George, Jolie, genetics, Grandmother, and going barefoot—together at last!
Happy Thanksgiving
To all my Canadian readers and friends. I am very grateful for each and every one of you. Enjoy your day, and perhaps a little high thinking with your morning coffee, before you’re headed over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house.
But I digress…
I don’t know what it is about George Tannenbaum. The guy does “wistful” like no other writer online today, and here he is supposedly writing an advertising blog. I’d say I wish I had half his talent but honestly, I’m glad he’s got all of it. He’s the bard of Madison Avenue and I’m always stunned by the way he can get me thinking old thinks in new ways.
The other day I was reading his latest piece, What Do We Do, and I started to fire off a cranky comment about the example he’d chosen in his article on serving the customer through advertising, just as you would serve the customer in your shop.
In the piece George weaves thoughts on the new book We Were Merchants, a memoir of the family-run Goudchaux’s department stores in Louisiana, into a lament about the lack of direction in the advertising industry.
He quotes the author, Hans Sternberg, as saying the “abiding philosophy was the customer was everything. Without him or her, there would be no need for a cash register.”
One of my own favorite sayings is “it’s not a business unless you make a sale.” Obviously, I’m in complete agreement with the Sternberg philosophy and with George’s desire to see the ad industry focus on serving the customer.
But my personal experience with Goudchaux’s made me question the choice of this example.
A long time ago, years before my divorce in fact, I made a decision to get married. (Made getting the divorce a lot simpler… but I digress.) In New Orleans. During a hurricane (not that hurricane). Two days before the wedding, as things were getting rather wet, and the streets were becoming littered with branches and debris, I realized that my original plan to be married barefoot and stroll the streets of the city barefoot as we partied after the wedding, was looking a bit foolish, so I’d need to get a pair of shoes, at least for the strolling of the streets. (I still did get married barefoot… but I digress again.)
Off I went to Goudchaux’s/Maison Blanche for a pair of shoes that were fit for a day that would change the rest of my days. (Oy! But I digress…)
From the second I walked in the door, the experience was like nothing else. To this day, I still remember every minute of that shopping trip—and from a woman who notoriously hates shopping, this is really saying something. The attention to the customer was beyond anything I’d ever seen. Discreet, caring, sincere. The stuff that can not be faked. Even now, I smile when I look at those shoes in my closet, remembering the perfection of that experience.
So I read George’s article thoughtfully wondering how his industry has gotten so lost, optimistically holding Goudchaux’s philosophy up as a possible way out of the woods. I smiled, I nodded, I got nostalgic, I was moved.
I started to cheer. Hooray for a laser-focus on the customer above jargon and technologies and artsy-fartsy-ness and industry awards! Then as I wrote my comment, I realized George had done it to me again. I’m rethinking what I think I know, y’know?
Not that I don’t believe in a laser-focus on the customer, above jargon and technologies and artsy-fartsy-ness and industry awards. I do! If you’ve been reading here for even a short while you know that whether you run a customer-facing company or serve those who do, like George does, I believe your laser-focus on customer needs is critical to delivering Maximum Customer Experience.
What I started to write in response to George’s post was this:
Goudchaux’s (under the Sternbergs) was born this way. They’ve left the company, and service has changed significantly. The amazing Customer Experience magic was tied to those particular human beings—even they weren’t able to bake it into the culture. Wondering “Why aren’t we all Sternbergs” is a little like looking at Angelina Jolie and wondering “Why aren’t we all goddesses?”
Is this an impractical, impossible standard—measuring companies (or an industry) against a genetic fluke—and setting them up for failure?
So at last, we come to my point, otherwise known as: Why I didn’t hit “post comment” over at AdAged, and why you’re reading this post today.
There is nothing I love more than talking with you about real-life examples of Maximum Customer Experience. Heck, I’ve taken apart giants like Apple and Target looking for lessons for your business, at least as often as we’ve discussed the little guys. I’m always looking for the little details or the big picture that knocked my socks off, and from which I hope you’ll get great takeaways—things you can do today to grow your business and make more money. Another of my favorite sayings is “I’m obsessed with your success.” If I can tell a story here that I think will help you succeed faster, I’m all over it.
First, I loved George’s premise. Then, I hated George’s example. Then, I wondered what the heck was going on with me, because I always want to reach for the stars and to encourage you to. So now I’ve come to you.
What do you think?
First, are there some ideals that really can’t be achieved in business, because they’re more “genetic” to that company than the principles that they claim guide them?
Second, is it worth aiming for them anyway, even if you aren’t blessed with those business “genetics”? (In non-business terms, if I can’t have Angelina’s pout or her man, should I try for her smile?) Or should we find something to reach for that’s more practical, something we can break down into realistic and achievable action steps?
This barefoot hippie has seen her ideals clash with her realism more than once, ho ho. I welcome your thoughts on how high you SHOULD reach, in order to keep the dreams big and still generate real results.
Grow and be well,
Kelly Erickson
Sabrina, 1954. At 3:45—the delightful John Williams as Thomas Fairchild and Audrey Hepburn as his daughter, Sabrina. “No, Father. The moon’s reaching for me.” One of my favorite lines in all film. Irrelevant? Not entirely! That’s an ideal we all want to aim for in business.
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12 October 2009, 1:20 pm
Goudchaux’s AND Sabrina? Let me just bask in all that grace for a second…
Does grace cost money? More to the point, doesn’t lack of grace cost money?
The Goudchaux family home in New Orleans looked like a sun bleached sagging old center hall cottage. Plain concrete walls at the sidewalk with banana trees lushly over topping them. Nothing shouting at you. Greys. But if you looked through that to the lighted windows you could see a glimpse…of warmth and richness within the walls.
Mink on the inside. They wore mink on the inside and passed that on to each customer, each client experience. Which made shopping at their stores a distinct pleasure.
How high do we reach? Hm, as high as our own grace will let us?
12 October 2009, 8:32 pm
Kelly, you’re wonderful. Thanks for the reminiscences, the shout out and the “Sabrina.”
xx
12 October 2009, 10:27 pm
Janice,
I can almost picture the house. That is what I’ve always adored about N’Awlins. There’s a lot of mink on the inside going on there.
As high as our own grace will let us, eh? Seductive thought. I’m still mulling the whole thing over…
George,
No, you, haha. You’re a delight. I wish I’d been reading you for twenty years longer. Keep writing the way I know you can’t help but write, and I’ll be reading and recommending you for the next twenty.
Regards,
Kelly
13 October 2009, 5:00 am
How high do we reach? As high as we can with out ‘faking it’. That always comes out in the customer experiences.
Alas, I never experienced anything close to what you had written – thanks for sharing! It’s nice to know some businesses really do walk the walk they talk.
Barbara Ling, Virtual Coach´s latest blog… Internet Marketing for Your Mom (what YOU need to know!)
13 October 2009, 9:36 am
Ahhh…(*sniffs flower*)
Mag-NO-lias
13 October 2009, 9:39 am
An example of what you are talking about that came to my mind is Salieri in “Amadeus” — that mixture of resentment and awe and jealousy and repulsion and admiration towards this musical genius who knocked him down a peg on the social and artistic scoreboard. Then, as Mozart is dying and Salieri is taking dictation of that final piece, it’s all those emotions again but in reverse order of importance.
It’s something I struggle with too. Without sounding too highfalutin, I was thinking this past weekend about myself as a writer compared to Hemingway. If I’m not a better writer than Hemingway (and I suspect that if put to a vote, most would find that to be the case) what’s the point anyway?
Sure you could say the doing is in the trying, the fun’s in the journey and not the destination, and blah, blah, blah. We all know that despite the shred of truth in these platitudes, they’re basically consolation prizes doled out to the Salieris of the world.
But what about this. Instead of “reaching for the stars”, why not just reach for one? It takes more than one star to make a constellation, and more than one constellation to make a sky. Being part of that, I would think, is something great on its own.
Once you are there, that’s when you start worrying about who’s star is higher or brighter…
~Graham
13 October 2009, 10:09 am
Friar,
You made me smile.
Graham,
Was Hemingway always Hemingway? He started somewhere didn’t he? Was it him, or the times he lived in?
Kelly,
Something Chef Raymond Blanc said came to mind when I was thinking about this, he was talking to someone about their food and said , “I don’t see the heart in it. You must always cook from the heart. ” He sees good food as the center of a good life. Made it his mission to bring that to everyone. It was imprinted on his heart as a child.
Now every one may not be in the chef business, or the arts, or in writing, but if you choose a business that suits your philosophies and gifts, ( work from the heart) alignment would be a no brainer wouldn’t it? And then the how high has less diluted energy, more aha, and now we do this, aspect to it perhaps ?
Here’s a little article on Raymond Blanc about his success. He started as a waiter. I think you might enjoy it. (And yes, He is on twitter too. His twitpics are so much fun.)
http://raymondblanc.com/Portals/14/docs/Info_raymond_blanc-1.pdf
14 October 2009, 8:06 am
@Janice – No Hemingway wasn’t Hemingway to start. He actually worked as a reporter for the Toronto Star for a while.
But yes, it was a much different time. Fitzgerald, for example, made almost all his money from short stories. At his height he was getting like $3,000 — in 1920′s dollars — per story.
Today even the most well known writers couldn’t get that for a single short story. But then there are other avenues today that there weren’t back then like TV writing and a bigger marketing industry. So I guess it all works out…
~Graham
14 October 2009, 1:06 pm
“According to a story, Hawks had told Hemingway that he can make “a movie out of the worst thing you ever wrote.” The author has asked, “What’s the worst thing I ever wrote?” and Haws said, “That piece of junk called To Have and Have Not.” “I needed the money,” Hemingway said. The screenplay of the film was written by Jules Furthman and William Faulkner.”
( quoted from here: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hemingwa.htm )
That’s what I was looking for. I love “To Have and Have Not”, and it always tickles me to see that Faulkner is one of the screenplay writers….I wonder what he was paid?
I have friends who get $20,000 and $30,000 per magazine article and always wondered how that ranked with our Hemingways and Faulkners kind of pay.
Not that it is about money at all. More about what the market is like, what people are willing to pay for good stories. Like that.
15 October 2009, 2:45 am
I agree that a lot of customer service has to do with personality type. For example when we have someone visiting, I welcome them by treating them like family and being totally laidback and wing it. Raul on the other hand likes to plan it all out and treat the visitor like a guest at 5 star hotel making an effort to get all the details perfect before they arrive.
Which is better? On the surface Raul’s way is “better”, but if being made to feel “one of us” is more your thing than my way is “better” – the best is actually a combination of both (making us a killer pair of hosts)
15 October 2009, 7:03 am
Barbara,
Yes, they were one-of-a-kind. I’ve been in shops in all price ranges, in a zillion locations since then, and they still stand out. Reaching for that is reaching pretty high!
Friar,
I was waiting for you to come ask for a group hug. (A bit shocked you didn’t!) Clearly Thanksgiving threw off your game. Hope your turkey was tasty.
Graham,
I love that movie! Oh, yes. You and I are on almost the same wavelength here. Not that it’ll turn a person into Salieri, ho ho, but isn’t there something to having one’s sights adjusted in a more useful manner?
Janice,
Oh, that’s a great article! I love that a broken jaw basically spurred his ambitions. Thanks for the link.
Aha! Now we do this! Thinking about metaphorical broken jaws now…
Graham and Janice,
There was more value for some great writers, but *far* more obscurity for all the rest. It does all work out, in a way.
(And To Have and Have Not rocks. Thank goodness for Hemingway’s lousy stuff.)
Alex,
I don’t know which is better, but now I’m jealous of the house guest you had this week!
I guess in that case, you have to be careful to reach for an appropriate star. Raul can enjoy Martha Stewart, and (forgive me for going completely American with my references) you can reach for Rachel Ray.
Me, I was Martha for most of my life, but in the past five years, wow have I mellowed. Now I’m planning good fast meals so we can hang out and drink wine instead of worrying about whether the candles compliment my dinnerware.
Of course, they do! But I’m not worried about it anymore. LOL.
Until later,
Kelly