Service vs. Hospitality: Why How You Make People Feel is the Ultimate Differentiator w/ Andrew Martino (Part 2) - Ep. 36

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Yeah, no, I um no, I love that, and I completely agree. And like I mean, you know, I think this applies to whatever endeavor you ever face. I mean, it's uh the same is true in my industry and every other industry. It's um especially when it comes to like a lot of the things, you know, again, these like these little things that whether it's the missed sauce here or the missing six you know, box of six donuts here, or the whatever it is in you know, the thing that was just a ball that was dropped in, you know, in the other comp in a different company, a completely different industry. Um when I encounter those things, that's how like that's the way I look at this. I I'm like the these are like these are very simple things that it's at the end of the day if you care, if you give a shit about this at all, should be impossible basically to happen. Right. And that's and that's all it comes down to.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

And if not, have the right follow-up, you know, right systems in place, the right follow-up to realize when a mistake was made, so you can correct it. Right? The only thing worse is never even knowing that a mistake was made to apologize for it.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Yeah, uh absolutely. And and I feel, you know, in in your industry, uh like the name of the industry is hospitality. And I'm I'm pretty sure hospitality has somewhere in the definition or uh uh in some definition of hospitality, if it's not the Oxford dictionary, it's got something to do about caring. Uh it's it seems like that's uh very synonymous, and you know that's really yeah, especially like I I mentioned this with uh that guest that I I talked to last week uh about one of my favorite books that was uh one of the most impactful for me as an entrepreneur in a completely different industry than restaurants and food and uh and beverage was uh Unreasonable Hospitality by uh Will uh Will Wil Gadaris, I believe his name is.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Hey, Wil Gadara, yeah. It's funny. I was about to bring up a very similar book.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. Well, that opened my eyes to um just how intentional you can be with uh the experience that people have with whatever your business is, whether you're a restaurant or an accounting and finance firm or a construction company or whatever. It's hospitality does not just stop at the food and beverage industry. Um, and there's so many things that you can do that make all the difference. And I think like as far as as far as big companies, um I feel like one company that does it really well um is Amazon. Um, and I've seen a lot of writing of Jeff Bezos, uh, and where he talks about the uh the customer experience. Um and you know, it's and I think it's a reason like not only did does Amazon make it very easy to do what you want to do on their platform, but when it comes to r resolutions with things, um I I had an example last week. Uh I bought a um bought a title as golf glove. It came the next day, went went out and played around. First time putting it on, it ripped. The leather ripped, and so it was a brand new glove, it was useless. I went home and um now I will not take the credit for doing this, I would have let it sit. Um my wife, on the other hand, uh made sure that I was going to go on Amazon and message support about it because I used it once. Um and so I did, and you know, go through the process and uh and it's happened, I know, with her and other people countless times where you like really you I you also kind of go into that thinking it's gonna be a similar uh resolution to what like an Uber Eats would give you, which is like you're not solving you know the thing that actually matters to me. But instead, Tylus um you know, I'm going into it thinking like, man, this is just gonna give me a headache. I'm gonna have to now go to the post office and I'm gonna have to return it in order to prove that like that it broke so I can get a replacement. Um no, they it got through the process and they just shipped a new one, didn't need to send the other one back, and like that's just I think that's like a very simple thing where you know I I'm very big on if especially if if you if you mess something up, not then creating work for the person that you messed up for to make it right. Like it should be completely if I if I mess something up, um or someone on my team messes something up for a client, like one the first step is acknowledging it and uh and going to them and apologizing for it like as soon as you are able to identify it, and just being up front and owning up to like, yep, drop this ball, and then with that giving being able to say this is what we're gonna do to rectify it, and this is the action that we're taking, with that not involving the client.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Correct, right? Like, hey, yeah, you can get your donuts, but you're gonna have to come pick them up now, you know. Yeah, and I'm like okay, I created my own resolution, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Yeah, exactly. And so um, no, I yeah, I think I think true caring is is uh is somewhat still underrated or overlooked a lot. Um but I think it's the biggest thing to, in my opinion, to gain trust and loyalty from your client or customer base, uh because if because there's so few people I think that that really do care, especially as companies get bigger.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Totally. Companies get bigger and then they're relying on more technology to replace human work. So, like customer connection and human connection, I think becomes even more important. Um, I know you brought up Will Gadera. It's funny, right before that, I was gonna mention anybody listening that is in hospitality. There's a book now, it's 20 years old, but it was by Will Gadera's former boss and I'm sure mentor. Uh and the book is called Setting the Table. It's by Danny Meyer. Um, and that's a book that I've read and reread and I've purchased for every manager that I've ever hired. Um I just think there's so many good takeaways in it. Uh, two that I'll share with, you know, for this conversation we've talked about. It's just service, the difference between service and hospitality, right? Service is the actual action items. Hospitality is how they make you feel. And I think make you feel is a good thing to keep in mind. And the second thing that I always told myself back when I was when I started this, right? People had no idea what I was doing. They thought I was crazy. I said I wanted to start like a virtual restaurant. They thought that meant you had to put on like VR goggles to go there and like that's what I was doing. My mom had no idea. She's like, where are all the food trucks gonna park? Like, she like just no one had any idea. And one of the lines in in Danny Meyer's book is it starts with like, whoever wrote the rule that, and you know, in his example, it might be like, whoever wrote the rule that you can't serve fried chicken at like a five, you know, a fine dining restaurant, right? Whoever wrote the rule, so for me it was like whoever wrote the rule that you know we couldn't put the same intent and care of a full service restaurant into a takeout brand. Whoever wrote the rule, like all these things that I wanted to break and do, like that gave me the confidence that like there are no rules in this. You can think about things from a new perspective. Like, how does the future look? What is that gonna unlock for you? And I always keep that in mind when I'm doing something that I think is crazy or is like a little bit counterculture. It's like, well, whoever wrote the rule that that has to be the way it is. Um, so for all you young hospitality entrepreneurs out there, go get Setting the Table by Danny Meyer. Pick up Will Gadera's book as well, because that guy's also a genius. Um, and yeah, make people feel good about what they're doing. People can spend their money anywhere, right, and get a similar service or a similar good. How does your experience set apart, right? Is it the taste and quality of the food? Is it the consistency? Is it the ambiance? Is it whatever it is that makes you feel seen? Um lean into that.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

No, that's um no, that's that's really good um advice to I not only young entrepreneurs or uh aspiring entrepreneurs in the hospitality industry, but for entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs in general. Um you know, it's especially when it comes to being different, right, and challenging the status quo and how it's always been done. Um you know, that's something in in in my industry. Uh when I started, uh I decided from the beginning, I'm gonna question everything. Everything that I've I've been taught, ways of doing things. Um and this is an industry that is very slow to innovate, in my opinion, and make changes. You know, it's obviously with the more recent technology uh you know evolutions, uh it's becoming more um more willing to change and uh adapt ways of of thinking, but still like at its core, it's the answer to a lot of questions. You know, when I was going through uh early in my career and being trained, like I've always been someone to ask why about okay, you're showing me I understand this is how we do this thing. Why? And I think I frustrated a lot of people, not just in my career, but just in general, with how many times I'll ask why. Um but the answer that was more common than not was honestly, well, well, that's how I was taught how to do it, or well, that's just the way we've always done it. And I was like, okay, but but why? Like there's gotta be a better way. There's gotta be a way that even if it's not might not be better for someone else, but there might be a better way for us to do it, and um and I you know for me personally, I think that's uh I know that that served me very well, um, and led to a lot of great things. Um and you know, some of these things, you know, like uh I think I think if p if people look at you crazy or sideways about something that you're doing, I look at that as a signal that it's this is I'm on the right track.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Totally agreed. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

If if if it's uh if something that I want to do is is everyone's in agreement with, um then I'm actually looking at that like, okay, let's let's look at this. Maybe are there any other angles? There's something missing because I don't I don't want to do what everyone else is doing. Because then I um you know a lot of times I feel like I'm I'm it's I'm missing something from that. Um and so I think that's definitely uh but it obviously that like that comes with that comes with challenges, and I'm sure like you've you encountered those, especially starting up uh before you had had proof that this works. Um can you tell me about some of those challenges initially? Uh when you're being called a crazy and people looking at you funny.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Sure. I mean the first big challenge was just consumers understanding what the hell we were doing. Like no one was even coming close to the creativity or ingenuity of what this was. So, like, were people ever gonna get it? Was it gonna click? Um, that was really hard for people to understand like our menu, how we approached it, like why we sold out of things. Um, so there was a lot of customer education. Um, there's not as much anymore, uh, thankfully, because you know, COVID, take it on delivery became more popular. And now there's a company, which I will not name that's raised a couple billion dollars that does a worse version of what we do, but they're helping to educate our audience alongside them. So that's been helpful for us as well. Um, so yeah, that was the first big channel was was customers. Uh the second one honestly is just like things are hard, right? It's not like we we weren't making money. Um, I didn't make, I wasn't able to pay myself, I think, for the first year and change. So having conviction with your idea um was important and was a hard thing to stick with. It's just like, I believe in what we're doing, we're on the right track, just gotta stick with it, just gotta stick with it. Because I think I very easily could have shifted gears and shifted into something more comfortable and traditional, and that probably would have put us out of business. So um having conviction in in what we were doing was also paramount to us staying alive and being able to thrive.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

And through those periods, um, because I know that I've encountered those periods too, um what what helps you get through those um those periods and and keep that faith in yourself? Because I think that's you know, I believe that w whether it's in business or if it's in a hobby or a sport or in anything in life, like it is it really doesn't matter if you don't believe that you can do it. And you have conviction in yourself and faith in yourself. And I know that that's something, especially if you're gonna start something and you're gonna you know put all your chips on the table and go all in on something you believe in that's gonna be tested, and life's gonna throw curveballs at you, and there's gonna be doubt that creeps in. Um, and I think you know, unfortunately, like that those challenges a lot of people um really struggle with, and some people never are able to overcome. Um how do you how did you make sure that you stayed the course of what you knew when you were starting out that this is what you believed in?

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

And not how did you how did you stay the course and keep the belief in yourself and not pivot and change and try and conform to what people thought you should be doing?

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Yeah, I think one was having people on my team that had the same belief, whether that was belief in me that I was gonna make the right decisions or belief in exactly what we were doing. Um, having, you know, small team, but having, you know, two key team members that breathed it with me and believed in it was helpful. And then this is probably what you would not expect because you're not supposed to seek validation from strangers on the internet. But like people getting it and having those aha moments or writing us notes about like how this was the best meal they ever had, or like their wife's a vegetarian and they can never find a place to eat, and now like they're able to get food from the same place and enjoy it. Like finding validation in like what we were trying to create when people would have those aha moments was really important. And finding the small wins where it was like this, like oh, like we hit a new sales goal. Like, oh wow, we did like, you know, a goal used to be like, oh my God, we did $1,500 in sales on a Saturday night. You know, like wow, like, and now if I did $1,500 on a Saturday night, I'd want to quit. You know, so like it's finding small attainable goals to help you continue to grow um along with it to know like, okay, we're headed in the right direction, we're seeing improvements, people are enjoying it, we believe in it, we feel like we're getting better. Um, it's just like I don't want to say tunnel vision, but you have to have that focus on like just, yeah, there's a ton of a million little things, but you also have to have that vision of like, this is what I see it becoming, you know, and fortunately, uh through through work, right? The the harder you work, the luckier you get, right? Is like the quote, um, we were we were pretty lucky um and worked really hard to make that luck happen.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Right. And you know, what other people see as luck. Uh they don't see all the all the hours and days.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Yeah, they didn't see me like crying at three o'clock in the morning, freaking out about, you know, are we gonna make payroll and this week? And like, what am I doing? You know, it's a it's a roller coaster ride, you know, like it's a journey to be an entrepreneur, any business, right? Restaurant business is hard. There are a lot of hard businesses. Restaurants are tough, but you can't, and this was something I was terrible at early on. You can't get too low or too high. You know, like you really have to learn just to like tomorrow's another day, you didn't win, you didn't lose, the game's not over. There's just like all these micro battles, and like you can't live and die on every single one. And you need to understand that like you're gonna take your licks, and it's just about how you respond. And I think once I realized, like, okay, there's no like, ah, we made it, you know, like, you know, I probably cried three weeks ago because something happened. I don't know, you know, like things are hard all the time, and there's hard decisions to make, and um, it's it's never easy. But I think once you are patent into that, you're good, you know, like that's just your life. It's it ebbs and flows, and you just gotta stay steady eddy.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

I I think that is honestly that's something that's a lot more important and a bigger of a thing that uh would help a lot of people to break through with uh than I is it probably even sounds, right? And it sounds simple, but I you know it's something that I went through and I was aware that I wanted to change um and how my mindset was as well. You know, it's my own mental inner dialogue has been has always been something that I uh placed extreme focus on because that's something that is with my control in a world where being an entrepreneur, there's so many variables and things that you just simply can't control that you wish you could, but you can't. Um and I noticed that too. Um you know, you you know, you you sign a new big client and it's you know the high. But then something not great happens, and then it goes your your your mood, your emotions, how you feel goes down. And the entrepreneur journey can really fucking take you for a ride if you let it. And you know, roller coaster is the most accurate description of what it can be if you let it. Because and how I broke broke through this was and you touched on it as well, was realizing, you know, like you set this goal and you hit it, but then even after, you know, because I was noticing even after achieving these goals that I set for myself, you know, set really high goals and then work really hard, and then we as a team we accomplish them. That's great. Then there's that high, but that that's very short lived. you're living from destination to destination because then there's a void of that comes kind of after that of uh of what's next and it's you know it's it's like this it feels like doing it that way you're living for small fleeting moments in time that uh 99.9% of your time in between each one is uh in this state of wanting something you don't have and then when you get it it it's it always it always would would surprise me every time how short that of a time that feels good because that's uh you know I think that's part of the curse of being an entrepreneur uh is I think the vast majority is there's high ambitions and high goals uh and things we want to accomplish and then with that there's this uh you know being satisfied or fulfilled and having that tied to outcomes is is a uh is is a very dangerous way to live because then what you know you miss a target one quarter right then you're missing out on that one little bit of a high that you could get and I've seen people spiral from that after and lose motivation and confidence in themselves which then we talked about earlier how big of a role confidence in your s your own self is um and when I was able to shift to enjoying the journey for what it is because this it's uh you know the realization is like um it was two I think about two years ago on this r random Friday afternoon um I you know for for months I'd been trying to ask myself this question of like what makes me happy like what truly makes me happy and it just randomly came to me this Friday afternoon um out of nowhere that like what makes me happy is is the pursuit of the things that make me happy and which doesn't make sense kinda when you say it but then it makes total sense with that is like well what happy what's if what makes me happy is the pursuit of what what makes me happy then by definition I should be happy and I have everything I need always because and you just I say it to a lot of people you you have to if you're gonna live this life and do it with longevity you have to learn to love the journey. You have to learn to love the good days and the bad days because they're really not good or bad. Like I think it's it's uh it can be damaging or counterproductive to bucket put them in buckets. It's they just are they're just days that with different things. They're neither good nor bad because as you probably know like what one person may categorize as a bad thing but if you choose to look at it through a different lens can be the greatest thing for future good things by learning and growing from it. How did you how did you get over that barrier to get that mindset?

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Challenging right especially earlier on right the ear the the more nascent your business is the earlier on the the more challenging it is I think um the thing that struck me with you just said right is enjoying the journey I think treating it that way and not you know the hardest thing to get out of in the restaurant is like how was today right what are sales today what are sales right constantly checking sales what are sales what is you know getting out of that like okay how do we improve today so I think we stopped I stopped focusing so much on the result and I started really just focusing on the process. And if I feel really good about the process, the effort, then the result is what the result is you know we we did our best to try to set ourselves up for as much success as possible. And whether that happens or not, we'll see, you know, and whatever happens, we use it as feedback and then we iterate and then we do it again. You know so it's just like I I guess maybe it's setting up in my mind that like everything is an A B test almost where it's just like you know we try it okay it didn't work. Okay, now we know and now like we book that all right cool like this thing didn't work and that's fine and we know that this thing we could get better at how do we make this process a little bit faster right it's that like how do we get 1% better every day type of mindset I think really helps because when you look back at things you're like oh shit I can't believe we used to do things like that. Like I can't believe we used to do it that way. And I think that's just part of enjoying the journey never being satisfied with you with where you are and knowing that like you can always be a little bit better, whether it's through a little bit better of a process, whether it's finding a better ingredient, whether it's finding a better person or suiting a role better to a person that, you know, I think like there's always fun things to work on and I try to look at it as like I'm tinkering, I'm tweaking, I'm working on something that's alive. And again back to that like whole journey thing and not being so outcome oriented of obviously the business needs to stay make money and stay in business and all those things. But there were times when we didn't make money right and it's dead winter and things are bad and the economy's bad and we open a new location and this thing broke and the and all right what do you do right? All right well we just got to figure it out you know and like you go through and you fight through those things and the more you overcome the more you believe you can overcome and now kind of nothing looks like a challenge anymore. It's all just excitement and I think we're at that point now where shoot it's been eight years and just now I finally feel like ah all right like we're looking we're looking pretty good. You know like things are good things are steady people know their roles I have more freedom to work on the business day to day we can engage in different stuff but took a long time to get there and by no means do I think we've made it and I don't think you should ever feel that way. I feel like if you feel that way you should look to move on. I look at stress and anxiety as something similar like a lot of talk about anxiousness and anxiety right I and that always since I was in high school even I looked at that as a gift right if you're anxious about something that means you're alive. You're excited about something something means so much to you that you feel a type of way approaching it that might must mean it's pretty special. If you're ever going through life all the time and you have zero stress and zero anxiety about anything you are not challenging yourself. You're not making yourself into a better person you're not doing anything worthwhile if you have zero stress or zero anxiety in your life and I I try to embody that for the team you know again that goes back to being being steady