I’m rereading a book called “Unreasonable Hospitality,” which talks about all of the little ways any business can go out of its way to make a moment or an experience magical. So one of the examples in the book is that the author is a restaurateur, and one of the things they did in their restaurant was make sure they knew if the restaurant patron had driven into town to go to the restaurant. And if they had parked to the meter, one of the things they did was they found out what kind of car they drove and where they parked, and they fed the meter so that that patron didn’t have to leave in the middle of a long, enjoyable meal to feed the meter so that they didn’t get a parking ticket.
So his point was that for $0.50, a handful of quarters, they made an ordinary experience—something that the diners could get anywhere—extraordinary. It had nothing to do with the food or the ambiance. It was just looking for a little way to do something small but memorable that made the experience and how the person felt about the experience really magnified in some way.
And we don’t do a great job of that in our business. I think we do all the big things right. We get all the big things right, check all the boxes properly. But I do think there’s an opportunity for us to do the little things better. So that’s my challenge to you this week. What is one little thing?
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Hey, everybody. Drew McLellan here from Agency Management Institute this week coming to you from Nashville, Tennessee. You know, I'm in a Courtyard, and as you know, Danyel and I travel a ton and stay in a lot of hotels. And in most cases, hotels are fine. Just fine. They're clean. They're in a reasonably safe place. And they have all of the things that we need. But there's a distinct difference between a hotel that's fine and a hotel that's memorable. A hotel that we want to go back to. So the Courtyard is a brand of Marriott hotels that's sort of mid-range, not fancy, but usually pretty good. Beds are decent. You can get breakfast in the morning. So again, checks all the boxes. But the variance between Courtyards is staggering. So this, this trip, I'm in a Courtyard downtown Nashville. I can easily walk right down to Broadway. So great location. When I walked up to the hotel and I walked into the lobby, it was beautiful. So I thought, oh, okay – this is a Courtyard I hadn't stayed at before. I thought, oh, this is going to be one of the nicer Courtyards All true, until I got up to my room. In my room, white walls. Not a single picture or framed anything on any wall. Not in the little living room. Not in the bathroom. Not in the bedroom. The walls are blank. What's behind me is the nicest thing I had to put as a background for this video. So they did all the big things right, but what they missed were the little things.
Interestingly, I'm rereading a book called “Unreasonable Hospitality,” which talks about all of the little ways that any business of any kind can go out of their way to make a moment or an experience magical. So one of the examples in the book is that, the author is a restaurateur, and one of the things they did in their restaurant was they made sure they knew if the patron, the restaurant patron, had driven into town to go to the restaurant. And if they had parked at the meter, one of the things they did was they found out what kind of car they drove and where they parked, and they fed the meter so that that patron didn't have to leave in the middle of a long, enjoyable meal to feed the meter so that they didn't get a parking ticket. So what his point was, was for $0.50, a handful of quarters, they made an ordinary experience – something that the diners could get anywhere – extraordinary. It had nothing to do with the food, had nothing to do with the ambiance. It was just looking for a little way to do something small but memorable, that made the experience and the the way the person felt about the experience really magnified in some way. And I think that we don't do a great job of that in our business. I think we do all the big things right. We get all the big things right, check all the boxes properly. But I do think there's opportunity for us to do the little things better.
So that's my challenge to you this week. What is one little thing? How could you feed the meter? How could you put a painting or a picture on the wall? How could you do something that is not tied to the big deliverable that you're charging for, but does change the experience in some way that is memorable and that is talkable, that your clients would talk about it, they would tell other people about it. You know, I've told the story many times, but back in my agency days, we always had warm M&M cookies for every client meeting. We had at our office a big kitchen with an oven, and we would bake warm M&M cookies. And the one thing we did, not only did we have warm cookies and milk, but we specially bought the M&M so that they matched our logo colors. So they were really our M&M cookies. You could tell they were homemade. They looked and sounded and felt like the rest of the office, and they looked and sound and felt like us. And it was one of the reasons why people always wanted to come to our office for a meeting, rather than for us to come to them. But we made a tiny little thing that had nothing to do with the work we did. We made the event a little special. So that's my challenge to you. What is your – what are your what are your M&M cookies? What is your feeding the meter? What can you do that will elevate the experience for your clients in some way that feels unreasonably awesome and special and memorable.
