Your Customers are Expecting to be Disappointed

Business brain episode 632 for Wednesday, March 19th small business development centers day. Also international clients day 2025. Greetings folks and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take a few ideas, we crunch them, we dissect them, we try not to dilute them while we use to help tune our business brain so we can each be living those charmed lives. Our sponsors for today include a new one and a continuing one. Selectquote.com businessbrain that's where you can go to get the right life insurance for you for less. And shopify.com businessbrain where you can sign up for a $1 per month trial period. We'll talk more about both of those in a little bit. For now, back here from south by Southwest, back home from south by Southwest here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And out here in Northern California, I'm Shannon Jean. How was south by Southwest? Had a great time.

It was. It's always. I never know what I'm gonna like sure exact. Like I build a schedule but it, it's. You never really know what, how things are gonna go and is that because.

The nature of the show or is that just are more. Other shows are more structured. You kind of know what to expect or.

There's so much at south by that it's hard for me. I joke. There are three main sections to the conference. There's the tech portion of it, whatever they call that these days, the film portion and the music portion. I do three podcasts. Right. I do this one for entrepreneurs. I do a gig gab for musicians and macgeek gab for Apple tech users. So. And it's almost like they built this for me and, and so but I never really know whether like last year for example, I went to see the Black Keys. I assumed that that was going to be something that I would cover for music. But no, the whole experience of getting in there became an entire show we.

Did for us here.

Right. And, and the same thing happened this year. I've got many things to talk about on this show, but I, I never know like if I pre. Compartmentalize things, I'm almost always wrong and I kind of love that. So I just, I kind of go in with a loose framework of a schedule and a very open mind and I just kind of see what happens. It's the one conference where I can basically follow my muse the entire time and I'm always gathering content, even accidentally.

Ah, that's awesome.

It's amazing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like I joke with them that they, they. The. The Platinum pass is the, the pass that gets you into all of the, the, you know, all facets of the conference. And I joke with them like I, I say, I believe you can. You created the Platinum pass for me.

Yeah.

And, and they don't disagree with me. They're like, well, it's kind of perfect for you. I'm like, that's why I said that. So that's great.

I'm looking forward to hearing more of those. That data dump over the coming, coming weeks.

That's what it'll be. Yeah, man.

Yeah. Oh, that's great. Hey, I, I want to talk about a topic that. Something I've been writing about and thinking about. And, and the, the concept is that, you know, you're. As business owners, our customers are expecting to be disappointed. It's kind of the, the natural status kind of waiting. It's like, okay. And I don't know if it's always been that way, but I feel like it's that way now where people. And what I mean by that is they're from the start to finish, they're waiting for your. If you, if you're in a service business, they're. They're expecting you to be late.

Yes.

If you are delivering your product, they're expecting maybe the. It's not going to get shipped on time.

Yeah. They're going to bang up your walls when they're bringing the couch in. Like you. It's true. You wind up with, with, with that, that expectation.

You're like on guard for it. Right?

You're.

You're. And, And I, I think it's, it's. I think it's a problem. But actually I think if you are aware of it, it, it's an opportunity, huge opportunity to, to show them all along the way and maybe you know, even build it into your messaging and your. Certainly your SOPs that you create for people to. Your people to follow.

Like your employees to follow or whatever. Yeah.

Y. Like everything from. Okay. You shipped a product, they're expecting it to be not on time when they open it up. They're expecting it not to do what you said it was going to do. They're expecting it to. If they have a problem with it, they're expecting not to be able to talk to anybody.

There's no support. That's right.

There's no support. There's nothing. We've been Googleized. Right. And Amazon, there's no phone. There's no human there. We've just grown to expect that they're expecting when they return an item, if they do that, it's going to be difficult. And when the product is returned, they're expecting that it's going to take a long time to get their refund back.

It's so fascinating. Why is there. And maybe we shouldn't answer that question because it might take too long, but there is the rhetorical question of why is it that way? And I'm in the moment of experiencing that right now. I've earned enough. I was part of, like, a status challenge with JetBlue, a status match thing. They're like, if you have status on one airline, we'll give you the same status on ours. And then you have three months to fly enough that you, like, earn the.

Status to earn it. Yeah.

And I completed that last night. I got the three tiles that I needed by flying home last night. My status match period ends today, and it takes them longer. Your points don't get added immediately. Now, I asked them, is it when you decide to add them or is it when they're earned? They're like, no, it's when they're earned. So. And of course, I save screenshots of these conversations because you're expecting disappointed is to not work and.

Right.

I don't. And I was even thinking today, I was like. Because I was looking. I'm like, well, did they get added yet? Like, you know, because if they hit before midnight tonight, it all should, like, work. And. Did they get added yet? No. Okay, well, we'll see. But, like, why am I expecting it to be a fight and a problem when it might just work?

Yeah. But it seems to.

What if it does? I will be surprised. Like, delightfully surprised.

Yes. Yes. So that's. The opportunity is to.

You can delightfully surprise your customers.

Yes. You can take that. That in many cases, it's a minor effort. Right. It's. It's better communication. It's not relying much on. On procedures that are just baked in and giving people autonomy to make. To make a decision to solve a problem, which we've talked about on the show a lot.

Yeah.

And, you know, think about the. I forget what the hotel is that they give everybody. Everybody who works there has the Autonomy to spend $1,000 to make a. A guest happy or to solve a problem.

Yes.

Well, you know, I. I often say, hey, what. How much money would you pay to get a negative review removed from Google or Yelp or whatever? And, like, you can do that. I say, no, no, no.

You get to do it ahead of time.

You do it before you get the negative review. So when the customer says, I need it overnight. And you, your natural inclination to say, oh, no way, man, that's going to be 100 bucks to ship it to you overnight. Well, would you pay $100 to get that negative review removed? Removed. Easy for you to say, but of course you would pay 100 bucks.

Yes.

So spend it before you get the thing. So just, you know, this framework, I think it's worth talking to your team. It's worth looking at your procedures if you're a solopreneur, you know, worth looking how you do things, what you do, how you respond to client. Like, my business is often success is predicated on how quickly and thoroughly I respond. And I'm always shocked that people like, oh, I can't believe you responded. You know, and is this.

And it's like, I can't believe my competition did not correct. And always my answer.

Yeah, yeah. So I just think that it's a, it's a good prompt, if you will. Let's, let's think of it like that, a human prompt to get you to start thinking of ways to eliminate those opportunities to disappoint your customers.

All right, folks, look, you know we're all about protecting what we build, right? Our businesses, of course, our families, obviously, and yes, even our craft beer supply. But here's the thing. If something unexpected happens to you, will your loved ones be financially protected? And that's why our sponsor, Select Quote exists. Select Quote isn't some one size fits all insurance machine. But no, they've been helping people for nearly 40 years find the right life insurance policy tailored to their needs. And with their network of top carriers, you can save. And I could save up to 50% compared to other companies. Need up to 5 million in coverage today. If you're in good health, you can get approved. No medical exam required. Shannon and I spend a lot of time talking about living that charmed life, don't we? But a big part of that is making sure the people we love are taken care of, even when we're not around. Get the right life insurance for you for less@SelectQuote.com BusinessBrain Go to SelectQuote.com BusinessBrain today to get started. That's SelectQuote.com BusinessBrain. And no, they don't offer life insurance for Goldfish, but I checked just in case. And our thanks to Select Quote for sponsoring this episode. So, look, you know, I love talking about smart ways to grow our businesses. And if you've got Something to sell. Our sponsor, Shopify, is the tool that makes it happen. I use Shopify for merch with my other businesses and podcasts. And candidly, it's so seamless that I sometimes forget I even run an online store. It's true. Shopify gives you the best checkout experience on the planet. And with shop pay, conversions can jump by 50%, which means more sales, fewer abandoned carts, and a whole lot of Ka Ching. Whether your customers are scrolling, strolling, or making Impulse buys at 3am while eating leftover pizza, Shopify makes sure they can buy wherever they are. So if you're ready to start living that charmed entrepreneurial life, upgrade your business and get the same checkout we use with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com businessbrain all lowercase. Go to shopify.com businessbrain to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com businessbrain and our thanks to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. Shannon, you ever think about taking a sabbatical? No. Yeah, same.

I don't know how I would do it. I mean, okay, I have some things to say about this, but go ahead. Yeah, me into it.

So I went to a session, it was actually a taping of a podcast called the Happiness Lab, which is hosted by psychology Yale psychology Professor Laurie Santos. Dr. Laurie Santos, of course. And she was talking with DJ De Donna, who is from the Sabbatical Project, about the benefits of sabbaticals in the workforce in general and for people in general and the benefits to companies and all that stuff. And they were talking about how it's almost, almost unheard of outside of academia and even within academia, the percentage of people that are taking sabbaticals is going down. And it's an interesting, it was a really interesting taping to watch because I'm like you. I couldn't imagine doing this right? But this guy wound up doing it. And now he goes and sings the praises of this and he says you need to. The first thing to do is not just take a vacation, right? You need to leave with enough time so that someone else is doing your job while. While you're gone.

Well, how does that work? Like, if you had somebody, if you're getting.

I mean, we talk about this, though. We talk about this here, where, like, as a business owner, you create you, you, you, you. The idea is to make your business run without you.

I get that. Yes, you're right.

But not even. But this isn't just for business owners, because this is for your employees. Too. And so they, they say that six to 12 months is great, but at least four months is the right amount of time so that the job gets done. And I'll never forget when I was at Citibank, I knew a guy who was very senior, and he said, oh, yeah, I'm taking five weeks of vacation starting in two weeks or maybe two months or something. And I was like, wow, that's a long time. He's like, here's the thing I've learned, Dave. You take a week off, you come back, there's a pile. Two weeks off, there's a bigger pile. Three weeks off, there's an even bigger pile. Four weeks, there's no pile. He's like, somebody else decided they're not going to wait for you. And, and he says, that's interesting. And any, and, and DJ to Donna was explaining that, you know, people will learn to deal with your absence.

I do agree with that.

When, yes, when, when you get an autoresponder from somebody that says effectively, you know, it's more, more polite, less blunt than what I'm going to say, but effectively, I am going to, I'm out. And I'm going to declare inbox bankruptcy when I come back. So if you want me, email me again in September.

You do that already on shorter thing. And I think that's terrific. I love that idea.

But I don't actually declare email bankruptcy. I say that I'm going to, but I don't.

That's still a good tactic.

I know, but it's not, it's not as good as it could be if I actually just erased my inbox. Because the point of the sabbatical isn't to train other people, is to train ourselves.

Yeah. So.

And they say that the first six to eight weeks are required to become yourself again.

Be amazing.

I know. And I don't. Go ahead. Yes, no, go ahead. I've got lots to say.

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I, I want to bet I'm gonna recall my previous, you know. Oh, hell no. Yeah, yeah.

Of course.

I can't imagine doing it based on my life. Now, let me, let me preface that. When I was running, you know, multiple companies and that kind of thing, I had enough people around where I think I could have done it.

Yeah.

But I, I, I still don't know that length of time. I mean, I get itchy after a few days of.

Right, right.

I get the, and I don't get me wrong, I feel like for the last 10 years, I've kind of, even though I' run multiple businesses. I feel like I'm semi retired. Right. I feel like, especially once I sold tech restore in 2017, I'm like, okay, yeah, I got a lot of time. I can do whatever I want with my time. My wife and I joke around when there's a three day weekend. We're like, what? What do you mean? So I. I feel like I've had a sabbatical because I have so much flexibility in my life. And maybe if you're in a corporate world or academic, where it's just day in, day out, grind wrote maybe it's really more important to make you think. Like Shannon already thinks maybe, but I don't.

I don't know. I think that's wrong. In fact, I had some thoughts about you that. That while I was at south by may have been like catalyzed by this, but I don't think so. It was just in. In general, I was thinking about like what you're doing these days and. And yeah, I. I want to do an episode about that, but not one that we live stream because I really want to have like a friend to friend conversation. And then at the end, you get to decide whether we publish it or not. Right.

But okay, that's great. Excuse me.

But yeah, right. Well, we do this for each other sometimes, so I know we do. This is. He addressed the type A kind of people like us that are always like, the idea of a working sabbatical is good for some of us. Right. Because if you or I were to just be like, I'm just gonna go sit for like, that's not gonna happen. So the idea is to make sure that whatever you're doing for that period of time is not something that is at all similar or related to what your job is. So if you've never written a book, you focus on writing a book.

Yeah.

If you've never, like he learned to write songs during his sabbatical. Wonderful. Something he'd never done. If you want to learn a new language, I mean, that's a.

Or something like that.

Or an instrument.

Yeah, right.

Whatever.

Some challenge keeps you going.

Mentally engaged. All those things. But different.

Yeah.

And one thing that he talked about, and I know you and I, we've never had this conversation, I don't think on the show, but it's probably worth having. He said.

Everything.

If you. If you organize it correctly, you're creating what he called regret insurance for yourself that the regret, you know, you're on your deathbed. You know what? Didn't I get to do during my life. And, and then the other, the other way to think about it is when we hear ourselves say, when I'm going to retire, I want to do this. And I know you and I don't think that way.

Right.

But, but if, if, if you hear yourself say that, and it's not something you can simply start doing right now alongside your job, well, that's what you do during your sabbatical. Do it while you're still able and all of those things and where it, where it becomes beneficial for you and I is. And again, I'm still not sure how I would ever do this, but is it. We lead by example. Right? And so, I mean, I realize you don't currently have like a team of employees or anything, but if we, if as a company you decide you want to give your employees the opportunity to do this, they won't do it unless they've seen you do it or, or they know that you are planning to do it. And there's nothing that says, you know, if somebody, if you're out there listening and you say, oh, man, I gotta, like, I gotta do this. And definitely check out the sabbatical project. They do a much better job of explaining all this than I'm doing in this, you know, very condensed summary here. But you don't have to schedule it for like, August. You can schedule it for August of 2027. Right. And now not only are you creating a framework in your head for it, but so are the people around you, like, okay, this isn't scary. August 2027 isn't scary today. So, okay, that's when I'm going to do it. That's when I'm going to leave. And now you've got all this time and you're essentially, you know, like, you like to talk about. You're, you're writing that you're starting backwards, right. With the story. It's like, okay, I know that I'm going to leave for four months starting in August of 2027, so what do I need to do to make it so that I can actually do that and feel okay?

I think that's a really interesting take on it. I never thought about the power of having it out there.

Yes.

You know, in at a future D. And it also, if you're the owner or whatever, it helps you put systems in place to compensate, which could, in effect, you know, they always say you should be running your business like you're going to sell it tomorrow. Right. So it could be that, similar to that, that it helps you learn to work on the business more than in it every single day. So I like that framework. I think that could be the most powerful thing you've said in the last 20 minutes.

There you go.

I'll take it.

No, it was for me too.

People like us. Yes, I think that, I think I, I, I, I, I'm going to say something that is not, it's a, it's a broad generalization and if you're in this case, don't, don't take it wrong. But in a big corporation or big academic academia, it's easy just to say, yeah, go ahead, take, take four months, whatever. But you know, the, my businesses in my life, if, if somebody says, yeah, I'm going to take four months off, I'm like, okay, you're fired.

How do I get somebody else?

Well, how would I, the planning for it. I like, I like that idea.

Well, and then they talked about what as an employer you could or need to offer people in order to make this realistic. And the question, of course is, the big question is who pays, Right? Are you still paying full salary for your employee? Obviously, if your company can afford to do that and chooses to do it, that's amazing. If you can't or simply don't want to, then sure is their partial salary and fine. But what they talked about, which was really interesting, is that for most people, if they're planning enough in advance, the money missing out on four months of salary is something you can plan for for sure. What everybody kind of came back to the table and said was if you at the very least retain their benefits through that period of time.

Oh yeah, whether you like furlough them or whatever.

Exactly. Whatever you want to call it, whatever you have to call it to make that work. And that was enough. The people they surveyed and talked with, that was enough for people to say, okay, if I can retain my benefits, great, then I can work out the rest. Now that's not going to be true in every case, obviously, but as employers, this is how we have to think about this.

So yeah, and I do think that to, to reiterate, because this is a really good point, is that using that as a tool to in, you know, muscle up your infrastructure and the Systems and your SOPs and who handles what to like, okay, guys, we got to get this in going because so and so's take or I'm the, I'm going to be gone for four months in August of 27. Let's make sure by this time that's, that's a really nice. Right.

And I like that what we probably. What I didn't really think about before this, because I never really entertained the idea. It's like, that only works in academia. Right. It doesn't have to be that. Like, that doesn't need to be true. People take sabbaticals all the time in the United States. We just call them maternity leave, you know, or paternity leave. Right. I mean, it happens. And you are doing a completely different thing. Like, all the things we've talked about are exactly that. Right. Your job is not part of your mindset. You are. But you certainly have a project, a new challenge. Yeah, exactly. Something you've never done before, potentially. You know, so. So we do have this framework. But even in academia, people. This is interesting. I brought up the maternity thing. Now that the wheels are turning, people plan their sabbaticals years in advance in academia, too.

Yeah.

Now I see maternity leave is often planned maybe five to six months in advance. Yeah, Right. When you finally realize, oh, okay, I. I'm pregnant, it's time to tell people, like, and. And then you just deal. So this is. Imagine being able to plan that far out. And I know some people do that with their kids. They're like, oh, I need to work for two more years, and then I'm going to plan it so that, you know, we get pregnant in February and then we have the, you know, like. And sometimes that works. And of course, sometimes it doesn't, the way biology goes. But. But yes, this. This idea of planning far out. So, yeah, yeah, that.

That is great. And I had. I appreciate the discussion here because I had no concept of that other than blowing up my brain saying, are you kidding me? But when you, when you talk about it, you create that framework of. This is it. It's very intriguing to me as a tool in your business to, you know, make things better.

Yeah.

And. And I agree 100% that we all, you know, there's that phrase, touch grass. Right. Get out and do whatever. And all of us would benefit from getting away and doing some new challenge and taking on a different role for a few months at least.

Right. It might be life changing here.

We've done it our whole life. I mean, from starting business and all that kind of stuff. So how could we not agree that it would be an amazing experience. Experience and good for the person and good for your business. Right. That I definitely agree with. It's how you structure it that's important. So that's amazing.

Give yourself time, put it on the calendar and then off you go. I haven't put it on my calendar yet. I'm too petrified of that.

I'm not doing that.

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