Well, hello, everybody, and welcome to another amazing episode of Unstoppable Success. This is the podcast where we hear from amazing leaders, influential people out there doing the work and who are unstoppable. And they get to share their insights, their tips, their tricks on how they have been unstoppable. I'm Jaclyn Strominger, your host, and today I get to welcome to the show Barbara. Barbara Khozam. And let me tell you a bit about Barbara. We're already having a lot of fun. She has actually started out in chemistry, her degree. But she made a complete change and started her own leadership customer service experience training company. And she has now spoken more than 1700 times to more than 75,000 people in over 12 countries about leadership motivation, customer experience, the patient experience, and communication. And she has a current program that is from burnout to buy in leadership strategies to reignite teams. And I have to say, when you can do that, you can make anybody unstoppable. So welcome Barbara.

Thank you, Jaclyn. I'm so excited to be here.

Yeah, yeah, we're going to. We're having fun. So let me. So, Barbara, you know, great that you switched your career, but how did you actually decide to do leadership and customer experience training? What. What made you make that jump? Or I would say leap.

Do you want the long story or the short story? I'll do the medium story. I want the fun story. Okay. So when I started speaking, well, first I started speaking with a seminar company where they give you the material, right? Then I went on my own, and I'm like, okay, what I want to do is I'm going to do presentations on attitude, and I'm going to talk about positivity, and everyone's going to be so happy. It's going to be great.

And I'm thinking of Lego Movie. Everything is awesome.

Yeah, yeah, like that.

Like that.

Oh, it's going to be so great. And I'm going to be a gazillionaire in a day. So then I hired a coach, a speaking coach. And he goes, so, Barb, no one hires attitude. People don't hire attitude. What they do hire is customer service, leadership or communication. Pick one. And I was like, easy peasy, customer service. So customer service, because customer service is attitude. But I quickly learned customer service is really all about leadership. Right? So how I get my speaking gigs now is my bait, like how people know me is from customer service. But we always end up doing leadership stuff because without treating employees well, employees won't treat customers well. So that's it.

But so but what. What made you start working with a speaker company or a training company in the first place?

Oh, so. Oh, you want to hear that story? Okay, so out of college. Out of college, I was a chemist. For 10 years, I was a chemist, and it was one of those things. I don't know if you've ever had this. Like, I was good at my job, but I didn't like it. Have you ever had a position? Like, I was good at it, and my last position was great. It moved me to San Diego, which is where I get to play beach volleyball. And I had a territory. I traveled around and went to clients, and it was great, but I didn't like it. The only part of my job I liked was when I had to train people on something, like the equipment or anything. If I had to do a training, I loved it, but it was only 10% of my job. Okay, so here's what happened. So I said to my boss, this was toward the end of my career. I said to my boss, okay, I want to become part of the president's club. That's where they take the top employee from each department. And you get to go somewhere like Bermuda for a week with a loved one, which would have been my mom. So I said, I want to go to ber Bermuda with my mom. What do I need to do? He goes, okay, you need to do these three things. So the next year, I did those three things. Right before the end of the year, we had a merger. So the only people that went to Bermuda with their mom was from the company that bought us. So what did I get? Nothing.

No, none.

Yeah. Zero. No. No certificate. No thank you. No nothing. So the next year, I stayed one more year. The woman that got that award was a woman I had to follow around all year long fixing her mistakes. I quit a week after she got that award. So then I'm like, okay, I need to do this training thing. So for eight months, I don't know what to do. Like, don't do this. Like, don't quit your job without, like, stupid. So for eight months, I'm like, I don't know what to do. So then I joined on with a seminar company, and I was with them for 10 years. Then I quit and went out on my own.

Not necessarily a bad thing, but here's the part that I find that's really fascinating, and it gives you great material for what you do now. That experience of being in the. That first company and doing those three things, not getting it, and then being the sweeper, the Cleaner upper person is great. It's great material for teaching people because it's so not what people do. We don't want anybody to. We don't. We don't want any company to ever do that. And if you are doing that, I want you to listen right now. Hear what Barbara just said.

Stop.

Like, don't do it. Like, if people do the work, reward them.

I know, I know.

And if somebody's fixing the stuff that somebody else is doing, figure that out and reward the person who's fixing.

Exactly. And especially the younger generation, they need more recognition than everybody, you know, but we don't. Oh, and like, what do managers say? Well, they're just doing their job. That's great. I need people to do their job, and I can compliment them and reward them, too. But you're right. But.

Okay, so another kind of key thing is one of the things that helps make people unstoppable is recognition. Yes, it is their job. But to say to somebody, you handled that call amazingly, or you are doing such a great job. Yes, I know that. You know, whatever your job is, maybe your job is the barista. It's not about the tip. It's about just doing your job exceptionally well. What you do. And somebody acknowledging them. Oh, you. The way that you present yourself, the way that you walk into the room. You're not bringing your baggage. Right, Right.

Exactly. What is that? How does that saying go? It's behavior that is rewarded is repeated. So that's what we want. We want people. And you know what is interesting? Maybe interesting. I don't know if one of my clients is a. I just did a talk for them last week. It's a college bookstores. So I went and visited a bunch of college bookstores. Well, who works at a college bookstore? College students. Like, right. So one store, it was pretty cool. All the employees were super happy, super helpful, really, really good at customer service. So I pulled them aside. There was, like, probably six of them. I'm like, all right, what's the deal here? I go, do you guys like your jobs? And they're like, we love our jobs. We love them. We love them. And I'm like, all right, why? Then they said they tried to get away with, oh, it's the culture. I'm like, I don't know. What does that mean? What does culture mean? And you know what they said? Our boss. Our boss is flexible with us. Our boss tells us when we do something wrong, but also lets us have fun and compliments us when we do the right things. That's why we love our jobs. And it's true. It's true in the college market, but it's true everywhere, right?

It is true everywhere. And it's just imagine for a minute if you took that college atmosphere, that college bookstore where everybody was happy, and you brought it to corporate X and corporate Y, or small company abc.

Right?

What would that do?

Exactly. Yeah. Well, okay, here's another example. So yesterday I was staying at a different. A hotel. Yeah. And the front desk staff was exceptional. I had stayed there a year ago and it was horrible. Like, these people were awful, but these people were really good. The check in, the check, like, smiling. They were friend, like. So I said to them, oh, has there been a staffing change? And the lady's like, no, we haven't had a staffing change. And I said, well, I'm like, how do I say this without being mean? And I said, well, I noticed the current staff seems nicer than the staff in the past. And she goes, oh, we got a new manager. And the new manager, he lets us talk to clients and he lets us have fun. Like he. They said the same thing. So it can ha. I mean, you don't have to be a college student to have this kind of environment.

What did you just say? You just said they let us have fun. I mean, there's fun at a reasonable. Like, you're not going to have fun at the expense of somebody. But they. You just said something. It's. They let us talk to the customer.

Yes, I know.

I mean, I don't mean to be a light bulb moment here, but like listeners, seriously, if you have employees, let them talk to customers and, and let them make the customers feel heard.

That's right. It's the connection. Right?

It's totally that connection, you know. Now take that to what happens when you get. When you're dialing, you know, 1, 800, I need to talk to my credit card company.

Right. I do a lot of call center training, by the way, but the problem is we got this digital insert now, right? We've got AI and chatbots and all this. And you got to scream, human, Human, human, human. A body, something with blood running through their veins. Can I speak who? Yeah, yeah.

You don't necessarily. I'd like to speak to the robot today.

That's right.

I'd like to see. Speak to Rosie. Rosie Jetson. If you haven't watched the Jetsons, listeners, go watch the Jetsons. Go. Go on YouTube and look up the Jetsons.

I'm dating myself. That's right.

So what do you feel?

Right.

Like what. Right now, when you're talking and you're getting. What are.

What.

What do you feel is the biggest issue that are. That is facing people right now that you're able to influence on.

You mean regarding customer service or leadership

or, you know, I guess on the leadership side.

Yeah. Well, so the biggest issue that I hear people talking about is hiring. Like, there's a. Oh, we can't hire the right people or people aren't staying. You know, like, this retention is very, very big for a lot of my clients. And so I go back to the. The basics. I'm like, are you communicating the vision? Like your people all roll their eyes, Mission, vision, values. No, this is the core.

You're speaking my language, right?

Like, if my values as a human being, and I'm a. You're hiring me. Are in line with this company's values and it excites me. And oh, my gosh, what. Who do I impact with my job? When people see the big picture? Not just, oh, you check people in and you will, you know, call people. But no. What is your impact then? Now we get motivation, we get excitement, but people just throw a lot of leaders here. Here's your job description. Can you do it? Yes or no? You can. Okay. I don't care if you hate people. Answer the phone. What? Well, you're never going to get. They're going to hate their job, they're going to hate you, and then patients are. Customers will hate them, and then it's no good. So for me, it's starting with the big vision. Make sure we're on track, and then let's have workflows so we can hold people accountable, reward them. Boom. That's it. That's kind of boils down to two things, I think. This is what I teach in my sessions. Like, if you boil leadership down to two things, employees need two. I said two things. Two things. One, right? Two. Yeah. One is they want to know what's expected of them. Right? So what. What do you. How do you expect me to communicate when there's a problem? What are the expectations? And number two, how are they doing good and bad. If we focus on those two things, everything else will fall into place. By the way, employees want to know when they're not doing it right. You know, they want to improve. So don't. We can't hide from negative feedback. But we're afraid, right? I don't. I don't want them to get mad.

Okay? But there's two things there and And I think this is actually, you know, you're speaking my language. I talk about this all the time. I feel like vision, mission.

Yes.

And it's a different. And your values, like values assessment. If you haven't done a values assessment, oh, my God, let me know. Right. But seriously. But one of the other kind of key things that I think that comes out of this is the communication part of it. And you just said this. They want to know the good and the bad and the ugly. But as a leader, you don't say, I'm not going to say to you. I'm like, I'm not going to yell at you. And I'm not going to say, barbara,

you didn't do that.

Right?

No. Right, right.

You're going to say, hey, Barbara, the way I want. Can I talk to you for a minute about blank. Can we talk about how that was done? I think there could be a better way. Or let's talk about that because

we

would like to see it done a different way.

Right.

We're an area where you can improve upon.

That's right.

It's how you communicate it.

Yeah.

Is so important.

I know, I know. And what's interesting is when you're clear on the expectation ahead of time, this conversation is easy. So you'll just say, oh, Jaclyn. Hey, Jaclyn, remember the expectation where we talked about you would use the customer's preferred name? Remember we talked about that? Well, this morning at 8:15, I heard you call Mr. Johnson Dude Biscuit. Y. Remember? Yeah. So how do we get back on track with using the preferred. Like that's an easy conversation. Right.

Like Dude Biscuit.

I know. Or Stud Muffin. Which one's better? Yeah, Right. But it's. Yeah, I mean, but we need to have the conversation. And you're right, it could be easy. The expectation is this. And I saw you do this. So let's talk about it. Let's talk about it.

Okay. I just want to say something about names for a second. If you're listening, listening to this, I just want you to. I want to drill something into you. Everybody's head drill this. When somebody introduces themselves, use the name they use to introduce themselves. Do not take the liberty to shorten it or to change it. My name is Jaclyn. Barbara's name is Barbara. Unless she tells you. By the way, I also go by whatever Princess. Right, Princess. I go by Queen. But, you know, there's my tiara. Do not change is not for you to do. And I, I'm gonna. If I can. If you. If there's One thing. Names matter.

Yes.

You can miss it. Like, you could, you know, maybe you don't know how to say a name properly, then say, is your name pronounced this ask? Or if you mess up, don't feel bad to say somebody. Oh, actually, my name is pronounced like this. People want to know, but do me a favor. Call people by the name they introduce themselves with. That's the name they want to use.

I agree a thousand percent. So many people call me Barb. I. I'll say, hi, my name is Barbara. And they go, hi, Barbara. My friends call me Barb, but I just introduced myself as Barbara. Why are you shortening? Yeah, it drives me crazy.

Well, you can only imagine what people shorten my name to.

And I can only imagine.

And I don't like it.

Right. Yeah.

I'm not anything with an ie. I'm just saying.

Right.

That's nails on a chalkboard for me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

But it's a huge thing. And. And the reason why I bring that up, because I want to actually go to talk about customer service now for a minute. That's actually part of customer service when you actually use somebody's name. And I want to go to the customer service for a bit, too, because I feel like it's an area in so many places that people have forgotten about.

Mm, totally.

So when you're talking to people about customer service and you're working with your clients, share what you're seeing out there.

Well, what's interesting is the people that hire me usually. And it's a leader. It's a leader who believes in customer service. They usually already have good service. You know, those companies that have horrible customer service, Those people never hire me. It's very interesting. But, yeah, it's all about, you know, presence and. Yeah, the basics, you know, smile. Like in healthcare. I have a lot of healthcare clients, and we're missing empathy. These, like, what's. Here's what's happening in healthcare. I think these patients get a great AI digital experience. So they get to schedule online. They get appointment reminders and texts and call, all automated. And then they walk into the doctor's office and they're treated like poop by a human. So there's a disconnect between the digital and the human. We still need to be nice. These people are sick. They're scared. Why can't we empathize? Why can't we give them compassion? But we're missing it. And I don't know if it's a hiring thing. I don't know if it's a generation thing, it's a missing thing for sure. What do you.

Do you think it's also has anything to do. And I'm holding for those of you that are listening, I'm going to hold up my phone. Is it because people are so used to texting, they actually have lost the art of communication and speaking with their voice because they only know how to speak in 140 characters.

That's correct. So I read this book called years ago I read a book called Ibrain, like iPhone, but I brain and it said the younger generation has not developed the neurological pathways for face to face communication. So because of this they don't understand eye rolls and eye contact and you know, listening without interrupt. They don't get it. They haven't developed the neurological pathways. So it's a problem. And like, and also said college students, and I just learned this at the college bookstore thing. College students have a high percentage of mental, I don't want to say illness, but problems, depression, anxiety, a huge percentage of college. These young kids, because I think they have friends here, but they don't have friends here. You know. Right.

The in person friendship, you know, those of you that are listening, it's, it's the in person friendship versus the phone friendship. You know, how do you make that, how do you make that transition to, from, from digital to, to in person? I mean it's a weird thing. Like my husband made some comment to me like about how many people have fallen in love with their chat. Their chat.

That's right. Right.

Which is like creepy to me. But yet, yet you could, I mean you could open up and have a whole conversation with chat talking to you and it's going to tell you how much you're great and. But I know you're not having this in person relationship. So how do you help companies? Is it a training where you put people in a room and you start training people on having face to face conversations?

Pretty much, yeah. So I'm big on behaviors. If we can get them to do the behavior, like smiling, eye contact, like I can't say be nice. I don't.

That's a character thing.

Right. Like I can't see what is be nice, but I can see eye contact and smiling. I can see that you're wearing a name badge. I can see and hear you using the preferred name. So when people practice the behaviors, it eventually becomes a habit, it becomes part of them. But it's a skill. Right. And we need to constantly talk about it. Coma, top of mind awareness. You can't just say on a Monday in January, January 1, smile and never say it again. No. Right. We're constantly talking. Right.

So I. This is actually an interest. Interesting thing. I used to work very, very, very part time at a ski resort.

Ah, yeah.

And we were part of the marketing team. We would walk up to different people and we would ask them to get their email addresses so they could take a survey to see how the magic was doing and they were getting into a drawing. But one of the things I thought was fascinating because I, you know, I had learned this, I think, years ago when I was in a college class when I did, I'd learned speaking. We had a. In college, I had a speaking class. Right. And part of it was when you are walking and you're at, you know, at a store or whatever, and you're an employee, you walk and you look at people and you say, you smile and you say hello. You don't offer anything. Say, it's like walking in the door. It's like, oh, hi, how are you? You know, somebody's walking past you. Anybody that you can see within 10ft, hi, how are you? Now, obviously, at a mall, if you're walking, you're not going to be able to say hi to everyone. It's like, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi. That people are going to think you're insane. But if you're in a business setting or at a store or you're at a company office and you're walking through the office, say hello to your fellow employees.

I mean, right?

It's so important, right?

I agree. Yeah. One of my clients has what you've probably heard is the 105 rule. So at 10ft, you make eye contact. At 5, you smile and say something. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was a rule, right?

That. It's a great rule. And my other, the other thing is, if you're having a conversation with people, think of the five questions. Not the five finger, as in you're stealing, but think of five things that you can ask people that have nothing to do with their job that are about them.

Right.

So you can think now it's like 10:55. You're like, yeah, yeah, okay, good, five. And in person, I'm gonna ask you five things.

Yeah, cool.

But that's, but it's, it's so important. You know, I'm gonna share a funny story. Is. Is my. One of my closest friends who was in my wedding and to this day is one of my closest friends. I met her, imagine this in an elevator at My very first job out of college.

Huh.

But that was just because she's standing there and I said, hi.

Hi.

Right.

Don't talk to me.

But. But listeners, part of this, and I think this is a really key thing. And Barbara does this and shares this really well. It's, you know, leadership and customer service go together, and it's about being able to communicate and don't be afraid to say hello. And if you have employees, really work with them. On looking people in the eye and smiling.

Exactly.

So what is the next thing? I mean, we're talking about? Obviously, leadership, customer service. But you know, and in healthcare, it also goes to that ex. The. The client experience, which I almost feel is very different than just customer service. Mm.

Right.

So how do you talk about and what do you do to help people have a better experience?

Well, it's all. It's all on how.

What.

It's the customer's perception of the experience. Right. So it's. It's based on how they feel. So their perception. If they leave, let's do it like a doctor's office. They have a great experience with the doctor and the nurse and the front desk staff. And then they get in the car and they're like, what was I supposed to do? Like, am I supposed to get labs? And now they're questioning. Now that's they're leaving with a negative experience, even though they had some. So I talk a lot about the touch points. Do we have consistent, like, are we communicating like a doctor's office? At the end, do we clearly communicate the next steps? Because the last impression is the most memorable. Right. So it's. It's. What I do is I teach them. Okay. Each touch point will produce a feeling for your customer. So are you familiar with each of those touch points? I'm a professional mystery shopper. I'm basically a professional liar. So you can learn a lot from your clients by walking in their shoes. You know, like, for example, what is the first thing I do as a customer? I Google them. I'll Google the company and I read the reviews. Well, so many companies have a review from what, 10 years ago? Like, what am I thinking? Are you not up to date? Like, why don't you have up to date? Or no one replies to any of the reviews if they're negative, like, you just ignore. So that's my first touch point. Can we fix that? Yeah, nowadays we can. Right. So each touch point is going to produce some kind of feeling. And what we need to fix those touch points that aren't so positive. Right, right.

You know, you brought up something that's really. That I think is. That's two. Two really important things. One is that. That review. Right.

And.

And getting recent reviews.

Right. And it's not hard to get reviews nowadays. Right. You put QR codes in every room or everything you see, ask them, send out. I mean, we need to be proactive. You've got to get the feedback.

Right. Gotta get the feedback. But then the other thing is. And. And you said this, somebody needs to be monitoring them.

That's right. Yeah. I had one doctor's office where the doctor would monitor it and then she would reply and we would be pissed and she would be like, you're a jerk. I'm like, oh, no. Oops.

We don't want to say that.

We're not the person that's supposed to do that. Yeah. So, yeah, there needs to be a system. It needs to be systematized. Right, right.

You need to. But really important, like, you do need to get those. That customer service and get those reviews and have somebody respond. It's very true. If somebody. Because sometimes, you know, you could diffuse something so easily just by responding to somebody.

Right, right. Well, I had a bad experience at a hotel two weeks ago, and I complained, like on the survey. I was like, oh, this is blah, blah, blah, blah. The general manager. Oh. And I left the general manager a voicemail. Like, I was pissed because I had like seven different incidents in one hotel. So I left him a voicemail. He replied right away, set up a conference call. So I vented to him, you know, for I don't know how long. He didn't say, like, any solutions. He just said, you know, you shouldn't have had that experience. You know, I'm going to get my team together. We're going to talk about this. Boom, I'm done. I'm not mad anymore. Right, right.

Because he acknowledged he probably apologized for the bad service, but he said that's correct, you know.

Yes. And he didn't make excuses. Oh, you know, we were short staffed that day, you know, like, I don't care. I don't care. I want to be acknowledged. And he did it beautifully. That. That's what we need to do.

We do need to do that. You.

It's right.

It's so important. Okay. So if you could give everybody one tip because you. One tip on. On what? What it takes to be unstoppable in your pursuit of your career or your greatness.

Oh, man. One tip. I think. You know what I think? I think it's being present. You know, be present whether it's with one person, one on one, or be present with like what you're doing, you know, do you enjoy it? And if you do enjoy it, go for it. Like go 100% in if you don't enjoy it. We'll look at other avenues, do some research, but like be, be really present and you will make remarkable connections with a lot of people.

Yep, I love that. Okay, listeners, do me a favor. You gotta reach out to Barbara. She's absolutely amazing, ton of fun and you gotta get her greatness because she's got a lot of great wisdom and great insights. So Barbara, what is the way, the best way for people to connect with you?

Oh, probably via email or. Okay, right. Or my website. My website's probably good.

Barbaracazam.com okay, I will put that in the show notes.

So you. All right, perfect.

Reach out to Barbara, connect with her. Now do me a favor, listeners, this is such an important topic. Whatever company you work for, whether it's yourself, you're employed at a company, please share this with every single leader person that you know. It is great information and it's information that we need to all be thinking about on a day to day basis. It might even turn a company that you're working for around, change their opinion, make them do something different. So please share this episode with people that you know and like and believe in so that that we can, each and every one of us, make better leaders out there. I'm Jaclyn Schminger. I'm your host. This is unstoppable success. Thank you listeners for listening and thank you, Barbara, for being an amazing and fun guest.

My pleasure. Yes.