- Speaker #0
Some brands are legendary. In every category, someone sets the standard, and some companies create raving fans. Join Scott Wozniak and Caitlin Johnson of Swaz Consulting as we dig into the tactics and tools behind great organizations. How did the legends do it? And how can you become a legendary brand too? Welcome back to the Swaz Consulting podcast, Make Your Brand Legendary. We are kicking off Season 2. That is in part because it's been a good fun ride, the first set of going, but it's also in part because we are doing a host swap. I'm Scott Wozniak, CEO of Swaz Consulting, and I'm going to continue being the host. But instead of Caitlin Johnson continuing, We are moving on to Matt Sprague. Matt, welcome to the podcast.
- Speaker #1
Thanks, Scott. I'm happy to be here. I have big shoes to fill with Caitlin, I know.
- Speaker #0
True. Though, if we're going to be real, technically, I don't think your feet are going to fit in her shoes.
- Speaker #1
Definitely not.
- Speaker #0
If you guys don't know, Caitlin, she's a great athlete. She's petite, but Ironman, she's awesome. But she's not on the large side, and she's just normal. And Matt, um Matt is almost as tall as I am. I mean, he's a pretty big guy. If you know us, we get the joke right away. I am exactly average for the American height. I've looked it up. Like, I am dead center of the bell curve. And, Matt, you're just a nudge above average.
- Speaker #1
Just a tad bit. Just a little bit.
- Speaker #0
How tall are you? Come on.
- Speaker #1
I was like six, right? So in my dad's days, like, my dad joke would be 5'18", right? So, yeah.
- Speaker #0
Nice. So Caitlin was not 5'18". So I think if you're talking actual shoe size, yeah, we're going to bust through some shoes. But you're right. In terms of caliber and character and skill, we love Caitlin. So Caitlin, if you're listening to this, man, the team, we miss you. So Caitlin got offered a super cool opportunity that was fun. She wasn't even looking for it. They kind of approached her. She at first said no. And then long story short. Caitlin has joined an international firm based out of the Netherlands doing some of the work she loves to do. And it's got some family move stuff to her that she's got a connection over there. And it was just like, it was beautiful for her. And so we cried a little bit. We threw a little party. And dang it, Caitlin is not with the company anymore. She's just a really, really good friend of ours. So if we got to go back to the drawing board, it was kind of a no-brainer. Like who would I, literally top of my list was, well, Matt. I mean, we got to get Matt up in here. Yeah, it's going to be fun. Because, Matt, we should probably, before we get into the content, give them a little context. Some of these folks, I think they already know you because they've worked with you. But we have some folks who may not have met you. So give a little bit of your background and how you got into being roped into being my co-host.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. No, no. Obviously, love joining and excited about this run we're about to have. Yeah. For those who know, I've been with, uh, swaths now a little over four and a half years. It's been fun ride.
- Speaker #0
That's awesome.
- Speaker #1
It's crazy. Right. So, um, I came out of the manufacturing space, B2B, B2C and, uh, the last company, um, when, when I left, someone said, Hey, you know what? Uh, you got to meet this guy, Scott. And, uh, Scott and I got connected, um, on our project. And, um, I'll tell that story later, but we, we flew to Baltimore and it was snowing and, That's a whole other podcast is with Scott. But yeah,
- Speaker #0
he's there for that. Is this it's a little bit of a miracle Matt stuck around. This was not my best first impression moment. But yeah. Anyways. Yeah.
- Speaker #1
It wasn't the snow. It was more when the tire pressure light came on and Scott said, we'll be fine. We'll make it to the airport. I'm going, OK. All right. I trust you here.
- Speaker #0
That's that's one of many. There's the part we took the wrong turn and ended up on a dead end interstate. That was weird. I mean, it was a trip, folks.
- Speaker #1
It was epic. We got it all out in trip one.
- Speaker #0
After that, we're like, we should do more with this guy. Plus, also, Matt crushed it with the client. It was really brilliant. So, yeah, Matt, you went from consultant, part-time to full-time to like, hey, help me with the company. And now Matt's the right-hand leader. So if you guys are familiar with EOS ways of structuring your company, one way of saying it is I'm the visionary, he's the integrator. Another way you might say, I'm CEO, he's COO. We're kind of the tag team that runs SWAS.
- Speaker #1
Two P's in the pod, who knows, right?
- Speaker #0
You got it. One P, much taller than the other one. But that being said, Matt and I, that's why I'm like, who could I? Matt's the guy I riff with on this stuff anyway. We already do this, so maybe we just record this stuff we're already talking about around SWAS and what we do anyway. So, yeah, easy, super fun.
- Speaker #1
Well, I'm excited about the new season. I'm excited about kicking off today. And, yeah, I think, man, customer journey mapping is like this hot topic right now, right? It's the buzzword we're hearing, kind of the ideas of what does it take? And, you know, I always joke like, hey, a lot of people always think about this as a sales process. but you know, hey, you should probably try to do this with your accounting team too, to understand what's their importance, right? So, you know, I think as we head into the end of the year, thinking about what are our strategies next year, it's like, man, this is a great opportunity to really dive into what is customer journey? Like, what is our mapping process look like? And how do we identify it? And a lot of people right now, I mean, like, they don't even know what it is. They're like, well, what, Matt, tell me a little bit about this, right? And that's where I think you and I have been talking about for a while, but man, it's exciting because it's fun. You should have a lot of fun. Yeah,
- Speaker #0
I love these sessions. Okay, so let's define it real basic, right? A customer journey map is a map of your customer's journey with you. Now, that sounds so obvious, but what that literally means is it's a document, a piece of paper, digital or otherwise, that you lay out that shows in some sequential order what the customer goes through when they interact with you. It starts well before they buy something. They hear about you before they even talk to you. Then they start checking out your website or talking to your team or looking at your product if you have a physical thing. Then at some point, they decide to purchase and it's still not done because now they use the thing and you talk with them and some of you have ongoing subscriptions, but even if you don't, There's this ongoing messaging and relationship and what's it like to use your stuff. So it's this whole journey. What's it like to interact with you from before they talk to you to after they purchase from you and use your stuff? And it sounds cool to call it a map.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. I mean, it can be like chutes and ladder, you know, something like that, right?
- Speaker #0
Slide back down.
- Speaker #1
Here's my do this. But, I mean, I think of like Chick-fil-A, right? Like their drive-thru is a journey map. right you think about you and i both know chick-fil-a of like they map out the touch points that's all right let's map it out and what does it look like and i've seen a lot of people do like the straight line and then they do touch points or the the high and low high and low but it's man i think it's really an opportunity for us to identify some some key things because when i think about journey mapping like you you hit on a good point scott is like well what happens if it's not just a one and done. They come back. And you and I always talk about that consistency piece, right? What's your favorite line about consistency?
- Speaker #0
Oh, man. Inconsistent excellence earns the same trust as consistent failure. Yes. I don't love that. I kind of, it kind of stings, but it does just a little bit, right? Yeah.
- Speaker #1
But I think like the journey mapping is our opportunity to find out where could those inconsistencies pop up, right? And that's, that's the fun of this is like. I think in business today, Scott, right, as leaders, we want to get out of the weeds, but we're in the weeds all the time. And these mapping sessions sometimes allow us to get back. Now, my rule of thumb, I know you might do this too, is I usually tell the leaders, hey, if this is something you're thinking about, put duct tape over your mouth and be quiet and let your team kind of drive this a little bit, right?
- Speaker #0
Yeah. Yeah. Leader, the top leader goes last if they say anything at all during some of this. and by the way, this isn't just for like leaders we don't like. In fact, what I found is the more respected you are, the more careful you have to be about what you say in that meeting. Because what happens is you pipe up and you're like, that's Matt stinking Sprague. If he says that, then it must be true. And everyone else stops thinking critically. And they just assume like, oh, that's probably right. And you'll not get the full picture. You'll, everyone will lean into your perspective. And frankly, that doesn't help you at all because you already know.
- Speaker #1
thoughts you need all the stuff you're not thinking about you you all of a sudden put like a blocker up of that critical thinking right of our team being like oh yeah i see this what about this but as soon as we speak up they kind of just okay well he must already know about this let's let's not talk about that right no i
- Speaker #0
i and by the way i i struggle with this i'll be honest i am a think by by talking kind of guy like if my brain's moving my raw instinct is my mouth wants to start moving. Matt knows. He's getting some good facial expressions as you getting this audio only. But like I'm in a meeting, I'm like, OK, I'm just going to think right now and I'll argue with myself and put it out there and kick it. Guys, if you're like me, you can't do that and take over the meeting this way. You got to stuff it. Have some discipline. Wait your turn. At the very least, go last, right? If you got to talk, go last.
- Speaker #1
And we've done some too where, you know, I think it's been fun because we'll use different color post-it notes and teams get different colors. And all of a sudden you get done and you got a wall, rainbow wall of like all different things going on. I know we've done that for our own selves too, like it was, but I think it's a great opportunity to really truly bring, if you're in the weeds and stuck, bringing your team together. um to get together now a lot of people always ask me like well how long does that take what should i look for and i say usually just depends on who you want to get involved and how do you want to start right when we talk to just manager level or c-suite or executives it just depends on where do you want to get and i always tell people like just start with your team right like how do you how do you want to just get started just go back and spend a lunch and two hours and block it out. Just start. I think The biggest thing at Customer Journey is we start overthinking a little bit, right, Scott? Of like, oh, how do I start? How do I, who gets involved in this? Just start easy and go with it. But don't take Sharpies, though, on a wall that goes through that Post-it note paper, right? So it's like, before you pull your Post-it notes off, you're like, oh, no.
- Speaker #0
Good tip. Write the Post-its somewhere else and stick them after you wrote them. Yeah, that's learned that lesson the hard way.
- Speaker #1
Yes, yes.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, so... Okay. Like generally think before the, before the sales process, the sales process, them using your stuff. And after they use their stuff, like very high level buckets, right? What happens before they come to you? Because at some point something has to happen for them to be willing to talk to you. Right.
- Speaker #1
I look at it as one of the, what are your major touch points? Right. And like you said, there was some type of, you know, social media marketing, whatever it may be, that's a touch point. So we have to look at. Where are those touch points are like you just said?
- Speaker #0
Yeah. Okay. So then think high level like that. And then you want to have somebody in the conversation who actually works in that part of your company in that area. Like, you know, if, if you want to see what life's like after they buy the product, you can't ask the salespeople who don't do anything with that. They don't know. They got to guess, but no, no, no. This is where an accounting shows up and you just now simple. you just ask questions. Like, okay, Where do most people come from? Or like, tell me, what do you do after they purchase the thing? What's your invoicing process like? How often do you send reminders? Who does that? Just ask questions and write down what they're doing. And we were just with a client recently, I won't name them, but if you're listening, you know. And yeah, we went through the accounting process and we realized, oh, they work with senior citizens for one of their big client groups. who don't like technology and they have this really wonky step in the process where they take the digital stuff, paperize it, turn it into paper, go get people to handwrite things and then turn it back into a digital tool so they can use it. And then they found out the person who uses it actually puts it back into paper for the final step. And we're like, why are we going paper, digital, paper, digital? Like maybe we should just stay paper for a little while, or is there any way we could make this easier? And so But nobody else had realized we were asking their clients to do that. And they have a long-term service that they stay around for. And so they're like, yeah, that's kind of a pain. Why do we keep redoing that part of the process for them? And again, it's to your point, accounting. Nobody was thinking that the accounting part of the process was important for the customers. It's not the sexy stuff we think of. You better believe that they're having a good or bad experience. And boy, how they handle the money. Yeah. You ought to be good with making the money part smooth.
- Speaker #1
You better be good at that part.
- Speaker #0
Make it easy for them to pay you. Pro tip, right? Like you don't want friction at the point of payment, guys.
- Speaker #1
But that's the, yeah, get on our A game there, right? So, and the other thing, like we got to remember, this isn't issue processing, right? We're not, it's not an issue processing. This is a... Journey map, because a lot of times people get confused. Well, I have this issue. That's what my journey map. No, the journey map goes beyond the issue, right? What you might happen, you know, this is there might be an issue that pops up in your mapping. Now you issue process that.
- Speaker #0
But well, actually, but this is a good call out to say you don't do that in that meeting, right?
- Speaker #1
Oh, no. Yeah.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. You capture that and you say, OK. Add that to my issues list. If you have an issues list, you and your team go through. If you don't.
- Speaker #1
Put it in the parking lot. Let's get to it next. Yes.
- Speaker #0
Don't let that derail the meeting. We're literally just mapping current state. We're not solving it. We're not processing or changing anything. Right now, we're just capturing what we're doing, which may be another encouragement or warning to say, hey, guys, if you leaders, if you discover, you're like, you're doing what? Like, settle down, don't lose your cool.
- Speaker #1
Don't jump right there.
- Speaker #0
Don't shake your finger at anybody and lose your temper. Like, just be like, oh, good to know, glad to know. You can talk later, but in the moment, if you shame somebody for how we're doing something, guess what? It's going to be harder to get honest data. Like, you just need to know what's currently going on.
- Speaker #1
And then you know this too. Once you derail a little bit, it's so hard to come back. Everybody's already thinking it. But I think like we've said, though, when you map this out, you can identify something in the beginning that you're like, huh, I was wondering why this issue was happening down here in accounting. Well, guess what? I just found out why now. I was trying to assume and guess why this was going on. And I thought it was an accounting department thing. No, it started back at the beginning. I see now. And that's a lot of these light bulbs go off, not just for us as leaders, but our teams. You and I talk a lot about healthy leadership. And when you journey map a team together, it brings everybody together to work as one. And everybody can start pinging ideas off each other. And really, as you give each department their time, it's like, hmm, I didn't know you guys thought about that. Or I didn't know that was causing an issue. OK. And that's where it can be. Man, it can be so successful. So.
- Speaker #0
Hey, real quick, this podcast only grows through word of mouth. That's it. So if there's any part of this podcast that you think someone else should hear or would be helpful for something they're working on, it would mean a lot to me if you would share it. The whole reason I do this is to share the helpful stuff I'm learning with more people than I can reach in person.
- Speaker #1
It could be via text, DM, whatever's easy. You hit the share button and you can help them and me in five to seven seconds. Thanks.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, you're so right, man. Because this is our customer journey, not, well, that's on you guys. I did my part, right? It's our customer and they're going through this whole journey. And so you're right. There's a really cool perspective. We're like, hey, this is our team. We're in this together. Let's own this together. Don't get into like, we're good, you're bad. Our team's awesome. Your team's sucking. Like you gotta all kind of own this. And maybe even leader, maybe if that's your scenario, sometimes we've had this call this out in advance and be like, hey guys, let's not finger point. When we get into this, we know we've got some customer stuff to work on and we're not gonna get upset with each other about it. Let's just be safe place to say, hey, this is our current state. None of us want to do a bad job, but this is what we're dealt with. And sometimes it's they're out of resources or they literally didn't know it was causing a problem. But be careful because that'll derail the meeting real quickly. You've got an opportunity here to be one team.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, and really bring everybody together. That's why you can really start with your team or bring all teams together. You know, I love it when we bring all the teams together and give every department a different post-it note color, right? They start putting it everywhere and you're like. Oh, man, why is it counting over here when we didn't realize you were involved in this piece? Oh, okay. I see now. So,
- Speaker #0
yeah. Yep, yep, yep. Yeah. So, and then, okay, so you get these raw ideas. Let's get back to tactical process. We love the Post-it note process. You don't have to do it this way. Basically, everybody writes out, here's the step for each Post-it note. And then they can go, a wall is a fun place to do it. They stick it on the wall, you know, from like left to right. Where you got your early stage of like, hey, this is where they come to us all the way down to like post sale and all that. And so everyone fills the wall and then you go back and you cluster them. So you're like, oh, Matt and Scott both said something about they check out our website. You just connect the two. That's why I like post-it notes, right? You attach one post-it note to the other and you're like, okay, we got a little cluster of ideas here. And then you start and you zoom out and you say, oh, okay, we begin to see the pattern. There's usually a process of... questioning or interrogating the people around like, wait, what do you mean by this? And I didn't know you guys do this. What do you do here? And like, everyone starts to understand. So there's this kind of fluid back and forth. We're clustering them and we're asking questions about things. And at some point we have a shared understanding. This is, these are the various steps we go through. The final phase is to document that, like capture it all into one page. there could be a giant page It could be a document with multi-steps. Here's what I would say. We do have fun at Suaz making cool graphics out of this. But if that's overwhelming for you, like put it on a Word doc, right? It's okay. But like the bottom, like, yes, the graphics are cool, but it don't let that keep you from having a meaningful conversation with your team. And maybe you just, instead of left to right, you just do a Word doc and it's bullet points top to bottom. Here's the first thing. Here's the last thing. And just, just capture them all in one page. And if it spills over one page, I say one page, cause it's cool. If you can. But if you're using a default font and you go one and a quarter pages, that's fine. Don't overstress the details here.
- Speaker #1
You do you.
- Speaker #0
That's right. Now, if we did it, we would organize it into a cool graphic and make it on one page, usually landscape style. But it's okay if you don't go fancy version. You can do a basic version. And so that shared document says, oh, this. This is our customer journey. and there's some really cool stuff that comes out of this process. But that is a topic for another deal. I'll just say, step one, maybe I'll end with this, Matt. We're doing end of year planning and kind of getting into that zone. It's the fall when we record this and everybody's starting to think about, hey, what am I doing and what's our plans? If I'm going to boil down strategic planning, oversimplify it, it's basically like using Google Maps. You need to know three things. where am I today? Where do I want to go? And what are my route options to get there? Right now, the mistake most of us make is we don't spend enough time or thought on where we are today. We just assume we all know because we're working in the business. Right. So, you know, you're doing it. I'm doing it. We just jump straight to like, where do we want to go? And what we find a lot is the conflict that your team is having around where we should go is rooted in the fact that we have a different perspective on where we are today. And because I... I know my part of the business intimately and I have a vague understanding of your part of the business and vice versa. So we get into that and then we have these arguments about whether that's the right thing to do. Most of the time it is because I don't see your side of the house clearly. And so I don't realize why that's important to you and vice versa. So if we all get really clear on what's happening today, then it's so much faster and simpler to all align on where we should be going tomorrow. This is one of the ways that you, we super valuable to say, Hey, where am I today? What should I be doing here? If you enjoyed this episode, you might want to sign up for our weekly newsletter. It's all new content with the same themes. You can subscribe for free and learn more about how we partner with our clients to build legendary companies at swazconsulting.com. That's www.swozconsulting.com. And if you want to get access to the actual tools and techniques that we use with our elite consulting clients, check out our online program at legendarybrandsacademy.com. That's www.legendarybrandsacademy.com. Greatness is possible. You just have to build the right engine.
