Level Up Your ROI to Grow Your Speaking Business with Joey Coleman [Transcript]

Grant Baldwin 

Hey, what’s up, friends? Grant Baldwin here. Welcome back to the Speaker Lab podcast. Good to have you here with us today. Today chatting with my good budy Joey Coleman. Excited to chat with him. One thing we’re going to be talking about is a new book he just released but also just going to be talking about some of the shifts, changes he’s seeing in his business, especially post COVID, things that he’s noticing, things that he’s sharing with some other speakers. So excited to have him here. He and I were just catching up for the past 20 minutes or so before we hit record. And like, Dang we to record a podcast, we got to get into this. So, Joey, good to see you. Good to have you back here again today.

Joey Coleman

Oh, Grant, it is a thrill to be back. Thanks so much for having me. And thanks to everybody who’s kind enough to be listening in. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation for a while because I know you’ve got a finger on the pulse of all things speaking and love jamming about speaking with awesome rock stars who are in the speaking industry.

Grant Baldwin

Well, one thing we were talking about before we hit record here was kind of like what life was like through COVID. And then since then and so you had mentioned even just some personnel changes of just moving around and kind of figuring out that but what did speaking look like in the past 1824 months or so and then shifts that you’re kind of thinking about evolving within your own business? Because again, if we go back a few years in the height of COVID I think it was just kind of like nobody really knew anything of what was going on. And we’re like, virtual is going to be here forever and virtual is still part of the business and again, still kind of evolving and changing.

So how has the past couple of years played out for you and what are some things that you’re thinking about or seeing differently in your speaking business today?

How have the last couple of years influenced your speaking business today?

Joey Coleman

Well, Grant, you know, it’s interesting as a guy who’s spent the last 20 years thinking about customer experience and employee experience, that’s often the lens I come to the world with. And so when I think about the customer experience of the folks I’m serving, whether those are audiences meeting planners or the person signing the check, those are kind of the three audiences I think about serving.

What I feel has changed is the expectation for what they’re looking for. I think we see that in two ways.

Number one, I’m not seeing at least in my business, as many of the, hey, we’re going to have an event in 18 months and we’re ready to book speakers. It’s more of, hey, we’ve got an event coming up in three weeks and we just decided that we’re going to have speakers. Are you free? And so the timelines feel like they’ve really compressed in general.

Number two, I think that the expectation of the event coordinators, the meeting planners, and the people in the audience has changed because we spent two years watching presentations via Zoom or live streams. And it’s a little bit different when you’re in this little box and you’re gesticulating in here and keeping things tight and trying to keep the energy high and manage the chat at the same time and make sure everybody’s feeling good. When you’re on stage, it’s a different environment, or at least in my opinion, it’s a different environment and different experience, and as a speaker, a different responsibility.

One of the things I often think about is how much is it costing for these people to be in the room? And when you’re doing a virtual speech, I can see the dollar signs running above everyone’s head as far as their normal billable rate, and they’re spending time with me. But when you’re live in front of an audience, it’s like, okay, how much did they spend flying here? How much are they spending on their hotel, their meals? How much are they valuing or missing their family or the people they have back at home?

As a result, I think speakers are being called to be even more dynamic, more impactful, and a greater return on investment if they’re addressing someone or having the pleasure of addressing someone in person and live.

Grant Baldwin

And so we’re recording this partway through 2023 at this time. And so in your own business, how much, if at all, is virtual still a part of things?

How big of a role is virtual playing in the industry?

Joey Coleman

It’s definitely still a part. I see it in two ways.

Number one, I’m still probably doing two or three pure virtual gigs per month. The bulk of it has moved back to in person. I would say 80% is in person, but I still have about 15%, 20% that is virtual. I’m also seeing that at almost every live event I go to, there is a hybrid component. There are attendees who are not in the room. And so one of the things I work really hard to do with meeting planners is to explore how can I make those people watching at home or those people watching on a video in the future feel like they are part of the conversation?

So getting a screen that shows the attendees at home, that’s visible for me in the same way a confidence monitor is. And at least once or twice in the talk, getting down in front of that screen and really trying to engage with them or looking at can we get a screen that is showing the live chat so that as things are going and I’m hearing laughter in the audience, I can see the comments in the chat and be referencing those?

I find that when you do that, it transcends the barrier between who’s in the room and who’s watching virtual and kind of avoids what I think often comes with a lot of events, almost a second class citizen feeling for the people on virtual, it’s like, oh, I’m a fly on the wall watching. That has value, don’t get me wrong. But to me, it is harder to maintain the attention of a virtual participant than an in the room participant in the room participants.

There’s our social cues. If I’m sitting next to someone, I’m on my phone while there’s a keynote speaker, I’m feeling a little bit of judgment or self pressure of maybe I should put my phone down. So it’s a little easier to keep them when we’re talking virtually. You could have three other screens open. You could be responding to emails. I could think you’re typing in the chat and really you’re placing an order on Amazon. I mean, there’s any number of things that could be happening. So to me, when you’ve got a virtual audience, your ability to captivate, your ability to engage and intrigue is at an even higher requirement and higher standard than if you’re in person.

Grant Baldwin

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. So one thing I’d be curious about as well is you touched on that the booking cycle has condensed and compressed significantly. So how has that changed, if anything, for you in terms of just marketing and planning? Because one thing we were talking about before was you oftentimes would know 100 days out, pretty well locked in what your schedule was going to be. And okay, I know a few months from now the kids are going to die and the wife, we’re all going to be able to eat, we’re going to make it.

Now you may look at it and be like, Dang, things are a little light, but knowing that those gaps may fill in as you get a little bit closer. So is there anything that you have shifted or changed about just from a marketing perspective for booking gigs?

Have you changed your marketing?

Joey Coleman

I would say there’s two things that I would flag. Number one, first and foremost, I am married to the most amazing woman in the world who’s been an entrepreneur longer than I have. So her tolerance and ability, her resilience, her ability to navigate, the fact that we don’t know maybe where I’m going to be 30 days from now in terms of my physical presence as it relates to the family, has been a huge win for me personally.

I empathize with speakers who are also trying to be in committed relationships and potentially raising children in this era of increasing uncertainty and flux, that makes for difficult challenges. And I personally feel that’s an aspect of the business that most speakers don’t spend a lot of time thinking or talking about publicly. They talk about it with their spouse and maybe their closest friend. But I think that’s something that all of us as speakers could kind of acknowledge and celebrate. The folks who are holding things down while we’re off on the road even more.

The second thing I would say is I definitely had moved away from some of my coaching and consulting pre COVID. And then when COVID came along and there weren’t in person events, I brought some of that back and now I have kept a portion of that. So whereas before I had really tried to move to about 99% speaking 1% non speaking activities, now I’m trying to keep that at closer to 70 30 or maybe even 60 40, to your point, just as a buffer to even out that shifting sands of, well, are there going to be speaking gigs in the fall? I’m not sure. I got a couple of booked, but I got some plenty of open dates. What’s it going to look like, that type of feel? You can even out if you have other streams of income or other services.

Grant Baldwin

That you’re offering when you are thinking about all these different services that you may offer. And there’s a lot of people that may be in a similar spot of, I can do a keynote, I can do a small breakout, I can do a three day seminar or session or training. I can do consulting, I can do coaching. And so whenever you are working with a client and trying to figure out what exactly that they need, what their budgets are, what opportunities may exist, how do you kind of balance here’s the menu of options and kind of guide them toward here’s? What would be best that’s going to help meet their needs and also realistically help my bank account and my you.

What advice do you have for speakers trying to meet their financial needs?

Joey Coleman

Know, one of the things that I’ve tried to do Grant, again, I want to caveat this or preface this with my lens, is always customer experience, right? So I’m really always trying to say, what is the best experience I can create for the customer at this moment? I had somebody reach out recently, large organization. They’ve got about 150 employees spread across a couple of different locations. And they were like, we want to completely revamp our customer experience.

In order to do that, we want you to do a 1 hour virtual keynote. And I was like, look, I’d be happy to do a 1 hour virtual keynote, but that is not going to achieve the result that you want. You’ve just told me you want to completely revamp the experience. They’ve gone from 20 employees to over 100 employees in 18 months. I know, having been in the industry for 20 plus years and been working in customer experience, that things are breaking all over the place.

Before we even got on the call, I knew that things were breaking. This isn’t a criticism of them. This is an acknowledgment of the reality of what hypergrowth does for customer experience. And so I said, look, we can absolutely do a virtual keynote and I’d be happy to do that, but I would feel like I’m taking your money. And I’d feel like I was taking your money because in an hour, can I get your people pumped up and think it differently? Yes. Can I get them to maybe make some small shifts in their behavior? Yes. But if you want lasting change, what you actually want to hire me for is a ten week coaching program where we’ll spend an hour on the phone every other week. So ten sessions, 20 weeks, and we’ll build out a complete lifecycle.

Now, it’s a very different investment in terms of dollars, but here’s what I know. Your average client value is X dollars. I’m guessing your average profit margin is Y dollars. And I’m watching the person’s eyes get bigger. They’re like, how do you know that? I’m like, Because I did my research before this call. Like, I know your industry. I know how this works. If we get two clients over the course of the next 20 weeks to not fire you because I’m guessing you’re getting fired by about 30% of your clients. Now, at this point, their jaw hits the floor.

They’re like, how do you know that? And I’m like again, I do my research. My job is your experience, right? If we get two of those to stay, you pay for everything you’re going to spend with me, and we’ll have a new system moving forward. They’re like, well, gosh, this sounds like a much better deal. Now, here’s the interesting thing.

Price wise, that’s a five X differential between a 1 hour keynote and what I just offered them. So my revenue went up five X from what they came wanting. But I know for a fact that their impact is going to be 50 X compared to what they thought they wanted. Again, I don’t say that from a place of ego. I say that from a place of you’ve got to know your craft and you’ve got to know the ROI you provide. This is something I see a lot of speakers doing. Grant they’re really excited to get up and tell their story on stage, and that’s wonderful and that’s lovely, and that can be cathartic and therapeutic, and I’m all about that.

But there is a difference between being that kind of speaker and being the kind of speaker who can go and say, I’m going to charge you X for a speech and your ROI is going to be Y dollars. Which is a multiple of X. I think a lot of meeting planners and a lot of the folks who are signing the checks aren’t as interested anymore in, hey, we’re going to hire someone to get the team fired up for an hour as much as they are. We want systemic, lasting change. We want improvements that go beyond when everybody’s in the ballroom or on the call virtually watching the presentation. They want to see actual behavior change, which usually takes more than an hour.

Grant Baldwin

You touched on some speakers, especially early on, in careers will make the mistake of getting on stage. Let me tell my life story. And speaking almost becomes kind of therapy for them in front of a room of strangers, which is not serving the audience, and there’s no benefit to the client whatsoever. So what are some other types of things that you have noticed that mistakes that speakers make, whether it’s new speakers or speakers kind of earlier, even later in their career, of just like, here’s one thing that just kind of bugs me that speakers do that they really probably shouldn’t do, based on my experience, my limited knowledge. Here’s something that a pet peeve or whatever that you see that the speakers could consider changing or improving.

What mistakes do early speakers make & how can they avoid them?

Joey Coleman

Well, Grant, I would say that in my worldview, there are three audiences for every speech. There are the people that are in the room or virtually watching your speech, kind of the traditional definition of audience. There is the meeting planner or event coordinator who is managing all the logistics of your participation. And then there’s the person who’s signing the check, who’s paying for you to be. And usually those are three totally different groups of people.

By the way, usually the person that’s signing the check and the meeting planner, if they’re in the room during your speech or if they’re watching, they’re usually distracted and paying attention to a lot of other things. They’re hoping that the audience is paying attention and getting value, but they’re using a different metric. Every presentation I give, I try to think about, what do each of those three separate groups want? What do they need, and how does my speech serve them? So what is the ROI for the check signer? It’s going to be a much tighter dollar ROI than for the person sitting in the crowd. But for the person sitting in the crowd, it’s going to be a behavioral ROI. Can I change their behavior in a way that helps them improve their life or their career?

All too often, I get brought in to speak to sales, know, oh, we’ve got our annual convention. Let’s get Joey in, and he’ll get everybody fired up about taking better care of our customers in the future. That’s great, and I’m happy to do that, and that helps the organization. But what helps the individual sitting in the chair is me being able to say, I’d love to get you higher commissions. I’d love to get you more referrals. I’d love to get you more repeat business, because I know that’s going to impact your pocketbook, and that’s going to impact your longevity with this organization.

Now, those things translate to a benefit to the owners, the shareholders, the organization as a whole. But if it’s only about making our system more efficient and more effective, the typical employee is like, okay, thanks, but what’s in it for me? What’s the value? And so I always try to think of my speeches as speaking to the various needs and desires of the different audiences.

Grant Baldwin

When you think about those three different audiences. So the actual audience, the person that’s sitting in the chair, the meeting planner, the person kind of running things, and then the person that’s signing the check, how do you think about that from a marketing perspective, especially, like, with your website, with your demo video, anything like that, of who am I actually trying to reach and communicate? Because I could have each of those people coming to my website or watching my video and each of them have three different needs and three different responses that they may have in terms of interacting with my stuff. So how do you kind of think about who are you trying to communicate to? Whose attention are you trying to get through your marketing materials?

What audience are your marketing materials focused on?

Joey Coleman

Grant I love this question. As it relates to my marketing materials, I’m most heavily focused on the meeting planner and the check signer because most audience members aren’t picking the next speaker, it’s usually someone else.

Now, that being said, when I show up at the event, I am really focused on creating a remarkable experience for the audience because I know that’s where my referrals and my lead gen comes from. They’re going to go back to their company and be like, oh my gosh, we were in Vegas and I saw this speaker. He was amazing. We should get him to come speak to our whole company.

That is going to happen more often than the meeting planner or the check signer saying, we had Joey at the annual meeting in 2023, let’s get him back for 2024. That happens. But I’m then trying to get two people to decide I’m worth coming back for, whereas I might be speaking to 500. That’s 500 potential leads and referral sources. So it depends on where we are in the process. My marketing and sales are directed towards meeting planners and check signers on my websites, in my emails and my communications with them. But live at the event, it’s really focused on creating a remarkable experience for everyone in the room.

Grant Baldwin

One thing we talk a lot about internally and externally, like with our students and a drum that we beat a lot, is that as speakers, we want to solve one specific problem for one specific audience. And so a mistake a lot of speakers make is I speak to everybody about everything and that’s just ineffective. It doesn’t work. It’s really, really hard to build a business as a buffet.

So I’m curious in the nature of what you do, where you’ve built so much of your career on helping with customer experience, which on one hand is like a specific topic. On the other hand, who has customers? Everybody has customers, right? And now, starting to go into which we’re going to touch on here in a second, your new book where you’re helping with employees and who has employees every business has employees. And so how do you kind of think about are there certain industries that you try to target or how do you think about, like, I’m really good with this niche.

One of the things you touched on earlier is maybe on a pre event call or on a sales call. You’ve done your homework on one specific industry that maybe you are less familiar with. So how do you kind of think about these big, broad topics helping customers and helping with sales and helping with employees and making sure that it’s still customized to a specific industry and where they’re at?

How did you find your niche in Customer Experience?

Joey Coleman

Yeah, I think of it in two ways. Grant number one, it’s my personal belief in my worldview that humans are humans. Regardless of industry, customers have certain things that they’re going to do. I don’t care whether you’re buying a loaf of bread or a tractor. You have certain desires, innate feelings as a human being, and the same holds true for employees.

If you’re a brand new employee, I don’t care whether you’re the CFO or the call center rep, you’re going to have certain human desires that you want. What I try to do is have as the foundation for everything I do the commonality amongst humans. Then I layer on top of it some of those research points that I was referencing earlier. And what I’ll do is, before a pitch call, I’ll spend anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours trying to understand what is going on in that industry or in that specific business.

And then when we start the pitch call, I ask some very specific, targeted questions to figure out what are the big challenges and struggles they’re having right now. For example, in the employee space, chances are they’re having one of the following three struggles, if not all of these struggles. They’re having a hard time finding great talent. They’re having a hard time getting that talent up to speed, and they’re having a hard time keeping that talent engaged and retained long term. Now, when I throw out those three buckets and I say, which of these is a problem? That seems to be the most acute a problem you’re having right now?

I get one of two responses. They either pick one of those things or they say, oh my gosh, Joey, all of it. I actually find that it’s easier to close the deal when it’s one of the things than it’s all of it. To your point, when it’s all of it, it’s like everything’s on fire. We’re having all kinds of problems. Okay, great. Then I dive deeper to say, but where in the process? How many employees are you losing every quarter? How many employees are you trying to onboard?

Every week I dive deeper to figure out if I can help them come to a more specific answer, if they know their specific answer. Now our conversation shifts to me pointing out specific things that I’m going to be able to help their audience with to address that direct concern they have.

Grant Baldwin

I love it. All right, so I touched on this, but you’ve got a new book that is out now, Never Lose an Employee Again. You have another book that came out. It’s been a few years now since Never Lose a Customer. Both phenomenal resources, definitely. Highly recommend everyone check those out. But since so much of your career has been focused on thus far, the customer side, customer experience, what was the thought process on doing something employee related? Do you feel like this is a massive shift or pivot away from it? Does it feel like you’re trying to reinvent yourself or what’s kind of the deal.

Do you feel like it was a natural transition to employees from customers?

Joey Coleman

Thought process yeah, well, the thought process actually, Grant, is that it’s the other side of a coin. Customer experience is one side of the coin. Employee experience is the other side of the coin. I had been in the customer experience world for about five minutes before I realized that you can’t have a great customer experience if you’ve got disgruntled, frustrated employees. That being said, when I was writing my first book, which was back in 2018, I mean, it feels like a lifetime ago.

Grant Baldwin

Been a minute.

Joey Coleman

It has. I realized that in most organizations on the planet, there are divisions or parts of the organization that are focused on customerexperience, usually sales and account support or account services, and then there’s a division focused on employee experience, which isusually HR. Now, you and I both know that in every division there are employee issues because you have a boss, and if you have a boss or somebody that manages you that is employee relations, even though you might be in the accounting department or in the transportation department or the purchasing and ordering department, you’re still having employee issues.

I didn’t want to create a scenario where I was trying to educate people to the fact that they actually had employee experiences in place other than HR. While trying to convince them that they should pay attention to this, because then I’m jumping two hurdles. So instead what I did is let’s focus on customers first. Most organizations are pretty clear on who their customers are and where their problems are there.

Now, the second book, Never Lose an EmployeeAgain, is kind of the companion book that says, great, you’ve got all these customer experiences figured out. What are the pain points on theemployee side? And as fate would have it, I think we are in an era right now that is more complex when it comes to employee relations than anyother era in human history. And I know that may sound hyperbolic, but the reason I say that is, 50 years ago, it is highly likely that you or Iworked for an employer that was within 30 miles of where we lived. That was kind of the norm.

Now, if you work for an employer who’s within 30 miles of where your home is, it tells me one of two things. Either you work in a very specific hands on business or for a very small microbusiness that has a physical footprint, or your talent is not as in demand as either you’ve realized or the marketplace has realized.

Grant Baldwin

Right.

Joey Coleman

One of the biggest conversations my clients are having with me right now is they’re calling and they’re saying, joey, our people are being poached by international companies that are coming and saying, we want somebody who’s based in the US. Who is a Native American speakeras opposed to English speaker. They actually speak American, not English. There’s a slight distinction there.

And they’re saying to them,we will match or exceed your existing salary, plus we’ll give you all the vacation dates we get in the home country where we operate. And inmost places outside the United States, they have better vacation, better benefits than we have here in the US. How are you supposed to compete against that? And everybody there were a ton of absolutely horrible, sad, heartbreaking things that happened during COVID. But one thing that happened, which I think is a net positive for humanity. It’s almost every organization and industry on the planet realized that your people don’t have to be within 30 miles of your headquarters to produce value for your enterprise.

The unlocking of that means that nowemployers are trying to figure out how do we keep our top talent and how do we find the best talent on the planet? Not the best talent in ourtown, not the best talent in our industry, the best talent globally. And I don’t think that shift is going away. And I think as a result, it is going to bean employees market for the foreseeable future. I’m thinking a good 2030 years minimum until the robots have caught up and they can do all the things to replace the humans.

Grant Baldwin

Personally, again, I can completely attest to that. Here at the Speaker Lab, we have employees in, I believe it’s 26 different US. States and infive different countries around the world. And so I don’t know if there’s another team member within 30 miles of my own house. And so we’ve been that from the beginning, but, yeah, there’s certainly pros and cons to it.

What are the pros/cons of remote work?

Joey Coleman

I’m not saying this is easy. Let me be abundantly clear. I’m not saying it easy. But what I am saying is this is reality going forward. And I deal with plenty of leaders who want to get our people back into the office. People working over their computers, and I don’t even know if they’re working. I get it.

I get your concerns. More importantly, I see you. I appreciate that this is a different world than the one you came up in, which is what often those statements are about. It’s like I had to go through the school of hard knocks andthese kids have it easier than I did. I get that. And you also came up without an iPhone. But everyone has an iPhone now, so should none of us have cell phones because you didn’t have a cell phone at the beginning of your career? Should we just do away with all cell phone? No, thatwould be insane. However, let’s play the cards we’re dealt. Let’s live in the environment we live in.

Grant Baldwin

So with a new book, and it seems like even the original book, never Lose a Customer again was a real big part of your business. How do youthink about books overlapping with what you do as a speaker? How do they fit in? Because for some speakers, they view like books are a huge, huge part of it. And in many ways it’s kind of I workshop a talk and then that material that’s refined over time becomes a book. Research has been a big part of what you’ve done as well, so it’s not just, here’s some pithy ideas. So just how do you think about books in general and how they fit into your work as a thought leader, as an expert?

How do books fit into your work as a thought leader?

Joey Coleman

Well, for me personally, Grant, my books are traditionally published. So the economics around my book are very different than somebody who’sself published or hybrid published. When I sell a copy of my book, it lists at $30. I’m probably making one dollars off of that book. Whereas, if I’m self published and I sell a book for $30, I might be making 25, 26, $28 per book.

So it’s a very different business model for me becausethey’re traditionally published. I see my books as doing a couple of things.

Number one, I see them as a mark or an imprimatur of credibility. Basically, if a book has been vetted by a traditional publisher, that means that someone other than the author thought it was worth putting time and money behind it to bring this book to the world. So I do see a lift in terms of when I’m going for speaking events. And especially larger organizations are deciding between me and someone else. When they can see two Wall Street Journal bestselling books, I think they turnaround. They say, all right, well, there’s some substance here, there’s some reality here.

Number two, I see my book as a way to reach people that I can’t.

The tipping point for me, I had thought about writing a book for years, but the thing that tipped things over on my firstbook was I was talking to a friend and he said, Joey, you love speaking. I was like, I love speaking more than almost anything on the planet. I love being on stage. He said great. He said, do you think you will be able to give a speech for every human on the planet? And I was like, wow, that sounds amazing. But no, it’s practically impossible. I’ll never be able to do it. And then he was like, well, how many people would you like toget your message in front of? And I was like, oh, my gosh, all of them? As many as possible. Anybody who it can help or serve. And he said, Then you need a book.

And he was absolutely right. Because I have readers in I think we’re at north of 100 countries at this point who have read my book. Wow, those are folks. These are countries. I’ve only been to 53 countries. I’m trying to get to as many as possible. But I’ve only set foot in only half of those countries where people have read my books. It has impacted their personal lives and their professional lives. So for me, I look at it as a way to give back and extend my reach and extend my impact from a service point of view asopposed to a marketing point of view.

Now, does that mean we also sell a good amount of books? Yes, and that’s great, and I love that. But for me, it’s more about the outreach than the revenue generation in my existing business model.

Grant Baldwin

How has having a book impacted your speaking business?

Joey Coleman

I think it’s impacted my speaking business in a number of ways.

Number one, every speech that I give, there’s a potential physical giveaway forthe audience. I go to everyone who books me for a speech, and I’m like, hey, can we get books in front of your people? Can we do a signing? And I know there are some speakers that charge for book signings. I never have and I never will. Let me be abundantly, totally ludicrous. Right? And you know what? I don’t judge other people’s business model, but I will tell you that will never be my business model. Because if somebody wants to come up to have me inscribe their book. A book that sits on their shelf for five years, ten years, 50 years with their name. I am more than happy to do that.

I was doing a book signing with a friend recently. He mentioned, that I spend about five times as much time signing a book as he does. I said, that’s your choice. If someone is going to come and ask me to sign their book, I’m going to give them more than my signature. I’m going to give them a little message and I’m going to write their name in the book. I’m going to put two or three sentences. Now, that means my book signing sometimes can be three or 4 hours long, but I’m okay with that.

I also have signed copies that are just there if somebody just wants the signature and move on. But to me, it’s about what is the full experience that I can create for the reader, for the audience member. The other thing that I found it’s done, Grant, is there have been multiple cases where someone has read thebook and has said, we need this message in front of our people. And so it’s been basically a 20 $30 business card that has served as amarketing tool to get people interested.

Grant Baldwin

We touched on it, but again, never lose an employee. Again is the new book. Tell us about it and who’s it for. What’s the nutshell?

Can you tell us about the new book?

Joey Coleman

So the book is for, I think, one of two types of audiences. Either the person who is the leader who’s trying to figure out what is the future of our employee experience. So from a strategic point of view, a CEO ahead of HR, or for the person who manages direct employees who has a teamthat they’re trying to build and cultivate and foster. Because the book walks through the eight phases of the employee journey.

As a little preview, four of those phases happen leading up to the first day on the job. So there’s four of the eight phases happen before you get to the end of your first day on the job. That usually falls in the purview of HR or the department that is responsible for people. The next four phases are what keep people engaged and retained long term. This is usually your direct boss and maybe your boss’s boss. Ask how can you build the type of culture systematically that promotes the personal and professional growth and development of your people?

I think the era of you come to work. You give us work. Two weeks later we give you a paycheck. I think it was flawed. That was the only thing we were offering in the beginning. I certainly don’t think that’s going to be enough going forward. Your employees, the top talent on the planet. Might consider coming to work for you, want to grow personally and professionally as part of the job. Now, I get that there’s some leaders going, but, Joey, I just need them to do their thing. I get it. I understand that’s what it was like for you coming up, but someone along the way took aninterest in you.

Someone along the way became a shepherd, became a guiding star, became someone that hooked on and said, you matter. I’m going to give you extra attention. I’m going to give you extra focus. And that’s what has led your career to develop the way it has. Everyorganization has the opportunity to do that with every employee. And this book details over 50 case studies from all seven continents that show you how.

Grant Baldwin

All seven continents?

Joey Coleman

All seven continents. Even Antarctica.

Grant Baldwin

I think it’s an open loop there.

Joey Coleman

Grant, I may be the first. I’m not aware of any other business book that has ever been written that has a case study from all seven continents.

Grant Baldwin

Get the book to check it out.

Joey Coleman

Hear the Antarctica case study in the book.

Grant Baldwin

Joey, thanks for the time. If people want to find out more about you, where can we go?

Joey Coleman

Best place to find me is at my website, joeycolman.com. That’s Joey. Like a baby kangaroo or a five year old. You know, Coleman. Coleman like the camping equipment, but no relation. Joeycolman.com. The books are called Never Lose a Customer Again. And Never Lose An Employee Again. They’re available wherever you buy books. And I’ll put in a little plug here, if I may, Grant. If you like reading books physically, we’ve got ahardcover copy. If you like reading books on your Kindle or on your app, you’ve got an electronic version. And we also have an audio version ofboth books that I narrated. So if you’ve enjoyed the sound of my voice, I’ll happily read the book to you while you’re doing the dishes or going for a run or doing whatever you do when you listen to audiobooks.

Grant Baldwin

Hey, anything that Joey puts out, I highly recommend and endorse, so definitely check this out. Joey, thanks for the time. Always good to seeyou, my friend.

Joey Coleman

Hey, thanks, Grant. I really appreciate it. Thanks, everyone, for listening as well.