CXChronicles Podcast 221 with Shawn Nason, Founder & CEO at MOFI

Hey CX Nation,

In this week's episode of The CXChronicles Podcast #221 we  welcomed Shawn Nason, the Founder and Chief Experience Officer at MOFI based in the Cincinnati, OH area. 

As a former Disney Imagineer, Chief Innovation Officer, and founder of the Disruptor League, Shawn has a proven track record of leading and executing innovative projects that generate significant revenue, customer loyalty, and social impact. 

He is also an author, speaker, podcast host, and neuro-diversity advocate who shares his insights and stories on how to embrace change, challenge assumptions, and kiss your dragons. He also holds a black belt in innovation engineering and certifications in design thinking and human-centered design.

In this episode, Shawn and Adrian chat through how he has tackled The Four CX Pillars: Team,  Tools, Process & Feedback and shares tips & best practices that have worked across his own customer focused business leader journey.

**Episode #221 Highlight Reel:**

1. Experiences learned as a Walt Disney imagineer 
2. Focusing on human experiences above all else as you scale
3. Don't prioritize your technology & KPIs -- focus on your customers 
4. Meet customers where they are & get to know them intimately
5. To get the numbers you need, focus on the human experience
 
Huge thanks to Shawn for coming on The CXChronicles Podcast and featuring his work and efforts in pushing the customer experience & customer success space into the future.

Click here to learn more about Shawn Nason

Click here to checkout MOFI

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Are you looking to learn more about the world of Customer Experience, Customer Success & Revenue Operations?

Click here to grab a copy of my book "The Four CX Pillars To Grow Your Business Now" available on Amazon or the CXC website.

For you non-readers, go check out the CXChronicles Youtube channel to see our customer & employee focused video content & short-reel CTAs to improve your CX/CS/RevOps performance today (politely go smash that subscribe button).

Contact us anytime to learn more about CXC at INFO@cxchronicles.com and ask us about how we can help your business & team make customer happiness a habit now!

Transcript

The CXChronicles Podcast 221 with Shawn Nason.mp4

Adrian (00:00:00) - All right, guys, thanks so much for listening to another episode of the CXChronicles podcast. 

Adrian (00:00:09) - I'm your host, Adrian Brady-Cesana. Super excited for today's show, guys. We have my friend Shawn Nason on the show. Shawn and I have been getting to know each other over the years. He's somebody that I look up to in our space. He's someone that, when you say the word customer-focused business leader, he is literally that guy. He's got some incredible stories. He's got some incredible experience that he's going to share with us. And, Shawn, I'm just pumped to have you on the show today, my friend. 

Shawn Nason (00:00:34) - Yeah, well, great to be here, brother. 

Adrian (00:00:35) - Shawn, why don't you start off today's show, if we start all these episodes, my friend. Give the listeners some of the stepping stones, man. Before we even get into MoFi, before we even get into some of the things that you're doing today, what were some of your stepping stones? What were some of the things that kind of early in your career made you realize that you loved working with customers, you loved thinking about how to design customer experiences, customer success, customer service? How'd you kind of get into this whole space? 

Shawn Nason (00:01:02) - Yeah, so that's kind of funny, Adrian. I fell into it because I didn't even—I wasn't looking for this career. I believe this career came looking for me. I'm in my fifth career in life, was a musician, was a pastor. That led me to living in Orlando, Florida, in 2005. And my wife said to me when we left pastoring full-time, she said, hey, why don't you go to work for Disney? And so I did. But my agreement was I would go to work for Disney only if I didn't do entertainment. I had no desire to be in the entertainment space anymore. 

Shawn Nason (00:01:54) - And so those that know anything about entertainment or know anything about music know it's nothing but numbers. So I'm really, really good at numbers. So I got a job in a department when I first started at Disney called Revenue and Currency Control. And it was a job counting their cash deposits. And so you can only imagine what that's like. 

Adrian (00:02:18) - I was just thinking that must be a lot of numbers right there, Shawn. 

Shawn Nason (00:02:21) - A lot of numbers. And so through that journey, I went back. I got my bachelor's degree in finance, got a master's degree. Thank you, Disney, for paying for all of that and helping through that journey. Went to work for Disney Cruise Line and ultimately became a Walt Disney Imagineer, which is the epic creative space at Disney. It's the people who create resorts, who create rides, who create theme parks, who create, create, create. And that's when I really got in touch to what the guest experience looked like and how much Disney. 

Shawn Nason (00:03:03) - And really, I can't say it was just then. From the very beginning, I knew at Disney it was throughout the culture. The guest was number one, number one, number one. And so that's when my journey started. I worked for Disney for almost seven years. And just, I tell people, it's probably not the best first corporate job to ever have because you think everybody should be that way then going forward. 

Adrian (00:03:38) - I mean, you're talking about a company that year after year after year after year is on the list of companies that everyone else is inspiring towards, right? As far as customer experience, customer success, just customer first. But I want you to elaborate on that. Why do you say it like that? And you would think that it would be the opposite, right? You would think that it would be amazing to set that type of – why do you say it like that, Shawn? 

Shawn Nason (00:04:09) - It's because I think my philosophy at that point was, well, every company is like this. 

Adrian (00:04:20) - Got you. Okay. 

Shawn Nason (00:04:23) - And then when I left Disney, I was recruited into healthcare. And people are like, holy cow, why healthcare? Well, at that time, I got recruited into healthcare into Humana, which is one of the biggest health insurers in our country. And Bruce Broussard had just become – was becoming CEO, and his whole focus was on improving the member experience.

Shawn Nason (00:04:49) - And I got recruited into a role that focused on improving member experience. So here I was, again in in a company, in an organization where we're focusing on, you know, the guests, the member, whoever, the customer, whatever it is, and so it's when I left there that I had the really big aha of: oh shit, you mean, not every company functions like this. 

Adrian (00:05:15) - So I, I love it, man, I love it. So wait, okay, number one, thank you for kind of walking us through some. And then I'm really pumped to get into some of this, the work that you and your team have been doing at MoFi for almost a decade now, Shawn. But a couple of questions before we even dive into those and stuff. 

Adrian (00:05:32) - So like, if there was like one or two outside of your big aha, but if there was like one or two major takeaways that you started grinding your own gears on, you started realizing there's a way I can help a bunch of different companies, a bunch of different business owners, a bunch of different executives with this type of work. 

Adrian (00:05:50) - But if there was like one or two big things that you saw, from Disney and Humana to two companies- that again, you just said it, but everybody knows that they're leading- leading businesses in terms of being able to provide incredible customer or member experiences. But there was one or two things that you saw, those two companies that were just game changers, or things that you took away as anchors, or things that you took away for all the work that you've done over the last 10 years with your business. What would it be? 

Shawn Nason (00:06:18) - Don't say you are customer centric or patient centric or human centric in a company, unless you truly are. 

Shawn Nason (00:06:31) - And so I knew that every decision, in particular Disney, I, I knew that every decision we were making, no matter what it was the guest, was number one and truly was number one. Yeah, it wasn't around dollars, it wasn't around looking at some metric- yep, it was. How does this truly impact our guest experience? 

Shawn Nason (00:07:09) - And I used to tell people this all the time, adrian, I would say I always, always kept in mind the four-year-old princess and the four-year-old pirate and that family who had saved a whole lot of money for a lot of years, sometimes to come for that vacation. How was what I was going- well, what I was doing- going to impact their time in our space and in our home at Disney? 

Adrian (00:07:40) - Yep, yep, and you're right, man. That's that like that is for so many families and across the world that is like this- you kidding me? 

Shawn Nason (00:07:48) - It literally takes some families years to be able to bring their kids there, you know, and then and then every one of us has friends who brought either their family or brought their kids recently. 

Shawn Nason (00:07:58) - You know, pricey it is so like. But there's one thing that I always think about, Shawn, and tell me if I'm right on this, though: there's something else about the magic of a Disney, though. That attracts literally people like you, or all the people that you were working with. Are all the different Disney teammates- right, we're all the different titles you guys got? 

Adrian (00:08:14) - There's something about the magic of pulling a bunch of those types of employees and staff together that actually buy in and believe that and trust the process and say what you just said we're like. They truly believe that when they show up every single solitary day to one of the parks or to one of the- whatever one of the places and spaces that they're actually like changing a family's life or they're making a difference in a child's life. That is. 

Adrian (00:08:34) - There's something interesting about that, man, and for a lot, a lot of executives like they might think that they're creating a who rock culture for customer to who rock culture for employee. But are you really cuz like? Look at this company, look at how they've done that, and that's definitely part of what everything that you're laying out to us about why people look at Disney as one of these companies that is just set the bar so frickin. I appear that it's almost not touchable. 

Shawn Nason (00:08:57) - Well, and what people- most people- don't realize is disney pays their cast members under industry average. Wow I. So you have people in line to go to work as a cast member for that company who takes incredible care of their cast members. Again, I chose to make under industry average, but disney paid for my second bachelor's degree, my master's degree. They paid for the adoption of our first child. 

Shawn Nason (00:09:37) - We had incredible benefit structures, the amount of times we could go to the park, the free things that were given to us, the whole it was they took care of their cast members because they knew if they took care of their cast members, the cast members would take care of the guests. 

Shawn Nason (00:09:56) - And it's so frustrating to me that today in this world, Adrian, that we still live within an industry in CX that thinks that consumer, customer experience, whatever you want to call it, and employee experience are two different things. They are not two different things, and that's where Disney gets it right. And it's why we call it MOFI, the experience ecosystem. If you get the whole ecosystem right, everything's going to work. Disney took care of their cast members, still to this day do. 

Adrian (00:10:34) - Yep, yep. I love it, man. You know that I'm a firm believer of that, and you are one of the people that got me so passionate about this. But like I say constantly in the show, you cannot have world-class CX without world-class EX. They're absolutely entangled. And then the other thing, you think about it any other way in life, man, you get out what you put in, right? It's just like any other investment structure, right? 

Adrian (00:10:59) - You place the right type of bets in the right types of stocks, the right types of times in the right types of places, your portfolio will soar, right? And the last thing is just this, Shawn, and I know that you have literally built your whole career on this, but like, dude, it's people that enjoy showing up to work and enjoy working with the customers that they serve, and then there's some type of cycle around just like both sides getting additional gains from that. 

Adrian (00:11:26) - Like you just mentioned, whether it's benefits or whether it's education or family, dude, you just mentioned family, come on. The minute a company starts playing into its employees' family, dude, that's where it becomes a game changer. There's no question that you are gonna get supreme performance from an army of individuals that have that type of care on their side, right? It's kind of a no-brainer, right? 

Shawn Nason (00:11:49) - Yep, yep. 

Adrian (00:11:51) - I love it, I love it. Shawn, I'd love to pick your brain on the first pillar of team, man. So you've worked with all these different companies, and I mean, we could talk about Disney, but I know that you've worked with all these incredible companies at Mophie, but like, I'd love for you to spend a couple minutes kind of talking about what are maybe like two or three big things, or even if you wanna share stories, but I'd love to kind of hear how you've seen some of the best companies that you've worked with, kind of approach that team pillar, right? 

Adrian (00:12:16) - And I'd love to kind of just hear some tips or some ideas around what you've seen companies that have done an extremely good job with building out their teams as they build their business, scale their business, grow their business into the future. 

Shawn Nason (00:12:31) - Yeah, this one's pretty simple to me, and it's not even talking about a company in particular, but you don't have a successful company if you don't have a successful team. Now, it may be successful financially for a time or for a period, but it's not sustainable. And we've all heard the quote, and I'm paraphrasing it, part of my chemo brain that I don't remember at all, is people don't leave companies, people leave managers and people leave leaders, right? 

Shawn Nason (00:13:08) - So you don't leave a company, you leave because you typically have had a poor manager, poor leader. I left Humana, not because Humana was a bad company, I had a new leader who came in and was a poor leader and didn't know how to lead people. And within a couple of years, the company realized that and that person was no longer there. So when it comes to teams, man, simple saying, I've said it on probably every podcast I've been on, if you get the human experience right, you will get the numbers you need. 

Adrian (00:13:53) - Yep. 

Shawn Nason (00:13:54) - So instead of trying to focus on all of cost reductions and how do we nickel and dime this and nickel and dime that, focus in, get your team experience right. And that team will help get you to the place you need to go in a business. I've seen it time and time again, with several companies that I've worked with internally or as a consultant at Mophie, you have got to get that experience right. 

Adrian (00:14:26) - Yep, yep. I mean, spot on. And like we were just saying a second ago, right? Like you're going to get the outcomes, the performance and just the general output is completely dependent on if you're preparing, equipping and supporting the team. Dude, you know, it's funny, Shawn, even in my career, man, like I've seen all these different companies that I've either helped to build or that I've consulted with, you're really spot on. Like the ones that feel appreciated, supported. In fact, you know, I know I just said this a second ago, but investment. 

Adrian (00:14:58) - And one thing I want to challenge our listeners to, how many of you guys, how many of you guys have actually been able to go to a conference, be able to buy some type of education or some type of certificate or some type of coaching or masterclass, whatever the hell, I don't care, please minimally be able to, are given a certain amount of annual budget to literally spend it on your own learning and development for either you as a leader or your team. Because it's crazy how many companies we see, Shawn, that it's literally zero. 

Adrian (00:15:32) - When I asked that question, they'll say, wait, what, what do you, what? And I'm like, well, how much have you already, how much have you been given to be able to invest in you and your team? And they look at me sometimes like I'm a fricking alien. It's crazy, dude. It's wild. 

Shawn Nason (00:15:44) - Yeah.

Shawn Nason (00:15:45) - Yeah, um, but I will also challenge that to say: if you get your culture right, you don't need to do that. 

Adrian (00:15:52) - Elaborate on that. 

Shawn Nason (00:15:54) - At Disney, I didn't go to any leadership conferences. I now granted we hosted a bunch because, but it wasn't like I went to conferences or I went, it was the DNA of the company. You know, it was every leader. You were only a leader if you were truly living the Disney way. Yeah, right, you didn't become a leader at Disney if you were really good at getting numbers but crapped all over people. Yep, yep, you know. 

Shawn Nason (00:16:35) - No, you, you left the company and you know, listen, it's been in the switching of the guard back to bringing Bob Iger back in his CEO and what he is doing and how he's back investing in the company. I worked there at Disney when Bob Iger took over. Bob Iger exuded the Disney way straight from the top, straight from the top, and that's the other thing. You can't say the Disney way. 

Shawn Nason (00:17:07) - You can't say the Disney way. 

Shawn Nason (00:17:08) - You can't say that you're a people centric culture or a human centered culture, whatever you word you want to use, if your leadership is not bought in. And when I say your leadership, it is your C suite. Yeah, you know I hear people say, no, you can make a change coming in from the bottom up to the top. I'm going to call bullshit on it. I'm sorry you guys, you can't. If your C suites not bought in and it's not coming down from the top, it will not happen. 

Adrian (00:17:40) - Yep, and. 

Shawn Nason (00:17:41) - And then if it's not? So, you know, so, inbred into the, into the organization, as soon as that leadership leaves, it's going to leave to. Yeah, yep, you know it's not. Like when I went to work for Disney, all of a sudden I heard about the Disney way. 

Adrian (00:18:01) - Right, 

Shawn Nason (00:18:01) - no, I before I ever applied, 

Adrian (00:18:05) - absolutely, absolutely. I remember before, ever, before, ever even considering myself a CX person or, you know, a customer focused business leader, Shawn, I remember. You know there's a handful of companies that you consistently think of for just the Disney way. So, Disney, the Ritz Carlton, BMW, there's a handful of these companies that, like before you know anything about those brands, those products, those services. 

Adrian (00:18:29) - You know the fact that, like you know about the, before you even are as a consumer, you think about those, those brands are those logos or those badges as the upper echelon, the types of companies that they just get it right. 

Adrian (00:18:44) - They're gonna, if you are able to afford to spend or to, or to be able to consume those types of services or products, like, you're going to get this, this level. That's just, that's. 

Adrian (00:18:55) - That's what's That's just, you know, almost unmatched. 

Adrian (00:18:57) - So I think you're spot on. Before we jump off, team Shawn, with all the different companies that you've been able to touch and be a part of and to be able to work with at Mophie, what would be, I guess, like one piece of advice for our listeners- many of our listeners, as you know, my friend, are, you know, leading customer experience, customer support, customer success teams or inside sales and customer coaching teams. 

Adrian (00:19:23) - For some of our listeners, who are like growing their teams or their, their, their, their businesses are scaling right and they're the guys and gals that are responsible for literally growing the team, will be like your one bit of advice that you've seen throughout your career, to to really kind of be aware of or to be, to be mindful of as you're building and kind of growing and expanding your customer team. 

Shawn Nason (00:19:45) - Stay true to who you are. I love it, and when I say that is you as a person, and I wrote a book with a couple of colleagues during the pandemic called kiss your dragons, and we all have what I, what we identified in the book, is heart sets. 

Shawn Nason (00:20:11) - And those are the core of who we are. And then mindsets can develop over time, change over time. But your heart sets are always the same. It's the core of who you are. Do not allow people to change the core of who you are to just do something in business or for business. When that starts to happen, it's time to leave. 

Adrian (00:20:38) - Yeah, yep. I love it, man. Amen, brother. I think that that is spot on. And I think for our listeners, that's an easy piece of advice to be able to take. Like you gotta, first of all, if you're really gonna be the type of leader that you wanna be, you do need to not give a shit what people around you think. You gotta do what you believe is right, what you think is going to be the best result for the team. And let's call it what it is, man. Not enough people talk about this, Shawn, but this shit requires bravery and courage, my friend. 

Adrian (00:21:04) - Being a great leader and being a guy or a gal that is actually gonna be able to get a bunch of awesome people behind them and run through a wall, that shit takes courage and that takes bravery, my friend. So, Shawn, I'd love to pick your brain on tools, man. You've worked with all these different companies. What are, I'd love to just kind of, spend a couple minutes talking about what are some of the best businesses that you've been able to work with or some of the best teams that you've been able to kind of run beside? 

Adrian (00:21:31) - What are some of the best things that you've kind of see with how companies are leveraging technology, tools, maybe not, or avoiding certain technology, certain tools to be able to actually keep their focus on a handful of tools that they utilize at a really high rate. Spend a few minutes talking about tools. 

Shawn Nason (00:21:49) - Yeah, so this is gonna be an interesting statement and probably a shock to some. We have a lot of tools out there. We have a lot of CX tools out there. 

Adrian (00:22:04) - Maybe too many? 

Shawn Nason (00:22:05) - I don't think you need any of them, to be honest. Like, you know, I studied human-centered design through Stanford D School. Some people don't know what is that. Some people know it is design thinking. You know, it's hard, Adrian, because I just keep going back to, if you get the human experience right, you'll get the numbers you need. 

Adrian (00:22:39) - Yeah. 

Shawn Nason (00:22:40) - So what tools do you need to get the human experience right? You don't need NPS. You don't need CSAT. You don't need, if you're in healthcare, star ratings or any of that, right? Like, are they nice haves? Yes. But sometimes nice haves become roadblocks because you get so infatuated with that tool that you forget what you're really wanting to do. 

Adrian (00:23:14) - Yep. 

Shawn Nason (00:23:17) - And so, for me, and this has been a revelation probably over the last 18 months, we in the industry, for a lot of years, me being one of those, so I own this, said we need to figure out how to measure experience. We need a metric on how to, you know, is it, you know, is it a, instead of, you know, return on investment, is it return on experience? People have been working on it. 

Adrian (00:23:46) - This has been a topic on thousands of podcasts. 

Shawn Nason (00:23:51) - I had this revelation last year when I stepped in to be interim CEO of a company. Though we weren't going to measure experience, we weren't gonna try to figure out how to measure experience. What we were gonna do is change the culture and show how by changing the culture, business metrics that we all could talk and know affected the business, when you saw those metrics approve, you could then tie it back to the fact that you'd improved the culture and the human experience. 

Adrian (00:24:22) - Yep. 

Shawn Nason (00:24:23) - And we didn't need to go try to find another metric. 

Adrian (00:24:25) - What do people, what do people say, you being like this guy who's constantly out there talking about this experience and experience, what do people say when that's your beginning, that's like the first thing that you kind of rolled out as the CEO of the business, what was the reaction that people had? 

Shawn Nason (00:24:42) - Very mixed emotion. I'll leave it with that one. 

Adrian (00:24:46) - Yeah, I can imagine. 

Adrian (00:24:47) - What did Shawn just say? 

Adrian (00:24:49) - What did he just say? 

Shawn Nason (00:24:50) - Yeah, and I remember it was January of 2020, I think, right before the pandemic, I was at the National Retail Federation Conference in New York City. And I had been asked to sit on a panel for a great friend and company that we love, Happy or Not, which is a tool. So it's not that I'm against them, but, and I remember the question was asked to me what I thought about MPS.

Shawn Nason (00:25:22) - at the National Retail Federation, who probably has more NPS people in that whole entire conference. And I said, I think NPS should be thrown out. And it was like sucking the wind out of the whole room. 

Adrian (00:25:38) - I believe it, I believe it. 

Shawn Nason (00:25:42) - Because again, and I'm not gonna say that I'm against NPS, I'm for NPS, or what I'm gonna say is don't get so infatuated with the frickin' metric that you'll lose what you're even trying to measure for. 

Adrian (00:25:57) - Yep, yep. 

Shawn Nason (00:25:58) - And that's how I am about tools. 

Adrian (00:26:01) - I love it. And one last thing of this is, there's two thoughts I have. One is more and more and more of the folks that we're so honored to have on the show every single Saturday of the week are saying what you just said, Shawn. More and more and more and more customer-focused business leaders are saying, stop with the NPS, stop with the CSAT, focus on all these other things. So this is becoming a very clear trend with many leaders. 

Adrian (00:26:26) - Second thing, and I don't wanna forget, so I wanna make sure I call this out, but your comment on some of the traditional metrics that many CX or CS leaders gravitate towards. Guys, Shawn presented at the QuestionPro event in Austin, Texas a few months ago. And Shawn and I got to hang out there and Shawn did an awesome job with his presentation. You mentioned something that I wanted to make sure I called out. I told you I was gonna tell you this story, brother. 

Adrian (00:26:55) - But guys, you become over-focused and you become over-centered on metrics that are technically behind you. They're lagging. Remember, Shawn, you said this to the whole room. Sometimes you have to rip the fricking mirror, your rear view mirror right off, throw it out the damn window, because if you think about it, guys, with human experience, and let's go with that, because it's both your customer experiences and your employee experiences, you gotta be looking forward on the road, right? 

Adrian (00:27:24) - If you're constantly looking in the rear view mirror, you're missing what's ahead. You're missing potholes. You're missing exits. You're missing different signal change. And Shawn, I remember coming up to you afterwards. I was like, dude, that's fucking brilliant. Like, I love, because people can remember that one, by the way. They can remember that. That's an easy thing to remember. 

Adrian (00:27:40) - The other thing is this. 

Adrian (00:27:41) - Your executive team, guys, your C-suite guys, they might be asking for all these things that are behind because they might have a thought for how they can correlate it to future mathematics, and they might be thinking that that's how they can angle on certain projections. 

Adrian (00:27:55) - The reality is if you know what leading indicators, then talk about the leading indicators, or make sure that you're doing your job as the leader in your business of showing them why certain lagging metrics are fucking useless, and why certain leading indicators are gonna be the things that actually make an impact, not only for your customer experience, but for the entire team of humans that has to serve those customers every day. Because nobody likes showing up to work pounding on a bunch of lagging indicators that don't mean shit to anybody. 

Adrian (00:28:22) - The employees know that because they gotta talk to the damn customer a hundred times a day, and then the customers are feeling that. So, Shawn, I loved that story and that thought and that idea, and I wanted our listeners to think about that because it really is a phenomenal way of not being overly focused on your tools, your metrics, and some of the things that you're pulling out of your tools today. Shawn, can we spend a minute or two talking about process, man? 

Adrian (00:28:47) - Some thoughts or some ideas or some stories around what you've seen companies do a really brilliant job with as it relates to either building their living playbooks or building their standard operating procedures as they grow, as they scale, as the team gets bigger. I'd love for you to just spend a minute or two talking about process. 

Shawn Nason (00:29:03) - Yeah, so I'm glad that I don't have other team members surrounding me or friends because they would say, Shawn hates process. 

Adrian (00:29:13) - And it's not that- Wait, you don't love process as much as me, Shawn? 

Shawn Nason (00:29:19) - Yeah, so it's not that Shawn hates process. I know it's such a, it's almost too simple of a message and it frustrates the hell out of people. When I say this, get the human experience right, you get the numbers you need. 

Adrian (00:29:43) - Yeah, I love it. 

Shawn Nason (00:29:44) - So when you talk about process, don't create a process just for process sake. Why are you creating that process? What is that process for? Who is it for? How is it gonna ultimately better the human experience? If it's not, then don't do the process. 

Adrian (00:30:10) - Yeah. Yep. 

Shawn Nason (00:30:14) - And I know that's so simple and probably really annoying to people. But that's just how it is to me. Like keep the human person first and then.

Shawn Nason (00:30:33) - I just feel like then everything else will fall into place. 

Adrian (00:30:36) - Yeah. I think one thing, so first of all, I love it. And I think the more you say it, the more it makes a ton of sense when you really just stop and think about it. I think one thing I will add onto this thought is it's amazing how many companies we work with Shawn at CXC that when we're going through some of our assessments or audits, or we're doing some of our CXCS services, we'll get to playbooks or we'll get to knowledge bases or we'll get to FAQ sets. 

Adrian (00:31:07) - And one of the things that I noticed being in 2024 is a lot of companies have done a great job writing things. I mean, you were actually talking about this a couple of weeks ago. A couple of weeks ago, we had a fricking awesome day where we kind of nerded out on a bunch of other stuff that we were kind of doing on the side with LinkedIn and some things like that. 

Adrian (00:31:22) - And I'm blown away by how few companies, there's like virtually no companies out there that think about their employee processes like any one of us goes to find content that we want to consume. So whether it's imagery or video, short clip videos or audio, dude, come on, audio. All of us learn, every one of us learns differently. I literally can't read a book if my life depended on it. I listened to a hundred books last year, right? So like for me, I can listen, I can listen to things, right? 

Adrian (00:31:59) - And it's amazing how many companies they don't think about all those different mediums that are out there. So to your point of like, put the human experience first, listeners, when's the last time y'all reached out to like your entire team and said, hey guys, what's your preferred method of, or what's your preferred medium of content consumption? And even if you're a small company, you got a hundred people in the business, you're gonna find out 25% are readers, 25% are viewers. 

Adrian (00:32:24) - They need to see video because they can't read and they can't listen, just kidding. You're gonna have 25% of people that just wanna listen to it. And then you're gonna have 25% of people that they like the blend for certain things they gotta read it, other things they gotta hear it, and then other things they gotta see that shit so that they can understand it. Like, and by the way, to your human experience point, your customers are probably the same damn way. 

Adrian (00:32:44) - It's crazy how many businesses don't actually take the time to ask the customer what their preferred method of consumption is or of information consumption, right? So simple things, you're really right, man. You put the human experience first and this stuff kind of sorts itself out downstream. It just does. Charlie, let's jump into feedback, man. Fourth and final pillar of feedback. 

Adrian (00:33:09) - What are, I want you to finish today's show with us, like one of the best stories you can share about how companies have collected, assessed, enacted upon customer feedback, like one story on that. And then I'd like you to keep a story in mind for some of the best ways you've ever seen a company do the employee feedback side. So story on customer feedback, then a story on employee feedback. 

Shawn Nason (00:33:36) - Yeah, so listen, again, I'm all about VOC programs and collecting that information. For me, it goes back to my humanities. When we needed feedback on a potential group of members in the state of Mississippi, the way we did it is I, with other team members, got on the ground and met people and met them where they were. Didn't expect them to meet us where we were. And it wasn't through a survey. It wasn't through a focus group. It wasn't through anything like that. It was feet on the ground. 

Shawn Nason (00:34:35) - And I will say most recently, two organizations that we had the privilege of working with at Mophie, one being Walmart and their health and wellness division, and one being Quest Diagnostics. I have seen some of this come to life and they have seen it and seen great results from it. 

Adrian (00:35:01) - Yep, I mean, what you just said, it makes me think of like some of the absolute best feedback experiences I've ever been a part of. Same exact thing. You go visit a customer or a teammate, human experience guys, right? You go visit a customer. 

Adrian (00:35:14) - Actually, one story that I wanna share, Shawn, when I had the pleasure of working at ACB Auctions as I had a customer experience, that was one of the unique jobs that I had before jumping into CXC where I would get to go to different markets and I would literally meet territory managers and vehicle condition inspectors at the dealership. 

Adrian (00:35:37) - So I would have, it was the only job that I ever had where I had literally had the luxury of being able to, what I usually do is get to the dealership early, hang out with the territory manager and the VCI's first, just to get acclimated with what was going on and how that we were doing. And then we would go and meet the customer together. That was amazing. I mean, like, dude, I would like, I would fly into a city and go bang out maybe five, six dealerships in a day. 

Adrian (00:36:00) - Not only would I get to meet with most of the local boots on the ground staff, our teammates that were literally running that market, but then we would get to go walk into that customer at the exact same time and then almost have a powwow, like almost have a literal powwow. The good, the bad, the ugly, this part about the product's awesome, that part about your pricing sucks. 

Adrian (00:36:19) - These, and then it was amazing too, how many of the dealers, man, they would go on and on and on about our employees or they will pull you to the side and they would say, hey man, the product's awesome. The service is great. Everything's working. Might be nice to have some additional support for your team here, here. So like.

Adrian (00:36:37) - You're absolutely right, boots on the ground, nothing beats that part of feedback. What about the employee side, man? 

Shawn Nason (00:36:45) - Disney. You know, I can't say any more than Disney. They just get it right. 

Adrian (00:37:00) - Yep. 

Shawn Nason (00:37:00) - So, and still to this day get it right. 

Adrian (00:37:06) - Yep, I mean, look, it's a company that every single one of us guys, folks, listen, if you guys haven't actually read anything about Walt Disney, like even going all the way back, it's like Walt is one of these, you wanna talk about a customer focused business leader who got this shit years ago, read about Walt Disney, fricking incredible. 

Adrian (00:37:24) - The dude was just, well, I mean, he was a ridiculous human period, but like just read about Walt, read about modern Disney, definitely read about Bob Iger too, because talk about a fellow who for making a tremendous amount of money has consistently been talked about as somebody that cares about customer and employee experience more than anything. And I find that fascinating. 

Shawn Nason (00:37:44) - And the other thing I will say, and believe me, I love Walt, he's great. People need to also go read about Roy, his brother. Because if it wasn't for Roy, to be honest, there wouldn't be a business. Walt Disney was a massive creative guy. He had the vision and the dreams. This is what I would leave to every one of your visitors. And I learned this early in my career. And I would say this to every visionary leader. You better have a great second person. Walt could dream it, Walt could envision it, Walt could do it. But Walt was a horrible businessman. 

Shawn Nason (00:38:39) - If it was not for Roy Disney, Disney would not be a business today. 

Adrian (00:38:45) - That's wild. That's wild. 

Shawn Nason (00:38:47) - It's not because Walt ran a great business. Walt had the vision of what he wanted in the company. Walt had what he wanted in the culture. Roy took it and built it. First generation. If you have not read any of Lee Cockerell's books, go read Lee Cockerell's books. He is what really brought that whole thing to life at Walt Disney World. An amazing man that his son Dan came along, worked his way up, was a president there as well at Disney World. So great second people. Couldn't have happened without the vision and the dream. 

Shawn Nason (00:39:29) - But it really became a business because of Roy Disney. 

Adrian (00:39:33) - That's amazing. I'm gonna have to check more about Roy out. Shawn, this has been absolutely fantastic. Before I let you go, brother, two things. Number one, anything that you'd like to shout out or anything coming up? I know you're always working on incredible things. You're speaking all over the damn world and you've got all this cool stuff going on. So anything you want to shout out? And then number two, where can people get in touch with you, brother? 

Adrian (00:39:53) - Where can people reach out to you if they want to learn more about you, about Mophie, about your books, about your content, about your awesome podcasts? Where can people get in touch with you? 

Shawn Nason (00:40:01) - Yeah, pretty simple. Go to seannason.com. Everything's there. You can reach out. You can contact me there. And number one platform out there for me is LinkedIn. Go look me up, Shawn Nason. Honored to be one of the top 30 CX voices in the world out there, top LinkedIn voice. I've worked very hard to put thought leadership there. We'll be hitting 100,000 followers here in the next month. 

Adrian (00:40:32) - I've been seeing that, Shawn. I've been watching that growing. 

Shawn Nason (00:40:36) - So those are the two best places to get in touch with me. 

Adrian (00:40:41) - I love it. Well, Shawn, two things. Number one, dude, absolutely a pleasure having you on the show, brother. I'm serious. I've been learning, listening, learning, watching you now for years, not to be creepy, but you know what I mean, man. You gotta be able to have different folks that you watch that are doing the things that you do. And then you have to start emulating and following. And now the fact that we're building a friendship and then we got to meet offline and dude, absolute pleasure having you on, brother. 

Adrian (00:41:04) - And I can't wait for what's to come this year for both of us, my friend. And I look forward to us staying in touch moving forward. 

Shawn Nason (00:41:12) - Awesome. Thanks, brother.