In this Business Blast podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews Jill Raff, a customer experience strategist, author, and speaker. Jill shares a personal story about bombarding her SATs, which taught her self‑advocacy and the importance of not letting others define her capabilities. She then outlines her customer‑experience transformation process, emphasizing that businesses must first clarify core values and mission statements so every decision aligns with them, preventing revenue loss, employee turnover, and customer churn. Jill’s overarching business advice is to put people first—treat employees with the same respect you’d give customers—to boost productivity and retention. She advises her younger self to never let fear block purpose and describes happiness as living authentically, staying positive, and nurturing social connections, citing research that social ties predict longevity. Her favorite books include Deepak Chopra’s The Soul of Leadership, which promotes conscious, values‑driven leadership. Jill also shares two favorite quotes: a paraphrase of Henry Ford on mindset (“whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right”) and Ray Kroc on loving your work and prioritizing customers. The episode concludes with her online presence: her website (jillraff.com) and LinkedIn profile.
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All right, everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. Today, Jill Raff with us. Welcome to the show.
Thank you. Great to be with you. Thanks for having me.
Of course. And I'll do a little introduction before we dive in. So Jill is a customer experience strategist. Author and speaker who uses her diverse background as a high-level consultant for companies who want to create a 5-star customer experience. So, we'll dive into the first one. The first one is, what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
So, this is something that I've only recently actually gone public with. So, it's Basically, I bombed my SATs. This was in high school, and I always did really well in school, so I felt stupid, quite frankly, for the first time in my life. And I didn't get into the school that I wanted, and so I thought, okay, front door's closed, I'm going to figure out how to go in the side door. And I had a lot of nos, and in order to do so, I went to another school, and I had to like really crank up the hours that I could take. And they told me, no, you can't do that many hours for all these different reasons. And I was crying. I was really sick. I had like 102 temperature. I just graduated. And my mom said to me, Jill, go back to the admissions office and tell them they don't know you like I know you, and you can do this and convince them to let you take those hours. And that's what I did. And they let me take the hours and I achieved my goal.
Nice.
I ended up going mid-year to the school that I wanted, but it really, the moral was it taught me to believe in yourself and not to let others define who you are and what you're capable of. I did for a split second.
Yeah, I love that. That's a great story. The next one I got for you is what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
I think it would be the first. So I have a customer experience transformation transformation process. And in order to get that transformation, and the first step is about core values and mission statements. So I think the business owner ultimately has super clarity on who they are, what their core values are, their mission statement, and that every decision— this is the key part— every decision in their business from then on is in alignment with those core values. Then at that point, they will avoid many pitfalls, the cost of, of loss of revenue, cost of employee turnover, and ultimately your cost of, um, customer turnover, because that will— they'll be feeling that.
Mhm. Uh, I could tie in— I mean, I think it's applicable to really any business, but what's your best piece of overall business advice? So not necessarily industry-specific.
Sure. To me, very much people first, put people first. Because when you, even if you're right, any industry, you value your employees. And if you treat your employees like you want them to treat your customers, I think you're going to see productivity, you're going to have higher retentions. And it's important, just that's what the really, the part of this that lights me up, that makes me super excited and I love the most is connecting people. And so when you speak people and respect them, you take care of them, they're going to turn around and do good by you too. So put your people first for the sake of doing the right thing, not for selling them.
And then if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
It's to never let fear hold you back from living your life's purpose and to really be fully happy and fulfilled. Fears Fear just gets in the way.
Yeah, agreed. And it perfectly leads into the next one. So in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
I think living your true self, being positive, and living your life filled with love and laughter around people that you love. In fact, there's been a study that shows that the highest indicator to long life is that social connection with people. So I believe really strongly in just living your life, being positive, of being around those that you love. And also a book like the title of a book, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, because I think at the end of the day, we'll look back and almost all of it will be small stuff. So those would be the two things.
And then unless it's that book, what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
I do love that book, but another one that I have so many books that I love.
Me too.
Um, but, and then all different topics, but I think The Soul of Leadership by Deepak Chopra because it talks about conscious leadership values and how in order to really be a true leader and to open up the possibilities of yourself as a full leader, to possess the creativity, the intelligence, the love, and all of those things it takes to be a good leader, that you first need to go in and And it needs to come from a level of your soul. So it's real— it's a lot about conscious leadership. And to me, gosh, that's good in life and in business.
And then what is your favorite quote and why?
It's another hard one. I have a lot of great quotes. I have journals of quotes. Can I give you two?
Yeah, two works.
So one of my favorite ones, which probably most people have heard from Henry Ford, and I'm going to paraphrase it, but he says basically that if you think you you can or you think you can't, you're right.
Mm-hmm.
Because your mindset and what you tell yourself will truly dictate what you're able to actually do. Not your capability, but what you're able to do, because most people are capable of many things. And secondly is from Ray Kroc, and it's around the customer experience. And he says, if you work just for money, you'll never make it. But if you love what you're doing, and you always put your customer first, success will be yours.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that too. I love both of those. So thanks for coming on. The last one I got for you is where can our listeners best find you online?
Thank you. They can find me at my website, www.jillraff.com. That's my name, Jillraff.com. Also on LinkedIn, And it's also under my name.
Perfect. Thank you again.
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
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