Watch or read below.

Matthew Burns:
Jack, I have a story to share with you.

Jack Heald:
I love stories.

Matthew Burns:
I hope that’s okay.

Jack Heald:
I love good stories.

Matthew Burns:
Well, maybe this is a good story. When I first entered the working world, I was in sales and worked for a local company in Canada. I’m a Canadian partner, in case anyone’s watching. I worked for Canada’s largest telecommunications company, Rogers. I worked in the cell phone division and previously worked for one of the dealers. I know that’s a lot of details, but it’ll make sense in a second. I worked my way up through the chain of command, starting as a manager of a new location and then getting it up and running the way it was supposed to. And then, when we opened another location, I’d go and gather my staff and get everything organized. So it was good. I mean, I did well and thoroughly enjoyed it. Mostly, it’s the free cell phone service because it’s so expensive.

But I remember this one time. So I went into this new store in the Air Mills Town Center in Mississauga, Ontario, and we were opening up a store, and it was a tiny little store, almost like a closet of a store. And we did lots of business at that location. And back in the day, when a cell phone got wrecked or broken, they could bring it back in. We would take it in for service, give them a loaner phone, and then call them back in a couple of weeks when their phone was ready.

Well, I had this one lady, oh my God, the sweetest lady. She owned a real estate brokerage. So this is a fairly powerful woman. She knew a lot of people. She was very professional. She was very well put together, very elite-looking. And I just remember being in… I was a young man. I was in my early 20s, and I was just in awe of this woman. I was like, “Oh my God, this is a woman.” And she brought her phone in for service, and I took it in, did all the paperwork, sent it off, and told her it’d be back in a couple of weeks. So about a week and a half goes by, and I get a call from the service center, and they tell me that they’ve lost the lady’s phone and that they’re looking for it, but they wanted me to know just in case.

And I was like, “Oh, no, not this. This is the customer who could refer people to me. I know there’s more business out of her. I’ve just got to take care of her. I got to do everything right by this lady.” And so I held the information to my chest, and I didn’t say anything. And two weeks are now done, and then two and a half weeks are now done. And we’re getting close to the end of the third week. And I get a phone call, and I take the phone call, and it’s, “Hi, Matthew Burns, Rogers Wireless. How can I help you? ” And, “Oh, hi, it’s Mrs….” And I don’t remember her name now. And I’ve dropped off my phone. “Oh, yes, yes. You know what? Let me give a call to the service center and see what’s going on with that. My apologies. I’m sorry that it’s taken so long.”

She goes, “Great, thanks.” And I hang up the phone. I call the service center, and I’m in a panic. I go like, “Oh my God, what are you going to do? Did you find the phone? Did you buy the phone?” They’re like, “No, we haven’t found it yet.” And I’m like, “So what do you want me to do? I’m just going to give her another phone.” And they’re like, “Well, then I’ll hang on right now.” Our companies are cheap, massive companies that work for a big company. They’re usually cheap. They’re like, “No, no, not yet. Buy some more time, blah, blah, blah.” And I’m like, “Oh, this is not what I want to do right now. I’m not very old. I don’t have a lot of experience. I’m not too sure what I’m going to get out of this.”

Anyway, so I held onto the information for another half a week, and she came down the hall, and I was helping a client. She goes down the hall, and she stands outside the store, and she’s waiting. And so I finish with a client, and I see her there, and I’m dragging on the sale with the client.

Jack Heald:
The store is so small that she has to stand outside.

Matthew Burns:
Outside. She’s not in the store. She’s waiting for me to finish with a client. And then she comes in really respectfully, and she says, Hey, I have a sneaky suspicion you guys have misplaced my phone. She just knew. And again, the older lady, she’s not dumb, right? So I’m like, I said, “Yes, they’ve been looking for it, and they’ve asked me to stall, and I should have called you, and I’m so sorry.” She says, “Well, listen, do you mind taking some advice?” And I went, “I would love some advice.” And she says, “Bad news is only bad news if you don’t deliver it.”

And I was like, “Yeah.” And she says, “Because if you can’t find my phone, I’ve had it for a couple of years anyway. Why don’t I just get a newer phone? I need the numbers. The whole point of having that phone is that I spent no time putting my numbers into the new phone because it’s going to be given back to you, and I need those numbers with me.”

And so it’s really frustrating. And she was so pleasantly… It hurt me more that she was not yelling at me, and she was so kind to me, teaching me this lesson. She just said, “If you had told me that two weeks ago or a week and a half ago at the end of two weeks, then I would’ve just come in and bought a phone, so can I just get one now?” She goes, “I would have just made a decision.” And then she became a real client.

She referred me a lot of business and was amazing, but I let her down, and I felt every answer to that. And to this day, I tell this story because it’s such a powerful way for people to understand that I learned this lesson and I’m never going to have that mistake happen again. When something goes wrong, I own up to it. I take full responsibility, and I move past it. Or if something’s going on and it’s just not going to work for the client, I tell them as quickly as I can so that we can make a decision to either shift or stay the course. Bad news is just information. How we deal with bad news makes it bad news or not.

And so I’ve wanted to share that story because we talked in the last episode about building trust. And what I want to know is, is there something that you now can trust about me because you heard that story?

Jack Heald:
Well, I’d already experienced it before I heard that story because we have this account that, one particular account that we no longer have through no fault of our own, but I’ve seen you deliver bad news as soon as you had it. I’ve seen you do it multiple times. And it really is interesting when you just raise your hand, own up to it, say, “Oh, crap, we screwed this up. Here’s what happened, here’s when it happened, here’s why it happened, here’s what we’re going to do about it.”

It’s really interesting. I’ve seen that most people will kind of go, “Oh, crap. All right, so what do we do now?”

Matthew Burns:
Right.

Jack Heald:
And it’s like you said, it’s just information.

Matthew Burns:
It’s just data.

Jack Heald:
But what I saw, you know which account I’m thinking about.

Matthew Burns:
I do.

Jack Heald:
I saw that account in particular, you won their hearts so quickly, so deeply, primarily by being so humble.

Matthew Burns:
Okay. So let’s talk about that for a second. So my whole point of telling that story is because last time we talked, we talked about why you trust me, and what you should be doing to build trust. And there are two parts that I left out in that. Two really key parts. And again, I’m trying to do this for a time. I want to stay less than 15 minutes per episode.

And the two things I left out were showing up regularly when expected, right? So you think about it as if you make an appointment time, I’m going to show up on time. So you talked about one hour heating, or if we show up on time, or you don’t pay, right? But you can deliver that without it being part of your guarantee and being in the sale. When you have a radio ad campaign that plays three times, you hear it three times a week, 52 weeks a year, you build trust with that potential customer. The people who are the audience that are listening just by showing up, everybody, just by being there, by changing the story, delivering them some more information, sharing your story with them, so they know who you are and why you behave the way you behave.

Most people would not say, “I made a mistake with a client so bad that they had to come in and tell me that I screwed up.” It’s not where you want to start your interactions with it, but it defined me. It changed the way I interact fundamentally with customers. It changed the way I react or interact with my wife and my kids. Dentist trips are so much better when you say to them, “This is going to be uncomfortable, and you just have to deal with it.” As opposed to, “No, no, no, we got you. It’s not going to hurt.” And then that one time that the freezing goes in and it’s just not quite right, and now they’ve got to. Oh no, it’s going to be honest, be upfront. Bad news is only bad news when you don’t share it.

But what it does is it builds trust beforehand. So the first thing is to be repetitive when they expect you to be there. And we do that by telling our stories. It’s why whenever you do anything on social media, even though we don’t say you should run your marketing campaign only through social media if you’re in a business. But if you do, don’t post sporadically, so that they realize that you can be counted on for delivering information.

And the other one is to tell your God-starring story. I was going to be a little more vulgar. Tell your stories, tell your stories, show your vulnerability. Be able to be okay with the fact that you’re a human being because people don’t buy from businesses. They buy from other people. Sales guys have worked this lesson. Right? And salespeople have known this forever.

So they build those interpersonal relationships. The problem is that sales have become, depending on the industry, but used car salesmen are known as being these… They’re weaseling their way in to sell you something you don’t want. But no, getting to know you, your real self, right? When the used car dealer does it, they’re swindling when the business owner is saying, “Hey, listen, this is why I do this business. I don’t want anybody to go through what I went through.” Or, “I want to make sure you understand that this is the reason why I always show up on time, or this is the reason why I deliver the bad message quickly and rip off that bandaid.” It helps them to decide you’re awesome.

Jack Heald:
This is the thing that’s so clear. It’s so obvious to me how to help a business differentiate itself that almost everybody misses it. And the way you differentiate yourself is by being yourself. That’s how you do it.

Matthew Burns:
Yes, you do.

Jack Heald:
That’s how, because out of eight billion people on planet Earth, there really is only one of you. There really is only one.

Matthew Burns:
You got it.

Jack Heald:
And when you tell your story about who you are, okay, so you sell… I love this phrase, moss-covered three-handled family credenzas. If that’s what you sell, fine, and there are 500 people selling that in your town. But there’s nobody who is you other than you selling those things.

Matthew Burns:
Yes.

Jack Heald:
And people buy from people. People want to buy from people. People love to connect with people and buy with people. I could tell story after story after story, but yes.

Matthew Burns:
I love that one. I was thinking about the roofer, right? Every roofing guy who sells asphalt roofing sells certainty, or they sell GAF, or they sell somebody else’s product, and they sell that. They put that as their lead in to sell the thing, except for, well, if you’re all selling the same thing, why do I choose you? Do you know what I mean? So why are you leading in the… Oh, we’re the GAF certified master, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, so are 50 other people, but why am I buying it from you? What are you doing to make it better? Or what is it about you and the way you train your guys that makes it better, that’s different, that stands apart? And I’m going to end off this one with, don’t try to be the best in your industry. Be the only one in your industry. Be the only one who can tell your story and do the job the way you do it, and you’re going to stand up.

Jack Heald:
I think that’s worth reiterating. Don’t try to be the best in your industry. There’s some counterintuitive advice. Be the only.

Matthew Burns:
Exactly.

Jack Heald:
Be the only. That’s great stuff. Hey, let’s not forget to tell people about our unofficial sponsor. You and I are both huge fans of the Wizard Academy because you and I learned so much about how to do great marketing – how to communicate… because of the Wizard Academy. You and I were both in marketing before we became Wizard Academy graduates, but that was the place where it changed, I think, for both of us.

Matthew Burns:
Oh, absolutely.

Jack Heald:
Check it out. Wizardacademy.org.

Matthew Burns:
You got it. And if you want to have a topic or a thing, a nugget, a crumb, if you will, that you want to learn so you can help your clients or you can grow your business or you can help your business grow, reach out, let us know in the comments what you’d like to learn about. No topic was really off the table. Anyway, thanks, Jack. We’ll come back in a week and talk to everybody.

Jack Heald:
Let’s talk next week.

Matthew Burns:
Bye.

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