What's YOUR Sauce?

In my change work, I have observed that every organization highly values something it might label its 'Special Sauce.' By 'sauce', I don't mean something spreadable for hamburgers or friable for chicken. True, while working at Colonel Sanders Mansion in Louisville, Kentucky, I observed the lengths Yum! Brands goes to safeguard its secret recipe for finger-lickin’ good chicken. At McDonald's Headquarters in Oakbrook, Illinois, I witnessed firsthand the training and tasting kitchen where Big Macs? are still put through their paces. But companies outside the quick service restaurant industry also take pains to develop, nurture, and protect a special sauce of their own—an offering that is uniquely theirs.

I was once asked by Universal Studios to derive an algorithm for creating the perfect motion picture. It attempted to pair a movie director with just the right title, featuring just the right stars, and wrapping the entire production with just the right marketing and distribution package to create a blockbuster on every release.?

AMC theatres once asked Steve Shoyer and me to build an AI to assemble the perfect balance of movies that, given the low margins on ticket sales compared to the high return on concessions, would sell the most soft drinks at any given cinema.

Both entertainment companies were seeking the holy grail of their industry: a special sauce to put on a golden egg.

Once perfected, organizations then preserve and defend their sauce. I once helped a large hotel company embed an AI in the information system that set rates for its one million rooms 90 days into the future. So valuable was that secret recipe that after investing well over $100 million in a joint venture with its travel partners, the company chose to walk away from the project rather than divulge the details of an algorithm that fueled its yield management system, an asset they called its 'crown jewels.'

So how do successful organizations go about designing such jewels—the sauce that draws customers to their doors by the 'billions and billions' as McDonald's now boasts? Is there a recipe for cooking up that kind of recipe?

For that, you'll want to consider what my colleague Gerard F. McDonough ? Senior Managing Director of Ankura, discovered about the messaging most successful brands in the world use to attract customers. Gerry taught me early in my consulting career that every organization, intentionally or subconsciously, develops, safeguards, and works diligently to maintain and improve its sauce by following the same formula of success. He called it their 'MVP,' or Massive Value Proposition. Unlike the 33 ingredients (count 'em!) of a Big Mac's value proposition, Gerry's own sauce called for only four ingredients:

1. Conspicuous Benefit: What will buyers say, think, or implicitly understand they'll be getting in exchange for their money?—ideally, only one.
2. Colossal Distinction: In what ways is their product or service unique from that of their competitors?—one or two max.
3. Honest Reason to Trust: What evidence will buyers rely on to accept the stated claims about Benefit(s) and Distinction(s)?—a few memorable anecdotes, slathered in truth.

Gerry’s research consistently showed that organizations that possessed and preserved those three ingredients in their offerings were nearly always found at the top of their respective pyramids.?

"Think about Apple. What do you imagine you’re getting when you buy an Apple product??What compels you to buy it? Research shows you buy their products because (1) you can articulate what they will do for you; (2) you implicitly know what sets them apart from the alternative; and (3) you trust either from experience or word of mouth they will deliver on those expectations."

Gerry’s final ingredient is the cauldron that boils the first three must-haves into a cohesive message that persuades ahead of your choice and continues to reinforce it after the fact.

"Every single message Apple communicates , from Steve Jobs to his product developers, throughout the marketing department down to the? entry level service tech on the other end of the phone, clearly and consistently delivers the first three ingredients.”

Since meeting Gerry, in every organization I enter, when it comes to deriving (or at least reminding) my team's or client's value proposition, I get out his recipe book and start cooking.

Good for goose and gander, Gerry’s approach applies equally to both institutions and individuals. We might not think of ourselves as products or services. (Sounds a little too transactional, doesn't it?) But when our consumers hire, promote, or give us a plum project to lead—insert your own goal here—that is exactly how we are viewed by those in a position to select our offerings. Just as we might choose Apple over Samsung—or vice versa—those in a position to 'buy' our talent ask themselves the same questions about us that we do when buying a new phone.

1. What do I get from this person?
2. In what ways is she different from that person?
3. What makes me think he will deliver?

And if Gerry is right, everything we say, write, or do creates or adds to the reputation of our MVP—the Massive Value Proposition others will evaluate when making decisions about our future.

We might, then, occasionally ask ourselves whether our resumes address Gerry's first three questions. And if our resumes, why not our presentations? Our elevator pitches? The way we conduct ourselves whenever people are watching, and even when they're not?

By the way, according to the fine print on 4,000 bottles of Big Mac sauce that once sold out in Australia in only 15 minutes, here is the ingredient list of McDonald's Special Sauce:

Soybean Oil, Pickle Relish, Distilled Vinegar, Water, Egg Yolks, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Onion Powder, Mustard Seed, Salt, Spices, Propylene Glycol Alginate, Sodium Benzoate, Mustard Bran, Sugar, Garlic Powder, Vegetable Protein, Caramel Color, Extractives of Paprika, Soy Lecithin, Turmeric, Calcium Disodium EDTA .

What's in your sauce?

Scott Knell is a social thinker and change scientist fascinated by individuals and institutions in transition. To read his impressions on Being and Becoming, visit his personal blog at Indirections I Have Lived By.

? 2023 Scott Knell, all rights reserved.