#198 - Matt Clark: Innovative Approaches to Transforming Customer Interactions

Ever wondered why a simple customer service interaction can turn into a defining moment for both the customer and the business? Matt Clark and I  unpack the art of customer service innovation, revealing hidden truths about why businesses lose their sparkle and how empowering your team with the right skills can reignite that initial shine. We share candid stories—from eye-opening customer encounters to the inspiring transformation of a shy young employee into a customer service star—that emphasize the power of support, active listening, and understanding individual customer needs.

Get ready to challenge the status quo with us! We're tossing the rulebook to explore how seemingly small details, like the state of your restrooms, can reflect the overall health of your business. Matt and I also discuss why sometimes the best business strategy is a daring deviation from the norm, and we provide actionable insights into tailoring customer interactions to foster memorable experiences. These customer-centric tactics aren't just feel-good—they're also proven to drive sales and distinguish your business in a crowded market.

Leading and innovating in business requires a delicate dance between welcoming creativity and focusing on what's truly important—sales growth. In this episode, we highlight the importance of leadership that fosters talent without feeling threatened, the value of experience in evaluating new ideas, and why mastering the task at hand is crucial before proposing changes. Through stories of business promotions and performance improvement strategies, we offer advice on how to lead, serve, and innovate for success in today's competitive landscape. Join us for an episode that's as much about leadership as it is about the nuts and bolts of exceptional customer service.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Scott Townsend Show brought to you by Deets O'Man Productions.

Speaker 2: 0:07

Hey, this is Scott Townsend. Welcome back to the Scott Townsend Show and today I have with me special guest, frequent guest. He's actually one of his episodes I believe is in my top 10, if not top five Matt Clark, matt how's it going Seriously, is it really Like listens yeah, or just your favorites?

Speaker 2: 0:28

No, listens. It's everybody wants to die, everybody wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die. Get there. I think we did that, like a couple years ago or whatnot. For you and I we're talking not too long ago about leadership, and it's always a fun topic to discuss, and we were talking about thinking outside of the box, and so I just wanted to have you on the show to you know, talk about leadership, thinking outside of the box, and what does that mean? What does that mean to you? Why should we be even, why should we be thinking about this?

Speaker 1: 1:10

I don't think we're done inventing new ways of doing things, but I think we've got away from the basics of. I wish it was a different term for this, but customer service. When you hear customer service, you think of a low, low level. I work at this big box store. I work at this place, you know, or sales or whatever it might be, but customer service is a lost art. So how does?

Speaker 2: 1:43

that out of the box thinking help it.

Speaker 1: 1:46

I'll give you. I'll give you the thing that got me thinking about this Our drive-through. The way the building was built, the way the parking lot was built, it's not conducive for the amount of cars that they are wanting us to, like, get through. It's. It's a fast service type place. It's get your stuff, get them through, blah, blah, blah. Well, the way the parking lot is set up, it's not. It's just not conducive for that.

Speaker 1: 2:08

So I remember coming out to check on the girl who was running the iPad outside, because it was hot that day, and so I was like, hey, you good. Well, as I'm walking up, she's like Matt, this guy wants to talk to you, and that's never a good thing when somebody is just wanting to talk to you. So he just lights me up. He's like you, the manager here. I was like, yeah, he's like you're doing it wrong, all this is wrong. You know you have her out here doing this and he just basically kind of lights me up and just tells me everything I'm doing wrong. It hit me wrong. So I responded wrong. I was like, well, that's the way we do it, because it's in my. How long did it?

Speaker 2: 2:41

take him to get up off the floor.

Speaker 1: 2:44

He was in his car and it just, I mean as any bad customer service person does, who doesn't have a good understanding of why you're there to do what you do. I responded just sharp and you know, was irritated by it, but for some reason well, just let me give you this like he, you're doing it wrong. I was like that's the way we're supposed to do it. I turn around, walk off. He drives off because now he's not even gonna get anything, because he's irritated and for some reason I've had many interactions like that out of my 43 years of living is just, you know, people, they're just rude people, but for some reason this guy, I couldn't get him out of my brain that day and the thought was he was right, I was wrong, I handled it poorly and so I mean I can tell where we live. We live in a small town and I feel like I've seen businesses open up in this town and what I see happen is they're great for the first month when the corporate teams there training everybody, everybody's excited.

Speaker 2: 3:48

It's a new job everybody in town wants to go check.

Speaker 1: 3:50

Everybody wants to go there it's clean, everything like the service is awesome, all those things. And then those corporate trainers lead and then two, three, four, five, six months later the service is lacking, it's dirty. Now it takes forever. Just everybody kind of stops caring. And so the more I thought about this guy in our interaction. The reason I thought I handled it wrong is because people in this town are so used to bad service that they come into a situation with a wall already up. So they're already irritated, they're already just like this is gonna suck. I fight this crowd, all these things, and so it just kind of came to me one day it's like what if I could remove all those?

Speaker 1: 4:31

you know those, those, whatever hurdles those hurdles so they can get tea. Like how hard can it be to put tea in a cup and give it to somebody?

Speaker 1: 4:40

it's supposed to be really simple. It's, it should be. I mean, I remember, you know, when they told me kind of the concept of the place when they were talking about working there, I was just like there's no food involved, snacks I don't have to make anything, you know, I'm not gonna kill anybody making tea and so I just, you know, I was like how do I remove all those hurdles? And it just kind of clicked and I was just like I need to start training my staff to be so good at our product, so good at what we're supposed to do, that people can't complain because the service is so good, you know. And so the age range of people that I hire at this place is high schoolers to college kids.

Speaker 1: 5:23

I, you know, at my first door I have a lot of adults. I have 50 year old, six year old working for me who get it, you know, they just work, they don't call in. I was like what if I started training these people to just be really good at what they do? And what that requires for me is being on top of it, constantly walking around the store, listening to every interaction, not letting the floor get dirty I'll give my bathroom spiel in a second, but making sure the bathrooms are clean, all those things. What if I could just be really good at this, because nobody else is trying.

Speaker 2: 5:59

It feels like you know what else, as in nobody, local business is like really.

Speaker 1: 6:04

I mean people who really care about their product, you know, but I just feel like customer service across the board is lacking in America so it's training out of the box thinking or just common sense? It's out of the box, thinking because nobody does it anymore. Hey, what do you do when somebody yells at you?

Speaker 1: 6:26

oh, you, just, you know the the answer I would get is well, you just give them what they want. Well, that's not really the answer, because you haven't really solved anything. You just made them not as mad at you. And I'll give you a story. Okay, we have this kid graduated last year. I knew his parents and so I'm thinking, okay, this kid's gonna be great. You know his parents, very outgoing people. He didn't know how to like good, how are you? Very low tone, very just not.

Speaker 1: 6:53

You know what I was looking for but I hired him anyway and just thought, okay, we can figure this out later, but so every day I come in kind of good and then one day.

Speaker 1: 7:06

I remember, you know, just thinking like he's probably not gonna work out, he's not what I'm wanting, he's not gonna help me raise the level of excellence here. Then I came in. One day. One of my team leads came up to me. She's like, oh my gosh wouldn't shut up last night. I'm like, what are you talking about? She's like he just he like opened up and just it's just like he got comfortable, like he came out of a shell. Is this true? Like you're just talking, you know a lot. I've not heard you say more than like five words. I don't know. I'm sorry, yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:33

I'm like no, it's great keep it up.

Speaker 1: 7:35

You know I want to. You know this is the way I want to talk to the customers. I want to engage them. I don't want to just be a Q2T. Thank you for coming in. I want you to engage them. He's like okay, I can try that. So one day I walk in, okay, and this lady has three little kids right at the front counter. I walk in, I got my backpack on, somebody told her who I was and she's like you see, you're the GM. I was like yeah, she's like I want to talk to you about something that happened the other night and right off the bat, I'm just like I'm getting my defenses up oh my god, I'm gonna have to give this lady the whole store.

Speaker 1: 8:07

She proceeds to tell me I need to tell you what happened last night and so I gave her the look like I'm sorry. She's like no, no, no, this is good. She's like. My husband was in here two nights ago, wasn't busy at all. He got his T, he came to the front counter and stood there for five minutes because nobody was up front and I just, you know, big eyes again. She's like no, no, no, I promise you, this is good. He finally like started making sounds so people would hear him. This kid comes around the corner, sees him. He's like sir, have you been out here for? Have you how long you been saying? He's like for five minutes. He's irritated. Obviously he should be, because nobody should stand around that long.

Speaker 2: 8:45

It's forever.

Speaker 1: 8:46

He's like sir. I am so sorry. That is totally my fault. I was doing something in the back. I didn't know you were up here. Please, your whole order is on me To wish. The guy was like no, you have to do. They's like no, sir, you waited. It was totally inappropriate. I'm really sorry. It's the least I can do. And the guys like thanks man, that's so thank you.

Speaker 1: 9:08

She said. My husband came home and said I Waited for five minutes. This kid came around the corner and was so apologetic, so just willing to help me. After he figured out what happened and then took care of my order, he's like that is amazing customer service. We will always, always go there, because nobody in this town does that.

Speaker 1: 9:28

You know he had been listening. He had been listening to everything we're telling him to do how to raise the standards, like we got to engage with people. We can't just be like here, here you go. We've got to meet the needs of the customers. Okay, I Said listen, we know more than they do, so there's no reason for anybody to come in here and tell us how we should do this. We should exceed those expectations before they even get a chance to open their mouth. Meaning, when they come into the door, everybody greets them.

Speaker 1: 9:53

Period, hey, welcome in. You know, is there anything I can help you with? Is it's your first time in? Oh, it is your first time. Let me show you how this works. Real quick, you know, and just kind of I talked big about reading your customer, if some, if somebody comes in and then you can tell they don't want to talk? Hey, here's this, here's that. You have any questions, you let me know. Cool, if they do want to engage with you, then by all means engage. Just let everybody know. Hey, first time customer, can y'all cover this? You see what I'm doing? Like we got to make sure all of our bases are Covered. I got to make sure this person knows exactly what to do.

Speaker 1: 10:25

Okay, you can taste all the teas for free with these cups right here, what you it's also serve. So grab a cup, fill it with ice. If you want fruit, there's fruit right here for 75 cents. There's lemon, limes and oranges for free Any combination you come up with that you like. We can make a gallon of it. If you don't see it in our gallon. Merchandiser, you know all those things before they come in. So when you you know, make them aware that you know what you're doing. It eases their tension a ton because you know what you're doing. It's like how many commercials have you seen for McDonald's? Where you come in, it's like hey, welcome McDonald's, what can I get for you today? How many times that ever happened? You going into McDonald's? It's usually just like hey, what could I get you? They don't care that you're there.

Speaker 2: 11:06

They don't want to next?

Speaker 1: 11:07

yeah, it's just get them through. Get them through, yeah, but what if we? I mean, I just remember thinking like we know more than them. So why would we not act on that and just give them the best possible service? Are we gonna kill it every time? No, we're not gonna kill it every time. Are we going to meet everybody's needs? No, you know there's gonna be people whose needs we don't meet, but if we try, we're already excelling. More than 80, 90% of the people In small businesses and I tell, I tell my staff all the time you might think of this is just, oh, they just get to you for like three dollars.

Speaker 1: 11:41

Who cares? Okay, but I don't. So in order for you to work here, you have to think like me at all times, because I was like there's a Business being run here and what I mean by that. This is what I just told my second story that I just took over Low volume, low sales, nobody comes to this place. I said, in order, let me, let me back up. I Come into a situation where GM leaves. Okay, and the way he was running the store was not good. He was a young guy, didn't have a lot of experience. So inmates running the asylum.

Speaker 1: 12:14

The first thing I'm hit with is here's all the bad employees and can we have a race? To which I responded with I don't know any of your bad employees. You might be one. So everybody gets a clean slate until I work with them. The other thing is nobody's getting raises because I have no money To do that. But here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna get coffee sales up. We're gonna tell everybody about coffee period.

Speaker 1: 12:38

90% of the people that we told that we had coffee had no idea that we had coffee. Oh, I didn't even know he had it. And I've allowed the team leads the people that I trusted this new store. If somebody says I didn't even know you had coffee, I've never had coffee here before. Pick anything off that menu you want. I'll give it to you for free. Seriously, yeah, I have won so many people. That's an outside the box thought because you think we don't want to waste money. It's not wasting money if you give them something for $4 and they come back and buy $200 of it in the next round the road right.

Speaker 2: 13:11

So how does he think? How do you think? Out of the box thinking affects culture, corporate culture, retention, employee satisfaction and attracting the right employees. How does how does that affect?

Speaker 1: 13:27

I think customers are always evolving and I think that term don't reinvent the wheel Only applies to certain things. I think we should reinvent the wheel on certain things. I think we need to look at what works and what doesn't work and get rid of what doesn't and then promote what does. This is oh my gosh. I was asking a mentor of mine. I Said hey, you know, I'm having trouble getting sales. I don't really like everything. That's half like the way they tell us to do things. And he told me something that is now my life motto. He says do everything and make your franchise owners nervous. I was like what do you mean? He's like break the rules until it becomes what you do. Be willing to say, hey, I'm gonna try this. And if everyone around you is nervous cause you wanna try something, then you're on the right track. Like, hey, I wanna give away $300 in coffee a month. Or I wanna give away this many drinks a month oh, I mean, that's 300 bucks. You know I understand. Or or my favorite hey, give me one month to spend on labor. What do you mean? Give me one month to have as many people as I want on the clock. Give me one month to hire leaders who don't even know what this place is all about and let me invest in them to get our customer service level to a degree where people know when they come into this store they're gonna be so taken care of that they're like we are always going back there, for instance. Now I'm gonna go back to the bathroom real quick.

Speaker 1: 15:05

Bathroom cleanliness is a big deal for me. I worked in the restaurant industry for a long time and the rule is that if you wanna know if a restaurant's clean before you eat there, go into the bathroom and check it out. If the bathroom is disgusting and they let you see that, imagine what they don't let you see in the kitchen, what's happening back there if they don't take care of this. So I said our bathrooms are gonna be immaculate, okay, and I'm gonna show you personally and I am going to, for one month, be in charge of just cleaning the bathrooms Me, the GM, the guy who's supposed to just delegate this stuff to people.

Speaker 1: 15:39

I remember one of my employees when I was coming out of the bathroom, I had a glove on, I had a rag and I had cleaner. She's like what are you doing? I said I'm cleaning the bathroom. She's like why are you cleaning it? I was like because I do it better than everybody else. And she was just blown away that I was doing it and she told me about a place that she goes to church. She said, yeah, the pastor came out of the bathroom on time because there was no toilet paper in there and spent 30 minutes looking for the guy who was supposed to replace it instead of just replacing it himself. I was just like interesting. But anyway, I was like I want my people seeing me do it to the level and degree that I do it, because then I can hold them accountable and just say, hey, I'm not asking you to do. You know the whole, the old adage I'm not asking you to do something.

Speaker 2: 16:26

That I'm not willing to do myself 100%.

Speaker 1: 16:28

I'll do it all day long because I do it better than you. So now there's this game between me and some of my team leads where it's just like hey, bathrooms clean. Every other store that's not mine I go to, I take a picture of the bathroom, I take a picture of the exhaust vent above, because I clean that too, because those things get hairy after a while. It was a joke. Now it's not. Now it's like a competition and the payoff for it.

Speaker 1: 16:57

We had a customer come in and he used the bathroom, came out and it would just happen to be slow and some of the employees just happened to look over at him as he came out and he just admitted to them I wasn't even there. He was like I feel so bad, I don't drink tea, I don't drink coffee, but you guys have the cleanest bathroom. And so he ended up buying two hats for $50, because our bathrooms were so clean, because he felt so bad for not buying anything. So I think outside the box thinking in today's culture is just getting back to the basics of what's good and what works and leaning into that. Outside the box it's just like I gotta spend money to make money. That's an outside the box thought right now. Okay, give me good customer service and watch If I do good customer service and spend $1,000 extra per week on making sure that we are hitting everything that needs to be hit. No customer goes feeling weird. No customer leaves feeling like you know.

Speaker 1: 17:57

I think a big outside the box thought, too is reading people. I think it's huge. It's something I learned in the restaurant industry as a server. It was just like you go up to a table, you're not gonna approach a table that just left a memorial. The same way you're gonna approach a table of people who are at a birthday party or a you know what does it call when the girls go out bridal shower.

Speaker 1: 18:17

You're not gonna approach that table like hey, what's going on everybody. You know we having fun tonight.

Speaker 1: 18:22

You know that would be inappropriate and you're not gonna approach a bridal party just like, hey, can I get you something, just being very low volume, low. You know what, if you could do that with every customer that comes in? If a customer comes in and you say, hey, welcome in, and they just ignore you, okay, hands off, but I'm gonna watch them and I'm gonna see them not know how to do something, and then I'm just gonna politely be like, hey, cups are over here, just in case. You know, I don't wanna bother you, but cups are over here, you know. Or if somebody comes in and, hey, welcome in.

Speaker 2: 18:52

Hey how are y'all great?

Speaker 1: 18:53

how are you First time in? Hey, have you tried this?

Speaker 2: 18:56

So you're mirroring what you see 100%.

Speaker 1: 19:00

It's a concept that most people don't know how to do because they're not good at human interaction. The way around that for me is I don't hire people who are not good at human interaction, and if I do, they squeak by, you know, because everybody's gonna present their best self in the interview and then you get the real person. That's why I don't hire people who come in shorts and flip flops or half dressed or their hair like. I just won't do it. That's my right as an employer. So if this is the first impression, I can't even imagine what the fifth or 10th impression is gonna be when you don't show up here, if this is supposed to be the best first impression, Whoo but I'm sorry, yep, go ahead your question.

Speaker 2: 19:37

No, no, no, no no, no, oh, so you were talking about basically you were talking about a while ago doing the give me a month to do this, give me a month to do that. So what I like to think of that is as doing experiments at work. Mm-hmm, and that's exactly what I call it. And it takes the pressure off when you go to your employer, your boss or whoever and say, look, I'd like to run an experiment for a month. Oh, yeah, what's that? For a month, I'd like to do this and see if I get the results. I think we're gonna get Number one. It's not long term. I'm not asking them to change policy. I'm just asking for a little leeway here so that I can do something, maybe a little different, and see what kind of results we get. Yeah, the experiment.

Speaker 1: 20:35

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:37

Case in point was we had a KPI at work, just one initiative. And so we were, of the stores in our region, we were last. How do you know we're last? Well, because each week they give you a little quiz. Take the quiz and then they totally score up Out of a blank number of stores. We were blank, we were the best of the worst, yeah. So I said I'm gonna run a little experiment here With having. I'm not a department supervisor, I'm not a store manager, I'm an assistant store manager. I said without authority, without positional authority influences all. I have that in mind. I wonder if I can move the needle. I wonder if I can help move the needle and get move the needle up a little bit off dead last. How?

Speaker 2: 21:38

By going around to the people in the store hey, did you get your twist done today you know, or you know, this week, you know, hey, you got some points coming to you, have you done?

Speaker 2: 21:47

you know, just keep it really nice and easy staying on sunny side of the street. I can't dock you, I can't make you. You know I'm in no position to do any of that, but I do have influence for friends. Hey, matt, did you get your thing done today? Oh, forgot about that. You want me to spell for you while you go? Do it? Yeah, hey, if you don't mind, yeah, easy peasy. Yeah, long story longer.

Speaker 2: 22:14

We wound up being number one for that quarter. Nice, I didn't even think we'd do that. I thought we'd go from bottom to maybe midway. You know, it went all the way. And then the funny thing about it is, as the quarter went by, other people started getting bought in. Like you said, first it's a little, it's a kind of game, and then all of a sudden people start taking a little bit more seriously. Now it's a competition, now you don't want to be the one that didn't, you know. And so everybody started kind of climbing, slowly, slowly, and we wound up being going from zero to hero zero to one from bottom to top.

Speaker 2: 23:01

We got recognized for it and all that stuff. So I thought that was a really good example that really showed me running that experiment and we're talking about experiments, thinking outside the box, running these little experiments to test the waters, giving away coffee. We're going to do an experiment I like that and we're going to do it with coffee for a month and we're just going to see how that affects sales and if it, doesn't work. It doesn't work. No harm, no foul, but at least we tried you know.

Speaker 1: 23:29

So I think another aspect of this that we don't you know could be a whole nother podcast is leadership caps success. If a leader okay. So I'm thinking like, as you're saying this, you move the needle because of a decision you made, a good leader would would like okay, why did we? Where did this come from? Because it wasn't obviously coming from him. It was coming from one of his lack of a better term underlings this hourly person who comes in and does this thing okay. A good leader would be like okay, I need to invest more time into that guy. This guy's not a threat to me. This guy's trying to make my team better. Most leaders that I've seen I've worked under a lot of them where they're threatened by other good performers. A solid leader wants people around him to get promoted. Because, you know, I could think of a million stories.

Speaker 1: 24:25

I was a. I was a restaurant manager. This is 27 years ago. My GM was trying to make a name for himself. We were roughly kind of the same age. We had the area director coming, and so I was just like I'm going to take all these pans that are like black because we use them all the time. I'm going to take them home and I'm going to clean the crap out of them. You know, and I brought them back. Okay, put them out. Area director shows up. He looks at the pans. He's like these look really good. You know who did that? And I remember my boss looking over at me. He's like imagine if we did that all the time. That was his big feedback and it's just, it's just one of those things I just file away. I'm like maybe mad at the time or it's just like, seriously, you're gonna. Okay, cool, this makes you look dumber, but okay, cool.

Speaker 1: 25:12

I think the organization is only successful as a leader who doesn't hold his people down. Does that make sense? Who is this guy needs to be this guy? Your business needs to come find you and be like what are you doing? I want you to do it more. I want you to lead it. I want you to be promoted for it. I want you to run another store. He's a set out of path for you to succeed. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1: 25:37

One of the things I do that's an outside the box thought is I have a ton of college students working for me. What are you going to school for Is one of the questions. I ask them oh, I'm going for this, more for that, I'm going for business. And if somebody says business, I'm like okay, cool, you want to learn how to run this, or I'm going to. I had a girl tell me this the other day I'm going to school for human behavior. Amazing, I love it. Here's what we're going to do with you. You're going to be the person who interacts with all the guests and you're going to come up with a way for to train little Johnny, the junior in high school, how to do this. If you do something like that, it gives people ownership. It gives people more than just I'm showing up for $10 an hour, just can't wait for my shift. No, it gives them something else to buy and grab on to.

Speaker 1: 26:23

Yeah, I'm going to do your plan to their strengths play to their strengths, why I don't understand leadership that quells all that Do you know what I'm saying? Or just pushes it down? Leadership like that is insecure leadership, meaning I don't want anybody outperforming me, I have to be the number one. Well, okay, if you're the number one, then everything falls on you now and you can't get it all done. You're a human being. You can't make everything right, because what happens when you leave? It just falls back to the lowest common denominator because you didn't raise anybody else up.

Speaker 2: 26:55

No one knows what to do.

Speaker 1: 26:56

That's why I came into my second store. That was not. It was led wrong and brought leaders with me, hired people before I even got there and from the outside, looking in on paper on from owners, it might look like why is this guy hiring people for a store that's not making any money? He's adding more people on the payroll. No, what I'm doing is I'm adding people on the payroll to get rid of the other people who just can't come up to that level, because if I surround them with better leaders, I surround them with leaders who can get on board with what I'm wanting to do. And, dude, if one of my employees becomes the president of the company I'm working for, great, I've done my job, I think.

Speaker 1: 27:38

I think we need to stop looking at the price like anybody who wants to be the leader. That's a huge red flag for me. I want to be the boss, okay, why? Well, I want to tell everybody what to do, well, okay, well, it's going to be a long walk for you, because if you're just doing it for power, I mean we're going to keep place what kind of power can you wield here? Yeah, you know, and most people don't realize that when you get promoted, like when you're saying like you're not a, you're not a manager, you're not a team lead, you're not this. I'm just like look at all the freedom Scott has.

Speaker 1: 28:10

Actually because the moment you get promoted, freedoms are taken away from.

Speaker 2: 28:14

You can't have normal conversations. You start getting locked down. Yeah, human resources. Now you're muffled. That's what?

Speaker 1: 28:20

Yeah, I think about that a lot. Can I say it the way it needs to be said? I told my new staff Like this is not an HR appropriate conversation, I said listen, we are going to be number one at coffee. It's a pain in the ass, it's no fun to do. It adds a whole nother element to this. That makes it more stressful, but that's what we're gonna do. Okay, there's a contest coming up if we sell more than other people, that this thing's gonna happen.

Speaker 1: 28:49

But there is one store out there that beating us and I said I hate her, to which everybody laughed. It's not necessarily the appropriate thing to say, but it just lets them know like I am very serious about this. So if you're gonna work for me, I need you to be serious about this. But guess what, when you walk out these doors, I don't want you thinking about it. I want you to be able to walk out and just be like, okay, I'm done with that crap, I can focus on my real life now, because I'm not trying to say that your job is everything, but when it's here, when you're, when you're in my store, it's everything.

Speaker 2: 29:21

Let me ask you I know our time's Rolling up here, but I when? When does out of the box thinking become detrimental to the organization?

Speaker 1: 29:38

I would say we can continue to push something that's not working. Let's just say I mean, give it a month like it. Let's just say I'm giving away coffees but I'm not seeing anything in return. I'll give you. I'll give you a prime example. We were given away 10 full gallons of tea Every week, times, four weeks. It's 40 gallons. We did 50, you know. So, whatever that math adds to, but we're giving away 50 gallons Of tea a month. Okay, we also have what it's called these mini gallons. Those are the 32 ounce little, cute little miniature gallon of tea. We switched to doing that instead, which isn't really a gallon, right?

Speaker 1: 30:20

It's no, it's a minute, yeah it's just, it's a miniature gallon and people thought it was the coolest thing ever. And so now one of our promotions is like hey, who wants tea? We're, we're, we're driving around town. Whoever wants some, let us know. Whoever we pick, you get all these. You get ten of these things, you know. So it's just Spending less money to do more, but if something's not working, being okay with just like stopping it. You know.

Speaker 2: 30:48

At what point do you say Okay, billy enough, I Need you to quit sinking. I just need you to do the job, not everything you need to trick out. I just need you to clock in. I need to clock out. We have processes that I need you to follow. I know you think we need to be doing it. You know another way. Sometimes new employees can be a pain in the ass because they think their ideas are better than everybody else's.

Speaker 2: 31:14

I worked with a guy who was a new over here and this guy Irritated and I finally taught. So you know what? Just shut your mouth until you've worked here for six months. Then come to me with your ideas. And why don't we do it this way? Why don't we do it that way? Yeah, because he was just. He wasn't focused on how we were training him to do it. Everything we told him to do. He thought he had a better way and that wasn't working for me experience is key.

Speaker 1: 31:48

I've had a lot of ideas brought to me. Okay, I'll give you the one, the most recent one. Hey, we want to do a coffee of the week every week for four weeks. Okay, what, what do you want to do? And so they changed the recipes for some of the coffee and added things that we don't have in the store, and so it's a good idea. I mean, it would get people in. Some of them were things we had in the store, like this one drink where you just add strawberries to it and just up it. Just ups it. 75 extra cents makes it a very expensive drink, but it's a good drink and this adding to it. I was like this is a winner. I love this idea. But now you're talking about bringing peppermint in. We don't do peppermint.

Speaker 1: 32:35

There are systems in place where it's just like we can't go against what the company has set forth. Therefore, I wouldn't suggest doing it, because you're just making more work for yourself. Use what you have and just make it really good. You know, I don't really. I have a lot of young employees. I have a lot of people who do have some ideas, and Well, here's what I'll do is, I won't devalue their idea. I Will say okay, let's talk about it, tell me your idea and I'm gonna.

Speaker 1: 33:07

I I think I think a good thing for any leader to do is beforehand say okay, here's what we're gonna do, you're gonna give me your idea. I need you to not be offended at anything. I say back to you because Not to my own horn I have a lot of experience in this. If it's good and you can convince me, I'm all for it. I'll take it to the top, okay. But if it's not, I'm gonna be very straightforward with you because I don't want to waste your time. I don't want you, like walking away from our conversation and saying like, well, you didn't really give me a shot, you didn't really explain to me. You just said no, that's bad leadership, just saying no, I don't like it. No, it's, it's terrible. I'm sorry, but if I'm willing to talk you through it and be like okay, here's why that's not gonna work. Okay, here's why I don't want to spend the money on that right now. There's a lot of underlying things that employees don't know.

Speaker 2: 33:57

That and the other thing, too, is that it maybe it's an idea whose time just hasn't come, whose time hasn't come yet. It's a probably good idea. Yeah, we just can't do it this month, right, right, right. Maybe in four weeks, I mean, maybe in a half a year or something. Yeah when we grow sales and things are great, then we can think, start thinking about doing something like that.

Speaker 1: 34:16

Well, how about this? Instead of approaching it with I've got an idea that's gonna save the company, how about just being good at what they've already asked you to do? First, kill that. Raise the standards there, raise the level of sales, raise the level of customer service. To where? Now, hey, this, cut these, sort this source, killing it.

Speaker 1: 34:35

Why are you guys killing it? Oh, because we, you know we're trying this. Hey, while I have you here, how would you feel about us trying this? You know it. Okay, money is the money's the key. Okay, money is the thing that drives everything, everything. Let's just be honest. You want to raise? Okay, we got to get sales up. Hey, you want this, we got to get sales up.

Speaker 1: 34:58

Bottom line, bottom line. That's always the key motivator, especially with a growing company. You, if you're just bringing ideas to spend money and it's not really working, you're probably going to get fired or your ideas are not going to be valued. But if you do the small things correct, guess what the people are going to notice and then they're going to start asking you questions instead of you telling them something hey, we've done all the things you've asked us to do. Our sales are going up every week, every month, every quarter. All these good things we have taken like this is something that's happening in both of my stores. Our coffee sales have, overnight, just by making people aware of our product, have gone up and up and up. You can look back on it.

Speaker 1: 35:37

The goal for my one store was I want $100 a week. As soon as we hit that boom, we did it, guys. $200 a week. Now we're doing that now. Other store, $500, $600 a week or a day. If I continue to do that, when I'm asked, hey, because there's an idea I want to implement right now that I think would make our store phenomenal, but I'm not just going to say, hey, we should try this, we should do that, we should. No, I want to make my coffee sales so good that when they come to me I'm like, hey, can we try this? They'd be more likely to say yes, because I've proven with my team.

Speaker 2: 36:09

You can already do it. This is not a me thing.

Speaker 1: 36:11

It's a team thing, 100% that we can do this. So I think outside the box thinking sometimes means just going back to the basics. You know what I'm saying? I'm just like, hey, why don't we just be nice to people? Why don't we?

Speaker 2: 36:27

just call me crazy, call me crazy.

Speaker 1: 36:30

What if we just go back to the basics of let's just try this and let's do it with all this stuff, my new store real quick? I know your time is limited. I said listen, there's a million things I want to change right now, but I'm going to give you two and that's what we're going to focus on. Number one customer service. Everybody gets greeted, Everybody gets talked to like human being, respected. I don't care how they treat you in the beginning. You can win them over by just killing them with kindness and we're going to keep the bathroom clean. That's the two things I want this whole staff to focus on. Period. What about sales? I don't care about sales. These are the two things, right here.

Speaker 2: 37:10

You get these two, everything else will fall into place.

Speaker 1: 37:12

We're going to add coffee, and then we're going to add this, and then we're going to.

Speaker 2: 37:15

I want to make sure you guys can do what I'm asking you to do Some plates spinning before you ask them to do all 10 plates, what is?

Speaker 1: 37:21

it when you pay off debt by, you know, attacking the smallest one first, and then you get momentum.

Speaker 2: 37:26

And then, when momentum happens, people get a little taste of success and then when I like.

Speaker 1: 37:32

one of the things I have them do in my first store is like every time a coffee is ordered in the drive through upfront, I want you to get a coffee out loud in the store because it's a loud environment and the reason behind it is it lets everybody in the store know hey, a full price drink that's never going to be discounted was just ordered, which means higher sales for us. Which means when you come to ask me for a raise, I can be like yeah, you did everything I asked you to do. Coffee sales are through the roof. Because coffee sales are good, tea's good, I can give you a raise. These are things we need to celebrate as a team, not just me. Being like our bottom line is doing better and not sharing that information. I'm going to engage every staff member, even the high schoolers.

Speaker 1: 38:13

I told the high schooler the other day I was like I'll make a team lead out of a high schooler and he was so well. The boss before you said he couldn't. I was like leadership is leadership. I was like if you can show me that you can do the things I'm asking you to do, sky's the limit for you, bud. And now this kid who, rough looking, didn't take the job seriously, comes in with a new attitude every time he works now because the big, the big boss man told him I don't care how old you are. If you can do what I need you to do, you can engage with people like I'm asking to do the job at a different level that you did it before, I have no problem saying, yeah, I'm going to take you from $10 an hour to $12 an hour, it's not a problem. I think that's outside the box, just valuing what you have.

Speaker 1: 38:57

And even the two, the two girls we talked about before we started recording, I have high hopes for them. I hope they can jump on board because I can show them like, hey, you now have a leader who knows how to lead, get behind me and I'll show you how to do this too. I'm not, I'm not going to like throw you guys like to the side. I mean, if you continue with the same behaviors and you're not willing to change, then yes, that automatically, I won't have to do anything. You'll take care of that for me. But if you're willing to jump on board, I'll show you how to run a business, a successful one, and make this thing exciting to work at, because everybody should enjoy their job, everybody should have fun doing what they do and everybody should respect everybody that they work with. If we can't have that, then you won't be here anymore. Not because I'm going to fire you, because you're going to just decide. I would rather go do something else. I'd rather make more money when you could have just stayed and made more money here.

Speaker 2: 39:50

You know what I'm saying, it's just it's just a different way of thinking.

Speaker 1: 39:54

It's outside the box, it's outside the box.

Speaker 2: 39:56

Well, that's, that's Matt Clark and his thinking outside the box. Thanks for your input there and talking us through the good, the pros and the cons of out of the box thinking. If you want to, if you want more information, you want to reach out to Matt Clark. How do people get ahold of you? They don't. They don't. All right, so through. I tell you what if you'll send me a question here at the Scott Townsend show, scott at ScottTownsendinfo, I'll make sure Matt gets it.

Speaker 1: 40:27

I would give it out. I just I have so many people blowing my phone up right now.

Speaker 2: 40:32

All right. Well, thanks for thanks for coming over and doing this.

Speaker 1: 40:34

Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2: 40:35

It's awesome. So, from Matt Clark, this is Scott Townsend. Thanks for watching, listening to the Scott Townsend show. Have a great day, everything's going to be all right and we'll talk to you later.

Speaker 1: 40:48

The Scott Townsend show is a Detail man production. For more episodes, visit the Scott Townsend show YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Scott Townsend channel and turn on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.