How Izzy Sharp BUILT A Legendary Hotel Chain

Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael and welcome to another edition of Modeling the Masters. Today we're going to look at how a high school jock whose only priority was partying turned his life around to create one of the most successful hotel chains in the world. This is the story of Izzy Sharpe from the Four Seasons Hotel and the top 3 lessons that you can learn from his success.

Izzy Sharpe is a Canadian businessman and founder and chairman of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. Sharpe didn't have much stability in his youth and moved 15 times in 16 years. Teen years. He also didn't care much for school. According to Sharp, "My life in high school revolved around sports. Partying became my priority." That all changed when Sharp was accepted into the architecture program at Toronto's Ryerson Polytechnical Institute. He began to earn high marks for his creations and worked for his father building houses and small apartment buildings. Yearning for more, at age 29 he founded the Four Seasons Hotel in 1960 and opened his first hotel on Jarvis Street in downtown Toronto. He built a reputation for luxury and sweat in the details, which allowed his business to flourish. In 2006, Bill Gates and Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bought control of the company for $3.4 billion. Sharpe's current net worth is $540 million.

By sweating the details and by reaching for his dreams, Sharpe turned his life around and focused on business instead of partying. He was able to build one of the most recognized companies in his industry as a result. To help you build your business, here are 3 action items that you can learn from Izzy Sharp.

Action Item #1: Inspire your employees. If you ever want to build a business beyond yourself, you're going to have to have a team of people working with you who are inspired to give their very best every day. Sharp didn't become the leading luxury hotelier in the world all by himself. In the over 50 years he's been in the industry, Sharp has developed a unique leadership style that has encouraged his employees to devote 110% of themselves to the company. By creating a working environment that is built on trust, credibility, and integrity, Sharp has inspired his team to work to realize their best efforts. In the end, he understood that this was the secret ingredient to helping the company realize its best results. According to Sharp, we do that, first of all, By establishing a meaningful goal, an overriding purpose that most people can relate to. If the goal is clear and the focus is sharp and constantly reinforced, we unify and energize through a sense of common purpose that inspires employees to ardent effort. Action Item #2: Really service your customers. The best companies are based on happy customers and repeat business. You want to strive to create an experience where your customers love buying from you and tell their friends as well. In each and every one of its worldwide locations, the Four Seasons tends to set the top hotel price for the area. It's usually about 20% higher than its closest competitor. How can Sharpe risk such a pricing policy? He does it by guaranteeing that his guests get a fail-safe experience so that a company's eager to pay the extra $50 to ensure a hassle-free trip for an executive who might be working on a $50 million deal. According to Sharp, "Our competitors interpreted luxury chiefly as dazzling architecture and decor, but how important is that to our customers? They're mostly executives, often under pressure, fighting jet lag, stress, and the clock. We decided to redefine luxury as service." Action Item #3: Live by the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule is to treat people as you would like to be treated. It's not only a great way to achieve happiness as an entrepreneur, it's also a highly profitable strategy. Driving force behind Sharpe's success has been his desire to treat Four Seasons employees with the same level of respect that they in turn are expected to give their guests. The success of this policy has shown itself not only in terms of customer happiness but also employee engagement and satisfaction. For years, the Four Seasons has been the only Canadian company to land on Fortune magazine's list of the best 100 companies to work for in the US. According to Sharp, "We aim to treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves. Enforcing our credo was the hardest part, and senior managers who couldn't or wouldn't live by it were weeded out within a few years. We hire for attitude. We want people who like other people and are therefore more motivated to serve them.

Competence we can teach; attitude is ingrained." So remember, inspire your employees, really service your customers, and live by the Golden Rule. To finish up this video, I wanted to share one of my favorite true stories about Izzy Sharp and some of his best quotes.

In 1967, one Four Seasons employee went to the extreme in demonstrating the kind of service Sharp was trying to encourage. A bellboy for the hotel, Roy Diamond, discovered that a dignitary guest had left his briefcase behind after checking out. The guest soon called from Washington stating that the contents of the briefcase were essential for an upcoming meeting. Feeling responsible, Diamond bought a plane ticket at his own expense and personally delivered the briefcase to the former guest.

Thank you for joining me for another edition of Modeling the Masters. I hope you enjoyed. I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback if you want to leave a comment below. And please give the video a thumbs up. Stay tuned for the next episode.