Insight
Refusing to spend 5% on customer relationships is financially reckless
“If you are not spending that last five percent, you're being financially reckless. I believe you're focused so much on today dollars that you're not thinking enough about tomorrow dollars because When you invest in relationships with that five percent, the loy…”
Insight
Leaders should modify 'hire slow, fire fast' to 'fire fast, but not too fast'
“I've caveated that to hire slow, fire, fast, but not too fast. Over and over again, if you're a sports fan, how many times has your team cut someone and then they go on to thrive on another team? I see people getting rid of people and then watching those same …”
Insight
Hospitality extends far beyond the restaurant industry
“I bifurcate them only because I believe hospitality is more than restaurants. Restaurants is simply the medium through which I fell in love with hospitality.”
Insight
Companies obsess over product perfection but neglect human connection
“So many companies, regardless of how successful they are, reserve their best efforts only to invest in the thing that they sell. Don't invest that same amount of energy into how they make people feel, which to me feels counterintuitive. These companies, they a…”
Insight
Diners become highly impatient immediately after asking for the bill
“Every diner has this in common, whether or not they realize it, they get very impatient the moment they ask for the bill.”
Insight
Manage 95% of expenses ruthlessly to fund 5% on customer experience
“The way I've always managed my businesses is through something that I call the rule of ninety-five-five, which is my way of saying you manage every single dollar like a maniac 95% of the time. No expense is too small to be poured over. Every penny counts. But …”
Insight
Impress high-profile clients by serving the people they love
“When you play at a certain level, the people you're trying to impress have a lot of people trying to impress them with a lot of frequency. Sometimes the best way to love on someone is to love on the people they love. If we could turn our attention To the peopl…”
Insight
Businesses should systemize responses to recurring customer touchpoints
“You can do a lot of the heavy lifting is with one size fits some. That is through simple pattern recognition of recurring moments, and I believe every business should go through this exercise. It can be transformational. What it requires is looking at the thin…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Sarasota UPS franchisee mandates daily $30 customer comps for cashiers
“He created a rule where everyone that works the register at the UPS stores has to, they are required to, once a day, comp someone's purchase up to 30 bucks.”
Insight
Customers advocate most enthusiastically for successfully resolved bad experiences
“If someone has a good experience with the business, they are going to talk about it so much. If they have a bad experience, they're going to talk about it even more. If they have a bad experience, but you put in the work to turn it around, they're going to tal…”
Opinion
95% of companies recklessly under-invest in customer recovery
“I'm fully convinced that 95% of companies recklessly under-invest in turning around negative situations in customer recovery.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Callers won't distinguish AI from humans in two to four years
“Is because it's becoming very clear, whether it's two years, three years, four years, that you're going to pick up the phone and call someone, and you're not going to be sure whether you're on the phone with a human being or not.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Companies reinvesting AI savings into human connection will win long term
“The only moments we're going to be able to trust as being genuinely human are the ones where there is a human in front of you, which means, in my view, that the companies that make those moments feel as human as humanly possible are going to win in the long te…”
Insight
Customers remember experiences by peak moments and the ending
“People remember the peak of the experience, whatever the furthest deviation is from zero, and then the end.”
Assertion Supported
Chewy refunds pet food and sends flowers when a pet dies
“This is what they do every time that happens. They apologize for your loss. They cancel the subscription. They obviously can't take that last bag. Back for health code reasons, but they credit it to your account. And then two days later, a bouquet of flowers a…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Iconiq Capital chartered a plane to evacuate a client's parents
“One of my favorites, Devesh McCann, iconic, unbelievable. He told me a story, one of the families they work with, parents of the person they worked with, lived in Florida during one of the really bad hurricanes, and everyone was nervous. They were able to get …”
Disclosure
New career opportunities must satisfy Guidara's 'Rule of Three'
“I call it the rule of three now. With each opportunity that comes in, it needs to sound fun. It needs to be around people that I can imagine genuinely enjoying time with. Two, I need to feel like I'm going to learn something. My one fear when you write a book …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Guidara avoided signing three NYC restaurant leases days before COVID
“When COVID hit, I just sold the company a few months earlier, and I was one week away from signing Three restaurant leases in New York City.”
