The Reality of Business
Welcome to The Reality of Business, the go-to podcast for insights, stories, and straight-talking advice on all things business.
With over two decades of running Reality Training, Bob & Jeremy have coached thousands, spoken at global conferences, and worked with businesses of all sizes - from start-ups to household names. Their experience, paired with their unique storytelling style, makes this podcast a must-listen for anyone looking to sell smarter, lead better, and think differently about business.
What You’ll Get
🎙️ Expert insights & strategies to transform your approach
😂 Honest, light-hearted discussions - no corporate jargon, just real talk
💡 Lessons from global business leaders & industry disruptors
🌍 Stories from working with world-renowned brands
Launched in June 2021 as Bob & Jeremy’s Conflab, the show has evolved into The Reality of Business, delivering thought-provoking discussions, entertaining banter, and actionable takeaways to help you navigate the challenges of modern business.
Why Listen?
📈 Want to sell more and manage better? We’ve got you.
💬 Looking for fresh perspectives on leadership & sales? You’re in the right place.
🎧 Need an engaging listen while you work, commute, or unwind? We’re here for that too.
🔗 Discover more about Reality Training & our work with global businesses: www.realitytraining.com
🎵 Original music by Charlie Morrell.
If you enjoy the show, leave a rating and review - we’d love to hear your thoughts!
🚀 Listen now & rethink the way you do business.
The Reality of Business
Disloyal Bonding Exposed: Protecting Customer Loyalty & Strengthening Service
In the third episode of our mini-series inspired by Whose Side Are You On? Disloyal Bonding and Strategic Lies, Bob & Jeremy continue their examination of deceptive business practices that manipulate customer loyalty – such as disloyal bonding and strategic lies.
Through insightful role-plays, they reveal real-world examples: a coffee shop falsely promoting recyclable materials, a tailor’s deceptive discount schemes, and a car service misleading customers with unnecessary software upgrades, showing that even major brands aren’t immune to dishonesty.
But it doesn’t end there. This episode also highlights the dangers of ignoring customer complaints, especially in cultures where feedback is scarce (like the UK). Bob and Jeremy show how this negligence can lead to financial losses and the breakdown of customer trust.
Don’t miss this engaging discussion as they gear up for the launch of Whose Side Are You On? on 1st October 2024. Pre-order your copy now on Amazon.co.uk! And stay tuned for the next episode in the series, where they’ll provide practical strategies for businesses to recognise these issues and retain loyal customers through exceptional service.
For more info, free resources, useful content & our blog posts, please visit realitytraining.com.
Reality Training - Selling Certainty
Welcome to episode 3, all about the book coming out on the 1st of October. Whose Side Are you On? Disloyal Bonding and Strategic Lies? You're here with the two authors I'm Jeremy Blake and I'm Bobby Murrell, and in episode three we're going to look at some real-life examples. So, bobby, imagine you wake up in the morning and you think you'll start your day with a cup of coffee. I think we might just act this out.
Speaker 2:Bobby, so I'm going to be the coffee shop owner.
Speaker 1:This is just at the start of his day. I'll set out what's happening for Bob on his day. There's a problem with his car, but before that, he's going to grab a coffee for himself. He's going to whiz home and pick up his son, who's about to start going into the sixth form at his school, and going into the sixth form at his school, and he's promised his son, of course, as is the clothing list he's going to get him a suit for the sixth form. So it's coffee suit and car problem.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm in the coffee shop so I'm going into the coffee shop and I've ordered a latte to take out and the cup is given to me. It's a cardboard style cup and it says on the side made from recycled material and it's got a plastic lid that's going to go on the top as well and I'm delighted by this because I love all things sustainable and environmentally friendly. So I say to the person serving me are the lids compostable as well? I beg your pardon, say again these lids, because you've got recyclable cups. Are these lids compostable as?
Speaker 1:well, I've got no idea.
Speaker 2:We just chuck it all in this black bin bag oh right, okay, so you're selling recyclable cups, but you don't recycle yourselves.
Speaker 1:Well, we just chuck it all in the bin bag and I get rid of it at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:Right. Okay, now this offends my middle-class sensibilities because I thought this was a nice, trendy coffee shop that would do right by the environment. But really probably the only reason they're buying recyclable cups is because they're cheap.
Speaker 1:Well, or that they're lying to their customers that they are environmentally sound and conscious and they're not.
Speaker 2:Now, that's just a small example of a small coffee shop doing something. Let's move on up the line to another version of this, a real life example in the tailor shop. So I go with my son. He's trying on various suits and the first one he tries on is about 100 quid and quite nice. The next one is a step up. It's another hundred pounds more but it's three piece and he does look amazing in it. And he comes out in the suit looking amazing and I think okay hello sir, hello uh, hello young man how much is this one?
Speaker 1:yeah, uh, this is Marc Laurier. This suit, is it?
Speaker 2:Marc Laurier. Really interesting designer and this suit.
Speaker 1:It's actually double the first one your son tried on. This is £199, this suit. So it's just under the 200 mark. How do you find it? How do you find it?
Speaker 2:Oh, he loves it. It looks fantastic.
Speaker 1:I think it looks very, very smart. Yeah, fantastic. What's the sort of thinking?
Speaker 2:I don't know. It's double the price of the other one. I'm just pondering on that.
Speaker 1:Well, if you were to come back on Saturday, we actually are having a 25% off sale that starts that day, and I will be applying that to the Mont Laurier, so you'll get a further 25% off, if you don't mind waiting until Saturday. When does your son start school? Well, he starts tomorrow actually, okay.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Your son's taking it off.
Speaker 2:We'll have a think. We'll have a think. Thank you, Right. Okay, so there we are. Here we have somebody applying an immediate discount when actually, if they just hold their ground, they might have easily sold a £199 suit, but they've devalued it immediately. Now that's disloyal bonding, pretending to do me a favour, but actually just sell me the suit Now. Lastly, and let's move to a major brand, I'm taking my car, and it's an expensive car, a very middle-class large car for a large family, A hybrid car and I've got a problem with-class large car for a large family, A hybrid car and I've got a problem with the battery and I need to get it checked over by this leading.
Speaker 1:It's not charging properly at home, is it Not?
Speaker 2:charging properly. I need to get it checked because either I need a new battery or they need to fix the battery in some form and I'm concerned about it.
Speaker 1:In, he walks to the service desk.
Speaker 2:Up to the service desk, my car's outside. Hello there, I'm just dropping off my white estate.
Speaker 1:Ah, yes, we had it in the book, but we didn't actually have it. I don't actually have a note down here. I mean, that was Trevor on yesterday. Sometimes his notes are poor, but what is the problem with the hybrid?
Speaker 2:Well, it's a hybrid and the battery doesn't seem to be charging properly, so I can't use the electrical element very easily.
Speaker 1:Ah, this is the model they brought out a few years ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 2015.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. The hybrids, then they're of a level, but they're not great. They do go wrong. I mean the newer cars, they've really sort of cracked it but the model that you're driving around there is one of the very first hybrids. It's quite poor actually, Right. Yeah, they just hadn't quite mastered the charging of that. Well, look, we'll take a look, but what I may have to tell you is you may well need new software on that. New software.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, okay. Well, what does that cost?
Speaker 1:Well, as you know, the batteries are guaranteed and we'd replace those, but that's just the lithium batteries within your vehicle. But you'll have to pay for the software.
Speaker 2:As I said, it took a while to get it right.
Speaker 1:Well, as I said, you know it took a while to get it right. Well, what does that cost?
Speaker 2:oh, it's going to be sort of 1500 to 2000 to put a new disc in god, is there a chance I won't have to do that? Is there a chance you?
Speaker 1:might be able to fix it. Unlikely being the 15 hybrid, oh, but I mean, the other option for you is to have a look at the new ones, which are much better. I mean, they've really worked it out it's not an option.
Speaker 2:I need to get this car fixed, if I can, okay we'll do our best, but I I have had them in.
Speaker 1:It's likely you're going to need the new software system.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, well have a look, just give me a second, where have you had it?
Speaker 1:where have you had it serviced and stuff, because you you'll get a bit of discount from uh, from the, from the brand itself, if you've been doing it within main deal no, I haven't.
Speaker 2:No, no, all right. Well, you won't qualify, okay, okay, fine, right, okay, well, give me bell, let me know how it looks.
Speaker 1:And the bell takes place. And of course, Bob leaves that brand sharpish and never drives their vehicles again.
Speaker 2:Now this is for somebody who'd been driving that particular brand for over 10 years. So if you think about that, it might be 20 years. But if you think about the loyalty that we have for certain car brands, that we have for certain car brands, we drive those brands for years and years and years. When we feel that they've let us down, we don't say anything to the brand. Our brain just goes right I've had enough of this. I'm going to get another brand and start with them and I'm not going back and this poor dislaw behavior from this service manager.
Speaker 1:And these are all true stories. They're all real. They've happened to Bob and I. These stories between us.
Speaker 2:It damages our ability to go back. Now, in different countries there are different levels of complaint. In the UK, our default, as you all know, is to not say anything and never go back, and of course, that means that you can't put right what's gone wrong. And that's how brands major brands lose customers forever Customers whose lifetime value is many, many tens of thousands of pounds in this case and all of those are live retail examples. Within the different chapters of Whose Side Are you On, which comes out on the 1st of October, there are all sorts of different service options described so things like contact centres that you'll all be familiar with, retail examples and, of course, service. Sometimes, when you get people out to your home, they can demonstrate dislaw bonding as well. There's all sorts of scenarios where we are faced with this endemic problem, and what we do in the book is bring that to life and also, as you'll find out in the next episode, we're going to come up with some different ideas of how you actually tackle this problem and get rid of it for good.
Speaker 1:Listen out for episode four. Thanks for listening.