Rick Denton: 0:05

You're listening to CX Passport, the show about creating great customer experiences with a dash of travel talk. Each episode well talk with our guests about great CX, travel...and just like the best journeys, explore new directions we never anticipated. I'm your host Rick Denton. I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport. Let's get going. How do you possibly introduce someone who's been the face of Hasbro games? Yes. The games you love, like clue monopoly Connect for life all the great ones. Someone who might have tripled a cocktail or two with Optimus Prime, and has a master's in humanity obtained early in his career through years of bartending. I don't know the right way to do that. But I do know that today I am extremely excited to talk with Mike Verret, the owner of those stories and much, much more. When you're the face of a brand, you know how to connect with an audience no matter if that audience is in Dubai, Danang, Dunkirk or Des Moines, Mike now helps others individuals, teams, companies do just that connect with their audience. Speaking of connections, once again, I get to have a guest on six passport that came via a LinkedIn introduction from Paul banks, the bank CEO of LinkedIn, the man is a masterful connector and through him, I get this opportunity to talk with Mike Mike. Welcome to CX passport.

Mike Verret: 1:29

Rick, it is an absolute pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. How are you today? Good.

Rick Denton: 1:33

I'm good. I'm good. It's a little chilly here in North Texas. The front came through, but I hope that you're enjoying a fine morning as well.

Mike Verret: 1:41

Yeah, I'm in Rhode Island. You don't get to complain about chilly.

Rick Denton: 1:44

Okay, fair point. That's right. I do lose that battle indeed. But for me, I've got my sweater and my coats on now. But

Mike Verret: 1:51

yeah, there you go. Cold is a relative thing. Absolutely.

Rick Denton: 1:54

So we were in the introduction. I mentioned messaging and that messaging. And so speaking of messaging, I was thinking about one of the most important messages of brand consent. And it's the experience they create, how to customer expectations play into that experience moment.

Mike Verret: 2:10

Well, I think, you know, if you were to ask me that question, 20 years ago, it was a different answer. Right, right. You had, you really had a situation where brands would control what people knew, and God has a message, maybe go back 25 years. But it started to change things when Amazon, for instance, introduced the idea of ratings and reviews by consumers or the customers. All of a sudden the brands were being their message was being usurped by the idea of I could ask all these people who already bought it and see what they think. Yeah. And it really started to shift the dynamic of control and communication from the brand to the consumers have all the power. So if you were to fast forward that now, where many consumers or, you know, the customers start to experience the brand, Mr. Google. Yeah. And what they're seeing is, that's why businesses now hire SEO and SEM specialists and data scientists and stuff, because it's their last graphs grasp to hold on to that direct connection with the audience, which is really hard to do now, simply because of how people process information. But let's apply that to customer experience. And let's apply it to phone service. 30 years ago, you'd have to figure out how to get in touch with the phone company to get your phone fixed. Right? Right. Now, you can talk to four different forms of informative contacts before you actually have to call the phone company. Yeah, because you can hot you can message them, you can find information on the internet, you can email you can get on a video chat, all of these different things are dictated by the audience by the consumer. So think of it in terms of I don't want to have to pick up the phone. Businesses have to answer that call. They have to answer that request. They can't say sorry, you still have to go through a phone tree and wait 20 minutes, right, because now that the consumers have all the control, it's the lens they see through that's most important. The idea of the customer experience is very different than it used to be when the brands can drive that experience. Now, they have to hit expectations and exceed expectations of what the consumers want in that experience. So it's really kind of turned 180 degrees over the past 25 years.

Rick Denton: 4:37

Yeah, absolutely. Right. And we've heard the phrases outside in right that great book and if thinking of it from a customer perspective, but I think that gets it you know, a lot of what I'm hearing you you say is that idea of the business has to adapt to what the customer is and as a CX guy I get that right that's, that's a key tenant yet yet. So many companies are simply not doing that. Right. So even in your example of, hey, the customer is saying I don't want to talk to you on the phone. I want to have solutions provided for me. Well, we're seeing certainly over COVID, right that a lot of companies solve for that the digital experience, but have abandoned some of that human side of it. And customers are saying, Yeah, I've tried to solve my problem through all of your digital experiences. But I have failed and I need a human. And companies are kind of going away from that are trying to, quote, deflect into the digital environment, when the point at which a customer says I want to talk to you, the customer is exhausted the other options they want to talk to you. So it gets me to thinking a lot of experience creation, I'm sure you've seen this, I've been a part of it, it gets created this conference room. And it's a bunch of people coming together talking about what they think the customer wants, and what their feel you think the customers feeling. But, you know, the business then creates something that is not what the customer is thinking about. How does that happen? If we say that we want to be customer focused, but we're designing in a conference room? How does this happen? How do we get that kind of disconnect?

Mike Verret: 5:57

So the first fundamental understanding is that business has its own language. In fact, there's no business without show business, you are in a role when you're in business, whether you want to be or not. And to give you a very simple example of this. Think of the words that businesses created and uses regularly, like synergy, you would never hear the word synergy, randomly outside of business or IDE. It ain't means think. But business needed to say it differently. And my favorite example is, you know, KPIs are key performance indicator, right? You and me, you're out to coffee on a Thursday afternoon, and you're like, Oh, I gotta go. I gotta go pick up the kids. Hey, what are your KPIs this weekend? I say, What are you doing this weekend?

Rick Denton: 6:41

You don't say that, Mike? I mean, that's all the time for me. But yeah,

Mike Verret: 6:45

yeah, right. That's common. That's common vernacular for you, I'm sure.

Rick Denton: 6:49

Right.

Mike Verret: 6:51

But the point being, when a business is starting, it's 100%. Vision, passion based, when you got into your business, 100% vision, passion based, but you need people to see that vision and work with you to achieve it. You need to do all of the things to bring that vision to life, which includes sales, marketing, operations, logistics, you have IT technology, a lot of that passion gets eroded. But what happens is, it's put into this insulated business brand blueprint that starts with your mission or your vision, and goes through your archetype, who you want to be, what is your brand essence, your core values, your strategy, and ultimately, your products and services that's at the bottom. But what you've done is defined everything in terms of the business, and not how human beings actually process information. So you could be in business, looking for a business service, and you go to a website and read that information, but you're consuming the information. Just because you're in business doesn't mean you're going to understand the words better if they're not in the right order. Or if they're in the wrong language, you think as a human being no matter what you're consuming. So businesses tend to insulate themselves with this idea of a brand pyramid or a brand blueprint where it starts at the mission and then goes all the way down to the bottom floor. That bottom level of what do we sell? Yeah. What's missing? Is the audience blueprint or the audience pyramid? Yeah. How do you take that internal business thinking and translate it to an audience? And it's a very different story where you know, the top of what the start of one pyramid is the vision and mission, the start of the other pyramid, the audience, one is connection? Yeah. How do you connect the audience to you in a way that they're going to relate? And remember, and you stand out as different? Because in their mind, there's three qualifiers first best or different? That's what they remember. So how do you come across is one of those three things is connection and has nothing to do with your vision?

Rick Denton: 8:53

That first better in different I know we I want to talk about that a little, because that's such a key point of how you help people, people, companies, teams, right, the whole gamut of the folks that you work with, hone in their message, but she's you said something that triggered a memory in me and it's it is a former guest miss a few episodes ago, Andre Ringu, of start reverse. And that blueprint that you're describing, what his company does is exactly that. And it is start reverse. So don't start with your brand promise. But instead, start with the experience that you intend to deliver. Start with the experience, what is it that the customer wants to experience? And that then feeds your way up into? What do you want your leadership style to be? What do you want your brand promise, we all have those kinds of things. That concept of starting over seems very in line with what you're describing that is, if you don't want to design an experience in the conference room that doesn't meet what your customers want, well then start with your customers and come backwards from their

Mike Verret: 9:47

ways. And still, though, still, there is one landmine that's left uncovered in that scenario, okay. Because the problem they're going to the question they're going to ask themselves when they're doing this What problem? Do we solve for the customer? Right? It is still being discussed in the confines of business. So it is not how do you solve their problem? It's how do they perceive that solution? You still have to be able to communicate that solution to them in a way that's going to resonate with them.

Rick Denton: 10:18

Yeah. Interesting. unpack that a little bit for me. So this idea because even as an independent consultant, right, I'm sitting, I always be thinking about, okay, I know what my solutions are. But I'm trying to think of the problem to solve but what you're saying is one step further. And that is, don't just identify the problem to solve, but how do you speak of it in such a way that is clear to those who you want to do business with? Tell me more about that?

Mike Verret: 10:40

Well, determining that has a lot to do with understanding their perspective first, okay. So you could have the greatest solution in the world for their problem. But if you jump out and just show your services on your website is the first thing, they don't have context that you have, they're not thinking of that solution yet the way you are. Because all you've done is show them services. But if you're able to show them, this is your challenge. And this is why it's the solution, then as you get into the services that has context for them on where they're going in that story. So that's a very simple order of information thing. Here's the problem that we can solve, we're going to put it right in front of, but what if there's three other people who solve that same problem, and all three of them decided to do the exact same thing, put our solution, our services first, everybody looks the same to that audience member. I see. I see. There's no context to them yet. But the business thinks there is because their services will solve the problem. What they've neglected to do is say, here's what you're going through, here's our solution, here's how we do it, here's our services, and bring them through that that message on the audience's terms. So that's the difference, you can have the solution, the problem that you're solving for them, you could have the most elegant solution in the world. But if you come out and say this is it, this is what you have to get. They haven't related, you haven't related even to the problem that they have yet. And it's the difference between if you're searching for a PR firm on Google, and the first three results, say we're a PR firm, those all look the same to you. But if the fourth one says, Every business gets writer's block will help you find the words to get your news out there were PR firm, they've immediately connected with your problem they've chosen to speak to the Challenger having when you typed PR firm it. And that's different in the eyes of the audience.

Rick Denton: 12:37

And that's it. So you and I have talked, obviously outside of this podcast and had some great conversations, one of the things that I find so amazing in your skill is your your way with words, right? Just that the way you just did that with the PR immediately captured me, I'm not even looking for PR. But now I want to look for PR just because that the way you phrase that. And there's there's actually this is a bit of a pivot, but there was a phrase that I've heard you say or I've read, and you talked about and quote Invisibility is what you want. And I find that interesting and and use the American football lineman as an example. Explain that. For me. I'm intrigued because Invisibility is not usually something people are striving for in business.

Mike Verret: 13:17

Well, let's clarify what should be invisible to a to a customer. The customer experience should be seamless and error free. Right, right. To me, that means we're doing our job or invisible. It means we're doing exactly what we have to do to deliver and on and exceed their expectations in what they're experiencing as our customer. So what if you're a car dealer, and I just want to go in and look at cars. And I just want a pamphlet on this car. And I want to check it out. But I've got five people breathing down my neck, the whole experience. How does that feel?

Rick Denton: 13:58

That's not hypothetical, Mike. Yeah,

Mike Verret: 14:00

exactly. I know. That's why I use it because I experienced it at some point. Yeah. It's well, it's basically a cliche at this point, because it proves the point that if they're having a bad experience, that's when they're going to have an issue. If they're having the experience they want. That just looks like normal to them. They're not saying oh, this was exemplary. They're saying it worked the way it was supposed to. Yeah. Yeah, they will see you as better than others because they saw work. But what they're responding to is errors, things that they don't like things that don't jive. So let's apply that to your offensive lineman scenario. If you're watching an NFL football game, rarely are you hearing an offensive lineman being called out for an amazing play, maybe a downfield block, but it's more of an anomaly. Right? When they do their jobs. All they're doing is moving water out of the way and creating a lane for someone to go down and not get wet. That's it. That's what they're supposed to do. Or protect the quarterback. But I mean the same things. Yes, they are a dam that doesn't let water through. If that dam breaks, it's blamed on the, you know, it's blamed on that dam or where the crack is in that dam. If that's one of the offensive linemen, you start to hear the the first the flag is thrown. And then the commentators the only time in the game mentioned that guy's name. Yeah, and it's because something went wrong. That is what the audience remembers is when things go wrong. In customer experience,

Rick Denton: 15:35

the great example I mean, it clarifies it for me, I get it from alignment perspective, there was a I keep referencing, doing some callbacks to podcast guests in the past Shep Hyken, talked about how a way to create loyalty is not necessarily create the sexual experience every time but just consistently deliver slightly above average experience. And you might even argue, just deliver average experiences is almost above average these days, but then, of course, then becomes above average. But the the idea of just being consistent in the delivery of a quality experience is more important than the exceptional delightful. And I still think that there's a place for the delightful because to your point, well, sometimes that lineman makes a spectacular block downfield, or that lineman just pancake somebody so badly that when the running back goes through that there is going to be a call out of it. But in the general nature of the game, the lineman stays invisible. That makes a ton of sense to me, Mike,

Mike Verret: 16:28

well, and if I'll use the example of Zappos, Zappos when, I mean, they launched as a buy shoes from us. But what they realized, and what made their experience genius, is they understood the need to get the shoes to the people as fast as possible, because shoe buying is something where you go and try it on. So they introduced sign up as a VIP member and you get overnight shipping and returns. You click return the next day, the replacements are showing up and you're sending back the other ones. And they made it very quick. So that created an exemplary experience in the world of shopping for shoes online. Because they took the you wait three days and then you have to wait another three days to get the other pair. That's why people ordering clothes can be challenging online. They did their best to make it you order at 1130 at night on a Tuesday. You still get it Wednesday. Yeah, yeah, that is exempt. That's an example of great experience. Right? But if something goes wrong in that pipeline, right, what am I more likely to remember?

Rick Denton: 17:33

Exactly, exactly. That's the point. We haven't remembered that the last thing or the thing that went wrong. So I'm gonna pivot you here because I can't let Hasbro go away. And it is a podcast where we talk about travel as well. So I know Hasbro is clearly one of most iconic brands. It's part of many people's childhoods and certainly part of adulthoods as well, that alone, we could just talk about that as fascinating, but I know you had a chance to work for them across the globe. Tell me about those travel experiences.

Mike Verret: 18:00

Yeah, well, the first thing I'll say, just about Hasbro as a brand is they're probably some of your visit drop visitors listeners. When we say Hasbro who don't know what it is, but My Little Pony nerve transformers they immediately know. Absolutely Hasbro, Hasbro, especially when I was working for their ad agency always represented bringing kids dreams to life for people's fun to life in that way. I mean, they're seeing the cinematic characters and they buy the action fingers or they you know, see a baby doll they want their own they get a baby doll like that's toys and games are something that's incredibly consistent in people's lives. Because Parents always want to make sure the children are happy first. So the Great Depression. That was the creation of the game marbles. It came out on the Great Depression interesting was basically different sized rocks at the time, but it was a game invented to keep kids happy during terrible times. So it's almost recession proof when it comes to toys and games. My role at Hasbro for the last four years that I was there, I came in from their ad agency and initially worked on transformers for two years, which was amazing. It was so much fun because that was my favorite brand as a kid. But this time, well Optimus Prime in the end, the Autobots hit Earth, or the US I should say, when I was 10. So we always left an impression and Peter Cullen is the voice of Optimus Prime fun fact. He's also the voice of Eeyore

Rick Denton: 19:33

Really?!

Mike Verret: 19:34

Yeah,

Rick Denton: 19:35

I never would have thought that those two voices were

Mike Verret: 19:37

Saaaame person. But now when you listen, you won't be able to get it out.

Rick Denton: 19:40

No, bet now I won't.

Mike Verret: 19:43

And I got to work on I worked but after transformers it became almost like a really painful master's degree. For me. I was in the corporate environment and that's when I started to realize that it's not making kids dreams come true. It's a process. It's like making toothpaste or trash bin liners. And I was less excited about being there at that time. But when they move to be on the games, Hasbro games, and all those games you were mentioning like Monopoly and battleship and Trivial Pursuit, I got to work on all of those. But where they saw my value was my ability to convey and connects what we're doing to our audiences. And those audience could be consumers. It could be buyers, which is our customer when we're at Hasbro, like a Walmart or a Target. Or it could be internal teams. So you know, regional partners, things like that. So what they turned me into is based on Hasbro gaming, and they would put me on a plane for about 40% of the Year and I'd fly different places around the world, presenting Hasbro games. So if it was an internal brand summit with the Asia Pacific team, on games, we had a meeting at a rainforest three hours east of Mumbai. Like I can't think of any time I would ever see something like that. Other than this, so I got this extraordinary experience myself. Toy Fair season was amazing. That was the beginning of the year. The big one for Toy Fair was the Javits Center in New York. And I was in New York City for two weeks living in a hotel, but the ones before that, Nuremberg, Germany. So I'd be there for about 10 days. And prior to that two weeks in Hong Kong, one of my favorite cities get to that when we enter the first class lounge, i. So I got this incredible experience and traveling to all these places, and learning how to connect what we're doing to these audiences that have different influences, and different societal norms and cultural aspects that I would have to take into consideration to get that connection made. So after that experience, when I started what I do now, it took me leaving Hasbro and looking back at 25 plus years and agency world and corporate America, to realize that my one consistency was understanding an audience. And understanding an audience is inherent, it is the imperative of customer experience.

Rick Denton: 22:14

Mike with those kind of global travels. And I know I've been on a plane across the globe, it is nice to stop down in the lounge. And so a little change of pace here. Why don't you join me here in the first class lounge, we will move quickly here hopefully have a little bit of fun. What is a dream travel location from your past?

Mike Verret: 22:30

I am I am going back to Hong Kong. And I tell you why. I was absolutely fascinated by how they could take the number of people in New York City all five boroughs and put them in just Manhattan and still feel less bananas less crazy than Time Square on a Thursday. I couldn't I couldn't get my head around how this city popped up in literally 20 years time. It became what it is now the tallest building in 1997 is now in the 60th percentile. Yeah. I mean, that is they move the whole airport. So I'm fascinated by the natural beauty around it. Yeah, I mean, Victoria Peak is just absolutely breathtaking, the culture around it. And just simply how it all flows in such this capitalism churn, nobody's running into people. It's, it's clean, it's friendly, it just moves. And I just, I was absolutely so intrigued by it.

Rick Denton: 23:32

It is by far one of my favorite cities in the world. And I hope it remains so ongoing. I know lots of changes there some some that are not the ones that we would want to see. But from I'm with you the beauty of it, the food, I just I, I could eat there. And never, never be sad. I've always had good meals there.

Mike Verret: 23:52

You can eat there and not have to go to any other country because they can re practically deliver the authentic food from that country in Anca. If you think about the idea of the place, and how much money flows through there since 1997, if I walked down the street in Rhode Island, if I walked go through Providence, I'll see a Dunkin Donuts every other corner. Yeah, that's Rolex shops. It's just an amazing experience, at least in Kowloon, and that in that,

Rick Denton: 24:20

for those listening, he's not exaggerating, he's not exaggerating, it really is like that. So if we're going to return to Hong Kong, but you've been there so what is a dream travel vacation you've not been to yet.

Mike Verret: 24:33

I'm perfectly happy if I live in the middle of nowhere, but it has to be on the water on the ocean in particular, as long as nobody's bugging me, and I just you know, hang out with my dog and me and my wife to do whatever we want to do. And so that to me, in my mind, is one of those out over the water villas in Bali. Yeah, that's where I want to go.

Rick Denton: 24:58

Boy, that would be nice. I'm sorry I just need a moment to think about it.

Mike Verret: 25:02

Yeah six months sitting there with my computer my dog about me so happy

Rick Denton: 25:09

well in the kind of work you do you totally can do that. So let's talk about that a little bit later to what is we talked about food earlier. What is a favorite thing to eat?

Mike Verret: 25:17

My favorite food in the world is Cajun food. Hmm. My favorite city in the world? Well, it's Hong Kong and New Orleans. Okay, I have a true passion for that place the culture I think it's such an incredible experience within the US Yeah, because it's so different from anywhere else you go. But the food the the big portions this the flavor and the soul of it. I just can't get enough of it's my favorite thing to cook is jumble i or red beans and rice. And after that it's not too far off to you know barbecue Mexican and Asian food. It's almost like these fancy a to a degree it's like the poor comfort food aspect of all of it where it's just made with love and a lot of it I love that and Cajun food really is my absolutely my favorite

Rick Denton: 26:10

give me a little bit a little jambalaya a little ettouffe I'm a happy man as well. So what's the flip side here? What's the thing your parents forced you to eat? But you hate it as a kid

Mike Verret: 26:21

that's a damn what they've my problem is I like everything. I just about everything. But anytime they wanted to use canned tuna fish, it was a real turnoff.

Rick Denton: 26:31

ooh, okay.

Mike Verret: 26:32

Yeah,

Rick Denton: 26:33

I can understand why

Mike Verret: 26:34

I wasn't a big tuna fish kid. I'm not a cold sandwich guy, either. I don't like cold cuts and stuff. So yeah, I but for the most part, I they told me that he was in front of me. So I did or didn't show any better.

Rick Denton: 26:47

He's done that like it, but will will avoid the canned tuna fish. So with your travels, and I know you're quite comfortable, yeah, if you're over the water, that sort of thing. But what is one travel item, not including your phone that you will not leave home without.

Mike Verret: 27:01

It has to be these the air pods or the headphones, whatever. I absolutely do not like big crowds, especially if I have to keep track of someone in one. But if I'm by myself, it's fine. I just I have social anxiety being like me at a cocktail party, and I'm losing my mind, you wouldn't know it. But I'm losing my mind. Lately exhausted afterwards. But what turns it into a completely different experience for me is put me in Times Square with these. Yeah, and I can't hear anything around me. And it allows me to kind of escape all of that. So whether it's on a plane or a busy street, or you know, walking through a convention center or anything like that, but there's a lot of input, these things are an imperative for me to to map out.

Rick Denton: 27:55

Mike, there's one phrase that I want to make sure that we unpack a little bit before we close out. And that is the first, the best and different in messaging, unpack that for me. So

Mike Verret: 28:07

from the businesses perspective, they're thinking in terms of all of these different things that they have to represent in order for them or do in order for their audience to respond in order for their customer to buy, let's say, but from an audience point of view. And you can do litmus test this yourself. What stands out in our mind is one of those three things. That's what we remember things stand out as first or best or different. So first is really hard to come by. But where do you see the results of that best is actually pretty subjective. And it's usually after use after experiencing revenue and an opinion on it. But different everybody can do. Okay. And to be clear, if you're thinking internally, how do I be different, that doesn't mean the business has to be out on a street corner dressed as a clown holding a sign. That's not what's different means different is not about the business, it's about the audience, and how they see us differently. Go back to that public relations example. What they saw as being the same was we are APR. What they saw as being different was just the fact that the last one not acknowledged what they're going through, yeah, upfront, but that is completely different in the eyes of the consumer. So that's really what we're all shooting for is how do we show up is one of those three things in their mind? Because that's what they're going to remember.

Rick Denton: 29:38

Okay, that makes that makes a lot of sense to me. Like I took a quick check of the time here and my gosh, we have gotten almost to the end of time here. Well not the end of actual time just the end of our time together.

Mike Verret: 29:50

I don't mean anything bad I don't mean anything negative by this right but if this is how I'm gonna end my time. I'm gonna be really disappointed.

Rick Denton: 29:57

This is not what we did for for the apocalypse coming as a result and settings password, as enjoyable as it hopefully is. Um, but I want to ask you, I want you I want to weave together almost like three thoughts that I have in mind. And that is, so it has bro, you had to understand how to connect with the audience, right? And how brands do that. And you took that and have learned to how do you apply that today? I'm also thinking about how does customer experience and brand promise weave together? And then lastly, I want you to expand on that first that different that best that concept? And I'm sorry, I didn't say quite right. But concept that you have. And just help me understand kind of from Hasbro to what you do today? How are you helping individuals, companies teams really get better at their messaging?

Mike Verret: 30:43

Well, the first thing to start with is the understanding of what we already talked about that your business and the way you think about it is not the way your audience is going to be thinking. So think of it as 100% of what's important to you, 3 to 5% of that are important to your audience.

Rick Denton: 30:58

That's a great point, great point.

Mike Verret: 31:00

And you need to understand going in what that 3 to 5% is. Because once that once you connect with them, you need to bring them through in the right order to get them all the way to what you want them to do next. But ultimately, it's on their terms. And if they don't connect with what you're saying, initially, if you're saying we're a PR firm, they just hit the back button, go to the next result on Google. That's what you're up against, if they're searching for services. So the idea of that understanding how your audience thinks and what you need to do to connect with what they're going through, or whatever challenge there is your solution and getting them to the services, benefits and call to action. That's all on their terms all the time. Customer Experience, exact same thing, if you put a brand promise out there, you better be able to keep it, you've heard the term over promise and under deliver under promise and over deliver, you better be able to keep it because at that point, that's zero. That's not excellence, that's not plus five, and it's not your failing, but that is their zero level expectation, right? The second you put it out there. So if they lose connection with you, if they lose their happiness with that, there's only one way to go down. You've set their expectations with your promise of what they're going to experience. So you have to think on it as am I going to completely defy their expectations. Chances are, it's going to be hard to do. But if you can meet an account, like we said, occasionally exceed their expectations, give them those delightful little surprises to remember you along the way, then in costing customer experience, you're doing your job the right way. folks can't see this because it's an audio recording. It's causing me to ponder a bit. Oh, that? Well, it's that 3 to 5%. So I'm gonna go a little bit longer here. Let me normally do. How do you help people figure that out? Because it might I imagine that's probably the biggest challenge. I don't think anybody fight you on that. But it's rather, Mike helped me figure out what that three to 5% is what do people need to be doing it actively doing to figure that out? What happens when they're laying out the plan to talk to their audiences, they're looking at it as a function of, of their business and their monitoring. And there, they've got their website, they've got their email campaign, they've got their search terms, they've got all of these things operating. And they're thinking of it as, that's how I'm reaching the audience. But what it takes is understanding exactly what I just mentioned about Google, the audience has the luxury of operating in five to seven second increments. Yeah. They it's like if you apply if you're applying for a job and you write your resume, three hours spent captured in your career, but the person reading the resume spends an average of five to seven seconds or 60 seconds, but some seven seconds, let's say. And in that seven seconds, all they're engaging with is the first sentence. That's all they can consume in seven seconds. At no point, is that sentence being run through a business filter yet, they will shift to that if they decide to read further. But the first seven seconds is yes, they have the business perspective, but it's how that person perceives that first sentence. Does it engage with that audience? So think about the type of header on the resume that wouldn't resonate. marketer with 14 years of experience looking for the next opportunity to make campaigns and blah, blah, blah, right? They're not going to remember that they're not going to respond to that. That's the six second pile or the seven second pile that's going to end up you need to think in terms of that when people are searching for services or first engaging with you is how are you coming across to them. And ultimately, what I see is a lot of people, they have something that's variable important within their brand to say they communicate, but it completely gets cluttered with what they think they should be telling them. So where I tend to find the actual connection point is usually buried in the About Us section of the website, if I'm looking at somebody's website this time, where they actually do talk about what the customer is going through, but their inclination is to say, here's the solution to that. And not here's what you're going through. Now, think of the term need state. And think of it in terms of just a point plotted on an x and y axis graph. It's just a point floating there. The tendency is to say, this is what we need they need. So here's the line going forward from need state. But what you need to think about is not that point and not after it, that's what problem do we solve it after it? How did they get to that mean, state is what you need to be thinking about? It's a line coming into that point, not even

Rick Denton: 36:01

how do they get to that need state? Interesting? Well, Mike, how can people get in touch with you to help them figure out what that first line needs to be to figure out what that messaging needs to be to understand how their their their future customers did get to that need state that

Mike Verret: 36:18

it is very simple, you can either visit my website,

https: 36:21

//www.verretandassociates.com/.

Rick Denton: 36:24

Okay, well, I will get that into the show notes.

Mike Verret: 36:26

And the other way is just to look me up on LinkedIn, I do the bulk of LinkedIn, to me is a 24/7. Networking event. I love to meet new people, I offer a free complimentary, whatever the marketing term does your is free 30 minutes just to talk about what you do. And even if it's just swapping stories of our careers doesn't, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter to me, I like to make sure that there's just access if anybody ever has any questions are nice. So find me on LinkedIn like burette, or just check out on the web.

Rick Denton: 36:58

Mike thanks so much for today, I have enjoyed this conversation. I always enjoy talking with you. I've learned so much here. And I know the listeners will learn so much here. And I will get all of the how to get in touch with you there in the show notes. But Mike, I just thank you for telling these great stories, sharing these great nuggets of insight. And I know I need to work on my messaging a bit after even listening to you today. You've inspired me a bit, but I hope that you inspire others.

Mike Verret: 37:26

Well, the one thing that everyone listening should understand is it's incredibly hard to do when it's your business. It's really easy to see when it's not. And that's just proof positive of that 100% of what's important to you. 5% is what the outside sees and latches on to. I went through it for my own business, I had to hire someone to help me figure out how to say what I say now, because I was clouded by everything else. So I truly understand how hard it can be. And that's I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about what I do, and hopefully some of the words will be helpful to your audience.

Rick Denton: 38:04

Well, thanks, Mike. I know that they will enjoy it. And that is pretty insightful. There. Thank you so much. And enjoy the rest of your day, man.

Mike Verret: 38:13

You too, Rick, always a pleasure. We'll talk soon.

Rick Denton: 38:19

Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. Make sure to visit our website cxpassport.com where you can hit subscribe so you'll never miss a show. While you're at it, you can check out the rest of the EX4CX website. If you're looking to get real about customer experience, EX4CX is available to help you increase revenue by starting to listen to your customers and create great experiences for every customer every time. Thanks for listening to CX Passport and be sure to tune in for our next episode. Until next time, I'm Rick Denton, and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.