Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Don't make your system static. Have systems for your systems. But before that, I think documenting the things that are working well, that person's not going to feel heard. You know the Avatar movie, I see you right, like that is so underutilized when people feel that connection and they feel heard by you and that if you do that well, if you create a great customer experience, more and more people want to work with you.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: Welcome to The Entrepreneur's book Logbook I'm your host, Zach Bernard. You can find me on Social. It's Zack B. In each episode, I bring on experts from various industries for you to learn about their strategies and insights driving extra business growth. The Entrepreneur's Lifebook Logbook is sponsored by we featured PR where we're dedicated to helping entrepreneurs build their thought, leadership and business by getting them on podcasts. Today we're joined by an interesting person, Carl Stibe, founder of Systematic Leader, a company that helps business leaders integrate AI into their customer experience system and processes so they can retain more customers and ignite referrals. Carl works with business leaders who are basically stuck in like the constant like firefighting mode with which a lot of founders are nowadays and putting out the customers issues as they pop up. And he really helps them trade that fire extinguisher for a customer growth engine. By building smarter customer experience powered by AI, his clients can keep customers longer and then also turn them into a steady source of referrals. Carl, it's great to have you on the show. Welcome aboard.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: Thank you. I appreciate your intro there. Very well done.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Thank you. Well, I always like to like any guest that we have on the show. I mean we've had so many marketing leaders, business, entrepreneurship, but the, the customer experience side of things is I think I've had like one guest in the past that was touching onto that, but it's been like a while and there's a lot of things that have changed specifically with like AI being like one of like the big ones. And it kind of looks like you kind of like incorporate that within like the work that you do. So I'm excited to dive into all of that today, learn about all your strategies and your secret sauce here. But one of the things I would like to ask anyone that comes on the show is if you have to rebuild your company from scratch again, knowing basically everything that you know today, what's maybe the one thing that you feel you would implement from day one that some entrepreneurs get like totally wrong?
[00:02:23] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, I'm an AI guy, so people who built there will be a billion dollar company for One person with just, you know, thousands of AI agents. That's common.
But before that, I think documenting the things that are working well, and then you can double down on them and develop better systems around them.
So let's say, you know, someone's listening and they're doing well with Facebook ads, you know, or do pretty well. Like, you know, maybe they.
For every, you know, dollar they spend, they bring in a dollar and a half. Right?
Which is great, you know, like, because then you can just pour more money into Facebook. If you pour 100 bucks in, you get 150 out. You know, you put a thousand bucks in, you get a thousand five hundred out.
But the idea is there's always improvements, and there's always things you need to understand of where things are bottlenecking.
And that can be in the Facebook ad space. Could be creating the ad. It could be looking at the numbers and adjusting them. What do you adjust? There's so many different little things that you need to do, and then how do you do it? And in our case, we do a lot of focus around referrals. So when a customer buys from you, what happens? What does that process look like? A lot of people don't document their customer experience. What does it look like from end to end?
And when you have a visual diagram and you see how these things are connected or not connected or disconnected, then the idea is you can say, okay, we can't fix all 18 things that are, you know, possibly, you know, not working well, but these things are working well. So let's. Let's make sure we put extra emphasis here. And that could be, you know, you know, when a customer.
You know, when a service is provided, that customer comes back. And what we like to do is have an AI agent send out an email and say, hey, how was it?
Very personalized. Because the AI agent knows what was done, how long it took, all those things, and then sends out the email.
And it's not generic at all. It's very customized to them. And then they say, hey, we really want your feedback.
And then what you do is you say, okay, this is one of the most important parts about systems. Closing the loop. How many times have you filled out something from a company, big and small? And then you never hear back. You never just hear, thank you for filling this out. You know, we work on these things, but even how cool would it be if you took the time, five minutes, 10 minutes, and six months later, you're like, we've been working on these things, and look, we've made these Improvements now doesn't necessarily mean that their idea was the thing that you used and improved the company, but by closing the loop, especially something where you, you know, spend a lot of money on, you know, let's say Hilton. You know, you went to Hilton Hotel. How was your experience? And then you heard nothing back. And then, you know, you're like, okay, are they even listening to me? But if you actually have something in place where, you know, you reply back. And usually the people that reply back, they didn't have a good experience or they had an amazing experience. Very few people reply back in the middle.
And so what you want is to reply back to those people and say, yeah, we've been putting these things in place. And once again, it might not be their suggestion, but you can say, we've improved the bathroom cleanliness, We've improved the shampoo.
And all of a sudden you're like, really? You did that?
And it just plants seeds of, I want to go back there again. I want to see what they've done.
And now you've created this relationship where you're showing them, we're improving, we're growing, come back again. And then they're more likely to, you know, that email might be like, guess what? Like, I complained about that shampoo. They're fixing the shampoo issue. And now you're like, hey, Bob, guess, you know, Hilton's, like, listening to people and replying back, they're fixing the shampoo issue. Like, can you believe it? And it's such a small thing, but those little things add up. And that's how you get more referrals, and that's how you build systems to support your team, support your growth. And that, to me, is why documentation. I know I went off on a tangent there. Sorry. But that's why documentation helps, because you're starting to see it and then physically map it out and look at like, okay, yeah, these are the things we're doing well.
Oh, cool. Sometimes you don't even realize the things you're doing well. And then, once again, a system, you celebrate that stuff with your team. Like, even podcasting, right? Like, you have a small team, editors, you know, they did a great job.
And I don't know if you do this or not, but if you're like, hey, this episode went out and it did really well. Surprisingly, we doubled our usual, you know, great job editing it. All of a sudden they're like, oh, yeah, I was a part of that.
These little things, these little loops to help close it and show people progress.
I mean, it's night and day. So many companies don't do these things. And when you do them and you, you just do them well, you don't need to do them brilliantly or fantastically. Just do them well, man, people light up and they want more of you.
[00:08:29] Speaker B: It feels like that can be applied in like the two contexts that you're talking about. There's a context of like the actual client or the customer where you want to close that loop. But it couldn't also be applied to your team members again, where again it. I mean we have like a WINS Slack channel in like your team. So whenever there's like a little like cool win, like we'll share that within our company. And I think that first helps to see that the impact that people are having, like our team members who are having an impact, this is what we're doing.
But it's also like a feedback loop in a way. For example, you give like an example like oh, this video you edited like really well and like we got really good traction out of it. Like it's a feedback loop. Like again like, hey, maybe we try to replicate that editing style or so to get more results that are doing it.
[00:09:11] Speaker A: Yeah, you're showing people what to do more of. Yes. Yeah, yeah.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: So documentation is a big one. Yeah, I mean I've been a big fan of documenting as well. We've built our own internal like company university with a bunch of resources. Probably too many, but
[00:09:26] Speaker A: yeah,
[00:09:26] Speaker B: can there really be too many? Unless they're all over the place.
[00:09:30] Speaker A: They can if no one are using them. So then you have to build systems once a month where you're like, hey, we added this new thing or hey, let us know what's working well within our library. And then they're like, oh crap, I forgot about the library, I gotta go visit it. You know, you create these, these systems that allow people to remember it without being annoying. Allow people to give feedback on it. Like all those things, little systems that you create.
[00:10:00] Speaker B: And I think, I mean when you're think talk about like systems, I'm assuming some of that probably talks about like incorporates like AI for example, like some level. Because that's like a big thing that's like all over. Like everyone's talk about AI. I mean there's really good use cases and there's people that just don't know how to use it properly.
But one of the things I'd kind of not really related to AI, but we can obviously come back to that one because I have a question for you. But I'd love to kind of understand if you could walk us through how you take, like whenever you collaborate with anyone, how you take them from constantly, like being more in like a, like a reacting mode, like customer problems, to. To more having a system that retains the customers and actually derive referrals. Because a lot of people, they're just fighting, like, just trying to get through the day, put out the fires,
[00:10:46] Speaker A: but
[00:10:46] Speaker B: they're not doing that proactively in a way.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
So I always feel like the customer database is so underutilized in this day and age. It's gotten better with CRMs. But just think of yourself like you know somebody and it was cool. Like before we hit record, you're like, oh, yeah, like you've had so and so on the podcast.
But, you know, if you could have your sales people, if you could have other internal people getting reports, helping them be proactive.
So, for example, we worked with a company and we built out a referral system. So the idea was they have 6,000 past clients, they had 600 employees, they had all these accounts, but no one to. Not no one. They had somebody that was like a third of their week would be going in and looking at these things and trying to find upsells or possible affiliate referrals. And so it's tedious. It's hard.
You forget. You get distracted by slack messages, emails, text messages, whatever. Then you forget your spot and you're like, okay, yeah, what happened here? And that was just an hour ago. And you're. You. You can't retain it all, but AI can. AI can go through that and find. Now it takes training. And this is, you know, kind of where we specialize is like, how do you train it? So it's actually finding the right things.
So the database is really well curated and helps you. But then what happens is, is you can help people create sales emails. You can help people create text messages. And they might have a really. That salesperson might have a really good relationship with that individual. And so you don't just want to blindly send it. So part of our system is reviewing it and then giving feedback of like, okay, no, this email needs to be this way. This needs to be improved. You know, you're not saying anything about, you know, hobbies or anything like that. Like, I really, you know, we both are into golfing and this is important. Like, you know, this is how we've connected. We need to say something like this in the future.
This is just a training system that you can then develop. And then when you have these this mechanism that allows you to say, hey, when's the last time you talked to so and so, here's an email you can send them.
You. That's 80% of the work.
You're doing this on a regular basis. Because, you know, I don't know, the old adage is, you know, the money's in the follow ups. Right? Like if you are following up, you're showing people that you're consistent, you're showing people that you care.
You know, like when your team comes follows up with me, a lot of times I'm busy, I'm just like, okay, I don't even want to think about this right now.
You know, do I want to have this guest on my podcast?
But how often, you know, do those follow ups occur? Like, I'm guessing you probably have a training system in place or you have a certain expectations, like, hey, we expect at least three follow ups.
But are you looking now this is another thing. AI can look at those emails and be like, okay, the people that are actually replying back, you did this really well here. And maybe they're cut and paste, but sometimes you try to put a little bit of, you know, personal touch on it and maybe those convert better. That to me is like, oh, we need to do more of that. That's converting better for us. How are we helping our people internally do that better? So we're getting that flywheel moving faster. And that if you do that well, if you create a great customer experience, more and more people want to work with you.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And I feel with like am because we've used that for like a similar like use case that you just talked about. It's like pattern recognition away. Like you just analyze all the data that you have and you see like what's consistently like happening if there's like any commonalities or anything like that. And then you can replicate those commonalities to obviously get better results. So that can apply to anything. I mean, business development, client relationships, making sure that you're checking in with clients like every here and then. But that can also apply for like referrals. I mean you mentioned like yourself and when, for example, if you send a sales email, like you'll want to add like a personal touch, like have give like some context like the AI or to your team. So they're not just sending a random like, hey, just check in and type like follow up. Because that's generative, like generate. Yeah, as you're saying. But if you make it personal, that's going to resonate better. And especially if you're asking for a referral, you probably want to make it a bit more personal. I imagine that's probably something that you guys have been, like, looking out and helping your clients do there.
[00:15:52] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It is all just around utilizing people's strengths, getting people to once again document more.
If you do, if, if you have that connection through golfing, is that documented inside of that CRM?
The AI can't give you that data or create that customized email. If it's not. If everything's generic inside that CRM, you're just going to get generic back, like. And that to me is like, okay, well, we need better input going into that CRM that's going to help us. Okay, well, how do we do that? We need better training. We need better. We need to train them around the questions that they ask. We need the, you know, you know, something to think about when, you know, people reach out. To me, it would be cool, like every six months, be like, hey, here's a report. We've had so many people on your podcast. We've had six people on your podcast from our, you know, you know, it looks like, you know, these are the type of guests that you like is that, you know, like, have a check in. Be like, especially if it's a podcaster that listens to that, because how many podcasters don't even listen to those emails and follow back up, right?
So if you do have someone that's booking with your team, then build that relationship. Hey, like, we built six people. And, you know, we're noticing this pattern. Hey, in the future, would you like more of these type of people? And that to me is like, oh, you're listening, you're paying attention.
And AI can help with that. AI can go through those emails and be like, yeah, it looks like over the past six months, Carl's confirmed six of your inquiries, your guests that you've asked about having on his show.
Now, you know, follow up and say, hey, like, we've done this. Hey, how can we do more? You know, like, let's work. Let's work together on this. And then it becomes more of a team thing versus them. Just constantly asking to get guests booked on my show. You know what I mean?
[00:18:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I get it. I got you. And interesting, because I'll think about this internally, the way that your. Your thought process kind of looks like. And I know we're on the topic of AI, and one of the things I'd love to hear from you because when we're thinking about, like, customer Experience as we start, like, moving forward, like, I feel the big touch is going to be, like, human. Like, people are going to care about obviously getting human attention, having it be personal, not just like a robotic AI or anything like that. And I feel like what's important is that you need, like, a balance. Like, you need to be able to mix in both, not have, like, one that kind of overtakes the other.
So when you're thinking about AI, I mean, I know we, we talked about, for example, like, pattern recognition, like, just seeing, like, what works, what doesn't work well. Like, when you look at incorporating that within, like, systems or, like, processes of, like, clients that you work with, is there, like, one thing in particular that if, like, we have a business owner in the audience, you're like, hey, like, I want to make your customer experience, like, better. Is there, like, maybe one to two, like, common use cases that you've seen that you're like, hey, if you're looking at this, this is probably the way I would look at doing it. So it'd be like the biggest lever pull in a way.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: Yeah, a couple of things.
The feedback loop is so important, but the clients that you enjoy working well, working with, and you guys work well together, you're, you've, you have history, you have patterns there really understanding those patterns, because back to your point, it's more and more, AI is going to be doing more and more. But if it becomes generic slop and the emails are not very curated or cultivated, cultivate is probably a better word.
That person's not going to feel heard. You know, the Avatar movie, I see you, right? Like, that is so underutilized. When people feel that connection and you, they feel heard by you, they will forgive you for things because you, they know you're trying, they're seeing you putting in effort, they're seeing you do these things. So look at that, look at, you know, what's worked well, what guests pay attention to that, what podcast they like to be on. Right.
And I've, I always try to work with clients, you know, creating reports, be it at every level. If you do something, show the progress, what have you done to help that person create a monthly report, and if that's too much, create a quarterly report. Right? Just depending on how many podcasts you've got them booked on, how many possible views, like, on average, you know, these podcasts get about these many views. You've probably been heard by, you know, 8,500 people.
You know, this past month. I'd be like, oh, I didn't you don't. You don't. You don't think about that stuff, Right? Yeah. But if you help close that loop and show them that progress, you are creating a better customer experience, a better client experience.
And same thing goes with the person you've been reaching out to, right? Like, show them like they matter. Like, you appreciate that they're not charging you to put guests on the. On the podcast. They are creating a really great environment.
The person has a great time. You know, a lot of times, just being on a podcast and sharing your stuff, like right now, right? Like, it lights people up, you know, because they're talking about their expertise.
And sometimes it's not so much that the podcast needs to be a huge hit.
And there's different ways to, you know, classify success.
There's many ways of showing, you know, how things worked well, but there's probably things that you could do too. Like, you know, if.
If, you know, I record a podcast and you say, hey, guess what? And here's a better customer experience, you can upsell them and be like, look, every podcast you're on, what we'll do is. And maybe you already do this. I don't know, maybe what we'll do is, you know, with this extra fee, we will get the raw footage, and then we will create shorts for you, or we'll create Instagram posts for you based on your content.
But we won't even stop there. We'll help you create better website and blog material. All these different things.
And now you're helping them in that flywheel. You're not just, hey, we're getting you on podcast. We are helping you with your marketing. We're helping you in all these different areas. And now you are showing. You're showing more value, but that just comes from watching those patterns. And some people are like, I don't need this.
And that's the key is listening to them.
What do they need? What are they really doing this for?
And then being able to help them in those ways. And. And sometimes you do it because you're like, hey, we're just gonna. We're just testing this out for you. We're not, you know, we're not even gonna charge you for this. We just wanna show you what this looks like. And all of a sudden they're like, dang, this is great. Like, you're giving me these clips I can put on YouTube, or you're helping me with my sales content. Wow, like, this is so cool. Or, hey, here's an email that you could send out to your people based off of this interview that you did.
There's so many different ways to do it and AI can help with that. Right. Like, you know, it just creates that content based on their voice. Go research their voice, look at their blog, how do they like to write, you know, and that's all systems, it's all putting that into forward motion. So these things happen regularly?
[00:24:26] Speaker B: No, I'm a, I'm a system guy. Like, I love my automation building stuff, AI and like everything like that. So a lot of the stuff that you mentioned, we, we've incorporated that. But there's a couple ideas that you mentioned, like, oh, maybe, maybe we tweak that or we look at that too here.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: And that's the thing is don't make your system static.
Have systems for your systems. Right. Like,
[00:24:48] Speaker B: I like that.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: If you do create shorts for people.
Yeah, that's great. But are they working? What's working for them? What's not? Get that feedback, understand where you need to tweak and that's where you really start to like, gain some traction and get more referrals.
[00:25:08] Speaker B: Yeah, feedback, feedback, feedback, improvement. And then repeat, repeat, repeat that cycle.
[00:25:13] Speaker A: Yeah. And the idea is even, you know, just understanding what's working for them and not like Steve Jobs is famous for, like, you know, customers don't want, don't know what they want until I give it to them.
But the problem is, is you still have to understand the customer and you still have to understand what they need, what makes them feel successful, what they feel is progress for them.
And then you have to be, you might, they might say, and I think Henry Ford's famous for this, they people who drove horse and carriage were, would ask for a faster horse, they wouldn't have asked for a car because they didn't know what it was. Right. But once you deliver that car, you know, like, find out like, okay, people are in Model T or going through windows. Okay, let's create a seat belt, you know, but that's, you know, that's not like feedback that's coming directly from the customer. You're getting that feedback from different areas of, you know, you're looking at car crash, you're looking at state data, you know, you're looking. That's feedback too. So you have to figure out, you know, and this is the thing is you can't look everywhere, but you're going to have to find your spots and find out what really works well for you and then create a system around improving in those areas.
[00:26:43] Speaker B: Interesting. Yeah. Because I mean, I'VE always thought about getting feedback from cons, but I think that's like one area that not a lot of people think about. It's like, yeah, there's also like external places where you can collect feedback from and then yeah, having the system in place to be able to collect converse is just asking your clients for feedback or doing these monthly like check in, just like seeing where things are at here. So interesting. I love thoughts and I guess just for like any business owners because I know you gave a lot of the stuff that was like focused for like what we're doing and I appreciate that because I think that was really valuable and it can be like applied to a lot of like other businesses, like companies but for like any small, medium sized business out there, I mean it could even be like enterprise. To be honest with you. They're like, hey, we want to improve our retention rate. We want to ensure that we are collecting more referrals from the current clients we have. And maybe we, we have more upselling opportunities in a more like efficient manner or in like a better manner. What's kind of maybe the two, three bullet points that you leave the audience with in terms of where they should be looking at what they should be doing just to give them a head start there?
[00:27:47] Speaker A: Yeah, it starts with creating a system around collecting. Now once again, like you might if, yeah, if you're doing monthly check ins with your client, that might be really important for the first six months but by then you start to see these patterns, they start to play out a little bit. You might go to, you know, every two months after that. Right. Like you, that you know, they're busy, they're busy and they don't really want to hop on the call and tell you the same things again and again.
So you spread that out a little bit. That's adjusting your system.
But the idea is to start asking and you know, some if you try.
And I always like to tell people when they build a system, put parameters on it, don't just build the system and think this is the way we're going to do it for the next, you know, five years.
That is an awful way to build a system you really want to focus on. Like, okay, over the next three months, this is what we're going to try. And this is like any good entrepreneur, you try things, you see what's working, what's not.
Sometimes you have fast iterations, you know, especially with AI and being able to, you know, build software real quick. You can have those iterations done in a couple days. You know, maybe even less, but then, okay, what's that? Who's, who's then going through that and looking at that landing page, who's looking at that, you know, CRM, addition or change, you know, if you're in software and then you start to look at, okay, yeah, like we can speed up our feedback loop and we can get these things out there faster.
But then, you know, everything's, everything's different at a different pace. The idea is to have that system in place to gather that feedback continuously.
It could be once a month. Like you, like you say you do these monthly check in calls with your clients and then, you know, you say, you know, really like, I'm starting often around the six month mark, people get a little bored, get tired.
What is that? What do you do to adjust? And same thing with your customers. If you're always asking for information and you know, you're doing it every time, you know, every week or every six months or every time a sales call closes, a sale closes and then they give feedback, how are you building in that system to show them that you're listening?
Because if I'm once again the Hilton example, if I'm giving information and I'm like, you know, I didn't like this or this, I really like this.
And then I'm ghosted. I'm like, okay, Hilton doesn't care, you know,
[00:30:51] Speaker B: yeah,
[00:30:52] Speaker A: how do you, and this can be, a lot of it can be automated at least up to that last yard before you hand. The AI can do 95%, 99%.
But then it's that last part, that human touch, adding those little details, you know, you know, sending a little gift of like, hey, it's our, it's our one year anniversary, here's a gift. And you do that for all your clients, you know, and I would just listen to podcasts. And this guy is a sales expert in real estate and he, if someone doesn't do a deal with him, he also has a system of sending an orchid and that orchid goes to that person and it's like, you know, you know, it was great meeting you, you know, and, you know, kind of thanking them for their time and then he says, sorry for your loss, basically you've missed out on working with me, you know, but then he also has a system for closing the sale and, and doing a great job and he sends them a gift as well. So it's on both sides. It's just a little system he's put in place.
And the same thing from a customer experience. What are you doing to delight your customer? And it doesn't mean like, you know, spent. If they, if they bought a 500 piece of software, you're not going to spend 500 bucks on them. Like, that doesn't make sense. But what are you doing to really, you know, create that customer experience and show them you care, they matter. And that's this type of stuff that people really enjoy. And you're more likely to get referrals. And if you are creating that system around follow up and you're like, hey, we've been working with you for six months. For six months we're doing these things.
We've put, you know, we've made these strides and, you know, and maybe you could, you know, like, hey, like, we listened to a few of your interviews and we think there's a few things you can tweak in your interview style. You know, next time we meet, we should chat about it. They're like, dang, like, you listen to a few of my interviews. Once again, AI can help with that. Just feed the transcripts in. These are all systems, but they take time to build and they don't always work.
And that to, to a lot of people is where it gets frustrating. But to me, that's where it gets fun. Like you're trying it. And once again, back to parameters. We're just doing this for three months, team, and then we're going to reevaluate. The reality is, is no, you're going to continue doing this. You're just going to make adjustments. After three months, it's just.
But people don't feel like, oh, my God, here's the newest thing.
I don't know how many leaders I've talked to where the CEO goes to a conference, comes back with 10 ideas and like, guess what? We're gonna do these ideas. And then he goes to another conference, comes back with another 10 ideas.
[00:34:00] Speaker B: Yeah,
[00:34:00] Speaker A: that is a terrible system.
Really inefficient one.
The idea then is to create a system around gathering these ideas, prioritizing them, what works well, what doesn't within it, and try to create that quick feedback loop, right? You don't want to drag this out for months. But then like, okay, these two top things, and I always like to give people the matrix, like that top right corner, right, is the one that's easiest to do but also delivers a ton of value. And then the things that are really hard to do is that bottom quadrant and doesn't deliver much value. Now, it's still value there, but it's not worth the time and effort. So that, to me, is looking at those things. What do you do as a company?
And say, yeah, we're going to put our time and energy into doing this thing, and we think this is going to be the outcome. To me, once you put a hypothesis on it, like, I think if we start sending our clients these reports, we're going to get more referrals or we're going to get more people, we're going to retain more customers.
And then you test it. You test it for three months, like, hey, we're doing this new thing for.
And I know this sounds cheesy for our top clients, right? But maybe you do it for, you know, you pick some random clients that are good clients, but, you know, and so you pick 10. You're like, we're doing this thing for our top clients. We're doing this for free.
We want to see how this works. We. We think this will help.
And then they're like, oh, like, you're doing this.
That's the type of stuff. And you plant these seeds, and then you close the loop after three months. Be like, okay, what do you think? Is this working for you? And they're like, oh, I love it. Or, no, not so much.
And then you gather that feedback and you. And you process through it, and then you realize, oh, okay, this is working, but let's make some adjustments here, here, and here.
And another thing, too, is what a lot of people don't do is sometimes you build in a system you think that would work well, and it stuck. For whatever reason, somebody left, and then somebody else took it over because that was their job, and the system doesn't quite work that well anymore.
What are you also doing to eliminate customer experiences that aren't working as well? What are you doing? Eliminate friction that your team is dealing with.
Those are. That's why. Mapping that out, that customer experience, even internally, like, what does that mean internally for each person?
You know, that kind of. That. That blueprint of, like, you know, you look at when someone's building a house, you know, they have that blueprint, you know, where the. Every receptacle is going to be. You know, where the lights are going to be. And then as they do it, they're like, oh, that didn't. We thought that was a good design, but not so much.
Let's. Hey, let's adjust this. Because as you're building it, you realize, oh, like, this door might hit this door. We shouldn't do it that way.
And that, you know, sometimes the arc should catch that, but they don't.
And the same thing, look, once a year, I think everybody should look at their customer experience and how internally everybody is doing the work to support.
Because if even in accounting, if they don't see the purpose behind what they're doing, they're less likely to consistently do good work because they're not seeing that greater good behind doing it. They're just like, oh, yeah, like, it doesn't matter that much.
It's like the Winds channel.
What?
[00:37:56] Speaker B: It's like the Winds channel I talked to you about. Like, they can see the impact that they're having in a way.
[00:38:01] Speaker A: Exactly. So how do you build those systems in and how do you show them? Like, hey, when we're doing these things as a team and we're getting more clients, you are supporting that. You're helping us in this area.
And that's why showing retention, like, what if you just created a quarterly report around retention, We've retained an extra, you know, clients by 5% over the past three months. And then over the past year, hey, we're down 2%. Why is that?
And then you're getting everybody involved and oh, another, another thing too, that you can try.
Do regular brainstorming sessions, build it into your regular routines. Every quarter, every six months, be like, okay, look at all these reports. Look at what we're doing now. We need to figure out and solve some of these things.
Let's ideate around it. What could we do to solve this issue? What could we do? And as a leader, you're going to need to rein them in because they're gonna be like, yeah, let's do all the things. Like, that's not possible.
But that's. That is so much fun for people.
Every time I've been in those workshops, people light up, people get energy from them, and then you are coming out of them with so many ideas, and then you're be able to execute and sometimes too many ideas, and once again, it comes back to priorities.
[00:39:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I jotted down a couple of things that I'll be thinking about in my own brainstorming session, as you were talking about earlier here. But I've definitely learned a couple things and I hope that obviously your audiences as well. But yeah, really appreciate you coming on the show, Carl. It was a very interesting one. Got a couple of things I'll personally be looking at, but for anyone that wants to get in touch with you. I know you obviously have your own podcast, but you also help other leaders with the operations side of things, with the customer retention and AI and everything like that. But where should people look at to find you here?
[00:40:06] Speaker A: Yeah, podcast Systematic Leader. So I interview other leaders who have build their own systems that have worked well. I pull those systems out of them and try to help have them break down, you know, how they do those things.
But then also on my website systematicleader.co.co and yeah, I have a blog there and they can sign up for my newsletter. So that's probably the best way.
[00:40:36] Speaker B: Perfect. Well, we're going to put those all in the show notes of course if anyone wants to check out, reach out to Karl here and then yeah, really appreciate coming on the show to your listeners. If you've enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe like leave a review comment, reach out to Carl here, all that fun stuff and then until then, keep pushing. We'll see you in the next one.
