John Formica, The "Ex Disney Guy"

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Welcome to Topsail Insider, where you can hear all about the businesses and events in the beautiful coastal towns in the greater Topsail area of North Carolina Coming up.

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When you think of great customer service, surely at the top of your list is Disney.

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Well, today we have the ex-Disney guy and America's best customer experience coach and a leading authority on tourism and hospitality sharing how he can help you and your team transform your existing service level into something magical for your customers.

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Stay tuned we have Mr John Formica in the studio today on Topsail Insider.

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Hello everyone and welcome to Topsel Insider.

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My name is Krista and I am your host.

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Today we are talking to John Formica, the ex-Disney guy.

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He is America's best customer experience coach and the top 10 global thought leader and influencer on customer loyalty, with over 4,000 keynotes and seminars around the world.

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And we have him here today sharing the Disney philosophy success model with us.

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His seminars are high energy and he has a captivating personality.

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You will be inspired by his enthusiasm.

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I know because I've attended.

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I did repeats actually.

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I attended this seminar, loved it so much was completely blown away.

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I came home like raving to my husband like you won't believe what I just learned.

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And then I went back and took it again a couple of years later because I knew that I needed it in the new space that I am in right now business-wise, and then also one-on-one, because I did have a coaching session with him.

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So one-on-one.

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He is highly focused on listening to your needs and helping you accomplish your goals.

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Welcome, john, and thank you so much for joining me today.

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It is an honor to be here today.

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I've heard so many great things about this podcast and to be on it.

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I am just fired up and excited.

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Well, thank you, you were in Surf City today, right?

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That's correct and you were doing it wasn't the same class, it wasn't customer experience, but you were doing another small business class through the Small Business Center of Cape Fear Community College.

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right, that's correct.

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We did a program today called how to Find, interview and Hire Magical People Eight Steps to Never have a Bad Hire Again.

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I love it.

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I would like to talk about what you do and why you do it.

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So you are called the ex-Disney guy for a reason.

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You have over 25 years working in the hospitality industry and 10 of those years was Disney World right.

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That's correct.

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I'm kind of old there, Many, many years.

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I started when I was three years old, I think something like that.

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But no, my background is I grew up in New York and as a child I always wanted to be a park ranger.

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That's what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I want to hang out with Smokey.

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But I was a city slicker boy from New York and got a scholarship to play soccer at West Virginia University.

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Oh, that's cool.

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And Chris, I didn't even know West Virginia was a state.

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It was so far out of my comfort zone and they convinced my dad and I to take a recruiting trip.

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We drive 15 hours to Morgantown, west Virginia, and soon as I pulled in I totally fell in love with the campus, the state, the people, and I tell everybody that's when I became a country boy, because I was no longer a city slicker.

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And they had a great recreation and parks program In fact top five in the country so I figured I'd get a great education as well, but unfortunately it never happened.

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When I graduated, I got a letter from the National Park Service telling me that 350 people would have to die before I ever became a park ranger.

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So that's a long time to wait, and I was an ambitious young person so I floated around with some campgrounds that I was helping manage and then I finally got the opportunity to work for Hyatt Hotels.

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How did you get to Hyatt?

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I was a general manager of a pretty large campground, thinking, okay, you're pretty high up there, but when I wanted to join the hotel industry, I started from the bottom and I was the assistant manager on duty on third shift.

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Think about, you know, they need anybody to fill that shift and they felt sorry for me, I guess.

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But it was a great learning experience and Hyatt was a great company and I just worked my way and I kept doing different things and managing different department levels, different size hotels.

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They kept moving me around in the Washington DC area, but I had this strong ambition that I've just been always anything I've done as a child.

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Even today, I just want to be the best at what I can do, which means I got to learn.

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I got to be a sponge and I wanted to be Hyatt Hotel's youngest general manager.

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That's what my goal was and I was just pedal to the metal.

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That's what my goal was and I was just pedal to the metal.

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That's what I'm going to do, until my boss told me that wasn't going to happen.

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It was pretty disappointing, but it wasn't that it wasn't going to happen because I wasn't good enough.

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It was.

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There's some things you have to do before you become a general manager.

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And I said what do I have to do?

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Tell me what I have to do, because I want to be a general manager someday.

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And he said, john, the best thing to do is we love you here.

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You're doing a great job, but there's a there's sort of a progression that you need to follow.

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He said if you could open up new hotels for Hyatt, when they open up new hotels and you can get on that task force, it's pretty good because not only is it a lot of work, but corporate gets to know you and if you don't screw up, they get to know you.

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And then you open up another hotel and your name gets out there.

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So luckily, there was a new hotel opening up right outside Washington DC.

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It was called the Bethesda Hyatt in Bethesda, maryland, which is a suburb of DC.

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So I opened that hotel.

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They gave me this task.

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I was in charge of the outdoor public areas and garage, so my job was to make sure they were ready to go look clean.

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From that standpoint I said okay, take me down.

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So you know the construction that goes on in a hotel.

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The garage is like the last that anybody even cares about, because that's where the construction goes in.

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They store things that don't belong.

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It's hidden.

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But yet, man, every night I would be washing down, I would sweeping, I would throw trash away this garage.

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Sweeping, I would throw trash away this garage.

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You could eat off the floors.

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It was awesome the grounds outside in front of the hotel, which was not a lot of grounds anyway.

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And I run across the vice president of Hyatt Hotels, senior vice president, and he says he sees me at 1130 at night and I'm in a broom sweeping the garage.

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And he said what are you doing?

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And I said I'm in charge of making sure this garage stays clean and it's these construction people are just tearing it up and I want to make sure it's clean.

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He said this is the cleanest garage I've ever seen.

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So we I met him, we talked a little bit and it turned out to be great.

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Did you know who you were speaking with?

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No at the time.

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I didn't know who I was speaking to.

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But, lo and behold, I found out, which was a great experience.

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But he then put me on the task force to open up the Park Hyatt Hotel, which is their first five-star hotel, and I was in charge of housekeeping of the entire property.

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Where was that one?

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In Washington DC as well?

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And so I opened up that.

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And then they had me open up the Grand Hyatt, which is a huge, large convention hotel attached to the convention center in a different aspect of it, and they got to know who I was.

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They shipped me off to Chicago.

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That's where the home office was.

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They had some projects for me.

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They wanted to be close by.

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Everything was great and then, out of nowhere, that's when the Disney company came calling.

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So it was a great experience.

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Opening a hotel is exhausting because you get very little sleep, because you're under a deadline, got to get it open and just things are going to go wrong, they're going to go wrong, and so it was a great learning experience.

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And it was true, I got exposed.

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So I'll take you back.

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Like you said, you were in Chicago and then that's when Disney came along.

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Tell me about that meeting, Krista.

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I can remember this day as if it was yesterday.

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Really.

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I was a manager managing the front office of the Hyatt O'Hare at the airport in Chicago.

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It's a huge, it's a factory 1,100 rooms, 400 check-in, 400 check-out every night.

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It's just massive.

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Just coming and going, I'm doing that and check out every night.

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It's just massive.

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Just coming and going.

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I'm doing that and I get a call.

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It was February, it was 17 degrees below zero and I got a call from someone from Orlando Florida.

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What's your first thing when someone from Orlando Florida calls you?

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The first question they asked was how's the weather in Chicago?

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I don't know who this was, krista.

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I said who is this?

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I'm freezing my butt off.

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Why do you want to know?

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Yeah.

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Next thing out of their mouth oh, this is the Disney company, the Disney company.

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And they called specifically for you, for me and it was just an initial call from the HR just to find out if I have interest, if there's something I'd be thinking about doing, and they said we're about to explode in the resort division.

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We're looking to expand and hire from outside.

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We've heard great things about you that you've opened up hotels before.

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From whom?

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It's not your it can't be your bosses, I later found out that Disney hired another manager who was on the task force of one of the hotels.

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And so they asked him hey, do you know anybody we're going to need to fill these positions and being in the right place at the right time.

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And so they said would you be interested in joining us?

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If it's right and I was what?

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17 degrees below zero in Chicago.

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How long did it say?

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Let me think about that.

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Yes, can I pay you to hire me?

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So after grueling interviews, literally I had an HR person in the initial phase.

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Then I had an HR person who asked me more of those HR type questions.

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Yeah.

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And then they invited me to Orlando for two and a half days of interviews.

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Yeah.

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So I go to Orlando for these interviews and, lo and behold, I find out I have eight interviews on one day, every hour, on the hour, and eight interviews on the second day.

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Oh, my gosh One hour on the hour, ranging from hourly employees, a panel of hourly employees, to the senior executive, vice president of Disney, and I'm thinking I guess I'm not working here because I can't fool 16 people.

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I can fool maybe five, I can't fool 16.

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And it was exhausting, but it was a great experience.

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But it really taught me that Disney, they're going to make sure it's right.

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They're not going to just hire anybody, and I use that in my coaching and my training programs.

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Think about you as a business.

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If you're known out there to just hire anybody, guess who's going to show up Anybody.

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And you want to hire a quality candidate, make them know that we don't just hire anybody.

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You got to want to really work here and prove to us that you can, and so it was grueling.

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I actually left.

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Didn't think I got the job.

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Can I ask you something about this interview process?

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So I've seen you give your presentations and you seem like a man with zero fear.

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You get up there, you're very confident and you exude that confidence when you're speaking and you're doing over 4,000 speaking engagements.

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I have to think have you always been like this, or is this just over the years, gaining that confidence?

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Like, how did you feel in that moment speaking with the top executives of Disney?

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Great question I've always felt comfortable.

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I guess I have the gift, the gab.

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I think I just got it from my mom, used to be a professional singer, was on radio in New York many years ago in the 40s, and maybe I got it from her.

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But I've always been easy to talk to in front of people, so maybe maybe that was pretty good.

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I've always, from the training perspective and being doing keynotes and everything else, I always felt comfortable doing it.

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I did training for my own staff, even as a general manager I would do training orientation parts because I wanted them to learn from the right way of doing things.

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Did I ever think I'd be doing this professionally?

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No, that wasn't ultimately what I fell into.

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But so I felt comfortable.

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But I got to tell you it was intimidating when you looked at the list and I just said this is all gravy.

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It's not like I wanted, really wanted the job.

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I applied and I couldn't go.

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If I can get this job, it's great.

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If not, I have a great career with Hyatt and so.

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I'm going to fulfill my dreams of being a general manager someday.

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I looked at it that way.

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But everybody asked some questions.

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I thought the panel with all the hourly employees were probably the most unusual, because I'd never been in front of something like that.

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But they were.

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They knew what they were doing.

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They weren't just ask weird, stupid questions, they were focused because they're looking at it as if you're going to be our boss.

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If you're going to be our, we want to make sure.

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I was wondering why they were doing that.

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That's really interesting.

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A lot of questions on team and culture, and how do you deal with this situation and those sort of things?

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It wasn't that.

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Oh, they're just hourly employees.

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I can really snowball them, don't they know who I am?

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It was boy, I had to really give them the respect because they did their homework and they knew what they were doing.

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And it was funny that the last person was the senior vice president and you think you'd be a little nervous and I was, gosh, this is pretty cool, but it was the last one and this is what he said to me.

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He said so you survived?

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And I said yeah, pretty thorough, I'm impressed.

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And he said I guess if you got this far, you must have done a few things right.

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The bellman will be down in the lobby.

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He's going to take you to the airport.

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Thank you very much, and he shakes my hand.

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That's all you got.

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That's all I got, and I'm thinking, did they already make up their?

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decision that I'm not going to get the job.

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So he's not wasting his time.

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So he didn't spend time asking you questions.

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He didn't.

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Wow, which was really surprising, because everybody else was real thorough and asked some things and I was on the plane flying back to Chicago thinking I didn't get this job Because he would have said I don't I was interpreting what he said and how he said it.

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And three days later the HR called me and said we'd like to give you an offer.

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Three days.

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I was wondering how long that took.

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Yeah, three days later.

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Again, it was a great opportunity.

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I was impressed, excited.

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Again.

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It came to a point where I was gosh.

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I always wanted to be in recreation and parks and now I'm in the biggest recreation and park in the world right.

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The world.

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yes, and the other thing was that I was dating at the time my wife.

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We weren't married, but my challenge with our relationship was we met in Washington DC and then they moved me to Chicago.

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She's in DC.

00:16:10.792 --> 00:16:12.702
She says I'm done waiting for you.

00:16:12.702 --> 00:16:15.331
She moves back to Philadelphia would be with her family.

00:16:15.530 --> 00:16:15.871
Oh, okay.

00:16:15.980 --> 00:16:24.005
And I kept telling her I'm going to try to get back to DC and even the regional people at DC said John, we'd love to bring you back, I don't have anything for you, just be patient.

00:16:24.005 --> 00:16:31.745
But one of the things about Hyatt hotels and many hotels like that Marriott no different is they're going to move you from city to city.

00:16:31.745 --> 00:16:35.984
So think about raising a family where every two years you're moving.

00:16:36.446 --> 00:16:38.695
If you're climbing the ladder, absolutely.

00:16:39.056 --> 00:16:41.462
And if you want to climb the ladder, what are you going to do?

00:16:41.462 --> 00:16:46.149
You're going to say because they're going to move you from a, let's say, they give you a general manager job.

00:16:46.149 --> 00:16:52.615
It's going to be a small hotel, small Hyatt brand, and then a medium, and then a large, and then a resort.

00:16:52.615 --> 00:16:58.683
They're going to move you around based on now, you can probably say no if you wanted to, but that's all you're going to do.

00:16:58.683 --> 00:17:03.106
We're here at Disney, they're going to build all these hotels, but yet I don't have to leave.

00:17:03.106 --> 00:17:05.628
I can just stay in Orlando because I'm not going anywhere.

00:17:05.628 --> 00:17:10.373
And so it was a great way of looking at that opportunity, and Disney is one of the best.

00:17:10.373 --> 00:17:13.795
I wanted to learn from the best, and how'd you get your girlfriend back?

00:17:13.914 --> 00:17:13.994
I?

00:17:14.055 --> 00:17:25.851
told her I'm moving back to the East Coast and she was excited and I said but it's a little farther South and I didn't even tell her I was going through the interview process because I didn't want to make her think anything crazy or whatever or dump me right there on the spot what are you doing?

00:17:25.851 --> 00:17:27.294
And it worked out.

00:17:27.294 --> 00:17:34.945
And then we dated a little bit and then she came to Disney actually on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day and New Year's Eve is like one of the busiest.

00:17:34.945 --> 00:17:37.376
If you're in a hotel, it's one of the busiest days.

00:17:37.557 --> 00:17:48.355
I would imagine Because of all the parties and New Year's and we had a little gypsy table with all the spouses and girlfriends and boyfriends and husbands and whatever that were not part of the hotel.

00:17:48.355 --> 00:17:51.196
They would stay and have dinner and we were all working our butts off.

00:17:51.459 --> 00:17:51.598
Okay.

00:17:51.819 --> 00:18:03.905
And then the next day on actually New Year's Day is we drove to Tampa, florida, which is just about an hour away, and I proposed to her when the sun was setting oh my gosh, that's romantic.

00:18:03.905 --> 00:18:06.625
And luckily she said yes.

00:18:08.069 --> 00:18:08.571
That's great.

00:18:08.720 --> 00:18:13.446
She moved and lived in Orlando for many years and it was a great experience.

00:18:20.161 --> 00:18:25.960
So I want to hear about Disney and how you progressed through those resorts.

00:18:25.960 --> 00:18:44.430
But I will say that while you were at Disney, you achieved the highest guest satisfaction rating among all Disney World resort hotels, which is amazing, and you were also selected to co-chair and you assisted in the company-wide rollout of the Disney Guest Satisfaction Program.

00:18:44.430 --> 00:18:46.771
You were all about that.

00:18:46.771 --> 00:18:57.349
Guest satisfaction, customer experience Was it from the beginning or something that you picked up in the Disney career, when you first started with them and then you got better at it throughout the years?

00:18:58.320 --> 00:19:05.203
Having the hotel background with Hyatt, which is a top-notch hotel and I was at their full service hotel and I was at their full-service hotel.

00:19:05.223 --> 00:19:12.569
So hospitality and customer service and yes, sir, yes, ma'am, all that making sure your hotels are pristine.

00:19:12.569 --> 00:19:15.528
So I already had that aspect of it.

00:19:15.528 --> 00:19:20.290
Disney puts it on steroids because they're going to make sure.

00:19:20.290 --> 00:19:27.669
Now at Hyatt I dealt with the business traveler, the convention guest, and if something went wrong obviously you fix it.

00:19:27.669 --> 00:19:38.452
You try to apologize as best you can and maybe give them some drink coupons, but they're never coming back again because they were just there for business or they're just there for a convention.

00:19:38.452 --> 00:19:44.085
At Disney you can't have anybody go away unhappy because that's a memory of our lifetime.

00:19:44.085 --> 00:19:46.105
You can't have anybody go way unhappy because that's a memory of our lifetime.

00:19:46.105 --> 00:19:58.297
So Disney takes the customer experience and puts it on steroids because the whole show is the experience and it's all got to be top notch, it's got to be the best, it's got to be memorable.

00:19:59.400 --> 00:19:59.842
It's got to be magical.

00:19:59.842 --> 00:20:03.119
When you leave the park, the magic doesn't stop just because you're back at the hotel.

00:20:03.119 --> 00:20:06.672
The magic continues in the whole hotel experience too.

00:20:06.751 --> 00:20:10.463
That's right, and so when the interesting thing was when I opened up Disney hotels.

00:20:10.463 --> 00:20:13.511
When I first got to Disney, we had four hotels on a campground.

00:20:13.511 --> 00:20:16.647
That was it, but we had 16 brand new hotels on the drawing board.

00:20:16.647 --> 00:20:19.782
Oh my gosh, and my job was to open up each of the new hotels.

00:20:20.144 --> 00:20:20.945
All, 16?

00:20:20.945 --> 00:20:21.788
All 16.

00:20:22.048 --> 00:20:25.135
Hire the staff, train the staff and then build a team.

00:20:25.135 --> 00:20:26.759
That would create great experiences.

00:20:26.759 --> 00:20:38.915
So I learned from the ground up what an experience is, from what it needs to look like, what people have to act like, what they have to respond to good, bad and ugly.

00:20:38.915 --> 00:20:42.489
And so it was an overdose of this experience.

00:20:42.489 --> 00:20:43.692
But yet I was a sponge.

00:20:43.692 --> 00:20:45.865
I think I'm a born server.

00:20:45.865 --> 00:20:51.152
I always love serving people, maybe to a fault because people take advantage of me sometimes, but I don't care.

00:20:51.152 --> 00:20:53.847
I've been born to serve people and if I do that I feel good.

00:20:53.847 --> 00:20:54.611
I can sleep at night.

00:20:54.839 --> 00:20:56.227
Is there a Disney bootcamp?

00:20:56.839 --> 00:20:58.884
It's great training and you learn from the best.

00:20:58.884 --> 00:20:59.605
But no, there's not a.

00:20:59.605 --> 00:21:03.131
You don't go away on a bootcamp or anything like that Great idea.

00:21:03.131 --> 00:21:03.892
Maybe I should fix that.

00:21:03.892 --> 00:21:05.980
But you just learn.

00:21:05.980 --> 00:21:06.864
You learn from the past.

00:21:06.864 --> 00:21:07.424
You learn.

00:21:07.424 --> 00:21:16.621
Before the hotels opened, I would spend time with hourly cast members at the other hotels that were already open, learning exactly what they do and how they do it.

00:21:16.621 --> 00:21:18.263
I would clean rooms with housekeepers.

00:21:18.263 --> 00:21:21.530
I would slug luggage with bellmen.

00:21:21.530 --> 00:21:22.753
I'd park cars.

00:21:23.079 --> 00:21:24.442
I would serve coffee in restaurants.

00:21:24.442 --> 00:21:25.284
That was the boot camp.

00:21:25.304 --> 00:21:26.866
It's part of my training.

00:21:26.866 --> 00:21:28.009
But you learn.

00:21:28.009 --> 00:21:38.945
You want to know why everything happens and it's all choreographed to be part of the show, so you just can't be good at one and not have a bad experience somewhere else.

00:21:38.945 --> 00:21:42.359
It's all seamless and so learned a lot from that aspect.

00:21:42.359 --> 00:21:44.125
But it was how I got these awards.

00:21:44.125 --> 00:21:46.141
It wasn't me, it was.

00:21:46.141 --> 00:21:48.348
I tell people we had great success.

00:21:48.348 --> 00:21:49.605
Was it because I was a great manager?

00:21:49.605 --> 00:21:54.711
No, we had a great system and we had great people and you put those in place.

00:21:54.711 --> 00:21:57.228
You don't need great managers.

00:21:57.228 --> 00:22:05.810
You just need people to help them and knock down those barriers and support them and encourage them and troubleshoot anything that's going to possibly go wrong, to make their jobs easier.

00:22:05.810 --> 00:22:08.347
That's really your role as a Disney manager.

00:22:08.800 --> 00:22:15.205
In one way, to a fault, a general manager of a Hyatt Hotel is so different than a general manager of a Disney hotel.

00:22:15.205 --> 00:22:17.547
A Hyatt Hotel is freestanding.

00:22:17.547 --> 00:22:19.405
You need to put heads in beds.

00:22:19.405 --> 00:22:21.684
You are the marketing.

00:22:21.684 --> 00:22:22.807
You are everything.

00:22:22.807 --> 00:22:23.750
You're in the community.

00:22:23.750 --> 00:22:25.021
You got to worry about conventions.

00:22:25.021 --> 00:22:25.672
You've got to worry about conventions.

00:22:25.672 --> 00:22:27.494
You've got to worry about rate management.

00:22:27.494 --> 00:22:28.826
You've got to worry about sales.

00:22:28.826 --> 00:22:30.183
You have a sales director.

00:22:30.183 --> 00:22:31.449
It is crazy.

00:22:31.449 --> 00:22:32.824
At Disney, as a general manager.

00:22:32.824 --> 00:22:34.849
There's departments that do all that.

00:22:34.849 --> 00:22:43.501
All I have to do is manage the hotel, make sure everything is running right and the guests are satisfied, your employees are satisfied, the building's satisfied.

00:22:43.501 --> 00:22:44.003
That's it.

00:22:44.003 --> 00:22:45.185
I didn't have to worry about sales.

00:22:45.185 --> 00:22:46.127
I didn't fill the hotel.

00:22:46.328 --> 00:22:48.272
Did you find that your life was easier?

00:22:52.380 --> 00:22:55.113
Oh gosh, less pressure to do that, because I could just do what I do, naturally, and that is take care of the customer experience.

00:22:55.113 --> 00:22:55.876
Again, I was just very fortunate.

00:22:55.876 --> 00:22:59.426
I tell people as a leader and I teach this and I coach this.

00:22:59.426 --> 00:23:09.349
Your success is based on two things as a leader, the people you surround yourself with and the ability to get things done through others.

00:23:09.349 --> 00:23:17.349
And at Disney, hire great people and then, as a leader, create an environment where they want to do it, not have to do it, and they'll get things done.

00:23:17.810 --> 00:23:19.323
And how do you nurture that environment?

00:23:19.323 --> 00:23:25.520
How do you create that whistle while you work environment so that employees feel like they own it and they want to do it.

00:23:25.520 --> 00:23:31.361
It's not a J-O-B not doing it because my manager says I have to do it, they truly want to do it.

00:23:31.361 --> 00:23:36.338
You hire the best people from that perspective and then let them do the job.

00:23:36.338 --> 00:23:38.404
They know how to do it and I just knocked down those barriers.

00:23:38.404 --> 00:23:39.067
I get, in a way.

00:23:39.067 --> 00:23:46.653
When I achieved the highest guest satisfaction ratings, I was at the Yacht and Beach Hotel, which is on the Epcot side of things.

00:23:46.653 --> 00:23:49.622
Again, great team, and I already had managed.

00:23:49.622 --> 00:23:57.493
When I say managed, I managed a department front of the house, guest services, housekeeping of the Grand Floridian, which is their five-star hotel.

00:23:57.534 --> 00:23:58.575
Oh yeah, beautiful.

00:23:58.575 --> 00:24:01.314
And if you're a movie star, sports figure, you got a lot of money.

00:24:01.314 --> 00:24:02.220
That's where you're going to stay.

00:24:02.240 --> 00:24:03.082
That's where you're going to stay.

00:24:03.102 --> 00:24:15.760
That's where they're going to take great care of you, and so when we opened up the Yacht and Beach Hotel, that was like Disney's second best hotel, but the staff wanted to be the best, so they were driven that we don't.

00:24:15.760 --> 00:24:18.311
The Grand Floridian snub up their face.

00:24:18.332 --> 00:24:18.794
We don't.

00:24:18.794 --> 00:24:19.759
They think they're good.

00:24:19.778 --> 00:24:20.540
But we're better.

00:24:20.540 --> 00:24:25.236
They were just determined and we did our guest ratings sometimes beat them.

00:24:25.939 --> 00:24:39.675
That's awesome and in fact the best guest rating was typically, when you fill out a survey at Disney, one of the questions they ask would you return on a future visit and stay at this hotel?

00:24:39.675 --> 00:24:40.436
That's typical.

00:24:40.436 --> 00:24:42.006
You're measuring loyalty right.

00:24:42.006 --> 00:24:45.306
Did you do a good enough job that they would want to come back, believe it or not?

00:24:45.306 --> 00:24:49.663
Because we were building so many hotels every year two hotels a year or whatever.

00:24:49.663 --> 00:24:56.349
In some cases, people took that question differently and they said we love the hotel, but we want to go to that new hotel.

00:24:56.359 --> 00:24:57.505
We want to try the other ones too.

00:24:58.500 --> 00:25:07.474
So, on a scale one to 10, 10 being the highest, many of us in all the other hotels we would get like an 8.5, an 8.6 score.

00:25:07.474 --> 00:25:11.049
Now, every other score and everything else are 9.8, and you're doing great.

00:25:11.049 --> 00:25:12.181
But it would be.

00:25:12.181 --> 00:25:13.884
It's not anything to panic.

00:25:13.884 --> 00:25:15.586
We understand why they're doing that yeah.

00:25:16.852 --> 00:25:19.439
At the Yacht and Beach, I got 98%.

00:25:19.439 --> 00:25:22.355
Wow, and how did you do that?

00:25:22.355 --> 00:25:24.277
I said we're just giving them great experiences.

00:25:24.277 --> 00:25:29.122
And it really caught the eye of the Disney Institute, which is their professional development team.

00:25:29.122 --> 00:25:35.683
They were wanting to put a program together called Customer Loyalty, disney Style, that they could teach the professionals all over the world.

00:25:35.683 --> 00:25:37.694
And they said can we pick your brain?

00:25:37.694 --> 00:25:38.718
We want to put this together.

00:25:38.718 --> 00:25:39.560
What are you doing?

00:25:39.560 --> 00:25:42.701
Because you achieved the highest guest satisfaction ratings ever.

00:25:42.882 --> 00:25:43.684
Yeah, okay.

00:25:43.865 --> 00:25:51.113
And so I gave them some things that we were doing and then they asked me if I would be part of their pilot program and it was a great experience.

00:25:51.113 --> 00:26:01.257
But because of some of those things and again then I could be part of that chairmanship to roll out the program, because we are walking the talk, but again it wasn't.

00:26:01.257 --> 00:26:05.019
John for Micah, I didn't make the beds, I didn't check people in, I didn't serve coffee.

00:26:05.019 --> 00:26:06.362
My staff did.

00:26:06.362 --> 00:26:13.255
But as a leader, if you can get them to do the things you want them to do and they do it great, you're going to be in better shape.

00:26:13.255 --> 00:26:17.276
So that's what we did from that standpoint you also do.

00:26:17.316 --> 00:26:21.864
You give seminars that are just for the leaders and teach them how to be great leaders.

00:26:22.345 --> 00:26:25.089
Absolutely, because it's all part of the formula.

00:26:25.089 --> 00:26:34.232
The Disney success model is one piece made up of a lot of pieces, and those other pieces support the model so you can have a great.

00:26:34.232 --> 00:26:45.679
For instance this is a typical scenario I'll do a training program for, let's say, all the staff and managers on creating a great experience in their business, their organization, whatever it might be.

00:26:45.679 --> 00:26:51.913
And then a lot of times, the leaders will come up to me and say, john, this is great, I love this, I can't wait, I love your ideas.

00:26:51.913 --> 00:26:53.056
I never thought of that.

00:26:53.856 --> 00:26:56.202
But, john, how do I get my people to do that?

00:26:56.202 --> 00:27:17.490
That's a leadership perspective, and so I teach Walt Disney's leadership strategies on how, at Disney World, we got 75,000 people to be all focused on one common goal and that is to make people happy, right, and so those skill sets are different than anything else and many people move up Owners.

00:27:17.490 --> 00:27:22.432
Business owners are great at business, owning the business, but they don't know how to manage people.

00:27:22.432 --> 00:27:27.932
Or maybe a new manager doesn't have those skills, so I try to help them do that process.

00:27:28.053 --> 00:27:32.872
I imagine that might be a little hard to hear for the leadership to say oh, that's a you problem.

00:27:33.513 --> 00:27:38.671
Yeah, and I've told many leaders don't blame it on your boys all the time.

00:27:38.671 --> 00:27:40.232
What are you doing as a leader?

00:27:40.232 --> 00:27:41.715
Are you not doing as a leader?

00:27:41.715 --> 00:27:45.182
And leadership is about constantly learning.

00:27:45.182 --> 00:27:57.200
Walt Disney said once you stop learning, you stop leading, meaning that Walt Disney and the company itself gave us lots of opportunity to grow and learn and take seminars and get books for free.

00:27:57.200 --> 00:27:59.874
Oh, really, because they want leaders to learn.

00:27:59.914 --> 00:28:05.739
That's cool because you get stagnant and you think you know it all and how do you handle this situation and what do you do here?

00:28:05.739 --> 00:28:12.942
And employees are all different and, yes, we had great employees at Disney, but 75,000 of them they're not all great.

00:28:12.942 --> 00:28:19.093
There's going to be some challenges and how do you deal with those, and all of those things were part of that learning process.

00:28:19.093 --> 00:28:29.694
But that's what Walt and the company invest in their people, and I try to tell owners of businesses you need to invest in your business, invest in people, because they're the greatest asset, and invest in yourself.

00:28:29.694 --> 00:28:30.517
Be a better leader.

00:28:30.517 --> 00:28:34.337
That you can do, and a lot of it boils down to that purpose.

00:28:34.538 --> 00:28:35.280
What is the why?

00:28:35.280 --> 00:28:37.016
Why do you want to work for Disney?

00:28:37.016 --> 00:28:39.653
Why do you get hired to work at Disney?

00:28:39.653 --> 00:28:41.276
Because people ask how do they maintain it?

00:28:41.276 --> 00:28:43.881
How do they sustain this magic all the time?

00:28:43.881 --> 00:28:45.483
How do you get your employees to do this?

00:28:45.483 --> 00:28:51.809
John right, it's.

00:28:51.829 --> 00:28:54.894
The purpose is that you get hired to make people happy, and if you don't want to make people happy, then you're not going to be a good fit at Disney.

00:28:54.894 --> 00:29:05.517
You won't be able to work there and if I, as a leader, can't help you grow by making people happy and give you the tools and the resources to make people happy, you're going to be a frustrated employee.

00:29:05.517 --> 00:29:07.596
So it's all boils down to that.

00:29:07.596 --> 00:29:15.063
That's what Disney focuses so much on, and when I try to work with businesses or even share in my presentations, what is your purpose?

00:29:15.063 --> 00:29:16.576
Why are you hiring people?

00:29:16.576 --> 00:29:18.454
Why are you building these things?

00:29:18.454 --> 00:29:19.478
Why do you have a restaurant?

00:29:19.478 --> 00:29:21.021
Is it your purpose?

00:29:21.021 --> 00:29:27.272
You just want to make money?

00:29:27.272 --> 00:29:28.237
Okay, but what if you really dove into a purpose?

00:29:28.237 --> 00:29:30.689
The outcome will get you the money, but you got to believe in and your employees have to believe in that.

00:29:30.689 --> 00:29:33.958
And if your employees don't believe in it, then you're in the babysitting business.

00:29:34.239 --> 00:29:36.791
And then that's got to be a real frustrating job for a leader.

00:29:37.272 --> 00:29:50.817
You were telling me you were speaking at the seminar and you were saying that everyone, from top to bottom at Disney, is involved in creating that experience, even to picking up a piece of trash on the floor.

00:29:51.419 --> 00:29:59.878
Disney has core values of things that are non-negotiable and it's talked about during the hiring process.

00:29:59.878 --> 00:30:11.415
It's decided in the selection process and Walt Disney said everybody that gets hired at Disney has to do two things make people happy and pick up trash.

00:30:11.415 --> 00:30:11.817
Oh, okay.

00:30:13.230 --> 00:30:14.702
I didn't know he had boiled it down to two things.

00:30:14.702 --> 00:30:15.609
He boiled it down to two things.

00:30:15.609 --> 00:30:16.694
Now there's a lot more than that.

00:30:17.171 --> 00:30:26.400
But if you do those two things and Walt was a true believer of walking the talk and he picked up trash and it's amazing People say Disney is so clean.

00:30:26.400 --> 00:30:27.383
How do they keep it clean?

00:30:27.383 --> 00:30:32.021
You might remember this from the workshop I tell people there's 75,000 people that work at Disney.

00:30:32.021 --> 00:30:34.457
How many of those are hired to pick up trash?

00:30:34.457 --> 00:30:43.098
And people say 10,000 people or 20,000, because I figure there's a lot of people that pick up trash and I tell them 75,000, we all have to pick up trash.

00:30:43.338 --> 00:30:47.551
And if 75,000 people pick up trash, what are you and I going to say about the park?

00:30:47.551 --> 00:30:49.277
It's so clean, it's clean right.

00:30:49.277 --> 00:30:52.653
And when I was at Disney, Michael Eisner was our CEO.

00:30:52.653 --> 00:30:56.337
We saw him pick up trash and he didn't do it because people were looking.

00:30:56.337 --> 00:31:00.523
He did it because he's a fellow cast member and we all do it.

00:31:01.045 --> 00:31:01.665
Love that.

00:31:01.910 --> 00:31:11.817
It's the message that the owner, the leader, the manager, the supervisor has to understand is I don't want you to do it, to say there's not anything.

00:31:11.817 --> 00:31:15.698
I wouldn't do that I'm asking you to do Because that sounds like it's selfish.

00:31:15.698 --> 00:31:19.900
No, you do it because it's the right thing to do and I'm part of the team.

00:31:20.240 --> 00:31:20.501
Yeah.

00:31:20.569 --> 00:31:21.595
And I don't have a title.

00:31:21.595 --> 00:31:23.536
I'm a cast member as.

00:31:23.536 --> 00:31:27.029
Michael Eisen would say, because we didn't call them employees, we called them cast members.

00:31:27.029 --> 00:31:36.237
And that's part of that model that I try to help businesses understand that if you create a purpose that is so great, people do it because they want to, not because they have to.

00:31:36.297 --> 00:31:36.497
Mm-hmm.

00:31:36.497 --> 00:31:47.025
So what led you to transition from your highly successful run at Disney to becoming a highly sought-after coach and speaker?

00:31:47.726 --> 00:31:50.387
It wasn't something that I always dreamt of doing.

00:31:50.387 --> 00:31:55.053
It wasn't something that was always on my list to do.

00:31:55.053 --> 00:32:01.084
Basically, I left Disney to become the general manager of the largest convention hotel right here in North Carolina.

00:32:01.223 --> 00:32:01.605
Oh really.

00:32:02.490 --> 00:32:03.212
And it was.

00:32:03.212 --> 00:32:07.555
I don't know do I want to leave Disney, for that I don't sounds good, it's an ego thing.

00:32:07.555 --> 00:32:10.135
But everything fell into place between family.

00:32:10.135 --> 00:32:13.103
Moving to Charlotte was a great opportunity.

00:32:13.103 --> 00:32:17.250
My wife's family lived in Charlotte, her sister, so we had cousins that could grow up together.

00:32:17.250 --> 00:32:19.551
So there was a lot of things that fell in line.

00:32:19.551 --> 00:32:29.119
But my intriguing thing that made me want to take on that position was does the Disney model work outside of Disney?

00:32:29.119 --> 00:32:32.343
Can I take everything I learned at Disney, and even Hyatt, for that matter?

00:32:32.343 --> 00:32:37.666
Can I create my own John Formica Hotel at this hotel in downtown Charlotte?

00:32:37.666 --> 00:32:39.792
Can I make that work?

00:32:39.792 --> 00:32:44.834
And so that's what made me make that step as a career, to say, okay, can I do that?

00:32:45.615 --> 00:32:50.258
But I didn't realize it was one of the most dysfunctional hotels I've ever seen.

00:32:50.258 --> 00:32:53.230
I don't even know how they made any money, I don't even know how they were.

00:32:53.230 --> 00:32:57.556
It was terrible, so terrible, and I didn't know how bad it was.

00:32:57.556 --> 00:32:59.939
But I still thought I can do this, I can do this.

00:32:59.939 --> 00:33:14.059
And it was so bad, krista, that the first couple of days I'm walking around the hotel and I'm looking at the front desk clerks and they're when during checkout they would never ask the typical hotel 101 question.

00:33:14.059 --> 00:33:17.317
When you check out, you ask how was your stay?

00:33:17.317 --> 00:33:18.359
Was everything okay?

00:33:18.359 --> 00:33:21.478
That's that I think the motel six even asked that question.

00:33:21.478 --> 00:33:25.057
Okay, and here it is the largest conventional hotel.

00:33:25.057 --> 00:33:26.733
They wouldn't ask this question.

00:33:26.733 --> 00:33:27.817
So I'm walking around.

00:33:27.817 --> 00:33:31.650
Okay, it's not just one person forgot to ask it, this is nobody's asking.

00:33:31.650 --> 00:33:34.730
So I went up to the front desk staff and I huddled them together.

00:33:34.730 --> 00:33:37.179
I said I noticed that nobody asked this question.

00:33:37.179 --> 00:33:41.750
Is there a reason?

00:33:41.770 --> 00:33:43.595
And they all looked at me and said oh yeah, we were told not to ask that question.

00:33:43.615 --> 00:33:43.836
Really why?

00:33:43.836 --> 00:33:52.673
Because of the answer that the guests were going to give, which meant it was a bad experience, which meant then they felt bad, they might've wanted some compensation.

00:33:52.673 --> 00:33:57.512
So their general manager just said don't ask the question, we don't have to worry about it, which is terrible, right?

00:33:57.512 --> 00:33:58.714
How do you operate a hotel that way?

00:33:58.714 --> 00:34:06.699
And so I said guess what, starting today, we are going to ask that question and I gave him my business card and if anybody has a problem with their stay, you tell them.

00:34:06.699 --> 00:34:10.172
General manager will come contact them, whatever it might be.

00:34:10.192 --> 00:34:11.735
So it was changing the mindset.

00:34:11.735 --> 00:34:18.054
It was getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus and getting making sure people are in the right seats.

00:34:18.054 --> 00:34:19.036
It was all of those.

00:34:19.036 --> 00:34:25.315
They had no training, they had no attention to detail, cleanliness was deplorable, but yet they were the best.

00:34:25.315 --> 00:34:34.601
They were the largest convention, which meant if you had a large convention, that you want to house all of the guests in one place and have the convention all in one place.

00:34:34.601 --> 00:34:37.045
There was no other place in North Carolina to do it.

00:34:37.045 --> 00:34:38.552
Right, but they weren't coming back.

00:34:38.893 --> 00:34:50.766
I think now I understand what you said earlier, Like it is easier to step into a hotel from scratch than it is to come in and fix it.

00:34:51.309 --> 00:34:53.376
Absolutely, because you have to change the culture.

00:34:53.436 --> 00:34:53.757
Yeah.

00:34:54.250 --> 00:34:57.880
And so some people bought into it and others didn't.

00:34:57.880 --> 00:35:00.155
And it wasn't that they were bad people, but if we're going to do it, this is what we need to't.

00:35:00.155 --> 00:35:04.922
And it wasn't that they were bad people, but if we're going to do this, this is what we need to do, and it took two years.

00:35:04.922 --> 00:35:12.943
I was afraid to ask you how long Two years of blood sweat, long hours and almost a divorce because my wife was like oh my gosh.

00:35:13.349 --> 00:35:14.452
You're never home.

00:35:14.452 --> 00:35:22.251
But after two years one of the measurement tools because you don't know I hope we're doing okay.

00:35:22.251 --> 00:35:26.842
We won the pininnacle Award for the top conventional hotel in the state and top five in the Southeast.

00:35:26.842 --> 00:35:29.175
So now we're competing against hotels in Atlanta.

00:35:29.175 --> 00:35:37.278
And so that was like wow, the model works, the model works, and I was fired up and excited to take it to the next level.

00:35:37.739 --> 00:35:41.137
Let's go for our four star, four diamond, because it wasn't even rated.

00:35:41.137 --> 00:35:46.342
I think there were three, maybe, but and unfortunately the owner didn't and I did not see Ida.

00:35:46.342 --> 00:35:47.291
He could care less.

00:35:47.291 --> 00:35:51.059
He just wanted heads in beds and how much money is in the checking.

00:35:51.059 --> 00:35:52.471
Right, that's all he cared about.

00:35:52.471 --> 00:35:55.255
So that's when I said okay, I've done my job, it works.

00:35:55.255 --> 00:36:08.322
I got offered to work for another hotel company that opened up multiple hotels and I was their regional person, so I would, as they opened up, I would hire general managers and we do all that.

00:36:08.322 --> 00:36:15.902
And then I got believe it or not, I got asked by an assisted living company and this owner says I heard great things about what you do.

00:36:15.902 --> 00:36:20.717
I have an assisted living company that we're about to burn it down because it's so bad.

00:36:20.717 --> 00:36:22.141
We're on probation.

00:36:22.141 --> 00:36:23.795
Do you think you can fix it?

00:36:23.889 --> 00:36:25.295
Now you're the guy who can turn it around.

00:36:25.315 --> 00:36:29.418
I didn't know what assisted living was right, so I said let me use the Disney model.

00:36:29.418 --> 00:36:32.458
He goes I don't care what you do, but if it doesn't work, I'm burning the building down.

00:36:32.619 --> 00:36:33.300
Oh, my gosh.

00:36:33.610 --> 00:36:35.793
It was again another challenge.

00:36:35.793 --> 00:36:37.735
Challenge, because it it was.

00:36:37.735 --> 00:36:41.059
You give a score F through A F, you're out of business.

00:36:41.059 --> 00:36:42.282
They were a D.

00:36:42.282 --> 00:36:57.056
They were a D Wow, they were on probation and the ombudsman actually moved her office to the location because she was there almost every day with violations that were happening, complaints, all kinds of stuff, and you're talking about people's lives.

00:36:58.032 --> 00:37:01.777
Our senior population, yeah, Hotel has a bad guest, okay, we fix it.

00:37:01.777 --> 00:37:03.813
Somebody could die in an assisted living.

00:37:03.813 --> 00:37:06.481
If it's not, if they're not cared properly, right?

00:37:06.481 --> 00:37:12.771
So it was a whole nother world that I had to learn, but I become the administrative executive director Of course you did.

00:37:12.771 --> 00:37:17.282
And we went from 38% to 92%.

00:37:17.282 --> 00:37:18.143
In how many years?

00:37:18.889 --> 00:37:20.135
Two years, two years.

00:37:20.195 --> 00:37:24.757
We did it in two years and it's still standing today.

00:37:24.757 --> 00:37:26.114
They never blew up the building.

00:37:26.114 --> 00:37:27.940
It's still great.

00:37:28.630 --> 00:37:30.217
Did they keep your system in place?

00:37:30.952 --> 00:37:31.594
For the most part.

00:37:31.594 --> 00:37:33.076
Yes, they've gone through some changes.

00:37:33.076 --> 00:37:45.760
Every once in a while I get a call, but again, it's sustainable if you can put the time and effort and want to sustain it Right, and unfortunately, you get turnover and they come up with their new systems.

00:37:45.760 --> 00:37:48.454
I think this is better, and so a lot of that gets watered down.

00:37:48.454 --> 00:37:55.195
But and that's when I realized, krista, that gosh, I'm enjoying helping all these companies, but I'm an employee.

00:37:55.195 --> 00:38:07.704
Can you imagine if I can go on my own, I can do whoever I want, whenever I want, maybe even make better living, whatever it is, control my own hours, do that stuff, and I can maybe be trainer or speaker.

00:38:07.704 --> 00:38:13.771
I've heard about those kinds of people.

00:38:13.771 --> 00:38:14.452
Maybe I can do that too.

00:38:14.452 --> 00:38:18.500
And that's where I took that leap of faith and said all right, this is what I'm going to do.

00:38:18.500 --> 00:38:23.789
But because I had no clue how to do it, and so I ate a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and tuna fish out of the cans.

00:38:23.889 --> 00:38:26.338
Oh, bless your heart, my wife wondering when are you going to get a real job?

00:38:26.338 --> 00:38:27.375
I'm supporting us.

00:38:27.375 --> 00:38:40.344
We got kids growing up and honey hanging there and eventually I surrounded myself with a great mentor who took me under his wings and taught me the business of speaking, coaching training.

00:38:40.344 --> 00:38:52.782
Without him I would probably have gone back to managing hotels, but he helped me get over that learning curve, make it shorter and really taught me about the business that I could grow and help so many more people.

00:38:52.782 --> 00:39:04.440
And that's where 4,000, it's hard to believe 4,000 speaking coaching clients and training and I just love it and I just love what I get to do because it's not a job anymore.

00:39:04.440 --> 00:39:05.443
It's not a job.

00:39:11.891 --> 00:39:19.135
So let's talk about the services that you offer for business coaching and for the keynote speaking and so forth.

00:39:19.135 --> 00:39:21.217
Tell me a little bit about those services.

00:39:21.849 --> 00:39:25.260
It's interesting, krista, because it's turned into a business model for me.

00:39:25.260 --> 00:39:30.701
I love speaking at conferences, being a keynote speaker, being in front of people.

00:39:30.701 --> 00:39:36.523
I've been fortunate and grateful to be largest audience was 12,000 people at a keynote in Vegas.

00:39:36.523 --> 00:39:39.114
It's a big rush, it's great.

00:39:39.114 --> 00:39:40.277
You feel good.

00:39:40.277 --> 00:39:41.320
I won't lie.

00:39:41.320 --> 00:39:44.250
Financially, it's a great win as well, right.

00:39:44.409 --> 00:39:45.695
For those big conventions.

00:39:45.695 --> 00:39:47.219
It's exciting.

00:39:47.219 --> 00:39:55.135
But what I found was once I would give a keynote, people in the audience would say come up to me and say could you help me?

00:39:55.135 --> 00:40:00.994
I have a company that needs help, or I love you to do training for my staff or my leaders need that, whatever it might be.

00:40:00.994 --> 00:40:03.838
So company that needs help, or I love you to do training for my staff or my leaders need that, whatever it might be.

00:40:03.838 --> 00:40:06.041
So it turned into the next phase of my business, which is training and coaching.

00:40:06.081 --> 00:40:08.003
So keynotes I have lots of different keynotes.

00:40:08.003 --> 00:40:10.291
I try to make them high energy, high impact.

00:40:10.291 --> 00:40:15.099
I don't do PowerPoint nausea, they're all fun stuff.

00:40:15.099 --> 00:40:19.094
I learned from the great and my mentor was Walt Disney.

00:40:19.094 --> 00:40:20.798
Never met the guy, of course.

00:40:20.798 --> 00:40:27.871
He died when I was 10 years old, but I always lived up to his philosophies and constantly, even to this day, always still learning.

00:40:27.871 --> 00:40:29.637
And Walt Disney said something.

00:40:29.637 --> 00:40:32.592
He said people learn more when they're entertained.

00:40:32.592 --> 00:40:37.969
I can't juggle, I can't sing, I can't do any magic tricks, so I don't.

00:40:37.969 --> 00:40:42.030
The only way I know to entertain them is to give my energy, have fun, exciting.

00:40:42.030 --> 00:40:50.949
So they're going to get some great content when I do keynotes and those sorts of things, but they're going to have fun and we're going to be engaged and I throw out magic wands at the audience.

00:40:50.969 --> 00:40:52.710
I was going to say we're totally engaged.

00:40:53.032 --> 00:40:54.391
It's interactive.

00:40:54.452 --> 00:40:55.172
Yes, yeah.

00:40:55.233 --> 00:41:00.556
And that's me, that's my personality, I want to do that, that's what my keynote is, and then I guess people think that would be great.

00:41:00.556 --> 00:41:01.657
Can you come to my business?

00:41:01.657 --> 00:41:07.639
So then that might lead to training or seminars, and I'll do workshops for any kind of organization.

00:41:07.639 --> 00:41:17.746
I tailor them to be to their industry, anywhere from auto service repair shops to car dealerships, to restaurants, to all kinds of ones.

00:41:17.746 --> 00:41:21.648
I've done the small business centers, whatever it might be, because, again, I'm a server.

00:41:21.648 --> 00:41:26.378
There's so much that I've been through, I've learned, I've made a ton of mistakes.

00:41:26.378 --> 00:41:28.557
I don't want anybody else to make those same mistakes.

00:41:28.557 --> 00:41:32.538
So I love those workshops and so I love doing training works.

00:41:32.538 --> 00:41:38.554
We know training workshops could be anywhere from an hour, two hours, half day, full day, whatever they might be.

00:41:38.554 --> 00:41:39.737
I can do any of those.

00:41:39.737 --> 00:41:52.931
But the next challenge is okay, do you want me to come in, roll up my sleeves, we'll do a great workshop and then go home?

00:41:52.931 --> 00:41:53.635
Or do you want to create a culture?

00:41:53.635 --> 00:41:54.057
You want it to stick.

00:41:54.057 --> 00:41:54.702
We all want training to stick.

00:41:54.722 --> 00:41:55.686
A lot of times, how do you get training to stick?

00:41:55.686 --> 00:42:02.900
Now you're relying on the leadership to make sure they reinforce it, they recognize it, they talk a lot about it to their staff to keep it going.

00:42:02.900 --> 00:42:04.202
We know leaders get busy.

00:42:04.202 --> 00:42:07.532
They're doing their job, they're doing their tasks, they're working on budgets.

00:42:07.532 --> 00:42:09.097
Training gets dropped.

00:42:09.097 --> 00:42:12.253
So I come in, I do all this and then it goes away.

00:42:12.253 --> 00:42:14.860
I feel bad, but there's nothing I can do.

00:42:14.860 --> 00:42:16.385
I'm not there.

00:42:17.007 --> 00:42:18.811
That's where the coaching came in place.

00:42:18.811 --> 00:42:29.697
So then I might offer, with the training, would you like some coaching to go along so I can coach your staff, I can walk them through, I can be there, I can evaluate what's working and what's not working.

00:42:29.697 --> 00:42:30.909
I can be your resource.

00:42:30.909 --> 00:42:35.882
I could be your person to ask about or do things, or how did they, disney do it, whatever.

00:42:35.882 --> 00:42:45.175
So now we can help you, and so sometimes the training might work into coaching or I do individual coaching where they might not have been any of the training workshops.

00:42:45.289 --> 00:42:54.518
But I just want to help them in aspects of their business, whether it's helping them in succession planning, marketing, hiring the right people.

00:42:54.518 --> 00:43:02.195
Sometimes I'll walk through an entire journey of their customer experience and we'll rewrite their journey Every touch point.

00:43:02.195 --> 00:43:06.601
We're changing it because all they're doing is what everybody else is doing.

00:43:06.601 --> 00:43:10.278
I want to differentiate them from everybody else and that's the key.

00:43:10.278 --> 00:43:12.873
That's what I talk about in my keynotes and workshops.

00:43:12.873 --> 00:43:14.637
You got to differentiate yourself.

00:43:14.637 --> 00:43:15.400
How do you do that?

00:43:15.400 --> 00:43:16.282
Our product's better?

00:43:16.282 --> 00:43:18.132
The consumer doesn't know that.

00:43:18.132 --> 00:43:19.556
They think they're all the same.

00:43:19.556 --> 00:43:20.860
Oh, but we do that.

00:43:20.860 --> 00:43:21.882
Yeah, they don't know that.

00:43:21.882 --> 00:43:24.277
So you have to be different.

00:43:24.277 --> 00:43:28.621
And when you're different, then all of a sudden you become that top of mind awareness.

00:43:28.681 --> 00:43:28.922
Yeah.

00:43:29.210 --> 00:43:31.458
And so I try to coach people through that process.

00:43:31.869 --> 00:43:39.376
And people will pay for that customer service rather than there may be a cheaper product out there.

00:43:39.376 --> 00:43:48.684
But if I'm coming in and I'm getting treated well as a customer, then I would pay more for that the rule of thumb is 84% of people will pay more for a better experience.

00:43:49.186 --> 00:43:49.806
We all know that.

00:43:49.806 --> 00:43:54.750
We know that 84% Will spend more and more often for a better experience.

00:43:54.750 --> 00:44:01.699
So if you have a better experience, 84% of people say gee, that's higher than that, that doesn't give me such a great experience, but it's cheaper.

00:44:01.699 --> 00:44:05.860
84% of people are going to say I'll spend the money on the experience.

00:44:05.860 --> 00:44:07.356
I'll give you a perfect example.

00:44:07.356 --> 00:44:08.514
My wife and I come to the beach.

00:44:08.514 --> 00:44:10.536
We've been to Wrightsville Beach.

00:44:10.536 --> 00:44:12.197
We've been to Topself Surf City.

00:44:12.197 --> 00:44:14.599
We've been to Sunset Ocean Isle.

00:44:14.599 --> 00:44:16.711
We've been to all the out of banks.

00:44:16.711 --> 00:44:17.512
We've been to them all.

00:44:17.512 --> 00:44:18.032
I love them.

00:44:18.032 --> 00:44:21.376
Many of them are my clients, so I love to go there and just see how things are going.

00:44:21.637 --> 00:44:24.480
But a beach is a beach, they're all the same.

00:44:24.480 --> 00:44:28.864
They all have waves and seagulls and sand and sunburn, right, that's it.

00:44:28.864 --> 00:44:34.389
So it's not what's the beach that matters, it's what the experience I get while I'm at the beach, right?

00:44:34.389 --> 00:44:42.318
So now, how do I interact with your business or your restaurant or your adventure program or your, whatever it might be?

00:44:42.318 --> 00:44:47.485
That's the experience that makes me want to come to, let's say, top Sale or City Area.

00:44:47.485 --> 00:44:54.472
So helping them understand that it's not just about products and services and amenities, it's about the experience you can give them.

00:44:54.893 --> 00:44:59.130
And when I go through, give me the touch point when they make a phone call, then what do you do next?

00:44:59.130 --> 00:45:00.514
And they come into your store.

00:45:00.514 --> 00:45:03.480
Let's say what does the storefront look like?

00:45:03.480 --> 00:45:05.103
What does your driveway look like?

00:45:05.103 --> 00:45:06.233
What does your windows look like?

00:45:06.233 --> 00:45:08.239
What's on the windows, what shouldn't be on your windows?

00:45:08.239 --> 00:45:13.766
And we go through this whole process because I want it to be Disney-esque.

00:45:13.766 --> 00:45:20.842
I'll go into businesses and I'll see papers and posters and scotch tape to their windows and doors.

00:45:20.842 --> 00:45:26.239
Krista, if I ever scotch taped anything to a window or door or a wall at Disney, I'd be fine.

00:45:27.081 --> 00:45:27.583
They'd let me go.

00:45:28.952 --> 00:45:31.840
They'd say you need to get some help because you lost it right.

00:45:33.409 --> 00:45:35.318
But yet business owners don't know that.

00:45:35.318 --> 00:45:37.657
That's what Disney calls good show, bad show, right.

00:45:37.657 --> 00:45:46.454
So I know what good show is supposed to look like, and it doesn't mean you have to spend a lot of money to do it.

00:45:46.474 --> 00:45:49.005
But there's certain things Could you put it on a plaque or on a podium or a little stanchion or something.

00:45:49.005 --> 00:45:55.289
There's better ways of communicating to your customers without flapping a piece of paper on a because what's happened?

00:45:55.289 --> 00:45:59.898
The glue gets stuck, it's crooked, the weather it's terrible.

00:45:59.898 --> 00:46:00.639
It's terrible, right?

00:46:00.639 --> 00:46:03.873
So I teach them how to do that in my coaching programs.

00:46:03.873 --> 00:46:12.161
We walk through it, we redesign it and then we look at each one of those touch points and I go how would you like to make each one of those magical?

00:46:12.501 --> 00:46:23.675
So now you're going to elevate your experience even more, whether it's they don't know how to market and I'm not a marketing goo'm nota, I don't consider myself a marketing person, but I've been there, done that.

00:46:23.675 --> 00:46:24.858
I know a lot of my clients.

00:46:24.858 --> 00:46:28.541
There are a lot of marketing techniques and strategies that you can use.

00:46:28.541 --> 00:46:32.434
It's not just putting a great facebook page together or facebook ads.

00:46:32.434 --> 00:46:35.610
Yeah, those things are important, but there's so many other things in marketing.

00:46:35.610 --> 00:46:44.532
But think about this, krista if you create a, an experience that is so great and your customers love you, guess who's going to do the marketing for you?

00:46:45.114 --> 00:46:47.867
the customers and that is cheaper.

00:46:47.867 --> 00:46:52.356
The referral word of mouth they're going to come back over and over.

00:46:52.356 --> 00:46:59.666
Boy, you can reduce your marketing expenses by creating great experiences yeah and that's the rate of return on investment.

00:47:00.086 --> 00:47:04.407
If I come in and do a workshop, people like, yeah, been there that we had customer service workshops before.

00:47:04.407 --> 00:47:05.570
They don't do anything.

00:47:05.570 --> 00:47:10.242
But if I can help you increase your profits, do that experience.

00:47:10.242 --> 00:47:11.827
Would that be something you'd be interested in?

00:47:11.827 --> 00:47:13.793
And most business owners said sign me up.

00:47:13.793 --> 00:47:18.914
They don't want the fluff, they want the result, and that's the result of what the experience can be.

00:47:18.914 --> 00:47:20.516
So again, so coaching.

00:47:20.516 --> 00:47:23.309
I love rolling up my sleeves one-on-one.

00:47:23.309 --> 00:47:24.833
A lot of my clients.

00:47:24.833 --> 00:47:26.838
It depends on how much do they want of me.

00:47:26.838 --> 00:47:28.891
Some want a lot of me, some want less of me.

00:47:28.891 --> 00:47:35.277
They don't need all of me, but I just want to be there and I know I give them way too much because I'm a servant.

00:47:35.277 --> 00:47:38.052
So they call me anytime I got a problem.

00:47:38.052 --> 00:47:38.916
I say let's go.

00:47:39.284 --> 00:47:41.547
How do you figure out if it's the right fit?

00:47:42.088 --> 00:47:43.688
I always look at my coaching staff.

00:47:43.688 --> 00:47:47.331
The people that I coach have to have four criteria.

00:47:47.331 --> 00:47:49.393
They have to be resourceful.

00:47:49.393 --> 00:47:53.117
In other words, it's not easy what you got to do, so you got to be.

00:47:53.117 --> 00:47:57.541
If you're going to run into a roadblocks, are you resourceful to go around it or figure things out?

00:47:57.541 --> 00:48:03.849
Most business owners, they can figure it out.

00:48:03.849 --> 00:48:06.358
That's why they got to be a business owner.

00:48:06.358 --> 00:48:07.701
But I want them to be resourceful.

00:48:07.701 --> 00:48:08.925
I also want to be coachable.

00:48:08.925 --> 00:48:10.507
I'm going to teach them things.

00:48:10.507 --> 00:48:11.431
You got to try to do those things.

00:48:11.431 --> 00:48:12.376
You got to want to be able to do that.

00:48:12.376 --> 00:48:12.938
You got to be coachable.

00:48:12.938 --> 00:48:13.320
Listen to my ideas.

00:48:13.320 --> 00:48:13.702
I'm not perfect.

00:48:13.702 --> 00:48:13.943
Maybe.

00:48:13.943 --> 00:48:15.847
I want to listen to your ideas, but you got to be coachable.

00:48:16.347 --> 00:48:18.791
The third thing is you got to work hard.

00:48:18.791 --> 00:48:20.713
I don't have any magic formula.

00:48:20.713 --> 00:48:24.378
I might throw out magic wands, but I'm sorry to tell everybody they don't work.

00:48:24.378 --> 00:48:26.661
You got to make them work right.

00:48:26.661 --> 00:48:28.391
You got to put a little bit of effort into that.

00:48:28.391 --> 00:48:34.771
So I want them to realize that there's some work to do and I'm going to hold them accountable to that work if they want me to.

00:48:34.771 --> 00:48:38.309
If they don't want me to hold them accountable, that's fine, it's your business.

00:48:38.309 --> 00:48:43.856
And then the fourth thing is my coaching members are assets to the community.

00:48:43.856 --> 00:48:48.148
And what I mean by assets to the community?

00:48:48.148 --> 00:48:52.922
We've created a mastermind of my coaching members who all help each other and nobody's after each other.

00:48:52.922 --> 00:49:04.768
And you might be in an auto service repair shop, somebody might be, let's say, you're in the podcast, and so you might be on a coaching call with a bunch of other of my coaching members and we're all talking about things and you go.

00:49:04.768 --> 00:49:07.835
Have you ever thought about being on a podcast to help market your business?

00:49:07.896 --> 00:49:08.557
Interesting yeah.

00:49:08.784 --> 00:49:10.731
And that person in the auto service repair shop goes.

00:49:10.731 --> 00:49:11.954
I never thought of that.

00:49:11.954 --> 00:49:18.753
So you didn't do it to be on your podcast, because that person might be in Ohio and your podcast is not going to reach Ohio yet.

00:49:18.753 --> 00:49:20.572
I'm sure it will someday, one day.

00:49:20.572 --> 00:49:21.045
That's right.

00:49:21.045 --> 00:49:23.610
But you're giving them the idea because you're a giver.

00:49:23.610 --> 00:49:29.708
So if everybody gives ideas, or let me share that with you, or I tried that it didn't work, but let me tell you what I did that made it work.

00:49:29.708 --> 00:49:40.206
So those are the four criteria and if anybody falls into those, I promise you I will give them a hundred percent they will be successful, or I give them a hundred percent of their money back.

00:49:40.206 --> 00:49:45.295
Wow, because I can't sleep at night knowing that I shortchanged you in some way, shape or form.

00:49:45.295 --> 00:49:46.978
But again, I can't do it for you, right?

00:49:47.666 --> 00:49:48.972
Is there a consultation?

00:49:49.405 --> 00:49:50.831
Yeah, I do a free consultation.

00:49:50.831 --> 00:49:52.251
I call it the discovery call.

00:49:52.251 --> 00:49:54.512
What I try to do is solve your biggest challenge.

00:49:54.512 --> 00:50:01.074
Let's see if we can deal with that one first, give you some ideas and then you realize, gosh, what if he could help me solve some more of my problems.

00:50:01.074 --> 00:50:09.436
Maybe I can't, and problems maybe I can't, and I just love to do that and again, I just want them to be successful, but I can't do it for them.

00:50:09.436 --> 00:50:16.036
They have to be able to want to do it and once they realize that there's opportunity to get the results they want, I wish I mean somebody helped me years ago.

00:50:16.036 --> 00:50:18.989
If I didn't get that help, I would not be here today.

00:50:18.989 --> 00:50:23.505
Mentorships, coaches they're not all about a business model.

00:50:23.505 --> 00:50:23.987
They're there.

00:50:23.987 --> 00:50:31.440
If you get the right one, they're there to make you successful so we have talked about the customer experience.

00:50:31.882 --> 00:50:33.708
What are some of the other topics that you cover?

00:50:34.289 --> 00:50:35.431
look we shared earlier.

00:50:35.431 --> 00:50:39.630
Sometimes it's on leadership and we want to make sure you can lead the right people.

00:50:39.630 --> 00:50:45.135
So it might be leadership and coaching, finding and hiring the right people, because that's a big thing.

00:50:45.135 --> 00:50:46.724
It's the elephant in the room today.

00:50:46.724 --> 00:50:51.436
Right, you can't find people that want to work and there's so many jobs and how do you get those people?

00:50:51.436 --> 00:51:01.117
So I teach how we hired 75,000 people at Disney and so hopefully you don't need 75,000 people, you only need a few, but it's part of that.

00:51:01.204 --> 00:51:19.891
Or how to build relationships, how to connect, be likable and memorable, and the program I call you can do that in 30 seconds and so that people will remember you or your staff, or maybe even you're a leader, you can be more likable as a leader so that you can get things done through others, creating a whistle while you work environment.

00:51:19.891 --> 00:51:25.572
There isn't any owner I know out there that doesn't work really hard and their team works really hard At Disney.

00:51:25.572 --> 00:51:28.552
I tell people it was the hardest job I ever had in my entire life.

00:51:28.552 --> 00:51:32.333
It was exhausting and it never ended it.

00:51:32.333 --> 00:51:43.157
Just, you're always full, you're always busy, but I loved it and I had fun and I always made sure my staff had fun, and there's a difference between having fun and being funny.

00:51:43.157 --> 00:51:48.018
Being funny sometimes is not the right thing to do, so how do you have fun at work?

00:51:48.018 --> 00:51:54.021
How do you create an environment where people want to do it and they're excited about doing it every day?

00:51:54.021 --> 00:52:02.503
Imagine if you can have your staff come to work whistling while they work right, and people at Disney would whistle when they came to work because they just love what they do.

00:52:02.503 --> 00:52:03.483
Was it hard?

00:52:03.483 --> 00:52:15.775
Absolutely, but we just made that environment and I even have some motivational topics that can be used for, whether it's inspiring a team, or even I've shared it with businesses or entrepreneurs.

00:52:15.795 --> 00:52:24.626
It's a program called Dream, dare, believe and Do, and it's actually a quote from Walt Disney and I share it about dreaming big.

00:52:24.626 --> 00:52:27.454
Right, if you are an entrepreneur, you got to dream big.

00:52:27.454 --> 00:52:30.994
Right, if you're a student, you got to dream big.

00:52:30.994 --> 00:52:34.494
If you're on a team, you want to dream big.

00:52:34.494 --> 00:52:35.577
You want to win that championship.

00:52:35.577 --> 00:52:36.704
That's the big dream, right?

00:52:36.704 --> 00:52:39.012
If you don't want to win the championship, why are you even playing, right?

00:52:39.012 --> 00:52:41.925
It doesn't mean you're going to win it, but that's the ultimate goal.

00:52:41.925 --> 00:52:43.306
Maybe there's some other ones along the way.

00:52:43.306 --> 00:52:45.067
So you need about dreaming big.

00:52:45.128 --> 00:52:47.208
And what happens, krista, when we get older?

00:52:47.208 --> 00:52:48.568
What happens to our dreams?

00:52:48.568 --> 00:52:53.931
They die because work gets in our way life, kids, family and what happens?

00:52:53.931 --> 00:52:56.052
We don't think it's possible anymore.

00:52:56.052 --> 00:52:58.074
And then why do we stop dreaming?

00:52:58.074 --> 00:53:01.775
We stop dreaming because we've heard all the people tell us you can't do it, yeah, and then maybe they're right.

00:53:01.775 --> 00:53:03.117
Maybe you can't do it, yeah, and then maybe they're right.

00:53:03.117 --> 00:53:04.338
Maybe they're right, I'm sure.

00:53:04.338 --> 00:53:08.760
Maybe people told you you can't do podcasts, right, you don't know anything about that.

00:53:08.760 --> 00:53:09.480
What are you going to do?

00:53:09.480 --> 00:53:12.342
Their intentions are good, but they squash your dreams.

00:53:12.342 --> 00:53:14.822
So I show them how to overcome those challenges.

00:53:29.344 --> 00:53:30.922
The daring part is you have to take risks and that it's not going to be easy and it's going to be out of your comfort zone and you're going to learn things.

00:53:30.922 --> 00:53:32.034
You might eat peanut butter, jelly sandwiches, that's right.

00:53:32.034 --> 00:53:33.463
And so you got to dare yourself to take those risks, because the reward is going to be great.

00:53:33.463 --> 00:53:34.324
Believing is about believing in yourself.

00:53:34.324 --> 00:53:36.275
Affirmations, visualize yourself already being successful.

00:53:36.275 --> 00:53:40.824
Hang around good people, read good books and podcasts and literature.

00:53:40.824 --> 00:53:42.246
That's going to keep you going.

00:53:42.246 --> 00:53:45.748
And then, lastly, nothing happens unless you do it.

00:53:45.748 --> 00:53:48.692
You got to take that first step and that's sometimes that's the hardest.

00:53:49.172 --> 00:53:50.594
So it's a fun program from that.

00:53:50.594 --> 00:53:54.478
I do a lot of colleges and universities with that one, but I'll tailor any program.

00:53:54.478 --> 00:53:57.280
A lot of companies will say could you do a little of this, a little of that?

00:53:57.280 --> 00:53:58.541
Yeah, the answer is yes.

00:53:58.541 --> 00:53:59.061
All the time.

00:53:59.061 --> 00:54:05.913
The goal has got to be what they want and I work with all budgets, anything from a 45 minute to all day.

00:54:05.913 --> 00:54:07.014
It doesn't make a difference.

00:54:07.014 --> 00:54:20.746
I just add more stories, more activities, more engagement, more exercises, more fun the more time we have to make it a great event.

00:54:20.786 --> 00:54:21.528
All right, you have a book.

00:54:21.528 --> 00:54:22.751
Let's talk about the book for a minute.

00:54:22.751 --> 00:54:24.295
It's called Making the Customer Experience Magical.

00:54:24.295 --> 00:54:25.980
Now Tell me about your book and when you wrote it.

00:54:26.585 --> 00:54:31.597
Yeah, again, it was part of my journey of being who I am today and trying to do what I wanted to do.

00:54:31.597 --> 00:54:34.050
And my mentor said, john, you need a book.

00:54:34.050 --> 00:54:37.389
And I was like book, I'm not an author, I don't know how to write a book.

00:54:37.389 --> 00:54:40.911
And he said doesn't make a difference, you need to write a book as an author.

00:54:40.911 --> 00:54:47.510
It brings credibility to a speaker, trainer, coach.

00:54:47.510 --> 00:54:47.791
We know that.

00:54:47.791 --> 00:54:48.735
So I said I don't know where do I even begin.

00:54:48.735 --> 00:54:49.559
He said you've already wrote your book.

00:54:49.559 --> 00:54:50.143
And I said what do you mean?

00:54:50.143 --> 00:54:50.605
I already wrote a book.

00:54:50.605 --> 00:54:54.833
He said just take one of your workshops, have it transcribed.

00:54:54.833 --> 00:54:56.255
Oh, and it's a book.

00:54:56.255 --> 00:55:04.588
And he said and believe it or not, you're doing people disservice by not writing a book because once they hear you, you're gone.

00:55:04.588 --> 00:55:11.474
Give them something they can take away from you that they can continue to learn and grow and help them.

00:55:11.514 --> 00:55:14.208
So the book is called Making the Customer Experience Magical.

00:55:14.208 --> 00:55:20.697
Now, so it's all about how to create that experience, but I also focus on how to succeed in business and beat out your competition.

00:55:20.697 --> 00:55:25.112
And you beat out your competition by giving a better experience than your competition, right?

00:55:25.112 --> 00:55:26.175
So it all parted in there.

00:55:26.175 --> 00:55:27.759
It's a simple read.

00:55:27.759 --> 00:55:29.824
I tell people it's more of a training guide.

00:55:29.824 --> 00:55:31.409
It's not a book you read and put on a shelf.

00:55:31.409 --> 00:55:34.907
After each chapter are exercises and activities that you can do as a team.

00:55:34.907 --> 00:55:36.090
You can do it as a business owner.

00:55:36.090 --> 00:55:42.030
I wrote it so simply that you could give it to an employee and say you teach chapter four in the book.

00:55:42.552 --> 00:55:51.373
Oh, I like that and they can do that because there's exercise that you can do as a group, and so that was my goal, because we all know books we read, and then what do we do with these books?

00:55:51.373 --> 00:55:51.554
Right?

00:55:51.554 --> 00:55:52.889
So I wanted a book to use.

00:55:52.889 --> 00:55:56.552
From cover to cover you can go back and forth and so that's where I wrote the book.

00:55:56.552 --> 00:56:00.407
It's not going to win a Pulitzer Prize, but it became a top seller.

00:56:00.407 --> 00:56:04.068
I think I've sold over 25,000 books, oh my God.

00:56:04.068 --> 00:56:05.309
And since it's been there.

00:56:05.309 --> 00:56:10.132
But again, the goal is I just want to give them a resource to do that and to learn.

00:56:10.132 --> 00:56:11.393
So that's where it came from.

00:56:11.393 --> 00:56:12.733
I got another book in me.

00:56:13.353 --> 00:56:13.773
You do.

00:56:13.833 --> 00:56:17.657
I bet I've just been too busy to get through that, but I hope to do that.

00:56:17.976 --> 00:56:18.916
You know what it's going to be about.

00:56:18.916 --> 00:56:20.038
It's going to be more of.

00:56:20.097 --> 00:56:21.818
If Disney ran your business, what would?

00:56:21.818 --> 00:56:23.400
It look like and it's going to talk about it.

00:56:23.420 --> 00:56:24.559
When are you going to start on that one?

00:56:24.699 --> 00:56:25.340
It started.

00:56:25.340 --> 00:56:28.121
It's just, unfortunately, I've been busy, which is a good thing.

00:56:28.523 --> 00:56:29.782
Fortunately, you've been busy.

00:56:34.204 --> 00:56:35.588
Which is a good thing.

00:56:35.588 --> 00:56:37.112
But again, I'm a perfectionist from a standpoint.

00:56:37.112 --> 00:56:37.675
I want it to be really good.

00:56:37.675 --> 00:56:39.420
I don't want to be the same book I just did so.

00:56:39.420 --> 00:56:49.090
It's got to be different things, but we'll see.

00:56:49.090 --> 00:56:51.094
We everybody can be a coach, I get it.

00:56:51.094 --> 00:56:53.688
Not every client's going to turn into a coach, I get that.

00:56:53.688 --> 00:56:57.177
But I want to do whatever I can to continue the journey of learning.

00:56:57.177 --> 00:56:59.672
So the book is one way they can continue to do that.

00:57:00.255 --> 00:57:03.447
Another thing I've created was my newsletter blog.

00:57:03.447 --> 00:57:12.516
It's called the magic minute and it's just something you could read, watch or whatever in 30 seconds or less, maybe a minute, maybe if it's a little long one.

00:57:12.516 --> 00:57:22.425
But it's just a quick, something you could read and you can say wow, we could do this in our company, we can do this in our business, or sometimes it's are we doing that in our business?

00:57:22.425 --> 00:57:25.092
So it gives thought to what's going on.

00:57:25.092 --> 00:57:25.693
I've had some.

00:57:25.693 --> 00:57:27.277
I try to do it once a week.

00:57:27.277 --> 00:57:31.376
It goes out sometimes every other week, based on my travels and what's going on.

00:57:31.376 --> 00:57:33.914
But I get people that say when's the next one?

00:57:33.914 --> 00:57:37.565
Because I'm having a meeting coming up and I use your magic minutes for meetings.

00:57:37.565 --> 00:57:43.737
So they'll share something that I talked about, and it could be anywhere from creating a better, magical experience, it could be on hiring.

00:57:43.737 --> 00:57:53.235
It could be on hiring, it could be on leadership, it could be about marketing, it could be on all kinds of things.

00:57:53.275 --> 00:57:59.811
In fact, I was asked to do an interview on how is AI affecting the customer experience and, as a top 10 global thought leader, people think I know all the answers and I said I got to tell you.

00:57:59.811 --> 00:58:01.014
Ai is new to me too.

00:58:01.014 --> 00:58:02.666
I'm high touch, not high tech.

00:58:02.666 --> 00:58:07.326
So there's ways that we could use AI that will enhance the experience.

00:58:07.326 --> 00:58:08.128
There's no doubt.

00:58:08.128 --> 00:58:17.056
But I also tell anybody and I'll still stand this to this day the human connection is still king and people want touchy-feely.

00:58:17.115 --> 00:58:21.753
I want to be able to know who I'm talking to, and now I don't even know who I'm talking to because of AI.

00:58:21.753 --> 00:58:22.777
Is this a bot?

00:58:22.777 --> 00:58:24.601
Is this a AI person?

00:58:24.601 --> 00:58:25.945
Is it really Krista on the phone?

00:58:25.945 --> 00:58:26.425
I don't know.

00:58:26.425 --> 00:58:27.829
We can't be afraid of it.

00:58:27.829 --> 00:58:30.315
We have to embrace it, use it to our advantage.

00:58:30.315 --> 00:58:35.826
But we just say, we can't say that's going to be the answer for everything, because our clients, our customers, are all different.

00:58:35.826 --> 00:58:39.411
Some are going to be very AI literate, others are going to be.

00:58:39.411 --> 00:58:43.657
I don't even know what AI stands for, right, so we want to make sure we have that happy mix.

00:58:43.657 --> 00:58:45.739
So I try to be fresh and current.

00:58:45.739 --> 00:58:52.088
But it's just a great way.

00:58:52.088 --> 00:58:56.436
They can just go to my website, which is just johnformicacom, that's J-O-H-N-F-O-R-M-I-C-Acom, and you just scroll down, you can sign up.

00:58:56.436 --> 00:59:03.815
And to encourage you to sign up, I give you three training videos on top of that because I really want you to get this magic minute because it's going to help you.

00:59:03.855 --> 00:59:06.219
So the training videos are free, the magic minute's free.

00:59:06.219 --> 00:59:12.512
I don't sell you anything, but it's just a great way to continue the journey, because we all know we get busy.

00:59:12.512 --> 00:59:17.568
If I can be a feather in your hat to help you through this journey, that's what those are for.

00:59:17.568 --> 00:59:19.371
All right, john.

00:59:25.244 --> 00:59:28.137
So we've gone through all that you offer.

00:59:28.137 --> 00:59:30.608
Are there any future plans that you can share with us?

00:59:31.471 --> 00:59:37.217
Besides the book hopefully coming out before I'm dead maybe I don't know, but no, it'll come out.

00:59:37.217 --> 00:59:49.012
But my future plans is again just trying to realize that there are so many other industries out there that I don't even know that I could help and I'll share with any business owner.

00:59:49.012 --> 00:59:49.775
You need a niche.

00:59:49.775 --> 00:59:55.438
Don't be too wide and broad in what you do because then you're not considered that expert.

00:59:55.438 --> 00:59:59.936
Everybody could use your services, sure, but who really needs your services?

00:59:59.936 --> 01:00:03.014
And that's what I focused on and really made my business successful.

01:00:03.164 --> 01:00:15.253
But I want to focus on other areas that I can be more of a service and help people be successful, and it may not just be business, it could be nonprofits, it could be organizations.

01:00:15.253 --> 01:00:18.661
That the cause is great.

01:00:18.661 --> 01:00:25.297
I've actually picked up a couple of coaching clients who are nonprofits and I want to help them build their nonprofit organization.

01:00:25.297 --> 01:00:30.329
But we have to run it like a business and they don't know how to run it like a business, so I'm helping them through that process.

01:00:30.329 --> 01:00:38.197
I do a lot of things for schools and universities and because there's a lot of similarities, so that's my goal is try to figure out who else I can help.

01:00:38.197 --> 01:00:46.474
I want to continue to help small businesses and organizations and tourism communities, but there might be some other people that I don't even know yet and I need to help them.

01:00:47.436 --> 01:00:47.717
All right.

01:00:47.717 --> 01:01:04.197
So I like to finish off my episodes with something called final thoughts, and this is your chance to just tell us that one thing, that one takeaway that you want the listeners to have, whether it's about you, john for Micah, or your coaching, or your services that you offer.

01:01:04.804 --> 01:01:06.128
Krista, I'm going to cheat a little bit.

01:01:06.128 --> 01:01:07.030
I'm going to give you two.

01:01:07.271 --> 01:01:08.695
Okay, I'll take them Two quick ones.

01:01:09.264 --> 01:01:13.114
The first one is my final thought on people, on persons.

01:01:13.114 --> 01:01:21.097
Anybody listening today, I don't care, you run a business, own a business, you just happen to be lover podcast and you're just listening to it, which I highly encourage you to do it.

01:01:21.097 --> 01:01:28.927
I want you to think about what your purpose is in life.

01:01:28.927 --> 01:01:29.630
What is your biggest passion?

01:01:29.630 --> 01:01:32.717
What is it that you love to do, and figure out a way how you can continue to do that.

01:01:32.717 --> 01:01:36.130
Maybe it's a hobby, maybe that hobby might turn into a business.

01:01:36.130 --> 01:01:40.186
Perhaps we only get one chance in life to do what we love to do.

01:01:40.186 --> 01:01:41.148
I'm grateful.

01:01:41.148 --> 01:01:42.210
I'm living my dream.

01:01:42.210 --> 01:01:43.253
I'm doing this.

01:01:43.253 --> 01:01:48.329
I want you to do it too, but sometimes we get so busy we don't even think about it.

01:01:48.329 --> 01:01:50.813
And so find out what is your purpose.

01:01:50.813 --> 01:01:54.327
What do you love to get up in the morning and do?

01:01:54.327 --> 01:01:55.711
Can you make a living out of it?

01:01:55.711 --> 01:01:57.456
Then that's something to think about.

01:01:57.456 --> 01:02:06.815
But even if it's just something you do more of, then I want you to do more of, and it could be volunteering for a church, it could be doing the homeless shelters or whatever it might be, or it could be.

01:02:07.396 --> 01:02:12.226
My mom used to do knitting and crocheting, and she just as old as she got.

01:02:12.226 --> 01:02:14.213
That's all that kept her really active.

01:02:14.213 --> 01:02:15.806
That was her only thing, but she loved to do it.

01:02:15.806 --> 01:02:18.896
She made little baby blankets that we donated to hospitals.

01:02:18.896 --> 01:02:20.485
Again, it was.

01:02:20.485 --> 01:02:21.507
She loved to crochet.

01:02:21.507 --> 01:02:26.135
It was something that she it was worth her living because she kept saying that I got so many more to do.

01:02:26.135 --> 01:02:29.639
I got so many more to do, and that's what keeps us all young.

01:02:29.639 --> 01:02:30.626
It keeps us vibrant.

01:02:31.047 --> 01:02:35.952
So think about what it is, because, if you can do, even if you're an hourly worker, be passionate about what you do.

01:02:35.952 --> 01:02:38.001
Be the best hourly worker you can do.

01:02:38.001 --> 01:02:40.248
If you're a restaurant server, be the best server.

01:02:40.248 --> 01:02:42.431
If you wash dishes, be the best dishwasher.

01:02:42.431 --> 01:02:45.237
If you drive an Uber, be the best dishwasher.

01:02:45.237 --> 01:02:47.400
If you drive an Uber, be the best Uber driver.

01:02:47.400 --> 01:02:48.501
Be the best.

01:02:48.501 --> 01:02:53.891
Don't just go through the motions because, again, you only get one time in life to do that.

01:02:53.891 --> 01:02:55.697
So, personally, think about that, that and then, and take pride in what you do.

01:02:56.478 --> 01:03:07.815
And the other thing is, as a business, don't be afraid to ask questions and don't be afraid to get help, and I'm not talking about help from me, I'm talking about help from so many other resources out there.

01:03:07.815 --> 01:03:13.634
The learning curve will be shorter, but nobody knows all the answers.

01:03:13.634 --> 01:03:14.969
I don't know all the answers.

01:03:14.969 --> 01:03:17.409
Nobody knows all the answers.

01:03:17.409 --> 01:03:19.211
So what can you do to learn?

01:03:19.211 --> 01:03:30.106
Maybe it's get some help, and help could be a book, it could be listening to a podcast, it could be attending seminars and workshops, it could be hiring life coaches, business coaches, health coaches whatever it is.

01:03:31.391 --> 01:03:36.847
I learned early on that I think I would have been even more successful had I done that early on.

01:03:36.847 --> 01:03:37.668
Ask for help.

01:03:37.668 --> 01:03:38.429
Ask for help.

01:03:39.291 --> 01:03:46.413
Luckily, I had really good mentors in my career who I had, some tough mentors that used to kick my butt and say you don't have a clue, john.

01:03:46.413 --> 01:03:47.315
You got to get out there.

01:03:47.315 --> 01:03:48.577
What are you doing?

01:03:48.577 --> 01:03:49.780
What are you stupid?

01:03:49.780 --> 01:03:51.288
But you know what I needed it.

01:03:51.288 --> 01:03:57.532
I needed to be kicked in the butt, and then I had others that took me under their arm, around me and said it's going to be okay.

01:03:57.532 --> 01:04:10.701
I know you're frustrated, let me help you through this process, and I needed that combination and so I try to be that as a coach and I know there's so many great other coaches out there and people that are willing to give up their time to help others.

01:04:10.701 --> 01:04:14.251
Don't be afraid to ask help and it's business owners.

01:04:14.251 --> 01:04:18.226
I found it's that ego, it's a sign of weakness.

01:04:18.226 --> 01:04:27.858
No, it's a sign of strength, and the relationships that I've made with people that have helped me and that I've helped them, I think, make you live a really well-rounded life and career.

01:04:28.664 --> 01:04:31.630
Let's give out that contact information for John for Micah.

01:04:31.630 --> 01:04:36.699
The phone number is 704-965-4090.

01:04:36.699 --> 01:04:41.476
You can email John at info at johnformicahcom.

01:04:41.476 --> 01:04:44.043
The website again is johnformicahcom.

01:04:44.043 --> 01:04:59.911
While you're there, go ahead and sign up for that newsletter the Magic Minute and then you can find and follow John for Micah on all the socials Facebook, Twitter or X, YouTube, LinkedIn and I'm going to have the website and the social links there in the show notes for you, like I always do.

01:04:59.911 --> 01:05:04.811
So go there for clickable links and thank you, listeners, for joining us today.

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I appreciate you tuning in each week and thank you, John, for being on Topsail Insider and telling us all about your business and coaching and training programs.

01:05:14.250 --> 01:05:15.775
I really appreciate you being here.

01:05:16.215 --> 01:05:16.737
My pleasure.

01:05:18.606 --> 01:05:26.952
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01:05:26.952 --> 01:05:31.719
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01:05:31.719 --> 01:05:38.811
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01:05:47.688 --> 01:05:56.914
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01:05:56.914 --> 01:06:02.447
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01:06:02.447 --> 01:06:09.416
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01:06:09.416 --> 01:06:11.460
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