Your Team Sucks

0:00I wrote a tweet that said your team sucks, and the follow-up to that was it has never been easier to to have a successful business if you just train your team. I'm not even saying that you need good people that's that's I just fundamentally disagree with that. I think you need to train and I want to talk about a few things in fact I wrote this down more times than ever in the history of my life have I walked into a retail establishment or gone up to a booth at a farmers market and had to be the first one to say something because the meet and greet or the customer service person behind the counter just doesn't exist anymore. To me this is the easiest thing that you can

1:02solve in your business and it's just hire people who work at the front desk who are the customer facing person who have a semi-decent personality and they are trained. Like I'm just going to say like recently I mean it's not happening anymore but it's because it's the wintertime but I would go to the farmers market and there would be not one but several booths of people that I would walk up to and it's not I want to be very clear I've heard this argument it is not a generational thing it is not like oh well Gen Z they just they have like weird social skills it's like no that's not it I walk up to a farmers market booth and the person behind the booth stares at me to the point where it's so uncomfortable that I have to say oh hi and they're like oh

2:06yeah and I'm like yeah so I think I just want to get this loaf of bread and it's like all you have to do the easiest thing you can do is just say hey how can I help you like that's it and I'm telling you this is not just the farmers market this is literally everywhere and it's so rare now when I go to any sort of establishment that the person behind the counter the person who is interacting with me actually talks to me or acknowledges my existence it is almost as if I am burning them with their job and it's no wonder that like companies like Amazon are just like doing away with cashiers because they I guess the idea is like oh we just can't find good people like people who want to work in these lower paying jobs like they just don't want

3:08to do customer service and I'm like that's incorrect I believe strongly that everybody wants to be good at their job whatever that job is people just like want to be good but if they're not treated like a part of the team and they they don't feel like their work is contributing to a greater good even within the company or I don't even think it's really money I don't think it's you know oh well if you just pay them more they'll care more and I just don't believe that if you just make them a part of the team and train them that's the real thing here is training I'll give you an example when I was younger I used to work at this pool store now I understand that I am the type of person who is personable I just have this natural ability to when someone walks in I want to say hey well come in hey how are you doing hey how can I help you like I just

4:11want to do that I know that that's not everybody but when I worked at this store we didn't have training at all like from upper management from the from the big waves up in the corporate office we didn't have that but I had if anything we got berated so but I had a good manager at the store level and there was a rule in the company when you pick up the phone because you had to answer the phone we had phone was ringing all the time you know if there was a customer there how to pick up the phone which is this is a tough one you had a script to say thank you for calling blank blank my name is Matt how can I help you that was the script sit I'm the only one did it I'm the only one who did it because I was only one told that you have to do it I was the only one trained to do it and also I wanted to do a good job my at my job like I was just done again I

5:13know I'm just that type of person we also had to wear khakis and a blue shirt that had our symbol on it had our brand name on it or logo like these are all rules but they weren't written anywhere they weren't enforced they weren't you know and if anything like we got in trouble if we didn't do it so it's but but we never told why we should do it we were never told you know oh by doing this this is what we're trying to portray this is how this is the type of store that we're trying to cultivate and what I realized especially now that I'm getting more and more into becoming a manager of my business is that it's important that you share those values and and the reasons behind things with your team because it makes them it's not even a hack it's like it makes everyone

6:14to feel like they're a part of something bigger than themselves like they are a part of a team and everybody wants that sense of belonging if you don't do that and you're like this is just a job do your fucking job right that's that's the level of um that's the kind of shit that I got when I was younger right at this company was just like do your fucking job or I'll just find somebody else to do it I'll just fire you and guess what my boss fired people like that he was very quick to just be like oh you're not you're just standing around doing nothing why don't you go home and don't come back in because in his brain he's like well I'll just find another you know college kid in the summer to take your place like you like if you're not gonna try then get the fuck out of here at no point did it occur that maybe the reason they're not trying

7:15is of course there are bad employees but maybe the reason they're not trying is because you give them no reason to want to try there's like the when I go to this like one booth and at the farmers market and the person that's like taking my order doesn't like it's just it's I again I feel like I'm interrupting I feel like I'm I'm like a problem and then like I go up to other booths and they talk and they're like hey blah blah and I end up buying way more there are times where I go into a booth and I go I just need to get this thing like I kind of just need it and I this is awkward but like I'm gonna I'm gonna buy it regardless because I just need this one thing but oh I am not buying anything else that's for damn sure one of the true story is if you want to increase your sales train your employees to make sales

8:22it's that simple it's not even hard I know that I'm talking about like a real-world business and not like an online business but I do think it translates and I I'll explain a few ways that I think you can do that or not even that I'll explain a few ways that we do it so I just want to give more examples of like why I think that this is so important so we this is this is an insane story I I think it's insane just because it's my life but whatever where does pool company and we had four three to four store locations and then there was a corporate office there was like five buildings and I worked at a fairly new location you know with the company like had just kind of opened it maybe six years prior and there was the flagship store which was on a really busy

9:29street and in a affluent neighborhood and was just dominating they just like had the most sales because of location because of it's been there for like 50 years and we were the news store during my tenure at this news store with less foot traffic and more competition the flagship store had no other pool stores near it we had a pool store literally across the street from ours okay we surpassed sales I think like it was like one of the last years I was there and I don't know where I heard it from I didn't hear it from my boss boss but I was told that and I was like whoa but at the same time it didn't surprise me here's why it didn't surprise me because I

10:29actually worked at both stores if they need it they they were fairly close together like within the same you know maybe they were like maybe 30 minutes apart in driving time so I was always working at the main store that I worked at right but sometimes they would need me they would need coverage at the other store which is funny because we never need it coverage at our store and this was the difference between managers now these managers weren't like the owners of the store they were just like they were literally put in place as store managers but my store manager was better she trained us she was she was firm but not mean I would say like I loved her so like I was a big fan of her we got along very well but like she had bite-tour which I

11:34mean personally I kind of like that the other manager also had a similar personality but was more mean I thought I didn't really get along with her and I I mean I got along with her enough you know to to to do my job but like she's not my favorite right and I realized like oh then if I'm having a hard time getting along with the front facing person of this business then I'm wondering if other people are having the same problem right and it turns out like yeah kind of and that was my it's a theory of course but it was too it was a battle between like customer service because we literally sold the same products our store was slightly bigger but it was just because it was newer but we had less traffic the road had less traffic on it

12:38and we weren't in an affluent neighborhood so and we weren't there for 50 years but our reputation in the in the in like the the neighborhood is like hey if you want help with your pool go to this store they have good people there and my my guess is is that the other store they they it just wasn't happening it's not like there was and like it wasn't like I'm not suggesting that people were saying hey don't go to that store you know take the extra drive to go somewhere better because the people of that sort of suck I don't think people were actively saying that but I think people just avoided it more than they should have if you had I believe if you would have put somebody in there and Kate like like our team if you would have put our team in that store that store would still be there today but guess what that store is no longer there they got rid of it and my store that's still there in fact it's now the only store

13:47not in the affluent neighborhood not on the busiest street the newest building what now I'm not saying it's because I don't know what kind of employees that we've had so far but it looks like I am of the belief that customer service is why that store is still there plain and simple I am wildly speculating that but let me say this another area in which I truly feel this this power it's because it's absolutely a power is at a brewery because I frequent breweries a lot I love beer and if the person who was serving me beer clearly doesn't want to be there clearly doesn't know

14:48the product clearly doesn't know how to pour a beer and you'd be surprised how many breweries that I've been to where this is the case where it's like oh I walk up to the counter and it feels like hey sorry to bother you but could you get me a beer because I can't otherwise I don't need you I just go get it myself here's here's twenty dollars whatever but that's how it feels at a lot of these places but when you go like so this happens a lot to me where I would go where I go to a brewery and I get that feeling like I'm bothering you and then there's times where I go to breweries and it's like I just made a best friend where they're like hey welcome in you look like the kind of guy that does looking for like a nice stout right now you stout guy yeah you know I could yeah

15:51let me get you a stout you look thirsty all right shit yeah let's do it pours me a stout like oh have you had if you like this like if you had our porter I'm like no I haven't had the porter hold on before you drink that let me go get you a little taste of our porter do you like porter it's like yeah I like porter all right cool let me go get you a little taste all right fuck okay cool they slide over a porter I'm like oh thank you you know pay whatever make it super easy make it friendly bro I'm staying there all fucking day I'm staying there all day and I'm spending way more money than I would have at any other place like it just happening whether that's safe or not I don't know but I'm doing that this never happens to me it's happened I can I can recall one time that this happened to me it was the most insane thing I've ever seen

16:58to this day this place rivals restaurants in my area because of one gesture they made and I take people out of town there because this is the kind of treatment you get and I can explain the whole business model around this because they train I know they do because I've met people in my private life who used to be managers there and they told me how that how it works and I'm like all right mind blown so first year we live here in Colorado Stephanie Stephanie go up for a day of snowboarding it's we're driving down from the mountain we're we're back in our town I'm tired it's late it's like maybe seven eight o'clock at night I'm starving I am I had just moved to

18:01Colorado so I still have my Jersey bite I still have that like you know my patience wears thin like I don't have that like chill slow Colorado vibe yet and we go into this restaurant which I've been in before so it's not a new restaurant to us we walk in places packed that's like oh no might have been like a Friday night I'm again starving irritable impatient I want to come here but oh man it's packed I walk in I go up to the host of stand and I say how long's the wait and they said hmm we're looking at about an hour and a half and I'm like I like visibly I'm like fuck this all right we're leaving and then I like kind of like made this big dickish gesture of like

19:04fuck this like a mouth blah blah blah and then good step hates when I do that and I haven't done I haven't been like that in a long time actually that's not even sure I did it over the winter when they wouldn't take when they wouldn't let us into the restaurant and there was nobody there anyway that's a whole different story but again it's it's part of this like hospitality thing I go or sorry I'm doing this and the host is like oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh no no don't go don't go here how about this come back to the bar right we'll hook you up with some free beers and we'll get you some fries so that you're not stuck you know you're not starving and I'm like like my brow lowers because I'm so skeptical I'm like what what I'm like okay and they like walk me to the back of the restaurant there's that there's a bar but you can't sit at the bar you have to stand at the bar which is fine stating at the bar they walk around they they talk to a bartender bartender looks

20:12directly at me it says hey man what do you like to drink he's like I got you and I was like oh uh I don't know what do you recommend he's like I got you don't worry about it he's like you like you like you like IPAs I'm like sure he's like all right cool fucking pours me a beer poor I think he poured me like two or three samples and send him over it's like tell me which one of you like I'll get you I'll get it for you and I was like okay so I'm drinking the beer steps you know like drinking the you know she had he had staff and whatever so I go yeah I like this one he's like oh that's my favorite too like that's a blah blah you know I'll hook you I'll hook you up so he goes and grabs a pint brings it back and then right behind him is a basket of fries like here you go on the house I go what the fuck just happened like in like I completely went from irritable mad like impatient to this is the greatest restaurant I've ever been to like

21:19and I still believe that that was in 2015 that's 10 years ago this happened I still go to that restaurant because of that experience because I'm like every single time I go to this restaurant I am it's like I get the best treatment and the food is cheap it's not like it's this like fancy restaurant it's absolutely not it's a neighborhood restaurant it turns out they have an interesting business model where they do a lot of like sharing of tips and like everyone does feel like a team and they train their staff to do this kind of stuff right it's like no one should leave unhappy like we will do whatever it takes to make your stay here in our home the best it can possibly be now some you know servers have a great personality and they're awesome right

22:21and they're funny and it's fun and it's a good time others are more standoff fish a bit shy but that doesn't matter because at least they acknowledge you it's just a slight training you don't have to be like Robin Williams right you can just be a regular person and it's all about just training they've been trying there's a business that I've been like working with and it's been a while but I just kept saying when like when when all you have to do if you want to sell more product is acknowledge that they that they walked in your door serve that like attend to them as fast as humanly possible which is what we do at which is what I did at the pool store it's what we do it's university it's like we just we just respond immediately so the faster you can do that the better

23:22then you have training you you ask questions you ask their scripts they're so they're simple questions if I and I we do this within in here's an example of how we do this right if somebody emails us and and talks about how much they like our book or even mentions our book in some way we have a script where my the my customer service team responds with I'm glad you like the book would you mind leaving a review here's the link no worries if you don't have time that's the script every fucking time they leave a testimonial every time it's like okay how easy is that how easy is that to just tell somebody to do and then they do it and when you train them to do it

24:24have it in a place that's like here's why we do this right we're we want you to do this as a business right I want you to do this but why well the more testimonials we collect every single good testimonial gets put on our website and the more testimonials we can get on our website the more likely people are to buy our products and the more money we'll make as a whole company that's how the business works okay so now you know why now if you can add an incentive to that more power to you like if you're like hey for every you know sale or testimonial you get like I'll I'll throw some extra money at you or at the end of the year we can pull all that extra money and buy something for the team whatever throw a party like there are ways to make people feel that they're a part of something but I think being transparent as to why are you doing this why are we asking you

25:26to do these tasks not because we're just taskmasters it's like why are we why do we make you wear khaki pants and a shorts and a and this shirt why do we do it and when someone says man you know it's hot to summer can we wear shorts and we go well we would do that but and then I don't know if this is how it would work but it's like within what about women and and you know maybe people don't like wearing shorts so if we make one person wear shorts or or allow them to wear shorts then we don't look like a team and then people don't know if people are if you're working here if you're just like a stop way like we need the the visual separation for marketing purposes okay don't just say you have to wear your fucking shirt don't come in here unless you got it on it's like that's just like yeah but why is this so stupid you know especially if you're dealing with like kids who are just like rebellious if you don't tell them they're just gonna be rebellious so tell

26:31them but communicate with your team and just you know get them to just the robotically ask questions anytime somebody comes in orders a drink right give them a sample of something else could be simple right if I were to so if I were to the brewery this is exactly what I would do I would have no prompouring samples for people because samples are free right they're small yes it means you have to do more dishes boo fucking who right but I'm willing to bet that it gets people to know okay this place is generous this place want is proud of their product if you can if you can train your staff to have a little bit of education like what is this beer how is this beer made what type of you know what other drinkers would like this beer what are the you know how you know all of these things if you can train your staff then and you get them to taste a beer

27:36and then they understand what they're serving it's like you need to have those meetings you need to communicate that because you will sell more beer that day if you do plainance you will you absolutely will if another thing is like you just have these like SOPs you have these rules if you see and I I don't know there's I'm sure there's rules to like bars and you know alcohol and things like that but if I were running a brewery and I had a bar which hopefully one day I'm going to be able to to attempt this theory I would love to do this as an experiment personally I would love to work in a brewery for a month and just prove to them that me alone could make them more money in their tap room by just creating systems by creating customer service SOPs just one SOP here's what you do right testing different things measuring different things and seeing

28:38what works so you bring somebody in somebody come walks in your door you're behind the bar right what I just mentioned earlier of like hey what kind of beer do you like you know you're you're an educated brewer oh if you like this style of beer or you like oh I'm a I'm a big Mo Delo fan I'm like all right cool we have this Mexican logger on I think you're going to like it and if you want I can put a line in it for you okay yeah that sounds pretty sweet okay so they drink that beer they come back up or not even come back up you fucking see that their glass is empty eagle eye that's your job always be scanning glasses and you go that glass is empty I'm going to walk over there or if they're at the bar just ask hey any other one what would you what did you have before you had a Mexican logger right let me let me tell you what if you like that I got

29:38another beer I want you to try just just just try it if you don't like it fine you don't have to get it but I think you might like it just give me give me a shot okay so go you pour me a sample they're like well I'm like what do you think you don't just stand there be like you know drink it let me know what you think I'll come back right maybe you pour them two to compare it against right two samples hey try this one try this one right now you come back over you're like what'd you think oh I really like this one but like oh yeah that's because this one like that blah blah blah oh I didn't know that you want to pint I give you a pint like you know what yeah I'll do a pint like you see I'm unsure do you want to do a half point oh actually can you do half points sure can half fine boom like it's just understanding what you offer and being able to communicate that and maybe maybe I'm being naive maybe I sound like a pompous

30:43ass who's like yeah that's that's good that you can do that but other people can't do that I'm like I just I think it's trainable what I just did was off the cuff but like I could make that a process and it could be even more simple than that it could just be like always offer samples you know like encourage samples let's try it for a week do does adding does there's like presenting more samples equal more sales I'm thinking it does and being proactive about it like what you're doing is that reciprocates that's the power of influence you're you're giving them something and so that they just feel like well I just got this like free taste maybe I'll just get something else or maybe I know you go to the ice cream store that they do that there but also like being proactive as a customer service rep and being like oh I can help you

31:47hey you look like this type of person or what's your favorite beer oh I got just a beer for you let me get it for you don't even like they don't like that makes people feel fucking welcomed and if you don't like it don't have to drink it but I think I think I think I think I got your number I'm fired up about this topic I don't know how to translate it into something actionable but I feel strongly about customer service I really do I think it is the I think it's a maker break part of a business if you have I mean I say that I mean the only way you can skirt around it is by being the only option because when I grew up we had Comcast and

32:47I think I still I guess it'll be Exfinity I guess I still have Exfinity right I didn't have a like back in Philly I didn't have a choice man like that was the cable company and so you just dealt with their awful customer service so yeah in that case you're just like but yeah as soon as another option comes I am flipping that goddamn switch right I am switching companies I don't even care what the other customer service is like I just know this one sucks and I think in this like new world of AI and everyone trying to immediately outsource customer service I feel like that is a massively huge mistake I think it needs to be the reverse you could probably like outsource a lot of like upper management you know nonsense and but you need to have boots on the ground you know people who are customer

33:50facing because people want to interact with people and I and I I think it's an underrated marketing tactic so let me know you think let me know if I'm off base let me know if you think if you agree with me shoot me an email mad at moneylab.co I'll talk to you next time