Life Lessons from Submarines and Selling Washing Machines with Mike Todd

Mike: Every now and again, put your head above the parapet and have a good look around you, because so often we are heads down and we forget there is a massive world out there. I have mastered the art over the years, certainly at coffee machines, because it is always a coffee machine in an office, and talk to people, say hello, look them in the eye, ask them how they are going.

Brian: Today we are talking with Mike Todd, Senior Advisor of Consumer Products at Dearin and Associates. Mike specialises in assisting consumer products companies in expanding their operations and market presence on a global scale. His role involves leveraging market insights, strategic planning, and cross-functional collaboration. But we are also going to talk about submarines and selling washing machines. Mike, welcome to The Native Experience.

Mike: Thank you very much. It is an absolute pleasure to be here.

Brian: Tell us about yourself and what you are nerding out on right now.

Mike: Having a name like Mike Todd is always difficult because Mike Todd was Elizabeth Taylor's second husband. I never get anywhere on Google. I need to change my name to Mike Aardvark. I am married, two kids, girl and boy, 13 and 15. Surprisingly expensive to keep going. I left school very early, joined the Navy. Then I went through retail as a graduate, post-Navy, then slipped to the other side of the desk and worked with a lot of brands. I figured out both sides of the equation and now find myself helping brands internationalise. I connect dots. I love connecting dots after the event and saying, what did I miss and what did I get right?

Mike: I love old things. Old hi-fi takes me back to my youth. There is a scene in Nine and a Half Weeks where a Nakamichi tape deck does this incredible swivel as it turns the tape over. I was never pausing Kim Basinger. I was pausing the Nakamichi tape deck. That set my scene of life from a very early age.

Brian: Why was selling washing machines your favourite job?

Mike: It comes from the 1990s. I had left the forces and gone through a traditional graduate retail scheme. I was a young manager with a lot of older people in the store. On a Saturday morning, I would send my troops down the shop and the customers would come in. One by one, the troops would retreat back up to the cash desk and say, boss, they were only browsing. I said, it is Saturday morning, the sun is shining, who browses washing machines on a Saturday? Their washing machine broke last night and they need one today.

Mike: The customer would look at me in a suit and say, I am just browsing. I would say, can I ask, do you have any children? They would say, I have got two, what does that matter? How old are they? Eight and six. I would say, just so you know, this end here is the 800 spin. There is no good 800 spin, you are doing a lot of washing. You need the 1,300 spin washers, which are further down there. At that point, the hook was in because they knew I knew about washing machines. They would buy in a genuine way because I was doing the right thing by them.

Mike: If I sold them the wrong washer, an 800 spin with semi-wet clothes, it would ruin their week. If I give them the right washing machine, maybe slightly more money, it would last them a lot longer and they would get much better service out of it. Selling washing machines is a byword for great service. If you give good service, you keep a customer and they will come back over and over again. It is all about asking those key questions right at the beginning and being genuine and being nice.

Brian: That totally makes sense. Are we doing right by other people? That is what we should all be doing.

Mike: We have lost a lot of fundamentals. As far as businesses are concerned, I do believe there are a lot of businesses out there that really don't care about their customers. They will lose market share and disappear. The ones that stay are the ones that understand the service requirement. Whether you are a coffee shop or a multinational software company, you still need to be good. Otherwise you will go.

Brian: Some companies that don't provide good service have been around for decades.

Mike: I was thinking about Microsoft. In the early 2000s, Microsoft stopped being something you bought and became something integral to your life. You cannot do without it. Is that really a business anymore? Or is it so integrated that the ownership needs to pass to something else? It would be better for us all if it was broken up into a thousand companies that then flourished competitively. Microsoft has no real great competitors. It just exists.

Mike: Standard Oil was broken up into 150 companies by an act of Congress. It turbocharged the industry because those companies had to compete on their own. Standard Oil owned everything from drilling to transport. Once broken up, they became competitive. We don't talk about that anymore. We allow these big monolithic companies to be created and wonder why they don't really care.

Brian: Tell us about your experience in Japan.

Mike: I have been to Japan many times. I did not like it at the beginning. I found it a very lonely place. Nobody looked at you and you felt very alone. But over time I began to love it. Shopping in Japan is the best shopping. They do it so well.

Mike: A distributor wanted to keep the brand but I knew he was going to lose it. He took me on a journey through cultural experiences. We ended up at a retreat at the base of Mount Fuji. I was put in a room with no bed, just a small futon, all bamboo, beautiful. There was a kimono laid out on the floor. A lady knocked on the door, pointed at the kimono, and said I needed to put it on. I started to take my clothes off and then had that horrible thought: do I take my underwear off? I stupidly took everything off. I was going out to a meal naked underneath this thing.

Mike: I went into the restaurant. Everybody was sat on the floor, cross-legged. My heart rate was going. When I cross my legs, this thing is going to open and whoever is in front of me is going to get a very big shock. The lady obviously caught glimpses of things she never should have seen. The whole meal I could not do anything. I was cross-legged, utterly naked under a kimono and it ruined my whole meal. What should I have done? I should have read up more about social etiquette in Japan.

Brian: Tell us about the submarine experience.

Mike: I joined the Navy and volunteered for submarine service. It was another 150 pounds a month. My mum said, why have you done that? I said, it was 150 quid and I can buy a lot with that. I was drafted to HMS Turbulent, a nuclear hunter-killer. I would have been just nearly 18 years old. I spent four years on one submarine and went everywhere.

Mike: It was six hours on, six hours off. No days off. Duty, sleep, duty, sleep. A dive could be anywhere from two weeks to ten weeks. The first week is torture because getting into routine is very difficult. The last week is torture because you are looking forward to getting off the boat. I made incredible friends, people I still see now.

Mike: You become institutionalised quickly. Things become so regular, so routine. You become a little bit numb. When you dock anywhere, we just went crazy. We were just pirates. If you did not have a bed, the supply officer would give you money for subsistence. You would be told not to come back until your duty. Nobody cared. You were just a nomad.

Mike: Food was regular. If it was Wednesday, it was lasagne. Thursday, cheese. If there was no porridge, it was Sunday. That was how you recognised the days. Once food started to run out, you got onto worse food. Fresh would go first, then frozen, then reconstituted and tinned. Food became very important. I got to love coffee at sea. I took my own coffee bags. To have that coffee, to have a bit of escape, to have something that took me outside of the boat, to give me hope that at some point this trip would end. If I smell coffee now and let myself relax, I go right back on board. That is where it takes me.

Mike: I was using in 1987 a glass screen as a keyboard, a touch pad. Orange, with a light beam you break, then press the letter. People at home said they did not believe me. These things don't exist. Now we all carry touchscreens. But that was 1987. People cannot visualise something they have no reference for.

Brian: What advice would you leave us with on providing a native experience?

Mike: Every now and again, put your head above the parapet and have a good look around you. So often we are heads down and we forget there is a massive world out there. I have mastered the art at coffee machines. Talk to people, say hello, look them in the eye, ask them how they are going. These little interactions mean a lot, both to the receiver because somebody has taken notice of them, and for you to be able to connect. We have forgotten sometimes the art of that simple hello, how are you today. Listening to that feedback and going, I have connected. That connection means something to both. Take some time out to genuinely ask somebody how they are and care about it.

Brian: Life is lived looking up.

Mike: Look up. Absolutely. Look up.

Brian: Mike, thanks so much for taking the time.

Mike: Thank you very much indeed. It has been an absolute pleasure.

Brian: Mike Todd, Senior Advisor of Consumer Products at Dearin and Associates. Remember, always strive for authenticity and embrace the power of native experiences.