Building a Brand That People Trust and Buy From Again and Again with Doug Zarkin

The higher passion, the higher trust, the more you become an in-brand love. If you have high passion, low trust, it's a fling. Okay? When you end up in the middle of that matrix, it's when you're in the friend zone. And that is where it becomes really difficult to predict the actions and behaviors of your customer. You know, it is much easier to keep a customer than it is to get a new one. And so the book and the premise of it really talks about how to build that relationship so that as a marketer and a brand leader, your job is actually easier. Because if you can drive lifetime value from your existing customer base, it makes it easy to understand why they love you, which makes it even easier to understand how you can take that message to get other people to love you. You know, what is your superpower as a brand? What are you going to be best at? What are you going to win at? And I think brands oftentimes want to cast what I call the marketing buffet. Where they want to kind of have all these different things that make them attractive. And at the end of the day, the human body never feels good after you eat at a buffet. You're not designed to have chicken and fish and pizza and spaghetti and ice cream and apple pie. And that's what brands typically do. They try to cast sort of that spray and pray mindset. Marketing is about positioning. Positioning is about the art of sacrifice. And so if you understand what you're gonna be best at, You have the opportunity to win at that. If you try to be best at everything, you're going to mean absolutely nothing to nobody.

Doug Zarkin, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. We're excited to have a conversation with you today, and I'm going to dive right in to something you said in the introduction. You kicked off by saying, can I tell you a secret? I can't Spell, and I have a love-hate relationship with autocorrect too. So how the heck did you end up writing a book if you can't spell?

Because I wanted to torture myself. No, I, I have always been committed to teaching and training. It's a big part of what I love about being a leader is the challenge of growing talent. You are only as successful as the people around you. And throughout my career, I've always found myself in front of people, whether that was on the agency side in business development or client services, whether it was on the client side presenting to franchisees. And what I found was that I was getting into the same rhythm of framing things the same way that people could understand it and was getting really good feedback as to how I was taking the complexity out of certain things. You know, I always say the answer to complexity lies in simplicity. And actually, one of my franchisees at Pearl Vision said to me, you know, you should really write a book. Get all those Dougisms in one place. And I'm like, oh, no way, no way. And then when I made the decision last summer to leave Pearl Vision, I realized, you know what, this is the chance for me to do it. And so I had the title of the book and the chapters outlined in about 15 minutes, but it took me about 16 weeks to write the book. And you know what, like they always say, if you're afraid of something, you got to dive right in. The difference between fear and excitement is mindset. So yes, I can't spell. Yes, I am a victim of autocorrect even today, but I just wanted to dive in and get all this on paper.

Did you voice dictate or did you leverage AI? Like, how did you, how did you get it all onto paper?

So what I did is I did a series of interviews. I did about 20 hours of interviews, sort of like an hour on each chapter, and then went back. And then I had somebody who kind of transcribed it for me and started to put a framework together. But I realized that for me and my voice, I needed to write it. And so I went through and really rewrote and restructured every single chapter. And then what I did is I used AI to kind of give me an idea for the unbiased reader of what was I saying in the chapter. So what I did a lot of is I'd put my chapter into AI and I'd say, summarize the key takeaways. And if the key takeaways weren't the points I was making, I realized that I had work to do.

Mm-hmm.

So I was almost using it as a constructive piece of feedback, not an author. Um, and certainly for me, when you're writing in the basement of your house, you need that person to kind of give you that gut check of, hey, this is great, or you know what, Doug, this is full of shit. And I found it very helpful in giving me that sense of let's get focused, let's be more pointed, let's take out the fluff, and let's make sure that it's pragmatic.

Yeah, I love that. I love that answer. And I love asking questions about AI and the authoring process just because we're living in a different world today where we have access to these tools and those tools can be used in many different ways as well, just like they can in the branding process. And one of my favorite takeaways, I sent this to everybody on my team, is there was one part in your book where you're talking about sort of customer experience and automating customer experience.

Mm-hmm.

And like, you've got to remember that there are real human beings on the other end of the product or service that you're selling. And so, yes, some automation can help you build more structure and cadence in the way that you communicate, but you can't forget that there's a real human being receiving it and that you need to communicate that way. And same with the book. You can have AI help you and provide feedback and run through filters, but if AI writes the book, it strips away everything that Doug wanted to teach anyway. And you're a real human.

Yeah.

who wrote a real book and we want to learn from you. So I think that's a great answer.

Yeah, I, I think you have to embrace the tools that are available to you, but you can't build a house unless you have an idea of how to do it. The tools don't build the house for you. You build the house using the tools. And to me, it's the same thing in writing a book. I think any good author should be using AI to help refine, to help clarify, maybe even help bring something from a framework perspective a little bit punchier, a little bit cleaner. But the ideas have to rest from you. They have to come from you. They have to come from your heart. They have to come from your soul. They have to come from your mind.

Yes, they do. And that's why we have a heart on the COVID of your book.

Absolutely.

You mentioned the word simplicity, and I love that word too. And I actually use AI a lot to help me simplify what's going on inside of my head or simplify what I'm trying to communicate in an email. So I think that's a really fun theme as well.

I, if I were ever to write a book, another book, which I don't think I'll ever do, but if I were ever to write another book, the way I use AI today in my current role is I use it to help me craft emails that keep me out of trouble. You know, you get an email, you don't like what the email says, and you wanna fire off something pretty aggressive. I've used it as a way to kind of take, here's what I wanna say, but I don't wanna end up in HR jail. Or here's what I want to say, but I need to frame it in a certain way. And it helps me refine my thinking and gives me a little bit of that angel devil on the shoulder to determine whether the tone and intent is actually going to get me further faster. I think if there's anything I've learned as I've grown up in this business is take a deep breath.

Mm-hmm.

You know, give yourself that moment to put something in email, put it in your drafts, walk away and come back. oftentimes walking away and coming back gives you perspective, especially if it's something that's tense.

Yeah, I think so too. I think that's a great way to think about it. So let's go a little bit earlier into your background just to give some more context to the audience here. Can you tell us where did you grow up professionally and what were some of your early influences?

I am grateful for beginning my career at the end of the communications train in the agency world. And the reason why is because as I've moved forward in the train, I've done the roles and functions. I've spoken the language of those roles and functions, which as a leader in the C-suite now allows me the opportunity to better motivate the people that are in those roles and functions. Starting in the agency world allowed me to understand the what and a little bit of the how and really started to stimulate my curiosity as to the why. And so I went from media planning and buying to account management to eventually starting the youth and entertainment division of, at the time, the largest private agency in the world, Gray Advertising, and then eventually went to the client side. Each and every one of those steps got me further forward to where I am now, which is, you know, fortunately being a part of the C-suite where I'm involved in the what, the why, and how.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, good. And now you have this book, which we've already talked about a little bit. Moving your brand out of the friend zone. What is this analogy? Is it a dating analogy? Like, tell us a little bit more about the idea for the title.

You know, look, the parallels between a brand relationship and a personal relationship are incredible. You know, for me, in today's marketplace, the standard for what success looks like isn't having a casual relationship with your consumer. And the reason is, is because Anybody with a great idea can get off the ground a lot further, faster. And that's wonderful for the entrepreneur. That's terrifying for established brands. You know, you see it all the time, those Instagram brands that come up, they show up in your feed and you're surfing late at night and you're like, oh, this is pretty interesting and it's $89. I'm gonna give it a flyer. You have to have a much deeper, stronger commitment to your customer if you wanna avoid being subject to those one-hit wonder brands. If you wanna be able to more accurately predict your growth, if you really want to understand the mindset of your consumer, you have to actually approach it as if you would approach any relationship. And so when I talk about moving your brand out of the friend zone, that's not to say being friends with your consumer is a bad thing, but it puts you in a position of risk because you can be good friends, great friends, or be in a relationship. And that relationship allows you to, to rely more on that person. My wife is my best friend. Okay? I have a different relationship with her than I have with my other friends. It's the same analogy in business. The depth of your relationship with your customer will be a one-to-one translation of how predictable their behavior can be with your brand in your business.

We are going to dive into some tactical ways to build those deeper relationships in a couple of minutes. And I shared with you before we press record today that as I was going through your book, I was sending voice notes to everybody on my team. Just with all the different ideas that were popping up, because you're right, it's missing today. I think there's too much transaction, not enough depth. And also, I mean, it's there are a lot of influences that that do kind of highlight that exciting, you know, scrolling through Instagram, you buy something and then you move on. But what you're talking about is a far more sustainable way to build a relationship. And you know, sometimes you hear that analogy of like, hey, you wouldn't ask somebody to marry you on the first date, so you shouldn't ask them to. buy your product on the first sales call type of thing in the sales world. But I hadn't heard of this analogy, this dating analogy, the friend zone analogy for the rest of your business before, which I think is really unique.

When you see brands panic and start, you know, pushing the promotional angle, it's because they thought their relationship with their customer was greater than it actually was. And look, in your personal life, you're going to meet people before you find that special someone. And it's wonderful if your feelings are always reciprocated. But most often than not, you will have an experience in your life where you feel stronger about something or someone than they do about you. And that is what it feels to be put in the friend zone where you are not as special. And in business, the you are not as special is when you've overestimated and underdelivered forecast.

Mm-hmm. And I think that friend zone is pretty large. I, there was a, an early author on this podcast named Vishen Lakhiani. He's written a couple of great books. He's the founder of Mindvalley.

Okay.

And he says something like, you wanna be on one of two ends of the spectrum. Like when somebody looks at your brand, they either love you or they hate you because everything else in the middle is ambiguity. It's just a feeling of, ah, I kind of like 'em, I kind of don't like 'em. And that's a dangerous place to operate. That's the friend zone using his format. Now you talk about the different relationship zones in sort of a quadrant. Could you describe them for us?

Yeah. So it's a, it's a very simple, you know, XY axis, passion and trust. The higher passion, the higher trust, the more you become an in-brand love. If you have high passion, low trust, it's a fling. Okay. When you end up in the middle of that matrix, it's when you're in the friend zone. And that is where it becomes really difficult to predict the actions and behaviors of your customer. You know, it is much easier to keep a customer than it is to get a new one. And so the book and the premise of it really talks about how to build that relationship so that as a marketer and a brand leader, your job is actually easier. Because if you can drive lifetime value from your existing customer base, it makes it easy to understand why they love you, which makes it even easier to understand how you can take that message to get other people to love you. You know, what is your superpower as a brand? What are you gonna be best at? What are you gonna win at? And I think brands oftentimes wanna cast what I call the marketing buffet, where they want to kind of have all these different things that make them attractive. And at the end of the day, the human body never feels good after you eat at a buffet. You're not designed to have chicken and fish and pizza and spaghetti and ice cream and apple pie. And that's what brands typically do. They try to cast sort of that spray and pray mindset. Marketing is about positioning. Positioning is about the art of sacrifice. And so if you understand what you're going to be best at, You have the opportunity to win at that. If you try to be best at everything, you're going to mean absolutely nothing to nobody.

Hmm. Yeah, very true. Have you— well, I'll share something that my audience is familiar with is I love combining ideas, kind of meshing ideas together from multiple books that I've read in a similar window of time. So they're both kind of like, let's just, let's just say like floating around in my head at the same time. Have you ever read the book Unreasonable Hospitality? By Will Guidara?

No.

We had just read it internally. And so when I was reading your book and I had just read Unreasonable Hospitality, which talks about overdelivering during the customer experience, I was sending my team a bunch of things like, hey, we've gotta blend the art and science of our brand with the ability to overdeliver. And it was just, it was just kind of like a fun mix-up of thoughts. Um, I do recommend that book and I, I recommend your book. And so anybody in the audience kind of reading both of them at the same time, I think would be a good idea.

It's really important, I think, in that analogy to understand why those brands do what they do. And that gets into the premise that I talk about in the book extensively of this notion of thinking human. Thinking human is based on the concept that you treat every customer as if they were your only customer. So like, think about that for a minute. How many times have we found ourselves on the phone with a customer service person and they really sound like they're reading from a script versus empathizing with you as a person. Forget what the policy is for a second. Just are they talking to you like a human being? And when they don't, that's when you realize that you really don't matter to them.

Yeah, that hurts relationships. And one thing that I love to try to do on this podcast, Doug, is apply what I'm learning to my business and be transparent about it. And we've had an an issue with one of our services, our podcast booking service, where authors will try it out for 1 or 2 months. We fail to overdeliver, uh, or think human, right? And treat it more as a transaction, and then people end up moving on. And like you highlight in the book, I think it's— let me actually read the statistic. A Harvard Business Review study finds that acquiring a new customer costs between 5 to 25 times more than retaining an existing one. So how can a business like mine have the, have the desire to acquire new customers when we're not even overdelivering and serving the ones that we have? Right. And so you are helping shift, shift that mindset in a big way. We need to pour a lot more attention and resources into fulfilling and overdelivering and building that relationship and thinking human than we are acquiring new customers.

So it starts with value creation. And if you think about the brand value equation, which is sort of my Pythagorean theorem, my Einstein's theory of relativity, it's the notion that value, which everybody wants from the products or services and brands that they buy, is equivalent to experience as your numerator divided by price as your denominator. The greater your experience, the more you can charge and still have a positive brand value equation. And so I would say in your case, a lot of it comes down to the how, not just the what. You know, certainly you can say, hey, look, I'm going to book you on 10 podcasts and then booking them on 20 and not charging them. But how are you following up with them? You know, how are you providing them analytics? How are you providing them insight into what is working, but also saying, look, humbly, it's not working? And so maybe it's, hey, look, I want to reinvest those dollars in the things that didn't work. I want to eat it and I want to put it into these things because we believe it's— it is going to work. We want to make an investment in you. And I think brands that want to make an investment in their customers oftentimes are able to take the emotional intensity out of customer service problems. And I talk about one example in the book with Restoration Hardware where I had bought this beautiful ceiling fan for my, for my house when we moved in. And then 2 years after I bought it, one night I hear this crash and I go running upstairs and the fan had dislodged from the housing and it crashed. On the floor. Fortunately, nobody got hurt. The only thing that broke was the fan. And so I had called Restoration Hardware and said, listen, you know, do you guys still carry this fan? Yes, I do. Well, unfortunately, I need to order another one. And the rep was listening to me and was like, well, why unfortunate? And I told her the story and she was like, wait a minute. She's like, first of all, is anybody hurt? I said, no, nobody's hurt. I said, the housing just came loose. She's like, you shouldn't have to pay for that. That's a manufacturer's defect. I am sending you a new one, no cost. I said, do you want pictures? She's like, no, no, I trust you. She's like, I've seen your purchase history. You bought a lot from us. I am sending you this fan. You will have it in 48 hours and we are really sorry. And I said, well, the fan's out of warranty. She goes, I don't care. She's like, I want to make sure that you're happy and that you continue to work with us. Now, this was not a $10,000 ceiling fan. But this wasn't a $50 fan either. That moment alone, I will always go back to Restoration Hardware. And so take that analogy to what you're talking about. How do you interpret what people are saying and understand what they need? That's why I talk about our brand relationship as a relationship, not a transaction. That's why I use the analogy of being more than just friends with your consumer. Because if you really listen, you'll really understand what people want and need.

Yeah, it's a beautiful story. And not only is it easier, much easier to keep an existing customer than it is to acquire a new one, but in the world of sales and marketing and branding, we also always hear that your happy customers can sell better than your best sales reps can. And so how many times have you told that story? And you've probably influenced some people to go shop at Restoration Hardware because of that one customer service experience. So not only are you continuing to shop with them, but you're probably influencing other people to do business with them as well.

Well, I'm waiting for the call to become their brand president. I mean, that hasn't happened yet, but I— word of mouth is the most powerful and effective marketing tool on the planet. It was 20 years ago. It will be 20 years from now. And so if you think about your reputation as a source of commerce, you put more energy into your customer service, you can really get more out of it.

Yeah, I think so too. I'd like to read a quote that I highlighted from your book on page 37 that highlights this. No, it highlights this really well. You say, all right, trust isn't built on aggressive promotions or lofty promises. Instead, it's meticulously constructed through small, purposeful interactions that enrich Our patient relationships, and to highlight a quote I just wrote down that you said during the interview: We want to make an investment in you. And so, when these brands invest in you as a consumer, the word of mouth likelihood, the likelihood that they go out there and talk about your book or your ceiling fan or whatever the case is, just goes sky high. And so, the through line so far in the conversation is that relationships matter a lot more than transactions, and. That's definitely one of my big takeaways from your book.

I appreciate it. And we all have stories about brands that, you know, inevitably something breaks the week after your warranty expires. It just happens. It's, it's, it's just the law of, of, of the land. And how does a company react to that? You know, there's a very popular technology company where I brought in a pair of their wireless headphones. And one just stopped working. And it was a month after the warranty. And I said, look, it just stopped working. I didn't drop it in water. I didn't, you know, it didn't, you know, I didn't step on it. It just stopped working. And the, the, let's call it the smart service person looked at it and goes, yeah, definitely something's wrong with it. We're happy to give you $50 towards a new pair.

I'm like, What?

A new pair costs $350. You're gonna give me $50 because your product broke? They're like, well, you didn't buy the extended warranty. And I'm thinking to myself, I shouldn't have to. I should, I should have a reasonable expectation that this product is going to survive for more than a year.

Mm-hmm.

And I have to tell you, I went to another brand and bought another pair of wireless headphones that I'm really happy with. So the moral of the story becomes, do you wanna be pennywise and pound foolish in your customer service? If you are, you are opening yourself up to lose trust and most importantly, really piss a lot of people off.

Yeah, very true. I think sometimes when we read books like this, we can read them through a specific lens, right? So it was funny because a comment I made to a couple of people on my team as I was reading your book was that, hey, this feels a lot like a customer experience book or a customer experience manual to me. It is a branding book, but you're helping people lay the foundation of their brand and positive customer experience where you act like a small business, you're personal, you overdeliver. These are all things that will obviously improve your brand down the line. And I think that, yeah, like we talked about already today and in today's transactional world, it just doesn't feel like too many brands are putting in that effort, especially the bigger they get, the more transactional they feel like they've become.

I like to think it also sets a precedent for how you as a leader lead, you know, focusing on those small moments. Trust is not just between a brand and its consumers. It's also between you as a leader and the team that you lead.

Mm-hmm.

You know, it's that ability to recognize when somebody does something really well in the moment and calling it out. And really well could be, hey, this person was really terrified of presenting and presented and did a great job. It could be that they worked an extra, you know, couple hours over the weekend and got something done. on Monday morning at 8 versus Monday afternoon at 4. It could be the way in which they handle the difficult issue from a client. Whatever those are, you as a leader have an opportunity to earn trust through the way in which you recognize those small moments of care and connection between what they're doing for you and as part of your team and you as the leader. And so much of what I think is missing in college today is they don't teach you how to be a leader. They don't teach you leadership. Leadership is taught through actually leading. And that's why I, in addition to using relationships as a metaphor, personal relationships, I also like to use sports as a metaphor. You know, the quarterback can't throw the ball and catch the ball and block and call the play all at the same time. You have to build a high-performing team or else all the play is, is something that looks really good on paper. And that's the difference between being a good leader theoretically and being a good leader practically.

Have you ever thought about applying your branding and leadership skills to an organization like the New York Giants?

Yeah. I— it's funny. I'm late to the game. But now that the season's over, I went back and I watched Hard Knocks. And I was kind of watching how the GM and the head coach were kind of wrestling with talent and all those things and the decision-making there. And it's interesting, the genius of sports is in the way at which it elicits such a polarizing response.

Mm-hmm.

If the Giants had a great season, then every move that the GM and the head coach made this year would've been genius. They didn't have a great season, and that doesn't mean their decisions were wrong. It just means that they haven't panned out quite yet. You know, Jimmy Johnson, who's now an analyst on Fox, his first season coaching the Cowboys, I think he was 1-15. You know, Vince Lombardi did not always have a winning record. You know, Mike Tomlin just lost a playoff game again, but he's been with the team for 17 years, I think. So yeah, you have to look at success relatively, but that's also part of where trust comes in. Building a business is like building a plan. Trying to change the trajectory of a team in one year is very hard. Are you building things that will allow you to get to the next level? Look at the Mets, look at the Yankees. You know, the most storied franchises always look at their plan in long term. And yes, they will try to be winning that season if they see they have a moment. But in business, if you seize the moment to win and you do so at the expense of long-term growth, You're going to end up with a salary cap you can't afford, and then you're back to the drawing board.

Yeah, I think that's a great analogy. Now, what would you say to the small business owner in today's audience? Because we have a lot of them, somebody who's always fighting for a little bit of extra cash and trying to get that next deal in the door so that their business can stay operational, balancing the need for short-term capital with the understanding that they're trying to build something that also succeeds long-term.

So you actually have what you need to be successful and to beat the big guy in your pocket. And that is the how of your business, not just the what. You should be encouraging every customer who comes in to leave a review. You should be rewarding them for leaving a review. That's different than rewarding them for leaving a positive review. You can't afford to not have that reputation commerce as part of your business. And so if you don't have a big ad budget, somebody walks into your ice cream shop and you deliver an amazing ice cream cone and you give them extra toppings. What you should say to them as they're walking out is, listen, if you enjoyed your ice cream, would you do me a favor? Would you just scan this barcode and leave a review? Because it would help me to grow my business. Empathy is a very powerful tool. And I think oftentimes it's like you don't ask, you don't get. Like, I love when my kids ask me for something. Great. You know what? Good for you. You asked for it. No, you're not staying out till 3 o'clock in the morning. Okay. Case of my 17-year-old daughter. But you gotta have the gravitas to go after it. And especially in small business, don't use excuses to scare you into just being complacent. Use the realities of your business to force you to think differently and to think more creatively. Outwork, outthink. You don't need to outspend.

Yeah. And I think, I think that lesson, there are a number of authors that listen to this podcast as well. And I think that lesson applies to the author space. You know, we all look at the Amazon landing page for a book as the place most people will end up, and that's where they make their decisions. And so it's tough sometimes, I think, for authors to ask friends and family and readers to review their book, but those reviews go a long way. There's a distrust signal that happens when you land on an Amazon page and there are no reviews. People think this book must not be great. And then also, you know, like we've talked about before too, Doug, like there's a big difference between writing a great book and then promoting and marketing it. They are different skill sets and it's a long game that you play. You're, you're getting these people in here, you know, with all the changes that I'm making to my business right now because of your book, I'm going to be talking about this for a long time and I might help you sell copies in 6 months to some of my business owner friends when the subject of branding gets brought up. And you're investing in that longer-term relationship with me. So anyway, I totally love what you're saying, and I agree. You need to get out there as a small business owner and ask for reviews and leverage that empathy piece because happy customers want to help.

They do. And look, a couple weeks ago I posted on LinkedIn, on my personal LinkedIn page, that, you know, hey, look, could you help me by leaving a review? I've been fortunate to sell a good amount of books. and influence some folks that I care immensely about. And my ask was just very simple. If I've, if I've made a difference, would you do me a favor? Just go to my Amazon page and leave a review. And a couple of my friends did it. A couple of people that I've sold books to did it. And there is nothing wrong with asking for support, especially if you've gone to the action of hopefully providing something of value. I'm not good at accepting. I'm much more comfortable giving than accepting. But at times you have to put your hand out and say, listen, I could use a little help.

Yeah, I think so too. It's an important step to take as an author. So now that we're getting towards the end of today's conversation, Doug, I have a couple final questions. The first is this: in your mind, who is the target customer for this book?

Great question. I would say if you are in college, graduate school, or within the first 5 years of your career, This book, I think, could be really helpful for you because you're still in the process of kind of figuring out your way. You know, one of the things I talk about in the book is that there is no right way or wrong way. There's just a way. And I think if there's anything in the book that helps you craft your vision for what you want your brand to be, the businesses that you are a part of, or your career, that's really where I think it could be helpful.

Yeah, I think so too. I wish I had this book when I was graduating business school. Because, I mean, you talked a little bit about what's missing in today's college environment, such as teaching subjects like leadership. I think a lot of the core values in this I missed, even though I have a business marketing degree, you know, from a good accredited business school. So it's like they're still missing the mark in so many ways.

Yeah, I've had the privilege of presenting many of the topics to different colleges and institutions, both at the high school level And even I had the privilege of speaking at Harvard a few times because some of the work that I did at Pearl Vision is the subject of a Harvard Business School case study. And you ask some of the questions and comments and things that I talk about in the book, and you get a variety of different answers. And what I found is that people are looking for clarity. You know, answering a question complexly— with the complexity, excuse me— doesn't make you smarter, especially if the answer can be done simpler. So I try to strip the complexity out and make it very simple with some pretty easy constructs to keep in mind as you build your brand and your business.

Yes. Yeah, we had the Think Human kind of piece of the podcast today. We talked a lot about trust, and I think that word simplicity, you know, that's kind of the third major theme here today. And I agree. I think sometimes brands overcomplicate the way they want to serve and they try to jam too much into a service. And then I think sometimes, just like you highlighted, you know, as we're being taught either from books or from mentors or people lecturing, uh, man, the, the, they just try to sound smart and they add all of these words that are totally unnecessary and just complicate things. Kind of like when I read a Jordan Peterson book, I love what he's teaching me, but it's really hard to get through. Um, all right, great. So couple more questions. Like I said, the next one is, where can people go to learn more about you and get a copy of the book?

So the book you can find on Amazon, both in paperback and in Kindle. For me, you can go to my website, dougzarkin.com. Um, from there you can see a little bit about my background and my journey. Um, some folks that said a couple nice things about me, and then importantly, if you want to get in touch with me, there's some contact information there.

Okay, fantastic. So we will make sure that your Amazon page and your website are in today's show notes. And then the last question is this: if your book was deleted But you could leave the world with just one message from it. Maybe it's up on a billboard. What would that message be?

I think it really comes back to the philosophy that powers everything that I do, both professionally and personally, which is that notion of thinking human. If you treat every friend in your life as if they were your best friend, how would you treat them? In business, if you treated every customer or every client or every patient as if they were your only one, how would you build your customer experience? That's a really deep idea to really let machinate with you and guide you into when you have the decision to take a little bit of a step forward in something that requires a little bit more effort, or you take the easy way out. Does the easy way out allow you to feel like you're really treating that person the way they should be treated?

I guess I have one final bonus question for you. Do you have any advice for leaders like myself to help my employee base think through that lens as well? Maybe they're a little bit less tied to the long-term relationship or outcome given maybe their, their piece in or their role. Just, you get the question.

Um, I think it comes down to When all else fails, the answer to complexity lies in simplicity. You know, because something can be measured doesn't necessarily mean it's meaningful. And we have access to so much data today, more than we ever have and probably more than we ever need. And so if you think about it, if you are trying to measure more than 5 things, you're probably spending less than 20% of your time on any one of those. Which can you really do anything about something like that, something that you think is important if you're not spending a fair amount of time? So strip the complexity out of your business by really focusing at its core is what is meaningful, is it measured, and then what am I going to do about it? And if you do that, it's pretty liberating. Let all the other stuff get to the side. Doesn't mean it's not important. It just means that it's not critical right now.

Yeah, I've heard a lot of great perspective on the 80/20 rule, but I haven't heard it put that way. If you're spending your time on 5 different priorities, that means a couple of them are getting less than 20% of your time. And what can you do with less than 20% of your time? So, hey, listen, Doug, great conversation today.

Thank you.

I hope everybody in the audience grabs a copy of your book. Again, it's in the show notes. And, uh, I wanna say thank you for writing a great book that's helping me make some very positive changes in my business.

Thank you for not pointing out any of the spelling mistakes or autocorrect issues in the book. And, and more importantly, guys, as you read the book, don't focus on is it going to give you the answers. It's going to raise questions and allow you to find the way that's going to work for you, because there is no right way, there is no wrong way, there's just a way.

That's the perfect way to wrap up.