Shut Up and Listen!: Hard Business Truths that Will Help You Succeed

by Tilman Fertitta

He trusts himself, so he is able to trust those around him.

People ask me all the time: “What do you fear?” I say I don’t fear anything, but I worry about everything.

Every successful business, in one way or another, is built around hospitality. The problem is, many businesses fail to see that. And if they do, they don’t pay nearly as much attention to it as they should.

To me, the definition of hospitality is simple. It’s however you handle a customer. Nothing more, nothing less—how you treat him or her, how you respond to what he or she asks for, and your ability (and willingness) to stay flexible. The ultimate goal of interacting with a customer is to make him or her feel like the only customer you have in the entire world.

If you want to boil it down even further, I have a rule of thumb that I say almost every day: it’s free to be nice. Think about that. As a business owner or entrepreneur, does it cost you anything to be courteous to each and every customer? Of course not! Being nice costs you nothing. But, by the same token, remember: it can cost you a hell of a lot to be rude.

Put another way, sometimes you can’t avoid the fire. It’s how you put it out that matters.

That’s all part of being in the hospitality business. It involves everyone and depends on everyone. It’s called taking care of your customer. And, if even one person forgets that, an otherwise great customer experience can go straight down the drain.

In short, say what you can do, not what you can’t.

Many entrepreneurs have a dangerously simple idea of how business works. To them, it’s very straightforward—you sell something to someone else, and you get paid. End of story. Except that’s not even close to how things work. Here’s an example of what I’m getting at. Let’s say an entrepreneur designs an absolutely beautiful purse—stylish and eye-catching at the same time. She takes a sample around to various high-end retail outlets, and the product is appealing enough to attract immediate attention from the store owners. “You know what?” says one. “I’d like to carry those in my store. I’ll take thirty-six. When can you deliver them?” That’s a problem. The entrepreneur is thrilled with the order but lacks the necessary cash to buy the materials to produce thirty-six purses. And after the purses are manufactured and delivered, the store placing the order can have a month or longer to pay for them, according to most current accounts payable standards.

Little things truly matter in taking a business from good to extraordinary.

In fact, one of the biggest mistakes people make is being unable to admit what they don’t know.

Always remember that the greatest opportunities are in bad times.

Speaking of efficiency, that’s why I make it a policy to always have meetings that are as short as possible—ideally, fifteen minutes or less. Of course, we go over that time limit often, but trying to impose some sort of time restriction generally cuts back on the average time spent in meetings and keeps the time in the meeting productive. That, and we work to keep those short meetings consistent in how we review our business. That helps everyone prepare better to make the most of those few minutes. The reason I believe so strongly in short meetings goes beyond the fact that everybody hates long, drawn-out sessions. A short meeting also promotes bluntness and accountability. If you’re only asking people to focus for fifteen minutes or so, they bring their A game to those fifteen minutes. A lot gets done because it’s focused and on point. The goal is to make them all focus for fifteen minutes and know that you’re listening to them. Get to the point and get out. Keeping meetings short is also valuable to reinforce an organization-wide commitment to ongoing goals and priorities. For instance, since I’ve emphasized the value of hospitality, no matter the business, short meetings are an ideal way to reiterate that message. Use short meetings to remind everyone and to emphasize everything from the specials for that day to production and delivery priorities. Keep it short and on point, and the message is easy to convey and understand.

This comes back to the value of humility. None of us have all the answers, and the leader who recognizes that is well on his or her way to becoming a truly great leader. They’re comfortable with someone telling them they don’t know something, because they know they don’t know everything themselves.

Sometimes the best lessons are taught in an environment where not everyone is comfortable or, for that matter, happy. To drive home a message, I’ll do certain things that, with the goal of teaching in mind, aren’t particularly nice at the moment. When we were still relatively small, we had a meeting of general managers. One of them explained that he was actively recruiting new employees and said he wanted to create his own logo to help do that. I wasn’t very happy. I told him in no uncertain terms that we had a marketing department and we already had a logo and it was in place for very good reasons. I said there was no way I was about to permit a new logo to distract from the overall message of the company. I realized at the time that I was singling him out in front of the others. But I also realized that my meaning was absolutely clear—I knew that no one else in the room would ever do or even suggest something like that again. Afterward, I went up to the general manager and apologized for how I had treated him. I told him I hadn’t meant to be so hard on him but that he had given me an opportunity to drive home a message. That’s something that happens a great deal, and I always make a point to put my arm around the person and explain why I did what I did. I want their memories about the experience to be short. I want their memory of the lesson learned to be long.

That story underscores several important points. First, protect your assets. Second, when the owner of the company bends down to pick up trash, people start to pick up on a culture. They learn that everyone can and should do that sort of thing. That’s when the managers start doing it, along with the waitstaff and everyone else. It’s okay to get your hands dirty.

It boils down to a simple rule about leadership and change: don’t overthink things. That’s not to say you shouldn’t know your numbers inside and out, or that you shouldn’t do the most complete due diligence you can. But don’t go overboard. Don’t make an issue needlessly complicated by overthinking it.

That’s why I want to wrap up this book with a breakout strategy that may be simple to understand but challenging to live by: never, ever give up. That’s the reason this topic is at the end of the book. The ability to keep going and never give up is that important. Long after you finish reading, I want you to remember this strategy, even if you don’t recall everything else I’ve told you. And who knows? One day you may be able to look back and tell some young entrepreneur about the struggles you went through before you hit it big!

This means you’re the source of strength for the business, a leader whose best features and attributes come out when everything around you seems to be going straight to hell. This is when leaders pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Leaders stand tall in tough times. Be the bull who helps keep others upbeat and makes them feel genuinely vested in the business’s survival and growth.

I cannot tell you how frustrating it is for me to try to share all that I’ve learned with entrepreneurs and others who are looking to take their businesses to the next level—to try to share what I can with them, only to have them refuse in one way or another to take my advice to heart.