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Vision Quest

Move over Howard Schultz and Jeff Bezos, I may have a new entrepreneur crush. I came across an article titled How This Entrepreneur Grew His Company 57,000 Percent in 3 Years that every CEO must read and share with your entire executive team.  Here are some amazing things Bilyeu was quoted as saying:

• “Instead of focusing on asking what would be more profitable, we started asking ourselves: What could we believe in and love doing everyday, even if we were failing?”
• “That’s when we started focusing purely on value creation: building a business whose primary aim was to deliver value to people.”
• “At Quest, instead of a list of core values, we have a 25-point belief system. One of the points on the belief system is that any obstacle can be overcome. When you really believe that, when you hit a dead end, you get creative and try something new instead of shutting down and giving up.”
• “What draws people to brands these days? Being socially active and socially conscious, aggressively authentic, driven by a desire to help others and create value.”
• “If they’re focusing on the growth, they’ve already lost. Instead, they should be focused on delivering value and evangelizing their customers at every possible touch point. Quest is driven by a mission, and that has led to some seriously counter-intuitive decisions, but those decisions let our customers know who we really are.”
• “We’re not trying to move units or drive sales. Revenue and company growth needs to be a byproduct of the other choices that you make. And all of those choices should be focused around delivering value to the world. Honestly, it’s that. And man, oh man, have a mission. And don’t make your mission about money. That’s a sure-fire way to go nowhere.”
• “Understanding people to create a real human connection between the customer and brand. In today’s hyper-connected and socially-driven world, brands have to be asking and answering questions like: What do we as a society truly value? What really resonates with us? What makes us happy and feel connected?”
• “Our main techniques all focus around understanding what it means to be a human living in today’s world. Authenticity. Connection. Transparency. That’s what people want in their brand relationships. It’s such an awesome time to be a brand if you legitimately like people and like the idea of being a servant leader.”
• “We want to prove to people every day that we’re invested in helping them succeed — no matter what their quest is.”
• “We want to have purpose to what we do. We want to have global impact. So we focused on something else: value creation.”
• “There are three things that we look for in any team member. One – grand ambition; two — drive (the willingness to acquire the skills needed to realize your grand ambition); and three — compassion.”
• “What works when you’re small does not at all translate when you have multiple locations and a distributed team spanning multiple countries and continents. But if you stay true to your personal and company values and put your employees first — ahead of even your customers — you can make your way through the growing pains. You just have to be willing to embrace change and learn from your mistakes.”

*Become your company’s next Customer eXperience Executive

Your Employees Have Been Brainwashed

Previous work experiences have a major impact on a person’s Service Aptitude. Think about how small the percentage is of organizations that are truly world-class at Customer service. It is a good bet that most of your front line employees have previously worked for an average or less-than-average Customer service company, which means that not only were they not trained on what excellent service looks like, but they were brainwashed by a policy-driven, ironfisted manager who taught them that Customers are out to take advantage of businesses. Watch this 1-minute video of an example I share with how your employees can be brainwashed by their previous employers.