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Corey has done so many cool things and he’s interviewed thousands of people. He used to be a professional comedian and now he’s a professional speaker giving speaking engagements to corporations and to people who are looking for a little bit of motivation and inspiration to go out and do cool amazing things. One of the things that Corey brought up in the interview, which I thought was super cool, was he called it ‘delivering the wow’. He made some comments about some organizations that are often delivering the wow and do some things that are super cool that get people talking about them. That’s what I want to focus on at the end of the episode today: working on delivering the wow. Enjoy!
A Canadian Professional Keynote Speaker, Entrepreneur and Corporate Customer Service & Sales Training Specialist, Corey Poirier is publisher of Island Business News, author of four acclaimed books in the Conversations With series, creator of three audio programs and the host of a new radio show entitled “Conversations with Passions,” a variety show that features interviews with world-wide leaders such as David Suzuki and Jack Canfield.
Zeb’s Take – Delivering the Wow
Corey had a lot of insights and he’s done a lot of really cool things. Being a stand up comedian in and of itself is probably a pretty difficult task. You have to overcome a lot of hurdles about getting in front of people and putting yourself out there like he did. I know for sure that has led him to do some things that are outside of the box and have pushed him outside of his comfort zone. It’s very cool that now he’s speaking to businesses and organizations about stepping outside of their comfort zones. I’m sure the his speaking engagements are always well received and that he does a great job with those.
One of the things he brought up in the interview today was, he was talking about delivering the wow. I think that’s a cool thing for any business to do. There’s a lot of ways that businesses could go about doing that. I just want to touch on it, because I think it’s so important for a business not just to do what you say you are going to do, but offer something that really offers that wow factor. Make people go Wow, that’s something that’s really nice to do. Businesses need to think about delivering the wow, and how they can do that within their business.
He shared one example from Disneyland. Anywhere in the park, if someone drops an ice cream cone, any employee can go and get them a fresh ice cream free of charge. That’s something that’s pretty cool. That’s delivering the wow. Where most organizations, they’re looking at the bottom line, they say that doesn’t make sense. But that’s something where they are delivering that wow factor which gets people to come back more and more often. Another example would be if a child was waiting to get an autograph from one of the characters but they ran out of time. An employee could go and get that signature for them and deliver it to their hotel or something cool like that. Those are the type of things that really leave a lasting impression with people.
I think in business sometimes people get caught up in, “What do the shareholders want? What is this going to be worth? What is the value of each little thing that we are doing.” But when you do those cool things, those are things that can’t be measured but can lead to amazing success for an organization.
I think about my tutoring business. One of the greatest decisions we ever made was offering our Share Your Passion Scholarship. We just did something that we thought was cool. We offered a scholarship for students who could write an essay that would talk about what they are passion about, why they are passionate about it and how they are using their passion to help others. By doing that we got a lot of word of mouth from people in our community, from counselors in high schools, that just really expanded our business greatly. The real reason why we wanted to do it, we just wanted to do something cool.
I think that if we leave those things for the world; we do cool things for the world, we leave those wows for the world; that one the world is going to be a better place, and two that we will be better served for it.
I had a great time talking to Corey, it looks like we’ll have strong collaboration moving forward. we talked a bit after the interview. I want to leave you with one more thing and that is to go out there and find your success!
Find out more about Corey and his Projects
Visit ConversationsWithPassion.com to find out about his show and hear the show.
Visit CoreyPoirier.com, his speaking related website.
Connect with Corey on social media using links from either of those websites.
Interestingly if you want to find out more about Corey, check out his first music video, Your Jacob on YouTube.
Quotes
- “No matter where you are at in today’s global world you can be highly successful and you don’t have to leave the place that you love to do it.”
- “We’re in an information heavy/wisdom light world, so it means ciphering through the information so you can get to the knowledge that matters.”
- “Super achievers realize the importance of and know how to be absolutely all in.”
- “These high achievers are living their purpose and living with passion.”
- “They don’t necessarily love everything they do, but everything that they do is for a bigger purpose, and they are doing it passionately because they are passionate people and where that started is because they found their passion and that is how they are living their life.”
- “I made my business fit into my life rather than the other way around. To me success is being able to know everyday that I made a difference, but at the same time, I made a difference doing what I love.”
- “I believe that I’ve impacted a lot of lives and I believe what I am doing is worthy. And I actually really like me.”
- “I’m trying to be awesome everyday.”
More from the Interview
Corey has kind of a neat starting point, different from the rest of our guests. He started his journey as a stand up comedian. It’s a strange entry point for entering the speaking world. He feels that stand up comedy prepared him well for his career. He really does a lot of storytelling, even the message he shares through the written word.
He spends most of his time as a professional speaker. He has companies bring him in to do motivation talks, educational talks, all that kind of stuff. They bring me in to share a powerful message with their attendees, or staff members, their association. Those messages can be anything from how to find your passion in life to what are the common traits of super achievers, to how do people define success and how can you make that work in your life. He also has a radio show, and a newspaper and other areas where he shares those messages.
One of his speaking engagement topics is Standing Ovations from Every Customer. He actually turned the speech into a book a couple years ago. It’s a fictional tale of a stand up comic teaching a business person how to get standing ovations in their customer service role or the customer service experience that they create.
There are 4 steps to get a standing ovation from every customer. They sound basic on the service, but they are not as basic as they sound to put them in play.
1. How do you make it about your customer?
2. Involving the customer.
3. Being in the moment.
4. Delivering the wow.
One of the little things that you could do that are worth their weight in gold that in some cases may not cost a thing, that make the person go, “Wow, I never saw that coming.” It’s the thing they didn’t even know they need yet and you’ve given it to them.
Companies that are delivering the wow regularly are companies like Apple and Disney. Apple, solving problems with your phone that you didn’t even know you had in the past. Disney, in their training they teach employees to recognize that if visitors are wearing jewelry brought from Disney to tell them, “Welcome back to Disney.” That’s something Corey heard from a trainer who does customer service and training sessions at Disney.
At Disney if a child drops an ice cream cone anywhere on the Disney grounds any employee is empowered to get them a new ice cream cone. Or if they waited for an autograph from Pluto but they were too late. An employee is empowered to get that autograph for them and leave it for them in their room if they are staying at a Disneyland Hotel. All those things are them delivering the wow.
Another one of his speeches is Atlantic Canada Matters (Inspirational). It’s a bit more geographically and comes from one of his projects called Conversations With. They put out 5 books in a series where they profiled high achievers in different regions of Atlantic Canada. It’s about how you don’t have to move away to be successful. These interviews prove that that’s not the case. They demonstrate that you don’t have to move away from this little place to actually make an impact.
It can be customized to any region or any company or any place, because really at the center of the talk itself is the idea that no matter where you are at in today’s global world you can be highly successful and you don’t have to leave the place that you love to do it.
“No matter where you are at in today’s global world you can be highly successful and you don’t have to leave the place that you love to do it.”
One of Corey’s most popular sessions these days is what he calls, Signs of Super Achievement. He’s interviewed over 2,500 people at a high achievement level. So he’s been able to do a sort of research project. He’s deciphered the things that they’re doing differently that allows them to stand out. The talk is revealing those strategies. One of those things is that they are willing to expand their comfort zone, so they can continue to step outside and grow their comfort zone over and over so they can become the best version of themselves.
Some of the other things that super achievers do is that they are lifelong learners, they realize the importance of and know how to be absolutely all in, and the number one trait is that they are living their purpose and living with passion.
“We’re in an information heavy wisdom light world, so it means ciphering through the information so you can get to the knowledge that matters.”
“Super achievers realize the importance of and know how to be absolutely all in.”
“These high achievers are living their purpose and living with passion.”
“They don’t necessarily love everything they do, but everything that they do is for a bigger purpose, and they are doing it passionately because they are passionate people and where that started is because they found their passion and that is how they are living their life.”
Corey says, for these three traits the person doesn’t have to be born in any certain area in the world, doesn’t have to come from any unique background, there’s no stigmas or anything associated with achieving these three. Anybody from any point in their life can start today and bring these three things in their life.
Corey shares a story that he likes to think of when he’s having a bad day. There was a girl who had seen him on tv when she was younger and she remembered him. Years later when she found out Corey would be speaking nearby she made sure to attend. A while afterwards she contacted him and told him that the talk he gave was the kick in the butt she needed. She decided to go back to school, from there she got a job and at the time she talked to him she was the manager of a few car rental locations. She told him that she never really thought a future like that was possible for her, but that kick in the butt was just what she needed to get her life going.
Corey has learned a lot from his failures, which make them worthwhile. One failure that really affected his life was from his very first stand up show. He was told that he would be performing on stage that night and he was not prepared. He decided to face fear head on so out of a few comics he stood up and went first. The first thing he did was tell the best joke he had ever told, it was met with dead silence. He told his second best joke and got the same response. The organizer of the show motioned him to the corner of stage and said, “You idiot, you have to wait until I turn the mic on.”
Corey took lessons away from that on so many levels. Including that sometimes in business we’re ready to share a message, but we haven’t turned our mic on yet.
Right now he is very excited about a compilation book project he’s working on. It’s called share your message with the world. It is Corey and 26 other authors, they are each sharing a story or message that in some ways changed their life. Corey’s chapter is about living YOUR bucket list. Rather than live society’s bucket list, do all the things that society wants you to do. Rip that bucket list apart and make sure you do all the things that you want to do. Dont try to live someone else’s bucket list. Corey is excited about the project and all the passionate people involved.
The most funny interview Corey had was with Robin Sharma, author of 11 books including The Leader Who Had No Title and the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. When the interview was scheduled he got a horrible toothache, but they had already rescheduled. In the interview he was trying to ask short questions and was sipping lots of water to soothe his toothache. Then he had to go to the bathroom pretty much the whole time. At the end it came out alright, but there was a lot of obstacles for him, looking back on it now he remembers how funny it was.
When he first started interviewing people he made a list of 100 people that he would want to interview. His friends who saw his list told him he’d be lucky to interview 10 of the people on the list. Now he’s interviewed 93 of those people. Including his interview with Jack Canfield. The day before his interview Jack was on Larry King Live and the day after he was on the Oprah Network. By sharing the benefits of his show he was able to get more interviews.
“I made my business fit into my life rather than the other way around. To me success is being able to know everyday that I made a difference, but at the same time, I made a difference doing what I love.”
“I believe that I’ve impacted a lot of lives and I believe what I am doing is worthy. And I actually really like me.”
“I’m trying to be awesome everyday.”
