¶ Business Brain – The Entrepreneurs’ Podcast #634 for Wednesday, March 26th, 2025
Business Brain, episode 634, for Wednesday, March 26th, Live Long and Prosper Day, 2025. Greetings, folks, and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take some ideas, We crunch them, we dissect them, we discuss them, we use them to tune and tweak our business brain so that we can each keep living those charmed lives. Sponsors for this episode, easy for me to say, includes Shopify.com slash BusinessBrain. You can sign up for a $1 per month trial period.
And then Rogamiba software making some great Mac audio software that can do local transcriptions. Mac audio.com slash brain is where you go to download free trials and save 20% with code brain. We'll talk more about that in a little bit for now here in Durham, New Hampshire. I'm Dave Hamilton.
And here in Northern California, I'm Shannon Jean. We always have an official day, but today for me is official first time wearing shorts for 2025.
¶ First official Shannon Wears Shorts day of 2025
Interesting. Yeah, because it's going to be 78 degrees here today, some early spring weather. So yeah, I'm happy to be here.
Nice. I have not worn shorts. Did I wear shorts at home? We had a warm spell. I don't think I did. I probably could have, but I wore shorts when I was in Austin for South by Southwest. There you go. There you go.
Perfect. Hey, but we're pretty upbeat here, pretty positive, very optimistic.
¶ The Worst Customer Service Experience
But I want to talk about a horrible customer service experience and see what we can learn from it.
Okay.
I've had not to. So I had, for years, I had an account, and I'm just going to say who it is. It doesn't matter. It's an account with Bluehost. They handled my managing domains that I use. They handled some WordPress sites that I managed, even my own domain at shannonjean.com they handled.
Yep.
And last year, and I should say they were great for a number of years. And I believe they've since been sold to some sort of private equity thing or something like that.
Probably makes sense.
Yeah, makes sense. So last year, I had some problems. My sites started getting hacked, and it went crazy, and I couldn't get fixed. And every time I tried to get help, I was just sold and upsold into some other security thing. But it always fall back on me, and they couldn't help me, and this and that. It was a terrible experience. So I moved a bunch of my sites off of Bluehost. Okay. Went with a new provider, actually, a great company called Eversight. They helped me out.
Fixed some stuff in the middle of the night. It was great.
Okay. This all sounds very positive so far.
That is super, super, super. So I had just left my domains there.
Okay.
This was a mistake.
Oh, yes.
Yeah. For voting. So-
That's what yachts are for.
Yes. Foreboding. That's it. I like it.
That's a Rocky Horror callback. Well, it's actually a Rocky Horror callback.
Okay, it's pretty good.
And that's foreboding of an episode that we're going to have in a week from today. I'll review the new Strange Journey film because it's all about Rocky Horror and it is a fantastic business story, which I didn't realize when I first sat down to watch the movie. But anyway.
It's perfect. Perfect. Anyway, so I had a hosting plan, and then I just had domains. So I had my domains set up to point to various other companies, right? Because I had changed. I wasn't hosting with them anymore. So I said, well, I registered the domains. I can just change the DNS, right?
Yep.
And that's normal. Every ISP, every GoDaddy, Namecheap, whatever.
Every registrar is what we call them, right? The people that we register.
You have access to your DNS, and you can just change stuff and point and say, well, when you go to Shannon Jean, or in the case that happened this last week as a nonprofit that I helped manage, you go to their website, it redirects to this other place. Well, my hosting service ended, and Bluehost... Blew up every one of those DNS records.
Oh, they just... Wait, so they stopped hosting your website and then also stopped being your master DNS?
They didn't stop being master DNS. They reset it to their defaults.
Oh, of course, because you stopped paying for their hosting service.
But I've never paid for hosting. So maybe I'm in the wrong here. So you can check me.
I could be a misunderstanding. I'm just some guy in a freezing cold studio.
Yeah, that's right. I've had domains registered, you know, GoDaddy, Namecheap, whatever. And I never pay for hosting, but I use the DNS. I don't have a hosting plan.
I understand.
I just, I use our DNS. So my thought, and if you're listening at home, playing along at home, you can tell me if I'm wrong at feedback at businessbrain.show. The hosting plans were separate from your domains and DNS.
That's generally how it is. You pay the DNS to renew every year.
Yeah, renew every year your control of your DNS.
As part of that, they give you the ability to manage DNS, but not at Bluehost or Eversight, which one of them.
Oh, okay. No, no, not at Bluehost. Eversight saved me. The Bluehost fell apart. So I battled back and forth with them. Finally, I have to transfer this domain out of Bluehost to get control of it again. And did you know that, and again, maybe my experience is different, but it takes three to four days for Bluehost to issue you a code. To transfer your domain.
I really try hard not to swear when we do this show. But, and I will refrain. But that's BS, Shannon. Right? That's BS. That problem should be instant. Instantaneous.
Correct. There is no, that is a, we don't want you to leave. Yes. And we want you to wait and change your mind.
And that's ridiculous, dude. But that's not, we don't want you to leave. We want you to suffer because you're leaving.
Yes, and I have been suffering because I could – I eventually – Oh.
Yeah, no.
It's been – dude, I hit the ceiling. And I had to go register another domain so I could get back control of this – it was brutal.
Oh, right, because you couldn't even log in because there was nowhere to log in. Because you didn't have a domain pointed at it. Correct. Yeah, I got it. Okay. Correct.
So, and every time I reached out to Bluehost to have help, their answer was, you need to buy a hosting package to manage. I said, no, no, no, no, no, I do not. And so, we went round and around and around. And I will just say, they used to be amazing. They were very helpful years, you know, maybe three years ago.
The economy has changed things. Must have. You know, I mean, obviously. Yeah, I get it. Yep, things are softer currently.
Yes, it's not the people that were trying to help me. It's not their fault. Not at all. They're just trying to, hey, I'm typing in your chat. I'm trying to help you. But the policies that they have where you're not in control of your domains unless you have a hosting package with them. That's really what it comes down to.
Right, right. No, that's...
And that's BS.
It should be separate. So I have... I have a story that I want to share, but I'm not going to in the interest of time and just keeping things positive.
My rant is done, and I'm a very positive person.
I will offer one of the most positive things I have found for hosting domains,
¶ Dave’s advice: Use Cloudflare Domain Registrar
registering domains, and that is Cloudflare. Cloudflare, it's a relatively new thing for Cloudflare, only the last few years.
Yeah, because they're usually the domain protection type thing.
Right? You can manage your DNS with them for free, and that's what I've been doing for a very long time. And I highly recommend that unless you have a specific reason not to use Cloudflare, as a default, I recommend you use Cloudflare to manage your DNS. Even if you register your domain with GoDaddy or Namecheap or somebody else, right?
I don't know how to do that.
You just go to sign up for a Cloudflare account, and they will walk you through making them the domain managers.
No charge.
Correct. And Cloudflare's whole mission is to make the internet fast, secure, private, all that stuff. So they do a great job managing DNS. In fact, I would say probably 30% of the internet's DNS runs through Cloudflare anyway. So they're super fast and all that stuff.
That's great.
A few years ago, they added the ability to transfer your domains to them and have them be your registrar, and they don't mark that up much, if at all. Yeah. So they're one of the cheapest registrars, and now you can actually register new domains through them. So I've moved every one of my domains to Cloudflare, and I'll leave it positive. Yeah.
That's great. Put a link in the show notes. Absolutely. Yeah. And again, this is like if your business just went offline.
Yeah.
Like this. And then- You, you know, I got a lot going on. I'm not going to.
Evidently, your rant wasn't over. But that's okay. Yeah, I know. Sorry.
Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm done. I'm done. But so I'm just trying to say the seriousness of it is your business goes offline and it takes you three days to get control of your website again.
No bueno.
They're being heard of. Yeah. But thank you for the tip. I'm going to.
Yeah. Yeah. Check out. I'll put a link in the show. Awesome. Yeah. All right. You know, selling merch for my other podcasts and even my other businesses
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¶ Everyone Is a Customer
You know, Shannon, you reminded me earlier of a thing I say all the time, which is that every business is in the customer service business. We were talking about it pre-show. And we were talking about it pre-show because you have something to add to that about everyone being – treating everyone, thinking of everyone as a customer.
Yeah. If you're an entrepreneur or if you're the business owner, your customer isn't just your people that pay you money for stuff. This concept is that I believe is everyone is a customer. Your employees, first of all, right? You're constantly trying to attract the best talent. And I remember we had tech defenders on years ago, the CEO or whoever. And they talked about all the effort they put into their social media and stuff
to attract good talent, right? So your employees are definitely your customer. It's your job, part of your job, to create a place that they can thrive and be productive and do great things, but they're your customer. And I also think your suppliers are your customer.
Yes.
By inverting the concept, the framework of this supplier-client relationship, it really opens up opportunities for you. It saves you money because you get better deals, right? Because your relationships you have with these people, you treat them better. You just get, there's that law of reciprocity. You get more back. uh if i guarantee if you have a great relationship with the supplier and things are constrained and you needed to get some you're.
Going to have an easier time yeah
Yeah the person who's like cool and talk to and they they like you and they like to hear your voice that that's who's going to get you know uh get good and i i think it's the same with your the people that you hire like your accountant, your bank, if you have a banker, your insurance guy, whoever, your attorney, they're your customers too. If you help, well, I'm going to phrase this, you should be thinking of ways to help them. You should be thinking of ways that you can make their lives better.
Because when you do that, it automatically makes them want to make your life better.
Right?
They'll go the extra mile for you.
You know, yes. First of all, yes. And. Thank you.
That's our show today, folks.
That's it. Well, another way to think about this is, yes, they're all your customers. But what you're really, one of the things you're really talking about here is attention. Right. This is, it's all an attention game, right? We want our customers attention, right? For, for good reason. They're the people who spend money with our businesses. And in some ways it's easy to make our customers feel loved, right? We give them.
That's the whole focus.
Right? That's the whole focus, right? We give them products or services that are valuable to them. You create things so that it's not a zero-sum game, right, that you can both win together, all of that stuff. Your business is – hopefully, your business is organized to do that. That's the focus. So it's easy, I say. It's easy. It's not always easy. It's simple to come up with a way of running your business that's focused on
the people that we'll call your actual customers. like the people that spend money with you.
It's the default.
It's the default. But what's not the default is what you're talking about here, and that is getting vendors – to give you their attention, to choose to give you their attention. Maybe best said to want to give you their attention. And yes, you're spending money with them, but presumably they are not, you are not their only client. Right. And so like, you know, it was, as you were talking about attorneys, I was like, Oh, wait a minute.
This is it because sometimes I'm fighting to get my attorney's attention and that's right and i understand why i'm not always their biggest client in fact i kind of don't ever you don't
Want to be you don't want to be your attorney's biggest client no no.
Let's get that out there but yeah but like but then even though i'm you know hopefully a small fish to my attorney when i call him or text him i want attention quickly and how do you that well the day that you need the attention it's too late right it's too late so it's paving that path being kind and and it and there's nothing in here that's um maliciously manipulative right manipulation gets as a word gets a bad rap right because persuasion it's
persuasion it's it's just being kind to them and understanding that they're humans and and you're a human and relating with them and all of those things and if you can do that on a regular basis then And, you know, like there are the nice part is that and I say this is the nice part. It's really not. If you need attention from one of your suppliers, like an attorney or something like that, and they're not giving it to you.
At some point, you do get the opportunity to have the what people call the come to Jesus conversation like, hey, I need you. I understand I'm not your only client, but I am one of your clients. Right. You can do that. and you can guilt them a little bit into getting back on track. And that's fine. And that is a card to play at times. But if that's the only card you're ever playing, it's exhausting and it's not going to work.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's not that... You want to do this stuff because you should enjoy it too. Yes. If you have some vendor, supplier, accountant, attorney that's a jerk, I don't want to do business with them, so I won't. I'm going to move. Right. And I'm going to find somebody that meshes with who I am. Yes. And who values the time I put into their relationship. And you want them to think of, oh, I'm going to call Dave. I got to call Dave back, not who's this guy?
What business are we talking about? Oh, I got to call this guy. That doesn't work. No. So, you know.
You want them to miss you. Yes. When you don't have business for them. Yeah. Yes.
You should call these people or email them. I don't know. Whatever. Some sort of regular basis. Yeah. You know, it's great to talk to your attorney, to your accountant, when you don't need anything.
When you're not on the clock. Yeah.
I just wanted to check. Hey, I just want to check in. Thank you. So, and so I do this with my accountant after, you know, it's like, Hey, uh, Shin is my, she manages our, our account with my accountant and he's maxed out. Doesn't have time, but I like, you know, we, when we get together, it's great, but I always follow up and say, man, you know, she did a great job. She helped me out with this question. She took care of this. I'm not an easy client.
I have like 50 plates spinning in the air and paperwork dropping, like, you know, snowflakes that are too late and not enough time, and she always comes through for us and I always just email my accountant like hey thank you so much she did it yeah I'm paying for the service but just recognize you recognize that so flip the script and I would say you should teach your employees this concept too is that, The UPS driver, when they roll up to your warehouse, if you have that kind of
¶ Teach your employees this concept, too
business, you want them to know you. You want them to know your warehouse guys. You want them to talk about the football game from the last weekend. Because you know what? If a package shows up or something happens, you want that guy's phone number, not the UPS 800 number.
No.
You want to call Larry in the big brown truck and say, Larry, I was supposed to have this package and it says it's this, but it doesn't. Larry says, hey, you know what? I saw it. It's sitting. I'm going to go drive back and pick it up for you guys. I'll see you at three o'clock. Because Larry knows if he shows up Fridays at one o'clock, you're going to feed him, right? Because you're barbecuing in the parking lot or whatever. You make those people's lives better.
All around you, whoever interacts with your business, their lives should be impacted in a positive manner. Not just your clients, not just your customers that are paying you money, but everybody around you. And when you do that, you can come back and send us an email at feedbackandbusinessbrain.show
¶ Business Brain 634 Outtro
and tell us because I know the results because I did it. I've done it. I do it. And it works.
It's the way to do it.
And everybody thinks highly of you and they value your relationship more. So check it out. Let us know how it works for you.
Thanks, folks. Like he said, feedback at businessbrain.show. and yeah, keep living that charmed life, would you? And if you're not subscribed, subscribe to the show. It's good. We've got more episodes. We'll have another one on Friday.