mornin' merry makers 🔑🛎️🧠🧩🪜
let me tell you about a problem i've seen play out dozens of times as a retail brand operator & as a customer...
a brand opens their first store. the founder is there every day. the manager is committed. the team gets it. customers rave. nps is through the roof. word spreads.
then they open store #2. and #3. and #6.
same logo. same products and services. totally different experience.
the founder can't be everywhere anymore. the magic starts to fade. and everyone's scratching their heads wondering what went wrong.
most people think the problem here is hiring and the people…
it’s not.
it’s the lack of a system that tells your team how to deliver the experience consistently, without you there.
in today’s letter:
→ why “great vibes” don’t scale (even with great people)
→ the system that turns “be nice” into repeatable behavior
→ how world-class brands engineer consistency on purpose
why you need a how
most brands have their foundation figured out:
your mission is your WHY. why you exist. why you get out of bed. why anyone should care.
your product is your WHAT. what you sell. what you make. what fills the shelves.
your values are your WHO. who you hire. who you are as a culture. the beliefs that guide your team internally.
but here's what's almost always missing…
your steps of service are your HOW. how your team actually delivers the experience. the operating system between your values and your customer.
steps of service are the specific, repeatable actions your team uses with every customer, especially when it’s busy, uncomfortable, or something goes wrong.
you can’t rely on vibes
without documented steps of service, here's what happens:
inconsistency becomes the norm. your best store and your worst store feel like different companies. same logo, very different vibes. customers notice. they just don't always tell you.
training becomes a game of telephone. your original team trained the next wave, who trained the next wave. somewhere along the way, the magic got lost in translation.
managers can't coach effectively. when "great service" isn't defined, how do you give feedback? how do you know what to look for? you end up coaching on vibes instead of behaviors.
scaling costs more than it should. you keep hiring good people, but without clear guidance they still deliver inconsistent experiences. your brand misses targets, stalls expansion, or feel forced to hire layers of management.
your best employees burn out. they're carrying the weight of "figuring it out" while watching others phone it in. that's exhausting and demoralizing.
the difference in action
if you still think telling employees to "be positive" is enough…
i'm positive you'll keep getting a different interpretation at every store 😏
your steps of service define it:
greet every customer within 10 seconds with a smile and eye contact
use the customer's name whenever possible
give each customer a genuine compliment at checkout:
with steps of service, “be positive” becomes observable. trainable. coachable. repeatable.
this is how service improves without you policing it.
why i care so much about this
last year, one of my fave consulting projects was helping a brand design and implement their very own steps of service.
we spent weeks studying what their best team members were already doing instinctively. we mapped the entire journey. we workshopped language. we tested and refined. we created onboarding training. we re-trained the entire team.
it wasn't fast. and it wasn't cheap.
but helping this brand codify what was already working into a framework that they can continue to use for years to come as they double their footprint was one of the most rewarding projects i've done that i know will play dividends for years to come.
i know that not every brand has the budget (or the time) to hire someone like me to build this from scratch.
so i decided to do something about it.
introducing: the steps of service playbook
i put together everything i've learned into a free playbook designed to help more brands create their own steps of service, with the help of ai.
here's what's inside:
a swipe file of how 5 world-class brands engineer consistent customer experience (apple, chick-fil-a, disney, ritz-carlton, & trader joe's).
an ai prompt that creates a custom steps of service draft for your brand in minutes.
make it stick guidance on why most service standards fail and what they actually need to work.
i'm genuinely proud of this one. it takes something that used to require months of work and gives you a running start in an afternoon.
here's where i need your help
this year, i’m focused on helping more retail brands build the systems that make great service repeatable and keep stores profitable (aka actually open).
the fastest way for this playbook to reach the right operators right now is linkedin.
i just shared the playbook there.
if you want the free playbook,
pop over to the post, like it, & comment.
then i’ll dm it you asap.
it’ll take you < 10 seconds & costs nothing.
this isn’t about gaming the algorithm. it’s about making sure a genuinely useful tool reaches the people it was built for. the founders and operators who are dealing with inconsistent service and don’t have time to reinvent the wheel.
your engagement helps it travel further than my network alone ever could.
plus i love seeing who’s reading this newsie & want to be connected 😍
here’s the post:
thank you for indulging my very 2026 request and for helping me get useful things into the right hands. truly appreciate you. 💛
hope you’re staying warm wherever you’re reading this today.
p.s. if you're not on linkedin or just want the direct link, reply to this email and i'll send it your way. no weirdness 💛