I got home on a Saturday at 1:30 AM, which is quite unusual for me, for two reasons.

First, I am never home that early. Second, I am hardly ever home on weekends.  That�s why I remember this so clearly. I was reading a trade journal when it came to me � an epiphany, of sorts. Oddly enough, I recall thinking this many times before, but never did anything about it. I guess I was just tired of reading about again and again.

How many times and how many ways are we going to hear the lifelong adage, �Only the strong survive,� or words to that effect? O.K., we know�we�ve heard it over and over: it�s a sluggish economy. We will have to cut back. We�ve got to get back to basics. We need to re-budget. Re-position. Re-forecast. Look at the future. Appease the investors.  Consider the �what ifs.� Be prepared. Have a contingency plan. And all of those other excuses we�ve heard.

Enough is enough. We have to stop looking at the �big picture.� Our sight isn�t good enough for that, as any CUSTOMER will tell you.

You know, there was a time � call it the �Hospitality Bubble of 2000� - when the big picture was the CUSTOMER. It was easy. Money flowed. Profits mounted. Investors reigned. Repositioning meant opening another property. New budgeting was what you did to figure out what to do with all that cash. A look at the future was exactly that: a look at the future. Getting back to basics didn�t exist, because you were already there.  The battle was over, and we won.

When you take any hospitality situation of any kind and take out the one variable that solves all the equations, you�re going to end up becoming a statistic. That one variable �that one tiny, most misunderstood, over-analyzed, under appreciated, often forgotten variable during these hard, sluggish economic times is not a variable at all. It�s the solution. It�s the answer. It is the CUSTOMER.

How many organizations can truly say that what they are doing or planning for today is for the customer, and not for any other reason? �A lot!� you say. Until you re-read my question. I said, �truly� and doing it for the �customer.� When you realize it has to be �truly� and for the �customer� at the same time, that cuts down the numbers significantly.

The amazing thing is that not long ago, pre-recession, pre-dot-com implosion, pre-9/11, we all truly did everything for the customer. Not only did it work, it was easy. It was real easy.

I don�t know about you, but I�m tired of hearing about how hard it is to make a living, post-9/11. Come on! We�re talking as if it was our grandparents talking about how they had to walk five miles a day to school through the snow with no boots. I know somebody made that walk, but not last year. Not even three years ago. Hell, not even ten years ago.

Nobody�s done anything that hard since prohibition was repealed. Until September 11, 2001, that is. That�s when we forgot about �truly for the customer.�

Hospitality is like a plant. You have to water it, heat it, cool it, manicure it, baby it, feed it, and be part of it. Then it grows. And when it grows, it grows out of control. It grows so big, everybody wants to be a part of it. They want to be an employee, they want to be a guest, a vendor, a spokesman, an advertiser, an owner, an investor, or just someone who knows about it and can talk about it.

We all know that you don�t make money in this business until you spend money, and you haven�t spent money until you have customers, because you did it for no other reason than �truly.� With that said, the kicker is that if you�re doing what you do truly for the customer, it doesn�t really cost any money. The customer, in simple terms, is a �revenue center� and not a �support center.�

It is time to stop looking at customers as a support center � someone or something that is keeping you around and keeping you open � and to start looking at them as a �revenue center.� The one crucial part of your business that makes all things good, that used to be good, that we now talk about like it�s a thing of a bygone age.

You know, you don�t have to be strong to survive, and you don�t even have to be that smart. You just have to be hospitable, and those who use the sluggish economy as an excuse, or are solely focused on repositioning, re-budgeting, worrying about ROI, looking at the �what-ifs�, putting the contingency plan in place � those are the ones who are going to lose in the end, for no better reason than the one we created ourselves: wise customers. Customers are smarter than us, and they have expectations that we�ve created for them. Stop catering to that one variable, and soon enough, you�re going to stop catering completely.

It�s not time to get back to basics, because even the basics in our industry are very complex. It is time to get back to the customer. To do that, you need only simplicity, and the best definition of simplicity in our business is one word: Hospitality, defined as, �the act, practice, or quality of receiving or entertaining strangers or guests in a friendly or generous way.�

Remember those days, when we welcomed people in our doors and they threw money at us? People haven�t forgotten how to throw money. They just don�t have a reason to throw their money at us. We�ve taken it away from them. It�s time to give it back, especially if we want to win. Especially if we want to do what�s right.  Dave Smith, founder of Wendy�s, said that when he went to his grandmother before opening up a burger franchise and asked for her best piece of advice, she said, �Dave, whatever you do, don�t cut corners.� He always said that�s why he had square hamburgers. Seems to make sense to me not to cut corners. How many times do the gurus of the industry, like Jim Sullivan, have to tell us, �Have fun, not a heart attack�?  It�s time that we listen to these people, and get back to the customer. They�re the ones with the money.

You can�t exceed their expectations only when you�re fat and happy, you have to do it all the time. That�s the only way to stay successful. We�ve created this customer who�s smarter than us, knows more than us, and wants what they want. Now it�s time to give it back to them. This shouldn�t just be a train of thought. It should be a philosophy. It should be a teaching. Just the other day, I read in a trade journal that Bill Higgins, of Real Restaurants in San Francisco, said that they�re going to open more restaurants.

They�re not going to worry about the economy. He said that it�s time to �have fun again, like it used to be.�

We�ve got to stop looking at the big picture. The big picture is blurry. It�s time to look at the customer. Give them what they want. Then, and only then, they�ll give us what we want. Exceeding expectations doesn�t just happen. It�s something that you manage, something that you do every day, all the time. Once you do it, you can�t take it away from the guests. They want it every time, and it�s time to give it back to them. To exceed expectations, we need to think like the guest thinks. After all, it�s the small things in life that are big.

It�s simple. Be hospitable and go out there and have fun again. Everything else will fall into place. It always has, and always will. It�s a time-tested formula. We�re the last industry of true humanity, of real interpersonal contact. Let�s not take that away. If we do that, we�ve got nothing. You don�t have to be strong to survive. You don�t have to be smart to survive. You just have to be hospitable.