attitude

173: Doug Sandler: I had no system and that’s the problem

Intro: Welcome to the Fast Leader Podcast, where we explore convenient yet effective shortcuts that will help you get ahead and move forward faster by becoming a better leader. And now here’s your host, customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach.

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Jim Rembach:   Okay, Fast Leader legion, today I’m excited because I get the opportunity to really have a good discussion about something that’s kind of been bothering me for a long time about being nice but not too nice. Doug Sandler grew up in Baltimore, Maryland with his older brother David. His parents split when he was two years old but Doug remembers growing up and loving life as a little kid even though they had no money they laughed and enjoyed life. His mom has been a huge inspiration in his life. Although he was not personally close to his dad he was a strong influence in his business life. His father was cut short in his mid-60s and he still follows that advice that he thinks his dad would be providing even to this day. 

Doug has always had a love for the service aspect of any job from food service in college to the mortgage business when he went out college real, estate, DJ, podcaster, author, blogger and speaker. Doug Sandler is an entrepreneur and an industry leader. His book, Nice Guys Finished First, is a number one ranked Amazon bestseller and has a podcast host of the Nice Guys on Business. Doug has interviewed Gary Vaynerchuk, Arianna Huffington from HuffPost, Dan Harris from Good Morning America, Ron Klain Wine House Chief of Staff and dozens of celebrities. Doug is a nationally recognized speaker, writer and founder of TurnKey Podcast Company providing podcast production, editing and launch services. The legacy Doug wants to leave behind is that nice guys finish first. 

He currently lives in the Washington DC area with his wife Danielle and two kids Adam and Rachel. Doug Sandler are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Doug Sandler:   Oh, yeah, let’s do it hump day is here. Come on Jim, let’s do it.

Jim Rembach:   I’m glad you’re here. 

Doug Sandler:   I’ve never heard a 1,500 word bio read in 32 seconds, so nicely done.

Jim Rembach:   I appreciate that. Now what people don’t know is I probably messed it up three or four times and I’m editing it so you hear it clean.

Doug Sandler:   Those of you in Jim’s community that are listening to this at one and a half or two X speed, slow it down.

Jim Rembach:   I’ll tell you we’re going to have a good time today. Now, I’ve given my Legion a little bit about you but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better.

Doug Sandler:   I love the podcasting space. This new media space has been great after reinventing my career probably a handful of years ago I discovered this space and fall in love with it and there’s no better way to make money than from your pajamas. So, I do love it for that reason. 

Jim Rembach:   That’s a really interesting point. You and I had the opportunity to talk off mic and we talked about the prior life and how you kind of—I think many of us we should be more aware and mindful and kind of follow the money. A lot of my listeners are actually within organizations and sometimes they have to follow the money for others. But even from an individual perspective and the whole “nice guys” concept for me. When and when you start thinking about—oh! gosh, being too nice and that tipping point to where you become someone who gets walked on. I’ve always kind of struggled with that like how much is too much nice? 

Doug Sandler:   Yeah, Can I comment on something that you said just a moment ago first and then I’ll get into how much nice is too much nice. What you said was, a lot of people follow the money and I do agree with that people do follow. Even when they work for organizations they follow other people’s money, I guess, but what I would say is step back because you do have the right when you are working for another organization to follow still what you love. Follow what you love follow the thing that you’re passionate about and that doesn’t mean that you have to be your own person and be an entrepreneur and take all the risk. You can still have a wonderful life working for someone else within their organization. Certainly I’m not conflicting with what you’re saying but I wanted to add a yes and you can still follow what you love to do even when you work for someone else. There’s plenty of people that do that whether it’s an architecture engineer or professionalism or whatever it is that they’re doing.

Jim Rembach:   Yeah, I’m glad that you added that. As a matter of fact Laurie Bocklund, on the last episode, actually just talked about that yes and that she learned in her improv class.

Doug Sandler:   Oh, yeah, it’s the greatest. And I do feel like instead of saying but the yes end is an easy way to go. I never took improv but a lot of my friends have been through the comedy route so for me it’s very interesting to hear the yes and—and it does make you feel a little bit better when you hear, yeah and let me add this instead of, but, but, and the buts always stopped me dead in my tracks.

Jim Rembach:   Well, that’s an interesting point. Okay, so, we’re talking about nice and too nice but I would dare to say if you are nice you’re definitely using the yes end instead of but.

Doug Sandler:   Yeah, I agree. I agree. I think that now it becomes my habit not the yes end because I don’t know why those words even came in my head, I don’t think I’ve used those word for weeks or months the yes end. But let me answer the other question which is really cool, I think that as we discuss Nice Guys Finish First, it wasn’t just a book that I wrote but it’d the anti-nice guys finish last mentality. It really is you can be a nice guy you can be vulnerable you can be empathetic and show gratitude and do all of those things that I would consider being nice without being a doormat. It doesn’t mean that you’re a pushover at all it means you understand even more firmly the ground and you’re the security of the ground that you’re standing on allowing yourself to be vulnerable but still be a leader still be strong and not be stepped on.

Jim Rembach:   Well, that’s really interesting. As you were talking I started thinking and the word that popped in my head was values. And talking about that firm ground and knowing where you need to stand and that values component because I know for me I feel like I am a nice guy but then I’ve also let certain environments change my demeanor so it wasn’t so nice because I kind of lost sight of what my values were and got caught up in the moments. And of course, as I got older I could reflect and be able to identify those but when I was in it I didn’t necessarily do it all that well. So, how can somebody make sure that they’re always grounded well?

Doug Sandler:   I think you just have to understand where you are and who you are. As long as you’re comfortable with you scan those tapes that are going off in your head that tell you to once you’re down to stay down you’ve got to erase those tapes. You’ve got to put yourself in a position to win every time. You’ve got to put yourself in a position it’s not the circumstances that life is going to deliver to you, it’s how you handle the circumstances in your life that’s going to make all the difference in the world. We’re all dealing with the same exact scenarios we all are given the same the same opportunities out there. If you don’t think that you are you’re not putting yourself in a position. A lot of people say, well you’ve been lucky you’ve been able to reinvent your career and look how fast it’s going to—it hasn’t gone fast in my mind it’s so slow it feels like an overnight success in 30 years it takes you a long time to get there. Sure, I could have turned around based upon the circumstances that have happened in my life. My dad passing away in his mid-60s and I’m not having that leadership role in my life any longer. My mom becoming ill at some point everybody in my family around me having cancer and devastation I could look at that and say, my gosh there is so much, I don’t know if your show is explicit but if it’s not there’s so much poop in this world. And I look at that and say, with all this poop around there’s got to be a pony in here somewhere. And I think it’s just a matter of how we respond to the circumstances that are dealt in our life. Part of it is understanding that you can say no, be a nice guy, still say no say it gently say it with empathy say it with compassion and conviction and still have a friend on the other side of that no because they respect where you are because you’ve consistently taken action the same way throughout your entire life. And that really is what the true definition of nice to me. Consistent attitude, consistent behavior and it’s all positive.

Jim Rembach:   Thanks for sharing that. I also started thinking talking about that environmental component and proximity and all of those things that we have really to contend with in today’s world. I was talking to somebody the other day and I was like well I’ve actually worked out of a home office with the jobs that I’ve had in order to pass 17 years I’ve been in a home office and so sometimes the whole proximity component not being around certain people and having that negative thing constantly being on your shoulder and pressure to perform and all these things it’s kind of hard to slough those things off and really remain positive. So, when you start thinking about especially in the environment that we are today and thinking about the nice guys philosophy, values and all of that, do you think it’s declining or it’s actually growing?

Doug Sandler:   Well, I think because technology is so prevalent nowadays we see so much more than we have ever seen. So, I would love to be able to say I think negativity or positivity or whatever it is I can put a number on it and say it’s more prevalent now. I would tell you that the negativity is certainly exposed a lot more often than ever now because of social media. You have a problem with an organization or a leader within an organization you’re going to see it oftentimes directly on social media it give themselves a mental enema almost every day on social media and share all of the crap that’s going on in their life good bad or indifferent I’m not sure. From other perspective I think that the good in the world is shown a lot more now based upon the way that social media and the technology is out there. When a small act is rewarded or gratitude is shown through social media that’s good as well. I think that nowadays the lead-in towards being nice is definitely stronger now than it’s ever been because people realize how exposed their message and their brand is to the public. It’s so easy to get onto the computer and bash a company or say great things about them. So companies are very aware that it’s no longer Nike let’s say it’s that person in service that is dealing with Nike they now represent the entire Nike brand to that person that they’re dealing with. You better believe that there’s got to be some instructions given to that person in service and support how they have to handle or what they should be doing and how their customer service should be to that one customer.

Jim Rembach:   That’s interesting that you say that. For me I try to refrain—and you see it a lot in this industry that I work in which is customer care customer experience where a lot of the influencers, I won’t say a lot, some of the influencers in in the industry and experts in the industry, that word kind of has shaky ground in itself, like to videotape and then therefore on their own social platforms push out the bad experience they had at a restaurant or an airline or a retailer I try not to do that. And even when people ask me to contribute to certain things and they’re like, hey, tell us about your worst experience. And ‘m like, umm I kind of cringe when I want to do that because there’s just so much of that negativity. I would choose to rather focus in on the opportunity that exists. If we have all these things that are going on that are so negative and not customer centric and focused and what about the things that are and how do we actually get to that point? Let’s ditch the bad and focus on the good.

Doug Sandler:   Yeah, I mean I would like to say that I’ve never said a negative word on social media but that wouldn’t be the reality. Even as a nice guy I still have negativity that happens in my life and again I want to expose that to those that are close to me if they ask me my opinion on a particular product or I have an issue. On my show all the time and I have 600 episodes of the Nice Guys on business podcast under my belt. We’ve done plenty of negative, hey, listen this happened on this airline or this happened with this brand and we like to see how they respond. You give them an opportunity we invite people on our show all the time we invite people to respond to us on social media all the time. Some big brands tended or choose to ignore it and some big brands—I like to see where people sit because I’m in the world of customer service. For me I love putting somebody to the test and having them pass the test I’ll give them accolades if they pass the test. But I’ll also give them negative words if they don’t pass the test aren’t I important as a customer? Why? Why would my they want to ignore me I’m just a guy that has a product or service that has a—they’ve presented their product or service I have a problem with it, let’s hear what they have to say I’m curious I always curious.

Jim Rembach:   As you were talking I started thinking as far as the process by which you go and actually share that feedback. I remember there’s one time where I was sitting next to a guy on a flight he was just enraged the fact that he wasn’t able to be in first class and not only was he not in first class he was at the very, very back of the plane right against the bathroom, needless to say he couldn’t recline his seat and he had noise the entire trip, but I booked my flight late and it’s what I expected. He was just nasty and I’m like, do you think that would ever get you moved up?

Doug Sandler:   Yeah, there’s got to be that limit in your head that says, I think this is fair based upon the circumstance how much of this is me just wanting to run my mouth because I feel like I’m being anonymous in my bashing and how much of this is—if that CEO was sitting in front of me would I be okay having that conversation? The test that I run through is I’d love to have a conversation I’d love to invite that person on my show so that they could actually share why it happened this way and how we can try to resolve this from happening again. I don’t know I think it’s a very challenging thing I think that social media and technology makes it so easy for us to complain. On the other side of it, Jim, it makes it so easy for us to be able to say positive things too and we do much more of that than we do of bashing on our show. For me personally I do the same thing I love being able to share great news and great information as well.

Jim Rembach:   I think really that’s the key we just need to outdo what the norm is and the norm is that most people complain especially when it comes to customer service and customer experience than they do praise. Someone was talking to the other day about a letter that they received and I was actually kind of shocked and I’m like, people still do that they wrote a letter? I’m like, how old was that person? Sure enough it was someone who is of older age who was more familiar with the writing process. Every once in a while I think we do have to pull out the pen or even a pencil whatever it is and just write a note.

Doug Sandler:   We call it catching people in the act of doing something right. And if we can do that a little bit more often I think that you’ll have a lot—that’s all a part of that—if there’s a philosophy behind what nice is it’s showing gratitude and compassion and empathy and showing the gratitude instead of being so negative and being so critical of everyone I challenge you those that are in Jim’s community listening to this right now, when you stop listening to this episode at your office or whoever it is that you talk to next find something that they’re doing right and complement them. It’s so easy to do and it makes—it’s almost like it’s a selfish act because it makes you feel almost better than it makes them feel as well. I always want people to feel better about themselves after having had met me than before they got in my company. 

Jim Rembach:   I’m glad you said that. For me I think one of the best pieces of feedback that I received the other day was a video call that I had with somebody and when the call was over with and between their laughing they said I really appreciate because every time I talk to you helped me see things more clearly and it removed the worry that I have off my shoulder. To me that was the best feedback I think I could have ever received. 

Doug Sandler:   That’s great, yeah, that’s great. That shows that you’re in the right zone and when something negative happens to a nice guy like you or like me or like many of the tens of thousands millions of nice guys that are out there when the negative thing happens you just have to remember all of that positivity that’s come back and don’t let that negative action put you in a period of stinking thinking just stay your course and keep that nice attitude it’s all about consistency and that’s what people expect from you. 

Jim Rembach:   I believe it. Okay, so what we we’re talking about here we’re talking about the nice talking about really improving our emotional intelligence skills and when we want to do that as an organization but that that path a lot of times we need to have beacons of light and one of the things that we look at on the show as a beacon of light are quotes.  Is there a quote or two that you can share?

Doug Sandler:   Sure. I don’t remember I think it might have been Henry—I can’t remember who said this, whether you think you can or you can’t you’re right. I’m trying to remember who it was that said that. It’s so true all of the things that we want to accomplish in life whether it’s personal or professional if you think that you can—maybe it was Dale Carnegie, I can’t remember. If you put your head in the right position and you think that you can do it you absolutely will be able to do it. If you’re negative about it and you don’t think that you can do it the same task you’re not going to be able to accomplish it.

Jim Rembach:   As you were talking I started thinking about my—and I’ve mentioned him before, my oldest son,  is that he’s more motivated by fear and so a lot of the things that will come out of his mouth are negative and that’s what happens when you kind of got have that fear wiring. I keep telling him I’m like, whatever comes out of your mouth is what you are. He’s like, what do you mean? I said, well, if you talk about negative things you become negative. I said, if you talk about other people in a bad way you become that. Whatever comes out of— he says, that’s just dumb. And I said you’re reinforcing through your head whatever you’re going to end up feeling. And sooner or later maybe it’ll click for him.

Doug Sandler:   The quote was a Henry Ford quote, I quickly looked it up and it is a Henry Ford quote. 

Jim Rembach:   Good job, the beauty of the Internet at your fingertips. I am reading your bio and you talked about the pivoting you talked about all of those things. To get to where you are today I’m sure there was a lot of humps that you had to get over, can you share a story with us so that we can hopefully get over our own?

Doug Sandler:   Sure absolutely. There’s a couple that come to mind and one of them which was really the creation of many of the conscious thought of this nice guys system that I’ve created over the last 30 plus years but really instituted within the last handful of years. I spent the last 30 years as a as a DJ. This this family hired me sight unseen to fly down from D.C. down to New Orleans to do their son’s celebration. I can recall very vividly getting down there they paid my bill they carted me from everywhere my ego was so in the way right now because I felt like they really were engaging my services. Within 50 minutes of this four hour event I remember setting up and they took me to the venue and the guest was like 75 or so adults and fifty or so I would call them kids but they weren’t any kids I’ve ever seen before they were more like monsters. So within 15 minutes of this four hour event they had managed to suck the helium out of every balloon threw pea soup on the walls they were drinking at the bar at 13 years old they lit toilet paper on fire in the bathrooms and this is all within 1/16th of the of the event 15 minutes into this four hour event. And I did what I thought any self-respecting entertainer or DJ would do at the time I put my head down and focused on my job and I started playing music. And of course I was playing music basically to a rowdy room of kids that would not respond no matter what I did. 

What I discovered during that pivotal moment in my life was had I actually invested a little bit of time and energy and resources in this client I would have discovered that this was not only the 49th of 50 events of these kids had been to that year through there, let’s call it the bar mitzvah circuit, but no matter what I did they wouldn’t respond positively and my feeling was why were they doing this to me? So, I invested no time, energy, resources in this client they had gone to so many events they didn’t hire me because they thought I was a good entertainer they hired me because I was so far geographically out of their area that there was no way that I possibly would have ever heard of these kids. And so you completely take a shift and you say why didn’t I just ask some important questions? Well, somebody might say, well, why didn’t they tell you? They don’t know what to tell me and what not to tell me I was the professional. So that’s the invest component of my program and actually inspired them to take action come up with a plan A and plan B in case this particular—I knew enough to know that that potentially could happen but it didn’t arm them with any plans. And then I had actually executed a plan I mean I wanted to execute some of those kids but I had actually executed a plan I would have carried out these plans perfectly. For me everything that I did in my in my career so far I was just getting lucky until I created this invest, inspire, and execute system I’d never realized that there was actually a system I could have put in place for that.

Jim Rembach:   I love that story that’s pretty good. They actually have to go outside of their geographic region, right?

Doug Sandler:   Right. Totally right.

Jim Rembach:   Listening to that I kind of started thinking that, well, part of that is just wisdom. You have to go through the experience in order to know that you needed to come up with the system so that it didn’t happen again. 

Doug Sandler:   Well, yeah, or you’re a guy that’s smart enough as I wasn’t at the time, and yes probably things going on all around me right now to know that I should be plugging into a system I had no system and that’s the problem. There was no consistent effort there was no phone calls there was no returns of voicemails there was it was like I would just do whatever I thought I wanted to do in order to get the next job I was so focused on the transaction and not focused on the relationship that it wasn’t good.

Jim Rembach:   That kind of—is where a lot of organizations start in addition to that they continue to do that way and then they ultimately become one of those organizations that becomes affected because somebody disrupted them.

Doug Sandler:   When your services begin to be a commodity because all you’re doing is going through the same action that everybody else is going through and the proof in the pudding for that business, for my entertainment my DJ business, is that I outlasted. I was 30 years into the business I’ve just recently within the last handful of years reinvented myself and what’s so great about it is that the majority of my competition or guys in their 20s and 30s–I’m 15 or 20 years older than them and five to ten times more expensive than many of those guys that are in maybe three to ten times expensive more than many of those guys that are in my market. I know it is not coincidence it’s understanding what customer service means it’s understanding how to invest that time and energy and your client and resources in your client understanding how to execute a plan. It’s not about playing music at a four-hour event it’s the year and a half that leads up to that event where you can build a relationship that’s the critical component of that business. 

Jim Rembach:   That’s interesting you to say that, I started thinking about differentiation you can choose how to differentiate because the fact is you need to do that how you are going to go about doing that. If you differentiate by product that’s a risky proposition these days. When you start talking about the fact that anybody can come and knock you out anywhere around the globe to me the smart choice is to differentiate on the entire experience component.

Doug Sandler:   Well, you have to. When you have two people that you’re never going to compare exactly apples to apples especially in the entertainment world if you have a commodity, a light bulb is a light bulb, so what do you do to differentiate yourself from someone that wants to buy from you? It’s all going to be in the service and the support. In my particular case, yeah, we still have to be able to do a great job on event day but the challenge is most people think it is about job day it’s about the celebration. Let me give you an example, two years before an event I’ve met with a guy and his wife and they’re designing this wonderful celebration. The host name is Jim and all the way through the process I’m calling the guy Jim and I know it’s Jim, and I know it I own that name. I get to event day and I’m introducing them and I say, welcome to the stage John, okay, so I’ve screwed that up.  On Monday morning, my agent is not going to get a call that says, he didn’t even know my freakin’ name. Because it was an honest mistake and we got it and I built a relationship. Now let’s take a slightly different track, I don’t call this guy and I’ll talk to Jim I don’t know anything about Jim on event day I just show up and I’m about to do Jim and Jan’s job. They’re about to be introduced and I say welcome to the stage John. On Monday morning my agent is going to get a phone call saying, you didn’t even take the time to learn my name. Okay, honest error, honest thing happened same exact end result except the different relationship was built on the first scenario as opposed to the second scenario. I’m going to swim through that first scenario, I’m going to sing on that second scenario.

Jim Rembach:   That’s true. You’ve got to invest in it, right? When I start thinking about where you’ve come and where you are I would suspect that even with a lot of the organizations that you’re working with a lot of individuals that you’re focusing in on, the family, you’ve got a lot of  things that you can look at from a goal perspective. If there was one that you had to choose from what would it be?

Doug Sandler:   I would say one of the goals is set goals. I think one of the critical opponents of this reinvention that I went through in 2013 when I discovered that I was not going to be a DJ until I was in my 70s and I couldn’t imagine spending my time doing the cha-cha slide in the cupid shuffle at 65   years old on the dance floor I needed to set a goal and I needed to take action. Instead of letting life happen to me you have to make life happen to you I set not only a practical goal of where I’m heading with my life but I set out a plan. This is what I wanted to do and it’s a jumbled mess along the way looking back but still this whole reinvention has been wonderful. So, I would say put yourself in a position where you do set some goals for where you want to go. Examine the goals frequently readjust if you need to and keep moving forward but always stay in action and just don’t let life happen to you because if it does it’s never going to take you in the path that you wanted to. 

Jim Rembach:   That’s so true. And the Fast Leader legion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on let’s get a quick word from our sponsor.

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Jim Rembach:   Alright, here we go Fast Leader legion it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Michael, the Hump day hoedown is the part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Doug Sandler, are you ready to hoedown? 

Doug Sandler:   Okay, let’s go. 

Jim Rembach:   What do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today? 

Doug Sandler:   Staying in the groove. You just got to stay in your zone of genius. Once you start slipping out of that you become less effective much less productive and you slow yourself down. So stay in your zone of genius.

Jim Rembach:   What is the best leadership advice you have ever received? 

Doug Sandler:   Fail fast. It’s okay to fail. 

Jim Rembach:   What is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success?

Doug Sandler:   This is an easy one, just return your phone calls it’s amazing how many people don’t return their phone calls.

Jim Rembach:   What do you feel is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business or life?

Doug Sandler:   Let’s see, I’m going to say the microphone. Because I’m in a podcast environment so I would say that tool I could not deal without. 

Jim Rembach:   What would be one book that you’d recommend to our listeners and it could be from any genre, and of course, we’re going to put a link to, Nice Guys Finished First on your show notes page as well. 

Doug Sandler:   Thanks Jim, I always promote this book because I think it’s so wonderful with its parable, the way that it’s written, Who Moved my Cheese, by Spencer Johnson. 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, Fast Leader legion you can find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to fastleader.net/dougsandler. Okay, Doug, this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity go back to the age of 25. And you’ve been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you but you can’t take everything back you can only choose one. So what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why? 

Doug Sandler:   I’d say that it would be more of a piece of advice it’s, keep moving. You want   to keep moving you can’t stay still nothing ever stays the same you’re constantly evolving and as long as you keep moving make decisions never have a doubt about the decisions you made just keep moving forward that would be any advice that I would give myself at 25. 

Jim Rembach:     Doug it was an honor to spend time with you today, can you please share with the Fast Leader legion how they can connect with you?

Doug Sandler:   The best way to reach me is just through my website which is dougsandler.com. 

Jim Rembach:     Doug Sandler, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom the Fast Leader legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. Woot! Woot!

Jim Rembach:   Thank you for joining me on the Fast Leader show today. For recaps, links from every show, special offers and access to download and subscribe, if you haven’t already head on over the fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster. 

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