Experience Economy with Dennis Moseley-Williams | E098
Creating unparalleled client experiences.
On today's episode, Jason is going to talk to Dennis Moseley-Williams. He is a well-known speaker in the financial advisor circuit who talks specifically about how advisors should transform their business to be based on experiences that deliver true value and enlightenment and transformation to clients.
Episode Highlights:
1.47: Dennis and his partner Tom and own a small boutique firm and we work predominantly in the financial services industry, helping practices, financial planning practices, create more client value by innovating around customer experience and design and layout.
03.28: Most people in business confuse service with experience. Service is all about saving customers time and effort. Whereas experience is about creating engagement through surprise, emotion and at times even providing transformational value.
7.56: Dennis gives an example of his dry cleaner and how he has a flourishing business even though he has a tiny little shop. His customer service is good. He knows every person who goes in. He knows all his customer's name.
09.53: As per Dennis it is important to know who your client is. Slow time down, don't think efficiency, think memorable.
14.12: Every one of us that owns the business is living in the age of Amazon and anything anybody wants, including a hammer from the hardware store can be delivered to their house by 8:00 o'clock tomorrow morning. We as consumers are already spoiled rotten. We live in magic times, says Dennis.
17.19: Consider your client's journey from before they ever come to your business to entering your business to engaging with your business to the end of the engagement, the transaction and finally extending afterward when they are reflecting on their visit.
18.18: Ask yourself through time of your client journey. What do you do really, really well or well enough? And how could you do it a teeny tiny bit better?
18.54: Figure out and eliminate in your business where does the client have to make a sacrifice? If they were candid and honest, what part of the whole client journey would they say to you this sucks? Lastly think of is there an opportunity for a surprise?
22.02: Dennis shares different customer experiences and how different service provider can improve their processes.
24.38: Efficiency is the enemy of experience. As a business owner we always just do some basic math and calculate time and money. Efficiency is the enemy here because it results into crappy commodified experience.
27.44: Whatever you are offering is up into an experience that delights and engages. Sit down with yourself right now and figure out how you are trying to solve your problems. Are you defaulting to service more hours or creating memorable moments in time?
3 Key Points:
Dennis shares some examples of some delightful engagements that he has seen on things that people wouldn't normally expect.
Dennis talks about the types of loyalty by fear and obligation as well as by connection and identity.
Dennis shares 3 important questions that you can ask yourself so as to make your client experience better.
Tweetable Quotes:
"The guy that owns the hardware store is trying to pick a totally generic business, believes that the smartest and best thing that they can do is make it easy to get in and get out with a hammer." - Dennis
"There are frameworks, there are frameworks that you can use for experience design."- Dennis.
"If you go to Disney land, you should be able to extract the principles of what they have done and apply it to what you have done 100%." – Dennis
"It doesn't matter what your business is. I could literally create revenue in it without having to spend any money just by having you change the way you look at time." -Dennis.
Resources Mentioned
Producer: Welcome to the Financial Planning for Canadian Business Owners podcast. You will hear about industry insights with award-winning financial planner and entrepreneur Jason Pereira. Through the interviews with different experts with their stories and advice, you will learn how you can navigate the challenges of being an entrepreneur, plan for success, and make the most of your business and life. And now, your host, Jason Pereira.
Jason Pereira: Hello and welcome to the show. I have something a little bit different, other than financial topics. Specifically I have, as you know, brought on speakers to talk about general business and entrepreneurship topics. And today is one of those. I'm, uh, pleased to bring you my friend, Dennis Moseley-Williams. Dennis is a well-known speaker in the financial advisor circuit who talks specifically about how advisors should transform their business to be based on experiences that deliver true value and enlightenment and transformation to clients. And this is a message that not only matters to financial advisors, but manage, manage the most businesses. You really want to delight and give people a reason to connect with you and basically continue to utilize your service or your product or whatever else it is. And with that, here's my interview with Dennis. Dennis, always a pleasure my friend.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Jason, lovely to see you and Happy New Year.
Jason Pereira: Happy New Year to you, too. So, Dennis Moseley-Williams, tell us a little bit about what it is you do.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Sure: That, isn't that funny, everybody listening? That's the one thing everybody's supposed to have down. I've been working for myself for close to 30 years, and that's, that one still makes my eyes go wide. Uh. My partner, Tom, and I own a small boutique firm, and we work predominantly in the financial services industry, helping practices, financial planning practices create more client value by innovating around customer experience and design and layout. So, that's what I do. But as you said in the intro, what I know is applicable to literally every business on the planet, any size in any sector.
Jason Pereira: All right. So, now that's a big mandate, because I mean when you start thinking about how you can transform business to basically engage, enlighten, delight people. That's, that's a limitless opportunity there. I mean, you and I have, **** the first, one of first conversations you talked about how to transform this local sub shop –
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Mm hmm.
Jason Pereira: – into something that was gonna be truly engaging. And that was, that was amusing. So let's, let's talk about that. So, let's just say you're the average business owner, right. You got into business to sell a widget or to deliver a service.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Yeah.
Jason Pereira: What is it you're missing when you're not contemplating this kind of thinking?
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Okay. Well, let's get the general, okay, well, I'm gonna answer that short and long.
Jason Pereira: Yep.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: I'll try and stick really short, everybody. My wife's joked about being married to a speaker, as I always think I have 60 minutes to make a point. Oh, well thank you for asking, Jason. Let me just get a glass of water for when I get thirsty from talking so much.
Jason Pereira: Here's my PowerPoint presentation while I'm at it.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Here is what people are missing. Any business sin the world is confu, is most likely confusing service with experience. Service is all about saving customers' time and effort, okay, whereas experience is about creating engagement through surprise, emotion, and at times even transformation. Oh, I just, I couldn't believe how amazing it was. Just think, everybody. When you think experience, think about those times when you're visiting a business or you're walking down the street or what have you, and you feel compelled to take your telephone out to take a picture of something. 'Cause you're, you go, look at that, isn't that interesting? So, in the back, that's the short answer. They're confusing service and experience, meaning the guy that owns the hardware store – I'm trying to pick a totally generic business – believes that the smartest and best thing that they can do is make it easy to get in and get out with a hammer, okay. And to a certain extent, 20 percent, you're right. Nobody wants to feel frustrated walking around a store looking for something, okay. But experience is about connecting and changing with the client when they get into that hardware store. So, not only do they find somebody easily who can help them, there is something else that's going on that probably has nothing to do with the service that nevertheless delights and engages the client.
Jason Pereira: Okay. So, delights and engages. All right. Fair enough. And that, that makes sense. Can you give me some examples of some really delightful engagements that you've seen on things that wouldn't n, no, people wouldn't normally expect. Like I go in, maybe it was to buy a hammer as an example, but whatever it is, like you went into – the, the average person would not expect to be engaged and delighted, but you've found something outstanding and how someone transformed that one little thing to something outstanding.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Sure. Well that's a, that's obviously a really good question. And I see those things all the time. One of my little professional jokes is, I never attend the same event as anybody else. So, I should let everybody listening know I'm a certified experience economy expert. As you said generously in your introduction, I'm very well-known in my industry as a customer experience person. And I'm a member of the World Experience Organization. Okay. So, that makes me a miserable date. 'Cause if I take my wife, Shari, out, if she says, "This is great," okay, I have to **** fight every urge I, imaginable to not say, "Do you wanna know why?" and deconstruct it for her.
Jason Pereira: Mm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Okay. So, I'll just tell you this. Mine, I'm gonna say is my drycleaner right here in town. This is a fantasy I have, is to write a little book about all these amazing businesses that are humble but stage incredible experiences that are all in my, not just my city, my neighborhood. 'Cause there are people that do experience right all over. So, my, here in Ottawa, my drycleaner is famous. His name is Joe Pilosa. Somebody else already wrote a book about him, if you can believe it.
Jason Pereira: It's your drycleaner.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: I literally walked into his shop, which is the most humble shop you've ever seen, on a terrible corner. A terrible corner. Take your life in your hands parking there, let alone getting out of your car to give Joe your business. It's a little tiny shop with a sign that's probably, it looks like he got his kids to do it. And there's probably, even as I'm recording this with you today, a letter missing. Okay. When you walk in, there he's standing. He's incredible. I was recommended to him years ago. I was in a – there's a lovely story here – I was in trouble. I went to my current drycleaner. I picked up my stuff. It wasn't gonna do. I called my buddy. Said, "You got a drycleaner?" He goes, "I do, and you're gonna love this guy." I call that guy Joe, and I go to his shop with this thing. And, everybody listening, the lesson I learned that day is you always wanna deal with a drycleaner that has the machine on premise. Not a drop off.
Jason Pereira: Hmm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Those guys can't help you. They don't have any way to do it. So he instantly says, "Yeah, sure. No problem. I'll give it right back to ya." He looks after me. I swear to God, I wake up the neck, I swear to you that this is not an exaggerated story for the –
Jason Pereira: Mm hmm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: – good of the podcast. So the next morning, I'm a notorious early riser. I'm lying in my bed, and I get outta bed, and I go buy two coffees at 6:00 in the morning, and I go to the drycleaner. There's somethin' about the guy. I'm like this guy's amazing. I watch, I did it a few mornings in a row. Do, my wife made a joke then, "Got a crush on your drycleaner?" I say to her, this is before he becomes my friend, I go th, this guy, there's somethin' about him. I watched this guy make a thousand bucks every morning before 9:00. Like, it's unbelievable. I've never seen anything like it. He has instant, immediate memory recall.
Jason Pereira: Hmm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: He knows every person who goes in. He knows your name. He talks you up. Experience is about creating emotion, so say I'm standing there, and you walked in. You go like this, hey, how ya doin', Jason, right? And you go, yeah, yeah. And he'd start to tell you your phone number - dah, dah, dah, and you'd go, yeah, yeah, that's right – 347, yeah, yeah, Jason, Jason. He'd look at me. Oh, this guy, big. He financial planner, very impor, very smart, eh. You got a podcast, yeah. This is my friend Dennis. By the time you and I both walk you, you would believe you were the mayor of my city or the prime minister of the country. Every person he talks you up. He creates an emotion and then this is the service part for everybody listening, 'cause service is always part of it. Joe says to me, you met me in crisis, right? I go yeah. He goes, everybody meets me in crisis. Nobody calls up and says I need this next Tuesday. He goes everybody that calls up goes oh my God. He says to me, I'll run it through the machine on my own. I don't care. And he says, this is what he does, someone says, think I could get this today, 11:00 in the morning. Joe goes, yeah, no problem. You want it like after 5? The guy goes, oh that'd be great. Joe goes, you want it at 2? Okay. Yeah, okay, no problem. Then get this Jay. You go and you pick up your stuff. He doesn't charge you your first time.
Jason Pereira: Hmm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: He'll just say, no, no, no don't worry about it. You come, you pay me next time okay? Pay me next time. He's incredible. That's probably literally when I think of my city, it's that. It's –
Jason Pereira: It's funny. You just described my experience with my tailor, like the guy knows everyone by name, same kind of talkative person. He basically, ne knows every suit he's ever sold me off the top of his head, and it's like, he's like, okay, no this shirt will go well with those pants you bought last, what? Like, where's you database for keeping track of all of this.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Know who your client is.
Jason Pereira: Yup.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Slow time down.
Jason Pereira: Yup.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: You could run into a men's clothing store and say I'm in a rush. I gotta buy this suit, can you alter it too? Can I, yeah, if you throw enough money at them, they're gonna say yes.
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Everybody listening, slow time down. Don't think efficiency, think memorable, and what we know in any business. I'll tell you one about my house painter in a second. What we know about in any business is if you can make your client feel seen, they'll pay you more, and they'll like you more. There's a kind of loyalty. Go back to the hardware store I started with. I was in a, a great big national, multi-national franchise hardware store the day.
Jason Pereira: Mm hmm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Big one. Has an orange sign. I don't wanna talk about anybody.
Jason Pereira: There's one of a couple colors but continue.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Yeah, okay, so at one point I'm standing in this aisle, and I lament to the guy I'm with something about would you believe it would be so hard to fine. I was trying to find yellow safety glasses for downhill skiing in the rain, I kid you not. It occurred to me when I was there. He lets me know, he goes, you know, I used to work here. He goes, oh, yeah. He goes, uh, it's not like it used to be. I go no. He goes no. The owner used to come in all the time, and if he ever saw you, a staff person pointing as though saying, yeah, that thing you're looking for is over there versus walking you to it. He said, made there, like, cut your, slit your throat sign, like, you're out. Hey, now, I had said to him, yeah, she should be a, a cool little hub where they all stand and there's cameras in all the aisles, so we always know, you go to that hub you'll find them there, and if they're standing there, and there's monitoring, they go, there's a guy clearly confused in Aisle 14. Go rescue him from himself. So the, how you make a person fee seen. That hardware store example, person walks in and they're greeted, and you grab a basket for them and say let me walk you there. That's experience, loyalty. There's two kinds. There's loyalty of fear and obligation. I go to this drycleaner 'cause they're close, 'cause they know me, 'cause I know them. I don't wanna break in a new drycleaner. This is my drycleaner. Then there's the ot, there's the loyalty of connection and identity. I drive out of my way to go to this business because of what this person did. I hired a house painter. I used to own another home that I rented out. This guy got me more tenants. It was unbelievable, so I would say to him, look, I'll be you're painting it 'cause then I'll be showing it to other people. Yeah, no problem. Every time I would show up with people I'd say, I'm having it painted right now… But when I got up to the worksite, there wasn't coffee cups, paper cups, and lunch bags, and nope. Nope, nope, nope. All of his stuff was tidy cleaned up. Nobody was living in the house. It's totally empty, but his tools were laid out like he was a surgeon, okay. And the weird message he was both sending to me and then helping me send to my tenant is I care about this place. I care about you, Dennis, and but also by extension, I care about my tenants, right. When the whole thing's done, and he's finished any painting job, when you go home, there's $200.00 of fresh-cut flowers on your dining room table and a thank-you card from him, so you don't just walk into a beautiful house all painted, oh, thank God it's done, 'cause it smells, and you want the guy the hell outa your way. It doesn't matter that, you know, it's hurry and get it done. We want this over. His signature moment as we call it in experienced designers. Yeah, he leaves a great big gift. It could be any kind of business benefits from staging better experiences.
Jason Pereira: You know it's interesting, when I think about experience, the first thing I always typically go to is something like the aspects of, you know, going to Disney, right, and you go to, especially when, and we talked about this, my trip to Galaxy's Edge last year where, uh, the Star Wars area where it's just so immersive that you're just like, I'm on another planet, and, like, everything is in theme, and everybody's acting the way they would in this place, right?, like, it was, it's that kind of thing, but what you're bringing it down is such more, so much more of a fundamental piece, and I think other people would hear what you described and you're like, and would think, okay that's great, but that guys just, that one, yeah, that painter, that guy's a craftsman. Like, that guy –
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Yup.
Jason Pereira: – we've all met those kinds of craftsman who are like literally are OCD, and they lay 'em out, and they, they, they, they cannot have a corner be, be at an angle, but and then, then you also have the people who are just sharp memories and, and just naturally, naturally are loquacious, right. They just wanna talk to people.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Yeah.
Jason Pereira: You know, I think if anything, that's an unin, I mean, you're, your craftsman guy with the flowers is a nice touch, but I think in a lot of ways, these are all unintentional experiences aren't they. I mean, I don't think these guys sat around and crafted them. They're just being who they were, but at the same time it doesn't mean that we can't reflect on how we can learn from that and made ourselves that way.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Precisely. That's the whole point. It doesn't, I don't care who's listening and what their business is.
Jason Pereira: Mm hmm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: When you are a guest of a, you're a business owner, so let's lay this out. Every one of us that owns a business is living in the age of Amazon, and anything anybody wants including a hammer from the hardware store and be delivered to their house by 8:00 tomorrow morning, we as consumers are already spoiled rotten. We live in magic times.
Jason Pereira: Yup.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Right. And those businesses who wanna deliver their product via Amazon to your door before tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. are willing to do it for next to nothing.
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Commoditization is everywhere. Okay. When I encounter businesses that are doing experience right such as last week, and I even filmed it, I was out in my neighborhood having lunch with Susan who works with me, and we had another guest with us, and when they were just having a quick moment, I looked around this restaurant, and I realized they were hitting every single checkmark. Once again, brother, about 5 minutes from my house, I kid you not. I'd never been in there in my life. I ended up returning to the restaurant the next day to say would you mind if I filmed in here, and if you don't like it, you can watch me make it. I'll delete it right in front of you, but I'm telling you to your point, Jay, if I may call you Jay, um, -
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: – they were hitting every checkbox possible. Now to your point, when I encounter a business where they're doing it right, it's just they're expressing their authentic self. It just occurs to them that of course I'd give you flowers 'cause it would make your day, and I want to do that.
Jason Pereira: Uh huh.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: It's who I am. I cannot be it. However, to your point, there are frameworks.
Jason Pereira: Mm hmm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: There are frameworks that you can use for experienced design, and I think for everybody listening, I'm gonna give 'em three questions that they can all ask themselves now that will begin to shift them along the way because ideally everybody, having established what I just said, or got that out, I don't care what you do for a living or what business you own. If you go to Disneyland, I'm using it 'cause you just did, so I'm going to the –
Jason Pereira: Mm hmm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: – grand daddy and mommy of all experienced staging, Disney, and by the way that Star Wars Galaxy thing, the people that did that are in the WXO with, -
Jason Pereira: Mm hmm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: – and whenever I'm in meetings with them, I'm always a little excited 'cause I'm a 70s kid. I'm like, oh my God, Star Wars. Okay. If you go to Disney and you own a hardware store or a whatever the hell it is, an engineering consulting firm, structural engineering, great. If you go to Disney and go, this is amazing, you should be able to extract the principles of what they have done and apply it to what you have done 100 percent. Well they're an amusement park and I'm a hardware store. No. You sell hardware stuff. They sell tickets to rides. You're both in the people business, and they have their clients blown away. That's the business they're in. You can be in that business too, and you use the same framework, so here's the three questions you ask. Okay? And this is so tip of the iceberg, but if you just do this, you're going to feel this. You will see that you're shifting. Here's the first one, oh, pardon me. First, consider your client journey from before they ever come to your business to entering your business to engaging with your business to the end of let's call it the engagement, the transaction, the whatever, the hardware store cash register to finally extending afterwards when they're reflecting on their visit. So that's the first part is thinking time. Experience is time well designed, okay? Consider the entire client journey. Ask these three questions. Question 1, and I use Post-It notes when I do this with my own client, okay, different color Post-It notes to represent these five different places in time on the client journey so that as we have ideas, everybody, you just keep putting Post-It notes on the wall in that sort of silo. This is getting to be like Being John Malkovich. You're all living in my brain, okay, so here it goes. Question 1: if my head were made entirely of veal, how much would it cost in the grocery store. No. That's not the questions. The first question –
Jason Pereira: I started doing the math, man, honestly, continue.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: It would be an expensive but delicious dinner. Okay, so here it goes –
Jason Pereira: **** add about 10 pounds, start working out, okay, no.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: – on all of these five phases of ex, through time of your client journey, what do you do really, really well or well enough, and how could you do it a teeny, tiny bit better. So for instance, oh we call and confirm appointments. Or, we send a confirmation email.
Jason Pereira: Mm hmm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: How about a confirmation phone or something I've recently started doing is instead of sending a follow-up email, I send a raven. No. I send a, uh, follow-up video –
Jason Pereira: ****.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: – message. Hey, Jason, great to talk with you.
Jason Pereira: Mm hmm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: I use the service call Vidyard. Okay, so you find something you do well, make it a little better. The next question, where does the client have to make a sacrifice? If they were candid and honest, what part of the whole client journey would they say to you, this sucks. Here's what I hate. Okay? Eliminate it. No. 3: where is there an opportunity for a surprise. Okay, so I met a guy one time at a Christmas party. We got in every time of what they're doing. You know, I always try to avoid that by the way, but anyway, 'cause I just do. So anyhow gets into it. I start talking about it. He says, oh, yeah, chuckle, chuckle, how would you help me? I'm a proctologist, okay? So all I'm gonna tell you is this. Well, everything starts with empathy.
Jason Pereira: Mm hmm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: And nobody that ever goes to see him wants to. So it became a really cool conversation for him. 'Cause it started as ha, ha, ha, I'm making you think about a bum, okay, to me, like, ha, ha, ha, I'm getting you to think about emotion, memory, and transformation.
Jason Pereira: Hmm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: So it started, and I'm gonna end this story with a little tiny joke. It started with me just using those three questions, empathy, so on the client journey before they come to see you, what are they thinking about? They're thinking about how much they don't wanna go. What would be the most perfect thing you could say to somebody before that appointment to make everything better? Not great. Hey, you just turned, now I'm looking forward, nobody ever is looking forward to it, but we all know everybody at the end says, you know, what, it's much to do about nothing. I was all worked up and it was actually kind of like a non-event. Okay, so knowing that's how it ends, what will be the most perfect thing to say? So we kinda came up with, oh, brother, this is over beers at a Christmas party.
Jason Pereira: Hmm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: And then I said this. How, the medium is the message to get all the Canadians involved in this today. How would you –
Jason Pereira: ****.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: – what's the best way to say it? And was it email or was a telephone call. What's the sacrifice?
Jason Pereira: Hmm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: What's the this, okay you ready? Two things. How do proctologists it's your specialist get paid? They get referrals. When the patient refers to the GP or returns to their GP, their family doctor, -
Jason Pereira: Mm hmm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: – they have a story to tell which is honest to God the phone call ahead of time, the this, the that, and here's the part that'll make you laugh. I suggested that he change all the art in his office to train tunnels and mind shafts. I kid you not.
Jason Pereira: So you're basically getting the person to laugh and get disarmed before –
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Just chill out everybody.
Jason Pereira: – even going ****.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: If I, the whole point that I, the transformation that I suggested we need is nobody has to think this is great, but you shouldn't, you should also celebrate yourself that you're being a really responsible person caring for your body that's aging. Like, good for you, man. This is an act of love.
Jason Pereira: Mm hmm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: For yourself and your family and the people that care about you. This is like, this isn't maintenance. This is so much more. This is a statement. Like it was, honest to God, I can still see it. We were standing in the kitchen. The place was packed. Huge party, and we get into it. And to his, he's a doctor. Doctors care about people. So as soon as he realized, oh no, you're about caring for people. That whole party melted away. Now there's a whole scene going around us, and the two of us are locked on each other, and he's thinking on it, like, you're right. It's like of course, bro. And what was he thinking? He was thinking service. I know you hate this place. I'm gonna get you in and out as quickly as I possibly can. To which I'm saying, treat them like guests. Slow down time. Make them feel seen. Hey, it, it doesn't matter what business you're in. It doesn't matter what business you're in. I mean, I can give service being subsumed up into experience. I just don't wanna use more restaurant examples. Five minutes from here there's a shawarma place – a little takeout Lebanese place. They're in every town thank goodness, it's wonderful. It's a wonderful lunch option. It's good for ya. I'm standing at the counter, Jason. He's a lovely man. I've known him by, hey, you know for 3 – 4 years now. I look at the giant empty store. It's a takeout place, but it's got enough room for ten tables. Nobody will ever sit there. I said to him, I got an idea for ya. You should buy a bunch of mannequins. Fill this place up with mannequins. Put them in monster costumes. Get a bunch of flatscreen TVs that cost 200 bucks. He's already got one. He's playing sports on it. Just play black and white monster movies. Every month there's a new holiday with a new theme, right? Put Leprechauns in there now. It's Saint Patrick's Day, dah, dah, dah. And then I said to him go online and buy cheap movie memorabilia. You can buy $25,000.00 things from a Harry Potter movie, but you can also buy $25.00 things from used, you know, seen on screen in a Harry Potter movie. Hang them on the wall. Change the name of the place to Monster Shawarma. Okay, now once again and we're listening, it's like, and jack up your prices a little wee bit 'cause people pay for experience. Yup. And now you're not a place to just go get a shawarma and get in and get out 'cause there's 10,000 of 'em within three blocks.
Jason Pereira: There's this awesome place on the corner that just basically has, like, these weird combinations of monster shawarmas and gives you an experience when you're there.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: I'm well spent. All –
Jason Pereira: Absolutely.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: – harmonized with different names and this and that. No. We get in the car. We drive the extra so many minutes. Okay, and with that, then there's the inside stuff of his business right which is, you probably have two business. You got your counter and then you got catering, and your catering is prob'ly worth a lot more, so there's also prob'ly a little bit of redistribution or resources in there. You need to deliberate yourself from the front desk. You gotta get more business in here to help justify a $15.00 an hour buy to stand at the counter plus, and you'll sell way more shawarmas for more money and then you can go focus on running your catering business which is probably several hundred dollars in lunch gigs everyday that happen in the Nation's Capital. So the, um, let's slow it down. I'll go back to the slow it down piece 'cause you've said this before, and I think it's something to effect of, uh, efficiency is the enemy of experience or something like that.
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Amen.
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: And it's funny because, like, what you're talking about is, I mean, as a business owner, we all just do some basic math, and that's that I can, you know, it takes ex amount of time to do this and make the money, so therefore I need to make this, this formula of time and investment more efficient to profit, right? You know, we're thinking in from an accounting or an engineering standpoint, but that is, like, you said, the enemy of experience because if that's all I'm concerned about, I'm gonna end up with a crappy modified experience, right, like, -
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: – go to the hardware store where they point at it, right?
Jason Pereira: Yup.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: There's no service, right, like, so it's one of these things where you're, you have to flip it backwards and basically turn it around and say, hey, you know what, the, you can make up that margin elsewhere through just having a incredible experience that, you know, think about the, the word of mouth or advertising that these examples you've given me are doing, right? These people have to spend nothing in conventional marketing because they are booked solid because they have people just lining up to deal with them. Right? They're, they have, they have exam, like that paint, I'm sure that painter basically works off referral only, and is booked solid. You need to book him weeks in advance, right, like, it's just because they have created that experience, so it's one of these things where we almost have to fight, you have to fight the conventional thinking on economics to, to do that, and the one example I often use with people is, like, look, there's McDonald's which you can be, which is low margin, high volume, and super efficient, or there's a Michelin Star Restaurant where you sit down for 3 hours.
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: You pay a fortune. But which one –
Jason Pereira: And you make reservations long in advance.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Yeah 6 months in advance and pay up front.
Jason Pereira: You pay the price.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Yeah. No. We have to go to Paris to eat there in February, but we wanted to go in June. We can't get a table in Juen.
Jason Pereira: Yeah, get the reservation. Yup.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: And I'm only interrupting you to point this out because peo, this is where people sacrifice when they try to stage an experience. They convince themselves no one's gonna do it. It's like, we pay for experience with money and time.
Jason Pereira: Mm hmm. Yeah.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Amen, bro. Amen.
Jason Pereira: And meanwhile, where do you think the, what do you think the more profitable lo, per location of business is?
Dennis Moseley-Williams: The Michelin Star Restaurant by a long shot. Right?
Jason Pereira: Mm hmm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Guaranteed.
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Yeah.
Jason Pereira: Hard to get to that level. Rare to get to that level, but it's being exceptional experiences is, is something that is rare, so.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Do you wanna be machine made or hand fit?
Jason Pereira: Yup.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Right. There's a restaurant in New Hampshire I'm aware of, oh, what the hell's it called. I'm gonna Google it really quick. I think it's called the, oh I don't wanna tell, say the wrong thing. Just let me look 1 second. I believe it's called the Forest Restaurant. It's in New Hampshire. Okay, it's in the middle of nowhere near like Freedom, New Hampshire, and then you're driving in the middle of nowhere from there. If you want a reservation, you have to send a postcard to get 12,000 a year.
Jason Pereira: Well, what?
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Yeah. Okay, so I don't care, like, if you're listening right now, and you think oh, I know, sucks to be me, man, 'cause my business is doing asphalt on driveways and there's 10,000 people that do that in Toronto, or I'm a dentist. I'm a, subsume whatever your offering is up and to an experience the delights and engages.
Jason Pereira: Mm hmm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Okay? Do not, sit down with yourself right now and figure out what your, what your, how you're trying to solve your problems. Are you defaulting to service, more hours, easier intake, no, no, no, or are you creating memorable moments in time. It doesn't matter what your business is. I could literally create revenue in it without having to spend any money just by having you change the way you look at time. I gave the three questions. What do I do well, do it better. Where do I make them sacrifice, eliminate that. Where is there an opportunity for a surprise.
Jason Pereira: Yup.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: This idea, like you, you know, we're in Canada. Tim Hortons, very successful coffee chain, they are not in the same business as Starbucks. Ones' an experienced, -
Jason Pereira: No.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: – Starbucks. One of them is a service.
Jason Pereira: One's edible, one's not. Anyway.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: You're taking your life in your hands.
Jason Pereira: Uh huh.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: So the, uh, -
Jason Pereira: I openly criticize them all the time. Patriotism only goes so far.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Mm hmm.
Jason Pereira: Uh, the, uh, and I'll give you one example of somebody's that's done that in my life and it's my, uh, my buddy's a realtor. He's a top 1 percent realtor in the country, and in the GTA, you can throw a stone and hit 12 realtors in any crowd, right. Like there's like 70,000 of 'em, so he basically does a lot of my marketing, but here's what, you know, he pays for the staging. He shoots drown footage of the outside of the house. He shoots all these social media videos to basically market the place. He does letter drops in the neighborhood. He guides the client through the entire experience of why he's doing all that. Well he basically, once the, once the entire normal experience is done even when he's done engaging with you, what, what happens? Shows up on moving day to bring you food.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Mm hmm.
Jason Pereira: He, I still, we still, all his clients get gifts on things like Mother's Day, Father's Day, Christmas, you name it. They still get them dropped off. Uh,
Dennis Moseley-Williams: ****.
Jason Pereira: – he has, he has like four or five events where basically for like Easter, bring the kids. We'll have the Easter bunny. Christmas, bring that. We'll have that. He sends out personalized emails on, on, uh, your birthday. He sends out a personalized email on the anniversary of the date you bought your home talking about how market values are changing your neighborhood and what your house is prob'ly worth. All that sort of stuff.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Yeah, yeah. Get, everybody's talking about now, like how much the, it was interesting. I've seen a lot of realtors this past year with the market turning just complaining about how much harder it's been for them. This guy still sold prob'ly like 40 to 50 houses. Okay, get, get this, reminds me of my buddy Kevin who's not an agent. This is for everybody who isn't an agent because you criticized Tim Horton's, I feel I can go here. You ready?
Jason Pereira: Go for it.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: I won't speak to real estate audiences.
Jason Pereira: Why's that?
Dennis Moseley-Williams: I have three reasons. I won't talk to anybody I wouldn't myself pay. And I won't, I won't get paid to lie, and real estate agents get paid too much money.
Jason Pereira: Hmm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: You think so? Yeah. The architect that design the whole damn thing gets less than they do, and they're whole job is opening the front door.
Jason Pereira: Yup.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Yeah. I have a, so this is my story, this is about my friend Kevin who uses Grapevine, but this is what he did. I went to sell a house. He sold a house. He goes, Dennis, I sold all my own houses. This is what he told me. This is for everybody listening. He goes, well, what you do is you get a map of the city. Yeah. And you put that on your dining room table, so he stages the whole house which is all a real estate agent does for you, but they do it for $50,000.00, what the hell. So, he staged the whole thing. He puts a map out. Okay? He had Styrofoam or cardboard boxes underneath it, so he could put pins in it, and I showed them. He, so I live, I'm lucky enough to live in a nice little neighborhood here in Ottawa that has a lot of restaurants up on the strip, some of the better ones, and it's a nice little walkable, villagy neighborhood. Everybody who lives in my city knows where my neighborhood is, and they know what it is and what happens there. Now **** goes, yeah, whatever. I show them. So when you're looking at his house, and his house was just a house, it was a townhouse like I was living in. Not too much imagination. You can't change a wall. Can't move anything, nothing. You either like it or you don't. Emotion. You get people excited about living there by showing them with drop pins where everything was in relation to where they were standing. These are where these restaurants are. This is where this place is. This is where that place is. He goes, Dennis, I'll sell my house the first day I open the door, like, that's how I do it. He goes they all stand around my kitchen table looking at the map going, oh my God. Gazelle'ing is just at the corner.
Jason Pereira: Well, I will give you examples off air about how I think this guy's a little bit different, but we will, uh, come back to that.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Oh, and every once in a while, don't get me wrong, there's one –
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: – person who earns it, and the guy –
Jason Pereira: Oh.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: – you're describing is obviously very special. I'm –
Jason Pereira: 100 percent.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: – just referring to the every other person who puts a sign up and then they get that for a check. It drives me crazy.
Jason Pereira: Well the ****, yeah, so, and me and him talk about this all the time, right, and this is again the lack of experience that, and, and, why, and why people are so sinical like you are right now about realtors in general. The average number of houses sold by a realtor in the Toronto area and here doesn't even round up to one. Like that's how few most of them actually sell.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Yeah.
Jason Pereira: And the, the old joke for them is like the bad guys are basically doing the, the three P's.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: That's right.
Jason Pereira: Put up a sign, put it all out, put it on LMLS and pray and do nothing and try to maximize as much of that commission as possible.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Yeah.
Jason Pereira: As opposed to this guy who will basically spend quite a lot out of pocket out of his side to basically, and take less than a margin less of that commission in total, in order to basically make that you get, it's sold, and your experience is happy, and you get the best price you can, and he makes it up for it, and makes up for it in volume and space.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Yeah. That's it.
Jason Pereira: That's it.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: That's it. The evolution, all business, if you don't move to staging experiences and, and beyond, which is a discussion for another time, you're gonna get AI'd out, artificial intelligence, race to the bottom. Like, I'm tell ya, how many, how many of everything do we need? How many people do we need when more and more of all professional services are going online.
Jason Pereira: Mm hmm.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Right? So it's like there's only gonna be one way to make it. You're gonna follow me, or you're, and change the conversation by changing where value is looked for, found, measured, or you're gonna compete and race to the bottom, which it's not me that said, said it first. That's the race you don't wanna win. There's always someone who's gonna do it for less than you quicker. There's always someone willing to lose their shirt to take your business.
Jason Pereira: So, look, and on that note. We're gonna wrap it up here. Dennis, thank you so much. I hope this was a, I hope it was, our conversations are always amusing, so I always look forward to them.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: I hope you'll come and visit up here again soon.
Jason Pereira: I, not that, I don't have any plans for Ottawa this year, but I hope to next year, so we'll see.
Dennis Moseley-Williams: Oh, c'mon. It's right up the road.
Jason Pereira: You, you pass by Pearson on a regular basis. I'll meet you in the airport. There's a shawarma place there. Anyway. As always, uh, so thank you, Dennis. So as always, this has been, uh, Financial Planning for Canadian Business Owners. I hope you enjoyed that, and I hope you found this conversation stimulating and thought provoking and that you're taking the time to sit back and think about how you're gonna slow down your experience and make it truly memorable no matter what business you're in. As always, if you enjoy this podcast, please review a review on Apple Podcast, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, until next time, take care.
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