Why Joy will Grow Your Business Faster (ft. Nate White)

Nate White 0:00
Teach your team that the relationship and the longevity of that relationship is more important than the instant sale. You cannot be a great resource for your target customer if you are not good at stewarding that relationship.

Brandon Welch 0:19
Welcome to the Maven marketing podcast today is Maven Monday. I’m your host, Brandon Welch, and I’m joined today by one of the most talented life inspiring professionals I have ever known and the most skilled musician I’ve ever had the pleasure, oh man, of sharing a stage with the one and only Nate white. And you guys are in for a real treat, because Nate is going to shed some light on the ingredient that I promise every person listening to this podcast, if you work for a small business, if you are living in the headwinds of small business America right now, you need this message. I was lucky enough to hear it a few weeks ago, and I said immediately, like we’ve got to get that on the show. But just so you know, who Nate is, he’s way more famous than anybody in this room, Nate is the host of chords and coffee, which is now amassed over 1 million views on YouTube. And you need to stop what you’re doing right now and click the link to go over to watch chords and coffee to just absorb some of Nate’s greatness. You’re going to see what a special musician he is, but also the joy that he brings to everything he does, and he’s going to dissect some of that for us today, a chords and coffee YouTube show. You got to check it out. Even if you’re not a musician, you’re going to you’re probably not even going to come back here. You’re going to sit there and watch that for hours. I know I have so in the daytime, Nate is the district manager of Palin Music Center, a family owned music retailer spanning 10 locations throughout the Midwest. We’re going to talk about what’s going on in their industry and kind of how some of Nate’s methods are causing them to grow while the rest of their industry shrinks. He is a dad to Jackson and Rowan. He’s a husband to Jessica. They are worship leaders. They founded a little church called Revolution church in Columbia, Missouri, before he came on to to the the music company. He’s an accomplished songwriter and guitarist, a Jesus follower, a master of creating magnetic customer experiences, which has taken this family owned Music Store to being one of the top 25 music retailers in the world, while the music retail industry continues to suffer closing its stores across America. Payload music continues to grow by double digits, and I know that’s synonymous with what everybody on this podcast is going. How do the little guys compete with the big guys? We’re going to talk to you about how to do that today, and it’s largely going to have to do with the magic Nate and his team I’ve learned to bottle up and duplicate across their footprint in the Midwest. And I’m just so happy and proud to have you. Thank you for being here today.

Nate White 2:52
Man, what a pump up. Yes, I’m ready to meet me.

Brandon Welch 2:56
Yeah. Would you like to hang out with that guy?

Nate White 2:59
Yeah, I would. I hope I can live up to that. Thank you for that. That was that was encouraging, yeah?

Brandon Welch 3:03
So thank you. Well, yeah, thank you for being here, because I actually have, you know, I’m following your footsteps, watching your podcast. I’m watching what you guys have been able to build. Um, seriously, you gotta go watch that. But recently, we got to share the duty of, kind of leading some new thoughts for a strategic planning Summit, and the concept of bringing experience to small business America, in your world, it’s retail. A lot of our listeners are directing, you know, contractor type businesses or service based companies. And the main thing that just made me go that is so true is how we talked about as as big box, as E commerce, as bigger competitors come in and sort of like steamroll over, you know, small business owners, even, even ones that are in the 510, You know, $50 million range, they’re getting eaten by transactional experience. Our human and empathetic connections with customers are the last thing that we really have to stand on right 1,000% Yeah, yeah. So

Nate White 4:12
if I would encapsulate that into one idea, if the experience of your store doesn’t trump or doesn’t it doesn’t offer more than the convenience of click Buy now online, you’re

Brandon Welch 4:29
not going to make it. Not going to make it. You’re seeing that left and right. Yeah, tell it. Tell us a little bit about your industry and kind of how that’s manifesting in music retail, which I sure is synonymous with so many, oh, sure,

Nate White 4:43
yeah, so music retail. I mean, let’s there’s no two ways about it. Music retail is a luxury item, right? We’re not selling heart valve transplants, right? This is something that musical instruments are attached to, dreams they are a. Tangible scepters to guide someone through the adventure that is legacy, right? You know, I think about this all the time, so I play guitar, and, you know, I’ve got two little boys. Well, I mean, they’re not little. In fact, Jackson, who is 15 in July, is taller than me. Oh, wow. But I still retain a psychological advantage at

Brandon Welch 5:20
this point. Momentarily, momentarily. Yeah, anyway, and Rowan

Nate White 5:24
is 10, and Rowan has been guitar curious. Jackson is very creative in other ways. He takes after his mom, which my wife, is the most creative among us. She’s a painter, she’s a photographer, she’s a singer, she’s always She’s wonderful. I love you. Jess and anyway, Rowan’s become guitar curious, so got him a little guitar, right? And when he first got it, and he was playing it. And of course, you know, you’re learning to play guitar. You know, it doesn’t sound great, but I’m just, you know, just my heart’s exploding just watching him do this, this thought occurred to me that he’s been watching me play,

wow, and

Speaker 1 6:04
my guitars will outlive me. And what I would like to provide is little framework, and I have no idea where we’re going to go discussion wise, I’m just here for the ride, okay, but when it comes to thinking about sustaining the rhythm. Sustainable rhythm is a big deal to me. When it comes to think about sustaining the rhythm of what a great, remarkable customer experience should be, you have to be grateful for the moment that you have with every single person. And when people stop becoming customers and actually become people that have come into your lives, you can kind of enter into that faster. Because the truth is, is Rowan, one day, will be playing my guitar long after I’m gone, but the songs and the things that I put in that guitar, his memory of me playing it, the sounds that have like sort of reverberated through his memory of me playing it. It’s all in there. Oh, it’s

Brandon Welch 6:58
physical, right? Literally, literally the sweat and tears, yeah, and then

Nate White 7:03
in the same breath, right now, to tie that back into the subject hand, is that, if you think about like when I say, You know what? Who’s the best waitress you ever had, you might not remember her name, right? But I was just having breakfast this morning with a group of friends, and we were at this place called The Big biscuit. Oh, and that’s big biscuit, yeah, yeah, big, big biscuit, yeah, yeah.

Brandon Welch 7:25
They got something going going right there. Yeah, they

Nate White 7:27
do. And there’s, there’s actually a couple in um, Overland Park area, which is the last time we had one. And this waitress, she was so remarkable, right? And we even said, Oh, remember that waitress? And she was so great, and she was kind of, you know, giving us a hard time in a fun way. And she made that more than just a food experiences. That’s what we’re talking about, is when you can take something that could be mundane and you make it meaningful,

Brandon Welch 7:51
love that. So you just, you just said a lot there, and you did it in the lens of music, retail and biscuits,

Nate White 8:00
which is, honestly my life, that’s, that’s your

Brandon Welch 8:03
love languages, yeah, guitar and biscuits. So there are probably some retailers and music retailers, maybe even listen to this podcast. And I think that’s an easy analogy to go from, you know, from selling a guitar to selling a lifelong heirloom, like we do that with jewelry. We do that with some of the higher end home products we sell. But really, that’s true. You just said the the experience that you give, you may not remember the name. You may not even remember the name of the store, like 2030, years now. But if it’s if you’re transferring confidence and transferring meaning and value in that experience that is a rare, rare, rare thing. And I think every consumer of today, whether they’re buying a plumber or whether they’re buying a new barbecue grill or whether they’re buying an engagement ring or whether they’re buying musical instrument, right? They’re starving for that. America, the world, is starving for that, that authenticity factor, yeah, and I know because I live it, and I’ve been inside your stores that you guys are doing that, and I think it starts with that belief that you just said, we aren’t selling guitars. We’re selling lifelong means of expressing people, if nothing else, we’re selling today’s, you know, gift of our presence in their life, right? Yeah,

Nate White 9:18
and I’ll give you something else too, if you’re watching this, and whatever is you sell fishing poles, guns, you know, tennis balls, whatever. Yeah, that’d be a great store. Fishing pole into tennis balls. Anyway, whatever you’re selling, if your people, your team, the folks that are interacting with, the people that come walking through the door, calling on the phone, chatting online, if they don’t have a greater sense of purpose attached to what they’re doing, you know, this whole idea of BE, DO have, yeah. Have you heard of that? You know, yeah. So a lot of people think, well, if I, you know, have this, if I have this degree, then I’ll do this job, and then I’ll be somebody wrong. That’s, that’s op. Said, you have to decide who it is you are, right? Whatever you do flows out of that disbelief, yeah, value, yeah, yeah. Are you? Are you somebody that’s remarkable? Are you important? You have to decide who you are, okay, and you have to decide what I do, regardless of what that is, has meaning to it. And then you will have the fruits of that decision, that belief, and the actions that reinforce that belief. And so when it comes to people walking in your store, calling on the phone, if you’re going to have sustainable rhythm of an excellent experience, of a remarkable experience, that people are going to talk about, and people go, Wow, that was great, because we’ve all had that you didn’t matter where it is. Could be at a restaurant, could be at a church, could be at a tire store, when you meet somebody that’s really great, and they turn it on, and you felt like it was real, you walk away and you tell somebody. And what’s really funny is that, especially when it’s something that’s mundane, or just every day, like a new set of tires or tennis balls, fishing poles and guns, is that what I said? Anyway, anyone, any one of those. The expectation is low. The expectation is low because we are conditioned to get in and get out, which, by the way, is the biggest downfall of online buying, because it’s literally conditioning us, conditioning us to just buy it now and go through the motions as quick as you can to get what it is you want. I see you got some

Brandon Welch 11:19
is this isn’t that priming the opportunity, though, for small business retail, brick and mortar in home services to be the saving, oh yeah, Grace, because it’s creating a starvation like it’s drying people out, like just that. I think we, I think we saw the peak of it, and when we were stuck at home and couldn’t do the retail experience, and you did see, after people were let out of their prison walls, essentially, that you saw the rush back to anything experience based, restaurant, space stations. I think retailers who understood that that was their opportunity thrived, and I think you guys are in that category, yeah, but the retailers that went okay, well, now we’re allowed to sell again, the ones that didn’t offer anything more are losing and they’re dying. They’ve died. You’re seeing them die, literally. There’s a book on this shelf called good company, written by wonderful guy, Tim miles, and he talks about share worthy service. And he goes, customer experiences don’t become share worthy when they’re good or average, they come become share worthy when they’re noticeably awful or noticeably Great. Yeah, and there’s a bar of expectation, and if you land anywhere within a 10% margin of expectation, it probably won’t leave your experience. But if it exceeds that, you know marginal difference above expected home runs. It’s remarkable

Nate White 12:40
Seth Godin Purple Cow,

Brandon Welch 12:42
exactly. And he’s a Seth Godin guy, and so am I, and so I think everybody knows that as a concept. How is it that you and your team are doing that in practicality? Because you just, you just said the big thing, and I will just, we talk a lot about vision, values and vows for companies, the companies that are destined to grow, without a doubt, they will grow no matter what is the ones that have strong vision, strong values, strong values for the customers, and that is the B they’ve decided who they’re going to be, what’s different inside your organization that allows your team members to show up being something Different, versus just trying to train them. And we talk about training in a second, but yeah, what is that? Well,

Nate White 13:26
so you said two things there. You said one was like, you know, what are some of the tangible things that you do? And then the second thing you said was, what’s different? And I to address the second part just very quickly that the core values of the company are really important. And we can circle back to that, but I want to answer that first question. What’s some of the tangible things? So I’ll tell you, and also, like, I realize there may be competitors, you know, of the company I work for, listening this right quick, and I have no fear of getting this out. And I’ll tell you why, because most people won’t do this, because when it comes to atmosphere, when it comes to well, when it comes to culture, the danger is no actually, it’s not a danger. It’s the high cost. The high cost is that as a leader, if you don’t submit to culture, into the atmosphere, and if you don’t claim ownership of like, whatever’s happening here is what’s going to happen out here, right? And if you don’t, you know good and bad, right, right? If you’re relying on how I feel and circumstances or what happens to you. Know, happiness comes from what happens to you. Joy is a choice. Oh, man, okay, and if you don’t actually willfully decide to do this, you won’t do it. You won’t do it. It’s not sustainable. And you’re like, Well, how do you know that Nate well, because I’ve had the human. Position for a hot minute. All right? It’s just the truth, right? It’s like, it’s like, working out, you know what I mean, or anything like that. Like, I’m, I’m not the guy to seek, you know, physical maintenance advice from, right? But I do know, like, if you’re going to do it, you got to commit to it, and you got to have the discipline to do it’s the same thing. How you doing things. I do everything right, right? So first thing, I’ll give you some tangibles. So just a few that’ll help your business. Because somebody’s listening this right now and they need something, because they’re going to tune off here in a second, because they’re just, we’re just talking, right? I think they’re leaning in. They’re leaning in. Okay, that’s right. Well, thanks to you. A nubby guy, all right, yeah,

Brandon Welch 15:36
this is you, yeah, but, but, give, give us. Okay, honest.

Nate White 15:38
So here’s one, every single person that walks through your door, they got to get greeted, and they have to have a real greeting. It can’t be welcome in Yeah, it can’t be How we doing today. Can I help you find anything? No, just looking, you know, it can’t be that. It has to be a genuine, heartfelt, Hey, how’s it going? Guys? You know you have to look them in the eyes. You know what that feels like. And it doesn’t have to be norm from cheers every time, but sometimes it has to be, yeah. So like yesterday, we had a guy come walking in the door that works here. Now that, by the way, quick side point, everybody, everybody, people that work there. Do you know why? Because as soon as we stop greeting the people that work the company in the same way that we greet the people that are customers, we’ve instantly subconsciously differentiated your customers and your people that work. Wow, huge mistake. Just,

Brandon Welch 16:31
just quick thing. I’m thinking about my guys who go in and they they meet with their sales teams in the morning that go out to people’s homes. What’s, what’s the impact of that owner doing that for their people just walking in the door, say to a to a electrician company, and he’s he’s got 30 minutes with his team before they go get their trucks and go out like you’re talking about a retail experience. But also, if that owner is greeting his guys and gals with that enthusiasm, that joy, that decided, um, hospitality, how does that play?

Nate White 17:02
Well, it’s back to what I said earlier. I mean, if I’ll say it this way, so I’ve got some things, and we can discuss this either now or some other date, but I’ve got some what I would call sort of Givens about what atmosphere is. And very quickly, atmosphere is a garden. You have to tend it, okay? And if you don’t, it will be overrun. There’s no two ways about it. And it will be overrun by whatever occurs naturally, which is not always good, yeah. And so to that end, as an owner of a business who goes out to see, you know, his team, or whatever, as soon as you decide intentionally, I am going to steward this atmosphere, because the atmosphere is the intangible framework that holds all the relationships that I have an influence over. And if I’m intentional with that, then I will actually reap the fruit of that intentionality, which ultimately comes into play of like, little things, like, well, big things and little things, little things, like, people put a little extra effort in there, because they know my boss cares, my leader cares also, people start to see themselves in a different light. Because, Gosh, this guy took the time to come greet me this morning, and I really felt like it was genuine, which, by the way, backing up just two steps here, whether you’re greeting someone walking to the door that’s on your team or a customer, that greeting, you’re like, Well, how do I summons up authenticity? Because not everybody is able to tap into the verbal language in a way where they can convey what is really in the heart, right? I recognize that, right? Some people are not everybody’s innate Well, you know, some people are soft talkers, right? Yeah, you’ve had a couple on the podcast here and there, right? And that’s not a bad thing. We’re just wired up different. That’s okay. So what do you do? Well, you got to find a way to let that person know that is in your authentic there’s a great book called The Five Love Languages. You know, who wrote that? Do you remember? Is it Harper, that sounds pretty good. We can go with that. Five Love Languages. Look, yeah. Anyway.

Brandon Welch 19:09
Gary Harper, if, if I was right, Nate’s gonna leave that in here. Nate the camera guy, he’s

Nate White 19:13
gonna leave Gotcha? Okay, we

Brandon Welch 19:14
got two Nates here, yeah, Nate the camera guy, and Nate the talking guitar guy, okay. Gary Chapman. There you go, Harper. Gary Chapman, yeah,

Nate White 19:23
if you know him close enough, you call him Harper, yeah. Anyway,

Brandon Welch 19:25
his best friends, Harper,

Nate White 19:29
so you got to find a way to let people know that you care, that I work with wonderful people that are wired up, very different than me, and I know when they have intentionally reached out to me, just, Hey, man, how you doing today? What’s going on your life? You know, tell me what’s going on, and we just, they just take the time just to listen. You know, I’ll give you one more nugget. Is that okay? Lay it on us. So greet every single person. If you’re not doing daily huddles, stop that. You gotta I keep looking. Is this my camera? Camera right here. That’s your camera. Okay. Hello, people. If you’re not doing daily huddles, you got to start doing daily huddles. And you need to start every single daily huddle with, tell me something good that is so powerful. Tell me something good is going to change your life. Now, at first, you will be pulling teeth and trying to excavate iron ore from the depths of the earth, because people will be struggling. Or you’re going to have an Eeyore, yeah, yeah, sure. Or you’re going to have people that are, I don’t know, man, just woke up this morning. Has some pretty good toast, you know? It’ll, it’ll, it’ll be stuff that’s like that. And then you have some people that are overshare, right? But tell me something good is about two things. Number one, it’s about getting your team to audibly express gratitude. Their ears hear their voice express gratitude. Gratitude and pridefulness cannot coexist, and the reason we don’t show our customers and we don’t show the people that we work with true appreciation is because we’re not grateful for where we are and for what we’re doing. And the reason we’re not grateful for where we are and what we’re doing is that we feel entitled to be somewhere else. And the reason we feel entitled to be somewhere else is deep down inside there’s some kind of pride issue. Yeah,

Brandon Welch 21:18
amen. Because what’s the thing you said gratitude and pride cannot coexist. Gratitude and pride cannot coexist.

Nate White 21:27
Yeah, well, I don’t know about that. Nate, I’m really proud of my company. We use that word proud in a way where we we find a sense of purpose, honor, dedication and upholding. You know, the tradition of something that’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is arrogance. The

Brandon Welch 21:42
healthy side of proud is gratitude. Yeah,

Nate White 21:44
I’m grateful. You know, like, for example, you know you should be and are very proud of this company and the wonderful people that you get to work with, right? Why wouldn’t you be same way? I’m proud of the company that I’m in, right? Yes, but I also know that if I walk back to the bathroom, and that bathroom needs to be addressed. I’m going to address it, you know,

Brandon Welch 22:07
because pride left the building when you started with, yeah, gratitude for the day.

Nate White 22:10
And actually, I’m going to clean it well, because I am proud of the company. You know what? I mean, absolutely, yeah, it’s, it’s so and I’m not gonna make, you know, a big deal about I might talk about it on a podcast, yeah, but I’m not gonna make a big deal about it. Yeah, yeah.

Brandon Welch 22:24
Quick side note that is alive in your company. At, fun fact, I literally used to be the guy that cleaned the bathrooms inside Nate’s company. That was my first job, and in my life outside,

Nate White 22:35
and there might be something to clean in the bathroom. Yes, you know, I mean, like, maybe, like, if you want to do well in life, you should clean the bathroom at paleon MUSIC Well, Springfield, Missouri,

Brandon Welch 22:43
the the one of the owners of the company, I came in one day and he was doing my job. It was Dan, and I was like, and I got like, Thank you, but I got it. And he like, Nope, I saw it and needed to be done, and I’m doing it. There you go. So and, and that kind of thing. What are we talking about here? We’re talking about values. We’re talking about a company that’s decided to be something more than a peddler of widgets or even services. And you guys have a you guys have one of the the easiest Joy services to tap into, because you’re giving the gift of music. Yeah, but if they don’t, if they don’t, if your people don’t remember that, and I think the reason some of your competitors, large ones, have unfortunately gone out of business, and that’s not good news, right? That’s bad news for the industry, they forgot that, right? They they became retailers, yeah, instead of revolutionaries in their customers lives, right? Yeah, you know,

Nate White 23:40
I’ll give you a quick intangible thing that has helped me. You know, the intangibles I find for my life are good for realignment of my you know, my values, the vision and the vows, the tangibles are good for the day to day, short term, right? And I was cleaning the bathroom, that bathroom, same one, yep, let it go. And I was upset that day. This has been a few years ago, and I remember I even like, you know how you have conversations with yourself sometimes, and sometimes you’re thinking so loud in your head, sometimes it actually comes out of your mouth, right? And I’m like, I got a college degree. Why am I clean this? But you know that was happening, right? And I, I’ll say this, and this might unnerve a few of you, but that’s okay. You’ll, you’ll get over it. The Holy Spirit was like to be a great leader. You need to be a seer, the centurion and a servant. You gotta have a vision for the future, and you have to protect the people that are following you into that vision, and you have to be willing to serve them, even down to scrubbing the toilet. So true, right? Greatest leader of all time, wash feet. What he did?

Yes, he did so

tangibles greet every single person that comes walking through the door, even the people that work there also on the way out. Everybody. Gets two greetings. Everybody gets two greetings. Everybody gets two greetings. I said it three times so you can remember, everybody gets two greetings. Okay, that’s non negotiable. Why? Because they need to know you were grateful that you came. And they needed to know that you were grateful that they will return. Heck, yeah. Okay. Number two, when you answer the phone, you have to put a smile on your voice. You have to right? And here’s one that listen to Garth Brooks unanswered prayers, some of God’s greatest gifts. There’s that little line. Then you can hear him smile. You can Oh, you can hear it. If somebody can’t hear Garth Brooks smile. And you comment on this podcast, I’m gonna, I’m gonna leave a comment right underneath it, right there, and I’ll, I challenge you can hear him smile at thin people can hear you smile on the phone. Why is that important? Nate, well, I’ma tell you it’s important because a smile conveys confidence. When you smile that person, let’s say they’re calling, they’re upset. You’ve just taken them down a notch, right? Because when you make yourself smile, there’s a confidence there, right? Let’s say they’re they’re happy, or they’re curious about something they saw, like on our website, or maybe something they saw last time, whatever the case may be, when you have that smile in your voice, it just elevates your ability to serve them in a way, because you’re happy to do it,

Brandon Welch 26:17
you’re transferring light. Darkness is the absence of light. That’s all that it is. And when you shine light on darkness, it goes away, right? Yeah, transferring that joy.

Nate White 26:25
So here’s, here’s, here’s another nugget. I hesitate to give away these secret sauces, right? But here’s a nugget of sauce. Here. Is that possible? Did you not play in a band called sauce? Nugget we should have? Yeah. So as an owner, borrow a friend’s phone, call your business and see how they greet and then be honest with that, and if they don’t greet you, well, that’s your fault. Receive that and do something that’s your fault. Yeah, yeah. And so then what you need to do is, you need to talk about it more, right? And then the other thing is, if you’re not, if you’re not modeling in that this last, as I’ll say about it, you have to model that

Brandon Welch 27:03
similarly. If you find it done, if you’re like, Oh, if you’re surprised, or you’re, you know, pleasantly validated that, oh yeah, my people are doing that, walk in and make a spectacle of it. Celebration is just as, Oh yeah, you know, powerful as criticism in that environment. Yep.

Nate White 27:19
I actually, I do this. I will call the stores from time to time and just see, and if I get a great greeting, I’ll like, what a great greeting that was. All you do that every time you know I mean. And I do that. And if somebody that I work with on my teams is watching this, they’ll know that is true, because I do that, because also know how hard it is, because sometimes you may have 50 things going on, and 49 of them might be wrong, you know what I mean. And then here comes the phone. You’re answering it, and be really easy to be like, my business. What do you want? Right? And then, you know, or just, or even, can I put you on hold real quick, you know? And even if you have to do that, even if it truly, it’s a situation where you just swamped, you can still put a smile on your voice.

Brandon Welch 27:58
Love that it’s a it’s a choice. It literally Joy’s a choice, a choice. Yeah, and you can there’s, there’s days you’re gonna have to fake it. I think those are the days you go back to, who do you believe you are,

Nate White 28:10
100% and in fact, so I like to use a lot of movie analogy comparisons. Do you remember that movie signs? Mel Gibson, you know, with the it was the aliens, okay, yeah, okay,

Brandon Welch 28:26
we’ve pretend we’ve all seen it,

Nate White 28:28
yeah, yeah. Well, come to find out, it’s an alien invasion, all right? And it’s an interesting character, because Mel Gibson’s character is a former priest who’s walked away from the faith due to a tragedy, right? And it’s a really great it’s a really great watch, because there’s a lot of things that happen in that and in this moment where the house is being overrun by aliens, and basically they’re all going to die, like, I mean, it’s like worst case scenario. It’s him and his family’s young children. And what he does is, is he said he starts telling each one of them, hey, when you were born. He talks about how wonderful and joyful their beginning is metaphorically at the time where maybe their end is coming, they end up making it out, and it ends up being happy ending, very triumphant. And in that moment, he chooses to change the atmosphere, or at least, even though it’s horrible situation happening, he is still unwilling to hand over ownership of it to this imminent threat, and he is fighting for it. And see, that’s what to me, relentless optimism is it’s like when you’re basically like, I am unwilling to hand over the atmosphere of my interior or my exterior to whatever pervasive thought is saying this is what it has to be, right? I’m just unwilling to do that? Yeah,

Brandon Welch 29:42
wow. That’s huge. And that we tend to think of changing atmosphere or behavior as, like, do this mechanical thing. No, you’re going to say this. You’re going to read this script, or you’re going to do this when somebody walks in and it’s a checklist that might be a safety net, that might be the whole we fall to the level. Of our systems rather than rise to level of our goals. Yeah, but the way in which you do it, I think, is so tied to who you believe you are when you walk in. I’m so glad you said that. So you’ve talked to us about greetings, smile while you talk. I know there’s more nuggets in there. Oh, man,

Nate White 30:17
yeah, I’m actually sitting here deliberating how good of a sauce nugget do I want to give you? Know what I mean? Because I got sitar

Brandon Welch 30:24
center ain’t listening. You wouldn’t remember that. It wouldn’t help them if they did. All right, all

Nate White 30:28
right, okay, so here is, this is probably, there’s a lot to unpack here, and this, this may be the sauciest of the nuggets, but are you a good resource for your target customer? Well, that doesn’t sound like a nugget. Well, my friend, keep listening. So what does it mean to be a resource for your target customer? Well, first of all, if you’re really paying attention to that question, if you don’t know who your target customer is, you’re going to waste a lot of energy becoming a resource for someone you don’t know. Okay, so you need to know who your target customer is, which means you need to pay attention, which means you need to be honest with yourself. You need to think about, what is it that I sell? Who buys it in the most quantities at the most frequency, right? And then once you figure that out, then you have to look at yourself as a business owner, as a business leader, as a team member of that business, and you have to ask yourself, am I the kind of person that our target customer will go to for advice, for counsel, for encouragement, for not just goods and services, but for the peripheral framework which ultimately holds up, supports and is the integrity beneath a trusting relationship. Yeah, see what happens is, is sales. People rush to make the sale without making the relationship, and you get neither when you actually take time to invest in the relationship. Well, what do you mean by that? Nate, well, see, here’s the thing. Is that when you know that you’re a great resource for your target customer, at the beginning of that relationship, you’re just getting to know a person, and as you’re getting to know them, if, lo and behold, that person fits the criteria of your target customer, when you start talking about the things that make you a great resource for that target customer. You’ll see their ears perk up, and it won’t be any trouble to talk about, because guess what? You’re passionate about it. Here’s the thing about music retail, I play guitar. I’ve been playing guitar for 32 years. I love it. Nobody has to tell me, Hey, should go play guitar, right? Sometimes there’s a time pain point, right? Because it’s just 48 years old. Got two kids happily married, you know, I got a business that’s dependent on me. I got things happening, right, yeah? But the reality of it is, is that tonight, we’re doing this podcast right now, yeah, but tonight I will be laying in my bed, I’ll have my soft pants on, okay? And I’ll be laying in my bed, and I will be looking at my phone, at guitars, or listening to Rick beato or Tom Bucha or whoever. You know why? Because I love it

Brandon Welch 33:04
in your most natural state,

Nate White 33:05
with soft pants. Yeah, I love it, right? And that’s the thing, is that a lot of times, you know, I’ll tell people this all the time, like, Man, how come I don’t sell as much as this person over here? And I’ll say, well, I’ll be honest with you, you don’t love what your target customer loves to the degree that they love it, right? You are not passionately into it.

Brandon Welch 33:29
Do you think that can be trained?

Nate White 33:32
I To a degree just like this, I think you can teach somebody music. I think you I think you could teach somebody feel, I really do, and I know that for musicians out there, like, that was a hot take that just went over the bow, yeah? Because a lot of people like, No, you cannot.

Brandon Welch 33:47
I believe you can.

Nate White 33:49
I believe you can. And here’s why, I’ll say that, because music is a language, and you can teach dialect, yeah, the issue is whether or not the person speaking the language. Wants to take the time to invest in the nuance of dialect. Went to Brazil. Once Palin Music Center will, as you know, profitability will allow occasionally, we’ll put together teams to go to Brazil to help build churches, which is an amazing thing, right? So actually, went with Eric and a few other folks to Brazil. We had some adventures. It was great. Built a church. And what I when I noticed, and I walked away with, among lots of other things that were life changing, was that when in Brazil, they speak Portuguese, and the only Portuguese that I remember is bonje Bone notch, which is good morning, good night. And segundo city, Horace negrisia, which means Sunday night at 7pm at the church. Oh, right. And if you speak Portuguese, and I didn’t say it, right, it’s been a few years, all right. Anyway, all that to say this is that the the group, which was all well meaning people that were there for the same vision, they got the purpose. They knew the directive, they knew what the mission was, and happy to do it. Not everybody took time to invest in the nuance of the dialect, and that was an interesting thing, because there is a willful entering in, just like there’s a willful entering into the moment, like right now, this moment feels different than 17 moments ago, when we were just talking about doing this, because there’s an intentionality in this atmosphere, right? And so what happens is to be a great resource for your target customer, and this will change your life. This is why I like I before I said this, I was like, I’m kind of nervous to get this one out, but I’m just going to do it, because, honestly, most of you won’t do it. I love you, but you won’t do it. And the reason you won’t do it is because it’s true. Well, it requires vulnerability,

and you have to practice it.

Speaker 1 35:45
Nobody’s naturally good at this. You have moments, but nobody, in terms of sustainable rhythm, is naturally good at this. You got to practice it. What do I mean when you go through the line at a big box retailer to buy, you know your Febreze and flip flops, right? Tennis balls, what was it? Fishing poles, yeah, yeah. When you go through the line to do that, you need to make that a meaningful moment and not a mundane moment. You need to do that if you’re serious about being a resource for your target customer. Because to be a true resource for your target customer requires a lifestyle, dedication to where you’re living. It all the time. Your target customer, especially if you sell luxury items, pain point is time, and also people who have a high propensity to buy really nice things also have a high degree of relationships in their life that aren’t real. Yeah, they’re

Brandon Welch 36:44
filling a hole. Yeah, and so often. I mean, that’s not, that’s not a band aid or a blanket statement. I should say, Well, how

Nate White 36:50
about, how about this? You’re a successful guy,

Brandon Welch 36:52
right? Debatable, but I’m on to me. I

Nate White 36:56
tell it to me, you’re a successful guy, and that’s and for this, this is good enough a wonderful

Brandon Welch 36:59
team and a beautiful family, right? And blessed with many friends, right? And

Nate White 37:03
so what happens is, though, is anytime you achieve any modicum of success, there begin to be relationships in your life where you start to get and especially the older you get, you start to realize, you know, they actually want to be around me for what I can do for them, or for what I have, and not necessarily for who I am. And you start to different happen. I’ve seen that happen 100% and I would even argue that it happens a lot, not because there’s just so many fake people out there in the world, which there are a lot of people that struggle with knowing who they are. So how could they ever be who they are for someone else, right? But there’s also just a lot of people that are out of practice or choose not to practice, being the kind of person that’s constantly adding, constantly giving, constantly making the atmosphere better. Imagine if everybody’s sort of doing this. Imagine if, if everybody, no matter where you go, whether it’s in the store, even before you walk in the door, when you come home, if you decompress yourself when that you’re telling me, I gotta be perfect. No, I’m just saying you gotta be intentional.

Brandon Welch 38:04
It would be a cure for insecurity. It would cure the world of insecurity and emptiness. Yeah, because he would be, he would be selling for breeze and flip flops. You have an opportunity to take that person’s money and let them go about their way, or you have an opportunity to leave them better than you found them. And that could be as simple as a compliment that a compliment, that could be as simple as I connection, that could be as simple as a smile, that could be as simple as a I have some friends that do this. Hey, I’m gonna be praying later at lunch or something. I can pray for you today. Yeah, that’s great. And I had somebody at price cutter do that to me one time, and I was in one of those moments. I was like, get out of this freaking grocery store. And I was like, they did that. I was like, it changed my day. It changed how I went home and greeted my kids. And so you can disrupt somebody’s mundane stress or life and just point them towards the light.

Nate White 38:52
Yeah, it’s funny you say that Eric, Eric matzat, president of paleon music center, has this thing he says all the time. He says, See people in their best possible light, and a beautiful thing it is. And that sounds like you’re watching this now, and like enough with the hippie stuff. That’s not why I watched Frank and Maven, right?

Brandon Welch 39:10
You know, I believe in our I believe our listeners are, are are finding the gold here.

Nate White 39:16
I really do wonderful. Well, that’s great when you see people in their best possible light, especially when they’re not operating in it, or they’re willfully not operating in it. What happens is, is that you can actually, well, there’s another level of encouragement. I feel like I’m all over the place, but to tie it back around to being a great resource for your target customer, part of that deal is you really need to see that person. You need to listen to them, and you need to take time to formulate a relationship. Teach your team that the relationship and the longevity of that relationship is more important than the instant sale. And the other thing is, is you cannot be a great resource for your target customer if you are not good at stewarding that relationship. What does that mean? You. Well, if I follow up with you, hey, Brandon. Man, it was good. See you every day at the store. How’s it going? Man, great. Well, man, I got some cool guitars in here. Love to see you come in here and, you know, pick one of these out. You know, that’s not a relationship.

Brandon Welch 40:11
Yeah? That’s true, exactly. That’s content, yeah, management, however,

Nate White 40:16
if I follow up with you, and I was like, Hey, I saw this every day, and it’s just Rick beato interview, and I was thinking about what you said, and saw this, thought of you, yes, and you got to watch this at, you know, 11 minutes and 16 seconds, because there’s, there’s a really cool moment. Would love to know what you think. Hope you’re having a great day. Holler at me next time, right? That’s real, right? And that actually, we are now beginning this relationship based on this mutual thing that we both like, which your target customer, in order to be a great resource for them, you gotta like the same stuff. So your question was, can you train that? Absolutely you can train that. It’s the deciding factor is, does that person have the willingness to enter into the nuance of it? If they don’t, then no, you cannot. And then

Brandon Welch 41:00
that that really becomes a matter of recruiting people who are most likely to share those values with you. Which leads back to the very first thing is, who have you decided to be, yeah, be, do have, I love that. We may, we may, name, name the episode. BE, DO have BE, DO have, yeah, love it. So let me try to land this plane a little bit, because we’re talking about mundane experiences. And you might think, oh, music store, that’s easy to do all this stuff in, honestly, any retail environment is tough, because you’re typically working with entry level team members, at least at some level. You know, it could be somebody’s first job, theoretically, right to work in a music store. You’re working long hours, it’s a lot of the same things, day in, day out, and so music, retail wallet has this joy product attached to it. Even at the most joyous product, like jewelry or copied related stuff, you can fall into this mundane thing, but it’s so much easier for service companies that are selling things that, frankly, aren’t luxury to fall into this or I’m thinking legal offices or medical offices, but the thing, the connecting thing, is the same. And you told us, when you greet somebody warmly, warm things will happen in your environment. When you talk to them on the phone with a smile, you’re shining light on their darkness, and you were leaving them better than you found them. You talked about being a resource for your customers, and if that’s the thing, you’ve decided to be as someone who greets somebody warmly. These are do things, but you’ve decided to be that kind of person that that is. You’re making lives better, not making sales better, yeah, and

Nate White 42:38
you have to remember also, well, at least. And I know you probably believe this too, I don’t think you can do anything that doesn’t first stem from an interior belief, you know, because action ultimately, like what you believe, is ultimately demonstrated in your actions. Like someone says, Man, I’m really sorry. I, you know, didn’t come to work yesterday on time. I’ll come tomorrow on time, and they’re late again. It’s like, you know what you said yesterday. You didn’t believe that because your actions, you know, you know I’m saying and I get external things happen, this, that, and the other, but your actions flow out of what you truly believe.

Brandon Welch 43:13
I saw this quote yesterday. The way you see people is the way you’ll treat them, and the way you treat them is what they’ll become. They’ll become an average customer or repeat customer, or a deterrent for your business, right? So take this out to the streets. This is working in live form. It is growing a company in the industry that says you’re not allowed to grow right now. It is earning buy in from a public who is becoming prone to clicking to buy instead of driving in to buy. You guys are creating amazing experiences with your customers, whether they came in to buy, you know, reads for their clarinet or guitar strings or maybe the day they buy that brand new instrument. And you’re doing it because of who you believe you are, what you believe your mission is to do and how good it feels. I think once you’ve done that, it just feels better to do that. It costs nothing more.

Nate White 44:09
Yeah, I mean, it’s funny is that you, when you said that, it costs nothing more. I mean, I I think when you have a day filled with intention, you will sleep good that night. You know, because it drain. There’s a there’s a spiritual and mental taxation that happens on that. But like anything else, I mean, the more you do that, the more you practice it, and the more you lift that weight, the stronger you get

Brandon Welch 44:31
in it. It’s true. So true. So you don’t know that we were gonna do this, okay, but maybe it’s a symbol of pouring goodness on people. We do have a guitar. We use it to write, you know, scratchy old jingles on but you’re gonna make it, I know, turn into a work of magic. Would you play a little something before we close out today? Yeah. All right. Would you Okay? All right. All right. All right. Nate the camera guy is now, uh, handing Nate the guitar guy, ah,

Nate White 45:06
by the way, in case somebody’s watching. And then he already had a pick. And every pair of blue jeans is this tiny little pocket. The good Lord put that there to hold picks. That’s right, if you don’t have a pick on you. I mean, this is a great example. You never know. Look at that. It’s in tune. What we got here, some little Okay, oh, okay, all right, just anything, or anything particular,

Brandon Welch 45:30
whatever, whatever you Feel, sets The Moon. You

Nate White 47:19
music.

Brandon Welch 47:35
Wow, that is why Mr. White has millions of views. I highly, highly encourage you, if you’re not a musician, doesn’t matter, go over, do yourself a favor and subscribe to chords and coffee on the Palin music center channel. Link is right below. Thank you so much for bringing your joy the light that you’re shining on your company, shining it on the other companies. Listening to this. Guys go put this in place. Give people warm greetings, have huddles. Start your days with something good. The theme of this episode is really joy. Decide to choose that joy, and you as the leader, you’re shining it on your people. They’re going to shine it on their people, and that’s going to shine a world of light on the thing you’re trying to build. Thank you for joining. We’ll be back here every Monday, answering your real life marketing questions, because marketers who can’t teach you why

Nate White 48:24
are just a fancy lie.

Brandon Welch 48:27
Have a great week.