April 8, 2024 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, the origins of Chick-fil-A’s “my pleasure” catchphrase began in 2001. Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy’s version of the story begins with him visiting a Ritz-Carlton luxury hotel—a hotel his friend Horst Schulze co-founded. Here's Horst with the story.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories and up next
to a story about a founder, and we love to tell
founder stories here on the show. We love to tell
stories of people who turn nothing into something. And here
the storyteller is Horse Schultzi, who co founded the Rich
Carlton Hotels in nineteen eighty three here in America. And
(00:34):
this story has a lot to do with service. It
has a lot to do with customers, and it has
to do also with a fellow Atlanta founder, true At Kathy,
the founder of Chick fil A and where the phrase
my pleasure came from.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
We all talk about service. Let me define service for
a moment. It starts the instant you make contact. It
doesn't start as second later. It starts, in fact, within
nine feet. Why because within nine feet you make decisions
about somebody and they make a decision about you. So
(01:12):
it starts with the create welcome, welcome, and then it
continues with complying to the guest vicious, and that complying
is very simply that I'm in that moment. It's not
about me anymore, it's not about my company, It's about
my customer. I'm now here to help that customer to
(01:33):
make it the right decision for him or her. That's
how I'm complying. I'm here to be an assistant to
that guest to make a great decision for themselves. And
then it ends by saying farewell. That is service, welcome, comply,
farewell now. And people talk about the credit service, ask
(01:55):
him to define it. You haven't even given the thoughts
what it is. That's why I don't receive it. They
receive it if somebody happens to if you happen to
be lucky, only you happen to hit a nice person,
not by the sign of the organization, and that is wrong.
It has to be designed by the organization that there
(02:17):
is service delivery that means attention for the benefit of
our customer. You know my relationship with Chick fil A,
you know, and then Cathy, who is of course checkfily
is an exception, exception company. Exceptional people. Then ask me
one day they have you. He tells the story slightly different.
(02:42):
I know that I'm right how I tell it, but
they're very close to same the two stories. One day
asked me have you been in Chick fil A? I said, sure,
So what do you think? I said, Well, you're the
best of a lousy lot. And he said, what, well,
you're not read, but you're better than the rest of them.
And we discussed that, and then of course he asked
(03:04):
me to kind of teach the people and deal with them,
and we did a lot of things together. And one
thing was I had a meeting with his managers, all
his vice presidents in their headquarters talking about verbal how
to talk to a customer. And first of all, you
(03:26):
should look at them with ten nine feet and say hello,
good morning, welcome, so on. The behavioral analysts say that
the person relates to you with a Mexic decision when
they come, but about three meters nine or ten feet
that's when you make a decision that instant. So you
(03:46):
want to make sure that that instant, a positive decision,
goes into their subconscience. In fact, we have an interesting
study in the very beginning of it's called and we
had comment cards, which is not very scientific, but I
had about four hundred thousand. When I was dealing with
(04:08):
Hide Power, I knew Dave Power the time very well.
He said he was a step out of the only
automotive and we were the first company that they actually
did something with outside of automotive. I said, well, if
I have those four hundred thousand cards here, I'm being
told it's not very scientific study. But when you said
(04:28):
about giving to me, we see what we can find.
He came back and said, something very interesting here. Whenever
the first conduct was good, that means sales or reservation, doorman,
front desk, or bellman. When that was good, never ever
(04:49):
did a complain follow. Never ever, whenever there was one
negative in the first conduct, always other complaints followed. So
with outther words, you can put people into a subconscious
positive if the first contact immediately happens to be well.
And nine feet is very important because that's when the
(05:11):
decision is being made subconsciously, subconscious stronger than conscience. So
it's a very important moment. So we taught from there on,
whatever you're doing within nine feet, you look at the
customer and say, well, come undone, and eliminate. In our case,
we said eliminate words like high, because I want to
(05:34):
tell the customer immediately you're important to us. If I
say high, I'm saying we are equal. If I'm saying welcome, sir, welcome,
I'm saying you're important to us. And I am very professional.
I'm giving two messages here, which creates trust. So and
then of course we taught our people to eliminate two
(05:57):
more words. Don't ever say folks, guy's et cetera, and
don't say okay in our case, say I'm delighted to
or it's my pleasure. So right away, this kid that
hi from Inner City becomes a very elegant young man
(06:20):
that we put in the credit uniform credit because if
I hired that kid, he now the next day is
facing the cham of the board of the Bank of England.
I'm going to make sure that interaction happens, right if
eliminate those three things, high or whatever, dude, guys, folks
(06:43):
and okay, Now all of a sudden there's a very
elegant young man there. So I was explaining that to
Chick fil A and said, now you have to eliminate Okay,
we use my pleasure, and I guess and I think
this is wrong for your market segment. Let's find a
(07:06):
different word. And we were everybody agreed it was not
the right word for Chick fil A. My pleasure was
too fancy, and we kind of discussed it when suddenly
in the back of the room, somebody raised their finger
and said I like my pleasure, which was true. Who
(07:29):
the owner, the founder, this great gentleman, I like my pleasure?
I said, yeah, yeah, but you know, but it is
too sophisticated for chick file a, mister Kathy. That was true, Kathy,
it is too too sophisticated. You should he said, I
(07:50):
like it. That ended the discussion. By the way, guess
what they're saying. They're saying my pleasure, you know. And
and so and implemented some other criteria of service, which
Dan will tell anybody that I was successful to help
them with. Now, they didn't become an exceptional company because
(08:11):
of me, but those are the little things that I
helped them help them, including my pleasure thing which it
became famous for. I was wrong, and now I didn't
tell them to use my pleasure. I was against it.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
So anyway, And a terrific job on the editing and
storytelling by Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to Horace
Shultzi as always for sharing his stories with us. And
it's not just a story, we have a bunch by horse,
because well, what a storyteller he is, and what wisdom
he has, and by the way, what a thing to
know that it all starts in that very first contact.
(08:48):
And if you've ever been to a Rich Carlton, it's
different than the other hotels. Impeccably dressed, alert, they greet
you from far away, it's always welcome, and they're different
in every content throughout the organization. And we can all
be different, and we can all be better versions of ourselves.
And what a story about my pleasure and where it
(09:08):
came from? Just beautiful storytelling. Go to more of Horse's
work on Ouramerican stories dot com. His book is called Excellencewinds,
A no nonsense guide to becoming the best in a
world of compromise. The story of Where My Pleasure came
from Here on our American Stories
And we continue with our American stories and up next
to a story about a founder, and we love to tell
founder stories here on the show. We love to tell
stories of people who turn nothing into something. And here
the storyteller is Horse Schultzi, who co founded the Rich
Carlton Hotels in nineteen eighty three here in America. And
(00:34):
this story has a lot to do with service. It
has a lot to do with customers, and it has
to do also with a fellow Atlanta founder, true At Kathy,
the founder of Chick fil A and where the phrase
my pleasure came from.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
We all talk about service. Let me define service for
a moment. It starts the instant you make contact. It
doesn't start as second later. It starts, in fact, within
nine feet. Why because within nine feet you make decisions
about somebody and they make a decision about you. So
(01:12):
it starts with the create welcome, welcome, and then it
continues with complying to the guest vicious, and that complying
is very simply that I'm in that moment. It's not
about me anymore, it's not about my company, It's about
my customer. I'm now here to help that customer to
(01:33):
make it the right decision for him or her. That's
how I'm complying. I'm here to be an assistant to
that guest to make a great decision for themselves. And
then it ends by saying farewell. That is service, welcome, comply,
farewell now. And people talk about the credit service, ask
(01:55):
him to define it. You haven't even given the thoughts
what it is. That's why I don't receive it. They
receive it if somebody happens to if you happen to
be lucky, only you happen to hit a nice person,
not by the sign of the organization, and that is wrong.
It has to be designed by the organization that there
(02:17):
is service delivery that means attention for the benefit of
our customer. You know my relationship with Chick fil A,
you know, and then Cathy, who is of course checkfily
is an exception, exception company. Exceptional people. Then ask me
one day they have you. He tells the story slightly different.
(02:42):
I know that I'm right how I tell it, but
they're very close to same the two stories. One day
asked me have you been in Chick fil A? I said, sure,
So what do you think? I said, Well, you're the
best of a lousy lot. And he said, what, well,
you're not read, but you're better than the rest of them.
And we discussed that, and then of course he asked
(03:04):
me to kind of teach the people and deal with them,
and we did a lot of things together. And one
thing was I had a meeting with his managers, all
his vice presidents in their headquarters talking about verbal how
to talk to a customer. And first of all, you
(03:26):
should look at them with ten nine feet and say hello,
good morning, welcome, so on. The behavioral analysts say that
the person relates to you with a Mexic decision when
they come, but about three meters nine or ten feet
that's when you make a decision that instant. So you
(03:46):
want to make sure that that instant, a positive decision,
goes into their subconscience. In fact, we have an interesting
study in the very beginning of it's called and we
had comment cards, which is not very scientific, but I
had about four hundred thousand. When I was dealing with
(04:08):
Hide Power, I knew Dave Power the time very well.
He said he was a step out of the only
automotive and we were the first company that they actually
did something with outside of automotive. I said, well, if
I have those four hundred thousand cards here, I'm being
told it's not very scientific study. But when you said
(04:28):
about giving to me, we see what we can find.
He came back and said, something very interesting here. Whenever
the first conduct was good, that means sales or reservation, doorman,
front desk, or bellman. When that was good, never ever
(04:49):
did a complain follow. Never ever, whenever there was one
negative in the first conduct, always other complaints followed. So
with outther words, you can put people into a subconscious
positive if the first contact immediately happens to be well.
And nine feet is very important because that's when the
(05:11):
decision is being made subconsciously, subconscious stronger than conscience. So
it's a very important moment. So we taught from there on,
whatever you're doing within nine feet, you look at the
customer and say, well, come undone, and eliminate. In our case,
we said eliminate words like high, because I want to
(05:34):
tell the customer immediately you're important to us. If I
say high, I'm saying we are equal. If I'm saying welcome, sir, welcome,
I'm saying you're important to us. And I am very professional.
I'm giving two messages here, which creates trust. So and
then of course we taught our people to eliminate two
(05:57):
more words. Don't ever say folks, guy's et cetera, and
don't say okay in our case, say I'm delighted to
or it's my pleasure. So right away, this kid that
hi from Inner City becomes a very elegant young man
(06:20):
that we put in the credit uniform credit because if
I hired that kid, he now the next day is
facing the cham of the board of the Bank of England.
I'm going to make sure that interaction happens, right if
eliminate those three things, high or whatever, dude, guys, folks
(06:43):
and okay, Now all of a sudden there's a very
elegant young man there. So I was explaining that to
Chick fil A and said, now you have to eliminate Okay,
we use my pleasure, and I guess and I think
this is wrong for your market segment. Let's find a
(07:06):
different word. And we were everybody agreed it was not
the right word for Chick fil A. My pleasure was
too fancy, and we kind of discussed it when suddenly
in the back of the room, somebody raised their finger
and said I like my pleasure, which was true. Who
(07:29):
the owner, the founder, this great gentleman, I like my pleasure?
I said, yeah, yeah, but you know, but it is
too sophisticated for chick file a, mister Kathy. That was true, Kathy,
it is too too sophisticated. You should he said, I
(07:50):
like it. That ended the discussion. By the way, guess
what they're saying. They're saying my pleasure, you know. And
and so and implemented some other criteria of service, which
Dan will tell anybody that I was successful to help
them with. Now, they didn't become an exceptional company because
(08:11):
of me, but those are the little things that I
helped them help them, including my pleasure thing which it
became famous for. I was wrong, and now I didn't
tell them to use my pleasure. I was against it.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
So anyway, And a terrific job on the editing and
storytelling by Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to Horace
Shultzi as always for sharing his stories with us. And
it's not just a story, we have a bunch by horse,
because well, what a storyteller he is, and what wisdom
he has, and by the way, what a thing to
know that it all starts in that very first contact.
(08:48):
And if you've ever been to a Rich Carlton, it's
different than the other hotels. Impeccably dressed, alert, they greet
you from far away, it's always welcome, and they're different
in every content throughout the organization. And we can all
be different, and we can all be better versions of ourselves.
And what a story about my pleasure and where it
(09:08):
came from? Just beautiful storytelling. Go to more of Horse's
work on Ouramerican stories dot com. His book is called Excellencewinds,
A no nonsense guide to becoming the best in a
world of compromise. The story of Where My Pleasure came
from Here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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