In this episode, Justin Smith and I dig into Will Guidara’s book “Unreasonable Hospitality“.
You can listen to the episode here:
For more on Justin, you can find his website here, or find him on LinkedIn here.
Full Transcript:
Mickey: “It may not be possible to do everything perfectly, but it is possible to do many things perfectly. That’s the very definition of excellence, getting as many details right as you can.”
So that was just a quick line from Will Guidara’s “Unreasonable Hospitality”, and with me today to discuss is Justin Smith.
So Justin, thanks for joining me.
Justin: Hey, thank you Mickey. So excited to be on today.
Mickey: Yeah. Tell, tell the folks a bit about yourself.
Justin: Yeah. So, uh, Mickey, I have been a student of people and teams and how teams get better and win, whether it’s sports and recreation through organizational life, uh, through for-profit and non-profit organizations. And so I switched over career path about five years ago to. Pour into individuals and pour into teams so that they can kind of leverage, uh, all the soft skills that make championship teams and championship people, uh, exceptional.
And so that’s what I get to do. I get to coach and consult and do some team building, uh, here
Mickey: [00:01:00] Awesome.
Justin: that’s my life.
Mickey: Very cool in your old life. We worked together for a little while and we’ll get into that as it relates to the book in a little bit. But you’re the one that made me read this book. First I say made me, this was probably the easiest sell based on title only. A lot of times titles intrigue me when this book called Unreasonable Hospitality.
I’m like, I don’t even know what that is. I gotta read it. I gotta see what’s going on here. So it tell me your, your overall thoughts here. What, what got you so excited about this book that you told me to read it?
Justin: Yeah, so I, uh, love following a guy and he had the opportunity in California to interview Simon Sinek, uh, in a private room, him and three other people. And Simon brought this guy Will Gera in the room, uh,
Mickey: Okay.
Justin: to for two hours, interview Simon and Will along with the founder of a company. And,
Mickey: Dang.
Justin: And hearing that I’ve blown away.
And he was like, as brilliant as Simon is. I mean, Simon has forgot more about leadership than I’ve ever even thought about. Uh, and that’s just how brilliant Simon is. But he said what stood [00:02:00] out is the concept and this person of Will Gera and what he had to say, and he has this new book out. We gotta read it. It pours into people and just kind of hits, hits it right on the head. And so I was pumped from hearing him talk about it. So I dove into the book and, uh, loved every moment of it. And really, that’s why I sent it over to you. I know you like to consume great content and, uh, will, Guera is unreasonable.
Hospitality hits the nail on the head for sure.
Mickey: Yep. Awesome. Yeah, this is one of those that after I read it, I suddenly started seeing him and Danny Meyer’s name everywhere. I think it was one of those frequency illusion kind of things where, you know, his name was probably everywhere before. I just didn’t notice it, but now I notice it. I’m like, wow, this guy’s everywhere.
It’s, yeah, it’s fantastic. ’cause he had so many good things in here and I’ve heard him on podcasts and just his whole, whole approach to everything is fantastic. I think a simple quote to kind of kick us off here is he talks about being intentional, he says. Intention means every decision from the most obviously significant to the seemingly mundane matters.
To do something with intentionality needs to do it thoughtfully with clear purpose and [00:03:00] an eye on the desired result. And that, I think, sums up what they do very much is everything’s so intentional, even though it’s not specific. Like they know they want to serve people intentionally, but then they gotta figure out what that means.
And it’s different in every case.
Justin: Yes, for sure. I love, so the book is how he grew a restaurant in New York City to become the number one restaurant in the world. And
Mickey: Mm-Hmm.
Justin: hear that, I’m like, I’m not in the, in the restaurant industry. I. Don’t work in food. Uh, I don’t desire to do fine dining ever. Uh, you know, that’s just not my world.
Why
Mickey: Right.
Justin: look
Mickey: Same.
Justin: book? But the book is far more than a how to establish a fine dining establishment.
Mickey: mm-Hmm.
Justin: is far more about leadership. I. Accountability. Even there’s some relationships between his mom and him and his dad, and him and his dad led him. So there’s some parenting aspects of the book that I think is exceptional.
And going off of the quote that you just mentioned, um, I, I heard him say this once, that that relentless intention [00:04:00] to every touch point with the customer, what does fine dining really mean to him? He says it’s this relentless intention towards. with the customer. Um, and you’re going have everything, like what do you mean?
Everything from. You know, from what kind of a spoon is served it with ice cream, it’s a spoon. That’s all. I would just
Mickey: Right,
Justin: all of that. And he
Mickey: right.
Justin: the relentless intention that he uses with every touchpoint with a customer becomes this, the whole definition of, of the bigger part of the, uh, what’s reasonable in customer service, but then what’s.
Unreasonable. And so I love how he draws out this idea of it’s unreasonable to do some of the things that they did, and a lot of people opt out because it’s unreasonable. Um, but I love, I, I love how he, he pours that into the book for sure.
Mickey: The touchpoint is a good one. I heard that. I can’t remember if it was in the book or not. I know it was in a podcast, but he, he’s done sessions with folks saying, all right, let’s talk about your [00:05:00] business and the touchpoints with your customers. And they list three or four. He is like, no, no, keep going. We have like 30 we gotta get to.
’cause he talks about in here, like when they pull, open the front door to get in the restaurant, when they get up to go to the restroom, when they like. It’s, and then, and the types of spoons and the type of, I mean, there’s a billion different little touchpoints and they think about every single one of them as deep as they can, and that’s what makes a fine dining experience awesome.
But again, all of our businesses the same way. We can think of weird little touchpoints you don’t consider, but when someone first reaches out and they get that automatic email back from you or whatever, like that’s your first touchpoint. Like, is it awesome? Is it automated and generic? Or like, what?
What’s starting with your very first thing and then all the different touchpoints along the way. Um, and it goes, goes, yeah, very far. Um, another angle I really liked was he, he talked about making the charitable assumption. I think, again, this applies to leadership at all levels, he said. My favorite was to quote, make the charitable assumption a reminder to assume the best of people, even when, or perhaps especially when they weren’t behaving particularly well.
So instead of expressing I me instead of, so, instead of [00:06:00] immediately expressing disappointment with an employee who has shown up late and launching to a lecture on how they’ve let down the team, you ask first you’re late. Is everything okay? And then it kind of gets to another piece he mentions where he pulled a quote from the one minute manager from Ken Blanchard.
And Ken’s thought there was criticize the behavior, not the person. Praises in public, criticize in private and praise with emotion and criticize without emotion. So just a lot of lessons that work for think almost any kind of business in how you treat your employees and works for a restaurant, works for a coaching company, works for a web design firm.
I mean, works for everywhere and how you should treat people.
Justin: Yes. Uh, when talks at length in, in what you’re mentioning there, um, part of his. Desire when he sat in a room and they got ranked 50th best in the world, uh, and he was
Mickey: Out of 50 at that point. Yeah. Yeah.
Justin: Uh, and he was like, I felt like a failure, but yet at the same time, we are 50th best. And he said, what is gonna distinguish us in this group of [00:07:00] 50 restaurants?
Uh, is it food? Is it the quality of the food? Is it the preparation? Is it, how are, you know, fine dining culture? Does the, is it the grander of the room? Is it the quality of the dishes? What is gonna gonna knock us over the top? And then he, he basically says that humans, it’s, it’s the human element. It’s that
Mickey: Mm.
Justin: to feel seen. They desire to feel cared for, they desire for belonging. Um, how we make people feel you could serve somebody the best stake in the world and make them feel terrible, and that stake their experience interacting with consuming, know, the, the food is just not as good. And so he doubled down on how do we make. People feel when they, you know, engage with us. How do, how do we make people feel at the end of the day? And we are going to build a restaurant and a restaurant culture using that as kind of the [00:08:00] first line of defense rather than an afterthought. And so I
Mickey: Hmm.
Justin: how he serves people. And when you said that, um, you know, the, the employee comes in and they’re five minutes late. He says, not only are we serving customers, but we’re serving each other. We’re serving our staff. And so the
Mickey: Yeah.
Justin: that you make somebody feel comfortable is the way that you treat them. And are they just a transactional kind of relationship that you’re just washing dishes, you’re just front of house, you’re just a chef.
Are you a person behind that? And he has valued that you change that culture, that it changes so many things. I have a, a quote in a book. Um. Here that it, it changes the bottom line of when you create a hospitality first culture, everything in your business improves. Whether it means finding and retaining great talent, turning customers into raving fans, or increasing your profitability. And I just love that of how you make people feel. [00:09:00] Um, so internal and external.
Mickey: Yeah, that was kind of, it was the quote I was gonna end the show with, so we’ll still figure out, well, how I’m gonna do that later. But it ties into this too much where he talks about the Four Seasons and how he compares to that. He said. Um, people will forget what you do. They’ll forget what you said, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel.
This quote, often probably incorrectly attributed to the Great American writer, Maya Angelou, may be the wisest statement about hospitality ever made, because 30 years later, I still haven’t forgotten how the Four Seasons made me feel. So he talks about, yeah, when he went to the Four Seasons 30 years prior, he doesn’t remember a lot about what happened.
He just remembers how he felt. And yeah, that comes through in this book a ton about just how to make customers feel. You said something. Earlier about, um, hospitality versus unreasonable hospitality. And a lot of people aren’t willing to be unreasonable. And a lot of it comes down to, to money. I think. I mean, they see being unreasonable costs a whole lot more than being reasonable.
And so I liked one thing he said about that. He called it the rule of 95 5, manage 95% of your business down to the penny. Like get it exactly. Be as profitable as you can, but [00:10:00] spend the last 5% foolishly. It sounds irresponsible, but in fact it’s anything but. Because that last 5% has an outsized impact on the guest experience and some of the smartest money you’ll ever spend.
In many ways, and he gave an example, the perfect example of the rule of 95 5 in action. We could afford to splurge on legends. So he tries to do things just to be legendary because we were managing our money so closely the rest of the time. Most of the time we didn’t even have to break the bank to blow someone’s mind.
We put 10 drugstore candy bars in a bag and a guest called us legendary for us. So he, he does a number of examples about that, where he could give him an expensive glass of wine or something, a bottle of wine, but cheap little things that actually fit exactly what that person wanted were way more valuable.
And that comes down not to cost, but to. Intentionality and, and listening. They’ve, they put themselves in situations to listen to what’s going on.
Justin: Yeah, so I love that story. Uh, they were dealing with a business exec and he was under a stressful time. He came into their restaurant to have a little bit of, kind of a getaway, but the, the weight of work was still [00:11:00] weighing on him and they said, is there anything else we could do, you know, to make your stay here in New York City?
Great. And he says, unless you have a million dollars, you know, no, no thanks. And he had built a culture and a staff team that would be unreasonable. Um, we, we all have way too much to do in our work world, and he had a person as part of their job, I. Is to kind of wow customers. And so
Mickey: Mm-Hmm.
Justin: this, we need a, you know, a million dollars. Obviously we don’t have the margins to be able to hand out a million
Mickey: Right. Their 5% doesn’t go that far. Yeah.
Justin: 5% doesn’t go that far. And, um, you know, if, if you do in an organization that has that kind of 5% margins, come talk to Mickey and I, we would love to, we’d love
Mickey: There you go.
Justin: Um, you know, but what he did, he, he carved out 5% for somebody’s job. To wow customers like that. And this person thought the candy bars, they got a hundred grand candy bars. Um, the, the, the actual brand a hundred
Mickey: Right?
Justin: And they
Mickey: Yep.
Justin: of them in a to-go [00:12:00] bag and said, Hey, we can’t give you a million, but you know, here’s, here’s a million in candy. Um,
Mickey: And it cost ’em like five bucks. Yeah.
Justin: Intentional moment. Uh, it, well, it not only cost him the five bucks, but it costs the margin that he’s willing to sacrifice to create a, an employee that might not make an impact that night, but has the
Mickey: Mm-Hmm.
Justin: in their schedule to do unreasonable hospitality things. That
Mickey: That’s a good point.
Justin: we can’t hire somebody else to do that.
And he talks about in the book that I thought was fascinating, that I wouldn’t have considered. Is New York real estate is ridiculously expensive per square
Mickey: Yes. Mm-Hmm
Justin: and now we’re gonna carve out part of our restaurant where that could have been a paying customer, but we’re gonna create an office for this person so that they can be creative and, and meet unreasonable, you know, hospitality, just wow moments.
Mickey: mm-Hmm.
Justin: and that is a value to us. And so it’s a moment like this business person. getting a hundred grand, [00:13:00] 10 of ’em in a, in a bag that, uh, I think is how he managed his budget. 95% strict to the penny, 5% lavish, uh, just over the top, uh, splurge. Just something that would never be okay. so I love that principle.
Mickey: doesn’t even have to be lavish. I mean, again, just buying some candy bars or another one you can look up, um, I’m sure you know about, but he talks about everywhere is the hot dog story where someone, people were leaving on a flight and they were sad. They never got a New York City hotdog. So he had someone run out and get a hot dog from a hot dog stand and had to chef cut it up all fancy and give it to him and again, cost him next to nothing to buy this hot dog, but wowed the person to death.
And because they had a person there. You know, wasting their time, you know, listening for these sorts of things. It made just an outsized impact on that, so
Justin: Yes.
Mickey: that was fantastic.
Justin: between, uh, him and the chef. In that interaction, the chef was appalled that we would serve a New York City hotdog. And
Mickey: Right.
Justin: Hey, you know what, this matters to me. And so the culture between, uh, what are we trying to [00:14:00] serve? Are we just trying to serve great food? Are we trying to be, what’s the guiding star of our business and, and what we try to do?
And it was customer service, it was hospitality. And he said, Hey, this would matter to me. And so the
Mickey: Yeah.
Justin: uh. Realizes the bigger picture and fancies up a hotdog. And that’s what the guys took away from when they flew
Mickey: Mm-Hmm.
Justin: Man, we were served in New York City hotdog at a fine dining establishment, the number
Mickey: Right.
Justin: in the world. Um,
Mickey: that kind of goes back to what you said earlier about the relationships too. I mean, if he had berated the chef every time he was two minutes late, they wouldn’t have that relationship. But they’ve built that relationship of trust and genuine care for one another over the years to be able to do that sort of thing.
Justin: so
Mickey: That’s,
Justin: true.
Mickey: yeah. Um, so going a little bit different way, this kind of goes back to, I thought about this. So we worked together at a church some years ago. Um.
Justin: Yes.
Mickey: And so he talked about cannon balling. I saw this happen a few times with folks that would get hired into the church there. He said Some of the best advice I ever got about starting in a new organization is this, don’t cannonball [00:15:00] ease into the pool.
I’ve passed this advice onto those joining my own. No matter how talented you are or how much you have to add. Give yourself time to understand the organization before you try to impact it. And so we’ve encouraged this with the staff we hire too. Like we, we bring in folks that are smarter than us, but we even tell them like, Hey, for the first little while, just kind of chill, see what we’ve got going, understand how we’re doing it, and then work on correcting things versus just throwing everything aside to do it with the new way.
And I think that’s been very helpful for us. And certainly I think it was very helpful for them there too. And again, we’ve seen people, I remember a few at the church that came in and said, Hey, I have my own way of doing this. Let’s just throw everything out and start fresh. And it may have been the right move, but.
It’s a, it’s a tough way to start a relationship like that.
Justin: For sure. I think culture, and you have to just be aware. Part of that emotional intelligence is recognize the culture that you’re walking into and where you
Mickey: Mm-Hmm.
Justin: a more efficient way of doing things, uh, that might not work in that culture, in that organization,
Mickey: Right.
Justin: uh, thing. And so it’s like, well, yes, it’s more efficient, but. If you sat here and learned the culture, you would understand why we [00:16:00] actually do it this way and why it’s maybe better for the culture the way that we’re doing it. And when you get some relational capital, then you can speak out and go, Hey, can we challenge that? You know, that normal that that is just. Agreed upon by everybody. Um, but until you have that relational capital, I think you, you come in as, um, kind of a bully in that situation. And, uh, and I think you lose, you erode your influence, uh, from day
Mickey: Yeah.
Justin: so
Mickey: Yeah.
Justin: never a good thing.
Mickey: Relational capital. I like that. I’m thinking like if they had gotten a new chef. And the chef said, no, I’m highly trained. I’m not gonna do the hot dog thing. You know, they would, yeah, just a little example there. But having, it was not a new chef in that case, but again, someone new coming in would no way they would do a hot dog if that was, you know, unless they took the time to understand what’s going on there.
Um, related to that is he talked a little bit about, you know, the idea of the customer’s always Right. And I’ve always liked to look at that, kinda the extended version of, I mean, customers are wrong a lot. You see that, you know, but I, I do believe the version I like is the customer’s always right in matters of taste.
[00:17:00] You know, people don’t want. A green ball, you only sell red polygon balls, then it doesn’t matter. They’re right because they’re only gonna buy that. So you have to do it that way. But he talks about it a little bit differently where he sort of does say the customer’s always right. Um, he says a couple things.
He said one quote, if you’ve corrected a guest, because you don’t want them to think you’ve made a mistake, you’ve just made a much bigger mistake. ’cause now they feel bad. And again, it’s all about how they feel. And you’ve just ruined that. And then he also said, we need to make sure we’re serving our guests, not our egos.
As Danny Meyer says, being right is irrelevant. So instead of explaining what a true medium rare looks like, we need to say Absolutely, sir. I’m sorry. Before getting the guest a steak cooked exactly the way he wanted it cooked, not how a medium rare technically should be. Just, and I think the example there is the guy wanted it like completely well done, but he thought that was medium rare.
So they were like, of course, sir. So sorry about that. Here’s your quote. Medium rare steak. And the customer was much happier. So.
Justin: so good. And, and it goes back to what they unreasonable layers of hospitality ever when you were to put a [00:18:00] customer on the defensive. not being hospitable. Um, and
Mickey: Right.
Justin: every way that they do it from, uh, walking in the door to getting a check to, uh, you know, choosing how you like your steak cooked.
Um, we will assume, uh, that we are wrong and, uh, our egos are not to proceed us. So
Mickey: And not even that, they’ll, they’ll pretend they’re wrong. Even like in the case of the steak. They’re not gonna assume they’re wrong. They know they’re right. They know how the steak’s supposed to be cooked, but that’s not the point. The point is to make the customer feel cared for and valued. And so, yes sir, here’s your weld or your medium rare steak, just the way you wanted it, you know, cooked all the way through.
So,
Justin: yes.
Mickey: uh, one other piece I I picked up here is he talked about the partnership. ’cause you know, he’s had partners at his companies. I have a partner with mine. I mean, I started from day one with a partner. It’s been interesting here and I like the way he worded this. And I think it, it’s kind of how we’ve done things Ali and I have, but.
We’ve sort of done it by mistake, whereas he’s done it intentionally and he says, uh, quote, sometimes the only way to proceed in [00:19:00] pursuit of a good partnership is to decide that whoever cares more about the issue can have their way. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about how many desserts we served. When you’re intense and detail oriented, everything matters.
But it was more important to Daniel than it was to me. And so again, I think Ally and I have sort of seen that where. She’s cared more about design elements. You know, if we’re designing things for the company, I don’t care as much. So when she says, I think we should change that, I say, cool, we’re gonna change it.
But then when I say, I think we should develop something different or handle something different, I’m more passionate about it. She says, okay, I disagree, but you care more. So yeah, we’re gonna do that instead. And so I thought that was kind of a, a cool way to, to put that was just, yeah, whoever cares more can have their way, which again, you have to have the right relationship too.
’cause then you can both just get into fights. Like, I care more, I care more, you know? But. If, if there’s a clear dividing line, you know, in this case, you know who, who handles the food versus the restaurant or me and Allie With design versus development, if there’s clear lines there, it makes it easier to decide.
Okay, that’s clearly on your side. I disagree, but that’s yours. Take it, you know?
Justin: Uh, uh, Mickey as somebody who has been married a little over 13 years, I’ve, I’ve had to [00:20:00] learn that one the hard way many a times, and where I think I have an opinion. Um, but in reality she cares a lot more about that particular thing.
Mickey: Mm-Hmm.
Justin: in the way? Like, does it really matter if it’s blue or yellow or green, like. At the end of the day, no, for me, um, and I want her to be happy and thriving and so of course, what, whatever I think it’s, that’s not what I would’ve chosen, but I don’t even have to say that I Yes, let’s
Mickey: Right. Mm-Hmm.
Justin: And um, and I think that I. What they had in a true partnership is it goes both ways.
Um, as you give to Allie and Allie gives back to you on certain things, it’s
Mickey: Right.
Justin: um, hey, you just get what you want. Or it’s always, I
Mickey: For sure.
Justin: but there are give and takes in that. Uh,
Mickey: Yep.
Justin: that. That was beautiful.
Mickey: Cool. Uh, any closing thoughts on the book? Anything you wanted to, to bring up? We haven’t gotten to yet. We’re getting a little low on time here, so
Justin: Uh, if you have not read the book, you need to read the book.
Mickey: yes,
Justin: so Rich, [00:21:00] so good. Uh, it is not just a restaurant book, uh, I mean, you will be, your mouth will be watering. Uh, but you will see multiple times throughout that they go through these unreasonable layers of how they make people feel. And, um, I use this personally in our home when we have guests come over.
What would be unreasonable about how we would treat these people? Uh, what would be unreasonable in the office, in the workplace, and how I interact and engage with customers and
Mickey: Mm-Hmm.
Justin: and engage with employees. What would unreasonable not would like, what would amazing be, but what would unreasonable that is over the top unreasonable. I love how we just doubled down on the concept of, uh, hospitality. Hey, if we just continue to treat people right and make them feel good and do the right thing and be, you know, vigilant about being intentional about the nth degree, uh, good things are gonna happen. And, uh, they rose to the number one restaurant in the world for a [00:22:00] reason.
And, um, I think we all can increase what we do on a daily basis with what we touch and influence by being unreasonably, uh, hospitable. So
Mickey: Yep. Well said. Yeah, so I agree people should read the book, but also like I mentioned, I’ve seen Will Gidar and Danny Meyer’s name everywhere. All of a sudden and whenever I see them on a podcast or something, I always like, I gotta go listen to that. And it’s always worth it ’cause they take a story that wasn’t in the book or they take a story to expand on.
I’ve learned so much more just from picking up random. Videos and podcasts because their names happen to pop out. Um, and we, we already used my closing quote earlier, um, the Maya Angelou quote. But, uh, one other I think was, is kind of a good way to summarize it. He says, if your business involves making people happy, then you can’t be good at it if you don’t care what people think.
And so that’s where, again, not only do they, they work to make people happy, but they have. People’s intention focused on different situations, not just the generic, make them happy with more wine or whatever it is, but being very specific and intentional, realizing what people actually think and care about individually, which takes time and effort and money, but makes it unreasonable.
So, [00:23:00] yeah. Fantastic book. Check it out. Um, Justin, where can people find more about you if they wanna track you down?
Justin: Uh, website, Justin Smith consulting.com would be great.
Mickey: Awesome. Yeah. Justin Smith makes it a challenging name to find.
Justin: of, that’s right. Not on a lot of socials, but, uh, I’m on LinkedIn and, uh, Justin Smith consulting.com.
Mickey: Cool. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes. So yeah, appreciate you being here, Justin. Thanks so much.
Justin: Thank you, Mickey.
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