Will Guidara – Unreasonable Hospitality (EP.492)

What It Covers

Will Guidara, co-owner of Eleven Madison Park when it ranked number one in the world, explains how businesses can systematize exceptional customer experiences through "unreasonable hospitality" — investing equal energy into how people feel as into the product itself, across industries from restaurants to financial services.

Key Questions Answered

• •The 95/5 Rule: Manage 95% of expenses with extreme frugality to earn the right to spend the remaining 5% on relationship-building gestures. This 5% generates disproportionate loyalty returns — a bottle of cognac with the check costs little but becomes the only thing diners remember, outlasting memories of the food itself.
• •Map 130 Touch Points: Run a full "interrogation of the customer journey," documenting every single interaction a customer has with your business. Eleven Madison Park identified roughly 130 touch points, then elevated overlooked ones — like coat retrieval and bill delivery — that competitors ignored because they focused only on the most obvious moments.
• •One Size Fits Some: Beyond universal and personalized gestures, identify recurring moments that happen for some customers — a delayed flight, a pet's death, a child's excitement — and pre-build responses with resources ready. Chewy sends flowers when a customer's dog dies, cancels the subscription, and credits the last order automatically, creating near-permanent loyalty.
• •The Dreamweaver Position: Add one team member with zero operational responsibility whose sole job is resourcing and enabling colleagues to execute hospitality gestures in real time. This dedicated role, now replicated in car dealerships, hospitals, and NFL teams, removes the common failure of leaders announcing hospitality initiatives while providing no budget or support to execute them.
• •Systemize Graciousness to Build Culture: Scripted hospitality protocols — like a Park City hotel handing late-arriving guests their room key without requiring check-in — train staff who aren't naturally hospitable. Repeated exposure to guests' genuine appreciation converts compliance into intrinsic motivation, spreading hospitality behavior organically across the entire team without requiring individual personality changes.