(Imagen 4)
What do you do when you’re just starting out and face an immediate challenge?
Jennifer Zimmerman shared a story about Thomas Keller of the French Laundry:
“When a food critic made a reservation, Keller reportedly reached out and asked them not to write a review. Not because he couldn’t take the heat, but because his young chefs weren’t ready for that kind of scrutiny.
“In short: he stepped in to protect them. He gave them cover.”
Zimmerman classified this as a lesson in team leadership, but I also see a business leadership lesson here. And maybe a thin skin, common to many of us.
Most businesses are not fully formed by day one. Bredemarket certainly wasn’t when I started in 2020; I’ll let you know if it ever gets fully formed.
Chef Thomas Keller realized that it would take time for the French Laundry staff to work together well, so when MacKenzie Chung Fegan arrived at the restaurant, he ensured there wouldn’t be a review that evening. (Fegan hadn’t planned one anyway.)
Then again, Keller has a love-hate relationship with reviewers anyway, so perhaps his motives weren’t that altruistic. From Eater:
“After New York Times critic Pete Wells wrote an unflattering review in 2016 in which he referenced a mushroom soup as appetizing-looking as ‘bong water,’ Keller and his team have taken to giving critics an uncomfortable ‘gotcha’ gift of soup served in a literal weed-ready bong….”
Ceci n’est pas un bang.
But how should business owners and marketers react to a bad review? I admit I’m not that good at this. When someone whom I respect unsubscribed from the Bredemarket Instagram account, I failed to restrain all my disappointment.
But I didn’t serve the person soup in a bong.
Bredemarket 