MEET ARJUN SEN
Journey to wow one more®
I define myself as a father first and one of the luckiest persons on the planet. My daughter, Raka, has been one of coolest forces in my life and taught me the biggest lesson of all: “A successful journey is all about touching one more person.” This is relevant for every business as impact happens with one team member and one customer at a time. How we impact the lives of that one team member, and that one customer defines our long-term success. I’ve been lucky to work for some of the most fascinating brands and with CEOs of some of the world’s biggest companies, entrepreneurs who built empires, and some of the smartest marketing people on the planet. But the person I may have learned more from than anyone else was my grandmother, who raised me in Kolkata, India.
She taught me the importance of learning, discipline, and hard work. For 12 years, she woke up every morning at 4:00 AM so she could get me up and ready for school. She reminded me over and over again, success is 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration. One day I asked her why I was named Arjun. I thought I knew the answer as the meaning of the word Arjun in Sanskrit is “one and only.” She told me that the Bhagavad Gita tells us Arjun was Krishna’s best friend. Arjun like many others did not know everything but was the only one who asked questions and Krishna gave wise answers to Arjun. She shared that when she first looked at me, she realized I may not be the smartest person, but like that other Arjun, I would be the person who will find answers; but I have to ask the questions.
Which I have done throughout my life; throughout my school days and college in India, graduate school in the U.S., and multiple careers. I’m still seeking answers today; and my biggest goal in life is to ask more questions everyday as once the questions are asked, it is imperative on all of us together to find answers.
So let me answer a few questions you may be asking. How did I get here, to this point in my life and career? What did I learn along the way? Why am I doing this book? And perhaps most important, what will you get out of reading it?
I didn’t expect my journey to bring me to America, and I certainly didn’t expect to become a Fortune 500 executive, a business builder, and a Brand Zen™ who helps others find the answers they’re looking for. Sometimes life has a plan for all of us and here is how it worked for me.
My original plan was to be an engineer. Specifically, I got my undergraduate degree in Aerospace Engineering. You may be thinking, how does someone go from such a precise, logical, analytical field to one that requires more in the way of
creativity and flexibility. What I learned about engineering actually proved to be quite valuable as I moved ahead in the corporate and marketing worlds. Engineering taught me the importance of processes and frameworks, but then you have to come up with a different and better answer to any question to get better results. It also taught me how to be comfortable in a world where there are many people smarter than you. This was a very valuable lesson as life is a marathon, and when someone runs ahead of you it is important to stick to one’s own race plan and not chase others.
Then when I was pursuing my MBA, a professor’s compliment led to a lesson that continues to serve me well. He praised a paper I had written and complimented me on how concise I was. I had used graphs and charts instead of lengthy copy, and as a result the paper was only one page. He said, “These other students are writing 20 and 30 page papers that aren’t saying any more than yours.” Confession time…I was a poor student and I needed to keep the cost of printing down. Which taught me that sometimes your limitations can become your asset. More important, it taught me the power of the one-sheet as that forces you to keep all the important information in front of you. It was his compliment, and his influence on me, that got me into marketing.
The power of the one-sheet helped open that door. Remember Bo Jackson, who played both professional football and baseball? Nike had a very successful advertising campaign called “Bo knows.” I was applying for a job at Pizza Hut. I put together a resume consisting of one piece of red paper with several pictures saying, “Arjun does this, Arjun does this. Does Bo know marketing?” Pizza Hut hired me within three days.
But a unique strategy doesn’t always work with everyone. I had sent a similar resume to Xerox, and I never even got a response. Years later, I met their number-two guy at a conference. I told him about my experience, and how because of them, my batting average dropped dramatically. He said, “That’s not possible, we always respond.” Then I described my resume. He said, “You sent the red resume with Bo Jackson? That went all the way to our board, and we just couldn’t think of a proper way to respond to you. Bear in mind, it took us 15 years to go from white shirts to vertical stripes. You were 100 years ahead of us.”
That reinforced one of the biggest branding lessons of all times; branding is not about being the person that connects to everyone. It’s about offering something unique, and always seeing everything through the eyes of the consumer. It is choosing who will appreciate you most and tailoring your brand’s offering primarily to that person.
That was helpful in my next job, at Boston Market, which was then still called Boston Chicken. I helped them launch one of the coolest sandwiches ever, called the Boston Carver. Let’s face it, making a sandwich is easy. The bread makes it look good, but what’s inside matters. (I learned that again years later while watching the movie Beauty and the Beast with my daughter) We realized that if we put great chicken in the sandwich and found the best way to deliver it, we’d be successful. We also realized we needed to take a different approach with men than women. Men want more protein and women want more variety. The common denominator for both genders is the quality of the ingredients. So, you always need to identify your consumer and look at your product or service through their eyes.
Then I went on to work for a bagel company as a founding member. Our team bought four of the best regional bagel companies in the country and tried to put them together as Einstein Bros. Bagels. Each of the four bagel companies were unique but had very different cultures. Putting them together as one did not work as four unique pieces does not make a perfect whole. What I learned in that journey was the vision for the business needs to define the culture from day one.
That got me to Papa John’s where I met a passionate founder who loved making pizzas, cared about every franchisee’s success and was ready to grow the business. He and his team were doing everything right but somehow team members and customers were not feeling the unique difference of the brand. Soon my team started extracting and telling the story of the tomatoes (how in 4 to 6 hours a tomato goes from a vine to a sauce with no preservatives), the story of the founder starting from a coat closet and how he sold his first car to start the first Papa John’s. Soon I realized in a world of scream and tell, where every business is trying to buy the next Dollar of sales; telling stories creates long-term connections in the mind of customers.
Just when everything was going great at Papa John’s came one of the biggest learning moments, when I missed out on a promotion, I thought was going to be a slam-dunk for me. The President told me, "Arjun, the reason you're not getting a promotion is because you do not spend enough time as a guest in our restaurant and in our competition. You are on the path to being customer-arrogant." I was angry and I was hurt, but soon I realized he was right, and I knew I needed to always follow this rule: Be humble. Be the customer. Feel the customer’s feelings.
I learned that when it comes to restaurants, it’s all about making every customer feel good. Think back to when you were a child. You hung out with other kids who made you feel good. If there was a kid that bullied you, you didn’t want to play with that kid. We are wired to feel good and stay in a feel-good environment. Then it dawned on me that every customer every time, before the end of the experience, decides about future visits. It is very similar to when you are out on a date, you decide about your future connection to the person sitting across you, right then and there before the date is over. A light bulb went on, as I realized that it is all about making every customer feel good before they leave that makes them come back; and that is the best loyalty program any restaurant can ever have. Later I extended the concept to team members as I realized it is easier to retain team members if we make them feel good every time.
When you think of that concept, the Feeling Business®, and remember we are all human beings, there are eight words I live by: Be human, think human, feel human, act human. Unlike other businesses, when a customer chooses you for a meal, there’s no backup. If you screw up, that customer will be hungry and will be unhappy. Every restaurant experience is like a snowflake. It’s different every time. The customer’s experience is redefined every time. Even if it’s the same bagel you always order or the same sandwich, it’s created for you and given to you by a team member who happens to be one of the lowest-paid members of the team. As a restaurant owner, you have a responsibility to make that experience consistently wow every time. You’re not in the food business, instead you’re in the human feeling business that involves serving food. Now go a step beyond; if the team members delivering the experience are not feeling good about working for your restaurant, how do you expect them to make customers feel good? So, the answer is simple: make every team member feel good so they in turn can make customers feel good; every time. Every time is important as that builds trust and trust results in a lifetime connection.
I had a pretty good career going in the restaurant business. I had good jobs with big companies, and we were having great success. So naturally, I decided to do something else. I realized it was time to take what I had learned and use it to help other restaurants grow. It was time to form my own company. This also coincided with a personal goal of mine to be a dad first. My daughter was eight years old when I quit the corporate world and that decision got me rewarded with incredible moments with her as she grew up.
People always ask me how it came to be called ZenMango. What does it mean, and where did it come from? I tell them, sometimes it pays to have a teenage daughter who at the age of 13 made Ad Age’s 40 under 40 list. We were initially called Restaurant Marketing Group, which, needed to change as clients were migrating to non-restaurant businesses. So, one day we were sitting in my basement brainstorming on a new name. My daughter and a friend, who were 13 at the time, came over to us and my daughter said, “Hey, if I come up with a new name, will you buy us pizzas?” I said, “Sure,” and didn’t think anything of it.
10 minutes later they came back and handed me a piece of paper with ZenMango written on it. I was not impressed. But she said, “Dad, hear me out. Zen rhymes with Sen, our last name. It also is a thing of superiority, and something people want. A mango is the world’s fastest-growing fruit, and you can keep your current brand colors.” They even drew the logo which we still use today. She said, “Dad, when you say awesome, you do this gesture.”
I did not know how to react to this radical idea. One of my team members said, “Arjun, just pause. It will take us years to appreciate how big this is.” So that’s how ZenMango was born. And every time I tell the story it makes me feel connected to my daughter and it makes me realize just how brilliant she is.
I’ve talked a lot about learning. One of the things we must learn from is our mistakes. The smartest people on the planet are going to make mistakes. The biggest companies on the planet have made some doozies. I worked with one of them. Coca Cola. We all remember when they decided “New Coke” was a good idea.
No one intentionally makes mistakes. When we do something, we are passionate about it, we make what we think is the best decision possible based on what we know. But if you don’t use that mistake as a learning moment, that can be an even bigger mistake.
When Boston Chicken was going through the name change to Boston Market, I was in charge of the project. But in an organization, being in charge doesn't necessarily mean you have veto power. During this process, my heart kept telling me, “Market” means you are becoming a distribution point for food. That means you're on the path to becoming generic, and it can mean bigger distribution points, like grocery stores can add a rotisserie and take you out of the business. But the train had left the station and senior management was totally convinced this was the right thing. I pushed back, but in hindsight I didn’t push nearly hard enough. The name changed to Boston Market, and the rest is history. The brand with a cult-like following, the brand that was first to bring home meal replacement to the marketplace, lost its niche. They lost their equity in the customer’s mind in the marketplace, and other companies came in and took over the space we used to own. It took years for future leaders to bring the brand back to the path of success. That was a costly mistake, but I learned a lot from it.
Of course, sometimes it helps to just avoid a mistake in the first place. Remember my grandmother telling me I wasn’t going to be the smartest person in the room? Albert Einstein certainly was. When we were trying to come up with the name of the newly formed bagel company, I was excited as I wanted to be on the ground floor of something new. We decided we wanted to use the name Einstein because we wanted to convey starting your day with something smart. So now we’re negotiating with the Einstein family, and it wasn’t going particularly well because as you can imagine, they’re very protective. Then I remembered something my grandmother had told me, about Einstein having a sister, but she never said anything about a brother. So I told the lawyers, “Let’s call it Einstein Brothers.” Albert Einstein didn’t have a brother. We named our brothers Melvin and Elmo. We didn’t get sued.
I think I’ve answered your questions about me, which leads to this: Why the book? Why this book, done this way, at this time? When I began my podcast, I only had one goal in mind. Talk to interesting people. People I like, people I respect, and people who will share things that others can learn from. Including me.
Along the way, I realized there were some common threads among every single person I had the good fortune of talking with. They all walk the walk. They all believe in team members first, and customers first. They all believe in finding a way to perform at the highest level. I realized I was talking to leaders from all walks of life. Which is important because everyone’s journey is unique. But even in a diversity of thinking, there is a unity of vision. I wish I could have learned what they shared earlier in my career.
Many of the books we read in the so-called business section are written by people sitting in the comfort of their home, sharing their theories. There’s not enough out there written from the trenches. There’s not enough out there sharing real knowledge based on real experiences. That’s what these interviews are about.
Anyone in the restaurant space or the hospitality space who picks up this book will be able to go on an incredible journey with these leaders. You’ll learn about what they did and how they did it. You also will see how each of these leaders keep things very simple and speak in everyday language that is relatable to all. Over the years I have found that there are only three kinds of jobs in any business. They are:
As you read the book you will be able to see in which category your job falls. Maybe you’ll say, “I want to be like that person. I want to do that. I want to experience that.” If that happens, I think this book will trigger many more incredible ideas.
I learned so much from talking to these amazing people. I learned that there are no boundaries to what we can do. I realized that while I’ve achieved great success in my life, I can still do bigger things. I still have a bigger journey ahead. Even at this stage of my career, these interviews opened my eyes to the fact that I still sometimes don’t see the bigger picture.
When you can put all the pieces together and connect the dots, there are no limits.
If you happen to come up to me down the road and say, "Arjun, I read your book six months ago,” first of all, I hope you don’t complete the sentence with something generic like “…and it was a great book,” or “it was really interesting.”
My goal for this book is to share the knowledge and the passion. To give individual nuggets to individual people, so each one can apply it in their own world and make an impact. I want you to say, “Based on this book, I found three things I could do. I’m doing this, my team is doing this, and I want to thank you for that.” And I want to see the light in your eyes when you say that. To me, this book is a flame. I want you to take the flame and light whatever you want to in your life, whether it’s a candle or a bonfire or something bigger. It's not the light, it's what you do with it.
So let’s get started.
