REAL AF with Andy Frisella - Pissed Off Customers： Annoyance or Opportunity？, with Andy Frisella

00:00:00.000 I want to be a motherfucking hustler. You better ask somebody.

00:00:11.340 What is up guys? You're listening to the MFCEO Project. I'm Andy. I'm your host and I am the

00:00:18.100 motherfucking CEO. Guys, if this is your first time listening, I want to welcome you. Here's

00:00:25.460 what we are about. We are called the MFCEO Project because this is a project. This is not something

00:00:33.000 where I make money. This is not something where we're asking you to buy shit. This is a movement.

00:00:39.520 This is a project to help bring back the values this country was founded upon. Are we an

00:00:48.420 entrepreneurship podcast? Yes. Are we a mindset podcast? Yes. But what we really are is we are

00:00:55.860 out to help bring back the core values that this country was built upon. Hard work,

00:01:03.460 doing the right thing, taking responsibility for yourself, being accountable, setting the right

00:01:09.780 example, being a proper leader, contributing to society. All the good shit this country was built

00:01:16.580 upon that has been watered down by people who want everybody to win. And as we know, not everybody

00:01:23.820 fucking wins. It's reality. Okay. We're, we're out to bring that back. We're, we are tired of the

00:01:32.580 liberal mindset of everybody wins and everybody's special and everybody's this and everybody deserves

00:01:40.640 this bullshit motherfucker. You don't deserve a goddamn thing unless you work for it. And that's

00:01:48.220 what we're about guys. We don't ask for money. We don't ask for anything. What we do ask for though,

00:01:52.700 every podcast is that you share with a friend. If you find value in what we're about to give out.

00:02:00.960 And I know for a fact today, you're going to find extreme practical value in what we're going to talk

00:02:06.660 about. Okay. I'm here with my cohost Vaughn, AKA Vaughn, the impaler, the pastor of disaster.

00:02:15.140 What's up, my man? I got a question for you. What happens when you're normally on

00:02:19.800 an incredible level of excellence and then you take it that much higher?

00:02:25.280 You win that much more. No, I mean, what do you call that? Do you have a pithy saying for that?

00:02:29.180 No, man, it's evolution. I had this conversation with PJ when he was here off the podcast.

00:02:37.640 PJ from Secret Entourage, author of Third Circle Theory. Everybody loved that podcast by all

00:02:44.320 accounts. It was very popular. We were talking about the evolution of growth. And a lot of people

00:02:55.180 have the idea that being successful, you know, there's, it's like a destination, right? You get

00:03:00.840 to a point where you're earning a certain amount, your life set a certain way. And you get there and

00:03:05.800 you get to kick your feet up on the beach, drink a fucking Corona, smoke a fucking dube and life is

00:03:11.060 good. Right. And that's never the way it is. The real guys that win, who win longterm. Now there's a

00:03:18.580 lot of people who win short term that do that shit, but the real people, they get to a point where

00:03:23.740 they're doing well. And then they use that to, to leverage for more for their people that care

00:03:28.780 about them, the people support about them, the product they're offering, the solution they're

00:03:32.620 offering to grow all of that and scale it. You know what I mean? It's always a constant push because

00:03:38.460 in life and business and sports, it doesn't matter, whatever it is, it is a competition.

00:03:44.400 And if you slow down and if you stop because you think you've quote unquote made it,

00:03:49.460 you're going to get passed up by the guy who's been following you and who's continuing to push.

00:03:54.960 You know what I mean? There's no finish line. That's why I like, there's that saying, you know,

00:03:59.000 it's, it's not a destination to journey. There's a lot of truth to that. It is a journey and the

00:04:03.780 journey. And that's something that comes with age. I mean, when I was 30 years old, you know,

00:04:09.920 I'm 37 now when I was 30, I didn't believe that. I believe there was a destination. I was going to

00:04:14.980 get to X amount of dollars. I was going to fucking do this and live my life doing this.

00:04:19.560 But here's what happens when you evolve into somebody who is a true winner.

00:04:26.000 You learn to love the game. You learn to love the competition. You learn to love the evolution.

00:04:33.580 And when you get to that point, now it's not about what money's in your bank. It's not about,

00:04:39.320 you know, the notoriety or a magazine article or being, getting an award. It's about continually

00:04:45.840 getting better. And when you learn to love that, that's what removes all limits to your success

00:04:52.020 and growth. See what I'm saying? Absolutely. I mean, I know for a fact, you believe that the

00:04:56.380 reason I even asked you that question is that I feel like, you know, I've known you for three years

00:05:00.780 from that time. There's always been a level of excellence, but I feel like I've noticed in the

00:05:05.340 last, well, particularly in the last month, I feel like your Thursday thunders, I just feel like

00:05:10.800 you're hitting a stride. You're in a zone that is really amazing to me. Thank you, man. But here's

00:05:17.100 the thing. When I, when we started this podcast, I didn't fucking know what we were doing. You

00:05:22.600 didn't know what we were doing. Right. This, this podcast evolved from us doing interviews for books

00:05:28.500 that we're working on. Right. Okay. And then we're like, oh, you know what? Everybody started,

00:05:32.080 we started posting videos and people were like, where's your podcast? And we're like, oh fuck,

00:05:35.040 I guess we should start one. Right. You know? And we've had tremendous success with it. I mean,

00:05:39.320 tremendous success. Right. But we, this is a good lesson for everybody. I didn't fucking have

00:05:44.140 somebody come to me and say, Hey, this is how you do a podcast. We fucking figured it out. Right. We,

00:05:49.220 we, we got it on the Google machine and we typed in some shit and then we did what it said. You know

00:05:53.880 what I mean? Yeah. And if you go back and listen to the beginning podcast, the content's still good,

00:05:58.960 but the delivery is not as good. The fucking, uh, it's, it's rough around the edges. It's not nearly

00:06:05.560 as, as cool and as fun and as polished as what we're doing now. It's a queer, you guys can literally

00:06:12.240 go back and we're one of the top podcasts in the fucking world right now. You can literally go back.

00:06:17.940 And by the way, thank you guys for doing that. It's not us. That's you guys. Um,

00:06:21.840 you can literally go back and watch the evolution, go back and listen to the first five podcasts and

00:06:28.200 then come listen to the last five. For me, it's painful, dude. I mean, I'm embarrassed.

00:06:32.620 Not because of you. I mean, I'm, I mean, you know, you know what I'm like, do it. No, no, no,

00:06:36.520 no. I agree with you. You know what I've thought about like re-recording all those and putting them

00:06:42.240 on the new end, but here's why I don't do that. So that people can see the evolution. Right.

00:06:47.060 Because dude, it's been less than two years and we've gone from not knowing what the fuck we're

00:06:51.400 doing to being what's considered statistically the pinnacle of what we're doing. Right.

00:06:58.220 You know what I mean? Right. And how do we do that? We did it by fucking doing it.

00:07:01.640 We didn't have a coach. We didn't have a fucking game plan. We didn't have somebody come in here

00:07:06.280 and consult us. You know what we did? We practiced. We did it over and over again. How many, Tyler,

00:07:11.900 how many podcasts have I thrown out that I didn't like that? I said, I, we recorded and I'll say,

00:07:17.200 Hey, uh, what do you think of that? And you'll be like, I thought it was good. And I'll call you an

00:07:21.120 hour later and be like, no, dude, throw that out. We're doing it over almost every week. Yeah.

00:07:25.260 Because dude, I will not fucking accept anything less than that. Yeah. You know what I mean? And

00:07:30.200 that's, that's like self-awareness. That's self-accountability, you know, and I don't care

00:07:35.620 if you're cooking fucking hamburgers right now at McDonald's, you know, if you're doing your best

00:07:40.360 and if you're putting out half-ass hamburgers, you're creating half-ass habits for yourself. Now,

00:07:47.100 six months from now, six years from now, 60 years from now. And I refuse to do that. So I'm not going

00:07:54.100 to let myself, I learned a long time ago, I'm not going to let myself start to create half-ass habits

00:07:59.080 for myself. So if I put something out and in my gut, I said, I know I can do better. You know what

00:08:03.660 I do? I fucking do it better. And that's it. Yeah. You know, and you guys listening right now,

00:08:09.380 you have to develop the habit of being accountable to yourself. I just gave a talk on this to my whole

00:08:14.100 company last night. You know, it's good to have somebody who coaches you and points out what

00:08:20.060 you're doing wrong. That's great. Like when you have a great manager, a great leader, who's helping

00:08:24.040 you learn, you need to be receptive to learning. It's too many people take criticism and they run

00:08:29.420 and they cry or they bitch say, Oh, my manager's a dick. Look, motherfucker, that guy's trying to help

00:08:34.040 you. That guy's here for you. That guy, if that guy didn't believe that you could do it,

00:08:38.880 he wouldn't fucking say anything. You know, like if I think about when somebody gets upset

00:08:44.540 with you in a leadership standpoint and your leader, your manager, your boss gets upset with

00:08:48.980 you. The typical thinking is, Oh, that guy's upset with me because he's greedy and he wants

00:08:53.840 to make more money. No fucker. He's upset with you because he knows you could do better.

00:08:59.700 If I looked at my dog Otis and I said, Hey Otis, I want you to cook me a fucking five-star dinner,

00:09:06.020 go to the kitchen and cook that motherfucker. And then when he did it, I got super pissed.

00:09:12.680 That would be totally illogical. Right? Right. But what if I knew that he had a special skill

00:09:19.220 that he could do this and he could go to the kitchen and make this dinner and blah, blah, blah.

00:09:24.540 Then I would have a reason to be upset if he didn't do it. You see what I mean? It's people

00:09:29.040 don't get upset with you if they don't believe in you. Absolutely. 100%. I think in fact, you can tell

00:09:35.340 if you care about somebody, if they piss you off and you're like, well, I'm just going to let it

00:09:38.380 slide. That to me says you don't really care about. Yeah, exactly. Or you don't expect more

00:09:42.460 or you don't expect they can do anything. I know the people in my company are capable of a lot.

00:09:47.680 You know what I mean? But, but so many people I see, like I get emails all the time from people

00:09:52.560 who are saying shit like, Oh, my boss is a dick. Well, is your boss a dick or are you a fucking bitch?

00:09:56.940 Right. You know what I mean? Because I don't know that many people who are successful leaders

00:10:01.220 of bosses that truly don't care about people. You know, you have a lot of people in society

00:10:07.160 that will look at successful people who are, who have made a good living or who have become

00:10:11.140 successful business. And they'll say, yeah, they got there by stepping on everybody and

00:10:14.680 they're selfish and they're greedy and they fuck people over. Well, no, actually they don't

00:10:21.040 because it's impossible to get ahead without bringing other people with you. And the reason

00:10:25.900 that those people say those things is because that's what they think it is to get ahead.

00:10:32.100 They will cut people off. They will cut people's legs out. They will do the dirty shit to get

00:10:37.140 ahead, which is why they aren't ahead, which is why they're fucking looking from the bottom

00:10:40.700 up and not the top down. Right. You follow what I'm saying? Absolutely. I remember like two

00:10:44.520 years ago you were, you were quite angry with somebody. It was another part of the, uh, the office

00:10:50.000 here. And I said to Tyler, I said, man, I, I'm not looking forward to the day that, that that's

00:10:54.900 going to happen to me. And in fact, I said, you know, I hope it never does. And Tyler's

00:10:58.260 response was it will. Yeah. But it's not necessarily a bad thing. No, it's a good thing.

00:11:03.020 As long as you can learn to get better from it. Right. Like, you know, so many people in

00:11:07.940 a leadership standpoint think that you're supposed to be nice to people and you're like, that's

00:11:15.480 the liberal fucking logic these days. And you know what? I've shied away from using the

00:11:19.960 term liberal, but I don't give a fuck. I'm just going to start saying it. You know what I

00:11:23.140 mean? It's the liberal and still fucking bullshit mentality. Be nice to everybody. Everybody

00:11:28.740 deserves a trophy. Everybody deserves to be special. Everybody, everybody's a delicate

00:11:34.480 little flower with a rainbow over their head. No, they fucking aren't. And you know what?

00:11:39.200 By not telling someone the exact truth about what they have or haven't done, you're holding

00:11:45.980 them back in life. You know what I mean? If you're a leader, if you're in a management role,

00:11:49.900 a lot of managers are so scared to like say something to somebody because they're afraid

00:11:54.460 it's going to quote unquote hurt their fucking, fuck your feelings. You know what I mean?

00:11:58.580 This is life or death. This is survival. This is ability to earn income over the course of

00:12:02.780 your life. Take care of your family. You're going to let your fucking pussy ass feelings get

00:12:06.780 in the way of that. I'm sorry. If you do that, you don't deserve to succeed. You know, if you

00:12:12.040 don't, if you're a manager and you're not telling people the exact truth, you don't have to

00:12:15.060 be mean about it. You just tell them the truth. Like, Hey bro, you suck at this. You

00:12:20.520 need to do this, this, and this to get better. And you know what? You're also good at these

00:12:24.460 three things. Keep being good over here. Yeah. You know what I mean? But so many people won't

00:12:28.340 do that. Instead, they try to like, it's like negotiating with a terrorist. They try to like

00:12:33.680 pump them up with positivity in hopes that they'll soon improve all these little areas

00:12:38.680 over there. Well, if they, if you pump them up with positivity and you think that he's going

00:12:42.360 to improve this area over here, the motherfucker thinks he's doing a good job. Right. You see?

00:12:47.280 Absolutely. I think one of the biggest issues is that I think most people don't understand

00:12:50.960 as you clearly do that personal improvement, self development, this is a life or death issue.

00:12:57.220 Like this is a very serious issue. Like they would never think of going to a doctor, you

00:13:01.540 know, if they, if they suspected they were, they were sick or they had something really wrong

00:13:05.080 with them. If they went to a doctor that knew exactly what was wrong with them, they had

00:13:09.060 cancer, but they were like, no, you're doing fine. You're okay. Exactly.

00:13:12.060 They'd be like, what? But when it comes to this self development stuff, the things that

00:13:15.880 we need to do to get better, people intuitively, they're like, no, I don't want people to tell

00:13:20.160 me the truth. I want them to just make me feel good about myself. And you're completely

00:13:23.500 failing somebody when you fail to do that.

00:13:25.540 I don't know that. I think that is, is they, they want to believe that that is the truth.

00:13:30.740 You know what I mean? They want to believe that they are doing a good job. They, the mentality

00:13:35.960 in America now has gone from 40, 50 years ago. Like, Hey, do the best fucking job

00:13:41.800 you can take pride in it to, Hey, skate under the radar and, and make it look like you're

00:13:47.460 doing the best job you can and get by. And like, dude, that's, that's a fucking terrible

00:13:52.320 mentality. You know what I mean? Uh, you know, and that's what we're trying to correct here

00:13:57.160 with what we're doing. You know, um, today, you know, I'm going to give you guys some practical

00:14:04.800 information today about certain things that, that may or may not have to do what we talked

00:14:10.700 to in the intro. We're kind of just bullshitting right now, but what I want to talk about guys

00:14:17.500 is the opportunity that you have when you are in business, whether you work for a business,

00:14:23.760 whether you, uh, are a manager in a business, whether you're a CEO of a business, the opportunity

00:14:28.980 that you have with disgruntled customers. Okay. So many people these days look at disgruntled

00:14:37.120 customers as an annoyance, as a pebble in your shoe, as something that, uh, you know, won't

00:14:43.680 make or break you blah, blah, blah. You're completely fucking wrong. Just a reality that they're going

00:14:48.300 to accept. Yes, exactly. They're just thinking, Oh, you know, Hey, you can't win it all. Right.

00:14:53.120 You know, um, and that might be true, but to go into your business and not try to win

00:14:58.960 it all, you're, you're, you're, you're doing something that you're selling yourself short.

00:15:05.160 You're selling your people short. Uh, to me, you're doing something unethical because you

00:15:09.040 have a responsibility to take care of the people in your business as much as possible. So

00:15:13.620 too many people look at disgruntled customers like it's their fault. And most of the time it's

00:15:21.160 not their fault, it's your fault. And we're going to talk about some of these things today. Um,

00:15:26.400 I think the biggest thing that you need to take away from this podcast, and I'm going to say it

00:15:33.060 right now is that when people are pissed off, there is huge potential in that. And you have to be able

00:15:39.820 to recognize it. If you're just the guy who writes it off or the guy who brushes it off or the guy who

00:15:44.560 says, Oh, you know, that guy's a dick. You are taking an opportunity and just shitting on it.

00:15:50.020 All right. I don't mean that you, you know, should be intentionally screwing things up.

00:15:54.720 But what I do mean is that if you do screw things up, it's not the end of the world and very, very,

00:16:00.200 very good things can come of it. Okay. People who are loud are loud regardless. So if they're loud

00:16:06.020 about a negative situation, they're going to be loud, even more loud. If you could stop whatever

00:16:12.040 negative is happening and turn it into a positive, those people become your biggest fucking advocates

00:16:17.340 because you're creating a story. All right. And what's the story? The story is this, you know

00:16:22.380 what? I didn't like those guys. They did this, this, and this, but you know what? They made up for it

00:16:26.820 tenfold and now I fucking love them. There's huge opportunity in that. Um, so just to set the stage

00:16:34.340 a little bit, are we going to be talking a little bit like about mindset, like how to completely

00:16:38.860 approach a situation? Well, I think the first thing you do is have to fucking adjust your mindset,

00:16:44.080 right? You have to stop looking at people who are angry with your business, people who are upset with

00:16:49.920 your business, people who are upset with your service or your product as a negative and start

00:16:54.060 looking at it as, Hey, maybe this guy has a point. What can I learn from this? How can I make this person

00:17:00.240 into an advocate? How can I make my product better? All right. That's what winners do. That's what

00:17:04.800 winning companies do. All right. And you might be the guy cooking burgers right now, but if you're

00:17:09.580 the guy cooking burgers right now and this dude's complaining about the burgers, maybe you should

00:17:13.860 think about why he's complaining about the burgers to adjust the level of quality that you're putting

00:17:18.880 out. So this can apply to all levels. You've just got to, you know, be able to step into that

00:17:24.120 perspective. Okay. All right. So the average person or the average manager or the average single person

00:17:28.360 who has a fucking job, this is relevant to. Gotcha. So, so as you said, the typical, we'll say average

00:17:34.460 business person looks at a disgruntled customer. And the first thing they see is this is just a

00:17:38.740 pain in the ass that I have to deal with. Yes. So what's the other way to see this? You said

00:17:43.700 generally, the other way to see this is this is an opportunity. This man has a valid point.

00:17:47.900 This man has a network of people that could possibly send his people into our business.

00:17:52.820 This man or woman has a feedback that could help improve my product. Okay. That's what you have to

00:17:59.320 start looking at it as not as, uh, Oh, this guy's just being a jerk. That's, that's what average

00:18:05.100 people fucking think. Right. Smart people fucking think, what can I learn here? Okay. So, so, so take

00:18:11.640 the, take the disgruntled, pissed off customer and just dissect them for me. Well, the first thing you

00:18:16.960 have to realize is that customers who are pissed off, they're invested in your business. That means

00:18:22.400 they care. All right. They're not just pissed off because they're pissed off. They fucking care.

00:18:27.920 All right. And people that care are super valuable to your business because they're either going to

00:18:34.180 care enough to hate your business or they're going to care enough to love your business. But either way

00:18:39.200 they care. Okay. And if you're talking to someone who has taken the time out of their day to complain

00:18:46.280 to you, you have to understand that that person is also going to be the same person who is going to

00:18:52.040 take time out of their day to tell their friends and family and social networks, how great you are

00:18:57.880 when you correct the problem. That makes total sense. So, I mean, it's kind of counterintuitive,

00:19:02.800 but in some ways you don't really want the nice customer who, who was disappointed by your product.

00:19:09.340 And so they're just like, well, that's okay. So I'm just going to go, go along my way. Yes. Yeah.

00:19:14.200 You, these people are extremely valuable. They're opinion leaders in society. Generally the people who

00:19:19.680 bitch. Now, are there people that bitch just because they bitch? Absolutely. But most people

00:19:26.080 that bitch to you, they're not bitching. They're actually caring enough to tell you what you could

00:19:31.680 do better so that you could improve. Right. It's kind of a compliment because they have really,

00:19:35.560 I mean, they have really high standards for you. Yes. And so the way you need to approach them is

00:19:39.820 not to like protest what's going on or try to fight with them. You know what it is? It's to say,

00:19:45.320 you know what, sir, you are a hundred percent right. And I am so sorry this happened to you.

00:19:51.260 I want to do better. How can I make this better? And what can I do better? Let them vent,

00:19:56.040 let them come at you. Let them, let them tell you everything that they want to tell you. Okay.

00:20:01.680 And agree with them because they're probably right. Not agree with them because you're trying to like

00:20:06.840 appease them. Right. You know what I mean? But if you take a genuine interest in listening to that

00:20:12.080 person and being present, when you listen, that not only is helpful to you, right? But it also

00:20:18.940 shows the person that you care, which is going to tone down their level of frustration with you

00:20:23.300 because you're giving them the opportunity to have their input in the solution to the problem.

00:20:30.300 People want to be heard. They want their voice heard. They want you to care back.

00:20:34.500 Yeah. I, it makes total sense. It just, it seems like the average person just is going to have to

00:20:40.880 work actively work to say, I'm going to impute good motives to these people. They seem angry,

00:20:45.720 but they're angry for the right reasons. Exactly. Exactly. Um, the other thing you have to realize

00:20:51.060 is that customers who get pissed, they usually have extremely high standards, which means your

00:20:58.940 standards, even if they are high on the backend, aren't meeting those standards in the front end. Okay.

00:21:03.940 Hey, you know, have you ever been tempted to say, Oh man, this customer is being unreasonable?

00:21:09.120 Well, they should expect excellence from you. Don't you think they should be unreasonable with

00:21:14.600 you? Don't you think, is it your job to do the best possible fucking job that you can so that you

00:21:20.040 can earn the great word of mouth? You could earn the income. You could create the jobs. You have to

00:21:25.360 understand that these people are basically a thermometer for you to measure if your standards really are

00:21:32.300 meeting up to the standards that you might set on the backend. So it's a great way to have a real

00:21:37.520 measuring stick against what's being executed versus what's being talked about on the backside.

00:21:42.880 Yeah. It makes total sense. That, that old saying, uh, you know, rising tide floats all boats.

00:21:47.800 That's what I thought of when you were talking, I was thinking like, I mean, obviously you don't want

00:21:51.980 a ton of pissed off customers, but in theory, based on what you're saying, if a lot of your customers are

00:21:57.580 raising questions about things and pointing out things that need to be changed, their level of

00:22:03.160 excellence is only going to help yours. It's going to make you work that much harder.

00:22:06.700 If you have the right mindset, which is what we talked about the first time, you know,

00:22:10.020 if you're not the guy who's going to stand there and be like, Oh, this guy's a jerk or this guy's an

00:22:13.780 idiot or this guy's that. And if you own a business that has employees, you have to work to coach them

00:22:18.860 to not have this mindset. Okay. If you're a leader right now, you're hearing this, right? And you're like,

00:22:23.800 yeah, but how do I get my guys to do this? You have to put in the time educating them so that

00:22:28.800 they flip the switch on this mindset because the more customers in the door, the more money for

00:22:33.220 them, the more opportunity for them, the more growth for them as well. And sometimes you have

00:22:36.880 to tie that together for people. They're not always going to see that. So your job as a, as a manager

00:22:42.640 or as a leader, as a CEO is to tie together what this means to them. Okay. And if you can do that

00:22:49.620 effectively, you're, what you're going to see is these people on the front lines will grasp that

00:22:53.660 concept and they will run with it and your, your service levels will go up. You know what

00:22:58.760 I mean? Um, but you can't look at these people who have gripes and have issues and have frustrations

00:23:06.460 and on the backside of the, you know, you're, you're, let's say you're on a restaurant and

00:23:10.900 the waiter comes in the back and talks to you. You're, you're the manager says, yeah, this

00:23:15.100 guy's just being a dick, blah, blah, blah. And you say something like, well, you know, don't

00:23:18.680 worry about it. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Dude, you're, you're enabling that

00:23:21.840 person to have the attitude of that. What you need to do is be like, well, why is he

00:23:26.400 upset? Oh, well, his fries weren't blah, blah, blah. Well, shouldn't his fries be fucking

00:23:31.560 perfect? He's paying great money to have that. Let's make it perfect for him. You know what

00:23:36.680 I mean? Yeah. You have, you can't like so many managers fuck up because they, they enable

00:23:41.100 that bitching. They, they let the gripes, they get in the gripe game with them. You know what

00:23:46.540 I mean? Uh, there's a good line in saving private Ryan, uh, which was one of my favorite

00:23:50.640 movies where they're talking and he's like, uh, he's talking about gripes and he, and

00:23:56.480 Tom Hanks said something to the effect. I can't remember the exact quote, but he said, you

00:24:00.160 know, gripes go up, not down. You know, it's not that I don't have anything to complain about.

00:24:04.020 It's just, I'm not going to complain about it to you. You know what I mean? So when you're

00:24:07.720 a manager or a CEO, you don't get in that, that game of, of that, you know, of, of bullshitting

00:24:16.180 or talking shit or, you know, enabling people's negative attitudes towards customers, you

00:24:22.200 know, your job is to make that improve. So when people bitch to you, it's your job to

00:24:26.100 stop them and say, well, Hey, look, this guy's got a good point. You're being short sighted.

00:24:30.660 We need to fix it so that this guy will go out and do this. And if you do that enough

00:24:34.500 times, people will get it. You know what I mean? And that goes back to like what I said

00:24:38.280 about, you know, a lot of people won't have that conversation because they feel it's a little

00:24:41.420 bit uncomfortable. Well, I'm sorry, but if you don't have the balls to have that conversation,

00:24:45.660 I don't know. I don't know what to tell you.

00:24:49.680 Do you think the reason it's hard for so many people to think with the mindset that you're

00:24:54.000 suggesting is because, especially nowadays, because we're so worried about getting our

00:24:58.840 feelings hurt and that's a, that kind of thing that people don't listen to what is being said.

00:25:04.300 They're just all bent out of shape about how it's being said.

00:25:07.880 Well, that's the popular thing now, man. Everybody, you know, that's,

00:25:11.420 that's the thing. The last five, four or five years, it's become this fucking

00:25:15.200 pussified emotional, you know, oh, I don't like the way you toned that. You know what?

00:25:22.460 I don't give a fuck if you don't like the tone. You know what I mean? Right. Like what,

00:25:27.760 what makes you think I give a shit if you don't like my tone of voice? I don't care. Right.

00:25:32.440 You know, and there's not enough of that. You know, there's too many guys being like,

00:25:35.980 oh, well, I'm sorry for, for the way I said that to you. Uh, you know, you know what I mean?

00:25:41.420 Yeah. Like here, let me fluff you with a, uh, a, a, a pillow and, and, and, uh, I'll feed you

00:25:47.800 grapes. Right. You know, like royalty, like dude, fuck you. Right. You don't like my fucking tone of

00:25:52.100 voice. Do your fucking job right. Right. And I mean, you know, leadership has become pussified

00:25:55.900 because they've given in to this, like added this liberalist attitude of everybody's feelings matter

00:26:04.380 and this and that. You know what, what's more important? Somebody's feelings or their ability

00:26:08.080 to feed their fucking family. You know what I mean? And we've lost sight of that. And people

00:26:14.340 who are in leadership positions now are so worried about catering to someone's fucking pussy ass

00:26:19.820 feelings than they are to actually teaching them valuable skills that could be used to create

00:26:25.560 income for the rest of their life or move forward in life or progress and excel in life that they don't

00:26:32.340 ever teach those skills anymore. Instead they're, they're having conversations like, oh, well,

00:26:37.020 I'm sorry you feel this way and I'm sorry you don't like the way I said this. Does that shit

00:26:41.700 really fucking matter? You know what I mean? It doesn't fucking matter. What matters is, is that

00:26:47.040 you can go out and execute so that you can earn so that you could pay so that you can live.

00:26:52.480 It makes total sense. I hear you saying when somebody comes, they could be breathing fire.

00:26:57.560 They could be just like shaking their fist, but your job to be an excellent manager or an

00:27:03.240 excellent customer service agent is not to ask, did they offend me? But to ask is what

00:27:09.940 they're saying true? Yeah. And what can I learn from what they're saying? Right. So, you know,

00:27:16.480 that's a, that's a, that's a mindset you have to instill in your whole organization because

00:27:21.240 the natural mindset these days is not that the natural mindset is to look at the customer

00:27:25.960 and be like, that guy's a fucking idiot. Right. You know, I get so many people message me

00:27:30.000 saying the same Andy is the customer always really right. Uh, well, do you want to be broke

00:27:37.380 or do you want to fucking have some money? Right. Now I always ask him that in return because yeah,

00:27:43.500 the customer is always right because you're not talking to just that customer. You're not dealing

00:27:49.300 with just that customer. You don't know who that customer knows, who that customer talks to,

00:27:55.560 what that customer's influence is. You have no fucking clue. You could be taught talking to

00:28:00.880 somebody in a Hulk Hogan, fucking Hulkamania t-shirt and think like, Oh, this dude lives in

00:28:05.520 the trailer out in the sticks and he could run a fucking chat forum full of 10,000 other fucking

00:28:10.960 Hulkamaniacs that are all going to think poorly of your business. Now you have no clue who's two

00:28:16.120 people are. So you have to treat everybody like they're fucking super influential because the reality

00:28:20.980 is they are. Yeah. And if you treat everybody like they're the most influential person that you could

00:28:26.320 ever imagine. And that if this person goes out and isn't singing your praises that you're going to

00:28:31.460 fucking get buried, you will, you will instill a culture of great service. You know what I mean?

00:28:36.400 But you treat everybody like that. Not just the people you think are like that. Right. So I want to

00:28:43.240 be captain obvious. You know, we always talk about how we, you know, people ask us, is this a success

00:28:47.840 podcast? Is it a business podcast? Which one is it? And here's a case where, I mean, again,

00:28:53.260 captain obvious, but here's a case where we're, we're touching on an issue that is relevant to

00:28:57.140 business, but it's also relevant to all of life. It's not an issue of in many cases in life. It's

00:29:02.300 not an issue of how you feel or, or your self-esteem. It's an issue of execution. It's an issue of

00:29:08.940 producing results. Always. Yeah. Always leave your feelings at fucking home, man. Right. You know, uh,

00:29:15.920 I find it interesting how many younger people who are in business.

00:29:25.800 I just feel like the whole emotional intelligence, the whole, uh, you know, be in tune with everybody's

00:29:33.120 inner Zen fucking movement is so far gone the other way that it should be. Right. I mean, like, dude,

00:29:38.660 should you be a nice person? Should you treat people with respect? Should you be in tune with

00:29:43.520 people's morale? Yes. But to make it to a point where like people are complaining at work about

00:29:49.560 the tone of voice that their manager has when their manager's correcting them on doing something,

00:29:53.940 dude, fuck you. Right. Go fucking work at McDonald's forever. You know what I mean?

00:29:59.040 Absolutely. It's, it's a lost, it's just lost. And you know, this, you look across the spectrum,

00:30:04.940 no matter what the area of life is, it could be sports, it could be, it could be, you know,

00:30:09.040 business, it could be politics. I mean, dude, think of a fucking football player coming off

00:30:13.900 the field and the coach being like yelling at him and then coming back three minutes. You know what?

00:30:19.240 I'm really sorry. I yelled at you. Uh, you know, I, I know that probably hurts your feelings a little

00:30:24.160 bit, but I'm sorry. Right. You know, it's comical, right? But that's what people like have come to

00:30:29.160 expect in the workplace. They, Oh, well I deserve this respect. You know what? You don't deserve the

00:30:33.900 respect. If you're not doing the fucking job, right? Right. This whole feeling of, I deserve,

00:30:40.420 I deserve entitlement. It's yeah. But like the mint, like if you're somebody who uses the word

00:30:46.740 I deserve for anything, you're somebody who's going to have a really hard time in life.

00:30:53.280 You don't deserve a goddamn thing. Right. That's the reality. Okay. Get that through your fucking

00:30:59.960 brain first. You deserve nothing. You deserve, you deserve no respect. You deserve no fucking,

00:31:07.480 uh, you know, living. You don't deserve income. You don't deserve fucking anything. You earn that

00:31:14.020 shit. You know, and people are like, Oh, well I don't deserve respect. Not if you're not fucking

00:31:18.960 earning it. That's the way the world works. I'm sorry. It's harsh. It's reality. Too many fucking

00:31:26.220 people out there think that they've like, it goes back to what we talk about. Oh, I, I deserve to

00:31:32.280 feel good about myself. Not if you're fucking smoking crack every day and sitting on the fucking

00:31:36.480 couch eating bonbons and watching fucking reruns of fucking Jerry Springer. No, you don't deserve

00:31:41.860 to feel good. You only deserve to feel good if you're fucking earning the feel good by doing the

00:31:47.300 fucking work. Right. And across the board, like I was saying, nobody who's successful thinks

00:31:52.440 otherwise. If you look at the people who are successful, they always take responsibility.

00:31:56.700 They're not focused on, Oh, this guy offended me or my feelings are hurt. They're focused on truth.

00:32:02.100 That's right. And that's a hundred percent, man. Um, so let me, uh, let me restate just for people

00:32:08.260 who are following here. Uh, customers who get pissed off are customers who are invested in what you

00:32:13.560 offer. Uh, you said customers who get pissed off are customers who usually have high standards.

00:32:20.440 So what's the next point? Well, I think the next point is that you have to realize,

00:32:27.320 and I'm touched on this a minute ago, but the really pissed off customers, the ones who are the

00:32:31.980 most vocal, the ones who go on fucking the internet and leave you a one star review. Those are the same

00:32:37.940 ones who will go back and create a five star review and a correction and be a huge, powerful advocate

00:32:45.320 of your brand. If you take the time to correct the issue. And when I say correct the issue,

00:32:51.560 I mean doing whatever it fucking takes. And a lot of people aren't willing to do that because that

00:32:56.380 shit costs money. All right. Maybe you have to send an employee out to do something for this person

00:33:01.500 or send them a something, a gift card or gift basket or something to try to correct the problem.

00:33:07.940 But that's an investment that will return on you a hundred fold. Okay. And people don't think of

00:33:15.620 it. They look at today's cost, not tomorrow's return and the lifetime value of that customer.

00:33:21.760 The lifetime value of a customer in my business is over a hundred thousand dollars. Okay. I teach all

00:33:28.720 my people to visualize when they talk to somebody to have a bubble over their head. This is a hundred

00:33:34.920 thousand dollars. Okay. If you could visualize somebody having a hundred thousand dollar bubble

00:33:39.880 over their head and they're bitching at you and crying at you and yelling at you and being rude to

00:33:45.780 you because you did something to upset them. It's a lot easier to keep your cool. It's a lot easier to

00:33:52.280 work, to resolve that problem. When you can remember what that person's worth is over the long haul.

00:33:57.620 And if you take that person's worth over the long haul and you multiply at times the 20 fucking

00:34:03.880 friends they have that they have influence over. Now you're talking about 20 more people with hundred

00:34:08.720 thousand dollar bubbles. You've got to think about the long game, man. It's not about today. It's not

00:34:13.580 about the 50 bucks you're going to spend on a gift card or the a hundred bucks you're going to spend on

00:34:18.460 a gift pack to send to this person to resolve that issue. It's not about the meeting you're going to

00:34:23.640 take with this person because you want to correct the issue. A lot of times people just want to be

00:34:28.040 heard. You know what I mean? The point is, is that whatever it costs you to do this, you have to

00:34:35.300 understand that it's an investment. It's not a cost. Okay. These people are hugely invested. They have

00:34:41.380 incredibly high standards. They're extremely critical and they're fucking pissed off at you.

00:34:46.680 But what you do to turn all that passion in the right direction in support of your company is well

00:34:52.900 worth any amount of money that you could possibly spend to do so. So you have to understand the

00:34:59.500 loudest people are the loudest people, whether it's fucking negative or positive. Okay. And for

00:35:05.020 every motherfucker that leaves you a negative review or yells at you or gets mad at your company,

00:35:09.240 there's 50 others that are just as mad that haven't said anything. So you need to treat this person

00:35:14.760 and be thankful for this person that they brought these things to your attention so that you could

00:35:20.300 correct them. If you have that mentality, you are going to become the fucking king

00:35:25.800 dingaling of customer service. You know what I'm saying? It's not going to happen. You're going to

00:35:30.920 be the John Holmes of customer service, you know? And like, dude, that's what, that's what your goal

00:35:37.060 should be because customers is the name of the game. I don't care what fucking business you're in.

00:35:41.800 You could be in, uh, you know, tire business. You could be in fried chicken business. You could be

00:35:47.740 in fucking supplement business. You could be in fucking, uh, the bank business. It doesn't matter.

00:35:52.460 You're not selling what you're selling. You're not selling your product. You're selling a solution.

00:35:58.320 And ultimately what you're really in is the customer acquisition business. You see what I mean?

00:36:04.440 You're not in the business of selling this or that you're in the business of acquiring and creating

00:36:10.260 value and networks of people to help your business grow. Okay. So let me throw this out there. Cause

00:36:17.320 I think this is awesome. So you, you teach your guys to see the lifetime value of a customer,

00:36:22.040 which to me is another way of putting that is you're teaching them vision. You want to, you want

00:36:26.800 to cast a vision for what a customer's worth, but there's another aspect of this that, and I love how

00:36:31.420 this ties into a lot of things you talk about on the podcast. There's another aspect of this is that

00:36:35.500 the people who just kind of let customers go, you know, well, win some, lose some. Dude, almost most

00:36:41.320 companies. Yeah. So they don't have something that you preach. Almost most companies. That sounds

00:36:46.240 fucking great. Almost all companies. They don't have something you preach all the time, which is

00:36:53.220 competition, a sense of competition. In other words, I know, knowing you, I know your attitude is not

00:36:58.720 just, I want you to see the customers as a lifetime value, but I know there's a part of you that says,

00:37:03.920 no, we're not going to give up a customer. We're going to, I'm going to look at this as a challenge.

00:37:08.560 I'm going to, there's, there's no lost cause. You know what I'm saying? Like you have to have

00:37:11.780 like a kill, kill, kill mentality. Of course. I'm not good. I'm going to take this as a challenge.

00:37:15.700 Well, dude, that's, that's the, you know, that's. Does that make sense?

00:37:18.620 Yeah. You know, that goes, that's the popular thing now. Oh, I want everybody to win. Fuck. I don't

00:37:23.160 want everybody to win. I want to fucking win. Right. I want my team to win. And I have a moral

00:37:27.200 obligation to fucking win so that my team wins. Right. You know, people are like, Oh Andy, you're

00:37:31.380 fucking overly competitive and you're, you're overly aggressive and you don't let the littler

00:37:35.180 guys have their spot. No motherfucking shit. That's my job. My job is to make sure that we

00:37:41.160 fucking win. Right. Period. And not to lose a single customer. I don't want my grandma buying

00:37:46.220 vitamin D drops at fucking Walgreens. I will yell at her and get pissed at her. And then I will yell at

00:37:51.900 my guys for not capturing her. Motherfucker, you shot with us because we're the fucking best.

00:37:57.640 Right. And we're willing to prove it. But the point is, is that we, a lot of people will

00:38:04.200 paint overly competitive CEO figures as like these crazy motherfuckers that they like, they

00:38:10.320 say what I just said and they're like, look how greedy he is. It's not greed. I used to

00:38:14.200 sleep on a fucking mattress that I had to put my head on strategically place it. So I didn't

00:38:19.140 fucking lay on a piss stain. It was somebody else's piss because the mattress was used. I got a

00:38:23.760 salvation. I don't want to go back to that. I've got fucking over a hundred employees that

00:38:28.620 are all dedicated and loyal to my fucking companies. I've got two, almost 3000 now outside

00:38:35.700 reps that I have responsibility for. We have to fucking win. We have to get everything we

00:38:44.080 can. And if I don't have that attitude of being competitive, I'm failing them. And that's

00:38:49.040 not right. I have a moral obligation to that level of competitiveness. And so do

00:38:53.560 you.

00:38:56.380 I just can't add to that. That's amazing. So let's talk about, let's talk about how to

00:39:02.540 really gain and turn around. Like we talked about why it's important. Let's talk about

00:39:07.720 how we get these people to become advocates. Okay. First things first, you touched on it a

00:39:13.620 second ago. You can't just let them just go. Okay. You've got to engage them. All right.

00:39:18.900 A lot of people, a lot of companies will just like, they'll see a negative comment on their

00:39:23.140 Facebook or, and there's a difference between trolling and a legit comment. Everybody knows

00:39:28.260 the difference. So I'm not going to say that. Right. You know, I'm not even going to get into

00:39:31.500 that, but legitimate comments that have concerns or a post like companies will not engage that

00:39:39.440 post because they don't want to put a spotlight on it. You know what I mean? Somebody says,

00:39:42.960 Hey, I bought this product from this company and I don't like it. You know, I wouldn't recommend

00:39:46.820 it. You know, companies will just let that go. Right. Or somebody writes an email. They

00:39:52.160 just won't respond. All right. You have to engage and you have to get in the game. This

00:39:57.340 is your, sorry, this should be a no fucking brainer, but it's amazing to me how many companies

00:40:02.280 ignore these complaints. You know, people post complaints. Uh, they post on a company's website

00:40:07.580 and, and these guys delete the post or ignore the post. I mean, what the fuck are you

00:40:11.860 trying to do? This is 2016. We're in the digital age. If you aren't engaging your customers and

00:40:17.860 trying to hide from your mistakes, you're fucking idiot. Yeah. When they complain, respond. When

00:40:23.560 they get pissed, listen, and then correct the problem. Okay. People respect that. And this

00:40:29.080 is ultimately about respect. So first rule is you've got to be willing to engage. You've

00:40:33.620 got to be willing to jump in the pool. You've got to be willing to take your licks and then

00:40:37.660 know that there's a great opportunity to make this person advocate. And if you understand

00:40:42.000 what we talked about in the first part of the podcast of understanding that there is

00:40:45.520 a tremendous opportunity here, it's much easier to be enthusiastic about jumping in and engaging

00:40:51.600 these people when they're upset, you know, because a lot of people are afraid of that.

00:40:54.980 Well, under that was the point of the first half of the podcast and make sure that you understand

00:40:59.300 that this is a situation that is going to result in a tremendous amount of good for your

00:41:04.900 company. If you could grasp that concept and understand that concept, it's a lot easier

00:41:09.500 to jump in and engage when these people are upset. You see what I'm saying?

00:41:12.800 Yeah. It's hard to get inside the minds of people who don't engage. But I mean, do you

00:41:16.060 think in a way that when companies just, you know, delete somebody who has a negative comment

00:41:22.140 or just tries to ignore it? I mean, is that essentially, especially in today's day and age

00:41:26.460 with the social media, is that just telegraphing to everyone that you're not confident in your

00:41:31.100 product? I think it says everything you need to know about the company. Yeah. I think it

00:41:34.600 says, A, they don't care about you. B, they don't give a fuck if you buy the product once

00:41:39.220 or 1,000 times. C, they don't care if you fucking solve the problem that you, if we solve the

00:41:44.740 problem that you came to us for. D, they're too, they got so much money, they don't give

00:41:50.600 a fuck. Right. And you know what? Those kinds of people don't deserve your business. Right.

00:41:54.240 You know what I mean? Like we're a pretty decent sized company and we still fucking try to

00:41:58.360 do the best possible job we can engage in customers. And we, I, there, there is literally

00:42:04.240 not a day that goes by that I don't screenshot something and it might not even be something

00:42:08.860 negative. It might be something that's impartial that I screenshot to our customer service guys

00:42:14.500 or that I will jump in and say, Hey dude, shoot me a message. I'll get this fucking handle for

00:42:19.940 you. And you know what? I don't think there's anybody at my income level and my status level

00:42:26.980 at my, at my quote unquote popularity level on this fucking earth that does that. Like

00:42:31.960 I do it. Not anyone, not anyone, not fucking Richard Branson, not fucking Tony Robbins,

00:42:37.860 not fucking Gary V. Gary V is pretty good, but bro, I'm better than you at that. It's just

00:42:42.860 the way it is. Yeah. But he's, you know, I'm engaging. I'm fucking, I'm finding people who

00:42:47.440 are pissed off and I'm working in those people. You know what I mean? Yeah. Something you've

00:42:51.600 told me before, I feel like a couple of months ago. And that's not a knock on Gary V. He's

00:42:55.540 pretty fucking good. He, I would say he's probably second best to me in that, in that aspect.

00:43:01.060 He's a guy who makes a lot of money himself. He's worth a fucking lot of money and he still

00:43:05.320 fucking cares. But like, dude, I'm in the fucking trenches every fucking day, every day.

00:43:11.840 Right. You know, and if you're, you know, if you're a small business owner and you're not

00:43:15.340 in the trenches, like, you know, I don't know how to say this without saying it, but

00:43:23.120 like, I've seen some small business owners lately who I, or quote unquote competitors

00:43:29.500 of mine, I guess. Not really. They're like annoyances, but the point is, is like, I've

00:43:35.000 seen them and on the fucking Friday night, Thursday night, they're at the fucking lake

00:43:38.920 or they're at the fucking beach or they're here or they're there. You know where I am?

00:43:42.520 I'm on the motherfucking internet talking to people about fucking this. That's why we

00:43:46.060 fucking win. You know what I mean? We're willing to fucking do the work.

00:43:50.160 Absolutely. The other thing I've noticed about, uh, when you, when you engage people

00:43:54.380 directly on your, your personal brand, you know, Andy Frisheller, MF CEO, and then, and

00:43:58.120 then beyond first form is I've noticed that when you engage, the other person might be

00:44:02.680 rude. They might be, they might be completely unreasonable. What's interesting to me is that

00:44:06.940 when you or the people who are representatives of first form maintain your dignity, maintain

00:44:11.980 your, your, your, you know, respect level, what happens is all of the other customers

00:44:16.920 that have had really good experiences defend you, defend you. That's right. So there's

00:44:21.480 no need to, here's, here's a point that we don't even have on our list to talk about

00:44:26.220 here, but I want to bring up because you just kind of got to it. Dude, sometimes people

00:44:31.960 just want to be fucking heard, man. You know, like, dude, you'll get these over, we get

00:44:36.180 them all the time. Like these overly aggressive emails like, Oh, fuck you guys. You did this

00:44:40.720 and this and this. And then we reply to them like, Hey man, you know, I'm sorry. You're

00:44:45.860 so, or we'll call them. Hey, I'm sorry. You're so upset. What can we do? The reason

00:44:49.660 they're doing that and becoming so hard is because they don't think they're even going

00:44:53.040 to be fucking heard because most companies don't listen. So when you take someone who

00:44:59.340 is overly rude and you call them up and then usually those people are like, dude, I'm

00:45:04.040 sorry. I was having a bad day. You know, I really didn't think someone was going to

00:45:07.880 contact me and you really could turn the script over and turn this person into a fan

00:45:12.160 of your business. You know what I mean? By doing the right thing. Yeah. It's not that

00:45:15.640 hard. The fact that other companies don't give a fuck about customers is a tremendous

00:45:20.380 opportunity for you to care and create awesome loyalty in your company. You see what I mean?

00:45:25.700 Yeah. That's an incredible, I, there's been many times where I've come to a customer service

00:45:28.740 agent and I thought I had to go in with guns. Super hard. Right. And, and the girl guy was

00:45:33.780 just like, Oh yeah, no problem. Mr. Kohler. We'll take care of it. And then what do you

00:45:36.540 think? I feel like an ass. Okay. So like, dude, I use this example. I use this example

00:45:40.320 in my, in my, it's perceived, it's perception. Okay. It's what you expect versus what you really

00:45:46.220 get. I use this example all the time. All right. You see some dude walk in. I use this

00:45:51.960 example with our store employees. You see this big burly dude walk in with a fucking Mohawk

00:45:56.980 tattoos all over him, tattoos on his face, scowl on his face. Just a rough looking dude.

00:46:02.640 Right. You see him walking in from 50 feet away. You automatically start to create a

00:46:08.440 perception of this person all based off of their appearance. Right. And the liberalist

00:46:13.080 listening, which not many of you are, thank God, or we'll say, Oh, that's not fair to judge

00:46:19.880 somebody. Guess what? We all fucking judge people. So you're developing this perception

00:46:24.340 based on this dude's appearance. You're like, fuck, this dude's going to be mean. He's going

00:46:28.820 to be rough. You know, he's not going to want to, and then he comes in and not only is he

00:46:32.780 the fucking coolest dude ever, but he talks to you for 30 minutes about your cool car.

00:46:38.040 You talk about all the shit you have in common and you find out that this dude is almost just

00:46:42.420 like you just looks different. Now what's your perception? Your perception isn't what it would

00:46:47.220 be had that person look normal. Your perception is that guy's super cool because you expected

00:46:53.140 him to be super not cool. Right. So think of that in terms of customer service. You know what I

00:46:58.480 mean? You are in a position because people are upset to go above and beyond and exceed their

00:47:04.360 expectations. And what that does is they perceive you as first negative. And then all of a sudden

00:47:10.420 you're not just okay. You're the fucking best, you know, and that's what this is about. You know,

00:47:16.260 people just don't take the time to make this investment. And you know what? There's a moral

00:47:20.660 obligation to do this too. You know, this isn't just about getting the business or growing your

00:47:25.420 company. And it is a tremendous way to do that. But look, you have a moral obligation to provide

00:47:30.820 a great product, great service and follow up support. Otherwise you don't deserve a fucking

00:47:34.480 money. You have that obligation to your family, your friends, your fucking employees. So if you're

00:47:40.300 not doing what we're talking about here, you're fucking off period. So when people come in,

00:47:47.500 you have to understand that when you exceed their expectations, you're presenting a situation

00:47:52.700 where you're going to flip it a total 180 degrees on them. All right. Um, something,

00:47:58.340 something you say, I just have to repeat it again, because this is basically sums up what

00:48:02.600 I hear you saying is that it's, it's terrible that the standards in America have gone down

00:48:07.200 at that. And that there, and loseriness is so common. But the upside of that is that if

00:48:12.520 you're not like that, it's a huge opportunity. Yeah, for sure, man. Just like if you're a

00:48:17.100 young person right now, between the ages of 17 and 27, if you can adopt the mindset that

00:48:25.180 we talk about here and do the work, like really fucking do the work and do it in a way, uh,

00:48:31.980 that it should be done, you know, not the quick, easy, fucking fast way. Uh, you guys are going

00:48:38.620 to be the guys who are sitting in my chair when you're fucking 35, 36 years old. You know what

00:48:42.420 I mean? Um, probably earlier because in so many people don't have that mentality. You know,

00:48:48.000 when I was young, you know, the internet wasn't there. There wasn't all these easy money fucking

00:48:53.380 fixes. So everybody's fucking working their dicks off. You know what I mean? Right. We

00:48:56.660 had to compete against some bad-ass dudes. Um, but there's tremendous opportunity in the fact

00:49:01.540 that the work ethic has gone down so low. So let's stay on track here. You have to remember

00:49:07.020 my next point, you have to remember the customer service and sales are two sides of the same coin.

00:49:12.600 Sales is not really about selling things. It's about solving problems. And what this means is

00:49:16.820 that your response to a complaint should not be a defense of the product. Well, gee, sir,

00:49:22.720 I don't understand. Our supplements are made of only the highest quality ingredients. No,

00:49:27.420 obviously the person didn't get the results for some reason or another. Your main goal should be to

00:49:32.740 figure out why he wasn't satisfied. And more than that, why he isn't singing your praises

00:49:37.940 to the fucking world about how great you are. Identify the problem, figure out what needs to be

00:49:43.300 done and fix it no matter what the cost. Okay. You have to do those things. It's not something

00:49:48.540 that is optional. All right. If you own a business, sometimes that's a personal emotional thing for

00:49:55.320 you because somebody is coming to you and they're telling you like, Hey man, I tried your fucking

00:49:59.420 chicken Parmesan. It fucking sucked and you made it. That will piss you off. You know what I mean?

00:50:06.140 Right. But

00:50:07.000 what's worse for you being pissed off and listening to the customer and arguing with them? Or

00:50:16.340 would it be smarter to listen to the customer, improve your skills, make a better fucking chicken

00:50:23.600 Parmesan and win. You see what I'm saying? Sometimes you got to put your fucking ego aside

00:50:28.920 a lot of times, most of the time. Yeah. You know, and listen, um, you know, when you talk to these

00:50:36.460 people, you have to understand too, that nothing replaces sincerity. I asked my team last night,

00:50:44.180 we're talking about, and this goes with sales and, and customer service being the same thing.

00:50:49.540 Do you, I asked everybody to raise their hand. Who knows the difference between when someone's

00:50:56.340 actually trying to help them or when someone's trying to sell them? Every single person raised

00:51:01.100 their hand. So I'm gonna ask you guys the same thing. Do you know the difference when somebody's

00:51:05.380 trying to sell you versus when somebody's trying to help you? Every fucking person listening right

00:51:10.960 now knows the difference because as human beings, our bullshit detectors are finely tuned instruments.

00:51:18.000 Okay. We know when someone has our best interest in mind and we know when someone's trying to sell

00:51:23.840 a shit. All right. You have to put the customer first. You have to put their interest first. You have to

00:51:30.320 put their problems first and you have to be genuine in your intent to fix them. That means not trying to

00:51:37.920 manipulate them into buying more shit or marketing for you. But if you're genuine in your intent to do the

00:51:44.200 right thing with these people, they sense that nothing can replace sincerity. People know when

00:51:49.580 you're being honest, when you're being true, when you're being sincere. And that is one of the most

00:51:53.720 powerful things that we could talk about. You know, when companies sell out, send out these bullshit,

00:52:00.080 uh, pre written emails about, you know, Oh, Mr. Jones, I'm sorry that you had this problem with our

00:52:05.640 company. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Dude, that's just pouring gas on the fucking fire.

00:52:10.280 You know what I mean? If you're a small company, it, this is easy to do because it's easy to care

00:52:16.320 when you're small. But if you're a big company, how do you get people to fucking care? Well, you have

00:52:21.240 to instill a culture of caring. People know the fucking difference between caring or pretending to

00:52:29.580 care. There is a massive difference between actually caring and pretending to care. And every

00:52:36.720 single person on this earth knows the fucking difference when someone actually cares versus

00:52:41.660 someone's pretending to care. So guys, how do you do this? Well, it's probably a good idea that you

00:52:47.920 actually care about your customers because if you don't actually care about your customers, you're not

00:52:52.080 going to get very far in business because people are going to sense it. So how do you do this?

00:52:58.420 Guys, it's very simple. Fucking care genuinely about helping people solve their problems. It's

00:53:05.480 actually the key to any business. You know what I mean? But it's especially the key here to customer

00:53:10.320 service. People want you to be sincere. They want you to talk to them. They want you to listen to them.

00:53:16.400 They want you to have a human conversation. All right. What's been done for the last 20 years with

00:53:21.620 hiring people from fucking India to take customer service and automated this and fucking generated

00:53:28.240 email that creates a tremendous opportunity for a human element to make an impact. If you call

00:53:34.420 somebody on the fucking phone, say, Hey, Mr. Jones, this is Andy Fursella, CEO, first form.

00:53:40.680 How are you doing, man? I see that you're very upset with the company. I just want to extend my

00:53:45.040 sincere apologies to you and ask you, you know, first of all, I want to know what the problem is.

00:53:50.880 Second of all, I want to know what I need to do to fix it. You know, so, so let me,

00:53:54.780 what did we do wrong? I'm trying to, I want to fix this, not just for you, but for everybody.

00:53:59.400 You know what I mean? That's sincere shit. Yeah. Not, Hey, Mr. Jones, this is a, this is a

00:54:06.040 automated email from CEO who says that I give a fuck, but I actually fucking don't. You know

00:54:11.560 what I'm saying? Like it's ridiculous. So, so let me, I mean, let me ask you a specific,

00:54:15.520 let me present a specific scenario. There are obviously a lot of companies. I, you know,

00:54:20.120 I used to have a internet provider and when I went to cancel, um, you could tell that the girl

00:54:24.980 was basically working off of a script. She was very nice, but you could tell she was working

00:54:29.000 off of a script and you could tell that they had figured, they had sort of anticipated what

00:54:33.260 objections they were going to get. So you hear the little, you hear the little notebooks,

00:54:37.000 you know, going to the right page and she starts reading.

00:54:40.520 Dude, that shit's an insult to customers. It is. So playing devil's advocate though,

00:54:44.260 you're cut, you're, if you're a manager or your leader, you're, your employees are going

00:54:49.480 to be at different levels of communication ability. So I, on some level, I kind of get

00:54:55.060 what they're doing with those, those scripts. They're helping. No, but see, here's the problem,

00:54:59.640 Vaughn. Those scripts are designed to help customers, service reps, manipulate customers

00:55:07.500 into making the situation amicable. And it's to cut down on their training because they're

00:55:12.460 because it costs money and they have such high turnover.

00:55:15.820 Well, the thing, here's the thing. If you own a company, we talked about this being an

00:55:21.460 investment. It would make a hell of a lot more sense to spend the money on actual fucking

00:55:27.100 humans who wanted to solve a problem, who are knowledgeable about solving a problem.

00:55:32.260 You know, you do that comes down to paying people five fucking dollars an hour to answer

00:55:36.740 your phones. You know, you get what you pay for. Yeah. If you paid somebody 20 bucks an

00:55:42.060 hour to take your fucking incoming phone calls or 30 bucks an hour and provided them a decent

00:55:46.980 income, you know, as a start off, you know, that's what we do here, man. Like our customer

00:55:51.500 service guys are fucking, that's entry level. Like you don't, you don't get to be on the

00:55:55.400 phone, like being, you don't get to do anything else till you master that. Right. You know,

00:55:59.060 and they get paid well. They care. Yeah. So, so for you, it's not just an insult to the

00:56:05.240 customers. It's an insult to your employees because you're not trusting them. You're not respecting

00:56:08.720 them. Dude, all you have to do is tell your employees to do what they think is right.

00:56:12.880 Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like, Hey, how about this? Right. Yeah. How about this?

00:56:18.160 Do what you think is right. Right. That should be your fucking training for customer service.

00:56:22.900 Do what you think is right. Whatever that you think that is. If you do that and not provide

00:56:28.100 them with all this fucking bullshit, fucking information that they got to abide by, you set

00:56:32.680 them up to actually have to be human. Do you see what I'm saying? Absolutely. I'm just

00:56:38.500 laughing because I'm, I'm, I'm hearing Mr. Astric Hall going, Oh Andy. All right. So you're

00:56:43.200 telling me that if somebody makes a hundred dollar mistake, you're, you're going to empower your

00:56:46.780 employees to, to give away $50,000 worth of, uh, you know, well, if you, if somebody thinks

00:56:52.860 that there are fucking more, you know, somebody is probably not, probably not in our, uh, I could

00:56:57.240 argue that that would actually still be worth it. It still would be, I wouldn't, I probably

00:57:03.300 wouldn't do it. Right. But I mean, there's a limit, right? Right. But I mean, dude, most

00:57:07.440 people are genuine, you know, are you going to have people who are going to try to like

00:57:10.560 scam the system? Yeah, absolutely. But you give everybody gets the benefit of the doubt

00:57:15.120 once. Right. You know? Right. Um, and is it your, is it your experience that for all

00:57:22.080 the facts that there are, you know, the reality is, yes, there are customers who are kind

00:57:26.400 of out there. That's, that's definitely the exception and not the rule. Oh, a hundred

00:57:31.340 percent. Yeah. No, there's no question, dude. Like most people are good people. Yeah. You

00:57:37.240 know, most people want to do the right thing. Most people just want their problems solved.

00:57:41.740 Yeah. You've got the scavengers who fucking, you know, are going to try to see if they can

00:57:45.500 get something from you, but you're smart enough to recognize those people. So if you're one of

00:57:49.840 the, if you have that question right now, you know, that should be a given, you know, of

00:57:53.780 course there's going to be that, but like, you can't look at everybody like

00:57:56.120 that, which is the fucking problem that we're trying to address here. Right. You

00:57:59.160 know? Um, I don't know. You've got to, if you look at everybody, like they're trying

00:58:07.720 to scam you, you're going to be out of business real quick. Right. You know, so many people

00:58:12.700 who own business have these huge egos. They're right. Customer's wrong. Fuck the customer,

00:58:17.380 blah, blah, blah. I know a lot of business, dude, I've seen a lot of businesses like that,

00:58:21.420 that they just don't understand the idea of the value of a customer over the course of

00:58:26.460 a term. You know what I mean? A life term. It's, it's insane. You know, you, your job is

00:58:32.980 to, is to make it right. Right. Right. So the last point I want to cover here too, is that

00:58:43.880 you have to remember that you might have to lose a sale today to gain a friend for life.

00:58:49.500 So if you fuck things up, you got to make sure that there's a followup. I don't understand

00:58:53.780 companies that don't give refunds or take returns. You know, if your product didn't satisfy,

00:58:59.920 you shouldn't keep the person's money. That's not morally correct. You know, uh, if it comes

00:59:07.260 down to it, you shouldn't hesitate to give people their money back. But here's the thing. Don't

00:59:12.680 see that as the end of the relationship. You know, you lost a sale. Yes. But you have a huge

00:59:18.260 opportunity to prove to that customer that they were more than a sale to you. If you have their

00:59:22.720 contact information, wait a couple of days and then write them a handwritten note, you know,

00:59:27.420 surprise them with offer of service, be persistent in your followup. Most people will love that. And

00:59:33.240 it will mean a lot to them. Call them up in a week on the phone and say, Hey man, I know you had a bad

00:59:37.340 experience. I'd like a chance to earn your business again. You know, have a conversation with

00:59:42.540 them, follow them up, ask if they were happy with the way that we handle the situation.

00:59:48.000 Like I said, numerous times here, a lot of people are just wanting to be heard. And if you care

00:59:53.780 enough to call them back and say, now I noticed you returned the product. Was everything handled

00:59:58.440 properly? Was, um, did my guys take care of you? Were you happy with the way that they handled the

01:00:04.660 refund? You might lose that customer, but you know what will happen on Friday night when they have

01:00:10.380 the conversation about the topic of needing new tires on their car and you want a tire shop,

01:00:15.420 they're going to say, Hey man, I went to Andy's tire shop. You know, they fucked up, but dude,

01:00:19.660 they took care of it right away. And he called me up to ask me what else they could do. You know,

01:00:23.300 I, I definitely have a lot of respect for their business. I'm probably going to go back.

01:00:27.620 They're at least going to not talk bad about you. I see what I mean?

01:00:31.200 Yeah. I think when that happens, I think people are absolutely blown away by how much that respects

01:00:37.100 them as, as human beings. Yes. It's the right thing to do. You know, the whole,

01:00:43.020 it's like weird to even people just don't get how business is. It's so, if you want to win,

01:00:50.780 it's just as simple as doing the right shit. And a lot of people are like, Oh, that's not right.

01:00:55.260 Blah, blah, blah. No, it is right. It's right. Look at the fucking companies that really win.

01:01:00.740 Look at the Amazons, look at the apples, look at the fucking Zappos of the world. You don't have an

01:01:05.880 issue with that company. There's not one thing that they do that it's immoral. That's wrong.

01:01:10.020 That fucking isn't awesome. Customer service. Nothing. They do everything right. Morally,

01:01:16.000 right too. They're not fucking you. Oh, Apple charges $3,000 for a laptop. Yeah. But they also

01:01:22.160 fucking provide an awesome product and follow up service and give you everything you fucking need

01:01:27.040 and make your life a lot easier. I think they should probably charge more in my opinion.

01:01:30.820 You know, guys, you have to understand though, that when you can do this to people, when you

01:01:38.140 could take somebody and follow up with them, who was pissed off and make them happy, they're going

01:01:44.920 to be super fucking passionate about your brand. That's how you create a loyal following these

01:01:49.920 opportunities that we're talking about in this whole podcast. It's almost to the point where it's

01:01:56.460 worth pissing someone's off to make them this kind of loyal. You know what I mean? You have to swing

01:02:01.720 them, you know, one way sometimes to get them the whole other way. And I'm not recommending you do

01:02:07.660 that because it's not good business, but I'm just saying you certainly shouldn't look at somebody

01:02:12.940 who's angry as a fucking negative thing. You should look at it as a positive thing. You should look at it

01:02:17.020 as an opportunity. And if you, if you could teach that culture and instill that culture in your

01:02:21.360 business that, you know, today you might lose the battle, but tomorrow we're going to win the

01:02:26.080 fucking war because we care. You're going to win the war. And lots of small businesses struggle with

01:02:33.600 this idea. But if you, like I said, if you look at any big business, Nike fucking Under Armour,

01:02:40.340 Apple, Zappos, Amazon, these big ass giant behemoth companies, you don't have issues with those

01:02:48.740 companies. They understand this concept. You, you get somebody on the phone at all those companies.

01:02:54.360 They will work with you. We we've moved past the automated age of customer service. We've moved past

01:03:00.920 hiring out India to take our fucking calls. Okay. If you're growing business right now and you're

01:03:07.760 midsize business, take money and invest it into a human customer service department, real fucking

01:03:15.200 people who know your fucking product, answering the fucking phones, making your customers advocates.

01:03:21.280 Okay. It's well worth the investment. It's not a cost. Customer service is not a cost. Customer

01:03:28.520 service is an investment. It's an investment to create loyalty and disgruntled customers are the head

01:03:37.260 honchos of being loud advocates of your brand to create more loyal people. That's the point of what

01:03:46.080 we're talking about here. They're not an annoyance. They're not a proverbial pebble in your shoe.

01:03:51.520 They're not somebody who's a jerk. They're not unreasonable. They are a thermometer for you to gauge

01:03:58.180 the quality of what work you are doing. So guys, instill that culture in your people. Take the time

01:04:07.700 to educate your people on this aspect and you will see an immediate return within 90 days of you guys

01:04:15.080 instilling this and executing on this perfectly. But it has to be from the heart. Like I said,

01:04:22.500 people know the difference when they're cared about or being pretended to be cared about. They know the

01:04:29.300 difference between when you're helping them or when you're trying to sell them. Okay. You have to do

01:04:35.780 this from the heart. If you don't do it from the heart and you don't actually care, it will not work.

01:04:41.460 It'll blow up in your fucking face. So if you don't actually care about your customers, I would not

01:04:47.260 implement the human element because they're just, it's going to be an amplifier for you not caring.

01:04:52.500 But if you actually care, show it by putting real people, making the investment,

01:05:01.420 you know, giving them the right information, allowing them to vent, doing all the fucking

01:05:05.780 things we just talked about. All right. You'll be happy you did because it will grow your fucking

01:05:10.620 business. I'm curious. What do you think the application of this business principle is to just

01:05:18.700 success in life in general? It's very parallel. I would say

01:05:24.940 your ability to take criticism and understand, even when it's,

01:05:33.180 even when someone's trolling you or being overly negative because they don't like you,

01:05:38.180 they're clearly pointing out your weaknesses. And if you're

01:05:42.300 unemotional and be able to stand back and look and say, all right, that's a weakness of mine.

01:05:50.460 That's a weakness of mine. That's why he's pointing at those things. And to strengthen those

01:05:53.900 things in your company, how can you not win? You know what I mean? What about your personality?

01:06:00.440 Oh, you're this, you're that, you're this. Well, you know what? People are picking on you

01:06:05.860 on those areas because they perceive that as a weakness. Maybe you should take a look at those

01:06:11.020 things. Maybe you should look in the mirror and say, uh, Hey, am I this or that? And do I need to

01:06:17.020 work on this? You know, of course there's people who are assholes, but there are people who will tell

01:06:22.340 you shit, AKA real friends that you can't just write off. Cause like today, you know, the pop,

01:06:28.320 what's the popular thing right now? Oh, everybody's a hater. Oh, all these fucking haters. No,

01:06:32.720 maybe they're just telling you the fucking truth. Maybe you need to listen to them. Maybe you should

01:06:38.340 take that information, even if it's being presented in a negative way and use it to construct a better

01:06:45.480 you. You know what I mean? This, this, all the shit we talk about in terms of a business, but

01:06:50.980 you are, which is the basis of this podcast. You are the entrepreneur of you. You are the CEO of you.

01:06:57.840 You are in charge of the evolution of you. So if you can take criticism, even criticism that's not

01:07:06.260 meant to be constructive and use it to be constructive, you're going to be that much

01:07:10.220 better off. And I think that's how this might apply to life. I think so. Uh, what I love the

01:07:15.980 most about what you're saying and what I think is truly revolutionary is that the average person,

01:07:21.100 the everyday man on the street knows that old saying, there's a thin line between love and hate.

01:07:24.780 They know that it's easy for passion to suddenly go sour and piss people off. But what I hear you

01:07:30.660 saying is that the truly successful person, the elite companies know that the opposite is true

01:07:37.280 too, that you can take all of the negative energy and convert it into positive. Dude, people,

01:07:43.100 people with a megaphone mouth have a megaphone mouth positively or negatively. You want all the

01:07:48.080 megaphone mouth on your fucking team? You know what I'm saying? Absolutely. So, uh, you know,

01:07:55.200 in this, my, in this day and age, it's not just a megaphone mouth. It's the dude with flames tattooed

01:07:58.820 on his fucking fingers, you know, like the keyboard warriors, but dude, you want to win them. Yeah.

01:08:03.420 You know, and you win them by doing right. Yeah. It's hard to fucking hate somebody who does

01:08:07.580 everything they can for you. Right. You know? So guys, look, quit looking at customers as a

01:08:15.000 fucking annoyance. Step up, be a fucking badass motherfucker. Make these people part of your team.

01:08:22.320 They're the biggest advocates you could have if, and I want to touch on this. If you found value in

01:08:30.160 what we just talked about, please share my podcast with your friends. Okay. There's lots of people out

01:08:36.620 there who are tired, sick, annoyed, frustrated with the way things are going in society.

01:08:44.760 This is called a project because we are passionate about trying to change that mentality. If you know

01:08:50.960 people who are tired of the liberalist, pussified, everybody wins, everybody gets a fucking sucker,

01:08:57.760 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah mindset, dude, send your peeps this way. All right. We're trying to change

01:09:03.520 it. We're creating a community. This isn't just a podcast. It's a fucking movement. All right. And

01:09:08.380 I appreciate you guys for being a part of that movement. But if we're going to fucking do this,

01:09:12.600 if we're going to swing society back the other way, it's going to take all of us working together.

01:09:16.940 So guys, bring your homies. Love you guys. And we'll talk to you next time.

REAL AF with Andy Frisella - October 04, 2016

Pissed Off Customers： Annoyance or Opportunity？, with Andy Frisella - MFCEO98

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