A short YouTube conversation (Chris Collins and Michael) debating whether prioritizing employee happiness leads to better business results. Michael argues businesses should worship the customer (citing Jeff Bezos) and recruit high-performing employees who share a customer-obsessed focus; Chris counters that merely ‘taking care of employees’ rarely produces better customer outcomes and can indicate a broken culture. The clip references Equifax as an example of poor customer treatment and cites Steve Jobs on hiring ‘A’ players.
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8333 Ask SDR
offers.chriscollinc.com
November 18, 2021
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What about Equifax made them win the broken business award again?
You know, these reporting, credit reporting services treat customers as if they are.
As if they, the customer is lucky to.
Be graced by Equifax. They don't start as Mr. Bezos does. See, Chris, I have a contention. Most businesses in America today.
Are not producing properly because they come at questions, all questions, through the prism of the what is good for the owner and what is good for the staff. Right. So most businesses in America are faced with hundreds of questions per day, and almost all of them answer each of the questions predicated on is it good for the owner, is it good for the staff? Mr. Bezos says, I don't give a rat's what's good for the owner or the staff. I care what's good for the customer. If you treat the customer as the boss, as the divine inspiration for the business. Listen to me, I said divine inspiration. How would you treat something divine? With great care, great reverence. Wouldn't you? If you treat the customer as the all important divine inspiration.
Don'T you worry about the owner, don't you worry about the staff? That'll all work out. But worship, worship, worship the customer.
You know, one thing, Michael, in my travels that I found as an indicator. So there's just certain things that they tell you about the business. Right.
If this happens, that's what broken windows is.
Yeah. You know, if this happens, then they're losing money. You don't even have to look at the financial statement. One thing that always tells me the culture is broken and most of the time they're dramatically underperforming or they're losing money is if the owner of the company says to me, if you take care of the people, they'll take care of the customers. So if you take care of the employees, they'll take care of the customers. Never have I seen that have a positive outcome on the customers.
Correct. It is 1,000% correct. It's a brilliant insight and it shows a mindset of an owner that's simply trying to respond to a issue through a slogan, not through hard work or.
Their parents didn't tell them that they loved them enough. And he's looking for validation and love through his employees.
That's brilliant, Chris. So many owners have the almost pathological need to be liked by their staff. Yeah, they just, they want to be popular. Well, they're not running for prom king or queen. They're running a business. And by the way, I've often said, Chris, I hope you agree with this. But I'll ask you, if you own a business in America. If you own a business in America and somebody refers to you as either tough or cheap.
The proper response is thank you.
Okay, if you own a business in America and someone refers to you as tougher, cheap, that means you're doing a good job. What the hell do you think you have to do to own a business?
Well, I also, I also don't want this to be lost on people because I know that.
You have the same outcome that people that work for you enjoy working for you. And you make them better by working for you. But 100%, the idea that you can't like the people that you work with is not in conflict with the customer having a great outcome. But if the customer is the focus and everybody really pay attention to this, if the customer is the focus, you will attract employees that have the same passion for customers that you do, and then you will in turn like them. But if everybody's sitting in a room trying to be liked, the customer becomes irrelevant. Nobody's paying attention to the customer. So you can still have both. You just have to have a common goal and have a, you know, have a common belief system. And you can't always program that into people. Sometimes you need people. You got to go recruit some new people that share that passion for customers.
Well, let me just make a couple of references because I agree with what you're saying. I would only emphasize it a little differently.
The customer should not be the focus. The customer should be the burning, maniacal rage of focus, total and complete, not partial.
Second.
Steve Jobs said something brilliant when he was alive. He said many things that were brilliant. But I think this is one worth repeating.
In terms of employees and team members about Apple. He said, A's want to play with A's and B's want to play with Cs because it makes them feel like A's. Isn't that interesting? You're better off recruiting people who share a burning, maniacal rage to achieve best practices, world class, constant, ceaseless improvement.
And, you know, anything short of that leads to a sense of atrophy and then ultimate death. Which is why so many businesses are underperforming to a large degree.
Thanks so much for watching this clip of Service Driving Revolution. We're uploading new stuff every day, so make sure you subscribe and click the bell icon so you don't miss out. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show, call 8333 Ask SDR and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 8333 Ask SDR for special deals on our books and training. Head over to offers.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins and I'll see you in the next video.
