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How to be the best butcher in the world
Case Two: David Costa – Flowers Unlimited
David has rapidly accelerated the growth of his business.
He wanted to know what would the best florist in the world look like. If he understood what that looked like he felt that he would have a chance to build. A good question and the success of businesses can be defined by the quality of questions that you ask.
What normally happens when someone orders flowers?
This is where you have to join the dots because I am now talking about florists to a bunch of butchers! If we work together then magical stuff might happen. There will be things in here that you will be able to take and deploy into your butcher business.
When I want to send some flowers to my mother in law, Linda. I ring the florist up, I place my order and the next thing that happens is the following day when the flowers arrive, I would get a call or a text from Linda saying oh Nige thank you for the flowers. That is broadly the process and in thousands of florists right across the country that is the established norm in that sector.
You all know what the established norm is in your sector is. People walk into your shops and they buy meat. You give them a nice friendly service and they walk out again. That is the norm but what would the best butcher in the world look like and what would the best florist in the world look like?
The first thing I get when I order the flowers is I get email confirmation of the order. I sent some flowers to my mother last year for her birthday, I do it every year and it is lovely because she always rings me up in the afternoon surprised because I have sent her flowers but I have done it for 30 years!
Last year I never got the call from my mother on her birthday, it didn't come and I thought it was a bit strange so I rang my mum up. She had not received any flowers but by now it was seven o clock at night.
Instead of reading you can listen to Nigel's address here
The florists were shut but next morning I got on to the florist who confirmed that they were delivered at 12:30. 'No they weren't.' I asked where they were delivered to?
80 Back Meadow. No that should have been 18, so these flowers were delivered to the completely wrong house. Sufficiently far away not to know who Mrs Botterill is.
An email confirmation would have sorted that out, so the best florist in the world would definitely send email confirmation. Maybe less relevant to butchers but what happens next?
Now the best florist in the world emails a photograph with the florist in the photo. He has changed his process in his room where his computer is and when he finishes making up the orders he has to go across and get his photo taken with the flowers.
It is then the florists job then to send this standard email to the person who has ordered the flowers. An email goes to the person who has ordered the flowers -'Hi Nigel, thanks for your order, we have taken a photo of the flowers that we have for Linda. The photo is attached, the order has been made up for you by Laura. We really appreciate your order, thanks ever so much.'
That is a nice thing to do but it is starting to take that relationship to a different level because I now have email confirmation and I would have spotted the address was wrong and they would have gone to my mum. Now I know that the flowers are going to get there. I know that it is happening, it is all under control and I have seen the lovely Laura who has made them up.
It is another little step building a relationship on the path to what the best florist in the world would look like. It is highly unusual, most florists wouldn't do that. Also what is important is that this is an example of keeping up the communication after the transaction.
If I was going to open a butcher's shop in Solihull where I live, the one thing I would do because I know, there are lovely butchers shops in Solihull who do a really good job, but they are absolutely hopeless, useless, not even on the graph in terms of keeping up contact and communicating with customers until the customer comes into their shop. The second email all on the same day, is starting to build the communication.
David has a maroon van but with a very eye catching wrap around. When the van door is closed it looks like it is open, a really clever design that took a long time to get it right. It looks like you are looking into a van full of flowers. It is the same on the other side and the same on the back so that when you are driving behind it, it looks like the doors are open and that you are looking at this van full of flowers.
So do you just put your name on a van or do you do something a bit thoughtful. We spent six weeks playing around to get it right. It costs a couple of grand to wrap a van but the vans last three years – he actually has six vans now, all wrapped like this. He will tell you that one of his best marketing spends is the two grand across three years is less than £700 per year and most days he says he gets a phone call because his vans get noticed and your vehicles don't get noticed. They are just the same as every other van, nothing unusual or standing out. In terms of bringing customers into your shop instead of anywhere else that can make a big difference. So the best florist in the world would definitely have an eye catching van, and so would the best butcher.
The drivers of these vans are the guys who deliver the flowers. David wants people with a personality, with a little twinkle in their eye and most of his drivers are blokes in their early sixties who have retired from their main job who love going round Brighton and Sussex making people happy.
When you deliver flowers, even for a funeral, the aim is to make people happy. They wear ties and all have a maroon coloured uniform that matches the van. On their back pocket is their name and 'deliverer of happiness'. Again a little unusual.
Four or five years ago I got a call from Virgin to ask me if I'd like to go to a Jamaica for a long weekend with Sir Richard Branson. It was one of those easy decisions, yes please. They flew me out and met Richard and his son Sam who were relaunching the Branson Centre for Entrepreneurship.
When we landed in Jamaica my wife and I were checking in to the hotel, they said this is your butler. A lovely lady butler who unpacked all our cases, made sunbed reservations and restaurants bookings. I came back and made the decision to have a butler in our offices. There are 61 people work for me and upstairs we have quite a large training academy. We put about just over 1200 business owners through our training academy last year and they are all looked after by Matt the butler who dresses like a butler would do – morning suit, brightly coloured waistcoats and his job is to look after our customers and make them feel special.
He builds relationships and his job is to find ways to make people feel special. So Matt has become an expert at finding out precisely what snacks each of our customers would prefer. We make them feel really special and it helps to strengthen that relationship. They stay longer and it has been one of the best business decisions I could have made. Somewhere between my butler and the deliverers of happiness there might be something for butcher's to hang on to to be a bit unusual.
Now as soon as the flowers are delivered by the best florist in the world, Danny delivers the flowers and before he can start his engine he has to send me, the customer who ordered them, that third email. I got confirmation of the order, a picture of the flowers and now a third email to let me know that the flowers have been delivered.
“Hi Nigel. Just to let you know, I delivered the flowers to Linda at 1.35pm today. Thank you ever so much for your order, we really appreciate it. Hope she loves them.
Danny, Deliverer of Happiness”
Now I know exactly what has happened to these flowers. I am now very sticky with this florist because they have made themselves different from every other florist.
As consumers we all have choice. I don't send that many flowers a year, maybe four or five times but this makes me sticky to him because I like this and no one else does this. Now I go out of my way to use him.
The same is true for butcher's businesses. People who buy meat from you don't buy all their mew from you because your relationship is not sticky enough. You have to find ways to make it sticky. It is not big massive things that make it sticky, it is little tiny things that connect that the big boys can't do.
What happens when Danny goes to the house to deliver the flowers and the person is not in? 45% of the time when they deliver flowers the person is not in. People are busy, so what does Danny do next?
This is an interesting one because obviously he finds a neighbour can take the flowers in. But how do we do this? What would the best florist in the world do? He can't just walk up the neighbour's path holding the flowers. Just imagine the neighbour comes to the door, sees Danny the Deliverer of Happiness standing holding the flowers but they are not for them! He has just become the Deliverer of Disappointment and that is not what the best florist in the world would do.
Danny has a process for this. When the person is not in, he has to go back to his van, he then has to find a door where there is somebody in. He knocks on the door and asks can you help me? I have some flowers for Linda who lives next door, she is not in what the moment but could I possibly leave them with you? Everybody says yes so Danny says that is fantastic can I just get them out of the van and he asks their name. Emma.
He scurries back down the path to the van but before he picks up the flowers he picks up two other things. One is a card, a greetings card with on the front 'Good Neighbour Award' and writes in it – To Emma, thank you for helping me out today, please accept this Good Neighbour Award. Love Danny Deliverer of Happiness.
He puts the card in an envelope with a little box of Thorntons chocolates. Eight chocolates. He walks back up the path with the flowers for Linda who lives next door and I have got these for you, thank you very much for helping me out.
Those cards do not get thrown away, some of those cards hang around for months because it is a Good Neighbour Award on a nice card. On the back of the card is the details of the florists, anyone coming into their kitchen is going to look at that card and see what it is about. Some of those cards get posted on Facebook and when you go to work next you tell everyone about this florist who delivered this card and the chocolates with the flowers for the lady next door. On the back cover of the greetings card is an offer and if you order any flowers in the next three months there is quite a sizeable discount for being a good neighbour. It is source of new orders because people want the service.
I get the email that says the flowers have been left with Emma at number 76. Linda gets a card saying that your flowers are with Emma at number 76. All these little things are building a relationship and they are building the best florist in the world.
When you get flowers you get a little sachet that you usually add straight in the vase. Not quite the worst thing you can do but pretty close. It is what everybody does because the sachet is in with the flowers. When you be the flowers they are in perfect condition. Those sachets of flower food but the best time to add them to the flowers is four days after you have delivered them but no one pays any attention to that because the writing on the sachet is so small.
What the best florist in the world would do would be not to deliver the flower food with the flowers. This gives another reason to communicate with the person who received the flowers. So what is put in place is, the day after the flowers have been delivered the florist sends an envelope second class. In that envelope is the little sachet of food and a card that says Linda, we hope that you are enjoying the flowers that we sent to you last Thursday. They were made up by Laura, today is the day to add this flower food to the water to give them the best chance of looking fantastic for as long as possible. If you really want to preserve them as long as possible, just do a water change today, snip the end of all the stems to let the nutrients in and add the contents of the sachet. And here is a discount code, quite a sizeable discount (since there is a high margin on flowers) and nicely written if you liked the flowers, Laura who made them up for you would love it if you could leave a little review on this particular website here.
The reviews went from ten per month to getting ten reviews a day. The reason why? Because they personalised it, talked about the name of the florist and that picture with the flowers that was email to me was in this card as well.
You have this opportunity in your business because you have guys in your businesses who do amazing things with cutting and presenting meat. If your customers don't know who is doing it, you are missing an opportunity to get personal and build relationships. It is relationships that ensure the success of a business. That is all that we have done here with Flowers Unlimited and it has had a massive impact. They continue to offer value even after the sale has happened.
As an aside this has been the easiest thing that David has done to get the staff onside. Most people want to do lovely stuff like this, it is just that the businesses typically inhibit it and push it at them. The minute he started to talk to his team about doing this sort of thing they started to make it better, add things in. It was them that came up with the flower food idea.
The staff absolutely love this, his recruitment is no longer any kind of challenge for him at all because the word is out that every florist worth their salt would love to work at Flowers Unlimitrd because what they do is so markedly different. The florists take great pride in what they do but they are hidden from sight normally. No one knows who does the flowers and it is a thankless job almost. They have to take their fulfilment personally, they know that they do a good job but no one tells them that unless you work for Flowers Unlimited. In their case you are getting reviews every day telling Laura that she is a genius. It keeps pride in the business and the staff love the approach.
The whole team are always involved in hiring those drivers who are Deliverers of Happiness because the whole team recognise that they are the front face of the business and getting the right people on the vans is really important. They could do the job competently but if they have to be the right people with sparkle, personality and ability to make an impression memorable.
You can do the same process with a butcher's business. It is all about relationships, be unusual in the experience (not just the products), keep up communications after the transaction, serve them so that they remember and tell others.
Nigel was not suggesting that butchers don't serve their customers well but just not well enough right now. What we have done with the florist is elevate that to a completely different level. They think other guy first, innovate to add value.
Attachments:
Attachments:
Attachments:
• THE_BEST_BUTCHER_IN_THE_WORLD.pdf
Attachments:
• THE_BEST_BUTCHER_IN_THE_WORLD.pdf
Attachments:
• THE_BEST_BUTCHER_IN_THE_WORLD.pdf
Attachments: