Mastering Customer Experience for Explosive Growth with Jason Friedman

Catharine O'Leary: Hello everyone and welcome back to kick start the conversation. I'm your host, Catharine O'Leary. And today I have the pleasure of talking with Jason Friedman who is, this is so awesome. He's a theater nerd turned serial entrepreneur and is passionate about coaching, supporting and championing other entrepreneurs to grow and scale their business. He realized early on that the same principles used in show business to command those standing ovations night after night can be applied to every business, whether online or offline, in every industry in every country, which I love, because, you know, everyone knows that I figured that there's, you know, every business deserves a quiz. So I love that it's in every industry in every country. And this unique approach of storytelling and psychology that Jason has founded, scaled and successfully exited five businesses in the fields of medical diagnostics, marketing events, automotive spirits, and digital media software. So all over the map, awesome. Can't wait to talk to Jason a little bit more particularly about the CX formula and his new adventures around spotlight brand services and helping ecommerce businesses crush it on Amazon and other online marketplaces. So Jason, welcome to Kickstart the Conversation. I'm happy to have you here.

Thanks for inviting me to be here today. Catharine, super excited.

Catharine O'Leary: Perfect. So to give us give us a little bit more about this theater nerd turn entrepreneur turned, you know, kind of the person that's helping people with customer journey and from you know, from really pre sale all the way through? Yeah,

it's it's a full lifecycle. Right. So yeah, like, like you said, I started out as a young kid just kind of was found myself in the world of theater, like doing shows, and I was always a backstage guy. So my expertise was in like designing and building sets and lights. And I actually got my degree in in lighting design. And so I went out on the road doing shows with rock and roll groups and theater groups. And you know, things like Rush Fleetwood Mac, were some of the rock'n'roll tours. And then, you know, lame is Fiddler on the Roof, Jesus Christ Superstar. And what you kind of realize, looking back, right, I didn't realize this when I was going through it. It was like this Mr. Miyagi Karate Kid training that I was getting. So like, I was learning how to wax off floor and you know, wax on wax off set on the floor, and all those kinds of things about storytelling and engaging an audience. And so over the years, I developed, like kind of a knack for doing this. And when I kind of got tired of doing the night after night, show after show thing, I kind of got dragged into how do you bring this kind of theatrical storytelling experience into the business world. And so it started out initially with a retail store footlocker, and they wanted to create, like a cooler store of the future. And they were kind of it was in the late 90s, early 2000s, when the.com thing was just happening right online was just becoming a thing. And people were starting to purchase things online. And footlocker was like, We got to make our stores cool, and more exciting and more engaging so that people don't forget about us and just buy online. And so we went in and started working on what would that customer journey be when someone comes into a shoe store? And how would it work? And how do we bring theatricality and you know, kind of that, you know, when you go into a theater show, you forget about all the stuff that's going on in the world, and you just become very present, and you get immersed in the story. And they wanted that for the retail store. And so we came up with a whole plan and studied all the customers and came up with this journey that really seemed to compel customers to spend more time in the store have a positive experience in the store. And the results were that they bought about 400% More stuff while they were in the store. So it had a massive uptick. And so we did that in a few different pilot locations, and we got consistent results, then we rolled it out to over 1000 locations, and my business was born. And it was about taking that, you know, idea of how do you really engage that audience in a meaningful way, and share with them and give them a great experience. And so that's kind of where it was all born. And from there, it's gone on to work with, like you said, you know, companies in any size, shape, online, offline between the lines, you name it. Well, I

Catharine O'Leary: love this because I'm assuming from based on what you said, that you actually talk to customers to find out what they wanted, what they needed, what they what their challenge, where

100% and and observe them. And so you know, again, like I saw, I used theater, kind of as a model and a metaphor throughout all of the work that we do, right? In our program, we have a flagship program called the kinetic customer formula. And the whole premise is that you have prospects with potential today, all of us do, right? We have people that need and want what we have, right and we can help them but they're not taking action. They're not engaged. They don't even really maybe know who we are yet. And so how do we turn them into active, engaged action taking results getting, you know, raving super fans. And that's what we help them do. And so in theater, what we learned early on is this idea of, of character and role. And so when we go and think about like Avatar and persona, who our customers, whatever language you use for that ideal customer of yours, we want to understand, like if I was going to play them in a play on stage, how could I actually get into character and be believable? How can I really understand what's going on in their head? What are the things that they're thinking that maybe they can't even give words too, but they know it, they just kind of innately know. And they sense that they're feeling and they want something, but they can't articulate it themselves? Well, in the world of theater, we've been doing this for, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years and learning how to get into that character, like actors like Matthew McConaughey, he and Robert De Niro use, like method acting skills. And so when we do avatar work, and we try and figure out who is that customer really, what's keeping them up at night? How would they show up on stage? We use those kinds of theater methodologies, and we teach this in our program, but how do you really get inside their head, and like you like we do, we love to survey them, we love to talk to them, we need to understand things about them that like I said, they don't necessarily, they aren't able to bring to the surface themselves. But when you're able to articulate it, they know that they've arrived, they know that you're their person, you're the person that can help them, you're, they found home, right. And so as you start to understand how to be interested enough in your customers, versus just trying to be interesting to your customers, all sorts of things are unlocked for you and your business. There's all sorts of massive improvements that can happen. And the journey, the path that your customers go on, whether it's from the prospect into the sale, and then beyond the sail into fulfillment and you know, a lifelong relationship. Hopefully, that game has changed dramatically.

Catharine O'Leary: That yes, and I think that it's changing dramatically in the near future again, and we're still changing. And I think storytelling is is definitely becoming even more important to stand out from from the, you know, from your competitors. But I love this idea of actually kind of sitting in character with your avatar, like sit like, like, you know, the way that Matthew McConaughey and other people typically, you know, like even Julia Roberts, I know that she spent time with Erin Brockovich to do that that role like she spent, she actually spent time with the actual character, spend time with your avatars, spend time with with your customers to know what they what they want, as opposed to assuming what they want.

Oh, 100%. And, you know, it's like one of the things that really It saddens me, right. And this is like one of the reasons why I do this is like when people like we spend more time and energy on strangers to try and get them to say yes, than we do on the people that already said yes, to make sure that they get results, right. And so I want to help entrepreneurs, and all of you listening to this right now, I want to shift your focus a little bit not away from building your funnel and from getting people in. But I want you to figure out how to put more resource, hopefully a lot more resource towards that experience after they said yes, because what happens, and this is textbook formula, right? The law, the rule is, if you do that, when you do that, and they have those results, it's going to multiply all the efforts that you have on the front end of the funnel, it's going to make the $1 that you put into Mark Zuckerberg pocket for Facebook ads worth exponentially more money, it's a compounding effect. And so we just we get so excited about we got our program launch, now we gotta fill it, right, we got our program figured out or our training, whatever it happens to be. And then we go back, and we put all of our energy on trying to get that funnel filled. But we forget about how to really truly care for and support our customers. And like you were saying, like storytelling is important today, in the modern era, with AI being proliferated all over the place, and anybody can come up and just start putting content and creating, you know, programs out of thin air, the reason that people are going to come back to you is because of the experience you create, because of the container, the wrapper that you support and hold them in. And what I like to think of experience is, is it's like your fingerprint. It's the thing that's uniquely you, that differentiates you from everybody else in the crowded marketplace. And I think it's worth just kind of just quickly defining what do I mean about your experience? Like it's a big word, right? And a lot of people think, oh, a great experience means buying someone a gift, or you know, something like that. And it's not that at all, no wait experience is the customer experience is the perception that a customer has of their interaction with your brand, your business, your content. And so it's how people feel. And the interesting thing is, is that you don't actually create a customer experience. People have a customer experience, so experience is not the thing you do, it's the sum of all the things you do. Right? It's the result, it's not the cause it's the effect. And so as we start to look at all the touch points, you know, all the things that you do when you're filling your funnel, and you're bringing people in, in the sales process, that part of the journey, all the things we do, once they say yes, and we start to onboard them, and welcome them into our world. And then as we start to help them get results and, and do the thing that they that they bought from you and get get, you know, have success with that all of those touch points are so important. And what we need to do as entrepreneurs, small business owners, coaches, speakers, podcasters, authors who whatever your your thing is, is we have to remove the friction from the process, we have to make it easier to help people get from point A wherever they started, to point where they wanted to go. And the more that we can remove the friction and create this kind of fluid water slide, if you will, where there's plenty of water flowing, and they can kind of slide down there. Even when it gets a little harder, and it starts to go uphill, the momentum will carry them. And so we have in our program, we literally go through and we show you how to remove as much or reduce as much friction as possible. And then how do we induce momentum? How do we boost them and give them a little extra push as they're going through that journey, so that they ultimately get that result? Because for us a result? A successful result is a fan who raves about their experience, who renews their membership with you or their subscription, who returns to buy more products, and ultimately, who recruits other people to come into your world and be part of this amazing experience themselves. Now, isn't that I mean, that's what we all want, right? Well, it's

Catharine O'Leary: what we all want. It's not what we all design, right? So especially Yeah, especially newer entrepreneurs, or people that are kind of creating that you get all excited about your program, and you're all excited about this offer, and you're going to change the world, you're going to have impact, it's going to be amazing. And I completely understand that. You spend all your time trying to find your ideal clients, which we talked about in quizzes, and so on, and you know, attracting those ideal clients. But then when you get them and you deliver the amount of people that don't have like an email nurture sequence after the fact, for those that didn't buy, or you know, any kind of follow up or any kind of like, you know, discussion afterwards, whether it's, you know, hey, check in my podcast, or, you know, like, this is how I can continue to support you. Like, we kind of dropped the ball, I think,

well, and it's sad, because here's a here's a true statement too. And I don't have the actual statistics of this. But I can tell you from being in the world of events, and online marketing, and launches and product launches, and you know, all that for for many, many years. More often than not, people don't buy the first time they see your offer. Right, they may by the 10th time they've seen that same offer, because they're acclimating they're learning you they're building relationship they're getting to know like, and trust you, they had to kind of finish other things that are going on in their life. And so to your point, if we're not staying connected, even if they don't buy from us, we're missing a huge opportunity, because that nurture that that relationship, building that journey, just because they didn't buy that program, there's still a journey that they're on with you. And having an experience, whether you design it, or you don't. Right. So do it by do it by design, not by default, because they are going to feel something whether you've decided how to help them be and make it a positive feeling, or like a negative or a lonely feeling. And we don't want people to feel bad, even if they didn't decide to purchase a program from you. Now, that's not that's not all there is right? We want to help people, we want to create value for people and will earn their trust and the relationship over time, if they're the right fit for us. We really do have to look at that, that whole journey and see. Yeah, and

Catharine O'Leary: if you're going to spend all the time to make sure that your dream clients are in your your world to begin with, which is what we talked about with with, you know, asking a lot of questions and making sure that you know, you're, you're talking to the right people, you don't want to drop them off just because they didn't buy that one time. Because I think it's a high number of folks like it's 95% or more of people that won't buy the first time out. Right, they like you know, they've got other competing factors going on, they've got other things they've, the kids are doing whatever and you know, the hockey is coming up and you know, the mortgage is coming, do whatever, like whatever it is, you know, they're in other programs, I mean, the the and they

don't have the confidence in themselves and their ability to actually use what you're teaching them yet. So there's, you know, there's internal struggles, there's external struggles and that combination, like you're like you're saying, like, usually it's, you know, there's a 2% conversion of people that actually buy to your point. So it's, it's not even 95% It's higher than that right? And of the people that actually purchase your program, especially in the online world, there's a high percentage of people that will never crack the seal of your online training. So they bought it. And they don't even start. Because my mind it's mind blowing, right? Then what if it start? What if you actually could get them the results that they wanted? See, I believe that when people say yes, right, even if it's just filling out your your survey, right, it's an intention. It's not yet a commitment. And so what we need to do in our businesses is we need to help them commit to getting that result that they want. And the quiz funnel, like I love quizzes, I love quiz phones, I love everything that you do so much, because it really does help us understand people. And in the world of experience, we don't want a one size fits all approach to all of our customers, because they aren't all the same. And so we're using like a quiz funnel, and allows us to create like really great segmentation so that we can mass customize, and personalize the experience that our different customers have when they come in to so that they feel truly heard and understood and cared for. So it's just so important. So that's why I just when you start pairing up all the wonderful things that you do on the front end, and that you help people do Catharine, with, you know what we're talking about with this journey, and magical stuff comes out of it. Because people really do feel special, and they feel like you do understand them and you're interested in helping them have success.

Catharine O'Leary: And what I also love about you know, when when we talk about the customer journey we talked we've talked about this a lot in corporate is that it doesn't end with the sale, it continues. So you need to continue collecting that information and understanding those insights. And even from, you know, from a quiz perspective, you've collected all that information, a lot of people don't use the data on the back end, to actually understand, do I need to change my messaging? Do I need to, you know, maybe there's something new in there that I haven't thought of yet, like a new product or an offer, or even just how to tweak your messaging within your community, to better serve the segments that you've identified. So that customer experience and to be honest, why you know, like, I'm at fault sometimes to where, you know, like, I, you can always do better, right, you can always do better in your nurturing, you can always do better and in how you're connecting, but you really do have to make an effort to do it. I think it has to be like a priority in your business goals.

Yeah, well, 100%. And like, again, let's all give ourselves a little bit of grace, right? There's a lot to do. And it takes it takes time. And it's baby steps, but being aware, like, if you now have the awareness now it's like what are the what are the biggest moments, right? Every moment moments matter, right, and we win and lose customers in micro moments, right? So you can do everything, right, and you can have one bad moment, we can lose everybody, right? So we want to find the key moments and really lean into there. And we have to prioritize as we look at our journey, and we look at the experience people go through. And I'll tell you, you know, spoiler alert, the beginning first impressions are the most important. So when they first come into your world, and they start your quiz funnel, that's a big moment when they first purchase something, and now they're a customer. That's a big moment, right. And so we have to look at all the firsts. And really get clear on how we make sure that we've removed as much friction and make them as positive as possible, and then start looking at the rest. Another thing that you said that I really want to just touch on for a second is, as people go through your experience, right, they transform, right? So as you figure out all the message from someone that comes in that's like new to your world, and and now you're teaching them something, they are not the same person at the end of that experience that they are in the beginning. And so the language, how you speak to them, how you communicate with them, is going to evolve as they evolve in their journey. Right? So if you think about maybe like you created your business, because it was what you needed at the time, and you were your customer, right? That's true for many of us, right? And then as you got smarter, now you have the curse of knowledge. And it's hard to remember what it was like back in the beginning. Well, that's true for your customers as they come through. So they go through your program, and they learn and they kind of elevate and they kind of get to a next level of consciousness about whatever topic you're teaching them. Well, now, now you got to talk to them a little bit differently, because they're in a different segment of your audience. And so we have to keep that in mind too. And that's another great way to use surveys and quizzes and things to kind of measure where people are, and kind of stay honest with how we can best connect with them and communicate with them and be relevant.

Catharine O'Leary: Yeah, dad is another layer. And it sounds like you know, the granting work to you. But honestly, it's your business and and if you are at a cocktail party, and you're going to the people that you've never met before and are new to you, you'd speak to them differently than if you're going to like a bunch of friends that don't know exactly who you know what you do. And they have very specific questions for you about how, you know, hey, I've got this question or whatever. Those are different kinds of conversations. So if you think about your business is like you know, it's your party. It's your, you know, great big huge, you know, cocktail party or dinner party or whatever, make sure you're having the conversations that are relevant to the people that you're trying to connect with.

Absolutely so important. And I just, I love this whole, I love this whole conversation, because we really do need to be more and more relevant and connect with people, we have to meet them where they are. And so wherever they are in their journey, we need to be able to identify that, again, quizzes, surveys, those are the things that will help you do that talking to your customers going deep. And then really look at that journey that they're going on. Think about, most importantly, how are they feeling at each of the key touch points along the way? And, you know, I think what you'll find as you start to really open up the the hardest part, right? The the kind of gotcha, or the thing for this kind of thing is that we have to look at it through their eyes. Yeah, we have to look at it through the customer's perspective. So like we were talking about role playing before stepping their shoes, put on their glasses, and make sure that you're not looking at it from the business perspective, because it's different. You have to be looking at that journey that they're on that that pathway that we like to create, as what does it look like from the vantage point of the customer. And you'll you'll start to be amazed. And, you know, I always joke when people come in and do one of our workshops, or they do our program, like there's going to be some tears, you're going to be a little embarrassed at how hard you're making it for your customers when you realize it because it's hard to it's hard to see it sometimes, right? We just we're in a rush. We're building our programs, we're doing all the things. And then when you start to look at it from their side, you're like, oh my gosh, I am making it hard.

Catharine O'Leary: It's also in our minds. We've done it, like we're on the other side of it. So it's easy for us, we forget how hard it was to come to come through and be on the other side sometimes. And I'm for sure I do this often when I'm you know, first teaching people, the quizzes, and so on. Like, oh, you just do this. And everyone's kind of look at me with that blank stares, like, Well, I'm just been doing this for 30 years. So of course, it's just do this, like, you know, like I forget how I even learned how to you know, think like that. But you got to you do have to take that step back. So I love this conversation. Jason.

Awesome. Yeah, there's, we could we could go on for days, I'm sure. It's, it's really important. And I just, I just want to reiterate that like today, it's more important than ever before with the amount of competition out there. If you want to stand out, and you want to really help your customers get results, the best marketing, the best way to fill your funnel is going to be sharing the success stories of your different customers that come through that program, come through your program and have results. And so the more that you can kind of help, like just lean in love on your customers and obsess over helping them get results. If and when you do that, you will see a really like massive, you know, inflection point in growth of your business 100%.

Catharine O'Leary: And it is shocking how many people do sign up for programs and never finish them. So if you can actually focus more effort on making sure that you deliver the transformations that you have that you know you can, that's that's just going to help everyone really it's going to help your clients get to where they wanted to be, it's going to help grow your business, and it's going to help you reach more people to to impact. So that's amazing.

And it feels really good, right? As a business owner, knowing that you're helping even more people and you're seeing that success, it's infectious, you'll start your team is going to grow and expand their capability and be more on fire, your customers are going to be more excited, like lots of lots of positive things happen. You know, and actually, to that end, I have a special gift that I'd love to share if that's cool. Yeah. So what this is, I'm gonna tease you a little bit, I'm not going to tell you exactly what it is. So I apologize, but the curiosity might help you actually get there. But what it is it's it's part strategy part tactic, it's one of my favorite things that we do, it's going to change the way you think a little bit about how to do something like this in your business. And it's gonna give you actionable steps that you can take, like literally right now, and do it's not going to take you more than probably 10 minutes to go through this PDF. It's 100% free, no strings attached. If you if you feel like hey, this is cool, we want to learn more, you can always check us out at CX formula.com And we can talk about that. But what I'd love is for you to go grab it it's at gift.cx formula.com/kickstart So again, that's gift that CX formula.com/kickstart and shoot me an email my email addresses in there you'll actually get to me I'd love to hear like yeah, this is cool. And here's what I'm thinking or this is a little bit weird. I don't I don't I don't get it or whatever I want to help you use this because I know working with you know 1000s of clients over the years like this is a killer strategy that when people use they get huge results so love to for you to grab it love for you to share it back your feedback with me and and see how it's gonna work for you and your business.

Catharine O'Leary: Yeah, well, this has been great Jason and I really appreciate your insights because I do think that the next iteration of business is going to be not cookie cutter is the opposite it's going to be how customized can you go? How how personalized Can you can you get in your segments and your conversations and your connections and your your customer journey and laying that out now to help you do that is only going to you know, increase your reach and make sure that you're the customers that you come that that you do help are, you know, are getting through the transformation that you're, you know, wanting to give them and that they're wanting. So I appreciate this this conversation greatly. Yeah,

absolutely. Yeah. I love love to chat with you more about it in the future. But thank you for having me on the show. And for all you out there like just, you know, take a few minutes look at that journey, step in your customers shoes and see what experience they're having now because I promise you they're having one one way or the other, one

Catharine O'Leary: way or the other. Make sure it's the way that you would like it to be not by default. So thank you everyone for listening and tuning in again. We will see you next time on kickstart the conversation