Insights from the Summit
Drinking Up Success: Tom Scott’s Story
“It’s been like ‘Godfather III’ — just when I thought I was out, I get sucked right back in,” says serial entrepreneur Tom Scott with a comfortable chuckle. Once known as half of “The Juice Guys” — Tom Scott founded Nantucket Nectars with college classmate Tom First not long after they graduated from Brown University in 1989 — Scott turned a desire to live in Nantucket into a thriving business. He initially thought that maybe he would kick back and enjoy his economic success after Cadbury Schweppes bought the company in 2002.
It did not turn out that way, Scott told the New York Times Small Business Summit — presented by OPEN from American Express on Oct. 10, 2007 — in the event’s luncheon keynote address. “I thought about retiring, but I got bored.” By 2003, he was deep into developing PlumTV (www.plumtv.com), an Internet-based television network devoted to displaying the lifestyles of the rich and famous in Nantucket, the Hamptons, Vail and other hot spots for the big-bucks crowd.
But for Scott, PlumTV CEO, this is definitely a job: “I’m working 70 hours a week.” He doesn’t want pity, however. “I worked more at Nantucket Nectars,” he shrugs. “I did not go into this for the money, and neither did I go into Nantucket Nectars for the money,” Scott stresses. “I wound up in PlumTV because I thought this would be fun. I want to make the world a tiny bit better, and I think we are doing that at PlumTV, where we celebrate great places and the people who live there.”
Just what lessons can Scott share with other entrepreneurs? He ticked off key concepts that have helped him succeed:
“Survival is a big part of entrepreneurial success. Staying in the game is so important.”
“Business faces constant flux — change is the only certainty. Are you ready for it?”
“You have to love this thing you are doing. The entrepreneurial road is bumpy. Do you love what you are doing enough to persevere?”
“Know the principles you want to be known by. I want to be known as someone who treats everybody fairly. How about you?”
Scott added: love what you do, have a passion for it and, if the money follows, that is great. But have fun— that is what really matters.
Waiting Tables: Danny Meyer’s Get-Rich-Slow Advice
The customer does not come first.
Say it again, say it louder, and in that mantra emerges the crux of the message that the New York Times Small Business Summit afternoon keynote speaker Danny Meyer delivered to the audience of small-business owners with dreams of getting big.
Meyer insists the fast track to business success, no matter how large or small the enterprise, is to focus on hospitality. By first making staff members feel welcomed, cared for and important, “they will naturally unleash their goodwill on patrons,” said Meyer.
“The most effective way to create uplifting hospitality is to put the customer second. Employees come first,” said Meyer, founder and co-owner of 11 Manhattan restaurants (including perennial Zagat top rated Union Square Cafe and Gramercy Tavern) and
author of Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business.
The root idea: when employees feel respected and valued, it is that much easier for them to reach out with care and to really listen to what customers want. Does the employee who has just been cursed out by an impatient boss give a hoot how the customer feels? Of
course not. So employees are the building block of any business’s prosperity.
Another mind-boggling Meyerism: in creating a hierarchy of stakeholders, the way to keep investors happiest is to put them at the end of the list. His thinking is simply that when other stakeholders (employees and customers in particular) are getting what they want, investors will see the profits they want. But profits will go poof when employees are grumpy and customers feel ripped off.
Meyer’s sweeping points are that hospitality is a transformational force that can lift any business to the top rungs of success and, importantly, that hospitality is emerging as a particularly crucial differentiator in today’s business battles. We spend our money at the businesses that make us feel good — about ourselves and our purchases — and a chief reason we feel good is the hospitality we experience.
Meyer also offered a simple test to determine if an interaction with a customer exemplifies the hospitality spirit: Are you doing it “for” or “to” the customer? If the latter, know that whatever the gesture is, it doesn’t encompass hospitality. “Business success comes down to ‘for’ or ‘to,’ said Meyer. “It can’t get any simpler.”
