Interview Transcription Below
I am joined today by a dear friend, a great, great, awesome person with lots of great stories, wisdom and ideas to share that will make an impact and will make a difference in your world today. I’m joined by Antoine. Antoine, How are you doing, man? I’m doing great, Ramos. Thank you. Wonderful. So I’ll do one. Maybe just take a moment to give us a little bit about.
About Antoine, who is on one? Antoine Masi. Well, whenever I’m asked this question, I prefer to speak about the person that I am not to mix between per person and corporate person. So if we speak in person, I am grateful for everything I have. Thank God for putting beautiful people on my way. And honestly, I trust that I always have beautiful, ethical people on my way.
Very simple person. I do not tend to complicate things. And again, always grateful for all that I have. So having this kind of personality and having such kind of people is always on my way. I will flip it now to the corporate world and how it shaped me and the way I run businesses or the way I manage people.
And I keep this beautiful relationship through all of my then yours up till today, still in great contact with people who worked with me like 17 years ago. No, no. I mean, I think it’s just an awesome and awesome introduction. And I think as a human being, as a person, Antoine is one of the most genuine people.
Great listener. Super. Again, the principle of in order to to get what I want, I have to help someone get what they want. First it goes without saying. And you know what they say they are attracted to. And that’s why we are here today. So, maybe tell us a little bit about how this has served you, maybe in different stages in your professional career.
So maybe how did you start? What is it that you studied, you know, how did you get launched into the corporate world? So at first it was three options: weather, hospitality management, weather, geology and jewelry design, weather, cinema and acting. And due to some circumstances, I chose hospitality. So I went to France. And hospitality, in my opinion, if you don’t love people, you will not succeed.
If you love people as they say, if you love what you do, you’re not working anymore. And if you love people in hospitality, it will just attract more beautiful people around you and a beautiful kind of running a beautiful way of running your business. So hospitality all the way by profession. Three years in Toulouse, south of France, two years in Paris for a master’s degree.
And then I started working. Working what? Then? Where? First it was in a beautiful palace in Paris called the principal girl as the girl? Yes. La la. And of course, I had little jobs while studying whether night or the third night. Receptionists working as extra as they call it in France in banquets. It was very, very funny stories you can always come up with in hospitality, extra jobs and still having friends still today actually from those days going back to 94.
Well, then from Paris, I moved to London, where I was working at the Grosvenor House of London as well. Another magnificent property afterwards moved back home to Lebanon, where I worked at the opening theme of the Holiday Inn, Martina’s hotel, and I was chosen by Radisson S.A.S. when they purchased the property. When they purchased it they actually flipped the management.
So I was the spirit trainer. One of the spirit trainers of yes, I can buy Radisson for the new team or the new branding. Then from that I went to the Four points by Sheraton of Beirut, where I did the opening as well. Opening team while being in Lebanon. I was requested in 2006 to go to Aleppo in Syria to do the opening of the Sheraton as well.
I’m going to pause you there. If there was something you mentioned that you call the Captain Spirit. The spirit, the. Yes, I can. Yes, I can Spirit. So it’s a bit about building the right. Yes I can culture within that organization. Correct. Can you tell me maybe just a little bit about you know, what does it take to really build it?
Yes, I can be cultural. What were some of the things that you can share with our audiences that would help them to do that? One of the most beautiful things in the Yes I Can it was empowering people like you can let’s say I’m I work in the maintenance department and while just walking in the corridor I hear a couple saying that the lady feels like, I don’t know, champagne or she feels like going to the beach or there’s something wrong that without even going to them, I can go to the reception and I empowered at a certain financial level to send a bouquet of flowers, to send a bottle of champagne, or I
I can go to the front office manager telling him that I overheard this couple saying they feel like going to the beach, but they don’t know where. So we literally had a concierge calling these people and inviting them on the hotel expenses with a driver to go to the beach, spend the day and come back to a certain area of Beirut, because we were in Beirut by then.
Yes I can as well. It goes you have to take me back to 2003, I think, to refresh my 20 years ago. I think let me let me pause you here, because what you said about empowering people and today we’re looking at from a sales perspective, sales and set and service perspective. And, you know, one of the biggest differentiators in working in today’s world is about are you waiting for someone to tell you to ask for something or are you proactively looking for opportunities to add value to people?
And I think that that in itself is a very I think it could be a disease. It could be a disease where companies put a lot of restrictions. You know, when somebody wants to be in control. But I love this concept of empowering your people, empowering your staff. And maybe one of the questions is how can you apply this principle of empowerment?
And by the way, we know today research on motivation shows that if you really want to engage your staff, if you really want to motivate them or what you’ve got to do is just empower them totally to do certain things, to correct even to to go, to go into less bureaucracy. We created a grid of gifts or services that anyone can offer.
So you had the grid. This is the case. You can offer this kind of a case. And it was, I think till today, Radisson still uses it. And it’s a beautiful thing. Yes, I can. And indeed, empowering people makes them feel they own the property. Amazing. So wonderful. I know that there’d be a lot of more stories coming up, so maybe I’ll let you continue there.
So I think we got you back to Lebanon or after Sheraton being in Lebanon actually as well. So I stayed in Lebanon from 2000 to 2007, so I was lucky enough to teach in universities as well, where I was teaching at the Notre Dame University and American University of Science and Technology, and I was teaching hospitality management. I was only 25 and my students were about like 20.
So till today, I still have lots of students that we are really great friends with. Some of them came to my wedding. Some of them still invite me to weddings, anniversaries. Again, I think listening to people being genuine can always keep the right people around you. So let’s go into teaching mode. As you know, I’m also an adjunct professor of Hult International Business School.
And if you were to kind of maybe just share a few points in terms of why do you feel your students, you know, kind of related to you became close with you and how has this, let’s say, impacted them in the long run? I always told them, listen to what I say in class and you will score about 65% and the rest.
The beautiful thing in teaching hospitality, with all respect, my brother is a history professor, but history, it’s done. When you teach something alive, like hospitality or any other life business, you keep on getting on a daily basis. Examples from your business. And I used to ask. The beautiful thing as well in hospitality is that a lot of students work as well.
So I used to share stories and they used to share life stories. This used to make the class extremely dynamic from a class point of view. At the same time, I used to really do my best to give them advice on running. Like they used to come to me saying, I’ll finish my MBA and directly jump into a hospitality management master’s degree.
I said, No, you should never be doing this work for 3 to 5 years. Know what you want from the industry and what you want from yourself. Some of them now, by the way, went to Italy and they became fashion designers. Some of them flipped. They are lawyers now and some of them continued in hospitality and had great careers.
So what kept this bond is as well being as genuine as I can and all the time, driving the classes through a funny, respectful way that keeps them till today. They have memories about some anecdotes we have in the class. Wonderful. Antoine, thank you so much for sharing this. And actually, I think there is a lesson in here that is under what you just said.
And today we know that storytelling is a very critical skill that all leaders, business leaders, business owners, sales professionals need to be able to master. And through personal examples and stories, by the way, it makes the class a lot more engaging. We know today that when you’re telling a story, you’re engaging multiple parts of the brain, your auditory cortex, your visual cortex, your movements.
You’re actually imagining what’s going on. So you’re not giving your brain a chance to actually say, this is too boring. Let me. So I think that that in itself and of course, when the brain is engaged, the brain is, you know, we say it’s it’s it’s actually alive. So from the stories, if it’s a struggle story, it’s a struggle into success, then we can relate with the story.
And that builds a certain level of oxytocin, which is the hormone of empathy, and you become closer with the person. So you see that you’re sharing a common bond. It’s really beautiful there. I think today, just building on what you’re saying, the concept of storytelling in leadership, the concept of storytelling and building, I mean, at the end when we’re friends and, you know, when we get together, we don’t stop laughing from many of the anecdotes and stories and stories make make our lives so.
So really what it is. Thank you so much for bringing this up. And where can people apply this, you know, from their personal life to professional life everywhere. Everywhere. And that builds that bond, which I always relate to. Stories always read the stories. I actually sent you a story that we had recorded you always in 2010 or 2011 or something like that.
And you made me laugh. I showed it to the family as well. Amazing, amazing, great. So let’s jump a little bit from hospitality. So I know at the very, very end, the last position you held from a hospitality perspective, what was your role? I was front office manager and then acting general manager of a hotel as well.
Wonderful. So basically, you’ve seen everything within the hospital. yes. Right. I know for a fact that a lot of organizations, and especially what’s happening today in the world, is we’re seeing a massive influx of growth in the GCC, whether it’s in the United Arab Emirates or which or the country next door, which is the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which with megaprojects, mega, mega things.
And one of the things that I always tell people is, is, you know, the vision is great, but now we really have to build capability of the people to actually be able to sustain the growth. It’s no point of building something where we’re not able to provide a certain level of quality for the level of service to the people, you know, but the vision of of really building it within beautiful geography, some world class resorts, what’s going to make it more memorable is that world class service that will totally correct will come along with that.
And so wonderful. So from that and then what happened from hospitality, I started deviating a little bit. I was running coffee companies, then food safety, then outside of coffee and food safety, I deviated to Diamond World. So I was running a jewelry company afterwards where again, in going back in whatever I did, I still can tell you a smile can break any concrete rule, whether it is with a client, whether it is with a fellow colleague, whether it is with an owner, a manager being calm, making people understand that we are not here to find differences.
We are here to find how we can collaborate together. And if we are here to work, it means we are here to succeed. Once we instill this And again, Rome is, thank God, wherever I work. And speaking of any level of employment, reporting to me, once people understand this message, they know for a fact that this person is here to help us all and to help himself.
Of course, to do better. Wonderful in a nutshell. That’s how I can put it. Whatever the industry it is, is one. Putting on a smile is a very simple, simple task, but it has a really deep, meaningful impact on the person receiving the smile and even the person putting the smile. So smiling secretes a certain level of happy hormones versus just frowning.
You know, by the way, I heard this a long time ago, it takes seven muscles to smile and 17, I think to phone more like 117 to frown or something, something to that extent. So lots of them. So I’d rather go the easy way, which has a bit better impact. Can you think through your repertoire of examples and stories?
An example where a smile of a person actually led to some big results from that? Yes, actually I was in a taxi in Dubai, and the driver, it looks like, had issues and had received some bad news, the poor guy and he was really not feeling well and not driving in the right way. So I had to put my hand on his shoulder because I was in the backside in the backseat.
So I said, can we park for a second? And he used to speak Arabic as well. Speaker So he parked. So you noticed him disturbed. I was like, man, because I was even communicating with him and he was very broke, I think. And yeah, so I had to make him park walk and I put my hand on his shoulder.
I said, “Can we have a little talk? So he looked at me. So when he looked at me, I started by smiling and I said, Listen, we are human beings. We all can have issues. We are living abroad. I don’t know if you had a very bad call from your family back home or like somebody, something happened.
If I am bothering you, you can keep the fees. I will step out and take another taxi. If you have something important to do. If not, just tell me if I can offer any help. This is real. This is not a story created. It happened to me. I was in, of course, an industrial area. Suddenly he took a deep breath.
He smiled back at me. He said. Indeed, I received sad news because I heard he was speaking Arabic. But thank you for understanding and he started refusing the fees. So I really calmed them down and we took the whole thing to a different level and somehow we became friends as well. Wow. I think here there is something going beyond the smile and that is that is noticing the environment.
I think you know, as a person, you are noticing the environment. You are noticing in this case the driver and offering your help, offering your service. And actually, when you confronted him with care, it just opened up a whole new world. And here’s a great question. Today. A lot of sales professionals, sales leaders have a job to do, have targets to hit, and goals to achieve.
And a lot of time we might confuse target achievement doesn’t doesn’t necessarily have to be that I’m not I stop being a human being I stop listening I stop noticing around and asking people, hey, are you okay today? How do you know, how is your stomach feeling? Or how was the trip to the zoo or the trip to actually, you know, SeaWorld or whatever that case may be.
So that in a way, builds empathy and that, again, builds connection. So I know you have a more more examples and more stories, but if I were to kind of have you look back throughout your career and to maybe to maybe give people a certain advice to say what are the two or three ideas that as a leader, as a general manager and as a business director with managed multiple multimillion billion dollar organizations, billions, what are some of the tips that you can give some of our audience who are sales leaders or even sales professionals aspiring to grow and to evolve?
My first advice is that do not forget that if you are selling cars today, you might be selling coffee tomorrow, you might be selling bird cages after tomorrow. So your clients are your network and when you are genuine and selling the right way to your clients, they will be recommending you afterwards. So first, be genuine. Do not lie. So let’s talk about the right way.
You know, is that, you know, selling the right way? What do you mean by selling the right way on one? For me it means to be genuine. Be who you are. That is, there is no need to be fake. Yes, we have to speak great about our products, of course. Or else if you are not convinced about your product, you will not be able to sell it right.
Find something you’re convinced about and talk about it. You know, it shows through your eyes, through your face in terms of what and if you love it, you like a little thing that happened to me in the hospitality world. We used to have issues with the housekeeping and maintenance about the rooms and about understanding the guests’ needs.
So we created a program where every employee should sleep at least one night per year in a hotel room. This made them understand I am in the shower and waiting for a service. There’s a problem in the water. There’s waiting for food, for room service. So when you put yourself as well in the shoes of your customer or client or guest, you will understand a lot more of their needs.
Hence, listen, listen, listen. It’s the best thing for you. And don’t step in assuming that you know what they want, because most of the time you don’t know what they want. And a lot of times they might need a lot more than you think, which will be great for you as well. So the word here, assuming you know what they want.
So the way we stop assumptions, I think when what really differentiates a great sales professional and again, the word sales professional people are allergic to the word sales professionals. You know, what they say is, you know, I’m not a salesman. I’m not a salesman. But then you realize that that you actually what is selling, you know, and are all sales, but also we’re all salespeople, you know, and all that.
You know, my son is a great salesman because he convinces me to do certain things. So we have been selling ever since we were born. Right. And the thing that I think people are reluctant about is we don’t want to be pushy. So the image of a salesman is a pushy salesman. So we definitely don’t want to be sleazy.
They want to be pushy. So the integrity, the intention that Antwan is talking about showing up. Don’t think of your target. Let me let me listen. Let me understand. Let me suspend my beliefs. Let me suspend my understanding of your needs and let me dig let me clarify. Exactly. So wonderful. Great, great. First point. The next point is I’d say we started with it and being genuine.
Most of the time people speak in this world and this time all people look genuine. I wouldn’t say so. I think just if you first of all, show up at the right time, don’t be late, because being delayed as well shows the customer that you do not respect them and you can be trusted. You know, if you’re showing up late, will you deliver your service late as well?
Exactly. Exactly. And if you’re late, it happens. Call and say I will be a bit late. It will make them understand as well that you’re a human being. Exactly. You respect your words. You follow through and you do unusual respect. Again, not only for your words, for your clients. Why do I say being genuine? As you said, people think salesman No, he’s come.
He’s coming to question When you show the genuinity of the person that you are, when you show that you believe in what you are doing and when you make them understand again that you have a network and you and you will meet them and you are meeting other customers, that what you believe in you and what you are doing, this will always take your job or your presence with your client to the next level and they will become your ambassadors and whatever you will be selling afterwards.
That’s why I started by selling bird cages or selling jewelry or saying hotel rooms. Once you have the right bond with your client, they will become your ambassadors. I’m just going to build on that because today the Academy for Sales Excellence has been operating since 2010, and we’ve been very, very fortunate to be where we are. But I’ll tell you, your network is your net worth.
And today, many of the clients that I’m serving were relationships I’ve had before 2010. It was people that I’ve developed, I’ve trained and I cared about. I gave them everything I could. I help them to achieve success. I was very concerned about growing them, developing them, and many of them today are general managers, managing directors of businesses, and they just remember who was that person that really built that trust and connection with them.
And in a way it makes things a lot easier. And if you are in sales, especially food service, selling or automotive or any type of business hospitality, you know, you’ll develop a bond with people. And a lot of the time when a manager moves from one business to the other, the relationship moves with that or that.
So if the relationships are not aren’t, aren’t that, you know, if that is not your priority to really understand, what does it take for me to build goodwill, to really add what we call to put deposits and the relationship with with another human being, because there will come a time where that will will pay big dividends. Yes, absolutely.
So wonderful. Anything else that you want to add never over promise. This is again, extremely important and it will affect all of your relationships with your customers. One thing that I can say, whether you’re a teacher or a salesperson or a manager or a father, walk the talk. If you promise you will deliver. And especially with somebody who’s paying you money, the customer is paying money and he or she is expecting to get back the goods or the product or the service.
Never over promise, on the contrary, promise a little and deliver more, exceed expectations, but never over promise I’m going to shift into so there was this never over promise. And there you were talking about it from a sales perspective as a father, as a teacher, as a leader. Right. So let me talk a little bit on the leadership aspect.
You’ve also led multiple different or multitudes of teams, whether it’s hospitality, whether it is a direct sales force for the, you know, pest control, was it or and the desperate and the coffee as well and working within the coffee. So you were covering the hurricane channel. So your team is knocking the doors of hotels, of chefs, of baristas, of different different prospects.
So so again, if you were to look at it from a leader’s perspective. Right. I’m going to ask you if I’m going to put a twist on this question. as a leader. Right. What have been some of the mistakes? It’s a difficult question, you know, but what have been some of the potential mistakes that you’ve made that could have been detrimental?
And what did you do to actually turn things around, from a leadership, from a leader of that division, of that business, of that situation that you were in? Thank you for that. And this really affect me from time to time, because being a people person, sometimes you get more chances than you should, and especially with salespeople, sometimes you have great salespersons, but unfortunately they closed the deal and they closed the phone so they they closed a big deal and they vanish because they want to celebrate the deal, but which means they are lone wolves.
They don’t work as banks when in reality, when you think about it, your sales, yes, you’re doing a great job in making big deals and clocking or taking big commissions for yourself. Yet this deal will never happen if the operation department and the admin department are not really fed well and in sync with you to deliver. Hence, in several places I have great salespeople, but again, all the salespeople, unfortunately, some of them, I give them more chances than they deserve.
But at the end of the day, you have to cut this umbilical cord that you think you built with them and give chances for other salespeople. So what I’m hearing from you today is selling is not just about going and getting the deal because you get the deal. This is the beginning of a relationship. And notice the word beginning of a relationship.
So now you need to deliver on that deal. And delivering on the deal involves greater communication, it involves teamwork, and that involves collaboration, involves checking with the client, checking on was the delivery done properly? And if your team does, does your team need certain support to be able to give so it’s really all about that teamwork, that collaboration that actually can over deliver to you.
So maybe the word under-promise. Yes but over deliver very good and that and that really gives the wow factor like wow I wasn’t expecting that and making it happen. Definitely wonderful, let me give you one more story. But this we will be speaking from a general manager’s point of view, not only running sales departments wonderful.
And one of the companies that I was really lucky to manage when I reached them, they had financial issues. And one of the main issues that they were facing was delayed salaries. So I was and of course, so when you reach such a place, the company had a great name and a great reputation, but lots of internal issues.
So I sat first with the managers and I started understanding why this happened and what’s the main issue in the company. So of course, you know, you filter, you have you always you understand mainly that salaries are delayed and for everybody. And imagine me coming to this place knowing that my salary was going to be so I did a little study and I understood that it was the main issue.
So I asked them, what is the smallest salary in this company? What was it by then? It was 1200 dirhams in UAE, in Dubai, that’s fine. So I told them what I see in this company. It’s a beautiful wall made out of bricks. Every brick is a brick of 1200 dirhams. I made people understand that from the smallest salary to the highest salary, my priority is to make sure that the salaries are secured before anything else in the company.
I made the team understand that me working my best to sustain you will make us sustain your salaries, your salaries, your families. I, I cannot say I played around this because at the end of the day, my salary was at stake as well. And thankfully and thank God, after six months, the salaries were falling on time and we never had delays afterwards.
And what’s beautiful about the story on TV1 is, you know, sometimes people might look at a new manager in terms of, you know, what is what is what is he about, you know, and and why should I change? You know, because, again, I’m not getting my salary on time. You can only imagine the potential attitude, problems or attitudes.
You know, who cares? I’m not getting my salary on time. But another gem, another leader, another story. We’re going to have the same, the same, the same smorgasbord. So. So but here I think the message is, you know what? When you let someone know that, okay, I’m all about you, right? If you are not delivering your expected outcomes, if you’re not working at the right level, well, how do you expect the company to give you what you’re doing?
And part of the question today is, yeah, I can imagine some companies might fall into bad habits. Yes. And it’s not one bad thing you do that will make a salary, you know, be late. But it’s many small things that you miss repeatedly that the details they say success or failure lies in the details.
And it’s that ability to make someone realize, you know we spoke a bit about empowerment. Are you waiting for me as a manager to come in and observe what you’re doing so that you end up doing it? Or are you empowered enough? Are you realizing if you don’t do X, Y, Z, what? How is that going to impact the overall results?
That one customer, of course, is impacting our reputation and our reputation impacts future sales and the ones after and even the existing sales and the salaries and the salaries. And so we’re really linking it. So I love this one of the quotes that I learned a long time ago: if you’re going to push people, let them know in advance that you’re pushing them for their own good.
Very good. It’s just like, you know, I’m being tough on you, but it’s not for me. I mean, I you know, I am what I am, you know, so I mean, I remember coming into Unilever Food Solutions many years ago and people saying, well, why you have that head of sales role, Not me. I’ve been here for the last five years.
You know, why do we like it, you know. Well, the thing is, I didn’t make that decision. Someone else did. And if I were to be sincere and not to, I would say make someone feel bad. But they didn’t see that you had what it takes. And you can either accept it and then ask yourself the question, Well, who must I become?
What must I learn? Do become so that at the next opportunity I have, I have a better shot. Yes, because I’m not going to promote you. Who’s going to promote you? You, You are you, what you do it like you do or not do is going to tell a story about who you are, who you’re being, and are you worthy of that next role?
So what comes first? Chicken or the egg? Do I get promoted to do a good job or I better do a good job and to get promoted? So again, that really goes back to these basic, basic fundamentals. Wonderful. Okay, so, you know, we spoke a little bit about selling, a little bit about, you know, I think that the mindset is to talk a bit about service.
And I know from hospitality this has a special place in your heart. So if I were to ask you today, many companies talk about this thing called customer journey and multitudes of touch points, right. From your perspective on one, what are some of the basic fundamentals that need to be in place in order for a company to be able to live up to its expectation and its mission vision values to that is it comes to life in the way the customer is moving traverse thing that that experience to start with again no matter what you do what kind of a business you run, you have to be customer
centric. At the end of the day, you live for the customer and you live through the customer. So let’s talk a bit about this customer centricity. What does customer centricity really mean? First, if you claim to deliver a service, make sure you deliver it to the fullest. To be able to deliver the service, you need to listen to your customers.
A very simple thing that happened to me today. I told you I had to call the clinic to drive my daughter. I called and the lady started assuming I was like, Please listen to me, ma’am. It is not for me, it is for my daughter. Then she started assuming something else. So I had to go again. Ma’am, just please listen to me.
I explained the case and I said I’d like to meet this doctor specifically. And we finally reached that point. Then I received an SMS. There was a mistake in decimals guiding me to a different clinic. So again, thank God I read because things are in the details as well. So being customer centric, it has to be on through all the levels of your employees as well.
So you need to embed this kind of spirit of culture again, no matter what you sell, no matter what you deliver, put your customer in the center. And like another I, I had to go to visit somebody, a company a couple of weeks ago, the way to reach them and you call and they start giving you directions and sending one another company.
And I will show it to you when we finish a dentist place they opened and they know it’s a bit of a business. B and you know, you have sometimes two to go around. They created a WhatsApp movie of one minute point 6 seconds where it guides you from the highway to their building to even which floor to park, where to validate your ticket and which elevator to take.
And that’s really cool. Putting the customer in the center. What does this do? The less issues you have for your customer, the more he, he or she feels that they are in the right place, right. I mean it’s and again, it’s all about these little touch points that make the customer feel that they’re there they’re being cared about.
So what’s actually the less you feel you’re being cared about, the more it is. Why? Because when one day you compare between different places, you say to yourself, my God, in that place, I never had to ask for anything else. I never had to ask for this and this. What makes the whole difference? Sometimes your customers do not feel it unless they try something else.
This is why when you’re delivering top notch, nobody will beat you. I love this. When you train your clients, when you I would say, an Arabic style with a customer. When you ask them exactly when you build these habits, build this, this, this habitual way of delivering a service and they and they, they can feel it.
But then it’s only when it’s gone that they actually would say, I prefer to go back to what I was you know and, and this is actually the story of our lives, you know with, with many things we only realize how good something was when we miss it. Absolutely. Great. So, so again, I go back to being customer centric and what else so being two steps ahead.
Three steps ahead, making sure that you’re giving this full attention. I would say stealth mode. So it’s happening in the back. You know, like I see a duck duck on the, you know, going on. But beneath that there’s a lot of an engine like a theater. You’re seeing five people in front of you..
And like any hotel, right. You see the cleanliness, the beauty in the back area of the hotel, It’s a beehive. So the same is another thing that I can add, consistency, slash, perseverance. These two, they always have to go hand in hand again. Sales. It is definitely about consistency. You can never because you stop consistency, you lose most of what you’re delivering.
Perseverance as well. Wipers appearance. Now we’re speaking about you as a salesperson. You have to be perseverant and we all know it. Yes, talent is great, but they say again, the more you get into it, the better you will bring out of it. Consistency and perseverance. Wonderful. Wonderful. So thanks a lot, Antoine, for this. Antoine, just kind of some final thoughts.
We live in a very fast moving world, you know, less than a year ago. There’s this thing called Chad GP that was created then it kind of really accelerated the rate of change and it has accelerated a lot of, I guess, what is possible in terms of, of, of, of engaging with, with clients from your perspective being from hospitality, working within the luxury market, luxury diamond market, super premium high, super high net worth individuals, what role do you see I playing in either enhancing or taking away from that being customer centric, being focused, being attention to detail or anything else that you see.
With that, I have two answers for you. Okay. The first one I think at least in the coming 50 years, because we don’t know where technology will take us. Nothing will be human relations, nothing. It all built on human relations. Chad, Djibouti is not able so far to come shake hands, sit with you, listen to you, show empathy, understand and deliver the service, or become a friend slash client.
And a lot of clients, They stop becoming clients and they become friends at some point. So I don’t think for the coming 50 years this will replace us yet. It is magnificent when you believe in numbers. At school. I used to be somebody who hates math. Then me too. Then I started in hospitality at Sheraton as well and thank them for that.
They made me a Six Sigma green belt where I understood that numbers can speak and can tell you stories as well. So we can use technology . First you need to feed them the right data and then use technology to get out the right reports. The way to the market and this can help you a lot in selling the right to the right product solutions, going to the right customers as well.
Because a lot of time you lose time on customers that might not even be the right lead for you. I’m going to tell you they say knowledge is potential power. Knowledge is not power, but knowledge is potential power. Only when you use knowledge the right way, then that becomes powerful. And I can see some of the gadgets that are coming up.
So the visual, the facial recognition and then being linked to a potential database where you get someone’s LinkedIn profile or WhatsApp profile or not WhatsApp, WhatsApp or Facebook or many of you would never know where this will take it. Absolutely. And you can maybe even see which are the brands that they’ve interacted with or what were the last pages that are the searches?
I mean, imagine you being able to maybe have normal glasses on pretty much right? Similar to these glasses that we took over earlier, If you noticed, we kind of had them and we decided to take them off. Right. And be able to kind of quickly recognize the person coming in. And maybe at least I’m going to say this here, possibly having some insights, some data insights into potential interest, potential likes or dislikes and and other things.
So how do you see that from a let’s call it? I would say that from an ethical perspective, you know, you know, should salespeople utilize such information? Should salespeople say, man, if the customer finds out that I’m using such technology, will they look at me the same way? Would they feel that, you know, I’m being utilized, You know, I’m just another number?
And then that person was a pretty good slash, quote unquote con artist to an extent, to kind of say the right things, to click the right the right buttons around is I think we have always done this since like when I used to sell hotel rooms immediately when I used to step in a place, I used to to see how I can connect.
Right? Sometimes they have cigars, sometimes they have speed cars, sometimes they have retro cameras. Sometimes their kids used to be my age, so they used to relate like, I see my in you. And so I think we always used to do it. Yet you touched a very important point. I think there are some places, although yes, technology is allowing us to know, like if somebody has an open Facebook account, you can go see sometimes you might find mutual friends, but probing deeper than this, this may become governmental issues that I think stick to sales.
And because with all that we are signing off now as a customer privacy and waivers and and the A’s and don’t touch this and that I think for the time being unless maybe we can start creating profiles. Well, yes, you can. You can meet me virtually. You can put on those glasses and I have a consent sign that whoever puts these glasses from my facial recognition, they can know my hobbies, what I do.
And it might happen some. But for the time being, I see all of us salespeople do this and used to do it before trying to understand how we can connect. So you’re right, because from a B2B perspective today you go on LinkedIn, you go on someone’s profile. So you’re simply here accelerating the process. I think in a retail experience and in a retail place, you’re being fed that because you don’t really have time to say, Well, let me check out, let me check you out.
But then again, you come to the point where maybe, just maybe, there is a certain data that people want to make public and maybe companies, again, this is all getting and becoming more and more regulated as we speak. And, you know, so I guess we have to wait and see in terms of how much of that becomes available in the luxury in the luxury retail segment as such wonderful.
Any other thoughts for you or for our audiences aren’t one that you feel would help people to sell more, sell faster and profitably believe in what you’re selling and learn really well about the product that you are selling. Because sometimes you might get some customers like me, usually before buying anything. I really read the manual online to make sure that this product suits me and most of the time my wife loves it because whatever I’m buying, I know about the product more than the salesperson.
And literally I had a car dealership inviting me the day after to tell them stuff that I found in the car. So it should never tell them what stop stuff options that the car does that they did not know. wow. It happened to me here in Dubai, actually, this is not a surprise. A lot of the car dealers that we work with as well have have a very, I would say, primitive type of a knowledge of their own products, but even of the competitor’s products, to know how to possibly give a certain comparison, I even had to a certain product company that offered me one of the products to give them.
My opinion about it because they showed that exactly you knew about it and they wanted your input. Exactly. So not every customer would have this, but the more you know, the more will make your customer believe in you and trust in your opinion. Wonderful. And this brings us to a close today. You know, it is available at people’s fingertips.
If you look at the car industry just short seven years ago, the average person to buy a car, they would visit five, six, seven showrooms and they’ll take the cars on multitudes of test drives. Today, according to research, that number has dropped from five, six, seven to just two showrooms. It’s because of knowledge or because of information available.
So customers pretty much do all the analysis and they’re simply going to is it this or that? And on many occasions, it’s the person at the reception, the person that receives that listen, that empathizes, that closes the deal, that ends up closing the deal. And when the customer walks into your showroom, which by the way, we’re seeing a decline in customers walking into showrooms right.
What needs to happen is the sales professionals need to realize it’s all about empathy, empathy, it’s all about being proactive, and it’s all about providing this unexpected service that really excites people to want to come back and tell others about what they’ve experienced with you. Exactly. Exactly. Wonderful. So until next time, sell more, faster and profitably. Super. Thank you all for excellent service.
Thank you. Thank you.
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