0251 | How to Operate During Critical Moments and Defend Your Reputation with Kith CEO Bill Coletti

Hi, this is Bill Coletti with Kith Co and you're listening to EA Interviews.

EA Interviews, episode 251, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the Imperfect Action Round. Seven days a week, join Mario Ficcini for today's expert authority effect interview. You've worked hard for your company. You've got the sales, you might even have the profit going. It's growing. You have your ideal clients. All this is well and good. But someone put something bad in the newspaper about you. Maybe they even put something online because that's far easier. What are you doing to manage that? How are you handling your reputation? It only takes one time for this to. I don't want to say that, but let's just say not go. Ideally, I don't know, things can happen throughout life and we spend so much time building a brand and building up the clientele and building all this stuff. But what are you doing for your reputation?

I know there's times I've been like, I don't care right now, I just need sales. And then there's other times where it's like all I was focusing on, not because it was bad, but just because it was like I had been doing one thing for a while and I wanted to be known for something else. All of these are in constant flux and that's the fun of building a business. And I'm excited to have Bill Coletti on the show today and we're going to be talking about all of this and more and why it's important to you. I, I'm going to bring them up right after we thank our sponsor. Every business needs a book, including yours. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Once again, that's freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, best selling author, speaker and CEO Bill Colletti. Bill, how are you feeling today, Mario?

I'm doing great. It's super exciting to be here to have this conversation with you. Thanks.

I can't wait to dive in because reputation is such an important thing personally and professionally. And why do you think so many people just let it fall by the wayside and focus on everything but it.

It'S a little bit like vaporware. It's a little bit, it's more difficult to put your arms around. And that's really one of the reasons I wrote the book is actually to when we look at the major American corporations or global corporations. Everything that gets managed can be measured. And if we think of reputation kind of as vaporware, it's difficult to measure it, so therefore impossible to manage it. But I believe that reputation can be managed just like legal services, janitorial services, inventory at the factory, or whatever the situation that you might be in, you know, whatever. You can put a KPI to reputation. So people don't do it because it's hard to get your arms around.

What would you say is the first thing they should be doing to get their arms around it and start the process?

Yeah, so it's a terrific question. I think what we talked about is the four A's. We talked about how actually you manage your reputation. And the first thing is around awareness, just self awareness, an awareness of who you are, what you stand for, what you want your reputation to be, very much around this notion of what's going on around me. The second A is assessment. So once you're really clear on that, then you go ask people. And if you're in an enterprise context, you go ask your customers and ask your vendors and suppliers and your employees internally and externally. If you're a smaller entrepreneur and don't really have that, that. That set of stakeholders, you really just sort of ask those around you, and that gives you then an assessment. So the first building block is this notion of self awareness.

What does it mean to your customers? Do you think this is something you should be hiding from them doing internally? Or is this something you should be making a big burly announcement and going, hey, we care about you so much. Here's what we're doing and why we're doing it, and then getting them involved.

So it's such a great adage about all marketing. Just marketing is simple. Marketing is relationships. So, Mario, if we were there in Detroit together and I just moved into the house next door and I ran over across the street, said, mario, I can't wait to make you my best friend moved in next door. You'd probably raise your eyebrows and say, well, that guy's crazy. But if over time, I just did things that a good neighbor does, I let you borrow my lawnmower and you gave me a cup of sugar and you watched my kids playing in the street, or you just did. You interacted with me in a normal, authentic way, you would probably grow in my reputation. Your expectation of what I would do next, which is a definition of reputation, your expectation would be, hey, if I borrow stuff, he's generous with it, and when he borrows stuff, he returns it as Opposed to me running over the day I close on my house and say I'm going to be your new best friend. Probably doesn't work. Well.

When you're working with Companies such as AT&T and American Air. Excuse me, Nick. When you're working with companies such as American Airlines and AT&T and all of them, do you find that there's patterns that they're looking to achieve, they all have a the same end goal or would you say they all have their own industry specific goals?

You know, great question. I think it's this context around have they thought about reputation as an asset? Okay, so if you were going to ask me, as I sit with these big companies and they think about opening up a Mexico office, pick a country that's going to be built on roi, that's going to be built on expected sales, it's going to be built on market penetration and there's going to be real clarity around that. So companies expectations around reputation is directly related to the amount of thought that they've put into it. And do they really view it as an intangible benefit? And AT&T, great, great company really knows that reputation matters because they are so sensitive to regulatory issues. On are they going to. As they open up in new markets, as they bring new products to customers and it's a hyper competitive marketplace, cell phone, television, whatever market they're in, they're they view it as a really strategic asset and that growing that reputation is just as important as growing the bottom line. Roi.

Is that the same for American Express and a different niche industry?

Yeah, I think that's generally the case for any of those enterprise level companies. But even a small regional bank. I'm sure that you can think of a bank in Michigan that's not a major, but it's a local, good strong bank.

Huntington and Flagstar, none of us have.

Ever heard of them. But you. But to who matters to most? You to them. They really grow and have grown their reputation relative to you. So yes, I think most big companies get it, not all. And I don't think it's exclusively B2C. I think B2B Cargill for example, is a B2B company. I think they get it. And I've got lots of example of smaller clients that we work with that understand it. Just like the bank you referenced, they understand it.

You, you honestly never heard of either of those?

I'm not hunting Huntington National Bank. I've heard of, I thought it was Huntington and Flagstar. I've heard of Huntington.

Okay. Yeah, I know they're out of Ohio and. But they are Midwest regional.

Yeah. Now, Chase, if you were to ask me five name, five banks, they would not be on the list of the five banks I would list.

Wow. Okay.

Yeah.

Now I'm also with Chase and they're one of the larger ones.

Absolutely, absolutely. But I think it makes my point. It doesn't matter to me in Austin, Texas that they're, what their reputation is. It matters to them. It should matter what you think about them.

So for someone who's a local or a mid sized regional company, you're saying it. It's even vastly more important to be having a local reputation and a regional reputation than just some random national campaign that people may or may not even concerned themselves with.

You know, in pr, the end of the word is stakeholders. I don't like the word stakeholders. I think we can say it a little bit more clearly with matters most. Who matters most. And so there I have been, sadly a part of lots of ego campaigns where companies will do whatever is symbolic of the super bowl ad. You know, everybody that's such an ego play is to do a Super bowl ad to burnish your reputation. And, and we can fit. Seems like every year some company you've never really heard of does a Super Bow ad because their stock price ran up that particular year. And so they decide to do it, but that's not really valuable. And so whatever the equivalent of a Super bowl ad is in your regional market, it's bad. You don't need to do that. You really got to focus on those that matter most. And you don't need to make an ego play. Focus on those that really impact your bottom line.

Now let's talk about the people who matter most. How do you identify who those actually are? Are they all the prospects? Are they just a few of the prospects? Do you look at just the sales numbers and existing customers to dup them? How do you find the meshing of here's who we want to go after and who's here, the one we're speaking to for the reputation.

So I break it down into three groups, just super simple groups. Communities, customers, and critics. Okay, so customers are the most obvious of that list. Those are people that you have some sort of financial transaction with, either as a buyer or seller. That's where I put those. So vendors, suppliers, as well as your true customers. Communities are your employees first and foremost. That's where it's exactly where they're fit. The communities that you operate in. If you are a, if you're we're talking about banks. If you're a bank, you know, the two square miles or the 200 square miles around you, that sort of is your marketplace, where you want to be. That's what communities are. And then critics are naysayers, government regulators, perhaps the media, sort of. Those are all critics. And so once you look at stakeholders or those that matter most in those three lenses is then you can articulate who really matters between communities, customers and critics. And that really gives you a very clear bullseye of who really matters most in each one of those three. And then you can go further. Who really matters based on the reputation I want my community, my customer, my critics. You could argue that a company like Facebook right now is highly focused on their critics and that their communities and their customers are pretty well taken care of. But it's their critics if they, if they have reputational capital to spend, it is focused on their critics. And so once you do that, defining into those three buckets, then decide which one matters most. That's the way reputation gets managed. Because the way I just described that is the same way. If you and I were building a factory somewhere, we would talk about it in that same way. Reputation can be talked about in the same way.

Now, as far as timing is concerned, you're given a lot of great expert authority, insights on, you know, what things you should consider and who to narrow down with. But as far as time is concerned, is this like a 30, 60, 90 day goal or do we need a full 6 to 12 months to turn the ship around or at least get everyone on board going? Here's who we truly are as a brand, and there's no miscommunication.

Yeah. Wow, Mario, awesome question. And you can take it from two different directions.

Turning the ship around. And that metaphor means we want to go in a different direction, north, south, east or west. And we want to go in a different direction.

The other way to think about it is that reputation begins with one really good conversation with somebody that matters to you. Just one conversation. So I don't want to get overly philosophical. I just, I don't think there is a destination. You don't win reputation, nor do I think you win business. I just, I don't think, I don't think about business in that way. Simon Sinek talked about the Infinite game. And so I think the Infinite game is to keep playing the game. And so I think you want to keep growing your reputation. So think of a high reputation firm. Disney, BMW, Starbucks is kind of on that list. Rolls Royce sort of High reputation companies, I don't think they're done. I don't think they're finished growing their reputation. So in that philosophical context, I think it starts with one conversation with someone that matters most and I don't think it's a destination. So turning the battleship. The battleship should be perpetually spinning on its axis to constantly be pointing in the right direction of reputation, because I think it's ever evolving. Now, let me ground that out of the theory for a second. I think.

You need to focus on your employees. Be honest with your employees. We're in this season of COVID Talk about coming back. If you've never been reputationally focused, now is a perfect time to do it. Because we're all so bruised, battered and broken because of COVID now's a great time to do it. So I don't think you win reputation and I think you start reputation right now. I'm building a reputation with you in this conversation and I think that's sufficient.

So it's not a starting and ending point. It's a. You're continually working on it. Whether it's good and you want to take it great or it's okay and you want to make it good.

Absolutely. I think that's a great, a great way to think about it.

Now, let's. I, I'm not generally a negative person, so I don't really even want to go here. But it's important and it's relevant and it's. What do you do if you have a bad reputation? How do you help companies fix.

Yeah, so.

We have done some work with some of the leadership at Walmart. All right. And so Walmart is generally regarded as having a bad reputation. There is a concern by some about the way they treat their employees. There is a concern about some, about how they source their products. There's a concern about how they treat their suppliers. So generally regarded, it has a negative reputation. Walmart strategy is just to keep on plugging, keep doing good things. They do, if you ask their employees, they do really good things for their employees while creating continuing education for their employees, creating leadership and management opportunities for their employees. If you're concerned about their environmental footprint, they are one of the largest commercial solar users in the United States. Their fleet of vehicles uses more alternative than just about any other fleet right after Amazon. And so they are doing the right things. And so they are taking the infinite game, the long game view of growing their reputation. What you can't do is let's say we have a bad reputation. Let's Use our regional bank locally that we were talking about. A regional bank has a bad reputation. Some. There was bad customer service for years. Management didn't care. They had really exorbitant loan rates and they just were a bad operator. They can't just go write a million dollar check to the United Way and stand up with the CEO handing it to somebody and say, look at me, how great we are. It doesn't work that way because it took a really long time for that negative reputation to be earned. It'll take a very long time for the positive reputation to be earned. But I'm sure someone in the Eastern philosophy smarter than me said a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. And so the way you do it is committing to it and being committed to having a good reputation. Because back to where we were with your other great question. Because you know it matters, you know it will improve your standing. And there are reasons why a good reputation matters and it's quantifiable for business.

See, and what I like about that is not just the honesty and transparency. And thank you for that insight because I had no clue about the solar panels and the stuff with Walmart. So it's like the whole chicken and egg thing. So was that a reaction to the bad press? And they started it whether it was one year, two year, five years or whenever. And they're slowly incorporating more of this moving forward.

Yeah, let's not lose sight that most American corporations and Walmart is not, is not exempt. It's about driving revenue and driving share price. All right? And so being a social justice warrior, American corporations being a social justice warrior, there are some companies, Patagonia is a perfect example that are on the leading edge of some of those issues. I argue that Patagonia does it because the CEO firmly believes in it personally. But it's also good for their brand. It is good for Patagonia's brand to be out front talking about those issues. Now Walmart, I don't want to be cynical, critical or overly praise them, but they're doing these things because they need employees. They know that when they need their employees to be satisfied, they know when they go to open up a new store in a new market that's a little bit greener, perhaps they need to be able to look at those data points and share those data points. We could have a whole nother podcast about the economics of solar energy. Is it cheaper or not or what have you. That's beside the point. But so I think there is a belief it's Just because it's right. And a lot of CEOs think that way. But there's still a lot of people that just say, no, we need this stuff because it's good for us in the long term and we can trade on it and we can actually monetize this in the long term.

And so, yeah, the other company that, the company that comes to mind is Tom Shoes, where you buy one pair and they're given away. I mean, they're not, they've done that since the inception. And that's not just because of, oh, this looks good or anything. I believe they truly care also.

100%. 100%. And if you and I tried to start a shoe company and we just sort of ape that or did the exact same thing, it wouldn't work for us. It's just, it has to be authentic and real. And that's why a Patagonia, you know, really, really works. And that's why a Tom really works. Because they were, it was born into the DNA of their leader that started.

It and they, they were the industry leaders with it. They're not just trying to take something to make it nice. Whether someone's doing that or not. I think it's better, I'd rather have companies doing good stuff than not, regardless of the reasons. However, I think everyone smart enough when they can tell the CEO or the leader is doing it from the heart and for the right reasons versus like, like you said, the million dollar check to the United Way. Oh, great, now we're a good company overnight and all of that. Well, I'm hearing through all of this is no matter where your company's reputation is at, the cool thing is you can start small now, today, because no matter if you want to start small or start big, it's still going to take time and it's not going to happen over night.

Absolutely. And we're unpacking a lot of the really important things we talk about in the critical moments. Book about that, about these four A's, you know, of awareness, assessment, authority and action is that there are quantifiable levers that I talk about in the book. There are levers that actual corporations can throttle to actually directly impact reputation. There's a lot of academic studies ranging from 25 levers to five levers. I think there's around seven that are really sort of important that companies need to lever and throttle. But so absolutely take those small steps initially, but convince yourself. Am I doing this because I think it is a, is a strategic business decision. Am I doing this just because the world wants me to, because the world will ultimately see through you if you choose the latter over the former.

And I also think people should relax a little bit and correct me if I'm wrong on this because like Walmart, again, I'm not going to overly praise them, but I don't think they're as bad as everyone thinks they are. But when you have over a million employees, you're probably going to have a lot of people that are disgruntled. It's like if you're going to say something bad about a company, go run one with a dozen employees even let alone 50 or 100, let alone a million, come back 30 days from now and tell me that you have the exact same viewpoint. You know what I mean? It's like everyone.

It'S the rule of running uphill.

Yeah, it's running uphill, but it's the rule of large numbers is you're never going to please all the people in that context. And that's why, you know, big companies really need to a good job of determining smoke from fire. You know, is this truly a fire that we should care about or is this just smoke? Walmart. And again, I know those comms, the comms leaders there, there's all kinds of crazy crap that happens at a Walmart in every state on any given day. All right, People die in their facilities. Things that if people were dying, someone would die in your studio would probably be a big deal. But for Walmart, sadly, people like to commit suicide in the toy aisle and stuff like that happens. And so that's a tragedy and it's, and it needs to be dealt with very humanely. But it has, that has significant impact on them. But it would even have a greater significant impact on you if someone did that, you know, standing behind you like that. So I think it all you really need to determine smoke from fire and understand the context.

I like, I, that's horrible to hear. I had no idea that, well, there's.

Just imagine big box stores anywhere in America and the crazy stuff that can go on. We did a lot of work for Home Depot and I had a whole keynote speech about the crazy stuff that would happen on any given day. It's no different than the crazy stuff that happens in any community across the country on any given day.

Yeah, it's unfortunate, but to your point, you know, you don't want it to be, oh, it's just another day. But I remember hearing the stat that Walmart gets sued every single day in some way, shape or form or another. I'm just like, how many lawyers do you need on staff to just handle getting sued daily?

And that's that rule of large numbers. And so if you got sued today, or if I got sued and I'd probably lose sleep about it, it would probably be a big deal for me. Walmart, it just, sadly, it's a process of their business. It's just the way they need to manage it. And it kind of goes back to reputation. The wonderful intro that you did on the way in, could it be just one statement about you or me would significantly impact us and our business and our marketplace? But if you and I talking about Walmart on our podcast, I don't think it's going to have a whole lot of influence on Walmart's reputation.

You know, it's interesting and that's, I love your analogy of separating the smoke from the fire because, you know, I think I even said earlier, taking it with a grain of salt, wherever that came from. But at the same point, that's really what you have to do is separate the smoke from the fire and go, is this an urgent A, an urgent B or an urgent C thing? And realize, are we putting resources at it? If it's something that's a common occurrence? I mean, just like electricity and Internet is probably a line item for most of businesses, I would have to say, at the very least it's everyone's, because everyone's using Internet now and electricity. But when you need a team of lawyers and all this other stuff and it's just a line item, it's kind of just keep the humanity about it. I like that you were saying that.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's, you know, when we, when we talk about, you know, crisis response and how do people, you know, because I come to reputation management from politics and crisis, and these are. I still do a lot of crisis response, where we actually are firefighters and a company has a problem, we come running as strategists and consultants. And so a lot of our thinking around reputation is kind of born out of crises. As I talk to people in cocktail parties about what I do and my area of expertise, they'll say, oh, yeah, we just had this happen at the office and it was such a crisis. It wasn't a crisis. It was a normal business problem that had to be solved.

It was an inconvenience.

It was totally an inconvenience. So if your Internet went down and you couldn't shoot, it's not a crisis, it's an inconvenience. And that sucks. And we got to get it back up and we got to fix it. Okay, but if someone accused you of something more dramatic, that's maybe a little bit more of a crisis. So that smoke from fire discernment is really, really critically important. And that's one of the roles I get to play, is help people say, let's relax, okay? Let's just fix this and move on. And then the opposite is true, because sometimes people put their head in the ground when it's raining cats and dogs, and they're like, oh, it's not a problem. And I'm like, no, this is a problem. Sexual harassment is a problem. You know, in 2018 and 2019, and still it's a big problem. And so I think we had a lot of companies that put their head in the ground or head in the sand around those topics.

Yeah, that's unfortunate. And I was smiling when you said put your head on the ground before you said the second part. But I know a lot of people that have that attitude. It's like, it's no big deal. We'll just let it blow over. And it's like, you need to address it. You need to say something. Otherwise everyone else is going to be controlling the narrative.

Amen. And when we talk in that crisis context, what I've sort of determined is the key differentiator on the difference between good crisis response and great crisis response is speed and being fast. Exactly what you're saying. Being fast and filling that vacuum in the marketplace of ideas. But you don't get fast just by being fast. You get fast by standing for something. Your mission and values. What do you stand for? Add that to your chain of command. Who's in the room to make decisions, to decide what exactly you're going to say. That's how you get fast. So it's an equation, is that speed equals the sum of mission and values plus chain of command.

Oh, I like that.

And that's how you get fast.

Speaking of your background and transitioning into this, how did you get into this?

Yeah, so I grew up running political campaigns. So I did politics. I was involved in my first political race as a senior in high school back in my. I grew up in Florida, St. Petersburg, Florida, and then worked on a state senate race and just got bit by the bug. My parents were both pretty political. My dad was mayor before I was born, but was mayor of my small town. My mom had been pretty active in politics and so really got interested in that. So as you can imagine, in campaigns and Politics, it's about a lot of crisis management and it's also about a lot of creating crisis for the other guy. And those that win typically have one fewer crisis than ever than anybody else. So that's how you win in campaigns. And so that was just a natural evolution of working for individuals and campaigns to evolve to work for corporations and taking the skill sets that I learned in politics and applying it to companies.

Well, it sounds like you're doing extremely well with it and I'm loving the stories you're sharing. I know we could do more, but I want to ask you one more and it's about the transformations. Who has been your biggest success story? What's been the biggest transformation you've been able to give them?

Yeah, that's a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful question. And so I've been blessed to work with some really huge corporations and that have transformed, that have won major victories when they were kind of down on the ropes and have really come back and have on had great successes and big brands that we've all heard of. The one that I'm most fond of is there was a young man about five years ago, he was in college, senior in college, or excuse me, junior in college, and was caught saying a racist chant on video in the back of a bus. And he was saying things as most fraternity kids do that he had no idea what he was talking about and he just was repeating the chant that he had been taught by others and it got caught on video and it had some racial slurs in it and it was ugly. There's no doubt that it was ugly. I was able, his family hired me and I managed them through this crisis about a three month process of where he got kicked out of the university. And he did some really significant work on apologizing and working to remediate, not for attention but because he wanted to learn and really wanted to grow. And now I just got an announcement in the mail that he's finished, obviously his undergraduate, he finished his MBA program and has now just got a really, really cool job in the industry that exactly he wanted to be in. So while it's not going to make any head made headlines at the time, that transformation is not going to make any headlines. But that young man's growth as a man and the cojones that he had to stand up and apologize and learn is probably one of the things that I treasure most in my journey. And it's not a big name, big corporation that we would know or love. So I talk about that one really passionately. Because it so intimate and real and not just American Express AT&T or these, these big wonderful companies I've worked for.

And I love that you're sharing that because I like this. This is actually one of my favorite parts with, of the show is asking the transformations. Because personally, I know everyone with doing multiple books myself, it's not really that hard. You take some ideas, you put them in an order, you share this stuff. And there's people who can go, hey, here's a step by step, whatever, here's something. And I can repeat it, but the one component I look for is how many success stories do you have when people are like, oh, man, I could go all day. That just tells me you helped a lot of people. And these are the stories. Yeah, it's fun to say the flashy thing, or I had so and so on the show or whatever, but I love the stories where it's like you turn. You literally gave them a 180 and you changed the trajectory of this man's life. It wasn't just another line item for the week. And all the stories are good, by all means. I. I'm thoroughly enjoying this. But I love the intimate ones where it's like, he's gonna remember that for the rest of his life. And the sad thing is, it was some college thing that. I mean, you know, whether you say it's right or wrong, the reality is people pair off information all the time without ever really thinking about it or singing along to a song, or they heard something in a seminar and now they have their own training course the next day. And you know what I mean, there's all these different things and it's like all it takes. Now everyone's a broadcaster. You can be live streaming it from your phone and 15 other camera angles are in there. I mean, yeah, it's the world we live in. So I'm glad you shared that one because I think people can resonate that with that one more than anything because they're. They're either thinking, I know of someone, or that's been me.

Yeah, yeah. And it could be back just in a small little microcosm. And I just think there's a. There's a. There is a beauty in the humility of an apology. And then we sometimes forget about that in this environment that we live in right now. But there is a. There is beauty in that humility.

Well, I have one more question, and I agree. And it has to be sincere too. Not just, oh, sorry about that. You can tell. And that's the biggest thing is you can tell. So we have one more thing before we thank the sponsor and come back for the imperfect action round. But this is the Wheel of Whatever and. Ooh, I got a good spin on that. I love it.

Let's see where it lands. What's that?

It looks great on video.

Well, thank you. I painted it myself. No joke. We're going to end it there on that question. Do you know what the question is?

I don't, but I'm ready for it.

I love that attitude. So the question I have for you is what company do you really think needs some reputation management, that they could be doing a better job right now?

So I'll give you two answers. So I think the Trump brand needs a lot of work. And so I grew up running Republican campaigns and I don't know what the heck that means anymore. So I think the Trump brand is really going to have to figure out who they are and what they are. I think this presidency has significantly impacted that negatively and positively. You know, I think it's less about a particular company and more about an industry. I think the food industry, Cargill, and the way we make our food in America is really misunderstood. And the things that we do to make food safe at scale, fast and cheaply, I think there's a lot of room for understanding around that. So I think that's an area in industry, and then one company in that industry that I think there is really a big room and a big area for reputational growth.

I'm glad you talked about that because there's a lot of people talking about the food and obviously you don't want to be eating bad stuff. But at the same point, you said a few key words, words I have never in my life, even after watching things on both sides of the coin, learning the behind the scenes of how to produce the food at scale safely and cheaply there. And I. And I can. I know where you're going with that because I can relate to scaling up a business and there's things you have to be concerned about. It's different when you have one to 12 clients, and it's a lot different when you have 200 to 300 versus 500 to a thousand.

Absolutely.

Why do you think so many companies don't talk about this stuff and they just stay in this realm of. Because the same. The line I've heard through all of this is miscommunication. Whether you're talking about the campaign here, the food industry here, the credit card company here, the gentleman that you helped all it is is miscommunication.

Because we have all been inculcated with keep it simple, stupid and the picture of a goldfish in our 8 second, 8 second, 3 second, whatever it is, attention span, you know the goldfish, I'm talking about the poor goldfish.

Yeah, I was just thinking, I thought it was seven seconds.

Whatever. It's, it's small. But we've all just been inculcated. And I'm not saying those aren't true. They're true. You know it. We market against both of those realities. But there are things in our society that are complicated and we need to make them simpler so that people can understand them. But I think it's worth the effort before I go criticize something to actually understand it.

I think that takes time and I'm not going to do that in a kiss mantra and I'm not going to do that in seven seconds like the goldfish needs. And so I think there is a challenge and I face it all the time with our clients and it's how do we make complexity simple? And sometimes you can always make it better but I don't think you can distill, you know, safe agricultural processing process in a 30 second commercial. It's hard, it doesn't work that way. And so I think it's for leaders to actually understand and respect attention span and keep it simple but also to understand that we've got a complex topic that let's take the time to try to explain it and we'll try to meet people where they are, but let's really try to explain these things because they really are important to us.

I like that perspective on it and no one really talks about it. So thank you for sharing that. We're going to thank our sponsor and come back for the imperfect action round. You've heard me say every business needs a book, including yours and it's true. And that's why you should Visit free businessbook publishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. But you know what, don't take my word for it. Take it from a few of my authors like Lori.

I went from having an idea and a possibility to actually getting my book published.

Or Catherine, thank you for making my.

Mom number one best selling author.

Or Mary Alice what he got done.

For me in three days regarding my.

Book launch.

Unmanageable John Cody.

I've worked with Mario over the phone and online and he's been very helpful in getting me where I needed to go with promoting my books. Rocio, there's no way in the world I would have been able to do this with somebody else again. I've attempted it in the past. It didn't serve me. As a matter of fact, I ended up more frustrated than anything. So this has been a very seamless process. Adele, if you're looking for an amazing business coach, I highly recommend Mario Ficini or Bill Benner. I can't make a higher recommendation than to work with Mario Ficini. He has been great for me and right now I won't work with anybody else except for Mario.

Hey, their words, not mine. Visit freebusinessbook publishingcourse.com to get started now. And I look forward to hearing your transformation as the next video success story. Once again, that's free businessbook publishingcourse.com and we are back with the imperfect action round. Bill, are you ready to take imperfect action?

I am imperfectly ready.

Three questions, rapid fire, 60 second answers. The first one is what is the fastest path to the profits?

Be a super crystal clear expert on one thing and there is riches in the niches and you do not need to be a jack of all trades. Do the one thing and do the one thing better than anybody else.

Love it, love it, love it. Number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way for them to fix it?

Not paying attention. Semicolon. Pay attention. Okay, so I think focus on reputation and understand the impacts that it has on your long term enterprise value.

Excellent. Number three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

Care. Care about people. Care about your customers. They are precious, precious assets. It's the same way we care for our children and our babies from infancy to when they get bur. And so I think just simply caring and manifest at that. Manifest that caring in as clear and a consistent way as possible.

Excellent. Loving this.

What is a book or six that you would recommend to expert authority world?

So you know Mario, I had the really wonderful benefit of hearing your New Year's, your New Year's message that you did obviously at the beginning of the new year. And it had a prayer in it and obviously that was very impactful. So clearly for me, it's the bible. If we're looking for a book. I know it's a little cliche, but it's kind of the book that's there and I think it's incredibly valuable. You know, I think absent that, I love Simon Sinek. I think he's such a clear, clear thinker. On so many different things. I think his what's your why? The why book is just such a great book. And so those are. If I get pinned down, those are two. But I'm a voracious reader. We've got a little bit of the tight shot but I've got lots of books behind me and I really do. I enjoy enjoy books and I enjoy reading and I enjoy ideas.

Well, I appreciate that on all accounts. Thank you very much. And those are both great recommendations and that's why I there's only been a few times I've even said business books and it was more of a slip up than anything. But Yeah, I agree 100%. So where would you like people to learn more?

Well, our website is Kithk, that's the name of our firm, K I T H.

And we're going to stand up a landing page for the folks that are listening to your listening to the podcast. And so it'll be Kif Co eainterview and so people will be able to learn more about some of the things we talked about, some of the tools that we chatted about and be able to find out special for the folks that are that listened and pay attention to the smart things that you share. So that's the easiest way. Active on LinkedIn, active on Twitter. I'm pretty old fashioned. Got my phone number on there. Give me a call. I just love talking to people. I love talking about reputation. So Kith Co and Bill Colletti is the easiest way to find me.

Excellent. Well Bill, it's been an absolute pleasure and I can't wait to connect even further. I have no doubt we could have done two or three times the length of this, but this has been great. Thank you very much.

Thank you for what you do. You have a great, great show and you share so many great insights and perspectives. So thank you for what you do and Happy New Year.

Well, I appreciate that very much and Happy New Year to you too. Expert Authority World. We got another great episode here today. I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day. God bless.

You're already the expert, but have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate and qualify leads while increasing profit for you 247 and if so, how well are you promoting it? With the Expert Authority Effect publishing method, it's easier and faster than ever. Visit free businessbook publishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com to get started. Now once again, that's free. Businessbook publishingcourse.com hey, thanks for listening to today's episode. I hope you got a lot out of it. I know I sure did. If you haven't done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show. And also be sure to check out eainterviews.com for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you tomorrow.