The Battle Against Cynicism

Business Brain, the show for entrepreneurs, episode 428 for Wednesday, March 8, 2023. Greetings folks and welcome to. Welcome back to Business Brain, the show where we apply our business brains to everything in our lives, our businesses, of course, but also pretty much anything else. Because having that perspective is a good perspective and we like it. Sponsors for this episode include a new sponsor, Notion AI. You can get a. You can try it out for free@notion.com businessbrain. We'll talk in a little bit about what Notion AI is, but also what Notion is and why. You're gonna wanna check out both of these things. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in Lafayette, California, still here, I'm Shannon Jean.

Hey man, how you doing? I'm good. We're recording this before I leave for a 12 day trip. I'm doing podcast movement in Las Vegas first this week and then next week I'll be in Austin for South by Southwest. Today has been one of those uber productive days. In fact, just the last five or six days. Well, because I have limited time, I find myself far more productive when I have deadlines and when I know that I have pockets of time to, to, to get work done, you know, and it like having, having a tight schedule. I had meetings on the hour, every hour today for like five hours straight, including this one. And, and I, you know, I, I made, I like, I got a lot done in the windows between my meetings and stuff because I just knew I had to buckle down and, and do it. I couldn't, couldn't get distracted.

There's a lesson there.

There's a huge lesson there. No, I'm super efficient when I have deadlines. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool.

It's really good.

We were talking pre show about something that, that I dealt with last week and I'll share my story. I think you've got a couple of stories. So we'll rant a little bit up front here and then maybe we'll, we'll see if we can keep ourselves from becoming too cynical as business owners. Correct. Yeah, I, I had a. We get, we at Backbeat Media, we manage the sponsorships for lots of different podcasts and, and part of that is we interface with the advertiser or their agency, depending on how it works out, to get all the stuff that the podcaster needs. You know, the creative you'll hear when we do ads in this show, it's us talking about it, but it's, you know, sort of following some points that the sponsor Wants us to hit. And then there's what they call the call to action, which says, like I just said in the beginning of the show, you know, you're gonna visit notion.combusinessbrain, et cetera. Right. They give us all these things. It wasn't. Not, by the way, the story I'm about to tell, just so we all know it's. I will. I am. I am not going to. I am protecting the guilty parties here. Very much so. And so our. This was an ad for a show that I don't do because we represent a bunch of shows and I'm not the host of all of them. And the host reached out to us and said, hey, I just recorded the ad. This is Friday, the show goes live Monday. The link that they provided isn't live yet. Maybe you want to let them know it's. They're usually live this late in the game, you know, just three days before the ad's supposed to launch. And so it was like, okay, so Lisa on the team here, she got in touch with the sponsors agency and said, hey, by the way, you know, it's not working. Just wanted to make sure you knew. And they came back and said, oh, the link changed. We can't use the link that we gave you. We need it to be a different one, make sure the ad is correct. And, you know, we wrote them back and said, well, it's already been recorded. Like, the show's in the can. It's going to go live. And so, you know, we'll make sure it's correct on the website, you know, all this stuff. But that the audio is the audio. And they're like, oh, wow, that's not good. Can you do a make good? Which is essentially, can you give us a free spot in the future for the mistake in this spot? And it's like, well, so Lisa came to me and she's like, I don't know how to respond to these people because I want to shoot them. And I get that, you know, because that's super frustrating. And I'll share the rest of the story later here, but this is like, what were they thinking? Like, this is you. We did. They did what you told them to do. This is. Whose mistake is this that you're asking us to pay for? Effectively? Craziness.

Yes, craziness.

This is the thing that's going to make you a cynic. What's going to make you a sick.

Yeah, let me tell you. So I have. I constantly fight this battle about cynicism because you, the Customers that experience that goes smooth and everything works great. You're like, oh, that's awesome. Things are going good. But it seems to stick out as the ones that you have problems with. And you start, you know, oh, man, these people are nuts. And I'll give you a couple of quick examples. So this is. We own vacation rentals and recently have had a couple of pretty interesting requests and requirements. So we had a woman come or a group coming in and customer or guest says, hey, my, my kid is super sensitive to chemicals. Do you have or do you use any sort of fragrance, like plug in things and if you. Or scented candles? Okay, easy answer. No, we don't. In this particular property. Do not. She says, great, okay, I'm going to go ahead and book the place. So this day was scheduled to start yesterday, and on Friday we get an email from her, says, okay, we're coming on Sunday. Can you please remove all soaps and cleaners from the house?

What? This is new.

Laundry detergents, countertop cleansers, anything like that. And you know, so of course, quick is like, no, we. It's a big house and just, there's just no way to go. I mean, you could, but it's just ridiculous. And I, I mentioned to my wife who runs this business, I said, you know, that's going to be a problem. That's a problem customer right there. And so we said, hey, we're not sure we're able to do that. We don't, you know, it happens to be in the middle of a blizzard up there. You know, yada, yada. We'd be happy to let you cancel if you'd like.

Okay. Oh, that's actually very. I'm. Would that. Would canceling at that point in time be a normally allowed as part of your normal can. Okay, so you were.

We have a 60 day.

Yeah. Okay, so that's what I figured.

So, yeah, it was $5,000. It was a $5,000 hit. But I said, you know, you're going to be dealing with this person who I'm sure is a lovely woman and, you know, whatever. I'm sure they are. And the kid actually have compassion for those issues, of course. But I said, they're, they're introducing new requirements on you that they didn't talk about, you know, four months ago or six months ago when they booked the house.

What else is going to come up? Yep. Yeah. So that's the cynic in me talking. What else is going to come up?

Me too. Me too. And I, I think we dodged a Bullet. And they went ahead and canceled, which was smart, I think, for everybody. We just said, hey, we don't have a good fit here. So the other one we had recently, we have another piece of property up in the mountains and it's, it's a fishing kind of cabin y kind of thing. And there happens to be some taxidermy on the wall. Right.

Okay.

We have a couple of big deer and an elk or an antelope, I think it is, because it just kind of lends it to. They were there when I bought the house and I'm like, yeah, they look great. I'm going to leave it as people.

Love the place, kind of, kind of make. It's part of the rugged aesthetic.

Yes. The ambiance, the experience, if you will. And so the. We get an inquiry and says, we want to come, we want to rent, want to rent your place for a week, but we'd like you to take all the taxidermy down via our. One of our kids freaks out about it or whatever.

Sure.

And again, I said, no, we can't do that. And not only can we not do it, you can't do it when you get there because it's just too complex and this kind of thing. But a couple of quick examples of those are. And what I. It's very easy to become cynical about your customers. And that's a, I think that's a problem that you, you as a, maybe as a business owner are kind of more, maybe more self aware. But I think it can quickly travel, trickle down to your employees as well. And I'd like, I'd love to talk about some strategies to avoid that cynicism today on the show.

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Yep.

And it is totally normal to respond with with by being flabbergasted and even irate. Right. Or to feel that emotion, but feel that. Not to respond that way, not necessarily respond that way, but to have that at reaction. And the trick as you astutely pointed out, is to not only temper that for yourself, but to make sure that you realize in those moments that you are training your employees what. Not only what to do, but what the culture of your company is.

Exactly.

I really, like, this is a huge thing. It's a defining moment. And it can be so easy to just, like, get caught in a rant fest. And. And I, like, like, with this thing that happened for us last week. Now, Lisa, on the team at Backbeat, also happens to be my wife. So instead of getting on a, you know, a zoom call with her from the office, I just walked across the driveway and we chatted it out. I'm like, what is that? Like, I. I started by adding a little fuel to the fire. I said, what's the matter with these people? Like, like, this is insane. Okay. All right. Well, obviously, they're a good customer of ours. They made a mistake. We need to massage this a little bit. So, you know, we, like, I said, we sent them a note and said, hey, we're, you know, it's already been recorded. We can change it on the website, but it can't be changed in the audio. We don't want to ask the host to change it because we don't want to train the host not to be proactive about this. Like, this wasn't just. There was a mistake we made. Can the host, you know, fix it? It was. There was a mistake made. The host caught it and told us about it. And now you want the host to pay for that by. By doing a free spot or something. It's like, wow, that's. That's a lot to ask for. So we told him. We don't really think that we want the host in that position. We told the sponsor this, like, you know, and they. They pushed. They're like, well, is there anything else we can do? Just, we're worried about the tracking or this, that and the other thing. And so at this point, you know, we had said our piece in a productive way. Right. And then we engaged the host on this. And. And at this point, it was great because Lisa took it. Now, I mean, to say that Lisa's an employee, the business might be technically correct, but she clearly also has a very vested interest in the business itself. Right. I mean, I can't. She. Right. Like, I mean, she is actually a named partner in the business, you know, so. But, you know, it was like this. This is how I approach these things always when they happen is I try to get it so that the. Yes, we acknowledge the insanity of the request. And then let's see if we can find the customer service angle here. And so with that, she went to the host and said, look, I have to present this to you because they're asking, but please know that we really appreciate what you did and we don't want to punish you for it. And this is a host that we have a long standing relationship with. They've been with us for probably a decade. I mean, they know us. They know that we go to bat for them and said, look, they wanted to make good. We told them that wasn't going to happen. They are asking for something else, maybe a mention in a future episode. And he said, you know what, I still have time in my day. I can go and like edit the. I can rerecord that one little bit of audio and just drop it in and edit it into the show and re upload it. It's like, it's not a big deal. We're like, are you sure? It's like, of course. Customer service. Great. So it's this ability to train, like, I mean, in this case, not just Lisa who really does sort of get the customer service thing, but also our host, like, okay, yep, there's, there's value here. We've pushed back where we can push back, and now we're doing a good thing for this customer that's going to be happy with us and, and has brought us a lot of business in the past and will continue to bring us business in the future. But everything is a customer service moment.

That's right. And I, and I think the key is, it's how you frame it, whether you're talking to the customer, of course. And we've done a ton of shows all about customer service and the two tokens and trying to get on the same side of the table, all this kind of stuff. Uh, and, but equally important, maybe even more so for the long term success of your business is how you, your team handles it, your employees. And if you set the tone of this, you know, cynical, making fun, ranting about customers, that kind of stuff, they're going to pick up on that right away and they will do it too. Now, a little bit of it is fine. It's kind of cathartic.

You have, I feel like you have to, it's, it's, it's really your concept of pacing and then leading. It's the, the ranting is the pacing part of it.

Right.

Where you're all on the same going.

But then, yeah, then you have to lead them into something like that that's positive, right? That you can have this, you have this discussion. You've kind of let the air out of the situation. So they're not all, you know, your, your customer service people or whoever your sales people are, you know, twisted out of sheet.

They got to know that you have their back too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Exactly. And then you kind of lead them into. Oh, you know, you know what's great? I always used to say, you know, it's so great. It's like 98% of our customers don't do this. And it's always trying to end on a reminder of how good the vast majority of your customers or clients are and how if you had this kind of problem like this over and over and over and over and over. Well, actually I would point out that maybe it on your end that's causing it.

Right.

So you could look at, is this a systemic issue?

How are we inviting this in? Right? Yeah, yeah.

But, but you know, these one offs, when they happen, you could laugh about them and, but you need to be, you know, self aware that how you talk about them in the office, online and in Slack, whatever messaging thing you're. You're talking about, it has a long term impact and it will impact how they, how your people treat future customers.

Oh, so well, 100 you are training. Everybody is being trained at every moment. Yep, yep. No, it's great. I, I am curious about your. When I saw the, the pictures of your, your place with the taxidermy and all that, my first thought was I wonder how many people are going to choose not to rent this place because of that. Yeah, I actually had that thought. Like, but, yeah, but like different. It's a certain clientele but like to me those people would just choose not. I mean I've chosen not to rent Airbnbs because I see, you know, their living room is like cluttered and has the, God, ugly wallpaper or whatever and it's like, you know, I'm going to be there for a week. Like is there a better place like that? It's. I'm not going to feel like I'm being attacked visually every time I walk. Has nothing to do with taxidermy. It's just, you know, ugly wallpaper or clutter. Like why is all your crap there? Like, you know, this is a rental, so I totally like, but I just don't rent those places. I would never have thought to ask somebody, hey, can you like remove all your books from the place?

I can tell you a story. I would. Maybe there's a whole nother episode on this. But ever since COVID the customer expectations have changed.

Interesting. Yeah.

And there is an expectation that I want to stay here, so you should do these things for me versus, oh, I would like to stay here, but their requirements don't meet my needs. So I'll just go find another place.

The space doesn't fit for me. It's fine.

The policies don't work, but that has definitely switched. And I don't know why, but it.

I think I do a lot of. I do a lot of Airbnb, and I. I have not. And I continued to do it through Covid. In fact, it was a very nice way to sort of get away. It was. You know, if I know that my family, like, we all decided we're like, well, we're going to spend every night sitting on the couch watching TV or playing games, you know, because what else are we going to do? Yeah, that's right. And so let's go rent an Airbnb for a week over there somewhere else and do it there and make it a little different. You know, it was a way to mix things up. But I, like, never have I thought of asking someone to change their place. There was the one. Like, the only thing was recently when we were in Italy, we rented an Airbnb. And a big part of what we were going to do there was hanging out with my daughter and her boyfriend. And I wanted to make sure that the place had a living room where we could just be for hours on end. Right. Yeah, exactly. And there were two different pictures of the living room with very different setups in terms of, like, the couches and chairs. And so I was like, okay, which is it? And they're like, right, it's this one. It's. You know, what you're seeing in the other picture is an early thing. We added a new deal and yacht. I'm like, perfect. Sold.

Yeah.

But, like, I wasn't going to ask him. It was just going to not choose the place if it didn't suit me. I don't know, man. It's crazy.

Yeah. Yeah, it's. It's interesting. And, And I mean, I do it, you know, if I go to. Even with a hotel.

Yes.

I don't like to. Where this is the view, whatever of that. I mean, that. And that's. That's what. That's. I think what. What people should do. I think my. My last comment on this is it's another great example why, as business owners, you need to have peers, other people that are in business, that own small businesses or companies that you can talk with, whether it's an online group, whether it's whatever. Because you want to definitely let the steam out about this stuff that probably drives you crazy. But you, you need, you know, maybe you can't do that with your employees because you don't want to, you know, set the.

I'm going to float an idea. I like this, this concept of having an event session for us small business owners. What if we hosted a Zoom hangout one day? Yeah. Where. Where you just come and vent and we won't record it. The only people that will hear it are the people that are there. You know what I mean?

Like idea. Yeah.

All right, well, let us know what you think about that feedback at BusinessBrain Show. And if we get it, you know, I mean, I only need, like a few of you, so if you think you're in the minority and most people aren't going to want to do this, send us a note anyway. Because if you might be the one that tips us over the edge to actually do this, because Shannon and I do this already, we just call it pre show or post show. Pre show. Today actually became the. The show because we felt like we could do it in an appropriate way. But yeah, if you want to have event session with us, let us know. Feedbackusbrain Show. We'd. We would love to do event session with you. Trust me on that. So thanks for hanging out with us, folks. Make sure to check out notion@notion.com businessbrain. Send us that. That note at feedback. BusinessBrain show and keep living that charmed life. We'll see you next time.