This book about Life and Wealth For Women is about hope, hope for women, hope for families. This simple book takes a complex topic of personal finance and creates an easy to follow process for taking control of your income, spending, and investing. Why is this important? The restaurant industry has more women managers, employees and owners then ever before.
I cannot count the amount of times I would teach the old school envelope system to my employees. The problem is that cash sometimes goes to impulse buying and not the bills. Having great employees with less then solid financial plans is not uncommon. This Book Will be a great resource
Richard Paul Evans states a “Man is not a financial plan” and women need to take be involved with the family finances
Women are the primary spenders in the economy. They control the purse strings, 80% of all consumer spending is controlled by women. Women are earning more money, then ever before are receiving more college degrees then men (which equates to higher salaries) and controlling more corporate expenditures then anytime in history.
This is also good advice for our restaurant marketing plans. If we are not marketing to women then who is our market?
Richard Evans states that many millionaires will tell you that making the first million is not easy unless you have a plan. Richard Evans is now one of my millionaire mentors through his book and I am grateful that he has shared with me the 5 simple steps of how he became a millionaire:
Step 1: Decide to Be Wealthy
Seems so simple yet most women don’t believe they are worthy because society has ingrained a negative attitude towards money. The first three steps to becoming wealthy are
* Stop with the limiting beliefs Everyone is worthy of wealth
* Take advantage of the Power of commitment
* Choose the path on how to be wealthy and the destination
These are the first steps in deciding to be wealthy and overcoming the social message that money is evil.
Step 2: Take Responsibility For Your Money
Know Where your money is coming from and exactly where it is going I prefer the old school “envelope system”
Women In the Restaurant Business
Know Your Role? Do not be in the dark about the family finances
Track your expenses, Everything, Keep strict accounts. You do not need a complex system like Quicken the software program, a simple monthly budgeting book from the office supply store will work. This is true for your restaurant accounting as well
What is your net worth? This is how you keep score. Know where you are now this is the beginning. By tracking your net worth is how you keep score. By increasing your net worth you are heading towards your millionaire status. If your net worth goes down you are heading in the wrong direction. When managing your restaurant finances this would be your restaurant balance sheet
“Start your nest egg, what is a nest egg? A real or artificial egg that is put in a hens nest to encourage it to continue laying after the others have been removed”.
The neatest idea he had was how to build your nest egg. Buy silver and suppress the urge to spend buy spend money on a tangible investment.
Avoid Bulimic Money practices? Save, save, save, only to splurge your savings on stuff.
Remember debt is a four letter word. The next steps are how to eliminate debt sounds difficult yet through this simple system you can target your debt and eliminate. Debt and taxes are the number one and twothiefs of wealth.
Begin buy recording your debt on a sheet of paper sounds simple
Contact everyone you owe money to and ask them to reduce your debt. Some will, some wont but it is worth asking for.
Take all of your remaining debt and transfer it to the lowest possible interest rate, Debt is like a an anchor it can drag you down to the depths of despair.
Pay the same amount as you were prior to consolidating the debt every month. As your minimum monthly payment decreases, with your balance keep paying the same every month, this will speed up the process to getting it paid off
Step 4 Win in the Margins.
The Wealthy find additional ways to add to their nest. They win in the margins with extra income. Don’t have time to start a side business?
Richard Evans states that “The world s designed and set up to take your money. “
The millionaire mindset considers every expenditures. Billionaire J Paul Getty in his 1965 book “ How to Be Rich” target=”_blank”>How to Be Rich” He wrote the book not for us but for other business magnates
Increase your savings and start a business on the side, Richard Evans tells several stories of how people made millions by starting a kitchen table business. Carefully consider every expenditure, freedom is more important then monetary pleasure, spending does not equal happiness, and above all else protect your nest egg.
Learn these seven words. “Is that the best you can do?” these words will and can add thousands of dollars to your wealth building strategies.
Remember that compound interest is not only a wealth builder but it is a wealth stealer. If you are paying it you are giving up your wealth. If it is paying you then chances are you are building wealth.
The truth of plastic. Just say no! The best things in life are not things. Credit card debt and gratification are an oxymoron. You really cannot have one with the other. Americans spend up to 30% more money using credit then they would with cash. The last of the five mindsets is to protect your nest egg using the proper insurances, my dad calls it risk management?
Step 5 Give back
The last is what he calls life’s balance sheet, give back create financial Karma. We are supposed to pay to charities. It is the responsibility of us the citizens to give aid and comfort to help others, to take care of the less fortunate. It is the responsibility of the citizens of the United States of America to take care of the less fortunate. Not the responsibility of the government.
Giving back is the first law of personal financial management from the book “The Richest Man in Babylon. Utah is ranked first in the nation for charity donations as a percentage of income. Thank Goodness that is not a surprise.
I really enjoyed the 5 Lessons a Millionaire Taught Me For Women” About Life And Wealth. This is complex topic that is presented very well with additional forms and help from the website. Once you get your finacial house in order then lets make sure your restaurant accounting is in order
Stay tuned there is more on personal finance programs.
This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Beer Thirty
It
Restaurant Employee Termination
My Buddy just got canned from his crappy Chain Management position 5 days prior to being vested in the company pension plan. Lovely!
Stupid Management rides again, this type of management mentality is what gives corporations the greedy loathing label that some deserve. (This Cincinnati Ohio Based Franchise Restaurant Chain is one of them)
We wonder why the US citizens loathe the behavior of the Wall Street Banks which “mis-managed” billions of dollars from investors, only to have the government legalize the “plunder” of your hard earned money… The US taxpayer to bail their #%$@%^@*&&( out).
Stupid Restaurant Management Strikes Again!
We get mad at corporations that are in business to make money, which is the reason for going into business… isn’t it? Yet give the politicians a pass for making laws… that force the corporations and banks, to loan money to people…who cannot repay it… and then they, blame the banks, and call the banks greedy?.. . Sorry got off track. Seems we as Americans have lost our sense of personal responsibility.
Management Vs Leadership
Management is doing things right… Leadership is doing the right things
Ask yourself this question is what is in your management style? Are you a leader? are you a controller? ae you a wimp? Which Manager are you
Tim (Passive aggressive, brown noser, whiner pants)
Robert ( draconian, narcissist asshole, get what you want at all costs)
Andy (two faced, doesn’t do shit then throws you under the bus)
Michael ( the one manager the staff works for and not against)
Stu ( that is short for Stu Pedaso Just dumb as a box of rocks)
Whats in Your Closet?
I ran into a former employee the other day with my wife. This young women said one of the nicest things I think I have ever heard. She told my wife that…
“I was the only manager that she wanted to work for and not against”
I was floored I was relieved that she did not tell my wife what a tyrant I was at times.
We worked together in my first corporate chain restaurant turnaround project. One where the “Andy” was running a catering company out of my kitchen and sneaking in and stealing food, the newly appointed GM that replace the old Alcoholic “Robert ” GM was also an Alcoholic.
The question is when the fertilizer hits the oscillating device who are you? look in the mirror. Become a leader not just a restaurant manager .
Bad Restaurant Chains
There are good companies and crappy companies, this Cincinnati Ohio based chain is one of the bad ones, “work harder do more is the mantra” not work smarter? not take care of your guests. At the Semi-annual GM meeting the new VP of stupidity told several hundred GM”S that in six months half of you won’t be here? What he failed to realize as he kept his promise neither was he!
This is a company that encourages you to keep employees longer, reward length of service, give out pins and raises to the hourly employees… then punish the managers for the increases on the P&L in the way of bonuses, yes the cost of vacation pay comes of the store managers bonus?
This Golden Corral Franchise Lacks Leadership
Not raises, not spiffs, not even a pat on the back, but a dollar for dollar penalty against any manager bonus for the costs associated with keeping employees longer.
Red Flags are red flags! Was my expectation anything but for this company? Hooking this “Michael” remember the real manager, leader. No! My expectation was for them to behave the way they did. Sad yes most of us work for companies and know that we are expendable, that on any given day you are cannon fodder.
Stupid Management is not a a long term restaurant strategy. Work for the company that treats you with the respect and dignity that you deserve. Just be careful about which type of restaurant manager you are!
Just watch, stand back, slow down, and go though a theoretical dining experience that we have been through so many times and may have provided ourselves. A bit scary I have seen this stuff through out stores that I was fixing and thought wow we ain’t where we need to be. If your focus is on increasing restaurant sales then keep reading, it is all about the small stuff. So lets explore some pet peeves, yes these are mine however please add your!
1. Eye Contact Now! 30 seconds or Less where? At the entrance, host stand, drive through, lobby, foyer, front door, Cleaning the bathrooms or delivering the appetizer, entree’s, desert and check. all the time every-time may seem obvious but watch your staff, shut up stand back and just watch.
Watch the employees that make the most money and watch the employees that whine the most about not making the most money. I am willing to bet the eyes have it
2. Crumbs, paper , debris, wrappers, and that’s the dining room, for those restaurants that have an opening to the dining room and the guests have a great view of the kitchen.
At my local PF Changs this weekend I walked into the front door and immediately my eyeballs went right to the view into the kitchen and it was not impressive. It should not matter what time what day or what the excuse is. this is one of the worst crimes committed in a restaurant.
3. When walking to the table is the table clean do you see crooked silverware, condiments and other stuff that is not supposed to be there? Are the chairs skee-wiff , (I just made that word up). This will not increase restaurant sales.
The subconscious does amazing things to a guest when you are not looking, watch them look around not feel welcome, not even aware they are looking for others things out of line? We know that we are not wanting to start the dining experience on a negative.
4.The storeroom in the dining room clutter junk, trays chairs shoved in a corner and not “strategically positioned around the dining room” with chairs upside down and other clutter making one particular corner of your restaurant look like a store room. I am not sure eating in a storage shed, store room is desirable to any guests
5. Finally at the table you are with your date and the table is not level, (and they have the self adjusting feet with a folded napkin under one side?) Did you make your guest “feel” like they were the first person to sit at that table?
6. Does your server again make eye contact? is he she friendly, courteous, overbearing? is it all about them? Professionalism is at the up most importance. Hiring is easy, Hire Nice People!!
7. & 8. We know or should know Hot Food Hot! Cold Food Cold! No brainer but easy to muck up
9. Check Back Check down, friendly? Timely? Accurate? Obtrusive? Offer a desert to go? Your restaurant sales?
10. Welcome Back the simple statement, call to action do something, hey you enjoyed your experience please come back and spend your money hear again. Thank You Because I know you can go anywhere else, and even have it delivered, so please come visit again we enjoy your company!
This is just the beginning there are more to come, so stand back and watch slow down and watch listen to your staff and train, train, train. And watch your restaurant sales increase. To busy to listen, to watch, to train, who is minding your business? Check out Jim Sullivan’s Mind Your Own Business: People, Performance, Profits
How Your Restaurant Can Help End Childhood Hunger
A week-long initiative that encourages consumers to “dine out” in restaurants to raise money to end childhood hunger in America.
Share Our Strength’s Great American Dine Out is a national program that unites thousands of restaurants and millions of consumers in the fight to end childhood hunger in America. For one week each year, thousands of restaurants—from coffee shops to fine dining establishments—offer consumers a chance to do good by eating out.
Thousands of restaurants have already signed up for the week-long event September 20 – 26. Many restaurants are ready to promote special menu items, sell T-shirts or bounce back coupons — all new flexible ways to get customers in the door and raise money to end childhood hunger in America.
The 2009 Great American Dine Out offers restaurant operators and managers a flexible program to become involved; restaurant managers need to decide how they want to implement and promote the September 20-26 event, How to engage and train their employees, and how to raise the funds they donate. Registered operators can use these ideas straight-up, adapt them to suite their own business or create their own.
Now in its second year, the money raised during the Great American Dine Out helps Share Our Strength fund community programs that provide resources and services to children right here in our communities. This money does not go over see it stays right here!
But we need your help!
Why Should You Get Involved?
In the world’s wealthiest nation, no child should grow up hungry. Yet, over the course of the year, more than 12 million children in American worry about when their next meal will come. That’s one in six who are at risk of hunger and who have limited or uncertain access to the nutritious foods they need to thrive. The funds raised through the Great American Dine Out help connect families to food.
At this time of great need, participating in the Great American Dine Out is a way to express your restaurant’s social responsibility.
Attract new customers and bring your regulars back through promotions.
Leverage your active support of Share Our Strength and its cause with your customers.
Enjoy increased visibility in the marketplace from Share Our Strength’s national campaign and sponsor outreach efforts.
Flexible Ways to Participate
Last year was a big success: more than 4,000 restaurants and millions of customers participated in the first annual Great American Dine Out. You can create the way you want to participate. Some ways that restaurants have participated include:
Create a Fall menu item and donate the proceeds.
Customize and market a Great American Dine Out coupon to customers.
Donate a percentage of sales during the Great American Dine Out week.
Co-host a special Great American Dine Out dinner with a vendor or local celebrity and donate the proceeds.
Print T-shirts or caps and sell them to your customers.
Print out our Apple Coupons provided online in our Resource Center (link) and sell them for $1. Have your customers sign each purchased coupon to show their support to end childhood hunger in American, then post the coupons on your restaurant’s Hall of Fame. Donate the proceeds.
Rally employees with a contest to raise the most in donations.
Secure a matching grant from a supplier or other business partner.
Encourage your customers to make their own donations.
Restaurant Promotion
Promoting The Great American Dine Out is easy everything you need to promote your event is provided for you. The beauty is that Share Our Strength has already created all of the media, print and electronic banner images, articles and press releases to help your promotion. Just register, market and communicate. Please join the restaurant industry in this nationwide effort to end childhood hunger in America. Register your restaurant to participate.
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Share Our Strength
If you feel you cannot participate in the great American Dine Out, please join and participate in on of Share Our Strengths addition fund raising events to help stamp out hunger in your community.
Not sure where to start this, being the week after fathers day, and July Fourth gets me thinking about being a father and our forefathers. What would our forefathers do? I am afraid that our nation is and has been under attack for quite some time Becoming a father is the fun part being a father is a lot like work. I am the father of 6 children I have run restaurants for over 25 years. what prepared me to being a father I will never know. I was not taught in school by my parents or by society. I will tell you that my wife is my best teacher, she leads 100% with her heart not her head! People always are in disbelief for some reason they feel the need to comment
“You know they know what causes that” or “How do you do that” or “Why” My response is always the same well which one do you think I should get rid of? Sound rough maybe, maybe not.
People say the dumbest things. My point is that there have been days, shifts where it seemed I spent more time counselling my staff then actually running a restaurant. I literally have left work drained from the worry, time energy and effort spent helping employees at sometime or another.
If you ask restaurant owners, managers the toughest part of the industry they will say managing employees. If you ask restaurant owners and managers the best part of their job they will say “restaurant employees” Image that, we do care we are not all draconian heartless bastards.
My gripe is well that the saddest sentence I hear is ” my babies daddy quit his job so he don’t got to pay no child support”, or my kids dad won’t pay his child support or provide any support whether it is time, money or energy. Get a job even if it is a restaurant job
We have become a nation of irresponsible people, our fore fathers and I do not use that term lightly gave everything to start this country, they new that it was God who guided and directed their efforts they believed in and took responsibility for their actions they new if caught the would be executed. They never fathered a country before, but that didn’t stop them they were driven. Driven like a father that feels the weight of responsibility of providing for his family and does anything he has to to make sure that their is food on the table and a roof over his families heads.
Our forefathers gave their personal fortunes to start this country. What have we given to ensure that it is here for our children and grandchildren? We complain, hold out our hand and expect the government to gives us hand out, we whine complain and blame others, sad.
“Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country”
John F. Kennedy
Now, it feels that the mind set is What can I get out of my country. Our politicians are irresponsible, our corporations are irresponsible, managers are irresponsible, fathers are irresponsible. So where did it start? Who cares There is only one place to end the lack of leadership our country has not seen in decades, if ever. it starts at home.
I know, I know, But my parents were mean, they were on drugs, they… they… they… Bullshit! You are Responsible for Your Decisions, you and only you. None of us took fathering classes, the our forefathers did not take “Revolution 101″ or “Intro to Starting a Country” course at the local community college! If you do not how to be a father and do not feel that you are capable of being father then either choose to keep your hands off of your women, or get a job and bust your ass to put food on the table for your child, for child’s mother, for you, for your country, for your God!
How many Fathers these days are willing to devote the lives let alone their fortunes to their families? How about their country? Thought so, waiting for a hand out? I am sorry if I am painting the rest of the awesome fathers with the ugly brush, this is not my intention, my intent is to begin a change in leadership starting within our own homes
“I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end”
Abe Lincoln
Some politicians would like us to believe that it takes a village to raise a child, I believe it takes 2 parents not the government. Not every child has the opportunity to have both parents still here on this earth or at home. The great tragedy is the child with 2 parents and at least one not active in their lives or is abusive. The Father who does not pay his bills, support his children that does not go to work and do everything in his power to provide for his children.
“Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will – his personal responsibility”
Albert Sweitzer
One of the toughest parts of being a restaurant manager is when your employees come in to work or don’t because there “babies daddy” has hit them, beat them or somehow threatened them. I never ever regretted the time talking to counseling an employee in need, I hope and pray every day that this tsunami of irresponsible fathers in our country somehow reverses itself somehow moves in the other direction, becomes the exception not the norm.
When you need some help or have an employee, friend family and need resources below are a few lets start at work as well as at home. You are sometimes a restaurant manager and sometimes the restaurant father. Use the resource below add a few of your own.
Not every body has great role models as parents and I am not sure that any man that says he was not scared as hell at some time with the upcoming burden and responsibility of providing for a family is being truethful. I was a mess until you got it, the first moment I actually saw the ultrasound, then held my new- born daughter. My fears were lifted and was replaced with pure joy.
I wish for every father to feel this. If you are by chance in need of direction, guidance, education to learn more about becoming a father keep searching, it will be the hardest and best work of your life.
Being the restaurant employer of choice is something we teach. The purpose is to attract and retain the best employees in the market. The result will be extraordinary service providing the best and brightest and most talented people in your market. Unfortunately products menu items, restaurant recipes and service tends to become a commodity over time and for good reasons.
Over time the value of a product and or service lessens, when we first create a new menu item or provide an increased level of service we are usually solving a problem. Customers and guests are usually willing to pay a premium for the latest and greatest product or service.
Over time the new product or service then becomes SOP or Standard Operating Procedure.
The new unique restaurant menu dish gets discovered by the restaurant chains and they dumb it down and slap it on the menu of a thousand restaurants, run months of restaurant marketing mass media advertising campaigns and completely obliviate the uniqueness of the product with some mediocre knock off.
The premium menu item becomes mainstream. and the price gets lower as the economies of scale adjust and then we see it in the grocer freezer of our local grocery store labeled gourmet! (bah humbug)
Buyers become Aware over time learn to better evaluate the economics of the new product and chain restaurant marketing then run these menu items as specials Basically as a commodity a restaurant menu item matures the price pressure coupled with a “tough economy” Sorry I hate to say that, makes it even harder to sell the product or service at a profit, assuming you are not a chain restaurant with extremely efficient supply chains.
What is on your Menu? (How would Capital One handle this?)
Restaurants can only discount products or services so far. Capital One in 1995 was not in a position to compete on rates with the big credit card companies. Rather then competing on rate to increase market share Capital One took a different approach to creating a new marketing plan. They chose to compete on value.
Remember perception is reality. They implemented a “radical” “branding” “strategy” to differentiate themselves from the other credit card issuers to stimulate an increase in demand. All of this without discounting or sacrificing margins.
A Winning Brand Starts with The Customer
What made Capital One’s strategy work is the fact that they started with customer input to derive the strategy. Through serious market research they were able to target the most important features of a credit card the consumers wanted. They did not stop there they actually created a family of products and features to target different types of card users.
Most important part of the research revealed that the features were not the most important lessons learned from the research. The realization that there customers actually had an emotional aspect of the decision process and not rational.
Their sales success is actually tied to the benefits to the emotional needs of the customer. Make life easier, “no hassles”.
Simplify
Busy has become the new good. When asked everyone is “busy” Simplify your message do not use elongated marketing fluffy language, this does not work in todays market. Capital One’s core message is “No Hassles” They then have fun hammering the message using not so bright rowdy vikings to make the point. Then the “What’s in your wallet?”
Position Yourself as a Market Leader
What is your Unique Position (Reference USP article) Are you focused on an area where you can outperform the competition? That means find the holes in between the chains and your geographic targeted market, neighborhood.
The large corporates feederies are required to follow a very specific SO (Standard Operating Procedures) and cannot usually move outside of the brand very easily, use that rigid structure to your advantage. Perform a USP analysis and identify the market opportunity.
What do your customers want, follow Capital Ones strategy and communicate, talk, ask, comment card everyone. Train the staff to find the answers you will be surprised how much they want to help. Is it specials, menu items, price, speed, hours, catering?
Develop or better yet reposition current brand, products, menu offerings and or training to capitalize on the newly discovered information. How does this satisfy the emotional needs of your customers, What would you charge to “guarantee this product service”
Develop a Message
Build your USP reduce it to a simple tagline message, you know Fedex, “Absolutley positively has to be there overnight”. The next step is to then identify your competitive advantage for your geographic market. What do you do better then anyone else.
Find and create the bold claim in your positioning message and focus on the one attribute of your product or service that satisfies an emotional need.
To (the geographic market you serve.) (your brand) is the one (that provides a type of service you offer) that (key benefit you deliver better than any other company in your market). Identify your Olive Garden “salad an breadsticks” (the core menu item(s) customers love you for) and capitalize on it. Recreate your restaurant brand, update restaurant marketing and branding. Re-Invent, try stuff, try new stuff, and newer stuff all the while staying true to the core items on your menu.
” target=”_blank”>The Richest Man in Babylon” Wrote that he found the road to wealth when he decided that a part of all he earned was his to keep.
” target=”_blank”>How to Be Rich” He wrote the book not for us but for other business magnates
