How to Win Others Over and Over with Ed Howie
Watch/Listen here or on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts“I believe as the leadership team goes, so goes the rest of the company. So if you don't have that consistent and significant sustainable growth, you've got some work to do.” — Mike Goldman
In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Ed Howie about the deep connections between leadership alignment, branding, customer loyalty, and business success. Ed shares powerful frameworks, including the Three O’s of Woo and the Five O’s of Business Success, that leaders can apply immediately to strengthen their teams and brands.
Building a Leadership Team That’s Aligned
Leadership alignment is critical for business success.
Internal misalignment doesn’t just cause friction — it directly affects the customer experience.
Alignment must start at the top, with leaders being clear, connected, and committed to a shared vision.
Ed Howie's Entrepreneurial Journey
Ed Howie shares his early experiences working with Chick-fil-A, where he learned about the power of service and brand loyalty.
His path led him to found BTY Creative, a branding agency focused on helping organizations create extraordinary customer experiences.
His focus on intentional experiences shaped his unique approach to branding and leadership.
The Power of Woo: Creating Magnetic Brands
"Woo" is introduced as the emotional magnetism that draws people to a brand.
"Woo" is centered on authenticity, service, and emotional connection, rather than flashy marketing.
Leadership teams must be intentional about building emotional resonance internally and externally.
The Three O’s of Woo
Ed Howie breaks down the Three O’s that brands must master to create loyalty:
Orchestrated: Designing every customer interaction intentionally.
Operationalized: Embedding the desired experience into daily behaviors and processes.
Optimized: Continuously improving the experience based on feedback and results.
Businesses that focus on orchestrating, operationalizing, and optimizing their experiences naturally build deeper customer loyalty.
Why Customer Retention Is a Leadership Issue
Customer retention is more cost-effective than acquiring new customers and drives sustainable growth.
Loyalty must be built into the overall business strategy at the leadership level, not just delegated to marketing.
Emotional loyalty is earned through authenticity, consistency, and exceeding customer expectations.
Moving Beyond NPS: Better Ways to Measure Loyalty
Net Promoter Score (NPS) alone is not enough to truly measure customer loyalty.
A more holistic approach is recommended, including gathering customer stories, tracking behavior, and focusing on emotional engagement.
Leadership teams must take ownership of loyalty metrics just as seriously as they manage financial metrics.
Understanding Brand Experience at Every Touchpoint
Every customer interaction — from service calls to invoices — impacts the brand experience.
Every touchpoint must reinforce the brand’s emotional promise.
Leadership teams must act as guardians of the full customer experience, not leaving it solely to the marketing department.
The Five O’s of Business Success (Course Framework)
The Five O’s, introduced in Ed Howie’s upcoming leadership training course, are:
Orchestrated: Experiences must be intentionally designed.
Operationalized: Systems and people must consistently deliver the intended experience.
Optimized: Processes must be refined based on learning and feedback.
Organized: Teams must be structured and aligned to support the brand experience.
Outpaced: Companies must innovate and evolve faster than customer expectations and competitors.
Mastering the Five O’s builds strong brands and thriving, sustainable businesses.
Designing Unforgettable Customer Journeys
Small, thoughtful details create memorable customer experiences that drive loyalty.
Brands that intentionally surprise and delight customers strengthen emotional bonds.
Customer journeys should be designed as emotional stories rather than simply transactional processes.
Looking Ahead: New Tools for Leaders
Ed Howie provides a preview of his upcoming book and training course, built around the Five O’s methodology.
Leadership teams are encouraged to view loyalty as a fundamental philosophy woven throughout the organization rather than as a tactical program.
Thanks for listening!
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Mike Goldman (00:00)
Ed Howie is one of the most experienced business branding strategists in the world. He spent over 30 years helping to create, develop, and launch brand concepts for mainstream companies, leading to more than 350 million in incremental revenue.
Ed's worked for and with brands like Chick-fil-A, H-E-B Grocery, United Airlines, 7-Eleven, KFC, and Kroger. In addition to helping other companies brand and market themselves, he's founded multiple seven-figure businesses, including his flagship business, BTY Creative, and his new business, Transformation Enterprise, Serve Others Well. His latest podcast, The Wonder of Wooo, launched
September 2024 and his first book, Lifelong Customers, the secret to scaling profitably will be released in early 2026. and I spoke together at an event as this is being recorded, I guess about a month or so ago. And I heard all about Wooo, so I want him to talk about the wonder Wooo. But Ed really excited to continue our conversation and let other folks listen in.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (01:01)
Yeah.
No doubt, Mike, you always bring the energy and the brilliance, so let's get after it.
Mike Goldman (01:18)
Let's do it. So my first question, as always, is, from all of your experience, what do you believe is the one most important characteristic of a great leadership team?
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (01:31)
You know, I would have answered this question differently, probably three weeks ago, but, I would say alignment is the most critical factor, that must exist with your leadership team. because you assume your leadership team is made of multiple robust athletes and you're all in one, one shell, one boat, and you're all got a row.
And if any single person doesn't understand the mission and is rowing in any way that's not in alignment with everyone else, you're creating inefficiency, you're creating havoc, you're damaging your velocity, and it just takes one oar not in sync. And man, how many times have we lived that with leadership teams? And typically, not always, typically, it falls back to the leader. Not always, but more times that
that did be as a leader, did I as a leader, am I setting the alignment? And do we have consensus that that's where we're going?
Mike Goldman (02:29)
Yeah, one of the things I always say to drive that home to my leaders, and Ed, I agree with you, thousand percent, is everybody on that senior leadership team not only needs to understand what the company vision is, they not only need to buy into what the company vision is, but they need to be evangelists of that vision.
And if they're not evangelists, it doesn't make them a bad person, but it probably makes them a bad fit for your team. So I'm right with you.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (03:02)
No.
Yeah, no, I totally agree with that. Totally agree. I love Evangelists. Great word.
Mike Goldman (03:06)
And tell
me a little bit, we're gonna talk about Wooo and I'm gonna have you explain to everybody what Wooo is and how many O's are in Wooo. But, we're gonna, Wooo, we're gonna surprise people with, I'm gonna let the cat out of the bag, we're gonna surprise people with an extra O in Wooo. But I'll let you tell us what that is. But before we do, I wanna find out a little bit more about your journey. So you worked with a lot of these big brands. You founded, you know, BTY Creative.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (03:11)
Wooo!
Yeah, yeah.
That's right.
Mike Goldman (03:36)
Tell me what that journey looked like. How long were you kind of working for others? And when did you found BTY and why?
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (03:44)
question and really a foundational alignment story, if you will. So the shorter answer is that I started working with Chick-fil-A when I was in high school in 1982 as a 15 year old, cooking fries at the mall restaurant in North Carolina. And I worked for Chick-fil-A for seven years during high school and college. And then I had the opportunity to run a Chick-fil-A between my junior, senior year in college.
They sent me out to Oklahoma City. So as a 20 year old, I've got a $500,000 restaurant I'm running three P&Ls under my belt before I go back for my senior year. I was recruited to join Chick-fil-A corporate as operations consultant. They offered me marketing, but I kind of knew I had the marketing bit and I believe that you can't out market a poor operation. And so I really wanted to be deep in operations, even though that's not actually my sweet spot. And so, or my power source is I'm very capable of, just, that doesn't what brings me energy, but anyway, I'll get to that.
So I was an operations consultant. My job was to help the organization and individuals somewhere to make more money. And we got to do it through a lot of different ways. This was Chick-fil-A, Mike, back in 89 to 99. So 175 to 200 restaurants to like 800, 900 restaurants moved from mall to freestander. So aside from all the other things, I was in the middle of a purpose driven organization that was singularly focused and aligned.
scaling. Now we didn't call it scaling in the 90s. We were growing, we changing. But so being a part of a machine that did it well and messed up some spots too, it was phenomenal MBA education. During that time I did get my MBA and that's when I really realized that I'm really more six months out versus day to day. So I left Chick-fil-A, I cold called,
company called Atlanta Bread Company. was their first director of marketing was there 18 months before a company in San Antonio recruited me called H-E-B Grocery. H-E-B is now probably a $43 billion probably held grocery store chain. It's about 18 million, 18 excuse me billion when I was there. Here's Antonio. Regarded as I don't if you ever heard of them, but like Wegmans, H-E-B, Myers, they all three live in the same ecosystem, all independent. I was director of producer marketing there for three years and
What happened is over three years, my job became director of food service operations, even though the title was director of food service marketing. And if I'd wanted to live in operations, I could have had a long career at H- sorry, Chick-fil-A. Well, where this came to a head, and this is actually, I really appreciate your asking this question, because I hope the long answer is worth it. It was 2003, my wife and I are in the car driving back from North Carolina, where I'm from. We've been to the beach with my family. Kids are in the suburban, we're getting on I-10 and mobile.
She looks at me, Mike, and says, are you happy?
And was like, with you? mean, and she's a West Texan and she said, I better know the answer to that question. She said, are you happy at H-E-B? And I was silent for five minutes and that is not my natural response to life. Silence. But I knew like, what does she know? What is she thinking? Why is she asking me this? And I knew whatever I said was gonna be a watershed moment. Well, in that moment I said, no, I'm not.
Mike Goldman (06:30)
dangerous question
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (06:55)
Second most important question she asked me was, what are you going to do about it?
And I had my, like, probably my pinnacle of husband moments at the time. was like, well, what do you want me to do about it? know, kids, college insurance, mortgage, you know, house, all this stuff. What do you want to do about it? And then third important question, she said, what makes you happy? And my first thing I said was, well, I love helping people sell stuff. And she was like, really? Because she knew that wasn't right. She's like, it's toilet paper? And I said no. And what I said, Mike, was,
I love helping people do all they can with what they have. Fourth important question, all within 15 minutes. Can we make money doing it?
We had never talked about me running my own business. I hate ad agencies and the traditional Bill Blower's model. I mean, all of a sudden in 10, 15 minutes, she opens this door to what makes you happy and can we make money doing it? Now here's the really the second God moment. On top of all that, I literally had in my lap the book. I've got it. I gave it to somebody. It's not in my bookshelf. I had the book. Now Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham.
Mike Goldman (08:09)
That's
alright, I've got it on my bookshelf right behind me.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (08:12)
Exactly.
someone has my original. Oh, here it is. I knew it was here. Sorry. The book from 2003 right here. Look, it's yellow. Anyway, so Now Discover Your Strengths from Marcus Buckingham. So she she opens my world and then she is she's incredible. She just let me she let me simmer. She let me noodle. I'm reading this book and it says if you order your world around your strengths, not only what happier, you're more effective. And so
Mike Goldman (08:18)
Great, great book.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (08:38)
I'd always hate the corporate world of, hey Ed, know, Mike is really good at financial analysis and you both are gonna be up for a, you're both gonna be up for a promotion next. And if you want to beat Mike, you better get better at financial analysis because you know, Mike's really good at that. Well, you know what? I'm not, I can do it, but that's not my superpower. Anyway, so read the book, get home next day, do the survey, print out my five core strengths, it's 10.30 at night. I've got to be at check, oh, excuse me, HEB like 6 a.m. next morning, 5 a.m. next morning, start the day.
She reads the five things and says, well, raise my five strength. says, What are you going to do about it? I said, I think we're starting our own company. She said, can we make money doing it? I was like, I think so. I kid you not, 24 hours later, I had a one page business plan. The belief was that companies need access to a marketing executive, but not one full time. This was before Fractional C, CMOs, Chief Brand Officers. In the top right corner, it said every element of your business either magnifies or detracts from your brand. And
I believe there are companies that need access to not only strategy, but a map on how to put in place. So I resigned two weeks later. My pro forma was I took my salary divided by number that I figured I could convince people to hire me on a monthly retainer for consulting and knew I had to land. I think it was five clients in 90 days and I did. And that was 22 years ago.
Mike Goldman (09:56)
Wow Well
first it sounds like you married well
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (10:00)
Yeah,
Mike Goldman (10:01)
So I going from, from your journey. I want to get into this idea of, of wooo. Tell it, you know, what is wooo and, and why is that
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (10:10)
Yeah, so the principle wooo, the wonder wooo is the acronym is for winning others over and over. Three O's.
because it takes effort to win others over. It takes a whole lot more effort to win others over and over. And it has to be intentional. And the impetus of this Mike was that being in marketing, being in branding, being in customer service, all that stuff. You know, I've owned a strategy firm, a brand firm for 22 years. We've never had a customer come to us and say, we need help taking care of our existing customers. What are they asking for? They need help with new customers. Everybody's talking about customer acquisition and we're leaving
literally profits on the table because we're not talking about retention. And retention actually is the true indicator of the value of the power of your brand. Because if you're constantly churning customers, then you're way more a commodity than a brand because there's apparently not a trust and a dependability built that your product is actually selling itself to the person over and over again versus always attracting new customers. They try it, they move on, they go. And so from a just doership standpoint, which is what's interesting,
Mike is the story I just shared when I said I love helping people do all I can with what they have that really is the principle of stewardship and so my foundational my driving factor is I want people to do all they can with what they have and after working with so many different incredible clients and brands like no one's talking about taking care of the customer right in front of you they're all chasing strangers and so I started studying the best brands it's like who is it that is like keeps it has that customer loyalty has those incredible financial returns has an incredible brain re-inventation
and there was a pattern and it's very simple. Wooo stands for three O's. Winning others over and over, but to win others over and over you gotta do three things. You have to be well orchestrated.
which means you have to understand what your customer really wants. So orchestrated, you you got to have a plan. You have to be well operationalized. You have to actually be able to do it like, okay. And then the most important one is well optimized. You have to have the processes and systems in place and the intention to do it over and over again. Because if you're not consistent with your brand experience, you're basically turning customers, you're confusing customers, you're breaking trust, you're destroying your reputation, you're destroying your equity. And so what we realized,
Mike Goldman (12:22)
I want to dive.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (12:23)
Yeah.
Mike Goldman (12:23)
Sorry, I keep going. I interrupted you.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (12:24)
Now,
so what I realized is that you look at the best brands, the best performing companies, they do that. They insanely understand exactly what their customer wants is the nuances, not just like, want hot fries. They understand how to cook those hot fries and have a process to ensure, increase the probability of hot fries versus cold fries. And then they have systems to ensure that it's over and over again. So if I come in today, tomorrow and Thursday, then the fries are going to taste the same and be the same temperature and the right portion size and that kind of thing.
I use fries just because that's my love language, but I think we all covered late.
Mike Goldman (12:55)
Yeah,
I probably have one too many of those. So I want to dive into each one of those. But before I do, I want to talk return on investment. So you brought up the good point. Everybody wants to get new clients. They don't talk about keeping the current clients. Let's talk about what the ROI is on that. And I know one of the things I've heard you say is, you know, a customer, a current customer is worth way more than you think.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (13:04)
Yeah.
Yep.
yeah.
Mike Goldman (13:22)
So how do we know, how should we be thinking about how much a lifelong customer is worth to us?
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (13:29)
Okay, so let's flip the equation and this is a great question because everyone says like, am I spending too much money on marketing? Or how much should spend on marketing and that kind of thing. And so...
Let's just be logical. It's not any top dollars or cents. If every single customer that comes into my, and let's just use restaurants. mean, because whether you're B2B2BC, I mean, we all understand restaurants, so we're all selling fries of some format. If every single customer that comes in my restaurant is a new customer and I don't have returning customers, why not? Don't you go back to the places you love?
Don't you go back to the places you trust? Don't you go back to the places that mean more to you than just like hot fries? I mean, frankly, you get hot fries anywhere. You get them at 7-Eleven if you hit the timing right. I don't want them, but I mean, you could get them there. And so everybody's talking about pay-per-click and let's get awareness out of that kind of stuff. But if you're constantly investing your marketing dollars and getting that new customer in the door and not taking care of the customer, logically, you're spending money wrong.
Because if I pay to acquire you to my restaurant once and I wooo you with everything about the experience, you know, your fries are hot, the service is great, the restaurant's clean, you got a good value for your money, and man, you know, we heard it was your daughter's birthday and we brought you a cupcake. You did something more than just give me what I paid for. Are you gonna come back? Yes.
And so I don't have to pay to acquire you. Now, I'm bad to remind you to get in the habit. But think about some of the brands that you just buy on autopilot. Those are adored brands. Those are brands that have wooed you. They've won you over and over, and they haven't ignored you. And so one of the things that is illogical about it is that we spend all our energy chasing strangers.
versus loving the people that already love us. And I believe it's proven that the more you love the customers who love you, the more they're gonna love you. And two things happen. One is they're gonna continue to spend money with you and spend more money, more money than the little errant person who's just coming in trying you for the first time.
But then they're also more likely to tell people about you, which word of mouth is the greatest investment, the greatest, most profitable marketing you can do for your business is have people that love you tell other people. So if you don't have people that love you, you don't have word of mouth. So your cost per acquisition is largely more expensive. So I mean, serve the one in front of you versus chasing the stranger. That's really the principle, right? You got to bring new customers in. I'm not kidding. But if you don't have lifelong customers,
You're really more of commodity than a brand.
Mike Goldman (16:02)
And how do we, how do we measure that? And I know you and I have talked about this before, before the show, but how do we, you know, is it just about some client retention or customer retention measure? some people use a net promoter score. What I know you've got an interesting way of thinking about and measuring this. How do we measure? again, I want to get into orchestrating, you know, operationalizing and optimizing, but.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (16:08)
Yep.
Yeah.
Yep.
For sure.
Mike Goldman (16:28)
But how do you know if you're currently doing a good job?
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (16:31)
Yeah, so some businesses have more analytics than others. But there's two ways and anyone listening to this can do the first one like in your head. Okay, so we believe the power of your brand.
and the power, the equity really of your brand and your ability to wooo is measured on two things. One is the quality, the excellence of the transaction. Okay, let's stick with fries. I come in, I buy my meal, I get my hot fries. I feel like the money was good, it's clean. The functional of the relation of the transaction is like a five. Think about some of your favorite restaurants. That it's just like, you know you're gonna get it great every time, good value.
stuff. That's a five. One is, may get hot fries, maybe not, don't know what's going on, going on, you know, so you could score yourself on a scale of one to five. So let's just choose a number two. You're, you're, you're working on it, you're improving, but you're not quite there. And then, but that's where people stop. They're like, well we're doing the hot fries. Well, I believe that the most adored brands don't just have a transaction. They impact your life beyond the transaction. That transaction has some kind of consequence beyond just the function of
getting the fries. So I'll give you example, Chick-fil-A, just I know it, okay? Chick-fil-A has some of the fastest drive-thrus in the world. I mean, they are excellent at drive-thrus. I love Chick-fil-A, I eat egg white grill because it's 27 grams of protein almost every morning for breakfast after working out. mean, I've got my pattern. As good as they are, if they screw up,
and I know that it usually takes me four minutes to get through the drive-through and all of sudden it's 12 and I miss my Zoom call. All of a sudden, as great as that egg white grill is, their impact went to one because they messed with my life. You know what saying? It's just like, so you could score yourself on a scale of one to five.
How are we on the transaction? Literally the promise of the functional delivery. And then an impact. Are we impacting our customer? Do we care about our customers beyond just taking their money? So let's say you're a two and a two. Well, we have a little matrix. It's like four squares. And you're either mundane, you're replaceable, you're committing self-sabotage, or you're magical. A magical brand is one that is distinct and unforgettable.
And that's really what a WooBrand is. So the question is, how distinct are you and how unforgettable are you?
Mike Goldman (18:38)
Love it.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (18:38)
So that's
one way to measure it. That's just like a self judgment. I would say with BTY, we've been retooling some operations. So we're probably in the 2 and a half, 2, 3 quarters. And we're a B2B. We're a service company. But we've done some things to really kind of bring the magic and remove some of the stuff that was extraneous from what we do for clients. Any company can do that. Because that's one thing. Second thing is.
The way you measure the ultimate health of your business, I believe, is four factors. One is the distribution of frequency of customers and sales. So if you take a restaurant that's doing $2.5 million in business, how many of those customers are shopping with you more than once a month or twice a month, let's just say? Okay. In the restaurant industry, twice a month would be considered a loyal customer. So you take all your transactions,
and you divide it by frequency of visit, again, it has to be relative to your business, Car dealership, maybe it's every four years someone buys a car. So you can take your sales data and cut it into three buckets, lifelong customers, loyal customers, and we haven't figured out the right word, but customers, okay? They're still valuable, but they're unpredictable. You don't know if they're coming back or not yet, okay?
Mike Goldman (19:47)
more one time
or know, one time customers or maybe more than once, but it's not regular.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (19:49)
one time a year.
So we took one restaurant, took their sales down for 12 months, and put it into our magic formulator, and realized that-
12 % of the humans, sorry, let me get this right. 12 % of the actual humans. with restaurants, you can track like credit cards so you know how many people are actually unique users, right? And then you have total transactions. then you have, sorry, you have unique users, total transactions, and then you have the average of the transaction. So.
One restaurant, 12 % of the humans that came in in a year actually produced 25 % of the visits because they were coming in over twice a month, so 24 times a year. They represented 42 % of the total business.
12 % of the customer population of the humans that had come in the door of the restaurant in a 12-month basis represented $1 million of the $2.5 million of business. So OK, so that's like, OK, wow, get more of those. We get more profitable customers because they're coming in over and over again, right? So then that's one data. The second data is, well, what are your customers saying about you? So with all the incredible tools out there, we were able to pull all of their Google ratings, Yelp ratings, all that for the 12 months and track.
the pattern on a monthly basis of how many lifelong customers are coming in against their quality score, basically what customers said. And this restaurant, it showed that they were losing lifelong customers, like significantly, like have lost $100,000 of business just from their lifelong customers compared to where they were 12 months ago. And they were missing the mark, they were declining on value and experience.
and it tracked literally month by month. saw like 12 % life long customers and 8 % that's the of thing. And then you saw value going down. So what you do is you use our wooo formula. What do we need to reset to give the customer exactly what they want? Because we're not doing it now. And your life long customers are your greatest. They know more about your business than perhaps some of your employees, frankly. Right?
You're tracking, so you say, we're missing this. So what do we need to retool on what our customer wants? Where are we missing the boat? How do we make sure we can do it?
Say they want truffle fries with rosemary. Okay, well, where do you get the truffles? Where do you get the rosemary? How, like, do you have refrigerated? What's the portions like? You all the details. And then you do it over and again so that you ensure that you have the best truffle fries now. And then all of sudden, if that hits, if you hit the mark, all of a sudden your lifelong customer proportion goes up, you're multiplying the number of visits because those people come more frequently, they're spending more money with you, and you got a more profitable customer, and you fixed your business.
Mike Goldman (22:39)
And you don't have to spend quite so much on marketing for the same amount of revenue or more revenue, right?
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (22:41)
Well, so
the only thing I say is, it's all marketing, right? You would have to spend less on paid customer acquisition is, think, the delineator.
Mike Goldman (22:51)
There you go.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (22:54)
Because paid customer acquisition is always the most frustrating budget to model because you really don't know if that customer came in. And if they came in because they saw the Google ad or their friend Barbara told them about your fries or it was a billboard, you never really know. Anyone that tells you they do, they're lying, unless you're just totally e-commerce and it's all trackable. So. ⁓
Mike Goldman (23:12)
So
let's dive into those three areas, the well orchestrated, well operationalized, and well optimized. When you say, oh look at that, if you're not on YouTube watching this, he's drinking out of a Chick-fil-A cup, there you go. I gotta get them as a sponsor of the show now. So when you say well orchestrated, tell me about orchestrated, what does that mean?
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (23:21)
Look, I'm on brand.
Drinking out Chick-fil-A cups. I'm reusing that cup. Heck yeah, me too, brother.
So I'm going to go into something I don't usually share in the keynote, but this is, since we're chatting, I'm going to share this. It's really from the book. So I'm a musician, I'm a composer, and I have this idea for composition of music, a symphony I want to create. You how it visualizes in my head. What is the ultimate outcome I want from that? Is it to be published? Is it for someone to perform it? No.
I want to elicit a standing ovation. When I think of that tune or whatever in my head, I visualize the ultimate outcome is it is in this huge concert hall and I've got all these incredible talented musicians, whatever it is, and all of a sudden when it is done, there's that pause and then there's this roaring yes and people stand up, right?
So if you want a standing ovation for your business, you've got to orchestrate it right. So you have this idea for what the tune is. And again, I'm going to get a little like, I'm going to take some liberty because I don't know all the specifics, but like a symphonic orchestra could have 66 musicians. That composer has to have a score for each of those musicians and they each individual part has to, again, alignment has to intersect.
to where the oboe and the cello and the flute all are doing the right thing at the right time. And not only does it have to be right on paper, they have to have the skill to play the instrument. They have to have the finesse to make it beautiful.
And they have to have like the discipline to practice it because they got to do it over and over again because they're not just going to walk on the stage one night and to a concert hall and say, here's our new symphony. So they're going to practice it. So they operationalize it. But then what they do is they optimize it where the composer comes in and is like, no, lean in a little more here. Pull back here. Let's pause the scroll. That conducting. And then what happens when all that happens, it is what? It's magical.
is wooo you've won over the audience and the only way they can respond is to stand up with a standing ovation. Now it's funny Mike you know we were talking inside baseball here why the heck have I not included that in my keynote. Anyway so thanks man but so that's in the that's in the objection book because orchestrate is a funny word but but does it make sense now what is it what is it going to take for you to garner yield.
Mike Goldman (25:42)
Glad I could help.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (25:53)
Like make almost inventory for your customers and your team to give your brand a standing ovation. That's really what it's about.
Mike Goldman (26:01)
So orchestrate and tell me where I'm wrong here, but I'm going to attempt to summarize it. Orchestrate is really around identifying, you know, what is that outcome you're looking for? In your case, it's that standing ovation. What's the outcome you're looking for? The operationalized is, all right, if that's the outcome I want, how do I align people? How do I make sure I've got people prepared, trained up, whatever it is, I've got my processes set to go and execute?
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (26:15)
Is outcome.
Yep. Yep.
Yep. Yep.
Mike Goldman (26:30)
to achieve that outcome
and then the optimize is that continuing kind of feedback loop of, know, are we doing this at the right level? How could we improve it?
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (26:41)
Yes, and the only thing I would add is with orchestrate, it has to be grounded with your defined purpose. Like what was the composer's purpose and what were they envisioning the ultimate impact? And not just the outcome, not just the sales and profits, if you will, of the standing ovation, but, and this is where it gets a little tricky and I think, I'm glad you asked this question. It has to be in line with exactly what your customer that you're serving, your audience, needs and wants.
If I believe that I've got a vision for the best vegan restaurant in the world, but sorry, that will never be my concept, but I have no offense, but I mean, I'm a carnivore. But anyway, just lost 10 % of the population of the audience. sorry, we can all get along. But anyway, if, but think about it. If my vision is for a vegan restaurant,
Mike Goldman (27:18)
Yeah
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (27:25)
and I open up a restaurant in my neighborhood and there are no vegans in the neighborhood, it doesn't matter how good the vegan restaurant is. So like, I'll be a little silly, like, if you think the greatest thing you need to do for your symphony is to do a country version of symphony, and your audience is expecting a classical version of symphony, and they're not open to the new deal, as good as it was, it was not in alignment with what your customers really wanted from you. Therefore,
You can have a great product, but you don't get the standing ovation. Because you didn't know what you guys wanted.
Mike Goldman (27:57)
So you've got it back to you.
Yeah, back to you talking about purpose. There's got to be alignment between it's not about you. It's about alignment. Now you are in there because because it's got to be your purpose.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (28:07)
It is about, but it is about you because Mike, mean,
your business is about you. What you've done with your enterprise is because you said, want to do this for the world. The deal is not everyone in the world needs what you have, but the right people do. And as long as enough people do it to where you can build the business to whatever you think is the right level, the stewardship, kind of thing, great. But you've got to, where people miss it is they.
lose sight. They get so caught up in their vision, they lose sight of, OK, does someone really want this? And do enough people want this? And can I get to them fast enough? And once I get them, can I keep them? Because if you're a niche market, talk about the value of life long customers. If you're a niche market and only 3 % of the population actually needs hypoallergenic dog beds,
better keep every customer you get so that you can sell some more hypergenic doll beds or whatever I was talking about. You know what mean? Because you're serving such a niche market.
Mike Goldman (28:59)
Yeah.
And by the way, Ed, you were just an, you don't know this, but you were just an example of what you were talking about for those, for those that are listening and not watching this on YouTube. Ed was so pumped about his answer to that question that he literally like bopped around his room, like the energy that came out of you. But it's the perfect example of what you're talking about, right? It's not, it is about you because you better be pumped up and excited about what you're doing.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (29:15)
Hahaha! ⁓
Yeah.
Mike Goldman (29:26)
but you also better be aligned with what your customer wants. It's both of that. But yeah.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (29:26)
for sure.
Well, and that's honestly
what just gets me so jacked to my team about all this stuff we're doing, is business is a pain in the butt. Chasing customers and sales and sales projections, all that. I mean, it is tough. So if you can get more out of the customers you have, and I mean that with pure intentions, like if you can literally serve those customers more than you've ever served them before,
It's not only good stewardship, it makes it easier. Let me give you a quick example. this is, I'll share it you. I did a keynote this morning. So my question to everyone listening to this is, what is your Westin heavenly bed? What the heck am I talking about? So assuming if you travel, you've heard of the Westin hotel brand. And my guess is if you've of Westin, you've heard of heavenly bed. So.
The quick story is that, I think it was late 90s, Weston decided they were gonna do this, like spend gobs and gobs of money to determine what is it a hotel guest really wants from their hotel experience. And my guess what the research told them? They want a good night's Like, duh, we're so stupid sometimes, I swear, we're so stupid. We all are.
We were really just like, we get so distracted. We were so stupid. Okay, so anyway, back to the study. They want a good night's And guess what the number one contributor to a good night's sleep? The quality of the bed. So Weston said, we're going to reimagine, we're going to re-orchestrate what the hotel bed looks like. And we're going to design the pillows, the table. I mean, it's a really terrible story. I'm gonna make it a little shorter, but so.
They said, we're going to put white linens, a white duvet, which is like two sheets sewn together that you slide the down comforter in or whatever, to make the bedspread. We're going to replace the multicolored grandmother sofa upholstery bedspreads that were on every Holiday Inn and every hotel in the mid 80s. We're gonna replace it with a white linens. Industry, You can't do that. It shows dirt.
the that was a problem is because they were never washing the bed spreads because they were at the multi colored how could you see what's on there. And Westin, they said you'll never do it. Guess what you'll orchestrate operationalize optimize. When the when the linens changed to white you knew if the housekeeper did their job.
OK, so think about it. Every hotel in the world now has white bedspreads, nearly every one. And what is it, 30, 40 years ago? They were told no. So here's the deal. If I have my numbers right, there are 33,000 hotel rooms with a Westin Heavenly Bed. There are 500,000 homes with a Weston Heavenly Bed in them. They're a hotel company that redesigned
the hotel experience to give a hotel guest a customer experience by looking at their business and re-orchestrating the guest experience focusing on the bed. So well that if my math is right, let's see, 10, 12, 14, what, 16 times more homes now has spent $4,000 to $5,000 on a heavenly bed because the hotel bed gave them a better night's sleep than their own home mattress?
So my question to everybody is, what's your heavenly bet? What is it that is part of your business, your brand, that's like, dude, the world needs this in a different way, you know what mean? So anyway, yeah.
Mike Goldman (32:42)
that. Now
love that. So you've got a book coming out, your first book, right? And it's coming out. What is it?
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (32:46)
First book, yeah.
It's, you know
how it is. It's like spring, summer, 2026, that's the goal.
Mike Goldman (32:56)
All right, very good. And it's called Lifelong Customers.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (32:59)
It's called Lifelong Customers,
the Secret to Scaling Profitably.
Mike Goldman (33:02)
So why did you
decide to write that and is it about exactly what we're talking about or is the scope a little different?
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (33:07)
It is. Yeah.
It's about that you're basically starts off that starts off, think, you know, like basically with the conductor, you know, it's like, I don't believe anyone starts a business to be mundane. And I don't believe anyone wakes up in the morning wanting to cook cold fries for their customers, but it happens. And so even though some of my five core strengths go back to the original story, my five core strengths are ideation, strategic, winning others over, connectedness and positivity.
And whereas I never want to be COO or VP of operations ever again, because I mean, I can do it, but that's just not, that doesn't give me the energy. That's not like sweet point. One of my strengths is ideation of strategy. What is it? What is the idea that could solve a problem and how do you actually get there? And so that's the, that's, that's literally the mission I've been on the last 10 years. I was like, okay, the best brands are all doing something the same. What is it? And so that's when the best brands know exactly what their customer wants distinctly.
They figure out how to make it happen and they ensure it happens over and over again. And the brands that don't do that, the only three reasons you disappointed customers is you either didn't really know what they wanted, you couldn't figure out how to actually do it. Like, where do we get the truffle fries or truffle sauce or whatever, truffle flakes? And then third is, you got it, but you don't do it over and again. So therefore you wrote trust and you actually ruined the reputation in the back long time. So I was like, you know what? I don't want a million clients for BTY.
I don't really want a million clients for startup as well. We want to help companies for sure, but I wasn't looking to create a thousand employee, you this wasn't about size of enterprise. It was about frankly, reach of impact and being a business leader is isolated. Getting sales is tough. And if you can have to worry about getting new customers less because you're taking care of your customers more, I believe that's like the epitome of business stewardship. And I genuinely want hope, believe I can help as many people.
They get to hear the story and just kind of get them to kind of like take a fresh look at what it's like to run a business.
Mike Goldman (34:57)
Well, can't wait to read the book and depending on when you're listening to this, that book may be out or not. But until then, there you go. Ed's name will be all over. I got him before he was a international celebrity. But while we're waiting, for those of us that are waiting for the book, you've got a course.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (35:02)
Yeah, I'm sure it'll be a Wall Street Journal bestseller about our New Year time.
The Joy Beast, wooo!
That's right. Before then.
we do. Yeah, so again, we're get this message to you. So along with the book and the content, I've got several business partners. One includes one of my closest friend who has actually 39 years with Chick-fil-A. We're not all Chick-fil-A people, but that's pretty good pedigree relative to operations. He was former VP of operations, then his last role was VP of talent of operator selection.
Mike Goldman (35:23)
on the wonder of who as well. Tell me a little bit about that and how people get access to it.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (35:47)
and staff selection and all the people side of the business. Anyway, so he is one of our business partners. We've got some folks who like the former Chief Communications Officer for USAA. We've got one of our wooo coaches is, she was on the leadership team at the Southwest Leadership Academy and actually helped create the JetBlue industry. So we've got this collection of, we're calling them wooo coaches. And,
We provide training for our clients. Well, we wanted to get that more accessible than people just bringing us in for a day or a week or whatever. so depending where you're listening to this, we're filming this in spring of 2025. So starting on May 22nd, which is a Thursday, May 22nd, 2025, we're going to do a five week course, one hour. It's at 1130 Eastern, 1030 Central, five weeks. And we're actually going to walk through
the entire model go a little deeper into each of the O's. Now, I don't want to confuse things, but there are five O's versus three in the course, okay? And those five O's, the two O's are order and organize. You asked about the metrics, you got to have some kind of metric to compare against, and you had to figure out what the priorities of your business. So we're going to actually walk you through some additional strategy thinking to make sure that you're, like again, alignment.
that before you jump into orchestrate operational as optimized, you got to make sure you're in alignment with what your business need, what's your customer needs and what your resources can allow. Okay. So, so we're going to do this, uh, this weekly course, like I said, one hour and probably the best thing to do would be go to serveotherswell.com serveotherswell.com and you can register for our five week course.
Mike Goldman (37:27)
Beautiful and we'll put that in the show notes, but I gotta tell you you just screwed things up I was so excited for you that you had three O's in woo and then you've got the three O's orchestrated operationalized and Optimized and you screwed it up and you added two more O's so, you know
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (37:36)
Yeah.
Well, the reality
is, but Mike, here's the discovery. It's really about winning others over and over and over and over again. there's really, think about some brands that you've loved and adored since childhood. You know what mean? It doesn't have to end.
Mike Goldman (38:00)
All right, I'll live with the five O's. Good save there.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (38:02)
Yeah.
Hey, but just so you know,
the three O's are the one that's trademarked. So that's why we're staying.
Mike Goldman (38:09)
Well, you got to trademark the five O's now too. ⁓ So, and other than, you know, the training, if people want to find out and more about you and your speaking or more about BTY or more about the wonder of Wooo, where should they be going?
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (38:11)
I guess so.
Yeah, so a couple things. is on your, wherever you listen to your podcast or YouTube, we have a show called the Wonder of Wooo podcast. We have about 40 some episodes so far. We just dig into all things about serving others well, that kind of thing. I mentioned Serving Others Well, that's our training company. I mentioned our strategy company, that's BTY. That's the company I founded 22 years ago. That domain is btycreative.com. You can learn about us there. And then
You want to learn more about the wonderful world of Ed Howie? That's edhowie.com. So we've got a couple of options there.
Mike Goldman (39:00)
Beautiful, beautiful. Well,
I always say if you want a great company, you need a great leadership team. Ed, thanks for helping us get there today.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (39:09)
Well, Mike, and what I love about that question is that in all seriousness, we, our whole team has worked with all kinds of corporations, both internally as consultants, as I know you have. And I love the fact that your question delineated the leadership team, not leadership, because so much is said to rise and fall in the leadership. Dude, you've got it right. It rises and falls on the leadership team. It's not the leader, it's the leadership team. and
And that alignment has to happen in your marketing, it has to happen in your operations, it has to happen in your sales, and it has to be aligned with your customer. Because, I mean, think about how many businesses you've seen, they're heading this way, and let's just say they're like P performers, but the problem is the customer's over, where's the camera? The customer's over here and they're heading this way, right? Gotta have that alignment with everybody.
Mike Goldman (39:54)
As the leadership team goes, so goes the rest of the company. And thanks so much for doing this today. This was great.
Ed Howie_Serve Others Well (40:00)
Like,
awesome, man!