10.

The Element of Surprise: Only the Unexpected Is Thrilling

It was a gray winter day in mid-February when my son Harly (an automobile freak since the day he was born and whose first word was car) asked me if he could see a Mercedes SL up close.

I was a young dad at the time, and Harly and I had this weekly bonding experience other people think of as “going car shopping.” The big difference was that we weren’t shopping for anything. Ours was a ritual: Harly felt exhilarated being around cars the way wine aficionados feel about strolling through vineyards.

The way it worked was that Harly would devour his beloved car magazines weekly—Car and Driver, Auto Trend, and Hot Rod—and decide by Friday night which car he wanted to “absorb” the following day. This was way serious stuff. We never missed a week!

And so it was on this dreary day that Harly was dressed, fed, and ready to go to sit behind the wheel of a luscious new SL 500. It was 9 a.m. and he was ten years old and his determination to get to the dealership was irresistible.

I was a bit concerned how this caper was going to play out. In the usual scenario, Harly and I visited Olds, Pontiac, Chevy, Ford, and other rather commonplace dealerships; we would pretend to be engaged in serious shopping and while I collared the salesperson for a discussion about the vehicle, Harly would commandeer a car on the showroom floor and pretend to be cruising down the interstate.

Today, we were seriously upping the stakes. I knew Mercedes dealers could be a bit snooty and were likely on the lookout for tire kickers curious about how the other half lives. I couldn’t see the showroom sheriffs allowing a kid in a scruffy T-shirt and ripped jeans to play Mr. Rich Boy behind the pigskin wheel of what was then a $50,000 luxury chariot.

And furthermore, Harly announced to me that he wanted to go for a ride in our SL!

I have always had confidence in my salesmanship, but I knew this would be a major-league test of my skills. And don’t forget, this was dad-and-son bonding day. I was his hero. I couldn’t fail.

As we walked into Mercedes-Benz of White Plains, the concierge (yes, they have a concierge) asked if she could be of assistance, gestured for Harly and me to have a seat, and promised a sales representative would be right with us.

I could tell that she smelled us out from the start. There was that feigned kindness you can cut with a knife.

Within minutes, the salesman—dressed in a black suit and silver tie—appeared on the scene. Turning my expectation on its head, he greeted us warmly, shook Harly’s hand and mine, and thanked us for visiting “my home.”

As we quickly discovered, we didn’t have the attention of a hired salesman: this was the owner. The president. The CEO.

Spewing forth an absolute lie, I told him that I was interested in buying an SL 500.

“Do you currently own a Mercedes-Benz?” he asked.

“No. I’ve thought about it, but…”

“Have you ever owned a Mercedes-Benz?”

“No, this will be my first.”

Then the Salesman-in-Chief took the element of surprise and squared it.

“It’s like no other car in the world, gentlemen,” he said, being careful to talk to Harly and me. “But don’t take it from me. Take one for a ride. Stay out as long as you like. Make sure to do a stretch on the highway and really let her loose. You’ll see: the SL is not a car, it’s a cat.”

For an hour and a half, Harly and I were in Mercedes heaven. Harly couldn’t believe that I let him hold the wheel and I couldn’t fathom the fact that I was sitting behind it, guiding a black-on-black rocket ship inside its leather cockpit.

We were thrilled!

I know it was one of the happiest experiences of Harly’s life and a combination of mentoring and an inspirational moment for me. That gifted businessman taught me a life’s worth of lessons just by handing us the keys to a dream. And by doing it with absolute delight.

He also made me a customer. Although I couldn’t yet afford an SL (I’ve since purchased three from him), I came back two weeks later and bought my first Benz, a 240 D. Once I drove the German wonder, once I was thrilled, once the owner made my son feel like a king, there was no turning back (until my brief flirtation with Porsche).

You know you’d have been thrilled, too. And by now, you should be discovering that you can do the same to your customers. It doesn’t have to cost a dime.

We all enter a relationship with a business with a checklist of questions:

• How I will be treated?
• Will I find the merchandise or services attractive?
• Are the return policies fair?
• Is there a genuine guarantee that I will be satisfied or simply a series of empty promises laced with fine print?

Whatever we expect when we enter the company’s world, for the first time or the twentieth, management has the opportunity to go beyond the expected, the good, the perfectly satisfactory, and take our breath away. To do something, say something, to make an offer or display a generosity that is 180 degrees from our expectations and truly thrills us.

A card mailed on our birthday? A nice gesture, to be sure, but hardly something that will make you stop in your tracks. Consider how you feel when someone flatters you with a gift at a time you least expect it. When it is not Christmas, an anniversary, or your birthday. Just a gesture of appreciation, gratitude, love, or kindness that comes out of nowhere—it has the impact of a first kiss.

Last summer, my wife and I were sitting by our pool when I asked her if she would like me to drive to Starbucks to refresh her with an iced latte. When she said yes, I left the house and returned a half hour later with the drink…and a silver and gold bracelet I purchased at a jewelry store adjacent to Starbucks. I have bestowed her with a zillion gifts on all of the traditional gift-giving dates that intersect with our 35-year marriage—but this “summer surprise” is the one she never forgets.

When Businesses Measure Up

Businesses can (and should) do the same. Richards, a wildly successful apparel store in Greenwich, Connecticut, boasts one of the highest sales per square foot in the retail industry. The place is a phenomenon not because of its goods, its advertising (it barely does any), or its interior design but because of its mastery of The Thrill Factor.

When I was recovering from surgery a few years ago, my Richards’ salesperson found out about my illness through the grapevine and moved quickly into action. Understanding the power inherent in the element of surprise, she went straight to a royal blue (one of my favorite colors) Armani (my preferred designer) cashmere sweater, had it gift-wrapped, and delivered it personally to my home (the cashmere sweater on any old Wednesday).

The gift was beautiful, but the real medicine was the surprise visit by a woman who was not going to accept the standard role of salesperson. She was going to thrill me by treating me not as a customer but instead as a member of the Richards’ family.

This chain of events was not an accident. The art of the thrill is embedded in a stellar company’s culture. (Ah, the power of culture.) It is taught, engrained, and exemplified by senior management. Richards’ CEO Jack Mitchell—a man who has made his mark and could closet himself in an office or stretch out on a Caribbean beach year-round—still greets customers at the front door, a tape measure draped like a badge of honor around his neck. The silent message: Nothing in the world would thrill me more than to fit you for a smashing pinstripe Italian wool suit.

Once Richards gains a customer, it wraps them up in an enthusiastic bear hug and grows the relationship. The element of surprise is one of the super merchant’s most potent weapons.

I deployed the element of surprise when I wanted to add Smith Barney as an MSCO client and I did it by, well, insulting them (remember the power of the unconventional).

It was a bold move, telling a prospective client flat out that an aspect of his business was terrible—your company’s “marketing sucks” is how I phrased it. The chief marketing officer on the other end of the call could have hung up on me, and he almost did—he was offended and after all, why shouldn’t he be? He worked for the prestigious Smith Barney; who was I? I quickly pressed forward and advised that:

1. I was a Smith Barney client.
2. I had substantial assets invested with the firm.
3. I had not reinvested with Smith Barney because the company had failed to continue to educate me on interesting investment options.

After what seemed like an hour of silence but was likely ten seconds, the CMO asked, “Would you come in tomorrow and talk to our marketing department? They need to hear about this. I need to hear about this!”

Within weeks, we were hired by Smith Barney, charged with taking the firm’s marketing to a new level. We were filling a void that had somehow been allowed to go unnoticed in the system.

Refuse Mediocrity and Thrill through High-Quality Products

We know that mediocrity derives from a state of mind—one that gets comfortable with the business, its products, and its services, to the point that management entitles the company (by default) to fall behind the competition and the customers.

Call that a prescription for disaster.

Let’s take the realm of product quality, for example. Is a good quality product sufficient to keep your business growing, thriving, moving, and staying ahead of the curve?

Absolutely not! It has to thrill.

That leads to the question: “What are the attributes of thrilling products?” We have talked about services a great deal to this point. Now let’s shine our spotlight on products.

To be a truly superb product (over time, all winning products must live up to this standard), a product must provide more than one of the following:

• Stunning innovation
• Exclusive features and performance characteristics
• Irresistible design
• Extraordinary value