The Bar For Success Is On The Floor

0:00I was just reading a newsletter from Justin Welsh who I bring up here a lot and the reason I bring him up so much is because it just seems as though him and I are on the same wavelength whatever that is and I had mentioned in a previous episode or maybe I didn't, but I mentioned that or at least I think I mentioned that he actually came out with a newsletter that was about his want or his desire to one day starting Nanobury and when he goes on podcast he related the story when he goes on podcast and they ask him I think something along the lines of like what do you want to do when you retire he usually quips with like yeah I want to start a Nanobury he's not being serious in his mind but that's what he usually says which is interesting because that's because my friend Travis sent me that newsletter even though I already read it and he was like dude this sounds exactly like you and of course yes I have the exact same goal

1:04which is or I have the exact same dream which I will probably never realize because I technically have a brewery right now and sure you could classify it as a Nanobury and you know what if I really want it to I have the space to actually make it a Nanobury if I want it to I actually know people who brew like one barrel systems in their house and sell their beer so technically I could do that and I don't need to lease a building and like start a traditional business and which which is interesting about that is like he said it and so I had to reach out to him because I've only met him once but it was online and I was just like man weird that you would say that because like I I don't think many people have that same dream and especially who do similar work in that you know he talks about being a solopreneur I talk mostly about running a lifestyle

2:05business again we have the same goals and we kind of live a similar life I think where it's just like him and his wife and it's just me and my wife like we don't have kids or anything but then like he does another newsletter following week and I'm like dude are you listening to me like what are we are we how are we saying the same exact things because what I think what he said and then in the most recent newsletter which is what I want to talk about is he related this other story and I can tell now that I read his newsletters I'm starting to pick up a pattern in his template but he was telling the story about how everyone he talks to who like wants to start a business is worried about the market being so saturated and too much competition and things like that and he's like guys the bar for succeeding is on the floor it has never been lower and he related

3:08the story when he was in like he was there's this restaurant right that he takes everybody to whenever they visit town and they have like great burgers great atmosphere great service and they recently shut down and the reason they shut down is him and his wife would go in there and if they got like the worst customer service ever and he tells this story and I'm like yeah and he's saying the same thing I'm saying and he's seeing the same thing I'm seeing and we're in two completely different parts of the world or at least the country I believe he's in New York somewhere in like New York state I believe and I'm out here in Colorado and we're experiencing the same thing which is and I hate to bring restaurants into this it's just the business that I frequent I don't I'm not really an online shopper and I don't really go shopping in like regular ass stores but I do go to bars and restaurants a lot and I'm seeing the same thing the customer service

4:15fucking sucks and it's recent it's not this is not an ongoing thing I don't I can't put my finger on why it's happening it could be you know I'm sure there's many different opinions it could be generational it could be just economical it could be political I don't know but we're experiencing the same thing and we're both saying bro the bar for success is on the floor it's never been easier I desperately want to now start a nano brewery just to prove to everyone in the space and to my audience to you that this shit is so easy it's not even funny all you have to do is give just like 15% effort because everyone else is giving 5% or lower it's crazy

5:27all you have to do is just give a little shit about your customer and about their experience and this doesn't just go for restaurants and bars and it goes for everything staff recently went to an establishment a local establishment not in our town a different town and she said I felt very uncomfortable there this is a small little store she said I felt very uncomfortable because it felt like that I was intruding what you walked into a store and felt like you were intruding think about how insane that is now why does she think that well it's because there were people having a conversation and she wasn't acknowledged when she walked in the door

6:30and it was like I felt like I was interrupting their conversation but I'm in their store and I said this in a previous episode and I'm bringing it up again because I think I need to beat this drum which is customer service is so underrated it's not even funny all you have to do is welcome somebody in your store make them feel like they're not intruding that they didn't just walk into your house and you're like what are you doing here they should walk in and be like I feel at home thank you for letting me in thank you for wow this is a lovely foyer you have amazing foyer right that's the right pronunciation I believe we're all French here I it's just insane to me that and look that's just one story

7:34I've gone through this so many times every I swear to god this is not every place but there was a few home brewing stores now I support local home brew shops right that's my I I tried desperately to support local businesses I don't like buying online I usually go and buy local especially if it's in my own town because then my dollars get to circulate within my own town and I like that now there's a few times I've gone to home brew stores both on the east coast and out here in Colorado every single one that I felt uncomfortable in has shut down the ones where I didn't feel uncomfortable are still active interesting now is that a is that a coincidence it probably is but what does it tell you every how can someone like me who feels who knows who like loves home brewing so much loves it walk into a place and feel like I'm intruding feel

8:39like I don't belong when I am the absolute ideal customer that's insane and the reason is because they don't greet you they don't ask if you need any help they talk down to you when you ask for help they're not it's not asking questions it's like it's it's like I'm bothering you bro I don't want to bother you I know it's like when Ron Swanson walks into the lows to buy something and he and the guy asked for help and he says I know more than you that's how I feel but I'm never gonna say that it's it's funny as hell that he says it but I'm never gonna do that I'm just gonna talk to you and you know chances are you're gonna talk to me like I don't know what I'm talking about because you didn't ask me any questions and and that's that makes me feel uncomfortable that doesn't happen very that happens pretty rarely the thing that happens more often is they just don't

9:40acknowledge me they're not friendly and it makes me not want to go it makes me just want to stay home and shop online because I don't have to deal with you and that sucks that sucks so bad and I think that this is an online issue too when you buy something from an establishment whether it be a digital product like a course or you get something in the mail you look some people not everybody like most people don't are just happy to buy things online knock talk to anybody everything's great but some people have questions some people want to talk to somebody to know what that the decision that they're making is the right one and yet here we are as online entrepreneurs and we could give fucking two shit about that and I'm I hate that I'm sorry

10:44that I'm speaking for everybody here I'm just talking to myself all right like no I'm sorry customer service is underrated you need to put the effort and put a chat support system on your sales pages put chat support in your products like put somebody in place to answer those questions and make sure that they're answering those questions in a timely matter and I guarantee you you will never go out of business because it's a two-way street one you're supplying great customer service which is so so rare in this world now that's one the second thing you're getting is information about your customers you are talking to your customers now maybe you're not maybe you are not the one doing it but your customer service team is

11:45and that information is incredibly valuable every single sentence that these that your customers say is the potential for copy for sales copy because there's like we have this line that we use and we've had three customers say this to us either through email or through a testimonial or through a chat system and they basically said your book our pool book is like my Bible bro that okay what a line what a sales line that is it's the Bible of pool care it's fucking great I would have not look I'm not coming up with that line but I had three people say that to me how would I have known that if I didn't talk to them if I didn't ask them questions if I didn't allow them to speak to me and greet them and and answer

12:49them back and in fact if you look at our testimonials that we get from our customers a lot of them include lines like I emailed Matt at Twin University expecting him not to get back to me and he did the opposite which was help the shit out of me now that wasn't me I promise that was not me doing that it was somebody on my team it was probably Kayla or you know what could have been Steph could have been me could have been my brother could have been Kayla could have been any one of us it all just goes through me anyway and everyone just associates it with me but like people say that I didn't expect it and then like think about how ridiculous that is think about how insane that is what did you do all I did was somebody had a question and I fucking answered it that's it and I was I you know that's not even it all I did was respond

13:55maybe maybe I don't even know but maybe in these cases I didn't answer the question I just pointed them to the right answer so somebody emails me and says like I'm having trouble with algae I'm not going to go and like talk to them about pool I mean I've written articles on pool algae we have tons of videos on pool algae I just point them like hey you probably don't know this exists but hear it but check this out bare minimum shit man like and and that was that's all Steph's idea by the way when when we were setting up our original customer service SOP way back in the day like seven eight years ago Steph said something that just like that it's that's it's so true which is people just want a response people just want to know that they've been heard like that's the bare minimum okay so if that's the bare minimum then anything over that anything over the

15:01response is unexpected is over delivering how how insane is that how how much time does it really take to respond to somebody and here's the thing that shit compounds it's not this like you know a lot of times I'll even I'll I'll admit this a lot of times I think yeah well it's just one customer you know I mean like I'm just oh I'm gonna go answer one guy's question like all right if I miss a whatever no it's not how it works I thought it did it's it's it's it compounds because the more people you help the more the word spreads now yeah in certain cases you might help somebody you might respond to them and you might say you know and that person like you know never tells another soul says you know thanks you you know in the in the email or in the chats it's like oh my god it was great

16:05and that's it it just it you know that ends there but sometimes that person tells other people sometimes that person leaves a testimonial which is public sometimes they go on social media and say and vouch for you sometimes if you don't respond fast enough on social media someone else does it in your favor we've had this happen before too which is if I don't respond to somebody on social media when we were running ads for our product there'd be somebody else going I bought this thing and it fucking rules it's my Bible and it's like what I didn't have to do it like that's insane and then I respond I'm like oh it's great to hear that's all how hard is that I'm looking at my board right now of simplification and I recently said that I wasn't going to answer comments on social media and I'm as I'm saying this all out loud I'm rethinking the hell out of that because of exactly the same thing now I do think social media they're not your customers you know

17:14it's not like they're they are coming to you for answers and by not responding again if if Steph had if Steph's correct which I believe she is that everyone just wants to be heard that everyone just wants a response like then let's make let's respond let's respond let's be the human company in an AI world because the more that AI takes over the more that the more times you go through a drive through and it's just AI and you're like this sucks or every time I go to freaking Whole Foods now I'm ringing up my own groceries I don't speak to damn soul I see people going to the grocery store with headphones on and they and they wonder why we're we're all screaming about how isolated everybody is you're putting headphones in you're in a public space bro engage engage with humanity you might learn something you might make a friend you might

18:16make a business connection why are you going there with your fucking ear muffs on sorry that's that's a tangent I know but it drives me bonkers bonkers I'm totally for putting headphones on in public when I'm sitting on a plane and we've taken off and we've all decided as a group we're good but before that my ears are open my eyes are open I'm paying attention I'm talking again I'm sorry for this tangent yeah the bar has never been lower never been lower it's the easiest thing to do and I know that no one's gonna do it that's the that's the thing no one's gonna do it why it's too hard it's too hard they get they get they get a little hurt when somebody criticizes them look I'm guilty of this too somebody leaves a comment and is like

19:21freaking grifter I'm like grifter what did I do grifter for what because I sell one product is because I sell one book I'm a grifter now okay all right I'm like man I'm assuming you buy crypto so you're you know you're you're part of the world's biggest grift of all so what can I say all right that's that's a tangent to I also own crypto just no do I no I don't anymore no I do do I I don't know who cares fucking sucks anyway anyway no one's gonna do it it's hard you gotta build an SOP you gotta put somebody in that place you're not gonna do it it's very time consuming I I'll admit but you know that's that's just that's just the name of the game here's something that I've been thinking so much about

20:24and maybe one day I'll do it but and I and I've brought this up before and I'll end on this sort of anecdote or whatever this is so the other day I'm in the brewery and my brother's over and we're filming stuff for brew cabin but in between the filming we're kind of sitting there just having a conversation about social media and we're talking about you know how to make social media videos better and we're just always thinking about you know how do we write better scripts how do we make better edits how do we come up with better ideas how do we know what works all of these sorts of things and my my brother was like hey have you ever seen this guy he has um he has a social media channel where he bought a bowling alley and he's like refurbishing the bowling alley and so everything he every video he puts out is just like him talking about doing something to improve the bowling alley and I say oh yes of course I follow that guy

21:29I think it's great and then I said you know to me I mean you know he he does some interesting edits the way that he does his videos he's a great storyteller he's he's got a vibe to him like everything's good in that in like the craft of making short form videos he figured it out he's got it but I said that idea is insanely good like being a kid and buying a bowling alley a crappy one and refurbishing it himself is so inspiring and everyone who watches that understands what a bowling alley is like there's no secret he didn't buy like a a dairy plant where you're like well how do you make money with that everyone understands how bowling alley's make money and everyone understands that that's like oh that's super fun and so I said to my brother I'm like

22:31look uh technically I could do the same thing with a brewery and he's and his like brain exploded he was like oh my god that would be such a good idea that you go out and you basically refurbish or build a brewery like a real brewery from scratch like and you did it the way that that guy did it with social like it would absolutely kill and I'm like yes I agree that idea is is gold it and it's you know it's it's the whole building in public thing and but I said what here's one little caveat is that I've seen guys do this there are there is there were creators out there they're not and I know I'm thinking of one guy and he did start a brewery in Texas and he did do the building public thing

23:32but he it didn't work out it didn't work out he had to shut down the brewery and he filmed that too but I think he did a couple of things wrong now that I can see it I mean one I did I did talk about him on this show in the past I mean I'd have mentioned him specifically but I did see problems with how he was running his business just through his openness and then when it shut down he blamed a lot of things and I was just kind of like all right so he did a few things wrong one thing he did wrong and I'm gonna and I have a point here I'm gonna bring this around I promise one of the things he did wrong was he a lot of the content was about the beer itself was about the manufacturing process of the beer at no point in any of his content did he talk about customer service or did he talk about customers or running the front running the front of house all of his content was really

24:40just about the product and I think his understanding was which is perfectly understandable that it doesn't matter what you do at the front if the product is good enough if the product is great then people will come in for the product the product is the marketing I truly believe this too all right but and by the way he's he'd had issues with the product he's he's he's he did episodes about it so like I don't think he really ever got the product to be that good just because I of certain things that happened to him that I went yeah that's a can't can't have that happen can't do that but a lot of people think this a lot of people think that hey if you just make the product

25:42good people will come and while I believe this also that is not how it happens because that's the same argument is if you build it they will come right it's the field of dreams theory that shit doesn't work anymore we are fragmented now as a society it's it's there's a lot of noise and there's a lot of channels you have to market now that's just one piece of it I didn't I don't think you like once your product is good and you're marketing it well yes you create a flywheel effect but there's a third piece and the third piece is delivery the like part of the product is deliverability I don't even know that's the right word it's the delivering of the product because here's the thing there have been products that I've bought that are superior I'm trying to

26:47think of one off top my head superior but getting it and going through the process of getting it sucks and so I bail I don't I don't want to do it even though the product is better and then there are shittier products but the deliver the way they deliver them is world class tt well that's part of the product the follow up the customer service is all part of the product so going back to my story about starting a brewery and this guy who who he did this but he focused only on the product on the manufacturing side of things which you know from an audience perspective you know yeah I'm interested in it I'm a beer guy but like I have friends who are also into beer

27:49but they have they're not interested in the manufacturing of it they're just interested in like flavors and and packaging and you know all of that stuff and so what I think he failed to do was show was build the bar was build the front of house was build the place where you deliver the beer so even if his product was great and only a few people knew about it if his delivery system sucked then no one's coming back that's the thing you can have a bar you can sell a great product if your bartender is a fucking asshole it could kill your business so I think so now that I'm like looking at this I'm seeing it in four quadrants I'm seeing you have the product you have

28:51the customer service which is basically delivering of the product either before or after or both you have the marketing which is like outside getting people to promote it and then you have the accounting if you have all of those pieces locked in you have a successful business I don't care I don't care that you do but if any one of those legs of the chair are broken you'll probably survive but you're on thin ice you know if your product sucks but you have great marketing and you have great deliverability and you have great accounting it's like that don't only take you so far I know a lot of people who've gotten really far on that but they ultimately fail if you have bad accounting your whole things fucked if you have bad customer service I believe your whole things fucked I don't care how good I think Justin in his newsletter said it I don't care how good your burgers are I don't want to be here you know like I would go to home brew stores

29:58they have everything I want I don't want to be here I'd rather just order the same shit online because I don't have to deal with you I don't I don't feel good here you know what I mean that's a terrible feeling and it turns people away and I've said this in other shows of like and deliverability is being open you know you you show up to an establishment they're closed it's like well you're a roading trust that's customer service too that's deliverability it's never been easier to do all those things it's crazy and yet I don't think anybody will do them so if we the people who listen to the show if we do those things and we believe in those things we'll be fine we'll have a long lasting business you know and the more you put into all four

31:06of those categories the better so going again going back to the story with this my brother and this brewery idea I said if I were to do it I would do short form content I would also do long form content I would start this brewery I would showcase mostly the front of house the packaging the design the deliverability of the product itself I think very few people care about how the sausage is made of course I'll make those videos they're not as interesting because it's nerdy it's new ones yes of course people want to watch how how how did this get made or how you know how is this how are cheese that's made it's like okay yeah that's interesting once you know but then once you understand how cheeses are made it's like okay we don't need to see this again but what I want to see is okay how are you going to you build the brewery fine we love that

32:11how are you bringing customers what are you doing to improve the customer experience and this is what the bowling guy does so well a lot of what he talks about is improving customer experience not how the bowling machines work he's like how do I make this place more fun how do I make this place more inviting how do I train staff how do I you know okay yeah every once in a while I got to fix a heater but every once in a while I got to get new carpet laid down but that's all customer experience the product for him isn't the machines that return the balls it's the experience that his customers have at the bowling alley he needs to keep that high that's not the product the product is bowling that's the product but the deliverability is how much fun people are having while they're bowling and in the case of like me selling a book the the book is the product

33:16but the deliverability is how fast they get it in the mail whether that you know whether they're books protected and not damaged and if they have a problem they get a response from a human being or if they don't have a problem and just want to praise us we say thank you we respond we you know they just spent money with us yes it may not be that much money but again this type of shit compounds and if they haven't bought from us yet but they know that we respond it's a it's a chance for us to sell something it's a chance for us to connect it's a chance for us to prove that we are human beings in this AI online sloppy world that we live in now that's not that hard to do but no one's gonna do it and so yeah maybe one day if I ever started brewery you know if I ever decide hey you know I sell swimming diversity and it's like I'm bored I want to do something I mean I know how much work it would take to start a nano brewery and how much like how much it kills

34:22the lifestyle that I've built but I also know how to delegate now and I'm getting much better at delegating in my later years and you'll be hearing a lot more about that on this podcast I'm I'm I'm I'm working to become a better communicator a better human being who appreciates the help and who wants everyone in his business and and his customers to succeed and to be happy that's the secret and so if I ever do start this brewery I'm going to focus on the front of house and the people I want everyone who works for me to love working for me to not feel like when they come into work just back to the grind when I used to work at every single every hold on let me say it louder for the people in the back every single fucking business that I

35:26ever worked in in my life target pool stores every one of them look I'm a good employee I like working but I hate it going I didn't like it I didn't have fun I didn't feel good there it was get my paycheck make that paper and go home get the fuck out I'm not staying later you know what I mean I'm doing the bare minimum because this place sucks you make it suck you make it not fun to work here because every single minute of my day I'm worried about getting fired because you're a fucking tyrant every day you're complaining out loud to me the fucking hell blah blah blah dude you're creating a culture of suck awfulness that type of culture if you're training your employees that

36:34way or your employees feel that way and they're working the front of house you are not going to have a business there you you are the one ruining your own business by projecting your assholeness to your customers even though you're not the one actually doing it it's insane yeah it's just I don't know so I'll just gonna end here which is if I ever start a brewery I'm gonna work the front of house that's where I want to spend my time I can get the product good I can get people to make good product I can get people to love making good product but everyone's got to work the front of house everyone has to talk and communicate and be kind to the customers they need to listen they need to check their egos

37:38at the door all right hey I think I'm a good brewer but if someone doesn't like my beer I want to know why because if I can get better even if their feedback is bullshit even if they're just pretentious whatever I need to hear it it may hurt but I need to hear it and I need to relate and I need to be kind to that person because that person is is paying for my product and they're unhappy I want to fix that and maybe they're just they don't just maybe they're just not a fan of my beer and that's okay but maybe maybe I can give them a really good experience maybe I can make them feel heard maybe I can make them go you know what I'm not like the biggest fan of your beer but like this fucking vibe is cool I like being here you know me I bring my friends here and I only like this one beer you make so I'm just gonna get that one oh man that's fine that's fine there's a brewery down the street for me I don't like their beers like it's truly I don't like them I go

38:43all the time what what do you mean you what do you mean you go all the time I go all the time to this brewery and it you know what and I have friends that don't like their beer either and I can't get them to go they're like I don't like it I'm like I agree I don't like it either but I go why the vibe rules the experience there is dialed in and there's nothing else like it and so I find the one beer I can tolerate and I enjoy it it's not my favorite but that vibe is worth it and if that's a testament to what I'm saying then there you go I'm willing to go to a place where I don't like the product because I like the environment to that may sound insane to some people but but what I what I'm saying is is that's a part of the product it's a part of

39:51the product so much that I'm willing to tolerate of you know of course it's just beer it's fine you know I mean that's what I hate it no I don't hate it obviously I can drink it but it's not my favorite now if your beer was excellent and you had that vibe bro game over it's probably what's holding them back from growing to be honest but like game over you got good books you got good marketing you got good atmosphere and environment and you got a good product god damn do you have a good business I envy that I think in my business I have good accounting for sure I think that's crazy important and and another underrated aspect of running a business I think our customer service could be better I think it's pretty good I think it's better than I think it's world class when it comes to most people I think it could be better I think we could do it faster I think

40:52we I think we should expand into comments now that I'm saying it and I think if we did that I think yeah we'd have world class customer service I think our products are great especially our books I think our other products this year in 2026 are gonna get better than they were before our app is fucking killer right now and it's only gonna get better from here and our marketing right now yeah top notch we're we're putting out the we're just putting out content consistently week after week off-season and on-season we got the formula we got the formula and from here on out sorry this episode was long I got a little fired up but that's the formula and my goal is just to make

41:53every single one of those pieces better and I want every person who works for me to feel like this is fun this is not I don't I feel good working here I feel good working on this because we're just trying to make shit better and if you have any questions please shoot me an email do me a favor and sign up for my newsletter it's new it's free I include text content I've been I'm working on shooting more videos I just set up a little streaming desk for making better higher quality videos I'm trying to make it a little bit better I've switched to using a microphone Doug you hear me Doug I switched to using a microphone hopefully this makes the podcast a little bit better go to jivanesi dot com it's g-i-o-v-a-n-i-s-c-i dot com enter your email address and then we can talk all right on that note I'll talk to you next time