Episode Description:
Are you scared to take the customer experience to the next level? Today’s guest Mark Morton is a coach, mentor, and motivational speaker. This episode tackles fear and why fear can be crippling. Mark walks through techniques and strategies to tackle fear, overcome fear, and lead a better life while running a better business. Don’t let “stinkin’ thinkin” get in your way!
Action you can take right now:
The goal of this podcast is to provide marketing and service insights, but also to provide actionable items that can occur right away without much thought. This episode explores the fears and anxieties that are common in business – that might be getting in the way of your customer-centric culture!
- Is there something you can do right now, that costs nothing, that can help improve your customer’s experience? Ensuring a warm welcome from all staff for example?
- Is there one thing you’d love to do, to improve the customer experience but you are scared it will be to expensive?
- Is there a way you can test this without making a huge commitment? Can you offer it to a small percentage of customers and monitor the expense to better understand the true cost?
Connect with Coach Mark Morton:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoachMarkMorton
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coachmarkmorton/
After-Show Thoughts:
“Learn, Be, Do!” – Coach Mark Morton
I had so much fun with Mark – while covering weight-loss, fear and anxiety – all of these things circle around to succeeding in business! The one take away I really gained from this podcast is not only to write down your business goals – but don’t overwhelm yourself trying to tackle all of them at once.
The first example that comes to mind is of course marketing – you might have a goal to do Facebook ad’s, email promos, and social media. But if you don’t have time to handle it all, you will probably give a marginal effort to each one and find slow or no success on all fronts.
Focus one just the one thing, perhaps schedule out a years worth of emails – now that the email is on autopilot you will have the time to give 100% to testing Facebook ads – speaking of, before doing any Facebook ads check out this episode!
Transcript from Episode 8 of the Marketing and Service with Justin Varuzzo podcast:
You’ve got to get over this fear. Our guest today is going to help you do it that, and more coming up on the marketing and service.com podcast. Hey Justin, Bruzzo here from the marketing and service.com podcast. Today is all about your fears and anxieties. Obviously we are in very difficult times, and this has been an incredible and challenging period for everyone, no matter what you do. And no matter what industry you’re in, nothing has been easy. You may be overwhelmed with a lot of different things going on all at the same time, but you may be persistent and you’re writing down goals. And you’re trying to tackle all these things at once, but maybe just maybe focusing on just one single goal would help bring all the other things into view. We have an awesome guest today. Who’s a certified coach and an educator, a mentor, and a motivational speaker. And we’re going to dig into some of the psychology that may be at play and may benefit you when trying to figure out what problem you’re going to tackle next. Especially when it seems like all the problems are coming all at once. Today’s guests and I have a lot in common and we had an excellent time during this interview, and I really hope that you enjoyed as much as I did
So today I am super excited to have our guests . Mark Morton. Mark is a certified coach. He’s an educator, a mentor, a motivational speaker, and he’s dedicated his life to working and serving his community at large. His mission is to build, encourage, and motivate growth and transformation in himself and others. And I had a chance to speak with him last week and he is just killing it. He’s doing an awesome job and he’s got a lot to talk about. So we’re going to jump right into it. Mark. Welcome to the show.
Coach Mark Morton:
Thank you for inviting me. Listen, I need to take you on the road with me to introduce me everywhere that I go. That was awesome.
Justin Varuzzo:
When people have a hype man behind them and always makes it so much more exciting .
Speaker 3:
Cool. So I , I, you know, we , uh, we
Justin Varuzzo:
Spoke last week and you had mentioned a , you have a background in education.
Coach Mark Morton:
I do. Uh, I’ve been in the educational arena for , uh, almost 17, 18 years now. Maybe even longer. Yeah . Yeah.
Justin Varuzzo:
And , and what type of education were you involved with?
Coach Mark Morton:
Well, I started as a , uh, in middle school , uh, teaching sixth grade and then I started working on the business side of it training and supporting teachers. So currently right now I’m managing a project where I have over a hundred teachers that I support and help them as they’re helping students that struggle with reading. Oh, that is fantastic.
Justin Varuzzo:
And I know that’s gotta be a huge challenge, especially in COVID because I, I am also in the education space , uh , for , for a long time in music education. Uh, and I, you know, seeing what teachers are going through , uh, and it’s so impressive what has been accomplished despite the horrible circumstances of COVID , uh, and, and to see what the kids have accomplished. You know, a lot of them, you know , learning on an iPad , uh, with shaky internet connections and, you know, Chromebooks that can barely run zoom. Uh, it’s really been a wild ride this year. So I , uh , my , my hats off to you,
Coach Mark Morton:
It has been really interesting, but you know, the , the wonderful thing about challenges and , uh, such as COVID is it , uh, it invokes innovation as well as shows us just how resilient we are as a people. So you definitely have been able to see that , uh , in the work that we do. Yes .
Justin Varuzzo:
That’s absolutely fantastic. Now you’re located in Georgia, right?
Coach Mark Morton:
Yes. Hi lends as they say , lots of Georgia .
Justin Varuzzo:
Excellent. Yeah. And you you’d mentioned, you told the story, I would love for you to share it with our audience. Uh, we, you know, as you know, this podcast is all about customer service and you told me a story about the gas stations there. That I absolutely love that story. I would love if you could tell that for us.
Coach Mark Morton:
Yeah. So we have , uh, here in Georgia, we have these gas stations called QuikTrip . Um, and when I first started going to QuikTrip, they’re not the traditional gas station. If you will, there are a lot cleaner and so forth this , but outside of vet , I know this, that they have this customer service, that any time that anyone walked into their store, regardless of what they were doing, even if they were waiting on customers, they acknowledged you and spoke to you, welcome to QuikTrip . Welcome . And I’m not promoting QuikTrip . They’re not paying me . But that model is something that really touches home because they Chapman’s is something that all the other gas stations here in the state, and that I’ve not really seen in any other place do. And that was the acknowledgement of your presence. We often go into businesses and no one even recognizes us, or they don’t, they recognize us , but don’t even speak. But to just stop and said , regardless of what they’re doing to say, Hey, welcome to quick trip . It makes you build a different there’s amazing experience. So that model I’ve definitely picked up on and noticed earlier on when they actually started their business here.
Justin Varuzzo:
That’s so great. Yeah. I know up here in New York, if someone actually raises their head to even look at you in a gas station , uh , you’ve already, you’ve already gone much further than what is typical in this area.
Coach Mark Morton:
Exactly. It’s almost like, you know, the chick will make philosophy as well. Uh , they have the same philosophy in customer service. And as you started looking at their model, one of the things that they do is most people hire and then try , try to train you to be into their culture from the moment that they interview , they set the tone for their culture is the presence. When you walk in, and if you don’t meet that culture and you don’t meet what they’re looking for, they don’t even continue with it. And so as you talk about customer service, it’s really what is the culture that you’re trying to portray and what you want. And then you establish it from day one and make sure that anyone that’s attached to you is following that same culture.
Justin Varuzzo:
It’s fantastic. That’s absolutely. And if you were to do a deep financial analysis on this gas station chain, how much did you think they had to spend to implement this program? Not a dime. Isn’t that something incredible. That is the best part of it .
Coach Mark Morton:
So it’s just the same thing. When you talk about the level of cleanliness and all those other things. Cause w when we think about gas stations and I’ve done some quite a few in New York , um, you go in and their cleanliness can be here that, you know , are missing more than they are hitting , but everything about them, speak to the culture and the environment that they want to give off from the cleanness to the way they speak the way they mentioned their restaurants. And as a result, they’ve been , uh, they’ve outlasted, a number of different other , uh , businesses that do the same thing.
Justin Varuzzo:
So it goes to show that it was worth it for them. And that, that there is a payoff for that, that type of behavior. And in treating people with respect, you think it was common sense, but I will say even in our dirty gas stations in New York, we do have buttered hard rolls and great bagels. So we can always count on that. So speaking of food, one of the other things we have in common is we both had a successful weight loss journey. Uh , tell, tell me a little bit about that, how that worked out for you.
Coach Mark Morton:
So, you know, when , uh , my story is that I was on a constant roller coaster of ups and downs, I would get motivated and I would lose weight. I would lose 20 pounds, 30 pounds. They’re getting really excited. Everyone’s complimented me on my weight loss. And then I will start eating the same foods that I was before I started losing the weight. And then I would gain the weight and plus , um , so it was a constant roller coaster of ups and downs. When I start going through coaching , uh, one of the things that I realized is that I would invest all of my energy into losing the weight, but I did not invest as much energy into keeping it off . This is powerful because what this did was it shifted the way I thought about weight loss and my lifestyle. And so since then, I’ve lost a total of 65 pounds, 45 in the last two years.
Justin Varuzzo:
Congratulations, man, that is fantastic, have been able to maintain
Coach Mark Morton:
It . And I think it comes all about even as a coach. One of the things that I do is I have been trained as well as what I use is a three, a three process learn, be , do most of us move into action? I’m going to lose the weight. I’m going to do the dial. I’m going to go to the gym. That’s the DuPont, that’s the ax .
Justin Varuzzo:
The alarm goes off the next morning. And I say, eh , I don’t feel like going to the gym anymore.
Coach Mark Morton:
Exactly. So what I helped do, and what I had to do for myself is the learning and the beam . What has been sabotaging my success, what motivates me ? What , um , are those things that will allow me to be successful in my journey? So this , uh , take taking the journey through all of the learnings and then who do I want to be in the ads ? Uh , what characteristics do I need to have show up all those types of things. And then I’m better able to put a plan in the action to be successful because I’ve put in the work prior to doing the actual action.
Justin Varuzzo:
Yeah , that’s great. And one , you know, one thing I noticed is when I lost weight and I’ve also kept mine off for , it’s been about probably close to six years now, I found that other things in life started to come together. It was like grabbing control of this one aspect of my life, just magically made other things happen, especially with money, the fatter I got the more broke and the deeper in debt I was and the thinner I’ve gotten, the leaner I’ve gotten with my spending and the more money I save, it’s really incredible. And I think sometimes this applies to business. You know , I look at old school, motivational speakers, Les Brown, Brian, Tracy, Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins, you know, they would always talk about creating goals. And it’s easy to sit down and say, all right, I have this goal . I’m going to lose weight. I’m going to save money. I’m going to do this. I’m going to do that. And I think a lot of people, especially in business, because there’s so many little things and aspects to it, you start to just, you lose it. You can’t focus on a million different things. And like you said, when you plan it and you sit down and say, listen, this is one thing that’s important to me. And this is one thing I am going to do. I’m going to lose weight. This is how I’m going to do it. These are my goals at every step of the way, they’re going to be specific goals. They’re going to be measurable goals. They’re going to be attainable. They’re going to be great goals. And, and you do it. And when you start to gain that traction, as I said, it’s just, it’s like magic. All of a sudden, other things just start happening that are positive and go hand in hand with your success.
Coach Mark Morton:
Yeah. That’s so much in that statement. And I think part of it, well, this is just a short part, cause it’s going to be different for everyone. I think it’s the investment that you put in yourself, whether it’s mindset, whether it’s around the body or whether it’s around your spiritual wellbeing , when you invest in yourself, it has a effect on everything that you do. And so if I was working with someone and they said, I lost weight, how does this apply to my business or the success of my business? Well, the first question I would ask is who were you when you lost weight? What characteristics showed up ? What , uh , you know, what was the presence did you have in the weight loss? Because if you can tap into those pieces, which has to do with the beam that you applied, those same concepts to the other things in your life, because if you can be successful here, you can be successful in this area as well. Exactly. Yup. Good about yourself, losing weight, you know, shifting your mindset. And it just brings a level of competence . It brings something , uh, allows you to show up bigger and larger and it usually is replicated in your business and every other area.
Justin Varuzzo:
So great. That’s so, and I, you know, if there’s a takeaway from this, it really is. If, if you, if you get some small wins , uh, there’s momentum to it, I think, right. You know, if you achieve something, if you set a goal and you achieve it, even if it’s something simple and even if it’s, if it’s a subtle thing and not some big dramatic, I’m gonna lose 500 pounds, but you know, I’m going to try to eat vegetables at least twice a day for the next two weeks. Right? And you write that down, you check it off your list and now you have this little win once it’s done, or maybe you do it at the end of the day. Uh, but it seems like every time you get these little wins, it becomes more and more , uh, inspirational. Uh, it seems like the inverse of that is when goals are more lofty and big and it takes a lot longer to get from beginning to end is when people tend to give up much easier. Uh, you know, we , we, we all know people, we I’m sure we’ve all done it ourselves. You, you set this big goal and maybe it’s five years out. Uh, and, and it’s just too much to figure out and to think that far in the future and , uh, you know, six months into it , you don’t see progress or a year into it . You don’t see progress. And before you know it, you just forgot about it. It’s not even a thing anymore.
Coach Mark Morton:
Yeah. So, you know, one of the things, some tools that we use is , um , we do this , uh, actual exercise that is called future self, which is about designed to be about five years. And we take you on a journey where you meet your future self as successful tapping into what is called hope, fear . This is my desire. This is what I believe about myself and hope meaning I’m successful at the big goal. And you get advice from this successful person, but to narrow it down, we also do something which is called a vision recording, which usually is about three months. And you pretty much look at it similar to if you were attract stock and you were running in the elementaries. So you go and you play out the whole , I see myself getting down in the blocks. I’m anticipating the sound of the gun. You go through all of the steps to get you through to the end of the race. It’s the same thing that you would do in the business, in your personal goals, you write it all out and all those things that will help you be successful at the end of the three months. So it’s taking that big goal, narrow it down to three months , right ? Into more manageable little pieces. And then you write it out, all the steps that you need to have in place. Now, for me, when I did it, I listened to it every day, every day, because what you be do your spirit. It comes out and it manifests itself. So I recently did it at the start of the year. And I said about an in the March, I’m going to have , um , credit cards paid off. I’m going to have all these other goals and everything, and what you put out in the universe. It responds . And out of all, all the things that I put in my vision record pretty much have come to pass with exception of one or two items, and I’ve got a week to do it.
Justin Varuzzo:
That’s awesome. That is so fantastic. You w one of the things , uh , that I think a lot of business owners and people in management positions, and , uh , especially in marketing and in customer service, there’s always a lot of fear. Uh, obviously everyone fears the unknown. Uh, if, if you’re trying to provide this exceptional level of service and you ask yourself, well , what’s holding me back. Uh, most people would say fear, maybe it’s fear of quality control. I don’t think my product is good enough. I , if I give it , uh , if I give it a two year warranty, it’ll break every time and I’ll be out of business. Uh, maybe it’s a fear of , uh , having a return policy that’s too long. Uh , what if someone changes their mind after 30 or 60 days? And you’ll ask someone, well, how many returns do you get within 30 days? And they’ll say, Oh, maybe one a year , uh , maybe one a month. There’s some very insignificant number. Uh, and he say , so you think if you put that to 60 suddenly , uh , everyone’s going to say, well , now I’m going to return it after 45 days when they didn’t return it within 30. Uh, so these little things to me are , are really important customer service tools. And they help to build trust by having longer return periods and having better warranties and , uh, you know, ensuring you take the time to do quality control. If you’re selling a product or service or software, something, that’s a little more complicated helping customers through it. So , uh, it , it seems that whenever it’s approach like, Oh, Hey, why don’t you try this? It’s always, ah, that’s too scary. I don’t know . It’s too scary. I don’t know. That’s why I don’t know what the result will be, but not knowing makes people not do things that maybe they should do.
Coach Mark Morton:
Yeah. Wow. That’s , that’s a lot of spear as grappling, right. It holds us back, but how much of fear is a lie, right. And how you know, and one of the things like, for example, going, I’m gonna make a connection. Then I’m going to come back. One of the things that I had told myself my entire life was I was not a runner . And I told myself that so much that it became a core value in my life. So anytime that I wanted to think about running, I saw my friends doing five Ks and 10 Ks . I know I can’t do that because I’m not a runner. So I had to defeat the lie and kill the lie. And so defeating. That means that I started this program called counselor 5k. And last year in March, I ran my first 5k in record time for a new one.
Justin Varuzzo:
That is fantastic. Congratulations. So
Coach Mark Morton:
When you have a mindset, when you have certain things, as it relates to business in my office, I have a note on my computer and I have a note sign says, just do it. Rapid action is the biggest thing that you can do to combat fear , because there’s something that is really keeping that. And sometimes you just got to push past, you just got to it . It may not be right. It may fail. But then like you said, you take the learning from the failure and you move forward with the second thing is trying to understand where is the fear coming from? Because if you understand where the fear is coming from, then you can put something to come back there and put a plan in action to come off with it . So those are two quick things that you can do just push right past and just go, I’m going to do it. And if you fail, fail forward, as Johnson Maxwell says ,
Justin Varuzzo:
And , and the longer you take to think about it, I think the more time it has to fester in your mind and create those negative emotions and then helps build the fear factor, right?
Coach Mark Morton:
Uh , do you know the Colonel Sanders, how many times he was told? No. Before second was father , the accepted times that will take all of the surprise out of it. Most people would have given up after five, 10, maybe joined a stretch 100, but to have a thousand people, can you imagine the mindset, the fear that was going around when someone was tasting his chicken, like, Oh, another failure, because he had a pattern. It wasn’t anything undisclosed. He had church that he had a thousand chimps where people told him, this is not good. This is not, but that was something inside of him. They knew I got something and I’m not going to allow anything to stop me from reaching my goal and my destiny of producing this finger licking. Good.
Justin Varuzzo:
And that is the perfect example to go back to what we started with when , when goals are far off, you know, when you, when you’re working towards something and you don’t get that, it’s so easy to quit. I mean, honestly, when I started this podcast, I was talking to a friend of mine who just said, everyone’s doing podcasts now. Don’t don’t bother. And at first I was like, yeah, you know, he’s right. A lot of people are doing podcasts now, but then I thought about it . I said, well, you know, Hollywood was making movies in the thirties, forties and fifties, they were massive hits and it didn’t stop Steven Spielberg from coming in. It didn’t stop George Lucas. It hasn’t stopped any new movies for the, you know, for the history of movies. Right? Uh, same with YouTube. You know, everyone does YouTube now, but every day there’s a new person who hits on YouTube and builds an incredible successful career on that platform, regardless of who’s already there, or how many people are involved with it,
Coach Mark Morton:
This world is a big pie. Everyone can have their piece of the pack and not affect anyone else from getting there . So go for it . If that’s what you have a call in , or you feel like something is calling you to a particular works industry of bill, that’s going to always be, this is saturated. I don’t know what I’m doing. You’re going to have all these thoughts and that’s that negative self-talk. So what you have to do is this is one practical thing you have, you have to burn where you’re going, not where you currently are. So I had I’m over 40. So I had 40 years of stinking thinking and , uh , limiting beliefs. So when I ha I had unsharp in my life of horrible thinking. So I had to strangle that. And the only way that you can Springer and kill that is by affirming , where do you want to go? And the truth is I speak affirmations over myself every day. Your plan small does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that others won’t feel insecure around. And our kids speaking that speaking then because of what you speak becomes an echo chamber into your ears. And if it goes back into video , start believing it and it will show up.
Justin Varuzzo:
Awesome. Yeah. And I, you know, especially in sales , uh , and confidence is so important. Uh, and, and like you said, going through affirmations and , and building that confidence, even if it’s something you might have a little bit of that imposter syndrome or something, but if you go in and you do the work and you’re confident you’re going to be successful. And I , I really do believe that. Yeah . So two, two questions. I always have to ask everyone on this podcast, all my guests is the first one is going to be, what is the biggest mistake that you made that turned into a learning opportunity? I firmly believe that everyone always talks about their successes. They rarely want to talk about their mistakes, but my mistakes have always been my biggest learning opportunities. And I think it’s great. I enjoy hearing other people’s mistakes. So I don’t make the same one.
Coach Mark Morton:
Yeah. So I will say probably lack of preparation is , um, not, there’s a certain level of preparation and work that you have to do that you have to invest into it. And so even if at the end of the day, it does not fully reach the goal that you desire. If you have put in the work and done that, then you take the learning of why it didn’t happen. And my biggest mistake was being overconfident , uh , that is what’s going to happen. People are going to show up and not investing the work and the time and the energy to manifest what I desired so that I , I think just really preparing yourself and , uh, investing the time, energy and the resources into what you want to see manifest it.
Justin Varuzzo:
I absolutely love it. Someone once said, if you can see it, you can have it, right. It’s a , it’s, it’s tough. It’s tough to do sometimes, but , uh, I love it. Uh , what is the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten?
Coach Mark Morton:
Um, stopped playing small stop plants about cause we over , uh, we downplay who we are, our capabilities , uh, what we have and we placed them all. We only do those things that we feel like we’re going to be successful with it , um, and excludes us out of everything else. So probably one of the biggest pieces of advices that hits home for me is stopped playing small.
Justin Varuzzo:
That’s great. And I know you , uh, you want to talk a little bit about your coaching services. You’re doing that now, and I’d love for my audience to be able to connect with you on that .
Coach Mark Morton:
Yeah. So as I mentioned, one of the things that I , uh do is build , encourage and motivate growth and transformation. And I believe in holistic transformation, mind, body, soul, and spirit. Uh, so part of what I do as a coach is I help people uncover their unlimited potential about themselves and invest in their minds so that they can show up and be whoever they want to be. Just like you said, the world is unlimited. If so, if we can send someone to the moon we’ve been in their mind first. And if you have a vision in your mind unlimited potential, that is positive . So helping them attack their mindsets, also transformation in the body and then beating your soul and spirit. So that’s what I work around in either one or all of those areas, holistic transformation. That’s what I’ve seen work in my life. And I see it help support others as they are doing.
Justin Varuzzo:
That’s great. And people can connect with you on your Facebook page, which is coach Mark Morton. And I’ll also of course, put a link to that in the show notes on our website, which is marketing and service.com, that’s marketing and service.com. Uh , and that link will be in the show notes. And you definitely want to hook up with coach Mark Morton . He’s going to help you out. And , and especially if you’re having any of these issues with fear or not sure where the goal should be, or how far out you should set them or what successes you should be looking for. Then I think it’s definitely worth spending some time with Mark. And with that, Mark, thank you so much for being on this show. It’s been absolutely fantastic. I’ve loved having you here. I think we covered a lot of really, really cool stuff and I , and I really super appreciate that.
Coach Mark Morton:
Thank you . Thank you for having me. I’m so humbled by this conversation and I’ve enjoyed it tremendously.
Justin Varuzzo:
Wow. Mark was an absolutely incredible guest and what a tremendous amount of insight he provided for us definitely do not miss checking him out on his Facebook page. The link of course will be in the show. If you enjoyed this show today, please take a moment to review and leave five stars. It means so much to us, especially if you subscribe or you follow on this podcast, your support is greatly, greatly appreciated. Don’t forget to check us out on Facebook either because you are invited to join us on the marketing and service.com podcast Facebook group. This is a private group where we can discuss things that happened in the episode, maybe challenges that you’re facing and ideas for future episodes. If there’s something specific that you’d like to learn more about after talking to Mark, I feel like I have to go and take some action right now. So I’m out of here. Thanks so much for listening. Have a great day.