Customer Problems and Burning Bridges

Business brain episode 674 for Wednesday, August 13th National Left Handers Day 2025. Greetings folks and welcome to Business Brain, the show where you send in some ideas, we come up with some ideas, we take those ideas, we crunch them, we dissect them, we use them to tune our business brains so that each and every one of us can keep on leading those charmed lives. Our sponsors for this episode include eversight.com BB where you can go and sign up and get your own in house web team for just 3.99amonth. And shopify.com businessbrain where you can sign up for your $1 per month trial period and change your business like we have here. We'll talk more about those in a little bit. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire. Right handed. @ least according to the way I was trained. I'm Dave Hamilton and I'm left handed.

And I'm still here in Northern California. I got a lot of respect for left handed people. Yeah, same drag and dragging your, your hand across the thing and the ink in the. Oh my gosh. As a kid it's.

You are left handed. Right. I mean, that's what you said, right? Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah.

Left handed. Yeah. I mean I use, I, I throw with my right hand so I'm not kind of amp. What do they call it?

Ambidextrous.

Ambidextrous. Yeah. But yeah, left handed people definitely think different.

I, I have been told by several drum teachers that I should have been left handed, that I might, I might be left handed, but you know, just kind of follow that.

That's why you said trained.

Trained to be right handed.

Yeah.

I write with my right hand, which based on what I've seen from left handed people, I'm thankful for that. I, that I learned to write with my right hand. But like chopsticks, I prefer to use with my left hand.

Oh yeah, that's interesting.

Yeah. But I, but I really don't know if that's because that I was like born to be dominant on my left side or. I learned that a lot of that because of playing the drums. But I will say that I am left eye dominant. That is, I think you were left.

Handed because the way you think. Yeah, I think left handed people think in a, in a unique manner. I don't think it's better or worse or whatever.

It's just different.

It's. Yeah, it's different. And I would say that about you. That. Yeah, that, that makes sense.

No, you.

Yeah.

A lot of people have said, are you sure you're not left handed? To the point where I finally said, you know what? No, I'm not sure. But here are the things I do with my right hand and here are the things I can do equally well with both. So yeah.

Yep. That's cool.

Yeah, sure.

Hey, had a pretty good milestone this weekend.

Okay.

In my Mastermind, and I got to thinking about some of the lessons that I've learned. So we hit a thousand members this weekend.

Wow, that's amazing, man.

Yeah, it's cool, man. So it's cool. It's my five dollar reseller mastermind, where you can come learn to, you know, resell stuff. It's cool. If you follow me on X, you've no doubt heard me ad nauseam posting about it. But the, one of the biggest takeaway that I've learned is I didn't really plan on starting a community or you know, and somebody told me to call it a mastermind. I'm like, great, great idea. But what I've realized is that once again, your customers will tell you the problem they need solved.

Right?

Oh, yeah.

Well, I mean, yeah, sometimes in this.

Yes. Not all the time. They don't even, maybe they don't know the problem. Yeah.

Steve Jobs would, would tell you, never listen to your customers, just tell them. And he was also right. Like, like there's, this is not a, this is not a, you know, a binary thing. But.

Well, let me explain it to you. Maybe I'm, maybe I'm, maybe I'm not explaining it right. But let me tell you how it came about is I turned on subscriptions on X. I got a notice. Hey, you can do this. I said, great. And the max you could charge was five bucks. I was like, great, I'll just charge five bucks. And then I, I had all these people start subscribing and I didn't really know what to do. And I was like, well, I don't want to post, you know, separate, like secret stuff, you know, just for subscribers. It just wasn't my thing.

Yes, right, yes.

So I said, okay, well here's what I'll do. I will invite them to a DM group, a direct message group on X. And once a month I'll do a phone call, I'll do a Zoom or.

A conference, a Mastermind Wide Zoom.

Yeah, whatever it is. You could join, you could talk about anything you want.

Sure, sure. But I mean it's inviting. Not invite, not a Zoom with each individual person, but everybody at one time for Everybody that that's available and wants to join.

Got it. Yeah, everybody went down and that worked pretty good until we had about a hundred people in the DM group and then it was impossible to manage because there was no historical. If you, if I added a new person, they never saw anything that was put in before.

Right.

And I couldn't tell how, who to like kick out if they unsubscribed, you know, so it was like just a free for all. There's no controls, it's not met. So finally after. And, and there was so many questions. I just like, I can't answer all these questions. There's just, it would, I would be in there all day long. So I started this community, I researched and I decided to go with Kajabi.

Okay.

Which is a platform for communities and different things. And it continued to grow. And the great. The, the, one of the best things about it is as the more people that joined, the less time I have to be involved in it.

Yes.

And I also thought when you, because we did a show about the consultant trap.

Right.

Because I've been coaching and all this stuff and I told my wife, I said, I think I may have solved the consultant trap.

Well, I mean, part of that. You solved the influencer as a consultant trap.

Yeah.

Yeah. Because if, if you're just going like, you know, I think about the, the kind of consulting that I did where I was going around and, and people's computers or whatever that like getting a community of them together to solve each other's problems. They're not the ones that are going to solve each other's problems.

No, that's not going to, that's not.

Going to answer that.

Right. Yes.

But yes, you saw, you, you solved your, your implementation.

Because I was sure. Yeah. Because I'm able to have a repository for videos, tutorials, all kinds of resources that I put up there for them, share things to, you know, now we got a thousand people. So what I put. Actually we have a, almost 10, 20 this morning. So I can just post and, or do a video and I can contact, you know, all those people at once. The other really good part is those people don't belong to another platform.

They're yours.

They're mine.

Yeah.

Yeah. And as long as I add value, they're mine. Right, because you're, you're leasing your customers.

Yes.

Right. So as long as I continue to have value, but five bucks a month, not very hard to add value. And so. Yeah, I just thought that was kind of interesting that it, that's how it evolved. You know, when I explain it, I sound much smarter than I really am because it's like, wow, you did all these things again. That wasn't your idea planned was. It was my idea.

Yeah.

But it, they kind of pushed me into. Based on the requirements to make it useful. That's how it evolved.

Yes. Huh.

Yeah.

No, I think this is. Okay, so your, and, and, and this is my misinterpretation of things. Your mastermind, your reseller mastermind is not on X. And I know you just explained that.

Yeah.

It's not an X. I, I thought it was still somehow related to X.

Well, let me, let me back up.

I mean, it is. Yeah.

Yeah. If you subscribe on X, I let I. And they handle the payment.

Yes.

I give you a link to join the mastermind for that doesn't cost you any more money.

Got it.

So that subscription. So there's like 190 people that subscribe to me on X. Yep. They're in, they're in. The mastermind too. Okay. And then 710. Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah. Go direct through job.

Got it. That makes sense. Okay. Maybe, maybe that's why I, maybe, maybe I remembered you doing it on X and.

Yeah. Because I haven't figured out a way to tell them. There's a ton of friction trying to get people off of where they follow you.

I wonder why.

Yeah. It took me two months to get everybody off of X, out of that DM group.

Yeah.

And over to Kajabi. And I kept the only way I do it, I kept teasing them. Hey, I just posted this resource over here. If you want it, come sign up over here.

Yep.

I'm hosting this, this group AMA call. The link is in the new mastermind. Get over here and you can grab it. And I finally got, you know, I'm sure there's some people that never had come over and I have people who are just like, hey, I'm just subscribing. I don't want anything from you. I like your content.

Yeah.

School.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's great too.

No, that's a wonderful thing. Yes, yes. Yeah, that. I love this.

That's.

Congrats. I like.

Thanks.

And I. It's Kajabi. That's an. I don't know. I've heard you mention it before, but I, I, until this moment, I didn't quite understand what you were using it for.

Oh yeah.

And I, I love this. Like this.

Oh, it's killer. Dude. James. What's this guy? James Clear. He has his stuff up There.

But you could, like if you wanted to move these people to a different platform, you know who they are. Oh, you can support your list of people. Like this is just a, a software as a service. It's, it's facilitating you managing your community and you pay them whatever you pay them. Of course. Yeah. But it basically they just keep you from having to develop your own thing from scratch.

Oh yeah.

But it, it is your community. It's not because like your community on, on X is really. You are the steward of a sub community that belongs to X.

Yes.

Same with a Facebook group. Anything like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Your followers are borrowed on those platforms and they can be taken away and you know, if you don't, you could say one wrong thing or some weird thing happens and you could lose, you're done, you know, your followers in a heartbeat and, and that in turn you lose your distribution system. Right, because that's my distribution system.

Right.

Yeah. So trying to build something offline. Yeah, I, is very important and it's just so much more robust what, what you can do with it. It's, it's incredible. Yeah, it's really, really nice.

I love it. All right. Yeah, congrats. Thank you for sharing. Amazing.

Having a great time. Been a lot of fun.

All right, we have, we have one other sort of thought exercise that we, that, that I've, that I've been chewing on that I want to chew on together. So we'll do that. The next thing that we want to do is talk about our sponsors because when you're building a business, you're suddenly the CEO, the marketing department, the shipping clerk and if you're like most of us, the person googling how do we fix the thing? I just, it can be overwhelming and that's why I love that. Our sponsor Shopify is like having a built in business partner, minus the awkward small talk in the break room. Shopify powers millions of businesses around the world. 10% of all US E commerce. Just think about that for a second. I mean that's a lot. And that includes giants like Mattel to folks like me or you launching your first product. Like I said, we use Shopify with some of the other podcasts and to sell our merch. And it makes it so easy. It's super, super simp. And that's because they've got hundreds of ready to use templates. So you can build a gorgeous online store that fits your brand, no code needed. And their AI tools help you write product descriptions, headlines and even polish your product photos when it's Time to get the word out. Shopify's got marketing and email tools that make you feel like you've hired a whole team without needing to buy any extra chairs. Plus, they handle inventory, shipping, returns, and everything in between. Turn your big business idea into Ka Ching. With Shopify on your side, sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com businessbrain. Go to shopify.com businessbrain shopify.com businessbrain and our thanks to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. And you know, like we were saying, running a business means you're wearing a lot of hats. CEO, marketer, problem solver. And sometimes when you're out Googling, you're the person googling. How do I unbreak my website at 2am? And that's why we're fans here of our sponsor, Eversight. They're not your typical web agency. No $10,000 upfront fee. Instead, for 399 bucks a month, you get what's basically your own in house web team. They'll design, launch, and manage your site, respond to calls, emails and texts the same day, and never lock you into a long term contract. And they don't just wait for problems. They proactively manage hundreds of business websites every single day. And yours can be one of them. In fact, Shannon, yours is one of them.

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Amazing. Well, you can get started, folks, @eversight.com BB that's E V E R S I T E.com BB and our thanks to Eversight for, for sponsoring this episode. All right. This idea that I've been chewing on time kills all deals. We've said this for years. We've proven it time and again, individually, collectively. I know you folks have proven it too, Shannon. And I lived it collectively and also individually. But I started thinking about this other thing. I am someone who, I'm a passionate person. When I see things that aren't right, I push back on them.

Well, I think you have a deep sense of justice.

I do, Yes. I have a deep sense of justice.

I respect that. Drives me crazy sometimes, but I respect it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I also have a sense of when someone is leading me. If I'm in a scenario like that and they're not leading me the way I would like to be led, it's hard for me to bite my tongue and not share input that may or may not be desired or well received. And so I've been thinking about all of this, and I've come up with another phrase. Time. Well, perhaps an extension to this phrase, time kills all deals, but burned bridges kill future deals.

And.

And that's kind of a way that I help temper myself and think, do you. Is this really worth chiming in on this? Is it. Is it so important to solve the immediate injustice or, you know, leadership faux pas or lack of vision or, you know, whatever it is.

Yeah. Maybe you don't have to correct. Correct them.

Right.

Maybe you just kind of let it.

Let it go.

Yeah. Let it go. But that's hard.

It's hard. Yeah. For me especially. So, you know. Yeah. Burned bridges kill future deals. Is that.

I would agree with that. I think that also when you have disagreements or you have problems.

Yeah.

If, like, if I give example of my world, it often happens where, let's say you bought a bunch of product and it came and they said it's not as it's. It was represented.

Yes.

Well, I try to teach people, and I've done this my whole life is like, well, that's an opportunity. Right. Because you have a little bit and sometimes maybe a lot of leverage now.

Yeah.

And it all depends on the way you handle. Could be a great opportunity, or they could never want to sell to you again.

Yeah. You have the opportunity to lose all of your leverage. It's your choice.

You're in charge.

Yes.

Yeah. If you go flying into the situation and you're screaming and yelling and you let your anger or your ego or whatever get. And I've been there, and it. It does suck, and you do get angry, and it does bother you. But if you take a step back, take a deep breath, maybe you got to give it 24 hours, and you respond in a certain way. You know, you don't want to spot, respond, and back someone into a corner, whether it's a big business or an individual, because things don't turn out that way. And I think there's a good example of this statement is you burn a bridge and there will be no future deals when you burn the bridge with that vendor. Now, maybe you don't want to do business with them anymore.

Yeah.

But.

Even if you don't want to, even if you are convinced you don't want to do business with them, that person might move to another. It might not be their fault. Right. They might not be the owner of this. They might not be the causer of this injustice or this problem or whatever.

Yeah.

And they might move somewhere else. And even if they are the causer of the injustice, A, people change and evolve. But B, maybe somebody that works for them wants to do something else, you know, moves on and does something else. But they were taught by their boss, oh, don't deal with that guy.

You know, that's it. This is a disaster. You're in their CRM. Don't. Don't sell to this guy. Even if they're totally wrong.

Yes.

It's not about wrong or right. It's number one. How do they resolve the. Like, when I have a problem like that, I always go back and say, hey, guys, I don't want a refund. I'm trying to diffuse the situation.

Yes.

All I want is a credit that we can use to. When we buy more from you.

Yeah.

And. And I also say, I know you didn't make this mistake. Or I understand these mistakes happen. It's when you go in and try to scream and yell and blame someone, you burn the bridge.

Bridge is burned. Yeah. You gotta the. Well, I was gonna say, you gotta. A. A good approach is to think of and offer a way for them to save face.

Yeah, that's great. And when big companies, like, especially on the first deal that I ever do, if they do something wrong, I'm always just like, yes.

Yeah. Oh, it's great.

Yes. This is my opportunity to show them I'm easy to work with.

Yes.

And to try to gain leverage on the next deal. So when I'm talking to them in the future, I can say, hey, you know, you remember how we handled this last time when you didn't deliver X or these things were all broken? I thought we were pretty cool. I hope you take that into consideration on this next deal.

Yeah. You can give yourself credit for it once. Once. Once it's done.

Yeah, once it's done. So this is a. A definite truism.

Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure.

I don't know if it's made T shirt static status yet.

I think there's general rule. Yeah.

If you talk about it 10 times, if we resay it. Yeah. It'll go on a T shirt.

All right. There you go.

I like that.

Time kills all deals. That works on a T shirt.

That's a good one. Yeah. I don't know if I'm going to add that.

I don't know about this. You know, this, this. This allegory that we add onto it. Time kills burned bridges kill future deals. Folks, let us know what you think about all this feedback at Businessbrain Show. We would love to hear from you. In fact, we do love to hear from you. You can review us. BusinessBrain show. Review. And do us a favor, keep living that charmed life and we'll see you on Friday.

See ya.