The other week, Zac and I were sitting on our monthly Mastermind call listening to hospitality expert Jon Taffer from reality TV series ‘Bar Rescue’. He dispensed some great advice: “9/10 business people think the physical item or the service they provide is the product that they are selling, but it’s not, it’s the vehicle. The product is always the reaction to the experience, and he or she that creates the best reactions wins.”
Jon went into a little more detail and explained how in most restaurants, when you cook a plate of food, you think the food is the product. But he said if it is a good plate of food, customers react to it, they sit up and notice it, they physically react to it, and if they don’t, that restaurant is essentially stuck in mediocrity. Jon says that “the chef in the kitchen is not just making an entrée, he’s making a reaction, the entrée is not the product, it’s the vehicle.” He used other analogies about bars, saying “we don’t play music, we create reactions and we achieve it through music, we don’t serve people, we create reactions, and we achieve it through service.”
What I got from this interview is that we are not really selling our physical product or service, be it printing, financial planning, baby products, medical services, etc. We are selling experiences that create reactions and we use the physical items we sell or the service we provide as the way to achieve it.
I experienced this concept in action first hand when I took Hollie out for dinner at the amazing Red Manna Waterfront Restaurant on the Mandurah foreshore in WA. First of all, I knew this restaurant had been doing something right, because I had been told on multiple occasions by different people how great the restaurant was. The reason I was taking Hollie there was because, as a couple, I wanted us to have a great experience, I wasn’t looking to simply fill our tummies.
When we arrived, as we walked up the stairs, the walls were covered in culinary awards, finalists for best service, best food, best experience and many others. I was impressed before I even entered the restaurant. The restaurant itself was beautifully presented, the ambience was relaxed and elegant. The wait staff were very polite and helpful the whole way through the night. The food was heavenly, I am getting hungry just thinking about it again. We sat out on the decking, looking out over the beautiful Mandurah foreshore. The night was everything I wanted, great food, great service, great location… It created an amazing experience that I won’t forget and if you ask Hollie about the “reaction” I had to the melt-in-your mouth lamb cutlets, it was priceless, I was weak at the knees about to propose to my meal. Soooooo good! I highly recommended it if you want a great restaurant in Mandurah, and definitely worth the drive from Perth!
As you can see by the last paragraph, one of the other reactions that has been created from the experience was recommending it to you all, a positive recommendation or referral is so valuable, and by creating the right experience of your product or service it makes people go WOW and want to tell others. Impressed customers buy more, refer more and stay longer.