Unreasonable Hospitality

Your P&L Is Your Only Honest Positioning Statement

Stop reading. Do this now.

Pull up last year’s P&L. Find the line item for “client experience.”

Not there?

Now open your website.

“We’re client-centric.” “True partners.” “Transformation-focused.”

One of these documents is lying.

Guess which one your clients believe?

The Impossible Rise

In 2010, Eleven Madison Park ranked #50 on the World’s Best Restaurants list. Dead last. A struggling two-star brasserie in a market dominated by Per Se, Le Bernardin, and Jean-Georges.

Seven years later: #1 in the world.

Not by hiring a celebrity chef. Not by molecular gastronomy. Not by outspending competitors on ingredient quality or culinary innovation.

By making a structural decision, competitors could see but couldn’t copy.

Not because they lacked the money.

Because copying it required destroying everything their organizations were built on.

The decision cost $150,000 annually.

The return? A position so strong that a $2 hot dog became more valuable than any marketing campaign competitors could buy.

Here’s what happened.

The $2 Legend

A European couple is dining at Eleven Madison Park. Mid-meal, they mention to their server they’re leaving New York tomorrow.

“We’re sad we never tried a real New York hot dog.”