Archive for November, 2008

Example

Restaurant Management

suggest that you begin mandatory half hour breaks for all
employees working more than four hours to cut labor costs.
Employees lose wages and tips, and are forced to pick up their workload to cover
breaks for co-workers during peak shifts. Morale dips.
Guests are waiting longer for orders and experiencing breaks in the service due to
missing employees.  Service “isn’t what it used to be!”

Scenario

Guest party of eight wants to bring in a two bottles of Grandpa’s favorite wine for
his 80th birthday dinner, just this one time, in your establishment.
Company loses drink revenue, and may be at risk for violating state liquor laws.
Employee Susan the server loses tip revenue, and has other guests why they can’t
bring a six of Samuel Adams next time because it would cost less.

In each case, the other two sides are negatively affected by the desire/need of
another side.  I must mention that the answer isn’t always “no” to requests – it may
be a positive response if there are benefits to all (with an extra side of common
sense, of course).  It may be a situation for diplomacy and compromise as well.
One must be aware of the negotiating skills of the presenter, and always play devil’s
advocate.  The manager has to be the defender of those either not in attendance or
without a voice.

Backwards Triangle

These seven aspects of the restaurant business are and need to be evident in every restaurant operation. Yes as a small business owner during a start up requires wearing many hats. We have to wear all hats and make sure that all of the aspects of our business are in line and in control.

• Leadership
• Marketing
• Management
• Employees
• Accounting
• Service
• Fans

Leadership
Business owners have the ability to make great decisions or poor decision everyday. The ability to consistently make great decisions will determine your business success.
Business Owners / Leaders Provide Three basic components to their business
1. Vision / Mission
2. Capital
3. Spirit / culture
You the owner have the vision and the moxy to start and invest the time energy and effort into your business. You have the vision to build and move your business towards your long term view.
Capital investment into your business. Since e-commerce is favorable to bootstrapping a business this allow us to invest more time then capital to move our business forward. However Business owners still are assuming all risks involved
The culture energy and spirit of the business, your energy and passion will carry over to not only your business partners but also to your customers this energy and spirit carries over to creating raving fans
Management
These aspects can be broken down into 2 categories “Hard Elements” and “Soft Elements” as defined by McKinsey one of the largest corporate consulting companies in the country. These categories give us another angle to view our business to identify possible holes in our operations.
“Hard” elements are easier to define or identify and management can directly influence them: These are strategy statements; organization charts and reporting systems; technology etc.
“Soft” elements, on the other hand, can be more difficult to describe, and are less tangible and more influenced by culture. However, these soft elements are as important as the hard elements if the organization is going to be successful..

• Strategy: the plan devised to maintain and build competitive advantage in the market place.
• Structure: the way the organization is structured and who reports to whom.
• Systems: the daily activities and procedures that staff members engage in to get the job done, your relentless routines
• Shared Values: these are evidenced in the corporate culture and the general work ethic.
• Style: the style of leadership adopted. Position versus Personal
• Staff: the employees and their general capabilities.
• Skills: the actual skills and competencies of the employees working for the company. This includes training and systems.

So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.
Peter Drucker

Power Base

The book “Powerbase” “How to build it How to Keep it” By Marilyn Moats Kennedy is a classic management book this is a great resource not only if you are starting your first management job to help identify and manage but also how are you going to structure your business as it grows.

The role you play as a manager is to remove obstacles and hurdles from the front line employees and their ability to do their job. Now Peter. Druckers quote may be a bit sarcastic but it seems that this is what we do to our staff. When it comes to your operation how do you view your position? Do you remove barriers? Or set up barriers?

Employees
When hiring employees we can really simplify the philosophy of staffing. Many business owners express frustration over the dealings with employees this one of the biggest reasons we start home based and web based businesses. I prefer to believe and follow Nordstrom in implementing their hiring strategy as stated below.
Hire Nice People
John Nordstrom
To follow up Nordstrom has a very simple management philosophy to match
Use Your Best Judgment
If we do not trust our employees to make the right decision then we hired wrong

Marketing
Definition of marketing; the total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling.
To be successful restaurant marketers today we must understand statistics, return on investment, and be creative enough to work with advertisers, ad designers, and copywriters. We also have to create a step by step system, tools and strategy to help maximize the big three priorities our marketing plan
• Get More Customers
• Have Customers buy more per visit
• Have customers buy more frequently
One of the most important aspects of developing our marketing plan is to gather and interpret market and customer / client data. We must have the ability to track and measure the precise return on investment of all activities down to the ROI on an individual e-mail.

Cost Controls
Mind you own business
Jim Sullivan
Keep strict accounts, is the advice hammered into my head from a past mentor when dealing with small business. The ability to rob Peter to pay Paul has this ability to cause much pain down the road
This not only applies to cash and cash flow but to managing every aspect of our business. Keeping strict accounts is also one of the most important strategies in when it is time to deal with employees and training. Below are the top three neglected aspects of small business
1. Training
2. Accounting
3. Accountable Cost controls
Keeping strict accounts resonates through out the staff on what kind of owner / manager you are. This perception carries over to your clients as well. Your credibility will be judged based upon our behavior and attitude we communicate concerning business finance. Employees will gauge what they can get away with based upon the controls you have in place and how
Control Systems
What accounting system ado we use? Do we utilize the shoe box or a professional accounting program like Quick Books or Microsoft Accounting? Learning and getting trained on how to use the system is just as important as setting up and accurate chart of accounts and data entry system, daily, weekly, monthly reporting system. The next step is then to learn how to interpret the data that the reporting systems return. That is not all we then have act on the data.
A successful restaurant owner has to have strict accounts. Are our books only in place for sake of the accountant then we are completely missing a valuable tool to mange our business. Neglect our books lose control business. One of my mentors described successful business operation as a “daily series of relentless routines”
“Polished Shoes Saves Lives”
General Schwartzkopf
Thanks to Ben (Doc) from www.winningthearmyway.com for that quote

Service / Fans
Creating a raving fan is a multi-step process…
Creating raving fans requires three steps.
1. First you have to identify what you want to create for your business
2. Then model your vision for your business
3. Then implement your vision in 1% increments
To be successful we need to set goals for our restaurant, then and only then can we create the restaurant operations of our dreams.
Create a vision of perfection centered on the customer. Sounds like a no-brainer however finding out what each and every customer needs and wants is not so easy, once identified then begin to deliver that raving fan service.
The rule of 1%. That means you improve 1% at a time until you create raving fan service. Then go 1% beyond that service.
All successful restaurant businesses have three things in common
1.  Systems
2. Accountabilities
3.Training/continuous education
The systems are the guidelines for the basic required service standard that is acceptable to create raving fan service. The accountabilities are how you inspect what you expect, the training is just that, relevant focused, targeted. It is necessary to apply the other two requirements.
Ken Blanchard also identifies two very important barriers to creating Raving Fans. These barriers I have witnesses not only in a corporate environment but also surprisingly in small mom and pop restaurant owners. They are relevant to your restaurant operation, and act as a great reminder for managing the growth of your business.
The first barrier is described in this quote from Ken Blanchard
“most customer service hopes have been wrecked on the rigid shoes of immobile bureaucratic minds with in the corporate structure.”What is your Vision?

Raving Fans
A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service
Ken Blanchard
Sheldon Bowles

Restaurant Managers

I Had to terminate some employees today. Woo Hoo! You got that right, I have been doing this for over 25

Restaurant Leadership

years. You just know when you walk into a new restaurant as a Consultant, Coach, GM, Manager that some moron is going to test your mettle. How do you handle it will determine the culture, the environment the direction the operation is going to take. Are you the Draconian Prick of an owner like Hells Kitchen ranting and raving all over the place or the cool cucumber, Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry type that goes in calmly and says go ahead and make my day!

I prefer the Clint Eastwood style cool calm resolved stick to the point and let the problem employee pull the trigger. Why? It can be incredibly satisfying to have the pain in the neck employee (cancers is what we refer to them as) eat a slice of humble pie and finally realize that hey they are a pain in the ass and no-body is there to cover their back. I will be back to finish this after the termination.

Turns out the entire staff thought they were invaluable. Ever heard of a coup well this is what just was attempted. Think I am kidding, these women thought they could pocket money, steal product and force the owner to sell the business to the employees. Dis-honest you betcha. Cruel you had better believe it. Why you say should someone who allowed their business to get that out of hand deserves this to happen. Maybe? Still does not make it right. No employee is “invaluable” no body should ever, ever, ever, EVER!!!!! Let employees hold them hostage in their own business or as a manager.

They Are Gone!

Restaurant Employees

You need to know your responsibility in the lively hood of a business. Lets review

Your responsibility starts with

Being Honest

Being on Time

Working in the Business as if it were your own

Having a sense of urgency as restaurant employee!

Being responsible for your behavior, if your boss sucks fire him and move on. This does not give you the right to steal.

Grow up take responsibility for your actions and live your life with integrity, This country has gotten used to pointing the finger and acting like we are on the Jerry Springer Show instead of doing what is right. Grow up get a set of jueves and do what is right. Maybe, Just Maybe Washington and our “leaders” I use the term lightly will follow suite. Just a thought

When using the internet to market your restaurant, this tool will help quickly to check your on line

Restaurant Branding

brand and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) using the checklist provided below.

Objective of this Tool

This tool can be used as a final basic checklist to help you review your finished site to find or discover areas where you might improve and enhance the site. Following are the basic ideas. These are two focuses for the check lists. These are really act as a guide to build your future pages for your sites, and will be a tool to helpful in moving your business forward. This is also a great time to check the load speed using http://analyze.websiteoptimization.com/wso this tool also gives you some feedback and recommendations. The two checklists we are going to check is your Brand and On-Site SEO.

Your pages should load within 3 seconds yes the faster the better, but slower then 3 secs is definitely way to slow. www.truckeconomy.com is .08 seconds. However there is not much content of photos on the site. Follow the recommendations to help improve your site load speed. Remember you have 3 seconds to capture a customer you will lose them for sure if your site takes that long to load.

Branding and Brand Concept

Branding
• Check your unique position
• Do you have relevant page headings incorporating your best keywords for the page?
• Does your content incorporate your USP?
• Are your Headings (Headlines) incorporating H1,H2,H3 tags?
• Do your page Headings (title) incorporate your pages best keywords?
• Are you using Call to Actions on each page?

Site Usability
• Is the navigation bars down the left side or across the top, or both?
• Do you have a site map in the footer section on each page?

• Are your pages using the same layout from page to page?
• Is your theme and message easily identified from page to page?

Layout and Design

Screen Real Estate
• Have you optimized above the fold?

Scanabilaty
• Can the visitor easily scan the page for useful information / benefits / solutions

Readability
• Does your page title act as a headline to grab the visitors attention?
• Are you using an easily read Font Type?
• Is the Font Color a color and background that is easy on the eyes and easy to read, simple and

non distracting?
• Is there useful information USP?
• Spelling and Grammar seem obvious however most cases another set of eyes (have someone else read it) will help with identifying any possible errors

Graphics and Multi-Media
• Are the graphics small and fast loading?
• Are Graphics used where color and text would work?
• Is Multi media forced on the user? Or can it be controlled?

Links
• Are links the standard color and underlining
• Are there title tags for the links
• Are they easily found?

Cross Platform
• Does the Site look right in Internet Explorer / Firefox / Safari?

Professional
• Does the site look professionally built?
• Do people like the look and feel?

Search Engine Optimization Checklist
This List will help us to gain ground and is the foundation to increase our sites natural search engine rankings.

Keywords
• Number one Are your Keywords the best (search volume verses competition) for each Page?
• Are they displayed in your sites title tags? (minimum of 6 maximum of 10)

Homepage
• Your Homepage should be focused on the two to three most important phrases you want your

page to be found for
• Sub-pages should be targeted on the rest of your relevant phrases
• Do not try and pack every site keyword into your homepage
• Does the pages use friendly urls? i.e. www.truckeconomy.com/truck_fuel_economy.html

Meta Data
• Is your page optimized Using title tags that incorporates your best page keywords incorporated into the meta section of the site?
• Are your title tags approx 6 to 10 words long? (the title tag is the most important part of the site form the search engines point of view)
• Have your maximized your Meta Tag sections with relevant keywords used in the page content headlines?
• Is your page content full of relevant keywords
• Do you have at least 100 words of content per page
• Is the content readable useful information not just a list of keywords (some directories will not allow pages that are just a list of keywords
• Does each and every keyword on each page have alt least one link to another page?

Page Content Guidelines

Four Concepts to keep in mind
• Keyword Prominence; The best area of the page to place your keywords is at:
*As close to the top of the page or the start of a sentence the better.
*Also at the bottom of the page linked to other pages (footer navigation)

• Keyword Proximity; Some search engines use the concept of keyword proximity or how close your keywords are to each other, the key is to ensure readability. (Resist the desire to saturate with keywords just for the sake of having keywords in the content)

• Keyword Density; (weighting) measures the relationship of keywords to the total amount of text on the page. The higher the better to a point. The recommended density is 3%-7%. (3-7 for every 100 words of content) For each keyword you are wanting the page optimized for.
• Keyword Frequency; is related to density which means that the search engines want to see the keyword phrase at least 3 to ensure it was not an isolated case of repetition which also ties into the minimum of 100 words of content per page. (On page Optimization Content is King)

Navigation
• Make sure there at least two forms of navigation on each page
• At least a set of internal links that are text based and not graphic based

Site, Site map
• Create a site, Site Map for your entire web site
• There should be links to every major page within your site.
• Incorporate a short description next to the name of each page with hyperlinks for key phrases in the description
FAQ page
• This is a great way to add additional content and links from the category page key phrases.

Contact Page
• Essential to link page call to actions to the contact us page should be optimized and incorporate content and gratitude to the visitor for visiting your site using action words to capture emails for future campaigns

Google Site Map
• Essential to tell the search engines which pages to index when spidered
• This is different from a Site, Site Map. This is code that you get from your google webmaster tools if site builder does not offer the code

Google Analytics
• Essential to track traffic and visitors

Wrap Up
Using a final Check list will help to reduce errors for each page of the site
• Check to see if you are communicating your brand
• Check to see if your site is set up for the search engines