They served a hot dog at a 3-Star Michelin Restaurant?

If you’ve ever read the book Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara, you know this story. And if you have not read the book, buy it. Today. I mean, right now. I guarantee it will change the way you think about serving your clients and candidates.

Now, if you’ve never read the book, I’ll give you quick synopsis of the story…

The General Manager at a top NYC restaurant, Eleven Madison Park, overhears a group of guests discussing the incredible dining experiences they’ve had across New York, but lamenting about not trying a street cart hot dog. So, Will (the GM) runs out and purchases a $2 hot dog from a street vendor, has the chef plate it, and serves it to a group of guests who enjoy their “treat” with stunned amazement.

Okay, I just did ZERO justice to that story…so please watch Will tell the story himself: https://youtu.be/1G5QPxDYr0A?si=yGplVubT6pcdvULV

From book reader to groupie

A few months ago, Vicki Kenward, my co-CEO, sent me an email announcing the 2026 Unreasonable Hospitality conference with a not-so-subtle hint: “Buy tickets, David!”

So, I did. Last week we traveled to Nashville for the day and a half event. It did not disappoint!

Unreasonable Hospitality is a fantastic book. Getting to hear Will and his team walk us through the process in person was even better. And seeing how they implemented Unreasonable Hospitality to a room filled with 350 strangers was…inspiring…mesmerizing…AWESOME…pick your adjective!

I took home page after page of notes. I think at last count I had 21 takeaways to implement, and I haven’t even glanced at Vicki’s list.

Now, I don’t want to spoil the fun for anyone, so for today’s SMART IDEA, I'll just share my top five takeaways. Here goes…

Lesson 1: Great service ≠ hospitality

As Will put it, great service is table stakes. Your only real differentiator is the customer experience…and specifically, how you make the customer feel.

Lesson 2: People want to feel seen, heard, and appreciated

Many industries, staffing included, have been going through a digital transformation that has radically accelerated with AI and automation. But all that technology and process efficiency has stripped the humanity out of many businesses.

Unreasonable Hospitality is about putting that humanity back – not eliminating AI and automation, but agonizing over service delivery details to a level that your competitors (and even your clients) would think is unreasonable.

Lesson 3: You must create the right culture

Will shared that Unreasonable Hospitality is not easy, but the good news is that it can be taught. And part of that is creating the right culture, one that:

• Values feedback: from clients, company leaders, peers, and subordinates (basically, everyone has a voice).

• Strives to personalize experiences: obsess over every touchpoint. How can you eliminate friction? How can you create memories?

• Communicates effectively: starting with “pre-meal” – a daily huddle to set the intent for the day and inspire the team to be their best through service delivery, and creating processes and even language that guide how work flows, information is shared, and ensures everyone consistently does the right things.

• Tells stories: share successes…and failures, and the lessons learned from each. Great cultures develop “company lore” – timeless fables that illustrate how to bring your company’s values to life.

Lesson 4: For every role, define what “right” looks like

I really liked this one. Too often, our teams are provided with rudimentary training (at best). In an unreasonable company, every detail and every step is defined, analyzed, and optimized.

When managing people, put as much emphasis on what went right (so you can learn and repeat these processes) as you do on what went wrong and how to correct.

It’s not about creating a robotic workforce that simply follows rules, it’s about creating an empowered workforce that knows how to listen, observe, and then take appropriate action.

Lesson 5: To make this work, you need to build the right team

The right team…not necessarily the best team. You want people who buy into the company mission, fit the values, and are inspired by the vision of what the organization is creating.

You want a team filled with not just A-players, but your A-players. Individuals with a high culture fit and a high level of performance. The analogy Will used (and I love it) was, you wouldn’t buy a Ferrari to tow a boat.

When hiring, interview around the candidate’s experiences with your core values (not their past roles, duties, and skills). When evaluating talent, coach your A-minus and B players to become true A’s. And anyone with a low culture fit is always a C or an F. You decide what to do with them from there.

You can’t differentiate on service

I truly loved my time at the Unreasonable Hospitality conference. As someone for whom this stuff does not come naturally, it was amazing to see the process broken down into a very manageable number of easy to comprehend steps.

And while I have a notebook crammed with those 21 ideas, the one that is really resonating with me is the one that’s probably most relevant to staffing: You can’t differentiate on service.

But you can, and must, differentiate on hospitality.

Will opened and closed the event with this famous quote from Maya Angelou: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”.

Hope that gives you a little inspiration for differentiating your business.