WEBVTT
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Here's a question for every entrepreneur listening today, and uh even my team at One Oak Financial with the team at OneOak Collective.
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Is your business customer-centric or customer driven?
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You probably think those are uh in essence the same thing.
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Today's guest, though, wrote an entire book on explaining why they're not and why that difference decides whether your business grows or quietly breeds out.
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Dr.
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James Killian, he's an organizational psychologist with 25 years experience in uh Qualtrics, SP IBM, and Hogan Assessments.
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He's taken startups through IPO and five acquisitions.
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He's advised leaders at some of the biggest organizations and the biggest brands in the world.
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He teaches at Michigan State, uh in Michigan State's business school.
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And his new book is called Obsessed: Cultivating the Customer Driven Leader.
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This is the Ideas by Mike podcast.
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I'm Mike Milligan.
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Let's get obsessed and welcome in, James.
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James, uh, welcome uh in today.
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Uh, I want you to picture one specific listener.
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He owns a business, maybe it's a five-person shop, maybe it's just him and a laptop.
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He works hard, he loves his customers, and he'll tell you customer service is everything.
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And yet clients leave, employees still quit, and he can't figure that out.
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So let's teach him.
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What is customer driven?
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What is a what is a customer-driven leader?
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And what's the difference between saying you're customer-centric and actually being customer driven?
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Yeah, thanks for the question.
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And thanks for having me on, Mike.
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It's a real privilege to be here.
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Uh, I think this is a great question that you're asking.
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And it's not really hypothetical, right?
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I mean, there are so many small business leaders and owners out there who are trying to grow and scale their business and to become successful.
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And the reality is nobody starts their day thinking, hey, how can I ignore a customer?
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Or how can I screw over a customer, right?
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I I think everybody generally has good intentions as leaders.
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They want to actually do right by their customers, they want to do right by their employees.
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But in a lot of cases, what happens?
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They get very, very busy, they get overwhelmed.
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And in today's era of AI disruption, everybody is feeling overwhelmed.
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And so these leaders will default to certain behaviors or characteristics that are more natural to them.
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So, what do I mean by that?
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More natural to them.
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So, over the course of a long career and studying human behavior in the workplace, and my background is I'm an organizational psychologist.
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So that's what I've done for 25 years.
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And in teaching and researching and coaching over a thousand leaders globally, what I've started to see are some very uh simple but very important patterns.
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So you asked about what is it to be customer driven?
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Well, that's really important to start with.
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What's the antithesis of that?
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And so through research in the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University over a course of several years, we actually identified four different leader and culture types.
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And these are from order of least desirable to most desirable.
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So uh least desirable is going to be customer avoidant leaders, teams, and cultures.
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And these are the types of folks, and we'll just put it maybe in terms of uh financial planners, since this is something that you're obviously focused on.
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Um these are the advisors that lose trust uh very, very quickly.
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A little bit better than being customer avoidant is what we call customer tolerant.
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And that's exactly what it sounds like.
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So these leaders, teams, and cultures recognize the importance of customers, but oftentimes they're really just doing the minimum.
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So these advisors would be those that are mostly focused on protecting revenue.
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Better than that is customer-centric leaders and teams and cultures, and they are really trying to retain customers, they have good intentions in mind, but they're still just kind of doing the minimum in order to make that happen.
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So when you get to becoming a truly customer-driven leader, these are the folks who are really going to work on compounding trust.
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Because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you're a small business owner with five employees who has customer and employee churn, or you are the head of a big multinational bank, if you're not politely challenging your customer to do better, to help them think more critically about uh mistakes that they've made in the past, to show them a mirror to reflect on what it is that their goals really are, then you're really just kind of doing the minimum.
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And the reason that I think this is so important right now, today, in 2026, is customers will switch brands in a heartbeat if they feel like they're not getting what they need or what they deserve.
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There are lots of choices out there.
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And it's what I refer to as the war of the brands.
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So every advisor out there has somebody else who's willing to go a little bit further, do a little bit more, politely challenge the customer a little bit more so that they're actually helping them build that wealth in this case.
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And trust compounds a lot faster than money does.
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And so, really, at the end of the day, if you think about it, every single business leader, every single business owner, at the end of the day, all they've really got is their reputation.
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And that reputation has to be built on trust.
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And trust is something that customer-driven leaders are very, very good at.
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They're not going to just be satisfied with status quo.
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They're going to push themselves, they're going to push their teams and employees to help push the customer to do better.
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As I uh as I coach our team, as I coach other advisors, uh, as I speak on stages around the around the country, one of the things that I have that that I want to drive on this point that you made because I think trust is the number one product that any small business sells.
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And uh you even you when you talk about the war of brands, how people will change and go even um even where where they feel like their needs are met, I I think it goes down to communication.
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Not like so, so the so like for instance, our brand, for instance, one oak financial.
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We help people with taxes, retirement income, investments, long-term care, legacy.
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And I put that out there in podcast form.
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I put it out there in a daily podcast, we do videos and webinars.
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We have I wrote, I've written the book, The One of a Kind Financial Plan, Retirement Dejan Vu, yet it still gets lost in message.
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Why do you think a business that is trying to be customer driven?
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I I think that's where we are, we're trying to be customer driven to trying to meet people where they are and take them where they want to go and solve the problems they don't even see that they know they have.
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Where do you think the message gets lost between the consumer in the actual business who's trying to be there?
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Why would somebody leave a customer-driven business from a from that standpoint?
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Yeah, it's it's a great follow-up question.
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And maybe I'll I'll just insert something and and make it even a little bit more personal, right?
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Because I I just recently actually um listened to your episode where you talked about why, the why behind uh One Oak Financial, right?
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And I thought this was a really great story because you really you really drove home in that episode that you didn't just want to be part of the big machine that was just pushing products on people that really didn't need need them.
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And so your your focus has become really how do we actually provide that very unique, um, very white glove, very hands-on, caring um service to those clients who you work with.
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And I think that's really important because if you if you look at the world that we're in right now, which is pretty volatile in a lot of ways, um, you know, markets go up and down.
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The the difference is that you know, you you would see a if let's say the market takes a 25% dip, that's really, really scary for any of us.
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Um, a customer tolerant advisor or business owner is gonna say, you know, when the client calls and says, sell everything, they're gonna say, okay, I'll get right on that.
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You know, a customer-centric advisor is gonna say, are you sure, you know, markets do recover?
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The customer-driven leader is gonna say, I hear you.
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But before we do anything, let's actually revisit why we built this plan in the first place.
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You know, help me understand what's really happened in your life, not just what's happened in the markets.
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Now, that is an example of politely challenging the customer, like I talked about.
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And this is very important to me.
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You have to challenge your customers to do more, to do better.
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Um, are some customers actually going to leave from that?
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Yeah, of course.
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Of course they are.
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I mean, that there's always going to be a natural attrition.
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But again, this point about trust compounding, um, the customers who you do retain, they're gonna tell their friends, they're gonna tell their associates, they're going to tell their neighbors about what it is that that you're providing to them that is different from that customer tolerant planner who you know has maybe a twice a year review and it's five minutes long and then you're just done.
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So having that deeper relationship and engagement um really creates that compound value over time.
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So you're you're gonna see some attrition in business.
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That's going to happen, but the odds of you retaining and growing customers and compounding them are far better if you're taking that customer-driven approach.
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Before we go on, so educate was a was kind of the theme of this first segment.
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I don't want to leave this though before we talk about obsessed, right?
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You you the book, the book you've written that's uh getting attention out um in the business community.
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Um give us maybe a couple minutes of why you wrote the book and what you hope people it's it's meant for business owners.
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Let's be let's be let's be very direct about who the consumer is.
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It's business owners, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, enterprise entrepreneurs.
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What what do you hope what was the reason you wrote the book?
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And what do you hope somebody who reads it gets out of reading the book?
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Yeah, uh thanks for the question.
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I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it.
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It's been a two-year passion project, and I'm glad to say it's finally coming to print next month.
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Um, the book started with a question that that surprised me to an extent, and that is um, why do some organizations become exponentially more valuable than others, even when they're selling similar products, right?
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So after studying leaders across industries, I realized that the difference wasn't really intelligence or strategy or even innovation.
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It was whether leadership treated customers as transactions, or if they treated customers as the organizing principle for every single decision that got made.
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That's really what obsessed is about, because customer-driven leaders, they don't tell people what they want to hear, they tell people what they need to hear.
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Even, you know, and that means you have to earn the trust to be able to do that.
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So uh, you know, I would say in this case, for your audience, you know, if you are an advisor and you don't feel comfortable politely challenging your customer, then you need to ask yourself some serious questions.
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And if you are the consumer of an advisor and you don't feel like you're getting politely challenged, you also need to ask yourself some questions.
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That's uh, you know, so thank you.
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I mean, most people, I I've written two books now and I've got a couple more in the pipeline.
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Most people don't know how hard it is to write a book.
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Oh my gosh.
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I I have to say, I I've now I've written and and spoken for over 25 years, right?
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And and um I guess technically I have a book in the form of the dissertation for my PhD, but not the same by a long shot.
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I have to tell you, Mike, I learned very quickly that writing a book and publishing a book are two very different endeavors.
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Yeah.
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And that that but but that's where I am right now, right?
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So the one of a kind financial plans out there, retirement deja vu is just launched at the end of July.
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Uh retirement deja vu was done four months ago.
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But to get it from, you know, the my writing through editorial review to to the to the market, crazy, right?
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You would think it's just pressing a button.
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It's not.
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It's not.
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We haven't we haven't gotten easier there.
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So, you know, I you know, obviously we want people to realize that your book, Obsessed, is available to purchase.
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And uh, if you're looking for, you know, a manual on how to become a cut customer-centric leader, we invite people to to to find that on Amazon or anywhere books are sold.
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I'm not sure.
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Yeah, no.
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I want to go to set it's kind of our segment two now.
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Let's let's coach people.
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Um I generally like to in the segment share one player pattern that helps entrepreneurs become customer-driven leaders.
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Um people don't need 17 frameworks, they need one play they can actually run.
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So I want you to put your coach hat on.
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Um, you you you've been interviewed, you've like you said, you've done this for 25 years.
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I want you to uh assign or instill one play in an entrepreneur's business today that would move them from uh customer-centric talk to customer-driven action.
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Yeah, great question.
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So and and and by extrapolation, I'll say uh based on your last comment there, uh, one of the advantages that you'll find in the book that I have written is it is intended to be very applied and very practical.
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Yes, there are case studies, yes, there is education.
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There's also a playbook and an assessment.
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And and part of this is you have to you have to be honest with yourself.
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And this isn't about accusing, right?
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It's about um appreciating the realities of the situation.
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And so there's all kinds of assessments that are available out there for every individual as a leader, for every business as a leader, for every team.
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Um, but very important to just take an assessment, realize this is where I am, uh, appreciate the realities of the situation, and then make the decision of, okay, what do I need to do to close the gap on that?
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And it doesn't really have to be that hard, right?
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Uh to your point, you really just need one framework.
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And there are definitely a lot of different good pieces of advice that I've crowdsourced over a number of across a number of really great uh industry experts that you'll find in the writing.
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Um, but I would say, in order to keep it simple for the listeners today, is as a leader, pick your head up.
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This is this is it.
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Just pick your head up because as you build a business and you grow it and you scale it, what you will find is that you become a victim of your own success and you start to get further and further removed from the customers, right?
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We we've seen this happen.
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You you're the five um person shop and you're doing really well, you gotta hire a few more people.
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Wow, we just doubled our revenue, we got to double our headcount, now we got to get divisions in place, we got to get division leaders in place, and now all of a sudden you are four levels removed from the frontline associates who are actually having the conversations with the customers.
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If there's nothing else that you take from all the writing and research that I did, it's continue to be engaged and involved with your clients and listen to them.
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Don't talk at them.
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They will tell you what they need.
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They will tell you the path that you need to actually create to help them be successful if you just listen to them.
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Easiest piece of coaching advice I can provide.
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Well, well, coaches, uh, unless you're coaching T-ball, right?
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Baseball, or you're doing like a little five-year-old soccer program, coaches have to focus on the scoreboard.
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Because that determines if you win or lose.
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So, what's some what's some scoreboard metrics that uh uh small business, medium-sized business should be looking at when it comes to measuring if they are customer-driven leaders?
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Yeah.
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Um interestingly enough, there's there are a lot of metrics out there, right?
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We hear about uh Net Promoter Score, NPS, we hear about uh CSAT.
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I actually tend to steer people away from those kinds of metrics.
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Um, and in fact, I even interviewed Rob Markey, who is the creator of the Net Promoter Score, and uh he's a fascinating guy, you know, Harvard um professor and Bain um alumni.
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And uh and he'll even tell you, you know, the the NPS was never designed to just be a single vanity metric.
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It was intended to be part of a broader system.
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And so I do think you have to take a systems headset to this.
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Um, but honestly, the simplest metric is how many customers did you talk to in the last month?
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And just watch that.
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If you watch that, you're gonna be able to gauge whether you know all the other metrics that may be important to you uh are actually landing.
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The other thing that um, you know, maybe a little cliche here, Mike, but I I'm still a big fan of this.
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You don't have to do it um completely in practice, but you know, Howard Schultz had a really um uh great method that he would use for any internal meeting, and he would have the you probably heard about this with the two empty chairs, and one chair represented the partner, which is what Starbucks calls employees, and the other represented uh the customer.
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And so any decision that was getting made, the question would be, is it good for the partner and is it good for the customer?
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And if it wasn't good for both, then it was back to the drawing board.
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And you don't have to put two empty chairs there, but you definitely should be asking, hey, is this good for us and is it good for the people we're serving?
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That's really good.
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So uh thanks for uh helping us put something that could be measurable on the scoreboard.
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Uh our, you know, but my team who listens to this, right?
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I always always think about like who is going to hear this podcast who's going to implement something.
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My team, right?
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At one oak financial is going to hear this.
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And uh, guys, you know, we we measure the scoreboard like in our own ways.
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But if you're a if you're an entrepreneur and you're also a client of One Oak Financial, you should ask us one time, what do we keep scoring?
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Because it even though, even though we may be managing your money, doing tax strategy, helping you build a better retirement, focused on a leak a long-term care strategy for maybe your family, or even building legacy plans, it's okay for us to open our playbook to you every once in a while because a business helping in business is what we're about, right?
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We are B Corp certified, businesses together growing for the greater good.
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So, James, let's let's let's go over a little bit and let's talk about the plan.
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Okay.
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It's where I live.
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It's where we at uh at one of financial help people build one-of-a-kind financial plans for your one-of-a-kind life.
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But let's say an entrepreneur reads obsessed, uh, reads it on a flight, lands, and is fired up.
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They're at the beach house.
00:20:40.799 --> 00:20:50.319
Maybe the weekend they listen to this podcast or the book, they read it on a you know, a week's vacation, then come back ready to put this, you know, put this, put this into motion, right?
00:20:50.400 --> 00:20:52.079
I want to be a customer-driven leader.
00:20:52.160 --> 00:20:53.519
They're like fired up.
00:20:54.319 --> 00:20:56.000
Uh, what are the priorities?
00:20:56.240 --> 00:21:02.559
And what's the rhythm that people have to have to put the play it into motion?
00:21:03.440 --> 00:21:20.319
Yeah, that's a really important question because um even though the the book is intended to be very practical with a playbook, you know, again, it all comes back to the assessment of where are you now and where do you think you need to be and what is that gap that you need to close.
00:21:20.640 --> 00:21:26.640
And really important there too, because um you you cannot do 10 things, right?
00:21:26.799 --> 00:21:32.400
Any coach uh whose worth or salt is not gonna tell you to do 10 things.
00:21:32.559 --> 00:21:41.599
If you think about a golf coach, right, they're not gonna tell you, you know, here, try 32 different um, you know, shifts and pivots on your feet and your hips.
00:21:41.680 --> 00:21:49.279
And no, they're gonna say um move your feet one inch apart and then let's hit 30 balls and see where we are.
00:21:49.599 --> 00:21:51.759
So smaller is better.
00:21:51.920 --> 00:21:54.079
Don't try to boil the ocean all at once.
00:21:54.160 --> 00:21:59.599
And I know that's that's very simple advice, but the reality is you have to.
00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:05.200
Understand that if you want to actually build a legacy, right?
00:22:05.440 --> 00:22:13.680
Not a career, you know, a lot of leaders out there, they they'll build a career and then they retire, which I know you had my my friend Um Dr.
00:22:13.839 --> 00:22:17.279
Gary David on just recently as well, and you talked about retirement.
00:22:17.359 --> 00:22:18.400
He's a great guy.
00:22:18.559 --> 00:22:20.960
Um, you know, you retire with a career, and then what?
00:22:21.039 --> 00:22:22.160
You're just done, right?
00:22:22.319 --> 00:22:28.400
Okay, well, now I don't know who I am or where I am or what to do with my life or what my purpose is.
00:22:28.720 --> 00:22:38.799
But if you build, you know, a legacy, if you build systems, then your reputation can continue through others.
00:22:38.960 --> 00:22:44.160
You build something that's actually um potentially generational, right?
00:22:44.559 --> 00:22:47.200
And so it all comes back to the system.
00:22:47.359 --> 00:22:51.359
So the reality is don't make it the flavor of the month.
00:22:51.599 --> 00:23:04.400
You have to start with what's the first component of the system that's gonna close the gap the fastest, and then do that really, really well for six months before you make any additional changes.
00:23:04.880 --> 00:23:05.200
Right.
00:23:05.359 --> 00:23:08.640
That's that's really good planning advice right there.
00:23:09.039 --> 00:23:13.359
Um let's close today on the podcast, and I want to talk about AI.
00:23:14.160 --> 00:23:20.640
Um we've had some guests on recently that talked about AI, and um AI is the future, right?
00:23:20.720 --> 00:23:21.440
It's here.
00:23:21.759 --> 00:23:39.839
It's uh, you know, we've seen crazy numbers come in from these mega cap companies, Facebook, Amazon, Tesla, Alphabet, Google, NVIDIA, and they're talking about how much money they're spending on AI to try to but they but their spending has to eventually turn into revenue.
00:23:40.079 --> 00:23:41.759
The small business owner.
00:23:42.160 --> 00:23:43.359
Like in AI.
00:23:43.519 --> 00:23:56.000
Let's uh let's talk about is does do organizations need AI and where can AI help them be better customer-driven businesses?
00:23:56.640 --> 00:23:57.119
Hmm.
00:23:57.279 --> 00:23:57.920
Hmm.
00:23:58.559 --> 00:24:00.319
Uh great question.
00:24:00.480 --> 00:24:03.279
Very timely, I think, given what's going on today.
00:24:03.440 --> 00:24:13.839
I think uh I think that the answer is yes, organizations need AI, and that's regardless of their size, right?
00:24:14.480 --> 00:24:21.440
I think that the potential impacts are much, much bigger on the smaller organizations.
00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:34.079
Just like when you have if one person, you know, if one employee leaves and you've only got five employees, the impact of that is far greater than if one employee leaves a 5,000-person organization, right?
00:24:34.319 --> 00:24:41.519
So I think that the impacts of of AI, uh, both good and bad, uh, are far greater for the smaller organizations.
00:24:41.759 --> 00:24:51.039
I also think that the smaller organizations are not as educated about what AI really is, what its capabilities are, or how they should be using it.
00:24:51.200 --> 00:25:00.480
You know, there was an interesting report that came out, um it's probably a couple of years now, Mike, but it was uh the statistic was uh 67% of U.S.
00:25:00.559 --> 00:25:05.440
white-collar workers are using AI in some shape, form, or fashion in their daily work.
00:25:05.599 --> 00:25:18.079
And the same number of respondents indicated they'd gotten exactly zero guidance from their employers on what to use, how to use it, when to use it, what's the right uh bumper rails, right?
00:25:18.400 --> 00:25:21.039
Um, I do think that that's getting better.
00:25:21.359 --> 00:25:32.720
But if you're a small business owner, you really need to be thinking hard about educating yourself uh far more deeply and how to set those parameters for your team.
00:25:32.880 --> 00:25:35.039
Because there's all kinds of crazy stuff.
00:25:35.119 --> 00:25:48.720
Uh, I mean, as part of my own website using Vide Coding, I built an entire website, an entire suite of proprietary tools and assessments in days, not months.
00:25:48.960 --> 00:25:50.240
It was just amazing.
00:25:50.400 --> 00:26:10.559
And with Claude, you can create agents who have a digital twin of yourself, a chief operating officer, ahead of marketing, ahead of sales, ahead of prospecting, and actually just turn these agents loose and have them start going and prospecting out in LinkedIn or using HubSpot or whatever your favorite CRM is.
00:26:10.799 --> 00:26:12.720
You can do those things.
00:26:12.960 --> 00:26:24.720
I'll tell you that I don't have AI actually pull the trigger on sending emails or doing outreach to clients because I still think human in the loop, that's a very important term.
00:26:24.960 --> 00:26:27.759
Human in the loop is really, really important.
00:26:28.319 --> 00:26:28.960
Why?
00:26:29.440 --> 00:26:35.119
Because AI is awesome, but a fool with a tool is still a fool.
00:26:35.279 --> 00:26:43.359
And it's really important that we're that we're thinking about how we're using this tool to engage our clients.
00:26:43.599 --> 00:26:50.880
If you're using it to replace how you would engage your clients, then that is customer avoidant.
00:26:51.039 --> 00:26:52.960
That is not customer driven.
00:26:53.200 --> 00:27:03.039
To be customer driven means you're using the tool to its full extent that is supposed to give you more time with those clients to have richer dialogues.
00:27:03.519 --> 00:27:09.200
I was going to ask you about human stuff when it comes to AI, but how can I?
00:27:09.359 --> 00:27:11.920
A fool with a tool is still a fool.
00:27:13.839 --> 00:27:14.799
It's not mine.
00:27:14.880 --> 00:27:18.559
It was actually somebody who I had on my podcast, and he said that.
00:27:18.799 --> 00:27:20.960
I just, and I was just, yeah, I'm stealing that.
00:27:21.039 --> 00:27:21.279
Thank you.
00:27:21.599 --> 00:27:22.319
We we should.
00:27:22.480 --> 00:27:27.680
We should make that, we should put that everywhere out there because that's what AI creates.
00:27:27.839 --> 00:27:29.440
A fool with a tool is still a tool.
00:27:29.680 --> 00:27:30.799
It's so true, Mike.
00:27:30.880 --> 00:27:32.559
And uh, but here's the thing, right?
00:27:32.640 --> 00:27:42.400
I mean, you know, so uh like I was working, I was employed uh, you know, in the 9-11.com buster, the mortgage meltdown, obviously the pandemic.
00:27:42.480 --> 00:27:50.319
Now we have AI, and there have been all sorts of ups and downs and back and forth with the market, you know, across those those number of years, right?
00:27:50.640 --> 00:27:52.640
And there's always been layoffs.
00:27:53.200 --> 00:27:54.079
Always, right?
00:27:54.480 --> 00:27:57.359
But here's what's really different this time.
00:27:58.160 --> 00:28:12.160
This time is the first time in history that I'm aware of that CEOs are actually bragging about the fact that I've been able to lay off 14% of my workforce in the name of operational efficiency brought on by AI.
00:28:12.480 --> 00:28:13.680
Why do I bring this up?
00:28:13.839 --> 00:28:16.960
Because that is a very customer avoidant kind of an approach.
00:28:17.039 --> 00:28:18.799
That's derailing behaviors.
00:28:18.960 --> 00:28:20.960
Because here's what's going to happen.
00:28:21.279 --> 00:28:26.480
You may gain operational efficiency, but you just killed your future employer brand.
00:28:26.720 --> 00:28:34.240
How are you going to actually attract future talent when they think I've got a shelf life the second that I walk in the door?
00:28:34.480 --> 00:28:35.680
That is myopic.
00:28:35.920 --> 00:28:37.440
That is playing the short game.
00:28:37.599 --> 00:28:40.799
That's what being customer avoidant or customer tolerant is.
00:28:40.960 --> 00:28:44.160
It's certainly not what being customer-centric or customer driven is.
00:28:44.559 --> 00:28:48.400
I laugh at some of the numbers coming out from these big mega cap companies.
00:28:48.559 --> 00:28:57.119
Um, one company reported, I'm not gonna throw names out, but if you listen to the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily or listen to me anywhere else, you you'll know this company.
00:28:57.279 --> 00:29:04.640
They just announced they're increasing AI CapEx capital expenditures to$200 billion this year.
00:29:05.440 --> 00:29:07.839
Do you know how many jobs how many jobs that could create?
00:29:08.400 --> 00:29:09.440
$200 billion.
00:29:10.559 --> 00:29:17.359
$200 billion if everybody made$100,000 a year, right?
00:29:17.519 --> 00:29:25.759
$200 billion, paying employees$100,000 a year, we are talking about$20,000 jobs or$200,000 jobs.
00:29:25.839 --> 00:29:26.799
It's crazy, right?
00:29:27.039 --> 00:29:36.799
And we so we're we're moving in this world like yes, where these big tech people are talking about and raving about AI technology, AI still costs a lot.
00:29:37.200 --> 00:29:39.279
And it's hurting, and it's hurting business.
00:29:39.359 --> 00:29:48.240
And so, you know, uh with tokens and the cost, you just gotta be careful that you don't replace somebody end up spending more money along the way.
00:29:48.720 --> 00:29:49.200
That's right.
00:29:49.279 --> 00:29:58.000
And and and you know, to that point, you know, back to my point about employer branding and um and the future of playing the long game, right?
00:29:58.240 --> 00:30:08.880
Um, very, very important here because uh in the war of the brands, if you take company A and company B, and company A decides we're gonna riff 40% of our workforce.
00:30:09.039 --> 00:30:10.640
Hello, Jack Dorsey.
00:30:10.880 --> 00:30:14.319
Um, and then company B says, you know what?
00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:15.759
We're not gonna do that.
00:30:15.839 --> 00:30:27.680
We're actually going to empower and enable our teams to be able to use this as a force multiplier so that they can add compound value for our clients.
00:30:28.079 --> 00:30:34.319
I'm telling you right now, company B is gonna be the one that acquires company A in five years.
00:30:34.559 --> 00:30:35.039
Right.
00:30:35.359 --> 00:30:44.319
One of the other companies that announced dirty back in the end of the second quarter, they had this, they had a deficiency ratio of over 50% for the first time.
00:30:44.480 --> 00:30:47.519
And it's somebody who delivers boxes to your house every day.
00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:52.720
Um and they don't, and they're they they own a few airplanes, but they're not FedEx and UPS.
00:30:52.799 --> 00:30:53.519
It's another company.
00:30:54.079 --> 00:31:00.079
50 cents, you know, 50% margin, which means that if you give them a dollar, they're making 50 cents.
00:31:00.400 --> 00:31:00.880
That's crazy.
00:31:01.359 --> 00:31:04.559
From an efficiency standpoint, that's absolutely crazy for a company that size.
00:31:05.119 --> 00:31:07.359
It's that's what that's what they're trying to do with AI.
00:31:07.440 --> 00:31:10.319
They're trying to become more efficient, less dollars, more profit.
00:31:10.720 --> 00:31:13.119
Shareholders, shareholders, board members.
00:31:13.200 --> 00:31:16.880
So shareholders, board members, senior executives, stock.
00:31:17.119 --> 00:31:19.440
That's what they're that's what they're trying to do with AI.
00:31:19.680 --> 00:31:27.119
They're trying to make the investor community more money, not necessarily create and stabilize the job force in America.
00:31:27.279 --> 00:31:27.359
Yeah.
00:31:27.759 --> 00:31:30.880
That's that's the role, and that's the role of the small business owner.
00:31:31.440 --> 00:31:41.920
That's like like like your book, Customer Driven Leadership, America's jobs will be created by small business owners who are customer-centric customer leaders.
00:31:43.599 --> 00:31:44.799
Totally agreed.
00:31:45.039 --> 00:31:52.400
And, you know, kind of bringing bringing all this full circle too, you can't just AI things, right?
00:31:52.559 --> 00:31:55.519
Like like uh again, it's a great tool.
00:31:55.680 --> 00:31:59.279
Use it, learn about it, become an expert at it for sure.
00:31:59.440 --> 00:32:01.119
But you can't just AI things.
00:32:01.200 --> 00:32:13.440
I mean, I I had a conversation with a COO of a major organization, I also won't mention, and he actually says, now that we've got AI stood up, when can we lay off all our developers?
00:32:13.920 --> 00:32:17.680
Wow, that's a really myopic perspective about things, right?
00:32:18.079 --> 00:32:21.599
And and again, it is a tool, but it is not foolproof.
00:32:21.759 --> 00:32:25.119
In fact, and and this is published so I can mention this.
00:32:25.279 --> 00:32:38.960
There was an article that came out um just yesterday, I believe, that showed that P both PWC and Deloitte have published thought leadership and research that was 100% generated from AI.
00:32:39.119 --> 00:32:40.319
They got busted.
00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:43.599
And there were facts that had not been verified.
00:32:43.759 --> 00:32:46.640
There was data that had been hallucinated.
00:32:47.119 --> 00:32:47.759
Wow.
00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:48.799
That's a problem.
00:32:49.039 --> 00:32:50.079
That is something else.
00:32:50.240 --> 00:32:54.319
All right, let's lit, let's lay at the plate here with this episode of the Ideas by Mike podcast.
00:32:54.400 --> 00:32:59.039
Uh the book is obsessed, cultivated cultivated the customer-driven leader.
00:32:59.119 --> 00:33:01.359
Where do people grab it and where can they find you?
00:33:01.920 --> 00:33:06.559
Yeah, um, it's uh it's gonna be coming out in print um in September.
00:33:06.720 --> 00:33:09.920
I'm still waiting on the exact date, but it is going to be in September.
00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:13.599
So you can just go to Amazon, it's gonna be the easiest way to find that.
00:33:13.680 --> 00:33:20.160
It'll also be available at at Target and some other um global distribution channels, like in the Middle East as well.
00:33:20.240 --> 00:33:22.640
Um, but Amazon's probably the easiest.
00:33:22.880 --> 00:33:27.599
You can also uh find me on LinkedIn, it's James Killian PhD.
00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:30.799
Um, no, I'm not pompous, you don't have to call me doctor.
00:33:30.960 --> 00:33:33.519
My mama named me James, so please call me that.
00:33:33.680 --> 00:33:42.720
Um but also if you just if you just Google me, James Killian Um Customer Driven Leadership, you'll see me pop up on the first page of Google.
00:33:42.799 --> 00:33:56.400
And you can actually go to my website, you can see my podcast there, as well as actually uh fill out a form if you're interested in getting in the in the uh early uh reader list, and I'll let you know when the book is available.
00:33:59.039 --> 00:34:02.400
Today, guys, we uh uh James educated us.
00:34:02.480 --> 00:34:06.240
He talked about how customer citric is a slogan, customer driven is a system.
00:34:06.559 --> 00:34:16.400
Uh he coached us a little bit and it's like you don't need 17 frameworks to start, put one name on the experience, measure what matters, you know, create a scoreboard.
00:34:16.639 --> 00:34:21.679
And then the plan is, you know, you talked about culture, isn't a vibe, it's a document.
00:34:21.760 --> 00:34:22.960
You have to write this down.
00:34:23.119 --> 00:34:31.280
And that's a very good analogy to like, because if you don't write something down, it's a wish, but if you write down, it's an action.
00:34:31.519 --> 00:34:43.599
And then the future, uh, man, he talked about how AI is uh is out there, it's it's around us, but you cannot, cannot copy how you make people feel.
00:34:44.159 --> 00:34:46.239
And that's the that's the takeaway for me today.
00:34:46.320 --> 00:34:46.880
You know my motto.
00:34:46.960 --> 00:34:48.239
My motto is never miss a moment.
00:34:48.719 --> 00:34:49.760
So I'm Mike Milligan.
00:34:49.840 --> 00:34:51.519
This has been the Ideas by Mike podcast.
00:34:51.599 --> 00:34:52.239
I'll see you next time.
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:02.800
I've got a plan and I found my own.
00:35:02.960 --> 00:35:05.679
This has been the Ideas by Mike Podcast with Mike Milligan.
00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:09.599
I'm an investment advisory representative with Advisory Alpha LLC.
00:35:09.920 --> 00:35:17.280
Ideas by Mike and Ideas by Mike doing business as one oak financial or unaffiliated entities of Advisory Alpha LLC.
00:35:17.679 --> 00:35:22.960
Do not use this content today to make any investment or financial planning decisions.
00:35:23.119 --> 00:35:31.119
Consult with a licensed financial professional to reach out to One Oak Financial, go to www.thenumoakfinancial.com.
00:35:31.280 --> 00:35:38.239
That's oneoakfinancial.com and uh and get to know us and then reach out for your uh complimentary call.
00:35:38.480 --> 00:35:48.239
If you've missed past episodes of the Ideas by Mike podcast, it's available on all major platforms and our YouTube channel, which is one dot oak financial.
00:35:48.639 --> 00:35:51.039
One dot oak financial YouTube channel.
00:35:51.280 --> 00:35:56.559
Subscribe, like, and share this podcast as we only grow from our listeners.
00:35:56.800 --> 00:35:57.840
Share the show.
00:35:58.000 --> 00:35:59.280
We'll talk soon.
00:36:01.519 --> 00:36:04.800
The ideas by my podcast.
00:00:07.759 --> 00:00:15.119
Here's a question for every entrepreneur listening today, and uh even my team at One Oak Financial with the team at OneOak Collective.
00:00:15.279 --> 00:00:18.000
Is your business customer-centric or customer driven?
00:00:18.800 --> 00:00:21.679
You probably think those are uh in essence the same thing.
00:00:21.839 --> 00:00:30.320
Today's guest, though, wrote an entire book on explaining why they're not and why that difference decides whether your business grows or quietly breeds out.
00:00:30.399 --> 00:00:30.640
Dr.
00:00:30.719 --> 00:00:39.439
James Killian, he's an organizational psychologist with 25 years experience in uh Qualtrics, SP IBM, and Hogan Assessments.
00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:42.479
He's taken startups through IPO and five acquisitions.
00:00:42.560 --> 00:00:46.880
He's advised leaders at some of the biggest organizations and the biggest brands in the world.
00:00:47.039 --> 00:00:50.560
He teaches at Michigan State, uh in Michigan State's business school.
00:00:50.640 --> 00:00:54.560
And his new book is called Obsessed: Cultivating the Customer Driven Leader.
00:00:54.640 --> 00:00:56.560
This is the Ideas by Mike podcast.
00:00:56.640 --> 00:00:57.759
I'm Mike Milligan.
00:00:58.159 --> 00:01:00.960
Let's get obsessed and welcome in, James.
00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:08.480
James, uh, welcome uh in today.
00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:12.000
Uh, I want you to picture one specific listener.
00:01:12.159 --> 00:01:16.319
He owns a business, maybe it's a five-person shop, maybe it's just him and a laptop.
00:01:16.400 --> 00:01:21.760
He works hard, he loves his customers, and he'll tell you customer service is everything.
00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:26.480
And yet clients leave, employees still quit, and he can't figure that out.
00:01:26.560 --> 00:01:27.680
So let's teach him.
00:01:27.920 --> 00:01:29.359
What is customer driven?
00:01:29.680 --> 00:01:31.920
What is a what is a customer-driven leader?
00:01:32.079 --> 00:01:38.079
And what's the difference between saying you're customer-centric and actually being customer driven?
00:01:38.879 --> 00:01:40.159
Yeah, thanks for the question.
00:01:40.239 --> 00:01:41.519
And thanks for having me on, Mike.
00:01:41.680 --> 00:01:43.280
It's a real privilege to be here.
00:01:43.359 --> 00:01:46.159
Uh, I think this is a great question that you're asking.
00:01:46.319 --> 00:01:48.799
And it's not really hypothetical, right?
00:01:48.959 --> 00:01:59.120
I mean, there are so many small business leaders and owners out there who are trying to grow and scale their business and to become successful.
00:01:59.439 --> 00:02:07.840
And the reality is nobody starts their day thinking, hey, how can I ignore a customer?
00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:10.479
Or how can I screw over a customer, right?
00:02:10.560 --> 00:02:15.840
I I think everybody generally has good intentions as leaders.
00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:21.199
They want to actually do right by their customers, they want to do right by their employees.
00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:23.919
But in a lot of cases, what happens?
00:02:24.080 --> 00:02:28.000
They get very, very busy, they get overwhelmed.
00:02:28.240 --> 00:02:34.400
And in today's era of AI disruption, everybody is feeling overwhelmed.
00:02:34.639 --> 00:02:43.120
And so these leaders will default to certain behaviors or characteristics that are more natural to them.
00:02:43.520 --> 00:02:45.039
So, what do I mean by that?
00:02:45.280 --> 00:02:46.879
More natural to them.
00:02:47.199 --> 00:02:54.879
So, over the course of a long career and studying human behavior in the workplace, and my background is I'm an organizational psychologist.
00:02:54.960 --> 00:02:57.280
So that's what I've done for 25 years.
00:02:57.520 --> 00:03:07.680
And in teaching and researching and coaching over a thousand leaders globally, what I've started to see are some very uh simple but very important patterns.
00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:12.000
So you asked about what is it to be customer driven?
00:03:12.240 --> 00:03:14.960
Well, that's really important to start with.
00:03:15.199 --> 00:03:17.599
What's the antithesis of that?
00:03:17.919 --> 00:03:31.520
And so through research in the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University over a course of several years, we actually identified four different leader and culture types.
00:03:31.680 --> 00:03:36.800
And these are from order of least desirable to most desirable.
00:03:37.120 --> 00:03:43.919
So uh least desirable is going to be customer avoidant leaders, teams, and cultures.
00:03:44.240 --> 00:03:53.680
And these are the types of folks, and we'll just put it maybe in terms of uh financial planners, since this is something that you're obviously focused on.
00:03:53.759 --> 00:03:58.080
Um these are the advisors that lose trust uh very, very quickly.
00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:02.879
A little bit better than being customer avoidant is what we call customer tolerant.
00:04:02.960 --> 00:04:04.800
And that's exactly what it sounds like.
00:04:04.960 --> 00:04:12.639
So these leaders, teams, and cultures recognize the importance of customers, but oftentimes they're really just doing the minimum.
00:04:12.719 --> 00:04:17.680
So these advisors would be those that are mostly focused on protecting revenue.
00:04:18.240 --> 00:04:35.279
Better than that is customer-centric leaders and teams and cultures, and they are really trying to retain customers, they have good intentions in mind, but they're still just kind of doing the minimum in order to make that happen.
00:04:35.519 --> 00:04:44.879
So when you get to becoming a truly customer-driven leader, these are the folks who are really going to work on compounding trust.
00:04:45.279 --> 00:05:16.959
Because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you're a small business owner with five employees who has customer and employee churn, or you are the head of a big multinational bank, if you're not politely challenging your customer to do better, to help them think more critically about uh mistakes that they've made in the past, to show them a mirror to reflect on what it is that their goals really are, then you're really just kind of doing the minimum.
00:05:17.199 --> 00:05:33.839
And the reason that I think this is so important right now, today, in 2026, is customers will switch brands in a heartbeat if they feel like they're not getting what they need or what they deserve.
00:05:34.079 --> 00:05:36.319
There are lots of choices out there.
00:05:36.560 --> 00:05:39.600
And it's what I refer to as the war of the brands.
00:05:39.839 --> 00:05:55.439
So every advisor out there has somebody else who's willing to go a little bit further, do a little bit more, politely challenge the customer a little bit more so that they're actually helping them build that wealth in this case.
00:05:55.680 --> 00:05:59.279
And trust compounds a lot faster than money does.
00:05:59.439 --> 00:06:10.160
And so, really, at the end of the day, if you think about it, every single business leader, every single business owner, at the end of the day, all they've really got is their reputation.
00:06:10.240 --> 00:06:12.959
And that reputation has to be built on trust.
00:06:13.199 --> 00:06:17.120
And trust is something that customer-driven leaders are very, very good at.
00:06:17.279 --> 00:06:20.720
They're not going to just be satisfied with status quo.
00:06:20.959 --> 00:06:26.560
They're going to push themselves, they're going to push their teams and employees to help push the customer to do better.
00:06:27.199 --> 00:06:43.120
As I uh as I coach our team, as I coach other advisors, uh, as I speak on stages around the around the country, one of the things that I have that that I want to drive on this point that you made because I think trust is the number one product that any small business sells.
00:06:43.600 --> 00:06:56.240
And uh you even you when you talk about the war of brands, how people will change and go even um even where where they feel like their needs are met, I I think it goes down to communication.
00:06:57.279 --> 00:07:01.120
Not like so, so the so like for instance, our brand, for instance, one oak financial.
00:07:01.600 --> 00:07:06.399
We help people with taxes, retirement income, investments, long-term care, legacy.
00:07:07.279 --> 00:07:10.079
And I put that out there in podcast form.
00:07:10.240 --> 00:07:14.000
I put it out there in a daily podcast, we do videos and webinars.
00:07:14.399 --> 00:07:20.879
We have I wrote, I've written the book, The One of a Kind Financial Plan, Retirement Dejan Vu, yet it still gets lost in message.
00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:25.839
Why do you think a business that is trying to be customer driven?
00:07:25.920 --> 00:07:34.240
I I think that's where we are, we're trying to be customer driven to trying to meet people where they are and take them where they want to go and solve the problems they don't even see that they know they have.
00:07:34.560 --> 00:07:41.759
Where do you think the message gets lost between the consumer in the actual business who's trying to be there?
00:07:41.920 --> 00:07:46.720
Why would somebody leave a customer-driven business from a from that standpoint?
00:07:47.040 --> 00:07:49.199
Yeah, it's it's a great follow-up question.
00:07:49.279 --> 00:07:53.920
And maybe I'll I'll just insert something and and make it even a little bit more personal, right?
00:07:54.079 --> 00:08:04.480
Because I I just recently actually um listened to your episode where you talked about why, the why behind uh One Oak Financial, right?
00:08:04.639 --> 00:08:18.879
And I thought this was a really great story because you really you really drove home in that episode that you didn't just want to be part of the big machine that was just pushing products on people that really didn't need need them.
00:08:19.199 --> 00:08:35.600
And so your your focus has become really how do we actually provide that very unique, um, very white glove, very hands-on, caring um service to those clients who you work with.
00:08:35.759 --> 00:08:47.919
And I think that's really important because if you if you look at the world that we're in right now, which is pretty volatile in a lot of ways, um, you know, markets go up and down.
00:08:48.240 --> 00:08:58.399
The the difference is that you know, you you would see a if let's say the market takes a 25% dip, that's really, really scary for any of us.
00:08:58.559 --> 00:09:08.320
Um, a customer tolerant advisor or business owner is gonna say, you know, when the client calls and says, sell everything, they're gonna say, okay, I'll get right on that.
00:09:08.399 --> 00:09:14.159
You know, a customer-centric advisor is gonna say, are you sure, you know, markets do recover?
00:09:14.480 --> 00:09:18.159
The customer-driven leader is gonna say, I hear you.
00:09:18.559 --> 00:09:23.919
But before we do anything, let's actually revisit why we built this plan in the first place.
00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:29.679
You know, help me understand what's really happened in your life, not just what's happened in the markets.
00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:34.480
Now, that is an example of politely challenging the customer, like I talked about.
00:09:34.559 --> 00:09:35.919
And this is very important to me.
00:09:36.080 --> 00:09:39.759
You have to challenge your customers to do more, to do better.
00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:43.440
Um, are some customers actually going to leave from that?
00:09:43.679 --> 00:09:44.639
Yeah, of course.
00:09:44.799 --> 00:09:45.440
Of course they are.
00:09:45.600 --> 00:09:48.799
I mean, that there's always going to be a natural attrition.
00:09:48.960 --> 00:10:16.240
But again, this point about trust compounding, um, the customers who you do retain, they're gonna tell their friends, they're gonna tell their associates, they're going to tell their neighbors about what it is that that you're providing to them that is different from that customer tolerant planner who you know has maybe a twice a year review and it's five minutes long and then you're just done.
00:10:16.559 --> 00:10:25.279
So having that deeper relationship and engagement um really creates that compound value over time.
00:10:25.519 --> 00:10:28.559
So you're you're gonna see some attrition in business.
00:10:28.639 --> 00:10:36.559
That's going to happen, but the odds of you retaining and growing customers and compounding them are far better if you're taking that customer-driven approach.
00:10:37.039 --> 00:10:42.080
Before we go on, so educate was a was kind of the theme of this first segment.
00:10:42.240 --> 00:10:45.759
I don't want to leave this though before we talk about obsessed, right?
00:10:45.919 --> 00:10:52.799
You you the book, the book you've written that's uh getting attention out um in the business community.
00:10:53.440 --> 00:11:00.159
Um give us maybe a couple minutes of why you wrote the book and what you hope people it's it's meant for business owners.
00:11:00.480 --> 00:11:03.759
Let's be let's be let's be very direct about who the consumer is.
00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:07.200
It's business owners, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, enterprise entrepreneurs.
00:11:07.919 --> 00:11:11.519
What what do you hope what was the reason you wrote the book?
00:11:11.600 --> 00:11:15.279
And what do you hope somebody who reads it gets out of reading the book?
00:11:16.320 --> 00:11:18.320
Yeah, uh thanks for the question.
00:11:18.480 --> 00:11:20.559
I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it.
00:11:20.639 --> 00:11:25.679
It's been a two-year passion project, and I'm glad to say it's finally coming to print next month.
00:11:25.919 --> 00:11:39.679
Um, the book started with a question that that surprised me to an extent, and that is um, why do some organizations become exponentially more valuable than others, even when they're selling similar products, right?
00:11:40.320 --> 00:11:49.200
So after studying leaders across industries, I realized that the difference wasn't really intelligence or strategy or even innovation.
00:11:49.440 --> 00:12:00.480
It was whether leadership treated customers as transactions, or if they treated customers as the organizing principle for every single decision that got made.
00:12:01.120 --> 00:12:09.519
That's really what obsessed is about, because customer-driven leaders, they don't tell people what they want to hear, they tell people what they need to hear.
00:12:09.679 --> 00:12:14.399
Even, you know, and that means you have to earn the trust to be able to do that.
00:12:14.720 --> 00:12:27.519
So uh, you know, I would say in this case, for your audience, you know, if you are an advisor and you don't feel comfortable politely challenging your customer, then you need to ask yourself some serious questions.
00:12:27.759 --> 00:12:35.519
And if you are the consumer of an advisor and you don't feel like you're getting politely challenged, you also need to ask yourself some questions.
00:12:36.159 --> 00:12:37.600
That's uh, you know, so thank you.
00:12:37.679 --> 00:12:42.000
I mean, most people, I I've written two books now and I've got a couple more in the pipeline.
00:12:42.320 --> 00:12:45.039
Most people don't know how hard it is to write a book.
00:12:45.519 --> 00:12:46.399
Oh my gosh.
00:12:46.559 --> 00:12:52.000
I I have to say, I I've now I've written and and spoken for over 25 years, right?
00:12:52.080 --> 00:13:00.240
And and um I guess technically I have a book in the form of the dissertation for my PhD, but not the same by a long shot.
00:13:00.399 --> 00:13:06.720
I have to tell you, Mike, I learned very quickly that writing a book and publishing a book are two very different endeavors.
00:13:07.039 --> 00:13:07.440
Yeah.
00:13:07.679 --> 00:13:09.919
And that that but but that's where I am right now, right?
00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:15.120
So the one of a kind financial plans out there, retirement deja vu is just launched at the end of July.
00:13:15.360 --> 00:13:18.399
Uh retirement deja vu was done four months ago.
00:13:19.039 --> 00:13:29.120
But to get it from, you know, the my writing through editorial review to to the to the market, crazy, right?
00:13:29.279 --> 00:13:30.879
You would think it's just pressing a button.
00:13:30.960 --> 00:13:31.360
It's not.
00:13:31.600 --> 00:13:32.000
It's not.
00:13:32.080 --> 00:13:33.759
We haven't we haven't gotten easier there.
00:13:34.399 --> 00:13:40.000
So, you know, I you know, obviously we want people to realize that your book, Obsessed, is available to purchase.
00:13:40.320 --> 00:13:51.519
And uh, if you're looking for, you know, a manual on how to become a cut customer-centric leader, we invite people to to to find that on Amazon or anywhere books are sold.
00:13:52.080 --> 00:13:53.039
I'm not sure.
00:13:53.519 --> 00:13:54.159
Yeah, no.
00:13:55.120 --> 00:13:57.440
I want to go to set it's kind of our segment two now.
00:13:57.679 --> 00:13:59.039
Let's let's coach people.
00:13:59.200 --> 00:14:06.240
Um I generally like to in the segment share one player pattern that helps entrepreneurs become customer-driven leaders.
00:14:06.960 --> 00:14:12.240
Um people don't need 17 frameworks, they need one play they can actually run.
00:14:12.480 --> 00:14:14.960
So I want you to put your coach hat on.
00:14:15.120 --> 00:14:19.759
Um, you you you've been interviewed, you've like you said, you've done this for 25 years.
00:14:19.919 --> 00:14:33.200
I want you to uh assign or instill one play in an entrepreneur's business today that would move them from uh customer-centric talk to customer-driven action.
00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:35.519
Yeah, great question.
00:14:35.679 --> 00:14:51.360
So and and and by extrapolation, I'll say uh based on your last comment there, uh, one of the advantages that you'll find in the book that I have written is it is intended to be very applied and very practical.
00:14:51.519 --> 00:14:54.240
Yes, there are case studies, yes, there is education.
00:14:54.480 --> 00:14:57.360
There's also a playbook and an assessment.
00:14:57.440 --> 00:15:02.159
And and part of this is you have to you have to be honest with yourself.
00:15:02.320 --> 00:15:04.960
And this isn't about accusing, right?
00:15:05.200 --> 00:15:09.120
It's about um appreciating the realities of the situation.
00:15:09.279 --> 00:15:17.919
And so there's all kinds of assessments that are available out there for every individual as a leader, for every business as a leader, for every team.
00:15:18.159 --> 00:15:31.840
Um, but very important to just take an assessment, realize this is where I am, uh, appreciate the realities of the situation, and then make the decision of, okay, what do I need to do to close the gap on that?
00:15:32.080 --> 00:15:36.159
And it doesn't really have to be that hard, right?
00:15:36.240 --> 00:15:39.679
Uh to your point, you really just need one framework.
00:15:39.919 --> 00:15:51.840
And there are definitely a lot of different good pieces of advice that I've crowdsourced over a number of across a number of really great uh industry experts that you'll find in the writing.
00:15:51.919 --> 00:16:01.600
Um, but I would say, in order to keep it simple for the listeners today, is as a leader, pick your head up.
00:16:01.840 --> 00:16:03.039
This is this is it.
00:16:03.200 --> 00:16:16.960
Just pick your head up because as you build a business and you grow it and you scale it, what you will find is that you become a victim of your own success and you start to get further and further removed from the customers, right?
00:16:17.039 --> 00:16:18.559
We we've seen this happen.
00:16:18.720 --> 00:16:25.440
You you're the five um person shop and you're doing really well, you gotta hire a few more people.
00:16:25.600 --> 00:16:41.440
Wow, we just doubled our revenue, we got to double our headcount, now we got to get divisions in place, we got to get division leaders in place, and now all of a sudden you are four levels removed from the frontline associates who are actually having the conversations with the customers.
00:16:41.600 --> 00:16:52.559
If there's nothing else that you take from all the writing and research that I did, it's continue to be engaged and involved with your clients and listen to them.
00:16:52.720 --> 00:16:54.480
Don't talk at them.
00:16:54.720 --> 00:16:56.879
They will tell you what they need.
00:16:57.120 --> 00:17:04.880
They will tell you the path that you need to actually create to help them be successful if you just listen to them.
00:17:05.279 --> 00:17:08.640
Easiest piece of coaching advice I can provide.
00:17:08.960 --> 00:17:12.880
Well, well, coaches, uh, unless you're coaching T-ball, right?
00:17:13.039 --> 00:17:18.720
Baseball, or you're doing like a little five-year-old soccer program, coaches have to focus on the scoreboard.
00:17:19.200 --> 00:17:20.960
Because that determines if you win or lose.
00:17:21.039 --> 00:17:32.880
So, what's some what's some scoreboard metrics that uh uh small business, medium-sized business should be looking at when it comes to measuring if they are customer-driven leaders?
00:17:33.359 --> 00:17:33.759
Yeah.
00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:38.160
Um interestingly enough, there's there are a lot of metrics out there, right?
00:17:38.319 --> 00:17:44.400
We hear about uh Net Promoter Score, NPS, we hear about uh CSAT.
00:17:44.880 --> 00:17:50.000
I actually tend to steer people away from those kinds of metrics.
00:17:50.079 --> 00:18:02.720
Um, and in fact, I even interviewed Rob Markey, who is the creator of the Net Promoter Score, and uh he's a fascinating guy, you know, Harvard um professor and Bain um alumni.
00:18:03.359 --> 00:18:11.359
And uh and he'll even tell you, you know, the the NPS was never designed to just be a single vanity metric.
00:18:11.440 --> 00:18:14.160
It was intended to be part of a broader system.
00:18:14.640 --> 00:18:20.160
And so I do think you have to take a systems headset to this.
00:18:20.480 --> 00:18:26.799
Um, but honestly, the simplest metric is how many customers did you talk to in the last month?
00:18:26.960 --> 00:18:28.319
And just watch that.
00:18:28.559 --> 00:18:36.960
If you watch that, you're gonna be able to gauge whether you know all the other metrics that may be important to you uh are actually landing.
00:18:37.200 --> 00:18:42.720
The other thing that um, you know, maybe a little cliche here, Mike, but I I'm still a big fan of this.
00:18:43.039 --> 00:19:03.200
You don't have to do it um completely in practice, but you know, Howard Schultz had a really um uh great method that he would use for any internal meeting, and he would have the you probably heard about this with the two empty chairs, and one chair represented the partner, which is what Starbucks calls employees, and the other represented uh the customer.
00:19:03.359 --> 00:19:09.759
And so any decision that was getting made, the question would be, is it good for the partner and is it good for the customer?
00:19:09.920 --> 00:19:13.359
And if it wasn't good for both, then it was back to the drawing board.
00:19:13.519 --> 00:19:21.680
And you don't have to put two empty chairs there, but you definitely should be asking, hey, is this good for us and is it good for the people we're serving?
00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:23.119
That's really good.
00:19:23.519 --> 00:19:29.440
So uh thanks for uh helping us put something that could be measurable on the scoreboard.
00:19:29.599 --> 00:19:33.279
Uh our, you know, but my team who listens to this, right?
00:19:33.359 --> 00:19:37.680
I always always think about like who is going to hear this podcast who's going to implement something.
00:19:37.839 --> 00:19:38.319
My team, right?
00:19:38.400 --> 00:19:40.400
At one oak financial is going to hear this.
00:19:40.720 --> 00:19:45.359
And uh, guys, you know, we we measure the scoreboard like in our own ways.
00:19:45.440 --> 00:19:52.880
But if you're a if you're an entrepreneur and you're also a client of One Oak Financial, you should ask us one time, what do we keep scoring?
00:19:53.359 --> 00:20:12.960
Because it even though, even though we may be managing your money, doing tax strategy, helping you build a better retirement, focused on a leak a long-term care strategy for maybe your family, or even building legacy plans, it's okay for us to open our playbook to you every once in a while because a business helping in business is what we're about, right?
00:20:13.039 --> 00:20:16.799
We are B Corp certified, businesses together growing for the greater good.
00:20:20.720 --> 00:20:25.200
So, James, let's let's let's go over a little bit and let's talk about the plan.
00:20:25.759 --> 00:20:26.079
Okay.
00:20:26.400 --> 00:20:27.279
It's where I live.
00:20:27.440 --> 00:20:33.359
It's where we at uh at one of financial help people build one-of-a-kind financial plans for your one-of-a-kind life.
00:20:33.519 --> 00:20:39.119
But let's say an entrepreneur reads obsessed, uh, reads it on a flight, lands, and is fired up.
00:20:39.200 --> 00:20:40.640
They're at the beach house.
00:20:40.799 --> 00:20:50.319
Maybe the weekend they listen to this podcast or the book, they read it on a you know, a week's vacation, then come back ready to put this, you know, put this, put this into motion, right?
00:20:50.400 --> 00:20:52.079
I want to be a customer-driven leader.
00:20:52.160 --> 00:20:53.519
They're like fired up.
00:20:54.319 --> 00:20:56.000
Uh, what are the priorities?
00:20:56.240 --> 00:21:02.559
And what's the rhythm that people have to have to put the play it into motion?
00:21:03.440 --> 00:21:20.319
Yeah, that's a really important question because um even though the the book is intended to be very practical with a playbook, you know, again, it all comes back to the assessment of where are you now and where do you think you need to be and what is that gap that you need to close.
00:21:20.640 --> 00:21:26.640
And really important there too, because um you you cannot do 10 things, right?
00:21:26.799 --> 00:21:32.400
Any coach uh whose worth or salt is not gonna tell you to do 10 things.
00:21:32.559 --> 00:21:41.599
If you think about a golf coach, right, they're not gonna tell you, you know, here, try 32 different um, you know, shifts and pivots on your feet and your hips.
00:21:41.680 --> 00:21:49.279
And no, they're gonna say um move your feet one inch apart and then let's hit 30 balls and see where we are.
00:21:49.599 --> 00:21:51.759
So smaller is better.
00:21:51.920 --> 00:21:54.079
Don't try to boil the ocean all at once.
00:21:54.160 --> 00:21:59.599
And I know that's that's very simple advice, but the reality is you have to.
00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:05.200
Understand that if you want to actually build a legacy, right?
00:22:05.440 --> 00:22:13.680
Not a career, you know, a lot of leaders out there, they they'll build a career and then they retire, which I know you had my my friend Um Dr.
00:22:13.839 --> 00:22:17.279
Gary David on just recently as well, and you talked about retirement.
00:22:17.359 --> 00:22:18.400
He's a great guy.
00:22:18.559 --> 00:22:20.960
Um, you know, you retire with a career, and then what?
00:22:21.039 --> 00:22:22.160
You're just done, right?
00:22:22.319 --> 00:22:28.400
Okay, well, now I don't know who I am or where I am or what to do with my life or what my purpose is.
00:22:28.720 --> 00:22:38.799
But if you build, you know, a legacy, if you build systems, then your reputation can continue through others.
00:22:38.960 --> 00:22:44.160
You build something that's actually um potentially generational, right?
00:22:44.559 --> 00:22:47.200
And so it all comes back to the system.
00:22:47.359 --> 00:22:51.359
So the reality is don't make it the flavor of the month.
00:22:51.599 --> 00:23:04.400
You have to start with what's the first component of the system that's gonna close the gap the fastest, and then do that really, really well for six months before you make any additional changes.
00:23:04.880 --> 00:23:05.200
Right.
00:23:05.359 --> 00:23:08.640
That's that's really good planning advice right there.
00:23:09.039 --> 00:23:13.359
Um let's close today on the podcast, and I want to talk about AI.
00:23:14.160 --> 00:23:20.640
Um we've had some guests on recently that talked about AI, and um AI is the future, right?
00:23:20.720 --> 00:23:21.440
It's here.
00:23:21.759 --> 00:23:39.839
It's uh, you know, we've seen crazy numbers come in from these mega cap companies, Facebook, Amazon, Tesla, Alphabet, Google, NVIDIA, and they're talking about how much money they're spending on AI to try to but they but their spending has to eventually turn into revenue.
00:23:40.079 --> 00:23:41.759
The small business owner.
00:23:42.160 --> 00:23:43.359
Like in AI.
00:23:43.519 --> 00:23:56.000
Let's uh let's talk about is does do organizations need AI and where can AI help them be better customer-driven businesses?
00:23:56.640 --> 00:23:57.119
Hmm.
00:23:57.279 --> 00:23:57.920
Hmm.
00:23:58.559 --> 00:24:00.319
Uh great question.
00:24:00.480 --> 00:24:03.279
Very timely, I think, given what's going on today.
00:24:03.440 --> 00:24:13.839
I think uh I think that the answer is yes, organizations need AI, and that's regardless of their size, right?
00:24:14.480 --> 00:24:21.440
I think that the potential impacts are much, much bigger on the smaller organizations.
00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:34.079
Just like when you have if one person, you know, if one employee leaves and you've only got five employees, the impact of that is far greater than if one employee leaves a 5,000-person organization, right?
00:24:34.319 --> 00:24:41.519
So I think that the impacts of of AI, uh, both good and bad, uh, are far greater for the smaller organizations.
00:24:41.759 --> 00:24:51.039
I also think that the smaller organizations are not as educated about what AI really is, what its capabilities are, or how they should be using it.
00:24:51.200 --> 00:25:00.480
You know, there was an interesting report that came out, um it's probably a couple of years now, Mike, but it was uh the statistic was uh 67% of U.S.
00:25:00.559 --> 00:25:05.440
white-collar workers are using AI in some shape, form, or fashion in their daily work.
00:25:05.599 --> 00:25:18.079
And the same number of respondents indicated they'd gotten exactly zero guidance from their employers on what to use, how to use it, when to use it, what's the right uh bumper rails, right?
00:25:18.400 --> 00:25:21.039
Um, I do think that that's getting better.
00:25:21.359 --> 00:25:32.720
But if you're a small business owner, you really need to be thinking hard about educating yourself uh far more deeply and how to set those parameters for your team.
00:25:32.880 --> 00:25:35.039
Because there's all kinds of crazy stuff.
00:25:35.119 --> 00:25:48.720
Uh, I mean, as part of my own website using Vide Coding, I built an entire website, an entire suite of proprietary tools and assessments in days, not months.
00:25:48.960 --> 00:25:50.240
It was just amazing.
00:25:50.400 --> 00:26:10.559
And with Claude, you can create agents who have a digital twin of yourself, a chief operating officer, ahead of marketing, ahead of sales, ahead of prospecting, and actually just turn these agents loose and have them start going and prospecting out in LinkedIn or using HubSpot or whatever your favorite CRM is.
00:26:10.799 --> 00:26:12.720
You can do those things.
00:26:12.960 --> 00:26:24.720
I'll tell you that I don't have AI actually pull the trigger on sending emails or doing outreach to clients because I still think human in the loop, that's a very important term.
00:26:24.960 --> 00:26:27.759
Human in the loop is really, really important.
00:26:28.319 --> 00:26:28.960
Why?
00:26:29.440 --> 00:26:35.119
Because AI is awesome, but a fool with a tool is still a fool.
00:26:35.279 --> 00:26:43.359
And it's really important that we're that we're thinking about how we're using this tool to engage our clients.
00:26:43.599 --> 00:26:50.880
If you're using it to replace how you would engage your clients, then that is customer avoidant.
00:26:51.039 --> 00:26:52.960
That is not customer driven.
00:26:53.200 --> 00:27:03.039
To be customer driven means you're using the tool to its full extent that is supposed to give you more time with those clients to have richer dialogues.
00:27:03.519 --> 00:27:09.200
I was going to ask you about human stuff when it comes to AI, but how can I?
00:27:09.359 --> 00:27:11.920
A fool with a tool is still a fool.
00:27:13.839 --> 00:27:14.799
It's not mine.
00:27:14.880 --> 00:27:18.559
It was actually somebody who I had on my podcast, and he said that.
00:27:18.799 --> 00:27:20.960
I just, and I was just, yeah, I'm stealing that.
00:27:21.039 --> 00:27:21.279
Thank you.
00:27:21.599 --> 00:27:22.319
We we should.
00:27:22.480 --> 00:27:27.680
We should make that, we should put that everywhere out there because that's what AI creates.
00:27:27.839 --> 00:27:29.440
A fool with a tool is still a tool.
00:27:29.680 --> 00:27:30.799
It's so true, Mike.
00:27:30.880 --> 00:27:32.559
And uh, but here's the thing, right?
00:27:32.640 --> 00:27:42.400
I mean, you know, so uh like I was working, I was employed uh, you know, in the 9-11.com buster, the mortgage meltdown, obviously the pandemic.
00:27:42.480 --> 00:27:50.319
Now we have AI, and there have been all sorts of ups and downs and back and forth with the market, you know, across those those number of years, right?
00:27:50.640 --> 00:27:52.640
And there's always been layoffs.
00:27:53.200 --> 00:27:54.079
Always, right?
00:27:54.480 --> 00:27:57.359
But here's what's really different this time.
00:27:58.160 --> 00:28:12.160
This time is the first time in history that I'm aware of that CEOs are actually bragging about the fact that I've been able to lay off 14% of my workforce in the name of operational efficiency brought on by AI.
00:28:12.480 --> 00:28:13.680
Why do I bring this up?
00:28:13.839 --> 00:28:16.960
Because that is a very customer avoidant kind of an approach.
00:28:17.039 --> 00:28:18.799
That's derailing behaviors.
00:28:18.960 --> 00:28:20.960
Because here's what's going to happen.
00:28:21.279 --> 00:28:26.480
You may gain operational efficiency, but you just killed your future employer brand.
00:28:26.720 --> 00:28:34.240
How are you going to actually attract future talent when they think I've got a shelf life the second that I walk in the door?
00:28:34.480 --> 00:28:35.680
That is myopic.
00:28:35.920 --> 00:28:37.440
That is playing the short game.
00:28:37.599 --> 00:28:40.799
That's what being customer avoidant or customer tolerant is.
00:28:40.960 --> 00:28:44.160
It's certainly not what being customer-centric or customer driven is.
00:28:44.559 --> 00:28:48.400
I laugh at some of the numbers coming out from these big mega cap companies.
00:28:48.559 --> 00:28:57.119
Um, one company reported, I'm not gonna throw names out, but if you listen to the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily or listen to me anywhere else, you you'll know this company.
00:28:57.279 --> 00:29:04.640
They just announced they're increasing AI CapEx capital expenditures to$200 billion this year.
00:29:05.440 --> 00:29:07.839
Do you know how many jobs how many jobs that could create?
00:29:08.400 --> 00:29:09.440
$200 billion.
00:29:10.559 --> 00:29:17.359
$200 billion if everybody made$100,000 a year, right?
00:29:17.519 --> 00:29:25.759
$200 billion, paying employees$100,000 a year, we are talking about$20,000 jobs or$200,000 jobs.
00:29:25.839 --> 00:29:26.799
It's crazy, right?
00:29:27.039 --> 00:29:36.799
And we so we're we're moving in this world like yes, where these big tech people are talking about and raving about AI technology, AI still costs a lot.
00:29:37.200 --> 00:29:39.279
And it's hurting, and it's hurting business.
00:29:39.359 --> 00:29:48.240
And so, you know, uh with tokens and the cost, you just gotta be careful that you don't replace somebody end up spending more money along the way.
00:29:48.720 --> 00:29:49.200
That's right.
00:29:49.279 --> 00:29:58.000
And and and you know, to that point, you know, back to my point about employer branding and um and the future of playing the long game, right?
00:29:58.240 --> 00:30:08.880
Um, very, very important here because uh in the war of the brands, if you take company A and company B, and company A decides we're gonna riff 40% of our workforce.
00:30:09.039 --> 00:30:10.640
Hello, Jack Dorsey.
00:30:10.880 --> 00:30:14.319
Um, and then company B says, you know what?
00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:15.759
We're not gonna do that.
00:30:15.839 --> 00:30:27.680
We're actually going to empower and enable our teams to be able to use this as a force multiplier so that they can add compound value for our clients.
00:30:28.079 --> 00:30:34.319
I'm telling you right now, company B is gonna be the one that acquires company A in five years.
00:30:34.559 --> 00:30:35.039
Right.
00:30:35.359 --> 00:30:44.319
One of the other companies that announced dirty back in the end of the second quarter, they had this, they had a deficiency ratio of over 50% for the first time.
00:30:44.480 --> 00:30:47.519
And it's somebody who delivers boxes to your house every day.
00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:52.720
Um and they don't, and they're they they own a few airplanes, but they're not FedEx and UPS.
00:30:52.799 --> 00:30:53.519
It's another company.
00:30:54.079 --> 00:31:00.079
50 cents, you know, 50% margin, which means that if you give them a dollar, they're making 50 cents.
00:31:00.400 --> 00:31:00.880
That's crazy.
00:31:01.359 --> 00:31:04.559
From an efficiency standpoint, that's absolutely crazy for a company that size.
00:31:05.119 --> 00:31:07.359
It's that's what that's what they're trying to do with AI.
00:31:07.440 --> 00:31:10.319
They're trying to become more efficient, less dollars, more profit.
00:31:10.720 --> 00:31:13.119
Shareholders, shareholders, board members.
00:31:13.200 --> 00:31:16.880
So shareholders, board members, senior executives, stock.
00:31:17.119 --> 00:31:19.440
That's what they're that's what they're trying to do with AI.
00:31:19.680 --> 00:31:27.119
They're trying to make the investor community more money, not necessarily create and stabilize the job force in America.
00:31:27.279 --> 00:31:27.359
Yeah.
00:31:27.759 --> 00:31:30.880
That's that's the role, and that's the role of the small business owner.
00:31:31.440 --> 00:31:41.920
That's like like like your book, Customer Driven Leadership, America's jobs will be created by small business owners who are customer-centric customer leaders.
00:31:43.599 --> 00:31:44.799
Totally agreed.
00:31:45.039 --> 00:31:52.400
And, you know, kind of bringing bringing all this full circle too, you can't just AI things, right?
00:31:52.559 --> 00:31:55.519
Like like uh again, it's a great tool.
00:31:55.680 --> 00:31:59.279
Use it, learn about it, become an expert at it for sure.
00:31:59.440 --> 00:32:01.119
But you can't just AI things.
00:32:01.200 --> 00:32:13.440
I mean, I I had a conversation with a COO of a major organization, I also won't mention, and he actually says, now that we've got AI stood up, when can we lay off all our developers?
00:32:13.920 --> 00:32:17.680
Wow, that's a really myopic perspective about things, right?
00:32:18.079 --> 00:32:21.599
And and again, it is a tool, but it is not foolproof.
00:32:21.759 --> 00:32:25.119
In fact, and and this is published so I can mention this.
00:32:25.279 --> 00:32:38.960
There was an article that came out um just yesterday, I believe, that showed that P both PWC and Deloitte have published thought leadership and research that was 100% generated from AI.
00:32:39.119 --> 00:32:40.319
They got busted.
00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:43.599
And there were facts that had not been verified.
00:32:43.759 --> 00:32:46.640
There was data that had been hallucinated.
00:32:47.119 --> 00:32:47.759
Wow.
00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:48.799
That's a problem.
00:32:49.039 --> 00:32:50.079
That is something else.
00:32:50.240 --> 00:32:54.319
All right, let's lit, let's lay at the plate here with this episode of the Ideas by Mike podcast.
00:32:54.400 --> 00:32:59.039
Uh the book is obsessed, cultivated cultivated the customer-driven leader.
00:32:59.119 --> 00:33:01.359
Where do people grab it and where can they find you?
00:33:01.920 --> 00:33:06.559
Yeah, um, it's uh it's gonna be coming out in print um in September.
00:33:06.720 --> 00:33:09.920
I'm still waiting on the exact date, but it is going to be in September.
00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:13.599
So you can just go to Amazon, it's gonna be the easiest way to find that.
00:33:13.680 --> 00:33:20.160
It'll also be available at at Target and some other um global distribution channels, like in the Middle East as well.
00:33:20.240 --> 00:33:22.640
Um, but Amazon's probably the easiest.
00:33:22.880 --> 00:33:27.599
You can also uh find me on LinkedIn, it's James Killian PhD.
00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:30.799
Um, no, I'm not pompous, you don't have to call me doctor.
00:33:30.960 --> 00:33:33.519
My mama named me James, so please call me that.
00:33:33.680 --> 00:33:42.720
Um but also if you just if you just Google me, James Killian Um Customer Driven Leadership, you'll see me pop up on the first page of Google.
00:33:42.799 --> 00:33:56.400
And you can actually go to my website, you can see my podcast there, as well as actually uh fill out a form if you're interested in getting in the in the uh early uh reader list, and I'll let you know when the book is available.
00:33:59.039 --> 00:34:02.400
Today, guys, we uh uh James educated us.
00:34:02.480 --> 00:34:06.240
He talked about how customer citric is a slogan, customer driven is a system.
00:34:06.559 --> 00:34:16.400
Uh he coached us a little bit and it's like you don't need 17 frameworks to start, put one name on the experience, measure what matters, you know, create a scoreboard.
00:34:16.639 --> 00:34:21.679
And then the plan is, you know, you talked about culture, isn't a vibe, it's a document.
00:34:21.760 --> 00:34:22.960
You have to write this down.
00:34:23.119 --> 00:34:31.280
And that's a very good analogy to like, because if you don't write something down, it's a wish, but if you write down, it's an action.
00:34:31.519 --> 00:34:43.599
And then the future, uh, man, he talked about how AI is uh is out there, it's it's around us, but you cannot, cannot copy how you make people feel.
00:34:44.159 --> 00:34:46.239
And that's the that's the takeaway for me today.
00:34:46.320 --> 00:34:46.880
You know my motto.
00:34:46.960 --> 00:34:48.239
My motto is never miss a moment.
00:34:48.719 --> 00:34:49.760
So I'm Mike Milligan.
00:34:49.840 --> 00:34:51.519
This has been the Ideas by Mike podcast.
00:34:51.599 --> 00:34:52.239
I'll see you next time.
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:02.800
I've got a plan and I found my own.
00:35:02.960 --> 00:35:05.679
This has been the Ideas by Mike Podcast with Mike Milligan.
00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:09.599
I'm an investment advisory representative with Advisory Alpha LLC.
00:35:09.920 --> 00:35:17.280
Ideas by Mike and Ideas by Mike doing business as one oak financial or unaffiliated entities of Advisory Alpha LLC.
00:35:17.679 --> 00:35:22.960
Do not use this content today to make any investment or financial planning decisions.
00:35:23.119 --> 00:35:31.119
Consult with a licensed financial professional to reach out to One Oak Financial, go to www.thenumoakfinancial.com.
00:35:31.280 --> 00:35:38.239
That's oneoakfinancial.com and uh and get to know us and then reach out for your uh complimentary call.
00:35:38.480 --> 00:35:48.239
If you've missed past episodes of the Ideas by Mike podcast, it's available on all major platforms and our YouTube channel, which is one dot oak financial.
00:35:48.639 --> 00:35:51.039
One dot oak financial YouTube channel.
00:35:51.280 --> 00:35:56.559
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00:36:01.519 --> 00:36:04.800
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