160 | How to Build a Client Experience That Earns Referrals From Your Very First Client with Marc Haine

Speaker A: Today's episode is going to be an

Speaker B: absolute game changer, uh, for your customer experience. You do not want to miss any part of this episode. My guest today is Marc Haine, a customer and employee experience strategist. He has spent over 30 years in the hospitality and customer facing industry and he has done work along that line. He is also the bestselling author of Lights, Color Camera Action where he teaches that extraordinary experiences do not just happen by accident, they are designed. Mark also believes the way you make people feel is not just a soft skill, it is the strategy. And that's exactly the conversation we're having today. Because if you are starting your first service based business, the experience you create for that first client is the thing that decides whether they will remember you, refer you, or even come back again. So that is what we're going to dig into today. Tune out the road noise, lean in and let's get started.

Speaker A: You're currently working a 9 to 5, but you know you're called to do more. You feel unfulfilled at a job you've clearly outgrown. You ignore the quiet nudge prompting you to move in a new direction because you're afraid of losing your predictable income and stepping into something God sized. If that resonates with you, you are in the right place. Welcome to Start that Business podcast where you will find the clarity, strategy and systems you need to start your service based business without leaving your job. Yet. Yet. My name is Chichi Okadu. I am a business strategist, an execution coach and a Jesus follower. I knew I was called to start a business but I struggled with lack of clarity, self doubt and the fear of losing a predictable income. My lack of courage kept me stuck until I traded it for obedience to God's calling. I left my job, built a seven figure service based business and ah, ran it for 13 years. Now I help other Christians working on nine to five do the same. You don't have to stay stuck in unfulfillment, fear, doubt or lack of clarity. It's time to partner with God and step boldly into your calling to start that business. You know the one I'm talking about? Yes. That one you've been putting off for a long time.

Speaker B: As you can tell from my intro, I'm pretty excited to have Mark here. So Mark, before we even get into your work, I want to tell you why I said yes to this conversation so fast. For 13 years I served as the head of hospitality at my church and that season taught me something I did not Expect hospitality is one of the most transferable skills you can carry into business into different areas of your life. So when I co founded Hiroshi, which is an E commerce logistics business I built and run for 13 years, I led with the same heart that you talk about. I led with love, I led with kindness first. And it was amazing to see how much it affected the culture. The way my team members showed up. My whole philosophy was simple. I will always say take care of your team and they will take care of your customers. And it worked. I saw it work. We built a culture of people who were genuinely sold out to the vision. And just to emphasize or to show you what that looked like, I will tell you a quick story. So I had ah, a warehouse operations manager, by the way, the logistics company. We had warehouses in six countries around the world. I had this warehouse operations manager named Aisha. She was a single mom raising two kids and she was pouring herself into building this company with us. I wanted to make her feel deeply seen as we used to do in my company we will celebrate employees on their birthday. But for this birthday I really wanted her to see something different. So guess what I did, Mark? I bought her a full outfit, a dress with the shoes and the jewelry. Then I shipped it to the warehouse where she's managing and I disguised it as a regular customer package. Then I told her, I said, for this package, the customer wants it hand delivered, so don't use our third party logistics company. I need you to go deliver it by yourself to the customer. And I guess she was wondering why that's not the process I give. I said, you must deliver it by yourself. What she didn't know was that I had reached out to the customer and arranged for them to buy a cake and buy some decorations. So she personally delivered the package instead of our uh, courier service. She shows up expecting a normal delivery and she walked into a surprise birthday we had built just for her. She was so surprised, she sent me a note. She said she cried all the way back home. Tears of joy. That is the power of a uh, designed experience for an employee. And it also translates to customer. So you can imagine that kind of experience, how she will show up for my customers. And I saw it all through. So Mark, that is where I want you to start. When you say extraordinary experience are designed, not accidental, what does that actually mean for someone who is just getting their first client?

Speaker C: What's interesting before I answer your question, the cost of what you did was pretty high. The return of what you did was a lifetime.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: Because I am sure no matter where she goes in her future, she's going to compare working with you, having those experiences, and she's going to compare it to whatever job she goes. You've tainted her for life because nobody else is going to give her that kind of experience. And so, you know, the short answer to your question is intentionality. Most businesses, most organizations, whether that's nonprofit, if it's a national association, if it's a for profit business, too many businesses are focused on the kind of minutiae of the day to day stuff that we forget that on the other side of this day, we have a whole team of people who they themselves are having very real human experience. Some of those experiences could be frustration, it could be stress, it could be burnout, it could be joy and happiness and everything else within the emotion. But our job as leaders is to be very intentional in how we want to create experiences for our people.

Speaker B: You are speaking my language. Absolutely. Intentionality. That is my word right there. There's nothing that excites me most about being intentional and thoughtful. It is one of the things that I look out for when I am hiring, whether, uh, it was in my logistics business or this new coaching business that I'm doing. Intentionality, like you said, there's a whole human being behind that role that you hired them for, behind that deliverable you want them to create behind that target, you want them to hit. And when we forget as business leaders and owners that there's an actual human being behind that, we become so focused, like you said, about the numbers, about hitting the target. But a coach of mine once told me, he said that when you learn how to deal with the human being first, then you get an employee that is sold out to your vision because you have spoken to them at the basic human level, which is to be understood to, to be seen to be heard as a human being. And then the rest, like you said, it's an after effect of you just doing that. What do you think?

Speaker C: And so, and so what's interesting about that is as leaders, when we modeled that for our employees, what then is the behavior that our employees are showing to our customers? You know, I get really tired when I walk into organizations and I hear the bosses go, oh, I want people to give better customer service. Sting, what are you doing over there? It's time for you. Like, why don't you start by giving your employees better customer service.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker C: And model the behavior and then let them take that forward to the customers?

Speaker B: Yes, that is absolutely right. Because once you model it and they see it. They now know what it looks like to give good customer service because they have an image, they've experienced it. So what I experienced when I did that for my team members, they went above and beyond for my customers. My customers will send me message and say, wow, your team, they go the extra mile. And I wasn't surprised because they had an image of what that looked like. So they knew exactly what to replicate as they did their day to day work beyond what I told them. So you have a line that I love a lot. You say, the extraordinary experiences do not happen by accident. They are designed. Now, I want you to walk my listeners through what designing an experience actually looks like in practice. In plain language, for someone who has never thought about this before, what does that look like?

Speaker C: So the easiest way to define it is to think along the lines of touch points. Whenever we get into a relationship, whenever we get into any kind of transaction, you and I, right, You and I, we just met prior to going live for this podcast for the very first time. You have expectations that I'm going to be a great guest. I have expectations that you're going to be a great host. You'll have those expectations that maybe I'm going to be humorous and funny and hopefully I don't let you down and you haven't. Ultimately, when we match up our expectations with the reality, then we are like, that was a positive experience. When it comes down to creating these expectations, I believe that there's only three feelings we get from any transaction. One is, what a shame. M. Something happened, they let me down. What a shame. The other one is, oh, my God, that was so much fun. That was so fantastic. Oh, my goodness, that's amazing. And then the third one is no feelings whatsoever. You delivered on the expectation. There wasn't anything extraordinary and it just went. It would, uh. I went into the store, I bought what I wanted to buy, I left, things were good. Was it memorable? No. Was it efficient? Yes, it was efficient. Would I go back? Probably. But at least it wasn't. Oh, what a shame. M and so when we talk, think about this idea of having touch points. Every transaction we have, we have touch points within our transactions, if you will. I don't really like using the word transactions because.

Speaker B: Me too.

Speaker C: What I'm actually talking about is, I'm talking about building relationships.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker C: But those relationships are built on micro transactions every single time. And Stephen Covey, in his book, um, the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which came out in the 90s, he had this theory about the trust bank account. M and that every action that we do will either deposit in a trust bank account or withdraw from the trust bank account.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: And we can build trust and we can let people down a little bit and apologize and people will forgive us. The problem is, if you overdraw on the trust and now trust is broken and we become overdrawn, nobody's going to trust us. And we see this all the time in the way we deal with businesses or telecommunication businesses and so on. We, we've all had the experiences where it's like, I'm never going to do business with that business.

Speaker B: I know, right?

Speaker C: That's because they've withdrawn so much of our trust. And based on those touch points, they've let us down. They've let us down not just once, but multiple times. And so by making sure that we, um, design those experiences based on those touch points, it then becomes, okay, what do we need to do now to help build that trust? And so we can go through everything. You mentioned hospitality for your church. When it came down to hospitality for the church, when people walked in, was there somebody there greeting them? Hi, good morning. Hey, welcome. It's so nice to see you. Doesn't that make you feel like you want to belong?

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker C: And at every step of that experience is designed, it's like we look at ways, what are creating obstacles to our objectives, what are kind of created? Where have we put up walls that, that we're forcing people to climb over? And how do we reduce that static, that friction all the time? And so the minute we're able to do that, that's where we start designing the experience with that intentionality to make absolutely sure that when we're looking at it, people are seamlessly going through. And hopefully, hopefully, if we're really good at what we're doing, we've created a few wow moments along the way.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: Wow. That is amazing. So a couple of things I'm hearing you say. So Mark said you start with intentionality, which is the first thing he said. Then when you get to the design portion of it, you are looking at your touch points to create that wow experience. That, wow, this was amazing. I would like to do business with them again. So you are designing those touch points not just to be transactional, but to create this wild experience to bridge the gap to, to build your trust bank account so you are not overdrawn, you're not in overdraft as you go along. So that is so practical. So when you say touch points for a service based business Owner, what do those touch points look like? What are those touch points they should be looking out for as they build either their offer or what are those exact touch points? If you can talk a little bit

Speaker C: about that, I would say start with first and foremost, how do people see you? M. That is going to be a touch point. Whether that's on a podcast, whether that's a website, whether that is a sign on the highway, these are all touch points. This is where people become aware of your brand. They become aware of who you are and what you stand for. You see incongruencies all the time. I mean, you go, uh, you know, I walked in into a party store. Now, the party store is supposed to be all about, you know, they do parties and they have all sorts of stuff for parties, and it's supposed to be fun. And I walked into it, and it was in the fall, and every time you opened up the door, it blew all these leaves into the store.

Speaker B: Oh, wow.

Speaker C: The leaves pooled in one little corner near the shopping carts.

Speaker B: Oh, wow.

Speaker C: And I thought, from an operational standpoint, what could we do to create fun around this? Now it's something you can't help. Every time people came in the door, new leaves would blow in. It's the fall.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And it's like you could sweep up and you could get frustrated and, you know, it's like, oh, you know, we don't, uh, we want our store to be clean in it. Or you could do something and play around with it. My thought was, you know, if you get a couple of bales of a. Because it is the fall, which means Halloween's around the corner.

Speaker A: Corner.

Speaker C: Now you got leaves. Uh, you could turn this into an experience that matches up the brand, as opposed to just to have dirt around the curts.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: And going around the carts. And so again, when I said that those feelings about. You have one of three feelings. I walked into that party store and I saw that and I thought, oh, what a shame.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: Um, so when we think about this idea of designing with intentionality, we have to look at. You're looking at every aspect of. Of the touch point. How are people looking at you? How do they see you? And then how do you create an experience around that?

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: And so it could be, like I said, it could be the website. It could be emails. The emails that go out, are they on brand? Are they saying what you need them to say? When somebody, you know, the true test is when things go horribly wrong.

Speaker B: Right, Right.

Speaker C: That's the true test of any customer service not when you deliver on point all the time. The true test is when somebody reaches out to you and they're mad. Ah, they're frustrated and they're hammering out some really nasty emails to you, or they're posting on LinkedIn or on Twitter or whatever how horrible their experience was. And we have a way to be able to turn that around. Even though somebody says something really horrible, we can turn that around with intentionality, to be able to be the positive force in the conversation. And we could change the whole thought process around that frustration to be able to serve them.

Speaker A: Uh, wow.

Speaker B: I love what you said about we can actually turn a negative experience around with intentionality. Because for me, in my logistics business, it was something we dealt with all the time. Because if you know a little bit about the logistics business, there are different points along it that you, you may not control. There might be weather and all the flights are canceled. Um, there are so many things that could go wrong.

Speaker C: It's always that last mile part of logistics.

Speaker B: Exactly. You know that.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's always the last mile component. Getting it on the truck, getting things scheduled, getting things going. That's the easy part. It's the last mile that the truck has caught in traffic or broke down or whatever.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's always that. There's always something that you cannot control. And when you build with intentionality and know that, okay, I might not be always able to deliver, but I can turn this around with intentionality. And one of the things we used to do a lot also in the line of intentionality when things went bad was to take responsibility. Don't blame the weather, don't blame the car that broke down. Just step up to the plate because you made a promise to the customer and they're holding you to that promise. So you step up, it's part of the intentionality. You're like, yes, we were supposed to do this. We messed up. This is how we're going to fix it. And you go fix it. So again, from everything you said, it comes down to how do I want my customers, my employees to feel in the different touch points that I have interacting with them throughout this relationship, Whether it's, uh, a transaction, whether they are working for me, you are being intentional all across the board. So most of my audience are Christians with a, uh, nine to five who are about to land their first ever paying client. Some of them are nervous about doing it.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: So what are the first one or two moments in a new client relationship that matter far more than people realize?

Speaker C: Well, it's Interesting that you say, you know, a lot of them are worried about doing it right? It's like, why is this there an expectation that when we're trying something brand new, that we're going to be perfect with it out the gate? This always surprises me because as little kids, I mean, when you decided to walk, did you just stand up and say, okay, now I'm walking?

Speaker A: No.

Speaker C: Or did you stand up and walk and fall down and then you try it again and you fell down? And it's the same thing with any skill that we do. It's like you can prepare. And I think this is what holds a lot of entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurs back. I think that what happens is people don't want to let anybody down. I have to make this perfect. I have to be perfect. If I let people down, it's going to sally my reputation. I have to do this perfect. And what they end up doing is they end up talking themselves out of, uh, performing, actually doing the work. And I fell into that when I had my podcast. When I started my podcast in 2020, like in January, I wanted to start my podcast, and it's like, oh, but you know, I need a better microphone. So I went out and bought a better mic. Oh, I need a better camera. And I went out and I had all these excuses, not because I wanted to be perfect. And then when Covid hit In March of 2020, I thought, you know what, poop or get off the pot? Right? And I decided just to do it. And I. And you know what? My first podcasts were terrible. I mean, they were okay, but compared to now, I'm at 304 episodes.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: Uh, this airing 304. 305 episodes. But now it's practiced, now it's honed, it's worked. So here's the big thing. If your audience. So if you're tuning in right now and you're just stepping in from going from this 9 to 5 to start your own business, to start getting your first clients. Don't be afraid of, uh, failure. Set your true north. Set why, uh, have a thorough understanding. Why am I doing this? How do I want to affect the world? How do I want to make an impact? And know that that's your true north. And when you fall down, you'd apologize, you'd reinforce what your true north is, and you learn from that mistake. M. Don't be afraid of making those mistakes. M. Nobody's going to turn around and, you know, lynch you because they spent some money on some coaching with you or whatever. And you let them down. The best you could do is go back to your true north. M. What is the impact that you're going to have on the world? What is impact you want to have on this client? How do you want this client to feel? How do you want this client to progress? How do you want to help them transform? M. And know that with that intentionality, you can overcome any mistakes you make.

Speaker B: Um, wow, that is so powerful. Mark said, don't be afraid of failing. Ooh, we could just end the podcast right there. Mark. That alone, that alone as in I could feel chills just going through my body. Don't be afraid of making mistake. What I'm hearing you say, Mark, is even the client experience is a progression. So when you start, you might not nail it the first time. But like he said, with intentionality being the backbone of everything you're doing, with you knowing what your why is, with you knowing your true knot, you stand up and you keep going, you learn, and you keep delivering. Ooh, that is so good. So good.

Speaker C: You know what's, uh, interesting as well, Chichi, is that we are in a time now where we have technology to help us, right? And so here's a challenge. If people are going into the coaching realm, into the, into the transformational realm of helping people move forward. Ask permission to record your sessions. Take the transcript of your session. Go to ChatGPT@ SATA ChatGPT. I would like you to assume the Persona of a world class coach trainer, an ultimate contrarian. And going through this transcript, I want you to suggest how I can be better.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: And see what it comes up with.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: Every single time we do something new, you know, I learned this through doing standup comedy. My coach, when I started doing standup comedy, I used to get up every day. I had. I would have the microphone and I. I'd be so nervous, right? I'd be so nervous because in my mind, I'm thinking to myself, what happens if they don't laugh? What happens if the joke bombs? What happens if I die on stage? What happened? Right? And my coach turned me and said, mark, when you go up on stage, go up with the intentionality of finding out what didn't work. And you know what, it took the heat off because now I wasn't going up to make people laugh. I knew I had jokes that would do that, but I was going up with the intentionality to learn from this experience so that I can be better the next time I got, uh, up.

Speaker B: Right, right. I love that. So you Made learning the goal for going up. So that way it removed the fear of failure. Because failure now is not what we're focusing on. We're focusing on what can we learn from this experience that is so good. So you teach that you take care of your customers by first taking care of your people. Now, many of my listeners are starting solo. No, uh, team yet. Some of them is just a team of one and maybe a couple of AI employees that they're working with. How does that principle translate when for now, the team is just them? How can they start building that foundation so that when the team comes, they are already operating in that principle?

Speaker C: It's interesting because this is kind of the angst of all the startups. Number one, give yourself grace. You're a solopreneur. There's only so much you can do. Uh, you're going to reach a time when you're going to say, you know what, I'm slowing this business down now because I'm at a point in my business where I have enough volume to sustain myself, but if I want to grow, I have to start to pay somebody to help me.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: And I might not have the income to justify that. So you'll need to work yourself through that. But having said that, this whole idea of touch points all the time kind of becomes that foundation when you define your true north and you look at a situation and you say, if I react this way, does that adhere to my true north? And you test against the touch point. And I think no matter what happens when you're even by yourself, like, even when you're using AI, be very, very cautious to, you know, don't do it because you're lazy, don't do it because you're trying to shortcut a process.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: You still need the human in the loop even if you're using AI.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: So, but you always have to test, does this match my voice? Does this match my intentionality? Does this match my own personal evolution within my business? Or is it going to be something that's going to be generic? Is it going to be inhuman? Is it going to be not considerate of the feelings of other people? Right. All that has to come into play. And I think as long as we have that intentionality, when we do bring people in, it's just a practice that we just carry it over to your new customer, which is the employee you just hired.

Speaker B: Right, Right. I love that you said you carried over to your new customer, uh, which is your employee that you just hired, and I love that mindset. Because I hear some business owners say, oh, that is what I'm paying you for. And I'm like, that's the worst thing you can say to an employee. Because it's not that you are hiring them to pay them to do something. It's more of a value exchange. You have a vision you want to accomplish that you cannot do on your own. And, and you bring them to come partner with you to make that vision, to scale that vision, to grow that vision. So it's good for you to change your perspective and not see them as, oh, someone I'm paying to do stuff. So, Mark, what are you doing over there? That's not what I'm paying you to do. No, it's you are serving them just like you serve any other customer. And to add to what you said about when you're working with AI also documenting what you're doing also helps so that when you hire that team member, you have something that you can train them with because you've established your voice in the way you write, you have some kind of culture going in the way you've been doing it. So there's something you can transfer to them, there's something you can use to train them in the way you operate. If you're already intentional, they will see it in the way you treat them. That is also part of their learning process. So you used to use live theater as your lens for operational excellence. You just spoke about being a, uh, stand up comedian. I can imagine how nerve wracking that was. But what kind of brand new service business owner borrow from how a live show is running, even if it's just them and one client. Yes, serving.

Speaker C: It's interesting. Um, I had this epiphany back in 2015. A colleague came into my office and she says, mark, you act, right? And I said, well, I act silly, I act goofy, but most times I act immature. I mean, just ask my wife, she'll tell you. Having said that, she goes, no, no, no. She says, I mean like on stage now. It's something I encourage my kids to do. I encourage here's my kids to do drama. It's something I secretly always wanted to do, but I was always too afraid because I can't remember what I had for breakfast. How am I going to remember lies?

Speaker A: I know.

Speaker C: And she says, but Mark, she says, we're doing this play and you have the perfect personality for this one character. Uh, you should try out. So then I said, okay. I went to the, uh, audition, I challenged myself and I got the part.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: Freak out because I got the part. Now it's four months of rehearsals. Once a week, twice a week, we were going in and doing rehearsals. And I could tell you after three months, I don't care how funny the play was. Nothing is funny after three months.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker C: Um, and after three and a half months, when you realize we're going on live stage in two weeks, wow. The stress level is way up here. You start thinking, why am I doing this to myself?

Speaker B: I know.

Speaker C: Why didn't I agree to this? It's like, why, like, what benefit is it for me to get up on stage and flood my lines? I'm going to let people down. Why are we. Why are we doing this to ourselves? And then opening night comes, and I don't know if you've ever been in a live theater situation, but you have. Like, the backstage is all dark. You don't want anything to bleed to the front of the house. And I had to take my place. I'm the first one on stage. I had to take my place. I. I'm backstage, it's all dark. And then the whole venue goes dark. And then the music starts, and then the lights come on and floods the stage with lights. I could see around the door frame, all this light. And my hands are shaking. And I have my hand on the door knob and my cue musical cue is there. And I open the door and I step out onto stage. Now, I've been in darkness, like, for the last 10 minutes, right? And I step out onto the stage and I can't see anything because I have all these lights, um, on, right? But then my colleague comes across the stage and we do our first interaction. And from the darkness, from the dark, the audience, 250 people start to laugh.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: And I got goosebumps.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker C: Because two weeks before, I'm thinking, why are we doing this? And I just realized as we got that laughter, that's why we're doing what we're doing.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker C: We're creating an experience for our audience.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker C: Uh, and at the time, it was just, we're just putting on a show. But no, it was deeper than that. And my big epiphany for that was, what would happen if businesses put the time, attention, and focus onto their business that we did to put on six shows. Wouldn't we have amazing businesses? And so from that came the book. Lights, Camera, Action, Business, Operational Excellence through the Lens of Life. Theater. I basically took theater, I took business operations, and I took theater principles and I applied them and said, isn't it silly? What we do in business. I know if we applied some of these things, some of these things about poison, putting on a show into our businesses, we would have so much better businesses.

Speaker A: I know.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: Uh, think of that shop that you went into and the clerk was behind the desk in front of the cash register doing this. They don't even. Next up. And, and you just do your thing and uh, at some point somebody comes in, help you with something. No, no, thank you. I'm just looking like, fine. And they walk away. Right. Now imagine, imagine for a second that same scenario, but now where you're using the lens of live theater. Now we're back to what we talked about when you were hospitality within the church. Somebody walks in the door, there's somebody there to make eye contact and say, good afternoon.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker C: Uh, welcome.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker C: And you start those touch points, creating experience.

Speaker B: Wow. This is so powerful. And we're gonna. Mark is gonna talk about his book, uh, pretty soon. Lights, camera, action. There's something powerful about taking a concept from another industry and applying it to a completely new industry. It gives you new lens to solve existing problems. It gives you new lens to see things. Imagine if the spotlight was actually on our businesses like a live show. I bet we were straight enough. We will make sure those touch points are intentional and we will show up to serve with everything that we have. Now, a lot of new founders think a great client experience requires money and fancy tools or polish. And they do not have all those things yet. What is something simple and nearly free that creates a moment a first client will never forget?

Speaker C: Before I answer that question, Chi Chi, when was the last time did you go into a restaurant, have a meal and you thought to yourself, oh, it was okay, Right. So the big question is, what would make it go from okay? So wow, that was great.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: And so the secret, and I tell people, care this much, it's free. It's free to care. Just care. This just put a little bit of care into what we're doing. That meal, that was okay if the chef or the kitchen, the cook, um, put a little bit more care into what they were doing. Making sure that the fries were hot, not that they were sitting in a bowl and just served out, um, that the server, you know, when they put the plate down, that they put the protein in front of you so you didn't have to turn the plates yourself. These little things show that you care. And Karen is absolutely great. You start with that lens first. Everything else follows because we care.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker C: And it's free.

Speaker B: Wow. Like My head is just popcorn in right now. I'm trying to calm down because I don't want to get too excited, but you are speaking my language, Mark, you said care is absolutely free. Free. You don't pay for it care this much. So that means when I'm creating my lead magnet, what. When I'm creating my offer, when I'm creating even the checkout page, I'm thinking, okay, where do I need to place stuff so that my ideal client doesn't have to think they can save their mental energy? I can make it an easy yes for them because I've thought about everything that we need to get the transformation they're coming to me for. That is the power of intentionality at. I can scream right here, right now, but I'm just gonna hold myself.

Speaker C: What would happen after somebody places their first order? What would happen if you sent a handwritten note.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker C: That said, hey, John, thanks for your very first order? I am so glad that you're part of our family now.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: I look forward to future conversations or I look forward to. Forward to connecting with you in the future. I look forward to doing business with you later.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker C: What effect would that have? And, um, what did it cost you? A card and a stamp and a few minutes just to write out the card.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker C: And what effect would that have? This is kind of sort of like what you did with your employee when we opened the show. You talked about what you did. This is kind of sort of what you do did for your. You cared enough to do something that created an extraordinary result. I could tell you that when your client, John gets this card in the mail, he'll look at it and go, wow, I didn't know I mattered that much.

Speaker B: M. M. Care enough to create an extraordinary experience that your client will never forget. That right there. That is my line. That is what I'm walking away from this episode with. So as we wrap up real quick, if a listener takes just one thing from this conversation and does it this week, before they even have the systems or the website, what is that one move you would tell them to make to start designing a client experience that they can be proud of? What is that one move? Just to wrap up everything we've talked about.

Speaker C: I'll say two moves.

Speaker B: Okay, cool.

Speaker C: One is the caring. You m. Can't go wrong, right? If you have intentionality, if you have that intentionality because you want to serve the world, you want to transform the world with whatever your superpower is, and you put that up with that. That care of Being able to take. To do it properly and to do it with the. The end in mind, with the impact in mind, whatever that touch point is. Where, like you mentioned, if it's, uh, the checkout page, it's like, am I getting enough information? Am I getting too much? Am I going through an inquisition here? Or is, you know, am I just. Is this ego? And that's the other thing we have to ask ourselves all the time when we do stuff, is like, am I posting this because I want. It's ego driven? Or I'm only doing it because it's for the benefit of the client.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: Um, we take that intentionally, that care, we melt it together, and you can't go wrong.

Speaker B: Wow. Intentionality and care. That is something you can start implementing today.

Speaker C: Easy. And it's so easy.

Speaker B: So easy you don't have to pay for it. Wow, this has been so rich, Mark. This has been an awesome conversation. I'm so excited. I'm glad I said yes. I'm glad you came. So for the listeners who want to keep learning from you, you as they continue to build their business, learning about client and team experience, how can they connect with you? And for those who want to go deeper or work with you directly, how can they do that?

Speaker C: Yes. So, uh, my name is Mark Haim Marcus, spelled with a C the French way, because my father was from Belgium and so he named me with the seat. So now I walk through, like, the French accent and I say, my name is Nuck Hain. You can reach me, you can go onto my website, marc haine.com. you can go to my calendar link, which is meet with dot markain dot com. You can, um, check out my book on Amazon. Lights, Camera, Action, Business, Operational Excellence through the Lens of Life Theater. The nice thing about that is there's worksheets in it to help you apply the knowledge. It's not just, let's read it and let's put it away. Let's. I want people to be able to apply the knowledge. Um, and I'm all over social media, so check out Markhan live dot com. That's my podcast Experience Leadership Small business podcast. Oh, now I'm babbling. I have to learn to stop babbling. I'm gonna stop babbling now. Okay. Because I think I've babbled long enough. Gigi. I'm gonna stop right now.

Speaker B: Thank you so much, Mark. You don't need to memorize all of that. I'll have all the details for Mark in my show notes, so you can grab the website, the link to his book social media platform. Anywhere you want to go connect with him, it will be in the show. Note Mark, thank you. This was everything I hoped it will be and more. You have given my listeners a ah, brand new way to see something they might be treating as an afterthought. And I have a feeling that a lot of my listeners, their first client experiences is about to be so much more better because of this conversation we had today. So thank you so much. I am very grateful and I am

Speaker C: always at your service.

Speaker B: And before you go friend, here is your invitation. If this conversation stirred something in you and you are ready to build your first service based business with the kind of intentionality and care from day one that Mark talked about in our conversation, I teach the full picture in my free workshop. You can grab your spot at from jobtobusiness.com I can't wait to see you on that workshop. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode.

Speaker A: I pray it made you feel seen, taught you something new, and encouraged you to take action. If it did, please hit the follow button so you are notified notified when a new episode drops. It will be a huge blessing if you left a review for this podcast on whatever platform you are listening from right now. It's the number one way I know this podcast is serving you and it helps more Christians just like you find this show and take that first step toward, uh, their business. Until next time, Remember, your expertise is needed. You're calling it real and I'm here to help you make it a reality.