Redefining Hospitality, The Power of Reviews, and Community Over Competition w/ Anton Kinloch (Part 3) - Ep. 30

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Yeah, how how dire the situation is. I think it's also partially I think it's also partially to do with us as an industry. There is a lot of pride and ego that goes into our spaces, that unfortunately is just kind of the the norm that we have a certain vision of what we want our space to look like, how to operate, how guests interact with it, and if they don't, oh that that guess is not for me. But at the end of the day, like hospitality, going back to our first initial kind of definition, it's about how do we make this space welcome for everyone from all walks of life. I mean, there are certain things that we certainly cannot accommodate, and that's not a hospitality thing, that is more of a service or logistics thing. But at the end of the day, like we are always striving to make everyone feel welcome. And one of the challenges that we all have collectively in this industry is just opening up and asking for help and saying, hey, things suck right now. Do you mind leaving a review? Or do you mind visiting us? Or do you mind kind of sharing this? And that's where my thought process kind of came about like during and post-COVID, where I said, you know what, like the industry is changing, but consumer behavior is also changing. And what I've noticed objectively is that consumer behavior has become more kind of, I don't want to say arrogant, but more kind of entitled to a certain extent because people are so unaware of the challenges involved in running an FB space where our costs and our expect and the expectations of us are so high, and oftentimes people take for granted that they're going to have a wonderful experience. You'll go out to a bar or a restaurant, you have a wonderful experience. You don't think twice about leaving a review, you don't think twice about saying something positive to the team because it's just that's That's what you expect. It's implied, yeah. But the moment you have a negative experience, that not only resonates with you so much harder, but you actively or even subconsciously go out of your way to tell other people in your circle, hey, I had a really bad experience at X venue, or I don't really recommend going here because this is what happened. And it was based off of a one-time experience based on 10,000 collective decisions that were outside of the restaurant's control, and that's what culminated to that negative experience. And if you had just stopped and paused and opened up to the manager or the server or the bartender at that moment and said, hey man, this was effed up. They would be so much more willing to work with you and do something and kind of mitigate it. I mean, obviously there's going to be outliers where sometimes they are just, pardon my French, pieces of shit and they don't do anything. But nine out of ten times, operators or even staff are just willing to bend over backwards to make it right. Because at the end of the day, when you're a consumer and you get when something doesn't go your way, you're not pissed off at the situation. You're pissed off at how it's handled. If you are not visibly and recognized and your complaints or concerns are not recognized, you feel more insulted than the actual insult itself.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Yeah. No, a hundred percent. I think I think that's uh even outside of your industry is something. Um we had a client uh just a couple of weeks ago, a new client um emailed and asked me for a link to be able to leave a review and you know and gave feedb like gave compliments on uh how the service and experience has been over the first couple of months working with us and uh and um and talked super highly of Kylie who is is uh is my first ever person to join the team and is is just amazing. Um and first of all, as a business owner, like that is that is a currency. And that like that is something that you know for for me personally makes me feel very good and very proud of my team. But then also he uh when I thanked him for that, he he followed that up with something that's very relevant to what you're saying, which was that uh obviously I'm paraphrasing here because I can't remember word for word, but that m um he said, you know, most people uh will only give feedback when it's negative. Uh so I wanted to um let you know that uh you guys are doing something something good and something right and give you that positive uh you know the positive feedback on what you guys are doing. And I was like, when he said that, I was like, that is so true because I feel like that is that is the uh you know a big a big part of uh really human behavior and it's and you know you talk about entitlement, and obviously I think that is something that continues to go down that road towards that entitlement kind of aspect where it's uh you know, if you feel like you know almost going into uh a restaurant or a bar that you're owed what you expect to be really, I think, is perfection, is what is the expectation, which is obviously something that is extremely hard to ever meet, right? Is especially on a consistent every single person who comes through the door experience. And if then if you that person's definition of perfection is not met, then they're disappointed. I feel like that that bar being perfect is is just an unrealistic for any industry um bar to have, and um is you know is unfair to um and just unrealistic to um to people in your industry and then you know and other industries as well. You know, it's because you know I m my take on that is just like perfection is is something that I think it's great to strive for in all aspects that you possibly can. But also I have a very deep understanding and acceptance that um that whatever it is, I will never achieve perfection because something can always be improved upon, something can always be better, you can always grow in an area, um, which is you know golf has been something that I've been uh the last year, year and a half uh getting uh getting into is you know my hobby outside of of business, and uh and you know that is a game of imperfection, uh, because there is no such thing as a perfect score, and and which is highlighted a lot in in business to like uh really you know um the you know releasing that expectation of of uh but continuing to have you know the confidence and ambition to continue growing in those areas, knowing that you'll never reach that you know peak perfection. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Yeah. And I think that's that's important to highlight because like when you look at the Michelin guide, when they award a three-star restaurant their third star, like congratulations, they literally have hit every single mark, but that's because they've also been able to sit, dissect, quantify every single step of service and replicate it through hundreds of hours of scenarios and role-playing and pretty much perfecting the approach to a single table where every single step is calculated. And I think that in this day and age, in our line of work, it's impossible to do that. It's not to say that we shouldn't uh award that and and s and like um celebrate that. I think it's important to actually acknowledge those places that are able to do that successfully, but we should also be a little bit nicer to the venues that are not able to quantify that because maybe that's not their top priority. Maybe they have other things. Maybe the restaurant owner is literally under the gun thinking, am I going to make payroll or am I gonna make rent? I don't know. And the steps of service and dropping water off at the wrong time is not really very high on their priority list, which is goes back to we've we've been conditioned for so long as an industry that we have to anticipate perfection from our staff and from ourselves, where we are so hard on ourselves that we are terrified to even open up and say, hey, things are things are difficult right now. And this is one of the reasons why I wanted to continue endorsing not just education from the perspective of my platform, but also just transparency in the industry for the rest of the world, and and say, look, yes, we all deserve better. If you're gonna come out and you're gonna spend $150 of your hard-earned money with me, you better get a really good experience. But at the same token, I have to be transparent enough to say, look, here are some of the factors that we are up against. And it's not to say like the bad experience is excusable, it's more just to kind of highlight that even against those odds, we are still able to meet your expectations. And if we're not, let us know what we did wrong so we can improve upon that specific target area. Because, like you said, people are more quick to post something negative than something positive. Like I think there was a study done years ago where they say a person will have a good experience, they'll tell three people, but if a person has a negative experience, they're gonna tell seven plus.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Yeah. Which is which is sad because it's I feel like it's uh you know, it's uh it's it promo the I guess just the human mentality in that regard to and to think like that is is if it's like we should be lifting up and promoting the people who do things well rather than using all of that energy instead to you know d diminish or demote the ones who didn't do it right. You know, because I think you know they go in opposite directions, but you know, if you looked at it from you know the negative a negative review you know the like a negative review will or in a positive review, one's plus one, one's minus one, some but it's in two different places, like why not lift up and plus add to the w uh the people who do it the right way, um and you know have you know still I maybe even get to the the same outcome, right? It's you don't have to I guess uh have a little balance to the way you do it. You know, if you're gonna leave a bad review for b your bad experiences, then yeah, I you know, then I think you should leave good reviews every time you have a great one.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Yeah, yeah. I mean also like I found that the algorithm of Google even it puts an unnecessary weight on negative reviews, so much so that not to toot my own horn, but up until a couple up until last year, we had a perfect 5.0 rating on Google. And it took one person who left a one-star review with absolutely zero context. So that right there was not helpful because it's like, cool, not only did you have a bad experience, but you also refused to tell the rest of the world what was wrong with your experience. How can we mitigate it? How can we make it better? And we later found out that this review was fake and it was just somebody who in the community who was pissed off at us for existing because that just happens. Uh, but as a result, it completely like dragged our rating down to about a 4.7, and it took upwards of 20 five-star reviews to offset that one one-star review that had zero context in it. So I've I've always said to my guests, I'm like, look, it's like reviews are great. I mean, my wife and I, we're foodies, we go out, we go to a new city like you guys, we'll look at whatever restaurant or bar has high ratings, and we're gonna look at those reviews, but at the same time, we also look at the places who might not have a seller record and look at the reviews and see is there a consistent track record of the same issue, or is this more of an isolated issue? Because sometimes it just takes one or two isolated issues to throw off the entire balance of a venue, and those places now have to work three times as hard just to get their reputation back into a reasonable scape. So I always say to people, Mike, yeah, I'm I'm willing to talk but and and check places out, but usually the first thing I do is I'll go to a place that's highly rated, then talk to their staff and find out from their staff, well, we're here. What do you think of X? What do you think of Y? Where would you go? And it never ceases to amaze me that there are places that are on that list of Google that are like, oh yeah, absolutely go there. They are incredible. Or you know what, don't go there. That actually has high ratings, but it's a tourist trap. Or see, hey, go here, it's it's got really terrible ratings, but it's actually incredible. It's just people are a little ambitious and think it's gonna be something else.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Interesting. Um that's super interesting. Uh I'll have to try that out um next time uh actually in a couple of weeks. Uh my wife and I will be in Boston, and we're definitely gonna be so many places that you'll have to tell me then a couple of uh because we went in October and uh there was a couple of places we really liked, and but we like to try new ones, so you'll have to uh offline you'll have to give me uh your top two spots or something that uh we have to go to. But we so with you thinking so much about sustainability, um obviously whether whether it's financial or economic or um any of the pieces uh within uh what you're building and how you grow it, um people side of things. Like what what do you see is the the path forward for you uh for cr achieving sustainability? Like um with all the uncertainty um and the unknowns that kind of go on and all the things that uh are struggles in your industry, what like how um what are the some of the things that you're thinking about as as far as to get out of that, you know, what you have said, you know, that fight or flight mode and that survival mode. Like how do you get to that state of uh kind of breaking through that?

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Kind of peace of mind. Yeah, I think I I I think it's gonna take it's gonna take a lot from for our industry. Like we have to look at the bigger picture of how we frame things for ourselves, for our guests, and again, I think it's it's a it's gonna be a very long and arduous process to help shed some light and give people context. Because at the end of the day, like these movements, these opinions like my own, they're very grassroots. And I know that there's other people out there who feel the same way, it's just they lack the confidence to openly and vocally talk about it. And the difference with me is that after a while, after 25 years of being in this industry, I realized that you know what? It's important to just kind of say say your piece. Like other other industries have picked up on that, they've been very vocal about where their lines are, they they draw specific boundaries with the community or the people that they're working with and saying, look, this is not acceptable or this is acceptable. The hospitality industry has always been all about bending over backwards so much so that it's a detriment to ourselves. And in turn, it started to impact our our own people, our own staff, where we're now chasing perfection for the sake of, well, chasing perfection. It's it's it kind of stops at that point. And I think it's important for other people who are listening to this to say, you know what, like I have the confidence, I have the ability to openly say this confidently and stand by it and say, you know what, like this is my opinion. And if enough of us have the same collective opinion about something, maybe, maybe we'll see a change. But I don't think it's gonna happen in the next three years and the next five years. I think we're talking about 10 to 15 years from now, we're gonna finally start to see restaurants and bars and all sorts of other FB outfits in various capacities finally standing up for themselves and having the resources and programs available to them that they are able to fall back upon. Right now, it's just we're all collectively supporting each other from a distance. There's definitely this unspoken rule of it's my venue, it's my vision, it's my my opportunity, and I'm gonna focus only on me rather than celebrating the people next door who might have just had their hundredth customer, might have just hit ten thousand dollars in sales for that week, and that might be a huge deal for them. Like, it's important for us to support each other collectively because rising tides raise all ships. And the nice thing about that kind of support is that it's free. I could I could be a contractor working with somebody, but you know what? If there's somebody else doing something like flooring and they do it really well and they do it better than me, I'm not gonna sit there and try to nickel and dime my client and say, oh, you should pay me to do the flooring in your project when I know that the other guy is not only gonna do it better, they might even do it cheaper. But and you know what? Like, I'm gonna help their business and then they're gonna look at mine objectively and say, oh wow, well, Anton's business does drywall really, really well. Maybe I should support him because that's not something that I'm comfortable with. Like I think the time has gone where F and B outfits have seen each other as enemies or even as competitors, I think now we're at a point where we are so diversified where we can afford the luxury to support each other and and call each other out and and name drop and say to a consumer, like if you and your wife were coming into Kingston, for example, and you were saying, Hey, look, we're looking for really good pizza in this area, what do you recommend? I would already have three places lined up off the tip of my tongue to recommend to you. Or if you're looking for a music venue, I would have someplace to recommend. Like, and because I know that that's not my specialty, but I know that there's other places that are going to do it exceptionally well and they're gonna meet your standards.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

I yeah, I I first of all I admire, I admire that way of thinking and going about things. It's obviously not as common uh, you know, just in life to come across people like that, uh, then you know, I believe and put I would assume you believe it should be, and um and in the future, um yeah, I do hope people can be able to look at it look at things through the lens that you're talking about here because um I mean it's I feel like it's a it's a more fun and fulfilling way to live too. Um when I started when I started Arrowhead, I I went into this and I was through this lens of I'm not going to view other firms that do similar things because you know it's like like you're saying, uh that's you know the music venues, like that's not your specialty. Well, there's other firms that do things in their own kind of flavor, and um and when where I will, you know, and have in the past recommended competitors, uh, because I feel like people who are talking uh you know, exploring a firm to hire for you know the services that we provide and other firms provide, they should have way out all their options to get the right fit and find what they're looking for and um you know that shocked you know when i when i started doing that that did shock some people why i'm offering to introduce people you know who may win the business over us um but then one that builds a lot of trust but then also it's uh my thought is that the in my industry uh there's a lot of shitty firms out there that do things the wrong way and are just in the business of taking money and providing nothing um and so when i come across other firm owners uh and other firms that um do things in a way that i you know that i believe to be the right way uh like i love uh uh like i love supporting them any way i can and talk very highly of them and and not viewing them as competition uh also makes it easier for me to grow and run my business because I'm not focused on anyone else uh to try and you know in a I win you lose or vice versa mentality because you said it what you said is completely true. You know if if I win and we can raise the bar collectively of my industry then that's going to weed out the bad actors as a result if the bar, the standard just gets higher. And I feel like that could be the same with yours if if everyone collectively just raised their standards and supported everyone who does it the right way.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Then those businesses like the NOMA and businesses who don't do things the right way and treat their stuff like that and abuse people and kind of work the system and uh are gonna just naturally be weeded out and exposed on their own yeah no a hundred percent and also like this is where the education side of things comes together where I challenge my guests like hey we don't have what in my first venue at fuchsia we did not have vodka simply put like I I refused to carry it because we were first and foremost we're a tiki bar we're serving tropical cocktails and we vowed that we were going to break the mentality that tiki and tropical cocktails are excessively sweet or that rum itself is sweet or that it's categorized as either light or gold or dark. So what we started to do is just say look we're gonna give you guys the the guests the foundation of this information that we have we're gonna show you we're gonna educate you we're gonna share what we know what we love what we're passionate about and then hopefully you take even 10% of that and if you go somewhere else you can now challenge that venue that operation is against that stress test. And if they pass, great if they don't well you at least know in the back of your mind hey I went to this one venue and they were really really good about kind of showcasing and and sharing this information. And I think that's part parcel of the process is that like I've had clients I I do consulting as well for hospitality and I've said to people I'm like look you don't necessarily need to retain my services but here's a couple of like baseline things you should know and here's some baseline questions you should ask when you're working with somebody before you commit to something because I want to make sure that they don't blindsign you with something that is reprehensible. And I've had people come back to me and say you know what I'm so glad you said that we we ended up interviewing three firms and even though we didn't go with you we ended up going with this other ther firm that we didn't think we were going to go with because they checked off all these boxes and they shared similar values and then once I heard that I was like okay cool give me their contact information I contact them and I'm like hey uh you guys ended up uh landing one of my leads I'm really happy by the way can we exchange information? Can we support each other? This is what I do this is what you guys do and it's good because it becomes a symbiotic relationship and like you said it weeds out the bad characters.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

Yeah no 100% um 100% like believe and love that way of going about things and um and so I I yeah I admire the way that you you approach this stuff because uh the easy route can be to not do those things. Um and you know the easiest route is uh the easiest decision to make is not always gonna be you know the best outcome right and um so I really uh appreciate that that you know the way that you go about things. We I end every episode with a question uh same question to every guest um and so I'm gonna ask you what is your one trade secret you know whether it's in business or life that you know it sh shouldn't be a secret anymore and or more people should should know and I know you've I mean you've given a lot of those kind of things you know just by talking um uh and having this conversation but if like what is what is that one thing and it doesn't have to be in business uh it can be in just in in you know in life in general what is what is your trade secret uh let's see I think in in ten words or less I actually have one that one of my mentors actually gave me which was so so helpful which is what are you working on that you're passionate about like t switching the narrative from yourself onto the person you're talking to or working with it's it's really fun because you start to see people open up especially if they feel like you have a vested interest in their interests like I'll go to a bar and it's gonna be quiet and it's like a Tuesday or Wednesday night the first thing I'm doing to the bartender is hey man what what are you working on right now?

SPEAKER_00 28:24

Like very very simple. Like and they never expect it because they always expect that somebody's gonna come in order a drink hang out if they're by themselves probably just mess around on their phone not really interact. I'm the exact opposite of that like I want all the interaction I want to talk to the bartender I want to get to know them I want to know what they're working on what makes them tick and I and I do the same thing with all my clients too is like hey like what are you working on right now outside of this project that we're working on together collectively what are you working on right now that's really interesting and people's eyes light up because now they're incentivized to kind of share what they're working on and it builds trust and builds rapport and even if this is somebody who you might not be doing business with in the future the thing that really stands out is that you end up building a connection with them and in future if your name ever comes up they actually remember you. They're like oh hey I remember talking to so and so and we had this really great conversation about my one interest so like when you switch the spotlight from yourself onto them now it's kind of like oh I have to present myself in the best possible light. And it's and it's so great because this is how you end up building your network building your client base building your guest base and more importantly just kind of also diversifying your own opinions or ideas because maybe they share something with you that you didn't even know was possible I love it.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

No I I I really love that. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

So obviously if I'm ever find myself uh in or around Kingston uh I'm gonna uh have to be coming in and anyone else who is uh finds them themselves uh in that area uh definitely check out lone wolf um and how how else can people get in touch with you um obviously apart from going into lone wolf uh with your consulting how can people see uh you know the stuff that you're sharing and uh the education you're sharing with people how can people help how can people um be a part of you know the movement that you are creating and and you're obviously uh being uh a driving factor in and uh how can people help I mean right now it's just interactions like if if people are able to hop on social media hop on Instagram on Facebook and just interact with our posts and even post questions or ask for specific things that they want to see that gives me an opportunity to kind of capitalize on that and say okay cool people are looking for this type of content this kind of information I'm happy to pull back the curtain on anything with respect to this industry like there's no there's no gatekeeping. I think that that's something that we've seen over the last couple of years is like the hospitality industry has slowly moved away from gatekeeping recipes and techniques and uh history and knowledge. We are now very open to kind of sharing our knowledge base with anybody who's willing to listen because at the end of the day that's we we can't have information live and die by us. We want to make sure that that information crosses across not just county boundaries but country boundaries. We want to be able to share this globally that's amazing and so um where what what platforms are best for people to find you I know uh Instagram is lone wolf kingston correct yep yeah at lone wolf kingston uh is good uh feel free to hit me up also on at lone uh lonewolfkingston.com that's my website shoot me an email I respond to everybody uh otherwise I would say just shoot shoot me an email Anton at kinlockconsulting.org I literally am glued to my phone I am always happy to answer any questions about anything and everything with respect to the hospitality industry and if I don't have the answer I will be happy to put you in contact with one of my colleagues that has the answer and make sure that you are in good hands.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Awesome so well thank you and all of those links will be in the show notes. Anton thank you for uh for coming on and having this conversation with me uh I learned a lot um it's changed my perspective on an industry that I've you know been a consumer of my entire life um and uh I really appreciate the way that you're going about uh going about things uh the education um that you're sharing and the change that you are uh you're actively making so um thank you uh I've really enjoyed this and uh I can't wait to uh to visit uh Lone Wolf one day I'll because now now I have a reason to uh um a reason to come to somewhere I may not have ever uh ever visited before so uh but thank you.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Of course of course