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Welcome back to another episode of Sales Made Easy! I'm your host, Harry Spaight, and today we have a fantastic guest joining us: James Kademan, owns Calls On Call Extraordinary Answering Service, a shared receptionist company that helps small service businesses all over the country gain and keep clients.
In today's episode, James shares some eye-opening stories and insights about the importance of customer service and communication in sales. From encounters with unprofessional competitors to experiences with stores lacking friendliness, James brings to light how these factors can make or break a business. Plus, he'll discuss his own journey in finding a call answering service that truly delivers excellent customer service. So, get ready to learn some valuable lessons about sales and customer satisfaction. Let's dive in! Thank you for checking out the Sales Made Easy podcast brought to you by Selling With Dignity.
He also coaches small business clients with Draw In Customers Business Coaching, and continues to host the Authentic Business Adventures podcast over 4 years running.
In his freetime James is a motorcycle enthusiast and travels around looking for other business owners to chat with.
James can be reached at james@drawincustomers.com or by calling (608) 210-2221.
If you like the podcast, please take a quick minute to leave a review. We need your help in getting the message out that sales does not need to be gross! Thank you for your support!
Look for me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/harryspaight/ and you can download a few chapters of Selling With Dignity here: https://sellingwithdignity.com/the-book/
The question is, you are working at a retail store and you're at the front
Speaker:counter. A customer walks through the door,
Speaker:you A, run to the back and hide. B,
Speaker:keep staring at your phone. C, say
Speaker:hello. D, say hello. How can I help you?
Speaker:Okay, I'm going to go with D.
Speaker:Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Today we
Speaker:have an extraordinary guest. The
Speaker:reason I say he is extraordinary, well,
Speaker:because he's got it in his bio would be one reason.
Speaker:James Cateman is joining me and he currently
Speaker:owns calls on call
Speaker:extraordinary answering service. He
Speaker:does that he helps coach or he coaches small businesses
Speaker:with his draw in customers business coaching.
Speaker:The guy also has a podcast, which is Authentic Business
Speaker:Adventures Podcast, which he's had for like four years
Speaker:now, and he's a motorcycle enthusiast.
Speaker:So, sir James Kademan, welcome to the sales made
Speaker:Easy podcast. What is the good word, my friend?
Speaker:My gosh, you know, it's a sunny day, so outside of being on a podcast,
Speaker:I think it's a great day to get on a motorcycle. Well, you
Speaker:know, we could podcast on motorcycles, but I would have to go out
Speaker:and get one and learn how to ride one. But other not too late. We're
Speaker:here. Yeah, happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker:So awesome to have you. I love your energy. And so, Sir James,
Speaker:I'm reading your bio here and you've got this
Speaker:calls on what is it? Calls on call.
Speaker:Extraordinary answering service. Yes. All right, so tell me, what is
Speaker:that? So we answer phones for small service based
Speaker:businesses. So if you imagine any van with a phone
Speaker:number on it that you see on the highway, if you call that number, they
Speaker:typically won't answer their phone, but they may have a message that
Speaker:says that your call is very important to them. It's so
Speaker:important they're not going to answer it. And you may leave a voicemail that
Speaker:they will never check, probably never call you back, and you'll still
Speaker:end up having the problem. Whatever it is that you're calling about days late,
Speaker:solve that problem by actually answering the phone, taking care of the schedules of the
Speaker:people that work hard, doing whatever it is that they're good at, right?
Speaker:Whether that's hair massage, plumbing, electrical,
Speaker:accounting, whatever. People have skills that take care of the
Speaker:skills. We take care of the customer service aspect. All right, so this just raised
Speaker:the question in my mind. This way my mind works. Sure.
Speaker:Is there data out there that shows
Speaker:how much potential missed business is on missed
Speaker:calls or something along those lines. I don't know if
Speaker:there would be conclusive, because I say
Speaker:that because when we would try to sell clients back in the day,
Speaker:what we would try to say or try to have them do help them
Speaker:with is figuring out how many calls are they missing. And then the average
Speaker:value of each client to figure out a dollar value of what
Speaker:actually answering their phone calls would mean to them. And as soon as we
Speaker:said math, people just got glossy eyed. We could have
Speaker:told them, add one plus one, and they're just like, wow, can't
Speaker:help you there. Not my jam. So we
Speaker:stopped doing the math and just said, hey, if you miss one
Speaker:call in a month, what's? That? Worst yet. There you go.
Speaker:And so my guess is that one business
Speaker:opportunity closed, one
Speaker:is actually pays for your services. Generally,
Speaker:correct? Yeah. Broadly speaking, unless you're selling hot dogs or something
Speaker:like that. Sure, yes. But then you probably don't need an answer anyway.
Speaker:I digress. Yeah. So how did you get started in that business?
Speaker:Sounds like an interesting business to figure out. Hey, this is what I
Speaker:could be good at. Yeah. I actually did not intend to start the
Speaker:business. Okay. I had a copier repair company,
Speaker:and I started that from scratch in 2006. And I built
Speaker:that up, and it was essentially me, my cell phone, and a few
Speaker:technicians. And as I was growing it, there was a time
Speaker:when money was tight. Because you're fixing copiers,
Speaker:right. So your margin is not that great.
Speaker:At any rate, I'm on the phone driving, and payroll
Speaker:is due, and I think payroll is due in five days, something like that. And
Speaker:I was still trying to think, like, how am I going to make payroll? Because
Speaker:I had a lot of people that owed me money. I did not have a
Speaker:lot of money in the bank. And I checked, you can't make
Speaker:payroll with IOUs. The
Speaker:checks don't go very far. Yeah. So I had a client call me up.
Speaker:They owed me some money, and they're like, hey, James, how's it going? I'm all
Speaker:set to pay this bill. I got a credit card number for you. And I'm
Speaker:like, great. Right. This is 600 and some dollars that they owed me. So it
Speaker:was going to be enough to close the gap on payroll. And I'm
Speaker:like, great. I'm ready. They're like, Ash, I can tell you're on the road, so
Speaker:how about I give you a call back? Oh, my goodness. No, I
Speaker:can drive and take notes, right? It's safer than that,
Speaker:right? Anyways, I got off the phone with her, and I was
Speaker:thinking, she's right. Like, that wasn't
Speaker:ideal. Then I thought, well, that's not very professional either on
Speaker:my end to try to take care of calls, because I was certainly missing calls.
Speaker:Yep. So I thought, hey, I'm a small service
Speaker:business. There are millions of small service businesses. Somebody
Speaker:else has had to have solved this problem. So I reached out to all
Speaker:the call answering services that I could find. I flew out to see one in
Speaker:Portland. I just went all over the place and I
Speaker:found people that could answer the phone. I did not find
Speaker:anyone that I thought offered the customer service that we were
Speaker:at when we did answer the phone. And on top of that, as
Speaker:soon as I mentioned the word schedule, where I wanted the people answering the phone
Speaker:to actually be able to solve the customer's problem by getting them on the
Speaker:calendar, the technician, they're like, Whoa, whoa, whoa. We can't
Speaker:have all these people on a calendar. We can take a message. And
Speaker:I said, I have a voicemail that takes a message. Right. I want
Speaker:a person to actually solve the problem. So at any rate, long story short,
Speaker:I found a business partner. We started calls on call, I don't know, twelve
Speaker:ish years ago, maybe a little more. And then we just grew it.
Speaker:So we solved the problem that I had, problem that some of her clients had
Speaker:built it. I bought her out five years ago. Whatever.
Speaker:Wow. And yeah, pandemic was good to us because people realized that
Speaker:your customer service people don't have to be in the office.
Speaker:Yes. So that worked out. That was one of the few ways the
Speaker:Pandemic worked out. Yes. Okay, great. Well, I mean, I just find
Speaker:that really fascinating that you stumbled across
Speaker:this. Like, I've got this
Speaker:problem with payroll and a credit card number being
Speaker:given to me, and then drawing conclusions or drawing the
Speaker:thought process all the way to this could be a pretty good
Speaker:business. Yeah. The idea was that I knew that other
Speaker:businesses were terrible at answering their phone. And I knew
Speaker:when I like, I'll give you a really quick example with a tiny landscaping job
Speaker:that I had, I don't know if it's landscaper. I just needed to
Speaker:extend a drain pipe underground. I
Speaker:called Twelve Landscapers. I heard back from three of
Speaker:them. None of them answered the phone. I heard back from three of
Speaker:them. One said, that's too small of a job. Two said,
Speaker:I'll be there, I'll come take a look at it. Those two never showed up.
Speaker:So I ended up just renting a tool thing to bury this
Speaker:pipe, whatever. And it's one of those things like, I have
Speaker:money that I was happy to give to somebody else to do this
Speaker:job. They probably do it better than me, but
Speaker:they must either hate money or whatever reason,
Speaker:it was a disservice to me. It was also a disservice for
Speaker:them because they're spending money on marketing, have their website up,
Speaker:do all that jazz. But who cares if you're not answering the phone or
Speaker:communicating somehow, some way. Yeah. So it's just
Speaker:weird dynamic is a weird dynamic.
Speaker:I guess it is. And I experienced something similar recently
Speaker:in Florida. We have what they call
Speaker:lanais, which are big screened
Speaker:areas around your pool so that a
Speaker:million mosquitoes don't fly into your pool area.
Speaker:Oh, okay. And they don't do well in
Speaker:heavy wind or when branches fall on them.
Speaker:Okay. Right. So it turns into, like, a tarp
Speaker:that you're trying to hold down with tent
Speaker:stakes and screens pop and so forth. But I'm telling
Speaker:you, the number of people I called and left messages,
Speaker:it's like, are you kidding me? Did somebody call me
Speaker:back? Is just very frustrating. So
Speaker:that must happen a lot of times where people are just missing
Speaker:business, and then they're paying on the other side. They're
Speaker:paying for whatever Facebook ads or Google ads
Speaker:or website.
Speaker:We just want to be found. And then they get 90%
Speaker:of the way there, and then the last 10% is just answering the
Speaker:call. Yeah. And people don't there's probably a lot
Speaker:of I mean, you've got personality, but you probably come across a lot
Speaker:of people that don't have personality, and they're not great on
Speaker:the phone. Right. Oh, my gosh. So having someone like you
Speaker:or your team that's pleasant on the phone,
Speaker:it's like a huge ad to the team. Right?
Speaker:Yeah. Huge. Yeah. You know what? It's funny you say that. We just hired a
Speaker:couple of people more, and we have assessments that people take when they
Speaker:apply. One of those assessments is a customer service assessment.
Speaker:And I thought when we put this test out there, that this was going to
Speaker:be just a minor hurdle for people to get over to get an interview.
Speaker:It is amazing. I bet 80%, at least 80% of the
Speaker:applicants fail that test. Oh, my goodness. And not even, like, a
Speaker:little, like, you got a few wrong kind of thing. I mean, like, fail it.
Speaker:Okay, give me an example of a question or
Speaker:two. Question. Multiple choice. Multiple choice question. Right.
Speaker:Because this is a time where we. Don'T do I'm going to put myself in
Speaker:the zone, customer service zone. I'm applying for a job.
Speaker:I'm now given this test. The question in front of me is.
Speaker:The question is, you are working at a retail store, and you're at the front
Speaker:counter. A customer walks through the door,
Speaker:you A, run to the back and hide.
Speaker:B, keep staring at your phone. C,
Speaker:say hello. D, say hello. How can I help
Speaker:you? Okay, I'm going to go with D. Smart man. You
Speaker:pass, man. I'll get you interview. The pressure was on.
Speaker:Yeah. People, seriously? Come on.
Speaker:Okay, that's serious. That's serious. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker:It's one of those things where when you go to a place, a store, you
Speaker:talk with somebody in business, and you're like, is this person
Speaker:trying to be mean, or do they hate money? Right.
Speaker:And I always think they would have failed this test. Yeah, okay.
Speaker:And I don't know, they would have failed. Maybe their mom was mean to them.
Speaker:I don't know. I don't think anyone
Speaker:to me trained me to just be a nice human. I think you
Speaker:just knew. That's what I thought until you see people.
Speaker:Well, yeah, I used to think that too. But no,
Speaker:we actually had training from our parents, apparently. Or they showed
Speaker:us the way. Yeah, somehow. Right. Somehow along
Speaker:the you know, this brings know
Speaker:if this is not something you want to talk about, just wave your hands frantically
Speaker:and say no, Harry, please don't. Don't go there. I think
Speaker:this thing about customer service is really a great topic.
Speaker:I was talking to somebody recently, they asked a
Speaker:question about how can
Speaker:so I have this book, Quick Plug Selling with
Speaker:Dignity and they asked me,
Speaker:do I work with people in retail? And I typically
Speaker:don't. Right. It's not really on B to B,
Speaker:but they asked, well how does this work in
Speaker:retail? And I thought for a second I said
Speaker:really simply I would kill it with
Speaker:customer service. Retail, it's just
Speaker:like make your store the
Speaker:most friendly place. So when people walk
Speaker:in they're experiencing complete
Speaker:friendliness and love and when they leave they'll say,
Speaker:oh that was so awesome. Those people are so nice.
Speaker:Right? What's your thought
Speaker:on that? First of all, about growing business with. Customer service, two
Speaker:thoughts. One is, as far as the phone calls go with us,
Speaker:we tell our crew that your job is to make the
Speaker:caller feel better when they hang up the phone than when they first called
Speaker:you. Regardless of what they're calling about, your job is to make them feel good.
Speaker:Right? Yeah. But interesting story I was told by
Speaker:a guy that used to work at a grocery store locally here,
Speaker:that's known for crazy low cycle prices. So it's the whole
Speaker:service quality and price. They're going for price. Their
Speaker:crew is told not to interact or to avoid interacting with
Speaker:customers because that's
Speaker:a cost. So they have limited crew, okay, and they just
Speaker:want customers in and out. They're treating customers like
Speaker:cattle, we don't care, bushman, shove them out kind of
Speaker:thing. And I experienced this because I went there to buy a
Speaker:gift card. I figured it's a big grocery store, you get gift cards, whatever. So
Speaker:I had to go pick up a gift for someone. Gift cards easy. But it's
Speaker:a huge store like you do a triathlon trying to get grapes.
Speaker:And so I found this guy and I'm like hey where are your gift cards?
Speaker:And he's like up front. And it's not like this is a Hallmark store
Speaker:or something where it's 500 sqft. This is like
Speaker:50,000. I'm like little more specific.
Speaker:Aisle 59 or something like that. And he was like up front. Right.
Speaker:And so anyways, I was joking with this guy that used to work there. I'm
Speaker:like, what is up with this? And that's when he told me they're trained not
Speaker:to interact. So I was putting this guy out like, oh, I didn't
Speaker:mean to actually give you business. I'm sorry. So it was
Speaker:kind of interesting how it was the first time I ever heard of somebody
Speaker:actually actively saying that customer service is a bad thing.
Speaker:It blew my mind. Yeah. Incredible.
Speaker:So if you think about that just for a half a second, what
Speaker:could the outcome there could have been a number of outcomes. One outcome
Speaker:is because of the love you felt with
Speaker:their up front. You said, I'm going to tell all my friends how awesome this
Speaker:place is. Or because you got no love,
Speaker:you're not going to tell anyone anything.
Speaker:Exactly. Because we were sitting around campfire, right? We had some budies, I
Speaker:don't know, 1520 budies. We're sitting around and so we were talking about how
Speaker:terrible customer service is at the store. Yeah. And how
Speaker:can that help business, right. I hope it doesn't
Speaker:in a little bit of a narcissistic way. Like, why do you got to
Speaker:be a jerk? You couldn't take 30 seconds out of your life to just either
Speaker:tell me or show me. Yeah. I don't know what the guy was doing. He
Speaker:was just walking along. So I don't believe that I was interrupting him from helping
Speaker:a woman give birth or something like that. No. And probably
Speaker:they have more than enough time in a day to get their stuff done, in
Speaker:my guess. But I may be wrong, but who knows? They are saving lives.
Speaker:Who knows? Yeah, who knows? But yes,
Speaker:that's an interesting philosophy. Yeah. It reminds me of
Speaker:the touch screens that you see at the fast food restaurants now.
Speaker:Yeah. I'm taking ten minutes
Speaker:to first. I have to learn the software because I don't go to fast food
Speaker:restaurants that often. Exactly. Then I got to figure out what it is that I'm
Speaker:trying to find. Like, I just want a burger or something. Where's your burger
Speaker:portion? And then I keep getting these add on
Speaker:things. Can I just talk to a human? Just be like,
Speaker:hey, I just want a cheeseburger. That's all I want. That's all I
Speaker:want. So it's interesting how we're kind of forced
Speaker:on the flip side, I think it's tough to
Speaker:find employees, so I can kind of see, like, hey, you're getting replaced by a
Speaker:computer screen. So I understand it both ways, but from a
Speaker:customer service aspect, if you're in the service
Speaker:business at all, I personally think it's a big deal,
Speaker:and I believe you can charge more money if you offer better service.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. Why do you believe that? Because
Speaker:I know it's true. I'll tell you. Really quick
Speaker:example. Really quick. I like it. I love examples. Copier
Speaker:repair company we
Speaker:hired for personality first and then skill set second.
Speaker:Because I can train skill set I cannot train
Speaker:personality. I've tried. Can't do it.
Speaker:So anyways, I got these texts that are talkative. And so you go
Speaker:into this office. That has all these cubicles are or aren't
Speaker:talkative. I missed that. Super talkative. Okay. All right. Yeah. So
Speaker:the idea is that you go to offices that have copiers, right? They have 50
Speaker:million cubicles. These people are just prairie dogging because they've never seen another
Speaker:human besides the person that sits across from them for ten years.
Speaker:So this copier repair guy shows up, and they need a friend.
Speaker:Copier repair guy is chatting them up, fixing the
Speaker:machine. I can remember that I had a machine I was working on at the
Speaker:state office. I think I had twelve people around me, and all I could think
Speaker:is how much money is being spent in payroll with
Speaker:me putting on the show here. Anyways,
Speaker:coincidentally, this is the same day. You were
Speaker:thinking about, I need to make payroll. Yeah, right.
Speaker:I'm just kidding. I digress. Sorry. Probably in that
Speaker:realm, I'm certainly thinking about money. Anyways,
Speaker:I get called, I'm working on this copier, or I go to work on this
Speaker:copier, and I can see it's got a sticker on the copier for
Speaker:one of our competitors. And I said, hey, lady, that called us
Speaker:up, you probably have a contract on this copier,
Speaker:so they won't pay for me to fix it. You should probably call
Speaker:them like, I'd love to fix it for you, and I can, but we're not
Speaker:going to be free. And she's like, you charge us whatever you need. And
Speaker:I'm like, okay, is this on a contract? It is. I
Speaker:can't stand them. I hate them. I don't want to see them ever again.
Speaker:And so I was thinking, okay, I fixed the machine. It was
Speaker:$350 or something like that. So I give her the invoice,
Speaker:and I said, hey, just out of curiosity, what do you pay
Speaker:these guys a month? We pay $500 a month. So
Speaker:here I am thinking, wait a second. These guys, because they're jerks,
Speaker:are getting $500 a month, don't have to do a thing because I'm a nice
Speaker:guy. I'd actually do the work, and I'm making less money. So it was one
Speaker:of those things where, like so I was getting calls because
Speaker:it was Doc James Printer Repair. We were known as
Speaker:we were high end. We treated people, right? People loved calling us. I
Speaker:swear, people intentionally broke their machines or stuck
Speaker:something in there. Just that they could have someone to talk to. We were told
Speaker:that by a few clients, because in the end, they weren't the ones paying. It
Speaker:was their company that was paying. But it was
Speaker:funny, and we try to make it as entertaining as possible for them,
Speaker:right? Nobody likes a copy or being broken, right? But
Speaker:our competition was so bad at
Speaker:customer service. Now, expand that story a little bit. If you
Speaker:got I love it. So I got this company,
Speaker:doc Jams Print Repair. I decided this would be a great idea to
Speaker:get out of this business. It's a lot of work. It's not a lot of
Speaker:cash, and paperless is looming.
Speaker:Anyways, so I end up selling the company, and I made the mistake of
Speaker:selling the company with an extra nut based
Speaker:on them maintaining a certain revenue threshold. The revenue
Speaker:threshold that we had in the agreement was less than I did in my first
Speaker:year in business. So I thought, how can you possibly go under that? No
Speaker:problem. I can totally agree to that. Like a little business
Speaker:selling? Noob. Anyways, so what
Speaker:happens is their crew, their
Speaker:service crew, some of them that have been with them over 20 years, were not
Speaker:talking to people. They smell like cigarettes. They got the shirt half
Speaker:untucked. They're all frazzled. They look like they just rolled out of bed.
Speaker:They don't say hi. They do the job right. They fix the copier
Speaker:great. But nobody likes talking to them because these guys aren't
Speaker:talkative. So this company that bought my company
Speaker:loses a bunch of clients. I get phone calls from these
Speaker:clients because they'd been with me for years that said, James, dude,
Speaker:what happened? And I'm like, hey, I sold. And they're yeah. Yeah. You got
Speaker:to talk to them. I don't want that guy ever in my office again.
Speaker:Because they were just like they stunk or they weren't.
Speaker:You get someone new in your office when you're used to your close knit
Speaker:circle of cubicle mates and you got somebody cool
Speaker:walk in there, right? Yeah. You're all happy. I don't know, doing whatever to keep
Speaker:them happy, fine and dandy. But when you get somebody that's
Speaker:annoying or stinks or doesn't look like they
Speaker:care, you don't want to see them again. Yeah. There's
Speaker:50 other businesses that are doing what you do, so they just call somebody else
Speaker:that's annoying. Find someone less annoying that may
Speaker:not smell like cigarettes. Yeah, right. That would be
Speaker:fairly easy to find, I would think, if people were to answer their phone, though.
Speaker:But that's a whole nother. Maybe you can
Speaker:help those people. So here's
Speaker:the valuable lesson, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker:You can sell more because people want to
Speaker:be around you. Who do they want to? We hear this over and over again.
Speaker:Thank you, Bob Berg people do business with people they know, like and
Speaker:trust or that's their preference. Anyway, here's,
Speaker:fun loving conversational guy or gal
Speaker:walks into the office, take care of a problem, can
Speaker:probably join in. A conversation person
Speaker:demands more of an income because they
Speaker:have a little more. Absolutely right. Absolutely. Get
Speaker:a little more pay. But they
Speaker:might even have additional incentives for
Speaker:finding more business. Absolutely right. So you think
Speaker:about the person who doesn't like to talk, is very skilled.
Speaker:But is never going to have a. Conversation
Speaker:with a client. And uncover more business. The
Speaker:client would have to say, hey, you, untalkative
Speaker:person who never says hello and never smiles, we
Speaker:have more business for you. Would you like it? It doesn't
Speaker:really happen, but they have some charming salesperson that comes
Speaker:in and throws a couple of dollars for
Speaker:donuts or something. Smiles introduces their lovely
Speaker:technician, James Cademan, or somebody like him,
Speaker:and James goes in, lights up the room, and now you've got business
Speaker:galore because they say, we've got more opportunity. We have
Speaker:another location. We've got this and that. We've got this problem. Do you know anyone
Speaker:does this? And you can say yes, I do.
Speaker:This is the way business works. This is why people, when they're given a
Speaker:choice, go make phone calls to find somebody
Speaker:good or work with the person that's already in front of you that's good and
Speaker:give them more stuff. You got it. What's your thought? Be nice.
Speaker:Yeah, be nice. Plus, the added bonus is
Speaker:if you're the employee that's actually nice versus the employee that
Speaker:just doesn't want to talk to anyone. Grumpy. We'll call him Grumpy. Yeah, we'll call
Speaker:him Grumpy. How do you think the Grumpy guy likes his job
Speaker:versus the guy that's having a good time talking with people? Yeah,
Speaker:grumpy guy is going to not care if he gets canned. He's not
Speaker:going to care if the person never wants to see him again. He's just not
Speaker:going to care. Just universally in life, you could probably find
Speaker:a bunch of other problems besides the job in the background there,
Speaker:but the person that's just doing what they can to enjoy the job, have fun.
Speaker:I find that I enjoy the job when I'm talking with people having fun,
Speaker:rather than just hanging out and doing the job kind of
Speaker:thing. Right? Yeah. But maybe it's personality. I
Speaker:don't know. I mean, personality has something to do with this. So what do you
Speaker:say to the person that says, well, good help is hard to find? James well,
Speaker:they're not wrong. It
Speaker:has been my experience that there are people out there that
Speaker:you can hire. It may take a little bit longer to
Speaker:find them, but they exist. I don't want to say
Speaker:diamond in the rough or anything like that, but us, when we hired these last
Speaker:two people, we had, I want to say 300,
Speaker:400 applicants I interviewed.
Speaker:Where are we at here? 20. Let's call it 30
Speaker:ish. I take that back. We scheduled interviews with 30 ish.
Speaker:Okay. High teens showed up.
Speaker:Zoom interviews. Right. So nothing crazy. I didn't get stuck in traffic or anything like
Speaker:that. So we whittled that 400 ish down to
Speaker:a couple, and it was not hard to whittle.
Speaker:So it takes some time. Right. Instead of hiring somebody within a day, you got
Speaker:to hire them within a couple of weeks. But they're out there. Yeah.
Speaker:If you think that good people are hard to find, guess what?
Speaker:They will be even harder to find, right? Yeah. And
Speaker:it's just like if you go in thinking of that and you're negative, instead of
Speaker:saying I only need two, right? I only
Speaker:need two quality people, and they may be in a 711
Speaker:working a dead end job. Totally. Right. Being a manager, I mean,
Speaker:no offense to the 711 listeners, but no, not at all. Right. You get the
Speaker:idea is that there's quality people everywhere. They don't know
Speaker:opportunities exist. Sometimes you're in
Speaker:a restaurant and you have a server who is a quality
Speaker:server. It could be even a friendly person at the local fast
Speaker:food place too, if we didn't have to work with a dang
Speaker:computer, a flat screen, trying to order a cup of coffee, for
Speaker:crying out loud, or burger. And we actually talked to the person, found out
Speaker:they were super helpful. We say, hey, have you ever thought about doing
Speaker:something a little bit different that might give you a little more financial opportunity?
Speaker:Those people are out there as well. Have you ever had conversations like that?
Speaker:Oh my gosh, tons of times. Okay. I've given out my card to
Speaker:tons of people in service industries that you just run
Speaker:into and you're like, hey, if you're ever looking,
Speaker:just let me know. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. You say
Speaker:good people are hard to find, but I always joke that I can find
Speaker:morons easy. I can find somebody rude, no
Speaker:problem. So good people are hard to find, bad people
Speaker:can find them, no problem, no problem.
Speaker:Stick your arm out, you'll find one. Oh, it's too funny. You can just
Speaker:go to the grocery store. That everything in boxes, right? Find
Speaker:a guy that won't show you. Where gift certificates are when you're carrying
Speaker:around your own box in a grocery store. I was thinking there's a store I
Speaker:knew, but anyway, I was making the connection because
Speaker:I'm really a friendly person and I go to the store where it has stuff
Speaker:in boxes. I won't mention her name for the twelve
Speaker:listeners, but I try to small talk
Speaker:to person who's taking my money and
Speaker:I get nothing. And then you go into other stores where
Speaker:people in Florida are all in green. Anyone
Speaker:who's listening in Florida will know who that is. They are
Speaker:ridiculously friendly. And do I spend more there?
Speaker:Absolutely. Do I want to go there and spend more? No. But if
Speaker:I want friendly people, I go where the friendly people are
Speaker:and they laugh at my jokes. I think they're all
Speaker:taught, hey, when people come in, they crack some little wise
Speaker:joke or something, laugh, because then they'll come back, their place
Speaker:not so much, they don't care. You know, it's interesting, there's a gas
Speaker:station chain around here called QuickTrip
Speaker:K-W-I-K. They put their people through customer service
Speaker:training. For the most part, their employees are extremely
Speaker:friendly, not obnoxiously so, but. It's a gas
Speaker:station that you almost look forward to going
Speaker:to. There's a BP gas station just down the
Speaker:road that had been there for years that was just like I
Speaker:think they had four pumps or something like that, had a subway inside it. And
Speaker:it always seemed kind of grungy, and you never had to worry about having
Speaker:to wait for a pump there. Quick trip goes up this is probably five
Speaker:years ago. QuickTrip goes up, further
Speaker:down the road from the highway, so more
Speaker:inconvenient. I think they have 15 pumps or 16, I
Speaker:suppose it'd be even number whatever it is, they're full all the time.
Speaker:And you have to go past the BP to go to this Quick trip.
Speaker:The BP is still empty. And if you're just getting
Speaker:gas, like, the gas prices and all that kind of stuff are the same,
Speaker:but still, people go and get gas. The Quick trip,
Speaker:it's brighter, it's cleaner, the people are nice.
Speaker:And all I could think is, Wait a second. Wait. This wasn't building a rocket
Speaker:ship. All you had to do was be nice. Yeah, that's it. That's it. There's
Speaker:no, like, oh, my gosh. What is the secret? No
Speaker:secret. Just be nice. That's it. Oh, my goodness. James, this is
Speaker:magical. So basically the moral of the story is be
Speaker:nice, make more money. Amen to that, right
Speaker:there. Make more money. Wow.
Speaker:We've just simplified so many things in life as far as when it comes
Speaker:to business, business, coaching, you name it.
Speaker:Be nice, make more money, solve it. Yeah. Session one, all
Speaker:done. And clean the
Speaker:gas station and make the restrooms look nice too,
Speaker:right? Simple things. I think it comes down to a lot of it,
Speaker:from my perspective, is respect of the customer.
Speaker:Because when you're nice to them, I feel like there's respect. Right. If you're mean
Speaker:to someone, I feel like you don't have respect for me, if you're like.
Speaker:Right. We were at this restaurant the other day, and my
Speaker:kid it was a house turned into a breakfast bar,
Speaker:whatever, and a little hipster joint, whatever the other places had lined. So we just
Speaker:went to this one, and my kid is like, what is this
Speaker:place? And I said, this is where the people go that hate the world,
Speaker:because it just felt like they had something against
Speaker:everyone. And we were in line to get
Speaker:food, whatever, and the lady was all put out. My kid wanted an omelet with
Speaker:tomatoes in it or something. And she was like, no, can't do
Speaker:it. And it was some like I didn't think what he was asking
Speaker:for was out of line, but it was just one of those,
Speaker:like there was no, I'm sorry, we can't do that. Because whatever,
Speaker:the tomato plant is dead or whatever. I don't know. She was just
Speaker:like, no, she was just a
Speaker:grouch. And I'm like you're the frontline person. You're the first person that
Speaker:we see in this restaurant, and it's a restaurant where they don't have wait staff.
Speaker:You have to get your food and then carry it to your table kind of
Speaker:thing. It was just a weird like you are the
Speaker:impression that we get business. Well, the owner has said good
Speaker:help is hard to find and believe that. Yeah, right.
Speaker:And when you believe it, then that's what you get. And then you
Speaker:have people that don't want to come back because it's not complicated.
Speaker:It sounds like a Jack Nicholson scene in a movie from the early
Speaker:1970s. I think about toast and
Speaker:asking, do you have egg salad or something or chicken salad? And oh,
Speaker:yes, we have that. Well, can I have my chicken salad toasted? Yes, you
Speaker:can have that. Well, then, okay. So I want that, but hold the
Speaker:chicken salad. Such a great line. And then the
Speaker:waitress says, well, what do you want me to do with the chicken salad? Then
Speaker:he says, I want you to hold it between your knees. And
Speaker:I think that was Easy Rider. As a motorcycle
Speaker:enthusiast, you may have to watch that movie. I will definitely check that out.
Speaker:It's not a movie for kids under 17. It is R rated,
Speaker:but it's definitely that line by Jack Nicholson stuck with
Speaker:me for about 40 years. That's awesome. Oh, my
Speaker:goodness. Customer service.
Speaker:Jack Nicholson and James Kademan. James, this has been a
Speaker:blast. I love this topic. I love your energy.
Speaker:You do some great things. I know you got a few businesses
Speaker:going on and if people like what they're hearing from
Speaker:you today, where can they find more of you? Sir, if you go to
Speaker:drawincustomers.com all one word, you can
Speaker:find a bunch of stuff, podcast, all that jazz. You'll find my email address,
Speaker:phone number, feel free to reach out to me. Happy to talk business with
Speaker:anyone as. Long as you're nice. If you're nice and you know what, you're
Speaker:going to have a great conversation, I can tell.
Speaker:Yeah, this is great.
Speaker:In say it one more time. Draw in customers.
Speaker:Okay. And we will put that in the show notes as well
Speaker:and hopefully someone will have a conversation with you. James, you're
Speaker:definitely worthy. Yeah, right. I appreciate it. I love
Speaker:it. Thank you for letting me be on the show here, Harry. It's been a
Speaker:blast. Thank you, sir. Thank you for listening to Sales
Speaker:Made Easy. If you've found value in our conversations,
Speaker:please subscribe and leave a review. Our goal is to provide
Speaker:practical strategies for growing your business while staying true to
Speaker:your values. Remember, success in sales is about
Speaker:serving your clients. Serve first and the selling will
Speaker:follow. We'll be back soon with more insights and inspiration.
Speaker:Until then, keep serving and providing value to others.
