Valuetainment - February 14, 2026


“Steve Jobs Came To Learn” - Ritz Carlton Founder REVEALS What Apple Studied About Customer Service

Topics
welcome
Hosted by
Patrick Bet-David
Mentioned
Steve Jobs Dave Perry Steve Job Johnson
“Trump Dropped The Dime” - Alex Jones DEFENDS Trump Over 2006 Epstein Police Call “Tricked Out By Uncle Jeffrey” - Ex-Obama Counsel RESIGNS Amid Epstein Files Fallout

Episode Stats


Length

8 minutes

Words per minute

161.88

Word count

1,334

Sentence count

156

Harmful content

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, Ron talks about his life and career, how he got to where he is today, and the importance of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. He also talks about how he won the award twice, and how he became one of the most successful people in the world.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 You won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award twice, 92 and 99.
00:00:07.000 No other company has ever done this before.
00:00:09.180 So what is the significance of that?
00:00:11.380 Because that's straight up from the White House, right?
00:00:13.000 That's straight from the D.C.
00:00:14.080 What is the significance of that?
00:00:16.380 Well, it's a fantastic thing that the government did more intensely.
00:00:23.020 It happened during the 80s when the Japanese became major competitors to us. 1.00
00:00:29.160 They were taking over, they're buying everything and controlling and product and cars and everything.
00:00:37.320 No, we didn't make no more TVs when the Commerce Department said we have to study how to be more competitive with the Japanese.
00:00:47.320 Studied the number one companies in the world, studied the companies that were sustained leaders in their product for many years, why and so on.
00:00:54.660 Found commonalities and created a criteria.
00:00:59.160 And afterwards, we have to find out who in America comes close to that so we can make it an example for other companies.
00:01:09.820 Got it.
00:01:10.020 So when you studied and done apply, if you win the Baltic, you are obligated to open your company up for other companies to come in and learn for a year free.
00:01:22.440 What a concept.
00:01:23.580 Yeah.
00:01:24.180 For a year for free?
00:01:25.580 Yeah.
00:01:26.160 We had every Monday 20, 30 companies there to learn.
00:01:29.920 We created a learning center.
00:01:32.620 No, I figured out how to make money on it.
00:01:34.520 No.
00:01:35.380 So we started at 7 o'clock Monday mornings, so they had to check out on Sunday, check in on Sunday.
00:01:41.920 So they still got to book the room.
00:01:44.680 That's great.
00:01:45.480 So the companies would come and learn.
00:01:46.940 Come and learn from us.
00:01:47.780 If I'm not mistaken.
00:01:48.320 Including Job, Steve Job, before they went into retail.
00:01:54.940 I was about to just say Apple.
00:01:56.360 So Steve Jobs came to you.
00:01:57.760 Yeah.
00:01:58.160 Yeah.
00:01:58.960 Including for retail.
00:02:01.900 Including Disney was there many times.
00:02:05.840 And so on.
00:02:07.000 People are coming in and learning.
00:02:09.040 How do we work the processes, the measurements, the process, the improvements, and so on.
00:02:15.440 And we were pretty good at us.
00:02:18.540 I said our channel manager was kind of best at the improvement, the elimination of process permanently.
00:02:23.820 I tell one story in the book, if you read it.
00:02:28.480 Winston, excellence.
00:02:30.000 In room service, room service.
00:02:31.520 Where we had for six years a complaint.
00:02:34.840 I was the channel manager of the first one, obviously.
00:02:37.440 There was no other hotel.
00:02:40.100 During my time, the complaint room service, I managed it like a normal manager.
00:02:45.320 I said, read my lips, fix it.
00:02:48.660 Doesn't work that way.
00:02:49.680 You have to find out their process.
00:02:51.460 I learned very carefully from the Baltic office how to do that.
00:02:57.320 I had my first Baltic meeting.
00:03:00.340 Somebody said that we were the best hotel company in the world.
00:03:03.720 And I had a lot of complaints.
00:03:05.520 When somebody said, well, of course, I understand.
00:03:08.900 They asked me, best hotel company.
00:03:12.280 I said, maybe we're the best of a lousy lot, but we're not very good.
00:03:16.680 And he said, you should look into the Baltic criteria.
00:03:19.560 Went to Washington.
00:03:21.980 Had a meeting with the head.
00:03:23.400 He explained me the criteria for half an hour.
00:03:26.920 I didn't understand a word he said.
00:03:28.820 Literally.
00:03:29.260 And he said, do you have time for lunch?
00:03:32.760 I had lunch with him.
00:03:34.220 Years later, he asked me, when I became an expert in the issue, do you know why I invite you for lunch?
00:03:41.340 I said, why?
00:03:42.040 He said, you didn't understand the word I said.
00:03:44.700 He knew it.
00:03:45.980 He knew.
00:03:46.660 Why didn't you understand what he said?
00:03:49.760 Fishbowl analysis, parata charts, and things like that.
00:03:52.180 I don't know what they started.
00:03:53.880 I see.
00:03:54.160 I got you.
00:03:54.820 So he knew.
00:03:55.700 Yeah.
00:03:56.120 And he said, let's go further.
00:03:56.880 You have to understand, I left the school when I was 14 years old.
00:04:00.360 That's right.
00:04:01.840 I didn't go to business school.
00:04:03.440 No college, no business school.
00:04:04.900 But later, when I was here, I took the courses in Cornell and so on.
00:04:08.700 Didn't you later on get a PhD or doctorate from some school?
00:04:11.220 Yeah, yeah.
00:04:11.440 Honorary doctorate?
00:04:12.240 Yeah, honorary.
00:04:12.820 Which school was it that gave it to you?
00:04:14.180 I'm sorry.
00:04:17.780 I said it right now.
00:04:18.500 When you ask me names, I always put me in the word Johnson and Wales.
00:04:24.000 Okay.
00:04:24.380 Got it.
00:04:24.900 Very cool.
00:04:25.560 Yeah.
00:04:25.800 Very cool.
00:04:26.340 So Steve Jobs, what did he ask you?
00:04:29.200 What kind of questions was he asking you?
00:04:30.660 I wasn't involved in teaching him at the time.
00:04:32.800 I was out in Asia at the time.
00:04:35.600 But he came in to ask, how do we treat customers?
00:04:38.420 What do you think make us successful?
00:04:40.620 How do we make them successful?
00:04:41.760 By saying hello.
00:04:42.740 And he picked up.
00:04:45.280 I know what he picked up.
00:04:47.760 First contact.
00:04:49.500 We teach.
00:04:50.820 And that's what he got it.
00:04:53.540 Most people don't get it even, what we teach.
00:04:57.060 The behavioral analysts tell you, you make a decision about somebody when you come with
00:05:02.600 10 feet.
00:05:03.220 So how do I make sure you make a good decision?
00:05:07.960 But wait a minute.
00:05:08.780 They make a decision about you.
00:05:09.980 So how make sure that decision is a good one?
00:05:14.340 That's why when you go into the contest, they have somebody staying there right away.
00:05:18.740 Well-dressed.
00:05:19.740 So say, welcome.
00:05:20.600 Can I help?
00:05:21.120 What is the problem?
00:05:21.780 And they take you.
00:05:22.440 And we had learned that from the behavioral analysts.
00:05:26.740 I worked with the behavioral analysts at the University of Colorado and Frankfurt.
00:05:30.440 They said, the decision is made about you the moment when we make contact.
00:05:35.380 That's why we taught you have, when somebody comes within 10 feet, no matter what you do,
00:05:39.560 you look them in the eye and say, welcome.
00:05:40.620 So don't say hi.
00:05:42.340 When you say hi, we are equal.
00:05:44.140 But if I say, welcome, and look you in the eye, I'm saying I respect you.
00:05:53.080 But at the same time, Sam, you can trust me.
00:05:55.960 I'm professional.
00:05:57.320 So we make sure that I hired kids from Center City.
00:06:01.640 I've never seen anything elegant in their life.
00:06:05.020 So now we put them in a great outfit.
00:06:07.500 We teach them not to use certain words, don't say ever hi, don't say okay, say my pleasure, and so on.
00:06:16.380 And three weeks later, this kid meets potentially with the Chairman of the Board of Bank of England, and it works.
00:06:24.240 And it works.
00:06:25.500 That's what he saw.
00:06:27.160 And that's how he created the retail.
00:06:29.300 And be impressed by the look of it.
00:06:32.300 Have this positive in mind.
00:06:34.600 We look, by the way, it's very important for people to know.
00:06:37.500 Businesses and all.
00:06:38.600 We looked at 400,000 comment cards.
00:06:41.060 Beginning, we had comment cards.
00:06:43.360 Chetty Power analyzed them for us.
00:06:45.860 Whenever the first...
00:06:46.960 400,000 comment cards?
00:06:48.320 Yeah.
00:06:48.580 What does that mean?
00:06:49.820 Guests that commented in the room.
00:06:51.160 Oh, comment cards.
00:06:52.020 Got it.
00:06:52.320 400,000 comment cards.
00:06:53.520 Yeah.
00:06:53.820 Got it.
00:06:54.560 They're not scientifically that important.
00:06:57.400 They call in are much more scientific, by the way.
00:07:00.640 But anyway, when I heard them, I worked with Chetty Power. 0.95
00:07:04.520 Dave Power was a friend.
00:07:06.320 They talked and analyzed them.
00:07:08.520 And they came back and said, 100%, without exception, 100%, when the first contact was excellent, never did the complaint follow.
00:07:19.040 Positive subconscious.
00:07:21.060 Whenever there was one negative in either reservation, doorman, or front desk, always did complaints follow.
00:07:28.480 Wow.
00:07:29.600 I mean, wow.
00:07:30.920 So I have to make sure that I'm in first contact.
00:07:33.000 That's why when you walked in the red sky, in first contact, that's why you saw huge flowers.
00:07:37.280 First thing you saw, everything positive in your subconscious, so you feel positive about the rest.
00:07:42.220 Success is built on how you think.
00:07:46.360 Influence is built on how you show up.
00:07:50.860 Every detail matters.
00:07:53.680 Because presence speaks before you do.
00:07:57.720 This is more than style.
00:08:02.000 The future looks bright.
00:08:08.500 If you enjoyed this video, you want to watch more videos like this, click here.
00:08:11.620 And if you want to watch the entire podcast, click here.