the little things, the little unexpected compliment, the little unexpected ‘I've got your back.’ The thoughtful gift, the thoughtful voicemail, whatever it may be that let that person know I care about you as an individual.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:58] Perfect. And I know that you've done a lot of work on this. I mean for crying out loud, you did a play on this at Mastermind Talks with Clay Hebert. And it was funny watching it cause everyone watching this, it's like an airline, what an airline didn't do and then what an airline should do to really wow a customer. And It was like watching a superhero movie where they're fighting hand-to-hand and you just think it was like watching The Matrix only it was the customer service version. It's like that's not real. That's not how this works.

Joey Coleman: [00:28:30] And part of our goal is to shift that right? Is to make it so that people actually, and by doing that play you mentioned, it's to give people a context of, ‘Oh, there's a different way to think about this.’ And the number of people since then, just as an aside, who have messaged Clay and I and said, “Oh my gosh, loved your presentation. Had this interaction with an airline today and they should have done it the way you guys did it. Right?”

[00:28:53] Well, eventually maybe some of that video footage will make it to some of the airlines and they'll say, “We need to adjust how we approach our customers. Here's hoping.”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:29:02] Yeah, here's hoping indeed. And so you've broken this down to the eight phases of the customer journey, and I'd love to go through these because again, when people think customers, you really do have to think about anybody new that you meet inside work, any sort of personal relationship that you might have regardless of whether or not you're client-facing or you own your own business.

[00:29:21] And I always reiterate that here because occasionally we'll get a message like, “Oh, this is really interesting. If I ever run my own business, I'll have to relisten to this.” Or I sent it to people that own their own business because it's useful for them and less so for me. And I'm just thinking, ‘Not really, you know, you work in an office, but you've got, you work at a law firm. These people, the partners are your, the associates are your customers, even if you're not answering the phone.

[00:29:43] So let's go through these eight phases here, that all start with a, so you've just annihilated your chances of creating an acronym out of this.

Joey Coleman: [00:29:53] Exactly.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:29:54] The acronym is AAAAAAAA, right? It's, what do you say at the dentist? So take us through this.

Joey Coleman: [00:29:58] All right. So the first phase is Assess. This is where the customer considers whether or not they want to do business with you. In a business setting. This is considered to be maybe the marketing and sales function, prospecting, filling the funnel, trying to convince people that you're a good choice for them.

In a more personal context, this could be you meet someone and in the first interactions you're kind of getting into the conversation trying to figure out, “Is this somebody I'm going to want to exchange numbers with, get a business card from, continue the conversation after today?”

[00:30:32] So you're assessing how things are going on. This can last a couple seconds standing at the checkout line and saying, “Oh, they have some Altoids there. I should grab one.” Your assessment phase is very short. It was a millisecond before you picked it up and said, “I'm going to buy these mints and we'll leave.”

If you sell runways to municipalities, you might turn around and say, “Oh, to buy a new runway is going to be a multi-year proposal process to determine who's going to do it.”

[00:31:03] So the assess phase is long or short, it kind of doesn't matter because then we move to phase two, which is Admit. This is in the first 100-day strategy, day one of the relationship. This is where in a business context, the individual admits that they have a problem that they believe your product or service can help them with, right? So they sign up for your service, they buy your product, whatever it may be.

[00:31:25] In a personal context, it might be where they say, “Oh, this is interesting. I think I'd like to continue a conversation with this person. Let's exchange numbers. Let's agree to meet up at some point in the future.”

[00:31:38] Then we go to phase three. Affirm. Now in common parlance, this is referred to as buyer's remorse. What brain science shows us is right after making a purchase or right after starting a new relationship, the brain fills with dopamine and we're excited. We see the possibility, the potentiality of what is to come.

[00:31:59] But almost as quickly as that dopamine coats our brain, it starts to recede and as it recedes, those feelings of joy, euphoria, and excitement are replaced by feelings of fear and doubt and uncertainty. “Well, what if this doesn't work out the way I had hoped? What if this product doesn't work the way it did in the infomercial when I get it home? What if I sign up for this service then they told us that this stuff was included, but we get into it and now it's not included?

[00:32:26] The problem is everyone who's listening to your show is familiar with the phrase buyer's remorse.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:31] Sure.

Joey Coleman: [00:32:31] And yet I asked you to look at your business and say, “What do we do to counter buyer's remorse?”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:37] I used to use that term for how a woman felt after she woke up next to me and…

Joey Coleman: [00:32:44] Well, hey, this stuff has applicability in our personal lives too, right?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:47] Yeah.

Joey Coleman: [00:32:47] But it's like what are we doing to counter that? What are we doing to address the fact that we know science tells us that all humans go through this, and yet what happens in the typical business setting is the business is high fiving and celebrating, “Oh, we got a new customer. This is awesome. This rocks. We made some more money and the customer's gone. I wonder if this is going to work out. I wonder if it goes bad. If I'm going to be able to get my money back.”

[00:33:11] And that difference between the high emotional state of the person doing the selling and the low emotional state of the person who just made the purchase, if you don't address that and close that gap pretty quickly, you're never going to close it. It's just going to keep getting bigger and bigger as the relationship goes on.

[00:33:29] We then come to the next phase, phase four, which is Activate. The reason I call it activate is I want the word to feel energetic. I want you to energize the relationship. So this is the unboxing experience of getting your product. I mean, you go on YouTube and you can watch a video after video of people doing unboxing videos showing what it's like to reveal a product for the first time. Or if you're in a more of a service-based business, this is people who come to your office for the first kickoff meeting. What are you doing to make them feel like doing business with you is going to be different than any other experience they've ever had? How can you make it so special to really get things off on the right foot and activate?

[00:34:10] This is, again, in a personal context is like a first date. Or even if it's not in a dating context, the first time that you meet up and go to a game together or go hang out together, go for drinks or whatever. Even in a non-dating context, it's like that, that first experience is going to kind of set the foundation for the relationship to come. So that gets everything activated.

[00:34:33] Then we move into the phase where usually most relationships fall apart, whether personal or business. This is the Acclimate phase. This is where the other person is getting used to interacting with you.

[00:34:46] In a business context, you may have sold your product or service thousands or millions of times, but for this new customer, this is the first time they've ever interacted with you. And so you need to hold their hand. You need to show them what comes next.

[00:34:59] People always ask me, they're like, “Joey, this sounds fine and dandy, but we include directions with our products.” All they have to do is read the directions. Or in our proposal we outlined the sequence of phases that the project would go through with the timeline. Why don't they just refer to that? Why do I have to hold their hand?

[00:35:18] And what I ask people is, “Do you read the directions every time? Do you read every contract and proposal you sign?”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:35:24] I mean I'm a lawyer, but, no. Generally, we still don’t.

Joey Coleman: [00:35:26] But you’re a lawyer. But the kicker is even lawyers I know don't read.  I don't know about you. Like I always read the contracts and the waivers when I get somewhere because I'm weird that way.  And invariably the people behind the counter will be like, “No one has ever read the waiver before.”            And I'm like, “Yeah, I know it's okay.”

[00:35:46] I was at an event recently in Las Vegas and they had this crazy waiver and I read the waiver and I went up to the owner afterwards. I was like, “By the way, can I just tell you you've got a glaring error in your waiver? I'm a recovering attorney. I used to be one. I like this organization. I like what you're doing, here's the problem. And the guy looked at it and he's like, “Oh my gosh.” And I explained why it was causing an issue. And he's like, “Well, that's not the way it's meant to work.” And I'm like, “I get that. That's why I'm talking to you because you think it's working one way, but it's actually working against you.” And he's like, “I'm comping your entire day at this, at this experience place.” And I was like, “Oh, that's not necessary.” He's like, “No, you just saved me exposure to millions and millions of dollars.”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:36:23] Nice.

Joey Coleman: [00:36:23] And it's because it's recognizing what needs to happen in that acclimate phase.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:36:28] I like that. When I see a waiver, I'll read the whole thing. But if it's like seven pages, I realized that the person has done that most likely in order to, one, add gravitas to their experience, which I think is a dumb way to do it. I hate that. I'll go to LA and I'll go to a party and it's like, here's a six-page waiver to get into the party because all these famous people are going to be here and I'm thinking, ‘This is baloney. You could have handled this in three paragraphs, no photos.

Joey Coleman: [00:36:54] Totally.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:36:54] The other thing is if I see a really long waiver, I usually will strike out the last part where it says, “I have read and understand this.” Does that actually do anything? Because, of course, it's like I signed at the bottom of this, but I did strike out the part that said, “I've read and understand this.” So it's a little bit dubious.

[00:37:12] Usually these waivers are 16 different ways of saying, “I can film you when you walk in here.”

Joey Coleman: [00:37:17] Yeah. It's crazy. I mean as a recovering attorney, and I know you are as well, neither of us is giving legal advice here, but yeah, it's fascinating when you cross out a term on a waiver and you put your initials next to it and still sign it, how often they just accept that. And it's like, “By the way, I just materially altered the contract and said that it's going to be different now going forward and you just accepted it. So we're good to go. And we're off to the races.”

[00:37:43] Yeah, I agree with you. I'm a big believer that this kind of comes back to the experience you're creating for people, right? You're standing outside that party, they have a six-page waiver and you're thinking, ‘Do I even want to go to this party now?’ Because it just feels weird. It feels awkward. It makes people anxious for a lawyer to get handed a waiver just sign it, we’re like, “Yeah, whatever. These things usually aren't worth the paper they're written on.” Right. When you look at how they actually show up in the law.

[00:38:08] But for the average person, they're looking at this going, “Oh man, what am I agreeing to? I'm scared. I'm nervous.” It's the same way you get instructions. Ikea gives out instructions that have no words. They just have pictures. Now I don't know, but I still can't have that crap.

Joey Coleman: [00:38:23] Yeah, I've had plenty of terrible experiences where I'm like, “Oh my God, I'm seven hours into this bookshelf.         What the heck is going on?”

[00:38:30] But the flip side of that is their instructions are easier read and understand than the typical instructions. They still have problems, but they're actually easier because they work to make them as simple as possible.

[00:38:42] So I agree with you. The people you interact with are overwhelmed. Whether that's friends or customers. Don't send the seven-paragraph email when the two-sentence email will get it done.

[00:38:54] That being said -- don't make your communications cold and trite. I always start emails off with at least one sentence of friendliness. Like, even if it's something if I'm sending an email on a Monday, “Hey, I hope you had a great weekend this weekend.” Just something that says, “Hey, I recognize that I'm communicating with a human, not a machine, and I'm going to acknowledge that you're a human, not a machine.” Those little things go a really long way.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:39:21] It's funny to hear that from an attorney because I can imagine you sending an email that's like, “Dear friend, hope this finds you well and you had a great weekend. I will be filing my lawsuit for the demand of $197,000 effective tomorrow if you do not immediately cease and desist.” Yeah, that's kind of how that would go.

Joey Coleman: [00:39:35] Exactly. Yeah. You just be friendly. It never hurts to be kind, as my mother used to say when we were growing up, it never hurts to be kind.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:39:46] This episode is sponsored in part by Varidesk. Traditional static offices are a thing of the past, well, they should be a thing of the past, but chances are you're sitting at some crappy cubicle and the equivalent of a folding chair.

[00:39:57] However, today, companies and employees, they want an active workspace. Come on, people. Varidesk helps people re-imagine their work environment, transform their office design. Could be more active at work. Stand more, sit less, improve your employee health, boost energy, boost productivity, and look cool in the process. All right. Maybe you won't look cool, but you'll look cooler than you do sitting down. How's that?

[00:40:17] Active workspace solutions from Varidesk make it easy to encourage more movement to any Workday. They've got this new Pro Desk 60 Electric Standing Desk. It's the cornerstone of the active office, especially for people who realize that sitting is the new smoking, commercial-grade materials, well-built, easy to assemble in under five minutes plus Varidesk products are made to last. I mean, we've all seen the other guy and the thing’s falling apart, screws are coming out. Varidesk, you're not going to have that problem. And if you don't believe me, fine. Try Varidesk products, including the new Pro 60 Electric risk-free for 30 days in your own home, your own office, free shipping, free returns, if you're not satisfied. Learn more at varidesk.com/forbes so that's V A R I D E S k.com/forbes.

[00:41:06] All right, so assess, admit, affirm, activate, acclimate. We left off at the beginning of accomplish. What are we doing here?

Joey Coleman: [00:41:14] Accomplish is a really interesting phase. To be candid, it's a phase that came up that prior to writing the book was not part of my process. But I realized that I needed to call it out as a separate phase.

[00:41:27] Accomplish is when the customer achieves the goal that they had when they originally decided to do business with you. Most businesses don't pay attention to this. They sell the product or they sell the service without ever asking the customer, “What are you hoping to use this for?”

[00:41:42] So for example, you mentioned earlier in the show going to Nordstrom's, I’m buying a shirt. Let's pretend that I'm the salesperson and you come to buy the shirt, and I say, “Oh, Mr. Harbinger, what is this shirt for?” And you say, “Oh, I'm planning to wear this to my cousin's wedding later this summer.” And I’m like, “Oh, great. When's the wedding?” And you're like, Oh, it's in August sometime. I don't remember.” “Oh, well, I'm sure you’ll look fabulous in it.”

[00:42:06] Imagine if in September you got a note from that sales rep at Nordstroms that said, “Hello. Just wanted to check in and make sure that the shirt looked as good on you at the wedding as it did in the dressing room and when you were trying it on here in the store. Hope you had a fantastic wedding with your cousin. We look forward to serving you again in the future.”

[00:42:30] Couple things would happen. Number one, you would be astounded.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:42:34] I would not believe. I'd go, “Wow, this automation is phenomenal.”

Joey Coleman: [00:42:38] Yeah, exactly. You'd be like, “How is that possible?” Well, it's possible because somebody paid attention in the first conversation. You would probably also say, man, next time I need another shirt, I'm going back to Nordstrom's because they know me, they like me, they take care of me. It's going to be a good experience,” et cetera.

[00:42:54] Now, some people, when I share this kind of stuff, they go, “Joey, doesn't that just sound creepy? Doesn't it sound like you're being stalked?”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:43:02] No, not really.

Joey Coleman: [00:43:03] No. That's the thing. It doesn't. Are there maybe a small percentage of your customers that will react that way? Absolutely. But losing their business is so worth it for the lift in business you're going to get from everyone else who goes, “Oh my gosh, they care. That was amazing.” So we have to ask our customers what they're trying to accomplish and then make sure we actually deliver it.

[00:43:26] Next, we move into the Adopt phase. The adopt phase is now they've accomplished what they want and now they've become loyal to you and your brand. They are only going to do business with you going forward.

[00:43:38] So this is, for example, the guy who changes the oil in our vehicle. He does an amazing job. He does an amazing job every time they're fantastic shop. I will not get an oil change anywhere else. Even though for context, I now drive an hour to get to a shop. Your shop used to be 10 minutes from my house. I moved and now it's over an hour away. And I still go because I know they're going to take great care of me.

[00:44:05] And then, and only then do we move to the final phase, phase eight, Advocate. And when somebody becomes an advocate and starts to advocate for your brand, they're a raving fan. They're referring their friends, their colleagues, their family members. This is the Holy Grail. This is where you get to spend less money on marketing and sales because you have so many new leads and opportunities coming in because you've created these raving fans.

[00:44:35] So the crazy thing is most businesses, we talked about all eight phases. Most businesses try very early in the process to jump to this stage. They ask for referrals way too early. And they try to rush the relationship. This is the equivalent to me of going on a first date and sitting, having dinner and saying right after you order the entrée, “So when should we schedule a time for me to meet your parents?” And it's like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second. I'm not even sure if I'm staying through dessert. Calm yourself, slow your role.

[00:45:09] So customers have the chance to go through these eight phases. Our relationships have the chance to go through these eight phases, but that every human being is going to have to stop and spend at least some amount of time in each one before they can transition to the next one.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:45:25] And the interesting part about this for me is doing business as a small business that really does care about every single listener except for the crazy people. And I throw that in there because we just had a conversation pre show about how there's just going to be crazy people that you cannot please no matter what. I really strive to do a lot of these things and my wife and I will spend hours each week crafting emails to people that when I tell other entrepreneurs about how we reply to our audience, they're like, “You're dumb. Why are you answering your email from every listener that writes in?”

[00:45:59] And the answer to that is if somebody writes in and they get a response within a few hours or a few days or even a few weeks, given the current volume of email, my hypothesis here is that they're going to care more about what we do and they're more likely to continue listening to the show because they feel like they have a personal connection with, well, they do have a personal connection with us and that makes them much more likely to stick around for years instead of saying, “I tried one of these and it was okay, and then I lost track of it somehow.” Especially if they listen to a couple duds. I'd like to think we don't put out duds, but who knows? “Joey, this could be a dud. You never know, man.”

Jason DeFillippo: [00:46:36] This could be a dud. We hope not.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:46:38] Yeah. If you have a personal relationship with somebody that they listen to one and they go, “Nah, I didn't love that, but Jordan's cool. He's all right. Him and Jason are good people. I'll give another one a shot.” Instead of, “Screw this. Next.”

Joey Coleman: [00:46:49] Totally. Here's the thing. Most businesses, business owners, people in management positions think that everything has to be perfect. It doesn't. Humanity isn't perfect. It just needs to be real. And your hypothesis has actually been proven time and time again, taking the time to write those communications to create those personal interactions creates a night-and-day experience.

[00:47:17] I'm sure it comes up for you all the time. It comes up for me all the time where somebody will say, “Hey, you did this.” To be frank was like a small little thing that lots of times I even forgot that I did. That had a huge impact on them. And it's because I took the time to care. And I don't say that to be like, “Oh, look how cool Joey is. He has all this time in the world.” No.

[00:47:39] I mean I sent an email recently to somebody as a thank you for pre-ordering my book. And I said, “Oh, I really appreciate you getting in there and supporting me.” And they were like, “What are you doing sending your own emails?” And our reply now is like, “Wait until you read the book, you'll understand why.”

[00:47:58] I have a team and I have people who help me. But if you don't stay close to that, I mean we mentioned earlier, some of the jobs I've had, one of the jobs, one of the interesting things, I had the opportunity to work at the White House. And one of the cool things about working at the White House is my boss had a rule, I was a lawyer at the White House, working in the Office of Counsel to the President. And my boss had this rule that one hour per month, every lawyer on the team had to go down and work the switchboard. And they have this switchboard at the White House where citizens can call in and air their grievances with their government [00:48:32] bad.

[00:48:34] It's crazy. And like it'd be funny somebody would call in and be like, “Why haven't you told us about the UFOs?” Other people would call in and say, “This tiny little provision of the tax code is offensive to me,” and they'd want to get into like a big deep tax code conversation, which for me personally was never an exciting conversation. But I'd much rather have the UFO conversation.

[00:48:54] But long story short, the reason that my boss did this is he said, “I never want you to forget who we're actually serving. Like you work in the White House and you serve at the pleasure of the president of the United States, but your end user, your end customer are the citizens of this country.” Whether they voted for this person that we serve or not.

[00:49:18] And to me, that's why I will always be aware of the emails and the messages that come in through my podcast or through my book or my website or wherever. Audience members, I hang around afterwards and talk to audience members at speeches, which a lot of speakers don't do because it's like, “You're my customers. I want to know what's working for you, what's not working for you.” And I'll ask people, “Hey, what was your favorite part of the book? What was your favorite part of my speech? What was the part that you wished I would have spent more time on? What was the part that you thought was kind of a waste of your time you wish I wouldn't have discussed at all?” Because I'm constantly looking for that feedback to hone the experience and make it better for my audience.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:49:59] You say the word experience a lot and the reason I want to latch onto that is because it seems like you go through, I know you, so I know that you go through life with an experienced mindset and that that makes you a happier guy. I don't know. More fulfilled guy.

Joey Coleman: [00:50:15] It does, yeah. 100 percent

Jordan Harbinger: [00:50:17] Can you explain this? Is there a practical way that we can kind of wrap our minds around developing an experience mindset?

Joey Coleman: [00:50:24] Yeah. So, first of all, I love this question and I appreciate this question because I think there's a huge opportunity for people to have more happiness, more fulfillment, more meaning in their life by seeking out experiences over things.

[00:50:40] There comes a point where you can only buy so many more DVDs or so many more pairs of shoes or so many more cars or whatever, whatever it is that you buy or collect or want or have. What I've found is that by seeking out experiences, it has led to a richer life and more vivid memories.

[00:50:59] I've had the chance to do some absolutely insane things in my life. I mean, I've jumped off bridges into rushing rivers with Tony Robbins. I've had lunch or dinner rather in a tent next to the pyramid. I've done behind-the-scenes tours on stages with rock stars and, done these crazy, crazy things. I mean, even as a kid, I had the chance when I was the summer 15, 16 years old to go to the then Soviet Union and we were signed KGB agents that would come along with us to make sure we were behaving and my buddies and I would play KGB tag. We'd like go out and we'd see them following us and we'd like run and run around a corner and then stand there and wait for them to catch up and come around the corner and then act like they weren't following us, which was probably totally ridiculous and stupid. But again, remember I was a teenager, right?

[00:51:54] But I had these experiences that have all contributed to these really fun stories that I can tell this life perspective that I have. I'm a big fan of travel. I'm a big fan of when was the last time you did something for the first time? And by incorporating these types of experiences into your life, not only is it richer and more fulfilling, but it gives you a perspective that makes doing the “more mundane” things in life that much easier.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:52:21] So how do we start to adopt this for ourselves? Because right now people are going, “Oh great, well yeah, if you're some rich Joey Coleman guy, this famous author, you can go hang out with Tony Robbins and go to the Soviet Union or something like that, which doesn't exist anymore. So no matter how much money you have, you can't do that. But you can go and do all these crazy things. But it sounds like the experiential mindset or an experience mindset is something that's reserved for the privileged.

Joey Coleman: [00:52:46] Not at all. Not at all. And I appreciate that because I can understand where it might've come off that way and that's certainly not my intention.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:52:52] You snob, Joey. Come on.

Joey Coleman: [00:52:53] Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Not what I was going for. Sorry, friends. But no, I think it's all about perspective. And it doesn't have to be travel. It doesn't have to be hanging out with celebrities. Because, frankly, hanging out with just average folks on the street is just as exciting and just as eye-opening in perspective building.

[00:53:16] I think there are all kinds of things you can do around and experience. What I might say to the listeners is, “All right, what's your typical weekend look like? Oh, well, you know, I work really hard during the week so I come home and Saturday's kind of like a Netflix and chill day and Sunday I kind of do a little bit of things. Maybe prepare some meals for the week ahead or like try to start getting anxious about work, whatever, etc., etc. And that's my weekend. And it's like, “Okay, well, what if you looked and found a free fair or a festival or a flea market or something that's happening in your town that you normally wouldn't go to and you just went and committed to hang out for at least an hour and observe and experience and see it and try it.

[00:54:05] One of the things that somebody, we had a babysitter the other night for our boys. I have a four-year-old and a two-year-old. And we came back that night and we're talking to the babysitter. The kids were already asleep and the babysitter said, “You know, it was really interesting. Your boys were willing to try some new food. We had gotten a takeout and she had gotten something for herself and she was like, “They were willing to try mine, which was something they said they had never had.” And I'm like, “Yeah, they never have.” And she's like, “Normally kids aren't willing to do that. They just seemed open to it.” And I have to tell you, like in that moment, I looked at my wife and I'm like, “It's working, it's working.” You know what I mean?

[00:54:42] We're, we're trying to instill this type of mindset in our kids of, “Hey, you don't have to eat the whole thing, but you have to take three bites. Not one bite, three bites, because one bite, that's probably not enough to decide whether you liked it or not. Yeah, I think it's all about trying things multiple times in different ways and seeking out those type of experiences that will lead to that richer, more fulfilled life.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:55:03] How do we evaluate our experiences? Because you mentioned the kids taking one or three bites thing. Something that I've noticed when I watch my friend's kids, I don't have any yet. They say, “Just take one bite,” and the kid is already decided that that bite is going to be terrible for it.

Joey Coleman: [00:55:18] Totally.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:55:18] Before it hits their lips, they're like, “Yeah, I don't like it.” And I'm like, “Of course, you already decided.” So that's why I like the three bites because if they've got to actually do three bites, they kind of have to suffer through it. Or they just go, “Oh actually this is not bad.” And they go and they do.

Joey Coleman: [00:55:34] Yeah. And if they know they have three lots of times the windup is, so again, brain science and research shows us that if we say you have to take three bites, if you think you're not going to like it, you won't like it the most on bite three. By one and two you'll kind of be like, “Oh so focused on getting to number three that it won't matter.” But the reality is if you actually start to get a little taste for it in your pallet, you might go, “Actually it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be.” And I hear that from my sons all the time. They'll say, “Daddy, that wasn't so bad.” I'm like, “Yeah, buddy.” But, you see sometimes we just have to try new things even if they seem scary or they seem different or like things we wouldn't want to do.

[00:56:12] I think to answer your question in terms of evaluating your own experiences, I'd ask folks that are listening to think of the greatest experience you had in the last year, whether that was as a customer, in a relationship, just something that randomly happened to you, the best thing that happened to you in the last year.

[00:56:32] And once you have that, ask yourself, “Well, why was it so great? What about it? Let's deconstruct it a little bit and see what made it that fantastic or that memorable or that remarkable. And then how did it make you feel? Like, we've kind of looked at what happened, but what was the reaction that you had emotionally to what was going on? And then you take that and say, “How do I get more of that?”

[00:57:01] So for me, lots of times I'll look at an experience and say, “Wow, the reason I liked that is because it was different, it was unexpected, and it was a surprise. And the way it made me feel was alive and engaged and kind of more open to the possibilities that were around us. Okay, now how do I get more of that? Well, I need to put myself into circumstances that are unique or different or unexpected and then be open to what happens.

[00:57:30] And by doing these things, we're able to develop more of an experience mindset and lead a more experienced-based life.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:57:38] Speaking of experiences, man, you've had some incredible ones that we just sort of talked offline about these, but you went to South Africa in 94 or you met Nelson Mandela, you hung out, I don't know if you can say hung out, but with what you did with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, you hung out with Bono, you've been to the Soviet Union.

[00:57:57] What's going on here man? You've had this experience mindset for a while, it seems. This is something that you've found through surprise experience yourself.

Joey Coleman: [00:58:06] Yeah, I think it's just about being open to it. I mean, I had the great opportunity to do a study abroad program that let me sail around the world on the Semester at Sea program.

[00:58:17] Meeting Bono was an interesting experience. I was walking down the street and I see this guy coming down the street with four beautiful women. And to be candid, I noticed the women before I noticed the guy. And I’m like --

Jordan Harbinger: [00:58:28] Oh, really? I wonder why that happened?

Joey Coleman: [00:58:31] Yeah. Weird. Funny how that happened on that. Did I mention that I was 20 at the time? And I was like, “This is insane.” And all of the sudden, as they got closer, it dawned on me that they were all super tall and the dude was a lot shorter than they were. It's because they were models and it was Bono. And so they come up and they get right next to me and it's just like, “I've got to say something. I've got to say something.” And I was like, “Hey, sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to say, ‘I'm a big fan of your music. Love listening to it. Forgive me for interrupting, but I just wanted to share that. Thanks so much for everything you do.’” And one of the women turns to Bono and says, “We're actually going to go in this store here and shop.” And as if on cue all the women file off into the store that we're standing in front of. And I'm standing on the street with Bono. And because he's like, “I'm not going in the store. I've been shopping all day with these girls. I'm going to hang out here.”

[00:59:27] And next thing we know we have like a 45-minute conversation about music and he's like, “What are you doing here?” And I'm like, “Oh actually I'm on tour with a group I sing with.” I was a singer in college. I didn't play the flute. But whatever you can do you do.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:59:45] I can’t believe you remember that, man. That is terrible that you remember.

Joey Coleman: [00:59:51] I just wanted to bring it up so that people associate you more with the flute. I think that would be a good thing.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:59:54] Yes. Thanks. That’s really a part of my personal brand moving forward.

Joey Coleman: [00:59:58] How about that? Yeah. And so, he's like, “So what are you doing here?” And I said, “I'm actually on tour with the group I sing with.” And he goes, “Hmm. Me too.”

Jordan Harbinger: [01:00:08] Me too. Yeah.

Joey Coleman: [01:00:09] It was just like, but like, what's so humble about it and so funny about it that then we had this conversation about what it's like singing in a different city every night and trying your best to pour everything out for the audience, but then being tired because you're on the bus or he was on a plane, I was on a bus to the next venue and that kind of thing.

[01:00:29] And so it's just, again, none of that would've happened if I hadn't been willing to put myself out a little bit and say something to compliment this person, in this case Bono, who I admired their work.

[01:00:43] And that's why I think it's really, as I'll say as an aside, one of the things I've noticed, it's very difficult to appreciate just how much a kind word or a thoughtful comment or a thank you to someone can impact their life. I mean, here's a guy who's an international rock star celebrity.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:01:02] He's probably still telling that story about that day he met you.

Joey Coleman: [01:01:05] Probably the day he met me. Exactly. I've told the story plenty of times, but it's one of those scenarios where even the people and what I've noticed, and I know you, you know a ton of famous people, you have a lot of famous people on the show. I'm sure you've experienced this as well. It's like, for lack of a better way of putting it, the higher people go in terms of their notoriety or their fame or their fortune or whatever it may be, the less they have normal interactions.

[01:01:32] And so if you can provide a normal interaction like a, “Hey, I really appreciate your work, or thank you so much for what you did,” you're able to connect with them in a way that in many ways they haven't connected in a long time. The same goes true for the average person on the street. Thanking the average person for opening, “Hey, thanks so much for holding the door for me. I really appreciate you doing that,” reinforces to that person, “Oh, I matter, I do something.”

And this goes back to the conversation we were having earlier about being more connected via technology but feeling more disconnected in terms of our emotional relationships with people. So I think there's huge opportunities.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:02:08] All right. I want to wrap with something that really shocked me when I heard this about you. You've been pulled over 81 times, but you've only gotten three tickets that you've had to pay.

Joey Coleman: [01:02:20] Correct.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:02:20] So either you're driving around on and something that just looks insane and always gets police attention or you are a master of getting out of tickets. But either way. Well actually it has to be about 81 times.

Joey Coleman: [01:02:34] It's actually about, yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:02:36] It’s like 75 times more than, no, it's 79 or so times more than I've ever been pulled over in my life. And you're only a few years older than me. What the hell is going on here man?

Joey Coleman: [01:02:46] Yeah. So a couple of things. Yes, you are correct. I've been pulled over 81 times, most recently about less than a week ago. I'll confess, I have a little bit of a heavy foot at times, but I've also been pulled over for weird things like evading a police barricade, failure to heed a direct police command to stop, too many people in the car, wrong way on one way in Boston at 3:00 AM, which if you've been to downtown Boston, you respect the fact that that happened because it's impossible to drive around in downtown Boston as a non-local and understand whether you're on a one way or not.

[01:03:21] So yeah, I've been pulled over a couple of times. Six tickets have been written and three of those stuck. I fought the other three in court and was able to get out of them. So yeah, I like to think my batting average is pretty good.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:03:32] So the lesson here is don't get into a car with Joey Coleman, but --

Joey Coleman: [01:03:35] Yeah. Or do, just know that you might get pulled over. I actually taught a class on getting out of a speeding ticket one time and, my now wife, we weren't even dating she came to the class and not long after that we started dating and we were driving, and we got pulled over. And I'm anxious, right? I'm on a date. I've been pulled over. This is embarrassing. And as the police officers walking up to the car, my now wife then date, not even girlfriend turns to me and says, “Well, I guess we're going to get, see how well this works in real time, aren't we?” And I'm like, “Oh thanks. Not like increasing the pressure.” This was already a tense moment. And now I feel like I'm being judged based on my performance. Good news is I didn't get a ticket so it worked out all right. She said she'd marry me and here we are today.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:04:20] Yeah, you'd be single if you hadn't gotten out of that ticket.

Joey Coleman: [01:04:23] I’d be single if I had gotten a ticket that day. Yeah, exactly.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:04:25] So what's going on here? How are you getting out of that stuff? Because I think there's probably a lot of people that are going, “Yeah, great question, Jordan. Wait a minute. How is this working for you? I don't care that you got pulled over and you got out of it. I want to know how I can get out of it, what's happening in these experiences here?”

Joey Coleman: [01:04:38] So a couple of things. Number one I mentioned earlier, I take great pride and I'm very committed to being a student of human nature, and whether you believe it or not, the folks who work in law enforcement are human too. And I have a lot of respect for them. It's a really, really difficult job.

[01:04:55] Sadly, what we see a lot on the news is the people who are horrible at doing that job. But I can find any career on the planet and point to dozens of examples of people who are horrible doing their job. The problem is with police, the consequences are higher. To me, the secret is what I refer to as the long walk. The from the moment the police officer leaves their car and walks up to stand by the driver's side window where you're parked, you have to figure out what type of police officer they are.

[01:05:25] I believe there are three types of police officers. The first type is the person who becomes a police officer because they really want to give back to their community. They believe in the rule of law. They believe in order. They want a peaceful, safe community for their neighbors and their fellow citizens. Those are the best kinds of police officers on the planet. I know a lot of them. They're amazing.

[01:05:45] The other categories are as follows. Number one, it's the bully from high school, right? The person who was always picking on the other kids and was just a total jerk. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred it's a dude and was just obnoxious as a teenager and is obnoxious now as an adult and they love the idea of exerting their authority.

[01:06:06] The third type is the type who was the wallflower in high school who always got picked on by that bully and now they want to try to swing the pendulum a little bit by becoming someone in authority and someone with power. And as they're walking up to the car, you need to try to identify not only during that walk by what they see, but also by what they say to you, what type of person they are, and then respond accordingly.

[01:06:30] If it's the law, the first category, the kind of just believes in the rule of law, wants a safe community, you can just play it honest. Just be totally sincere. That the recent time I got pulled over, um, that's what it was. He was like, “Hey, did you realize you were speeding in this residential area?” I'm like, I'm so sorry I didn't. We're from out of town. I wasn't familiar with the neighborhood. That's not an excuse, but that's honestly what was happened. Plus, one of my kids in the back was crying and we were trying to calm him down a little and I just lost a little track of things and I'm so sorry. But, but you're right. I was speeding. I apologize.” Guy goes back to the car, comes back, gives me a warning. He's like, “Look, you really got to familiarize yourself with the streets if you're driving somewhere where you don't know, calm down was perfect.”

[01:07:12] And the reason I could tell the kind of guy it was is the way he was dressed, the way he walked, the way he carried himself. I knew this is a guy who's just looking at this out-of-state vehicle going, “What is this guy doing moving too fast in a residential neighborhood?”

[01:07:26] If it's the bully, I do not recommend this one. This is kind of the 301 course on how to get out of a speeding ticket. You end up being a little subservient to the bullying in the beginning. And then if they don't yield, you kind of stand up to them and it shocks their system so much that they don't know what to do. And usually they just write you a warning.

[01:07:44] If it's the wallflower, you be subservient in the beginning, you give them their kind of fix of being in control. And then you ask their indulgence for a warning and nine times out of 10, they'll give it to you. Because they're like, “Oh, well I got the emotional hit that I wanted from this moment. Um, I don't need to rub salt in the wound by writing a ticket.”

[01:08:05] I want to say though, with all of these again, it's a really difficult job and if you pay attention to the emotional state of the officer on the side of the road that's pulled you over. And also what time of day it is. The story I explained earlier, this was like two o'clock in the afternoon. I had my wife and our kids in the car. So it was, he was very quickly able to ascertain, looking back, “Oh, this is a family guy driving his family around. This is probably not a threat.” If I was by myself or with two or three of my male buddies and it was 3:00 AM on the side of the road and we'd been speeding, it would have been a different calculus for that officer.

[01:08:44] So it's again, it's, it's most of the customer stuff, right? It's experience. What is the experience you're going to create for the officer? They're used to people lying to them. They're used to people being really defensive and offering a lot of excuses. And some people say, “Oh, you should never admit to the cop.” Man, if I know I'm speeding or if I know I did something wrong, I'll just throw that out right away. I'll just say, “Yep. You know what? I'm sorry, officer. You've got me. I was speeding. I know that that's wrong. Here's why I was doing it, but it's not a good excuse. I'm so sorry.”

[01:09:14] They don't get that, ever. And what it does is it kind of short circuits their brain on the side of the road. They're like, “Wait a second, what? You're not going to be a jerk? You're not going to fight me on this? You're not going to offer some BS excuse? You're not going to threaten me or harass me?” And as a result, then they're like, “Oh, wait, this is just a decent human being. Well, maybe I should respond with reciprocity and be a decent human being back. Here's a warning instead of a ticket.”

Jordan Harbinger: [01:09:38] This makes sense. It goes along with personality archetypes and things like that. I remember the first time I got pulled over, I was probably 16 or something, ran a red light, barely. It wasn't a big an intersection. It was like a red light that had like a T junction. There was no other cars. So he pulled me over and he goes, “Oh wow, that was a close one. You're lucky there were no other cars, man.” And he goes, “Let me guess. Driving daddy's car. Doesn't know you're going to get pulled over. You're going to get in trouble now, man.” And I went, “Yeah, you're right. My dad's going to be super pissed. I'm on my way to my girlfriend's house for dinner. She's going to be mad at me. I'm not totally sure where I am.” And then he goes, “Oh, uh, well where are you going?

Joey Coleman: [01:10:19] That’s perfect because he thought he was walking into one scenario. And when you said, “Yeah,” and it's actually even worse than that, he was like, “Oh wait, this kid is going to have some challenges with what just went down.”

Jordan Harbinger: [01:10:32] Yeah. In his mind he went, “Wow, you really are a screwed up little punk.”

Joey Coleman: [01:10:37] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:10:38] I don't even need to rub salt into this one. And then of course I said, “By the way, this is weird, but those are really cool sunglasses. What brand are they?” He goes, “Oh man, these are Killer Loop, bro.” And you kind of see he could not shut up about his sunglasses because he was really stoked about his new cop sunglasses. And then he's like, “What are you wearing?” And I was like, “Oh, these are Gargoyles.” And he goes, “Oh, the Bulletproof ones.” This is the ’90s.

Joey Coleman: [01:11:00] Yep. Oh nice. I like it.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:11:03] Go easy on me. And it was just, he was like, “Aw man, yo, look, I'm not going to give you a warning. Just be careful. You know, I don't want to see you get hurt.” And I was like, “No, you wanted to make me whiz my pants because you're kind of a jerk, but thanks for letting me go.” I didn't say that last part right, but I could tell he walked up like, “I'm going to scare the crap out of this kid.” And I just wanted to let him know, “Wow, I'm so scared. Don't give me a ticket. I don't have any money. My dad's going to kill me.” The end of story. And that was all he needed.

Joey Coleman: [01:11:29] Exactly. At the end of the day, I think it comes back to what we've been talking about the entire conversation. People are just people. We got to meet them where they're at. And nine times out of 10, if you're willing to step into the other person's shoes and try to see what their experience is like, it will help you show up in the interaction even better, create a better experience for them that often is going to lead to even better outcomes for you.

[01:11:54] So there is a benefit to doing all of this too not only is it just make you a better human being and a decent human being, but there are actually some benefits you won't get speeding tickets, for example.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:12:06] Yeah, absolutely. And I just want to be real clear. We're big fans of cops and law enforcement --

Joey Coleman: [01:12:09] 100 percent.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:12:10] -- in general here. I want to reiterate that we're talking about the archetypes of people here. Cops happened to be the example. It's not because we don't like cops.

Joey Coleman: [01:12:17] No, absolutely no. Big fan of law enforcement. They play a very important role in our society and I'm appreciative for what they do. But this has parallels into other scenarios too. We mentioned earlier in the conversation, airlines. I spend a lot of time on airlines. And one of the things I've found is that when everybody else is freaking out about their flight being delayed or being canceled, et cetera, if you show up with empathy, amazing things happen.

Joey Coleman: [01:12:45] Not too long ago I was in a scenario where the flight’s canceled and everyone's going to have to spend the night and go out the next day. That's just the way it's going to be. There's no more flights out. It doesn't matter how much you sweet talk, nothing's going to work. And I'm about 15 people deepen the line and by the time I get to the front, I've watched this poor gate agent just be harassed ridiculously.

[01:13:05] And so we got up there and she says, “How can I help you, sir?” And I said, “Before we even get started, I just want you to know you're doing an incredible job. I know this is completely overwhelming. I know it is not your fault. I know a lot of these people in the line in front of me have treated you as if it was your fault. And I imagine regrettably that a lot of the people behind me are going to treat you the same way. But I want you to know, I think you're doing an incredible job. And the fact that you still have a smile on your face is a testament to how much you actually care about people. And I just want to say how much I appreciate that.

[01:13:37] And I watched her entire physicality shift. And she was like, “I'm sorry, what was your name again?” And I said, “It's Joey Coleman.” And she's like, “Can I have your boarding pass?” And I was like, “Yeah,” and I hand her my boarding pass and she [01:13:48]. And she goes, “Oh, hang on one second.” Print. She goes, “Here you go. I wasn't able to get you out tonight. As you know, there are no more flights, but you are on the first flight out tomorrow and you're in first class.” She says, “And this second receipt is for is a meal voucher to allow you to get some food tonight. And the third receipt is for a hotel.” And I said, “Because this wasn't your guys' fault, like normally you don't get a hotel.” And she's like, “No, I know, but I just really appreciate how kind you were to me.” And I was like, “I really appreciate how kind you've been to me tonight. Thanks so much.”

[01:14:25] It's about caring about people. That's it. It's that complex to do it in the moment and be aware of your own positioning and messaging and emotions, but it's also that easy.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:14:37] Well, you're a first-class kind of guy, Joey, and I appreciate you coming on the show.

Joey Coleman: [01:14:40] Oh Jordan, it's my pleasure. I really appreciate you having me on the show. I'm a huge fan of what you're doing. I am a loyal listener and subscriber and reviewer and all of that jazz. I'm a big fan and it's been an honor. And I hope your audience has enjoyed the conversation as much as I have.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:15:00] Jason, I told you Joey is an interesting guy, man. 81 times. How does that even happen?

Jason DeFillippo: [01:15:06] It's ridiculous. I mean he's got to have a sphincter of steel by now because I know when I see those flashing lights behind me and I've only gotten like pulled over three times in my life, it's like I need a new pair of meundies every time when I see those flashing lights.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:15:19] That's a reason to get a subscription right there.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:15:21] Exactly.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:15:22] Yeah. Subscribe in case you get pulled over a lot, you have a new pair waiting for you when you get home. Meundiescom/Jordan.

[01:15:29] And his book, Joey's book, is coming out real soon, Never Lose a Customer Again. I've seen Joey speak a bunch. We've been friends for a long time. If you run a business at big or small, this book will be great for you. He's got a lot of cool bonuses for preorder stuff. He's a guy who knows how to deliver content, man, he really helped me learn how to speak better. Everybody loves his talks. He's one of the nicest people around. This is just one of those guys where if you didn't love him, you wouldn't like him at all because you're like, “Oh, he highlights everything that's wrong with me.” Because he's everything I’m not. Go fly a kite, Joey Coleman, so his book is going to be excellent. I'm really looking forward to it. It's preorder right now depending on when you're listening to this, but of course it's going to be out later this month, so go preorder it and get the bonuses. You're welcome.

[01:16:12] Once again, it's called Never Lose a Customer Again. It's at bonus dot Joey coleman.com/order and of course we'll have that linked up in the show notes as per usual.

[01:16:21] Don't forget to thank Joey on Twitter. That'll be linked up in the show notes for this episode his Twitter that is, which can be found at Jordan harbinger.com/podcast and also tweet at me your number one takeaway from Joey. I'm at Jordan harbinger on Twitter. I'm also on Instagram at Jordan Harbinger.

[01:16:37] This episode of the Jordan Harbinger Show is produced and edited by Jason DeFillippo. Show notes are by Robert Fogarty, booking back office and last-minute miracles by Jen Harbinger. And I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger.

[01:16:50] Write us a review in iTunes if you use it, share the show with your friends though as well. We are rebuilding. As you know, we love having your help, man. There's been a lot of positivity coming into our Instagram coming into our inbox@jordanharbinger.com. You guys and gals are the bomb, the fans of the bomb, Jason, they are really, really, really, really helpful, really positive and really helping us along here.

[01:17:14] So I just appreciate all of y'all a lot.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:17:16] We all do so much. You have no idea.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:17:19] Yeah, you really have no idea. But please do share the show with those you love. Even those you don't. We've got lots more like this in the pipeline. We're excited to bring it to you. Oh, it's occurred to me that some of you are not subscribed. So if you are one of those people that is not subscribed to the show, go to Jordan harbinger.com/subscribe and find the myriad of ways which you can get this show delivered to your face every single time it's released. And in the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time.