Micah Solomon: Delivering Exceptional Customer Service

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Oh, yeah. Holding your own tunage.

I know you should never put tunage over tunage.

Yeah.

You ever do that, Kels?

No.

Really?

No.

Let's sing a song together. That's how we put tunage over tunage all the time, Kels.

We would call it polyrhythm.

Polyrhythms. I like that. The music button got you.

That's what happens when you try to override the original tune.

Don't do that. I'm Mike McAllis. I'm the author on a mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. My friends. You know what that is? That's the perception that you're wildly successful, but you're wildly struggling. Well, we fix that in this episode and every episode of Entrepreneurship Elevated. Joined in studio by the president of the Mike Michalowicz offices, Obsidian Launch is our actual technical name, Kelsey Ayres.

Hello, friend. Please just end it with please, please don't forget to comment and rate us and subscribe wherever you're listening.

Please get me out of here. Fine sir.

Please help me.

Please. Give me one. Fenning. What is it? What do you. What's the coin? Shilling. One bit. Can I have two bits for turkey? Also in the studio is Jacob alone. How you doing? Oh, Jacob Bloom's awfully quiet.

Oh yeah. Maybe you got it.

You didn't check it.

Say hello again.

Hello.

There's Jacob. Blown. I turned off his microphone.

We got.

We got all kinds of stuff.

You used to work on a tree farm.

I actually. I'm still going to this year. I just. I got a phone call. They need help.

When Christmas rolls around, you're carving up trees.

Very random.

Do people ever try to give you shillings or fannings or bits?

Is it cuz he's wearing a lumberjack shirt? Is that what you thought?

Yeah. It's an instant reminder. Look at it.

Flannel. A lumberjack shirt.

Interchangeable.

Jacob loan. Hey, cows. What you been up to?

Hello.

You were just declared president of the company.

Yeah. So that happened.

Yeah.

Yeah. I do love it. And my brother and sister came in to celebrate, so that was awesome.

Did we really surprise you with that?

Yeah, you really surprised me with that. Yeah.

Okay.

For sure.

That was good. So the error or er that we made, isn't it pronounced E R, R, er er Error? Yeah. But I think you can also call it error. Check it out. Err. Google it while I'm talking. Error.

I don't have my phone.

Oh, well, whatever. So the error that we made was we called your mom and dad.

Yeah.

And we said we'd like to share that your daughter, after years of working here, is going to be declared president of the company. And we're actually doing a ceremony stuff. We'd like to invite you down. And your mom goes, my daughter works for you. That's how it started. Right? That's how it started. And then she had no clue. So you didn't.

We're actually estranged though.

That's.

It felt like we thought you knew. We thought you at least told her. She had no clue. It was a disaster. So sorry about that. Did we put you in an awkward spot with that?

No.

Okay. We're sorry.

No. And she did know I worked for you.

What was that, Micah?

Oh, what was she telling her mom that she was doing?

I know.

Yeah. What were you telling your mom?

That's a secret. Only I know.

Okay. Well, how'd you like the ceremony?

You were working on your master's thesis Weren't you?

Yeah.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah.

Just shy of my PhD actually.

Tell us, Kelsey, about the ceremony. What'd you think about it?

I loved it.

What was your favorite part?

Coronated as the queen.

Yeah, you are. Tiara.

Yeah.

What else? What did you like about it? Your faves.

My faves. So many. I love. Jeremy made a nice compilation video of my worst moments.

That was my favorite.

Always nice. Yeah.

Jay Sloan, you went crazy on. That was the best video I've seen.

Oh, thanks. I could have gone. I could have gone way brutal on the left.

I know, I know. You're very kind.

Yeah. I could have done 20 minutes of just laughing.

Dude, you had everyone laughing. It was. That was. To me, that was unexpected because I didn't know you were going that intense on it. And it was just so much fun. But it was also loving. Like, it was just. Yeah, it was loving. And I love the little testimonials at the end. Thank you.

Yes. I love at the end. Aaron, our co worker here, called me not normal.

Yeah, In a good way.

Yeah. I mean, she really, actually spoke very eloquently.

Yes. No, it was super thoughtful and lovely.

And then we got you the big board, the welcome sign for your house. You got your own business cards now.

On it, which is super cool.

We got. Should we get business cards for everyone else now? Like, you're the only one with cards. You're the only one with cards. There's 14 people here without cards, and you're the only one with it. It's kind of funny.

All right, give them to everybody. I just walk down the street.

I know. You just hand them out regularly. You were throwing around, like, Chinese stars, by the way. You gotta be careful because those things are thick. All right, so we have some fun stuff lined up today. We have Micah Solomon again.

Am I the only one who's talking about myself?

Yeah, because we have much time.

Yeah, I know. It's great. It's funny.

We don't want time. Why don't you ask?

He doesn't know. He doesn't want to know about my life. I cut trees and we talked about.

Him working at the farm. I asked him whether he's working there again. What else do you want?

No, actually, I'm gonna help them cut trees again this year.

Because your parents place?

Yeah. And, you know, my dad's not in shape to do it, so usually ever since I moved, my brother was kind of doing it, and if I could make it down, I would help. But now I'm gonna be closed, so I'M just gonna. It's like four Saturdays.

So you cut the trees and you put on people's cars and stuff the whole thing. So you get tips.

What you do is essential. It's absolutely essential because we used to have a place out in the country, and we bought it from some people who had, long time earlier, planted a Christmas tree farm, and then they lost interest, and those all grew to be mature trees. And it was like a death trap because those trees are not intended to grow to full height.

Yeah, yeah, we have some. Yeah, we have some big ones. Some are like 15, 18ft. Because we never.

Gosh.

Well, because they didn't buy them at 12ft. And then they just kept going. And then at a certain point, you.

Know, do what you do with them.

Now, then just let them keep going. Eventually, I mean, we'll cut them down and can you.

Can you grab the pine cones and plant new trees? They yield new trees, at least.

We'll usually plant from sapling because you have a better chance of it sticking or whatever. But the good news, I learned all about. I know, like, 10 different varieties of Christmas tree. So if you have any questions.

Oh, rock and roll. Free to ask. Okay. I always have questions about that. All right, let's get into the show. Okay.

Okay.

So we have Micah Solomon coming on a second. We're gonna talk about his brand new book called ignore your customers and they'll go away. We also have some fun games for today. The last, like, five flights I took. I've been working on the weird products, so I got tons of them for. That's my favorite game. So I'm gonna really bring it today. And I do, before we kick off, want to thank our corporate supporter, nextiva. Micah knows them well. You know, both Micah and I are both on the board at nextiva, so we're both. Yeah, a board member. We sat across from the table from each other, arms folded, staring each other down. That was the most intimidating meeting Micah I've ever been to was the board meeting.

I tried to keep it light.

Yeah, you were the entertainer. Everyone else is like cutthroat and like, that's a bullshit idea. And slamming hands and fists around, and you're like, let's all be friends and like somebody else. That's bullshit. This isn't for friends.

So seriously, I didn't like about that meeting was Yaniv couldn't come that day. It would have been funner if he was there.

It would have been way more fun if he was there. Anita Campbell was, like, intense. I think she was going to try to punch you. Barry Moltz marched out and said, this is the worst group of people I've ever met. That one guy in the corner was in tears the whole time. I think it was Thomas Gorney, the owner.

None of this is true.

I know.

It's all.

It's all for.

I think our listeners know that by now.

This show is just for entertainment.

Okay.

All right, let's get into the meat potatoes.

But Barry Moltz and I, who are both, I would say, highly successful keynote speakers, we both conceded at various times that we are nothing compared to Mike, that we only get his. Can we say sloppy seconds on this?

You know you cannot. There's no saying sloppy seconds or swearing. So don't say that. Yeah, don't worry. We won't cut it. So the funny. Yeah, yeah. You guys rub that in. Which is not true, by the way. It's not true, but it was very. I've been very fortunate recently. But it's not dripped. Hi. Let's get into the show. Micah Solomon is one of the world's leading authorities on customer service, the customer experience, consumer trends, hospitality, and company culture. He is a constant keynote speaker, trainer, and training designer in these subjects, and the author of many books, including the new one that you got to pick up at Amazon right now. It's called ignore your customers and they'll go away. It's the simple playbook for delivering the ultimate customer experience, and it's what we're going to explore on today's episode of Entrepreneurship Elevated. Maika, welcome officially to the show.

Welcome, Micah.

Oh, wow. I didn't know this was live. Those people sound great.

Oh, really happy about you.

Yeah. We have a big studio audience. They sit far away from the microphone. So there's a lot of them, though. So listen. Ignoring your customers and they'll go away. There is times, though, you want to ignore your customers when they're. They're a pain in the butt. Right. And there must be times that customers aren't right. But there's other times that are right. How do you know the customers that you should be servicing? The good customers. How do you differentiate the good from the bad?

Well, let's back up. If you own your company, you. I'm hereby empowering you to kiss off the customers you don't want to work with. But nobody who works for you should do that, because every single customer is irreplaceable. This is what people don't understand. There is a finite supply of customers. So when you lose one you lose one forever. And in today's social media world, you may well lose their family, their friends, and so forth. So I would be cautious about that. It's true, some customers have more value than others. But we were talking about nextiva, and I just want to show you how they deal with a customer who has apparently no value for them, and yet they're so nice to them. So I saw this happen on Twitter. These gents, as I recall, were in Europe, and they wanted to know if Nextiva offered VoiceOver IP services in Europe. Now, the short answer is no. Or was. Now, I'm. I'm sure they're all over it, but this was a few years ago. Short answer was no. But instead, their video folks there at nextiva recorded this adorable little video and tweeted it back at them about, sorry, we don't offer this now. We love you guys. Best of luck finding your answer. And it was such a great answer that now that they do offer it in Europe, I expect they've come back to them. But also, everyone watching that exchange got to enjoy it as well.

Oh, well, here's an interesting point. Well, you're making an interesting point that the exchange was observed by other people. Is customer service now something that's happening in the public domain more than ever?

Absolutely. And the reason that providing exceptional customer service is so important today is varied. But the first part of that is that customer service is today's marketing. And when it is done in real time, or almost real time over Twitter, then it's very directly marketing. But today's era is so different from the Mad Men era, where you could hire a great copywriter, a brilliant marketer, like the real life analog of Don Draper or Peggy Olson, and they could sell anything, even if it was Lucky Strikes. And it would literally. I'm using this in the real sense of the word, not the millennial sense of the word. Sorry, it would literally kill you. It would sell. But today, it's not like that. Customers and your prospects of traditional marketing, they're very interested in it, but only if it aligns with what their friends online and in the real world have experienced. So customers are in charge. Even worse, they know they're in charge. So anyone you've mistreated has recourse to social media. And I think more fun and more important actually, is anyone you treat great will be that bullhorn out there for you.

Give me some examples so we can kind of set the stage for exceptional customer service.

Well, there's Mike Michalowicz.com.

That'S questionable, but okay. I mean, real great customer service. I don't think, sadly, I don't think we have that reputation. We got to enhance things here.

Admittedly, there are many companies that are giving great service. The ones that I cover in the book include usaa, which is a giant in insurance, auto sales, believe it or not, retail banking, financial services. I cover them. I cover the Virgin brands we spend some time with. And here I'm going to name drop. We spend some time with me and with Sir Richard Branson. We're having breakfast and he is very meticulously preparing his very British tea. And we talk about customer service. Zach Bows. We have a very intimate look at Zappos. It's not the press release version of Zappos that you sometimes see, but it is overall very positive. A Nordstrom Safelight Auto Glass, which I like them because they come into your life on like a crappy day when someone, when a rock has broken your window or even worse, they were telling me someone may have broken into your side window. And so it's not going to be a good day. And yet they strive, it's right in their mission statement, to delight you. Anyway, so I like them. I don't know if any of you have big hair, but if you do, maybe you know, Dry Bar.

We both looked at Kelsey when you said that, by the way.

So, Kelsey, do you frequent Dry Bar?

I don't.

How do you do that then? Do you do it at home? How much hairspray do you go?

Hilarious.

Okay, so what are these companies doing that you just kind of rattled off? What defines great customer service? What's the actions they're taking?

It is specific to your customers. But all of these have in common that they care about every moment in the customer experience. I think Maud and Kelsey, you need to become a believer. I'm sorry, Dry Bar. Dry Bar. My mistake. We also talk about Mod Pizza in the book and they're a great company with. I keep having to revise this every time I send in a revised manuscript, but they're up to hundreds and hundreds of these fast casual pizza joints. So what they all have in common is that they see things through the eyes of their customers. They make a decision. And if I were going to put the decision into words, it would be are we going to put the customer at the center of how we design our processes, how we design how, even the way we go through our day? So everyone, all of us can do this regardless of our position? Like for this podcast, I won't say I Designed my whole day around you guys. But we went on at 10 local time here for me. So from 8am onward, I turned my whole day around to you guys to be prepped for this and make sure my mic was tolerable, quality and so forth. And this is the way you turn around your day to serve your customers. But it has to go all the way to the top because if you you're rearranging how you focus to serve your customer and the CEO or the president isn't with the program, then when you need to go the extra mile for the customer, like they do at Nordstrom, like they do at Zappos, like they do at Virgin, then maybe you're not going to get a few more widgets packed and out the door. So you not getting the additional widgets packed and out the door. The CEO needs to applaud that because you were doing it for a customer focused reason, not like bites your head off and send you packing.

So let's talk about companies that don't deliver great customer service. I think of United. I flew them today and they're notorious. And there's even a video out there by Dave, I can't remember his last name now. Carol. Dave Carroll. Right. United breaks guitars.

Yeah, but he now he's a spokesman for United. So no turn coat. So more complicated than that. But anyway, carry on.

So he made this video that went viral about their bad service, but so United has a bad reputation. Here's the irony. United still in business just as much as Virgin. If they're not bigger, does customer service really have that much of an impact? Does it really matter?

The thing is that companies that contact me and I am the customer, there's a few of us, but I'm considering the customer service or customer experience turnaround person. So the companies that call me, they are never Spirit, they are Southwest. They're companies that already value you customer Service. In fact, JetBlue wrote the introduction to my new book and Mike, refresh me, what's the name of this new book?

Your new book is called ignore your customers and they'll go away.

Thank you. So that's my new book and in fact it only covers companies that are doing these things well. And so JetBlue is obsessed about it. The thing I'm going to say about United and about air travel in general is I have to applaud them regardless of whether they're from friendly to you on board because they save our lives every day. You're so much safer on board than you are driving your car being in the back of the Uber with the guys, texting and so forth. So I applaud them. That's why you still take United, because the schedule works for you and you know you're not going to die. However, if you have any bit of leeway over who you're going to choose, you're not going to choose them. And you know, this happened to me last night. I had the only thing, I'm going to caveat this. I have had some great experiences on United when Dave flew them and it was terrible. It was quite a while ago. So I've had some excellent experiences. It depends really on who is flying that day. Delta, I would say more consistently gives good customer service. And I've looked into why that is and part of it is that they are incentivized to do that. Now, giving incentives for good customer service can truly backfire because employees are smarter than their bosses, by and large. So if you start offering, particularly if you offer a lot of money, they're going to game that quicker than you can imagine. But at Delta, there are some financial incentives, there are some slap on the back incentives, and it just gets people focused on the customer experience. The other thing that happens, which hasn't happened yet at United, they haven't reached the tip point, is that there is peer pressure, what I call positive peer pressure at Delta and certainly at JetBlue and certainly at Southwest and certainly at Virgin. Well, Virgin America doesn't exist anymore, but Virgin Atlantic there is what I call positive peer pressure. And this is where if you work for Nordstrom, you work for the Apple Store, you work for Zappos, you work for Delta, you work for JetBlue. You just can feel that the way things are done here is in a customer focused manner. That's just. That is the happy way to do things here.

Okay, so if there's peer pressure, that means we can recruit talent or people who inherently have this. How do we seek out people that bring a customer oriented customer service mindset to our business?

That is the first step. The first step is to get the potentially right people on board. They won't become truly the right people till you train them, until you inspire them, until and until this peer pressure gets created.

Over my 12 years of being an author devoted to the small business entrepreneur, I've discovered the biggest challenge. And you know what it is? It's profitability. That's why I wrote Profit first and that's why I'm now hosting a two day workshop here at my offices in Boonton, New Jersey, where I will teach you and my team will. Will teach you how to become permanently profitable. Go to profit first live.com right now to get details again, profitfirstlive.com find the dates that work for you and I'll see you here at my office. So let's keep going. So we're talking about recruiting. Give me some more insights there.

So the first step is to get the right. Get potentially the right employees on board. So how do you do that? Well, the short answer is you want to consider traits as well as technical abilities. So there are five traits as word of thumb. I'm sorry, As a rule of thumb that I suggest you be looking for. And they are warmth, empathy, teamwork, conscientiousness, and optimism. Don't worry, I'll slow that down. But it spells wetco W E T CEO, so it's really easy to remember. Just think of the big superstar superstore Petco, and then outside of it, think of a big wet dog just shaking themselves off outside. You got that picture now you're never gonna forget wet go. So I'll go through them slower now. Warmth. This just means liking people. Empathy. Empathy is more involved than warmth. Empathy is being able to sense what someone else feeling even before they express it. T is teamwork. This is a willingness to involve other members of your team to serve your customers. Conscientiousness is a broad psychological trait. It's essentially detail orientedness and optimism. Optimism, specifically what I'm talking about is what's called an optimistic explanatory smile style. So how do these all work together? Well, warmth is just like, oh, I like Mike, I like Mike. I like Kelsey. Empathy is. I totally know how Kelsey is feeling. She's feeling a little insecure now because she says she doesn't use dry bar and maybe she should have lied. It's true that she does use it. Teamwork is. Well, absolutely. I know Kelsey's feeling this way. I am going to ask my assistant to get in touch with Allie and Mike, the incredible proprietors of Drybar. And let's get Kelsey a gift certificate so she can try it out. Now you can have the warrant, the empathy and the teamwork, but if they don't have conscientiousness, then the whole thing falls apart. So I'm warm, I'm empathetic, I'm willing to involve my team, but I forget to write it down. It's not going to happen. So that's the conscientiousness part. The optimism part is something different. The optimistic Explanatory style is how you deal with bad incidents as an employee. So a customer, you gotta love them, but someday they're gonna bite your head off. It may have nothing to do with you. It may be that their dog is sick, that someone else in their family bit their head off, and they don't know who else to vent. So anything like this can happen. You can get hung up on the phone or somebody can disconnect on chat. So there's two ways you can feel about this. Number one, you can feel like, oh, my goodness, I am the worst employee in the world. I'm just gonna call in sick for the rest of the day, crawl under the blanket, and that's that and never come back into work again. That's not really good for anyone, right? Optimistic explanatory style. You can say, well, maybe I could have used different language. Maybe I could have refined my approach. But overall, I think that that customer was having a bad day. I'm just gonna dust myself off, take the next call, and hope for the best.

So our listeners are small businesses. How do we know if we're delivering so far? But how do we know if we're delivering good or bad customer service?

One thing I would suggest is that you secret shop yourself. And I was talking with this, talking about this recently with a company called Call Miner. They don't really serve small businesses, they serve larger businesses. But what they do is they record every call and then they allow you to search for data points within the call. So what is the value of that? The value is that you're getting an overall picture of how you're doing rather than making everyone work to a probably outdated set of points that you're asking people to hit. So start by mystery shopping your company. I have the best job in the world. And the best part of my job, arguably as a customer service consultant and customer service turnaround expert, is the mystery shopping I do. So let me tell you how I do it. I am the guy who will secret shop a five star hotel or a boutique spa. And this pisses people off when they hear about this because, no kidding, I have to get a massage and I have to get a manicure and I have to get a pedicure and I have to get a facial and I have to check out the customer service while it's being done, all for professional purposes. Now, I do draw the line at getting waxed. I do draw the.

So you say, yeah, exactly.

I don't want to be out there screaming, Kelly Clarkson, you can't Pay me enough to do that, so. Took you a while there.

That was a good reference, Mike. Didn't get it.

I didn't get it.

So it's a great job. But it does have some tricky points to it, which is, once they have the cucumbers over my eyes and the blindfolds over my eyes, it's hard to discreetly observe the customer service going on all around me. But I know every job has its drawbacks. Right now, how can you mystery shop your own company? We'll start with the easiest part, I think, which is how you're holding up in terms of timeliness and efficiency. Timeliness is really important with customers today. So fill out a web form on your website. Do it every week. See if anyone answers. I'll bet they don't. I got a live chat this morning saying, getting a 404 when I fill out your. Your contact form. I was like, oh, no. And we got it fixed. We got it fixed in 10 minutes. But we should have known that ourselves. So mystery shop yourself. Generally, you won't get a four or four. Generally, it just will go in that basket that nobody reads. So check that one out. Tweet at your own company. Yes. Don't use your CEO Twitter account. And say something polite. Wow, that product really blows. But say something polite. See if it gets answered. See if ideally it's answered the way nextiva answered with a brilliant little video back at you. But mostly, how quickly does someone respond? So beyond timeliness, be checking for politeness, empathy, other key pointers. Do it on the phone, do it in person. If it's your company and you have a distinguished voice. I don't know. You have two choices. You can use a vocoder, which is out. Darth Vader gets his voice, or you can. Right, you could do that. Or blue. The blue velvet effect. You can do that. But I would recommend you just have a friend or a family member help you, and you can listen discreetly on the speakerphone in the same room.

How about. And we gotta start wrapping things up here, but is there a couple pointers you can give us quickly on language? Maybe stuff to use, words that our listeners can use? You know, you hear like, never, never apologize. Is one customer service tip I heard, because then, yeah, it sounds ridiculous. I apologize for even saying that, but that's what I've heard. So is there things to say and not say, Micah?

Yeah, well, don't say, don't apologize, because that is.

Well, that was. That's the opening to your book. And ignore your customers. It says, never apologize. I've never heard. I've never heard a guest freak out like that. That's awesome.

Out yet on this. So I read one just for Mike and couldn't even listen to it, not even at 3x. So. Oh, my God. So apology is really important. In fact, as far as apologies, what I recommend in the book is you channel this model, and this is over the top, but I have the model of the Italian mama. So this is called the Italian mama method. And this means when a customer is upset, think an Italian mother or grandmother. And your little bambino or grand bambino, I have no idea what the word for that is. Your grand bambino has taken a spill on the sidewalk. You would be like, oh, my poor, my poor bambino. Let me take you inside. I'm gonna kiss that horrible ouchie. Now, the HR has told me, don't do that with your customers. But all of the rest of it, other than kissing their ouchie, you know, put a band aid on it, let the little boy or little girl watch some tv, give them a lollipop. And what'll happen with a little kid? If you've been around them or a customer, is it. Pretty quickly they're going to say, oh my, it's not that bad. Can I just go out and play? But if you're like, young man, that's a good point. Young man, what's. What angle did your knee impact the sidewalk?

Right, right, right. You actually aggravated.

Exactly. They're going to push back to make sure that you know that they were heard. So I like that is really key. Apologize when it's called for. And when it's called for means the customer has called for it. Now, some customers don't want to be slowed down by the apology. You got to be reading this stuff. But they don't necessarily want you to rush into the trouble. We all know we all kind of quickly can intuit what's wrong and how to fix it. You need to pause for a moment and listen to them before you go into that. As far as what not to say. Well, here's a few. Not to say. Don't say. Like I said, don't say again.

Oh, that's the worst.

Because like I said, Mike, you should apologize. This means that Mike wasn't listening well enough. Just say it again. You're getting paid by the hour, right? Probably.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or here's what I love the contact center. At my previous company, I heard one woman, perfectly nice woman, would often say, well, I'm not Going to argue with you. And I was like, that was her name. But what is she already doing?

Yeah, that's the worst. That's the worst.

A few others. So if someone thanks you sincerely, I would not suggest saying, no problem because you're dismissing the effort the customer made to thank you. Now, this is very controversial. This is not the hill I want you bosses to die on. If you have a great millennial or Gen Z employee who cannot stop themselves from saying no problem or no worries, don't fire them for that. Find some other excuse to fire. No, I'm kidding. Don't fire them for that. It's not important to that extent. If they're an empathetic person who's conscientious, keep them on. But if you can't have any control over this, if someone sincerely thanks you, say something like, you're welcome. Thank you. My pleasure. Because it doesn't dismiss what the customer did in thanking you.

Micah, this is great stuff. Before we let you go, where can our listeners get more information on you and pick up your newest book? Ignore your customers and they'll go away.

For me, you just have to be good at spelling biblical names. So go to. It's true. But it's easier than Mike's name. So it's micahsolomon.com or it's probably easier to Google me. Google Micah Solomon. And it's spelled M I C A H S O L O M O N, not A. There's no A's in the last name. M I C A h s o L-O-M o n dot com. Now, how to get the book? It's a little tricky because Amazon is ginormous and I am not. And it's a little tricky to find it through Google. So what I'd suggest, this is two step process. Open up Amazon.com and then once you're in the Amazon search engine, search for ignore your customers and you'll go away. And you'll immediately get that. So two steps. Sorry about that. One, go to Amazon. Second, number two, and we all know all Austin Powers fans know who number two works for. Number two, then search for ignore your customers and they'll go away.

I love it.

Oh, groovy.

There we go. Awesome. Yeah, we had to cue that one up quickly. All right, Micah, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thanks, Micah.

Oh, thank you, guys. What a treat.

All right, everyone, go to Amazon, you heard it. And type in ignore your customers and they'll go away. We'll also have that in the show notes. All right, Kelsey, in a minute, we're gonna recap what we learned. We got a great game. We're call Micah back on for that. And first. Oh, I hit the long punch. So first. This is in the wrong spot. I want to thank our corporate partner, nextiva.

Great.

You know, there's a new technology came out with called never busy. Do you know that? Jay Sloan.

I heard about this. Yeah. You.

You ever call a phone and you get the busy tone? Gosh, is that frustrating. Is that person ever gonna hear from you? Could they. Could the phone be off the hook? What if you could call a phone and if the person was busy, went to their voicemail, wouldn't that be a miracle?

That's amazing.

Yeah, nextivo offers that.

That's awesome.

Never busy.

They probably hate you so bad.

All right, nextiva.com. check them out. We love them now. And they also have NEXT os, which is freaking mind blowing. All right, what do we got, Kelsey? Want to play a game or. Let's recap what we learned first. Okay.

That's a great plan.

Okay, thanks for. Thanks for saying that.

You're welcome.

What'd you learn today, Kels?

My favorite thing was the Italian grandmother thing. Treating customers who have a complaint like, you're their Italian grandmother. Yeah. Coddle them.

He said kind of you'd bandage him, but what would you bandage them with? Like a lasagna noodle wrapped around there? She's an Italian grandmother.

Yeah, no, I just rubbed the boo boo.

My Italian grandmother was like, what's your problem? Eat some Zadi.

Yeah.

So when your customers say that they're full, you just keep feeding them and telling them that they're skinny.

Keep eating. Come on. You don't like grandma's food? What was your takeaway?

Is that Italian?

I don't know what that sounds like.

Is a month later, you're hungry.

Right.

So customers know that they're in charge nowadays. Like, and they do. Yeah, they know. They know that they have a lot of. They got all the power. Yeah. Because I see a lot of things on social media where people are just ripping companies apart, and it's for the littlest.

I know, I know.

So, yeah, you gotta be on your toes.

You gotta be on your toes. Mike almost said in passing, but he said, care about every moment. And that. That really landed home with me, because it speaks to. Your point is the customer is critical of everything, and they have such leverage now that they're hitting on it. But I also wonder if other customers are aware of that, that companies are Just being attacked for the craziest things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It probably evens out, but.

But no, it's a good point. The customer does have leverage like never before. So we also want to know your tip. You can email us. No, you can't email us, can you?

Sure you can. Yeah, always email us.

So email us. Email Kelseykemcallis.com and say, here's what I learned. Mention my comments, and also you can post it on our podcast. All right, do we have a shout out or anything like that? Let's do that and then we'll end on the game.

Okay, great. This comes from Andrew Lassie. He writes.

Nice, Andrew. Good job, bro. What did he write?

Just wanted to say that every book has had a great impact on my business and life. I've recommended them to many friends. Toilet paper. Oh, my.

When he said friends. Whenever you say last year, friends. It gets hit.

Okay. Toilet Paper Entrepreneur was my gateway book and I've loved all the others. So have my friends.

There we go. Okay, sorry, I gotta be one more. On top of that, it doesn't happen automatically. It's actually me pushing a button. So I just want you to know. What? There was a delay.

Weird. I wouldn't have guessed that Friends Pumpkin Plan literally is changing my business as we speak. As of writing this, there aren't any IT companies in West Palm Beach, Florida, focusing on chiropractors. In three months, Rush tech support will be number one. Thanks, Andrew.

You didn't read his thanks. There's a triple thanks at the very bottom. That's why I was waiting for you to say, Kelsey's just losing it today, so. Thanks, Andrew. We appreciate that. You rock. Now let's play our stupid game. It's not stupid. Actually, this is one of my favorite things we're doing. Do we have any feedback about this or. Nothing. Probably nothing.

It's only us that likes it.

All right, so, Micah, you're still with us, right?

Oh, yeah.

Okay, so we're gonna play a game. It's an entrepreneurial game. I'm going to list off three products. Now, here's the thing. Two of these are real. One of them is. One of them is.

I love his enthusiasm.

I love it. One of them's fake. Now the real ones and the fake one, I write all the.

Wait, wait, don't tell me much.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, now I write the copy for each one, so they will all be with poetic license. But two of them are truly legit and available currently for purchase.

So similar like the story in the Beginning where it's. None of it is true.

Well, you did storm out of the board meeting in anger and slap knee Campbell, I think if I remember correctly. All right, here we go. I need a camera. I'm gonna read the products. Don't say anything yet, and then we'll do the votes. And Michael, you're first to go. But let me read off the three products and you guys take notes here as we go along. Jeremy has the near perfect record. I've been going back through our. Our rankings. You guys both do very well, but Jeremy's leading here. It is weird. Product number one, it's called instant undies. You just add water. A great joke can quickly be. Sorry. A great joke can quickly make you the laughingstock if you soil your tighty whities.

Right, you made this up.

It's poetic license for all of them. But this could be a real product. In the crucial seconds after a pooped up panty matters most, it's the crucial seconds. Like access to oxygen to an oxygen mask in a depressurized plane. When you need new undies, you need them fast. Meet your new best friend. Instant undies. Conveniently compressed into a compact pellet. You can store your spare undergarment in a pocket clutch bag or even in your high hair like Kelsey has. Just soak the underwear pellet in a glass of water and within seconds, your new fresh undies are ready. Fits most children and average size adults. Okay, that's product number one. It's called the instant undies. Product number two is called the trouser trumpet. Let's call a spade a spade. Some people simply have gas. Trying to have some relief through a silent release is risky. Sometimes. Sometimes. That's what it says. Sometimes you make noise when you don't want to. But what if your pants made a musical tune of its own, seamlessly covering up your own rectum, Ripping notes seamlessly? Simply put on your trouser trumpet. Jeans bedazzled with instruments throughout the clothing. And two embedded speakers in the back pockets. With a simple button push. With a simple. With a simple button push, your jeans will play a melody, allowing you to release your gas without anyone hearing a thing. Comes in corduroy two.

Can you tune?

Does not say that it says it comes in corduroy 2. Does not cover up odors. As a warning. All right, last one of those one of those two is already real. Let's go on to number three, the roller coaster. Strawberry. Consuming beverages are about as entertaining as watching grass grow. True, right until now. Meet your own Customizable roller coaster straw. Assemble your own crazy straw with hills, drops, and loop de loops. Now you will finally enjoy the no spills, all thrills. Joy of watching your favorite beverage navigate the crazy course to your mouth. Some setups may require extreme sucking for the beverage to navigate. The straw. Ideal for ages 6 and up.

I love that one.

Not recommended for denture wearers. Okay, so the three products were instant undies, the trouser trumpet, and the rollercoaster straw. One of those is a fake. Two of them are actually real and available for purchase today. Michael, which one's the fake?

Well, first of all, I gotta say, I love all three.

You wanna buy them?

It makes it harder. All of them, I think, are viable. I think the fake's the trouser trumpet.

Okay. Micah's with the trouser trumpet.

Kels, I think the instant undies. Why would you soak them in water? Then they'd be all wet.

I know. Isn't that ridiculous?

Yeah.

All right, Jeremy, do you want to go for the roller coaster straw and spread it out? You have a near 100% track.

Yeah, I know. Here's my question. Very important, because your copy is so ridiculous that you can't suss out the. So, okay.

Right. I write the copy.

That's the challenge.

I know. But wait. Okay, one question. Is it a button that you push on the trouser trumpet?

Yes. It says, I'll read the copy. It says, with a simple button push, your jeans will play a melody, allowing you to release your gas without anyone hearing a thing. Comes in corduroy two.

This is a tough one. All right, I'm gonna say the fake one is the. The trouser trumpet.

Okay.

Copycat.

No one said the roller coaster straw. I just want to point that out. And I'm happy neither one of you did or any of you did, because the roller coaster straw is a legitimate straw available on Amazon. It's like a crazy straw, but you actually assemble it, and you have to, like, kind of meld the joint so it doesn't leak.

I kind of want it.

Yeah.

Now, I added, you don't want that one to leak either.

The instant undies versus the trouser trumpet One's fake. One's real. You know which one's the fake one?

The trouser trumpet.

The instant undies are real and the trouser trumpet is fake. The trouser trumpet is made up by.

There are things like T shirts and stuff that open up. So that's why I thought it was.

Yeah. So the instant Undies. It's literally pellet sized. You drop it in water and it. It. Whatever expands into a dry mouth. No, I guess you could throw them on. They look ridiculous. Like these paper undies, so. And they don't feel comfortable.

Wet underwear on.

Yeah, I put. I tried them out. I tried them on.

Yeah. You rather be rolling?

Yeah, I am. I am. All right, good job. So we have two winners. Jeremy and Micah. Congratulations. All right, Kelsey, anything else to talk about?

I think that's it.

All right, let's get out of here then.

But don't forget to subscribe wherever you're listening.

Yeah, we want you to subscribe. Why don't you pick up our amazing shirts that we never made for you?

Yeah.

Is that store still not available?

We're making it, right, Jer?

I am, yeah.

Oh, great.

Yeah.

Seriously?

Yeah.

All right. One day we've a store with all our sayings. It's coming.

One day Mo is going to be on there.

Both.

That's what you said earlier.

Yeah, yeah. I was gonna say Micah. And both.

Yeah.

All right, my friends, there's one thing you should do right right now, though. It's go to mike motorbike.com. mike is right. Knowing the pronounce or spell Mallowitz. But you know how to spell Mike Motorbike. My nickname in high school. Go there, click on get the tools, and I will hook you up. All right, catch you later.

Bye. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam.