Does the SBA Actually Help Small Businesses? Learning to Coach Your Customers

The Small business show episode 353 for Wednesday, November 10, 2021. Greetings folks and welcome to the Small Business show here at BusinessShow Co where we are small businessing every week. So sponsors for this episode include marpipe.comsbs where you can get $2,000 in credit between now and the end of the year. You're going to want to check that out and also napjitsu.com SBS because you are going to be a power nap power napper when you're done and you get 30% off on your way there. We'll talk more about both of those in a little bit. Here, here. Small Businessing in Durham, New Hampshire.

I'm Dave Hamilton and I'm small businessing as well. This is Shannon Jean at Lafayette, California. Something like that, sir. I love that. Napkitsu. I'm a huge fan of the power nap and I love it. Fifteen minutes, man. Crank.

Oh, that's it.

Change your life.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. It's a big deal.

It's great to see a business focused on that. I think it's cool.

I agree. Yeah. And normalizing it too. It's a. That's.

Yeah. Because some people frown upon it. Oh, you lazy bugger. You know, whatever. But when you're hustling all day, taking action, which we talk about constantly, it's good to just get a reset, recharge.

Yeah.

I like to do it in between my short term and long term projects.

Yeah.

Because it kind of brings me into focus and it's good stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, here we are talking about this without talking about it because we will do the sponsor spot later in the episode, but just the benefits of power napping, you know, I even the best part about power napping, for me, the, the part that really made a difference for me was when I gave myself permission not to have to fall asleep when I take a nap. I give myself. I have a timer and it's set for 22 minutes and I lay down and I know that in 22 minutes the timer's gonna go off whether I'm asleep or not. Like it doesn't know. And, and just knowing, okay, I've already given myself, you know, I've carved out the time in my schedule if you want to say, giving yourself permission or whatever. But you know, I know that I am not, I don't need to do anything for the next 22 minutes. So I, and I've planned to nap, but if I don't nap, I still get that Time as downtime. And once I stopped worrying about, oh, crap, if I don't fall asleep, then this power nap isn't good for me. Once I stop worrying about that, I actually fall asleep a whole lot faster.

Yeah, that's good. I like it.

Yeah. So there you go. Power. Power Napp. Power tips. Yeah.

So we're going to talk about a couple things today, right? We're going to talk about the sba, the Small Business Administration, in our introduction, and then we're going to jump in and talk about coaching your customers, which I think is a really interesting topic that you brought up. And I dug a little into it this morning, so I'm excited to talk about both.

I am, too. So, you know, the question about the SBA is, what good is the SBA for us small business owners? And we've heard this from a few of you, and I've heard it from myself over the years, too. So I. You know, I don't.

I don't know.

Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, man.

So I'm gonna preface this with I'm. I'm not a big fan of. Of big government. I don't like. And anytime the government's been involved with my business, it hasn't been a really positive experience.

I would put an asterisk on that.

Yeah, that's true.

The COVID funding was the first and potentially only time that I, as a small business owner, will see benefit from.

And I have that on my list of positive things about it. I will talk about. So I want to just preface it and say I am biased. There's no doubt about it. When I get, you know, when I see something from the government, I tend to run the other way. However, I will say a few good things. The SBA does. Their training and learning resources up on their website are all very well done.

Really.

They have a whole learning platform up there. And if you are not familiar with business or small business and you're just getting started, it is a great resource. I do like it.

I have no idea. I'm putting it in a link in the show. Notes for everybody.

They have a bunch of business guides. Everything from managing your finances, how to hire, buying assets. I mean, lots of stuff that someone has developed that are definitely useful, and it's a great resource. They talk about helping you get government contracts. I don't have any experience with that, and I don't know that I believe that. We had that guy on the show from the. Was that American?

Yeah.

Small business. He was very anti. Like, the small businesses aren't Getting contracts at all. So I'm not sure about that. I do. And I have used their guarantees to buy things, buy real estate, buy big pieces of equipment.

Okay.

That's real. They back up the banks, and the banks feel much better when the SBA guarantees the loan.

So you're talking about the SBA loans. Okay, got it. Yep.

They're just a guarantor or they're an additional guarantor. So if, you know, everything goes sideways, they're gonna. The bank is bank. Cause, you know, the bank, of course, wants a perfect guarantee, which doesn't exist, but.

Yeah. And. And 40 interest or something.

Yes, exactly. And. And then lastly, and not certainly least importantly, they definitely have stepped up during COVID and I believe. And I'm not sure they should get the credit for it though.

Right. They were the vehicle for it, but they wasn't there. It wasn't of their doing. Right.

And, and I. Yes. And I don't, I don't believe in picking, you know, left or right. It's the same wing of the. Was the same bird. So I think, though, that whatever happened that came about, that the e. The Eidl loans and the PPP loans dramatically saved us, the business owners and saved our economy.

Oh, yeah.

Because of their quick action when. When Covid, you know, shut everything down.

Yeah. And I agree with you, I stay out of partisan politics, but I think that, I think what we saw would have effectively happened regardless of. Of who was in power. I mean. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. I don't know that. That's why I really believe that you can't pick and go. Well, look, my side did. It didn't. That's not true.

There's no control group there, so. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No, I'm with you on that. I. And, but it's, it was, it was, it was a great way of doing it because it effectively was pre unemployment. Right. Like the paycheck protection kept people employed. And we were gonna, you know, we, as a people were going to pay those people if they lost their jobs, so why not pay them to keep their jobs? Right. Like, it's a really good, really smart way of doing it. I, you know, I have to think that that's, that that whole thing was pre. Choreographed as a, you know, if there's a pandemic, here are lots of options that we've run through that you could do or, or any kind of emergency that shuts down the economy. Here are the things we've thought through because it, it happened so quickly that it did it. I guarantee You. It was preconceived, and it was, you know, in a file somewhere. Like, I would agree, you know, break glass in case of emergency. Yeah, yeah.

And I don't know that employees understood or even understand no power of the PPP and how it kept them employed. And, you know, I tried thousands, millions.

Of dollars, I tried explaining it to our folks. And, I mean, they were appreciative of being able to stay employed, but I had to have that conversation with them before the PPP came out, like, you know, within the first two weeks of COVID I sat down because I looked at the finances and said, can we, you know, what can we do? And I knew that we had lots of Runway with both businesses. We had just come off of good years with both of them, and we had some extra cash, and so I knew that everything was going to be okay. And then it hit me one morning, I'm like, wait a minute. Our people that work for us don't see what I see. I need to tell them, you know, and so I went to a staff meeting. It just so happened it was on a Friday, which is a great day to tell people good news. And it is. Right? You know, and it's an awful day to tell people bad news or fire people.

Yes, it is.

Yep, yep. But I, you know, and I went to the meeting, and everybody was like, oh, thank you so much. Like, you know, they all said almost unanimously, the moment that I brought up the subject, they sort of assumed that they were going to be asked to take a pay cut. And they were all ready to take, like, you know, 10, 15, even 25%. One of them said, and they're like, yeah, we understand. Like, this is unprecedented. How could this be your fault? You know? You know, and they were, you know, the mentality was, we all want everybody to stay, so if that means we need to know, take a cut. And it was like, well, we don't have to. At least not right now. Like, I can't guarantee I don't know what's going to happen in six months. But I said, you know, we're good for several months. And then, of course, PPP came in, and then that really helped extend things along. And. And then. And then we're online businesses, so we recovered very quickly, and everything was all right. But. But, yeah. So, you know, so the SBA administered that. Right, Right, they did.

And. And if there wasn't that organization in place, maybe it would have been much tougher.

Right.

What. What vehicle would you. You know, we already had some accounts with them, they knew who we are. You're registered. They look at things and see, oh, they are a legitimate business, been around for a while, that kind of thing. And, you know, the. The one. I read a comment, I don't recall who said it, but it was that it was an economist. And he said the best thing that happened is the people in charge of making those decisions and funding those programs weren't afraid to. To make mistakes.

Right.

And because that often happens, like, well, we can't do it yet because we're not sure that it's all going to be handled correctly. And even though I'm sure it was rife with, you know, fraud at some level, they. Enough of it worked to keep things. To keep things going. And I commend them, and I agree with that comment is you just have to get it out there quickly to, you know, don't worry about it, because otherwise you freeze and you don't. You don't get anything done.

Right, right. Right. Yeah, exactly.

So, you know, if. If you've had great experience with the SBA and you think they're fantastic or, you know, something that you've used with them, let us know. Feedbackus show co. We'd like to hear from you.

Yeah, absolutely. Feedbackus show co. That's how we do it. Yeah. All right. So. Okay. All right. This is good. I. The training and learning resources that they have, they're the learning platform. I had no idea that existed, so I'm glad.

Impressive.

I'm glad we did this. I'm glad I asked the question.

Yeah, it's a great way to vet people that ask you for help, too. You can go, hey, go up there and do some of these things and then call me and if they want to start a business, because I get those calls all the time, and I really enjoy that part of my life right now, and I'm happy to advise people and talk and maybe invest, but primarily, you know, mentor people. So if you go up there and do this one, do that one, go through this process and let me know how that works. And you'd be amazed at how a large percentage of those people never call you back.

Yeah. It's a good litmus test, huh? Yeah.

You're trying to. Because I want, you know, if I'm going to help you, I want you to be committed as well and be willing to put the time in if you're. If you want some of my time, I expect your time to be exponentially more involved in your own business, obviously.

Ah, yeah. But. But as as we all seem to find out, what most people want is us to come in and sprinkle our magic fairy dust on their businesses. And what that magic fairy dust is, is work. Like, yes, like, it's just do grind work.

The action. The action right now, that's, that's what builds overnight successes. It may take you 20 years or 10 years or something like that, but it is the, it is doing the work. And a lot of folks on the other side of the, the paycheck don't understand that. And you know, as a society, we kind of hoist these business leaders up as heroes. Right. Especially as they get more successful. So it's, I think it makes it kind of easy to look at those people and go, wow, I really want what they have. But, you know, you should watch the video where Elon Musk talks about sleeping, you know, in his office for a year and making minimum wage at Tesla just to buy food.

Yeah.

Because he invested every penny he had in, in the company.

You know, I was having this conversation with some friends of mine that are very much in the anti billionaire camp.

Okay, okay.

And I said to him, and they were talking about Elon Musk. And even in this conversation, it started out as an online thing, which is never productive with any of this, but, you know, it's fine. And one of them was like, you know, Elon Musk should pay taxes. And then another one who is also in the anti billionaire camp was like, well, yeah, but look, he did just say that if $6 billion would solve world hunger, he would happily do it. Right. Somebody came out and said, you know, 2% of Elon Musk net worth would, would solve world hunger. He was like, I'll write the check today. Like, let's go.

Show me.

Yeah, show me, show me how it'll work. Be transparent with the finances, and I will write the check, no question. And, and they were saying, yeah, but, you know, he's still just a billionaire and, and therefore we hate him. And, and I. My feelings on Elon Musk. He is an anomaly in the world.

He sees the world, the billionaires.

All correct. But I think he's also an anomaly amongst the billionaires. I, I think he is unique. I have never seen someone that thinks the way he does. And I don't say that by way of implying that I understand his thoughts. I don't understand his thoughts. He sees things. And I really think, and this is just having sort of detached myself from who he is and then paid attention to him. So basically looking at him objectively like, I have no emotional attachment to whether Elon Musk succeeds or fails or is a good guy or a bad guy. But, like, I think what he does is he gets super frustrated when he sees a problem that everyone can't solve. And he, the, the solution is obvious to him in all of these cases. And, you know, you start with, with X dot com, right? Which, which came PayPal. Like here we were fumbling around trying to solve this online payment thing. He's like, well, just do this. Like, what are you people, idiots? And I really think that's how he sees the world. Like, we're just a bunch of idiots that can't figure out these things that are super obvious to him. And I know we've all experienced that at some level, right? Where, you know, you're in a conversation, somebody's like, I just don't know how to do this. And you're like, but you just grab this and pull it and put it over here. What's the problem? Oh, and then he looks at.

Definitely looks at things different, framing differently.

Right. He sees things. And the same with Tesla, right? With the battery technology.

Yeah, that's right.

The same with traffic in la. He's like, well, just let's borrow a tunnel, let's see what happens. That's right. Right. So I think he is. I'm really curious to see what. And I know this is a super tangent for us, but I'm curious to see. I think Elon Musk, he's not, he's about our age, you know, ish. I think he is still in the money earning phase of his life.

Oh, I agree, I agree.

Right. Like, he's not, I know he's worth hundreds of billions.

Well, I'm going to comment on that.

But he's earning it. He's not building wealth yet, although he doesn't need to. And he's definitely not in the distribution of wealth phase. And I'm really curious to see. The proof will be in the pudding what kind of human he is when he gets to that distribution of wealth phase. Because he really hasn't gotten there yet.

Yeah. And I think part of the problem is the way these quote billionaires, way it's presented in the media and everything else, you know, they say, oh, he's worth, you know, $300 billion or whatever it is, $100 billion.

Well, no, it's three. It's like three.

And have that money, you know, yes, he's wealthy and maybe, I don't know, you know, obviously the specifics. But he May have, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars in his possession. I don't know, maybe he has less. Who knows? Maybe he's got nothing. But those billions are wrapped up in his performance and his company's performance. So it's, that's unrealized gain, right?

Yeah.

And it's maddening to me that they talk about it like, you know, he's got, he's got to sell things he owns to get that money. So that's, that's like it, it's not liquid and it changes every day. Something terrible could happen. Hope it does not. But that could change. He could lose half his value in a day.

Yeah.

And so everybody wants the upside, but most, almost all, including the government. I'm not going to rant. They don't want to take any of the downside risk.

That's right. He takes all of the downside risk. Yeah. That's why I'm saying he's not in wealth protection mode. Maybe that's a better way of putting it. He's in earning mode, not in wealth protection mode. He is risking everything all the time. You know, when you fill it out on your tax return, like, you know, you have this business, is it, are you an active participant or is it passive and you're treated differently tax wise? For him, it's all active. Like, I mean, I'm sure he structures it in ways that he takes advantage of the things he can by calling them passive. But like he is active in all of the things that he does. His net worth is tied up in all of it. Yeah, it's. He's a different kind of billionaire from my vantage point. It's interesting. Dude. Yeah.

The whole argument of billionaires or not that. Well, it's just a, it's just the way our thing is structured.

It is.

And, and it's easy to complain. What would you do different?

Right.

You know, a guy like him who's gonna. We're not gonna make the whole show about this, but we could do a whole show about it. But a person like him that they're, you know, that has risked everything. He lives in a metal box down in Boca Chica on the base of where they're trying to get people to Mars. I mean, I don't know.

Yeah, he's committed. He's not.

Yeah. Yes.

Yeah. I don't think. I think he is driven by a lot more than just simple greed. I don't want to say that greed isn't part of it because I don't know, but it seems pretty obvious that he is driven to solve problems and most of his earnings are a byproduct of that. Not. Yes, the focus of that. Yeah. Correct. Yeah.

Yeah.

I want to talk about what to do with some of our earnings here because there are things that can be done to help us with our businesses and with our lives. So I would love to talk about our two sponsors. If that works for you, Mr. Chapman.

Let's do it.

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Sure.

You know, and there's there's It's a whole different thing because it's not just a business. It's a passion. It's something people enjoy. It's a hobby for a lot of people that they happen to be able to get paid for, but they really just want to go out and play at some bar for their friends. And so there's lots of musicians who would be happy to do this for free, and that's bad. And then there's musicians who want to get paid something but don't want to not get the gig. And so if a club says, you know, will you take a discount for. You know, will you. Will you do this for a discount? Many times they'll say yes. And. And so we were talking yesterday about this and how to politely decline a. A discounted booking request. And Paul said something that really stuck with me, so much so that I wrote it down on my quartet here, but. And said, we got to talk about this on small business show. He said, you need to coach your clients into good behavior. Coach your customers into good behavior. And what he meant in that scenario was don't leave it with a big middle finger in the air. Right. If you're going to say no, say, you know, say no and explain why. Say, hey, look, you know, I appreciate what you're going through there with your business, and if that's what you can afford to pay, that's great. This is my income. I need to preserve what I can do. I can't book a date where I'm taking up time where I could be somewhere else earning more. And so I'm going to say no for now, but leaving the door open that when they get to a point where they can afford to pay whatever your fair wage is, that they would come back to you. And that whole idea, you know, we talk about leading and pacing on this show and it's. That same sort of thing is making sure that when you say when you. Especially if you have to say no or not that way to a customer, you are leading them down the path of future success, both for them and for you together. I thought. I just thought it was a. I love the topic. Yeah.

I would say from someone who's not a musician on the outside, if we're talking about that in specific, I would suggest that a lot of places don't even think of musicians as small business owners.

Most musicians don't think of themselves as business owners.

So that mindset is probably where the place to start is informing them, like, oh, this is my. Even if it's Your side hustle, which it probably is. It's not just a bunch of guys or a few people, I should say, hanging out and playing so they can have a few beers and have fun. This is actually our, you know, our side business and we wanted to treat you as such.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's interesting. I love this idea of coaching your customers and I'm a huge fan of pacing and leading. I'm a huge fan of being straightforward and upfront with your customers or your clients so they know, they understand how you expect to be treated, how your business expects to be treated, how you expect your employees to be treated. So I'm definitely interested in digging into this topic.

Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's an important thing. And I love the idea of being your customer's coach. Yeah.

But they don't. You can't really come out and tell them that.

Right.

How your actions.

Right. It's the leading and pacing of it. Like, you know, you don't tell people, I'm leading, I'm pacing you so that I can lead you later. You know, you just do it and, and let it happen as organically as possible. Yeah. This is a part of that where. Yeah, yeah.

In a multi step process.

Absolutely.

Yeah. It usually doesn't happen just with one interaction. It's how you present yourself, present your products, present your services in such a way that everybody's on the same page. You hope.

You hope. Right. Yeah. It's leaving everything so that you're right, everybody's happy, everybody feels respected and you're still moving the things towards where you want them to be.

That's right. And I think when I started thinking about this concept that you brought up, one of the things that's important in, you know, I don't believe, and we've talked about it on the show, you can't bury, you know, things, you can't bury your customers in terms and conditions. Not only does it not work, but it starts the relationship off in a negative way. I think we're going to have. There's a big. Actually I think it might go to the Supreme Court, the terms and conditions suits that are running through the courts right now that eventually they're not going to be able to, you know, you click yes to a 50 page thing that no one reads. I think that's going to change. So I don't think you could, you can have page after page of this stuff thinking it's going to protect you. However, your customers should know what your policies are before you do business. With them, it's really important that they know before, not that you're springing, oh, we don't do that. And then they wait. I thought, you know, this, you know, and even though you can't bury them in those terms and conditions, you can make certain things clear before you begin that customer relationship. You know, if you, it's true if.

You have to, if you are planning on relying on your terms and conditions after the fact, everybody has lost by the time you begin reading them or your customer begins reading them. And you're right, you can't expect people to read pages and pages. But there are ways of presenting your terms and conditions in perhaps a distilled way. And then if they need to be more specifically laid out, then, you know, you have them for people to read that they won't read. But at least they know whatever the important things are. I think of a contract, if it's a scenario where a contract makes sense. I think of a contract as a reflection, a tangible reflection of the conversations that have already happened. I like to use contracts as negotiation tools so that we are logging the things we're agreeing to as we do it. Right. But it's not this thing to be read afterwards. It's the, this thing that if you read it, certainly at the time that you are entering into the business relationship and signing the contract, there should be zero surprises in there if you choose to read it because all the things have already been discussed. And I think that's an important, that's really good. And again, it can be top level things like the way we pay you is we pay you 30 days after we get paid. Okay, great. Now you can take four paragraphs to detail exactly how that works in a contract. And maybe you should, depending on the nature of the relationship. But that one sentence, we pay you 30 days after we get paid. Okay, that's the gist, right? That covers it. Like if they read the four paragraphs of minutia, the gist isn't going to be, it's not going to be a surprise to them. It's going to be, oh, I see. This is how that's accomplished. Okay, great, no problem.

Yeah, and I think it's good too, if you're, even if you're selling products or providing services, it's to try to explain in simple terms what support you do offer and what you don't offer or what is beyond the normal scope of support that you charge for. Right?

Oh, yeah.

You know, I have experience with this in these, you know, tech companies that I'VE owned is that, you know, customers sometimes can get it in their head that, well, I paid for this, I bought it and now I need like, oh, I bought an iPad or a Mac or whatever, and now I'm going to call for support because I want your help installing Photoshop or these kinds of things. And so we had to develop, you know, clear policies that were just, okay, here's what comes with this product and we did it via product pages. Here's what you get, here's the support that is included. We do offer another level support at a paid thing. So you're trying to keep it in a small, little, as small as you can.

You're sharing the gist. You're sharing the gist of it. Like, okay, there's some support that's free, there's some support that's paid. I mean, that might be all you need to say. And then here's the details if you would like to get into that of which bits and pieces those are. But like being able to say that some support is included and maybe that's all you need to say, maybe some support included.

It depends on what your business is.

What your business is, you start to have problems.

Okay. And I would also, on the flip side, I always used to make this comment to my employees, hey, we don't set policy on anecdotal experiences just because we had one person push the envelope or try to do this. We're not going to go put a bunch of extra terms and conditions on the website or add a bunch of stuff. So you, you kind of spot trends and you say, you know what, we're, we're not explaining this correctly or we should add this or let's take that out because that's, we've had a number of people, you know, infer that we do something. So, and I think a big part, if you're in the product business, you really have to spell out simple and clear what your return policy is. It's a great way to train your customers.

I knew you would bring in return policy somehow into this conversation. But I know, I know, I know that like your return policy is your secret weapon with your businesses and has. Has.

It's a marketing tool.

Exactly. Yes.

And if you think of it like that, it a lot, it allows you to have a conversation. Most people try or most companies want to hide it.

Right.

You know, because they don't do it. But if you, if you turn it on its head and go, no, dude, you don't, you know, we'll take it Back. You don't like it. Whatever. It's. I used to have this argument all the time. It's like, okay, are you going to do 30 day returns? And then I would ask the customer, sir, what are you going to do if somebody argues at, at 35 days? Or are they, you going to take it back? And he goes, yeah. And I go, well, then do 35 day returns. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

It's you, you really, you. Nobody wants to do returns or you want to do 14 days or whatever it is. But if you really think about it and you promote the fact that you have this great return policy, it's good marketing. I mean, Amazon did it, you know, shoot. Yeah, you know, they figured it out too. One of the things that sticks out to me about, you know, coaching your customers is to make it clear to the customer when you are negotiating and when you are not. Because the customer, if they think like, you know, we used to, you know, we have set prices, it was not the negotiation. I'll give you X for that. No, but you know, you need to let them know, like, well, no, this is just the way we offer or the way we operate. And yes, we'd love to have a relationship with you, but if, if you don't agree with those kinds of things, we respectfully, and we'll even give you a referral to somebody else that, that does things a little bit different. But that's really important and it's important for you to get across to your employees as well. It's like, this is not a negotiation. You know, we're going to help if, if they bought a product and they're having problems with and they're just so upset. Well, we're upset too, right? We believe in the two tokens aspect or, you know, method of customer service. So we are already like, oh, no, this is terrible. And so the first thing we always say, let me send you a label and get you a full refund because this has been so devastating. Well, you know, you want to slow them down with that comment, but it's not a negotiation. The worst thing or the, the most we're going to do for you is just give you all your money back and make you whole again. I can't give you back the hour of your time or whatever. I just can't. No one can. But I'm going to do it in a great way to do it. So we're not negotiating about this. This is just the way it is.

No, and I think that's helpful even up Front with, you know, when people come in, because we have some products here at Backbeat Media that are fixed price, not negotiable, and they, they are the kinds of things that are generally sold to, well, we'll call them the bottom feeders. These are the, the people that are just out to their, their small price. It's like 250 bucks. It's just this little package thing. And, and, and they'll come in and they'll say, okay, well I'll give you, you know, $40 for that.

Yeah.

And we tell them the price is 250. And, and it, it, you know, I would say 80% of the time they just pay the two 50 and then the other 20% they eventually walk away. But what we get out of that is twofold. A, we don't have to mess with these people. I mean, if they come back once and say, we'll do it for $40, we say, no, the price is 250. They come back again and they say, I'll do it for $50. We don't reply like, we're just, we're just done. They might come back two weeks later and say, I'm still waiting for your response. It's like, okay. And then we may not reply then either. But it does give us the opportunity to rehearse the idea of saying, of holding firm with our customers. Like, this is the, this is the way this works here. And you can do it politely but firmly and clearly. And that alone has been hugely valuable because then when we're dealing with the customers that actually pay our bills, it, you know, we, we have that confidence that everybody's always going to ask for a deal and you can, and that's okay. Like I ask for deals all the time too, you know, and I have to remind people of that. Like, you know, remember, we're not. Yeah.

And those people that pay what you set are your primary customer.

They're your primary customer. That's it. And this is how you weed this out. And so by, by explaining that it's not a negotiation. I'm reminded of it was my friend Colin Crawford, I think, who ran bits and pieces of IG and Mac Publishing for a long time. He was, famously tells the story of when he was in a room with Steve Jobs and they were working out the deals for how things were going to work, I think at a Macworld Expo. I don't remember the specifics, but it was, you know, it was some thing. And Steve was there negotiating on behalf of, of course, Apple and Steve Said to Colin, he said, I need to tell you this isn't a negotiation. This requires a change of thinking on your part. I love it.

It's powerful, right?

Yeah, it sure is. I mean, that's a little bit rude, but it does. Like, you can take that sentiment and share it in a kinder way.

Yeah. The next sentence in my notes is, be confident in your value, the value of your employees and your products and services, and don't feel, don't let your customers set prices or discount terms or dictate terms. Don't do it. And if you're constantly running into this with particular customers, you need to think, oh, maybe these people are not my primary.

Maybe they're not my primary customer. Yeah.

And it's okay to fire them in a great way. That keeps the door open. And I used to say it all the time. We had certain school districts that we were doing repairs for, and it was just impossible. And my customer service people be like, you know, they would expect everything to be. I mean, if you ever bought an Apple refurbished product, it comes to you looking brand new. Okay. And it's, it's great. So when we would refurbish an iPad, well, we weren't Apple, and, and so we were taking their case, primarily case parts, and putting new screens and new internals and whatever else was broken on there. So they would get it back and the case would be the same. And they would say, you know, we just, we, we can't accept this. We can't accept it. So a few times, you know, and after it didn't take long, it's like, look, we just, our service doesn't do that. We're not the right fit. If you need to do it differently, please do so, you know, and you have to, or otherwise you're going to drive yourself nuts for sure. And you want to keep it positive. You want to train yourself, your employees to always be upbeat and supportive, even when you're delivering the, you know, the no, we can't help you message.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

A couple of things I have on this topic is really important on this. Coaching is, is from day one, from the day you hire them, even maybe an interviewer. When you get in going and you're training people and onboarding them is you need to empower your employees that they're to be respected. Everyone gets treated respectfully in your company, whether it's by managers, by fellow employees, and by your customers. If there's ever a customer that's just laying into, you know, one of your team Members and you hear it or whatever. You just, you have to get involved or your managers have to get involved and nip that in the bud. Because no one, if you let people treat you that way, they will over and over. And if you nip it in the bud, you'll either eliminate that customer in your, your life or you'll change their behavior.

Yeah, that makes sense. I buy that. Yeah.

A couple of things, you know, had.

To digest that a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mentioned the two tokens, you know, concept of customer service. That is a terrific way to, you know, coach your customers. When you grab the right token first, there's only two. And you need to go back and listen to. We'll put it in the show notes, the two tokens episode that we've done it a few times. You're coaching your customers to take the other token and how their response should be. And it works, you know, 99% of the time.

It's amazing. No, I already put the link in the show notes to make sure we didn't miss it. Yeah, it's. It's amazing how well it works. You just have to remember to employ it that honestly. That's the hardest part about that concept.

Teaching your people to do it as well and using examples to show them how it works. It's powerful. And a lot of this entire concept is, I think, about managing expectations. If your company, your employees, and you also have expectations of being treated well by your customers, the vast majority of your customers are going to treat you well. Your people are going to be more upbeat, more positive when they answer the phone, even when they're solving problems in the customer service because they know they're not going to get ripped apart, you know, versus talking to some customer service at the person at the cable company where everybody's yelling at them and treating them like dirt, even though they have no. They're not involved in how the company works. You don't do that, you know, take, make. Your people should be really positive. And during that process, you gotta remember you're also responsible for providing what I like to call epic customer service. But that doesn't mean you have to let people walk all over you and they shouldn't.

No, that's right. Yeah. You can be kind with people while still having boundaries, and you can serve your customers while still having boundaries. In fact, that can be a strength if you present it the right way. Like, look, you know, we, we can't do everything because if we did, we wouldn't have time to do the things that are, that, you know, are the most valuable to you as our customer. So at this point, we're not the right people to help you with this anymore. And maybe later we will be. But right now, but right now we're not. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's, it's good to it. So, you know, that's kind of my take on coaching, you know, your customers a lot of this pacing and leading, setting expectations, being transparent, working things up, you know, getting things out there up front before you start the relationship. Really important. We would love to hear from you. You know, how do you coach your customers and train your customers, if you will, to respond the way you want to? Feedbackusinessshow. Co. We would love to hear from you.

Yeah. Feedbackusinessshow. Co. That's what my friend Mr. Gene said here, and he is correct.

Go leave us a review at your podcast player of choice. We'd love to hear what you have to say about the show.

Yeah. And you can go to, you can do that@businessshow.co reviews. That'll get you to as close as we can get you to the Apple podcast reviews and then we'll go from there. How's that sound, folks? Yeah. Thanks so much for listening. Make sure you check out our sponsors, marpipe.comsbsnapg jiu jitsu.comsbs and think about ways that you have already been coaching your customers and share them with us. That feedbackusinessshow.com, you can use it for lots of different things, and that's one of them. Because when we share all this stuff together, that's how we all get to the point where we're living the charmed life. So keep that up. We'll see you next week.