The Marmalade Group

For many that have worked with consultants, and even many in consultancies, the client/consultant relationship can seem adversarial. At Marmalade we see things differently. We see consulting from a bespoke point of view that has more in common with restaurants of the Michelin Star variety than kiosk customization at your local fast food franchise.

The book inspiring this post is Will Guidara’s book Unreasonable Hospitality.

Will Guidara, he is the founder of Thank You, a hospitality company focused on destination, but primarily known for being a co-owner of Eleven Madison Park (EMP). It was a 2 star restaurant that he took to the number one restaurant in the world (they went from not evening being on best restaurant list to 50th place, and then up to 3rd, and finally to number one; their master differentiator was unreasonable hospitality). He also launched NoMad and more.

Suffice it to say, Will, like one of his early mentors, Danny Meyer author of Setting The Table is a luminary in the field. You may be most familiar with Will by one of those LinkedIn memes/”legends” that circulates without context.

It’s the story of how Will overheard a family from Spain, at Eleven Madison Park, on their last day of their trip to NYC mention that the only thing they didn’t get to eat on their adventure was an authentic New York Hotdog. Will promptly ran out to one of the street vendors, bought one of those cheap hotdogs and then had Daniel Humm slice it up for the family and plate it, EMP style.

The way you might’ve heard that story, it could sound like a random gesture, or completely made up, like those LinkedIn parody memes about someone helping a wounded dog across the street, only to found out that dog was the CEO of the company that would interview them later that week.

The thing is, it was NOT a random gesture, but part of hospitality mindset Will had cultivated for himself and his team. One of the things they pursued was attempting to create legends for their restaurant patrons. Memorable incidents that would be remembered far beyond the meal. And it was not about spending more, but about sincere attention to detail.

Some other examples that might live up to the hot dog story was an entrepreneur that needed 1 million dollars to close a deal. While the EMP team couldn’t get the guy a million, they got him 10 of those 100 Grand candy bars. For a couple that had proposed in their restaurant and was celebrating their anniversary there, the EMP team found out what their wedding song was and pumped it to their private dining room.

For a couple that wanted to go to the beach, they brought sand into the restaurant. For Christmas they set trains on a table. For a kid that wanted a teddy bear, someone on site sewed one up using the cloth napkins. They also jumped through hoops so that the person who booked a table reservation would be the same person to greet the person they booked at the restaurant. They also did many things that we in tech like to refer to as “things that don’t scale.” They would have reservation staff look up guests prior to arrival on google or wherever they could with the hope of finding a photograph… so that when you entered the restaurant for the very first time, they would see you and be able to greet you by name! In the context of tech consulting: wouldn’t it be nice if the people you’re consulting with took a little time to know about you and your company beyond the salesperson’s debrief? (pretty sweet if the salesperson took the time to do that too, right?).

A key piece of info about Will is that though he mastered hospitality, he also had come from a business perspective. Though he started with Meyer and reconnected, there was a time where he was heavy on the operations side of things — ordering perishables and fixtures for a large restaurant group. He learned much about fastidious accounting. And came upon something he likes to refer to as the 95/5 rule. In short: you’re a stickler 95% of the time for your budget, so that you can go wild with 5%. That 5% is all about the intangibles, things that are “poor investments” but enhance an experience exponentially.

Will gives some additional examples of what Unreasonable Hospitality might look like in a variety of other sectors.

And thus we focus back on Consulting.

What does this all mean for us, and what does it mean for you?

Well, for starters, we’re the type of consultancy that takes relationships seriously. Like our previous meme heavy post, we know a relationship is more than an open bar but a collaboration. An opportunity for all parties involved to come away smarter, stronger, and richer than they were before.

We also know that a great relationship is not just about praise and positive reinforcement, but that well thought criticism is not about a reprimand but an investment in a team member. OR, in the case of consulting — because we are gracious for the opportunity to work with you, we not only praise so you can recognize what you’re doing right (and do more of it) but we offer feedback that can feel like criticism… because we view it as an investment in you, an investment in the relationship. And because of this mindset, we’re also very open to all types of feedback as well. The moment in a client and consultant relationship that people feel like there are things that can’t or shouldn’t be said is probably the moment that truth dies and the corporate ritual begins.

Creating value is different than bluster from a corporate jester stating the obvious and saying nothing at all, different than a Truth to Power Clown Show, and different than Bad Management punching down on the people they’ve been mismanaging to save their own skin.

Value comes down to hospitality — going the distance with your team, and that ultimately the customer is always right. And recognizing the paradox of eye-opening feedback to the customer (if the customer is always right). The balance is difficult to strike when viewed at as merely a numbers game, but easy when viewed as a collaboration.

By means of a restaurant example: if a customer gets drunk in your bar and starts getting crazy, and you cut them off even though they want to keep drinking. And also, if they are too drunk to drive home, and you attempt to take their keys and call them an Uber or Lyft to make sure they get home safe — and they then fight you for their keys… is it more hospitable to give in to the thing you know is wrong? Or to suffer their fury?

When the entire experience is viewed as a collaboration, it becomes self-evident that though a customer may always be right in the context of receiving impeccable service and all accommodations to uplift, there is an unspoken assumption that the customer trusts you to curate the right experience for them.

As consultants, we are not just builders of sites, integrators of technology, but fundamentally: we are implementers of your vision. People to help you boost what you want to do to the moon and beyond.

With Marmalade, you can expect to be treated as royalty, but never by a court jester. The collaboration we look forward to is, as Will Guidara presented in creating legends, the kind of collaboration you will remember forever, a cornerstone in the foundation of the empire you build or expand.

We look forward to working with you.

NOTE ABOUT THE BOOKS: As a quick aside, both of these books were read to create this post. Danny Meyer’s book first followed by Will’s. If you have a deep investment in seeing your clients’ win for its own sake, then both of these books are for you. Meyer’s book reads more like an autobiography and sometimes the lessons to be learned are in between the lines, others are overt: there’s an idea about the charitable assumption, giving people the benefit of the doubt, and a multitude of anecdotes about leadership and culture building… but if you are not in the restaurant industry and are pressed for time and could only read one: then go for Unreasonable Hospitality. It captures many of Danny’s lessons through a secondary lens of someone riffing on those ideas and making them their own.