My not so Turkish delight

Which brings me to the thing I keep coming back to from this trip, which is the power and role of hospitality.

The best lesson I learned this trip started as the worst part of it.

Philip was brought in to create content in exchange for the service…we thought. The five-star hotel we agreed to was not the hotel they actually booked us into, and then they tried to charge us for the service on top of the arrangement we already had, forcing Phillip to sign sketchy paperwork that the credit card company would have a hard time refunding. It was a disaster.  It speaks to something I've known throughout my career: service providers have it so much harder than people give them credit for, because so much of a brand lives in the experience and consistency rather than the promise. This clinic gave horrible customer service, but most service-based businesses don’t struggle with horrible leadership; they struggle with one part of their experience dropping off–an employee not calling back fast enough, a document being missed, a greeting not being warm enough. Business owners don’t obsess about the full experience enough, which ultimately hurts their brand because a brand is like a symphony. It's a collection of moving pieces and parts that create a collective song. 

After studying hundreds of brands, I realized that good brands are built from four pillars:

1. A good product
2. A good story
3. A good experience
4. Consistency

You need all four to be good. Moving from a good brand to a great brand is not about being good in each of them; it is about being great in all four, with the added variable of time.

There is a principle in Will Guidara's Unreasonable Hospitality that explains exactly why this experience collapsed. They were focused on being transactional rather than genuine, which meant they cared about closing the exchange rather than caring for the people in front of them, whereas real hospitality shows up in every small decision along the way. And this goes back much further than social media. Before reviews and before reposts, the referral rested entirely on every touch point being perfect, from the first email to the last goodbye. Whatever brand you are in, whether you are selling a product or a service, the best ones obsess over every single touch point, i.e. how you are onboarded, how you are spoken to, and how you are made to feel at every step.

We ended up at the Swissôtel in Izmir, and it was everything the first stop was not. Good service changed my state from feeling stressed and in a foreign place to being safe and rested. That difference is what drives me to act and be a raving fan. 

We wandered the shops in Izmir and found this special rug shop. The owner shared that this Rug is an original thats hundreds of years old, crafted by a rug maker who depicted a time when Christians and Muslims lived together in harmony.

The best part of the whole trip was the traditional hammam I did at the Grand Hyatt, and if you have never experienced one, I highly recommend it. A hammam is a ritual that has been refined over centuries, i.e., the heat, the scrub, the foam, and the rest all arrive in a flowing order. The process is what I keep coming back to, which is that the experiences we recommend to other people are the ones where every touch point has been thought through and delivered consistently every time.

As Will Guidara puts it, "Service is black and white; hospitality is color."

We recorded this live in France during our first-ever Cannes Lions experience, and honestly, it was less hype than I expected and so much more substance. In this episode, we get into the biggest brand stories of the week and what's really going on: how Reddit became the place people trust most to decide what to buy, and Snapchat's billion-dollar bet on AR, which we hashed out with someone involved in the launch.

On the episode:

● Why your valuation is really about what people believe you'll build next, not what you've already built
● The one storytelling miss that just cost Snapchat billions
● AI is already telling customers whether to buy from you, and if you're not shaping that answer, your competitor is
● Reddit is where your customers go for the truth before they buy, and most brands have no idea how to show up there
● How to stop AI from telling you what you want to hear

♢ Social Media & Brand Planner: The ultimate tool to build your brand and your social media at the same time. Purchase Here.

♢ My Masterclass: Learn the exact system top brands use to turn attention online into customers and sales. Enroll Here.

♢ Third Eye Insights: My international brand strategy and creative agency that serves top brands and small businesses alike. Inquire Here.

♢ Substack: Daily case studies and breakdowns that go deep on what separates brands that scale from brands that stall. Subscribe here.

♢ Podcast: Tune in for the most informative and entertaining debates on brand, business and trends. Subscribe & Listen.