Five Guys hamburgers.  Visions of red and white checked decor, with peanuts in shells to distract you while your burger is customized in it’s assembly and you are assaulted with the French fry experience.

Assaulted?  By French fries?  Experience?

To the uninitiated.  You can pay less to get a hamburger at almost every other fast food joint in town.  But then you are not vacuumed into the experience of a Five Guys . . . “burger and fries” (I know the rhyming is too much).  The added price is worth the price of admittance.

There on the wall is the sign proclaiming where that day’s potatoes were grown for the French fries.  It is often a white board that’s updated, one can only guess daily.  Of course there

are bags of potatoes stacked in plain sight, along with cans of catsup, and other fixings as part of the ambiance of “you want freshness . . . we got it baby.”

Your burger arrives in a white bag, and as you peer inside is when you are assaulted by the fries.  They are fresh cut (not frozen like the McMonster chains) and placed in a cup which is then set inside the bag, nestled against your hot burger.  But then the stroke of artistry.  Five Guys then pours in extra fries on top of the cup-o-fries so that they spill onto the top of your burger, and wiggle themselves into the remote recesses of the bag.

French fry heaven.

You can indeed stick you face in to discover this placer mine of golden brown fries and come out with fries stuck up your nose.  Too many fries for a single order?  Yes!  But when was the last time you knew you were going to get more for your money . . . than you paid for?

Lessons to be learned for us all.

1. Give more than you are paid for.  I happen to KNOW that I charge less for my speaking fees and consulting (much to the chagrin of my sweet wife) than I am worth.  If my clients did any research they would find out that I am a great buy.  A great buy.  But delivering more than they bargained for, doesn’t that create customer champions?  We know customer champions will result in a 36% increase in your profitability (see “Your Satisfied Customers are Killing your Business” . . .my previous blog)
2. Give your products a personality. “Name” them.  Mister Goodwrench, Mickey Mouse, Chuck e Cheese and now, “Hi. . . I am your fries from Pasco,  Washington.”  If they were just poured out of a bag then they would just be French fries, but name the potatoes origin and they become special, they become a personality.  Books are judged by their covers.  A good cover and good title can change a mediocre book into a best seller.  Isn’t that title of the book a name?
3. Customize.  Today the market is about mass customization.  I have sales training that I delivered last week to a major processor of chickens.  Today we will customize that for an association of metal stamping companies.  Different handouts, different exercises.  Tomorrow the conference call is customizing the same material for 300 educators of technology and engineering in universities from across the country for a November conference.

Life is an experience.  Create a WOW in yours.