How Not to Treat Critics - a Dark eBay Story

Business Brain, the Show for entrepreneurs, episode 516 for Wednesday, January 17, 2024. Greetings, folks, and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take a few topics, we dissect them, we cogitate on them, we discuss them so that every single one of us, me, him, you, all of us, get to tune our business brains together every single episode. Sponsors for this episode include shopify.com businessbrain, where you can sign up for a $1 per month trial, and miro.com podcast where you get your first three Miro boards for free. 1. Talk more about them in a little bit. For now, back here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton and still here.

Out in Lafayette, California, I'm Shannon Jean. How you doing, man?

I'm good, I'm good. Yeah, I was out at ces. We'll talk about that, I think, on Friday's episode. But, but yeah, I'm back here. Yeah.

That's awesome.

Yeah, that's good.

That's good.

How was your week?

It was good. It was, you know, it's interesting when I'm, when we pre record and I, I miss a week. It, it. Sometimes it's liberating.

Yes.

Other times I find myself kind of falling out of the routine of, oh, I got to talk about this. I got to talk about, you know, picking up topics, especially that, that I want to talk about. So. But I did have something come up this morning that I definitely wanted to chat about. Before we jump into the main.

The main. The meat of the episode, which is made up of cockroaches and pig's blood.

So cockroaches and pigs blood today, which is going to be fascinating.

It.

And it is relevant chances. Excuse me. So I today I made one of the last tuition payments to my son's college. My. I have two kids. My daughter's finished up. She went to school back in Manhattan. Marriott or Marriott. Mary Mount Marymount. Manhattan is. I'm thinking of points. That's where that Mary combat came in. And then my kids. So when my kids went to go to school, you know, I had them fill out a Google sheet and list the schools they wanted to go to, the cost associated with housing, tuition, the whole nine yards.

It did exactly the same thing. This is fat. You and I never talked about this. This is fascinating. Yeah.

And I wanted them to pitch the ROI on each school because I a huge ROI guy. What are we getting out of that? You know, how long is that gonna. What's the value in. Yeah, we spend a dollar on. And one of the Things that came about in that exercise, which I did not know before my kids went to college, was that which schools would allow you to pay your tuition with a credit card. And not only that, but which schools allowed you to pay with a credit card without any fees.

Right, because that was going to be my question because almost every school that I, that my kids looked at would let you pay with a credit card, but there was a, you know, three and a half percent fee or something like that.

That's just not worth it, right?

No, it didn't used to be that way. Most everybody just took credit cards. But, but now. So did you find schools that don't charge?

My daughter's. Yeah, my daughter's school, which, which is, you know, it was like 70 grand a year, some ridiculous amount. The first two years, credit cards, no fees, no problem. It was fantastic. And so we just get the third year when she became a junior, that's when they started hitting the fee. So we couldn't do that. My son's school, which is not quite as expensive at unr, they've never charged a fee.

Okay. So they just have, they, they have yet to adopt that, that practice.

Someone is going to drill down eventually and say, hey guys, you're paying thousands of extras in fees and you don't have to.

Yeah.

But in the meantime, it's allowed me to rack up hundreds of thousands of points.

Oh yeah.

Starwood points or Marriott points, wherever you want to use them. We like to travel and we, we, we travel in a fashion that we would not pay for if we were paying cash.

Yep.

Like fly first class or business. And we like to stay at hotels that we otherwise would not stay at.

You wouldn't pay cash for those hotels?

No, the rooms are not worth it. We're not in the room that much because we're out running around. But it is nice to go back to a huge room and get.

Oh yeah, the suite, the suite. The Marriott suites are wonderful. As long as you're not paying cash for them. Right?

Yeah. And the concierge stuff is terrific too. That comes along with it. So that's just, you know, and I posted that up on Twitter today. It's like, hey, this is something to think about when you have these high dollar purchases. I did the same with our FedEx and UPS bills. At one time we were paying about $250,000 a month in shipping invoices.

Yeah.

And the way I got, the way I would award those accounts because FedEx, UPS, they would fight and basically match each other.

Sure.

You know, and it just became a service. What was services better and they're about the same. So I just say, well if you can take my credit card, I'll give you the business.

You win.

Yeah, they win. And they would win and we would switch every year, every two years they would come fight and do a little lecture but they always had to take our credit cards. So it allowed us to rack up millions and millions of points that, you know, I sent my mom and, and three of her friends to Europe first class. Everything taken care of. And those are wonderful parts of being able to live a charmed life that you otherwise wouldn't pay for. It's pre tax benefit. The IRS hasn't figured out a way.

To, to, you know, that's coming too.

So not, you know, they don't listen to this show fortunately. So you know. Anyway, I just wanted to point out you always have to look for opportunities to enhance your life. And when you've got a business and you've got some credit cards we've talked about if you just go up to businessbrain show, you'll search for credit cards or affinity points.

I believe our first publicly released episode, which I think was episode two or three, I don't think anybody ever heard episode one, but I'm pretty sure we talked about the benefits of credit card points on our. Because it's something you and I have always bonded over. So.

Yeah, yeah, it's just a game changer. Lots of people say it's not worth it, but.

But if you manage, I disagree.

Yeah, absolutely. If you have the cash flow to pay it off every month and that's actually you're, you're go. And listen, you know, inter statement payments are the key, right. Because you're not going to have 100 grand on your Amex. But if you pay it off every two, you know, every day you can get that and keep going and going and going until all of a sudden you get. Somebody calls you that says hey, I'm your rep from amex and I'm your personal rep. Yeah. And that's awesome. You're like, oh great, you want to be my rep and I'm going to help you. And so look into that. You know, you've got kids and they're working on that. Add it to the spreadsheet that you get them to fill out.

All right, look, it's really easy to lose track of the big picture when you're like stuck in the weeds and opening a new window for every detail that you're trying to manage. Right. With our sponsor, Miro, you can bring everything and everyone together in one place. You can consolidate different points of view and increase team collaboration all on one centralized board. With Miro, Miro brings a lot of things together in one spot. Right? So you have an online whiteboard, a mind mapping tool, a space to just jot down ideas and, and really just brain dump individually and then also collectively. So we're here at the beginning of the year. One of the things we like to do is, you know, telling the story of our business. And it's good to look back at what happened last year as we're planning for this year and using Miro to do something like a retrospective for your business, to really kind of dissect what happened in the previous year. You can pull all of these things together and then when you do that, you start to see some trends, you start to see some patterns, and you've got multiple sets of eyes looking at this all at the same time, but different ways. And then next year, when you go and do this same thing, you've got your Miro board from this year to look at, reflect against. Right? This is the kind of thing that can really make a difference in seeing the big picture for your business. Of course, you can also use Miro to get into the nitty gritty, like, you know, product planning and road mapping and all of that can all be right here as well. You are going to love this. You got to check it out. Find simplicity in your most complex projects with Miro. Your first three Miro boards are free when you sign up today@miro.com podcast. That's right, three free boards@miro.com podcast and our thanks to Miro for sponsoring this episode. Next up are our friends and our sponsor at Shopify. It's true. Shopify makes life so easy to just get your stuff online for sale right away. I love to tell the story about how we had this business going and we decided we needed to have merchandise that we could sell, you know, hats and mugs and T shirts and things like that. And we had a meeting one morning where we talked about this and it was decided we were going to do it. And it was obvious that I was in charge of making this happen for this particular venture. And I really didn't have an idea as to what to do. By the end of that day, we had made our first sale on Shopify. And that's because Shopify makes it so easy. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your Business from the I didn't even know we were going to be selling things today stage to the we just took our millionth order stage, right? Shopify is there to help you grow. So it doesn't matter whether you're selling merch or shipping supplies or even promoting productivity programs, right? Hey, Shopify helps you sell everywhere. From their all in one e commerce platform to their in person pos Wherever and whatever you're selling, Shopify's got you covered. Because businesses that grow grow with Shopify. So sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com businessbrain all lowercase go to shopify.com businessbrain now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com businessbrain and our thanks to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. All right, Shannon, we promised everybody that we were gonna talk about cockroaches and pig's blood. Why is that relevant to.

So we got a listener email from Robert, and the title was the Dark side of Ebay. And if you'd listen to the show at all. You know, I've always had one or more businesses on ebay, and ebay is always a great place to a B test, and I love it. I've done a lot of work with them, done consulting. You know, it's just a great platform. And generally speaking, the people are amazing. Especially today, this is a discussion about a bunch of previous employees and the previous CEO.

Got it. Got it. Okay.

You know, and there's a. There's. If you're in the marketplace business, there is a website and a newsletter called E Commerce Bytes. They've been around forever, and they are especially, you know, ebay went through a. A time that they were not very well. They didn't appreciate sellers, let's say that.

Okay, customer, they were more focused on the people spending the money than the people providing the services that people were spending the money for.

Yeah, correct. And it took a long time for them to kind of get over that, and now it kind of shifted dramatically. And they do some great stuff, and I highly recommend getting involved with their team, but they had a CEO at the time that in a group of people that took offense to some criticisms that the husband and wife team that published E Commerce Bites had published in their newsletter everything. And so according to this that's come out, ebay just paid a $3 million fine for the way they handled this. And a couple of people went to prison for what they. What they did to this couple. And it was a massive threat and harassment campaign. Yeah. We'll link it in the show notes at BusinessBrain Show. And where I'm going with this, I want to describe it a little bit more because it's fascinating, but how do you keep your employees from. Excuse me.

From partaking, from hitting the microphone while they're talking?

Yeah, that's it. Hey, it's only been nine years. I'm just getting started, getting learning here.

That's right.

But, you know, the CEO, Devin Wenig, I think is his last name, he made the comment and told his team, we need to crush these people. And whether that was an offhand remark or a marching order, said literally, we need to destroy them. The team and the folks, they took it to heart, and they really started harassing these people, mailing them things like live cockroaches, live spiders, masks covered with pig blood.

And when did this happen?

So back in 2020. Let's see.

It looks like 2019.

2019.

Yeah. Is what I'm looking at.

Okay, Devin.

So it wasn't that long ago. I mean, I realized that the. The. The people that did this and. And the CEO, that sort of. I don't want to say. I don't know. I don't know whether I should say he allowed it to happen. But the CEO under whom this happened is no longer there.

And I've met this guy, and he was fascinating. I spoke at a conference with the top 500 eBay executives or whatever back then. And Devin's very capable guy. He, you know, helped turn things around on ebay. But this is. They let their. They took things personal. They were commenting on. On the CEO's salary when eBay was going through a tough time. And. And so they just. It was a group of people in their security department, apparently, that really just tried to destroy these people.

Wow.

Yeah. So my question is, you know, number.

One, what a weird thing for a company to do. I've been like, I understand the impulse, Right. Like, we are heading into political season, which means my phone, and I'm sure your phone, and I don't just mean you, Shannon. I mean everybody who's listening. Our phones are being inundated with spam texts from political candidates, and I mark each one of them, you know, report as spam or whatever. Doesn't matter whether it's somebody I would even consider voting for or not. I just, like, I do it, but it doesn't work. Right. And so I have thought, what. These are unsolicited political messages. Wouldn't it be great to respond with something terribly Offensive in an unsolicited way. And like, part of me says, oh, yeah, that's the way to get them. But the other part of me is, like, if I do that, I'm liable for what I send to people. Like, I'm responsible. Whether I'm liable or not is up to the courts to decide. But certainly I am responsible, especially if I know there are other humans on the end of this. So I have not. I just hit the report and block button and I move on with my life. But I get the impulse to go nuts. But you can't act on that, especially when you're a company. Like, you can't act on it when you're just Dave and his phone. You especially can't act on it with your company, publicly traded company, even if it's not. But yes, that doesn't help matters.

Yeah, I've kind of. And lately, you know, I've been really kind of leaning into this. This thesis that all business problems are leadership failures on some level. Oh, it. And, And I'm going to keep pushing that because I want to be able to defend it better than I can right now. But I've really started to think about it. You know, we talk about hiring and firing and how it's a failure of.

Man, I don't disagree with you.

Yeah. And certainly as the leader of a company of any size, yes, you get frustrated, yes, you get upset, but you set the tone. You know, if you're even in a joking way, ridiculing your customers or talking bad about them or talking smack to your employees about them, your employees, that frames how they view your clients and your customers or, or people in this case that were just outside review, you know, independent folks, you know, writing about your business. So while you may think that comment is flippant and, you know, funny or something like that, it gets internalized and.

Oh, for sure. I had an employee that I. That could have done very, very well here. And on their first day, we were on a call with. With a vendor that we were thinking about working with. And I made a comment to this vendor because their pricing was just absurd. And I said something. I'm going to leave the details out of this because I don't want to out this particular employee because they are a fantastic employee. But it's. It was not appropriate. I. But I set the tone for how we do things here because they were on that call with me and that defined how things were to the point where it didn't work out because this person was wound up being Too rough around the edges. But it's like, I know that it wasn't their fault. It was my fault for setting that tone on day one. And.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

And that. And that happens. So that. That's really the takeaway here, is think about your words, your actions as a leader, whether it's you or your managers, your. Your VPs, your supervisors, however your. Your structure's set up.

Yep.

The way you speak about your customers. And it's. It's super important, very impactful, and it, you know, I mean, obviously this is an extreme case, but that's why I wanted to bring it up because, you know, look out this. It went down this road where people just went nuts with it and thought that, you know, the comments from the CEO and, you know, we don't know what really happened or how it went down.

No, but they took them. They took the comments more literally than.

Yes.

Ever. It needed to happen and perhaps was ever intended. But you have to be careful when you say things. The other thing that I will never do, I have done it before, but I never do it. And when I find myself even dancing into this area, I stop and apologize. And that is joking about firing people.

Oh, yeah, you can't.

Because even if everybody knows it's a joke, if you're the one who makes those decisions and signs people's checks, it's not a joke. Like somebody's thinking, oh, crap, like, is it me? Or. It sets the tone even if they're not consciously aware of it. So, yeah, that's another.

Most. Most, you know, small business owners don't start out being great leaders.

And, you know, I'm still a terrible leader.

Like, it's a learned thing.

It's not, you know, I'm a pretty good leader. I'm a terrible manager, and I still maintain.

Difference.

Yeah, there is a difference.

A difference. There's a difference. And I think we've done a show about those differences. And so, you know, just. Just take it to heart. Go read this article up at BusinessBrain show and tell us your horror stories. FeedbackUsBrain Show. I'd love to, you know, hear about it and how you turn things around. I've got some more stories I could tell, but I'll save it for another show.

Sounds good. Like he said. Feedbackusinessbrain Show. We definitely love to hear from you. It inspires us, it fuels us, and sometimes it's a topic for the show. Check out our sponsors. Shopify.com businessbrain miro.com podcast and keep on living that charm life. We'll see you on Friday.