Jeffrey Shaw Archives - Customer Experience Podcast

Jeffrey Shaw Show Notes Page

Jeffrey Shaw was tops in his class and returned home to launch his new business. Ready for success, Jefferey spent three long years moving down the path to failure. After he gave his best sales pitch ever, he realized how off he was trying to promote the message of his business. He was unable to speak the lingo of his customers. That’s when Jefferey launched his transformation and went from overlooked to overbooked.

Jeffrey Shaw was born in Cold Spring, New York and raised in Hopewell Jct, NY, about 2 hours north of NYC, with his two older brothers. His family moved there as his father was one of the first 90 employees at a production plant for a new technology start-up called IBM. His mother was a hairdresser and still is today at the age of 80.

Jeffrey was a shy kid who always had an entrepreneurial spirit. By the age of 14 he was borrowing his mother’s Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme to drive around his neighborhood and sell eggs door-to-door. He could barely see over the steering wheel.

Always wanting to be an architect like Mike Brady on The Brady Bunch but not having the patience for education, he decided to go to photography school to photograph interiors and exteriors of homes. But once he started having models in his photos he realized his true passion was photographing people. He graduated with the top Best Portfolio award and by age of 20, opened a portrait photography studio in his hometown.

After three years of struggle, he realized his business was not aligned with the values of the community he was working in. He was stressing the importance of having family portraits to hand down from one generation to the next in a community where people struggled to pay their mortgage. His business was failing. It was this awareness that led Jeffrey to seek out people that shared his values for planning ahead, high-quality, and posterity. The luxury market.

This led Jeffrey to learn all that he knows about business today. How every market has a “Secret Language.” And the way to succeed is to know who you are best to serve and speak their Secret Language.

Today, Jeffrey Shaw is host of the popular business podcast Creative Warriors, a featured storyteller on The Moth, and a nationally acclaimed keynote speaker at creative and business conferences. For more than three decades now, Jeffrey has been one of the most sought-after portrait photographers in the U.S., photographing the families of such notables as Tom Seaver, Pat Riley, David Bloom, Stephanie Seymour, and C-Suite executives from Twitter, Anheuser Busch, 3M, as well as Wall Street leaders too many to mention. His portraits have appeared on the Oprah Show, in People magazine, O Magazine, and others.

Having a keen eye isn’t just for what one sees, but also for what one senses. Jeffrey Shaw, a.k.a. the Lingo Guy, uses this honed intuition developed as a photographer to teach entrepreneurs how to attract their ideal customers by speaking their Secret Language. He’s the author of the forthcoming book, LINGO: Discover Your Ideal Customer’s Secret Language and Make Your Business Irresistible.

Jeffrey is the father of three adult children and resides with his two dogs in Miami Beach, Florida.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @jeffreyshaw1 to get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow Click to Tweet

“Define who your ideal customer is first and then build a business for them.” -Jeffrey Shaw Click to Tweet

“90%, if not more businesses are built backwards.” -Jeffrey Shaw Click to Tweet

“The right way to build a business and a true measure of success is, be customer-centric.” -Jeffrey Shaw Click to Tweet

“Identify and define your ideal customer and then build a brand that speaks only to them.” -Jeffrey Shaw Click to Tweet

“You have to understand what the world looks like from the perspective of your ideal customer before you can build a business for them.” -Jeffrey Shaw Click to Tweet

“We make decisions within seconds based on whether the style of something resonates for us.” -Jeffrey Shaw Click to Tweet

“We chose the brands we do because that brand speaks on our behalf.” -Jeffrey Shaw Click to Tweet

“Style is a very quick decision maker and imperative in today’s world.” -Jeffrey Shaw Click to Tweet

“Pricing creates perception.” -Jeffrey Shaw Click to Tweet

“Avatars and buyer personas are just scratching the surface.” -Jeffrey Shaw Click to Tweet

“It’s time that we show up more intimately and personal than we ever have before.” -Jeffrey Shaw Click to Tweet

“People demand more authenticity and transparency than they ever have before with people they’re doing business with.” -Jeffrey Shaw Click to Tweet

“People don’t hire you because you’re the best; they hire you because you get them and they get you.” -Jeffrey Shaw Click to Tweet

“What do I need to do to grow as a person in order for my success to match that?” -Jeffrey Shaw Click to Tweet

“Take responsibility for the positive impact you can have on people’s lives.” -Jeffrey Shaw Click to Tweet

“Everybody has empathy, we just don’t use it enough in business.” -Jeffrey Shaw Click to Tweet

“The more I focus on what’s going right, the more I see what’s going right.” -Jeffrey Shaw Click to Tweet

“What’s louder than words; it’s the energy behind the words.” -Jeffrey Shaw Click to Tweet

Hump to Get Over

Advice for others

Focus more on long-term relationship building.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

Not enough visibility.

Best Leadership Advice

Take responsibility for the impact you can have. The positive impact you can have on people’s lives.

Secret to Success

Empathy. Feeling what other people are feeling. Feeling market trends.

Best tools that helps in Business or Life

What’s going right journal. The more I focus on what’s going right, the more I can see what’s going right.

Contacting Jeffrey Shaw

website: http://www.jeffreyshaw.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeffreyshaw1

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreyshaw1/

Resources and Show Mentions

Lingo Course, Book Chapter and more from Jeffrey Shaw for the Fast Leader Legion

Chatbots designed with Emotional Intelligence, Neuroscience, Cognitive Bias for Brand Impact

Empathy Mapping

54 Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Competencies List: Emotional Intelligence has proven to be the right kind of intelligence to have if you want to move onward and upward faster. Get your free list today.

Show Transcript:

[expand title=”Click to access edited transcript”]

159: Jeffrey Shaw: I was going to dominate the world

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.

The number one thing that contributes to customer loyalty is emotions. So move onward and upward faster by gaining significantly deeper insight and understanding of your customer journey and personas with emotional intelligence. With your empathy mapping workshop you’ll learn how to evoke and influence the right customer emotions that generate improve customer loyalty and reduce your cost to operate. Get over your emotional hump now by going to empathymapping.com to learn more.

Jim Rembach: Okay, Fast Leader legion today I’m excited because I have somebody on the show today who has some practical experience that really can help folks. The thing I like that most is that we’d learn firsthand. Jeffrey Shaw was born in Cold Spring, New York raised in Hopewell Jet, New York, about two hours north from New York City, with his two older brothers. His family moved there as his father was one of the first 90 employees at a production plant for a new technology startup called IBM. His mother was a hairdresser and still is today at the age of 80. Jeffrey was a shy kid who always had an entrepreneurial spirit. By the age of 14, he was borrowing his mother’s Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme to drive around his neighborhood and sell eggs door to door, he could barely see over steering wheel.

His father enjoyed photography as a hobby and built a dark room in their home. Jeffrey was fascinated with the chemicals and how they made latent images come alive. The first money he made from photography came from printing photos of prize at racehorses for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt estate, the 32nd president of the United States. Always wanting to be an architect, Mike Brady on the Brady bunch but not having the patience for education, he decided to go into photography school to photograph interiors and experience of our homes. Once he started having models in the photos he realized his true passion was photographing people. He graduated with the top best portfolio award. By the age of 20, he opened a portrait photography studio in his hometown. After three years of struggling you realize his business was not aligned with the values of the community he was working with. He was stressing the importance of having family portraits and handing them down from one generation to the next in the community where people struggled to pay their mortgage.

His businesses failing and this awareness lead Jeffrey to seek out people that shared his values for planning ahead, high quality and posterity—the luxury market. This led Jeffrey to learn all that he knows about business today. However, every market has a secret language and the way to succeed is to know who you are best to serve and speak their language, their secret language. Today Jeffrey Shaw is a host of the popular business podcast, Creative Warriors, a featured storyteller on the Moth and a nationally acclaimed keynote speaker at creative and business conferences. For more than three decades now Jeffery has been one of the most sought after portrait photographers in the U.S. photographing the families of such notables as Tom Seaver, Pat Riley, David Blooms, Stephanie Seymour and C-Suite executives from Twitter, Anheuser Busch, 3M, as well as Wall Street leaders, too many to mention. His portraits have appearing on the Oprah Show, in People magazine, O Magazine, and others. His the author of the forthcoming book, Lingo-Discover your Ideal Customers Secret Language and Make your Business Irresistible. Jeffrey is the father of three adult children and resides with his to dogs in Miami Beach, Florida. Jeffrey Shaw, are you ready to help us go over the hump?

Jeffrey Shaw: Most definitely. I’m glad to be here.

Jim Rembach: I’m glad you’re here. Now, I’ve given our listeners 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.

Jeffrey Shaw: Current passion—you know I’m always passionate about something. My current passion is this book this has been a huge journey for me. It’s my first book, the first of book publish I should say, it’s my third of attempt. I wrote a book 2014 it was such a how to type a book I decide to make a course and then last year I wrote a book was deeply meaningful to me but in the end when I submit it to the editor it was just a little bit too much of a self-help type of book. It really wasn’t on my platform and that was a hard hit, I’m kind of new in writing a book. So, what I’m most passionate about and I think any leader can get passionate about is when you really felt like you have finally identified what’s your core message, and you just know when you feel it. I love using the word platform because if you actually look up the true definition of platform, platform has a dual meaning. On one hand it is the stage, it’s the hard mature you stand on and nowadays our platform is online, but platform was also your collection of values for which you believe in. What’s I’m passionate now is this platform that the Lingo, the content of my book, provides, it is in fact the collection of values that I feel and something I can stand on.

Jim Rembach: One thing that really appealed to me, thanks for sharing that, I was looking through it I did get some, I guess I should say pre-released type of information about the book, I focused a lot on what I refer to as customer-centric leadership, when you really look at customer-centric leadership it requires you to focus on that internal piece and people working inside the organization part of it is from messaging all of those things the culture components as well as the customer because all of those things need to be in alignment for you to have some long term success. When you start talking about this Lingo and this ideal language you referred to it about finding your core. I think what you’re doing is really trying to find your connection core which is the language of your customer. You’re saying in the bio and you talk about it on the book about the five step process to help develop this Lingo, tell us what they are.

Jeffrey Shaw: Sure. And if I may, I want to step back and—I love the fact that you’re using the term customer-centric, that’s the foundation of the five steps. When talk about Lingo is this customer-centric turn business model but little bit of a spin. Here’s what I mean by customer-centric, people every day focuses on customer service and customer experience today. To me to speak of a customer-centric business is to build a business in a right way. What I mean by that is that you know who your ideal customers. First you define who your ideal customer and then you build the business for them. Probably 90% if not more businesses are built backwards. People build the business they want and then they spend the rest of their lives trying to fit people into that business it’s a struggle that’s why business is hard. The right way to build a business and a true measure of success is be customer-centric. Know who your ideal customer. Who you are meant to serve? Who would love what you have to offer? Who already love your natural traits and your values? And then build a business for them that’s the much easier route at the heart of Lingo is this idea that to build a customer-centric business model. So this five steps are the process of identifying and defining your ideal customer and then building a brand that’s speaks only to them, that’s speaking the secret language.

So, the five steps, step number one is, “Perspective.” Perspective is the foundation of all the other steps you have to understand what the word looks like from the perspective of your ideal customers before you could build a business for them. I love by the way, the fact that your show’s called Fast Leader, I would love more entrepreneurs to take a leadership quality to it and that’s what it means to know someone’s perspective and to be willing to walk in their shoes it’s more of a leadership role that it is an entrepreneurship role. It’s like these are the people I want to lead and I understand how the world looks like for them and I’m going to lead them to where I could serve them best, so step number one is perspective. You can’t go fast and go and build the business for people until you understand what the world looks like from their perspective, imperative.

Step number two is what I referred to as familiarity. Familiarity is really interesting and in fact one of my favorite things to talk about because familiarity creates comfort. When we see things that are familiar—but it’s incredibly powerful to actually create that element of familiarity it’s more than just giving people the feeling of comfort. That’s the reason why we have comfort food it brings back a lot of memories, comfort food let us know we’re in the right place at the right time, that’s the power of familiarity. The more practical side of familiarity is that you can’t un-see it. You go to Europe you go to some other place you can’t not notice a Starbucks logo, it’s so familiar. The point is when people are building a business, leading the clientele to their business, my marketing perspective, the more you can create an atmosphere that are already familiar from their perspective the more you will stand out. That’s why we refer to it as a secret language it’s like speaking their language so it’s already familiar to them. Doesn’t mean it’s a copy, doesn’t mean it has to look exactly like anybody else but if you can understand from their perspective—step number one, what already is familiar to them in their world what retail environment what websites look like—you’ll stand out.

Step number three is to understand their style, the style that they are looking for and it resonates. Unlike familiarity, style sits much more in the surface but style is the decision maker. We make decisions every day, whether it’s on our website, or it is on the store or just walking down the mall we make decision every day within seconds based on whether the style resonates for us whether it’s speaking our language, whether it feels like it’s speaking in our behalf. Why do we wear the clothes we wear? We choose the brand and the clothes that we wear—the Nike logo, the Harley-Davidson motorcycle we choose the brands we do because that brand speaks on our behalf, it lets the world know this is what we stand for. So style is a very quick decision maker and imperative in today’s world in a world where people are making decision whether they want to do business with you or not in a matter of seconds.

Fourth step is, price. This is a big one and incredibly powerful the whole psychology of pricing because pricing creates perception. No matter what market whatever business you’re building you can position your business based on the pricing cycle that you’re using. If you want to draw forward and attract the price conscious customer then you draw a lot of attention to your price. You price your products and services down to 100 of a cent like Walmart does. You put cash registers right up front like a diner does. If any time you want to draw attention if you want to draw forward the cost conscious customer you want to draw attention to your price you talk about having sales and discounts first is the other end if you’re working on the higher end you want to be very vague about pricing that’s why there aren’t prices on the high end menu, the high end restaurant on the menu there aren’t even prices it’s so vague. You certainly don’t go to a high end restaurant expect to see a steak for $34.99, it’s going to be $35 or something rounded off. But if you go to McDonalds—McDonalds can cost conscious, dollar menu. So it’s understanding the psychology you can position any business, any products any service based on who your ideal customer based on the pricing psychology. We hear all the time people will choose to not buy something because it’s so cheap they associate it being too cheap but not good quality total psychological.

The last of the five steps are the words, choosing the words that you use. One comparison is we often refer to is the difference between discount and upgrade. Again if you try to appeal to the cost conscious customers you talk about discounts. If you’re talking to high end travelers, vacations, you talk about upgrades not discounts. Using this particular words but then also carefully crafting your words to attract your ideal customer. The word you position on your website—what I teach on Lingo a couple of techniques I teach on Lingo one of the most powerful marking tools I know of I teach what I call self-identifying questions which are posing the question in your marketing that’s completing the thought in your ideal customers head. A problem or concern they already have that they’re looking to address and you pose a question, hey, do you have this problem? An example I use, I have a client is in a business of matching businesses with virtual assistants. And what I had suggested that she used a self-identifying question to draw in her ideal customers. Do you want your life back? Imagine you’re a hurried, crazy, busy business person stressing out rushing home because you’re always late, you got a new car you see a billboard the billboard says do want to get your life back? If that’s how you feel that’s the experience are having in your life you would say, yes I do and then you find out what answer to that hires virtual assistant and this is the person who can help you do that. The self-identifying question are magic and again I go into that a lot in the book itself because it stops you on that tracks and speaks their language.

Jim Rembach: Thanks for sharing that. As you were talking there’s so many things that were flying to my head but I kind of had reflect back on a conversation that I had just a couple of days ago. I was talking about a Lingo-type of issue and using the right words and terminology and this person just said to me, oh, well I’m not going to argue the semantics. But I’m like, but I am this is an important point because many of the things that you were talking about. You’re talking about people raising their emotional intelligence skills and capabilities so that they’re connecting at a significantly deeper level than just the surface. That is not semantics it’s really important how you create that alignment and congruence and familiarity those are trust builders.

Jeffrey Shaw: I love the fact that you’re an expert in the field of intelligence. I like reading your bio because—the foundation of the Lingo, and this is what I’m this why I single out the platform, these things just unfold and come together. I’ve been an entrepreneur for 33 years. I’ve been in the world of coaching and personal development for 8 of that next to all the time I use as a photographer. So this is a years in the making and the original iteration of this was years ago. I wrote an e-book that was called, The Emotional Branding Blueprint. I ** at emotional branding because I felt like people are branding their business in the wrong way. In marketing, I love the fact the way you used Lingo, it’s exactly what my big dream is for this book. I would love a Lingo to become the new marketing buzzwords. Getting away from avatars and buyer personas because I think avatars and buyer personas are just scratching the surface. It’s demographics, it’s stats at best it’s behavior. A lot of times like on Amazon the behaviors based on tracking pixels so it’s very surface level. Lingo is deep. Lingo is emotional. I know this had become more and more imperative moving forward because it is harder to stand out. People demand more authenticity and transparent than they ever had before on the people that they’re doing business with.

I been in business since the 80s. In the 90s people were throwing money at us it’s not that way anymore. The bar has been really raised high as to how you have to behave and what you have to create as an entrepreneur and a leader in order to get into someone’s pockets. I think we should be grateful for that raising a bar it’s time that we have to show up more intimately and personal than we ever had before.

Jim Rembach: I totally agree. For me I don’t want to just have a transaction and be done because we know what that leads to. That leads to a situation where you’re putting so much effort and trying to attract and you can never really reap the benefits of the retain piece of the whole customers experience. I created a framework called emotional intelligence customer experience design and the first thing is to unlock your awareness. For me this is exactly where Lingo fits you have to aware that what you say, how you say it, when you say it, where you say it at, all those things are critically important, it isn’t just semantics.

Jeffrey Shaw: No, no it’s definitely not they’re emotional triggers. I’ve been asked a number times as I’m about doing (17:27 inaudible) why is this important now? And one of the things I say is, one, we continue to evolve as the society and we are consumers ourselves where we do demand a more personal relationship. But also I think it’s going to become a critically important moving forward because the world is heading towards more automation, robotics and AI. I’ve around long enough to know that whenever something goes on one direction the opposite is also true. So, the more those automation, artificial intelligence and these things in our lives, the more people are going to be craving personal interaction doing business in a human way. Any business that serving customer, service oriented, customer-centric as you’re saying we can be on the winning side of that. We don’t have to collapse into the world being more automated. We can actually go on the other direction, say, how can I get to know my ideal customers better and make them feel—a quote I use all the time in my business and my coaching clients is that, it’s not a lot of people like to hear but it’s just the truth, People don’t hire you because you’re the best they hire you because you get them and they get you. The best is completely subjective today no one can claim to be the best in anyone category. We all try we all want to master what we’re good at but I’d be the person to say I’m not the world’s best photographer, you know what that means. I am absolutely the best for my clientele, a big difference. They hire me because I get them. Like I get their values, I get their lifestyle, I get their emotional triggers and I use those triggers to let them know on the right one for them too.

Jim Rembach: Right. As you were talking the whole automation thing, we’ve had automation around to serve customers for 50 years. I think we will see and what we are seeing is that automation that does have a little bit more character to it where you can actually build your brand voice into it and that has a little bit more of that personal touch and can understand the sentiment of emotion. People like that AI they do like that what they don’t like is the ones that can’t do that. We’ve all had bad experiences with IVR systems and the reason we’ve had bad experiences with them is because they require us to do things that aren’t natural, it’s like, if you don’t give B I’m not going to get you to C, it’s just the way it is. So I think AI is getting more personal and that’s when people are actually enjoying it more and more we going to see more of that.

Jeffrey Shaw: And I think what technology should enable us to do is to be able to have time in our lives for the relationship that really matter that’s what were all craving. People aren’t looking quantity of hours worked anymore they’re looking for quantity of life that’s a social shift we need to be sensitive to that. I go back to even—when ATM’s came along and even email. With ATM, they said the world’s becoming so impersonal. We go to a machine to get cash. I was like, I’m happy going to a machine to get my money I don’t need a personal relationship with the bank teller. But if the time saved gives me the ability to have lunch with one of my children that’s where I want life to go. That’s what I feel about AI and automation what really it can do is it can let us choose where we want relationships of a deeper human nature and that’s where it’s important as a business for the customer centric business model to show up as that more personal human business.

Jim Rembach: That’s a great point. Okay, so what we’re talking about here is just full of emotion. And one of the things that we look to add on the show are quotes because they can help bring that out. Is there a quote or two that you can share that you like?

Jeffrey Shaw: I gave it some thoughts and I hate to be repetitive but when you have a quote that you live by you live by it, right? So the quote I live by is from Jim Rohn and it is, “Your level of success rarely exceeds your level of personal development.” And I live that every day and I believe it. I’m sure your legion we all want more success, I don’t just apply harder for work for more hours what I apply is, what do I need to do to grow as a person in order for my success to match that? So I just always look at it as a glass ceiling. Where is my ceiling at today in my ability to create success my willingness to have success my mindset around success? Where is that out today? How can I raised that? Who can work with? What coaches can I seek so that I can raise that ceiling? Because every time I raise this ceiling of personal development my level of success creeps up behind me and bumps me in the behind and then I do it again. So I’m a 100% believer of that quote.

Jim Rembach: That’s a great quote and I like the way you put all of that important words around it and that feeling around it and it definitely makes more sense. I also see that having that mindset getting to where you are now and that continual focus on personal growth, you bet you had a lot of humps to get over, can you share a time with us when you’ve had to get over a hump so that we can learn.

Jeffrey Shaw: I have to say the biggest hump of my life in hindsight created the content behind this book and it took me 30 years to see it honestly. I was 20 years old when I went into business in my hometown that are wrinky-dinkle a country town a couple of north the New York City. I went back there as a 20 year old my chest all puffed out I was going to dominate the world and be the world’s greatest leader. I have a high end portrait photography business and struggled for three years and let’s just call falling. As I mentioned in my bio, what I realized is that I was trying to sell values of long term thinking having portraits to hand down from generation to generation. And as one woman full of wisdom said to after I made my very best pitch she said to me, that’s sounds great except I don’t have the luxury worrying about my children’s memories. I don’t know if I’m going to pay my mortgage this month. And I realized how off I was in trying to promote that type of message around my business in a community that was struggling to get by gave a day which was by the way my hometown that was my life lifestyle and I grow up lower middle class. Here I was trying to be something other than that. Absolutely biggest hump of my life was having to put my life’s dreams into this business and realize it was failing. And then seeking the answer to that and getting over the other side of that that hump starting over again serving the luxury market as I learned to do.

Jim Rembach: So from the time she dropped that on you, and like you said I know (24:26 inaudible) me too people have said, what was your defining epiphany? I don’t know if we really had one I have them all along the way and they kind of help continually move the ship in a better direction it just take a while. But how long did it take you from the time when that happen to actually know that, you know what? In order for me to serve a luxury market I have to go to where the luxury market is.

Jeffrey Shaw: That to me was instant it was an epiphany moment for me. I immediately went within—I don’t know the exact time I know that I changed my life in 3 months that I remember as far as the time frame. What I mean by that is it became incredibly clear to me that I was meant, and I say this carefully, I was meant to serve the high end. It wasn’t a decision like, oh, rich people have money and I should take advantage of that. No, I literally ask myself the question, if people that don’t have money don’t share my value for long term thinking—by the way, just a little sidebar here, my father died suddenly on my wedding day eight months after I went into business, wild story in itself. And I say that because he died without life insurance, without any them, he’s 52 years old he certainly didn’t expect to die that young. But again when you don’t have money you don’t plan for future there wasn’t protection for our family, there was no life insurance my mom had to borrow money from his boss in order to bury him and there’s just no planning. It wasn’t a consciousness that I want to work with rich people because they have money it was really deeply looking inside myself, who I meant for? The chapter in Lingo that talks about defining your ideal customer the chapter’s actually called—Who would Love That? This is actually a self-study of who you are? What’s your course skill set is? What your innate characters are? And then asking a question, what you’re a need characteristic is or and then asking the question and who would love that? Because who would love that is actually your ideal customer. And what I realized is (26:30 inaudible) that’s common to me, who would love what I had to offer handing portraits down from generation to generation where people could afford to plan ahead? That happen to be the luxury market which I knew nothing about.

So I went on a three-month journey of studying the behavior, lifestyle and perspective of the affluent market. I didn’t it know it, I was 23 old, I was a lower-middle class kid I knew nothing about affluent perspective but I studied it. I went to where they shop. I went to where they dine. I studied it. And in three months shut down the business that was failing at my hometown started over again in an affluent Connecticut town got very clear with my brand and change the business name—my business name in my hometown had a name it was called Light Images—I rebranded it under my own name, because I understood the power of having studied high end business, I realized the power of designer names and I was going to market myself, I actually emulated Ralph Lauren. In the 80’s Ralph Lauren was a new brand and a top notch brand and it was in his name so I change my business name to my name, Jeffery Shaw. I made all these changes in three months, rebranded. I got in roads into how I could get my work at least seen in that community. And within, as I say I think in the back cover of the book or in the description in Amazon, I say within one year I went from being overlooked to overbook. And within one year, it’s three months to make the change to get over the hump and then within one year I went from my failing business to a business where—I would definitely say overbook it ultimately took a few more years but I had an eight week waiting list to get on my calendar because those work where with my ideal customers.

Jim Rembach: Sorry that happened as far as your father passing but the way that you were able to take that essentially smack in the face and do something with it was—. I’m glad that happened because you’ve been able to share your story with us and I know more and more folks that are going to get that hit will now do something different because they just need to.

Jeffrey Shaw: And I love your analogy about being a hump and that’s it is. It’s a hump that bumps and a hump that you need to get over, that’s what it is.

Jim Rembach: Definitely. We talked a little bit about, of course the book coming out the work that you’re doing now you’ve got a lot of things going on, we talked about some of the construction going on in the neighborhood all the building and all that but you’ve got a lot of things happening so if you were to say one goal that you have—

Jeffrey Shaw: My current goal is to increase my speaking platform. I status myself as a pretty well know speaker in the photo industry, because that’s how initially I was reaching out for information I was successful in the photo industry, but my message is much bigger than that much broader than that. The reason I was successful as a photographer because I didn’t market myself as a photographer. Photographers were marketing their photographs I was a marketing the emotions. I didn’t look at what other photographers are doing—in the 80s when I looked at my ideal customer they were paying $20,000 for painters to paint a portrait of their children. And I’m like, I can do something every bit as high quality of that with a better likeness of the children and I can do it for $5,000 to $10, 000. So I marketed myself not even having I can do it my own industry.

I became a pretty well-known speaker in the photo industry but everything I did to succeed there had nothing to do with photography. So my message the message of Lingo what I love about the concept of Lingo and its strategy is it does in fact apply to any market. It’s not just the high end it’s your choice you get to decide and identify who your ideal customer is and then build a business for them speaking their language. There’s no judgment here whether that needs to be high end low end or anything in between. Because message is broader my next goal is to be a speaker a much bigger stages of entrepreneurship, marketing and branding. Truly my passion I love to be in front of people I like the impact that can make something on the audience.

Jim Rembach: 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, Jeffrey, the Hump Day Hoedown is a part of our show where you give us good insights fast. I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us a robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Jeffrey Shaw, are you ready to hoedown?

Jeffrey Shaw: I’m ready to hoedown. I grew up square dancing.

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

Jeffrey Shaw: Not enough visibility. Despite the success of my podcast it takes a long time for people just like, I know who this guy is. So I’m cutting (32:02 inaudible) all the time.

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

Jeffrey Shaw: Take responsibility for the impact you can have. And by that when I took from that advice was the positive impact. When I first heard it I said, Oh, men, I’m going to screw up people’s lives. And I’m like, No, take responsibility for the impact, take responsibility for the positive impact you can have on people’s lives through leadership.

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

Jeffrey Shaw: My secret weapon is empathy. It is feeling what other people are feeling it’s feeling market trends and paying attention. I think everybody had empathy which they don’t use enough in business.

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

Jeffrey Shaw: I’ts my saga woo to all, compare to probably what a lot of your guest say. It’s something I teach in Lingo it’s a journal called, What’s Going Right? It’s not a gratitude journal I literally journal every day what’s going right. Because the more I focus on what’s going right the more I see what’s going right, it’s my best tool.

Jim Rembach: What would be one book that you’d recommend to our listeners, and it could be from any genre?

Jeffrey Shaw: One of my favorite is, Louder Than Words by Todd Henry. Because it just picks to the essence of Lingo. What’s louder than words is the energy behind the words.

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/Jeffrey Shaw. Okay, Jeffrey, this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question. Imagine you were given the opportunity to 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. What skill or a piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

Jeffrey Shaw: of better relationship building. Unfortunately, having a history of being a shy kid my life is kind of transactional to me. I wasn’t thinking on lines of relationship building like I do now, boy I wish I got that earlier. I wish I focus more on long term relationship building that pay off it would be huge right now.

Jim Rembach: Jeffrey, 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?

Jeffrey Shaw: Sure. We’ve put together a Lingo media kit specifically for your legion they can get that at www.jeffreyshaw.com/fastleader and in that Lingo media kit is an infographic of 5 steps of the secret of language strategy we discuss. There’s also a free chapter, it is the chapter on perspective, because it is the most important one, and there’s an audio version of that free chapter which has sound effects and additional stories, I’m a podcaster so I kick that up several notches.

Jim Rembach: That’s awesome Jeffrey and we’ll also link from your show notes page as well. Jeffrey Shaw, 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!

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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Jeffrey Shaw