James Dodkins, a customer-experience expert, shares a story from his days as a rock guitarist: his guitar strap broke mid-show, so he dove into the crowd and kept playing. He uses it to explain why employee empowerment matters more than permission. His core principle: put employees first, and customer experience follows.
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Alright everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have James Dotkins with us. He is a customer experience rock star, international keynote speaker. And accidental number one bestselling author. So welcome to the show, man.
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Of course, thanks for joining us. We'll dive into the first one. The first question I have for you, James, is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
So, right, okay. It's a good question. So for me, it's, there's a bit of a long story with this, but I'll try and make it as succinct as possible. It was our first big, UK tour as a band, and I really wanted to step up my stage performance. So I don't know if you've ever seen, you know when people like spin their guitar like round their neck, like round the back and then they catch it? Have you ever seen that?
Yeah.
Right, I was like, I've got to learn how to do that. So the entire month before in my back garden on the grass, so if I dropped the guitar it didn't break, right? I'm learning how to do this. And there's a simple trick to it. You've just got to throw it really hard because if you don't throw it hard enough, it doesn't spin back round. But when you get it right, 'Looks fucking amazing.' Right, so on tour, realized there's a perfect place for this just before the end part of our last song in our set. So first date, do it, amazing, perfect, crowd goes wild. Second date, the same. Third date, the same. All the way through until the last date. Right, the last date was in our hometown, to our hometown crowd, the biggest show of the tour. And it was going to cap, you know, the start of big things for us. And we're playing and everyone's going crazy, and then we get to the last part of the last song and I go to throw the guitar and I look down to catch it, but all of a sudden it's not there. What happened was, because I'd practiced so much before and done it so much on the tour, the leather of my strap had actually worn out. And instead of spinning my guitar, I I just threw it really, really hard against the wall. Right, so in that moment, I was like, ah, shit, what do I do? And in a split second, I realized what I needed to do, and I ran forward and I dived majestically into the crowd, right? And I got crowd-surfed and I ended up in the mosh pit. For people listening that don't know what a mosh pit is, when your music is so glorious and magnificent that it makes people want to punch each other in the face, that is a mosh pit. So I ended up in there, and the rest of the band didn't know what the hell was going on. But they finished up the song and it was amazing. Everyone went crazy. They went mental. To this day, people still tell me that that was their favorite gig they ever went to of ours. Now, the point of this was that the reason that I jumped into the crowd is because I understood the outcome that needed to be delivered to our customers. They needed to have that amazing gig. They needed to have that memorable experience. And the end of a show, if I went crying in the corner because my guitar was all busted up, that would have just ruined everything for them. So I was empowered. I didn't need to ask my manager to go ask the record label if I had permission to go and jump in the crowd. I just went and jumped in because I was empowered, because I was a fucking rock star. I didn't need permission. And I think everybody can learn from that. Everyone can be a rock star in whatever they do. They need to be empowered. And when they see things going wrong, put them right in the experience. Don't wait and see what happens. Don't ask for someone else's permission to put things right. If you see something that is wrong, put it right immediately. So that is my story for that.
I love that, man. And dude, that was quick thinking, man. That is probably the best thing, literally, like you said, that you could have done because it almost fits what you were doing. You threw the guitar and then you dive in. It almost was all part of it.
As far as they were concerned, I just became overcome with heavy metal rage and I couldn't control my heavy metal soul. And what really happened is I accidentally wanged my guitar into the wall and didn't really— so I hope nobody watching is listening now because they're gonna ruin it for them.
Oh man, that's awesome. All right, the next one I have for you is what is the most valuable piece of information that we should know that is within your expertise or industry?
Okay, good question. I would say, so in my field of expertise, customer experience, customer centricity, a lot of companies try and strive to put their customers first, but I think one of the most important pieces of information that they need to realize and embrace is that if you want to put your customers first, you need to put your employees first, first.
And I agree. And what is your best piece of overall business advice? So not necessarily industry-specific.
Always do what's right, no matter what. Just do, do whatever's right. Whatever you know the right thing to do is in your heart, do it no matter what.
And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
Be yourself no matter what, because there's a bit of a backstory to this. Because when I left the band, I went into the corporate world, and so I thought there was a certain way you had to behave, you know, suit and tie every day, a particular way, a particular demeanor I had to adopt. And it worked, you know, I worked my way up the ranks in the corporate world. And unfortunately, what it led to is it working too well, and I forgot who I was. I turned into somebody that was not me, and I had a little bit of a crisis, and I realized that if I wanted to be happy in what I was doing, I needed to be myself. So yeah, it was a turning point for me, and I think everyone— I wish I would have known that. I wish somebody would have came and said to me, James, this isn't you, man. Just, just be yourself. And people, if people don't like you, they can get fucked. But at the end of the day, you're going to draw people towards you. That resonate with you more if you just be yourself. So that's my answer. Be yourself.
And it kind of ties in probably with the next one. So in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
Probably just getting to a place where you don't give a shit what people think about you.
And what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
But it will— I can't remember the name of the book, but it'll be something by Tony Robbins, I imagine. And there's one piece of information that has always stuck with me, and it's: if you think about what you want to achieve in life, if you can picture it, you picture the goal that you want to achieve and ask yourself the question, has anybody throughout history been in a similar situation to me right now and achieved a similar thing that I want to achieve? And if the answer is yes, then you have to ask yourself, then why not you?
And what is your favorite quote and why?
Right. This is one of the quotes that really was a turning point for me when I was, you know, when I'd lost myself. And it's by a guy called Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead. What he said is, you shouldn't be trying to be the best in the world at what you do. You should be trying to be the only person in the world that does what you do.
I like that. Yeah, dude, thank you so much for coming on. The last question that I have for you before we let you go is where is the best place for people to find and/or connect with you online?
Go to jamesdodkins.com or search James Dodkins on LinkedIn. That is J-A-M-E-S-D-O-D-K-I-N-S.
Perfect, man. Thanks again for coming on. We appreciate it.
