The Core Philosophy Behind Pavement to Profit

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In hospitality, many people still believe the Guest Journey starts when the customer walks through the door.

Many people are wrong.

The Guest Journey starts the second the guest becomes aware you exist.

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THE PAVEMENT TO PROFIT FOUR–STAGE FRAMEWORK

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The entire Guest Journey can be understood in four psychological and behavioural stages:​

1️⃣ The Expectation Phase ​

2️⃣ The Activation Phase,

3️⃣ The Immersion Phase

4️⃣ The Echo Phase

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This is the complete 360° psychological, emotional, and behavioural journey of every hospitality guest on earth.​​​​​ I'll talk you through it in this prequel/trailer/preamble to Season 1 Episode 1.

THE PAVEMENT TO PROFIT PODCAST EXISTS ...

...because the Guest Journey is a many faceted psychological, emotional, sensory, behavioural, biological chain that starts LONG before the Guest eats, drinks or sleeps and continues LONG after they’ve left.

And every stage can lift or destroy: ​trust, comfort, value perception, spend, loyalty, reviews, reputation, profit.

Pavement to Profit shows the industry:​ what guests actually feel / what psychology is actually happening / what details actually matter / what staff actually influence / what leaders actually ignore

Few teach this. Few even notice it.

This is why Pavement to Profit is not a podcast. It’s a revelation. A truth serum. A challenge. A wake-up call.

A psychology session disguised as entertainment.

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Pavement to Profit is the bold, cheeky, brutally honest hospitality podcast that exposes the invisible, psychological, sensory realities of the guest journey — the ones many in the industry ignore, the ones guests absolutely feel, and the ones that determine whether you make money… or haemorrhage it.

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Hosted by Ben — experience detective, detail sniper, hospitality truth-teller — the show breaks down every moment of the customer journey.

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This is not a food podcast.

This is not a management lecture.

This is not “customer service basics.”

This is the forensic emotional map of hospitality.

The psychology. The sensory science. The expectation bias. The disgust triggers. The trust anchors. The value perceptions.

The micro-moments that make guests return — or run.

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If you work in hospitality, lead a venue, train a team, own a business, or simply love great experiences…

this is the wake-up call you’ve been avoiding.​

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Funny.

Honest.

Slightly rude.

Rarely wrong.

Always useful.

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Pavement to Profit — because the guest journey doesn’t start at the door…

and it certainly doesn’t end with the bill.

pavementtoprofit.com

pavementtoprofit.co.uk

buaidh.org

Buaidh 2025 is my thinking, Pavement to Profit is my voice

Contact ben@buaidh.org

"Pavement to Profit" is a hospitality wake up call, focused upon the Guest Experience, digging deep into what matters, what makes guests the way they are, what psychology, emotion, behaviour, goes on when a Guest experiences our venues; hotels, restaurants, cafes, bars.

And it "Pavement to Profit" questions what we do within hospitality to really recognise the Guest Experience and to improve it.

This is a prequel, a preamble about Guest Experience - GX. To get you thinking.

“About GX(Guest Experience)”

"What is GX — and why I am going to keep talking about it."

Hospitality has spent years talking about Customer Experience (CX) and Employee Experience (EX).

Both matter.
Neither explains what it actually feels like to be a guest.

Guests don’t interact with hospitality at arm’s length.
They enter it.

They arrive exposed, uncertain, emotionally invested — and they judge the experience long before service begins, and long after it ends.

That’s why I use GX — Guest Experience.

Not as a platform.
Not as a score.
Not as a process.

But as the emotional, psychological and sensory reality of being a guest.

GX is:
• how arrival feels
• how atmosphere shapes behaviour
• how small details signal care or neglect
• how memory is formed
• what guests carry with them when they leave

It’s not what the business intends.
It’s what the guest experiences.

And here’s the truth many of us hospitality businesses struggle with:

We don’t lose money because we don’t care.
We lose money because we misunderstand experience.

The guest journey doesn’t begin at the door.
And it doesn’t end there either.

Everything I share here — writing, talks, consulting — sits under this lens.

If hospitality wants to survive and develop,
it has to get better at understanding what it truly feels like to be a guest.

That’s GX.

We don’t need to be guest psychologists.
But we do need to understand Guest Experience deeply enough to stop working harder for diminishing returns.

Buaidh2025 is my thinking, Pavement to Profit is my voice.

pavementtoprofit.com

pavementtoprofit.co.uk

buaidh.org

Contact - ben@buaidh.org