5 Steps to Accelerate Business Achievement

Speaker 1: Welcome to the Process Breakdown Podcast, where we talk about streamlining and scaling operations of your company, getting rid of bottlenecks and giving your employees all the information they need to be successful at their jobs. Now, let’s get started with the show.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Dr. Jeremy Weisz here, host of the Process Breakdown Podcast, where we talk about streamlining and scaling operations of your company, getting rid of bottlenecks and giving your staff everything they need to be successful at their job.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: You know, FP, first of all, I know this is near and dear to your heart. I’m going to introduce FP in a second. But past guests include David Allen of Getting Things Done, Michael Gerber of The E Myth and many, many more. So check out other episodes of the podcast.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: And this episode is brought to you by SweetProcess. And if you’ve had the team members ask you the same questions over and over again, and it may be the 10th time you spent explaining it. FP, right, never happened, right? There is a better way. There is a solution. SweetProcess is actually a software that help makes it drop dead easy to train and onboard new staff and save time with existing staff.

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Dr. Jeremy Weisz: I’m excited about today’s topic. We’re going to talk about many things, but also how to accelerate the achievement of your business goals in five easy steps. We have FP Moffet. He’s the COO at Connect&GO, which is a world leader in smart wearable solutions for guest experience, in leisure and entertainment and much more. He specializes in helping visionary founders and investors scale companies by building high-performance teams and establishing a structured and disciplined operational foundation.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: FP, thanks for joining me.

François-Pierre Moffet: Hey. Thanks, Jeremy. Happy to be here.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: So let’s start with telling me and the audience what does Connect&GO do?

François-Pierre Moffet: Yeah, so Connect&GO, we are the smart wearable platform that we use in attractions such as theme parks, water parks, zoos, as well as events, to do everything from ticketing, access, payments, gamification. So basically to streamline and make it very easy for any guests that enjoys the attraction or a music festival.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Yeah. I see some of the people on your site, like the NBA, the Toronto Maple Leafs. There’s probably a number of one. So I guess, someone goes in, they’re maybe a season ticket holder of a team, they go in, they could have this nice swipe bracelet, they swipe. Then they go up, they want nachos, then they swipe. Then they want other stuff and they swipe. Is that about right?

François-Pierre Moffet: Yeah. Exactly. On top of it. I mean, you can either attach it… You can take pictures, attach it to your profile, videos. Sometimes we’re in the family entertainment centers to kind of attach it to games as well, where you can compete with some of your friends and your peers. And we’re mentioning the fun of paying. Actually, we did as well the fire festival a few years back. So if you remember that wrist band on which they were putting money, it was ours. So it’s part of the full [inaudible 00:03:59] at Connect&GO.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: You mean the Netflix… There was a Netflix special on that, right?

François-Pierre Moffet: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Yeah. You should check it out. So yeah, if you see a bracelet, it was Connect&GO.

François-Pierre Moffet: Yeah.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: But yeah, there’s a lot of different use cases. And unfortunately, like I can’t wait for those things to go back in full effect with COVID. Talk about the journey through COVID-19.

François-Pierre Moffet: Yeah. I mean, crazy. I mean, it’s a year ago. Almost day-to-day that from one… From actually Friday to the next Monday, we became a hundred percent on premise team to a hundred percent remote all of a sudden. And also, from a business perspective, a lot of, I would say, unknowns as we were seeing our events business… Basically, each event being canceled one after the other and not knowing when it would go back. And also some more of our… We were doing at the same time a pivot towards attractions that are open 365 days a year also being closed. I mean, on one end, doomsday scenario. And that kind of forced us really to rethink the way we run our business.

François-Pierre Moffet: And actually, we’re one year after, we really took advantage of the year we had behind us to really accelerate product development, build a much stronger culture. And as well, I mean, under that, have a very solid framework. I think it’s about that time that we’ve implemented an OKR process with specific goals at each quarter really to take us, the team and our team members, to the next level in terms of, okay, how can we build our product faster? How can we take advantage of all the opportunities that we have, and actually be in the best position possible for… I mean, where we are now.

François-Pierre Moffet: Now, we’re slowly, with the vaccination, we’re seeing all… Like Disneyland that has planned to reopen in April. We see the UK that very soon, they’re going to open events as they were before. To be ready for that day and take advantage of the recovery. And we’re there now.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: So what have you found, FP? Any interesting use cases as you’re like, “Oh God, one-by-one games are canceled, events are canceled.” What were some interesting use cases that you found people using Connect&GO?

François-Pierre Moffet: Yeah. I mean, we looked at different opportunities in terms of, for example, using our wristband with some partners to have smart wearables to ensure social distancing between people and [crosstalk 00:06:58]-

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Do you get like shocked if you come within like a foot of someone, like, “Oh yeah, I got to stay social distant-“

François-Pierre Moffet: Actually, yeah. Yeah, with one of our partners, actually with vibration and light, yeah, it’s possible. And then at the same time, actually, we just launched with a partner called [Craldex E-technology 00:07:18], where you can have on your wristband information on the status of a rapid test. So then with that you can… If you go into a stadium or in a festival, you can know either were you vaccinated or not or did you test positive or not in order to control who’s getting in or out. In a little bit kind of in that hybrid world where not everyone is vaccinated, a solution to be able to get back to normal life.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: That is really quite interesting. I could see a use case for hospitals, actually. Anyone’s been in a hospital, right, you see those like kind of archaic bracelets that they strap on you. Have you found any hospitals want to use this for-

François-Pierre Moffet: Actually, at the beginnings of COVID, we actually had a few discussions. But at the same time, it’s a little bit like a lot of opportunities. But as a business, and that’s my role as well as a COO, is to make sure that we properly sort out the opportunities that are going to help us grow in the longterm and create value, versus, yeah, what can be interesting in a short term but actually slow us down for our end objective.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: What have you found been… You have your fan experience, right? What is the fan experience? How does this smart wearable help with the fan experience?

François-Pierre Moffet: I think, really, when you go at an event or at an attraction, I mean, there’s a physical, I would say, an experience that you’re going to live or a [inaudible 00:09:01] that you’re going to enjoy. But I think there’s so much potential of what you can do before or how to enhance digitally the experience on site, and even after to be able to close the loop.

François-Pierre Moffet: Actually, [inaudible 00:09:15] today we just launched our play and go solution, which is about how we can use digital to make the live event or attraction more interesting. Meaning that, with your wristband, you can only focus on living the experience, you can leave your phone in your pocket or actually in a locker if you’re at a water park and use that to pay for food, beverage or merchandise. You can use it to trigger lights and sound show. You can use it to take pictures, and after that you can publish on social media. So really, to create unforgettable memories of that specific afternoon or night that you’re going to spend at the venue.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: I know we’re going to talk about how to accelerate achievement of your business goals in five easy steps, but I need to get your take on innovation because I see so many moving parts and so many amazing use cases and applications for this, because there’s a lot of data that is being stored and it gives people flexibility to do a lot of things with it. I don’t know if you’re allowed to share some of these things. But what’s on the roadmap for what you’re working on now, or use cases that you’re going to be releasing?

François-Pierre Moffet: Yeah, for sure. I mean, even a use case today that we had some of our customers over the last year use it, specifically in a COVID world where you need to be able to know your capacity in real time. You have like public health that is monitoring you. So just being able to give the operator the opportunity to know how many people there are onsite at anytime and where they are, it allows you to properly dispatch your staff in different locations so you can optimize the number of people you have. And you can take better decisions over the long run on the operational station.

François-Pierre Moffet: But after that, for sure, there are a lot of, I would say, opportunities. We’re working with… We have a research project right now with one academic institution here where, for example, we’re parsing with video cameras the site and be able to develop different heat maps in order to optimize traffic, see areas where social distancing is not respected, and you need to make adjustments to your operations.

François-Pierre Moffet: And then after that, for the future, yeah, it’s endless because I think… I mean, you can get a lot of data points of where people are all physically. But I think what we do have that nobody else has is that, as there are different activities, we’re able to capture much more precise and finite interactions. So which rides have you been on? How many times? Which games have you played? And I think, which provides the potential and actually that’s our vision, to provide a much more personalized guest experience in the leisure and attraction sector.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Yeah. Yeah. You can give someone a really individualized experience because, let’s say you’re going to this museum park and every time you go, you order the nachos, the Coke or whatever. It’ll probably can show up like, “Hey, we already know you like this, do you want this?” or…

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: I love what you said about the heat map, because I picture like in a website, you can really pull up a website and the analytics there and see a heat map. People are all concentrated here. They’re looking at here. They’re spending this much time here. It’s interesting to see that, if the park knows at 1 PM there’s a flood of people that go to this one concession, and there’s only one person staff there. Well you can see, well, maybe from this time period, you should have three people staff there or whatever it is.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: And I picture when you say the amusement park can get real time analytics if the capacity of COVID, I picture that person at the front with that clicker. You know, like the old school version? You know, that clicker that’s just like counting people. They’re clicking it and they’re counting people. Instead of the new school way of like they scan their Connect&GO and it like registers into the cloud or something like that, right?

François-Pierre Moffet: Yeah. What’s funny enough, I think just my call just previous our interview here was actually about one of our customers. That’s what they’re doing now, they’re using a clicker. And actually they did not know yet, but we’re going to be offering to do a pilot with them, with actually automating all that, to try out our technology. Again, I think a lot of opportunities there, too.

François-Pierre Moffet: I think in an industry where, in many regards, is still a bit behind in terms of technology. And I think now, with the return, as they are reopening, they’re going to be looking for solutions on how to optimize their business. They have less capacity. So the spend per head or the amount of revenue they can generate for each guest is super important. At the same time, you just… I mean, the goal at the end of the day is not only to generate revenue, but how can you make the experience unforgettable. And I think right now, we’re all at a point where we’ve been stuck in our homes for a year now, we’re just looking to go out and have fun. And I think, I mean, we want to contribute to make that experience fun again and make the best out of it.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Are there any other, FP, old school versus new school? So like old school little clicker, new school, obviously, scan. What’s other old school things that Connect&GO is replacing?

François-Pierre Moffet: Yeah. Old school, I mean, using paper tickets, using… I would say, ticketing at the counter or even… I mean, really, in many places, I think you could replace a lot of the stuff that doesn’t necessarily add value to sell tickets with your self-serve kiosks or mobile kiosks where people can… Again, we want to make the flow of coming into an attraction easy, because you don’t want to go there and then make the line for hours. You just want to go there and have fun.

François-Pierre Moffet: And also, I think, all the counting and even all the, being able to measure affluence at each one of your ride. I mean typically, operators, what they do, they’re looking at the line size. But even if you have like data points or checkpoints at the start of each ride, you know exactly how many people there are at which time of the day. So you can, again, improve the logistics of your park by spreading more the crowd around. And again, at the end of the day, the guests say, “Hey, well, that was a good experience. I want to go back. I just don’t want to go one time this year. I want to get back, bring my friends over,” and so on.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: So let’s talk about the five steps. So how to accelerate the achievement of your business goals in five easy steps? What’s the first one?

François-Pierre Moffet: Yeah. I mean, the first one, very simple. I mean, you need to align on the vision of what you want to accomplish as a team. And that’s where, I think, communication is super important, and to clearly state as a leader where you want to go. And also, I mean, engage in a discussion on the team of what does it mean.

François-Pierre Moffet: And also, I mean, it’s important where you want to go, but also where do you don’t want to go? So to be very clear on what you’re focusing on, and be super clear as, okay, why you’re doing that. What do you want to accomplish? What are going to be the positive consequences for the team, but also for each individual?

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Okay. Cool. Yeah. Vision is important, right? Everyone’s aligned. There’s a North star. Everyone knows where they’re going. What’s the second step?

François-Pierre Moffet: Yeah. Second. I mean, to have very specific goals. And when I mean specific goals, it’s something concrete. Something that you can touch. So it’s very objective. It’s a number, it’s a dollar figure, it’s a deliverable with a specific date. So your classical smart objective. But at the same time, I think it’s really important to make it visible, to put it on the board somewhere in the office. And for sure, right now, as we’ve been remote for the last year, to have the technology, that virtual dashboard that everybody sees, that’s, I think, the right way to do it. And to make sure that also there’s no ambiguity, that, okay, it’s clear, it’s black or white, what do you want to accomplish.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: So do you have an internal system that you use with a virtual dashboard, or any tools you recommend? Where does it live on your guys’ internal structure?

François-Pierre Moffet: Yeah. Right. I think the tool is not that important. What is really important is, it’s going to be as much energy that you’re putting into it. So we’ve been on, actually, Excel for most of the last year. And then recently, we’ve been using Lattice, which I think in the remote bit, more evolved in terms of managing all of your KRs. And again, it facilitates communication and also transparency. I mean, our objectives are available for everyone in the team to see so they know where we’re heading. [crosstalk 00:18:49]-

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: I could see that being a motivating factor of people seeing that tick up as you’re going to reach a goal.

François-Pierre Moffet: Yeah. Yeah. And then also, I think it’s good to see even like, you see the goal of, “Okay. Hey, what the COO is doing. What are his objectives? What’s my leader doing? What’s my colleague doing?” It’s far clear. It’s transparent to everyone. I mean, it’s easier for every team member to know, “Okay, this is what I’m going to be contributing. And this is what my colleagues are doing.”

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: So first, vision. Two, goals, trackable, measurable, visible. What’s three?

François-Pierre Moffet: Yeah. Three it’s to work on the lead indicators and lead activities. Meaning, what you can control day-in, day-out, and actually, where you can have a reward at the end of the week to say, “Hey, okay, I’ve advanced it to the next step” and really to focus on kind of the behavior and process that drives the final outcome and really feel that you have an impact. So then it becomes so simple that it’s just a matter of doing it. So it’s to break your specific goal in small step that you can see, feel, touch the advancement every week.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Is there an example you could give me, whether this company, past company or in general about a lead indicator?

François-Pierre Moffet: Yeah, I think what’s easiest is… For example, you look at sales and marketing. So you’re looking to achieve a certain figure in sales in the current month or at the end of the quarter. So it’s all about how you measure every step of the funnel. So, okay, how many outbound calls have you done in sales? How many leads are coming through a specific channel in marketing? How many are converting to a demo? How many are converting to a proposal and later on to a sell? So you can focus on the lead activity, because at the end, maybe, the salesperson can’t control the volume of sales. They’re going to conclude, specifically in a COVID world where it’s a bit less predictable. But they can control, okay, how many theme park am I going to contact or many conversations I’m going to have this week? How many demos I’m going to do? This is where you have more control.

François-Pierre Moffet: And also, we have a rework because then you can have something, and say, “Okay. Good, I’ve achieved that objective. Now, I can advance and move on from week-to-week.”

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Yeah. Yeah. You have control over it, if like, oh, how many stadiums signed up in the past month? Well, you don’t have control over that, but you can control, I emailed these 50 stadiums just to check in on them. And you can control that indicator.

François-Pierre Moffet: Yeah.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: So what is the fourth one?

François-Pierre Moffet: It’s measure and adjust all the time. So make sure, I always… I think the example, I like to run, so I always have my GPS watch to look at what pace are you advancing. Typically, what I’ve used at Connect&GO and in previous organizations is kind of a weekly cadence where every Monday morning, you look at your dashboard, you look where you are. Are you on track or off track? But more, okay, what actions are you taking to adjust?

François-Pierre Moffet: And the fact that you have kind of those results in your face every week, it’s kind of a natural force that pushes you to act every week. And all those small actions that you take every week, that’s where it kind of… I don’t know. It’s like a magnet that brings you towards your objective because you always feel a sense of urgency. It’s like, “Oh, I’m off after one week, I need to do something,” versus, if you look at it later on at the end of the month.

François-Pierre Moffet: And really to focus, not just on… What I had actually, we’ve banned this quarter, is not to use percentage. Oh, I think, I’m 80% there. It’s to have like something that you can count, that you can touch and, again, that is visible to everyone. And also not focusing on, hey, the number is good or right. It’s okay. How can I support you in achieving your objective? What resources do you need to get there?

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Yeah. So that measure and adjust, if you’re looking at the metrics then, every week or whatever amount of frequency, you can tell what needs to adjust kind of it’s in the same process. You’d be like, “Wait, oh. Last week, I made 30 outreaches. And this week, I did 10.” Well, you could see what happened this week, right? You can immediately kind of see and measure. You’re measuring, but you can adjust accordingly. What would be the fifth step?

François-Pierre Moffet: Yeah, fifth step, it’s about the environment. So keep the spirit up. I think it’s important to always kind of celebrate the small wins. So for example, we take time every week, we have a weekly staff meeting where we say, “Hey, what are our three wins of the week?” To really, even to celebrate all the positive steps that you’re making. So you kind of build trust and confidence in your organization on your capability to achieve your goals.

François-Pierre Moffet: And also, I think, it’s to make yourself available either as a leader or just as a colleague to support your teammates in achieving their goals. Do they need external support? Okay, so what tools do they need? What help do they need on helping them achieve their objective? It’s not about, “Hey, you’re off target. You better adjust or you’re going to be in trouble.” It’s more about, “Okay, how can I help you get there? So at the end of the day, we achieve the full objective.” But yeah, the environment is super important. And keeping everyone positive, motivated is, I think, the key to success in the end.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: What do you do, FP, to celebrate? What are some celebrations, it may be very small or big that you’ve done with the team?

François-Pierre Moffet: Yeah, with the team… I must say, one challenge with COVID is that you need to do that virtually. So it asks us to be a bit creative. I mean, we’ve done a few of our activities where… One cool one was to have a chef and have a box of food delivered to everyone where we would come post our meal live at the same time. And I would say putting together packages of company, swag that we send to everyone.

François-Pierre Moffet: But I must say, it’s quite a challenge, recognition during COVID, because you don’t get the opportunity to have a drink together. But, again, it forces us to innovate. So for example, recently we surveyed our team on, okay, how are your managers have been performing? And one of them that came back is, “We’re not that good at…” I think it’s always a challenge for many organizations on giving feedback. So we use the opportunity, and right now we’re deploying a process where we say, “Okay, you know what? During your weekly one-on-one, every week, your manager will give you… It’s going to be even something we’re going to track internally. They’re going to need to provide you one line of feedback, either positive or constructive, in order to kind of build that recognition and then feedback culture.”

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: Nice. First of all, FP, I want to be the first one to thank you. Everyone should check out connectn, the letter N, go.com, connectngo. Check out SweetProcess. Check out more episodes of the podcast. And thanks everyone for listening.

François-Pierre Moffet: Hey, thank you, Jeremy. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Process Breakdown Podcast. Before you go, quick question, do you want a tool that makes it easy to document processes, procedures and or policies for your company so that your employees have all the information they need to be successful at their job? If yes, sign up for our free 14-day trial of SweetProcess. No credit card is required to sign up. Go to sweetprocess.com, sweet like candy and process like process.com. Go now to sweetprocess.com and sign up for your risk-free 14-day trial.

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