INBOUND Bold Talks: Peter Shankman "Nice Finishes First"

So I wrote nothing down either. I didn't even. I don't have a power. I don't. I don't like. Not that. See, Anne's PowerPoint rockets is mostly pictures. I've just always thought that if you put a lot of words on a PowerPoint and then show the PowerPoint while you're talking, it ceases to become a PowerPoint and becomes closed captioning. So I don't like PowerPoints. So I didn't use them, nor did I write anything down. I just want to talk for a little bit. I'm in an interesting quandary and I'll tell you what that's about and what that means. For the past three years, ever since I sold Haro, I've been working on a book which came out in April, called Nice Companies Finished First. And it's true, you know, the nicer you are in business, the more money you make. And a lot of people used to say, the nicer you are, the more you get taken advantage of. And I'm living proof that that is not the case. The nicer you are, the more money you make. And I can give you countless stories about companies that are nice and how much money they make more than companies that suck. And there are a lot of companies that suck. We all know them. Since I've been aligned in this new venture where I'm launching a consultancy to help customer service, I get tweets every day going, hey, Ershankman, you should send company XYZ your book because they suck. Just this morning someone said, can you I will pay you to send Comcast 50 copies of your book. You know, and I tweeted this out last night. The irony, as long as we're talking about cable companies, Time Warner Cable's app asked me to download an update to fix bugs. Yet I noticed that one of the bugs not fixed was the fact that in New York City, I still can't see Showtime or cbs. So I'm hoping they actually do fix that. But so here's my quandary. I like to believe that I'm very forward facing and what you see is what you get. And I'm a stand up guy who doesn't lie. So I tell people to be nice. The quandary that I have is that I'm also a kid who was born and raised in New York City in the public schools of Manhattan and grew up with the fuck you looking at attitude of New York City. And two things happened that sort of piqued that and led me to this quandary, the first one, is that New York introduced Citi Bike. Citibike, for those who don't know, is a bike sharing thing. You guys have it here. It's in many cities, with the possible exception of getting rid of tokens in exchange for the Metro card, Citibike is the greatest thing to hit New York in the past 40 years. It is just amazing. For 75 bucks a year, you get unlimited use of a bike in 45 minute blocks. And there's nowhere in New York you can't go in 45 minutes. The downside is that you're still on the street with drivers of cars and trucks. And if you let it get to you, you will get to work or to where you're going. Very, very angry. Because it doesn't matter that the light says bikes can go. The truck driver, who is lacking two things, English and a license, doesn't care that you have the right of way. He will go. And you have to be aware to the point where. And the irony of this is they put a little bell on the city bike. So as you're getting crushed by the truck, you go, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. It's very. It's peaceful. So I went to a marine supply store and bought a ship air horn. Because the other thing people do in New York is they walk in the street. More specifically, they walk in the bike lane. So what I started doing was biking down the street and I'd wait until two idiots were on their iPhones side by side covering up the bike lane. I'd get a half a foot beat and they'd scatter. And it was awesome. But I realized that's not the person I wanted to be. The problem that I have with being nice is that I also tend to get angry. I let the idiot making the left turn bother me and it pisses me off. Two hours, okay? Or the person who's not looking on their phone. I wait until they get right up in front of me as I'm walking down the street and go, focus. And they move. And then I'm like, what an idiot. Or the person who bangs into you. Or the guy who has never been on a plane ever, and what do you mean my belt? And stuck up the T. I said, why can't I use my. Just, dude, take off the belt before I kill you. When you travel a quarter million miles a year, you get angry a lot. And so I had this quandary, this impasse. It's good to be nice, but if I'm Running clear across o' Hare because my first United flight was late, and my second one is early. And I get on that plane, and I'm incredibly winded and sweaty and gross, and I have my bags. There's no overhead space. It's hard to be nice because you're angry. So the city bike was the first thing, and that made me realize that I was too angry. Problem was, I didn't know how to lose it until something else happened. I had a photo up there, if we could show it. I only have one photo. No slides, just a photo. And it's not that one. That's a. I think I was angry that day. That. That's Jessa. And Jessa was born about 13 weeks ago to my wife and I. Mostly to my wife. I was quickly informed that when someone asked us how the delivery and the birth one, I went, that was easy. I was informed, that's not the right answer ever. Apparently. She did nine months of work. My job took exactly four and a half seconds, but there you go. There you go. There you go. There you go. So I've not been traveling a lot this summer, and I was able to spend the last 13 weeks pretty much home most of the time while my wife took a couple months off. Then when she went back to work and I had the kid by myself, and most recently, my wife was in Prague on business. She works for Saatchi, and she was in Prague, And I was with the kid for five days. And I was proud to report that when she came home, the kid still had all its fingers and toes. And I put in a new outfit every day, and I did change it, and it was healthy. We survived for years. Before Purell and Dr. Google, we survived for years. Kids grew up. We never wore helmets. And as I was sitting with this kid on, like, day three of being by myself with her, I was looking at her, and I just. Something had happened. I had an email. Someone pissed me off. Gawker had written something about me, whatever, I don't know. And I was all angry and angry and angry. And apparently my stream of litany. Stream of curses that I was saying to someone on the phone, she thought it was funny, and she cracked up. And she did, like, one of those laughs. She's the most laughing baby I'd ever seen. And I'm staring at her, and I turn, so I'm gonna call you back. And I hang up. And I just watch her. And I went, this sucks. And she went. And I went, that guy's an asshole. And she went, Ah. And I went, no one in New York can drive. She went, ah. And I realized that the best way to be nice, which ties into making lots of money, because, let's face it, we're not here for the whole karma thing. We're here. Karma's nice. We're here to generate revenue. That's why you spent five days at a marketing conference, for Christ's sake. Okay? You want to know how to generate revenue? Being nice generates revenue. And the best possible way to be nice. Let it go. Let it go. There will always be a customer. There will always be a client. There will always be someone who's an asshole. When we're that age, we don't know that. All we see is a guy making really funny faces and his head getting red. Let it go. And you're talking to someone who. When my assistant gets a Google alert on my name and we're in the same office, she gets a Google alert on my name. And it's a bad. Someone's written a bad story. She comes over, and without my knowing it, she unplugs the router so I can't fire back. Whatever. Screw you. This is a great Whatever I want. She actually unplugs the router, so I'm disconnected and I can't send anything. Let it go. Things are going to happen every day. You have two choices. Learn from it or let it piss you off. Mistakes that you make are only mistakes if you don't learn from them. The number of mistakes I made with Harrow, Countless. It still was acquired. The number of mistakes I make with this kid, I hope are less. But the best way to not make them. Anger is a waste of time. There's a great movie, the Thomas Crown Affair, the second version, with Pierce Brosnan, where he has to sell one of his properties and someone says, do you have any regrets about the way you played this? And Thomas Crown looks up, adjusts his tie in the way that only Pierce Brosnan can, which is why he's my man crush. And it says, regret, gentlemen, is a waste of time. As is gloating. Have you figured out what you're going to tell your board when they realize you paid 35 million more than anyone else was offering, and he walks out? The two things that can kill us the most are anger and not being humble. So as you go back and you have wins and you have losses? Absorb them, learn from them, but don't waste time on the anger. Because if you look back to the majority of the mistakes you've made, whether in public Whether in private, they come down to three things. You were drunk, you were high, or you were angry. Let those go. And the mistakes aren't mistakes, they're learning experiences. This kid, at 13 weeks old gave me the advice that's been lacking in my life for 41 years. I'll close the story on the 6am Amtrak for a three and a half hour ride to come up here, talk for 11 minutes, and then get back on the Amtrak for a three and a half hour ride. You so owe me. And I'm sitting on the Amtrak and it's the Acela and it's the quiet car, which means that by law, I will sit next to the guy who's screaming his head off. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened. He's on his cell phone. He's not even masking the fact that he's. You know, some people in the quiet car are like, no. He's like, I'm not. He had a presentation in Rhode island to a bank. And his stupid assistant, that dumb bitch who he was gonna fire the second he got back in the office, his words didn't load his laptop with the PowerPoint and it was too big to email, okay? Their network wouldn't allow him to email it. And he was gonna show up and he was gonna have no PowerPoint. You stupid bitch. Pack your resume. I can't believe they hired you in the first place. My initial reaction pre that, and by the way, never, guys, don't call your kid an it or that I've done it. Doesn't go over well. My initial reaction pre that would have been, dude, other people on the train, can you please shut up? And he would have bristled, and I would have bristled because we have penises. And that's what you do. And we would have stood up and we probably would have gotten into a fight, or at least on a fist. It would have been very uncomfortable. Instead, I took a piece of paper and I wrote, can I help? Passed it across to him. You watched his shoulders unclench. I mean, he would have been the worst poker player in the world. You just watch because he thought it was going to be, you know, Shut up. Say, can I help? What do you mean? You need a file, right? Yeah, but I can't email it. Sir. Have you ever heard of something called Dropbox? No. I want to show you how it works. Well, like, the WI FI on this train sucks. You ever heard of something called a MiFi? It's called a personal hot. You know what? It doesn't matter what it's called. You've never heard of it. But here's what we're going to do. He had his file in six minutes. He gave me his card. If you ever need legal advice. Yeah, I'm probably not going to take it from you, but he made his meeting. His assistant's probably not fired. I chose to let it go and to be nice. I wish you all the same. Thanks for listening, Sam.