Brittany Hodak's Secrets to Building Superfans (Walmart, Disney, Amazon)

And so for every single business out there, there are examples like that of it's not just the expectation that you do good at your thing. The expectation is that everything around your thing, the experiences that you're creating, are you making someone's life better or worse? Are you making things for them easier or harder? Are you a net negative, a net neutral, or a net positive overall when they think about your brand and everything that it represents?

That— because we have a term around here called master the basics and like, you know, blocking. So if I'm playing football, football and I have a quarterback who's trying to pass the ball to another person on the team, if there's nobody blocking for him, preventing the other team from tackling him, then he can't throw the ball, right? And so it's so important that when we define these things of like, what is that thing that prevents everything else? You can't do the plus ones, as we call them around here, create the magic, do the extraordinary, if you can't do the basics, right? Do you have the SOPs? Do you have the playbook? Do you have the things in place to just execute the fundamentals really well, consistently, and with a smile on your face, right? Welcome to Payrollin', the show where you will learn how to operate and grow your payroll business from the most dynamic minds in the business. If your company offers payroll services, this is the podcast for you. And now here's your host, Matt Vadie. Let's go. If you don't take care of your customers, someone else will do it for you. That's straight from Brittany's book, Creating Superfans, which I'm here, which is an experience in and of itself. I'm honored and blessed to be joined today by Brittany Hodak. She has helped some of the biggest brands in the world turn ordinary customers into super fans. She's an award-winning entrepreneur, bestselling author of Creating Superfans, and then it's worked with brands like Walmart, Disney, Amazon, and Katy Perry. One of these things is not like the other. To build an unforgettable customer experience. Now we talk a lot on this show about payroll where success is invisible when we do things right, but when we make mistakes, they can be some of the loudest noises that can possibly happen. And so Brittany's going to help us hear today how we can create clients who stay with us longer, complain less, and tell everyone they know about us. Brittany, welcome to the show.

Hey, Matt, thanks for having me.

Uh, it's an honor. And, you know, let's just start there. So we're in an industry, like many professional service providers, payroll is not that unique, but it's highly commoditized, right? In some ways it's a race to the bottom. It's, you know, there's 16,000 providers in America, which is an astonishing number when you divide that by 50 states. So like, how do we stand out on service when service is really so blah in so many ways?

Well, it's kind of a tiered approach and service means different things to different customers. And you've got, depending on the size of the businesses that you're serving and the things that they care about, different levels and then different levers that you can pull at each of those levels to activate the things that those people care the most about. So one of the things that many service businesses overlook is the fact that the people on your team are such an important part of it. You know, like you said, everybody loves you when all the automation does what it should and things work as it should invisibly in the background. But the minute things go a little bit sideways, the minute there's a new regulatory consideration, the minute there's a new thing that we've got to like jump through hoops because of whatever, those people come to the forefront. And so, every single person on your team has to be operating as what I like to call the acting chief of experience. And it's up to them to know which of those levers matter the most at each of the levels within the organizations that they're serving as customers.

Levers and levels. Love it. You know, Brittany and I were talking for a few minutes before we jumped on about whether or not— why, if the sun is hot, is it cold in space? Are dinosaurs real? And, you know, is the Earth flat? And so we may or may not take some real strange diversions during this conversation, which I'm totally cool with. I hope you are. Based on that, I'm sort of teeing Brittany up for the fact that I sent her over a bunch of notes, and now I'm just going to ignore them almost entirely and go off script. I was—

talk about dinosaurs and aliens.

In reading your book and watching some of your keynotes, you talk about this acronym of SUPER, and the first S is something I literally— Brittany, I got to tell you, it's on my to-do list sitting right here of doing a better job of crafting our story. And we tell our story really well one-to-one, but we don't tell it well at scale. Can you talk to us about the S in SUPER and what that means for brands?

Yeah, of course. So SUPER is an acronym that's designed to help people remember what it takes to go from being seen as a commodity provider to a category of one. Like, why should I care about your brand? What is it that you're doing better than anybody else? And if you follow the 5 pillars, you will have a really persuasive, convincing answer to that question that everybody on your team can tell. And the S is start with your story. And when I say start with your story, I don't mean lead with your story. I mean, what is it that should make me care about you? Why are you different than everyone else What is it that you can do differently to solve my problem better in a way that's more relevant to me? Because if you can't answer that question, what am I going to do? I'm going to make a decision based on things like price, based on things like speed, based on things like convenience to me. Because in absence of that story as that other compelling evidence, it would be crazy and some might even argue reckless for me to make a decision based on anything other than those commodity factors because I have a fiduciary responsibility to make the best decisions for my company. So your story has to be more compelling than all of those commodity factors.

Yeah, I like the— if I were trying to sell eggs, I would not sell the eggs, I would sell the story of the farm, right? So like, you know, in a highly commoditized industry, we've got to sell a story. So talk to me a little bit about some brands, some of the less obvious brands, right? So, you know, obviously we kind of get played out with brands like Apple and whoever that are, you know, doing really good advertising and telling their company story and what makes their ICP different and unique and all those things. Who are some brands that you've worked with that maybe we're not as familiar familiar with that do a really good job of telling their story in a way that attracts people to them?

Yeah, well, there are so many brands of all sizes that do a great job of this. And, you know, one of the things that I always encourage people to look at when you're trying to decide what are the places that you're going to tell your story is what is it that your brand actually does different and better than anybody else. So there's a brand called Armoire that's a subscription clothing rental company, and this is actually not a client of mine, this is just a brand that I really like. And one of the really great things about Armoire that sets them apart from some of the like Rent the Runway type competitors is you actually have real-time access to real stylists who will put together a case of clothing for you, who will answer your questions. They obviously use a little bit of AI, but they're very transparent about like, is this a chatbot or are you, you know, waiting to talk to, to your specific stylist? And they are so thoughtful and intentional about all of their brand touchpoints. So not only does their packaging change season to season, but they, every time they send you, they call it a case of clothes. Tied up with like a little, I don't know, like twine, like the, like, uh, kraft paper brown style twine. I think there's like a specific name for it, but I'm gonna just go with twine. Um, and then an origami folded dress that is their logo. So their logo is this dress. So you get this collection of really cool origami folded, essentially brand logos of theirs that you're keeping. But that's like a really thoughtful way because the way people experience their brand is unboxing that case. So they wanna make it special. They wanna make it memorable. Other brands have taglines or logos that are the sort of main way that their brand comes to life or that they come into the consciousness of either a potential customer or an existing customer. So it's really about what are all of the moments where you have the opportunity to be just like your competitors or different from your competitors? And then what choice do you make? Because in highly commoditized spaces like payroll, like so many things, like especially so many service brands, it can feel like a Where's Waldo puzzle. So what are all of the like bat signals that you're putting up in the air to say, we're not like all the other guys, like we are Waldo, we're not just somebody wearing red and white in this like sea of competitors.

Yeah, we always say if you want to be different, be different. And that's a very simple and cliché thing to say. But it is, you know, we've talked about on the show before, I could probably go to any website of one of these listeners that owns or operates a payroll company and they'd have the same handful of value props on there. We're local. We have the best support, we have affordable rates. Like there's not a great story there. There's only a handful of brands that have done it well. And I include us in that. So, you know, I oftentimes am over here saying the advice I need to hear. Now we'll give Brittany some props, right? So we had talked to Brittany about possibly being a keynote at an IPPA event and she sent the book. She not only sent the book, it had this great card in it that says, experience is everything and everything is experience. And she wrote a nice little handwritten note on here and she has a business card that is one of these hardcore metal business cards. And so if you're not watching on YouTube, you should be. You can see there her really cool business card. These things are probably like $4 apiece too. So a cheap guy like me is sitting here going, dang, girl laid out for us who were a closed loss deal, mind you, right? So this is one that she lost and she's hoping, I would imagine, that at some point in the future we have another opportunity to work together. And I hope so too because of the great experience she created for me. It's memorable. And so what are some other ways you see brands being memorable? Who do you steal your ideas from? Where are some of the people that you look to and say, ooh, that's fantastic. I want to steal that. I want to use it at my own company. And I would also love to hear when we, you know, that's, I'm going to ask that one question, but then I want to come back to your company. Cause one of the things I really loved about this is like, yes, you're a keynote speaker. You're an author. That's wonderful. But you were an entrepreneur as well and made an exit. So I want to hear more about your business. Um, but first let's talk about who's, who are some people that you love to steal from and some good ideas you've stolen recently.

Well, thank you for all the props. I'm glad you like the package. I steal things from people constantly, all the time, and I encourage everybody else out there too, because here's the thing: your customers aren't just comparing you to your direct competitors. They're comparing you to the experiences they have everywhere with like everyone they give money or attention or time to. And so you should be benchmarking yourself against everyone. So, you know, little things. I— here's, here's an example of not something like directly that I can take, but I think a really great analogy for people. So we were talking about before we started recording. You're in South Carolina, I'm in Franklin, Tennessee. Everybody that lives near me got new roofs in the past few months because there was a crazy hailstorm in May, just like the biggest hail, golf ball and bigger size hail, for like 20 minutes. So everybody's cars were wrecked, everybody's roofs were wrecked, like all the things. And so all of our neighbors have gotten new roofs, and you know, the door knockers and the phone callers and all the things. And the people who did our roof, honestly, I couldn't even tell you the name of the roofing company. My husband handled it. Like, it I mean, I guess it's like the roof looks good, right? Like, I don't know anything about roofs. I'm like, yeah, it used to be brown, now it's gray because we were like, let's do a gray roof. And, you know, like, the roof looks good. But my neighbor's roof and the company that I do know the name of, because I have since given their name to 3 people who have asked me about it— the reason that I tell them to go with the company that Trish and Mark used instead of the company that we use is because a few days after we got our roof, which was like maybe 2 weeks after Trish and Mark had got theirs. I was like, what are you doing about all the nails? There's nails everywhere in the yard. My boys can't play outside. Like, Cato got a nail stuck in the bottom of his shoe. What are we doing? And she said, oh, didn't they sweep your yard for nails? And I was like, what are you even talking about? And she said, when they were done, they had like a metal magnet that they took, like a metal detector, but it was magnetic so stuff would stick to it. And they swept our whole yard, picked up dozens and dozens of nails, and they came back the next day to do it again because it had rained overnight. And they said, we'll come back after it rains for the first time. And so I went on Amazon and bought the thing that Mark was like, look, here's the one that it is. And for weeks my husband and I were sweeping our yard to collect nails. So I, I assume the roof works, right? But like, assuming that the roof is done the way it's supposed to is the cost of entry. Like, doing what you are expected to do is no longer the ceiling that you aspire to. That's floor. You have to be great at that because if you're not great at that, you will go out of business. But what people remember, what people talk about, what people share are the things that they do know. So I was asked to pick a, uh, I think it was called Flashing Color something, the roof company. And I was like, for a billion dollars, I could not point that out on my house. I don't know what it is. I don't know what color it is. Now let's go with the color you think it should be based on the shingle color that I picked. Or like, let's— he was like, I would do black. I was like, great, then black it is. I don't know what that is. What I do know is that I don't want my kid to step on a nail and have to go to the emergency room. And so for every single business out there, there are examples like that of it's not just the expectation that you do good at your thing. The expectation is that everything around your thing, the experiences that you're creating, are you making someone's life better or worse? Are you making things for them easier or harder? Are you a net negative, a net neutral, or a net positive overall when they think about your brand and everything that it represents?

I love that. We're going to go down this rabbit hole. I'm going to let you get more into Super here in a minute. But have you read the book Unreasonable Hospitality?

Let's start there. I have.

Yeah. Okay. So wonderful book. And for those of you that aren't big readers, you can listen to some podcasts with the guy where he gets like this. He gets forced to pull out some of his best stories. I'm not going to do it to Brittany. I'm not going to have her tell her Chewy story. You should go watch some of her YouTube videos and listen to her opinion and some of her experiences with Chewy. She said it other places, so we're not going to do it here. But Unreasonable Hospitality. There are a million stories in here that stick out, but it's written by a gentleman who owned the number one restaurant in the world, I believe was the title, in Manhattan. There's a whole bunch of really cool stories about things they did really extraordinarily well in the ordinary moments. But one that stuck out to me, because we've all experienced this, is when you get the check at a restaurant. They did this completely different. And, and I listened to him on podcast describing this. He's like, look, when you get the check, there's no right way to do this, right? So either you want the check, you want to immediately immediately hand it back to the person with your credit card on it. And so if they walk away, then they've left too quickly, or you don't want them rushing off with it. And so if they, you know, stand there and they wait for it, then they're, they're being too aggressive. He's like, there's never a right— and how many times have you been out to dinner and the check has ruined the experience? Like, for us, it's always— it's sitting there for another 10 minutes after we're done with our— you know, we're— we got 2 kids, we're ready to roll, like, we're trying to get out of there, and now this person who's been so attentive the whole meal is just gone, vaporized, when the time is that we actually need them. So now this is a fine dining experience. So they're a little bit different than the places I'm going with my two kids. But what he used to do is he would bring a bottle of cognac to the table, put glasses in front of each person over 21 years old at the table, put a splash of cognac on the table, leave the check and say, the cognac is on the house. Whenever you're ready, go ahead and put your card in the check and we'll come back and we'll pick it up. So now he's completely removed any of the pressure around something that was pressure-filled. He's created an incredibly unique experience. When on earth have you ever had that? And it costs a couple of bucks per table. When they do it. I mean, almost no expense behind that. They probably go through a couple of bottles of cognac a night. He said almost nobody ever drank anything beyond the splash that was in the glass, even though they'd leave an entire bottle on the table. And so this is something where they've turned just an ordinary moment into an extraordinary story-worthy experience, right? And so I want to hear from you here in just a moment. I'll give you a moment to think about it of what are some of those ordinary moments that we can try to make story-worthy for us. One that we do really well, and it's entirely automated, and this is the thing I like where summed it up well, and I think you probably have some similar things that you would explain it the same way where there are things that happen most of the time, things that happen sometimes, and things that happen every now and then. And so, you know, how do we address each of those things in the customer experience? But for us, when a new customer onboards, they always get a message from us. Hey, welcome to Guru. And in this message, though, we have some really clever copy about how we, you know, we had a party over here and we were popping bottles of champagne and we played Don't Stop Believin' in the office. And now we're done cleaning up the mess and it's time to book the kickoff call. And every Everybody comments on, oh, that's so neat, that's so cute, et cetera, et cetera. So we've taken just a very blah moment and turned it into something where at least we put a smile on their face. What are some of those moments that you see in the customer experience, particularly in the B2B professional services world, where we can put extraordinary into those ordinary moments?

Yeah, well, it's a great question and it's a great book for anybody who hasn't read Will's book. And I, in one of the, the areas that I see friction often in B2B spaces is specifically is in handoff moments. So we're moving it from sales to onboarding. We're moving it from onboarding to implementation. We're moving it from implementation to the customer service or customer care team or whatever you call that team. Oh, now we've got somebody, cuz we're talking about renewals. So maybe we've got the sales guy coming back in or it's the, the team lead of the CSMs, whatever it is. And there's friction in those handoff moments, or they feel overly transactional because the times the customers are hearing from us are not us checking in for checking in sake or because because something that happened that's a milestone in their business. It's because it's time for renewal, it's time for expansion, it's time for whatever it is. And so that's one of the, if we're being honest, kind of like high stakes moments, right? Of, of things that, that have an outsized impact in not just the experience somebody has with you, but the things that they remember, the things that they say to others. And I see those get like bungled more often than others, not because the team doesn't understand that they're important, but because no one is taking ownership of it because people are saying, I own this lane. I own this lane. Like, I own everything between like the 50 and the 40. And then somebody else is like, I own everything like between, you know, this side of the 50 and the 40. Okay, but like, who owns the 50-yard line? Like, who owns that? We're not talking about what's between, we're talking about that. And so those handoff moments are so important. And so to be incredibly intentional, to work cross-department, cross-departmental, cross-silos, and say, we've got to think about this the way our customer thinks about this, not the way we're designing our workflows, not the way we're designing our systems and processes, or like how we've got this in, you know, Salesforce or whatever CRM that we're using. We've got to look at it from the customer and say, what do they need when? How are we going to make sure we can deliver that? Not sometimes, but always. Because one of the things that I love to say is consistency compounds. It's not about doing the right thing sometimes, it's about operationalizing it so that we do it all the time. Repetition isn't boring, it's branding. It's the blocking and tackling, the things that we do again again and again and again. And we know regardless of the day of the month, like, is it the 1st or is it the 28th, the time of the year, the person who is sitting in that chair when the call or email comes in, like, it is going to be done consistently because that is the standard that we've set. Not like, oh, it got handled this way because it was Rachel on a Tuesday morning on the last day of the month. I know there was a lot there, Matt.

No, there's so much I love in there. Well, and it's funny because we use these, you know, just the fact you're using football analogies makes me so happy in my soul. But the Did you like the Jim Harbaugh story in the book?

Was that—

I did. I did. But you hear blocking and tackling a lot, right? And let's say you're not a football fan and you hear that term, oh, we just got to execute the blocking and tackling. Let's really, really, really think about that because we have a term around here called master the basics. And blocking, so if I'm playing football and I have a quarterback who's trying to pass the ball to another person on the team, if there's nobody blocking for him, preventing the other team from tackling him, then he can't throw the ball, right? And so it's so important that when we define these things of like, what is that thing that prevents everything else? You can't do the plus ones, as we call them around here, create the magic, do the extraordinary, if you can't do the basics, right? And so that's the, you know, do you have the SOPs? Do you have the playbook? Do you have the things in place to just execute the fundamentals really well, consistently? And with a smile on your face, right? Like we have one vendor where it's like, yeah, they sometimes get you the answer that you want and man, they're just angry the whole time. It seems like what the heck is going on over there? I mean, I know Long Island can be bleak sometimes, but y'all chill. All right. So let's go back to SUPER. Walk me through the rest of the acronym.

So the rest of the acronym. So start with your story is S. U is understand your customer story. So it's all about understanding what it is that they actually need, what it is that they actually want. Having not just the authority, but also the empathy to meet them in that moment. P stands for personalize. In my keynotes, that's where I talk about the high-tech and the high-touch things that come together to create the high impact that our customers demand and will continue to demand. E stands for exceed expectations. That's the real, like, like the purest, what most people would call customer experience. So I call it intentional experience design. All of those moments that we can elevate. So asking ourselves, how can I, how can I look at each one of these these touchpoints and decide that I'm gonna use creativity and intentionality to elevate that moment. And then the R stands for repeat, and that's where some of the systems, the processes, the automation, the, the repetition comes in. But to go back to the blocking and tackling, something that I thought of when you said that, that really fits into you, which is that second pillar is understanding your customer story. A customer just shared this with me recently, and I won't use the brand name because I did not ask him if I could, but I will because this is a great story that I just heard. So, it's a gas brand that everybody has heard of. And one of the pain points that they were experiencing was the, you know, like when you go fill up your car with gas and it asks if you want to print a receipt, the pumps take this like giant roll of paper that takes a little bit of time to load. It's a little bit finicky. And so, one of the pain points that people working in the gas station would hear is like, "Your receipt printer is out of paper again. Your receipt printer's out of paper again. I need a receipt. I need a receipt. I need a receipt." And so, this was a pain point. Because customers were getting frustrated. The gas station attendants, oftentimes at a service station it's one person working, so it means they've got to wait till there's no customers in the store so that they can leave the desk and go refill this roll of paper while people are gassing up. It's, you know, it's like a slow elevator, to use the metaphor I use on stage, for everyone. So one of the things that they had tried to do to get more people to opt out of getting the receipt was to ask them to join the rewards program, saying, hey, you join our rewards program, you can get our receipt, 'Virtually, we just need your phone number and email address.' And they had very, very low adoption. People were not signing up for their rewards program. And so then they started A/B testing it, saying, 'Let's not even talk about the rewards program. Let's not offer them the incentives, tell them what they're doing. Let's just say, instead of, do you want the physical or paper receipt, would you like us to text your receipt to you?' And the jump in people then wanting it digitally versus paper was, I think he said, like 65% higher almost immediately because of the way it was presented as the win to the customer. Not join our reward program, we're making it about us, you know, be part of this and you're going to get emails and you're going to get texts and maybe there's offers, whatever. But just flipping it, saying, hey, we can text you your receipt right now, what's your cell phone number? And then they're still capturing the same information. Everybody's paying by credit card, so they're getting the name of the customer. They're like, they have all of the same information. But now all of a sudden, again, something something like 65% more people were opting to get a virtual receipt instead of a physical receipt, which solves that original problem of we have people that are having to leave what they're actually doing in their job to go refill these giant rolls in the, like, gas dispenser. And then obviously, like, all the other ancillary concerns of, like, the paper blows away and it creates trash and, like, all of these things. But anyway, the solution— and when we talk about, like, getting the basics right, sometimes getting the basics right, people think it's like, oh, I'm doing same things I've always done, but with more precision or with more regularity. But sometimes it's taking a step back, watching the game tape, let's say, and saying, is there a better way to go about that same thing? Like, can we accomplish this in a way that's gonna be a net win for everyone by reimagining based on what the outcomes are that we're looking for? And so understanding your customer story is about taking that step back, like we were talking about before. With like B2B SaaS where it's, you know, a lot of like onboarding process-driven, you're going from this department to this department or this system to this system and saying like, timeout. Like remember the old like Zack Morris timeout, like timeout. Let's like, you know, break the fourth wall, like take a minute and then like come up with a new plan.

All right. So let's talk story because if you're following along like me and listening to Brittany, you could see the gas station you were at. Cat. You could see the pad. You could see yourself having to walk inside the gas station. Like she brought you inside that story. And that's one of— I'm such a huge fan of wonderful storytelling. And obviously to be an electric keynote like you are, you have to be an incredible storyteller. But let's talk about telling our brand story here for this S just a little bit more. I want to— and understanding our customer story because storytelling, people can get very wrong, right? Like we've all been around people that are just terrible storytellers. They, you know, tell just a story that's just linear and just, you know, here's, here's what, here's how it started, here's the middle, here's the end. And it's just, you know, what happened, right? Like a recount is not a good story. But when we're telling our brand story, it has to matter to the customer and it has to connect to understanding their story. So how do you suggest we tell our stories in a way that matters to our customer and isn't just about us? I talk to founders in the payroll, HR, and accounting industry every single day. And they all tell me they need more of one thing. It's not more money, it's not more AI tools, it's more time. How do I get more time? Well, I hired a virtual assistant through outsourcesscale.com that helps me manage my inbox, manage my calendar, handles administrative tasks for me, helps support my marketing efforts, and much, much more. The cool thing about Outsource Scale is that they actually train the virtual assistants on the latest and greatest AI tools. To make sure that they can't only do that administrative work for you that you need to get off your plate, but they're doing it in the most efficient and effective ways possible. I've been so happy with my assistant from Outsource Scale that I've actually added multiple other teammates to our other companies through them. Their pricing starts at only $7.99 a month, and they make it super easy to get a new teammate onboarded and part of your team very quickly. Check them out today at Outsource Scale.

Mail.com. Well, one of the things that you said there, you know, I like to say superfans are created at the intersection of your story and theirs. So if you think of it like a Venn diagram, when you have somebody who becomes a superfan of your brand, it's because they've connected what you do to what they care about, what they either need or problem they have. If you can't do that, again, you you are just like a solution. You are just a commodity provider. You are part of a consideration set. And so what you've got to be able to do is create something that they feel. So I'm really fascinated right now by all of these neuroscience studies. Like, a bunch of universities and researchers have been doing things over the past few years that are all sort of starting to come out in these, like, you know, scientific journals and medical journals, where the neuroscience Science proves that the way our brains react when we hear a story mimics the way our brains react when we experience something ourselves, meaning different parts of our brain activate and store information differently when something is presented to us in story form than if we were told the exact same stats, facts, figures, etc. And so, you know, what's the old saying? Like, data tells, story sells. Like, I have no idea who said that, but it's like one of those adages that I remember hearing always people say. And it's so true because as humans, we are hardwired to react to stories because that is how for millennia— maybe just a few millennia, right, Matt? Wink wink. Humans have passed down— sorry guys, that was a callback to a joke before we started recording. Humans, for, you know, since beyond recorded history, have used stories to convey important information that's worth remembering, that's worth sharing. And so to tell a great story. You know, I live in Nashville, Tennessee, where one of the things that we're known for, other than like bachelorette parties, is, uh, country music songwriting. And one of the really great paradoxes of a country song, and something that really great songwriters know, is that the more specific a lyric, the more universal its appeal. The more detailed you get with something, the more you draw people in, even if their own lived experiences are very different than the ones you're talking about. Because Matt, if I tell you about my kids, what are you thinking about? Your kids. When I talk about like my first love, somebody's gonna think about their first love, right? Like going back to the country song thing. So the way you tell a story is by infusing details, adjectives, visuals that matter, that bring people in. And with your brand story, it's not just one story. In the book, I talk about this idea of an origin story, like how did we get to where we are, why does it matter.

But then I talk about having what I like to call a story setlist.

So the analogy that I make in the book, because I come from the music industry, is, you know, if you go see The Eras Tour, right, Taylor's got 90% of that that's the exact same every night. They know what it is because there's pyro and there's choreo and there's costume changes and there's all these things. But one of the really cool things that she did on The Eras Tour was they had the, like, acoustic secret songs every night, right, where she would play whatever song was right for that moment. And sometimes she would bring out a guest or they would do something Rachel, you can have a story set list for your role. And maybe you've got 15 great stories and you know, like, okay, if this is a startup with an entrepreneur founder, I've got like a really great entrepreneur founder story that I'm gonna tell that I know is gonna connect with that. If I've got like a huge, you know, 9-figure enterprise deal that I know is gonna take 18 months and require 12 different sign-offs, What are the stories that speak to what those people care about? And maybe it's a different one for the CFO than the CHRO. You've got a set list of these are the things that I'm going to tell. These are the stories that I'm going to share. These are the anecdotes that I'm going to share. And it becomes this really great set list, but in the way a bar band would use a set list versus somebody playing a stadium. Meaning when the crowd gets a little rowdy, you've got the song you're going to play. When drunk guy in the back is calling out Freebird, you make a decision. Are you going to do that or not? But it's so helpful to have that set list to go off of because otherwise you're going to be, you know, just like trying to remember in the moment. And a dear friend of mine who I love, his name is Phil Jones. He's one of my very favorite keynote speakers and authors. He wrote a book called Exactly What to Say. And one of the things that Phil always says is the worst time to think about what you're going to say is in the moment you're saying it. And yet so many of us operate from that place, right? Mm-hmm. So by creating a story setlist, by having persuasive and entertaining and inspiring, but also educational ways that you talk about your brand, your company, your product, you're doing such a huge service, not just to yourself, cuz you're gonna make more money and have more fun, but also to everyone in your orbit who hears those things because now they've got something that they can remember for something that's fascinating. Like, ask yourself, okay, the last 10 people that you talked to on the phone in a business context, did any of them say something interesting that either like made you laugh, made you smile, made you think? And if so, did you repeat that to someone else, or did you say, I've got to look that up, I need more information, right? That's, I would say, the exception, not the rule. But you can make it the rule when you're intentional about doing it.

I love this, and I got a few things here. So one of the first things that I— so, so I also own a marketing agency. I own a few businesses and one of them is a marketing agency. One of the common things we see, and it's interesting because we work with a bunch of payroll companies there too. So I'm looking at their websites all the time and I always tell them, I'm like, look, you're wee-weeing all over yourself. Like when I go to your website, it says we have 30 years of experience, we have great customer service, we are this, we are that. Your customer does not care about you. They just don't. They care about themselves. Like you talked about when you talk about your kids, who do I think about? My kids. You know, selfishly, that's life. That's how we all are. So it's like, how does your story we help them reach their goals. You phrasing is one of the simplest, easiest fixes that we can do in our copywriting in general is like, hey, make it about you. Hey, you will have a better experience with us because we have 30 years of experience, right? Like it's not just about we, we, we. And listen, I'm a closet Swiftie. And so I was a little ashamed when I got my Spotify Wrapped. I had to hide it from my family on the amount of hours I spent listening to Taylor Swift. For whatever reason, when I was training for a marathon Yes, I brought it up again, payroll and audience. You thought that from March till now I would somehow forget that I ran a marathon at the age of 45. Well, you're wrong. I'm bringing it back up. But so I just listened to Taylor Swift for like an hour at a time every time I would train. It was bizarre. All right, so now I'm going to steal some Taylor Swift. That was my segue because we got about 5 minutes left and you talked about the 90/10. So we had none scripted, but let's pretend we had 90% scripted and that we're now going into the 10. That's your set list, your personalized set list now, Brittany, of what do you want to talk about for the last few minutes that will, you think, will help us the most as we try to delight and create a better experience for our clients and customers?

You know, I, it's, my birthday was a few days ago and I, okay, do you have an Apple Watch?

I do not, no. Android guy.

Boom. Okay, you're an Android guy. All right, there is a watch face on the Apple Watch that I think is not only the most delightful thing that every single person needs life, but also a really great analogy for a lot of the stuff that we've been talking about. Hear me out. This is a journey. So I love Peanuts. I am a third-generation Snoopy superfan. My boys are both now Snoopy superfans, Peanuts superfans. And so when Apple announced that they were doing a Snoopy watch face, I bought an Apple Watch, like, for that reason. I use it for basically nothing else. You know, it's funny, my friends make fun of me because, you know, like, I don't care about tracking my sleep. I don't care about the notifications. I literally just want to watch Snoopy cartoons on my wrist, like that is why I have this watch. And so the Snoopy watch face has about 148 different short animations. So it's Snoopy and Woodstock. And for anywhere from like 3 to 12 seconds, they do something, right? They're having a party, they're playing a game, they're doing something. What's really cool about the animations is that they are served contextually based on information that Apple knows about you. About you. So situational serving. So for instance, if it is raining outside, there will be oftentimes when I look in animation where it's raining on Snoopy and Woodstock. Same thing if it's snowing outside. If I'm swimming and they know that because either I've put— remembered to put it in waterproof mode, which I usually don't, but like I guess it just knows because of the sensors, I can look at my watch underwater in the pool and Snoopy is swimming, or Snoopy is scuba diving, or Snoopy and Woodstock are boat. When it's dinner time, like Snoopy is eating his dinner. So dozens of times throughout the day, Apple is using information that they, that they know that they've automated collecting and then serving up something that feels hyper-personalized and hyper-customized, but it's not, it's situational. On Christmas, there's like Christmas animations. On Halloween, Halloween animations. Valentine's Day, Thanksgiving, all the holidays, Easter. But here's a fun thing. I've asked some of my friends who are Jewish. I don't know how Apple knows that they're Jewish, but they don't see Easter eggs, right? But on my birthday, there are 4 specific birthday animations that you only get to see on your birthday. So there's one day a year that you get to see those, and those are the ones that are personalized because Apple obviously knows your birthday. The fact that they go to that level of attention in detail makes the other 364 or 365 days year feel equally special, but they're not personalized. They're not even really customized. They're just situationally appropriate. Now, many of them— Snoopy and Woodstock— interact with the hour hand or the minute hand, so they're like sliding down one or flying off one or whatever, which makes it feel so cool. And even though, you know, I don't, I don't know the number— tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of other people are getting those same animations at those same times, it still feels incredibly personal and custom to me. And because of that, it's engaging. I am embarrassed. Like, you're embarrassed how much you listen to Taylor Swift. I'm embarrassed how much I look at my Apple Watch to see Snoopy cartoons throughout the day. I am so glad that they don't send me something tracking that, because I'm telling you, Matt, it's like a lot of time. And it's not just me, it's my kids. They love to do it too. And my friends will be like, oh wait, what did Snoopy just do? And the other thing is like, it's, it's, um, randomized is not the right word, but like I can't recall it. I can't be like, hey Siri, play the automation that you just did. Like it's, it's, it's like you miss it and it's gone. And so it's got that like FOMO built into it. Why am I telling you this very, very long winding story? Well, the reason I am is because for all of you listening, think about how seamless that experience feels, because what Apple is doing is taking all of the data that they have, all of the inputs that they get about weather, about time, about temperature, about activity, about my heart rate, about. Like, it knows that I've lied down in bed, it knows that I'm in my car driving. Like, all of this data— they could have just kept that data in a silo and did nothing, but instead they said, let's use that contextually and do something that's going to absolutely delight a customer. Now let's take it a step further. Let's take a little bit of personalization for something like a birthday, for something like a holiday that we're reasonably confident that they celebrate, and layer it on top. And then what that does is make all of the rest of it feel that much more elevated, personal, custom, even though it's not. It's just data. It's just serving up the right thing in the right moment to the right customer. But the expectations that your customers have for personalization, for— I'm going to say delight because that's true. That's what we want. I had a Snoopy stocking that I got delivered from an online personalization place, and one of the stockings had like a flaw in it. There was like a printing error. And so when I went online in the AI chatbot, I, in less than 2 minutes with an AI chatbot, was able to say like, this is my order number, this is what happened, here's a picture of it. And the chatbot was like, cool, we're really sorry about that, I'm gonna order another one. I see it's just the Charlie Brown dad stocking that was wrong, all the others are fine. Here's your new order number, it's going to ship out by Friday, you should have it by Tuesday of next week, and you'll get an email with a tracking plan. Exist. Seamless. 2 minutes. Like being able to put the right information in front of the right people at the right time with the right automation and human elevation when needed is what the expectation is moving forward for all of your customers, regardless of the industry that you're in.

Personalization at scale is, you know, already the reality. It's like I heard a phrase once, you know, whatever the nerds in Silicon Valley are doing on the weekends, to what the rest of us will be doing 5 years from now. And like, you know, there's a lot of that with the apps, with the service as well, right? So what are the rest of us businesses going to be doing that's already personalization at scale for companies like Apple? And, you know, if I'm fortunate enough to convince you to come back on, that's where I'd really like to dig in is, you know, how does automation fit into this, right? I've heard you talk about it a little bit and like, how do we automate that personalization? How do we automate those mundane moments? I mean, I'm even thinking about just customizing the little things as you're sitting here talking here. What's stopping us every month from going in and updating our our invoice template to reflect the month of the year, right? Like, why can't it have a visual on it that reflects that it's April and, you know, it's sunny outside? Like, small stuff that, you know, somebody might notice, most might not, but would probably take somebody on our team 20 minutes to do that would be in front of thousands of people at the end of the month. And so those are the little things we can start to think about. And I just have a ton of creative juices going after this conversation, Brittany, which I knew I would. And I'm honored that you spent some time with us today. Well, oh, hey, have you ever heard of the gentleman's agreement and the lady's understanding, Brittany? Have you ever made it to the end of an episode of Parallel? And now you haven't.

I'm sorry, I, I, I feel, I feel terrible that I don't.

So the answer— so if you're listening right now, you have— if you made it all the way here, you are 42, 43 minutes in, you are subject to the gentleman's agreement and the lady's understanding. Brittany and I spent our time here with you for free. Neither one of us got paid for this, even though we dropped substantial knowledge bombs on you. So our agreement with you is that you will simply like and subscribe to the video here. It'll take you less than 10 seconds. I'll for just a moment. So I give you the content for free, you subscribe so that you get the content every time. That's the agreement.

I love it. And I would love to say, if you want to check out the book Creating Superfans, it's available everywhere books are sold, including as an audiobook. And I would love for you to not only read it, but then to leave a review and let me know what you think, whether you do that on Amazon or Audible or wherever else you get your books, because I look at every single review and they really do matter. Just like the liking and subscribing helps so much for Matt for the podcast.

Yes, and I will leave a review for you. I am writing it down here. I love the book, and I appreciate the time you spent with us today, Brittany. Thank you so much for the work you do.

Thanks for having me, Matt.