How to Operate During Critical Moments and Defend Your Reputation with Kith CEO Bill Coletti on Episode #0251

Bill Coletti [0:00]
Hi, this is Bill Coletti with kith.co. And you’re listening to EA Interviews.

Intro [0:05]
EA interviews, Episode 251, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round seven days a week. Join Mario Fachini for today’s Expert Authority Effect Interview.

Mario Fachini [0:19]
Work hard for your company, you’ve got the sales, you might even have the profit going, it’s growing. You have your ideal clients all this as well and good. But someone put something bad in the newspaper about you. Maybe they even put something online because that’s far easier. What are you doing to manage that? How are you handling your reputation? It only takes one time for this so I don’t want to say that. But let’s just say not go ideally, I don’t know. Things can happen throughout life. And we spend so much time building a brand and building up the clientele and building all this stuff. But what are you doing for your reputation? I know there’s times I’ve been like, ah, I don’t care right now I just need sales. And then there’s other times where it’s like all I was focusing on, not because it was bad. But just because it was like I had been doing one thing for a while and I wanted to be known for something else. All of these are in constant flux. And that’s the fun of building a business. And I’m excited to have Bill Coletti on the show today. And we’re going to be talking about all of this and more and why it’s important to you. I’m going to bring them up right after we thank our sponsor.

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Mario Fachini [1:42]
Ladies and gentlemen, best selling author, speaker and CEO Bill Coletti. Bill, how are you feeling today?

Bill Coletti [1:47]
Mario, I’m doing great. It’s super exciting to be here to have this conversation with you. Thanks.

Mario Fachini [1:52]
I can’t wait to dive in. Because reputation is such an important thing personally and professionally. And why do you think so many people just let it fall by the wayside and focus on everything?

Bill Coletti [2:06]
it’s a little bit like vaporware, it’s a little bit, it’s more difficult to put your arms around. And that’s really one of the reasons I wrote the book is actually to when we look at the major American corporations or global corporations, everything that gets managed can be measured. And if we think of reputation, kind of as vaporware, it’s difficult to measure it, so therefore impossible to manage it. But I believe that reputation can be managed, just like legal services, janitorial services, inventory at the factory or whatever the situation that you might be in, you know, whatever, you can put a KPI to reputation. So people don’t do it because it’s hard to get your arms around.

Mario Fachini [2:47]
What would you say is the first thing they should be doing to get their arms around and start the process?

Bill Coletti [2:53]
Yeah, so it’s a terrific question. I think what we talked about is the four A’s, we talked about how you actually manage a reputation. And the first thing is around awareness, just self awareness, an awareness of who you are, what you stand for, what you want your reputation to be very much around this notion of what’s going on around me. The second is assessment. So once you’re really clear on that, then you go ask people, if you’re in an enterprise context, you go ask your customers and ask your vendors and suppliers and your employees, internally and externally, if you’re a smaller entrepreneur, and don’t really have that, that that set of stakeholders, you’d really just sort of ask those around you. And that gives you an assessment, so the first building block is this notion of self awareness.

Mario Fachini [3:42]
What does it mean to your customers? Do you think this is something you should be hiding from them doing internally or is this something you should be making a big burly announcement and going, hey, we care about you so much, here’s what we’re doing and why we’re doing it and then getting them involved.

Bill Coletti [3:58]
So it’s such a great adage about all marketing, just marketing is simple marketing is relationships. So Mario, if we were there in Detroit together, and I just moved into the house next door, and I ran over across the streets and Mario, I can’t wait to make you my best friend I just moved in next door, you’d probably raise your eyebrows and say, well, that guy’s crazy. But over time, I just did things that a good neighbor does. I let you borrow my lawn mower and you gave me a cup of sugar and you watched my kids playing in the street or you just did, you interacted, we interacted with me in a normal, authentic way. You would probably grow in my reputation, your expectation of what I would do next, which is a definition of reputation. Your expectation would be, hey, if I borrow stuff, he’s generous with it. And when he borrows stuff, he returns it. As opposed to me running over the day I closed on my house and said I’m going to be your new best friend probably didn’t work well.

Mario Fachini [4:54]
When you’re working with companies, such as American Airlines and AT&T and all of them, do you find that there’s patterns that they’re looking to achieve? They all have the same end goal? Or would you say they all have their own industry specific goals?

Bill Coletti [5:18]
Um, you know, great question. I think it’s this context around, have they thought about reputation as an asset? Okay. So if you are going to ask me, as I sit with these big companies, and they think about opening up a Mexico office, pick a country that’s going to be built on ROI that’s going to be built on expected sales, it’s going to be built on market penetration, and there’s going to be real clarity around that. So company’s expectations around reputation is directly related to the amount of thought that they’ve put into it. And do they really view it as an intangible benefit? And AT&T great company really knows that reputation matters, because they are so sensitive to regulatory issues on are they going to as they open up in new markets, as they bring new products to customers, and they’re in it’s a hyper competitive marketplace. So cell phones, television, whatever market they’re in, they view it as a really strategic asset. And that growing, that reputation is just as important as growing the bottom line ROI.

Mario Fachini [6:23]
Is that same for American Express and a different niche industry?

Bill Coletti [6:29]
Yeah, I think that’s generally the case for any of those enterprise level companies. But even a small regional bank, I’m sure that you can think of a bank in Michigan, that’s not a major, but it’s a local good, strong bank.

Mario Fachini [6:44]
Huntington and Flagstar.

Bill Coletti [6:45]
None of us have ever heard of them but to who matters most to them. They really grow and have grown their reputation, relative view. So yes, I think most big companies get it, not all. And I don’t think it’s exclusively b2c, I think b2b, Cargill, for example, is a b2b company. I think they get it. And I’ve got lots of examples of smaller clients that we work with that understand it, just like the bank you referenced, they understand it.

Mario Fachini [7:13]
You honestly never heard of either of those.

Bill Coletti [7:16]
I’m not hunting the National Bank. I’ve heard of Huntington and Flagstar. I’ve heard of Huntington.

Mario Fachini [7:22]
Okay. Yeah, I know they’re out of Ohio. And but they aren Midwest Regional.

Bill Coletti [7:27]
Yeah.

Mario Fachini [7:27]
No. Chase.

Bill Coletti [7:28]
If you were to ask me five named five banks, that would not be on the list of the five banks, I would list.

Mario Fachini [7:33]
Wow. Okay.

Bill Coletti [7:34]
Yeah.

Mario Fachini [7:34]
Now I’m also with Chase, and they’re one of the larger ones.

Bill Coletti [7:38]
Absolutely, absolutely. But I think it makes my point, it doesn’t matter to me in Austin, Texas, what their reputation is, it matters to them, it should matter what you think about them.

Mario Fachini [7:48]
So for someone who’s a local or midsize regional company, you’re saying it’s even vastly more important to be having a local reputation and a regional reputation than just some random national campaign that people may or may not want to concern themselves with.

Bill Coletti [8:07]
You know, in PR the end of the word is stakeholders. I don’t like the word stakeholders, I think we can say it a little bit more clearly, with who matters most, who matters most. And so there I have been, sadly apart, of lots of ego campaigns, where companies will do whatever is symbolic of the Superbowl ad. Well, everybody that’s such an ego play is to do a Superbowl ad to burnish your reputation. And, and we can fit you, it seems like every year some company have never really heard of a product as a Superbowl ad because their stock price ran up that particular year. And so they decided to do it. But that’s not really valuable. And so whatever the equivalent of a Superbowl ad is of your, in your regional, you know, market, it’s bad, you don’t need to do that, you really got to focus on those that matter most. And you don’t need to make an ego play focus on those that really impact your bottom line.

Mario Fachini [8:57]
Now, let’s talk about the people who matter most. How do you identify who those actually are? Are they all the prospects? Are they just a few of the prospects? Do you look at just the sales numbers and existing customers to duplicate them? How do you find the matching of here’s who we want to go after and who’s the one we’re speaking to for the reputation.

Bill Coletti [9:18]
So I break it down into three groups, just super simple groups, communities, customers and critics. Okay, so customers are the most obvious of that list. And they, those are people that you have some sort of financial transaction with either as a buyer or seller, that’s where I put those vendors, suppliers, as well as your true customers. Communities are your employees first and foremost, that’s where it’s exactly where they’re fit. The communities that you operate in. If you are a, a, if you’re a we’re talking about banks, if you’re a bank, you know, the two square miles or the 200 square miles around you, that sort of is your marketplace where you want to be that’s what communities are and then credit Are naysayers, government regulators, perhaps the media, sort of those are all critics. And so once you look at stakeholders, or those that matter most in those three lenses then you can articulate who really matters between communities, customers and critics. And that really gives you a very clear bull’s eye of who really matters most, and each one of those three, and then you can go further, who really matters based on the reputation I want my community, my customer, my critics, you could argue that a company like Facebook right now is highly focused on their critics, and that their communities and their customers are pretty well taken care of. But it’s their critics, if they have reputational capital to spend, it is focused on their critics. And so once you do that defining into those three buckets, then decide which one matters most. That’s the way reputation gets managed. Because the way I just describe that is the same way, if you and I were building a factory somewhere, we would talk about it in that same way, reputation can be talked about in the same way.

Mario Fachini [11:03]
Now, as far as timing is concerned, you’re given a lot of great expert authority insights on you know, what things you should consider and who to narrow down with. But as far as time is concerned, is this like a 30, 60, 90 day goal? Or do we need a full six to 12 months to turn the ship around or at least get everyone on board going here who we truly are as a brand and there’s no miscommunication?

Bill Coletti [11:27]
Yeah, well, Mario awesome question. And you can take it from two different directions. Turning the ship around. And that metaphor means we want to go in a different direction, north, south, east, or west, and we want to go in a different direction. The other way to think about it is that reputation begins with one really good conversation with somebody that matters to you just one conversation. So I don’t want to get overly philosophical. I just, I don’t think there is a destination, you don’t win reputation, nor do I think you win business. I just don’t think about winning business in that way. Simon Sinek talks about the infinite game. And so I think the infinite game is to keep playing the game. And so I think you want to keep growing your reputation. So think of a high reputation firm, Disney, BMW, Starbucks is kind of on that list Rolls Royce, sort of high reputation companies? I don’t think they’re done. I don’t think they’re finished growing their reputation. So in that philosophical context, I think it starts with one conversation with someone that matters most. And I don’t think it’s a destination. So turning the battleship, the battleship, should be perpetually spinning on its axis to constantly be pointing in the right direction of reputation, because I think it’s ever, ever evolving. Now, let me ground that out of the theory for a second. I think you need to focus on your employees, be honest with your employees, we’re in this season of COVID. Talk about coming back, if you’ve never been a reputational focus, now is a perfect time to do it. Because we’re all so bruised, battered and broken. Because of COVID. Now’s a great time to do it. So I don’t think you’d win reputation. And I think you start a reputation right now. I’m building a reputation with you in this conversation. And I think that’s sufficient.

Mario Fachini [13:20]
So there, it’s not a starting and ending point. It’s a you’re continually working on it, whether it’s good and you want to take it great, or it’s okay. And you want to make it good.

Bill Coletti [13:30]
Absolutely. I think that’s a great way to think about it.

Mario Fachini [13:34]
Now, I’m not generally a negative person. So I don’t really even want to go here. But it’s important, and it’s relevant. And what do you do if you have a bad reputation? How do you help companies fix that?

Bill Coletti [13:51]
Yeah. So we have done some work with some of the leadership at Walmart. All right. And so Walmart is generally regarded as having a bad reputation. And there is a concern by some about the way they treat their employees. There is a concern about how they source their products, there’s a concern about how they treat their suppliers, so generally regarded it has a negative reputation. Walmart strategy is just to keep on plugging, keep doing good things they do if you ask their employees, they do really good things for their employees while creating continuing education for their employees, creating leadership and management opportunities for their employees. If you’re concerned about their environmental footprint, they are one of the largest commercial solar users in the United States. Their fleet of vehicles uses more alternatives than just about any other fleet right after Amazon. And so they are doing the right things. And so they are taking the infinite game, the long game view of growing their reputation. What you can’t do is let’s say we have a bad reputation. Well she’s our regional bank locally that we were talking about. a regional bank has a bad, bad reputation, some there’s bad customer service for years management didn’t care. They had really exorbitant loan rates, and they just were bad, bad operators, they can’t just go write a million dollar check to the United Way, and stand up with the CEO handing it to somebody and say, look at me how great we are. It doesn’t work that way. Because it took a really long time for that negative reputation to be earned. It will take a very long time for the positive reputation to be earned. But I’m sure someone in the Eastern philosophy smarter than me said, you know, a journey of 1000 miles begins with one step. And so the way you do it is committing to it and being committed to having a good reputation. Because back to where we were with your other great question. Because you know, it matters, you know, it will improve your standing. And there are reasons why a good reputation matters. And it’s quantifiable for business.

Mario Fachini [15:53]
See, and what I like about that is not just honesty and transparency. And thank you for that insight, because I had no clue about the solar panels and the stuff with Walmart. So it’s like the whole chicken and egg thing. So it was a reaction to the bad press. And they started it, whether it was one year, two year, five years, or whatever. And they’re slowly incorporating more of this moving forward.

Bill Coletti [16:19]
Yeah, let’s not lose sight that most American corporations and Walmart are not exempt. It’s about driving revenue and driving share price. Alright. And so being a social justice warrior, American corporations being a social justice warrior, there are some companies Patagonia is a perfect example that are on the leading edge of some of those issues. I argue that Patagonia does it because the CEO firmly believes in it personally, but it’s also good for their brand. It is good for Patagonia to be out front talking about those issues. Now Walmart, I don’t want to be cynical, critical or overly praise them. But they’re doing these things because they need employees. They know that when they need their employees to be satisfied. They know when they go to open up a new store in a new market that’s a little bit greener, perhaps they need to be able to look at those data points and share those data points. If you can, we could have a whole nother podcast about the economics of solar energy. Is it cheaper or not? or what have you, it’s beside the point. But so I think there is a belief, it’s just because it’s right. And a lot of CEOs think that way. But there’s still a lot of people that just say, no, we need this stuff, because it’s good for us in the long term. And we can trade on it. And we can actually monetize this in the long term.

Mario Fachini [17:37]
And so the other company that comes to mind is Tom Shoes where you buy one pair, and they’re given away. I mean, they’re not. They’ve done that since the inception. And that’s not just because of, oh, this looks good or anything, I believe they truly care also

Bill Coletti [17:52]
100% 100%. And if you and I tried to start a shoe company, and we just sort of ape that, or did the exact same thing, it wouldn’t work for us. It has to be authentic and real. And that’s why Patagonia, you know, really, really works. And that’s why Tom really worked because they were, it was born into the DNA of their leader that started it.

Mario Fachini [18:11]
And they were the industry leaders with it. They’re not just trying to take something to make it nice whether someone’s doing that or not, I think it’s better. I’d rather have companies doing good stuff than not, regardless of the reasons, however, I think everyone is smart enough to when they can tell the CEO or the leader is doing it from the heart and for the right reasons versus like, like you said, the million dollar check to the United Way. Oh, great. Now we’re a good company overnight. And all of that, well, I’m hearing through all of this is no matter where your company’s reputation is at. The cool thing is you can start small now today, because no matter if you want to start small or start big, it’s still gonna take time and it’s not going to happen overnight.

Bill Coletti [18:54]
Absolutely. And we’re unpacking a lot of the really important things we talked about in the critical moments book about these four A’s, you know, of awareness, assessment, authority and action. There are quantifiable levers that I talked about in the book, there are levers that actual corporations can throttle to actually directly impact reputation. There’s a lot of academic studies ranging from 25 levers to five levers, I think there’s around seven that are really sort of important that companies need to lever and throttle but so absolutely take those small steps initially, but convince yourself am I doing this? Because I think it is a strategic business decision. Am I doing this just because the world wants me to because the world will ultimately see through you if you choose the latter over the former.

Mario Fachini [19:43]
And I also think people should relax a little bit and correct me if I’m wrong on this because like Walmart, again, I’m not going to overly praise them, but I don’t think they’re as bad as everyone thinks they are. But when you have over a million employees, you’re probably gonna have a lot of people that are Just crumpled. It’s like, if you’re gonna say something bad about a company, go run one with a dozen employees, let alone 50 or 100, let alone a million come back 30 days from now and tell me that you have the exact same viewpoint. You know what I mean? It’s like everyone knows that it’s the rule of law running uphill.

Bill Coletti [20:19]
Yeah, it’s running uphill, but the rule of large numbers is you’re never gonna please all the people in that context. And that’s why the big companies really need to do a good job of determining smoke from fire, is this truly a fire that we should care about? Or is this just smoke, Walmart and again, I know those columns, the columns, leaders there, there’s all kinds of crazy crap that happens at a Walmart, in every state on any given day, all right, people die in their facilities, things that if people were dying, someone were dying, your studio would probably be a big deal. But for Walmart, sadly, people like to commit suicide in the toy aisle, and stuff like that happens. And so that’s a tragedy. And it’s, it needs to be dealt with very humanely, but it has a significant impact on them. But it would even have a greater significant impact on you. If someone did that, you know, standing behind you like that. So I think all you really need to do is determine smoke from fire and understand the context.

Mario Fachini [21:17]
That’s horrible to hear. I had no idea that…

Bill Coletti [21:20]
Well, there’s but just imagine big box stores anywhere in America. And the crazy stuff that can go on, we did a lot of work for Home Depot. And I had a whole keynote speech about the crazy stuff that would happen on any given day. It’s no different than the crazy stuff that happens in any community across the country on any given day.

Mario Fachini [21:39]
Yeah, it’s unfortunate, but to your point, you know, you don’t want it to be oh, it’s just another day. But I remember hearing the stat that Walmart gets sued every single day, in some way, shape, or form or another. I’m just like, how many lawyers do you need on staff to just handle getting sued daily.

Bill Coletti [21:58]
And that’s that rule of large numbers. And so if you got sued today, or if I got sued, I would probably lose sleep about it, it’d probably be a big deal for me, Walmart, it’s just sad, it’s a process of their business. It’s just the way they need to manage it. And it kind of goes back to reputation, the wonderful intro that you did on the way in, could it be just one statement about you or me, would significantly impact us and our business and our marketplace? But if you and I are talking about Walmart on our podcast, I don’t think it’s going to have a whole lot of influence on Walmart’s reputation.

Mario Fachini [22:31]
You know, it’s interesting, and that’s, I love your analogy of separating the smoke from the fire. Because, you know, I think I even said earlier, taking it with a grain of salt wherever that came from. But at the same point, that’s really what you have to do is separate the smoke from the fire and go, is this an urgent a, an urgent, B or an urgent c thing and realize, are we putting resources at it? If it’s something that’s a common occurrence? I mean, just like electricity, and the internet is probably a line item for most businesses, I would have to say at the very least, it’s everyone’s, because everyone’s using the internet now, and electricity. But when you need a team of lawyers and all this other stuff, and it’s just a lot of line items, it’s kind of just keep the humanity about it like you were saying that?

Bill Coletti [23:21]
Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s when we, when we talk about, you know, crisis response, and how do people, you know, because I come to reputation management, from politics and crisis. And so I still do a lot of crisis response, where we actually are firefighters, and if a company has a problem, we come running as strategists and consultants. And so a lot of our thinking around reputation is kind of born out of crisis. As I talk to people in cocktail parties about what I do, and my area of expertise, they’ll say, oh, yeah, we just had this happen at the office. And it was such a crisis. It wasn’t a crisis, it was a normal business problem that had to be solved. Okay,

Mario Fachini [24:01]
It was an inconvenience,

Bill Coletti [24:02]
It was totally an inconvenience, you know, so if your internet went down, and you couldn’t shoot, it’s not a crisis. It’s an inconvenience. And that sucks, and we got to get it back up, and we got to fix it. Okay. But if someone accused you of something more dramatic, that’s maybe a little bit more of a crisis. So that smoke from fire discernment is really, really critically important. And that’s one of the roles I get to play is to help people say, Let’s relax, okay, this is let’s just fix this and move on. And then the opposite is true, because sometimes people put their head in the ground when it’s, you know, raining cats and dogs, and they’re like, Oh, it’s not a problem. And I’m like, No, this is a problem. Sexual harassment is a problem, you know, in 2018, and 2019. And still, it’s a big problem. And so I think we have a lot of companies that put their head in the ground or head in the sand around those topics.

Mario Fachini [24:49]
Yeah, that’s unfortunate. And I was smiling when you said put your head in the ground before you said the second part. But I know a lot of people that have the attitude, it’s like, it’s no big deal. We’ll just let it blow. It’s like, you need to address it, you need to say something otherwise everyone else is going to be controlling the narrative.

Bill Coletti [25:05]
Amen. And when we talk in that crisis context, what I’ve sort of determined is the key differentiator, the difference between good crisis response and great crisis response is speed. And being fast is exactly what you’re saying, being fast and filling that vacuum in the marketplace of ideas. But you don’t get fast just by being fast, you get fast by standing for something, your mission and values, what do you stand for? add that to your chain of command, who’s in the room to make decisions to decide what exactly you’re going to say. That’s how you get fast. So it’s an equation: is that speed equals the sum of mission and values plus chain of command?

Mario Fachini [25:47]
Oh, I like that’.

Bill Coletti [25:47]
That’s how you get fast.

Mario Fachini [25:49]
Speaking of your background and transitioning into this, how did you get into this?

Bill Coletti [25:55]
Yeah, so I grew up running political campaigns. So I did politics, I was involved in my first political race. As a senior in high school. Back in my life I grew up in Florida, St. Petersburg, Florida, and then worked on a state senate race, and just got bit by the bug. My parents were both pretty political. My dad was mayor, before I was born, but was mayor of my small town, my mom had been pretty active in politics. And so I really got interested in that. So as you can imagine, in campaigns in politics, it’s about a lot of crisis management. And it’s also about creating a lot of crises for the other guy. And those that win typically have one fewer crisis than ever than anybody else. That’s how you’re winning campaigns. And so that was just a natural evolution of working for individuals and campaigns, to evolve to work for corporations and taking the skill sets that I learned in politics and applying it to companies.

Mario Fachini [26:47]
What sounds like you’re doing extremely well with it. And I’m loving the stories you’re sharing. I know we could do more. But I want to ask you one more question. And it’s about the transformations who have been your biggest success story, what’s been the biggest transformation you’ve been able to give them?

Bill Coletti [27:04]
Yeah, that’s a wonderful, wonderful question. And so I’ve been blessed to work with some really huge corporations and that have transformed that have won major victories, the when they were kind of down on the ropes and have really come back and avant had great successes and big brands that we’ve all heard of. The one that I’m most fond of is there was a young man about five years ago, he was in college, senior in college, or junior college, and was caught saying a racist chant on video in the back of a bus. And he was saying things as most fraternity kids do that he had no idea what he was talking about. He just repeated the chant that he had been taught by others. And it got caught on video and it had some racial slurs in it, it was ugly, there’s no doubt that it was ugly. I was able to have his family hire me and I managed them through this crisis about a three month process of where he got kicked out of the university. And he did some really significant work on apologizing and working to remediate, not for attention, but because he wanted to learn and really wanted to grow. And now I just got an announcement in the mail that he’s finished, he’s finished obviously, his undergrad, he just finished his MBA program and is now just got a really really cool job in the industry that exactly he wanted to be in. So while it’s not going to make any hit made headlines at the time, that transformation is not going to make any headlines but that young man’s growth as a man and the Kahunas that he had to stand up and apologize. And learning is probably one of the things that I treasure most in my journey. And it’s not a big name, big corporation that we would know or love. So I talk about that one really passionately, because it’s so intimate, and real. And not just American Express, at&t, or these big, wonderful companies I’ve worked for.

Mario Fachini [28:51]
And I love that you’re sharing that because I like this. Actually one of my favorite parts of the show is asking the transformations because personally, I know everyone is doing multiple books by themselves, it’s not really that hard. You take some ideas, you put them in an order, you share this stuff, and there’s people who can go, Hey, here’s a step by step, whatever. Here’s something and I can repeat it. But the one component I look for is d how many success stories do you have when people are like, Oh, man, I could go all day. That just tells me how you helped a lot of people and these are the stories. Yeah, it’s fun to say the flashy thing, or I had so and so on the show or whatever. But I love the stories where it’s like, you turn you’d literally given them a 180 and you change the trajectory of this man’s life. It wasn’t just another line item for the week. And all the stories are good by all means. I’m thoroughly enjoying this, but I love the intimate ones where it’s like, he’s gonna remember that for the rest of his life. And the sad thing is, it was some college thing that I mean. You know whether you say it’s right or wrong. The reality is people pair off information. All the time without ever really thinking about it or singing along to a song or they heard something in a seminar. Now they have their own training course the next day. And you know what I mean? There’s all these different things. And it’s like all it takes now, everyone’s a broadcaster. You can be live streaming it from your phone and 15 other camera angles are in there. I mean, yeah, it’s the world we live in. So I’m glad you shared that one. Because I think people can resonate that with that one more than anything, because they’re, they’re either thinking I know of someone or that’s been me. Yeah.

Bill Coletti [30:35]
Yeah. It couldn’t be back, just in a small little microcosm. And I just think there’s a, there’s a beauty in the humility of an apology. And then we sometimes forget about that in this environment that we live in right now. But there’s beauty in that humility.

Mario Fachini [30:52]
Well, I have one more question. And I agree, and it has to be sincere to not just oh, sorry about that. You can tell that. That’s the biggest thing you can tell. So we have one more thing before we thank the sponsor, and come back for the Imperfect Action Round. But this is the Wheel of Whatever. And oh, I got a good spin on that. I love it. Let’s see where it lands.

Bill Coletti [31:17]
It looks good on video.

Mario Fachini [31:18]
What’s that?

Bill Coletti [31:18]
It looks great on video.

Mario Fachini [31:20]
Well, thank you. It’s, uh, I painted it myself. No joke. We’re gonna end it there on that question. Do you know what the question is?

Bill Coletti [31:28]
I don’t, but I’m ready for it.

Mario Fachini [31:30]
I love that attitude. So the question I have for you is, what company do you really think needs some reputation management, that they could be doing a better job right now?

Bill Coletti [31:44]
So I’ll give you two answers. So I think that the Trump brand needs a lot of work. And so I grew up running republican campaigns, and I don’t know what the heck that means anymore. So I think the Trump brand is really gonna have to figure out who they are and what they are, I think this presidency has significantly impacted that may negatively positively. You know, I think it’s less about a particular company, and more about an industry. I think the food industry, Cargill, and the way we make our food in America is really misunderstood. And the things that we do to make food safe at scale, fast and cheaply, I think there’s a lot of room for understanding around that. So I think that’s an area of an industry and then one one company in that industry, that I think there is really a big room and a big area for reputational growth.

Mario Fachini [32:42]
I’m glad you talked about that, because there’s a lot of people talking about the food. And obviously, you don’t want to be eating bad stuff. But at the same point, you said a few key words, I have never in my life, even after watching things on both sides of the coin, learning the behind the scenes of how to produce the food at scale safely and cheaply there and I can I know where you’re going with that because I can relate to scaling up a business and there’s things you have to be concerned about. It’s different when you have one to 12 clients and it’s a lot different when you have 200 to 300 versus 500 to 1000.

Bill Coletti [33:18]
Absolutely.

Mario Fachini [33:19]
Why do you think so many companies don’t talk about this stuff and they just stay in this realm of because the same… The line of her through all of this is miscommunication. Whether you’re talking about the campaign here, the food industry here, the credit card company here, the gentleman that you helped, all it is,is miscommunication.

Bill Coletti [33:39]
Because we have all been inculcated with keep it simple, stupid, and the picture of a goldfish and our eight second eight second, three second, whatever it is attention span, you know the goldfish, I’m talking about the poor goldfish.

Mario Fachini [33:51]
Yeah, I was just thinking, I thought it was seven seconds.

Bill Coletti [33:53]
What it’s small, but we’ve all just been inculcated, and I’m not saying those aren’t true. They’re true, you know it, we mark it against both of those realities. But there are things in our society that are complicated. And we need to make them simpler so that people can understand them. But I think it’s worth the effort before I go criticize something, to actually understand it. And I think that takes time. And I’m not going to do that in a kiss mantra. And I’m not going to do that in seven seconds, like the goldfish needs. And so I think there is a challenge and I’d face it all the time with our clients. And it’s how we make complexity simple. And sometimes you can always make it better, but I don’t think you can distill a safe agricultural processing process. In a 30 second commercial, it’s hard. It doesn’t work that way. And so I think it’s too, for leaders to actually understand and respect attention span, and keep it simple. But also to understand that we’ve got a complex topic that let’s take the time to try to explain it. And we’ll try to meet people where they are. But let’s really try to explain these things because they really are important to us.

Mario Fachini [35:13]
I like that perspective on it, and no one really talks about it. So thank you for sharing that. We’re going to thank our sponsor, and come back for the Imperfect Action Round.

Sponsor – Free Business Book Publishing Course [35:23]
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Mario Fachini [36:54]
And we are back with the Imperfect Action Round. Bill, are you ready to take imperfect action?

Bill Coletti [36:59]
I am imperfectly ready.

Mario Fachini [36:54]
Three questions rapid fire 60 second answers. The first one is what is the fifth fastest path to the profits?

Bill Coletti [37:10]
Be a super crystal clear expert on one thing if there is riches in the niches and you do not need to be a jack of all trades, do the one thing and do the one thing better than anybody else.

Mario Fachini [37:20]
Love it. Love it. Love it. Number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making it the fastest way for them to fix it?

Bill Coletti [37:27]
Not paying attention, semicolon, pay attention.

Mario Fachini [37:32]
Okay.

Bill Coletti [37:32]
So I think focused on reputation and understanding the impact that it has on your long term enterprise value.

Mario Fachini [37:38]
Excellent. Number three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

Bill Coletti [37:45]
Care. Care about people, care about your customers, they are precious precious assets. It’s the same way we care for our children and our babies from infancy to when they get buried. And so I think just simply caring and manifest that caring and is clear, and a consistent way as possible.

Mario Fachini [38:06]
Excellent, loving this. What is a book or six that you would recommend Expert Authority World?

Bill Coletti [38:16]
So, um, you know, Mario, I had the really wonderful benefit of hearing your New Year’s, your New Year’s message that you did, obviously, at the beginning of the new year. And it had a prayer in it. And obviously, that was very impactful. So clearly, for me, it’s the Bible. If we’re looking for a book, I know, it’s a little cliche, but it’s kind of the book that’s there. And I think it’s incredibly valuable. I think that I love Simon Sinek. I think he’s such a clear, clear thinker on so many different things. I think, his what’s your why the why book is just such a great book. And so, those are if I get pinned down, those are two but I’m a voracious reader. We’ve got a little bit of a tight shot, but I’ve got lots of books behind me. And I really do enjoy it. I enjoy books, I enjoy reading and enjoy ideas.

Mario Fachini [39:01]
Well, I appreciate that on all accounts. Thank you very much. And those are both great recommendations. And that’s why there’s only been a few times I’ve even said business books, and it was more of a slip up than anything but yeah, I agree. 100%. So, where would you like people to learn more?

Bill Coletti [39:20]
Well, our website is kith k i t h. That’s the name of our firm kith.co. And we’re going to stand up a landing page for the folks that are listening to the podcast. And so it’ll be kith.co/EAInterview. And so people will be able to learn more about some of the things we’ve talked about, some of the tools that we chatted about and be able to find out something special for the folks that are listened to and pay attention to the smart things that you share. So that’s the easiest way to be active on LinkedIn.active on Twitter. I’m pretty old fashioned. Got my phone number on there. Give me a call. I just love talking to people. I love talking about reputation. So kith.co and Bill Coletti are the easiest way to find me.

Mario Fachini [40:01]
Excellent. Well, Bill, it’s been an absolute pleasure. And I can’t wait to connect even further. I, I have no doubt we could have done two or three times the length of this. But this has been great. Thank you very much.

Bill Coletti [40:12]
Well, thank you for what you do. You have a great, great show and you share so many great insights and perspectives. So thank you for what you do and Happy New Year.

Mario Fachini [40:19]
Well, I appreciate that very much, and Happy New Year to you to Expert Authority World. We got another great episode here today. I’ll see you tomorrow. Have a great day. God bless.

Sponsor – Free Business Book Publishing Course [40:31]
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www.EAInterviews.com [41:05]
Hey, thanks for listening to today’s episode. I hope you got a lot out of it. I know I sure did. If you haven’t done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show. And also be sure to check out EAInterviews.com for complete show notes, the full interview video experience links to the resources we mentioned in more. Have a blessed day and I’ll see you tomorrow.