A few post back I wrote about “Thank You Notes” from Retail establishments and how that made such a big difference to the customers.  It was commented that the culture of the organization started at the top and worked its way down.

How TRUE a statement that is:  I received this letter from a friend and colleague yesterday and I can only believe that this organization“Red Robin” has a great culture from the TOP Down!  Here is staff going above and beyond:

Dear Family and Friends-

On March 24, 2008 my youngest(and tallest) brother, Kirby, had an arthroscopic heart procedure to repair a very large hole.

Somehow, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers found out about Kirby and our family and 3 staff members(1 as Red Robin himself, and 2 managers) came to the hospital after Kirby’s successful surgery with a huge gift basket, a pillow and pillow case signed by all the staff at their Red Robin, and a ton of food(exactly what Kirby was looking for after going so long without food for the surgery).

To celebrate the 1 year anniversary of that successful surgery, we went to Red Robin on March 26, 2009 to be with our “Red Robin family” who demonstrated so much love to us a year earlier.

We arrived to find a table set for us, a special welcome sign(made by the general manager & his wife), huge smiles, welcoming arms, and warm hearts. We visited with them, giving them updates on Kirby and the family, and soon enjoyed an INCREDIBLE meal. To explain an INCREDIBLE meal: 5 huge burgers, onion rings, bottomless fries and colas.

The staff even sang Kirby a Birthday song since his birthday was about a month previous. Near the end of our meal, the waitress delivered our “bill”. The “bill” indicated a balance of $0- a full, huge meal at no cost! How incredible!

THESE PEOPLE ARE AMAZING AND HAVE BLESSED MY FAMILY! Please, PLEASE visit/support Red Robin, especially the one in Noblesville, IN, mention Kirby, and express the huge amount of gratitude the Cotterman family has for our “Red Robin family”.

Hazel M Walker, owns three award winning franchise’s. She is a 10 year owner of two BNI Franchises where she teaches members how to leverage their time and network to build each others businesses. She is also a Referral Institute franchise owner and teaches Business Owners how to harness the Science of Referrals to develop Referrals for Life. Hazel is a published author in New York Times best sellers Masters of Networking and Masters of Sales. As a member of the National Speakers Association she travels the world speaking to businesses and women’s organizations on the topics of networking to create a life you love.

I plan to write more about event planning soon, byt there are a few quick things I would like to note until I have time to write a post:

1. What can go wrong, will go wrong. The best thing to do is be prepared and stay calm. One guest complimented me on my demeanor. He said that demeanor shows a lot about a person and I showed that I can roll with things even when things aren’t quite right.
2. You don’t get to enjoy the event. I took about three bites of my food and I was back up again, checking on the buffet and going around the room. My job was to make sure things ran smoothly and enjoying myself was low on my list of priorities. Luckily, the waitress was nice enough to give me a to-go bag of all the food served. I enjoyed the food after the event.
3. The event will probably start late. You can’t control what time people arrive, even if you tell them to get there early. It helped that I built extra time into the schedule to help with this.
4. Event planning is harder than it looks. My friend Jena told me this last year after she planned this same event. I didn’t quite believe her until I was in her position. I’m sure some things I did was criticized by others. But until someone is completely in charge of planning an event, I’m not sure they have much room to talk. You don’t know the hassles and stresses of event planning until you’ve actually done it.
5. If you expect it to be simple, it won’t be. I bought 10 glass vases from the local dollar store. Several of them started leaking after being filled with water. You wouldn’t expect glass vases to not be able to hold water.

Rachel M. Esterline works as an account executive for Central Michigan Life, the nationally award-winning school newspaper at Central Michigan University. She is as an account executive for PR Central, CMU’s student-run public relations firm and as a public relations executive with the Student Government Association. Additionally, Rachel serves on the executive board of the Public Relations Student Society of America at CMU and has completed a seven-month internship with her university’s public relations and marketing department. Rachel will graduate in May 2010 with a degree in public relations with minors in journalism and communication.