 Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering Magento Imagine 2019, brought to you by Adobe. Welcome back to theCUBE, Lisa Martin with Jeff Frick and we are here live at Magento Imagine 2019, our second time being back here with theCUBE and we're very excited to welcome Brittany Hodak to theCUBE entrepreneur, customer engagement speaker, writer, co-founder of the Superfan company. Brittany, it's so exciting to have you on theCUBE. Thank you so much for having me, I'm so excited to be here. So you have an incredibly impressive background. I'm like, where do we start? So here we are talking about customer experiences and how Magento and Adobe empower a lot of customer experiences, but you've written a ton of articles, over 350. You've been published in the HuffPo Wall Street Journal. Talk to us about your experiences with customer engagement, some of the things that you as a co-founder of the Superfan have discovered working with a variety of brands from Walmart to Katy Perry. Well, thank you so much for saying that. I always say that the biggest problem brands and entertainers have is often one that's not even on their radar at all. I talk to a lot of small and medium-sized business owners and they say, you know, my big problem is people don't know who I am. I've got an awareness problem. I'm struggling to let people know who I am and I really think my business would change if more people knew. I say, you know, that's not the problem. You can always fix awareness. You can always spend money to get your message out there. Your big problem is apathy. Your problem is there are people who know and don't care and you've got to figure out how to make people care. You've got to figure out how to connect your story with their story in a way that's meaningful and a way that's going to mean something in their lives because that's how you really start the fan engagement process. That's how you lay the groundwork for creating a culture of super fandom amongst your customers that's really going to help you grow not just a business but a brand. Is that by having more relevant messages or is it just finding those people that have a propensity to be a fan to the services that you provide? Well, it's understanding your uniqueness in a way that really makes your value proposition different from anybody else's. Once you understand your uniqueness and you're able to turn it into service of others, that's when you really position yourself to be able to make the kind of difference that makes somebody want to be a super fan. And I always say, we've had the fortune of working with tons of celebrities, some of the biggest recording artists and superstars on the planet. And a lot of times people say to me, oh, it's easy when you're talking about being a super fan of Taylor Swift or being a super fan of Katy Perry, but I'm a plumber or I'm an electrician. How could I have super fans? And I say by providing people the kind of service that changes their lives. I mean, I have an exterminator who I am a super fan of. His name is Scott and the reason I am a super fan of him is because he makes sure there are no brown recluse spiders in my house. And I am absolutely terrified of brown recluse spiders. They are super evil creatures. If you're not familiar with them, I encourage you not to Google it. They're like nastiest little bug in the world. But to me, that's super important because he's not just killing bugs. He's helping me feel safe in my home. So that's absolutely a vital service and finding the right guy to do that and the right guy to put my mind at ease and let me know there aren't going to be brown recluse spiders in my house is invaluable. And because of that, there's no way I would ever switch exterminators because Scott's my guy. And I know, I can text him 50 different pictures of critters and say, is this okay? Is this okay? And he's going to get back to me and let me know. So it's all about points of connection and finding ways to make your audience feel really valued and connecting your story with their story. So if you look at an exterminator versus a Taylor Swift or a Katy Perry or a Walmart, are there similarities in what they need to do to deliver this service that's impacting lives or are there fundamental differences? You know, there are some fundamental differences but there's more overlap than you would think. And I always say, if you think about it, like a Venn diagram, right? You've got your brand or your business, your service, your product, whatever it is that you're providing and you've got your customers over here. Where the magic happens is that point of intersection where your story overlaps with their story. That intersection, that's where super fandom happens. And I like to talk about something I call the four A's of super fandom. So you can't, I see a lot of people make the mistake of trying to talk to everybody the same way, right? So whether somebody is encountering your brand for the very first time or has been your customer for a long time, using the same messaging for those people, and that doesn't work. So I talk a lot about the four A's. So the first A is awareness. That's when somebody is first uncovering your brand, first interacting with your brand. The second A is action. That's when somebody is actually interacting with your brand for the first time. The third A is affinity. Those are the people who are fans of your brand. They've sort of bought into your why. These are the satisfied customers, I would say. And a lot of businesses stop there. They say, you know, these are the people who are satisfied. These are the people who like what I'm doing. They're buying from me. And that's a mistake that a lot of, especially small and medium-sized businesses make. They sort of feel like, oh, I've got these customers. I don't have to do anything else. They're not over-delivering or over-serving them, which is a huge missed opportunity, because if you do, you're able to convert people from that third A to the fourth A, which is advocacy. And advocacy is where you want to get the majority of the people, because those are your super fans, so to speak. Those are the ones who are out there sharing your story and your why with other people, helping refer new customers and new clients to you. So I always say, if you can get past the affinity, the people who are, you know, sort of happy with you, but not really talking about it and really make them feel valued, that's how you create advocates. And advocacy is really the super secret sauce when you're talking about super fandom. So where should people get started to try to build super fandom within their client base? Is it really with the good customers that they already have to try to get them to be advocates? Or I think most people spend so much time focusing on the fad end of the funnel, as opposed to on the narrow end of the funnel, and converting that transaction into a fan, which is what it sounds like you're suggesting. Yeah, well, you know, it's important to focus on all parts of the funnel. And then, like I said, that awareness, the fat part at the top, you certainly need to be dealing with those people to get them further down. But the skinny part of the funnel is really where you want to make sure that people are continuing to, you know, drip out the other side to make those referrals for you. So absolutely focusing on everybody. One thing that I am always shocked when I do consulting and work with small businesses and medium-sized businesses, when I ask how much referral business they get, a lot of people don't know that number off the top of your head. So if you're not tracking the amount of referrals, you absolutely need to know that as a metric. And the number one thing that you can do to increase the amount of referral business that you're getting is by asking your customers for referrals. It's so funny the amount of people who say, oh, I hardly get any referral business at all. And I say, well, when's the last time you ask? When's the last time that you went to, you know, one of your clients or your customers and said, I so appreciate your business. And I wonder if you know anybody in your network who could benefit from our product or service. And they say, oh, well, I've never done that. But yeah, they wonder why they don't have any referrals. So. It seems like such an easy step, but to your point you're saying, they're focusing on awareness, getting my brand, my service, my name out there, getting people to take action and building that affinity and then I'm good. But that, simply asking to make a referral, whether it's a Yelp or something as simple as that seems like a pretty easy step. Strategically, how do you advise customers to get from that? Take that, if you look at it like a funnel like Jeff was saying, take that group of affinity customers and convert some percentage to advocates. What's your strategy for helping, you know, a consumer brand or even a service provider like an exterminator for actually making those conversions and then having that be a really kind of engine to drive referrals, to drive more leads to the top of that funnel? That's a great question. So I like to talk about something I call the high five, which is knowing the five most important people that have the potential to drive your business forward for the next quarter, the next year, and the next five years. So this is an actual list of five people and any business owner hopefully can sit down and say here are the people that I need to really super serve in order to move my business forward. So knowing who those five people are, it could be an advisor, it could be an investor, it could be somebody you've never even met, maybe a thought leader who's stuff that you really enjoy that you think this person could really help me and open me up to a lot of people in their network if they knew who I was. Make a list of those five people and then figure out how often you need to be doing something to staying top of mind for those people. So for me, I like to make sure that it's at least once every two weeks. So sometimes it's as simple as sending an article and saying, you know, hey, I came across this article, thought you would really love it, wanted to send it your way. Now in reality, did I just come across that article? No, I spent maybe an hour looking for the right article to forward that person. It's taking the time out to show them that they matter to you. So whether that's sending them a nice gift in the mail for no reason or a handwritten thank you note after they made an introduction for you, it's checking in on things. I always say, you know, you should know what is important to the people who are important to you. You should know the teams that they follow. You should know, you know, their spouse, their children, the things that are happening in their lives so you can check in with them. And we live in an age where it's so easy to get information about anyone because all of us are putting content out there on the internet all the time about ourselves. So take the time to figure out what matters to those people who matter to you and then stay top of mind letting them know that they matter to you. So like I said, for me, it's once every two weeks and I look at my list of five about every six months in terms of, you know, adding a couple of new people on maybe cycling some people off but I've been doing this for four years. So I have a list of 20 people and I kind of, those are like my alums, some of the alumni of my high five and I'm still extremely close with all of them. I still make sure that I'm trying to add value to them because, you know, having one person who's going to advocate for you could open the door for, you know, millions of dollars of revenue for you. So it's just identifying who those people are because to your point, it's impossible to sort of make everyone the most important person. It's impossible to take everyone at that third step and take them to the fourth step. So rather than holistically thinking about it, I like to really drill in and say, let's start with five. And if you've got 50 employees and you assign five people to each of those 50 employees to say make sure this vendor or make sure this customer or make sure this partner feels very appreciated by you on a regular basis, you're going to really start to see the ROI very, very quickly in your business. It's some of the trends. If we look at these, you know, we're all consumers of any kind of product service. We have this expectation, this growing expectation that we're going to be able to get whatever we want, whenever we want it, have it delivered, you know, in an hour or a day or so. We want to be able to have this experience on mobile, maybe start it there, maybe finish it in the store. What are some of the trends that you were seeing that you recommend that a company with any product or service needs to get on more with? For example, this morning they were talking about progressive web apps and being able to deliver an experience where the person doesn't have to leave the app or they can transact something like through Instagram. What are some of those top tools that you recommend to your broad client base you got to get on board with like mobile, for example, right away? Yes, I was going to say the PWAs are absolutely critical because I think we've all, as consumers, been in the situation of trying to load something on our phone and it's, you know, five seconds goes by, six seconds and we're like, forget about it. We're done. Yeah, I'm done, I'm over it. So, PWAs, super important because it's all about putting your customer first and making things simple for them. The other thing is making sure that whatever system process you're using, everything needs to be connected. You can't be managing stuff across eight different platforms and expect for things not to fall through the cracks which is, you know, I'm learning so much here to imagine and listening to all the best practices of people who are using Magento to manage every part of their business because something is, you know, seemingly minor as sending a confirmation email twice instead of once or, you know, having eight hours go by before the customer gets that. Those types of things say to a customer on a supplemental level, I'm not important, I don't matter, they're not putting me first. So, just, fan comes from fanatic, right? And there's great things about fans and sometimes there's less great things about fans. And we've seen a little bit of that here in terms of this really passionate community around Magento and, you know, it was independent and then it went into eBay and then it went back out of eBay and now it's back in Adobe. And it's funny seeing the people that have been here for the whole journey. Part of that responsibility, if you're going to invite someone to be a fan is you have to let them participate. You have to let them contribute. And often, which we're seeing, I guess, in Game of Thrones, I'm not a big fan, but if you get outside of kind of the realm of where the fans want things to go, it can also cause some conflict. So how do people manage encouraging fans, really supporting fans, but at the same time, not letting them completely knock the business off or hold the business back, probably, from places where the entrepreneur needs to still go? That's a great question. There was a really fascinating study that Viacom did a couple of years ago about fans and especially in the under 35 sets of millennials, Gen C, the vast majority of people felt like fans have some ownership of the thing that they're a fan of. And that's a really interesting study in psychology, right? To think about these people who feel the ownership, but you know it's true, you mentioned Game of Thrones, that's a great example of seeing these fan bases who come up with names for themselves and who are tweeting in real time about things that are happening. Magento, great example because open source has been such an important part of the culture and the history of the platform, these people feel in a very real sense this ownership and you're right, I think sometimes that scares small business owners, medium sized business owners, they say, well, we don't want to relinquish control, we don't want to put ourselves in a situation where we're upsetting people and I would say, you're right, fan comes from the word fanatic and that fanaticism, that passion is something you absolutely want because I would argue that a greater threat than that is what I was talking about earlier, which is apathy. You don't want people to be like, I don't care, right? And passion is of course the opposite of apathy and that's what you're looking for. So I would say, are you going to put yourself in a position where sometimes there could be a disagreement, you could upset somebody? Absolutely, but those are the people, it's like if you're in a relationship with somebody and you have a fight, that passion that's there is because there's care on both sides, right? You're both super engaged, you're both very passionate about your position. So having a system in place to diffuse that by saying, I hear you, I understand where you're coming from, let's figure this out together, is part of the customer service stack that you've just got to prepare for. And using, sorry, Brittany, using all this data that's available, that Magento, Adobe, et cetera, can deliver and enable organizations to understand that and maybe even kind of marry those behaviors with apathy on one end, passion on the other and how do we get to that happy medium? Exactly, how do we get to the happy medium? What are the data points that matter? How are we, you know, the idea of super fan means something different to every organization. So part of it is uncovering what it is that really matters to you. I always say as super fan, as somebody who overindexes in their affinity for a product, service, brand, entertainer, therefore increasing the chance that they're going to advocate on its behalf. So thinking about, you know, there could be people who are spending a lot of money with your brand who just, you know, aren't really that passionate about it, right? They're not going to tell people, and that's fine, but those aren't the people who would be a quote unquote super fan even though they may be spending a lot of money with you. So it's figuring out what the markers are that are important to your brand or service. I work with a lot of brands on this because it really is different for everyone, but figuring out who those people are and then talking to them. Because this is something that, you know, it's, you know, there's so much psychology around the why, right? Like why people behave the way we do, that the consumer behavior, the internal and philosophical drives that are making us make the decisions that we make. And the best way to uncover that is to talk to your customers. Because a lot of times you'll learn so much about your brand, you'll find so many things. I always love talking to recording artists about this, who, you know, they put out a new song or a new album and into fans find all of these hidden messages. And that's- Taylor's known for that. Yes, Taylor is one of the best in the world. And, you know, a lot of times artists will say, oh yeah, like I didn't do that on purpose, but I'm totally going to take credit for it because these fans found it and, oh yeah, of course I meant to do that. So, you know, you'll find that some of these customers understand your brand oftentimes better than you do, which is a really fun thing. It's also just the ecosystem. I mean, my favorite one always to reference is Harley-Davidson, right? I guess how many brands get tattooed on people's arms and just the whole ecosystem of other products that were built up around the motorcycle. And to support kind of that community, that they weren't getting any nickels necessarily if somebody sold a saddle bag or a leather jacket or whatever, but it was such and it still is, I think, you know, such a vibrant community. Again, as evidenced by you put a tattoo on your arm that it's something to strive for, not easy to get. Why we always say build a brand, not a business, because the brand are those things that people are connecting to. We were talking about NASA before we started filming. I'm a huge space geek and, you know, Lisa loves space, having worked for NASA in the past and you know, that's one of those things. I don't know this to be true, but I got to believe NASA way outpaces like every other combined government agency and licensing, right? I mean, people walk around wearing NASA logos on everything. I saw at least three of them this morning. Yeah, I mean, I've bought in the last month probably three different NASA licensed products. So I mean, that's the kind of passion that if you can connect to somebody on an emotional level and make your story part of their story, they want to represent it and they want to get that Harley tattoo on their arm. That emotional connection, but also that personalization that's key. What's the difference from your perspective on a super fan versus an influencer? Are they one and the same? It's a great question. So they, a lot of times are one and the same and that same Biocomp study that I mentioned earlier, something like two thirds of people said that they considered themselves to be pop culture influencers, which sounds like a lot, but if you think about it, pretty much everyone is an influencer and that's because per Nielsen, the most trusted recommendation is, or the most trusted form of advertising is a recommendation from a friend or a family member. 92% of people trust a recommendation from a friend or family member, which far outpaces every other form of advertising. So in a lot of ways these micro influencers are the next wave of advertising, right? These advocates or these super fans are, I think in many ways an untapped well of resources for the fans who drill in. You mentioned Taylor Swift before, how many people listen to Taylor Swift for the first time because a friend suggested they listen to Taylor Swift. I would argue that lots and lots of people and Taylor said something to me years ago that a former manager or someone said to her and that was, if you want to sell half a million albums, you're going to have to meet half a million people. That was said to her when she was like 15, 16 years old and she thought, okay, yeah, I'm going to go meet half a million people, I'm going to befriend them, I'm going to listen to their stories, I'm going to let them know what they say matters to me and here we are, she sold, I don't know, 50, 60 million levels however many she sold worldwide but that's really where it starts, that one-to-one connection. Seems to just kind of all go back to referral and isn't that sort of the basic human connection? It's like, are we trying to over complicate this with all these different tools? It's simply, even with hiring and tech or whatever industry, referrals are so much more important because you've got some sort of connection to a brand or a person or a product or a service. You've got the connection, you've got somebody who's already very well qualified. I like to talk about something that I call the wave method which you know, the wave is a ritual, hello, goodbye, how many times a day do you wave at people? Countless, right? And virtually you say hello to tons of people every day, people who are coming to one of your social pages, people who are engaging with your website. So I say, I encourage people to think about that hello and goodbye, that interaction. Think of wave as an acronym and ask yourself, are you making everybody who's going to come into contact with you today feel welcomed, right? Is there something on your virtual site or in your real store front, if you're a brick and mortar business, that's going to make people feel welcomed? How are you making them feel like they belong? The A is appreciated. How are you letting those people know that they are appreciated by your business? I think, I know I have often felt like I'm a number or I don't matter. Utility companies are notorious for this, for making you feel like they don't really care if they have your business or not, or they know perhaps that they're going to because there's not like a different water company you can use at your home. And that sucks, right? Like we've all been made to feel like we weren't appreciated by somebody that we were doing a financial transaction with. So ask yourself, how can you make your potential and current customers feel appreciated? The V stands for validated. One of the best quotes that I've ever come across is from Oprah on her last episode. She was imparting some of the lessons that she had learned over the years of hosting her shows. And she said she'd interviewed something like 30,000 people over the years. And they all wanted the same thing. And that was validation. They all wanted to feel like they were important and their feelings mattered. I see you, I hear you, what you're saying is important to me. So validate your customers. One big mistake that I see people make all the time in customer service is when somebody has a complaint, having your robot will be like, oh well I've never heard that before. Or 10,000 people have had great experiences. That's absolutely the worst thing that you can ever say to somebody, right? Because you're bringing in other experiences that don't matter to them. It's a one-to-one conversation. It's a one-to-one relationship. So bringing in, you know, that's like having a fight with your significant other and saying like, oh well none of the women I dated before you ever had a problem with this. Like how well is that going to go over, right? Like you don't want to bring in other experiences. So that V in wave, validation. And then the E is excited. Making people feel excited because that passion, having people feel like, you know you're excited that they're a customer of yours. And you can bring something that's going to make their lives better is the most important key. Brittany, thank you so much. I could keep talking to you. I wish we didn't have to have, but we do. For sharing your experiences, your expertise, your recommendations on becoming any kind of brand with any product or service, generating those Superfans. We appreciate your time. Thank you so much. It was so great speaking with you guys today. Ditto. First Jeff, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching us on theCUBE live from the Gentoo Imagine 2019 from Vegas. Thanks for watching.