A Better Business Doctrine: Part 2 – Give a shit.

Read Part 1: Assholes are bad for business.

I know what you are going to say: “Olivier, what’s up with the poopy-words all of a sudden? The other week, it was “assholes”. This week, it’s this. Didn’t your mom raise you to be a polite young man?” Answer: She tried. But sometimes, the polite version of a word just doesn’t do the job. Case in point: I could say “care.” Care about your customers. Care about designing the best products. Care about giving it your all every day. Care about taking your business into the stratosphere.

Care.

Except no. This isn’t about caring. This is about giving a shit, and yes, there is a difference.

When the word “care” no longer actually means caring.

“Caring” about something can mean a lot of different things. I can care about matching my shoes to my belt. I can care about the way my rainbow sprinkles touch the peanut butter ice cream but not the ball of Nutella ice cream underneath. I can care about maybe watching Curb Your Enthusiasm tonight, or waiting until tomorrow or next week. I can care about trying to sound pleasant on the phone, or maybe not so much. I can care about something if the conditions are right, and care less about it if circumstances change. Caring lives along a broad scale, as demonstrated by this awesome home-made graph:

But when you give a shit, that isn’t any kind of passive caring. Giving a shit means caring to the max. It means committing heart and soul to caring about something. Giving a shit is to caring what running a full-on sprint is to jogging. It is the storm to the light drizzle, the bazooka to the cork gun and the bear hug to the friendly nod. Giving a shit means you won’t sleep tonight if you screwed it up. It means you are going to take it all the way to the line. It means you are going to excel rather than settle for average… or mediocre. Giving a shit means you are driven by something more than a paycheck. It means you are driven by passion. And that, boys and girls, is some mighty strong secret sauce. Nothing can crush that. Nothing can get in its way.

When I walk into a store and talk to one of the salespeople there, I don’t want them to “care.” I want them to give a shit. The chef in the kitchen, I don’t just want him to “care”. The customer service guy on the phone, “care” is just the price of entry. You want to make your company kick ass? You have to take it a step further. That politician I just voted for? Guess what: He needs to do more than just “care.” The surgeon operating on my kids, yeah, her too, what I want her to do is actually give a shit.

When you give a shit, excuses don’t work anymore. Falling short (failing) becomes less of an option, if at all. Giving a shit means you’re invested, and that is when I know you are bringing your A-game. You aren’t just there for a paycheck, the dental plan or the free tickets to Wally World every summer. You are there because you want to be. Because you give a shit.

Look, everyone acts like they care when you interview them. “Oh yes, Mr. Jones, I really want to work here!” Right. In six months, that new hire will be spending half his day complaining to their office-mates about you, about pesky customers and their temperamental complaints, about having to work late, and about how poorly he gets paid. When you walk by his desk, you won’t even catch a glimpse of the Facebook tab or the game of computer solitaire you just interrupted. That’s what “care” will get you. And you know what? You’ll be to blame. Here’s why: Because your company culture made them that way.

When I call a company’s phone number and get an automated message telling me “… we care about your call,” what that company has just told me it doesn’t give a shit. And since companies don’t think – people do, namely executives making decisions (like having a computer answer my call instead of a human being), I know that this wasn’t an oversight. Someone made a deliberate decision to communicate to me and everyone else who calls them that the people in charge of building the company’s internal culture don’t give a shit. Way to get things off on the right foot.

The importance of creating “I give a shit” cultures.

None of this is rocket science. If you hire people who aren’t passionate about what you do, about what your company is about, or even people who don’t particularly care about their profession save getting a big fat check at the end of the week, you are going to create a culture of mediocrity. If instead you hire people who love your company, who were fans long before the job ever opened up, you will get a completely different result. Likewise, if you hire someone who is passionate about what they do, they will probably not disappoint.

A few years ago, one of my then employees admitted to me (when her bonus didn’t seem as guaranteed as she would have liked it to be) that she was considering transferring to HR. Puzzled by that admission, I asked her to elaborate. She told me “they just make straight salary over there.” I studied her for a moment, and asked her “Don’t you want to do this? If HR is something you’re interested in, why are you here?” She sighed and told me “I don’t really care what I do. I just want a steady paycheck.”

This is someone whom, if asked, would have told the CEO that she cared about her job, that she was passionate about it, that she loved it. That’s the average value of “care.”

Nb: I made sure my team hit its targets that month and the one after that, and she did, in fact, hit her bonus.

People like this are everywhere. It isn’t that they are necessarily lazy. Some are, but some are just apathetic. Doing what they do is a job. A paycheck. Nothing more. They spend their day watching the clock. They are out the door as soon as their work day is over and not a minute more. This is not the kind of employee you want. I don’t care if you are managing a hospital, a restaurant or a global brand, people like this are poison. They are engines of mediocrity, lackluster service, and lousy customer experiences. And god forbid they should become managers, or worse yet, SVPs or C-suite executives.

Imagine a CEO who doesn’t give a shit, for example. Or one who at least gives the impression, through their actions or words, that they perhaps don’t give a shit? What would that look like? What would be the impact of that type of “leadership” on the entire organization? On the brand’s reputation? On decisions being made up and down the corporate ladder inside its four walls? What kinds of ripples would this create?

Ken Lay of Enron

BP's Tony "I'd like my life back" Hayward

Now imagine a CEO who does give a shit. What would that look like? What kind of company culture would that generate? What kind of profitability and customer experience excellence would that drive?

Tony Hsieh of Zappos

Sir Richard Branson, of all things Virgin

Company cultures don’t grow from a random churn of interactions. They are engineered and designed from the inside out, deliberately, by people who give a shit. Or by people who don’t. The difference in outcomes between the two is typically fairly spectacular. We have all seen amazing companies falter under the direction of this CEO or that, solely based on their degree of giving a shit.

Why am I emphasizing that company cultures are engineered? Three reasons:

1. People who give a shit tend to hire people who also give a shit, and so on. Companies like this tend to hire carefully because they understand the importance of only hiring what you might call kindred spirits. Fans. Like-minds. They aren’t hiring as much as letting the right people into their little tribe of believers. When your entire company gives a shit, customers notice and become loyal. Why? Because they like that you give a shit, and they respect that. Besides, since you give a shit, you treat them well, which is more than anyone can say about companies that don’t give a shit about either their employees or their customers.

2. When customers like you (see 1. above), they tend to do a number of things: a) They love doing business with you, b) they do business with you as long as you keep giving a shit (which could be their own lives), and c) they recommend you to everyone they know, which in turn helps drive your business.

3. One CEO can make or break a company. Just one. Remember what happened to Apple when Steve Jobs left, back in the day? Should I mention some of Home Depot’s ups and downs? Show me a company whose CEO gives a shit, and I will show you a company about to bloom like a flower in sunlight. Show me a company whose CEO doesn’t, and I will show you a company about to race headlong into a very rough patch.

More than anything, customers instinctively know that they will eventually get screwed by someone who doesn’t really give a shit. They also instinctively know they will never get screwed by someone who does. This is important.

Even if giving a shit didn’t generate better design departments, better products, better service, better customer relations and generally healthier businesses, this point alone should catch the attention of CEOs, boards or directors, and investors alike: Consumer perceptions, trust, loyalty, these things matter in the mid-to-long term. Heck, they matter today. This very minute. Every single consumer making a purchasing decision right now is weighing one company against another. One will win. The others will lose. How are you feeling about your chances?

Leadership isn’t all about skills and experience. It’s also about attitude. And giving a shit, boys and girls, is a pretty important component of the sort of attitude we are talking about today.

The reciprocal effect of giving a shit.

Hiring people who give a shit, but not those who don't.

The above diagram illustrates the process of engineering loyalty and positive WOM (word of mouth) by sticking to a no asshole policy (see Part 1) and making sure you hire people who actually give a shit.

Note the jokers in red ink who didn’t really give a shit and are therefore not hired. The fact that they are not invited to spread their apathy and inevitable passive aggressive disdain to their coworkers and customers like a CSTD (Customer Service Transmitted Disease) ensures that your company maintains its edge.

Now let’s look at another kind of organization – one which doesn’t discriminate quite so much:

Hiring people who give a shit, and those who don't.

Note how in this alternate version, a company having allowed such individuals to breach its inner sanctum begin to spread mediocrity across their entire business, and how that trickles down into customer experiences and perceptions.

In short, giving a shit is contagious. From the CEO on down to everyone in the company and outwardly to customers. Positive attitudes and perceptions spread virally through recommendations, discussions and general perception. In the same way, not giving a shit is contagious as well, and it too spreads like a virus across departments, front-line employees, customers, and to their social and professional networks.

This is how reputations are both made and unmade, depending on what kind of culture you decide to engineer.

What are some of the obvious symptoms that a company doesn’t give a shit?

This is important, because these are common red flags. When consumers spot any of these (or several,) they know that perhaps your company doesn’t really care a whole lot about you, your loyalty, or your affection for their products or brands.

1. Customer service is outsourced. (Because nothing says “We care” like handing you off to total strangers working under contract for less than minimum wage.)

2. The recording says “your call is important to us…” which is kind of funny coming from a recording.

3. The company’s employees look at the clock more than they look at you.

4. The CEO, in the middle of a crisis, says things like “I’d like my life back.”

5. Outsourced social media accounts, especially when it comes to customer service functions.

6. When the product fails, technicians will be happy to “look at it,” and repair it for about 70% or more of the value of the product in about 6-12 weeks. This is usually followed by “you could just buy another one” type of “caring” advice.

7. False or misleading advertising.

8. The company spams your inbox, twitter feed, phone, or otherwise valuable channel.

9. The average customer has no idea who the CEO of the company is. Until they see him or her on TV, defending pretty bad decisions.

10. After several interactions with company employees or management, you begin to suspect that everyone who works there might actually be some kind of asshole.

11. Poor product design, characterized by lousy user UI/UX.

12. The manager, in an empty store or restaurant, still manages to blow off his only customers… assuming he is even there.

13. The company sells your personal information to third parties.

14. The CEO’s Twitter account, blog and/or Facebook page – all proof that he “cares,” wants to “engage” customers and feels that social media is “important” – are all managed and fed by a proxy, (or ghost writer) preferably working for an outside firm or agency. (Sorry Mr. Pandit, but you have been advised improperly on this one.)

15. More excuses than solutions, followed by buzzwords and lip service.

16. The CEO spends more time on the golf course than he does listening to customers.

And there you have it.

Three questions.

So the three questions you have to ask yourself are these:

1. What kind of company culture are my customers experiencing whenever they interact with one of my employees, colleagues, bosses, products and services? The kind that gives a shit, or the kind that clearly doesn’t?

2. What kind of company culture should I be building?

3. Once I cast aside the propaganda, tag lines, mission statements and sycophantic reports, what kind of company culture am I really building?

Be honest.  Are you setting the right example? Are you hiring the right people? Are you teaching them to give a shit? Are you rewarding them accordingly?

… Or are you banking on a mission statement to communicate to your employees that they should “care”?

Giving a shit is hard. So is kicking ass. So what?

Yeah, giving a shit is hard. It’s expensive too. It requires all sorts of investments: Financial, cultural, temporal, even emotional. (Perhaps especially the latter.) Giving a shit means that your business isn’t just about balance sheets and incremental basis points of change. It’s about creating something special for and with your customers. It’s about building the foundations of a lovebrand – like Apple, Harley Davidson, Virgin Airlines and BMW. It’s about investing in market leadership, in customer loyalty and evangelism, in your own reputation, and in the strength of your own brand. In short, it means investing in long term success, in stability in tough economic time, and in a demand vs. supply ratio that will always be in your favor. Giving a shit is an investment, yes, and not one that might immediately make sense to financial analysts, but one that pays off every time. It is the genesis of everything that ultimately makes a business successful: Professionalism. The endless pursuit of quality, of great design, of remarkable user/customer experiences.

The moment you lose that, the moment you start giving a shit a little bit less, the moment you start cutting corners, that’s when you start to screw up. When you lose that competitive edge. When you start sinking into the fat middle with everyone else. That’s when you start to lose. Before you know it, you’re stuck picking between BOGO pitches and worrying about price wars with foreign imports. I’ve worked with companies like this. You don’t want to go there, trust me. It’s ugly. It’s stressful. You wake up one morning and realize that even if you tried to give a shit anymore, you couldn’t. There wouldn’t be enough time. It wouldn’t make a difference. It might even get you fired. Everything you’ve worked for all your life is hanging on the edge, and it’s a long, hard road back too the top. Most companies never make it back. I can tell you that it’s a lot easier to never fall than to have to climb back up again, but either way, it’s a daily battle.

In fact, giving a shit is so hard that very few companies do anymore. It isn’t how the game is played any longer. “The customer is always right” is a relic of the past, isn’t it?

Or is it?

Have you listened to what people are saying about your company on Twitter and Facebook lately? Do you know what they are saying about your competitors? In a year or two, do you think companies whose leaders don’t give a shit are going to be able to compete against companies whose leaders do? If you don’t see giving a shit as a competitive advantage yet, as a differentiator, even as a normalizing agent, then at the very least see it as a matter of survival. The age of the “I don’t give a shit” CEO is done. Game over.

Time to make a change or two?

*          *          *

Since it’s June, here are this month’s three quick little announcements:

One – If you haven’t read “Social Media ROI: Managing and measuring social media efforts in your organization” yet, you will find 300 pages of insights with which to complement this article. It won’t answer all of your questions, but it will answer many of them. If anything, the book is a pretty solid reference guide for anyone responsible for a social media program or campaign. It also makes a great gift to your boss if you want him or her to finally understand how this social media stuff works for companies.

You can sample a free chapter and find out where to buy the book by checking out www.smroi.net.

Two – If you, your agency or your client plan on attending the Cannes Lionsfrom June 19-25, I am planning something a little… “unofficial” during the festival. If you are interested in being part of it, let me know.

You can send me an email, a note via LinkedIn, a Twitter DM, or a facebook message if you want to find out more. (The right hand side of the screen should provide you with my contact information.)

Three – If the book isn’t enough and you can’t make it to Cannes later this month, you can sign up for a half day of workshops in Antwerp (Belgium) on 30 June. (Right after the Lions.) The 5 one-hour sessions will begin with an executive briefing on social media strategy and integration, followed by a best practices session on building a social media-ready marketing program, followed by a PR-friendly session on digital brand management, digital reputation management and real-time crisis management, followed by a session on social media and business measurement (half R.O.I., half not R.O.I.). We will cap off the afternoon with a full hour of open Q&A. As much as like rushing through questions in 5-10 minutes at the end of a presentation, wouldn’t it be nice to devote an entire hour to an audience’s questions? Of course it would. We’re going to give it a try. Find out more program details here. Think of it as a miniRed Chair.

The cool thing about this structure is that you are free to attend the sessions that are of interest to you, and go check your emails or make a few phone if one or two of the sessions aren’t as important. The price is the same whether you attend one or all five, and we will have a 15 minute break between each one.

The afternoon of workshops is part of Social Media Day Antwerp (the Belgian arm of Mashable’s global Social Media Day event), and I can’t help but notice that the price of tickets is ridiculously low for what is being offered. Anyone can afford to come, which is a rare thing these days. (Big props to the organizers for making the event so accessible.)

The event is divided into 2 parts: The workshop in the afternoon, and the big Belgian style party in the evening. You can register for one or both (do both).

Register here: Social Media Day – Antwerp

My advice: Sign up while there are still seats available, and before #smdaybe organizers realize they forgot to add a zero at the end of the ticket prices. 

Cheers,

Olivier.

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Restaurants and customer experience management: How to fail, and how to succeed

Source: Time Magazine

In which our famished protagonists search in vain for a table in Greenville, SC.

Don’t worry, this post isn’t just going to be a restaurant review. Far from it. But before we get into the practical advice, I have to give you a little background.

First, let me set things up for you. Last Saturday – the day before Mothers’ Day – the Blanchard clan and I decided to head down to downtown Greenville (SC) for a little lunch. For those of you who aren’t familiar with my adoptive home, Greenville has a gorgeous little downtown area lined with trees, beautiful parks, and a ton of pretty delicious restaurants. Gorgeous weather in Greenville on a perfect Saturday afternoon means that everyone in the county converges on downtown and pours cash into all of its restaurants’ tills. Needless to say, when we finally found a parking spot at 2pm (hoping to arrive well past the lunch peak), restaurants were still full. This is pretty important and you will see why in a minute.

The first restaurant we went to was the Overlook Grill. Outdoor seating right by the Reedy River and Greenville’s famous suspension bridge, great sandwiches for just $7 or $8, and very clutch little atmosphere, especially with the chihuahuas in tow. Verdict: At 2pm, the wait was still 45 minutes and the kitchen closed at 3pm. No-go.

Next stop: The Lazy Goat (another favorite) for lunch. Outdoor seating, killer food, right on the river. We get there and their entrance is swamped with what looks like two bus-loads of sorority girls. No-go again.

Third up: Smoke On The River. Again, overflowing with patrons and a 45 minute wait. Not good. I start considering the Subway down the street, but we try a few more places first. Unfortunately, they are all completely booked. Every restaurant in Downtown Greenville is filled with patrons. Overflowing, even, just like the sidewalks.

But then I see this new place called Ford’s Oyster House, occupying the space where an old cigar and wine bar used to be. (One of the GSATC and @swagclub’s former haunts, in fact.) It’s so new the sign isn’t even up yet, but the menu is in the window and it looks promising: fried oyster po’boys, etc. Good enough. We step in to inquire about a table.

In which a restaurant actually manages to get almost everything wrong.

I will spare you the long version of the narrative and simply list all of the things Ford’s Oyster House did wrong. Here are our observations:

By the front door stood a small lectern, like the ones usually manned by a host or hostess. This lectern, we noted, was stacked with menus and a floor plan of the restaurant. Strangely, there was no host or hostess manning this post, but cued by its… being there, we stood by it and waited for someone to perhaps return from a lavatory adventure and lead us, with adequate velocity, to a table.

Much to our dismay, no host or hostess ever materialized.  For several minutes, we stood there, politely waiting for someone to notice us. Several waiters walked by. Not one of them made eye contact with us. In fact, I felt as if they purposely avoided indicating that they had noticed us at all. Too much work, perhaps, to take care of new customers in the middle of their having to serve lunch.

What was most strange about this, we noticed, was that on its opening day, with sidewalks teeming with hungry Greenvillians and every restaurant within a mile radius turning people away, this restaurant was almost entirely empty. I counted 9 tables in the front dining room and 21 tables in the back dining room. I found out later that 5 tables rounded out the seating map outside, on the patio, formerly the outdoor cigar smoking area. Of the 30 tables inside the restaurant, only 4 were occupied. The other 26 were glaringly vacant.

Even more puzzling were the 3 or 4 waiters walking about as if too busy to notice us, the additional 2 bar tenders mechanically wiping down glasses at the empty bar, and the restaurant manager (I assume), engaged in the back with what may have been a fifth waiter, visibly puzzled by a malfunctioning computer. Some quick arithmetic put the balance of restaurant staff to customer thus: 8 employees “serving” a total of 14 patrons, most of whom were rather elderly, and evidently casual chewers requiring very little attention.

We waited a little while longer, and upon being ignored some more, walked out.

Here comes the single positive thing done by Ford’s Oyster House that day: One of the waiters (I think his name was Chris) rushed after us and invited us back in. He apologized for the lack of attention we had suffered and gave us our choice of tables (oh, what to do with 26 options?). We investigated the patio, but… instead of tables and chairs, the restaurant’s management has seen fit to place there… picnic tables. The kinds with bolted-on benches, like the ones you see at rest stops on the side of the highway. Not exactly what one would expect from a $12-$15 sandwich gig on Main Street in Greenville. Maybe adequate for a greasy BBQ place off Wade Hampton Boulevard, but not here. At any rate, we turned around and found a table inside, which was somewhat of a disappointment as we had journeyed to Main Street to enjoy an outdoor lunch. By this time, the consumption of food had gained priority over our environment, and indoor seating was an improvement from no seating at all. We sat down and began considering the menu.

I will spare you the ensuing clusterfuck of drink orders, but I do have to mention the menu incident.

Where the oyster bar seems incapable of serving anything of value on its menu.

Now, I have watched enough episodes of Gordon Ramsay‘s Kitchen Disasters (the UK ones, not the US ones), to know a few do’s and don’ts of restaurant management. One of them is this: On your opening day, make sure your menu reflects what you can actually serve. In other words, go to market the day before and stock your kitchen with the necessary ingredients. If your shipment of frozen food hasn’t been delivered, find an alternate source locally.

This isn’t rocket science.

Yet, Chris, our courageous waiter, sheepishly informed us that many of the entrees of the menu were not available. It would not be an exaggeration to say that he could have saved us several minutes (and some degree of confusion) had he simply told us what was actually available instead of listing out what wasn’t. More perplexing than this is that for some bizarre reason, oysters were available as a dish, but not in po’boy sandwich form, although fried catfish and fried shrimp were available in po-boy form. The logic of this escaped me: Evidently, Ford’s had oysters and the capacity to fry them. Ford’s also had the bread and other makings of a po’boy sandwich. However, the kitchen seemed at a loss when it came to bringing the two together. In other words, I could have either the light bulb or the lamp, but not both. Evidently, no one there was qualified to connect the two in proper fashion.

Hungry, aggravated and finding myself lacking the patience required to pursue such a line of inquiry to its end, I settled for a fried catfish po’boy. The progeny went with its fried shrimp cousin.

While Gordon Ramsay would have probably sent the kitchen staff home and shut down the restaurant in a fit of rage, we simply endured.

Where forty minutes go by in an empty restaurant before what passes for food finally reaches our table.

Our food arrived forty minutes hence, and not a minute too soon, given our state of extreme hunger. We had to ask for drink refills, as the staff, all seven or eight of them, seemed to be too busy with the remaining 3 tables in the front to pay us the slightest bit of attention. During this time, I observed how the GM continued to stress out and obsess over the malfunctioning computer, drawing his staff around him as if fueled by their sympathetic confusion.

This individual spent the entire forty minutes during which our food was being prepared entertaining us with sometimes wild gesticulations, endless complaints to unseen hosts, and a curious compulsive habit of rushing to the back of the restaurant as if to put out a fire, then rushing back to his machine only to yell at his employees for having broken it again while he was away. This was the extent of this personage’s role and function in the restaurant, as far as we could tell. Unfortunate, as his energies might have been spent otherwise – starting with managing the front and bringing customers inside to purchase food. We will revisit this peculiar gentleman again in a few moments, as he holds the key to this entire puzzle.

About our food, I will say only this: I suspect that the fries came from an Ore-Ida package. I recognized the taste and texture, which after hundreds of purchases is rather familiar to me. -1. The bread was… I have no idea what that bread was, but the individual who purchased it and made the po’boys with it has obviously no notion at all of what kind of bread to use to manufacture that particular type of sandwich. It was of brick-like density, somewhat baguette-like in appearance, and at least a day old, which does not fare well for these types of breads. Hurled at a small animal, a fist-sized roll made of this oven-baked dough could have easily crushed the unfortunate creature, or at least severely maimed it. This is what we were made to chew and ingest, and what evidently passed as… “bread.” -2. As for the fried shrimp and catfish, I tend to know the difference between pre-packaged, pre-battered frozen fodder, and the real thing. What we bit into was neither fresh nor prepared on the premises. It appeared to us merely thawed and deep fried there, if not simply thrown into a microwave oven. -10.

We had been duped. -30.

For the record:

1. An oyster bar should have, at the very least, fresh oysters in its kitchen, especially if the oyster bar across the street does. If in fact Fords’ had fresh oysters in its kitchen, let me suggest a series of basic equations: Fresh oysters + a fryer = fried oysters. Fried oysters + bread and some sauce = a po’boy. Voila. It isn’t exactly complicated.  Greenville is known for its food, and if a restaurant is to have a chance at making it more than a few months, cutting corners like this is not a good place to start.

2. Any head chef who takes a position with an oyster bar should have at least eaten a po’boy sandwich in New Orleans once in his life. Generally speaking, having merely read up about po’boys on Wikipedia does not qualify one to be head chef at an establishment that aggressively pushes fried oyster fares. As an aside, a restaurant GM, in hiring a head chef, should probably ask him to make a po’boy sandwich for him as a test of his skill, if only once. I would consider this part of an adequate interview.

3. A restaurant GM whose restaurant happens to be an oyster bar should probably care about the quality of the food that comes out of his kitchen at least as much as his chef. This requires caring about the quality and reputation of his establishment, however, which is a quality sometimes lacking in this type of individual. We will address this again promptly.

But the real question we found ourselves confronted by was this: Aside from the clear lack of expertise, care or professionalism in the kitchen, how had it taken 40 minutes for pre-battered frozen shrimp and catfish to hit the fryer basket (or microwave oven) and make it to our table, when the restaurant was completely empty? This, we agreed, was a mystery never to be solved.

Where we finally exit the premises and are blown off by the gentleman we assume to be the general manager.

To add to the injury of having been duped into a meal composed of cheap frozen ingredients and the indignation of having to endure almost an hour of abysmal service (in spite of our poor waiter’s gallant efforts), we were met on our way out by the further insult of the aloof manager making eye contact with us as we departed, but saying nothing. (This was the same man, mind you, who had spent the entire time we were at our table acting as if a pre-seasoned cajun crawfish had thawed from its bucket, escaped the kitchens undetected, and eventually ended his journey of escape, adventure and revenge by crawling way up this man’s musical undercarriage.) This was the individual whom, upon seeing us leave, walked by without a smile, as much as a nod or an attempt at a perfunctory “thank you.”

Thus ends our unfortunate experience at the Haus of Oysterz. Now, for some practical advice.

Where I give restaurant managers practical advice in order not to emulate Ford’s Oyster House.

Scenario: You decide to open a restaurant on a Saturday in order to take advantage of a busy downtown crowd. You are in a prime location. If you have done your homework, you know that over 10,000 people will be within a half mile of your new restaurant around lunch time. Assuming you have advertised the launch, had articles written in the local publications weeks in advance, launched a website and a Facebook page, researched the local market and engaged with food bloggers, local tweeps and other influentials in the area, here is what you do:

– Assign someone to the front door. Their job will be to aptly corral passersby (it is lunch time and they are hungry) and invite them into the restaurant. Even if they don’t stay for lunch, they might stay for a drink. At the very least, they will know you exist and come back to check you out later. Run to the Staples (3 blocks away) and print flyers with your menu, phone number and hours of operation to hand out to people as they walk by if they decide not to go inside. Hell, print coupons for 1/2 off appetizers or drinks. Something. Anything. Figure it out. Get people’s attention. Get them in the door. It’s your grand opening and the streets are filled with people. You couldn’t dream of a better opportunity, so seize it.

– Assign someone to the front of the restaurant to make sure everything there is running smoothly. When people peer into your new place, they want to see a well run operation. When they walk in, they want to be greeted by someone who will show them to their table. Someone must always manage the front. Always. At all times. No exceptions.

– You have a sidewalk in front of your restaurant. Use it. Two blocks down the street, O’Cha Tea Bar used chalk to create a narrative/path to their front door on the sidewalk. People noticed it, read it, and ended up walking in. It might seem low-brow, but stuff like this works on a weekend family lunch crowd. Most people find it clever, even cute. More importantly, it works. Note: If you think picnic tables are acceptable substitutes for tables and chairs, you aren’t exactly La Tour D’Argent. Go buy a box of sidewalk chalk and stop acting like this is beneath you.

– If every restaurant around you is serving 100% of its capacity and is still turning people away at 2pm, you should be enjoying the same kind of swell, especially if today is your big launch. However, if you are only serving 4 tables out of 30, something should tell you that something is wrong. An empty restaurant with swollen crowds outside should be a hint that someone needs to get their asses out where the customers are and bring customers in. If you are the GM, hiding in the back and monopolizing your staff to stare at a computer screen is not exactly the correct course of action. The computer can wait. Credit cards can be run through manually. Fill those chairs first. Keep the kitchen busy. Worry about the computer system later.

Here’s a tip: If your ratio of employees to customers is 1:2 and your restaurant is more than 80% empty, you are the restaurant world’s equivalent of a bug splattered on someone’s windshield on your very first flight across the road. Your focus should be to get customers inside your restaurant. “The urgency of now” is a phrase you need to learn to appreciate. Grab your least busy employee (in this case, one of the two bar tenders with zero customers to take care of), and send them outside. It might seem a little weird, but it works. The alternative (an empty restaurant and a net loss for the day, not to mention the embarrassment and morale bomb of a failed launch) is no kind of alternative at all.

Yes, launches (even “soft” launches) are difficult to execute. But some things are pretty simple to manage and fix. Just make it work. Make your business work. There is nothing else.

General Recommendations:

– Picnic tables? Only if you are a burger joint or a BBQ house. An oyster bar surrounded by hip little boutique restaurants, not so much. Take those hideous things back to K-Mart and have some proper outside seating delivered. Today. Be the type of restaurant you wish to be. If you are a picnic table kind of place, then be that inside as well. Cutting corners doesn’t just spell “cheap.” It also spells “I have no clue what I am doing.”

– Make sure the most important items on your menu are available on your opening day. This is restaurant management 101. If your supplier didn’t deliver some of the ingredients in time, find local alternatives. By this, I mean send your staff to the store, or better yet, go yourself. In short: Get off your ass and fix the problem. Staring at the phone, then your watch, then your phone again won’t cut it. All you need to know is this: No food = no menu. No menu = no orders. No orders = no revenue. No revenue = the restaurant fails and everyone is out of a job. Make it work.

– If you somehow still cannot manage to have your main menu items available on opening day, run to Staples (3 blocks down the street, in the case of Ford’s Oyster House) and have revamped “opening day” menus printed. It isn’t like your menus are printed on rare vellum or anything. It’s all just crap paper. Spend the $5 and improvise, even if only for one day. This can be done in 20 minutes. All you need is a computer, 5 bucks, and a pair of legs. Get off your ass and do it. You’re the GM. This is your job.

– Things are going to go wrong every day. It’s the restaurant world. Every service is going to run into snags. If you lose your cool at the first snag, you won’t make it in this business. As a GM, your job is to solve problems, not make little ones bigger. If your computer system keeps crashing, shut the thing down and go to plan B: Hand-written tickets. Believe it or not, restaurants survived just fine before computers and touch screens. Credit cards can also be run manually. Stop obsessing over an impassible obstacle. Walk away from it, come up with a solution, and make that solution work. If you get stuck, everyone else gets stuck. You don’t want that. Your job is to keep things flowing. So… Do. Your. Job. Once the lunch or dinner crowd is gone, then get your computer problem fixed.

Here’s a tip: You know what the difference is between a manager and a leader? The leader doesn’t let himself get stuck. If something isn’t working, he takes initiative and keeps the ball rolling. Why? Because someone has to, and that someone is him. Leadership isn’t a paycheck or a title. It’s a responsibility. Get unstuck. Improvise. Solve problems.

– Empty restaurant? Train your wait staff to treat your few patrons extra nice. Have every one of them walk by to say “hi, welcome to our restaurant. Everything good so far? Can I get you anything?” It’s easy and it makes a world of difference. Make customers feel like they’ve discovered a great little place before everyone else has, instead of some doomed crap restaurant they will never want to set foot in again.

– If you are the GM of a restaurant, walk your floor. Welcome every customer to your establishment. Chat with them for a minute. Not just the perfunctory driveby, mind you. Stop. Smile. Be warm. Listen to what they have to say. Give a shit. Find out something about them, like perhaps how they found out about your restaurant. Remember their faces. Do this, just in case they come back. You’ll be glad you did.

– When customers leave your restaurant, thank them for coming. See previous bullet. Don’t act like a stuck-up asshole.

Here’s a tip: Even if the service sucked, even if the food was at best average, a chunk of your customers will come back if you treat them super well as they walk out. First impressions may decide whether or not customers will actually eat at your restaurant today, but last impressions will decide whether or not they will come back. Screw up the last impression and your repeat customers will be few, even if the food and service were great. What you need to know is that there are 10 other restaurants in your area with equally good service and food already competing for your customers’ business. That makes you #11. How do you move up to #3 or #1? Not by blowing them off as they leave. This much, I know.

– Hire a competent chef.

– Hire a COMPETENT chef.

I can repeat it a third time, just in case you need me to.

– If you are a Taco Bell or a franchise, okay, your food is what it is. It comes in cans and frozen packets and bags and whatnot. Everything must be cooked and prepared according to strict, uniform instructions. But if you are a restaurant competing in a market dominated by chefs and GMs who really take pride in what they do, in a market populated by people accustomed to great food that is mostly local and fresh, think twice before serving cheap frozen crap. If your kitchen basically consists of a deep fryer and a few microwave ovens, and most of your food comes out of a frozen box, you aren’t a restaurant, you are a cafeteria. You can sell po’boys for $5 and make a killing. Just don’t go selling them for $10-$12. The restaurant business is already competitive enough without slitting your own throat by cutting corners from Day One and taking your customers for chumps. You will only fool them once.

– Give a shit. Although this will likely be the subject of an upcoming post (Part 2 of last week’s post) it is important to bring it up here. Let me illustrate this concept with a few simple equations:

Fresh ingredients + clever preparation + tactful application of textures and flavors = someone in the kitchen gives a shit.

Frozen shrimp tossed into a stale bun slathered in generic tartar sauce = someone in the kitchen doesn’t give a shit.

Customers being warmly welcomed as soon as they walk in = someone gives a shit.

Customers standing by the door for 5 minutes + waiters and managers walking by without noticing them = nobody gives a shit.

Restaurants whose every employee gives a shit, where the chef, the GM, the waiters, the sauciers and the sommelier take great pride in what they do, where all derive professional, even personal satisfaction from the delight of their customers, these restaurants become successes. People respond to passion: They reward it with patronage. 

Meanwhile, restaurants whose employees, kitchen staff and managers obviously aren’t exactly passionate about any of what they do save collecting a paycheck and splitting tips invariably begin to circle the drain and die. (Fast food and greasy spoons being the notable exception.)

Customers can smell the difference in about ten seconds. You can’t fool them, so don’t even try. As a GM, owner or chef, if you aren’t in the restaurant business because you love it, because you are passionate about it, stop wasting your time. More importantly, stop creating crap dining experiences for those of us who are lured into your cheap little stratagems. Impress us. Blow us away. Kick ass. That is the secret to everyone’s success in the restaurant world. Being average (or downright mediocre), then coming up with excuses as to why you couldn’t be better, none of it belongs here. Either commit or go home.

In which a restaurant is quickly reviewed and this post finally comes to an end.

If I were to review Ford’s Oyster House, I would say only this: Had it not been for our intrepid waiter (Chris) and his initiative and good humor, FOH would have been short another 4 plates on its opening day. Did he save the day? Hardly. In spite of his every effort, Chris is only human, after all. Ronald Reagan himself, cowboy hat and all, could not have righted this unfortunate lost calf’s crooked course, so far from the path had it wandered.

It would be easy to rationalize excuses for FOH, given that it was their very first day, but I can’t. None of what I saw and experienced there could be excused. Not on any day, but especially not on an opening day. I believe that some of the advice and observations I have shared above illustrate why this is. I have worked with retail clients for years, some of them restaurants, and none of this is rocket science. Not one thing. All of these issues could have been corrected in moments by a competent manager.

I must however acknowledge that I am not a restaurant expert and that this post at best reflects the opinions of an amateur diner, but in my 39 years and 364 days on Earth, having eaten at restaurants spanning the globe and ranging from the finest establishments ever rated by the Guide Michelin to the most suspect (and sometimes abject) eateries ever to have been endured by humankind, I can tell you with absolute conviction that I have never before seen a restaurant so poorly managed. Not ever, and not anywhere. (Disclaimer: I have not eaten at every restaurant in the world.)

It wasn’t so much that anything was particularly awful, mind you. The food was mediocre but no worse. The service was deplorable but not entirely without merit. The restaurant was clean and would have been convivial had it not been almost entirely deserted. The GM was not actually rude to us, but merely aloof and disinterested. In short, Ford’s Oyster House was little more than a case study in mediocrity and missed opportunities than one of absolute failure. It was also an example of poor leadership in action and a canvas upon which to paint an almost perfect “how not to manage a restaurant” post. No one became ill. No one was openly insulted or beaten. No teeth were chipped or cracked or stolen. It was not that kind of experience. All in all, Ford’s Oyster House was neither here nor there. It was… passable. On a scale of -5 to +5, I would give it a zero. Nothing more, nothing less.

In truth, it may surprise you that what amazed me the most was thus not so much how bad Ford’s Oyster House was (as it was merely mediocre), but rather how great it could have (and should have) been. More importantly, what fascinated especially was that I came to realize, as soon as I stepped through its front door, that the reason it failed at being great, even as early as its very first day, was perhaps not to be found in anything about the restaurant itself, but rather in the actions (or perhaps lack thereof) of just one man: its general manager. Time may prove my theory wrong. We shall see.

Let me just say that leadership is neither a gift to be taken for granted nor a responsibility arbitrarily bestowed upon those having demonstrated the least thread of talent for it. Let this, if nothing else, be today’s lesson. As the Navy SEALs say “there are no bad boat crews, only bad leaders,” so is it with restaurants: There are no bad establishments, only bad managers. 

When it is all said and done, if a restaurant fails, it is never because of the waiters or the sous chef. It isn’t because of the economy or the competition or the weather. When a restaurant fails, the responsibility falls on the manager. The restaurant business is hard. It will break you if you don’t fight tooth and nail for your restaurant every day. The question you have to ask yourself is this: How will you find the strength to fight every day for something that you don’t love? And if not you, how will your employees, including the managers you must hire find that strength to fight for something they do not love?

This is the essence of leadership, and more importantly where most human beings fail to grasp it. Love, believe it or not, is what separates leaders from mere managers. Yet it is the soul of every kitchen, the heart of every dish, and the lifeblood of every restaurant in the world. If you cannot bake love into your restaurant’s DNA, into every experience you share with your patrons, into every brick and jar and sliver of wood from the curb outside the front door to the dumpsters lining the back alley, you will fail. If apathy is the greatest killers of restaurants, passion is always an establishment’s greatest asset.

And on that note, I wish you all a wonderful day. Hopefully, I have given you something to think about.

Cheers.

Nb: You should all know that I reached out to the restaurant’s owner through back channels and made helpful suggestions. No sarcasm. Just simple honest advice. I hope he fixes his issues (like turning off comments on his Facebook page since I was evidently not the only person to review his establishment negatively). I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes after this past weekend, and my intent here is not to make things worse for him. I don’t want to see anyone fail. Quite the contrary. With any luck, he will put his feelings aside and learn to face negative reviews head on, emerge a better, stronger business manager, and turn his new restaurant around. We’ll see.

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A Better Business Doctrine – Part 1: Assholes are bad for business.

Every doctrine has to start somewhere. Even this one.

Want to boost your repeat business, get tons of free referrals, acquire bunches of new customers and get lots of positive buzz for free? There’s a pretty simple way to do it that doesn’t have to cost you a whole lot. Can you guess what it is?

Simple: Purge your company of assholes.

In fact, let me share item #1 in my Better Business Doctrine with you real quick. Are you ready? Here we go:

The customer-facing organization with the least amount of assholes wins.

That’s it.

A simple example, from the friendly skies.

Does this seem like common sense? Of course it does. And yet here we are, routinely forced to endure a passive-aggressive or plain argumentative jerks who would rather exercise their “authority” than provide customers – even stressed out customers – with pleasant experiences. Why is that? Let me answer that question: Because companies are still hiring assholes.

Let me give you a few examples just from the past week:

1a. The Continental flight I was on last week

Flight Attendant (sternly) to a passenger in the process of turning off their iPad, just not quickly enough: “SIR! I need you to turn that off right now!” (Stares angrily at passenger until the device is turned off, and walks away, visibly annoyed.)

This probably happens to flight crews 20+ times per day. Every time a plane pushes off from the gate and prepares its approach, passengers in the middle of a song, of a paragraph, of a game of Angry Birds or Brick Breaker take an extra 10-30 seconds to “comply” with the “please turn off your electronic devices at this time” announcement on the PA. I get it. It probably gets annoying after a while. But guess what: You’re a flight attendant. Asking people to turn off their electronic toys comes with the job. You don’t have to be an asshole about it. Case in point:

1b: The Delta flight I was on the following day

– Flight Attendant (with a smile, jokingly) to a passenger so absorbed by what he was reading that he missed the “turn off your electronic devices” announcement and kept his Kindle going: “Good book?”

– Passenger, sensing that he was the object of the flight attendant’s attention, looks up from his device: “I’m sorry?”

– Flight Attendant, nonchalantly points at the Kindle: “Good reading?”

– Passenger, smiling back: “Yeah. Very!” (Gets it. Laughs. Starts to look for the “off” button.)

– Flight attendant: “You can turn it back on as soon as we’re on the ground.” (Walks away. Stops. Turns around.) “The book. What is it?”

Passenger answers. Flight attendant repeats the title as if to remember it, nods as if interested, and returns to his station.

The difference between the two isn’t training or pay. It isn’t corporate policy or procedure. It isn’t even company culture. The difference between the two occurrences is this:

One of these flight attendants, at some point during the course of her day, week, month, year or career, decided to let her asshole flag fly. The other one didn’t.

The basic impact of an asshole on your customers

How every asshole on your payroll affects your brand equity and impacts your business on a daily basis.

The impact of just one asshole’s behavior in a customer-facing role doesn’t stop with the one customer they treat poorly. Ten rows of passengers witnessed the exchanges on both flights, and I can guarantee that the ten rows on the Continental flight (30 passengers) were not impressed, while those on the Delta flight surely were. The ramifications of this are simple:

Whatever shot Continental had at influencing these 30 people to develop a preference for flying its friendly skies, for being more loyal, for looking to book future flights with them first, just flew out the window, not because of price, not because of delays, not because the plane was dirty. The price was great. The plane left on time and was impeccable. Continental did everything right except one thing: Someone there allowed an asshole (and probably more than one) to take on a key customer service role. Delta, on the other hand, scored some points.

And just to be fair, I’ve run into my fair of assholes working for Delta too. Few domestic US airlines seem immune to this phenomenon these days, except for perhaps Alaska Air, whose service and hiring practices, to my knowledge are still impeccable.

That said, my experience with Delta flight crews this week was stellar, and not just because of this little anecdote. (Expect another post about what else happened very soon.) The difference between the two airlines for me was limited to my experience, as it is for all of us. Before the recommendations and the word-of-mouth and the marketing, our own experience shapes our bias.

Every positive experience creates positive associations with a brand, while every negative experience creates a negative association with a brand. More positive than negative = positive bias, preference, even loyalty. Consistent negative experiences (especially those that repeat themselves, like frequent delays, rude employees, apathetic managers, or being talked down to by an unprofessional asshole) = negative bias, preference for your competitors instead of you, and cynicism towards your brand.

The wheels of this mental equation – more emotional than empirical – start turning every time the thought of your brand comes up, and you need to understand it isn’t linear. The way we process the negative and the positive isn’t as balanced as you might think. For whatever reason, until you have grown into a loyal fan of the brand, the equation tends to be heavily weighed towards the negative: What you did right six months ago – or for the last thirty years,- doesn’t matter nearly as much as what you did wrong yesterday or just last week. That’s part 1 of how the mental math of brand experiences work. Part 2 is this: People will easily forgive incidents and accidents: Lost luggage, no available upgrades, long lines at the counter, mechanical problems, etc. Those things are out of your control, and once the anger and frustration subside, they’ll get it. Those negative impressions will evaporate. But one thing customers won’t forgive of any company: Being deliberately treated badly by an asshole.

Just as being an asshole  is a choice, – especially when dealing with a customer – hiring an asshole and keeping them on staff is also a choice. Because of this immutable fact, every company bears its part of responsibility in the hiring and promoting of assholes. Customers instinctively understand this, which is why when they run into one of your company’s assholes, they don’t blame the asshole for treating them poorly, they blame you. They blame the brand. The negative association they take home with them isn’t with that person (whose name and face they will forget inside of a week), but with you. Your assholes are faceless. All customers remember is the context: You. Your company. Your brand. The asshole just goes on being an asshole day after day, happy to have a job that pays him – even rewards him – for being a complete raging asshole all day long.

At the end of their shift, what you have to understand is that assholes in your employ don’t lose customers. You do. You spend your resources bringing them to the cash register, and every asshole on your staff spends all day making sure they never come back.

For this reason if none other, choose and evaluate your employees carefully.

The impact of just one asshole - amplified by social media

The real cost of letting assholes poison your brand from the inside.

If you are in business and have employees, let me be VERY clear about this: You are always only one asshole away from losing your best customer. The more assholes you have on staff, the faster and more often this will happen.

Not only that, but assholes tend to turn off, not only the one customer they happen to be unpleasant to, but everyone within earshot as well.

And today, ladies and gentlemen, “within earshot” isn’t just the ten rows on the plane or the ten people in the store waiting to check out. It is also potentially the hundreds of thousands of Facebook and Twitter users who might get a glimpse of that negative experience and be turned off in turn. Even millions, for that matter. (See previous 2 images, inspired by David Armano’s “Influence Ripples” theory (Edelman), below:)

David Armano's "Influence Ripples" (Edelman)

Let me give this a financial angle for you: Over the course of a year, one asshole on your staff, just one, can invalidate every dime your company has spent on advertising, marketing and PR. That’s the real liability of assholes. For small businesses, an asshole might only cost you $10,000 in wasted marketing, messaging or brand positioning. If you’re a bigger company, the same asshole (or a whole army of them, which is more likely) could cost you hundreds of millions of dollars in wasted marketing and brand management dollars.

That was part 1 of that equation. Part 2 is measured in lost revenue from disappointed customers taking their business elsewhere (your competitors thank you), lost revenue from all of the net new customers delighted customers would have recommended you to (but didn’t, because your assholes chased them away), and so on.

As a result, the higher the proportion of assholes to caring professionals a company has on staff, the more likely it is to have to spend more and more on marketing (with increasingly diminishing returns), while customer retention falls flat and even starts to dip into the red. Assholes aren’t just bad for customer service or your brand’s image. Assholes are bad for business. They are a counter-current to your hopes and dreams. They are the cancer that first weighs you down, then eventually makes your brand begin to fail, then wither, then die.

So let me repeat today’s lesson: The customer-facing organization with the least amount of assholes wins.

Don’t believe me? Ask Zappos. If you have never heard of Zappos, they sell shoes on the internet. That’s it. Well… LOTS of shoes. So many in fact that Amazon bought them for a pretty penny. Not only that, but Amazon decided not to make any major changes to Zappos’ leadership or culture. They left Zappos alone because the model works well just as it is. What’s Zappos’ secret? The customer experiences they create are stellar. Why are they stellar? Because Zappos pretty much has a “no asshole on staff” policy. Their hiring practices focus on this, and for good reason: They know that a happy customer is a loyal customer.

The simple truth (and we all know this) is that happy customers are good for business. In fact, no. They are GREAT for business: The happier a customer is, the more likely it is that they will come back, spend more, spend more often, and recommend you to all their friends. This is what you want. This is what makes businesses insanely successful. This. You don’t have to invent the iPad to be a huge success. Zappos just sells shoes on the internet. Virgin Airlines just flies people from airport to airport. Intercontinental Hotels (disclosure: client) are basically just… hotels. We’re not talking space walks or time travel, here. Your favorite restaurant, your favorite coffee shop, your favorite mechanic, none of them necessarily reinvented the wheel, right? They didn’t win a Nobel prize for revolutionizing their industries. No. What they did was this: They figured out that a happy customer is good for business, so they focused on that. They earned your trust, your respect and your loyalty. Want to know how they did that? By giving you theirs.

Let me let you in on a little secret: An asshole doesn’t think that way. An asshole doesn’t think about happy customers. He doesn’t care about happy customers. An asshole only thinks about himself: His own mood, his own frustrations, his own personal dramas, his own power trips. An asshole doesn’t give anyone their trust, respect or loyalty. Assholes just don’t think that way. And that is precisely the rub: No matter how well you pay them, you can’t make assholes give a shit. And that is bad for business. Very bad.

A fork in the road for every organization:

Do you know one way to make sure your customers are always happy? Only hire people who want your customers to be happy too. People who want to be helpful, who want to fix problems, who take pride in making someone’s day better instead of worse. People who genuinely want to see the company do well. People with pride and self respect and ambition beyond their own bank account or advancement. Do you think this is too hard? It isn’t. Just hire better.

Want to guess how to guarantee that your customers will not be happy? Hire assholes to take care of them. (It works every time.)

That’s your choice: Door A or Door B.

Door A: Hire super nice, helpful people and your business will soar.

Door B: Hire assholes, and your business will forever struggle to stay afloat.

Every time you run into one of your employees (or candidates) and he or she acts like an asshole, I want you to think about that. I want you to think about how much harder you want to have to work to make your business successful once they start pissing off every customer and client they come in contact with.

Taking a step back so you can see your entire business now, how many assholes do you really want on your payroll, and how many customers do you want to put them in front of? Pull out a piece of paper and write down a number. Do it. Write it down. How many assholes do you want on your payroll?

Next to that number, write down how many assholes you have on your payroll now. Go through your mental org chart, and start counting them in your head. When you’re done, write down how many assholes you know are in your company right now. If that number is higher than the first number you wrote down, you have some cleaning up to do.

In closing, let me leave you with the top 5 ways to make sure that your company starts becoming asshole-proof.

Top 5 ways of asshole-proofing your company:

1. Don’t hire assholes. They are bad for business, and they breed inside organizations like weeds.

2. Don’t promote assholes. The only thing worse than an asshole is an asshole with authority (including the authority to hire and promote assholes when you aren’t paying attention).

3. Give your current assholes the “opportunity” to go work for your fiercest competitor. Do this immediately. Make sure the door doesn’t hit them in the ass on their way out.

4. Once removed, replace your former assholes with nice, smart friendly people. (They’re out there and they want to work for you, but your assholes probably already turned them down. Go find them and invite them back.)

5. Reward all of your employees for NOT being assholes.

That just about takes care of it for today. Any questions?

Inspired (in a good way) by conversations with Julien Smith, Geoff Livingston, Keith Burtis, Chris Brogan, Kristi Colvin, Tyler Durden, Jeffrey Jacobs, Peter Shankman, among others.

*          *          *

And in case you haven’t picked one up yet (or your favorite client seems to be having trouble figuring out how to bring social media into their organization), you can pick up a fresh copy of Social Media ROI at fine book stores everywhere. If you have sworn off paper, you can also download it for iPad, Kindle, Nook or other e-formats at www.smroi.net.

(Click here for details, or to sample a free chapter.)

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The Social and the Media

The social: Less than an hour after checking into my room at the Westin in Sydney, my doorbell rings. (Wait… I have a doorbell?)

At first, I think I am having auditory hallucinations, which isn’t good. I start to do the math: I left the Greenville-Spartanburg airport on Saturday at 11:05am. Passing through ATL, LAX and SYD, I have flown right through Sunday: It is now 11:23am on Monday. Time zones notwithstanding, that is how long I have been traveling to get here. My brain can’t do simple math anymore. I have no idea how many hours of sleep I have managed to grab in the last two days. Certainly not many. The backs of my eyeballs ache and I am starving.

The doorbell rings again. I go to answer it. Outside my door stands an impeccably dressed hotel staffer holding a small bowl of fruit and an envelope. In the US, she would be well past retirement age. Here, she is one the hotel’s ambassadors, and standing no more than five feet tall in her spotless uniform, she is glorious. She greets me with a warm, genuine smile and a bow. “Welcome to Sydney,” she says, beaming with pride. She offers me the bowl and the envelope. “Anything we can do to help you enjoy your stay, please let us know.”

This is not my typical experience when I check into a hotel. Even one whose rooms have doorbells.

I set the fruit on the desk and open the envelope. It is a note from Mark Burns, the manager, welcoming me to his hotel. Not hand-written, but specific to the reason for my stay. The signature isn’t digital. It is signed in pen. Here it is:

Outstanding.

The fruit, by the way, was delicious, and the rest of my stay at the Sydney Westin was as spectacular as that first morning.

The media: A human being. Ink and paper. A bowl of fruit.

No matter how great your Social Media program is, it cannot take the place of this: Rocking your customers’ worlds, and allowing employees to connect with customers like human beings rather than like corporate robots. Start at the core of your business, not along its edges. Engagement, customer loyalty, great experiences and love for your brand aren’t add-ons to be reaped from having a presence on Twitter and Facebook. A presence in Social Media might make you popular and seem cool, but being great there isn’t enough. You must be great across every medium, even the ones that don’t get a whole lot of attention anymore. Perhaps more so.

The social and the medium: Platforms and digital channels aren’t everything.

Cheers,

Olivier

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The Delusion Bug

Here’s a sobering little bit of reality:

“A study by Bain & Company found that 80 percent of companies surveyed believed that they delivered a “superior experience” to their customers. But, when customers were asked to indicate their perceptions of the experiences they have in dealing with companies, they rated only 8 percent of companies as truly delivering a superior experience (James Allen, Frederick F. Reichheld and Barney Hamilton, The Three “Ds” of Customer Experience, Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, accessed Nov. 7, 2005). Do you sense just a little bit of disconnect?”

(Thanks to John Winsor for catching this some time ago on Seth Godin’s blog, who himself had wisely nipped it from Jim Barnes.)

8% vs. 80%.

… Which is probably the same percentage of companies thinking their advertising, marketing, PR or Social Media “efforts” are solid vs. what the rest of the world thinks of them. (What some of us like to refer to as “reality.”)

Delusion to the nth degree.

By the way, statistically speaking, if you are reading this, you are 10 times more likely to be in the 80% group than the 8% group. Don’t blame me for the bad news. It’s just basic math.

A few pointers to help you figure out where you stand:

If you haven’t seen continuous double-digit growth for the last three years, you are NOT in the 8% category.

If you don’t know at least 10% of your repeat customers by name when you see them, you are NOT in the 8% category.

If you don’t know exactly how many people mentioned your company’s name on the web since the start of this month, your are probably NOT in the 8% category.

If you find it painstakingly difficult to get trade publications to write positive stories about you, you are probably NOT in the 8% category.

If your customer service people yell or complain more than theysmile or laugh when they get off the phone with customers, you are NOT in the 8% category.

If your executives are not being invited to speak at industry events on a regular basis, you are NOT in the 8% category.

If your customers are increasingly pressuring you to lower your prices to match your competitors’, you are NOT in the 8% category.

Starting to get the picture?

Time to do something about it, perhaps? 😉

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