Peak; How Great Companies Get Their Mojo From Maslow by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

CREATING EVANGELISTS

MEETS

CREATES

UNRECOGNIZED EVANGELISM

NEEDS

If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would

have said a faster horse.

Henry Ford

I remember the first time I heard boutique hotelier Bill

Kimpton say he was in the business of “selling sleep.” Bill was a

bit of an idol of mine. In 1981, in his mid-forties, he departed

from his stuffed-shirt investment banking life and started what

was originally called Kimco, then the Kimpton Group, and ulti-

mately just Kimpton. Kimpton has been a worthy competitor for

us to benchmark ourselves against, especially since they’re the

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only hotelier in the world that operates more boutique hotels

than we do. Ironically, our home office is on the same street just

four blocks from their headquarters.

While I admired much of what Bill did and said (he passed

away in 2001), I was always puzzled by his favorite phrase about

being in the business of selling sleep. I guess I imagined that

would be a base need on the hotel guest pyramid. Certainly, it’s

foundational for any guest because without that physiological

need met, everything else up the pyramid isn’t very relevant.

But boutique hotels stand out versus the chains not because we

sell sleep but because we deliver dreams. We create experiences

that allow our guests to get out of their linear, by-the-book lives

and live it up a little. At Joie de Vivre, we’ve even created a

“Dreammaker” program to meet the higher needs of our guests

(which I talk about in the Peak Prescriptions for this chapter).

If we get it right at our boutique hotels, we don’t just satisfy

our guests’ physiological, safety, social, and esteem needs: we

bring them to an awareness of self-actualization, what I called

in Chapter Seven “identity refreshment.” Somehow, by staying

in one of our hotels, you feel renewed and refreshed as though

the hotel helped reconnect you with who you are (or who you

aspire to be).

If you’re staying at the Hotel Rex, that means you may feel

a little more clever and worldly because as well as providing

a unique literary environment in its décor, the hotel regularly

hosts author book signings in the lobby’s library bar. At our Ho-

tel Avante, it might mean you feel smart and visionary because

of the avant-garde art or the miniature “mind-twisting” game

collection (like Rubik’s cubes) embedded in the guest room

desk. At our Hotel Vitale, it could mean you’re feeling modern

and refreshed while soaking up the natural style of the interior

design or after you’ve indulged in a complimentary yoga class

in the penthouse studio, followed by an outdoor bath in the

rooftop bamboo grove. Or at The Phoenix, you may feel funky

and irreverent because you’re surrounded by oddball art and

even more oddball guests in a really offbeat neighborhood.

Remember that what’s at the top of each pyramid is trans-

formative. If you get it right, it can have a profound impact on

the customer’s life or how they see themselves. My premise is,

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PEAK

all other factors being equal (location, size of room, etc.), one

boutique hotel will succeed over another based on its ability

to address the unrecognized need of its loyal customers: the

need to have their identity refreshed. Ian Schrager, the

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