How To Surprise and Delight Your Customers With Jason Friedman of CXFormula

Jason Friedman is the Founder of CXFormula. Through CXFormula he helps fast-growing, entrepreneurial companies gain an unfair advantage over their competition. His clients range from solopreneurs to companies like Foot Locker, Adidas, Nike, W Hotels, Universal Studios, Disney, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Fidelity, Stanford University, and Harvard University. In 2008, Jason sold his first company Creative Realities in the high 8-figures. He has started and successfully exited four other businesses.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [0:22] Jason Friedman shares his entrepreneurial journey and the birth of CX Formula 
• [3:53] The unique approach of CX Formula to enhance customer journeys for businesses 
• [6:10] The common friction points in business and effective strategies to remove them 
• [9:48] The “time to first value” principle and why it’s crucial for customer success
• [15:00] Jason discusses the concept of kinetic energy and how it relates to a customer’s journey through your business
• [20:08] A real-world example of how CX Formula personalizes experiences to delight customers 
• [22:46] The structure and offerings of the Kinetic Customer Formula program
• [30:41] Jason’s special gift that can revolutionize your customer experience approach
• [38:59] Mentors and resources

In this episode…

Have you ever wondered how some companies create unforgettable experiences that keep customers coming back for more? Is there a secret recipe for designing a customer journey that leaves a lasting impression? How does one tap into the innovative world of customer experience design and transform it into measurable success?

Customer experience expert Jason Friedman reveals how to overcome the inertia that hinders customers and employees from engaging fully with your business. He shares CXFormula’s approach to crafting journeys that resonate with audiences and drive remarkable results. Jason introduces the Kinetic Customer Formula, a system combining theater techniques and business strategy to create powerful customer experiences.

In this episode of Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz interviews Jason Friedman, Founder of CXFormula, about customer experience design. Jason talks about the unique approach of CX Formula to enhance customer journeys for businesses, how to overcome the common friction points in business, and the structure and offerings of the Kinetic Customer Formula program.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Jason Friedman on LinkedIn
• CXFormula
• Unleash the Power of Unreasonable

Special Mention(s):

• Outwitting the Devil: The Secret to Freedom and Success by Napoleon Hill
• Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century by Napoleon Hill
• The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
• Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dr. Dan Ariely
• 10x Is Easier Than 2x: How World-Class Entrepreneurs Achieve More by Doing Less by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
• The Gap and The Gain: The High Achievers’ Guide to Happiness, Confidence, and Success by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Related episode(s):

• “Excellent Customer Service Through Customer Experiences with Jason Friedman Founder of CXFormula” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Giver Series] How to Keep Your Best Customers And Build Lasting Business Relationships” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “What Inspires Brian Kurtz, VP at Boardroom Inc.?” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “Lessons and Reflections from Three Top Direct Response Marketers with Brian Kurtz, Richard Armstrong, and John Carlton” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “Boardroom Inc: Light Bulb Moments after 1.3 Billion pieces of direct mail – with Brian Kurtz [Big Lessons]” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Giver Series] The Power of Video Storytelling to Transform Your Business with Ian Garlic of StoryCrews” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “How to Set and Achieve Goals With Ian Garlic, Founder of Video Case Story” on the Inspired Insider Podcast

Quotable Moments:

• “Creating a better journey for your customers leads to massive business wins because every dollar invested in the front end compounds.”
• “To improve the customer journey, it’s not just about adding more; it’s about welcoming customers without overwhelming them.”
• “Your customers start with potential; it’s your job to ignite that into kinetic energy.”
• “A major component of customer experience success is setting and matching the right expectations.”
• “By understanding and deeply connecting with your customers, you build relationships that transcend transactions.”

Action Steps:

1. Examine your onboarding process for new customers and focus on reducing overwhelm: Streamlining onboarding reduces early drop-offs and sets the stage for a positive relationship, addressing issues of complexity highlighted by Jason.
2. Design your customer experience with the “time to first value” principle in mind: Recognizing customers’ first achievements quickly boosts their confidence and commitment, aligning with Jason’s insights on fostering customer momentum.
3. Regularly identify and remove friction points within your customer journey: Reducing impediments enhances the smoothness of the customer interaction and directly tackles the conversational pointers on eliminating barriers.
4. Implement a “position mission” concept to align employee roles with the business’s core mission: This ensures every team member contributes meaningfully to customer satisfaction, reinforcing Jason’s strategies for a cohesive internal and external experience.
5. Cultivate sincere interest in understanding your customer’s deeper needs and challenges: Shifting the focus from self-promotion to customer understanding strengthens loyalty, echoing Jason’s advice on being interested over interesting.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:01 

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz.

Jeremy Weisz 0:22 

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here founder of inspiredinsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders today is no different. I’ve Jason Friedman, he started the cxformula.com, and many other businesses and sold them and Jason before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes, people should check out the podcast. Brian Kurtz, mutual friend Brian Kurtz always loved mentioning Brian Kurtz, amazing human being. I’ve had him on the podcast a few times, actually, this is Jason’s second time on the podcast. So check out the episode you with Brian Kurtz just a master at relationships in direct response, marketing and much more.

Also, I had on Ian Garlic. Ian Garlic runs videocasestory.com. So he helps capture customer success stories for the clients. Right? And Jason will talk about how do you map out success with a client and Ian creates these videos so people can use them in their marketing and their sharing with their potential customers. So check that episode out. He also talked about how his dad — you’ll like this Jason — his dad had a restaurant in Milwaukee. And they had live dolphins in the restaurant. Now he lives in Orlando, that almost seems more normal, even though it’s not. But in Wisconsin, definitely not normal. Talk about delighting customers as you walk in your eating. And then there’s a live dolphin show in Wisconsin.

So that was interesting. Check those out. And this episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25 we help businesses give to and connect to their dream relationships. And how do we do that, we actually do that by helping you run your podcast, we’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast and we do the strategy, the accountability and the full execution. And Jason we call ourselves kind of the magic elves that run in the background and make it look easy for the host in the company so they can develop amazing relationships create great content and run their business.

For me, the number one thing in my life is relationships. And I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships. And I found no better way over the past decade to profile the people and companies I most admire on this planet and share with the world what they’re working on. So you’ve thought about podcasting, you should if you have questions go to rise25.com.

I’m excited to introduce Jason Friedman. He’s founder and CEO of CX Formula, and he helps fast growing entrepreneurial companies gain an unfair advantage over their competition. And how does he do that? He does it through the art and science of designing their customer experience journey. His clients have ranged from Fortune 100 to solopreneurs. He’s got a lot of notable past clients including Adidas, Nike, W hotels, Universal Studios, Disney, Burger King, Bank of America, and many, many more. And in 2008, Jason sold his first company in the high eight figures. He had built that company to $150,000,000 and 1,600 employees. Sounds stressful, it’s a pretty remarkable journey.

He also started and exited four other businesses in various industries, medical diagnostics, automotive spirits, he sold one of those companies to Bacardi for $200 million. And fun fact he has a passion for crafting exceptional customer experiences and was born in entertainment because he worked as lighting designer director and roadie for Peter Gabriel rush international Broadway tours, like Jesus Christ Superstar Fiddler on the roof and many more, and everyone can check out cxformula.com. Jason, thanks for joining me.

Jason Friedman 3:47 

Thanks, Jeremy excited to be here. And yeah, we’re psyched.

Jeremy Weisz 3:53 

There’s a lot to cover, you know, with your experience, but I just wanted to start with CX Formula, and in what you do there.

Jason Friedman 4:02 

Yeah, as you were saying, like my background, I have got this weird eclectic mix of stuff that I’ve done and a weird kind of mix of clients to from banking to theme parks to universities. And like the unifying kind of through line if you will, for this experience really are for my experience really is theater, like I was a theater nerd. And it’s one of those kind of Karate Kid experiences like wax on wax off like you learn how to tell a story you learn how to connect with an audience you learn how to take that audience on a journey.

Whenever you’re doing a show whether it’s a rock concert, a Broadway show, movie whatever, we want them to kind of forget their world that they came in with crazy chaos and all sorts of nightmare things happening in their normal life and be present be focused. And CX Formula is the generation of business that I have that really helps entrepreneurs, small business owners almost exclusively now, figure out how do we get that attention and earn that attention and that engagement from our customers? And how do we get them the absolute best results. Because really, in theater, it’s about that standing ovation. It’s about that kind of experience that you have that you leave feeling transformed. And we want that with our customers.

And our belief is that it’s more important today than ever before. And I think most people, they kind of take it for granted. And so we’re on a mission to help small business owners and entrepreneurs have the amazing business that they want, have the lifestyle that they want, have the freedoms that they want. And we have a formula that’ll help you get there.

Jeremy Weisz 5:50 

Talk about where people can start, right? Because I’m sure there’s a lot of businesses that come to you. And there’s different pieces of their business, a lot of moving pieces, and maybe some are in great shape, some maybe aren’t in good shape. When people come to you, where do you start?

Jason Friedman 6:10 

Yeah, I mean, the common thread is that people are trying to solve what we call the wrong problem in their business. Right? If you go online, and you search for, how do I grow my business? How do I scale my business? How do I fix my problem, it’s always about a sales problem. It’s always about the top of the funnel or the entry point, and there’s gurus helping people do more ads, better ads, build a different funnel, build a bigger funnel, build more funnels, spend more money on advertising, marketing, content, you name it. And what happens is we put all of our budget, all of our focus all of our attention on that front side. And I get it in the very beginning, if you don’t have any clients, you have to do that.

But we kind of neglect the people that say yes to us, our customers in favor of the strangers that we don’t even know yet. And so when they do say yes, and they do join our programs, if we’re an online business, our courses, our masterminds or coaching, where they come in, and they purchase our product, if we’re in the physical world. And either way, we often neglect what that experience looks like from that kind of onboarding, like, I got the product, right started the program? And what does that experience look like? How do I welcome them into my world without overwhelming them? We can dig into that a little bit more, all the way through to how do I make it easy?

How do I remove all the friction that’s currently going on in their experience with us all the roadblocks, all the obstacles that are in their way that are getting them to slow down or in a lot of cases stop. And it’s a big problem. And what we found through years and years of working with, like companies of all shapes and sizes, is that when we create a better journey, when we create what we call a kinetic pathway that seamlessly and flawlessly moves your customers through that journey and gets them those results, your business wins big time. Because then every dollar that you put into the front end, whether it be outbound sales calls, marketing, advertising, you name it, every one of them compounds. And so we really help people focus on the inside the backside, if you will, of the sale, and really make that amazing so that like you mentioned one of your other clients or people that you admire, they do video testimonials of success stories.

What if you had all of the clients or the majority of those clients coming in that were success stories that wanted to tell them that asked you, how can I help you? How can I help you do more? How can I connect you with other people, because they really were receiving that amazing value. And especially now in today’s world, like I’ve been saying this for 25 years, Jeremy, like, it’s more important today than it ever has been to focus on that experience. Because it is your fingerprint. It’s the unique thing about your business, it’s the thing that will make people come back to you. You can’t differentiate yourself by just buying products or services, you just can’t do it. And with the proliferation of AI in the world, like competition is popping up from people that have less experience and you kind of crafting content automatically or automatically, if you will, on the internet and putting that out there.

So what’s going to make your business special, what’s going to make your business stand out and build that loyalty with your customers? It is going to be that experience you create. It is going to be how your customers feel after they’ve interacted with your brand, your business your organization.

Jeremy Weisz 9:48 

Talk about you mentioned removing friction, which is just a key component for any business. What sticks out to you as an example when you went into a business and there are friction points, because sometimes we’re blind to our own friction points, right? What be a good example some removing friction moments.

Jason Friedman 10:10 

I mean, man, like, every one of our businesses has friction points, right. And the key is to remove or reduce as many as possible. It’s not possible to remove every friction point. And sometimes you want to actually add a friction point to slow things down. So it can be used strategically, either way. That said, let’s just talk about what a friction point is. A friction point is a moment that stops or slows someone from taking connect, going to the next step from taking action moving forward. Okay. And so it could be and is often one of the very first moments that someone comes into your world.

So let’s say hypothetically, that I just purchased an online course, right, I bought someone’s training online, it’s amazing, it’s going to help me, maybe it’s gonna help me learn how to produce my own podcast, right, I really want to do a podcast, I decided that I want to kind of do it on my own, but I want some training. So I go and I buy this program. And then I get that kind of first email, after I bought says like, congratulations, you’re part of the team now, we’re excited to have you in our community. Here’s what you need to do, and it goes through and gives you 400 steps that you need to do, you got to log in here, you got to do this, you got to do that, then you got to go purchase this thing.

And you got to do that. And it’s overwhelming, like I just bought this, you want to figure out how you give me the least amount of information that helps me take that next step, because you’re overwhelming me. And if I really want more, I’m going to go through those steps, and you’ll be able to give it to me in bite sized chunks that makes sense, like give me the ability to move forward at my own speed. Not that you’re giving me so much that I feel instantly overwhelmed. Remember, here’s the thing that I think a lot of business owners forget, when someone initially says yes, they chose to move forward, right, it was an intention to do it, it was not truly a commitment.

Commitment comes after. And so as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, as a small business owner, as a coach, author, speaker, whoever you are, you have to get that commitment. And you almost have to resell people on why they’re doing it as they go through that journey as they go through that process. And so what we try and do is help build confidence as people move through that journey, that they have taken the right set that they are on the path to achieving their goal. And we do that by a series of wins that we allow them or kind of compel them to have and we make accessible for them to have throughout the entire journey.

So for example, one of the big concepts that we teach and we go deep into in our training programs is this idea of time, the first value, right and time the first value is what is the shortest amount of time that you can get somebody when they first enter your program, right, the shorter that time to that first value, the more likely that person is to stick with it, and to have a positive feeling and emotion about what they just did. And the win is not like, oh, I got my first podcast launched in the scenario that we’re using before, it’s that I took a really good step. And that is, it’s one of those things where we need to set the expectations for them as to what that would be as a major win. So that they’re tuned into it, right, they have to have an awareness of what that path looks like.

And amazing, you got to step one, so quick. That’s fantastic. Congratulations, celebrate that. Now we’re gonna go on to our next step, right, and then you can move them through that. And so if there’s too many things that are in the way, like it’s cumbersome, like emails, or housekeeping logistics becomes the main point of that communication. They’re not going to probably take that first step. There’s so many people like in the online course world that make a purchase, and never ever even log in. Now, maybe as the business owner, you’re like, okay, you know what, that’s typical. And I’m happy to just take their money, they can log in if they want, I’m providing the service, it’s there.

But what would happen if you actually got them to take action, and they got those results that you originally created your business in order to serve those people like, you deeply wanted to help those people. And now they’re not. So how can we help them get those amazing results that they wanted and that you want it for them? It’s by really tuning in. And the biggest mistake people make is that they think about it from their own vantage point from the vantage point of the business. And so what we help people do is kind of flip the point of view, we got to rotate and we got to look at it through the customers mind and through the customers eyes and step into their shoes, put on their glasses and see what they’re seeing. Because it’s a very different perspective looking at it from another angle.

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