Melina Palmer, Author of What Your Customer Wants and Can’t Tell You

Melina talks about:

The old adage “Perception Is Reality”
How to shift your business to be customer-obsessed
What drives buying behavior
How to leverage the power of questions

The person who has influenced Melina the most in the past year:

Scott Miller – EVP of Thought Leadership at Franklin Covey

Marketing Mess to Brand Success: https://amzn.to/2RFw5BT

Her note to all customer service professionals:

“Be Thoughtful”

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Nick Glimsdahl 0:00
Welcome to the Press 1 for Nick podcast. My name is Nick Glimsdahl. And my guest this week is Melina Palmer. Molina is the founder and CEO of the brainy business, which provides behavioral economics consulting to businesses of all sizes across the world. Her podcast, the brainy business has downloads in over 160 countries. What? Her first book what customer wants and can’t tell you launches may 2021. Welcome, Melina,

Melina Palmer 0:29
thank you so much for having me. And it’s actually it’s over 170 countries now. Making our way through those ranks.

Nick Glimsdahl 0:38
That’s awesome. You should have like a podcast passport of like all of the pages that are stamped. Yeah, that would be amazing. There should be a page for that.

Melina Palmer 0:49
It’ll be very full now, which is great. Lots of countries I haven’t physically made it to yet. But someday,

Nick Glimsdahl 0:54
someday, they’ll all listen, and I want you to come speak.

Melina Palmer 0:58
Yeah, sounds good.

Nick Glimsdahl 1:00
Well, I start off every single podcast with the question that is, what’s one thing that people might not know about you?

Melina Palmer 1:08
I would say would be, and I’ve talked about this on my own show. So if anybody already knows me here, but so I actually for a very long time, there was no question I was going to go to school for musical theater. And I used to compete singing opera in school, and was the only vocalist in my high school that went to states and I’ve sung the national anthem at Seattle Mariners game.

Nick Glimsdahl 1:34
Wow, I was not competitive at all. And that is impressive. That takes a lot of time and talent time. And yeah, I would be at probably sweat pretty profusely if I tried to get up there and sing the national anthem. Yeah,

Melina Palmer 1:53
I’ve done a lot of anthems over the years now. And that one at the Mariners, it was very much like, look down at home plate, because if I look up and see my face, you know, 60 feet high, you know, giant, would mess up for sure, but

Nick Glimsdahl 2:08
made me Oh, my gosh, that’s me keep focus. So let’s talk about the book, what your customer wants, and can’t tell you, who’s this Book Creator for

Melina Palmer 2:21
this book is created for anyone in business that is responsible for or has involvement in brands, and brand creation and identity, which for me identify beyond, it’s more than just the marketing department, you also have, of course entrepreneurs, or small businesses, you’re wearing so many hats, you know, there’s a lot of making sure that your business is going to be resonating Well, with anyone that you interact with. And in other areas of a company as well, there’s information about pricing strategy and things like that. It’s just all about making it easier to communicate with the brain of the customer, and what they’re actually going to do, you know, understanding that instead of what we think they should, which is often most often wrong. So

Nick Glimsdahl 3:13
yeah, it is absolutely most often wrong. So tell me about this old adage, that perception is reality.

Melina Palmer 3:22
Yeah, so the perception being reality is one of those things where, you know, we can all say anything we want about our brands, you know, I want to be this, I want to be that. And you can strive for in a boardroom, you know, values, statements and things like that. But the actual experience that people have with you is really what your brand is, regardless of what you want it to be. And so you kind of have to own that. And the quote that I use in the book, which is one of my favorites is from Peter steidel. And it says a brand is a memory. And so understanding that the way that people interact with your business, what they think about you is about all those past engagements and interactions, and it shapes that relationship over time. And if you were to think about one of your favorite brands, there are probably some standards that come to mind. Apple, Disney, Amazon, but what actually makes them your favorite? How did they get there? What’s that built on? And you think about other relationships that you have with people, you know, often you talk about in selling that you don’t want want to be proposing on the first date as sort of a thing we’ve heard before. And you know,

Nick Glimsdahl 4:47
it would just be really awkward.

Melina Palmer 4:48
Right? I get a lot of those LinkedIn connections that are like that. And beyond Yeah, I mean, just crazy. But when you think about It the first day, you’re very focused on every little thing to see if someone’s going to be the hero or the zero, right. And they make slurp slurp their soup in a weird way. And you go, yeah, you’re out. Right? They could have been attendant every other category, but they did that one weird thing. Whereas like, you know, today if my husband was to slurp some soup, I’m not like, we’re out, right? It doesn’t weigh in the same way. Because I’ve already he’s established as my favorite person. And it’s the same with brands. And it’s built on that history. And so understanding how the brain engages in that way is really important for brands.

Nick Glimsdahl 5:37
Yeah, I mean, going back to your husband, if he’s, if he’s slurp soup, you’d probably just look, I’d be like, Really? But it wouldn’t. You wouldn’t say let’s get divorced tomorrow, because Yeah, right.

Melina Palmer 5:49
Yes. No, I would not.

Nick Glimsdahl 5:54
You are safe husband as of today. Whoo. So typically, companies try to do what is best for the company or for the customer? But is that what the customers brain remembers?

Melina Palmer 6:08
It can be I you know, I think there’s the it depends answer that can come up on a lot of these, I’m guessing you’re thinking a little bit about the peak end rule here, in which, when we think about any interaction the brain is, there’s so much that could be going on if you’re trying to evaluate every single moment. And there are so many dimensions to look at. So if you think about going out to eat, and somebody that often the waiter or someone will say, oh, how was everything, and you say, Oh, it was fine, or it was great, thanks. But you didn’t really think too hard about that. And even if you were to sit down and really want to evaluate the process, there are so many aspects of wait time and on beyond skin temperature of the food and the flavor and delay of how long it took to get to you and the menu. And all these things, even if you were to consciously try to think about it that you can’t really grasp. And it’s the same with any of our businesses. So what our brains do, is they only focus on two points to help determine whether this was good or bad. And it’s the peak and the end. And the peak can either be positive or negative. So if you have something really bad happen, then that is, you don’t want to end on that. So we may get, as far as like a tip for businesses, you have that moment, maybe someone calls in and says, I can’t believe this happened, or you get a bad review on Amazon or Yelp or something. And you think well, like, I guess that’s it, they’re done, they said they’re mad, and then you’re just gonna leave it. So the worst thing that you can do. And so actually extending that experience, and trying to get it just even a little bit better, so that the end is not at that negative peak, is going to improve the overall experience that someone has with you and how they think about your brand overall. Whereas if you’re looking at best, if you’re positive peaks, you can end on that crescendo, that biggest part of the firework display and things like that. And what’s nice for customer professionals, you know, if you’re building out a plan, and it may feel if you’re looking at an experience journey, and you think, Oh, my gosh, they’re all these points and all these opportunities, and where do we even start, and you get kind of overwhelmed with that idea. And if you just say, you know, let’s look and make sure we don’t have any negative peaks that are causing a problem, we need to clear those out of the way. And once that’s done, what are the best things that we can be doing to add in a few positive peaks? How can we make sure things end on a positive note? And you just have to do two things, right, just one great peak. And then you know, looking at what the last thing is that’s happened and know that you can extend that the customer doesn’t get to say the end point, you can help have some additional engagement to have those experiences be more positive.

Nick Glimsdahl 9:21
Yeah. Shep hyken. The customer service legend says that F fine is the F bomb of customer service. Yeah. Don’t ever ever have it be fine. It Ryan is is not satisfactory is not something that you want to achieve towards. So I love the fact that you shouldn’t be fine. You should be more than fine. You should be customer obsessed. So yeah, do you take that right? How do you shift the business to be more customer obsessed?

Melina Palmer 9:51
Yeah, which and I talk a little bit about how Netflix has done that they focused on customer obsession. And there’s a chapter in the book about surprise and delight, and looking at one of the biggest mistakes that businesses make. When you think about, you want to drive additional loyalty and you want to be, you know, delighting people, or whatever that is. And you go to see, you know, how are we doing, and you do a customer satisfaction survey. The problem is that satisfied can never be delight, there’s no version of I’m so satisfied that I’m delighted. You know, if someone says, hey, how was your experience with the bank today? Were you delight? Were you satisfied with that? Say, yeah, sure, fine, it was fine. But if somebody says, were you delighted when you came into the bank today? No, I’m delighted. I don’t know if which, if that’s the answer, then no, they weren’t. But anytime you have an expectation, you can only get to satisfaction. So you need that surprise, to be able to get delight. And customers, you know, time and again, all sorts of industries have proven to be more loyal, and much more profitable for a business, when you have that delight factor. And their tips, you know, in the book in that understanding of how the brain is working, how you can apply those concepts in a way that doesn’t have to be breaking the bank, or get, you know, giving away prizes to everybody. One good thing is, if you’re You can’t expect that you’re going to get a gift. Because then we have the problem again, of that expectation. So if you’re only giving out a few great prizes, then you end up getting those delightful experiences, people are more likely to share on social media and things like that. And it doesn’t have to be that you’re sending out gifts to every single customer.

Nick Glimsdahl 11:49
Yeah, so you don’t need to customer satisfaction. If somebody says are you satisfied? That’s almost like, Hey, what’s the service? Good ish?

Melina Palmer 11:58
Yeah, yeah. Did we not totally mess up?

Nick Glimsdahl 12:03
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The one other thing that I think in customer satisfaction score is around the why, like, Why did you give me a five or a four or a six for that matter? And how can we improve? A lot of organizations just take that and say, Okay, we’re a six, and it wasn’t bad. It was good ish. So we’re good with good ish. And I think the keeping that level of, of satisfaction internally is kind of the worst thing possible. You want to strive for success and ask, so you can actually do something about it, when you ask that why you can actually do and have an actionable outcome.

Melina Palmer 12:39
Yeah. And knowing that that’s a different aspect of so what people think they want is not always what they want. That’s why you know, for the book being what your customer wants, and can’t tell you. So it is good to ask those wise, if there is something that is that can help you identify, especially some of those negative peaks, I was talking about where you’re looking at the peak end rule where they say, you know, man, it took a long time to, like, I was waiting for a long time, and no one acknowledged me or whatever that is, they there might be something that they think was the problem. And it’s important to know and hear that and go about, you know, hearing what your competition’s doing as you’re building out a plan. But knowing that people never would have asked for iPods and even when there were focus groups, and people, you know, Steve Jobs asking, would you want this people said, I, there’s no reason I would want that. And no one would have said they would have paid $4 for a latte. But you know, Starbucks proved that wrong. And it’s obviously much more than that now, depending on which kind and size you’re getting. And so often people don’t really know what they want. But understanding the science of behavioral economics, and what’s actually happening in the brain, which is what I teach in the book gives you those skills to be able to start giving people things they don’t even know to ask for.

Nick Glimsdahl 14:00
Yeah, yeah, in in the buying process. As a customer, I feel sometimes like I’m just getting bombarded with content and saying, hey, look how cool we are. And they open up their, their black leather jacket, and they’re saying, which washed you on, you’re like, I don’t even want to watch. I just want a phone that tells time. And so how does that work? How does the as a customer, what drives that buying behavior?

Melina Palmer 14:25
Oh, lots and lots of things. And the again, so the just if it’s helpful to talk a little bit about my background in behavioral economics, which I would assume that people know exactly what that means. But it is the psychology of why people buy and there are many disciplines within this field of behavioral science, behavioral economics, but the brain is doesn’t operate the way again that we think it should. That’s where I like to say you know, should is a four letter word here at the brainy business, so, and it’s something that businesses do all the time. And so if you think about what’s actually happening in the brain, you know, what is your brain do? Anything you can think about when you can consciously think about it is that conscious brain processing anything you can retrieve. And we like to think that we do most of our work, or at least a decent amount with our conscious brain that we have going on. In reality 99% of what anyone is doing at any given time, on any day, all our decisions are made subconsciously, using simple rules of thumb, to be able to get us through the day and saying, you know, I got a rule for that I know how to do this. And those rules do a good job for us most of the time, but sometimes they get applied in ways that maybe aren’t working to the exact benefit that we may want. But understanding that, as a business in the way that you communicate, you could have a very slight shift in the way that you present a message in the way that it’s framed, the way that you prime somebody for what’s going to be coming next, to help make that buying experience easier for someone when you’re working with those rules of the subconscious, instead of just trying to wait for someone into that logical processing, which just doesn’t work anywhere near as well. And so you know, one thing that humans are very influenced by is numbers. And so we can set an anchor, and it will make a difference in the decision that someone makes. So if you have cans of soup, or yogurt or anything else in the grocery store that is at 10, for $10, people will buy more than if they’re listed at $1. Each. The same doesn’t have to make a difference, but it absolutely does. And it’s you know, people buy double or or even more than that, when there’s that shift in the phrasing. And this is also if you put a limit on something. So you would say there was a study that was done with those cans of soup again, where they had, you know, a 10 cent discount, I think, and that you said, you know, 10 cents off soup, unlimited, and then there was 10 cents off limit 12. And again, people bought more than double when there was a limit of 12. Then when it was Unlimited, because of that anchoring effect of what happens within the brain. So understanding that shifts, you know, what we want shifts based on the context of how information is presented to us.

Nick Glimsdahl 17:41
Okay, so then as a consumer, how do we acknowledge that we’re being tricked with our subconscious mind? And how do we do something about that.

Melina Palmer 17:52
So I don’t like to use the word trick, or manipulation or things like that, I definitely approach behavioral economics in a way of helping people to make decisions and understanding what happens there and using this information responsibly, on the side of branding. That being said, when you are a customer, knowing that your brain gets overwhelmed very, very, very easily. And then you are more likely to use those rules of thumb to make a decision. So the simplest thing that you can do is some research in advance and know what you need, have a list. And actually like a written list, whether it’s on your phone or whatever that you take with you when you go to the store and buy based on that. So if you know that you’re buying for the week, and you need three cans of soup, then you just buy three cans of soup, right? And then you’re good to go. And if there happens to be a, you know, buy for get one free or something you say, Well, like I can, I’m okay with getting some for next week because of whatever that is, you know, but being able to have a plan. And knowing what you need will make it so that you aren’t relying on that subconscious to say, Ooh, that’s shiny, I want that thing. Because our brains are always doing that. So understanding those rules can make a difference if you have a plan.

Nick Glimsdahl 19:24
Yeah, every time I check out at the grocery, there’s that snicker bar that just keeps staring at me. And I’m like, No, I can’t I can’t do it. But I see you. Yeah, I call my horse blinders. Like I just need to throw my horse blinders on and run as fast as I can in that one direction.

Melina Palmer 19:40
Great. Well, I do a lot of work with brands like that. And knowing that in the pandemic, you have an issue where if people aren’t in the store, and you’re ordering things online, what does that mean for companies when you are the add on items, so where are you Even to go with a simple of, you know, having peanut butter and jelly being near the bread, or where you have the refrigerated cookie dough near the milk, those associations in the brain make a difference of somebody saying, Oh, I want that. And actually, as a consumer, if you were like, oh, that’d be great. I’d love to make cookies for the kids this weekend, or whatever that is, it’s not a bad thing. And often you might get home and go, Oh, man, I forgot. Totally forgot to order jelly, because I didn’t see it when I was there in the store. And so when you lose that, how do brands and stores make it. So that’s still a great buying experience for people they can get what it is that they’re looking for. And you know, even before switching to having phones, where people are able to look at, you get in the line, and then you’re scrolling through Instagram, while you’re waiting for your turn, instead of just sort of looking around and seeing the headlines on the magazines and wanting to pick up a pack of gum or whatever it is. And so that same experience is very different when we’re able to distract ourselves with our phones, that you know, people get less of those impulse sort

Nick Glimsdahl 21:15
of buys. Do you think that let’s stay on the grocery store thought process for a minute, do you think if somebody is on Instagram, and they can see there, if they’re connected to the Wi Fi at the grocery store that they noticed that, hey, they’re already there. Let me see if I can throw up a peanut butter ad real quick to see if they want to spend, say 50 cents instead of going through the normal process?

Melina Palmer 21:40
Absolutely. You know, companies have looked at and been using that sort of geo targeting process for marketing for years. And that right in the moment piece can make a difference. And so looking as technology advances, and I’m sure you know that I know for years, there’s been conversation about the cart that auto scans as you drop things in. And so you don’t even have to check out and something. So it might be if you drop in bread and peanut butter, that maybe there’s something that pops up on your phone or right on the cart says we noticed you didn’t like you out peanut butter and bread and didn’t buy any jelly. Was that intentional? Or did you forget, here’s a coupon if you want to go grab some. That could be something that is a great experience. And if my I don’t like jelly, or I have plenty at home, then I can still ignore it. That’s one of the things about behavioral economics is we look at nudges. So we’re only making it easy for someone to make a choice, but you don’t force them into doing anything. That’s where you’re not having the trick or manipulation factor. And so if you said like you can only buy peanut butter if you also buy jelly, that’s not a great situation for any consumer. But encouraging or making it easy to get jelly if you need it is a beneficial experience that could be nudging a behavior. Yeah. So going back to your book, you talk about the

Nick Glimsdahl 23:15
power of questions. And I love that I love the questions that you ask. Because the more questions you ask him, the better questions you ask the more information you get back. But how do you go about leveraging the power of questions? Well, I

Melina Palmer 23:29
love questions. They’re one of my very favorite things. And I teach a lot with my students as well as with clients. This process of questions storming instead of brainstorming, and I talk, I touch on it in the book. But when you look at a good question, and the biggest problem that businesses make when they look to apply any sort of whether it’s behavioral economics concepts, or you’re just working on a project, is you are working on the wrong problem. And I like to say it’s really easy to find the right answer to the wrong question. And a very slight change in phrasing, or the way that you look at a problem can lead you down a very, very different path. And so being able to take the time investing in making sure you’re answering the right question for people is just so valuable and a thing that most people miss. And so taking that time is really, really important and identifying again, that the thing you’re looking to solve is what you should be, in fact, looking to solve.

Nick Glimsdahl 24:43
I like the thought process of the storm of questions, question storming. I just think of this big old tornado going around of questions. But you talked about it’s not necessarily what you say. But how you say it. You say that About two. And that’s kind of really piqued my interest. I want to hear more about what do you mean by that? Is it? Is it the tone? Or is it something else?

Melina Palmer 25:09
It is the tone. And it can also be the phrasing. And so that is a concept called framing, which I know I touched on a little bit a couple minutes ago. But if you were to look at, let’s say, we’ll go back to the grocery store, it’s full of examples for these and say, you know, listener, you’re going in, you’re into the store, you you’re making spaghetti tonight, and you need to get some ground beef. And you go and you look, and there are two stacks, and one is labeled as 90%, fat free. And the stack next to it is labeled as 10% fat. Which one do you want, even just in that like initial gut reaction, you know, logically, now you know that they’re the same, but it feels very different in the way that your brain hears it. And we say like he I haven’t been able to get to the gym and like a year, like, Where’s 10% fat going? Whereas 90%, fat freezing, I’m making such a great choice for myself and my family, how smart, am I. And that is a framing thing. You’re saying exactly the same thing. But how you present that information makes a very big difference. There can be aspects with tone and phrasing and things if you’re doing presentations and whatnot as well. But even I have a client that I was working on project for financial institution a few years back, and they had a new checking account rewards checking, they were super excited about and they wanted my insight on the headline and stuff that they were going to be using. But they were pretty sure that they’d be good to go with what they’re gonna have on all their billboards and ads and everything, which says 1.26% API on up to $25,000 in balances

Unknown Speaker 26:56
today. Ah,

Melina Palmer 26:57
like, that’s a great Billboard.

Unknown Speaker 26:59
Right? Nailed it.

Melina Palmer 27:01
Yeah, I know, it’s like, so let’s not do that. That’s not a great approach. And that’s even for people that understand that math that work in that space. It just doesn’t mean all that much. And so instead, I had them reframe the way that they were presenting that out into the world. And had it instead be a question that says, Did your checking account pay you $315 last year? It’s very easy to say, no, it did not. And then you want to learn a little bit more, I create some curiosity. Of course, 315 is the 1.26 times 25,000. But our brains are lazy, they don’t do that type of calculation very quickly. And maybe it gets put on, I’ll do that later shelf, people should be able to do that math, if they care enough about it, but they won’t, and they don’t. And so if you ask it in a different way, it will trigger their engagement in a different way. And that financial institution ended up having a 60% growth month over month in checking account openings, when we made that change with the exact same buy that they were already planning so that reframe can make a huge difference. And it doesn’t again, have to cost more than what you were already planning to do. If you just put some thoughtfulness into how you’re going to address that. And again, it’s like why are we talking about this? What’s the point just saying people want rewards? So like, we got to give them rewards today? That’s the wrong thing. Like how do we get people to care about this rage? Or whatever it is? That’s the wrong question. You know, instead, you want to be asking, looking at it from a different angle, and it can get you to a different place.

Nick Glimsdahl 28:48
I love that from what I got out of that conversation was curiosity killed the cat, but not the conversion of the checking account.

Melina Palmer 28:55
I appreciate I have. So curiosity killed the cat is in the book, but it says, you know, curiosity doesn’t kill cats. Did you know and I know you saw the book, of course in advance, but did you know before that, that there was there’s more to that? phrasing?

Unknown Speaker 29:12
No, I did not.

Melina Palmer 29:14
So it’s curiosity killed the cat satisfaction, brought it back, I believe is what it is. And so you got to do something. With that, and so you, it’s good to be curious. It’s good to ask those questions, and have some thoughtfulness. And you can come back around. It’s not it shouldn’t just be about the perils of asking, which is what we’ve all been taught in school. You know, we were talking about having young kids at the beginning. We’re, we are born questioners. We’re really good at this as children. And you know, we’ve got some under fives that we can send out I think to the world if anybody doesn’t believe that or has forgotten and in schooling and things We’re trained to not ask as many questions, but your brain is naturally able to do that. And you can retrain it to start asking questions now, to be able to make a difference in your own life and work.

Nick Glimsdahl 30:15
I 100% agree. So I apologize. But I have one more question about the book. Why should people stop apologizing?

Melina Palmer 30:23
Well, plenty of reasons. But you know, confidence is really important. When it comes to selling things. I do a lot of work with entrepreneurs and small businesses. And when you’re pricing your own stuff, you tend to think about all you get so focused in on all the back end, things and people are gonna have questions about or feel bad about. And, you know, if you go in and say, well, it’s, you know, it’s $5,000. I know that might be a lot, but you know, we’ve had to raise your prices recently, blah, blah, blah, blah, you are priming someone and setting them up to think that they should either ask for a discount, or that it’s expensive, because you basically told them that it is. And so if you have this, I can’t raise my prices, because every time I’ve tried, no one will pay it. But you might you’re probably offering a discount before people even ask, and you’re presenting that in a way that’s making people think it’s not worth paying for. Whereas instead, you say we have all sorts of options, we have a $10,000 package, we also have one for $5,000, what sounds like the best fit for you. And then you just wait,

Unknown Speaker 31:33
and then just pause and silence.

Melina Palmer 31:35
Right. And you know, you’re okay with, you’re not going to be a fit for everybody might be too expensive for someone and that’s okay. But you know, own that and have the confidence. I like to say it that, you know, just like dogs can smell fear, you know, customers can smell that lack of confidence, and they’re ready to jump and ask for, you know, a discount or, or just feel off and they can’t even again, in the what your customer wants and can’t tell you they can’t say you know, the way you said it was the problem. I was I was going in ready to pay, I expect it to be 7500. And it was only 5000 or whatever. They don’t really know what’s wrong, but something’s wrong. That’s that like gut, gut feeling. That’s your subconscious saying it’s off. Right? So understanding yourself using tricks from the book and not tricks, but like, rules, I guess, understanding what’s happening in the brain, for your own self, you know, you can kind of hack will say you can hack your own brain in the way that you talk about things to help you help yourself, essentially.

Nick Glimsdahl 32:41
Yeah, I call those Mohawk moments. So you think of a dog every time that they there’s something that’s not right. And they may not know what that is yet. And they’re either getting ready to that there’s a cat that comes by or they feel that somebody’s suspicious or something, but they have that Mohawk in the back of their neck. And they’re like, oh, something’s not right. But you better pay attention to what I’m about to do, because I’m going to act in some way.

Melina Palmer 33:06
Right? We’ve got those spidey senses going. Same way. Keep we don’t really know what that but something’s wrong.

Nick Glimsdahl 33:12
Yeah, I mentioned a while back on a different episode. But how my wife’s grandma calls where she has a baloney detector. She’s like, I don’t know what’s wrong, but I know something is wrong, I’m gonna push down against

Melina Palmer 33:24
rate. We’re all doing that all the time. And that, you know, just full circle, I guess in that brand is a memory piece. If you have too many of those where you I have a recollection somewhere in my brain that something was off, that’s going to impact all these future interactions where I think, yeah, but you know, it’s that guy. So I something that I don’t like, and it will taint kind of everything moving forward. So while we did talk about peak end rule, those initial experiences are also incredibly important as you’re introducing yourself to people. So keeping that in mind can impact kind of all those future interactions. Awesome. So

Nick Glimsdahl 34:09
I asked every guest two questions at the very end of every podcast, and the first one is what Booker person has influenced you the most in the past year. So parameters. And then second one is if you can live a note to all the customer service and customer experience professionals, it’s going to everybody’s desk, Monday at 8am, I would say.

Melina Palmer 34:28
So I would say for the person in the past year that has been most impactful for me, I would say is Scott Miller. He is or at least at the time when we were first talking I don’t know that he’s in the same role right now. But he VP of thought leadership at Franklin Covey wrote a book called management or, well, he’s got a new book coming out but is called marketing mess to brand success, which actually comes out as on the same day as my book. But he was a guest on my podcast and Ended up introducing me to my publisher, and you know, all kind of full circle there. So I would say Scott was very impactful for me and getting all that set up and good to go. So I would say that, and then for the piece of advice that I always give is, and this is how I end every episode of the podcast, and I sign off on my emails, which is to be thoughtful. And that really ties into you know, your own self understand what’s happening in your brain and ask those sorts of questions when you see an ad or you feel compelled to click on a, an article or you want to throw something away. or something’s happening in your life where you can just say, Why did I Why did I do that? Why that stand out for me? Why did I feel the need to buy 12 cans of soup with when I wasn’t gonna get any soup? taking a moment to think a little bit about the why and what it means and how you can use that for your own future engagements as well as in the way that you message in your own business can be is a really important first step in starting to have that more effectiveness in everything that you do.

Nick Glimsdahl 36:16
I love that. Milena, what’s the best way for my listeners to connect with you?

Unknown Speaker 36:19
Well,

Melina Palmer 36:20
you can find me on all the socials as the brainy biz bi z. And if you go to the brainy business.com You can find links for getting your copy of what your customer wants and can’t tell you, as well as checking out my podcast, the brainy business. And if you wanted to work together, whatnot, again, it’s all at the website. The brainy business comm

Nick Glimsdahl 36:43
Yes, I would 100% echo what she just said at the end there. Go buy her book, what your customer wants and can’t tell you and then I will provide a link in the show notes for that to make it super easy for you and then also find her the brainy business podcast and subscribe. Listen, she’s got an awesome podcast, I would highly recommend it. I’ve also subscribe myself and always are picking her brain on on what to do and what she’s doing and success she’s having. So keep being you. I wish you the most success here in the book. And thank you for joining me on the press one predict podcast.

Melina Palmer 37:19
Thanks so much for having me.

The Press 1 For Nick podcast is both educational and engaging, and each episode offers listeners a dynamic blend of insightful stories, best practices, and invaluable lessons.

Nick’s guests – each with a unique wealth of knowledge – include leaders from a variety of backgrounds and industries. Some of his guests include:

Customer service & customer experience leaders
A hostage negotiator
Award-winning authors
Home Depot’s Senior Director of Customer Care
Former VP of Disney’s Magic Kingdom
Lyft’s Head of Partner and Customer Engagement
Deputy Chief Veteran Experience Officer from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs

On every episode Nick asks his guest two questions:

What book or person has influenced you the most in the past year?
If you could leave a note to all the Customer Service and CX professionals, what would it say?

You can find all the podcast guests’ answers under their episodes below.

If all you want is the guests’ book recommendations, you can go here.

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