GA 098 | How to Apply Lean to Sales and Marketing with Joe Dager

You're listening to episode 98 with Joe Dagger.

Welcome to the Gemba Academy podcast, the show that's focused on helping individuals and companies achieve breakthrough results using the same continuous improvement principles leveraged by companies such as Toyota Del Monte and the U.S. department of Defense. And now, here's your host, Ron Pereira.

Hey there. This is Ron Pereira with Gemba Academy, and I'd like to welcome you to another edition of the Gemba Academy podcast. As always, thank you so much for taking time out of your day and your week to listen to the show and for watching our Lean and Six Sigma training videos over at Gembacademy.com we definitely appreciate each and every one of you. Now, before we get to the show, I wanted to make a pretty big announcement, and that is this Saturday, which is February 20th. We are launching a new version of Gemba Academy's website. Now, our web development team, led by Tony and Kevin, have been working diligently on this new website and it is pretty incredible. Obviously, I'm a little biased because it's part of the company that I'm involved in, but it's got some really nice features. There's a powerful search capability built into the website. In the past, we've not had a real good way to search, and now we have close to a thousand videos and, you know, hundreds and hundreds of blog articles and podcasts and so forth. It was hard to find stuff, but now with just a click of a few buttons, you're gonna be able to find any type of content that you're looking for, no matter if it's videos, podcasts, blog articles. And so there's some other really nice features. It's just a better looking website, softer colors. We've organized things better. Used to have long tables of videos that you had to kind of scroll through to get to, you know, all of the videos in our school of Lean. Now it's a much more easy to navigate layout. The video player is much better. You can even slow me down, if you will. We have a Slow Rondown feature in the videos. We've had feedback from customers who don't speak English as a first language who said, quite frankly, Ron talks too fast. And I've tried to slow down, but as you know, in these podcasts, I just talk fast. It's just how God made me. And so now we're able to actually slow the videos down if you'd like, and if you want, you can actually speed them up to get through our videos faster. So that's a really nice improvement. As well, so that new website goes live this Saturday, February 20th. So depending on when you're listening to this episode, go go over to gembaacademy.com and check it out and give us your feedback, Tell us what you like, tell us what you don't like. Obviously, if you're a longtime Gemba Academy customer, you know, change is hard. And so there's going to be some things that, you know, you probably have to get used to. Like we will and we have over the, over the last few months. But we want to hear your feedback for there's something that's just not working for you or you really have strong opinions. Definitely let us know. Just go on the website, there's a contact page. Go in there and give us your feedback because we truly do value that. Now, with that said, today's guest is actually interesting because, well, Joe Dagger actually kind of specializes in continuous improvement as it applies to sales and marketing. So I guess you could say website development and so forth. That's type definitely kind of in the marketing arena. So Joe's been around for quite some time. He's done his own podcast business, 901 podcast. I think he's over 300 episodes or something like that. So he's been around for quite a while and really fun guy to talk to. And what we get into is just kind of, you know, how to apply lean thinking principles to sales and marketing. It's not something that gets talked a lot about, but obviously if you're in a business of really anything and you sell something, it's very important that you optimize those processes and make sure that you're applying lean to all aspects of your business. That's obviously far more than a manufacturing centric methodology. Now, show notes for this particular episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com again, just go to gembapodcast.com and look for the Joe Dagger episode. Okay, enough for me. Let's get to the show. All right, Joe, thanks so much for taking time to visit with us. Where are you calling in from?

I'm calling in from the metropolis of Fort Wayne, Indiana, where it's about 25 degrees.

Very nice, very nice. I love Indiana. I grew up in Ohio, so very close to Indiana. So I've been to Fort Wayne many times. Nice place. All right, well, Joe, today we're going to talk about your work with lean marketing. So let's kind of just start with maybe sharing a little bit about your background and maybe how you first came to learn about continuous improvement.

Oh, that Goes way back because I was very, very lucky as I grew up in business, let's say that I was going to school at the time and I started out as a welder. So I was really hands on guy, put myself through school and continuous improvement. I had a mentor there that, that really, you know, he looked at things, you know, very practical. You know, he was a practical guy that ran the company and I grew up within that company and ended up later become president of the company and you know, through the 15, 16 years I spent with him. And then I learned about Lean, of course through Womack and actually started out with Senge from that perspective. But what was interesting about was the things this person that Wayne Boyd was, the president coming, that he taught me, it was, it was very, very much practical. And it was like, oh, now there's a name to it. And it was Lean.

Yes. Nice. Awesome. All right, well, Joe, as you know, we like to start all of our epis with our guest sharing a quotation that possibly inspires him. So do you have one?

Oh, I have a great one. When I think of Lean and sales and marketing, I go back to, oh, Peter Scholes. Okay. And what he said, Sales and marketing has never been against systemizing the process. They have been against being systemized by the process.

Well, I'm really excited to talk to you because I think this is an area of Lean that's not discussed enough. So let's just start just at a high level. When we say kind of Lean as it applies to sales and marketing, what is it like? What, what do you mean?

Well, I, I first think, you know what, what I mean applying Lean to there is, I go back to the five basic principles of Lean. Okay. I, I mean it's, it really is a, a pattern that, that repeats over and over. And the best marketing book I've ever read on Lean was Lean Solutions by Womack and Jones. Still to this day. And you know, the things that we get down to is just a little bit different though, is, is that we look at waste, we look at things a little differently there. But let's just go to the two pillars. Continuous improvement. I kind of emphasize that, emphasize that more as continuous learning. Okay. The ability to learn faster from our customers than our competition. And then I want to take respect for people. I take that as a step farther and respect for a customer, which in my terminology means no games or manipulation. Sharing our learning in an open and transparent way. And I think that's the high level view of Lean marketing.

So there's a Lot of popularity, if you will, in the lean startup movement. We've had Eric Reese on the show before. How does that work? Kind of. Is there any parallels, I guess to what those folks are doing, to what you're doing or what you're doing, you know, you're proposing for sales and marketing.

Oh, I think it goes very, it goes very hand in hand. You know, Lean start been a great boost right. To the Lean movement. And you know, and it's. And then when I go to people to start talking to them, I have to, especially with SaaS companies, I have to say, you know, get their viewpoint and put context around Lean. Are they talking more about traditional Lean or Lean Startup? And it's really sort of a Ying and a Yang type situation. You know, if you think about it, Lean startup is powerful for exploring for new product market fit, it's customer development. But for most of us, innovation is only what I would say what one part of our company, the continuous improvement side of PDCA and the standard work of SDCA are the dominant factors, I think in traditional companies maybe. And so I practice using those three concepts in lean marketing, you know, ftca, PDCA and then edca. I use okay, which has been a takeoff from what Toyota taught, was explored, do, check, act, and that's kind of that Lean Startup design thinking. So I think you need all three. But all successful companies have all three. It just varies how much.

Okay, so a company brings you in and we're going to talk, I want you to talk about your consulting work and we're going to get them. Also want to mention your podcast later on to make sure everybody knows about that. But let's say that someone brings you in to help them improve their sales and marketing. They're perhaps they want to, I don't know, they just, they're in a rut or whatever it might be and they feel like, you know, applying a lean thinking methodology can, can help them. What do you do like, what do you like? What's the day in the life of Joe Dagger like applying Lean to sales and marketing look like?

Well, I think you go back to the same thing you would in any marketing situation. You know, in marketing, we start talking about a marketing audit and marketing segmentation. Right? Okay. I mean that's the first couple things you do. And you know, and when I think of Lean, the first thing I thought I think of is I use capdo. Okay. Which is when you go back to okay, and you go back to Joiner. They use capdo in their Hoshin type planning do you go back and read some of that? And what we, what we do is really start to check and act, which is really the same thing as, you know, doing a marketing audit. See what's really happening, seeing what's taking place. And then after we do that, we, we reflect. Okay, you know, really on where we're at, what we need to do and you know, and then we divide that up into what we could need to start doing. Okay, well, you haven't done before. That's kind of that Lean startup that explore new check back. What we need to improve on, you know, is a PDCA and what we need to standardize on. And you know, we think of the old, I think of an old ERP acronym that they used, which was a USA principle, which is understand, simplify, then automate. And that's kind of what I do. When I think of Lean marketing, I sit back and I really just do the cap do. We divide the thing up, up, and we just start applying that thought process of lean to the different segments, to the different marketing outlines they do. And we start that iterative process throughout the organization.

Okay, now I'm gonna push you a little bit because I, I want you to, I want you. Let's get into a little, maybe share a story or two of. And you don't, I don't want you to necessarily name the clients unless you want to. But I know this can be sensitive information, but talk to me about how maybe you've gone into a company who wanted to improve. Like, what did you do in the first week?

The first week is probably the most difficult week because everybody, especially in sales and marketing, what do they want to do? They want to get started, right? What are you going to do? What event you going to have? How are you going to change things? We're after new customers, correct? Okay. But what we really do is we sit down there and we look at where their existing customers are. We look at what they're, you know, who the, who those people are. And then we look at the boundary people, the people on the edges of those type of situations. What can we do, you know, who's that next segment to them? And we apply PDCA to that, you know, to that area. We look at the next market to them. Maybe.

Let me stop you there when you say we apply pdc, okay, so, okay, Gemba Academy hires you now. So I want you to come in now. And now I want you to look at. Okay, here's our salesforce instance. We can show you all of our customers, right? We can show you everybody that we sold to in the last whatever, five years kind of thing. So that, that's good information. Right. And so, but what's your next step? So you've identified who our customers are. Do you want to like talk about who do we want to acquire like, or maybe some, an area of, of the world or a segment of the world that we're not reaching. Is that, is that those, some of the things that you're, that you're doing.

We're looking at, we're going to look at what jobs people are getting done with your.

Okay.

With your things. What, what are they accomplishing with them? Okay. What are they trying? The results, the benefits. Who directly relates to them? Benefits that we could kind of like a reference. Who would be the. Do you never make a cold call? You make the next warm call. Okay, who's the next reference? And what tools do we have in our market toolbox. Okay. That we could apply to them. And it's an iterative process. We start applying to that next boundary segment. Let's say, okay, whether you're, you know, you work primarily with plumbers. Okay. You know, for an example, you know, then we're going to sit there, okay, now that plumber is affiliated with electricians. We're going to use the same marketing segments, same tools to approach the electrical people. Then we may see that we're not getting the results we need. So we approve it. We do the iterative process. So we're, we're using our standard tools, we're improving on them for this segment and we move out. So we're always thinking and documenting. When I first go in, you ask for a couple examples and I think of right away some of the efforts that I'll mention a name Jason Spiegler has down at camstar with Charlotte where he's created roundtables and knowledge building efforts within his community, within their product community. Community, let's say. And that's how he's applied his continuous improvement, his knowledge based efforts to gather clients, okay. Through knowledge roundtables within their, their community, with their customers. And, and you know, it's not like customers, it's not a competitive thing. You, you think of hospitals day of how they're applying Lean. It's not so competitive anymore as it is amount of sharing and learning from each other. And I think that's what Lean is so strong with. Okay. SaaS, companies in particular, you know, when you start talking, it's not just going out anymore and applying, you know, directly to a customer. What's the first thing a SaaS comes to do. 25, 30, 40% of their time, they're in business development, who they're integrating with, who they're joining with, okay, to create a stronger product. And I think that's what Lean and PDCA is able to do better than, let's say, just your old marketing efforts where you're looking at single clients, single type of operations, distributors that, that strict hierarchy. Because now we're looking at marketing as more Venn diagrams and overlapping structure. And it's the iterative process of lean that allows us to do that.

So help me kind of paint a picture then to contrast how a traditional sales and marketing professional might approach generating more sales versus a lean thinking sales and marketing professional who also wants to generate more sales. What are some of the differences between those two? Folks?

I think the biggest difference is, is that we plan, okay? That we go by the plan, we develop this linear output of how we're going to go to the marketplace, okay? And we think, okay, here's our yearly plan. Here's what we're going to lay out. This is the efforts, we're going to make our budget. And we create this huge hierarchy or, you know, kind of like that typical organizational hierarchy structure. But we, we, we stick to the plan. We do the plan, right? I, I mean, you know, it's a Gantt chart kind of, you know, going, going down to. Through true. We're going to go to this events, we're going to apply this. We're going to, you know, we need to sign up five more distributors in this area. We need new things where, with a lean approach, okay, it's more speculative. And if, I know a lot of the listeners are familiar with kata, right? Okay. So you put that target condition. Where do I want to be at the end of the year? All right? Now, I assume, of course, that I, you know, I'm going to learn along the way. So now what I do is what's the smallest step that I can make to move in that direction, okay? To prove what I think is true. And I take that lean approach of building towards that target condition that we do where in traditional, you know, marketing, we lay out this plan, the marketing plan, the vision of what we're going to do, and we lay out this structure on how to get there, and we put these smart goals in place, right? You know, that where there's a little less goal orientated, a little less the iterative process we speculate, we envision, okay? And we iterate forward. And that's I think the biggest difference, learning along the way.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting because obviously we do our very best to practice what we preach here at Gembe Academy. And you know, when we do have, you know, financial targets and so forth of what we hope to accomplish, but what it really helps us do. And we're actually kind of finalizing our Hoshin right now. We've already planned our Hoshin for 2016, but we're just really kind of finalizing some things right now. And the biggest push for us is to figure out, yeah, sure, there's ways you want to be, but that's a lagging indicator, right? Sales, the number, that's a lagging indicator. You either got it or you didn't. And so what we're trying to do is really kind of take a step back and look at what are the leading indicators that need to happen, you know, on a daily basis. What activities, what standards do we need to have in place and what's the behaviors of everybody? So I don't know, it's kind of how we're approaching kind of applying lean in a. In a. Having a long term perspective on it, but also coming back to, okay, yeah, well, what do you got to do on Wednesday to be successful? Right?

Yeah. Oh, certainly. And I think that's when you're looking at leading, you know, a leading indicator. Okay. What you want to do. It. It has that indicator has to be done. Okay. In the customer space, in the customer's playground. Okay. Everything else is past tense, right?

Yeah.

You know, it's an observation. So I always term it. You've got to be playing in the customer's playground. You got to be in there and you don't make the mistake of, you know, looking towards a customer. You, you're working with a customer, you're involved with the customer's customers. Okay. And I think that's the new approach. When you look at one of my favorite books last year was Team of teams by General McChrystal and he talked about, you know, the greatest army in the world with sophisticated weaponry and, and, you know, and data available. They were getting beat, right? You know, you know, Iran, they were getting beat and he, he made one, you know, the temptations as lead. As a chess master is the way he put it. I always thought that was a great quote and, you know, controlling each move of an organization and. But he talked about being the gardener approach and enabling rather than directing. So a gardener approach is, you know, not, you know, he didn't look at it as a Passive thing. He talked about the. The line uses eyes. Eyes on, hands off. Okay. And you think about in sales. Okay. Do we really do that with our sales guys? All right. Are we sitting there, you know, allowing them to be alone and pull the. And on when they need it? Okay. That's what I always, you know, kind of laugh about. You know, we think of lean and we. How we empower a line worker. But what's the first thing when we try to apply lean to sales? We're out there giving them scripts. We're out there giving them this. We're trying to get rid of all their wasted efficiency. And are we really acting like that Eyes on, hands off, enabler that we really should be.

What do you, you know, as we talk a lot about intrinsic motivation within Lean, and you know that you need to have autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Let's talk about autonomy a little bit. Like, where do you see how much autonomy should a sales professional or marketing professional have to do his or her job?

And I think it's a great question, okay? Because, you know, we think in today's world that, you know, of the automation, okay, of how much is automated, all the data we're getting for customers. And so even that sales perspective, whether inbound and outbound, and that structure that, you know, that's being created is changing pretty rapidly. All right? But the autonomy, I think, is. Is that what we need to do is we need to set boundaries. We need to set standard work. And I think that's where people outside of lean don't really understand when you say standard work. And that's probably one of those great issues of applying lean to marketing and lean to sales. But what standard work is, is defining when you pull the and on, when. When to give that person that picture, that scenario that they can work within and where their limits are. Okay. You know, how far they're able to go with that customer that walks in the door to the counter. Because I. I'm a firm believer the standard work creates the wow for the customer experience because that person knows how far he can go and what he can do within his own boundaries to create a great experience. When he question. Okay. Or thinks, oh, gee, I'm only supposed to be saying this, or I'm supposed to do a nat. He. He becomes. Let me go get the supervisor. Oh, let me check on that. Okay. All this computer. These keyboard isn't working right. Oh, they just put. Put the new software in last week, and it's been terrible. You know, you've heard all that, right? In that. But what I'm saying is that if you. That autonomy, if you draw the boundaries, all right. Of what it is, what he can and can't do, okay. You create that enabling feature in your salespeople. So for me to sit there and say, gee, how much autonomy you can't have? I can't really say that because that differs in every situation. Right. But okay, if you can set the boundaries for the people, okay, they know. All right? And I go back to what General McChrystal said in Team of teams, eyes on, hands off. And it's not that he sit there, and I think in his book somewhere, he even talked about where he could, you know, it was like he had so much communication that he could be making decisions right there. Okay. For the person, he could be communicating right there when they were in the middle of a firefight, practically, he could direct it. But it was his idea that was wrong. His idea was that you had to enable. Okay. Those. To make decisions without a question. And I think that that's a great scenario to use. And I think that is the. The main thing about Lean is that we. We leave them pull the end on, Right?

Well, yeah, well, you know. You know, when you mentioned it earlier, that it's about learning and, you know, I love that analogy of the. The general who wants his folks to be able to think and react because as they say, you know, in battle or any kind of event, you know, the perfect plan is all great until someone punches you in the mouth. Right, Right. And, you know, kid, they didn't plan to get punched. So what do I do now? You know, and, you know, they need to be able to think. Right. And adapt to the situation, but realizing they can, it's safe to pull the end on. Right. I think that's maybe what you're getting at is it's good to have some boundaries, but it's also very good to empower our folks to think and to learn and to grow and to experiment. Right. You mentioned experimentation earlier. If they're not experimenting and trying because they have a safe environment where it is okay to fail so long as we don't hurt the customer. Right. But if you experiment, you split test something on a website or whatever, and it's like, oh, boy, that was a disaster for three hours. You know, but we learn something, and that's fantastic. To me, that's how you apply Lean thinking to, you know, to. To the sales and marketing process. Yeah.

And I've never met. Very few customers in my life I've ever met If I made a mistake, was transparent about it and open about it and was upfront about that, I've, I've really had problems. Okay. I mean, you know, they know that happens. Okay. I mean, they make them. And, and it's, it's that relationship that you have with them, that open and that respect for customer. Okay, that, that I think that is so important and even more so in the digital world because there's less opportunities for them, touch points to take place. So they really heighten the importance of them.

Yeah. Hey, so one question I have for you. What's the lean thinking way to approach social media as a business? There's lots of social media gurus out there, right? So. And they don't know anything about Lean. So, like, what's the lean thinker do with social media?

I, I think the social media is, is practically, you know, is a great template for Lean. Right. It's, it's a way that you're supposed to be out there asking. You're not supposed to be pushing your message out there. You're supposed to be engaging in a. So, you know, what, what, what is social media? What's one of the words of social media that we all forget about?

Social. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's a pretty easy thing, right?

I want to tell you why I'm awesome, Joe.

So, so, so what? We. So lean is so good because what, what is the bedrock of Lean? It's about knowledge creation, it's about learning.

Well, and it's about giving value. Right? And so, you know, my favorite, one of my favorite. I know he doesn't necessarily consider himself a lean thinker, but this Gary Vaynerchuk, I'm sure you've heard of him, the wine guy. And he's a new. Wants to own the jets one day and he wrote a book called. What was it? Left Hook. Left Hook or. Oh, what is it called? I should know. I shouldn't even have said that. He's basically about jabbing. And jabbing is adding value and then right hook is you finally go for the sale. But his premise is that you should constantly be adding some kind of value or generating conversation because conversation is value, right? Because people are thinking and so, you know, everything that at least here at Gemba Academy, we try to make sure that, you know, if we're sharing something that people are going to get some value from it. And eventually they're like, gosh, these people keep giving us pretty good stuff for free. Maybe we should check out what they are selling here because maybe it's Pretty good, right? And so I don't know if that's a lean approach, but if you constantly focused on value, then I think you're going to be in good shape.

And I think you nailed it. It's right there. It's the marketing as a service type things. We think of HubSpot, okay. Where they started out with the HubSpot. HubSpot or the blog greater years ago, okay. And people were there blogging, okay. I mean they got like 2, 3 million hits on that thing because they were telling people how to correct their bl. How to make it better. And you put it in there and you put the URL in there and spit out 20 things for you to do. And of course, the last one is you needed marketing automation software, by the way we supply it. Right. But in the long run, that's how they became who they were is through that grader.

Well, and I'm good on them. I think it's fine to offer a solution at the end so long as you're adding value all the way through and that they can get value even if they don't buy your solution. Right. So give enough to, to do good and then, you know, if people really want to take it to the next level, they can buy your solution. But yeah, that's fantastic. So the last question I have for you in this section, Joe, before we get to the reflection section is I'm curious, like what kind of. Talk to me a little bit about some of the resistance that you've seen as you've, as you've approached folks about lean thinking as it relates to sales and marketing.

Well, you know that, that resistance, okay, Is, is, you know, what you think of is when you go to, let's say you put on a, you, you put on a workshop, okay. Who's all out in your workshop? There might be a couple marketing guys, if you're really lucky, one sales guy, one sales manager, and then there's 10 or 12. Okay. Or you know, depending upon the size of the workshop. Okay. But of 20 people, you'll have 10 or 12. All right. Lean champions. Okay. And what they're thinking of is that they're thinking of the lean tools. They're thinking of the waste they reduce. They think of those things and how they can help sales. Yeah, okay. And so that resistance is kind of where you first, when you just walk in the door, you got the wrong people. Yeah, okay. Yeah. You know, and you think of the iter processes. Okay. And the lean startups are great because in the SAS community They're using those lean startup methods. They're starting with an iterative process and Lean sales and market right at the get go. Okay. From a startup. But that traditional thinking is really tough because we start thinking of standard work and continuous improvement. It. And, you know, and very little about innovation when we go out to sales and marketing. So that's really the resistance. Nothing wrong with the Lean Champions. Okay. They've just been at it.

Well, they don't sell anything.

And they don't sell anything. Yeah. And then they don't know what waste really is. Yeah. All right. So that's probably. I, I hate to say it that way, but it, it's kind of the, the, the, the premise that we've tried to bring Lean to them. The best companies that I've seen do it, and there's several companies that, that are applying Lean in their, in their marketing methods. And I, I admire Delta Faucet for one. Okay. That they got Lean Champions that are, that are sitting there with using A3s, okay. To introduce Lean to the sales and marketing folks. And I think that's a great way to do that. You know, I, I think there's other companies out there doing it. That's the one I'm most familiar with. But they're using kind of that problem solving, that knowledge building approach and starting to document things with an A3. And I think that's a great way to break through that resistance.

Fantastic. I love this conversation because I'm fascinated with applying Lean to all aspects of business and even our lives. So. Good stuff, Joe. Well, let's go ahead and transition now into the reflection section. So the first question, and we touched on it a little bit already, but you know, we speak about the two pillars of Lean being continuous improvement, which are the tools, the things that we do. But then there's also respect for people. And unfortunately, respect for people often gets forgotten and can be much harder to define. So I'm curious, what does respect for people mean to you?

Well, let's just look at it this way. It means respect for customer empathy. Okay. And I think that plays a massive role in how I believe that Lean operates in sales and market. You know, and to tell people when you think that the first thing they think of, we sit. It doesn't mean we sit by the phone waiting for it to ring or, you know, or that we don't make a cold call because we're afraid we're interrupting someone's day. Okay. That doesn't, that's not what I mean by it. Okay. We respect the fact that a customer has a job to get done and that we learn what that job is and how our products being used effectively in our. And efficiently in our customer's job. Okay. Because that's the point is that we, that we need to bring like we touch upon, we need to bring that value each and every time. All right? So, you know, I, I look at it is that a lot of us think about this linear approach, okay. As I was talking, the lean champions go out there, they think of value stream map or something.

It.

Okay. And that process leads to people kind of envision of how they're going to move a customer down that magic marketing funnel.

Right.

Okay. And it leads to a linear approach that we talked about again before to predict, plan and proceed. All right? You know, you think about that all at once. We have a linear approach, a linear outcome which we know that doesn't work. It doesn't even work inside our company, let alone with a customer.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. And so we, we foresee that solution, that customer buying our product without ever understanding their needs that way.

Yeah.

And that's, that's where I think respect for customer comes in. Yeah.

Got it. Joe, what's the best advice you've ever received?

Boy, I, I think I hate to sound. Sound redundant here. Okay. But I have to tell a little story real quickly with. That is the best precise. I see this is, is to. Is that respect for customer and realize an empathy. Okay. Of a customer and understanding a customer. I think that's one of the best advice I have because when I went to university, University of Michigan School, as a young kid, about 25, 26 in a leadership class. All right, we scored all these things, okay. And how great of a leader you could be and whether I had CEO potential and everything. And I scored out of the, you know, great all the way through it, except for one area. You know what that area was? Empathy.

So you mentioned it a few times. What is empathy to you? Like what does it mean?

You know, it, I hate to say, it's probably being quiet and listening. Okay. Because it's amazing. You know, it goes back to that old story that you've always heard from the very beginning of time. Right. You know, that you got two ears and one mouth and proportion. Yeah. And, and I, I, and I truly believe it. I think that's what social media is about. I think good salesmen, okay, are not necessarily the greatest talkers. Right. You know, is their listeners. They're the best listeners. And, and I think that, that I think to me is empathy, is that ability to understand, you know, a customer well.

And to care. Right.

Yes.

To genuinely care. So. Yeah. Hey, Joe, do you have a personal productivity habit that others might benefit from?

Oh, I think my productivity habit is. That is probably every day. Okay. I do have a certain amount of standard work I do. I practice religiously, whether it's a blog post, whether it's a, you know, sip, four tweets a day, whatever. Okay. Is that I have a certain amount of standard work I do every day. But then I also divide my day up into. I have a little portion of PDCA and a portion of EDCA that I'm going to explore something new. So I, I think that's probably my best thing that I do is that I. I divide up my day into three different areas and it's standard work, continuous improvement, and it's exploring something new. Do. And I try to do that every day, day in and day out. Yeah.

Let's say you're having a bad day and things just aren't going well and you need to recharge and refocus. Do you have a routine or ritual that you follow to do that?

I do. Okay. And I'm fortunate that I work in the. In the area that I do. And is that. Is that I take a walk and I really, you know, every noon I take a walk. Okay. If it's cold, it's on a treadmill. Okay.

I gotcha. It's cold a lot in Indiana.

Yeah, it's cold. Okay. And that. But, but, but I do take a walk and in the middle of the day. Okay. I will. I. I'll. I'll go outside and take a short walk, even if it's five minutes or ten minutes. Okay. And I do that regularly. And, And I think it clears the air because I think what we don't do enough is give us quiet time anymore. You know, we always have the phone. We always have that. Especially sales guys. Right. And the power reflection. I can't. Is probably the. Been the biggest thing that's changed in my life. Yeah.

Yeah. So you've obviously been at this for quite some time. But I'm curious, Joe, is there a knowledge or skill area that you feel you need to improve in order to become a better lean thinker?

You know, there. The. I, I think what lean does is it just slaps you right in the face. Right. And. And tells you that there's only. Just so. So there's so little that you know. Okay. And what, you know, when I think of to become A lean thinker is. Is the ability to. Would be the ability to improve, you know, day in and day out, and I'm convinced of that. And I, I guess I don't have. One thing is that I just believe lean is a. Lean is a journey, and I'm happy to have it along my side.

Yes, I got you. I can dig it. All right, well, Joe, I really appreciate you taking time to come onto the show. Tell us about your consulting work and also your podcast, since people are listening to this are in the podcast, so talk about both of those.

Oh, my, My consulting work, I can't really say it's consulting. What I, what I end up doing is I end up jumping into the fray with a company. Okay. I, I end up being as much as a doer within the company and kind of a venture on. I, I, you know, if I even still would make a cold call today, if we're building a call program for someone, I would say, let me make a. The first 20. Let's see what the reaction is. Okay. I, I, I'm one that just jumps right in the middle of it. And, and, you know, I'm not one that tests the water. Okay. With one. With one leg. Okay. How deep the water is with one leg. Okay. I have a habit of jumping it with both feet in.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah. And, and, and I do that, and I think that that's. L, you know, that's how I approach work. Work. That's how I approach things. I get my hands dirty. Okay. The podcast is. Is something I've done. I, I guess I A long time. Yeah. I've had a weekly podcast probably 48, 47 weeks out of the year. Okay. I, I think I do it, and also I'm up to about 365 of them right now, so I've done a couple, and really, it has put me in touch to be able to talk to some people I never had any business talking to. I think it's a fabulous thing I did, and I truly enjoy that portion, you know, tremendously.

And how do people find you in the itunes or stitcher or whatever it is? What do they search for?

It's on Stitchster. Okay. It's on iTunes. Is business 901. Business 901.

901. Yep.

901 is is where you find it, and it's very, you know, it's, it's founder. There's a couple of people listening to it, so I'm pretty proud. It goes out about 160 countries is the average listen to it, so I'm pretty proud of that. I don't know how many countries there are around.

Well, I really look up to guys like you and Mark Graben who've been blogging while blogging and podcasting for a long time. We're about to hit episode 100 here for Gemba Academy, so. So we're pretty proud of that as well. So we still have a little ways to go to get to 300, but we'll keep chipping away at it.

Oh, you'll get there. You'll get there. I'm sure that you could do a great job down there.

Thank you. All right, well, Joe, it was my pleasure to speak with you. Any final words of wisdom or how can people connect with you on social media business?

901 gets you everywhere.

Okay.

Okay.com, twitter, wherever and stuff. But I especially want to thank you, Ron, and the Gimba Academy for having me and allowing me to participate with you. It's quite an honor.

Great. All right, Joe, well, take care, and hopefully we can meet up sometime this year face to face.

Okay, I appreciate that, Ron. Good luck with everything.

All right, you too.

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