Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learn how to turn your prospective customers into raving fans from a 30-year expert on customer experience success.
Kevin Mako: This is the Product Startup Podcast, a show to learn from top leaders in hardware product development,
Kevin Mako: prototyping, manufacturing, product selling, and everything in between. Hosted by Kevin Mako, the leading expert on product development for hardware startups.
Kevin Mako: Welcome back, everyone. Today I'm very excited to introduce Jason Friedman to the show.
Kevin Mako: Jason is the CEO of CXFormula, a company.
Kevin Mako: that helps emerging entrepreneurs perfect their customer experiences.
Kevin Mako: He has worked with thousands of companies on this type of work for nearly 30 years, including
Kevin Mako: having multiple business exits.
Kevin Mako: Today, Jason will share valuable information for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers
Kevin Mako: on what customer experience is, why the customer journey matters so much and best practices
Kevin Mako: around ensuring your new product customers engage, buy, and become raving fans of your invention.
Kevin Mako: Now, on to the episode.
Kevin Mako: This show is produced by Mako Design, the original firm providing end to
Kevin Mako: to end consumer product development services tailored specifically to hardware startups,
Kevin Mako: small manufacturers, and inventors.
Kevin Mako: Take your product from idea to store shelves at MakoDesign.com.
Kevin Mako: Now on to the episode.
Kevin Mako: Hey, Jason, welcome to the show.
Jason Friedman: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Kevin Mako: Well, I really look forward to talking to you today about the customer experience,
Kevin Mako: both in the purchase and acquisition of a new hardware product,
Kevin Mako: but also in the lifecycle journey of that customer with your product.
Kevin Mako: Both are very well.
Kevin Mako: Very important, and often the second part is overlooked.
Kevin Mako: And we're going to get into all the details today.
Kevin Mako: But before we get into best practices around understanding your customer, best positioning to
Kevin Mako: your customer, and then getting a lifelong brand champion for your new hardware product,
Kevin Mako: just give us a bit of a backstory of how you got to be the big success story that you are today.
Jason Friedman: Well, I appreciate that.
Jason Friedman: Yeah.
Jason Friedman: I mean, customer experience, it's funny.
Jason Friedman: I've been talking about this for the last 25, 30 years.
Jason Friedman: And when I talk to people about customer experience, it's always like, yeah,
Jason Friedman: yeah, it seems like something nice.
Jason Friedman: We'll do that someday.
Jason Friedman: And I keep saying to people, and I've said it like, I sound like a broken record, customer experience
Jason Friedman: is one of the most important things, most important aspects of your business.
Jason Friedman: It differentiates you in the marketplace.
Jason Friedman: And if you're not really focusing on it, you're not going to be around that long.
Jason Friedman: And that statement that I've been saying for 25, 30 years is more important today than ever before.
Jason Friedman: You know, we have AI proliferating our world in every way.
Jason Friedman: Everywhere you look, it's like new products are being developed, new courses are being created,
Jason Friedman: new everything.
Jason Friedman: Anybody can be a content creator in seconds and be a guru, be an expert.
Jason Friedman: And now, what makes us unique is the experience that we create with our products,
Jason Friedman: with our services, with our inventions, and it's more important today than ever before.
Jason Friedman: So I think probably what's really important is, like, what is customer experience?
Jason Friedman: What do I mean when I actually say that?
Jason Friedman: And what I'm talking about is customer experience is the perception of how people feel after interacting
Jason Friedman: with your product, with your brand, with your service, with your invention.
Jason Friedman: And, you know, giving some
Jason Friedman: somebody, a customer experience is not actually like the right way to say it.
Jason Friedman: Like customer experience isn't something you do.
Jason Friedman: Customer experience is something your customers have as a result of all the things you do.
Jason Friedman: Of how that product works, how it fits, how it solves the problem that they have, how it makes
Jason Friedman: them feel.
Jason Friedman: And so I think it's really important to think about that.
Jason Friedman: And one of the things that I struggle with that frustrates me in working with so many companies
Jason Friedman: and just being a consumer myself is how infrequently the folks, the folks,
Jason Friedman: focus from a product designer, product developer, or even a course if you're taking a training
Jason Friedman: or, you know, you're going through a drive-through at a restaurant, you know, it doesn't matter.
Jason Friedman: They don't think about it from the perspective of the customer.
Jason Friedman: We really get so focused on, fixated on, like, what we think and what we know, it's hard to kind
Jason Friedman: of flip the perspective around and look at it from a different angle, right?
Jason Friedman: Like 180 degrees off axis, so we're seeing it from that other perspective.
Jason Friedman: And so I think it's really important for all
Jason Friedman: of us, especially if you're creating new products and inventing things to really get
Jason Friedman: clear on that customer and what their needs and wants are and what their journey really is so
Jason Friedman: that they can most effectively utilize the product.
Kevin Mako: Yeah, I appreciate that you mentioned that, especially for hardware startups, especially
Kevin Mako: as inventors, innovators, engineers, designers, etc.
Kevin Mako: You really get caught up in the weeds of your features and everything that's going in behind
Kevin Mako: the scenes to design, develop, prototype, test, manufacture that product.
Kevin Mako: It's easy to get caught up in those details and then forget about what you're actually there to do.
Kevin Mako: At the end of the day, you're there to build a product to help improve someone's life or help reduce
Kevin Mako: a pain point that they have.
Kevin Mako: So if you think about this customer-centric style of view, this customer-centric style of design,
Kevin Mako: all the way through the development process, from the early ideation, all the way through to
Kevin Mako: and including manufacturing and so on into sales.
Kevin Mako: And then, of course, after-sale support, the exponentially more valuable your product likely will be to that
Kevin Mako: customer. Now, you're a pro at this. This is all you do. You've been doing this for 30 years.
Kevin Mako: You've worked with literally thousands of small businesses and, of course, some major Fortune 500s,
Kevin Mako: Fortune 100s at that, in addition to Ivy League schools like Harvard and so on. So you really
Kevin Mako: understand what it's like to have a brand, represent their product in the best possible light to the way
Kevin Mako: that the customers actually see it, to really empathize with the customer. So let's first talk about
Kevin Mako: customer journey because I think that is the foundation in the core of all the tips and tricks
Kevin Mako: that get derived from really trying to understand best practices from customers so that our
Kevin Mako: hardware startups are listening today can think about how they can start applying this journey and
Kevin Mako: those tips to their new hardware invention, both in development, onto sales, and then eventually into
Jason Friedman: after-sales support and the actual experience of the product itself. I think that's a great place to
Jason Friedman: start. And you said something that really resonates. And it's like you said that, you know, we get
Jason Friedman: so caught up in all the features.
Jason Friedman: And we forget about all the benefits, right?
Jason Friedman: And so it's really important, like as you're an engineer and you're designing, you're developing,
Jason Friedman: you're creating these things, you really got to think about what's in it for the customer and
Jason Friedman: what the journey that they're having is, right?
Jason Friedman: those are more of the benefits.
Jason Friedman: Why is it going to help me?
Jason Friedman: How is it going to solve my problems?
Jason Friedman: And we oftentimes, like I know myself, like when I'm creating something, I start out with
Jason Friedman: this level of clarity that I believe I have about what the problem is.
Jason Friedman: And then as I get into it, it starts.
Jason Friedman: to morph a little bit and I'm so in my zone and I'm so focused on that that that it takes
Jason Friedman: a turn at some point. I don't even realize I made a left and I needed to kind of stay straight.
Jason Friedman: And so as we start to step in the shoes of our customer and look through their glasses,
Jason Friedman: it changes the perspective of it.
Jason Friedman: So what is a customer journey, right? A customer journey is all the steps, all the touchpoints
Jason Friedman: that they have with your brand, with your product, with your service, and it starts even before
Jason Friedman: they know that your product might exist, right?
Jason Friedman: Maybe they're researching to try and figure out, how do I solve this problem?
Jason Friedman: And so they go on this journey and they're really looking for something.
Jason Friedman: And as they go through this, they're looking to see what's out there.
Jason Friedman: And they have these cognitive biases, they have these perceptions that from experiences that they've
Jason Friedman: had in their past that guide them along their journey.
Jason Friedman: And so for you as a product inventor or a startup founder in one of these areas, you have to know
Jason Friedman: so deeply, intimately who those customers are.
Jason Friedman: and what's going on in that journey.
Jason Friedman: Because if you're not clear on that, like the sales process isn't going to go smoothly
Jason Friedman: for them and then, you know, obviously it all falls apart.
Jason Friedman: So one of the tricks, I'm going to give you a couple of tips on how to think about doing
Jason Friedman: this along the way if that's cool.
Jason Friedman: But yeah, so I'm recovering theater geek, right?
Jason Friedman: I was always in theater.
Jason Friedman: I was a behind the scenes kind of guy.
Jason Friedman: I did lighting and sets and things like that.
Jason Friedman: But what I learned in theater was how the process of storytelling goes.
Jason Friedman: And it really is a journey.
Jason Friedman: We're taking that audience.
Jason Friedman: from where they enter, they come, they sit down in the theater,
Jason Friedman: and we're taking them on this roller coaster ride,
Jason Friedman: that by the end of the show, they've been moved,
Jason Friedman: they've been transformed, they believe, they bought in,
Jason Friedman: they get up and they give you a standing ovation at the end
Jason Friedman: because they really bought into the experience.
Jason Friedman: And the way that that happens is actors really have to get into character.
Jason Friedman: They have to know how to play that role believably on stage.
Jason Friedman: And so for you as an inventor, I want you to figure out
Jason Friedman: how could I play my customer on stage?
Jason Friedman: Like if I had to get into character for that customer,
Jason Friedman: and I can actually reliably and authentically deliver performance and that that really is them.
Jason Friedman: What would it be?
Jason Friedman: What's going through their mind?
Jason Friedman: What are they thinking and expecting when they're researching for how to solve this problem?
Jason Friedman: What are the things that have happened in their life before that maybe they've tried and they
Jason Friedman: didn't work, that they're frustrated and they're angry about?
Jason Friedman: And if they try your thing, even though it might be a little bit different, are they going to have
Jason Friedman: like this preconceived notion that your product's not going to work for them because of that belief
Jason Friedman: that they're coming into it?
Jason Friedman: If you get inside their mind and understand
Jason Friedman: where they're coming from, you will win.
Jason Friedman: Because you will be able to help them overcome those obstacles,
Jason Friedman: remove those, as we call them friction points from other pathway
Jason Friedman: so they can more seamlessly flow down that pathway with you.
Kevin Mako: You talk about smoothing out that pathway.
Kevin Mako: Let's dive into the details a bit about that,
Kevin Mako: but I'd like to look at it from two lenses.
Kevin Mako: One, what are some of the exercises that you get inside the mind?
Kevin Mako: I like how you mentioned play it out.
Kevin Mako: So how does that actually look to really understand
Kevin Mako: and empathize with what the customer is?
Kevin Mako: And then by using that information,
Kevin Mako: How do you smooth out some of those friction points, as you mentioned, to basically get the customer to both learn about your product,
Kevin Mako: then buy the product, and of course, love the product and be a lifelong raving fan of the product
Kevin Mako: brand because of that product?
Jason Friedman: Yeah, great questions.
Jason Friedman: First and foremost, like to get into character, right?
Jason Friedman: So if you think about some of the famous actors, like Matthew McConaughey, right, like everyone
Jason Friedman: knows who he is or Robert De Niro, those are guys that went to the school of method acting, right?
Jason Friedman: And so when they get into character, they research the heck out of
Jason Friedman: that person that they're gonna play.
Jason Friedman: So if Matthew McConaughey's playing like an emaciated cancer patient,
Jason Friedman: he lost all the weight, like he got into character.
Jason Friedman: He figured out what it was like, what does it feel like,
Jason Friedman: what is my body, where are the aches, where are the pains?
Jason Friedman: Like, they go deep.
Jason Friedman: You don't have to do that, but you have to go in as deep as you can
Jason Friedman: to really understand what's going on.
Jason Friedman: What are their challenges?
Jason Friedman: Who are they, like, where do they shop?
Jason Friedman: What brands do they like?
Jason Friedman: What do they have for breakfast?
Jason Friedman: Like what pisses them off?
Jason Friedman: What frustrates them?
Jason Friedman: Great places to look for this.
Jason Friedman: Go and look on Amazon at other products that are similar
Jason Friedman: or other niches and see what the reviews are,
Jason Friedman: where the people are complaining.
Jason Friedman: Look at the negative feedback or positive feedback
Jason Friedman: or what people love about products.
Jason Friedman: But there's tons of that out there
Jason Friedman: so that you can get a lot of great detail
Jason Friedman: about what's frustrating people.
Jason Friedman: You can type into Google and just start searching
Jason Friedman: how to, blah, blah, blah,
Jason Friedman: start going down that road and see what the suggestions
Jason Friedman: that Google puts up of the most common searches.
Jason Friedman: You'll start to see the questions
Jason Friedman: that those people are asking.
Jason Friedman: And you'll get a lot of clarity about
Jason Friedman: really who your customer is and what's going on inside their head.
Jason Friedman: So start there, right?
Jason Friedman: You'll have a wealth of information and talk to people.
Jason Friedman: Seek out your ideal customers and talk to them.
Jason Friedman: Have a conversation.
Jason Friedman: Buy them a cup of coffee.
Jason Friedman: Have a cold beer with them.
Jason Friedman: Whatever tickles your fancy, right?
Jason Friedman: But start to really do some deep dives into that because what will also happen is you'll get
Jason Friedman: the words, the real words that they use, and that will become such powerful marketing,
Jason Friedman: messaging in your sales process.
Jason Friedman: and in your fulfillment process of really helping them use the product
Jason Friedman: and see what things are going to be in their way.
Jason Friedman: So that's where I would start, you know, out of the gate.
Kevin Mako: That's powerful.
Kevin Mako: That's a lot of information.
Kevin Mako: That's a lot of things that if you're an inventor or startup listening today,
Kevin Mako: you can start acting on these at any point in time in your actual journey.
Kevin Mako: And if you replay that section a bit,
Kevin Mako: Jason's told you a whole bunch of different,
Kevin Mako: very specific, very tactful ways that you can get started on this journey,
Kevin Mako: just in a very basic level to start, get that information,
Kevin Mako: and understand your customer, get in their mind, and start writing it down, get it documented,
Kevin Mako: make sure that you're following along, documented all these things so that when you really get
Kevin Mako: to understand the customer, now we go into the next part, which I'd love to hear about Jason.
Kevin Mako: We'll wrap the show up with here for getting into some of the best practices that you have and some of
Kevin Mako: the service offerings that you have.
Kevin Mako: Once you figure out that customer, how do you actually reduce the friction to get them to
Kevin Mako: be a customer and then love your product?
Jason Friedman: Yeah, so I like to think about it as absolutely gaming the system, right?
Jason Friedman: I want you to reverse engine.
Jason Friedman: success. And so the way I like to do this is I like to create what's called an ideal customer
Jason Friedman: script. I want you to actually write the perfect customer testimonial. Like they just use your product
Jason Friedman: and it did everything that they can imagine. I want you to write with lots of juicy adjectives and
Jason Friedman: lots of great words. What are they telling somebody about that product? Like, oh my gosh,
Jason Friedman: Kevin, I just bought your product and it was amazing. Like when I was looking for this,
Jason Friedman: I was like, there's nothing out there that's of quality. But then I found your product. And I started
Jason Friedman: reading the reviews and people were talking about blah blah blah blah I knew I had to try it.
Jason Friedman: I couldn't wait for the product like hit my doorstep. And when it did, I ripped the box open.
Jason Friedman: I got the product and oh my God, like it was immediately magical. Like whatever they're going to say,
Jason Friedman: right? Write what that is and get details. Like imagine it. Make it up. What you know about your
Jason Friedman: customer and you know about your product. Marry that together. Once you've kind of figured out what
Jason Friedman: that ideal testimonial or raving fan statement would be, then we're going to
Jason Friedman: reverse engineer? How do we put things along that journey that are going to help them to say those
Jason Friedman: words? How do we take things out of the way that are happening right now that might be stopping them
Jason Friedman: from actually taking action and using the product? How do we take things out of the way that are
Jason Friedman: confusing them? How do we make it less confusing? How do we set their expectations right from the start
Jason Friedman: as to what the process looks like and what they have to do? How do they get the value and the results
Jason Friedman: from that? And so if you start at the end, you write that script, then you reverse engineer all the
Jason Friedman: little steps along the way, they will more than likely say those words and feel compelled to actually
Jason Friedman: start leaving positive reviews for you because they were so wowed by the experience.
Kevin Mako: That's such a great strategy. Love it. And I know that you do a lot of this work right now. Talk a bit
Kevin Mako: bit about what CXFormula is doing, helping emerging startups go through this very journey and make sure
Kevin Mako: that they get it done right.
Jason Friedman: Absolutely.
Jason Friedman: Thanks for that.
Jason Friedman: You know, so we have a program that we call the kinetic customer formula.
Jason Friedman: And the premise is this, you have prospects with potential.
Jason Friedman: If you go back to physics class in the old days, there's two types of energy.
Jason Friedman: Potential energy, which is energy that has the ability or the potential to do work, but it's
Jason Friedman: stagnant.
Jason Friedman: And then there's kinetic energy.
Jason Friedman: That's energy in motion.
Jason Friedman: That's doing the work.
Jason Friedman: We want to take these prospects with potential and turn them into active, engaged, action-taking,
Jason Friedman: raving fans, people who rave about your products and services, people who renew their
Jason Friedman: subscriptions and their memberships, maybe for your fulfillment products, people that return
Jason Friedman: to you to buy more of your products, and people who recruit others to try out your products.
Jason Friedman: We call that the R4 ideal.
Jason Friedman: That's the ideal result.
Jason Friedman: Rave, return, renew, and recruit.
Jason Friedman: And so when you go through our program, we teach you how to go deeper into the minds of your
Jason Friedman: customer like we started today.
Jason Friedman: We go through that whole reverse engineering process, and we go through all the different things.
Jason Friedman: There's four key factors that you really have to get clear on to engineer that customer
Jason Friedman: journey and turn it from a journey.
Jason Friedman: that's passive into a pathway that's active.
Jason Friedman: That's like a water slide that's just kind of flowing them down the journey so that they get to
Jason Friedman: that ideal result.
Jason Friedman: And so we're proud to have, you know, been working with entrepreneurs, like you said earlier, thousands
Jason Friedman: of entrepreneurs over the years.
Jason Friedman: This is the newest and latest, greatest version of our program.
Jason Friedman: It's probably the thing that we're the most proud of.
Jason Friedman: If you're interested to check it out, you can always go to our website, cxformula.com, and
Jason Friedman: learn more about that.
Jason Friedman: But Kevin, I also want to give your audience a special gift of a strategy,
Jason Friedman: that is going to kind of blow their mind around how to think about this and a tactic that they can
Jason Friedman: actually execute on this strategy right away.
Jason Friedman: And so I'm not going to tell you what it is.
Jason Friedman: This is like the dangling carrot, right?
Jason Friedman: If you want it, you got to go check it out.
Jason Friedman: Just go to gift.cfarmula.com slash mako and download it.
Jason Friedman: It's free.
Jason Friedman: There's no strings attached.
Jason Friedman: All I ask is that if you download it, actually open it up.
Jason Friedman: Take the five minutes and read through it.
Jason Friedman: And if you think it's pretty cool, show you.
Jason Friedman: shoot me an email and just tell me what you thought.
Jason Friedman: Like you'll literally, my email address is in there.
Jason Friedman: You'll email me directly.
Jason Friedman: I'll write back to you.
Jason Friedman: I just want to know what you think and how you might use it.
Jason Friedman: And if you think it sucks, tell me that too.
Jason Friedman: I want to know.
Jason Friedman: I want all the feedback I can get.
Jason Friedman: But it's a gift for you for listening to this episode and, you know, being a fan of Kevin's.
Jason Friedman: Like I'm super excited that I was able to be here and share some of these insights.
Kevin Mako: Jason, much appreciated for that.
Kevin Mako: And for anyone listening in, I'll also put the link directly to that below.
Kevin Mako: So you can just click through, download that free info.
Kevin Mako: and use it to learn about some of the more advanced strategies about some of what we talked about today.
Kevin Mako: And more, Jason, which appreciate it for having you on the show and look forward to talking again soon.
Jason Friedman: Yeah, I love to, man.
Jason Friedman: Thank you so much.
Kevin Mako: Thanks.
Kevin Mako: Take care.
Kevin Mako: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Product Startup Podcast.
Kevin Mako: If you found some value in the show, please do us a huge favor and hit the like button and subscribe.
Kevin Mako: If you have any questions, guest suggestions, or anything else, feel free to reach out to us anytime at our email,
Kevin Mako: podcast at MakoDesign.com.
Kevin Mako: This show is hosted by Kevin Mako, North America's leading expert on product development for hardware
Kevin Mako: startups, and the podcast is produced by Mako Design, the original firm providing
Kevin Mako: end-to-end consumer product development services tailored specifically to hardware
Kevin Mako: startups, small manufacturers, and inventors.
Kevin Mako: Take your product from idea to store shelves at MakoDesign.com.
Kevin Mako: That's M-A-K-O-Design.com.
Jason Friedman: Thanks for joining and see you again.
Jason Friedman: soon.