Day one of the 2018 Customer Expo conference in Nashville, Tennessee kicked off with talks from several keynote speakers. One of the most personal speeches came from Lonnie Mayne, CEO of Red Shoes Living. He spoke on the importance of attitude in driving customer loyalty and drew on personal experience to exemplify the issue.
Mayne told the story of his father, a professional wrestler who died when he was ten. Before performances, Mayne’s father would spend time with his son backstage but would never allow Mayne to accompany him through the curtain as he walked to the ring. Mayne said this was because his father felt the need to be completely present for the fans who waited to greet him on the runway. This fans-first attitude, as well as his father’s competitiveness, has driven his loyalty work at Red Shoes Living.
Mayne said, “If I could reach out and connect with you and know what your stories were, I would engage with you in a completely different way. If you were sad, or anxious, or you didn’t get that much sleep, I would try to connect with you at that level.” This philosophy, Mayne believes, should determine how a brand interacts with its customers, and it’s this philosophy that Mayne says his father demonstrated when he went out to greet his fans.
He calls this philosophy “the art of the possible” and says that it isn’t just a method brands should use to improve customer engagement. It’s a way of life. “This means standing up for the positive in how you work and how you live,” said Mayne. “We want to thread this philosophy into organizations to create lift, to create engagement. This framework is applied to the leadership, to the company culture, to the customer experience, and it’s the way one lives life. It’s this last component that’s made the philosophy so popular.”
The art of the possible, according to Mayne, has five pillars: having awareness, being grateful, knowing that everyone has a story, being respectful, and putting yourself out there. These pillars, he believes, open up possibilities in business and in life. If organizations can create a culture built around these five pillars, they’ll be more successful, and Red Shoes Living dedicates itself to establishing this culture.
Mayne champions positivity as the core of loyalty efforts. “We want to stand out in everything we do,” he said, “from how we respond to emails and engage with each other to the culture we’ve created to how we talk to our customers and to how we hire. Giving back to the community is a really incredible thing.” Given the success that Red Shoes Living has seen, Mayne’s attitude seems to be working.