Unreasonable Hospitality: What It Takes to Be Number One in Your Industry with Will Guidara

0:0010 years ago, I made the decision to build my personal brand that was elevated, yet approachable, and reflected who I was, not just what I did. I created my website with ShowIt because it's true drag and drop freedom so you can easily build and update your site. Plus, their real human support team, game changer. Want to try it for yourself? Head to jasminestar.com forward slash ShowIt for a 14-day free trial and first month free when you subscribe. Welcome to the Jasmine Star Show where we talk about life, business mindset, and today we are talking about the difference between service and, wait for it, hospitality.

0:34Now, before you think that this is a podcast about restaurants or hotels, you could not be more wrong, and I cannot wait to below your mind with the things that you could start implementing in your business that sets you apart from your competition, that has people raving about you and the experiences that you've created, and has them telling their friends about what it is you do and or offer. Just as a reminder, I am so excited to welcome back our guest co-host, Amy Porterfield, who has hand-selected people to join us in her hometown of Nashville, Tennessee. Will flew in from New York City. Will, welcome to the Jasmine Star Show.

1:10I'm so excited to be here. I mean, it's so fun to be with you, to see you again. Nashville's quickly becoming one of my favorite cities in the world. Yes, it's such a magical place. And I heard you've just been eating your way through Nashville today, which is so fun. Amy, so if we could start. Yes. Talk to me about how you met Will. And then when I said, hey, let's get five incredible people who are going to blow people's minds about business, what made you think of Will? Okay, so how did that start? Don Miller did an author's day, a little event. And he brought all these authors from so many different markets and industries and niches to the one room.

1:49And I got to sit next to Will. I didn't know Will. However, instantly I fell in love with them, like everything about this man. And then I started to hear his story more and what he does and what his book is. And his book is very, very popular. So Unreasonable Hospitality. You ask anyone about this book and they're going to know about it. So that's when I started to dive in. And I read his book and I thought, first of all, every single person on my team needs this book. So I started to call everyone. And then I realized that you came from obviously the restaurant world, but this book is so much more.

2:26And you, everybody is in the hospitality industry, in my opinion. And I learned that from Will. So I thought, let's bring him on. We got to talk about this in more depth. I love this. Okay. So right now people are listening and entrepreneurs, many of us have a customer success team or customer support team, a customer service team. So we're dealing in this terminology, at least in our neck of the woods, in our business realm as service. And one of the things I found so fascinating about your view of the world is that there's a difference between service and hospitality. For this conversation, can you describe the difference between service and hospitality and then how they relate to the business structure of it?

3:03You know, back in the day when I was interviewing people, for a long time I had like that list of questions that I'd ask every single person when I was deciding whether or not to welcome them onto the team. And eventually I decided to stop doing that because I think relationships are relationships and the lessons you learn from those in life can be applied to those in work. And you would never go on a first date with someone and break out a list of questions, right? You're B. So I decided eventually to just let conversations flow, to connect with people as people. But when I did have that list, one of the questions was that, what's the difference between service and hospitality?

3:39Because way too often I think people conflate them. The best answer I ever got came from a woman I ended up not hiring, regrettably, actually, in hindsight. But she said, service is black and white. Hospitality is color. See, service is the thing that we do. It's a part of the product. In my world, service is getting the right plate of food to the right person at the right time. That's a part of the product. Hospitality is how you make people feel when you do that thing. It's the extent to which you are being creative and intentional in pursuit of a genuine relationship with the person you are serving.

4:16It's the thing that transcends an experience from, well, like a transaction into it actually being an experience, a connection. So when people are listening and they're saying you're creating, service is getting a plate of food to the right table. And so what I didn't do is set the context of what it is, like how you got that. So your objective for service is getting the right plate of food to the right table in the right amount of time. And so somebody's listening and you are the former co-owner of 11 Madison Park and under your leadership was named the best restaurant in the world. Can we start there and talk about that origin story and how you were sitting at a bar with your co-founder over a dark spirit of some sort?

5:02actually this dark spirit above and then a dark spirit uh let's go back to that story yeah so we had been at the restaurant for a few years i got to the restaurant in 2006 and at the time it was like a kind of popular but generally mediocre restaurant but the dining room at that restaurant is truly like one of the most beautiful in the world and i was brought in as a part of the team that was charged with elevating the experience such that it lived up to the room And in the beginning, I did what anyone would do, right, when charged with making something better. I doubled down in pursuit of excellence in the product.

5:39And it worked really well. We got a bunch of stars and all these accolades, but then eventually we got invited onto the list of the 50 best restaurants in the world. And the first year that we were on it, we came in last place. That's my favorite story. You were expecting something a little bit better. We were like, I thought maybe 30, number 35. At this point, we're one of the best restaurants in the country. And so 50 in the world for America, obviously we're going to do well. And it's a longer story, but yeah, it was mortifying. We came in last place. And what I did is what I think any mature professional would do in a moment of profound disappointment.

6:11I left the party early, went back to the hotel, grabbed a bottle of whiskey and started going through the stages of grief. As one does. As one does. Which ultimately brought us to acceptance. Because the reality is, well, it's patently absurd to say one restaurant is the best restaurant in the world. There's too many restaurants. It's too subjective. When you earn the top spot on that list, what it actually means is that you are the restaurant having the greatest impact on the world of restaurants at that point in time. And listen, at that point, our food was unbelievable. Our service was as close to technically perfect as possible.

6:45Our dining room was still one of the most significantly beautiful out there. But those were the reasons why we got on the list. When we paused for long enough to really think about it, we hadn't done anything impactful. I don't know about you, but anytime I've tried to accomplish something audacious, I like to study those who have accomplished it before me, take lessons from them, apply those lessons. And so I started thinking about the chefs that had been number one before. A, they were chefs. They were the ones cooking the food. I'm not a chef. I'm a dining room guy. And each one of them was unreasonable in pursuit of their product, the food, and relentless in pursuit of innovation, new techniques, new ingredients.

7:23That night, I decided that I wanted to be number one, and our impact was going to come through not being unreasonable in pursuit of product, but in pursuit of people. And being relentless in pursuit of the one thing that will never change, which is just the human desire to feel seen, to feel cared for, to feel a sense of belonging, or honestly, our collective want to feel loved. And that's where Unreasonable Hospitality came about. it. Now, in the beginning, I had no idea what those two words meant, but I think that's kind of fun and okay. I think far too many people, we put this pressure on ourselves to fully understand or define an idea before we ever start pursuing it.

8:07And because we do that, we never start pursuing anything. I think we need to trust the fact that if you feel a connection to a thought, but just start pursuing it and it will reveal itself to you along the way. And that's what set out the journey that ultimately unpacked what this idea was, how it could be applied, and became the thing that brought us to the top. So if someone's listening right now and they're thinking, okay, so you were 50 and you wanted to be number one. That night you decided we're going to figure that out, but you didn't know how you would do that. So someone listening, can you give, let's say, three tips to how to figure out how to move toward greatness, especially if they've never seen it done in their industry?

8:50We're talking to a lot of online marketers and coaches and course creators. So it's different for us than it was for you. For sure. So what are some tips you have? Well, okay. I think the first thing that I'd say can only be described once you identify what it means to be a great leader today. So, okay, once upon a time, great leadership, I'm like talking Braveheart days. Like, it was the guy, and I say guy with intention, that was a long time ago, with the confidence and conviction to say to a group of people, this is where we're going, and people crave leadership, so they'd follow them. And then at a certain point, probably Simon Sinek's book, Start With Why, like really kind of put an exclamation point on this.

9:32That was no longer enough. People wanted to be told where they were going and also inspired why they should want to go there. That is also not enough anymore. I believe a great leader says the what. This is where we're going. They say the why. This is why we're going to do it, how we're going to get there, why there's importance in it. But they then invite everyone on the team to join them in helping identify the how. I believe that no one is capable of investing all of themselves into something if they don't feel they have some small bit of ownership in contributing to how you get there. And so the first step was to go home and connect with the entire team and say, hey, we are going to be number one.

10:18We're going to do it through unreasonable hospitality. All of us together, we're going to figure out what that means and how we apply it. So as the leader, you didn't go back to the team and say, this is what we're going to do. No. And is it scary? I'm going to speak for myself. it's scary for me to let go of that control and give it to my team. And I love my team. But how do you get past that obstacle of trying to control it all? Well, I mean, I'd say two things. I believe in collaborative work environments. I also believe in everything having a point of view. And so it actually isn't scary because at the end of the day, it still comes back through you.

10:54Right. But what you're doing is saying to your team, hey, I recognize that the collective brainpower and creativity of all of us will always be so much greater than that of just me. And you're showing trust and you're showing respect. And by the way, the more trust you give people, the more trustworthy they become. The more responsibility you give people, the more responsible they become. I also think that you are, and I want to hear your other two tips, but one thing that's special about you that I know is you let go of the ego. And I think a great leader has to. So reading your book and learning more about you, you never really lead with ego.

11:37You're the charge. You're the big cheese. Is that something that's always been with you? Or have you seen it done another way and didn't want to do it that way? I mean, I came up with like from the industry, right? I've waited tables. I bust tables. I wash dishes. I did everything all the way up. And I get embarrassed, honestly like when I was at the restaurant people would want to write articles about me I'd feel like imagine if you're with a group of friends and everyone wants to just write an article about one person in the group. Wow, you really see yourself as part of that team. It makes me uncomfortable and I just like and by the way there's plenty of leaders that love that and I can't relate to it because I feel like the more on a pedestal you allow the world to put you the less your team has the ability to feel connected to you.

12:29And so I've always actively worked to not keep myself down, but create opportunities for all of us to rise together. I love that. Okay, so the first step, express the what, the why, but invite the entire team to be a part of the how. I think consistency in communication is also everything if you're trying to really grow. And one of the things that I believe that we do in restaurants that has the greatest ability to benefit so many other people in so many other industries is what we call pre-meal. Anyone who's worked in a restaurant knows what pre-meal is. It's that 30-minute meeting we hold right before we open the doors and start welcoming our guests for the night.

13:07I just know it from the bear. There you go. Yeah, exactly. For those, every restaurant basically does it. Most of them waste it. Okay. A pre-meal is wasted when you spend the entire time talking about things that could very clearly be communicated via an email. A new dish, a new wine by the glass, a new policy. The power of a pre-meal comes when a leader actually seizes on it as an opportunity to lead, to share moments of inspiration they've encountered out into the world, to invite their team to do the same in return, where a leader prepares every single day and takes that meeting very, very seriously, understanding what they want to get out of it.

13:44what they want to communicate into it. I believe when that meeting is done well, it is when a collection of individuals comes together as a trusting team, unlocking the creative capacity and creativity required to do anything of greatness. I believe that if everyone in any business that interacts with any people ever implemented some version of a daily huddle, it would transform customer service and hospitality as we know it. Because I just believe that leaders need to be as disciplined and systemized in how they inspire their people as they already are and how they train their people. And consistency in communication through a daily huddle, I think, is one of the best levers at our disposal if we are aligned in trying to do that.

14:37And then number three, it's creating a culture where feedback is normalized. And when I say feedback, obviously, I mean praise. If you're reaching for the stars and trying to do something incredible, you're raising expectations of the people around you constantly, right? And when someone on your team lives up or surpasses those expectations, you better be there to catch them doing something right. To celebrate them, to give them that feeling of satisfaction that you've set an impossibly high bar and they've reached it and they deserve celebration. But when I talk about creating a culture where feedback is normalized, I'm not just talking about praise, I'm also talking about criticism.

15:20Because if praise is affirmation, criticism is investment. I fear that we're in this day and age where everyone's talking about creating cultures of positivity and silver linings and all that stuff. And in doing so, by the way, which is awesome, I fear that we've let go of criticism a little bit too much. I don't believe there is anything more powerful that a leader can do than to step outside of their comfort zone and invest in someone else's growth. And that comes through criticism. Because if you are hiring people that want to grow and be the best, they're never going to grow and become the best if someone isn't telling them when they've fallen off and nudging them back in or where they're falling short and could do better.

16:05But I can't talk about criticism without outlining a few rules that are required. I was going to say, I knew you were going to have some rules. Okay. To deliver it thoughtfully. Yes. First, okay, you can praise in public. You can never criticize in public. It always needs to be in private. Because, well, criticism is a form of communication, you criticize someone in public, the wall of shame goes up, they're not going to hear it. You criticize the person's behavior, not them as a person. Because when you criticize an individual, it becomes emotional. If you bring emotion into it, they're going to bring emotion into it.

16:42And you're ruining the entire point of the exchange, which is just to say, hey, you're great. Stop doing that and start doing this. Criticize consistently. You can't pick and choose when to address a behavior. Because when you do, it's not clear to the people around you what right looks like. And if you're not careful, people think you only criticize when you're in a bad mood, which then colors the entire exchange in a way that you do not want it to be colored. And then finally, you need to bring to it the charitable assumption, which is something I learned from my mentor and longtime boss, Danny Meyer.

17:19The charitable assumption means give people the benefit of the doubt. Another way to say that, ask the question before you say the thing. Believe the best in people. And if someone is having a behavior, if someone's coming in late, is everything okay? Before you say, why are you late? You can't be late. I need you to be here on time. But if you want to be the best at anything, I don't believe it's possible unless you have a culture where feedback is normalized. And when I say that, I mean, not only that it's well-received by everyone in the organization, but also that it's sought out. Can I repeat back what I heard?

18:00Yeah, please. And so I do this because, number one, I learn the most when I listen, I write, and then I repeat. And I'm doing this because there's listeners who are so entrenched in their dream, their passion, while also cooking dinner, waiting in the carpool line, grocery shopping, working out. Out of breath on the treadmill. Absolutely. Absolutely. If you're out of breath on the treadmill right now, I just want to say, I believe in you. Don't stop. You only have a little amount to go. Like, don't keep pushing. We believe in you. I feel like we could clip that out as like a real, are you having a bad day?

18:33Listen for a minute. Okay. So in the context of leadership, we hail and we applaud the land of Braveheart. This is where we're going. Where? And then Simon Sinek introduced the why. And what you are also bravely introducing thing is this idea leadership in 2024 is made up of three things. Collaborate in the how, consistency in the communication, because this empowers you to connect with your team, and three, creating a culture where feedback is normalized, both positive and criticism. But the framework for giving criticism in the workplace is to praise in public, criticize in private, to criticize behavior, not the person, to criticize consistently, and lastly, the charitable assumption, giving the person the benefit of the doubt.

19:19So we went through leadership, then we went through criticism. I feel like you'd be such a good editor. So true. But we have to, because here's the thing, too many of us, I am in this, too many of us listen to podcasts and we walk away with the dopamine hit and the dopamine of doing and hearing of almost equal proportion. So what I don't want people doing is listening to your sultry voice on the podcast to be super inspired to go out and implement this culture. I'm on the end of a cold right now. It's normally a little more sultry. I just want to say. Don't distort. Don't distort. Don't distort the dream right here, Will.

19:50And so what we have here is this very clear framework that you cannot listen to this podcast without understanding if you want to lead, there is the cost of leadership. And leadership changes. And do you want to be on the forefront of that changes? And so Amy and I, we've been talking about this theme. Like, what is our through line for this podcast? And one of the reasons why Amy carefully picked everybody was this idea that every single one of our guests has gone against the grain. And so when we ask you, going against the grain, when we look in the terms of your experience, which yes is from the restaurant world, but then you're applying the principles of creating an experience, not just service, in the business world, and then you say, you're going against the grain.

20:33What does that mean for you at this point in time? How did I go against the grain or what does it mean to go? Okay. Well, actually both. I mean, that's like, whatever comes up for you is like the truest thing. It's like, when we talk about going against the grain, it takes a lot of emotion. It takes courage. It takes resilience. And so we look at people like, you're like, yes, of course, leadership. Yeah, it's amazing. But going against the grain is hard. And I also thought about going against the grain in the kitchen. Are we using flour? Are we using mushrooms? Yes, you know, come on. I mean, okay, how did we go against the grain?

21:07Yeah. Like, listen, and we can go deeper and tell the stories that really explain what we did, but we became number one. She loves all the story. Well, we learn as humans. Science shows we learn more through story because we project ourselves in that place. That's my favorite part. Yeah. Well, so, okay. I'll get to the end and then I'll back up. We became number one, not because of the excellence of our product. Oh, wait. No. Sorry. Hold on. I'm going to turn to the camera. they became number one not by being the best of their product. So if the story you are telling yourself is the reason why you are not winning is because you are not number one, what we have here is somebody who just looked at you in your face and said, we won not because we were number one.

21:53Okay. Carry on. We became number one because we made the choice to be as unreasonable in pursuit of how we made people feel as every other restaurant on that list was solely in pursuit of the product they were selling those people. You know, to the people that you just did the camera look to address, this is one of the ways I think about it. Every company, whether this is an active pursuit or a passive pursuit, is seeking to identify their competitive advantage. Yes. right what is the thing that is staving off a future competitor from coming in and eating your lunch in the tech world that's called what is your moat right and we hear that all the time and whenever anyone talks about that they're talking about the strength of their product or their brand but here's the thing i don't care how good the product is i don't care how strong the brand is i don't care how talented you are what is inevitable and this is not a an opinion this is a fact.

22:51History has proven it to be true. Someone is going to come around and they're going to build a better product. They're going to create a stronger brand. They are going to be better than you. It's just a matter of how long it takes. They might be younger and therefore bring a new creative perspective. They may be more capitalized than you are. They may just be smarter. The only competitive advantage I believe that truly exists like over a very, very long term comes through hospitality. It comes through consistently and generously investing in relationships because those take a very, very long time to build.

23:28And if you build them in the right way, they take an incredibly long time to erode. And so that's what we did. We focused on that stuff. I mean, there's a quote by Maya Angelou, people will forget what you say, they'll forget what you do, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. if you are as relentlessly focused on how you make people feel as anyone who's achieved any margin of success invariably is in pursuit of whatever the product is that they've built i believe you have the capacity to do unbelievably remarkable things things that you probably don't even think are possible and so at our restaurant i mean we had positions on the team we had a position called the dream weaver named after the iconic song by Gary Wright.

24:16This person was in our dining room every single night just there to help everyone else on the team bring these crazy ideas to life. So we inspired our team and it came through this hot dog story, which I can tell it's the story that's been most told. Well, I mean, we can't just wave our hands and say the hot dog story because it's like all capital letters and it's been featured on shows. And okay, so I'm sure. And it's TED Talk, exactly. But I think it's important to say the story. I'll tell her how I talk a story. The fact that I'm in the room with you and you're telling the story, and it was on the bear, just for the record.

24:52Yeah, Amy's obsessed with the bear. She's obsessed. So, okay, I'm ready, go. Okay. So, at that first awards, at the 50 best, when we came in last place, on a cocktail napkin, I wrote, we will be number one in the world. And underneath that, I wrote, unreasonable hospitality. And then it was just a matter of with my team identifying what that meant. And eventually, about two years later, we had a breakthrough, which came when I was in the dining room helping out the servers because we were getting crushed. It was just a busier-than-normal lunch service. Anyone who's ever worked in the restaurants knows the phrase, we're in the weeds.

25:24And so I did what I do when I'm helping out the team. I bust tables. Which, by the way, there's another lesson there, which is when you're at the top of the totem pole and you want to chip in and help, do the thing all the way at the bottom. A, because it gives you the best sense of what's actually happening in your business. It's a meta signal to everyone that works for you that no matter how big you've become or how highly regarded you might be, that you don't consider yourself to be too good to do the most menial tasks. because that's always the thing I did. I would just clear plates. And I found myself clearing appetizers from a table of four.

26:02They were foodies on vacation from Europe to New York. And they were just there to eat at fancy restaurants. Places like Le Bernardin, Daniel, Jean-Georges, Per Se. And if you don't know those restaurants, just the fanciness of the names should give you a sale. Very fancy. And now they're at 11 Madison Park. They had like the trip of a lifetime. But then one woman jumped in and said, yeah, but you know, we never had a New York City. hot dog from one of those street carts. And I was saying, you know, that like light bulb moment in a cartoon where you know they've had an idea. As calmly as I could, I walked back into the kitchen, dropped off the plates, ran outside of the hot dog cart, bought a hot dog, ran back inside.