EE026 – Nevil Tynemouth – Having Fun Whilst Learning

Tony: Exceeding Expectations, episode 26. Welcome to another edition of Exceeding Expectations. The podcast where we try to give you some ideas and ways that you could improve the experiences and the relationships you have with your current customers, and ways to help make it easier to get new customers as well. We have a Facebook group called, funnily enough Exceeding Expectations. Why not go on there, start conversations on some of the things that you hear in this episode. Leave us a podcast review on ITunes, on Stitcher, on android. There are many different places where you are able to leave reviews for podcasts.

This week, I spoke with a guy call Nevil Tynemouth. I would seriously advise anyone listening to this to make sure you have a pen and a piece of paper to write down some of the great suggestions that Neville gives. There was just so much information and some really interesting ways of thinking about maybe some of the things you do and thinking about how you can do some things in a different way. As I said, make sure you’ve got a pen and paper and we’re about to hear Neville Tynemouth.

Another edition of Exceeding Expectations and today I have someone by name of Nevil Tynemouth. Did I pronounce that right Nevil?

Nevil: You did indeed Sir. Yes, that’s absolutely right.

Tony: I was recommended to get in touch with you because I was told you are a person I need to have on this podcast. Tell me more about yourself Nevil. What is it you do?

Nevil: I’m the director of an organization called New Results.

Tony: Okay.

Nevil: We specialize in business development. We specialize in helping businesses grow. I think the link that came through was, we’ve done a lot of work around what we are calling the Psychology Of Consumer and Seller behaviour. I think the reference came in- we’ve done a lot of work about- so when we linked back to Exceed Expectations, we’ve done a lot of work with service and sales and business development teams about how we go about looking at the entire world through our customers’ eyes to your different perspective and actually just putting them in a brilliant position whenever dealt with any organization. So I think that’s why we’re speaking today that’s the foundation feet.

Tony: What sort of people is that you’ve been helping?

Nevil: Everybody from- we’re really fortunate as a business. We support everybody from start up organizations. Those in that fantastic physician to be able to set the culture and the tone, the approach they want to take as a business. Right the way through to, we deal with some extremely large multinational organizations with teams up and down the country and a few bits of a national work as well. We’re very fortunate. We’re able to share some of our ideas and approaches with different teams, with different levels of experience and the feedback we get is, this is a really eye-opening experience for them.

Bizarrely it came about…I bumped into a doctor of psychology at a networking event. This sounds very strange but it was a conversation start with actually- we’re getting asked more about psychology when it comes to dealing with a sales and service and business development teams. Actually, could we just sit down, can I just pick your brain as to how we might go about fitting in some elements and aspects of psychology to what we do?

It was myself, a gentleman by the name of Doctor John Dugan and my co-director Mike Lever that initially sat down. The plan was to spend two or three hours over a cup of tea, discussing some ideas and seeing where we went. What it actually turned out to be was to date, a five-year relationship and a book that is already heading for publishing now. A real deep insight as to some of the core drivers that consumers have a real understanding of some of the below conscious drivers that sellers and service teams have. Really, if I’m honest Tony, a better insight as to why we all do as human beings, some of the things that we do. Which is really important but also probably more important than that. Why do we avoid certain things that we really should be doing? When it…even the kinda of the basic things in life and service and sales and business. We find a lot of time business owners or sales people or those in service, know what they should be doing but at some level, make choice not to do it. And that really fascinated us.

Tony: Where did they take you from there? What happened next?

Nevil: What we started doing- we spoke at a few events- a bit like yourself. You start speaking to people and sharing some ideas and concepts. We are refining some training material. We run some workshops. We did some taster sessions and we start getting a flavour of what really worked for people and the things that really helped them and gave them a very different insight.

As an example, we came up with a concept that we call the ‘green line effect’. The Green Line is where you take somebody, in terms of interaction and put them in a more positive emotional state. Having worked with this doctor of psychology it’s kind of very obvious stuff. Put your customer in a happy place. What we now understand it at below the conscious level, some of the things that are happening within their brain is they’re able to process things like a more complex information. They’re able to process more information generally and also become more adventurous. So when you were in a service setting or a sales setting, understanding how you go about Exceeding Expectations? And putting somebody on the Green Line allows you to put them in a better space to deal with, but also a better space to be open to more ideas about cross-selling opportunities or up-sell opportunities or actually taking solutions or a service piece really kind of helps them move forward.

We’ve done a lot of work with teams where what we call, I’m sorry,- that’s been built around what we call the real customer journey. Which is understanding some of the emotional drivers that people have and some of the things that they need to take into account when they’re dealing with them in terms of sales or service. And then we add the things and let the Green Line model to allow them to really understand how things like Exceeding Expectations can really put their customers in that perfect space to engage with. So the customers and clients come out with the exact service and sales that they want.

Tony: Do, you do this via- Is it workshops or one to one coaching or how is it actually done?

Nevil: It’s a really nice mix. it’s, a mixture of Seminars and keynote presentations. We’ve been fortunate to deliver this to some very large groups. We delivered it in training workshops so we’ve brought organizations together and done some real interesting hands on workshops where we can map out the customer journey. We’d run through some of these things in terms of the ‘Green Line’ and a few of the creative ideas for, really engaging other people, but also on a one to one basis we’ve been fortunate to work with some really great for looking business leaders that we can sit down we can talk these principles through and they can understand and go about applying them with their teams to really get that out there. Obviously the ultimate goal is once the book is finalized, the editors and publishers are happy. Then the book will be the next meeting that we’ll be sharing that one through.

Tony: What kind of results have you been getting?

Nevil: Some absolutely astonishing results of some genuinely really kind of eye-opening moments and actually some things that are really, settle but quite significant. In terms of how they’re applied. Haven’t listed some of your previous podcasts and understanding your (inaudible) and approach that a little bit about giving that extra, that bit that you talk about recording the wedding speech and just giving that as an extra gift. It’s releasing something creativity to do this because a lot of time people are kind of bound by what they think are the rules within which they have to operate within the business. There are lots of ideas and constraints that people employing in themselves rather than actually going out and doing so at a really simple level. These are just some of the little tiny little simple things that really stand out to me and we’ll talk about in the more complex ones, but the really simple ones.

I walked into a clients, the day that they actually worked with us in partnership. They’re an inbound marketing agency or a name-checking them thrive in Darlington north of England. We walked in…what’s really nice is one of the owners, one of their directors, which is always nice. There’s also a lovely warm feeling when you walk in the office- but it’s always- it’s never ‘Do you want a cup of tea and how do you take it?’ It always ‘Nevil you’ll want a cup of tea this time of day, wouldn’t you? And it’s builder’s tea, no sugar.’ And it’s just those tiny little moments, those tiny little pieces of remembering and client-focused that make people feel extraordinarily special. How symbols that? Remembering how a client takes their tea or coffee. It’s those tiny little strokes that put us on this positive emotional journey on the green line effect that made the interaction, the engagement much more powerful. Even, I’m trying to think again, just some simple ones to start off with we were fortunate enough to do some work with some stadium, a conference and events teams up and down the country.

One of our local stadiums, the one we used was the St James’s park for Newcastle United and the tiniest thing on in the world, which is when we turned up to use an executive box to do some or on one work or very small group work that took out the logo of the firm who actually owned the box on the weekend when football was on. Just put a simple just kind of picture of our local into the air for the whole on the front of the door and it was just that tiny little piece of acknowledgement and recognition that means their client made me feel really special.

It also, I must admit, when I took a photograph and put it on Twitter, my accountant was extremely nervous because she thought we’d bought a box of Newcastle. I told her no, which she was very upset about. No we haven’t and we wouldn’t because that’s not the way we are not that we aren’t Newcastle fan but I wouldn’t necessarily have a box there. It’s these little new one bits that I think our people are often looking for. The really big ideas and I love the big idea of- I’ll share some of the big stuff with you. It’s sometimes the little simple things that really kind of get me excited, where we really engage people. Equally, if I’m flip that over, Tony, I’ve seen some examples of people getting this really wrong.

I think we are both similar in terms of, we go out and speak at various different events. Myself and my co director, we’re fortunate enough to speak at an event a little while ago now. We turned up and it was one of these- it’s a conference venue that has rooms as well and it was this- if I can of paint you a picture. As you walk in, reception. It’s freezing cold day outside and you walk in and there’s an open fire, this huge hearth and there’s some really gorgeous high back chairs and it’s a mix of modern and some real traditional furniture and it’s warm, it’s sumptuous and the smell of the fire’s there and you just honestly- you instantly put on the Green Line just by the venue. Myself and co-director waiting to check in. We’re speaking at the conference the next day to talk about some of these concepts and there is a member of staff walking about handing a champagne. I looked at my director and said ‘Is that person handing the champagne out starting to annoy you?’ And he looked at me and he said, ‘Yeah, absolutely:. And we both could spot this.

What happened was there was a queue of people waiting to check into the hotel to get room, obviously for the conference. And what they tried to do was put people in a positive emotional state to it- at state sorry, to exceed expectations by bringing champagne. What they’ve missed in that moment was we were cuing to check into a hotel room. And the fact that they had a couple of members of staff checking people in and one member of staff handing out champagne.

Well very quickly, once the 10 of us in the queue had a glass of champagne, the person with the tray became redundant. But there continued to kind of circle and rather than start checking people in to offer advice and what we need to prepare documents or it really kind of smooth and ease that process. So that thought of about Exceeding Expectations. But one of the bits that had done, and we see as quite a lot with organizations, they had missed the fundamentals.

One of the things that we often end up seeing the folks is, yes he can do some really clever stuff, some real creative high end stuff to exceed people’s expectations. But first, can we check, please, are you doing the basics and are you doing them extraordinarily well because most organizations are missing this.

They’re doing some stuff. That’s okay. There’s more to be said in terms of Exceeding Expectations by just doing the basics and absolutely doing them beyond everybody’s expectations, then you can build some really key and clever things on top.

It’s something sprung to mind that I was in the states- not last year. The year before my nephew was graduate – Sorry, my wife’s nephew was graduating. He had been out there on a football scholarship and I just had a really brilliant example of somebody doing this and getting it really right. We were fortunate or unfortunate. My wife and I sat and looked at the map and looked at where my nephew was studying at and we did that bit, which I suppose a (inaudible) have done in the past, which is what we did.

Josh doesn’t look too far off route 66 now. That was with a glass of wine in hand and a very small scale map of America where Josh was actually really quite a long way off route 66 and of what we ended up doing and said, ‘listen, let’s hire a car.’ We’ll see Josh graduate and then we’ll go in and we can’t do all of it because we don’t have time, but we will do as much as we can. We ended up doing I think it was something like 4,000, 300 miles in about 10 days. So we did a lot of traveling.

It was absolutely phenomenal. What was really interesting, I don’t know if you’ve ever come across a study when you get that point. We gave him this expression, when you start to feel angry. That mixed you have when you’re hungry, tired and you just get angry. That, and I occasionally get that and (inaudible) timeouts really good should recognize this now and I’m starting to recognize this. And there was one day where we did route 66 back to front. We actually headed back towards Chicago. We were heading for Chicago and I was getting quite hungry and she wanted somewhere to stop and eat. And so did I. We had a brilliant guidebook been given to us and we found somewhere that wasn’t too far from where we were, at a little place called Lichfield just off the route 66 and it was a place called the Aristotle cafe. We went to Aristotle cafe. We pulled up in the car park and we try the door. One of the things that really struck me in America is just how the simple things can be done really well.

Firstly, the proper real warm enthusiast greeting at the door. ‘Hi, good afternoon, How you doing?. ‘Pleasure to see you.’ ‘Great! You’ve made it to us.’ All of the simple things done extraordinarily well. The owner of the place, now it’s in the same family, I think since 1920 something- 1924, I think. It’s been in the family since. The son and daughter in law of the original owner were there running the place. I believe she’s called Demi.

Demi comes across, who’s the daughter in law of the original owner from 1924. She finds us a seat and she says, It doesn’t make a big fuss about it generally and says, ‘Listen guys, before you go, there’s three things I need you to do. First. Can you sign the guestbook. Okay. Yeah, that’s a given. I want to make sure you go with some free gifts from the (inaudible) which she, gave us, with some fridge magnets and postcards and some of the bits and bobs. She asks that we got behind the counter and had our photographs taken. Oh, that sounds very sensible. The guide book comes across…the guestbook comes across and just really proud to say, and I’m, feeling hungry and tired cause there’s a guy that cause I’ve been drunk driving so long and I’m hungry and tired and she just, the last guy that just filled this in, he’s from Korea and I thought she was about to say he’s cycling route 66, which made me feel rather queasy, but she said he’s cycling around the world. He’s doing route 66 as part of this. And he stopped and thought, oh my God, he must be feeling tired and hungry and look at that poor guy. So we fill the guestbook in and the waitress , comes across and says ‘Okay, it’s Thursday night and do you know what tonight is? A homemade fried chicken night. It’s all you can fried chicken. You can have as much as you want guys. What are you going to have?’Kind of obviously going to have the fried chicken, isn’t it?’

That’s where you’re going to go. And you know, the owner dummy gonna disappears off and you know, we sat there having a solid start when the waitress fosters around us and it’s just really nice warm atmosphere and it’s what* the chicken arise it comes the kitchen and it’s- you can see it’s steaming. It’s red hot, it’s homemade and it’s the spices and the herbs and it’s traditional recipe. And this mountain of really golden chicken arrives on our table and I take a bite of it and kinda of go’ it’s good.

It’s not great. It’s not bad. It’s just good. I’ve got it, it’s a wholesome food. It’s absolutely fine. The food did not blow me away, but it definitely wasn’t bad. It was just good. What did blow me away was when Demi’s husband, now I think he was called Nick. When he came across the restaurant, before he even reached our table, he shouted across ‘Hey, what are you folks from England doing? Eating my fried chicken? I didn’t think fried chicken was a big thing in the UK.’ And that’s what I thought in terms of Exceeding Expectations. They have absolutely nailed this. He’s either had to go and speak to his wife and find out where we’re from, which is a little extra bit that he’s had to go and do all, he’s had to go and find the guest book and check where we signed in us. So he knew to start that interaction when it came across and in terms of Exceeding Expectations and make you feel absolutely at the center of somebody’s world. Costs no money. Tiny bit of effort after company, 40/50 years of doing it and they’re still engaging customers and still making people feel really special. And I think that’s a great example of where a really low cost way weight and people you can make your customers feel extraordinary

Tony: And that’s why they’ve been in business that long probably as well?

Nevil: (Laugh) Absolutely. Yes. I even don’t do it, need to check this out for you. I’m fairly certain that the restaurant end up in a place that was a bit of way from the highway and the move to brick by brick to the other side of the road to make sure that get guests, so if you’re prepared to do that, you must be doing something right.

Tony: I’ve now got an image. I don’t know if you remember, there was a Disney animated film called Cars and I seem to remember a scene like that. Something similar to that in that film. Okay.

Nevil: I know the film, but I don’t think I’ve seen it.

Tony: Oh, that’s okay that fascinating. Yeah. When you’ve got a nine year old daughter, you get to watch a lot of these types of firms. (laughing)

Nevil: Absolutely. Yes.

Tony: Yeah. Something that I was thinking about, when you were talking about that. And in your earlier story as well, you said, the people that you’re talking to and you’re trying to help them with their mindset or help them understand the benefits of those.. Do they need to have a particular mindset before this will work or were you able to change that in some way?

Nevil: Well, a really interesting point actually. We have been working with this doctor of psychology. One of the next stages we’ve developed, and this really goes down to one of my co directors, Mike Lever, who’s also the third author of the book. We have built the little bit of a behavioral model and we’ve started exploring why people do the things that they do. So as an example,we started exploring, this is a really fascinating insight when you can help people start to understand and appreciate this. We built the behavior model and actually it’s, built on probably my favorite expression on the planet. Of my favorite expression. You can tell him smiling already about this.

My favorite expression that I live *my life by and I helped the team run new results by. There is nothing in life you have to do and it’s a really challenging concept to some people. Some people kind of see it really quite quickly, but other people kind of really kind of pushed back against- there’s lots of things in life you have to do and actually genuinely haven’t explored this with individuals and groups and teams and organizations. There is nothing you have to do. What’s fascinating is when you start exploring with people the choices that they make. The behavioral aspects that they are applying and the consequences they’re getting. What you’re able to assess really quickly is some of their behaviors might be leading and choices might be leading to some really poor consequences.

Once they start to understand that and really appreciate that and see that a lot of the things that they are getting are done to their own activity, then a lot of people are really keen to start adjusting what they do to try something that’s a bit different. Actually this is a bit of a frustration, but it’s a nice frustration. It’s when people come back to me after a workshop, I’ll,often get an email or a link in message or a phone call and say, ‘Hey Nevil, stuff that you talked about. Yup, You know, you talked about the Green Line. Yes. Well I’ve done that with a customer and you know what? It really works’*and you kind of think they’re almost not quite believing in a workshop environment when they go and try and choose to try it themselves and then they come back with that kind of feedback that when we think things have gone extraordinarily well and that little behavioral model, and I was thinking about this and this isn’t Exceeding Expectations piece, I, shared that approach.

I’m about, there’s nothing in life you have to do with somebody who happened to come on an open course that we run and the course* that we run on that is; we train managers and supervisors and leaders on Non-Directive coaching techniques, a bit about how you help other people. This guy really didn’t like this expression. There’s nothing in life you have to do* be disagreed with. It really pushed back, if I’m honest. He wasn’t a huge fan of the course. When I phoned his company back afterwards, because it was a kind of a mixed course where a number of people came on. we did have a debriefing* what was the feedback and the feedback I got from his HR director was this person had left the business.

That’s quite significant. Beyond that, he actually cited your cause one of the reasons why he left.

Tony: Okay.

Nevil: Which particular part did he cite? Well, there’s nothing in life you have to do. And they said, what we’d realized was we pushed him into a position to get trained and do these things.

It was beyond what he’d wanted to do as an individual, as a human being. We were pushing him against his values in the wrong way and come to a mutual agreement, which was he would move on. Now I kind of thought that’s the end of the story and that’s positive in terms of the company saw as a positive, because they weren’t getting the best out of this person and this person had chosen to move on. And fast forward about two years, we went to pitch for a new piece of work to deliver exactly – really similar course into one organization. Happened to be a technology based organization. We’re asked to do a pilot with three directors, which said, yes, no problem. We’ll do a pilot with three directors. We normally have nine people on this course three quite a nice number to really test it out. One of the directors turned up and said’ You know what? He said ‘I wasn’t coming on this course I don’t do things like this.’ He said ‘But one of my team happened to see the invite and said to me, I don’t care what you’re doing or what you think might be important. You need to drop everything and get on this three day course’ And it was the guy who left the previous company, who’d gone to work at this company that we – and I didn’t know this. He’d recognize the power and value of actually seeing the world a bit differently.

Tony: Wow!

Nevil: I’m really pleased to say we worked at that organization now for, I think it’s coming up to two and a half years where we’ve really helped unlock some of the coaching ability. But we’ve also started kind of helping some of their managers and leaders and supervisors understand that personal behaviors, their accountability and the model that we use and Mike my co director can pull all this together and all of our thoughts together looks at everything from an individual’s identity, their values, their motivators, their beliefs. And then he came up with a really symbol, ABCD model, which is their awareness, their bias, their comfort zones and their decisions. And we also look at the lens that they look at the world through whether that’s a telescope, a big picture lens, whether it’s a microscope, a real fine detail or a mirror where it’s a reflective practice and what you do.

Then finally we go through their attitude and then we look at the behaviors that they exhibit to the outside world. And when we’re (inaudible) pick some of these things, we can often take people on a journey where they can say, ‘Yep, I can start to see how I can start Exceeding Expectations. Just from the very simple things that I choose to do or choose not to.’

Tony: Something, that I was thinking about as you were saying all of that. People are starting to have a realization that they can get different results by doing things in a different way. And something that often happens when people attend a workshop or a seminar and they all kinda of fired up afterwards. They’ve heard this great information and in a couple of weeks later they forgotten all about it. Do you try and take something like that into consideration? How do you fight against that?

Nevil: Well, a number of different ways actually seems to be the constant issue that a lot of organizations have. And we’ve made some mistakes in a space like a lot of organizations have. And actually we’re getting some really great feedback as to how we help this piece now. If somebody attends, one of our seminars – and it’s funny because I’m doing something this week where I’ll mention this. What we do is, every single week as an organization, we put out a little video.It’s a little kind of two, three minute video and we call it try this, this week. And we’ve been doing it for about four years now and it lands in everybody’s inbox about 12 o’clock. And it’ll say, here’s some really simple things you can do that practical hands on, things you can do straight away to help you, your business, your organization, your team, whatever it might be.

That’s a real simple way of us giving a little bit of a nudge. If they’d been on a workshop, one of the things that we tend to do is, we do a lot of work before hand to engage teams so they understand what they need to do. So tend to meet back trainers before we deliver any training or workshops. We tailor language and approach to workshops. We also do some things that others don’t. We’ve completely stopped using PowerPoint now. In any training or any workshops that we deliver, we don’t use PowerPoint. If I’m onstage, obviously I do because you need that kind of a visual reference. But if it’s in a smaller group, we never use PowerPoint. Everything we do is what we would call discovery led learning.

Learners get a chance to ask, to challenge, to debate, to discuss and because we take time to meet the teams, we tailor our language and our approach and any kind of a little exercises that are very specific to them. We get some great feedback about how specific we can make this to industry. As an example, we did a little work Green Line in the health and beauty industry and if anybody sees a photograph and me will know, I’m not a big advocate of the health and beauty industry because it’s not me, but we did a bit of research and we found things like,when you are handing somebody some product to try perhaps on the face, perhaps on the forearms or the skin or the hair wherever it might be. If you give them a smell of that product first, the smell is one of the five senses that connects – sorry the only of the five senses that connects directly to the brain and memory. And it creates a much stronger links in any of the sensors.When it comes to it. Just by doing that little bit of research allowed us to re-frame our workshops. So when they talked about the health and beauty process and how they engage people they will apply that technique really successfully.

People would be taken back to that really positive emotional state in the salon and come back time and time again and tell other people about how great the service was and how great the whole experience was. We use techniques where we’ve really done the research. Then beyond that, and again this is just a technique and approach that we use. We always give people six months worth of support post workshops and we say, listen, if you want to email us after a workshop, we want to find out more or just dig in. We do that, but we also send them some reminder videos of their very specific workshop. So if you came in a workshop with me a week ago- sorry, a day go, you’ll get an email today, reminding what we covered off and it will be a week’s time than four weeks time. Then three months time and then six months time we’ll remind you of the things that you’ve done.

The other things that we do, and we’re really interested in kind of helping this behavioral shift pieces. We have a really simple but effective action plan the teams commit to throughout the workshops and it falls into four categories. The things they’re going to start doing, the things they’re going to stop doing, the things they’ll do more of and the things they’ll do less of. We encourage them with these little nudges and reminders to go back to their action plan. If they are reporting somebody or apart of a bigger team, we ask them to take their actions back and share them publicly and talk about the things they are going to do differently and really worked with an accountability partner who will keep them on track for those actions. We know we’ve done some research and as a Doctor Gail Matthews as pointed out, if you have a goal written down, if you have it shared with an accountability partner and this is a really important degree of follow-up then the chances of that actually happening are much higher than just thinking about a vague goal yourself. So we’ve really helped people kind of help make these shifts and moves by giving them all the tools and support and help that they need to kind of change their behaviors in real positive ways.

Tony: That approach is- I mean there are so many people with delivering workshops and it seems to me that on the whole most people just- they delivered a workshop and then that’s it. Goodbye.

Nevil: Yeah.

Tony: Hopefully the attendees will remember what’s been said and maybe they won’t. But your approach it seems to me that should be the standard approach. That there should be a lot of follow up just to make sure it has been implemented and people do truly understand it and are able to use it in their ongoing life in some way.

Nevil: Even before we get in the room, and this is one of the ones where we like to live our own values. So we talked about the simple things that put people in a positive emotional state. We did some work and this is a little while ago now, but it was with a team…an organization who trained people on disability awareness. What was unusual was this entire group, it was a not for profit charity organization. They were all partially sighted or blind. So, you start thinking, okay so with delivering this workshop, now this is going to prove a little bit of a stretch because everything we traditionally do is in the workbook. We hand workbook out but actually how’s that going to work?

We met with them, we discussed beforehand, but then we sent an email and we confirmed that we could send an email (inaudible) we’d follow this up and said, actually we have options in terms of how we deliver this workshop and the format and the collateral to you, how would you like it delivered? And they were absolutely blown away and said in all the time they’d work with external agencies nobody had taken a moment to say actually, how do you want to receive information?

It was the simplest thing to ask and the simplest thing for us to do because a lot of these guys had a plain text readers, so if he strips some of the images out, the reader was actually read the workbook to them and then they could speak and then record their own kind of followup and they can bring it all together with some of the help they had around them. Honestly, you stand back and you think, hang on, just asking that group of people before you turn up in the room, how do you want this material? What format is going to work best for you? That’s not a complex thing to do, but it certainly exceeds their expectations because they’d never experienced that before.

Tony: Just come back to your book. What is the title of the book?

Nevil: As yet untitled. (laughing)That’s the hard bit. That’s one bits of waiting to explore with, publisher. We have an internal title- actually a number of internal titles, but it’s the broad topic is this psychology of consuming seller behavior, which will probably be a subtitle at some point in some way, shape or form. But waiting to confirm that final title. Actually, bizarrely, the three authors are all together in a couple of days time to make those final amends before we push the button and send it off to a couple of places to get some feedback and, and get next steps.

Tony: So what is your aim for the book? How do you hope it will help people? I mean, is it aim – what type of people is it aimed at?

Nevil: It’s aimed at anybody who interacts with customers in any way, shape, or form. So that could be a business owner. It could be a service director, it could be a sales person, it could be a front-line service team. Anybody who interacts or engaged with customers at any level or as interested in how they go about improving and developing their business and growing the service that they offer. That’s where it will fit really well. We’re keen, in terms of how it helps people. We’re really keen that it offers something a bit different. We have a slightly different approach in terms of how we’re doing this. So we have a really nice flowing story-line right the way through. It’s a story . Then we have a layer that sits below, that which is around the practical business application.

You’ve read the story but you want to apply that very specific bit. Well, okay, here’s some business tools and applications and ways might use it. Then below that, because we know people are curious about this Doctor John Dugan has written – gather all the research and the evidence that kind of points out why these things are work and effective. We know these things work anyway because we’ve lived in a commercial environment for quite some time now. But we’ve got this three strand approach for the book where we talked a lovely story that’s nice and engaging. Hopefully, we’ve got some really simple business tool so people can apply and pick up and say, yes, I understand the principle and that’s how I applied to what I do in my role or my business.

Then for those that really want the detail, we’ve got- actually, here’s all the research, here’s all the thinking, here’s all the background. Here’s all the psychology that tells you why these things will be positive and will help and will work for you.

Tony: You said that you haven’t gotten a title yet, is the actual content finish?

Nevil: It is. Yes. (laughing) Actually the contents have been finished for a little while now. What we’re doing is, we’re polishing, refining before we get it out to publishers. I say that process finishes on Friday. We’ve agreed, we’ve committed to that- there’s me saying it publicly so that will be hitting publishers and a few heads of the straight after that.

Tony: When do you hope it will be published by?

Nevil: I’m hoping we’re going to get it out really soon. I’m hoping we’re not a massive distance from where we need to be in terms of any, final amends and edits. So it would be lovely to have it out later on this year. So I’m thinking the summer perhaps at autumn at the latest where copies are hitting the shops and landing people’s desks cause that’s, that’s an important bit for us.

Tony: Fantastic. I mean time has flown by. Always seems to whenever I have these

(Laughters)

Tony: It’s 36 minutes. Before we finish Nevil I just like to get your thoughts- just customer experience. Why people may be, should try to over-deliver and exceed people’s expectations. What are your thoughts on that?

Nevil: I think it’s an opportunity for everybody to leave and this is a principle we use as a business and I don’t mind people recycling this and using it for themselves. Our principal and our guidance as businesses to leave our customers in a better position. Whether we do business with them or not. Now, what I see a lot of the time is I see businesses- at this stage, I’m going to just kind of focus it on zooming into retail and retail I had some challenging times and does some stuff extraordinarily well. But also it does some stuff really quite poorly. So what I tend to observe is if I go into any kind of retail outlet, generally I guess with the same stone response, kind of help with anything .I tend to respond no. I know why tend to respond no. And even when I do need help or I’m looking for something I tend to respond no or what fascinates me is, and go right the way back to when I started talking about there’s nothing in life you have to do. what I find is people just tend to fall into these really easy and comfortable patterns of behavior, that aren’t as productive as they could be. A lot of the time we have, people are wondering about almost not thinking about these things and actually doing themselves a disservice. So we find that this is the fantastic piece when you start getting a sort of below the conscious level.

So people will automatically ask things that they know will give a poor response from clients because it’s comfortable and it’s easy to ask and say and do.We call almost this little dance. It’s this little piece where they’ll ask that question, do you need any help? And I’ll say no. And they’d feel good because they’ve actually asked a question, which is great and I can’t be help. So they think they’ve done their piece rather than actually just going and stopping a warm and friendly and genuine conversation. And I had exactly that. I’m just trying to think- I was out with my wife a couple of weeks ago. My wife was out buying some new clothes and we happened to walk into a store. And I’m always fascinated as to how retail chooses to engage and you know, kind of serve me as a customer and the lady approaches its particular shopping center, which is covered but has open ends to it. So it’s quite a windy place. It’s known for being quite windy and quite blowy. And as we walked in the store, she went, ‘Oh, you’ve done well today, you’ve arrived at the windiest place on earth.’ And we started a warm and friendly, genuine conversation on that basis. Not because it was something clever or difficult or challenging, but it was because of a human factor. A bit of authenticity. A bit of a conversation. Yes my wife (inaudible) in that store. Yes, I did have a good browse about while she was doing that. I didn’t end up buying anything because there’s nothing that I wanted, but just that difference that people can make with some really simple things can have a big effect. And I do just worry and I get concerned that, people hold their hands up and say, retail is having some issues or sales is having some issues or we can’t get service right. When actually a lot of the real simple things that people can do a right below their noses, we’re just not taking the time to actually observe it first of all and then do something a bit different.

Tony: Just doing the simple things?

Nevil: Yeah, looking back to that, keep doing the simple things, the basics and do them extraordinarily well.

Tony: Well Nevil if people- I mean I can’t wait for your book to come out.

(laughter)

If people want to find out more about you and what you’re doing, where should they go?

Nevil: Well we haven’t had a chance to talk about this. I wrote a book a little while ago on Linkedin, so quite surprisingly you’ll find me very active on linkedin. So come and find me, Nevil Tynemouthon linkedin you’ll find new results on linkedin. And if folks worked for the new results website as well as a resource page. So if you’re curious about the green line, you can download the Green Line resources, there’s a whole stack of where the pieces that we just give you access to the website to go out and play with. And as I said, we do this regular try this, this week video. If folks would like to sign up for that. That’s a great way of just finding out some of the things we do. So,come along and get engaged.

Tony: Okay. All of those things you just mentioned we’ll put all of those in the show notes. So, anyone who’s listening just have a look in the show notes and you can see all of the things that Nevil has just talked about. Well Nevil, I really appreciate your time. It’s been some fantastic information and stories that you’ve given and yeah, I look forward to meeting you.

Nevil: Tony, that’s really much appreciate it. Thank you.

Tony: Wasn’t that a great episode? Some fantastic value there from Nevil Tynemouth and in next week’s episode 27, I speak with John Mullen, the author of a book called Giftology. It just gives so much value in next week’s episode. You really do need to listen because there is just immense value and suggestions and tips of how you can really improve your business. And really, established a much better relationship with your customers and prospective customers as well. It’s absolutely episode you have to listen to it. If you like the episode, why not share it with people you know who might find it useful this episode and next week’s episode and maybe you know someone who would just really benefit from some of the advice given in this episode. I mean, it’d be great if you could join our Facebook group. Maybe start a conversation on something that you’ve heard. Leave a review for us on Itunes, on Android, stitcher, and all the various podcast players. Hope you’ve enjoyed the show and I look forward to seeing you next week.