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Here's the Free June 2008 Edition of the Sullivision
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7 Things to Remember About Your Business
By Jim Sullivan Copyright 2008 Sullivision.com
 The restaurant business has always been challenging, but lately it’s been tougher than a woodpecker’s lips.
Rising prices, falling traffic and labor shortages all add up to an uncertain season for foodservice operators. So this month I thought I’d share 7 bite-sized info-nuggets that can help you stay focused on the fundamentals and profitable, despite the cloudy horizon. Read ‘em and reap.
1. The customer is not always right However, they ARE always the customer and it’s alright for the customer to be wrong. Be advocates, not adversaries, for both your internal customers (employees) and external customers (guests). Don’t fight, make it right.
2. The back bar is not a display case for random inappropriateness. It is more fun to eat in a bar than it is to drink in a restaurant. But it blows my mind when I visit a beautifully-designed million-dollar restaurant-bar with incredible attention to detail in the kitchen, menu, and dining room, and then as I sit at the bar to eat or drink my experience is compromised. Why? Because my view is a back bar interspersed with dirty towels, the bartender’s purse, bank bag, personal beverage or ashtray. Fix this now. Bar customers enjoying a drink, food or waiting on a table should be served both visually and verbally, not subjected to detritus and debris detracting from the view of product merchandising. Remember, when it comes to an service experience, everything speaks.
3. What you permit, you promote. Be tough on standards, easy on people. But hold everyone accountable. Have minimal regulations, but enforce the ones you have. Why are some people on your team low performers? Because they’re allowed to be.
4. Make the food great, beverages cold and the service memorable. Key word here is memorable. Good service can save a bad meal, but a great meal cannot save bad service. And good service makes a drink or meal taste better. Service is the invisible product. It’s free. Pile it on!
5. Don’t let customers overhear the daily activities of running a restaurant. Managers should never discuss cleanup duties with bussers or directions to servers within earshot of their diners or bar patrons.
6. Labor is not your most controllable cost, retention is. Fact: Labor costs are rising quicker than food and beverage costs. Labor costs have risen a total of 10.6% in the last 2 years according to the Nat’l Rest Assn. and this summer the national base wage rises to $6.55. Plus, 29 cents of every dollar spent now goes toward employee wages and benefits. Now, more than ever, is the time to take control and get serious about improving the team you have by hiring noticeably better people, pruning your deadwood, and focusing on retaining high-performers. Whether or not you operate more than one restaurant, invest in a copy of Multi Unit Leadership: The 7 Stages of Building High-Performing Partnerships & Teams and read Chapter 3 to learn dozens of creative ways to be a Talent Scout and Dream Team builder in these challenging times. Click here to order and save $10 per copy until July 31, 2008.
7. Everyone lives by selling something. So teach your customer-facing servers to suggestively sell. A smiling, knowledgeable salesperson at the table or counter enhances the Service experience and makes the guest happy. Happy customers buy more. The arrangement is quite simple, really: the kitchen must make all that the servers can sell and the servers must agree to sell all that the kitchen can make.
Class dismissed.
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