Why I Love Starbucks #2: Palettal Pleasure

Let’s face it. Coffee and Beer are both bitter. Some people love bitter. Some people don’t. I don’t hate bitter, but I don’t really love it either. I do love bitter-sweet. I love the tension of both together or one, then the other.

Whatever pleases you particular palette, I find it hard to believe Starbucks doesn’t have something for you. I love many of the flavors and flavor combinations offered at Starbucks. My favorites include:

Carmel Macchiato
Pumpkin Spice
Vanilla
Mocha
Chai
Green Tea
Green Tea Frap

Truthfully, I find myself craving these confections. I tend to go in spurts. Some are offered seasonally like the pumpkin spice. It generally ends before I am ready. Our intrinsic potential for pleasure is one reason I believe in God. And my theology makes plenty of room for Starbucks in Heaven.


How can you add a tasty treat to your customer’s experience?
Hint: You don’t have to be in the food business to delight them in this way!

Why I Love Starbucks #1 - Clean Restrooms

For most of the last 20 years, my work life has been on the road. When I started this streak in 1991 I learned something pretty quickly. “Mark Out The Clean Restrooms”.

In the early 90’s Starbucks was just beginning to pick up steam. They weren’t yet common in the areas I worked. In those days I had to plot out where the great restrooms were from town to town.

On my way to Coalinga I could trust the Harris Ranch Restaurant. Costco…always stellar. Target was usually better than Wal-Mart. In and Out Burger was usually better than McDonalds and so on. That’s too bad… I am reasonably certain Ray Kroc insisted on cleaner restrooms while he was in charge.

Today it’s usually pretty easy. On the whole, I can depend on Starbucks to deliver consistently clean restrooms with its now famous coffee.

I know this brings them extra business. In my case, I feel guilty using the restroom without buying something. Usually I do, even if I’m not thirsty or hungry. But even if everyone doesn’t suffer the same guilt pangs I do, a clean restroom still brings in business. And maybe just as important, a dirty one drives business away. I marked those out to.

Tom Peters, in his book The Little Big Things puts clean restrooms as number 1 on his list of 163 things a business should pay attention to. Tom writes:

“I usually fly to my next seminar in the Great City of Wherever from Logan Airport. The trip form Tinmouth, Vermont, to Boston passes through Gill, Massachusetts. It’s exactly halfway, the 87 mile mark on my odometer – hence, the perfect place for a pit stop. With choices aplenty, I am nonetheless firm in my habit of stopping at the Wagon Wheel Country Drive-In. It’s in fact, a smallish coffee shop-diner. The food, including the fresh muffins that are about a foot away as you enter (typically at dawn’s early light, in my case) is boffo. The attitude is boffo, too. But make no mistake, my custom is well and truly earned, three or four times a month by…

the restroom!

It’s clean-to-sparkling. (Come to think of it, despite the invariably crowded shop, I have never seen even the tiniest scrap of paper on the bathroom floor.) Fresh flowers are the norm. And best of all, there is a great multi-generational collection of family pictures that cover all the walls; rushed though I typically am, I invariably spend an extra minute examining one or another, smiling at a group photo from a local company dinner, or some such, circa 1930 I’d guess.

To me, a clean and attractive and even imaginative loo is the best…

“We Care”

sign in a retail shop or professional office- and (Attention! Attention! Attention!) it goes double when it comes to employee restrooms!
So…

Step #1: Mind the restrooms!”

Tom does such a great job noticing and writing about the nuances of what makes a business great. And I’m totally with him on this. A great business starts with clean restrooms. My dad got this as a 19 year old. Dad was an entrepreneur straight out of the shoot. He was a gas station owner at age 19 before he entered the building game at the ripe old age of 23. My first days on the job as a teenager growing up in the family construction business began with Dad waxing eloquently on “the art” of digging a footing for concrete. Dad saw art in the most menial tasks. When he had the gas station, he cleaned the restroom every hour whether it needed it or not!

So in conclusion… thank you Starbucks! You’ve made my life better in dozens of ways over the last decade. But one of the most meaningful for this road warrior, is dependably clean restrooms.

How is your business doing in the restroom department?

Why I Love Starbucks and How That Can Help You Improve Your Business

I love Starbucks! I love pretty much everything about it. And I thought a lot about why over the past year. Eventually I began jotting down some notes hoping that they might come together in a form that I could use in my own work. Maybe you can use these ideas to improve your business. I will list them here and then elaborate over the next few weeks. They aren't in any particular order. I just wrote them down as they came to me... Here's my list of "How Starbucks Serves Me":

1. Clean Restrooms
2. Palette Pleasure
3. Temperature Pleasure
4. Refreshment and Rest
5. Energy
6. Inspiration
7. Sounds
8. Office on the Road
9. Consistency
10. Creativity
11. Opportunities to Contribute
12. A Place To Connect
13. A Date With Susy (Romance)
14. A Place To Gather Myself
15. Great Newspapers
16. Design
17. Friendliness
18. "Yes" in my world of "No's"
19. A Place to Read and Reflect
20. Mascot-Teddy Bear Baristas
21. Treat Receipt
22. Free Samples
23. 9 Day 1/2 Price Fraps
24. Celebrates Christmas
25. Everywhere Access
26. "Barista Advice" If You Order With Light Ice You Get More Tea
27. Good Internet Access
28. "Cool Stuff"
29. Pick of the Week
30. "If Not Perfect Let Me Know and I'll Re-Make It"
31. Making Amends for Long Waits and Other Poor Service Recovery
32. Gold Card - "Frequent Drinker" Program
33. Gifts
34. Healthy Choices
35. Cake Pops
36. Coffee Tastings

Servant Selling At Macys

This is one of my favorite movies of all time and the beautiful thing is it has a wonderful clip that communicates my message about Servant Selling! How many of us are so dedidcated to our customers we would send them to a competitor if they could better serve a particular need?

Zappos...Powered By Service

Everybody is writing about Zappos lately and I hate to be left out. If you've been marooned on a desert island somewhere in the south pacific, Zappos is an on line only shoe retailer. The Zappos Zeal for selling by serving has become legendary among their customers. If you'd like an inside view of what makes them tick, I'll offer 4 suggestions:

1. Check out Zappos leader Tony Hsieh's book "Delivering Happiness"
2. Check out the Zappos resource center called "Zappos Insights" at www.zapposinsights.com
This insider view of the company normally is subscription based (39.95 per month) but as of this post date you can get 3 months free while they are renovating the site.
3. Company Tours and Classes are offered at the Las Vegas Headquarters. Here's my advice... while you are in Vegas to take your wife to the Celine Dion show, head over to Zappos Headquarters...but make your reservation ahead of time. It books up pretty fast!
4. Order a pair of shoes and talk to one of their highly customer oriented servant sales people.

U2, Bono, and Servant Selling

Long on my personal "Bucket List" has been the attending of a U2 Concert who by almost any measure are the world's leading band. So I purchased tickets for my wife Susy and I to attend almost a year ago. The 360 Tour Event in Anaheim was an awesome experience for both of us. And apparently we weren't alone in our opinions. The tour was the most expensive ever staged and it blew away a previous mark set by the Rolling Stones for gross sales.

"Sales" There's that word again... As much as I enjoyed the concert on a music/entertainment level, I couldn't help thinking about all the selling going on... and at this particular concert, the serving.

You might be surprised to know that lead singer Bono sees himself as a "Salesman" first and foremost. He talks about this candidly in an authorized Book/Interview/Conversation with Michka Assayas.

Bono says, "A lot of our family are traveling salesman. And of course that is what I have become! I am very much a traveling salesman. And that, if you really want to know, is how I see myself. I sell songs from door to door, from town to town. I sell melodies and words. And for me, in my political work, I sell ideas. In the commercial world that I'm entering into, I'm also selling ideas. So I see myself in a long line of family sales people. I really do. Thank God for my uncle Jack!"

But uniquely, Bono and the U2 Band see themselves as serving the world's hurting,poor, and underprivileged. A lot of bands play Live Aid and Band Aid concerts but U2 takes service to a whole new level. They are without question the world's leading "philanthropy performers" and been called the face of "fusion philanthropy" combining their roles as entertainers and musicians with the spearheading of new organizational networks blending global humanitarian relief, geopolitical activism, and corporate commercial enterprise.

Their work for Amnesty International, One, Red, and Third World Debt Relief is so well integrated into their music and shows it is almost seamless. A U2 album or concert is a celebration of serving, helping, and doing the right thing.

U2 is the most successful band of all-time. Why? They are great musicians and song writers...absolutely. You must be competent, even great at what you do. But if while selling whatever you sell, and serving whatever you serve, and producing whatever result you produce, you can also involve your customers in significantly serving the needs of the world at large you will magnify your success beyond anything you could have done with just competence alone.

Look for ways you can partner with your customers in serving people and solving problems... That's what Servant Selling is all about!

A Vacuum Salesman Named Jaime

I don't know what comes to your mind when you hear the phrase "vacuum cleaner salesman" but even as someone who has been in the world of selling for over 30 years I don't get a warm fuzzy. But Joel Osteen in his great book "It's Your Time" tells a story that epitomizes what great salespeople do.

Jaime was out cold calling and knocking on doors in Twin Falls, Idaho. He came to a door and a woman named Andi answered explaining that her husband Paul had major medical problems and was out on disability. The woman shared that his kidneys had been failing for over a year and was very low on a list of around 500 people waiting for a transplant. Further, Paul had type O-positive blood and the any donor had to match. None of their family or friends had this blood type.

If you were Jaime what would you have done? Most of my sales training would have told me to knock on the next door.

But Jaime blurted out, "I'm O-positive!"

Andi asked if he would be willing to be tested to see if he were a match for Paul.

Jaime went back to his car and prayed about it and then returned to the front door. As Joel tells it, "This time he wasn't selling he was giving". After months of testing, Jaime did donate the kidney that saved Paul's life.

There are a lot of great lessons in this true story. But the one I want to zero in on is for "Servant Salespeople". Keep an eye open for opportunities to contribute beyond what you sell and the chance for immediate profits. Make up your mind to bless and help your potential customers whenever you can. There is a sales manager more powerful than the one above you in your organization. He will make sure you are properly compensated at some point down the road!
And...you'll enjoy yourself and have more fun today.