(Excerpt from The Power of Positive Habits)
After I moved to Jacksonville, Florida, with my family and opened a few restaurants, my friend’s father kept encouraging me to meet his friend Harris Rosen, who owned hotels in Orlando.
So one day I drove to Orlando to meet Harris Rosen in his office.
As I sat across from him, he looked at me curiously and asked flippantly, “And you’re here because?”
After an awkward pause that felt like an eternity, I said, “Mr. Berkery encouraged me to come meet you and I like to learn from successful people, so here I am. I just opened up a few Moe’s Southwest Grill franchises in Jacksonville and it’s going pretty well.”
He then began to ask me questions about how I was running and marketing the business.
I told him how I was collecting emails from my guests and adding them to an email newsletter and when I opened a new location I would email everyone a free burrito coupon that they could email and share with others.
Whenever we opened a new location we would have a line of people with their emailed coupons. It was instant marketing and instant customers!
Harris picked up his phone, called one of his employees, and told him what I said. Then he asked, “Are we doing this?”
When he heard that the answer was no, he chuckled as he looked at me, shook his head, and said, “You never know. You never know.”
In essence he was saying he was really surprised that this meeting turned out to be beneficial for him, and you never know where your next idea will come from and whom it will come from.
It’s a lesson I never forgot and have put into practice. I believe in learning from everyone and seeing everyone as a teacher who can teach you something if you’re willing to take the time to ask questions and learn.
When you make this a habit, you receive all sorts of ideas from unlikely sources, and you never stop learning and growing!
Lead Positive,
Jon
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