Zombie Loyalists

Tony Martignetti
Hello and welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I'm your aptly named host and the podfather of your favorite hebdomadal podcast. Oh, I'm glad you're with us. I'd suffer the effects of bromhidrosis if I had to walk through the idea that you missed this week's show. Here's our associate producer Kate to introduce this week's show.

Kate Martignetti
Hey Tony, now I'm on it. It's Zombie Loyalists. Peter Shankman is a 5-time bestselling author entrepreneur, and corporate keynote speaker. His book Zombie Loyalists focuses on customer service, creating rabid fans who do your social media marketing and PR for you. Peter's book isn't new, but his strategies and tactics are timeless. This originally aired December 19th, 2014. On Tony's Take 2.

Tony Martignetti
How's your endowment?

Kate Martignetti
We're sponsored by DonorBox. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters' generosity? DonorBox— fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit. donorbox.org. Here is Zombie Loyalists.

Tony Martignetti
Peter Shankman is a well-known and often quoted social media marketing and public relations strategist. His latest book is Zombie Loyalists. He wants you to create rabid fans who do your social media marketing and PR for you. He's got super ideas and very valuable stories. I'm very glad Peter Shankman is with me in the studio. He's the founder of HARO, Help a Reporter Out, connecting journalists with sources. In under 2 years from starting it in his apartment, HARO was sending out 1,500 media queries a week to more than 200,000 sources worldwide. It was acquired by Vocis in 2010. He's the founder and CEO of The Geek Factory, a boutique social media marketing and PR strategy firm in New York City. Peter is on NASA's Civilian Advisory Council. You'll find him at shankman.com and he's @petershankman on Twitter. Thank you. His latest book is Zombie Loyalists: Using Great Service to Create Rabid Fans. I'm very glad his book brings him to Nonprofit Radio and the studio. Welcome, Peter.

Peter Shankman
Good to be here, Tony. Thanks. It's

Tony Martignetti
a pleasure. You live on the west side of Manhattan.

Peter Shankman
I do.

Tony Martignetti
And you— there's a pretty well-known 5-star steakhouse, Wolfgang's.

Peter Shankman
Yep.

Tony Martignetti
Not far from you.

Peter Shankman
Nope.

Tony Martignetti
But you pass it to go to a different steakhouse. Correct. Morton's.

Peter Shankman
Correct.

Tony Martignetti
Why is that?

Peter Shankman
I am a zombie loyalist to Morton's. What does that mean? I love the service, the attention to detail, the quality, the, the sort of where everyone knows my name mentality. When I walk into that Morton's or any Morton's around the world, they have a tremendous customer relationship management system. When I call one number, In New York or anywhere in the world, they know who I am by my cell phone and I'm treated with just phenomenal happiness to hear from me and my wishes are granted as it were. We have a happy hour holiday party coming up at Morton's next couple of days and as always I forgot to call and make a reservation. I called yesterday and said, hey, I need a— Any chance I can get a reservation for 7 people, you know, Thursday night at 7 PM, which is, you know, the week of the holiday party.

Tony Martignetti
Sure.

Peter Shankman
Yeah. And they looked and they said, oh, well, and then I guess their computer system kicked in. Of course, Mr. Shankman, not a problem at all. We'll get that for you right away. You know, we'll have a great booth for you, da-da-da. You know, and we'll— tell us the names of the people attending. You know, they're going to have specialized menus for them and their names on them. So they really— they have a really high level of service that they provide, not just to me. That's the beauty of it. Right. Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
I mean, you know, it's one thing— What they do for everybody.

Peter Shankman
They just provided it to me, but they do that for everyone. And that is huge because, you know, being able to call when a normal person makes a reservation, and not that I'm special, I'm actually rather abnormal, but when a normal person makes a reservation and says, you know, Morton says, okay, great, are you celebrating anything? Oh yeah, it's my wife's birthday. Oh, what's her name? That's routine. He always asks to anyone who calls. He says, oh, you know, it's my wife's birthday. Great, what's her name? Her name's Megan, or whatever. And you go in and they And you sit down, and on the menu it says, happy birthday, Megan. And then Megan, whoever she happens to be, will spend the next 45 minutes taking 50 selfies with her menu, and that'll go online. And then when her friends want that same experience, they're gonna go to Morton's.

Tony Martignetti
You say in the book, you get the customers you want by being beyond awesome to the customers you have. And that's why I wanted to start with that Morton's story, which is in the middle of the book. But they do it for everybody, and then they have the VIPs as well. And there's the terrific story of you tweeting. Go ahead, tell that story. That's a good story.

Peter Shankman
Well, it's a good story. I love stories. I was flying home from a day trip to Florida and was exhausted and starving.

Tony Martignetti
Day trip meaning you're flying down and coming back.

Peter Shankman
I flew down at 6 AM, had a lunch meeting, flew back the same day. You know, one of those days. And I jokingly sent the tweet, hey Mortons, why don't you meet me at Newark Airport when I land with a porterhouse in 2 hours? Hahaha. You know, I said it the same way you'd say, hey, winter, please stop snowing, things like that. Yeah. And I landed, find my driver, and sitting next to my driver is a waiter in a tuxedo with a Morton's bag. They saw my tweet, they put it together, they managed to bring me a steak. And, you know, as great of a story as it is, it's a great stunt, and it's a great story, and it wasn't staged, and it was completely amazing. You know, that's not what they're about. They're not about delivering steaks to airports. They're about making a great meal for you and treating you like royalty when you come in. And, you know, if they just did that, if they just delivered the steak to the airport, but their quality and service sucked, you know, it wouldn't be a story. Because, oh, you know, look what they did for Peter, but, you know, my steak's cold. Yeah. You know, so what it really comes down to is the fact they do treat everyone like kings. And that's, that's really, really important, because what winds up happening is you have a great experience at Morton's, and then you tell the world. Oh, yeah. Great dinner last night. That was amazing. I would totally eat there again. And as we move to this new world where review sites are going away, and I don't need to go to Yelp to read reviews from people I don't know. Yeah. Interesting. If they're shills or whatever the case may be, I don't know. Or TripAdvisor, same thing. I want people in my network who I trust, and people in their network who they trust, and then by default, I trust. So, that's already happening automatically. When I land in LA and I type in steakhouse, Uh, you know, not me. I know, I know where the steakhouses are in LA, but if someone types into Google Maps or Facebook steakhouse in Los Angeles, you know, they'll see all the steakhouses on Google Maps, but if any of their friends have been to any of them, they'll see those first. And if they had a good experience, only if the sentiment was positive will they see those first. And that's pretty amazing. Because if you think about that, the simple act of tweeting out a photo, oh my God, thanks so much, Morton's, love this. That's positive sentiment. The network knows that. And so, if you're looking for a steakhouse, And your friend, 6 months ago, had that experience. Oh my God, amazing steak. This is a great place. The sentiment's going to be there, and the network will know that, and the network will show you that steakhouse because you trust your friend.

Tony Martignetti
And this is where we start to cultivate zombie loyalists. Exactly. Through this awesome customer service of the customers you have. Say more about zombie loyalists.

Peter Shankman
Yeah, I mean, you have so many companies out there who are trying to get the next greatest customer. You see all the ads. You know, the Facebook post, you know, we're at 990 followers. Our 1,000th follower gets a free gift. Well, that's kind of saying screw you to the original 990 followers who you had, who were there since the beginning. We don't care about you. We want that 1,000th. You know, that's not cool. Um, the, the, the companies who see their numbers rise and who see their fans increase and their, their, um, um, revenues go up are the ones who are nice to the customers they have. Hey, you You know, customer 852, it was really nice of you to join us a couple months ago. Yeah. How, you know, how are you? We noticed that you posted on something about a, uh, you know, your car broke down. Well, you know, we're not in the car business, but, you know, you're, you're 2 blocks from our, our closest, uh, outlet or whatever, and, you know, once you— if you, if you need to, come in, have a free cup of coffee, we'll let you use the phone, whatever. You know, those little things that you can do that, that, that really focus on the customers you have and make the customers you have the ones who are the zombies who tell And

Tony Martignetti
this all applies to nonprofits certainly as well.

Peter Shankman
No question, but even more so. Yeah. I mean, if you, you know, nonprofits are constantly worried about how to make the most value out of their dollar and how to keep that dollar stretching further and further. And, you know, you have this massive audience who has come to you, who's a nonprofit, and who said to you, you know, we want to help. Here we are volunteering our help. And just simply treating them With the thanks that they deserve, not just a simple, hey, thanks for donating card, but actually reaching out, asking what they want, asking how they like to get their information, things like that will greatly increase your donations as well as making them go out and tell everyone how awesome you are and letting them do your PR for you.

Tony Martignetti
And that's what a zombie loyalist does. And this is for— this could be donors, could be volunteers to the organization who aren't able to give a lot, but giving time is enormous.

Peter Shankman
Yeah, and if, you know, if they have such a great time doing it, They'll bring friends.

Tony Martignetti
As zombies do.

Peter Shankman
Zombies have one purpose in life. Real zombies have one purpose in life. That's to feed. It doesn't matter how the Mets are doing. It doesn't matter— because chances are they lost anyway. But it doesn't matter how anyone's doing or what's going on in the world or the economy. It doesn't matter. What matters to a zombie is where are they going to get their next meal because they feed and they have to infect more people, otherwise they will die. Zombie loyalists are the same thing. All they have to do is make sure that their customers— they tell the world. And we all have that friend who does it. You know that one friend who eats nothing but the Olive Garden because, oh my God, greatest breadsticks everywhere, you know, and they will drag your ass to the Olive Garden every single time they get that chance. That's a zombie loyalist.

Tony Martignetti
And you want them to do that for your nonprofit. And there's a big advantage to being a smaller, a smaller organization. You could be so much more high touch. And we're going to talk about all that. We got the full hour with Peter Shankman. We've got to go away for a couple of minutes. Stay with us.

Kate Martignetti
It's time for a break. Open up new cashless in-person donation opportunities with DonorBox Live Kiosk. The smart way to accept cashless donations anywhere, anytime. Picture this: a cash-free, on-site giving solution that effortlessly collects donations from credit cards, debit cards, and digital wallets. No team member required. Plus, your donation data is automatically synced with your DonorBox account. No manual data entry or errors. Make giving a breeze and focus on what matters. Your cause. Try DonorBox Live Kiosk and revolutionize the way you collect donations in 2024. Visit donorbox.org to learn more. Now back to Zombie Loyalists.

Tony Martignetti
Peter, it doesn't take much to stand out in the customer service world, does it?

Peter Shankman
It really doesn't, you know, and the reason for that is because we expect to be treated like crap.

Tony Martignetti
Crap. Yeah. You know, if you think about that.

Peter Shankman
Yeah. I love this example. Whenever I give speeches, I ask everyone in the audience, I'm like, who here has had a great flight? Like, at least one person will raise their hand. I'm like, OK, what made it great? And without fail, their answer is, well, we took off on time, and I had the seat I was assigned, and we landed on time. And like, so you paid for a service, they delivered that service, and you're over the freaking moon about it. Like, that's the state that we've become. You know, that's how bad customer service has been, that you are just beyond thrilled that they did exactly what they said they were gonna do and nothing more.

Tony Martignetti
Less than 20 minutes in the post office line. Exactly. And I'm ecstatic.

Peter Shankman
Exactly. You know, it's— so we really are at a point where we only have to be one level above crap. I'm not even asking my clients to be good. Just one level above crap. You know, if everyone else is crap and you're one level above that, you're gonna win. It's my favorite— one of my favorite jokes. Um, the 2 guys are out in the woods, hunting out in the woods, or just jogging out in the woods. The first one sees a bear, and they see this bear, and this bear's raised up and he's about to strike. And the first one reaches down and tightens up his laces on his running shoes, and the second one says, dude, Don't be an idiot. You can't outrun a bear. And he goes, I don't need to. I just need to outrun you. I love that joke, because it's so true. That's the concept. All you have to do is be just a little bit better than everyone else, and you'll win the whole ballgame.

Tony Martignetti
Now, we have to set some things up internally in order to have the structure in place— Oh, no question about it. To create the zombie loyalists.

Peter Shankman
Yeah. I mean, you have a company where the majority of people in your company are afraid to do anything outside the norm. I mean, look at a cell phone company. You call them because you have a problem, right? AT&T or T-Mobile. You call them because you have a problem. They are actually— the customer service people that handle your call are actually judged and rewarded based on how quickly they can get you off the phone. You know, not on whether or not they fix your problem.

Tony Martignetti
How fast.

Peter Shankman
But how fast they can get you off the phone, which means how many more calls they can get. I remember I worked— when I worked at America Online, we all had to do a day of customer service every month just to see what it was like, which I thought was a brilliant idea. But, you know, again, it was a system called Vantiv, where you'd sign on, and as soon as you signed on, if you weren't in a call, you know, that was tacked against you. And if you were in a call and it went over a certain amount of time, that was tacked against you. So the decks were stacked, not in the favor of the customer. There are some companies out there who allow their customer service employees to simply be smarter about what they do and do whatever it is they need to do to fix the problem. Um, you know, my favorite story about this is Verizon Wireless. I went overseas. I was in Dubai. And I landed in Dubai and I turned on my phone. I had gotten global roaming on my phone, which, you know, $20 for Every 100 megabytes. OK. So I land, and I turn on my phone, and it says— like, before I'm even off the plane, I get a text that you've used $200 in roaming charges. I'm like, what the hell? You know, $300 by the time I get off the plane. I'm like, something's up here. So I call Verizon, and a nice guy answers the phone. Oh, yes. I mean, you know, the first thing he said was, yes, sir, you do have global roaming, but it doesn't work in Dubai. OK, well, that's not really global. That's more hemispherical roaming, I think, is the issue. So, I said, well, look, I'm gonna be here for a week. I said, you know, you have my credit card on file. Bill me like, I don't know, can you bill me like $1,000 and just let me have the phone for like the week? Or $500, I won't go over 2 gigs. Just do something for me. Sorry, sir, I'm not authorized to do that. You can— I'm like, so what do I have? He's like, well, you can pay $20.48 a megabyte. Oof. I'm like, I'm sorry, seriously? Which equates essentially to, I would be charged $20.48 $20.48 for every, I think at the time, for every 4 seconds of the video Gangnam Style, if I decided to watch it on my phone. Like, this is pretty ridiculous. So, I simply hung up on Verizon. I went down the street to the Dubai, the Mall of the Emirates, which is the largest mall in the world. It has a freaking ski slope in it. And I'm not joking. It has a ski slope in this mall. Mmhmm. And, uh, went to one of, like, the 86 different electronic stores in this mall, bought an international unlocked version of the same exact cell phone I have, went next door to the local SIM card store, store, bought a SIM card that gave me 20 gigabytes of data and 1,000 minutes of talk for $40. Hmm. I then put that in my phone. Because it's an Android phone, I simply typed in my username and password for Google, and everything imported. And Verizon did not get a penny on that trip. Um, how easy would it have been for Verizon to say, OK, you know what? We'll cut you a break. Uh, they'd still make a lot of money off me, and I would tell the world how great Verizon was to work with, and how wonderful they did— how helpful they were. Instead, they guaranteed that I will never— that they will never make a penny from me on any international trip. And I take, what, 15 of them a year? Because now, my cell phone, um, my international cell phone that I bought, all I do is pop out the SIM card, and when I land wherever I am, put in a new SIM card. So—

Tony Martignetti
And you're speaking and writing and telling bad stories about Verizon.

Peter Shankman
Of course. And every time I tell the story about Verizon, I make it a little worse. Apparently, Verizon, uh, tests out the durability of their phone by throwing them at kittens. I read this on the internet. It must be true. But, you know, not necessarily. But, you know, The concept that all they had to do, all they had to do was empower Marc. Right. That guy had customer service. And it wasn't Marc's fault. Marc was a really nice guy, but he was not allowed to do that. He would have gotten fired if he tried to do a deal like that for me. And so, it's this concept, you know, and the funny thing is, it comes down to, if you really want to go down the road, in terms of a public company like Verizon, of where the issue is, you could even trace it to fiduciary responsibility. Because the fiduciary responsibility of any company, CEO all the way down to the employee, is to make money for the shareholders. That's what fiduciary responsibility means. By not allowing me, by not allowing Marc, the customer service agent, to help me and take a different tack, he's actually losing money. Too many CEOs think about the next quarter. Oh, we have to make our numbers next quarter or I'm fired. Companies in other countries tend to think about the next quarter century. And they make a much bigger difference because they think, okay, what can we do now that will have impact in the next 5, 10, 15 years? You know, and really implement the revenue that we have and augment it. And companies in America don't tend to think about that, and that's a big problem.

Tony Martignetti
I buy a product line that has a lot of natural and recycled materials. It's Seventh Generation, and their tagline is that in our every decision, we must consider the impact on the next 7 generations. It comes from an American Indian.

Peter Shankman
It's a great, it's a great I mean, just think about how much money Verizon would have made from me in the past 3 years. Just in my overseas travel.

Tony Martignetti
You'd be telling a story about, like them, about Morton's. Or like the one about Morton's from earlier.

Peter Shankman
Exactly. Look, a lot of people listen to me, and they— for a time, when you Googled roaming charges, when you Googled Verizon roaming charges, my story about how I saved all this money came up first, because I did the math, and if I had not called Marc and bought my own cell phone and done this, I would have come home to a $31,000 Cell phone bill. And you know damn well Verizon wouldn't have done a thing about that. They would have been like, oh, too bad, sorry. Should have read the fine print.

Tony Martignetti
And plus, the employee who sold you the international plan, I'm sure you told her— I did. She said, where are you going?

Peter Shankman
I said, I'm going to Canada and then I'm going to Dubai. I'm assuming she didn't know where Dubai was. She probably thought it was near Canada. But, uh, yeah, long story short, couldn't use it.

Tony Martignetti
All right, so employees have to be empowered. There has to be— we have to be changing our thinking too. I mean, the customer has to come first. The donor, the volunteer.

Peter Shankman
The donor, the volunteer. You get it. At the end of the day, where's your money coming from? I don't care if you're a nonprofit or a Fortune 100. Where's your money coming from? You know, and if you— we see it happening over and over again. We're seeing it right now play out every single day with the company Uber. Um, and Uber, it's so funny because Uber makes, uh, you know, they're valued at $40 billion right now, but that doesn't mean anything. That doesn't mean anything if people are running away in droves, which people are. There's a whole delete your Uber app movement. Oh, people are? Oh God, yeah. People are leaving.

Tony Martignetti
What's their problem?

Peter Shankman
Uh, well, it's several. Number one, that, uh, Uber is run by a bunch of guys who honor the bro code. The company was actually started by a guy who, in Business Insider, said he started the company to get laid. Um, his goal was to always have a black car when he was leaving a restaurant, uh, to impress the girl he was with. That's— he came out and said that. And you see that culture run rampant throughout Uber, um, from their god mode, where they can see— they actually created— there was a, uh, I don't know where I read this. Might have been Business Insider as well. There was a— they created a hookup page. That showed, or a walk of shame page, that showed where women were leaving certain apartments, like on weekends, or leaving certain places on weekends, going back to their home. It was obvious that they, you know, met some guy and got like— Oh, they hooked up or something. They did that. And then, of course, just their whole surge pricing mentality, which is, you know, 2 days ago, there was a— or a couple days ago, there was a terrorist— I think it was a terrorist attack in Sydney at that bakery. And Sydney— Uber in Sydney instituted surge pricing for people trying to get out of harm's way. Oh, my God. You know, and they later refunded it. Oh, it was a computer glitch. I'm like, you know, I'm sorry. You have a stop button, and you can— when you see something happening like that, there has to be someone in the office who can say, you know what? Not cool. We're going to take care of that, and hit the stop button. And it was, yeah, bad. Tons and tons and tons of bad publicity. And, you know, I was having an argument with someone on my Facebook page, facebook.com/petershankman, because they said, oh, you know, So what? They don't turn on surge pricing? They don't have enough cabs there? And, you know, people can't get home? I said, I'm pretty sure that the only company— I'm sure that no one had cab companies there. I'm sure that there wasn't anyone who had enough cars there, private cabs, Ubers, whatever. Yet the only stories I read about companies screwing up during that event were Uber, not Joe's Sydney cab company. You know, I didn't see him screwing up because he didn't turn on surge pricing. You gotta respect your customer. Yeah. You have to.

Tony Martignetti
As we're training for that, then not only trying to change that mindset— well, in trying to change that mindset, rewards for employees that do go the extra mile.

Peter Shankman
Well, first of all, if you give the employees the ability to do it, to go the extra mile and understand they won't get fired, you're not going to get in trouble. I always tell every one of my employees, you're never going to get in trouble for spending a little extra money to try and keep a customer happy. You'll get You'll get fired for not doing it. You know, you'll get fired for not— for seeing an opportunity to fix someone and not taking it.

Tony Martignetti
Not doing everything that you could.

Peter Shankman
Exactly. You know, Ritz-Carlton is famous for that. Ritz-Carlton hires people not because whether they can fold a bedsheet, but for how well they understand people. Because in Ritz-Carlton's mind, it's much more important to be a people person and be able to be empathetic. And that is such a key word. Empathy is just so sorely lacking. You know, how many of you have called customer service? Yeah, you know, I have to change my flight. My aunt just died. I really need to get home. OK, great. That's $300. Hmm. I just want to go an hour earlier. Hmm. You know, you show up at the airport. Your bag is overweight by half a pound. That's $75. I just— can you just cut me some slack? Nope. You know, so empathy and giving the customer— giving the employee the ability to understand that the customer— that sometimes you can make exceptions and it is OK to make changes.

Tony Martignetti
And this is where a smaller organization has huge advantage. Yeah. It's easier to change.

Peter Shankman
That's what kills me. You know, I go to these— I try to frequent I go to some of these small businesses and they won't— they act like large businesses, you know, in the respect that they don't have a—

Tony Martignetti
Like they want to be respected almost?

Peter Shankman
They don't have like a 6,000-page code that they have to adhere to. They can simply do something on the fly, and yet for whatever reason they won't do it. And it's the most frustrating thing. I'm like, guys, you're acting like a big— you're acting like Megalomart here. You know, and you're not Megalomart, and you're just Joe's House of Stationery, whatever it is. And, you know, not being able to help me, you're pretty much killing yourself because you don't have 85 billion customers that have come through the door after me. You know, but I have a pretty big network. And for a small business to get killed socially, as social becomes more and more how we communicate, You know, it's just craziness.

Tony Martignetti
It's, you know, we're pretty much in a world, I think, where something almost hasn't happened to you unless, unless you share it.

Peter Shankman
I joke that, you know, if I can't take a selfie, was I really there? But it's true. You know, we do live in a world where, you know, I remember, God, 10 years ago, maybe not even, not even 10 years ago, I was one of the first people to have a phone in my camera, you know, and it was like a— That's what I said. Yeah, camera in my phone, right. And it was like a— I think it was like a 0.8 megapixel. You know, it looked like I was taking a picture with a potato. But it was, um, it was this— I remember it was 2002, and I was in Chase Bank, and there was a woman arguing with the teller, and I pulled out my video camera. You know, it was the crappiest video you've ever seen, but I pulled it out, and I said, you know, I started recording, and the woman behind the counter was going, The woman behind the counter was talking to the customer, saying, you do not speak to me that way. You get out of this bank right now. And the customer was saying, I just wanted my balance. And the manager comes over. And I get this whole thing on my little crappy 3G Motorola phone. And I remember I posted it online, and Gawker picks it up. I emailed it. The headline I put on my blog was, Chase, where the right relationship is at. Go fuck yourself. And it just got tons of play. And then Gawker picked it up. It went everywhere. Totally viral. So it's one of those things. You're just like, You know, this was in 2002. It's 12 years later. How the hell can you assume that nothing is being— that you're not being recorded? You know, I remember blowing— I sneezed a couple of weeks ago, and not to get too graphic here, but I needed a tissue big time after I was done sneezing. Right. I remember going through my pockets, desperately looking for a tissue, and like looking around, making sure I wasn't on camera somewhere, that someone didn't grab that. It could be the next viral sensation. You know, I mean, I went— God, I went to high school 8 blocks from here, right? If the amount of cameras that are in Lincoln Center today were there in 1989, 1990, I'd be having this conversation entirely— I'd be having this conversation behind bulletproof glass. In a cell? Yeah. So, you know, you'd be talking to me. You'd have to get special clearance to visit me. Probably be at the supermax in Colorado or something. So, you know, it's one of those things that you're just like— my kid, who's almost 2 years old now, is gonna grow up with absolutely no expectation of privacy, the same way that we grew up with an expectation of privacy. And I'm thankful for that. Because she will make a lot less stupid moves. You know, I mean, God, the things that I thought, you know, in high school, I thought the stupidest things in the world. Thank God there wasn't a way for me to broadcast that to the world in real time. Jeez, thank God.

Tony Martignetti
Creating these zombie loyalists, we've got to change some— we've got to change culture and thinking and reward systems. Let's go back to the cost of all this. Why is this a better investment than Trying to just focus on new donors.

Peter Shankman
I love, I love this analogy, and I'll give you a fun analogy. Let's say I'm in a bar, and there's a very cute girl across the, across the bar, and she catches my eye, I catch her, I go up to her, I go, you know, you don't know me, but I am amazing in bed. You should finish your drink right now, come home, let's get it on. I'm gonna impress her. I'm that good. Chances are she's gonna throw her drink in my face, go back talking to her friends. I've done a lot of research on this. That's probably exactly what she's gonna do. Now, let's assume, let's assume an alternate world. I'm sitting there on my phone. I'm just playing like, you know, some Words with Friends or something like that. And she's over there talking to her friends. One of her friends looks up and says, holy crap, that's Peter. I think that's Peter Shankman. I've heard him speak. He's— in this fantasy world, I'm single too. I like that. I think he's single and he's having this amazing guy. I know he has a cat. You have a cat. You should totally go talk to him. At the very least, I'm getting this girl's number. That's PR. OK? And what do we trust more? Me with my, you know, fancy suit collar going over my '70s leisure suit, hi, I'm amazing, or the girl saying, hey, we've been friends since 3rd grade. I'm recommending that guy. You should trust me on this. You know, obviously, that, that's where good customer service comes into play, and that's where corporate culture comes into play, because if I have a great experience with you and at your company, I'm going to tell my friend when they're looking, and I will stake my personal reputation on it. Yeah. And these

Tony Martignetti
are the people we want to breed as Zombieland loyalists.

Peter Shankman
Yep. It's stronger than advertising, stronger than marketing.

Tony Martignetti
And they're gonna share. People want to share.

Peter Shankman
Think about— the internet runs on 2 things. It runs on drama, drama and bragging, or bragging and drama. And if you, if you need any proof of that, you know, go and look at all the hashtags with crap that's happened, you know, bad customer service, bad whatever. But then look at all the good hashtags, you know. When our flight's delayed for 3 hours and we lose our seat, oh my god, I hate this airline, worst airline ever. But when we get upgraded, right? Hashtag first class, bitches, or whatever it is, you know, something stupid like that. And the whole— because we love to share. It's, it's only a great experience if we could tell the world, and it's only a bad experience if we can make everyone else miserable about it as well.

Kate Martignetti
It's time for Tony's Take Two.

Tony Martignetti
Thank you, Kate. How's your endowment? Endowment, that savings account that your nonprofit has. That you only spend the interest of each year, and maybe sometimes you don't even spend that much from year to year. Planned giving can help you either launch your endowment if you don't have one, or grow your endowment if it needs to be bigger. And I don't know many nonprofits that think, oh, we have enough, our endowment's big enough, we don't need any more. Planned Giving Accelerator. I will help you in the accelerator to launch planned giving so that you can start your endowment or grow your endowment throughout the 3 months of the course. We go March to May, done by Memorial Day, so there's no impinging on your summer plans. We'll spend an hour a week together on Zoom. Over those 12 weeks, and I will guide you step by step how to launch planned giving at your nonprofit. I set those weekly meetings up as meetings in Zoom, so there's lots of crosstalk between the members. People are helping each other. There's a lot of peer support aside from the teaching that I'm doing each week. If that's of interest to you, please check out plannedgivingaccelerator.com. Promoting the course in, uh, the rest of this month, and then it starts in early March. That is Tony's Take 2. Kate.

Kate Martignetti
It sounds like a very valuable course. We hope people join.

Tony Martignetti
Yes, we do. You're right about that.

Kate Martignetti
We've got beaucoup but loads more time. Let's go back to Zombie Loyalists with Peter Shankman.

Tony Martignetti
Peter, you have a golden rule of social media that a good number of customers like to share, and people are going to keep doing it.

Peter Shankman
People will always share. Again, it goes back to the concept that if you create great stuff, people want to share it because people like to be associated with good things. If you create bad stuff, and by stuff I can mean— I mean anything from like a bad experience to bad content, people not only won't share that but will go out of their way to tell people how terrible you are.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah.

Peter Shankman
Um, you know, how many times have you seen companies fail horribly, uh, you know, after major disasters when companies are tweeting, um, you know, completely unrelated things, uh, uh, after, after a random school shooting, uh, No, it was after the shooting at the theater in Aurora, Colorado, at The Dark Knight. The NRA tweets, hey shooters, what's your plans for this weekend? And I'm just sitting there going, really? But of course, the thing was retweeted millions of times with sort of shame on the NRA. So we're a society, like I said earlier, that loves to share when great things happen to us, but loves to tell the world when we're miserable, because we're only truly miserable when we make everyone else miserable around us.

Tony Martignetti
Yes.

Peter Shankman
Um, it's funny you mentioned, uh, um, the generosity series. Uh, the— one of my favorite stories, which goes to sort of a, uh, a bigger picture of culture, and, um, somehow when you're just doing your job, because that's what you're— you're supposed to do your job, but you don't realize there are ways to get around that. I, I listen to your podcast, among others, uh, when I'm running through Central Park. Um, and more like, if you know my body type, more like lumbering through Central Park. But I get there. I'm an Ironman. Cool. I have that. And, uh, So I go through Central Park, and it's super early in the morning, because I usually have meetings, and I don't run fast. I run like, I really don't run fast. But as I'm running—

Tony Martignetti
But let's give you the credit, too. You have done a bunch of Ironmans. I have. Triathlons. Marathons, all those things.

Peter Shankman
Triathlons. I do it. My mother tells me that I just have very poor judgment in terms of what sports I should do. But on the flip side, I'm also a skydiver, which with my weight is awesome. I fall better than anyone. So I'm running through Central Park last year. It was February. February of '13, or '14, it was this year. And it was probably around 4:45 in the morning, because I had an 8 AM meeting and I had to do 10 miles. So 4:45 in the morning, I'm running, I'm up at around 79th, 80th Street on the East Side in the park, and a cop pulls me over. And he says, what are you doing? And I look at him, you know, I'm wearing black spandex, I have a hat, it's 5 degrees out, I'm like, what am I— playing checkers. You know what he's— Yeah. I'm like, I'm running. And he's like, OK, can you stop running? I'm like, OK. He's like, you know, the park's closed. I'm like, no, it's not. I'm like, I'm in it. Look around, there are other people. He's like, nope, park doesn't open until 6 AM. I'm like— he's like, do you have any ID on you? I'm like, no, I'm running. He goes, what's your name? I'm like, seriously? He's like, I'm writing you a summons. I'm like, you're writing me a summons for exercising? For ex— I just want to clarify this. You're writing me a summons? And sure enough, the guy wrote me a summons for exercising in Central Park before it opened. The charge was breaking the— violating curfew. You know, I'm like, I get the concept of the curfew. It's to keep people out after 2 AM. It's not to prevent them from going in early To exercise, to be healthy. I'm like, I'm not carrying, you know, a 6-pack. I'm not drinking a Big Gulp. I'm not smoking. I'm, you know, I'm doing something healthy and you're writing me a summons for it. And I said, you know, I'm gonna have a field day with this. I said, I kind of have some followers. This is gonna be a lot of fun. I'm not, you know, I know you're just doing your job, sir, even though you have the discretion not to, but okay. So I go back home. I take a picture of my ticket. I email it to a friend of mine at the New York Post. You know, front page New York Post next day. No running from this ticket. You know, front page.

Tony Martignetti
Of course. That's great.

Peter Shankman
New York Times covered it. Runner's World covered it. I mean, it went everywhere. Gawker covered it. And my whole thing was just like, dude, you have discretion. Look at me. I'm not even going super fast. For God's sake, I'm just trying to exercise here. And of course, I went to court and I beat it, but how much money did it cost the city for me to go to court, fight this thing? Every employee— you have to give your employees the power of discretion, the power of empathy to make their own decisions. If you go by the book, Bad things will happen.

Tony Martignetti
And again, small shops, so much easier to do. Yep. Flatline, flat organizations.

Peter Shankman
I work with a nonprofit, animal rescue nonprofit. A friend of mine was a skydiver, and—

Tony Martignetti
Shout him out. What's the— what's—

Peter Shankman
no, I can't. There's a reason I can't. But, but there's a friend of mine was a skydiver, and she was killed in a BASE jump several years ago. And her husband asked to donate in her memory to this nonprofit. So I sent him a check, and about 3 months later, I get a coffee table book in the mail. And I was living by myself at the time. I didn't own a coffee table. It was, you More money to spend on my flat screen. And I remember I call, I look at this coffee table book, I throw it away, throw it in the corner, and I look at it over the next couple of days. It pisses me off at how much, how much of my donation did it cost to print, mail, and produce this book to me? And so I called them up. Well, sir, we believe most of our donors are older and would probably prefer to get a print version as opposed to like digital, you know, where they'd throw it away. Like, you don't throw digital away, but okay. I'm like, so, so You've asked your— you've done surveys and you've asked all your— No, we just assume that most of them are older. I'm like, OK. So I opened my mouth, wound up joining their board, and, um, spent the next year interviewing, uh, customers, interviewing every current and past donor about how they like to get their information, and shock of shocks, 94% said online. And so over the following year, we launched Facebook page, Twitter page, uh, um, uh, Flickr account, uh, YouTube, everything. P.S., the following year after that, donations went up 37%. In one year. In that economy. It was right around '08, '09. Donations went up 37% in one year. And they saved over $500,000 on printing, mailing, and reproduction. Imagine going to your boss, hey, boss, revenue's up 37% and we saved $500,000. Your boss is going to buy you a really good beer. You know, all they had to do was listen to their audience. Be relevant to the audience you have, and they will tell you what they want.

Tony Martignetti
We have tons of tools for segmentation. Oh my God. But you've got to listen to what segment you want to— people You

Peter Shankman
know, someone asked me the other day, Joe, what's the best— I knew nothing about their company— what's the best social media outlet for me to be on? Should I be on Twitter? Should I be on Facebook? I said, I'll answer that question if you can answer this question I'm going to ask you. Is my favorite type of cheese Gouda or the number 6? They said, I don't understand. That's not a real question. I'm like, neither is yours. Like, I can't tell you where the best place to be. Your audience can. I said, go ask your audience. Believe me. They will tell you. There's a gas station in the Midwest, Kum and Go. I just love the name, K-U-M and G-O. Right. Kum and Go. And their tagline is—

Tony Martignetti
You can read more about them in the book.

Peter Shankman
Their tagline is always something extra. I mean, come on, the jokes just write themselves, for God's sake.

Tony Martignetti
And they don't take themselves too seriously. Really, no. I love that.

Peter Shankman
Kum and Go is such a great gas station. Just knowing the name of the company. And, um, you know, I remember they were in Iowa, and I went out to visit a friend in Iowa, and I'm like, you gotta get a photo of me in front of the Kum and Go sign. And, um, the beauty of this is that some of their employees actually look at their customers when they're on their phones in the stores and go, oh, you know, do you use Twitter more or Facebook? And they say, oh, I use it. And they record that information, and they know it. Yeah. God, customers will give you so much info if you just ask them, because then they feel invested. They feel invested in your company. They feel like they— that you took the time to listen to their nonprofit requests or their questions, and they feel like they're— I did it for HARO. Every month we'd have a one-question HARO survey. You know, Harrow one-question survey. And it was— we'd get like 1,000 people respond, and I'd spend the entire weekend emailing everyone who responded, thanking them personally. It took my entire weekend, but it was great because what wound up happening is that, you know, if we took their advice and launched it on Monday with the new thing, they'd go, oh my God, Harrow did this for me. They took my advice. Well, yeah, it was your advice and 800 other people's advice, but we took it. And they'd be like, oh my God, this is amazing. And it just, it just made them so much more loyal, and they'd tell hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. We'd get— I mean, there were days, my God, there were days I remember I was in temple one morning, the Garment Center Synagogue, and my phone— I feel my phone getting really hot in my pocket, which is not normal, and it's starting to hurt. And I look at it, it's almost on fire. It had frozen because we were mentioned in Seth Godin's morning blog. Oh. And at that time, I was getting emails every time we get a new subscriber, and the phone had actually frozen and was locked and was overheating. I had to take out the battery and reset the entire phone because we just got so many new— we got like 14,000 subscribers. It's obscene. It's obscene.

Tony Martignetti
You say— excuse me— you say that customer service is the new advertising, marketing, and PR.

Peter Shankman
Yeah. It really is. Well, again, you know, if we're moving into that world where— so imagine a lava lamp, and I love that I can use this analogy. Imagine a lava lamp. A lava lamp has water, oil, and a heat source, right? The heat source heats the oil. The oil flows through the water. It makes pretty colors. I've heard it looks really good when you're high. Now, I've heard. Now, imagine if— ooh, crystals. Imagine if everyone you meet in your network, okay, is a drop of oil. The water is your network. The water is your world. Everyone you meet in your network, from the guy you're sitting doing the radio interview with, to the guy who serves you ice cream at the local deli, to the guy who does your dry cleaning, to your girlfriend, to your wife, to— not at the same time— to your kid's second-grade teacher, to your second-grade teacher years ago. Right. Everyone you meet is in your network. You know, right now, when Facebook first started, I would see the same weight from a kid I went to junior high school with. His posts would have the same weight as, like, my current girlfriend, which is ridiculous. I don't need to know about everything my friend from junior high school is doing. I haven't talked to the kid in 15 years. Facebook's gotten a lot smarter, as has Google. Now, I see the people I communicate with the most, OK? And if I, if I reach out and communicate with new people, they start rising in my feed, in my stream. If I don't, they fall. Yeah. It's just like a lava lamp. Every person you connect with is a drop of oil. That heat source at the bottom that's rising, raising or lowering those drops of oil is relevance. So, if you imagine the heat source is relevance, and the more I interact with someone, the more, the higher they go in my network, and the more I see of them, the more trust level there is. When I'm at a bar and I meet someone, or at a restaurant, or a conference, I meet someone, I don't need to connect them. I don't need to go on Facebook and friend request them. You know how awkward friend requesting is when you stop and think about it? Yeah. The last time I friend requested someone in the real world was second grade. grade. Will you be my friend? My daughter's doing that now. She goes up to, like, the cat. Will you be my friend? I'm like, honey, the cat doesn't want to be your friend. But, you know, it's this awkward thing. Who the hell friend requests someone anymore? If I'm hanging out with you at a bar and we connect again and we talk and we go out to dinner and we're having a good time, we're friends. I don't need to first request that you be— you know, so that's going away. Friending, following, liking, and fanning is all going away. What will interact is the actual connection. So if I meet with you and I have a good time with you and we talk again, if I use your business, if I go to your nonprofit, if I donate, if I volunteer, whatever, The network knows that. The more I do that, the more I interact with you, the more you have the right to market to me. And the more you will be at the top of my stream, and the more I will see information about you, the less I will have to search for you. But if you do something stupid, or we're no longer friends, see ya. You're gonna fade. I don't have to unfriend you. You just disappear. Unfriending is also awkward. I dated a woman. We broke up. It was 9 months after we broke up. Neither of us wanted to unfriend the other one because it was just awkward. Till I woke up and she was in front of me. Yeah. Anyway, but, you know, the concept of not having to do that, of just, you know, okay, I haven't talked to you in a while, I don't see your posts anymore. It's the real world. That's how it should be.

Tony Martignetti
And if you're not feeding zombie loyalists, they can start to defect. No question about it. So I want to spend a little time on—

Peter Shankman
If you're not reaching out to your customers, talking to them, giving them what they want, talking about their information, helping them out, they will gladly go somewhere else to someone who is. You know, if I have a great experience with a restaurant every week, For 3 years, and then all of a sudden, over time, I'm noticing less and less. That restaurant's doing less and less to take care of me, you know, and maybe management's changed, and I don't feel that, you know, I'm ripe for being infected by another company. I'm ripe for someone else to come and say, you know, Peter, because if I tweet something like, wow, can't believe I have to wait 40 minutes for a table. This didn't used to be like that. If someone else is a smart restaurant, they're following me, and they're going to go, you know what, Peter, there's no wait, no wait over here. Why don't you come 2 blocks north, and we'll give you a free drink. Right. You know, ooh, you know, and that right there, that's the first sign of infection. And I might become infected by another, by another company, become a zombie loyalist for them.

Tony Martignetti
And so, let's take— you have a lot of good examples. Let's take a one-on-one situation. How can we start to cure that?

Peter Shankman
The simple act of realizing, following your customers, understanding when they're not happy, and fixing the situation before it escalates. You know, you can contain a small outbreak. A small outbreak, small viral outbreak, you can contain that by getting the right people, finding out what the problem is, getting them into one room, fixing their problem, healing them.

Tony Martignetti
You have a good United story, right back when it was Continental.

Peter Shankman
I was a frequent flyer and booked a trip to Paris and was very angry because they charged me like $400 in booking fees or something like that. I don't remember what it was. And I called the CEO. I just just for the hell of it. I'm like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I wrote a letter, wrote an email. This

Tony Martignetti
was before social, right?

Peter Shankman
Before I wrote an email to the CEO, and I'm like, this is ridiculous. I'm a frequent flyer. Da da da da. And like thirty minutes later, my phone rings. Like, hello, Peter Shankman? Yes, please hold for Larry Kellner, CEO of Continental Airlines. I'm like, oh crap, you know. And the guy gets on the phone. He's like, Peter, how you doing? Mr. Shankman, how you doing? Sorry, listen, these fees, they're new. We sent them a note. I'm guessing you didn't see it. We're gonna waive them for you. But if you have any more problems, you know, feel free to call me. And I hung up the phone for the next 40 minutes just sort of staring at it. Like, holy crap, Larry Kellner, the CEO of United Airlines, just called me and talked to me. And, I mean, it was like God coming down and saying, you now have the power to levitate your cat. It was just ridiculous. And, um, so, you know, I have been faithful to Continental and now United ever since. And they continue to treat me with respect and do great things. And they're improving. They were getting a lot of crap over the past several years. And they really are starting to improve. It's nice to see.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah. And not only, of course, your own loyalty, but your— Oh my God. Your zombie loyalists for them, and how many times, how much, it's unquantifiable.

Peter Shankman
Yeah, it's unquantifiable. I've dragged so many friends to United. I've made so many friends. I mean, my father, you know, he only flies United now, which means he only drags, he drags my mom only on United. I only drag my wife on United. There's a lot of work that way, yeah.

Tony Martignetti
We gotta go away for a couple minutes. When we come back, of course, Peter and I are gonna keep talking about his book. Comes out in January. Zombie loyalists. You have some examples of zombie loyalists leaving en masse, like Domino's, Netflix. They're both in the book. So, one leaving, if you're not starting to cure one leaving—

Peter Shankman
Yeah, and then that's the thing, you know, the beauty of the internet with the hashtags and everything like that, you know, it doesn't take a long time for those things to sort of blow up in your face. And, you know, at the end of the day, everyone's like, oh, you know, Twitter's responsible for us losing money. No, they're not. You're responsible for you losing millions. Yeah. And if your product isn't great and your actions don't speak well of who you are, then there's no reason your customers should stay with you. And everyone says, oh, social media is really hurting us. No, you're hurting yourself. The only difference is that social media makes it easier for the world to know about it.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah. They're just telling the story. Yep. Domino's and Netflix are good examples because they— It loops back. They took responsibility.

Peter Shankman
They both owned it. Domino's came out and said, you know what? You're right. Our pizza, we do have a problem. We're gonna fix this. And they spent millions fixing it, and sure enough, they're back with a vengeance now. I may or may not even have ordered them every once in a while, and I live in New York City. That's a sacrilege.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, right.

Peter Shankman
But, you know, I have the app on my phone for when I'm traveling somewhere. I'll be in Chiboingo, whatever, and, you know, what are you gonna get at 11:30 at night when your flight's delayed and you land? Domino's. Which reminds me, I should probably go exercise. On the flip side, you know, something like Netflix, they, they also were screwing up. You know, they were losing— they tried to switch between the two, they came up with a new name, and everyone was just like, this is just—

Tony Martignetti
Oh, and it was so gross in public.

Peter Shankman
Oh man. And so, and again, you're watching the same thing happen with Uber right now. So it's gonna be really interesting to see if they're able to repair themselves.

Tony Martignetti
Listening is important. Both those, both those two examples, they listened to their customers.

Peter Shankman
I think there's a problem with listening because everyone's been saying listen, listen, listen for months and years and years and years now, but You know, no one ever says that you have to do more than just listen. You have to listen and actually follow up. Yeah. It's one thing to listen. You know, I use the example of my wife. I could sit there and listen to her for hours, you know, but if I don't actually say anything back, she's going to smack me, you know, and go into the other room. And so, you really have to— it's a two-way street. You know, listening is great, but you've got to respond. And look, I'll take it a step further. Everyone's like, oh, Twitter's so great because someone was complaining on Twitter, and we went online, and we saw the complaint, and then we fixed their problem, and yay! How about if the problem didn't exist in the first place? You know, because the great thing about Twitter is that, yeah, people complain on Twitter. The bad thing about it is they're complaining about you on Twitter. So it's like, what if the problem didn't exist in the first place? What if you empowered your front desk clerk to fix the problem so that I didn't have to tweet? Hertz is my favorite story of all this. I used to rent from Hertz religiously. And then I went to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport this past April. Oh, yeah. And I gave a— I was giving a speech, and I go, and my name's supposed to be on the board, you know, so I can go right to my car, and it wasn't. I said, OK, that happens. I go downstairs, I wait 40 minutes on the VIP line. Um, after 40 minutes, they finally say, you know, there's, uh, uh, only one guy here. A lot of people might have a better chance if you go up to the regular line. Like, OK, probably could have told us that a little earlier. Go up to the regular line, spend 45 minutes waiting in the regular line. It's now been—

Tony Martignetti
Now, are you tweeting while this is happening?

Peter Shankman
Well, I had enough— I was actually not only tweeting, I had enough time I had enough time to create a meme. That should give you some idea of how long I was online with my cell phone. I was able to create enough time to have a meme. Yes. I get up to the counter. Hi, can I help you? Yeah, I was downstairs at the VIP desk and they told me to— oh, you have a VIP reservation? You have to go downstairs. Like, yeah, okay, let's put a pin in that. They just sent me up here. Like, right, they have to help you. Well, it's not really they. You guys are the same company. I mean, I could see the reservation on the screen. You can help me. Sorry, sir, I can't help you. You have to go to VIP next. I'm like, you just Nexted me. OK. So if you know anything about Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, all of the rental car companies are all in the same place. So I walked 50 feet.

Tony Martignetti
It's a bus that takes you to the big pavilion where they're all next to each other.

Peter Shankman
I walked 50 feet from the cesspool of filth and depravity that was Hertz to the wonderful Zen garden of tranquility that was Avis. And in 4 minutes, I had a nicer, cheaper— or nicer, less expensive car given to me by a woman named Phyllis, who was 66 and moved to Phoenix from Detroit with her husband for his asthma. I knew this. because she told me. Yeah. Um, she smiled at me. She brought her manager out and said, ah, it's another refugee from, uh, Hertz. And I said, so this happens a lot? They're like, yep. I'm like, wow, you'd think they'd have done something about that. And so, on the way out in Avis, um, I, I thank them. I walk past Hertz. I shoot them this, you know, sort of look of the, look of the beast. I get my Avis car, and I drive to my hotel. Once I get to my hotel, I write a wonderful blog post, uh, about my experience called Peter and Hertz and the Terrible, Horrible, No Boot good, really bad customer experience. Once you have a kid, you find out you're writing titles about your blog posts that have to do with kids' books. I Do Not Like Hertz, Sam-I-Am, and things like that. And I included in this blog post the 5 things I'd rather do than ever rent from Hertz again. I think number 3 was ride a razor blade bus through a lemon juice waterfall. Cool.

Tony Martignetti
With just—

Peter Shankman
you know, and so— but of course, the next day, Hertz Hertz reaches out to me. Oh, Mr. Shankman, this is the head of North American customer service. I saw your— I'm like— they're like, you know, we'd love to— I'm like, no. Like, you're not gonna fix the problem. Number one, because I'm in a neighbor's car. I'm never going back to Hertz. Number two, there were 5 people yesterday. 5 people I interacted with, all of whom had the chance to save me and keep me as a customer for life. A customer who would have been so happy and I would have loved you. 5 people blew it. So don't waste your time trying to convert me back. You're not going to. What you want to do is Is spend some of that energy retraining your staff to have empathy and to give them the ability and the empowerment to fix my problem when it happens. Because 5 people— it takes every single employee to keep your company running. It takes one to kill it.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah.

Peter Shankman
P.S., Avis reached out, um, to thank me personally, and, uh, I am now just this ridiculously huge loyal fan of Avis and always will be.

Tony Martignetti
You have a pretty touching story about, uh, when you worked at a yogurt shop. You were really young. We have a couple minutes, so tell that good story.

Peter Shankman
So that was on the East Side, which again is yet another reason why I live on the West Side. Nothing good ever happens on Manhattan's East Side. So I was working at I Can't Believe It's Yogurt, which was a store that I think back in the '80s—

Tony Martignetti
ICBY.

Peter Shankman
No, no, TCBY was the country's best yogurt. ICBY was a poor attempt—

Tony Martignetti
Oh, I Can't Believe It's Yogurt.

Peter Shankman
I Can't Believe It's Not Yogurt. It was a poor attempt to capitalize on that.

Tony Martignetti
That was TCBY.

Peter Shankman
And I'm working at this store, And I'd go in every day and make the yogurt and clean the floors. I'd do, you know, typical high school job. And it was during the summer and thousands of people walking by. I think it was like 2nd Avenue or something. And there were these brass poles that hung from, you know, there was an awning, right? That's an awning up there. And there were the brass poles that held the awning up and they were dirty as hell, right? I'm sure they'd never been polished ever. And I found some brass polish in the back, like all the way buried in the back. And one afternoon, I went outside and I started polishing the poles. My logic was, if the poles were shiny and people saw them, maybe they'd come into the store. Maybe they'd want to, you know, buy more.

Tony Martignetti
Nice clean place.

Peter Shankman
And the manager came out, what the hell are you doing? I told him what I thought. I don't pay you to think. Get inside. You know, there's no customers in there. OK, I'll make sure the yogurt's still pumping at full blast. And I quit. I just quit that job. Like, I mean, I couldn't even begin to understand why Someone would invest— I mean, to own a franchise, $50 grand, at least, to buy that franchise. Why wouldn't he invest in the 2 seconds it took, a little elbow grease, to make the poles clean that might bring in more customers? What the hell?

Tony Martignetti
But you're not paid to think.

Peter Shankman
You're not paid to think, my favorite line. Yeah. I just— I encourage, if any kids are listening to this, teenagers, if your boss says that to you, quit. Quit. I will hire you. Just quit. It's probably the worst thing in the world that you could possibly do, because you have customers who You have customers who every day can be helped by people who are paid to think, and that's the ones you want to hire.

Tony Martignetti
We've got to wrap up. Tell me what you love about the work you do.

Peter Shankman
I get paid to talk. I mean, my God, this is the same stuff I used to get in trouble for in high school. But on a bigger picture, what I really love about it is being able to open someone's eyes and have them come back to me. Um, I run a series of masterminds called ShankMinds Business Masterminds at shankminds.com. They're day-long seminars all around the country. And, uh, I had someone come to me and say, you know, I took your advice about XYZ and I started listening a little more and I just got the largest retainer client I've ever had in my life by a factor of 4. She goes, and I just can't even thank you enough. She sent me like a gorgeous bottle of tequila. She's like, I can't even thank you enough. Oh my God. Being able to help people. At the end of the day, I've yet to find another planet suitable for life. I'm looking. So we're all in this together. And if that's the case, why wouldn't we want to help people just a little bit more? Yeah. As douchey as we are as a society. We could probably all be a little nicer to each other, and you'd be surprised how that'll help.

Tony Martignetti
The book is Zombie Loyalists. It's published by Palgrave Macmillan, comes out in January. You'll find Peter at shankman.com and on Twitter @PeterShankman. Peter, thank you so much.

Peter Shankman
Pleasure was mine,

Tony Martignetti
Dave. Oh, thank you.

Kate Martignetti
Next week, that's an open question. If you missed any part of this week's show,

Tony Martignetti
I beseech you, find it at tonymartignetti.com.

Kate Martignetti
We're sponsored by DonorBox. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters' generosity? DonorBox— fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit. donorbox.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I'm your associate producer, Kate Martignetti. The show's social Production and media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein.

Tony Martignetti
Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with us next week for Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.