In this episode, Kristi explores the idea of hospitality over transaction and how Trader Joe’s creates a customer experience built around human connection, curiosity, personalization, and surprise. She draws a direct parallel to voir dire, where attorneys can either treat jurors as individuals to be polled, or intentionally create an experience that helps them connect, participate, and begin functioning as a group.

Then, in the Communication Tip, Kristi turns to breath and stress-cycle completion. Jurors are already experiencing stress simply by being in the courtroom, and the substance and delivery of a trial can add significantly to that load. Learn how your breath, pauses, and physical presence can help signal the end of a stressful moment and give jurors an opportunity to reset so they can continue learning and processing.

LISTEN HERE...

Favorite Moment

“Could you dare to try something different with your upcoming trial? Could you just show up with a sincere desire for connection, a mindset of curiosity, and invitation? And keep your mindset open to transformation instead of transaction?”

Links & Resources

Preston Lee - https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1LZtsRzJJr/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Forbes - https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2019/10/24/the-5-lessons-from-trader-joes-unbeatable-customer-experience/

Brittany Hodak - https://brittanyhodak.com/trader-joes-customer-experience-strategy-why-it-works/

FYV #22 - The Body Language Fix That Builds Trust and Carries Your Voice

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TRANSCRIPT:

Helllooooo!!! Hello Foster Fam! Hey, if you haven't already, please take just a second to leave a 5-star rating and a brief review of the podcast on your podcast platform. Let's work together to help others with their communication strategies. (dramatically) Healing the human experience, one good communication exchange at a time. Hahah! Okay, let's get right to it today.

I recently found myself as the primary helper for my neighbor who was having a standard, out-patient surgery. I took him, brought him home, helped get settled, and checked on him for the first couple of days of recovery. I kept offering to go pick up anything he needed, kind of forgetting that we live in a modern age and people can order groceries online.

I just happen to be a weirdie who LOVES to grocery shop. I wander the aisles like it's my job. I look forward to it every week. I have a couple stores I frequent, and, most often, on a late Sunday morning I make the rounds. And "the rounds" nearly always include Trader Joe's.

Do you have Trader Joe's in your area? I first knew about them when I was a college student in Southern California, but they've been up here in the Northwest for quite some time. I just don't know how far east they go. I *think they may be just a west coast operation. Send me a DM and let me know if you have a neighborhood Trader Joe's you go to outside of WA, OR, or CA.

Trader Joe's is a unique experience, and one that I think we can learn from, especially if you're an attorney who is needing to engage with an audience, like in jury selection. "Grocery shopping and voir dire, Kristi?! Come on!" No no...just stick with me here.

There are a couple of things Trader Joe's does that I think are directly applicable to the trial experience. I suppose, though, that they're all rooted in HOSPITALITY, which, if you've been a long time listener, you know this is a core value of mine and one that I think is also foundational to a successful juror experience. Go back to Ep. 22 to hear my thoughts on the book Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara for some insights.

Anyway, according to Forbes, Trader Joe’s leads in customer satisfaction and employee engagement. And they have incredibly loyal customers. Here's why...

First, they have a People-powered experience. The "Crew Members" (that's what they call their employees) make every visit feel like a human interaction, not a transaction. They are trying, or at least it seems like they're trying, to build real relationships instead of just pushing products.

Partly they do this by, what Preston Lee says, "Engineering a hospitality experience." They have a system for customer engagement. The next time you find yourself at Trader Joe's, notice the two specific exchanges you have at check out. The cashier will ask the question "what do you have going on the rest of the day?" This starts a conversation, unlike the standard "how you doing?/fine.", which we all know is just mechanical, habitual pleasantries.

They will also comment on one item in your cart, with sincerity. "Oh, the chili lime chips. I've been meaning to try those. You like them? Have you tried the fire roasted elote chips? Also good. I bet if you like a little bit of kick, you'll like those too." HUMAN. It might not be entirely heartfelt, and maybe a little contrived, but it never FEELS that way, and they have to be present, spontaneous, and interactive which all goes a long way into the human experience. Again, unlike any other grocery store.

They also infuse surprise & delight wherever they can. They've got seasonal items, and quirky product mashups. Something new to feature that makes each trip feels exciting. The atmosphere and the tone are fun and relaxed. And they do small things like fun stickers for kids, a search for the hidden stuffed animal or free samples. All these efforts make a difference.

Handwritten signs, cheeky packaging, punny titles. They all keep the brand’s tone is playful and personal. Feels home-y.

And there's no sales, and no gimmicks. There's no "loyalty program" rooted in tech and apps. Again, nothing feels transactional at Trader Joe’s. They cut out the middleman and build trust and consistency through fair pricing and an enhanced customer experience.

"Okay, great! I want to shop at Trader Joe's now. But let's get to how this affects jury selection. Didn't you say something about that?" Yes, I did. So...Here's the parallel I see.

Jurors are "customers" and it's your job to walk them through the jury experience. All too often, I hear attorneys set up transactions. Ask a closed question, get a one word answer. Ask the next person, get their answer. And right down the line...individual polling just to get what you want. The jury has no buy in and you've not garnered any trust or alliance with them. They remain unwilling, forced participants. They're not impressed with your fancy power points. They haven't had a second to relax, breathe with you, or crack a smile once. And your tactics to try to muster up engagement and authenticity feel like a gimmick...something you stole from Nick Rowley or Keith Mitnik and haven't made it your own. You're regurgitating someone else's effective technique and it's not working for you, but you're not present enough with the human exchange to notice.

Those are some tough words, but...I'm not wrong, and you probably know it.

Could you dare to try something different with your upcoming trial? Could you just show up with a sincere desire for connection, a mindset of curiosity, and invitation? And keep your mindset open to transformation instead of transaction? How do you want jurors to FEEL? Or do you care if they feel anything? Maybe you don't. I'm not saying that's wrong, but it's certainly something to examine and consider. The answer to that will directly shape how you interact with them.

I'm curious what you're taking away from this. Is there a Trader Joe's model that you'd be willing to try? Or have you in the past? What was the result? I'd love to hear from you. Send me an email at [email protected] to let me know what parallels you see.

—BREAK—

Every few weeks, I offer a challenge related to breath. Pausing to give your audience time to catch up, breathing in a way that supports your nervous system, etc. Breath is life. And you have the opportunity to use it strategically to be a life-giver to your audience.

One of the skills of life is learning how to deal with stress response. Stress physically works its way through your body and you need to be able release it in healthy ways and complete the stress cycle, helping the nervous system downshift/recover from an acute stress response.

Perhaps you don't realize is that you need to provide these stress cycle completions for your jurors. It's okay if you've not though about that before, because YOU are not a juror. You're not sitting in their chair and taking in the trial experience from their position. So, i'm just telling you now...they are STRESSED.

Not only is the act of being there causing stress—uncertainty about how this will go, if they'll make a meaningful contribution, if they'll be able to keep up, out of their comfort zone socially, forced to be where they don't want to be and mentally navigating all the considerations they had to make for their real life to keep going while they perform their civic duty—I mean, i could go on and on. Just BEING there is stressful.

But then, you're asking them to consider difficult things, do some introspection, reflect on life experiences that might bring up some buried things, talking through sometimes really gruesome and violent case details, showing them images that really should have come with a trigger warning.

You have amped up the stress. And you need to help them complete the stress cycle so they can get to objective, decision-making executive functioning.

How you communicate is a high-stress activation. Your strong, or assertive points require physical and mental energy. This causes heart rate increases, muscle tension, and the body enters a minor fight-or-flight state.

The issue is that when you finish your strong, assertive point, you don't do a deliberate, physical reset. So your nervous system, and their nervous system stays stuck in the ultra-charged state. The moment has passed and you've moved onto a different, probably also stressful, point, and everyone is just rev rev revved. Stress is now trapped.

You have to actively tell your body that a stress event is over. That will also, nonverbally, cue them that the stress event is over. How? How do you do this? You take a deep breath and let it out slowly.

Not only does this give a long enough pause so they can finish processing and encoding what you just shared into their working memory but, they'll likely breathe with you. Big shout out to mirror neurons that contribute to synchronized breathing and autonomic states. So, with everyone taking a low, slow breath, the vagus nerve gets triggered and physically switches gears from active defense (the sympathetic nervous system) to a calm recovery mode (that's the parasympathetic nervous system). Now, it's not like a light switch on/off response, but it IS a regulatory response, easing you from high stress to relaxed state.

In that moment, you're completing the stress cycle. The heart rate lowers, shoulders can relax. Both you and your audience can regain a baseline calm, and most importantly, it stops the continuous small stresses from stacking up and inevitably leading to mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion JUST when you need them to bring their full mental, emotional, and physical energy to deliberations and decision making. You have to help prevent build up.

So, use your breath to end strong statements or particularly elevated sections of your presentation. Providing that grounded pause, and using your breath strategically in that moment, not only highlights the importance of what you just said and gives them time to process it, but it will signal completion and help their body close out that acute stress response.

Pause. Breathe. And until next time...keep fostering your voice.