254. Embracing a Psychology-Based Sales Approach w/ Jeff Shore

You can’t multiply your way out of complexity — first, you have to simplify. In today’s increasingly oversaturated market of substandard marketing and customer service, it’s getting more and more difficult to come out on top. Where most people try to win with complexity, our guest today focuses on the foundation: customer experience.


Jeff Shore is a sales expert, author, speaker and executive coach and the Founder and President of Shore Consulting. With a focus on psychology-based selling, Jeff is restoring the foundations of what makes modern marketing and selling successful.


Listen as we discuss:

• How selling the way your customers want to buy changes your trajectory
• What psychology-based selling is, and why it’s not the norm
• Which tools and tech are misused and underused
• How to connect and communicate more effectively
• How to navigate market ebbs and flows

More information about Jeff Shore and today’s topics:

• LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffshore/
• Company Website: https://jeffshore.com/
• Other Relevant Links: French Laundry; Shep Hyken; Unreasonable Hospitality; The Future Is Faster Than You Think; Adrienne Duffy, Strategic Coach; Eric Elder on LinkedIn; One Minute Pitch: John’s Crazy Socks

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
The single most important thing you cando today is to create and deliver a
better experience for your customers. Learnhow sales, marketing and customer success experts
create internal alignment, achieve desired outcomes, and exceed customer expectations in a personal
and human way. This is theCustomer Experience Podcast. Here's your host,

(00:24):
Ethan Butte. You can't multiply yourway out of complexity. You must first
simplify before you can multiply. Weshould be selling the way our customers actually
want to buy. Those are justtwo of many things I've learned from today's
guest. He's a sales expert,author, speaker, and executive coach.
He's the founder and president of ShoreConsulting, the number one new home sales

(00:47):
training company for teams and leaders.Jeff Shore, Welcome to the Customer Experience
Podcast. It's our pleasure of beinghere, and I have to just credit
real quick. You can't multiply outof complexity. That's Adrian Duffy and not
Jeff Shore. Or it's just somethingthat as soon as she said and I
went, oh my goodness, youjust describe my life right here, trying
to multiply out of complexity no wonder, I can't get anything done. And

(01:08):
when we beat started beating everything inthe company with a simple stick, we
had allowed us to multiply. SoI just want to make sure credit goes
where credit is due to no one. Yeah, please, I felt like
I knew that I couldn't remember theattribution. I figured you'd picked me up,
and so I appreciate you doing that. And by the way, I
mean just full respect for that.I can't I can't believe how often I
see things parroted online that a misrepresentsthe original idea in some fundamental way,

(01:34):
and or rather than giving attribution orcredit, they're actually intentionally taking it.
I didn't mean to do that onyour behalf, but it's shocking how often
that happens. No, no,no, it's really it's the death of
ethics right there. I was ina presentation once at the Builder Show years
ago, and there I don't havea lot of original thought, but there
are a few things that I've triedto make sure that there's a Jeff Shore

(01:57):
at the end of it. Andsomebody up in front of her room of
about four hundred people on a slidehad a quote of mine, no attribution
or anything. But but it's somethingthat I'm and it's an interesting thing.
Was that it was the type ofenvironment where people in the audience would have
known, well, wait, waita minute, that's not his that's chef.
Sure, So I go up tohim after anon. He knew I
was there, right, He goes, Jeff, I used your quote.

(02:22):
Yes, yes, I noticed youforgot something, but I noticed, yeah,
yeah, yeah, it's so interesting. Anyway, I have a number
of questions there, but I'm goingto jump into our standard opener and we
may revisit. Sure, this ideaof where I was at in my head
was the power of This is nota great example of it, which is
why we don't need to dive intoit. But this idea of your teaching

(02:44):
becoming so much a part of thepopular conversation or culture within a community in
particularly, let's say that it transcendsany source, and then you know your
ideas have really been taken to scale. And it's a mixed blessing sometimes.
But stealing is a whole difference story, Jeff. When I see customer experience,
what does that mean to you?Well, look, you know,

(03:05):
you could look at it. It'sa couple of different ways. Right,
we can talk about how a customerfeels, but that's sort of you know,
trite and maybe even a little hackneyedat this point. So I like
to take it from a different perspectiveand think about how the customer will feel.
And I've really been diving in recentlyto an emerging branch of psychology that's

(03:27):
referred to as a prospective psychology.It's the psychology of the future, or
how we will feel about the future. And when we're in decision making mode,
you know, our gut takes over, emotion takes over, but we
run these little mental simulations and youknow, for me, is somebody in
the sales world. Every decision thatgets made gets made according to the expected

(03:47):
outcomes. Now that's psych one ohone. You're going to learn that right
away than your first day of decisionmaking theory that you make decisions according to
the expected outcomes. But I thinkthe important extrapolation of that is that you
make decisions according to how you willfeel about the expected outcomes. So when
I think about the customer experience,it's about how they feel and about how

(04:11):
they will feel, and that's theidea. So, you know, just
a real simple example, if Icould here, I'm a couple of years
ago, my wife and I hadthe opportunity to have dinner at the French
Laundry and yet feel one of thebest restaurants. You know, Thomas Keller
Restaurant, one of the best restaurantsin the world. But the price tag
on that dinner comes to about fourhundred dollars a person, you know,

(04:32):
before the wine, and so youdon't make that decision simply based on how
good the meal is going to be. It's a holistic decision that's based on
how you will feel after the experience. That's prospective psychology. You run this
mental simulation and you ask yourself,how am I going to feel if I
do this, and if I feelgood, I move forward. If I

(04:55):
feel bad, then I pull theplug on it. But to me,
that's that's a big part of thatcustomer journey story. It's about how they're
going to feel into the future reallygood. I appreciate the call to prospective
psychology and this anticipation piece. Itmakes me think a lot about something that's
critical and we talk about from timeto time on the show, which is
expectation management. Talk about the roleof the service or product provider, the

(05:19):
work of marketing or even a salespersonin helping someone anticipate the feelings on the
other end, because there's something aboutbecause I think that the whether or not
we are going to choose to refersomeone right there, Like there's a neutral
state where it's like it's fine andwe're only going to say that if someone
asks us. There's the proactivity oflike you have to get to the French

(05:41):
laundry. It is, you're gonnapay for it, but it's gonna be
so, you know. And thenthere's also the it wasn't all that.
You know, that's good, butI really only have two hundred bucks ahead
for that experience. Like talk aboutthe role of expectation management related to this,
Well, it's an interesting question becausegenerally, when you think about expectation
management, we think about processes.We think about, this is what's going

(06:01):
to happen. Here's how it's goingto happen, and you have to do
this here and that there, andwe're going to call you about this.
So everything is around the process.The problem is that processes are typically designed
more for the organization than they arefor the customer. So when we start
thinking about expectation management in terms ofthe emotion. That's where the game changer
comes into place, because it comesinto play because it is that customers the

(06:24):
emotion that we are driving towards.And we have to begin by asking the
question what will excite this customer?What will trigger that positive emotion such that
the customer is stepping into their ownfuture. You know, Martin Seligman has
a University of Pennsylvania has a greatquote about this. He says, what
if we are not Homo sapiens meaningwise man, but rather Homo prospectus of

(06:48):
seeing man or envisioning man is probablythe best interpretation there. And so as
we can help our customers not justunderstand what the journey is, but how
the customer will feel during the journey. A really simple example. You know,
I live in the home building worldand one of the things that customers
have to do is that they haveto go through the mortgage process. Well,
that's not the fun part as faras they're concerned, Right, you

(07:10):
got to expose all your financial awards. You've got to go into this customer
experience thinking this is going to beakin to an IRS audit. So how
great would it be if they gota video from their loan officer before they
met to say, hey, listen, you know before we go, and
let me just set the stage herefor you for what you can expect.
I'm here to help answer any questions. There's no reason why we can't make

(07:30):
this as an enjoyable process and maybeeven just a quick overview of what's kind
of happened here and now, ratherthan walking through the doors expecting this horrendous
experience where the negative emotion sets offa negative state of mind. Now I'm
in too, dealing with a nice, kind person who's willing to walk me
through this. I mean, whata gift to a customer to let them

(07:50):
know in advance, not just whatwill happen, but how we expect them
to feel about that. That's reallypowerful, it is. There's so many
things you triggered their for me thatI really enjoy. One is this idea
that there is a transfer of emotion. That's a key element. And so
someone being able to show up ina video, which is another layer I
really appreciate. To set the toneinto acknowledge you may feel some degree of

(08:16):
vulnerability. You might even now you'renot going to say these words out loud,
but you can communicate as a thoughtful, empathetic, expert person who's here
to guide and manage the process forsomebody. It is like an audit.
I mean, this is everything,right, Like you're revealing your entire financial
past, good, bad, uglyand everything in between. And so that

(08:37):
like media acknowledging that someone might befeeling that way and offering to kind of
like lower the stakes, lower theconfusion, lower the stress of it.
I'm here alongside you. That ismy role here. I'm blah blah blah
blah. At the risk of askingwhat may be a slightly self serving question,
as a longtime team member at bombBomb who helps people do what you
just described, why is this importantto do that in a video? You

(09:01):
didn't say send an email kind ofdescribing this thing. You said, share
a video. And there are alot of different ways to do that.
But talk now I'm bridging a courseinto why a human being, But any
thoughts on the video piece in particular, just a quick anecdote here, I'm
thinking of a story I heard froma client, actually watched the video from
the clan. But there's a ladywho was searching for a home This is

(09:24):
in Austin, Texas, and she'scalling to different communities and she's saying,
two salespeople, in a tone ofvoice that is somewhat accrid, I need
to have a homesite that backs upto trees. If I come out there
and you show me a homesite thatbacks up to another home, I am
not going to be I mean,she's very very clear at her expectations,
and it's a defensive it's a fearposture right from the very beginning. I

(09:48):
think, in her mind, youare a salesperson. You are there to
try and steer me into something thatI don't want. I'm not going to
let that happen. I'm letting youknow that. So she's calling different offices
and she makes an appointment with hisone salesperson. His name is Blake,
and he assures her that he hasa wooded a lot. So he gets
off the phone with her and hestarts thinking, you know, boy,
she's got some hang up. She'sgot some history here, right she's and

(10:11):
she's carrying her history or her perceptionsabout salespeople into this conversation. And she's
I know, she's calling all overa town, So how do I get
a leg up. So he grabshis phone, he walks out to a
wooded homesite. He opens his bombbomb app and he records a quick little
video and he's he's standing with thehomesite behind him, and he says,
you know, Hila, you knowI told you it would a lot.

(10:33):
I just thought maybe I would showyou in advance. And here it is,
and we're going to keep these treesand you can see behind us and
natures and that you know, thecamera's moving, and you got half of
his nose in the picture. It'sthe runness. I think that actually makes
it more real and more authentic ashe does that. But the key here
is not that Sheley gets to seethe wooded lot. The key here is
that Sheley gets to see Blake,and before she pulls up to the community

(10:56):
for the first time, she cansee this is a good guy. He's
a nice guy. He's not overlypolished, he's not a slickster. There's
a level of trust that's based onlikability that she will bring into this conversation.
And now Blake has a tremendous legup because you know nobody else is
doing it. So if she's gotfive different appointments that she's made, there

(11:18):
is one that stands out, andshe's already crossed that barrier before she gets
there. Every other salesperson is goingto have to start from scratch when she
pulls up. But Blake has alreadygotten there. Now you look at you
go what did it cost him?Well, I don't know. Two minutes.
I mean that's about it. Butthe idea that he triggered, not

(11:39):
just the emotion of the product,but the emotion in himself is critical to
the story. Yeah, so good. I mean, so many foul crushes.
I kind of want to double backbriefly because we may go alongside this
again because of your psychology based approachto selling, and the human does play
a very unique role there. Youmentioned like a billy will peel into that

(12:01):
just to kind of close down customerexperience explicitly for a moment. When did
this term come onto your radar?I mean, you are a prolific content
creator. You've been writing, speaking, teaching all of these things for a
long time. You've probably, asyou look back, whenever you started using
the term, if you even chooseto use it, you're really talking about
aspects of it all along, like, when did this come onto your radar?

(12:24):
Yeah, so I worked for avery very large homebuilder and I'm going
to say at the time. Nowthey dare say that they've evolved since,
but when I worked for them,a customer experience was not high on the
radar. The customer was an importantasset in the acquisition of revenue to meet
the business plan. I mean,I hate to be so blunt about it,

(12:46):
but that was the case. Soit wasn't until I went on my
own and I started working with clientswho were really excellent in the world of
customer experience, and I started tosee what was possible and that sort of
opened my eyes and then I just, like you now, it's a customer
experience journey or my customer experience antennais very very high in my life in

(13:09):
general, on the positive and thenegative. So you know, whether it's
our you know, our local donutshop over here, or what's going to
happened at an Apple store over there, or you know why kmart went out
of business, so you know,all of these things are based on that
customer experience antenna. But I woulddare say that I learned this from working

(13:30):
with clients who were fully committed andlearning that I had to I had to
up my customer experience game a lot. I had to study this hard because
it's it was not the environment thatI was raised in. Yeah, so
I so much learning to be done. I'm so glad that A I have
the privilege of hosting this podcast andB get to have these conversations. I
guess it's my own version of yourconsulting experience of exposure to a variety of

(13:56):
people in a variety of roles,in a variety of industries, all around
this core concept of how do wecreate and deliver better experiences for people?
Would you agree that this is oneof the best, if not the best
differentiators going forward. I mean thinkhome building isn't as pure play a commodity
as some of its adjacencies. Ithink mortgage is much more commoditized. I

(14:20):
think real estate agency broadly speaking,is much more commoditized. I think there's
some unique things about you know,lots and homes. But but I would
also assume that customer experience is afantastic differentiator here. How do you think
about it in terms of differentiation?You know, it's so funny, I've
actually picked up a book here thatI was reading yesterday, and I marked

(14:41):
a quote I'm looking through real quickfrom It was from Tim Ferris, and
I'm having a hard time finding it. But he was talking about the idea
that most people. Oh here itis of people. And by the way,
this is taken from ten X aseasier than two X. This is
Dan Sullivan's new book. It's notout yet, but it's an advanced copy.
It's fantastic now. He says,ninety nine. This is Tim Ferris.

(15:03):
Nine. People in the world areconvinced they are incapable of achieving great
things, and so they aim forthe mediocre. The level of competition is
thus fiercest for quote realistic goals,paradoxically making them the most time and energy
consuming. And I think when itcomes to customer experience, that's exactly what

(15:24):
we're talking about. That people don'tthink that they can run with the big
boys of customer experience. They don'tthink they can be groundbreaking and innovative and
be the type of organization that peopleare going to write books about or talk
about on podcasts, and so theyaim for customer service right or customer satisfaction.

(15:46):
They lower the bar for themselves becausethey can't envision it happening. Now,
they're competing at a level of mediocritythat everybody else is competing for,
and the customer sees this. Ihaven't talked to one person in the last
three years who would disagree with methat the customer experience weakened dramatically over the

(16:06):
last few years, and the customerexpectations have gone down as well. Again,
the paradox is that providing a greatcustomer experience is easier now that it's
never ever been. But companies justdon't seem to want to do this,
so they don't have the guts todo that, they don't have the vision
power to do that, or whateverthe case might be. But I would
argue that the reason that it's difficultis because it's easier to change processes than

(16:30):
it is to change cultures. Andif your culture is already defined as one
that is, let's get the bareminimum done so that people don't hate us.
If that's what your culture is,that's a hard culture to change.
You'd be much better off opening yourorganization, beginning your organization with the idea
that let's design this around an incrediblecustomer experience. Let's just go to let's

(16:52):
sail in blue water right here andget out of the mucky port and see
what the opportunities are. But Ijust think there are cultural issues that hold
organizations back. Yes, interesting toois you talk about process versus culture.
They both affect each other. Youknow, you can make strides in one
and get some halo effect on theother. I think a lot of culture

(17:14):
is sometimes a lack of process affectsit one way or the other. Sometimes
it's good, sometimes it's pad.It depends on you know, what you're
really trying to get done there.But I appreciate the call out to the
mediocrity. And it has been brutalI think a lot of and by that
I'm speaking as a customer now,who you know buys from a variety of
people, a variety of things.It has been really bad. And really,

(17:38):
the one word that jumps out tome here that I'd love to have
you react to or riff on isconsistency. You know, a longtime friend
of mine and bomb Bombs, andhe's featured in our second book, Human
Center Communication chef Hike and his philosophyon customer service and customer experiences is being
slightly better than average almost all ofthe time, you know, and that

(18:02):
alone gets you into the books.It's like, I don't know how they
do it, but every single timedot dot dot. And it's not necessarily
this mind blowing thing in these youknow, kind of one off stories of
surprise and delight, but it's reallythe And so when you think about the
amount of turnover that we had,whether it was actual quitting or quiet quitting
or any of these other you know, the resignation, all these other kind

(18:22):
of trends and labels we put onthings, I think the turnover was part
of it because it erode some ofthe culture. And it also means that
you need to train back up awhole bunch of people into something that maybe
was maybe soft in culture, softin process whatever. Talking about the role
of consistency, and I guess whatI just did there in that overly long

(18:44):
setup where I asked a question kindof spoke to it, is that there's
just all of those dynamics create aninconsistency and a significant disruption whatever good was
already established. Yeah, looks goingback to Chep Froment, I've known Chep
for years and take his point andtying that back into what you said.
There's culture and then there's process,And I think what he was talking about

(19:07):
more is on the process side,right, just consistently doing things a little
bit better than that. That's whereyour processors are set up. The cultural
site says, now, how dowe take that up a notch and even
individually look for those opportunities for customerexperiences that are cultivated for individual customers.
What do we do here so thatbased on what I know about that customer,

(19:30):
I have this curated experience that comesfrom that. So there are things
that you can and should do inyour processes that can make a huge difference.
But just it's just a little examplefrom Will Gradara's book on Reasonable Hospitality.
So when you look at a soWill Gadara, previous owner of eleven
Madison Park at one point rated thenumber one restaurant in the world because of

(19:53):
their experiences, when you look atthe process side, what did he do?
He got rid of the host hostessstand and so every afternoon at three
o'clock the host hostess. So theywould come in and they would go on
social media and they would do websearches for everybody who had a reservation just
so they could find a photo,and they got rid of the host hostess
stand, and now they could greetsomebody when they walk through the door and

(20:15):
say, mister and missus Lee,thank you so much for dining with us
today. We're so happy to seeyou, right, because they that's it.
That's a process that makes a littledifference. But then you look at
it and you think about the storythat's told in the book of Overhearing a
customer say, we've had the bestmeal ever. We had everything in our

(20:36):
trip to New York except for adirty water hot dog, you know,
a street hot dog. So somebodyoverhears this, goes down the street,
buys a dirty water hot dog,takes it back to the chef, has
them divided in four, dress upthe plate in eleven Madison Park style and
say there, now you can sayyou've had the dirty water hot dog.
So it's this blend. Right.There are the processes that allow us to
be at least a little bit betterat everything we do what we do in

(21:00):
distant Lee, and then there arethe curated opportunities that we learned. And
if you can do both of thosethings, that's when you're miles ahead everybody
else, because let's face it,the dirty water hot dog, that's the
story people tell. That's the storypeople tell for a long long time.
Yeah, it's the one that youjust told him now, I mean,
that's That's another thing that's fun aboutthis podcast is you hear these these stories.
And I really love the way thatthat example perfectly drew out the relationship

(21:25):
between process and culture. The culturesays, act on the things that you
overhear. The process doesn't. Youcan't. That's not a process thing.
And something else, by the waythat you and Chep's share, of course,
is Dan Sullivan. I don't knowif that's how you guys connected,
but he turned me on to theto Dan's teachings. He's a hero in
the National Speakers Association, So that'show we connected. But yes, I

(21:48):
do know that he's very big onDan Sullivan. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
So diving deeper in but taking adifferent turn on process versus culture.
You know, I would assume safelybecause you're an avid consumer, you're a
great connector, you're involved in avariety of different things. You're serving the
scene broadly, you're doing it thoughtfully, as you've already described and more importantly

(22:11):
demonstrated in this conversation. We're onlytwenty seven minutes in. I assume that
you're looking a lot at this intersectionor at the parallel tracks of culture and
process, at what's going on withtechnology, and you've probably have been for
years, and I would love yourperspective wherever you want to take it,

(22:32):
on the relationship between humans and technology. How you're seeing people make really good
decisions about where not to over automate, what to unburden humans of, etc.
And maybe some of the other waysaround these themes, like broad thoughts
on humans and technology, either froma historical perspective at this moment in time,

(22:53):
how you're perhaps advising people how tothink about how to implement technology,
you're aware anything that any of thattriggers for I'd love to start a track
around that. Yeah, sure,Well a couple of things, as you
know. As you know, I'mdeeply interested in what's happening next, what
we're about to see. Of readinga chapter at a time Peter Diamonda's book

(23:17):
The Future is faster than you think. It's both exciting and disturbing at the
same time. I can only reada chapter at time because I have to
sit it down and let it marinatefor a while in my brain. So
I'm very interested, and of course, Ethan, I had you on one
of our webinars recently to talk aboutthis. I am cautiously optimistic about things
like AI. I know there's alot of talk about well, what happens

(23:37):
when AI takes over the world,And you know, I'm not really that
much of an alarmist along those lines, and I think that we're hopefully smart
in a human beings to put safeguardsaround AI. But I guess I have
to start that conversation by going backto technologies that have been used or underutilized,
but that are massively ubiquitous and sometimesfor the wrong reasons. And so

(23:57):
I got to go back to emailon this one, Ethan, I really
really do. I've come to thepoint where I wish email was never invented.
I mean, it is the mostabused, horrific, especially in the
sales world. The amount of timethat email should be used is about five
percent of the time that it's actuallyused. I am not happy with what's

(24:18):
gone on an email over time.And I'm not just talking about spam here.
I'm talking about how it is utilizedby influenced practitioners. And now having
said that, I send sales emails. You know, so it's a game
that almost has to be played.But I hate the game now. The
reason though, that I hate itmore than anything else is because we default

(24:40):
to what is easy without thinking aboutwhat is right or what is easy versus
what is effective. So the easiestthing in the world for me to do
is send an email to a clientsaying, hey, you know this beautiful
thing that you ordered over here,Yeah, they don't make it anymore and
your dreams have now been shattered.Have a nice day. It's easier to
do that over an email, butit's not what the customer wants and it's

(25:02):
not what the customer needs. Soyou know, we have to I think
we have to evaluate old technologies herebefore we look at that. Now,
the flip side of that is thatwe were talking about video earlier and I
look, I'm going to challenge anybodyto go back and look at my entire
body of work. When I saythis is going to sound like because of
Ethan's affiliation with bomb Bomb, thatI'm trying to couch out to the host
here. Trust me, you won'tlook at my body of work. You're

(25:23):
going to see that. This isnot the case. The underutilization of video
floors me. And I'm not talkingabout, you know, a highly leveraged
drone video with a beautiful soundtrack behindit. That's great, if you can
pull it off, that's great.I'm talking about any video, any client
communication video, any prospecting video,any update video. It's crazy that it's

(25:48):
not being used still. I mean, you know, at the time we're
recording this, it's twenty twenty three. How is video still not a thing
for so many people? So look, those are old school technologies at this
point, but one mightily abused andone horribly underutilized. And before we start
talking about advancements in AAR, whichby the way, are stunning these days,

(26:11):
we've got to go back and lookat the fundamental technologies first. Agree
in so many different ways, Iwould just I guess, just to stay
in the video in whether it's cowtowingor not, and it isn't. But
I appreciate this conversation because they don'tget to have it with enough people in
a really thoughtful way. I wouldjust observe back to your underused observation,

(26:37):
a totally agree despite my best effortsover the past dozen years in my capacity
here at Bomb Bomb. But somethingI've long said, one of the things
I get to do is when wehire x number of new employees, I
get to do. I get torepresent the marketing team in an onboarding kind
of around the company tour that thisgroup of this new cohort of employees gets
to go around, get a littleexposure to the face and philosophies and approaches

(27:00):
of the different teams and see howthey're all structured and that type of thing.
And one of the elements that Ialways include is the fact, the
fact I'm calling it a fact,I think it's true, my own self
prescribed observation as fact, that ourbiggest impediment to growth, not just as
a company at bomb Bomb, butof this idea of video in place of

(27:22):
faceless typed out text in more places, because it's better. By the way,
it's great for bad news to yourexample earlier of like typing this out
is not the same as someone tobe able to feel your sincerity and to
feel that they're alongside you and beingsorry that this can't happen even though you
want it to. That's the thing, and it matters, and that softens
the whole situation as long as it'ssincere. But it's my observation is that

(27:45):
human vulnerability is the single biggest impedimentto growth of this concept, movement and
practice. I think people can't getover the way that they look and sound.
And am I doing this right inall of these things? Have you
of the same, Yeah, Ithink that that's well, they're going to
have to get over it because herecome the millennials who have a video generation,

(28:10):
and I think that there's going tobe less of a thing going forward.
But to your point, it's verydifficult to communicate emotion in an email.
And if you communicate bad news inan email and now your customer sending
you an emotion based email back,well they can communicate emotion, but it's
not going to be pretty. Sothere is that opportunity here to get comfortable

(28:33):
with something that just makes so muchsense. But look like I'm just would
encourage anyone listening to this podcast rightnow to recognize that when we are uncomfortable,
it's always based on a lack ofa lack of familiarity. It's repetition
that takes it from that discomfort intothe comfortable. Just lean into it.
Just lean into it. It's toovaluable not to. And I'm sure you're

(28:56):
training, you're probably seeing this issuethat I've dwelt in for years across a
variety of things that you're trying toencourage and motivate and educate people around.
And one of spots I thought youwere going to go to and I'm curious
to know if this, how thisfits into your engagement with different people in
all the different channels that you engagepeople through, is the phone. You

(29:17):
know, people are afraid of callingpeople, and so you know, I
know a number of coaches in thezones that you and I both spend a
lot of time in, and youknow, part of it is just holding
people accountable for picking up the phone, which seems crazy, but it's also
this like discomfort. It's like I'mnot comfortable doing it, Therefore I'm not
confident in it. Therefore my confidencecomes through because we're creating a human to

(29:41):
human moment. That's why we wantto get on the phone, that's why
we want to send a video.And so that lack of confidence, like
you're already he's you know, startingout of a hole. If someone chooses
to click player, someone chooses topick up the phone, if you're not
confident in it, it's kind ofa catch twenty two. It is indeed,
and could not agree more. Imean that the phone is for There
is an organization in Dallas, Texasthat does an assessment for salespeople. Are

(30:04):
you going to be good at sales? And on and sales on one?
They put a whole list of potentialthreats as you test into this, and
one of them is telephobia. Theyjust call it telephobia. Right, do
you have a fear of making phonecall? It's a thing? Apparently it's
a thing. But I would lookat it and just as if I could
be advisory in this who influenced practitioners? Right now? What if you finished

(30:27):
one conversation, maybe it was aface to face conversation, and there's a
follow up call that needs to bemade. Why to record a quick video
to say thank you? I reallyappreciated getting to know you. I'm going
to do a little research on thisand I'll call you by five o'clock today.
Have a good day. Now,what you just did is you said
to bomb bomb with a thank youit was sincere you confirmed that there is

(30:48):
work to be done, and youmade a commitment to them and to yourself
that you will call them at fiveo'clock. So now you've increased the chances
that a you're going to make thecall and be that they're going to receive
it. So if it's just aquick, little fifteen second exercise will make
this so much easier on both partiesby the time it's time to actually make

(31:08):
the call. Yeah, it's reallygood. And again that's it's this.
Now you've got me thinking about expectationmanagement for ourselves. I mean, it
is a process piece, but Ithink if people committed to that, and
episode two fifty was dedicated to aprocess for identifying and committing to and implementing
with clarity video messages and specific momentsthat have specific value to the relationship and

(31:34):
therefore to your business and your businessoutcomes. I think that's another trap people
fall into. They hear something likethis, they don't dwell in the thought
long enough to understand what the videomessage is actually about. I would also
accuse a number of people in thespace of selling it as a gimmick because
people want to buy it as agimmick as opposed to being basically thoughtful about

(31:56):
what's going on here, which isagain creating human to human moments in an
asynchronous manner because we don't have enoughcontact with our customers, our prospects,
our referral partners, other strategic partners. It's just the way that we live
in work now. And so thisis the idea of like a little human
to human moment in between if we'relucky enough to get them real in person
moments. And with that, Iguess I'll turn it into a I'll give

(32:20):
it back to you because you've beenso kind in spending conversation in this zone
around video messaging, which of courseI'm deeply passionate about. You know,
I look forward to meeting you inperson in July in Nashville at your event.
Talk about the balance that you've seen, the shift that you've seen perhaps
over the past couple of decades inhuman to human. You're bringing a whole

(32:40):
bunch of people in your community together, not just for education. It's not
just about what happens on the stagesand in the panels and all of these
other elements. It's about the peoplethemselves getting together as well. But in
a more direct commercial context, talkabout the shifts you've seen in in person
versus mediated whatever the medium is,interaction and any kind of pros cons tips.

(33:06):
Feel free to provide advice to peoplearound that zone as well. There's
something to getting together in person asmuch work as it is. Well,
certainly COVID validated that when you lookat you know, I play hockey a
couple of nights a week on oneof my teams, So there's a psychologist
on the team, and he hasa teaching practice, then he has a

(33:27):
counseling practice. I remember asking thequestion during COVID well shortly after we started
playing again after everything had shut down, said what happened to your business?
And he just said it just wentnuts. I mean he said, I've
never had to say no more often. And then I've never had to deal
with the same malady over and overand over again. When suddenly green lights
started going on around the country andpeople started coming out of the basement,

(33:51):
there was a different type of interactionand I miss you interaction. And I
think that we've done the sales andmarketing summit for years and years and years,
and then suddenly we're doing it virtuallyright. We did it out of
a studio one year and it wentas well as it could be over a
Zoom call. But when we metlive the next time, you could tell

(34:12):
it was a hybrid event like manydid. There was a live event and
then we had it going simulcast overhere on Zoom. But the level of
engagement and experience was totally different.And the people who were willing to be
live, we're throwing their arms aroundother people's necks and saying you're a human
being. And I'm not trying toput this all on COVID. I'm trying
to put this on the idea thatto your point, that direct one on

(34:35):
one communication is critical to what happens. And you know, I think societally,
you know, we used to meetin bolding alleys and elks lodges,
and now we binge watched you know, Netflix by ourselves or with our significant
on the sofa. It's not thesame experience. And so I wonder if
we're not going to see more ofthat going forward where people are looking at

(35:00):
I mean, listen, that's whatpeople are trying to do with you know,
with VR chat rooms. It's likeno, no, no, no,
you could have it both, andI still don't think it's going to
be the same anymore than Zoom isthe same as talking to somebody face to
face. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean some of the ARVR stuff
that we're seeing does add a dimensionalitythat zoom doesn't have. You know,

(35:21):
it's flat, but it's also like, there's something I'm looking at you on
my screen. Were recording this inRiverside, by the way, great platform.
There's something about looking at you inyour what I assume is your office
or your home office. It's nicelyset up. You have your books at
hand, which is just awesome.You're able to pull from them and read
quotes out of them in the courseof conversation. There's something about seeing you,

(35:44):
Jeff on my screen as flat asyou are, that even if we
add an additional dimension in a differenttype of kind of three dsh interaction,
I'm speaking human to human here.There's a difference about demonstrating a product or
walking someone through a home, thesetypes of things where that adds a really
significant benefit. I just think aboutI'm thinking about avatars and bubble heads and

(36:07):
representations of ourselves where we've bought digitalsneakers, because we still care about our
identity in this space, but it'sit's a representation of what you think you
are or who you want to portrayyourself as I mean, there's a creativity
element there, but it still leavesme very short. And what I think

(36:28):
I heard there is that it isn'tnecessarily even though it's more immersive, it's
not necessarily better than this flat mediatedexperience through my laptop screen. Well okay,
but if you let's contrast here justa little bit. Please, If
I'm at a wedding reception, ifI'm at a cocktail party or whatever it
is, and I'm having a oneon one conversation and I'm talking to somebody
who's given me one of these what'sthat? Oh? Yeah, we know

(36:53):
how shallow and empty we feel like, I am hello, I'm here,
right, and yet I'm not gettingthat fact. Well, I take that
and magnify it ten times on yourtypical zoom call. Right. So right
here, it's one on one youand I can have that direct interaction you
would know if I was checking emailsright now. But in a virtual setting,

(37:13):
it's much easier to be distracted bywhat's going on around me than it
is face to face one on one. There's something very pure about the one
on one relationship. And I justthink about, you know, my own
experience. I'm it's unpaid, butI'm on the pastoral staff at my church,
and and just what happens before andafter the service is it's beautiful.
It's just beautiful. And it's testimonyto the fact that we are designed as

(37:36):
humans to be communal, and noteven communal over the phone, although it's
better than sending an email. We'redesigned as humans to be face to face.
We've got to do more of that. Totally agree. I would love
for you to share with folks.Someone that's spinning in my head, like
someone in our space, is,you know, dropped a chat GPT interface

(37:57):
into a video platform to help generatesales scripts on the fly. And I'm
like, I kind of get it, but intellectually, I deeply struggle with
the idea that if I had theopportunity to be in front of my customer
right now, which is the opportunityor prospect, which is the opportunity that
video message gives you, I don'tknow what to say to them versus you

(38:20):
know what you just shared, whichis this idea of we just shared this
experience together, and now in anunstructured communal environment, we can have some
spontaneity. We can talk about whatwe saw, herd or felt. We
can talk about it like in theshared experience that we just had. We
can talk about what's happened since thelast time we saw each other. It's
like, in so many cases,we don't struggle with what to say and

(38:43):
how to connect with people. AndI think once people warm those muscles back
up, especially people that moved intomore of a hermit type of posture through
the pandemic experience, and relish theopportunity to do so, you know,
once you shake off some of thatrust, we're all there. Like any
thoughts on, Yeah, let's callsomething what it is right here that this

(39:04):
triggered something that I've been thinking abouta lot recently by nature. I am
an introvert. Now some people wouldokay, and some people would look at
it. It's been misunderstood what anintrovert is. It all has to do
with how you get your energy,right, whether you get your energy from
being around people or or you restoreyour energy being alone. But it has
been sort of glamorous. More recently, to call yourself an introvert. And

(39:30):
you know, Matthew Pollard wrote abook called The Introverts Edge, celebrating what
introverts do and how they have anadvantage over everybody else. And after a
while you start using it as acrutch, or better yet, a shield
to hide behind. So look,I may be an introvert, but that
does not give me a hall passto sit in my hotel room during a

(39:53):
conference when I could be doing somevery powerful networking and building relationships people.
But what we're talking about here,I think, more than anything else,
is comfort addictions. It's more comfortable. It's not just that it's easier to
write an email, it's more comfortableto write an email. And I remember
I got this lesson from Cassandra onmy team years ago. We were at

(40:15):
the International Builder Show. We're walkingdown through the convention hall and every ten
feet Cassandra would find, said MarkCassandra. They'd hug and chat for let
me go another ten feed Shelley Cassandahad hug. I'm like, how do
you know all these people? AndCassandra said, well, because I walk
up to them and I say Hi, my name is Cassandra, who are
you said? Your problem is normallywhen we're at a conference Europe in your

(40:37):
hotel room, answering emails, andit's true. Why because it's more comfortable.
And so I think it's that comfortaddiction that is at the root cause
of the issue. If we're beinghonest with ourselves, we're just rewarding that
own comfort desire sight of us andthen hanging it behind a banner of well,

(40:58):
I'm an introvert, what are yougoing to do? Yeah, it
really really good observation, and nowyou're drawing me back into this video messaging
conversation, and that is it.So I when I have the privilege,
and I've had it in hundreds,if not thousands of times, to talk
with people who've been successful and unsuccessfulin this new motion of video messaging.
Again, when I say vulnerability,I mean I don't like the way I

(41:20):
feel when I put myself at riskof judgment and rejection as a human being,
because that's deeply challenging for a socialspecies like it used to. The
consequences were fatal millennia ago. They'renot today, but it's still in us
right like we have not evolved theway that technology has not as quickly.
Certainly we're just like barely adapting andhanging on some of us. And so

(41:42):
you know when I hear things like, well it didn't work for me,
or no one watched my videos,or you know, the more obvious one
that's immediately adjacent to this issue thatyou're describing as well, I'm not a
video person, like there are allthese things. But as you kind of
ask into it, two or threemore layers of tell me more about that.
Why do you think that, Whydid you say it that way?

(42:04):
Why you know these kinds of things, you immediately get back to this core
idea of I'm not comfortable doing it. Therefore I have layers of reasons.
And so for you checking your email, I bet you get a hell of
a lot of email like it doesneed to be checked and clear to manage,
and that allows you to rationalize yourway out of something you don't want
to do as much. Yeah,I think what happens is that we all

(42:25):
know we learned it in school thatthe number one job of the brain is
to keep us alive, and soour brains carry a heightened threat sensitivity.
And when we faced his comfort andour brain interprets it as a threat,
then it's naturally going to tell usto run away. Doctor Mark Showen at
UCLA wrote a great book about this. It's called Your survival Instinct is Killing

(42:49):
You, And that paradoxical title sumsup the theme as you would imagine for
the entire book. Or we're relyingon that inner gage that says, oh,
we're uncomfortable, I might die right. This is just the primitive nature
of man, and it's not servingas well. Daniel Kneman, in Thinking
Fast and Slow writes about the lawof least effort. The human brain is

(43:13):
always looking for the easiest way todo anything, and so it's not a
question when it comes to direct communicationwhether it's easy. It's a question or
whether it's right. It's not aquestion whether it's a comfortable thing to do.
It's a question of whether it's theright thing to do. And if
we frame it that way, nowwe go full circle around the customer experience.
What's best for the customer experience.That's what changes everything here. If

(43:35):
I'm making decisions according to my comfortor my perceived threat or whatever it is,
I'm going to find a way,a creative way with a nice,
juicy rationalization to go into another direction. But if I'm asking what's right for
the customer, that's the game changerto me. Really good, And that's
a great callback to the beginning ofthe conversation. Just such an important underlying
philosophy and a thing to ponder onas you're reflecting on what improvements and making

(44:00):
your business, your product, yourservice, your experience, whatever. And
I guess, because you've been sogenerous with your time already, i'll call
that a button on that a couplemany more things that I would have loved
to have covered. Well, let'sdo it again sometime. Yeah, we
will, and we'll call us oneapproximately a session around that. But I've
got a couple more opportunities and questionsfor you. Sure. But first,

(44:22):
for folks listening, if you've enjoyedthis conversation with Jeff, I want to
point you to two almost immediately adjacentepisodes. One is episode two fifty three
with Danielle Laperry's Mareth, who's aVP of sales and marketing at Lenar.
That one just released, And onethat's just a couple of episodes away from
this one is with Dermott Buffini thatone will be episode two fifty six.

(44:43):
He's the CEO of Buffini and Company. And these themes and topics of humans
and tech and communication and connection allin a commercial context. Both of them
have great voices and perspectives into that, as you have, Jeff, before
I let you go. Because relationshipsare our number one core value here at
Bomb Bomb, I would love foryou to share someone who has been a

(45:05):
positive impact on your life or yourcareer. Well, I mean to come
to mind. Adrian Duffy at StrategicCoach has been my coach for many,
many years. She's just just amazing, just incredible. But I think I'm
gonna go primarily with a gentleman thenym of Eric Elder. He was the
chief marketing officer at It's now KabeHomer was Coffment Road at the time,
and when I was thinking about goingout on my own, I remember we

(45:28):
sat down for breakfast at Jerry's Delhiin Westwood, California, and I think
the conversation sounded something like, so, Eric, if I was like,
you know, hypothetically, now,if I was like someday going to maybe
you know, like, did youthink anybody would hire me? And Eric
looked across the breakfast table and hesaid two things. You'd be a fool

(45:49):
not to go on your own andto call me, and I will hire
you first. And sure enough,somewhere in the office there's a frame dollar
bill from that first assignment. AndI think that I always gravitate towards people
who can see more in others thanthose people see in themselves. And Eric
is somebody who saw more in methan I saw him. And that changes
the paradigm, right. The paradigmsare influenced by outsiders more than insiders.

(46:10):
So a big shout out to EricElder. That's beautiful. I'll just turn
that into a call to action foreveryone listening. I know that in my
own life I have withheld for noparticular reason except that it wasn't convenient or
easy. Super positive and meaningful feedback, insights, little gifts to other people.
I don't know about you, Jeff, but I think and feel things

(46:32):
about other people in admiration or respector these zones. And like, that's
one of the ways that I tryto use video, like I try to
keep a list. Anytime these thoughtsoccur, I write someone's name down.
I try to communicate that to them, not exactly, and it's not as
consequential as the great example you justshared with Eric these little things, but

(46:52):
I feel like so many of usare carrying around what would be tremendous valued
gifts that people would never give themselves. They wouldn't recognize that they deserve it.
They might not even be once youpresented to them, they're not willing
to accept it as deserving. SoI really appreciate that call out. How
about and you mentioned a couple earlierwhen you're talking about we're all capable of

(47:14):
really being exceptional in the experience thatwe deliver. I always like to give
people the opportunity to sit in thecustomer chair. Is there any company or
brandy you'd like to give ant ora shout out to with regard to the
experience they deliver for you as acustomer. It's a really interesting example here.
I'm gonna go with John's Crazy Socks. So if you don't know the

(47:34):
story, this is a down's kidwho gets out of high school and doesn't
know what he wants to do withhis life, and he tells his dad,
I want to go into business withyou, dad, And it was
like Okay, all right, whatdo you love socks? I love socks.
So John always wore crazy socks,and so they went out, they
put a little business plan together andthey bought a bunch of crazy socks and

(47:59):
they put this this horrible, horriblewebsite, which very promptly crashed and it
delayed the opening. But if youto this day, if you go on
YouTube and you just search for John'sCrazy Socks opening announcement, okay, and
you're going to see this video.It's like thirty seconds long of John being
interviewed about his new company. Andit started out just this very humble you

(48:22):
know, dad and his son doingsomething for kicks. Now they have they
have a huge staff. They havejust thousands and thousands of different kinds of
socks. They do it on asock of them on the club. It's
a prescription thing. Half of theemployees have disabling abilities that they bring into

(48:42):
the organization. Every time you geta pair of socks, you get a
handwritten note from John and a littlepackage of skittles because that's his favorite candy.
And it's just you feel like you'rea part of a movement like try
and like I don't even wear thesocks, but try and let your subscription
lapse. Try it. See howyou feel about yourself as a human being.
So good, so fun. Youare a wonderful person. You're wonderful

(49:05):
at illustrating the ideas that you broughtto this conversation very generously, and you've
mentioned a number of things that I'vetried to keep notes on them for folks
listening. If you go to bombombdot com slash podcast we do short write
ups on all these conversations that weembed the full audio. We do a
handful of video highlights to kind ofbring the episodes to life, and there
are also links to all of thethings that are mentioned. So if you're

(49:29):
listening as I do, running,walking, hiking, doing yardwork and these
types of things, It's always availableat bombomb dot com slash podcasts. And
this will be episode two fifty fourwith Jeff Shore. Jeff, this has
been fantastic. If I've enjoyed itso much, I look forward to a
day where we can connect in person. And in the meantime, if other
folks have enjoyed this, and Iassume they have because we're over fifty minutes

(49:50):
in now, where would you sendthem they want to learn more about you
and some of the work that youproduce. Yeah, everything available at Jeff
Shore dot com. And that'll showyou all of our social links. And
you mentioned it earlier, the Salesand Marketing Summit where it's going to be
in Nashville in July, coming inclose to seven hundred people in attendance.
It's going to be the greatest salesand marketing party in the homebuilding industry.

(50:13):
So I look forward to seeing youO there. Love it. I love
the word party, and I loveto know that I'm among seven hundred.
Appreciate you so much. Thanks forspending all this time with us. Thank
you, Ethan, it was ablast. Every single day. You're entrusting
some of your most important and mostvaluable messages to plain black text on a
plain white screen, to faceless,typed out text. It doesn't differentiate you,

(50:37):
it doesn't build trust and rapport,and it doesn't convey feelings, thoughts,
arguments, ideas, or details nearlyas well as you do. As
a result, your customer experience,employee experience, and business outcomes suffer.
So it's time to put you backinto your digital communication. It's time to

(50:58):
restore human connection across a digital divide. With bombomb video messages, they have
the clarity and richness of in personmeetings and video calls, and the convenience
of asynchronous emails, text messages,LinkedIn messages, and Slack messages. For
clearer communication, human connection, andhigher conversion. Try bombomb Record, screen,

(51:22):
record, send and track videos inGmail, Outlook, LinkedIn, Salesforce
Outreach, zendesk, iPhone, Android, and beyond. Try Bombomb absolutely free
or learn how it works for yourteam or your entire company. Check it
out at bombomb dot com. Thanksfor listening to the Customer Experience Podcast.

(51:46):
Remember the single most important thing youcan do today is to create and deliver
a better experience for your customers.Continue learning the latest strategies and tactics by
subscribing right now in your favorite podcastplayer, or visit bombomb dot com slash podcasts