265. Human Connection and Emotional Impact in EX and CX w/ Joey Coleman

The first 100 days are a make or break window that's critical to customer experience, and ultimately to customer lifetime value.


We're living in an era where humans are dying for connection. They're dying for proof that they're relevant. They're dying for proof that they are making a contribution and having an impact. Our latest guest Joey Coleman is a Wall Street Journal best selling author of two books: Never Lose an Employee Again and Never Lose a Customer Again. In this episode, we dissect this simple fact: how we make people feel can transcend our product or our service offerings.


Join us as we discuss:

• Why CX and EX are two sides of the same coin
• What the six communication tools are, and how they can create remarkable interactions in those crucial first 100 days and beyond
• How creating TOJ (tears of joy) can result in an emotional impact in customer and employee relations
• How to harness the potential of video messages

More information about Joey Coleman and today’s topics:

• LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeycoleman1
• Company Website: https://joeycoleman.com/
• Joey’s Books: Never Lose an Employee Again; Never Lose a Customer Again

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. The first one hundreddays it's a make or break window that's
critical to customer experience and ultimately tocustomer lifetime value. The first one hundred
days are also make or break forour employees. Good news. There are
simple, practical and inexpensive steps wecan take to create remarkable retention, and

(00:46):
you'll get some of those today.Our guest is the Wall Street Journal best
selling author of two books that Ilove and recommend on these topics, Never
Lose a Customer Again, which wetalked about exactly two hundred and fifty episodes
here on this Bycast, episode fifteen, and now never Lose an Employee Again,
which we'll talk about today. He'sdone ex and c X work for

(01:07):
organizations like Zappos, NASA, trekBikes, in the World Bank. Joey
Coleman, Welcome back to the CustomerExperience Podcast, Ethan. It is a
delight to be here. Thanks somuch for having me back on the show.
As you know because I've shared thiswhen we're not recording. I'm such
a huge fan of yours. Iam such a huge fan of the way
you show up in the world,the way you create remarkable experiences. It

(01:30):
is just a thrill to be backon the show, and I so appreciate
you having me. Man. Yourkindness and generosity with those words is not
lost. It will carry me throughthe week. I appreciate that very much.
And we're gonna start, Joey wherewe started last time, which is
customer experience. When I say thatto you, what does it mean?
So? To me, customer experienceis all the things you do. It's

(01:53):
the umbrella that covers every interaction withthe people you serve, from your marketing
messaging to your sales conversations to yourcustomer support activities. In the good,
the bad, and the ugly.What are you doing to make people feel
like they matter? And what areyou doing to create the kind of remarkable
interactions that keep people coming back formore? Really good? I appreciate so

(02:16):
much this like people matter, thatwas actually a highlight I've seen and listen
to our episode together from two hundredand fifty episodes ago. We're we're not
that old. I think you're doingan episode every five minutes, and it
feels like it's been it's not beenthat long. Yeah, I am,
but this but this like like thismatters. People matter, this this whole,

(02:38):
Like we can create moments that matter. And typically, like when I
when I use the language moments thatmatter, I'm typically essentially going the layer
under like the concept of a customerjourney, which you kind of captured with
the idea of an umbrella, andI like they're not the same, but
essentially, like across all these differentteams and people and stages that that people

(03:00):
are interacting digitally and in person andyou know, through chat, through email,
through video, etc. You know, where we want to focus some
of our attention is this idea ofmoments that matter. But the way that
you used matter there is bigger thanthat. I think we're living in an
age and in an era where humansare dying for connection. They're dying for

(03:23):
proof that they're relevant, They're dyingfor proof that they are making a contribution,
that they are having an impact.And I think in an increasingly remote
world, in an increasingly digital world, in an increasing world where I think
often we feel as humans, weare yelling into the void, wondering if
anyone's listening. Creating moments where aperson feels personal and emotional connection, Creating

(03:46):
moments where a person feels appreciated,where they feel valued, where they feel
seen, where they feel heard,is not only beneficial to our businesses and
our relationships in our lives, butit is necessary for the continuation of the
species. And I can understand thatsomebody listening might be saying, well,

(04:08):
Joey, that sounds a little dramaticand a little extreme, but I think
those are the stakes we're playing with. I think when we look at the
number of people who you know,we have more quote unquote friends on social
media than we ever had quote unquotefriends in real life, and yet we
have higher levels of loneliness, ofdisconnect, of apathy than at any other
time in recorded human history. Thisisn't Joey's belief, this is what the

(04:33):
data shows us. I think weneed to make some changes. I think
we're far past the time where weneed to make changes, and one of
the reasons why I'm such a fanof yours and a bomb bomb is that
I think using video is an amazingway to create personal and emotional connection that
transcends the typical email or text messageand allows someone to have a little bit

(04:56):
of a different emotional reaction when interactingwith someone, either as a customer,
is an employee, or just asa fellow human being with you on all
of that. Thanks for the nodto kind of the way that we see
and that I've taught how do wekind of humanize some of this increasingly digital
experience for all the reasons that youdescribed to kind of bridge a little bit

(05:20):
into the practical practical sizes. Andby the way, something I heard in
that response that I believe and Imay be just inferring it, it may
not actually and not actually be there, but I think it is just based
on the nature of the work thatyou do and the fact that these are
at some functional level business books thatyou're writing. This is business consulting and

(05:42):
organizational consulting that you're doing. Thatbusiness is one of, if not the
most powerful forces for social change,cultural change, positive change in the world,
and the challenge is just figuring outhow to do it profitably, which
is our right to continue doing thethings that we think are the right thing
to do. You have to dothem profitably or you don't get to do
them very long. And so justkind of bridge into that a little bit.

(06:04):
You know, you teach EX andCX. You now have a book
that's dedicated to sex, specifically thefirst one hundred days of it, and
now on EX as well. Atthe risk of asking kind of the obvious,
but I think you're the nuance thatyou'll bring to it is going to
be interesting for folks because we've hadthis conversation a lot on the show,
is how do you describe the relationshipbetween employee experience and customer experience? We

(06:30):
know, for me Ethan, thereare two sides of the same coin.
As we polish one, the valueof the other goes up. Right as
we improve and focus on one,the other side naturally increases. What I
think is really interesting is when wethink about horrible customer experiences, like you
know, as the worst customer experiencewe've ever had. Imagine being the employee

(06:54):
dealing with that inquiry or that phonecall or that email. It makes it
miserable to go to work and viceversa. I don't know about you,
but I've seen this a lot latelyin the restaurant industry. You know,
when I go to a restaurant,whether that's a fast food, quick serve
type setting or a sit down,fine dining setting, there has been a
noticeable decline in the service experience.And I think there's a thousand reasons for

(07:17):
that, And I don't judge,and I understand those are incredibly difficult industries.
And when the experience being delivered bythe employee is less, the food
doesn't taste as good, the productisn't as nice, it's not as memorable.
And so I think there's a realopportunity to recognize that how we make
people feel can transcend our product orour service offerings. How we interact with

(07:42):
our teams, and how we makesure our employees feel and our team members
feel when they come to work isgoing to have a direct impact on the
bottom line of our business and onthe overall customer success that we're trying to
create. Love it, You're kindof bleeding into language that I would use
for as kind of irrational buying forces. It's beyond reason. It does taste

(08:07):
a little bit better, or ittaste a little bit worse. You know,
I do feel compelled to recommend orI actually feel compelled to say the
opposite. Like it's this, thereare things we can't put our finger on.
It's beyond whether it cost eight dollarsand sixty eight cents for that burrito
or nine dollars and thirty seven cents. There's just a lot of you know,

(08:31):
loyalty or disloyalty that's outside the boundsof normal reason, that is driven
through through experience, in the waythat we feel, in the way that
we're made to feel. I can'tI don't know about you, but I've
certainly been in like nicer stores,let's just say, like like brands that
take themselves very very seriously, andmaybe rightfully so because that's part of the

(08:52):
planned I guess. But it's likeexclusive by designing, you walk into the
store and you're made to feel unwelcome. Had only like people not look at
you, they're just like like it'slike a back to you, like what
you know you're making me feel thisway. It's part of it. I
get maybe a designed experience, Ithink it is, But I also think

(09:13):
that that approach fails to acknowledge theshift that has occurred in humanity over the
last few years. I think weare living at one of the most challenging
and interesting and filled with potential andfilled with uncertainty times in human history.
And that's because so much has changed. I would pause it that COVID and

(09:39):
the COVID experience over those two twoand a half years, depending on how
one does the math, was thegreatest singular experience on the planet that the
planet has ever experienced. And letme preface that by saying, I understand
we've had world wars. I understand, we've had great tragedy, We've had
great shifts. You know. Somebodysaid to me the other day, they

(10:01):
were like, well, Joey,what about the Industrial Revolution? And I'm
like, yeah, that was huge, But the Industrial Revolution wasn't evenly distributed.
There are still countries where the IndustrialRevolution hasn't caught up, and it's
been decades right since it's happened.So I look at it and I'm like,
Okay, what is actually happening here? And what happened is the entire

(10:22):
planet globally, whether you are ona small island in the South Pacific or
you were living in a major metropolitanarea, one of the top ten supercities
in the world. You had anexperience that was somewhat similar to the experience
other people on the planet. We'rehaving at exactly the same time, and
our connectivity as a species, notonly technologically, but I would argue philosophically

(10:45):
or you know, energetically, wasso attuned at that time that everybody was
going through a pseudo similar experience withvarying degrees of impact come at the exact
same time. That's never happened before. And a lot of the business leaders
I talked to, and I saythis respectfully ethan that are like, oh,
well, we just got to getback to the way things were really

(11:07):
Number One, I don't think it'sgoing to happen. Number Two, they
weren't that great before. Number Three. That's like saying, well, it'd
be great to go back to thedays before we had computers. Well maybe,
and I'm willing to entertain that possibility, but do you realize what would
have to happen to make that shiftoccur. We're not going to have that

(11:28):
happen on a global scale. Yeah, man, I had not thought about
it that way. It's particularly thetiming and the distribution being the same across
that experience is super compelling. I'llbe spending on that for a while.
I want to make sure that folksget as excited as I was when I
found out that you were working onthis. You're kind enough to reach out

(11:52):
in advance and include a story thatI shared with you, and maybe we'll
talk about it. Maybe we'll justsave it for the surprise, but for
folks who don't know, we cutvideo highlights out of these, and I'll
certainly cut this out. These twobooks are beautiful physical companions to one another.
They both follow a straight A eightA format, and as a schooly

(12:13):
type person, I'm always I'm alwaysappreciative of seeing Rosa straight as they both
follow your first one hundred days mindsetand methodology. They're just beautiful companions to
one another. Obviously, the balloonon the one, the ice Cream on
the other, the Never Lose MattLike, there's just these. It just
makes so much sense, and theyreally are, in a way, two

(12:37):
sides of the same story. They'realso about the same length. When did
you decide to do never Lose anEmployee again? What was the motivation like
they it's they belong together. Thelatter had to follow the former, like
it just had to happen, Likewhen did this occur to you? Yeah?

(12:58):
I appreciate that, Ethan. Youknow, as someone who has also
written more than one book, Ithink of book writing is kind of like
getting tattoos, although in the interestof full disclosure, I don't have any
tattoos. But what I've always heardis once you get one, getting a
second one, a third one,a fourth one just becomes a momentum that
you can't fight against. And Ifeel like writing a book is the same

(13:18):
way. I'll share two interesting storiesor stories that I thought were interesting.
Number one, when my first book, Never Lose a Customer Again, came
out, about three or four monthsafter it came out, I got an
email for a reader from a reader, someone that I had never met,
and it just said, this,Dear Joey, if you wrote a book
called Never Lose an Employee Again,I would buy it, signed the reader's

(13:41):
name. I thought, well,that's interesting. I hadn't really thought about
a separate, standalone book in thatcapacity before. But then I got another
email, and another one, andanother one. Same thing, no additional
context. No additional flavor. JustDear Joey, if you wrote a book
called Never Lose an Employee Again,I would buy it. Now. I

(14:03):
don't know about you, Ethan.I am not the brightest crayon in the
box, but even I can startto see little signals coming from the market.
But then I went to my numberone advisor, my most trusted advisor,
my best confidant, my amazing wife, Barrett, and I said,
I'm thinking about writing a book calledNever Lose an Employee Again. And she

(14:24):
said, I just don't think that'sa good idea, now, Ethan.
I have brought some hairbrained ideas tomy wife over the years, but she
has never been so specific and sodefinitive in saying, I just don't see
it. I don't think it's agood idea. And I was stunned.
I was a little affronted even andI was like, wait, wait a
second, wait, you're always sosupport one. I'm do you And she

(14:46):
said, for twenty years you've beenthe customer experience guy. Everybody knows you
as the customer experience guy. It'swhat you preach, it's what you practice,
it's what you talk about, it'swhat you write about this feels like
a departure. And in that momentEthan I thought, I can actually understand
that, I can appreciate that someonemight see it as a departure. So,
like all challenging conversations with a significantother spouse, I recommend sleeping on

(15:11):
it. I went to bed andI tossed and turned, and I was
like, what's going And we wokeup the next morning and I said,
Honey, tonight, I don't wantto take you on a date. She
said okay, and I said,and I have a very specific agenda.
Over the course of dinner, Iam going to try to convince you that
this book must be written and thatI'm the right person to write it.
And if by the end of dinneryou don't agree, I will not write

(15:33):
this book. So we go todinner and I explained that I had been
in customer experience for all of aboutfive minutes when I realized that you couldn't
have a great customer experience without agreat employee experience. But the challenge is,
in most organizations, customer experience andemployee experience are seen as two totally

(15:54):
different things. Customer experience is thepurview of the account's management or the customer
service department. Maybe if you're kindof a forward thinking organization, you see
some value in marketing and sales aroundcustomer experience, right whereas employee experience is
the almost exclusive purview of HR.And if you're in a really progressive,
enlightened organization, maybe mid level managersand some of your executives, they are

(16:18):
seen as two totally separate things.And what I have always felt is that
they're two sides of the same coin. And so my thought was, the
best way I can get someone tosee the world not the way I see
it, that they're two sides ofthe same coin, is to have two
books that go side by side sothey can physically see that they're two sides
of the same That's why I'm thrilledthat that was your experience of seeing both

(16:40):
books together, because that was theimplicit intention in the design and the structure
of the book. And so thankfully, by the end of that dinner conversation,
she was like, Okay, Iget it. And that led me
on a multi year effort to dotheir research, to do the case study
interviews with amazing folks like you whoare kind enough to share their stories and
really identify over fifty companies on allseven continents who are going out of their

(17:04):
way to create remarkable employee experiences andwhat that has done to their onboarding,
their hiring, their retention, theirengagement, their customer experience, their profitability,
all the ancillary benefits that come fromcaring about the people you interact with.
So much good stuff in there.First, I want to say same

(17:25):
thing. I love this. Iwas doing this work for about five minutes
where I realized I was hosting thispodcast for about five episodes before I realized
this is like, this is partof the conversation. In fact, I
dedicated you kick off what I callthe epic Takes Mixtape episode one hundred of
this podcast like Human First, Humancentered highlights from the first ninety nine episodes.

(17:47):
For episode two hundred one, Ipicked highlights from one on one to
one ninety nine. I called itthe ex Takes Mixtape, and it was
all employee experience highlights like what itis, why it Matters, et cetera,
featuring longtime friends of both of ourslike Brittany Hodak and Chef Hiken.
And by the way, if ChefHiken's books were tattoos. He would be
sleeved up up. I'd love tosee chef and full sleeves of all of

(18:11):
his books. I love it.Yeah. So so in any case,
I'm with you one hundred percent onthat and my much shallower experience relative to
these topics, I'm doing much lesswork and thought and research than you are
around them. But but I hadthe exact same experience you also triggered for
me. You know, I've beenin this chief evangelist role at BOMBAM for
about four and a half years,and uh, I always felt like my

(18:33):
kin was an awesome team member namedMatt Sowen, and he is. We
brought him on as a recruiter andlike an internal recruiter, and he was
doing the same thing but from employerbrand employee experience, like seeing the idea
of like this is a place youwant to be, this is going to
be a great value to you inyour career, and like we just had

(18:55):
so much kinship. I not asmuch as we should frankly, I mean
we weren't doing we weren't co workinga lot together, but periodically like conversation
or interaction with surface whereas like appreciateyou, man, love what you're doing,
appreciate you do, love what you'redoing. Here's how I talk about
it, Here's how I So wehave like these moments, but it's not
to your point, it's not nearlyas well coordinated as it can and should

(19:15):
be. I also want to gointo just to pick up on what you
shared there. One of the thingsI loved. I think it was in
the intro. It's either the introor the first chapter, kind of like
you did a couple of charts thatbroke down and what I'm doing for listeners
here is just saying this is foryou. This is about you, and
there are things in here that youcan do, no matter how big or
small you are. You did abeautiful job of laying out two different tables,

(19:38):
and I forget exactly the criteria.I think one of them was revenue.
One of them might have been employeesize or similar. That's exactly what
it was like. Across the stages, You're like, this company represents this
idea. Those so just this theway that you went truly global with it
seven continents, and the way thatyou went to you know, several dozen
companies of all eyes and all revenuesizes. I thought was really impressive speak

(20:03):
to this idea of how I mean, obviously it was intentional to scan the
globe. It was obviously intentional notto just cherry pick the you know,
you know, the easiest and bestexamples. You were going into the world
to tell a variety of stories tomake this approachable to a lot of people.
Why and how well? I thinkpart of this ethan comes from the

(20:26):
fact that I'm a recovering attorney.Right, so the first steps admitting you
have a problem, there's eleven stepsafter that. But one of the things
I learned is a criminal defense lawyerpresenting to juries is you have to meet
people where they're at and present yourview of the world, your case,
your argument, your position in away that feels accessible. And the best

(20:48):
way I know for humans to accessany information is to make it as hyper
relevant to where they are currently standingas possible. And I think most business
owners and business leaders, when askedto categorize their organizations do so in terms
of the size of their revenues orthe number of people. These aren't my

(21:11):
rules, they're their rules. Andso what I thought is, well,
what can I do to make surethat if there is a seven person company
that's going to do two million dollarsa year in revenue that they feel is
equally valued and appreciated and relevant readingthis book as the four hundred person company

(21:32):
that's going to do three billion dollarsthis year. And so that's what I
wanted to create, and to behonest, and no one's ever asked me
about this, But I put togetherthe spreadsheet, and I started doing the
interviews. And when I had aninterview with an amazing company, I would
fill them in on where they wenton the chart and say, okay,
we've got one at this size atthis dollar amount. Then if I did

(21:55):
an interview and there are somewhere wehave more than one that fits in a
box. But I actually went aftersome of the boxes that were empty,
and I reached out to people Iknew and said, I need to talk
to somebody that has less than fiveemployees and less than two million dollars in
revenue, who you wish you couldgo work for their company. And that's
what led me to find these diamondsin the rough and these gems and these

(22:18):
organizations that many folks haven't heard of. I say this from a place of
respect there are things we can learnfrom Google and Zappos and Apple, and
those are amazing companies that create greatcustomer experiences and have wonderful employee experiences in
many ways. But that works ifyou see yourself as a trillion dollar global
behemoth. It doesn't work if you'rea three person company thinking about hiring your

(22:44):
fourth operating in a small town offifty thousand people doing a lawn care service,
And it's like, how could Icreate stories that felt more relevant to
those folks? And to be honest, it also made it fun for me
to test my own hypotheses that thisstuff works regardless of scale, regardless of
resources that you can throw at it. Because I know very few employers that

(23:07):
are sitting around tonight listening to thispodcast, going, so we've got three
hundred thousand dollars to spend on employeeexperience this month, what are we going
to do? Like that doesn't happen? Right, This isn't a line item
in anyone's budget. So anything I'mgoing to suggest that someone does, I
know that they're going to have tofigure out where does the time come from
and where does the money come fromto make it happen, which is why

(23:30):
I'm so thrilled that many of theideas in the book can be implemented in
under a day for less than onehundred dollars. Because if you can't do
something to improve the experience, youremployees have to vote eight hours to that
and less than one hundred bucks.We have to have a separate conversation about
whether you should be in business anymore. Yeah, these are bigger conversations.

(23:52):
Yeah. By the way, I'lljust make this note so we don't have
to go into it. There's aton of research in the book, and
most people listening to a show likethis at this deep into it. I
think we're like twenty twenty five minutesinto it. Obviously, the cost to
find new employees to replace anyone whowould leave the idea never lose an employee
again is very, very high.It's a multiple of the person's annual salary,

(24:15):
all these things like, it's expensiveto lose people. The problem,
I think, and the same thingwith the customer experience at some level,
is it's really difficult to say,I put a dollar in, I get
a dollar in a quarter out,so I'm gonna do that again. Oh,
I put a dollar over here andI get a dollar thirty seven out,
I'm gonna do that too, andI'm gonna do that even more often.
And so I think we're kind ofblind to some of these things,

(24:36):
and I think I think that's whatprevents people from even opening their mind,
opening their eyes, opening their calendara little bit, their schedule, and
periodically opening their wallet. But thatwas that you just spoke in that last
offering there to one of the thingsthat I love so much about both books,
in particulars that it's practical, it'sinspiring, it's provocative because it's like

(25:00):
because it is doable, Like there'sso many doable ideas in here. So
I want to turn. I wantto turn your framework. And again the
eight a's in this book, Iknow there's a slight variation in the first
one. I think there is assess, accept, a firm, activate,
acclimate, accomplish, adopt, andadvocate. And I think anyone who's done

(25:22):
customer journey mapping or employee journey mappingwould be able to kind of have a
mental model just in hearing those oflike the arc of you know, early
stage too. You know, they'regetting stuff done, they're doing what they
said they would do. When theyaccepted the position, You're getting what you
want out of them. They're gettingthe experience and learning and growth and engagement
that they are and at the beststage they're they're advocating and perhaps earning that

(25:45):
sometimes meager, sometimes rich employee referralbonus for bringing other good people into the
company. I want to make anobservation and then get your take on it,
just to make that very practical.I don't I don't want to ask
you to restate the book. Ithink people should just go read it,
engage with it, learn from it. By the way, this is a
total aside, full respect to youand whoever you had to convince to release

(26:10):
the physical copy, the digital copyand the audio copy. At the same
time. When we did our firstbook with Whiler, they're like, you
do this and then do that leadIt's just this idea of like manipulating the
experience to try to get what youwant out of it, when ultimately all
anyone's going to do is wait,I don't do that, So tell me
when I can do this, Likeyou just made it available at what time?

(26:30):
Ethan. I so appreciate you playingthat out, And yes, that
was something that I was insistent onthat we had to have the hardcover,
the ebook, and the audiobook releasedthe same day, because to your point,
I'm an experience guy, and Iwant the experience of anyone that's interested
in this topic to happen at thesame time in the best possible version for

(26:52):
them. What's amazing is I've hada couple of conversations in the last week
since the book came out where I'vehad even family members. My little brother
said to me, he goes,well, I'm kind of cheating I'm listening
to the book. And I waslike, hey, you're not cheating.
You're absorbing the content. And ifyou know, because of your life,
he's got a commute every day,and he's like, I'm going to take

(27:15):
the twenty minutes driving to work tohave that be learning time and twenty minutes
driving home. He's got forty minutesof reading time every day that would otherwise
be drive time. I'm like,that's not cheating, that's being smart,
and it's consuming knowledge in the waythat works best for your brain and your
way of processing. So I appreciateyou calling that out, and it's something

(27:36):
that I'm all about. I don'tforgive me. I don't understand this logic
of we're going to hold back andthen we'll do a bump later when we
release the next one. Just stop. Respect your people, Respect the folks
who are kind enough to invest theirtime and effort and give meetum where they're
at. That's it. That's agreat customer experience tip on a total aside.
So that's awesome. So my questionis, like, as people read

(27:59):
or can assume listen to you readyour own words across again, assess,
accept, a firm, activate,acclimate, accomplish, adopt, advocate.
As I was thinking about that andthe way that I teach kind of I
teach from Jacko vander Koye of winningby design, like the bow tie funnel,
which kind of matches to some ofthat has different language, but it's
essentially like moving into a positive growthloop or a flywheel or this advocacy phase

(28:26):
on the other end, and likehelping people through this. The way that
I often teach it is, youknow, thinking about some of the moments
that matter to the customer or tothe employee. You do the same thing
and you speak to it very specifically. What you know as you're breaking down
these you know fifty plus case studies. You know, you're speaking very specifically
to like what the moment is andwhy that moment matters a lot to the

(28:47):
relationship and how we can you know, improve it and all these things.
I feel like you could take thisin a nonlinear fashion and I do.
What I'm trying to do here isto hear you out on how practical and
easy this could be for a practicethat matters so much to the business that
doesn't have a line item. Itis not like like there's no accounting for

(29:10):
it. So how do we makethis practical? One of the ways that
I think about what you've offered inboth books, but but here in employee
Experiences, you don't have to takeit in sequence. You don't have to
do the whole journey at one time. You could actually identify a moment or
read a story that jumps out toyou in the accomplished phase and say,
you know what, that's what we'regoing to do this quarter, not today,
this week, this month, likethat, that's just what we could

(29:32):
do this quarter, And in thecourse of four years, we're going to
have like five or six or eightor twelve new touchpoints, and it's going
to be amazing. Is that areasonable way to approach this. Not only
is it a reasonable way to approachit, ethan, I think it's probably
the practically smart way to approach it, because to your point, people aren't
going to necessarily say we need toblow up the entire employee experience or the
start from scratch with the customer experience. We are trying to build the ships

(29:59):
we're sailing. We are trying tomake improvements and fine tune things to enterprises
and operations and organizations that are alreadyin play. So one of the things
I often do is we introduce theeight phases and we kind of walk people
through, like, here's what thephase is, here's what it means.
And I'll often pause my keynotes rightthen and say, okay, so which
one do you know needs work?And I've never with hundreds of thousands of

(30:25):
audiences on all seven continents, I'venever had somebody go don't know, don't
know. They either say it's thisone, it's these two or three,
or it's all eight. No onehas ever said we're got on all eight
of them, right, or Idon't know. They always have some idea.
And what I love to do again, meeting people where they're at is

(30:45):
to say brilliant. So you've identifiedthe one that you think needs the most
work. Let's not leave today's sessionwithout you having figured out one thing that
you can do this week to makethat part of the journey better. And
what I also love doing when I'mpresenting at places where they have multiple people
from the same company, I'll say, you know, imagine a large ballroom

(31:06):
with like two thousand people. I'llsay, now my willingness, I'm willing
to bet that the people sitting oneither your left or right also work with
your company because you came in andyou were shy, and you sat with
your coworkers or your colleagues right andpeople start laughing, And I say,
great, So, now that you'veidentified which one you think is more important,
I want you to turn to yourleft and right to the other people
from your organization and see if theyidentified the same one. And here's what

(31:29):
I've also found, ethan nine timesout of ten they've identified different phases.
Why because they're different humans and theyhad different experiences. And most onboarding at
organizations globally is neither systemic or uniform. It's haphazard at best. And so
your personal life experience is going toinfluence which of the phases you think is

(31:53):
most important or most relevant. Great, let's lean into that. So Ethan's
gonna work on the affirm phase,but Joscelyn's going to work on the active
eight phase, and one is goingto work on the adopt phase because that's
what's relevant to you. Okay,Great. My goal when I wrote both
of these books was that thirty yearsfrom now, I would get on an

(32:16):
airplane and I would see someone readingmy book for the second time or the
third time, or the fifth timeor the tenth time. Why. Because
I wanted to write a book thatwas evergreen, that you could come back
to again and again. Because,let's be candid, you've seen this in
your own career. There's a differencebetween working at a company that has ten

(32:37):
employees and working at a company thathas a hundred employees and working at a
company that has five hundred employees.You're able to do different things. You're
operating at different scales. So Iwant you to be able to come back
to the book a year from now, two years from now, five years
from now, when now maybe you'reentirely remote. Now maybe you're entirely asynchronous,
or now maybe you're entirely operating acrossseventeen different time zones. Great,

(33:00):
Now, what should the experience looklike and how do we refine it and
fine tune it to make it evenmore remarkable and more valuable to your people?
Really good? I also liked thepiecemeal approach, don't I didn't mean
to minimize it with that term,but this idea of like, we're gonna
do this, and we're gonna dothat, because it also allows you then
to like revisit different sections and thesekinds of things. Because I've been in
the same organization now for nearly adozen years full time, and it is

(33:23):
a much different place than the onethat I joined with, you know,
six employees and almost no customers andalmost no revenue. And what we are
today, you know, driven apartby the pandemic, we're a much more
dispersed team. Like, the experienceof onboarding is dramatically different today than it
was five years ago. Because wewere primarily hiring in Colorado Springs in Denver.

(33:44):
We had a few exceptions, butlike a lot of it was in
person and you could meet the peopleand the employee immersion day. After you
hire five employees in an ex periodof time, let's just say, like
in a three week period, yousend them on like a little tour through
the organization. I think actually physicallythrough the organization. So anyway, this
this gives you a chance to revisitit as well, the different pieces as

(34:06):
you change and grow. Okay,you have six modes of communication. This
is true in both books as well. Love for you to just rip to
them really quickly, and then andthen focus on video. Why what was
your vision for video five years agoas you were working on never lose a
customer again? Why is it stillpresent here? Like? What is exciting

(34:27):
or interesting to you about video?And then I'm gonna share a couple of
stories that I loved in the book. I love it. So the six
communication tools that you can use tocreate remarkable interactions with your employees in those
crucial first hundred days and beyond areas follows. In person interactions. Now
that doesn't matter whether you work inthe same office or whether you're operating remotely.
How often are you physically getting peoplein the same room to have in

(34:52):
person human contact interactions? Number twoEmail? Okay, what are you using
to make email, and I'll includein that slack or whatever communication tool you're
using to make that something that peopleenjoy doing instead of loath doing. Third,
physical mail. I know you've gotlisteners around the world, Ethan,
and I won't speak to every jurisdiction, but in the United States, for

(35:14):
example, you are legally required asan employer to know the physical mailing address
of your employees. And yet formost employers, the only time they ever
send information in the mail to theirpeople at their home address is when they're
sending tax information or a severance letter, neither of which anybody's excited to get.
Okay, so how can we usemail as part of our communication.

(35:36):
We then have phone and I meanin that both using phone calls and text
messages, video, which will comeback to, and gifts and pro tip
on gifts, if it has yourlogo on it, it's not a gift.
Okay. It can be a uniform, it can be a promotional tool,
it can be a tool that actuallycreates connection and camaraderie. But let's

(35:58):
not presume that everything we give hasto have our company logo on it or
our brand logo on it. Now, video is an interesting one, and
I know you're a huge fan ofthis and bomb bombs a great resource for
video. But what I think isinteresting about video five years ago as compared
to today is I would have expected, and I say this respectfully, that
more organizations would have used video bynow than actually have. The number of

(36:21):
people globally who have never received avideo from either someone they do business with
or their employer is staggeringly high.Like we all are walking around with a
cell phone in our pocket or inour person, on our desk that has
a video camera that is more powerfulthan the video cameras used by Network News
thirty years ago, and yet wesend videos to our siblings, our parents,

(36:47):
our kids, are loved ones,our college roommates, somebody that's a
friend or a colleague. We thinknothing of shooting a little video birthday video
and sending it to them. Butwhen I say, well, have you
shot a birthday video for your coworker, your boss, your direct report,
people are like, oh my god, Joey, that sounds weird. Why
we're at this unique time in humanhistory that receiving a video on your phone

(37:07):
via a text message feels like somethingthat your closest loved ones do the people
that matter most to you. AndI go to so many organizations where I
look at their website and it talksabout come join our family and be part
of our family. Well, whyaren't we using the family tool? The
family tool is a video sent viatext message. So what is the opportunity

(37:29):
to use a family tool to createthat kind of connection with folks. I
think it's huge and I think moreorganizations should try it one hundred percent.
And it goes back to this ideaof having people feel like they matter.
The super powerful thing about a videomessage the way you described it, whether
it's a thank you, good job, congratulations, here's an answer to your
question, happy birthday, congratulations onyour work anniversary. The use cases are

(37:53):
numerous. I've written about dozens ofthem across the customer lifecycle, the employ
life cycle, and even across yourown kind of personal and professional network.
I've mapped use cases across the journey. And it's a gift of your undivided
time and attention in a time togive back to some of your own observations

(38:15):
in a time where undivided time andattention is one of the kindest things that
we can give anyone and there's nomistaking at the trick is you could actually
spend five to ten times as longtrying to capture your intellectual thought and some
of your emotion into words and phrasesand sentences and paragraphs and send that off.
I call that encoding. You're encodingyour thoughts and feelings and capturing them,

(38:39):
sending them through a channel let's sayemail or Slack or text message,
and someone opens it up and theyhave to decode it. But it's missing
all the emotional ingredients. It's missioningso many different things, and so it's
received. Let's just go to theanswer to a question. Someone reaches out,
whether it's an employee, whether it'syour boss, whether it's a subordinate,

(38:59):
whatever the case may be. Idon't know if that's an inappropriate word
in your in your mental ecosystem,Joey, but it's just the first one
top of mind, no matter whoyou're communicating with. But keeping it in
this inside the organization context. Someonereaches out with a question that's very specific.
It's not like a frequently asked questionthat you have a canned response for,
and you just take ninety seven secondsto record a response very specific to

(39:21):
them and their circumstance. Maybe youadd some of your own guidance and expertise
on top, which is you know, but knowing what I know about you
in this situation, I would maybeadvocate for this kind of like secondary alternative
approach. Blah blah blah blah blah. Again, it would take you longer
to type it up, and it'sthis gift of your undivided time and attention.
This received that way. No oneknows that it took you twelve and

(39:42):
a half minutes to write that email, but they can see on the timer
that you spent two minutes and twelveseconds devoted specifically to them and their problem
or their opportunity. Anyway, I'mpreaching to the choir or you. You
let the choir on fire, iswhat you did there. I appreciate that
even the other thing you've created isa digital artifact. Yes, okay,
here's the crazy thing about video.We know and you know this better than

(40:05):
I do. The research shows thatif you send, for example, a
gratitude video, a video letting someoneknow how much you appreciate them, people
save that video. They download itto their personal device instead of keeping it
on their company device. They watchit more than once they share it with
other people. We know this tobe true. This isn't just Joey's thoughts

(40:27):
or Ethan thoughts. This is factuallyproven by research or cross industries globally.
Compare that to the gratitude thanks foryour hard work on that email that gets
archived and never read again. Yeah, there is a huge difference, and
I think you speak so beautifully toit. The time and the attention and
the focus it takes to shoot avideo, the person knows it was for

(40:51):
them. They know that you hadto stop what you were doing, get
out of the email inbox, getout of the meeting, and shoot something
custom for them is epic, andI would pause it. It also creates
great opportunities for fun and playfulness.One of the things I talk about in
both books is this idea of sendingvideos for people's birthdays. I have a
buddy who is actually a case studyin the new book, Barry Glassman,

(41:15):
and he likes to tease me aboutthese birthday videos. So what's ended up
happening is I will randomly be goingthrough my week this happens just last week,
and I will get it video fromBarry and I'll watch the video and
he's somewhere in the world. Hetravels extensively saying, Hey, Joey,
I'm here in the Greek Isles ona sailboat, and all I can think

(41:37):
about is you happy birthday. Nowhere's the funny thing, Ethan. It's
not my birthday, we're not evenclose to my birthday. But he sends
this thirty second kitchy tongue in cheekbirthday video and it makes me smile,
it makes me think of him,and it's become this playful thing. So
now we're trying to top each otheron either the greatest place we can send

(41:59):
a video from or the most mundaneplace. So he sent me one for
the Greek Giles. I sent himone from a truck stop in Nebraska,
just off Interstate eighty and being like, Hey, I'm in the luxurious truck
stop. You're on the Interstate eightyin Nebraska. It's not for everyone,
but you know, and I kindof leave, which is, by the
way, the Nebraska motto for theirtourism board, which I just think is

(42:19):
absolutely brilliant. And now we're havinga human connection that has nothing to do
with the actual birthday, but everythingto do with Hey, I just thought
of you and we're friends, andlet me give you a proof that you
matter. Yeah, man, theinside joke is a thing like when you
can get there with a team memberor a customer or somebody else like you're
in in one of my favorite videostories in the book reminded me of a

(42:43):
video I got so sweet. FishMedia is the team that produces this podcast
with me, and what they didwhen I signed up as a customer over
four and a half years ago nowis several different team members recorded like a
little piece of excitement. Someone stitchedit together and they sent it to me.
And there's a story like that inthe book, and I should have
fished it out before we got onhere today. But you tell the story

(43:06):
of if I remember correctly, itwas not only people representing the new organization
that someone's about to join, butit's also the people who were their references.
So now you have a video roundup of some of the most important
and meaningful people in your career andprobably your life, all appearing in the
same video in the context of yournew employer, and delivered in a way

(43:30):
to your point earlier of a waythat you're going to show your linked in
network, if not at least yourfamily members and friends, because it's so
freaking cool, like just somebody.And I offer that to say, that's
one example among many in their videoexamples in particular of ways just to show
a little bit more thought and carein a way that you'll never not tell

(43:52):
that story. You'll be telling usstory twenty five years where I am this
one place they when I joined they, you know they Dug and Sue and
Mary, Joe and Gosh, Ihadn't seen Jeff in like fifteen years,
and there he is in my anyway. I love that story, Ethan,
I so appreciate that. Yeah,the name of the company is Tribute.
And what's so great about what Tributedoes is their KPI or key performance indicator

(44:14):
on their videos is something they callt OJ Tears of Joy. And the
idea is when somebody watches a videothat is created on our platform, do
they cry tears of joy? Andthe last time I checked, their tears
of Joy metric was eighty four percent. Stop and think about that. Eighty

(44:36):
four percent of the people who receivedtheir job offer video, which included videos
from all their references and people they'dinterviewed about why they were excited to be
making this offer and why this personwas the right fit for the job.
Eighty four percent of those candidates criedtears of joy. Now, stop and
think about your very any job you'veever had receiving the job offer. You

(45:01):
might have been happy, you mighthave been relieved, you might have been
ecstatic, you might have been eager, you might have been a little trepidacious,
you might have been a little scared. But did you ever cry?
I don't remember ever crying. Idon't ever remember tearing up tears of joy

(45:22):
that I had been extended an offer. Stop and think about showing up for
the first day of work after you'vecried tears of joy about the offer,
compared to most people's first day whenthey show up for work, when it's
like, hope this works out forme, Hope it's going to be okay.
Hope that what I experienced during theinterview process is what I'm going to
experience as a new hire. It'sa completely different game. Yeah, man,

(45:46):
we are nearing the conclusion here,and I have like six more things
I wanted to talk about, andmaybe we will. But if I'm being
this conversation, I just want tosay, first love the read. I
love that you wrapped or approximately wrappedon the Golden Rule in the context of
employee experience. Big fan of theGolden Rule. It's expressed in basically every

(46:07):
single philosophical and religious system ever created. Anyone who tried to answer the question
why are we here and how arewe supposed to live? Arrived at some
version of this. And so Ijust love that you put a button on
a super practical, fun, engaging, useful thing that happened to be packaged
into a book with that same sentimentin and a totally appropriate context for folks

(46:32):
listening. If you have enjoyed thisconversation as deep as we are here,
I've already referenced both of the otherones. I'm going to point you to.
One of them is episode fifteen.Joey was kind enough to join me
in a conversation about never lose acustomer again basically before the show ever existed,
I wasn't really anybody per se theshow didn't really have It was still

(46:54):
like very early in an audience,and so that's just really generous of you,
Joey. And that was a conversation. And then I also mentioned that
Joey kicks off episode one hundred theEpic Takes mixtape. I'm sure you've already
gotten a flavor for how pro humanhe is in general, and that was
the spirit of that entire episode.You'll hear from nine other people from the

(47:15):
first ninety nine episodes, but yourtake off the top of that one was
just day like I am doing like. That was one of those moments in
the early stage of the podcast whereI'm like, I'm really gonna love this.
This is like, it's not justI don't just learn a lot and
have the privilege of being able toteach and share a lot, but it's
like it's life giving as well.And that's been my experience with you and
all of our conversations Joey Ethan.Please know that the feeling is mutual.

(47:38):
I am such a fan of youand your work and what you put out
there in the world, and Iknow everyone listening in is as well,
because, let's be candid, wehave a limited number of hours in our
day, and there are more podcaststhat we'd like to listen to than we
actually have time to listen to.For the loyal listeners out there, keep
supporting the great work that Ethan isdoing because I just I love the way

(48:01):
you show up in the world.I love your thought leadership, I love
your perspective. So much of thestuff is in alignment. And what I
particularly love the most about you andabout the show is that you come to
the conversation prepared, but you alsocome to the conversation ready to listen.
And I never know where our conversationsare going to go, whether we're recording

(48:22):
or just having conversations as friends.And it's one of the things I love
about this because here's the thing,there's no script for life, and in
my experience, the story of yourlife gets better if you're willing to dive
deep into conversations, pull on threadsyou're interested in, pull on listen to
things actively so that you're like,oh, where can what is this person
trying to say? Where are theygoing? And it's just such a delight

(48:45):
to be back on the show.Thanks so much for having me, man
appreciate it. Before I let yougo speed around for you the hit the
topics, think or mentioned someone who'shad a positive impact on your life or
career. Give a nod or ashout out to a company or brand that
you appreciate that. I know thiswill be hard for you to see to
so much good work, Sony Evil, but a brain you appreciate for the
experience they deliver for you as acustomer. And then, you know,

(49:06):
where would you point people that haveloved this conversation and maybe want to go
deeper with you or with the materialthat you've produced. Oh, my goodness,
such great questions and such difficult questions. Yeah, let's say someone that
has impacted my career. I'm goingto go with an answer that maybe different

(49:27):
than other listeners or other guests mighthave said. And I'm going to say
two people that I am finding soinspirational in my career right now are my
two boys, who are seven andten. And the reason they are inspirational
is they are so present and theyare so in the moment. And I
don't know about you, Ethan,but you know I'm fifty and I spend

(49:49):
as much time thinking about the futureand the past as I do the present.
I'm not proud of that, butit's just where I'm at in life.
And I love that they're constantly pullingme back to the present, because
the great thing about the present isthere's always opportunities for enhancing it, for
diving deep into it, for reallysoaking it up, for everything it has

(50:09):
to offer. So they're really inspiringto me in that regard a brand that
I absolutely love, I gotta gowith the one that is the final case
study in the book, which isLego. I grew up loving to play
with Legos. I am an adultfan of Lego and a foal now right,
I'm a huge fan of Lego,and what I think is brilliant about

(50:30):
Lego is they are so thoughtful inthe way they approach experience, not only
for their customers but for their employees. They were the one company that was
kind of the great white whale inthe getting ready to write the book,
I was like, if I couldjust interview them, I think there's going
to be gold there. And notonly was their gold, I could have
written an entire book just about Lego. And that's why they got an entire

(50:52):
chapter that goes through all late phasestalking about them. There's just a remarkable
organization. I love what they standfor. I love their inclusiveness, I
love their creativity. I love theway they're constantly pushing the envelope and trying
new things. And I love theway they treat their loyal customers their VIP
program. I love they make mefeel valued and appreciated because I spend an

(51:13):
insane amount of money with the Legofor compared to what I probably should.
But they are a huge organization thatI think a lot of organizations, regardless
of SiZ or scale, can learnfrom. So yeah, I would say
my kids and Lego, those arethe two inspiring things right. Awesome and
I And just as a teaser forfolks, you're gonna want to go to
bombomb dot com slash podcast and checkcheck out episode two sixty five and see

(51:37):
Joey's commitment to Lego and to thepeople he included and featured in the book.
That's all I'll say about that,Joey were already said, Joey Cooleman
dot com. Is that that's theplace? Yeah, that's the best place.
Yeah, so my website Joey Coolemandot com. Joe Y like a
baby kangaroo or a five year oldColeman C O L E. M A
N like the camping equipment but norelation. Joeycoleman dot com. The books

(51:59):
are available as you were so kindto point out ethan in hardcover, in
ebook, in audiobooks, so youcan consume them the way you want from
the venue you like to buy from, so Indie bookstore, chain bookstore,
online bookstore. To me, Ijust want you to have the experience of
hearing the information. And I'll pointout one thing because if you've been kind
enough to listen this long, you'reprobably hopefully inclined to go check out the

(52:21):
book. But if you're still alittle skeptical, here's my offer. At
the beginning of the book. Imake the same offer in both books.
You buy the book, you readthe book, you don't think it was
worth your time, you send mean email my emails throughout the book.
You send me an email that youshould say, Hey, Joey, wasn't
it for me? I send youa refund. It's that simple. Now,

(52:42):
that is something that was not simpleto get the publisher to agree to.
I to sign a special waiver thatI'm willing to pay out a pocket
for this. But my theory is, if you're going to invest your time
trying to make your customer experience betteror make your employee experience better, I
want to meet you where you're atthat. If you don't feel I'm going
to be able to help you dothat, I want to at least reimburse
you for the hard dollars you spentconsidering it. So if you're compelled go

(53:05):
check out the book, I hopeyou'll like it awesome Joeycoleman dot Com.
As he described I would also addto that that there is an entire digital
experience and digital touchpoint experience to beenjoyed alongside the book as well. So
tons we didn't touch on, orI guess I just touched on them,
but is vague. You will notbe disappointed with either or both books.

(53:27):
It depends where you want to start, and you can start small. Joey,
I enjoyed this conversation so much asalways, thank you for spending the
time with me, and I knowfolks who've gotten here have enjoyed it too.
Thanks Sathan, I so appreciate yourtime as well, and thanks to
everybody for listening. A marketing futuristfrom Salesforce, the first salesperson at HubSpot,
an emotional intelligence expert with seven USpatents in the analysis of facial coding

(53:52):
data. These are just three ofmore than a dozen experts featured in the
Wall Street Journal bestseller Human Centered Community, a business Case against Digital Pollution.
The purpose of the book to giveyou frameworks, strategies, and specific tactics
to create human connection across the digitaldivide. Learn to break through the noise,

(54:14):
build trust, and enhance your reputationand revenue despite the ever increasing digital
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(54:36):
free book.