EP185: Reading, Resigning, and Retaining!

Speaker A: Welcome to Experience this, the podcast that

Speaker B: celebrates remarkable customer experiences and inspires you to stand out from the competition by wowing your customers.

Speaker A: Each episode we bring you a healthy dose of inspiring stories, funny interactions, and practical takeaways. Marketing and customer experience thought leader Dan

Speaker B: Gingis shares the mic with customers, customer retention and employee experience expert Joey Coleman, helping you to get people talking about your business.

Speaker A: So get ready because it's time to experience this. Get ready for the final episode of, uh, the Experience this show.

Speaker B: Join us one final time as we discuss the must read employee experience book of 2023, the shock stats behind the biggest challenge facing organizations today, and a method for enhancing your customer experience by focusing on your employee experience, reading, resigning, and retaining.

Speaker A: Oh, my. We're excited to give you an overview of an important book you should know about, as well as share some of our favorite passages as part of our next book report.

Speaker B: You know, we've done a lot of book reports over the years here at Experience this. I wish I counted them all, but I know it is near probably five dozen of them. And for our very last one, we wanted to end on a book that is near and dear to our hearts and which promises to be a bestseller for years to come and it hasn't even been released yet. So Experience this listeners, you, you get the first look into a brand new book by our friend, my co host, Joey Coleman, called Never Lose an Employee Again. Aw.

Speaker A: Uh, Dan, you are too kind. I am so excited to be sharing the first in depth conversation about this book. I've been working on this book for years now and I am thrilled that our loyal and faithful listeners here at Experience this are gonna get to learn about it first. I mean, I haven't even really talked about this on the socials very much. No shocker there, I'm sure for anyone, but excited to dive into this conversation with you.

Speaker B: All right, so the book is called Never Lose an Employee the Simple Path to Remarkable Retention. Before we dive in too much, I, uh, think I gotta ask the question that lots of people are probably thinking, which is, what is a customer Experience guy doing writing a book about employee experience?

Speaker A: Well, Dan, I gotta admit, you, uh, are not alone in wondering that. Our listeners are not alone in wondering that. And the first person who really pushed on this to be candid was my amazing wife, Barrett, who was like, I don't know that you should write a book on employee experience. You're a customer experience guy. But here's the reason why. There's really two reasons. Number one, I believe that you can't have a remarkable customer experience unless you have fantastic employees. They are the people delivering the experience. And you can't ask an employee to deliver a remarkable experience if they don't have a context for what a remarkable experience is. And the best way to give them that context is to deliver remarkable experiences to your employees as part of the hiring and the interviewing and the onboarding and the training and the engaging and the retaining process. The other thing that was kind of the spark or the impetus behind this book is when I wrote my first book, Never Lose a Customer Again. About six months later, I got an email from a reader. This is someone that I never met, haven't met since. And all the email said was, dear Joey, if you wrote a book called Never Lose an Employee Again, I would buy it. That's all it said. And I thought, well, that's kind of interesting. But at the time, I didn't think much of it. I received almost a dozen more emails exactly like that from different readers around the world who all they said was, if you wrote a book called Never Lose an Employee Again, I would buy it. And what that revealed to me, Dan, was that there is a need, a thirst, a challenge for employers around the world to figure this out. And by the way, this was pre Covid, pre the great Resignation. People were already struggling with this, which has only increased as a problem since then.

Speaker B: Well, I can only imagine, as, uh, the great customer experience guy that you are, what you're going to do for those dozen readers that suggest of this title to you. I'm sure they're going to be among the first to get the book.

Speaker A: There might be some special treats for them. I don't want to reveal anything just yet because they might be listening. But yes, there are going to be some special treats.

Speaker B: Well, I love this concept of the intersection of customer, uh, experience and employee experience. And you know, you mentioned something. One of the stats that I love to quote when I'm doing keynotes is that 2/3 of consumers cannot remember the last time any brand exceeded their expectations. Now, that always shocks me because that's a lot of consumers. But if you.

Speaker A: A lot of people.

Speaker B: Yeah. If you extrapolate that to your employees who are also consumers, it is fair to expect, although I have not seen this specific stat, that 2/3 of your employees cannot remember the last time that they've had a remarkable experience from M A brand. And so to your point, if you're asking employees to create these kinds of experiences, they may just be looking at you like, I don't know what he wants me to do because I haven't experienced it myself. So I think this connection is desperately needed and it's why I am, uh, so excited for your book. So, as we do with book reports, we'd like to ask the author to give us an overview of the book. But instead of queuing up a pre recorded, uh, piece from an author, I'm just gonna ask you, Joey, tell us an overview of never lo an employee again.

Speaker A: All right, well, here's how I think of it. After making just enormous, huge investments of time and money and energy to bring aboard new employees, most companies see between 20 and 50% of those new hires quit in less than 100 days. These employees fail to get up to speed. They realize the job quote isn't for them, or they simply just go home one day and and never come back. This happens to businesses of every size, reducing productivity, eliminating profits, and decimating morale. Now, as if that wasn't enough, the most recent research indicates that somewhere between 52 and 64% of your current employees plan to look for a new job in the next year. Now, uh, the good news is it's easier than you might think to have engaged enthusiastic, committed employees. And in the book, Never Lose an Employee Again, I'm going to share with readers exactly what to do in the crucial first 100 days of the employee employer relationship. I present a simple eight phase methodology that will help you attract the ideal team member, get them up and running in short order, and turn them into a raving fan of your business.

Speaker B: Wait a minute. Wait a, um, minute. I feel like I've heard about this first hundred days thing before.

Speaker A: You have, my friend. Irony of all ironies. When I started to do the research on this, I realized that the same crucial first hundred days of the client experience applies to the employee experience. And as soon as I realized that, I started to look at the employee journey and I realized that it mapped beautifully to the customer journey. And then I realized that the same tools you can use to create remarkable experiences for your customers you can use to create remarkable experiences for your employees. So basically, pro tip here. If you have already read Never Lose a Customer Again and you want a full preview of what Never Lose an employee again is like, just go through the book and in your mind, do a find and replace. Every time I say customer, replace it with employee. You'll have the gist of the new book already figured out.

Speaker B: Yes, but don't do that and be done. You still got to go buy the new book.

Speaker A: I mean, well, that would be nice, too, because you want to figure out all the ideas and the case studies. Exactly.

Speaker B: So, speaking of case studies, I know your last book had a ton of them. I think it was 46 at last count. How about this new book?

Speaker A: Well, Dan, you are correct. There were 46 case studies in the first book. And you know, when you come out with your sophomore album, you want it to be better than your initial album. And I thought, what would make it better than more case studies? So There are over 50 case studies, and what I'm really excited about is not only do they cover everything from small kind of mom and pop shops, size businesses to global juggernauts and everything in between, but I set out to have a goal of finding at least one case study from all seven continents. And I'm happy to report and proud to report that we achieved that goal.

Speaker B: Wait a second. You found a business in Antarctica to do a case study on?

Speaker A: Yes, I did. I found Antarctica employee experience examples that we're going to dissect and break down as part of the book.

Speaker B: A logoed parka for everyone on the first day.

Speaker A: I'm just saying there are a couple different options. And by the way, I actually had the pleasure of traveling to Antarctica, uh, to kind of do some research for the book, which is really exciting.

Speaker B: All right, so I admittedly have not completely finished the book. It is, uh, almost 300 pages, and I'm not the fastest reader in the world, but I did come across several passages that really stood out to me. And so I'm excited to get into the favorite passage part of our book report.

Speaker A: Ooh, I love it. I love it. All right, hit me with it, Dan. What's your favorite passage?

Speaker B: All right, here it is. You only have 100 days, if that long, to get the experience right. While most employers understand the touch points and interactions they have with employees are important, not all organizations realize the significance of the timing of those experiences. If you want an employee to stay with your organization long term, the foundational interactions at the beginning of the relationship are key, and those positive interactions must be sustained over, um, many years. A new employee's feelings for your brand start to accumulate when they first see your job posting and continue throughout their time as an employee. These sentiments are accelerated and magnified when the employee shows up for their first day on the job, receives their first performance review, gets promoted, and or experiences their first work related setback. From the beginning of the relationship, a clock starts ticking, and every interaction, touch point, exchange, and communication contributes to the employee Overall perception of your organization. Each interaction matters, and as they accumulate, their importance increases. You can't plan on making a good impression once the employee proves to be a contributor or a quality hire. You'll never reach that stage in the relationship if the early interactions aren't substantive enough to keep the employee coming back each day. To successfully enroll a new employee, you need a formal onboarding program tracking the employee's physical, mental and emotional connections to the organization. The program must be comprehensive and continuous to be successful. It must lay a solid foundation with the employee, especially in the crucial first 100 days of the journey.

Speaker A: You know, it is so fascinating and surreal to hear someone who I love, uh, and respect so much share part of the book that I'm really, other than my editors, the only one that's read. So thank you so much for highlighting that passage. Yeah, and, and to be candid, I'd be curious as to what stood out for you. I mean, I can certainly say some things about what I thought about that passage, but why did you like that passage, Dan?

Speaker B: Well, you know, I worked for a lot of big companies. I worked for a couple small and medium sized companies as well. And I have led, I mean, a dozen or more teams. And uh, a lot of this just hit me because I've experienced it. So uh, for example, when you mentioned the employees showing up their first day on the job, I can't tell you how many times an IT department didn't have their laptop ready. And I'm telling you, that is the worst. Like literally your employees there, they're so excited and they can't do anything. They can't even check their email. They can't do anything because they don't have a computer. And it's like, okay, we knew this employee, we hired this employee a month ago. It's not like we didn't know they were showing up today. And there's no computer. And I as a manager would be embarrassed. You know, it's like, well, okay, I guess I'll just have to give you the nickel tour all day because you can't like log onto your computer. So this stuff really does matter, you know. And, and I also, having been an employee for almost for, for 20 plus years at a number of different companies, I've experienced those highs and lows. Uh, I've experienced the performance reviews, the promotions and the work related setbacks. And so I think that they are much like we say, that every interaction with a brand contributes to the perception of the customer experience. I think you're totally right. That every interaction with a company as an employee contributes to the overall feeling of employee experience.

Speaker A: Oh, uh, I love it. I love it. Yeah. And that's what I was hoping would really connect with people as they read the book, that they would relate back to their own employee experiences and almost immediately begin to see opportunities for improvement. Because, let's be candid, it's a lot like customer experience. You're never done right. You can always find ways to make the experience you deliver to your customers better. The same holds true for your employees. But what I found in the research is that we're so outwardly focused as organizations. We have, you know, a chief experience officer, you know, we have a chief customer officer, we have customer service departments. When it comes to employee experience, what we usually have is HR or human resources. And with all due respect to the wonderful HR folks out there, most employees don't get excited when they hear the phrase, let's have a meeting with hr. Right? Because usually that means you're in trouble, there's a problem, there's an issue. What would it be like if instead a meeting with HR or the employee experience team meant that things were about to get better? I think that's a fascinating thing to consider. And my goal, one of my goals in writing the book was to provide the ideas and the suggestions that would allow those type of meetings and interactions to happen.

Speaker B: It's really funny that you say that about talking with, with, uh, hr, because I often comment that in, um, in some companies where the CX department has been set up but it doesn't have the buy in. It's like when you're told the auditors are coming down the hall, right? No one wants to see the auditors. And then the CX team sometimes feels like the auditors. And you're totally right. No one wants to go see hr. That usually it's like being sent to the principal's office. So totally get it. All right, so I know as the author, it's really difficult to pick a favorite passage because it's like choosing a favorite child. You can't do it, but I'm going to make you do it anyway. And I'm sure that you have one ready. So tell us, Joey, what is your favorite passage from never lose an employee again?

Speaker A: Well, Dan, interestingly enough, one of my most favorite passages, and you're right, there are a lot of these that I like to think are going to provide some value or insight or help. But one of the things that passages that I wanted to share today actually speaks directly to that point, you just made about showing up for the first day of work, and it's like you don't have a computer. It doesn't seem like the team is ready for you. Uh, it seems like an afterthought. You're thrilled, excited, elated to be starting this new job. And it's as if the people that are there to welcome you didn't give any thought to what was going to happen. So this favorite passage comes from the section titled Give them Something to talk About. When your new employee leaves the office after their first day on the job, who will they call as they make their way home? What will they share about the experience of their first day on the job? When they get home, who will greet them at the door and ask, how is your first day? How will your employee respond to that question? Whenever someone starts a new job, the most important people in their life know about it. They often share the employee's hope and optimism for the new position, and are usually the first person outside of the organization's HR team or a direct supervisor to inquire about the employee's experience that first day. It's shocking how few organizations take this inquiry into consideration when planning a new hire's first day on the job. When the employee talks about the day, will they share stories of inspiring new connections and opportunities? Opportunities or demoralizing form completion and policy briefings? How was your first day? Is a simple question and in many ways a, uh, simple metric for your organization to measure the success of its onboarding initiatives, figure out what you want new employees to talk about with their loved ones, and then plan their onboarding accordingly to foster those conversations. In the words of country music legend Bonnie Raitt,

Speaker B: Outstanding. And I'm sorry that I accidentally stole your thunder there talking about the first day of work. I didn't know that that was going to be your favorite section.

Speaker A: It's perfect. It was a nice. It was a nice, relevant, uh, reference. So I appreciated that.

Speaker B: All right, so people are clearly going to love this book, but, Joey, it doesn't actually come out until June 27th. There has to be something that we can do to give our listeners some access before that.

Speaker A: Oh, man, my publisher is not going to like this conversation. Right? If there's a whole theory that you keep everything secret and till launch. Uh, while I appreciate that, I, I. You know, we talked about it on the show, Dan, that. That's kind of.

Speaker B: Joey, this is for our experience, this listeners. We just told them it's a final episode. They're already crying and they're gonna miss us. We got. We got to give them something.

Speaker A: All right? But I need everybody to agree that we're going to keep this between Dan, Joey, and the listeners of the Experience, this show. All right, well, here's the deal. The reality is, is that in the world of publishing, especially traditional publishing, pre orders really matter. When people place orders on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, it sends a message to both of those booksellers as well as indie bookstores, that they should order more copies in advance of the launch. And it gets the publisher to print more copies the first run so that they're available the day the book comes out. So it actually would be a huge help. So let me see. Let's. Because I'm all about experience, and I'm all about different levels of experience. All right, let's do this. We're. We're going to create three different levels. Let's call the first one the fan prize. Okay? So if you're a fan of, uh, the Experience, this show, or a fan of mine, or a fan of my first book, or a fan of this concept of employee experience, go and purchase the book on Amazon and then email me your receipt for level two. We'll call that, I don't know, the raving fan prize. Go order the book on Barnes and Noble. Okay. Because although you may not have been to a Barnes and Noble recently, and you may like to over index on your orders coming from Amazon, getting some orders over on Barnes and Noble is a huge help as well. So we'll call that, uh, the Raving Fan level and send me a receipt. And I guess last but not least, if you want to go really crazy and be a super fan. Yeah, super fan. Like Brittany Hodak would say, a super fan. Go and order the book from Amazon and Barnes and Noble. And now you've got an extra copy at launch to give to a friend and email me those receipts and, uh, I'll send you some prizes.

Speaker B: Oh, fantastic. Now, you don't know this, Joey, because, you know we can't see each other when we're recording this. And, you know, you were diligently talking about your. Your fan levels. I just want you to know I have already pre ordered never lose an employee again on both Amazon and Barnes and Noble. And so I'm a level three super fan.

Speaker A: I so appreciate that. Thank you for being a super. Send me your receipts. We'll get you some prizes.

Speaker B: All right, so. But what are these levels you're talking about? I'm so excited.

Speaker A: All right, I'm kind of making this up as I go along. Friends, I love you. This is like you're getting to see the behind the scenes. Uh, all right, so let's say the fan level. That first level, if you order the book on Amazon. I have been fielding questions as I went through the process and identified, let's say, the 10 most commonly asked questions from leaders that are trying to solve their hiring and onboarding and engagement and retention challenges. Uh, the audiences asked and the clients asked, and I did my best to answer. So shout out to Marcus Sheridan, our good friend, for his they ask, you answer model. I'm going to send you the ten most common questions and the answers for how you can address some of these things in your business. So that'll be the fan level for level two, the Raving Fan. Oh, and by the way, let's just make it that as you go up the levels, you get everything I've already talked about, right? They just stack. So for the Raving Fan level, I'm not supposed to do this, but I'm going to do it because it's you, our wonderful listeners. I'm going to give you an actual secret sample chapter from the book. The chapter's called the Eight Phases and Six Tools of a Remarkable Employee Experience. It details all the stages that an employee goes through and how you can use six communication tools in creative ways to build rapport and connection with these new employees. So I think it's like 18, 19, 20 pages long, something like that. So it's a substantive chapter, uh, from the book. And then level three, the Super Fan Prize. You're going to get the Fan Prize, and you're going to get the Raving Fan Prize. But for the Super Fan Prize, you're going to get the Never Lose an Employee Again implementation Kit. This is a kit that I'm putting together for launch, but you're going to get it early. That explains the eight phases in detail and gives you dozens of examples of things you can do to start creating a remarkable experience in the first hundred days right now, even before the book comes out, you'll be good to go. How's that sound, Dan? Three levels. Fan, raving Fan, super fan.

Speaker B: I think that sounds great, but you mentioned all those case studies and. And specifically that Antarctica one. Can we get that one, too?

Speaker A: Oh, man. All right, all right, here's. I can see the phone call with the publisher, uh, about five seconds after this episode drops. Okay. Just because it's you asking, Dan, if anyone goes above and beyond, let's say, oh, how about shares this on social media, shares about the book coming out. Does a post saying like, hey, you can get some bonuses or encourages people to a copy on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or both, or your favorite indie bookstore, wherever they want to get it. I will send you top secret for your eyes only, a case study about how to recruit top talent to come work in Antarctica. I will tell you this case study is actually not in the book. It's that top secret. But think about how difficult it is to convince people to go to Antarctica for months because that job, you're in isolation for a long time in a cold, harsh environment. I'm going to share with you the most fascinating story and example of how that recruiting was done to tremendous success. And I think it'll be, uh, a great reference point as you think about getting people to come recruit folks to come join your organization. So post on the social, tag me, probably tag Dan too, to make sure that I see it. And, uh, you will get the special super secret Antarctica case.

Speaker B: All right, now you see, now we're giving them something to talk.

Speaker A: All right. I like it.

Speaker B: Thank you. You know, gosh, man, you're holding back on us, but I'm glad we finally got there and I'm super excited. I'm a super fan and you know me, I'm of course going to talk about it on social. So I'm going all the way for the Antarctica case study. Super excited. So, listeners, hey, do us a favor. Go out to Amazon, to Barnes and Noble, or both and order a copy of Never Lose an Employee Again by Joey Coleman. You are going to have to sit and wait until June to get it, but you're going to be one of the first pre orders out there, and that means you're going to get one. You can be one of the first people in the world, world to receive the book, uh, at your doorstep. Also share it on social. Send all of your receipts and tag Joey. Send it to Joey. JoeyColman. Uh, dot com. And I know Joey. He's going to be responsive. He's going to answer, and he is going to send you all those fabulous gifts that he promised. Never Lose an Employee Again by Joey Coleman. Pre order it today.

Speaker A: Surveys, report studies and reviews. There are some great resources that look at consumer behavior to find emerging trends and established patterns. We dig through the data and bring you the key takeaways in this edition of Inside the Numbers.

Speaker B: All right, Joey, your new book, Never Lose an Employee Again is filled with shocking statistics about employees and employee experience. Now, you know I Love games. And so I thought it would be fun if we could play a game called Guess that Number, where I'm going to give you a number and you relate it to some of the data and research that you shared in your book. Sound like a fun plan?

Speaker A: It does sound fun. I'm a little anxious about getting these right. It also sounds a little bit like years ago we had a segment in one of our earlier seasons, uh, called Check out this Number where we'd have a funny riff on a number. So we'll see what we can do with these.

Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. It's a little bit of a throwback here in our last episode. So no pressure because, you know, this is only from your own book, but let's dive in and, uh, and you do the best, uh, to answer in the form of a question. Kind of like we're, uh, playing Jeopardy. Okay. I get to finally live, uh, out my dream as being, uh, Alex Trebek. Here we go. All right, here comes your, uh, first statistic, Joey. And it is. The answer is three to four times.

Speaker A: That would be how many times you're going to have to ask this question before I get it right. No, I, I think I know what this one's refer to. That would be, what is the cost of recruiting a new employee? In that it's three to four times the salary of the position you're trying to fill. So this number actually comes from shrm, which is it's affectionately known is the Society for Human Resource Management. They have members in 165 countries around the world. Over 300,000 members. But this number is designed to have you look at the salary and consider all of the hard costs like ads and promotions, as well as the soft costs, like the time your managers spend interviewing people when you're trying to figure out the true cost of bringing a new employee on board. So let's do some quick math, friends. Even though, as a general, we like to think there isn't a lot of math here at Experience this. Think of an open position in your organization or the role you'd like to hire for next. How much do you think you'll need to pay that person? Now, don't just think of their salary or their wages. Make sure to factor in the cost of their benefits and if you want to be really accurate, the associated tax expenses. Okay. Do you have that number at least a rough ballpark of that number. Great. Now multiply it by three. We're going to be conservative here. It could be as high as four times. I'm Going to wait while you pick yourself up off the floor.

Speaker B: Well, now, that was a sobering thought. Okay, all right. I've learned something already here. There's been a little more math, but we promised there would be no math. So we're done with the math part. But I got another number for you. Here it comes. $1,985.

Speaker A: $1,985. Okay, it's not 1985. Uh, the year $1985 is what is the amount the average organization with less than 500 employees is going to spend on training each employee every year that they are an employee?

Speaker B: Whoo. Now, that's a heck of a lot of training. Almost two grand per employee on train. Now, are these like, best in class organizations or is this kind of an average?

Speaker A: Brother, this is the average for companies with less than 500 employees. So just to be treading. And this, this research is from the association for Talent Development, and it includes everything from internal training activities, like when you get everybody together to make sure they know how to, uh, file the new TPS reports, to external learning suppliers where you, you know, get a consultant to come in and teach your people how to use Salesforce or something like that, to tuition reimbursement. If you've got kind of a budget that they can go out and take whatever class they want and you'll reimburse it. So you spend a lot of money to get them in the door, and then you spend a lot of money to keep them in the door.

Speaker B: And I remember from the book that it also doesn't include things like coaching or knowledge sharing or job shadowing, which of course costs the organization more money, but are a little bit difficult to track or account for because they're not hard dollars.

Speaker A: Exactly. So here's the thing. Even if we just look at the easy to track numbers, they're pretty staggering. If you start to factor in all the time and the meetings and the extra effort and the, you know, getting someone up speed, these numbers get big real fast.

Speaker B: All right, let's try another one. How about. I'm m going to give you two here just to complicate.

Speaker A: Jeez.

Speaker B: 700 billion and 30%.

Speaker A: All right, trying to trick me with a two for one. All right, good news is I know these two. What is 700 billion? What is the estimated cost of turnover to employers in the United States in, uh, 2021? By the way, this was more than double the amount that was the estimated cost of turnover for employers back in 2009.

Speaker B: Well, hold on Let me interrupt you here. Why did it go up so much? Why is it so much higher now than it was only a decade or so ago?

Speaker A: Well, I think the reality is it is a lot easier to work for someone who isn't in your hometown. Now, what I mean by that is, if we roll the clock back 20 years, as a general rule, most people work for an employer was based less than 30 miles from their home. Now, if you work for an employer that is based less than 30 miles from your home, chances are you have a lot more opportunities to do the same or similar or maybe even better, work for an employer that isn't located in your town because of the ability to do remote work. So it has become easier for employees to find jobs all over the world while staying home because they can work remotely. And that is really accelerated, especially in the last two or three years.

Speaker B: Right, but isn't that also a huge opportunity for companies themselves? Because instead of having to hire the best digital marketer that lives within 30 miles of your physical building, you can hire the best digital marketer in the world if you want.

Speaker A: 100%. Dan, in the same way that, you know, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, some employers look at this and say, well, this means everybody's coming poaching for our people. Well, um, maybe. But it also means that you just opened up the entire planet as a potential employee recruiting base. And because in the last two, three years, many employers have gotten a lot more familiar with remote work and being able to do things without having everybody under the same roof. Your team is already comfortable with this model. So bringing in a rock star from another jurisdiction or another country or, you know, another time zone is a lot easier and potentially more valuable to your organization.

Speaker B: All right, so what about the second part of the question? I see you've easily dodged that, the 30% number. 30%.

Speaker A: All right, what is this is again? I believe a, uh, uh, SHRM number. Some SHRM research. What is the average turnover rate for employees across all industries? This includes both involuntary turnover, which is when you fire someone, and voluntary turnover, when an employee decides to quit.

Speaker B: Okay, hold on. Let me get this straight. Are you saying that 30% of employees that are working with a company at the beginning of any given year are gone by the end of the year?

Speaker A: Correct. Let's just let. That's a huge number. And friends, again, that is the average globally. Now, certainly there are some industries, like restaurants, where it often exceeds 100% annually. But even if your business is one, and you're saying you know. Oh, well, we haven't had an employee leave in years. Great. Eventually that wheel rolls back around, like in Vegas. Right. Eventually the number's going to hit, but it's not going to be good for you when somebody that you value, that you trust, that you need in your operation is going to decide, yeah, I want to move on.

Speaker B: And also, for every company like that, there's a couple dozen technology companies laying off tens of thousands of people at once. So those numbers can get skewed in both directions.

Speaker A: They can.

Speaker B: All right, Joey, I have one more number for you. It's really specific, so I can't wait to hear this one. It is 90.5%.

Speaker A: Oh, Dan, I gotta tell you, this is probably the most interesting data point in the entire book. When people quit, leaders are often caught off guard. And if you ask most leaders, hey, why did someone so quit? Why did they leave your company? The usual response they give is, oh, uh, they got a better offer somewhere else. They were going to make more money over here. I was curious if that was true. I know that's the answer most leaders give, but is it true? And so what I did is I went and looked at some research done by Work Institute. Work Institute conducted the largest study of why employees quit that's ever been done. To give you an idea, the typical study on why employees quit has a sample size of like three to five employees. Work Institute study, 234,000 exit interviews. This is the most comprehensive, robust study that has ever been done on why people quit. And what they found is that 9.5% leave for more money or better benefits. And while we said there would be no more math, what that tells us is that 90.5% leave for reason other than more money. This is crazy. Why don't we pay attention to those reasons instead of complaining about the more money? Oh, we couldn't pay them as much. I get it. But that's only a small percentage of the people are leaving. Here's the one that I thought was most interesting. The biggest reason people leave. In this study, 22% of the people that leave cited that the reason they left was there wasn't a clear path forward for their career at that organization. They couldn't see a clear path.

Speaker B: So this one actually speaks to me because one, uh, of the things that I always did as a manager, and I think this is unique, although I don't know why I think every manager should do it, I would always tell my team in a team meeting that my going assumption is that everyone in the room wanted to be at the next level. And I would tell people, if you don't, that's perfectly fine, come talk to me because I want to know. And every once in a while I would get somebody, maybe there's somebody that's ah, a little bit later on in their career. And they'd say to me, you know, Dan, I just don't want the responsibilities of the next level. I'm really happy where I'm at. But that was the exception, not the rule. And so when I would say, I'm going to assume everybody wants to be at the next level, I would see lots of heads nodding. And so as a leader, I felt like part of my job was how do I help them get there. The thing is though, is I very rarely had people doing that for me and I very rarely.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And so absolutely I left jobs because I felt like I was at a dead end. I had done everything I could do that, you know, that, that promises of promotions were just promises. They were empty promises. And, and so I think this number totally makes sense of people that are leaving for better career opportunities. So how, how do companies fix that?

Speaker A: 22% Dan There is a case study in the book that I am so excited to share because it's actually very easy to implement and it has incredible success at addressing this problem. There's a company in the United States located in Wisconsin called well Oiled Operations. Now it's a small team, maybe less than 20 employees. Okay, so this isn't some big behemoth organization. What happened is they had an employee that they were planning to promote quit. And this employee had shared with their direct manager that they wanted to advance. But the direct manager hadn't shared that with the CEO of the organization. And the CEO, Stacy was totally caught off guard and she was irritated that this person that she had previously identified as a rising talent and had plans for the future. That message hadn't gotten to the employee. They didn't see the path forward at the organization. So what she did was work with her team to create a future org chart. Almost every business in the world has an org chart that details the different roles and responsibilities across the organization. Stacy and her team at well Oiled Operations took it one step further. They created the Future org chart that showed what the organization was going to look like, like three years from now. And each year they update that org chart so that it constantly offers a physical vision of what the future is so employees could see, hey, three years from now we're going to have a new Product. And we're going to need a new head of product to manage that product. And right now I'm an assistant product manager over on this product. And I know my boss is never going to leave, but there's going to be an opportunity over here in the future. It is something that every organization can do. It doesn't take a ton of work. It's actually brilliant to get your team aligned with your vision for the future. But it shows how that vision for the future is going to impact their career, not just the growth of your business and your offerings in the marketplace.

Speaker B: That is. That's perfect. I mean, it solves the issue that I just spoke about of if you assume everybody wants to move up and you kind of know everybody can't move up, but if employees see a place for themselves in the future, that is going to go a long way to them continuing to work hard and want to stay where they're at. I think that's a really cool idea and it is something I haven't seen executed out in the wild. So, folks, there are lots of crazy statistics and data points in never lose an employee again, but they all add up to one important conclusion. Losing employees comes at a huge cost, and replacing them also costs a ton of money. It's like when you lose a customer and you have to go get another one. It is so much more expensive. Expensive than just keeping the customer in the first place. So if you want to save money, grow your business, and achieve the sort of employee engagement and retention that you dream of, you must pay attention to new employee onboarding, especially in the first 100 days of the employee life cycle. Since we're not going to be recording any more episodes of Experience Experience this. Joey, how are people going to hear us?

Speaker A: Well, Dan, I guess they'll just need to invite us to come give a keynote speech or lead a workshop at their organization.

Speaker B: Exactly. We would love to present to your company, your mastermind group, your trade association,

Speaker A: or anywhere in the world where you think people need to hear more about creating remarkable customer experiences or remarkable employee

Speaker B: experience, you can invite one of us

Speaker A: or both of us.

Speaker B: And we promise to deliver a presentation that will leave your audience energized and cheering.

Speaker A: Now, if you want to dive deeper than a keynote speech, a workshop, or a, uh, consulting engagement is also a great way to get your team involved and really make lasting enhancements to your

Speaker B: overall experience so you too can create raving fans with your remarkable interactions.

Speaker A: So if you're interested in having me or Dan speak at your next event

Speaker B: or help you with a bigger project.

Speaker A: Please reach out to discuss your options, our availability, and what we can do to deliver a remarkable experience for you. Email me@joey joeycolman.com or me@dan, uh, gingas.com and let's work together so you can, uh, experience this. Sometimes a remarkable experience deserves deeper investigation. We dive into the nitty gritty of customer interactions and dissect how and why they happen. Uh, join us while we're dissecting the experience.

Speaker B: So we've talked about the importance of creating remarkable employee experiences, but how does one actually go about out doing that? Well, good news. We've got the expert here on the show and we're going to ask him. So, Joey, uh, how does one actually go about doing that?

Speaker A: Well, Dan, when I was putting together this book, what I wanted to do was give folks a blueprint, a framework, a methodology, you know, and a philosophy of how they could make changes to their employee experience. And when I really dove into it, I identified that this. There are eight phases that an employee goes through from the first time they hear about a job or they go looking for a job to the point where they are a raving fan and loyal advocate for your business. And I think the best way somebody can make these enhancements is to get clear on what is the employee journey in the same way that everybody listening knows how to, you know, map out a customer journey. Have we mapped out an employee journey? And are we thinking about all the touch points and interactions we have that can create the movement through that journey in a remarkable and unique way?

Speaker B: All right, so I know that you have a set of eight phases which, uh, readers of your first book will probably be familiar with. They all start with the letter A. And I know you're going to tell us why and maybe if you could quickly go through what those eight phases are.

Speaker A: Yeah, ironically enough, as I was looking at the phases from keeping a customer and applying them to the phases for keeping an employee, I found out that the phases were very similar. They ran in parallel. And once again, to make it easy, they're all going to start with the letter A. There's one slight variation in how I refer to the phase, but I'll call that out. But, yeah, they each start with A. And the idea is if you're getting all of these phases right, it's like getting straight A's on your report card from your employees. They're loving you every step of the journey. You're doing a great job. So I'll give you a quick Overview of each one. The first phase is the assess phase. Days. This is when a prospective employee is trying to decide whether or not they want to work for you. They're reviewing your job listings or your advertisements or the career page on your website. They're submitting an application. They're going through whatever your interview process is. They're being considered for employment. They're assessing whether or not this is going to be a good fit, and you're assessing whether or not it's going to be a good fit to hire them. We then come to phase two, the accept phase. This is when you as the employer, make a formal offer to the candidate candidate and they accept your offer of employment. We then go to the affirm, uh, stage. Now this is when an employee begins to doubt the decision they just made to accept your offer. It's the time period between when they accept the offer and their first day on the job. You know, in the customer space, we think of this as buyer's remorse. In the employee space, I call this new hire's remorse. The science shows it's the same feeling in their brain, feelings of fear and doubt and uncertainty about this new job they're about to take. We then come to the activate phase. This is the first day on the job. It's the one phase that is limited to a single day. So what are you doing to make sure that you energize the relationship and really start things off on the right foot so that we can, quote, give them something to talk about and, um,

Speaker B: hint, one step is to make sure their laptop's ready.

Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. We then come to the acronym acclimate phase. Okay, the acclimate phase is different for every business in terms of its duration. But basically it's the first few weeks or months of employment. When a new hire is getting familiar with your way of doing business, you're getting them up to speed, you're training them, um, they're getting comfortable with the job, they're learning the ropes, they're learning the various folks in the organization they have to interact with. Then they come to the accomplish phase. This is when the employee achieves the goal they had when they originally decided to accept your offer of employment. Now, every employee, when they say, I will take this job has a goal they're trying to accomplish. Maybe a promotion, a, ah, pay raise, a feeling of connection, uh, with their co workers, uh, additional status or responsibility or learning new skills. Most employers aren't paying attention to what their new hires are hoping to accomplish, nor are they tracking their progress. Towards that goal, nor are they celebrating that goal with them them when they actually accomplish it. If you don't do that, you don't have the right to move to phase seven, the adopt phase. This is when an employee becomes loyal to you and only you. They're committed. They're not going to respond to the call for the headhunter. They're not going to spend weekends polishing their resume and looking for new jobs. They plan to stay with you for the foreseeable future. And they see their work with your organization as a key component of their life and career. And last but not least, the holy grail nirvana, the eighth phase, the final phase, the advocate phase. When an employee becomes a raving fan, singing your praises publicly and privately as they write reviews on Glassdoor, as they recruit new employees to, uh, join your organization for open positions, you have they become your biggest fans and they're proud to acknowledge it.

Speaker B: All right, I love these, and I gotta give you kudos, man. Uh, you know, when I first thought, when I first heard you were going to use the same eight things, I was like, I don't know, is he trying to fit a square peg into a round hole here? But no, these. These make complete sense. And of course, that is because employee experience and customer experience are so closely related. And so I love how you have adapted your own methodology to a different space, but very, very effectively. So there were a couple of them. We don't have time to dig deep into all of them. And frankly, you're just going to have to go buy the book to dig deeper, deep, deep into all of them. There's a couple that I thought that really stuck out to me. I wanted to ask you about. The first one is Affirm. And the reason for this is. I've heard of buyer's remorse, but I haven't really thought of this idea of new hires remorse. And I'll be candid. It is not something I have experienced in the places where I've moved jobs. And maybe it's just because I felt confident I made the right decision. So talk to me about this moment when a person has agreed to go to a new job, and for some reason, instead of being super pumped and excited about a new opportunity, they're worried that maybe they made a mistake.

Speaker A: I, uh, love this question, Dan, because you're right. This is one that most organizations overlook, and some employees don't feel to the same degree as others. Let me give you two examples that regularly come up about people that feel this a lot. Number one, the person who's interviewing for multiple jobs at the same time and gets an offer that they feel compelled to accept. Before they've heard back from the other companies they're interviewing with, they realize, oh my gosh, I might like this other offer better. But, uh, they haven't gotten back to me and the clock is ticking on this first one. So they accept an offer and immediately begin to see, think, well, what if I had done that other one? The other way this often comes up is with folks who, and I say this respectfully, maybe aren't as entrepreneurial minded as you. You know, what I think is interesting about your career, Dan, is you worked at Discover, you worked at Humana, you worked at McDonald's, and while you were an employee, I would posit you were more of an intrapreneur. You were an entrepreneur within the organization who felt a certain amount of extroverted nature, who felt a certain amount of autonomy and trying to push the organization forward. Not every employee feels that way. A lot of employees, when they show up, are kind of expecting their employer to help guide them forward. The reason why those type of employees feel a little trepidation, a little fear about accepting the job offer is their knowledge of the company is only the knowledge they've acquired as part of the interview process. And frankly, it's kind of like dating. It's when everybody's being on their best behavior. Most interviewers aren't going to tell you the worst thing about their company. Most job descriptions aren't going to say, and here's why you'll hate working here.

Speaker B: And your, and your new boss is not going to be a horrible boss in the interview.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so what happens is, because humans are smart enough to know that that can happen because they've had experience at other employers, most likely the one they're probably at right now before they're leaving to be hired and come work at your company. Those fears, those levels of uncertainty, those levels of concern are just coursing through their body. And if we don't address those, we're in trouble. Now, last thing I'll say on the affirm stage, most organizations, from the time you accept your job offer to your first day on the job, the only communication they have with you is we're so excited for your first day show up here at nine o' clock or whatever time, they're not telling you what to wear, they're not telling you what to expect, they're not doing anything to connect you to your new co workers, they're not doing anything to welcome you to the fold. So you show up the first day on the job. And I've had this experience at about 90% of the companies I've worked with over the years. Okay. Where I show up on the first day. I have no idea who I'm going to be working with. You kind of get to the front desk and you're like, yeah, I'm here for my first day, and I'm supposed to meet. Meet with Jane or Wanda or whoever hired me. You know, this type of thing. And it's like, there is so much uncertainty. There is a huge opportunity in the affirm stage to start the communications with your people before their first day on the job. And there's a bunch of case studies in the book about companies that are remarkable at doing that.

Speaker B: You know, I mentioned the laptop example, but I forgot to mention that I did start a job at one point in my career, and I showed. Showed up to the first day to find that my boss was off that day.

Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. And here's. Here's the crazy thing. Let's talk about demoralizing and like, oh, great, what am I supposed to do? Who's responsible for me? And here's the thing, Dan. I have spoken on this topic already. I've been doing some client workshops for folks. Whenever I ask people in the audience, tell me about your worst first day, it doesn't take a lot of effort to hear some horrifying stories. Almost everybody has a worst first day on the job. But interestingly enough, when I asked them, tell me about your best first day on the job. It's like Q Tumbleweed. The bar people are like, well, I showed up and my boss was there. Well, I showed up and they had a computer in a desk for me. You know, it was shocking, Joey. They took me to lunch like, that's the bar for remarkable. That's pathetic. This is why I, you know, quote Bonnie Raitt, give him something to talk about. Give them something remarkable and special on the first day that reinforces their decision to come work for you.

Speaker B: All right, I'm going to jump to another one, which I'm going to ask you a shorter question on this one, on the acclimate phase. I often felt in my experience that. But it really took about six months to get somebody to the point where they really felt like they were up to speed. You know, they know where things are. They know how to get things done. They understand their job description. They know their colleagues and who they're going to have to depend on. Etc. And I would say that as I moved around positions. I don't know that we've talked about this on the show, but, uh, one of the things that I loved about discover over 10 years is that they intentionally moved people almost every two years, years because they didn't want you to get stale and they wanted you to have a more of a generalist background, which I, you know, in hindsight, very thankful for. But what it meant was that every time I got into a new job, you know, the clock started again. Four to six months of, like, I just got to get. I just need to understand what's going on around here, because you described it as the first weeks and months of employment. But do you have any sense of, of, uh, what exactly that timing is for most people where they kind of feel comfortable and then move on to that accomplishment, Accomplished it.

Speaker A: Yeah. Dan, it's interesting. I would say of all the eight phases, the one that falls into that category, most of, well, it depends, is the acclimate phase. Because it really depends on the organizational culture, on the job that you've been hired for, and frankly, your experience and skill set and, uh, time in the workforce. You know, if you're coming right out of college, you might have a much longer, longer uptake period because you're trying to figure out, okay, I'm working in this corporate environment or a new environment for the first time. I'm just trying to figure out how the pieces work together. If you're somebody who's very seasoned in the role, you probably understand the aspects of the business they brought you in for, very specific skills, and you can get up and running faster. Your thought of six months, though, pretty much aligns, uh, with a lot of the research on this topic, and that is, is that most employees don't start to be, quote, unquote, worth their salary until closer to six months, in about four to six months. What I think is fascinating about this is the number of managers that expect their people to know everything and be producing the third day or the second week. Right. I've been in sales positions before where they're like, okay, so your quota for the first month is. And I'm like, do I get to learn the product? Product? Do I get to learn my territory? Like, you want me to be selling already? And like, I understand that. I respect that from the organization's point of view. But you really have to give the employee some time to get up to speed to learn not only your business, like, how do you make money? What are you doing but also your processes and your procedures. And who else on the team is part of that story? Like, what other departments are they going to have to coordinate with and collaborate with to achieve success in their role?

Speaker B: All right, so the last piece, uh, that I want to talk about is advocate. And, uh, I don't know if you know this, uh, either, because, you know, we don't speak. We haven't talked as much about employee experience here on the show. But at, uh, one of my jobs, I was responsible for the employee advocacy program, and I learned all about the software and technology that goes behind these things. My question for you is, can you separate the difference between a formalized advocacy program and for those that don't know, this is usually something where people sign up and we share social posts and other things that we encourage people to share in their own networks and comment on, et cetera. But can you separate a formal advocacy program from just creating an environment where when I'm out to dinner with friends, I'm talking about how much I love working at my company?

Speaker A: Oh, uh, this is a fantastic question, Deanna. I love it. And the case studies in this chapter speak specifically to this issue issue. You absolutely can have a formal advocacy program where people sign up, where they get certain, you know, cash referral bonuses or they can win prizes. That's great. But some of it is about just creating a culture of advocacy within your organization. Let me give you a couple quick examples. Salesforce host happy hours where their employees can go. And they encourage their employees to invite, invite other smart, talented people they know to the happy hour. And then the HR and recruiting teams just flock to these events and go around and try to meet as many smart, talented people as they know and talk about interesting opportunities at the organization. So it's not a formal thing of, hey, you gotta invite somebody who's looking for a job. It's like, no, you want to hang out with your friends, we'll pay for the drinks. Just invite smart people, you know, to come so they create that type of environment. There's a place in Canada called Brasa Peruvian Restaurant. And what I love about this is this is a quick serve restaurant that we've actually talked about on the show. We talked about some of the interesting things Brasa has done to pivot, uh, in the past, uh, during the pandemic. But what they do is imagine a, uh, quick serve or a fast food restaurant where as part of your employment, every week they have 30 minutes of paid time on their shift to go through their social media feeds and their Contacts on their phone phone, looking for amazing people that they know that the organization should know about as a potential future hire. So they create paid time for their people to identify folks in their network that might be a good fit. So those are kind of two examples, I think, of more informal ways that you can create a culture of advocacy, uh, regardless of the size of your organization. I mean, Brassa, Peruvian restaurants, small organization, you know, almost startup stage, you know, a couple locations, but not nearly as big as sales. Salesforce. Either way, you're only limited by the bounds of your own creativity when it comes to creating advocates within your team.

Speaker B: All right, fantastic, Fantastic. Now, Joey, I am not going to let you out of here on our final episode without a couple more questions that you don't know are coming. All right, that, uh, I just want to know about employee experience in your book. And so here we go. Just the, the folks, this is not scripted. Joey, don't just not know anything about what I'm about to ask him. But, uh, but here, here it goes. My first question. In your book, how often do you talk about things that companies should do, like they should begin doing or continue doing versus things they should not do or stop doing?

Speaker A: Interesting. Well, very similar to the experience. This should show, I think, there's enough negative energy in the world about employers that are failing, that are making mistakes, that are treating their employees horribly. I wanted to create a book that shined a light on organizations that were doing things right in a hope of inspiring readers and listeners and folks that are, you know, kind of consuming the content from the book to do better, to enhance things. So I don't know specifically what the breakdown would be, but I, I would guess that north of 90% of the book is things you should or could do, as opposed to criticizing people for the things they're currently doing.

Speaker B: All right, cool. Question number two. What was one personal experience that you brought to this book? Whether you specifically talked about it or it was just something that informed your writing?

Speaker A: So one of the, uh, things that I did talk about in the book book that really informed my writing as well is when I thought about the accomplish phase. There's a story in the book about a time where I was working for an organization called the corporate Executive Board, and I was in a sales position and I was selling these, you know, expensive memberships that were, you know, anywhere from 30 to $50,000 to join an annual membership. And I made my first sale, and my co workers, we were in a sales environment. You know, we were in an office and you know, there were bells ringing and they were celebrating, and I felt really good. I felt really good that I had finally arrived. I made my first sale. I was, you know, contributing to the organization. I was feeling a sense of progress and momentum as I was getting ready to go home that night. We, uh, had a voicemail system right, where you would dial in and you could auto leave voicemails for other people on the team. And I went by my desk phone, and the light was blinking, and there was a voicemail for me. And it was from the chairman of the board. Now, this is the chairman of the board board of a publicly traded company. And the message was something like this. Hey, Joey, heard you landed your first sale. So excited. We are so proud of the work you're doing. We're impressed that you're off to the races so quickly, and we expect great things from you in the future and are excited to have you part of our team.

Speaker B: Wow, Dan.

Speaker A: I transferred that voicemail onto my handheld digital recorder. Like, this is back. Like early days of cell phones, you didn't have cell phone recorder, but, like, I had a little tape record. And I would listen to that recording. When times were tough, when I didn't get the sale, when I was on the road and feeling lonely in yet another hotel in another city after a day full of meetings that none had broken my way and led to signed deals, I would listen to the recording of the chairman of the board of a publicly traded company who believed in me. There is such an opportunity, friend, to let the people on your team know that you appreciate them, that you care for them, that you're in it with them. And it's not enough to just say that in passing. Create an artifact, write it down, leave a voicemail, send them a selfie video. Do something to let your teammates and your employees and your direct reports and even your boss know how much you value and appreciate them. I promise you, you, the impact on them as well as you, we can't even begin to calculate.

Speaker B: Yeah, these little pats on the back or appreciation moments go so far with people. And. And again, I. I had experiences in my career where I really did feel appreciated. And there were times where I was like, does nobody see what I'm doing? Like, why doesn't anybody ever just say, hey, great job, Genghis. Keep it up, up. Like, just a little nudge, like, that can go a long way. So, great example. All right, I'm going to leave you with question number three. Here's the last one. I would like you to respond to this often uttered phrase, we haven't ever lost anyone we wanted to keep.

Speaker A: Oh, this is an interesting one. You know, two. I have two responses. Number one, one. Yet. Yet that may be true for what you've experienced in the past, but I believe if you can say that today, your likelihood of being able to say that a year from now is less than 5%. And here's why. It has never been in the history of the world more possible for an employee to find a better job somewhere else else than it is right now. We talked earlier about that idea that you used to have to work for an employer in your hometown. I've got examples of clients that I work with where they're having their top talent poached by companies in Australia, in Europe, in Asia, because they're realizing, if we want to have more of an American market, why don't we just dive in and get American employees? And we can do it remotely. So if you've been lucky enough not to experience this thus far, are good luck being able to say that going forward. The second thing I will say, and this may come off as a little critical, and if it does, I apologize. We haven't lost anyone that we haven't wanted to, or, you know, we haven't lost anybody that, you know, we felt bad about. Like, that's the implied tone in that message. If you have people on your team that you don't care whether they stay or go, go. I'm curious as to whether I should ever even want to do business with you. We have reached a point, hopefully, although doubtfully, as we look around in our human evolution, where we should do a better job about caring about humans than we do. The reality is the average employee will spend hours and hours and hours of their day with you. They will spend five days out of seven with you, and they will probably be thinking about you, you or work, or talking about work in the time period where they're not, quote, unquote, on the clock. In many scenarios, your work is taking more of your time than your family, your friends, your loved ones, yourself. And the brazen attitude with which so many employers think, well, you know what? That's a cog in the wheel. We can just replace that person. We can go find someone new, is not only just frankly, disgusting from a, like a human judgment point of view, but increasingly employees are aware of that. Employees aren't putting up with it anymore, and employees have better options to go work somewhere else. So if you're thinking, hey, Joey, this hasn't been a problem. Yet you have two choices. Do you want to get ahead of the game and you want to take your business to the next level, or do you want to keep rolling the dice and hoping you get lucky?

Speaker B: And, you know, uh, it's great that this is the, uh, the concluding discussion here of our podcast, because I'm going to be the Dan to Joey's Joey for a moment and say that my answer to that is BS that is not true. You haven't never lost somebody that you wanted to keep. That's the thing that we tell ourselves when we start to lose employees, that it must be their fault. It must be, you know, uh, it must be something, something that they did. It couldn't possibly be anything that we did. And we will just go find somebody else and, you know, no big deal. We'll find somebody better. And I often find that it is the worst bosses, the worst managers that say things like that, you know, because they don't want to face the fact that probably this person lost because of you, you know, because of how they were managed and because of the, uh, of a toxic environment around them. And unfortunately, in the workplaces that are toxic, it's usually leadership that has no idea they are toxic. Right. And so I purposely picked that quote because I have heard that one before and I think more times than not, it just simply isn't true. And it shows a complete lack of knowledge and introspection about the culture, the employee culture that your company has created. And I didn't mean to end more negatively because you, uh, correctly said that we like to be positive here, but, but that's my thought on that quote. Folks, listen, I have lots more questions for Joey. I'm sure you do as well. Uh, I'd love to continue talking for hours and hours on this book. And trust me when I tell you there are hours and hours worth of material, uh, to talk about. So please, it's not coming out for a couple months, but do it now. Go to Amazon, go to Barnes and Noble, go to both like I just did, and pre order order, never lose an employee again. And of course, if you do either of those things or both, send your receipts to joeyoeyoeycolman.com so that you can get all of those special awards and prizes that he talked about. And, uh, this is one of them. Look, we, we believe in all of the books that we recommend here on the show, otherwise we wouldn't share them with you. But obviously this is from our man, Joey. This is from my pal and podcast partner. Partner and A guy that I respect so much. And this is a really, really good book. So please go out and buy it. Never Lose an employee Again by Joey Coleman. Thanks for joining us. Uh, as we discussed, Legos, Delta Airlines,

Speaker A: Starbucks countertop Composting with Lomi Chewy.com what you can do to create remarkable experiences at every step of the customer and now employee journey as well.

Speaker B: Pizza restaurants that are focused on people with sensory issues.

Speaker A: Auto mechanics that shoot videos of what they're seeing underneath your car and then share it with you to show that they're actually doing the work.

Speaker B: Remarkable experiences from all over the world, including London and Australia and San Diego and I'm sure many others that I'm

Speaker A: forgetting right now, uh, like Japan and Ireland and throughout the United States and Canada. The moral of the story here, friends, is there are a ton of remarkable experiences in the world. And we have loved, felt privileged to bring some of those stories and experiences and ideas to you over the last 185 episodes, crossing 11 seasons of the

Speaker B: experience, this show, and you know, Joey, this has been a super fun adventure. And I want to go back to the very beginning when you and I reconnected after 15 years. We had met 15 years prior. We really hadn't been in touch, and we, uh, connected at Social Media Marketing World, where you were doing the keynote. And then we realized that we had a friend in common named Jay Baer. And he came over to us and he said, you know, you guys would be really good at doing a podcast together. And I think we kind of looked at each other. We're like, uh, sure, Jay. Okay. And, and then as soon as we had that first meeting where we talked about, all right, what are we going to do? We want to create a show that's totally different. We want to, we don't want to do interviews, we want to do these different segments and we want to make it a listening experience. Because if we're going to build a show about experience, it's got to be an experience to listen to it. I was like, my goodness, I've, like, found my, my brother from another mother here. Like, this is going to work. This is going to be great. And 185 episodes later, I gotta say, I am, um, obviously we're both super proud of the, the books that we've written and other things, but in terms of the content that we've put out into the world, I'm really proud of what we did.

Speaker A: Well, not only do I agree with you, Dan, that I'm proud of the work We've, uh, put out into the world with the podcast. But I am so appreciative and thankful for the feedback we've gotten from listeners over the years about how they took ideas and put them into practice in their organization, how they forwarded an episode or a segment to a colleague or a boss or a friend at another company to inspire folks to encourage them. You know, when we came together and first started about what we wanted this show to be, and I referenced it in the last segment, it really was about bite sized moments of customer delight, creating these little snippets that folks could listen to on the way to work while they were working out, while they were sitting, uh, in the line waiting to pick up the kids from school. Wherever you were, you could just plug in for, you know, 10 or 15 minutes, a little discreet segment and hopefully at the end, end, feel better about what was happening in the world of customer experience and maybe feel a little bit inspired about what you could do and maybe have an idea or two of something that you could implement. And none of that would have been possible without our wonderful listeners continuing to support us, continuing to listen, continuing, uh, to send us ideas and listener stories and write reviews and comment on social media posts. Most. The only reason this show worked is because of all of you.

Speaker B: I totally agree and I want to reiterate because there might be some people listening that are newer listeners to the show. One of the things that we've tried to do over the seasons is tell you stories that are really timeless. They're not based at a specific moment in time where now that it's passed, it's not useful. So I definitely encourage you, if you haven't listened to some of the earlier episodes, go back and listen to them because these stories, stories are amazing. And Joey and I have both told some of these stories on stages or they've made it into our books or blogs or other places or interviews on other podcasts. But that's kind of the point is that we tried to choose stories that had takeaways that anybody can use in their own company and that are not 2017 ideas, but they are ideas that will last you for decades to come.

Speaker A: Absolutely. And if I may make, uh, a, uh, request and ask that is related to something that Dan and I had the pleasure of enjoying. If you listen to other podcasts and the research shows you do right, very few people listen to only one show. Take a few minutes and go write a review on itunes. Take a few minutes and send a message to the podcast host, letting them know how much you appreciate or value their show. It never ceases to amaze me when I do that, when I reach out to, you know, even the big names that have shows, how often I hear back from them. Thanks so much. It's nice to know someone's listening. It's nice to know that the work and the effort that we put into this has really had an impact. So you've done that for us, and we so appreciate it. Go do that for some others as well. Right? Pay it forward, spread the good word.

Speaker B: So we usually end our seasons with a whole list of thank yous. Uh, in this shortened season, we really wanted to focus on just thanking our listeners because as Joey so artfully said, uh, without our listeners, we don't have a podcast. Just like without our customers and employees, we don't have a business. And so we so appreciate everybody. Whether you've listened to one episode or all 185, please know that we do appreciate you and we mean it when we say that we want to stay in touch with you. You. I'll drop the email addresses one more time. Danangingas.com, joey, joeycolman.com we're both very active on LinkedIn is another great place to reach us if you'd like. Uh, and we'd like to stay connected because we want to continue to hear your stories of how you're implementing some of the things that you've learned, the great things that you're doing for your customers and employees at your business. Because we continue to be inspired by new stories as well. Well, and we love to share great stories. And even if it's not going to be in a podcast like this, it might be in a blog post or a future book or a social media post as well.

Speaker A: And speaking of podcasts, as you think about potentially developing your own podcast or building a podcast for your brand or your industry, if Dan or I can be of support as a resource, don't hesitate to let us know. That could be anything from, hey, guys, what microphone should I use to. To something, uh, more involved. Uh, we've had a number of partners over the years that said, hey, help us create some content. We did a whole, uh, podcast series for some friends at Sitel. We did an entire show that was featured. You can go find it on YouTube called Experience Points that went on to win some great awards. And it was a fun game show around customer experience. So if you've got a creative idea, uh, of something you'd like to do and you think Dan or I or both of them, us would be a good fit in helping you to bring that into the world, that creative endeavor. Don't hesitate to reach out. You know, I'll say this. Our episodes, as you know from the intro, always had kind of this lions and tigers and bears. Oh my structure. You know, the one for this episode was reading, resigning and retaining. Oh my. And in the spirit of that, I thought we'd use a similar framework work to close out our final episode. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Oh my. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Experience this. You're the best listener ever.

Speaker B: And since you listened to the whole show, yay you. We're curious. Was there a specific part of this episode that you enjoyed the most? If so, it would mean the world to us if you could share it with a coworker, a friend, or someone that just loves listening to podcasts.

Speaker A: And while you're in the sharing mood, if you felt inclined to jump over to itunes or wherever you find your podcasts and write us a review, we would so appreciate it. And when you do, don't forget to let us know as we might have a little surprise for you.

Speaker B: Thanks again for your time, and we'll see you next week for more.