Training=$

Personal and Restaurant Finances

The 5 Lessons A Millionaire Taught Me For Women

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

Know What Your Money is Doing, The wealthiest of people manage their money. Most people say they do not have time to manage their money? Sound crazy? this is what happens when we work to much in our business not on our business. For more on this read The E-Myth Revisited CD : Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to do about it

Step 3 Keep a Portion of Everything You Earn

Author George Clayson “Richest Man in Babylon – The Success Secrets of the Ancients” 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.

“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.

ciao!

Back to the cool training advice, there is no excuse on not being able to provide a little bit of WOW by impressing your guests by opening a beer .  Opening a beer with a beer is good clean fun and great for impressing the barflys, but this is what makes you unique and will help get your customers coming back and asking for you. What is in it for you, easy You make more money.

Learn these tricks love them, and furthermore have fun the restaurant training series is about having fun at work, make more money, these are tricks a chain restaurant manager will never let you do, its an insurance liability, yep I used that one before too.

How Not To Open a Beer

Caio

Neat Tricks, Make More Money Series

How to open a beer with a pen

Look when the fertilizer hits the oscillating device and everything around you is burning like Chicago, you had better have a few tricks up you sleeve to hedge your tips upward. The customers knows when you are not on your game and Rome is burning around you. How you handle the feeding frenzy is the difference between making and breaking your shift or night.  In your next Pre-Shift restaurant training teach this trick people can’t help but love cool tricks

Party Tricks Help

Remember you are on stage, you are part actor, part time-manager, part psychologist but mostly you are working in one of the toughest industries with the highest rate of attendance for Murphy’s Law. The point of the post, learn this make more money! Why else are you there?

The current restaurant management  model is archaic (Crap) I have literally worked for a chain concept that surprisingly is still in business that operated with the mentality, I am totally not kidding, the motto repeated often when ever the Regional VP came waltzing in talking about his golf game.

” Work Harder Do More”

I call this Stupid Management 101. This an archaic non competitive draconian mindset that says to  you as the manager / employee you are not relevent or valued in our business.

Typical seagull management style is used to get conformity to the systems and performance short term. The higher ups in at home office are essentially saying We are smarter then you and you are dependent on us for your lively hood and our leadership to make decisions. Stupid Management. Seagull management will inherently fail long term typically within 3-12 months you unit level managers will get burned out and move on. The threat of losing your job becomes less and less as a true american is forced to deal with short cited home office abusive style of management.

Image at the semi-annual general manager meeting when his replacement told the congregation that 50% of you will not have your jobs in 6 months. There is a real performance enhancing speech. Will call him Stewart, Stewart Pedaso, Stu for short!.

Well Stu went to far and got 86′d for taking an already struggling chain even further into the toilet. Did take the board to long to figure out hey maybe we need to throw the seagull some Alka Seltzer and save ourselves some HR headaches and find another replacement.

The downward spiral has not stopped check out mikes latest post entitled “Revolutionary Restaurant Service”

Restaurant Owners you are in a much better position to compete against the chains, do not ever doubt it, ever! You are entrepreneurs that have put your reputation on line and risked all, to work your butts off and do the seemingly impossible. The chains cannot hold a candle to your operation. Take risks, treat your people right be the employer of choice and you will only attract the best and brightest talent. Innovate the chains cannot, build Fans, the CFO’s get in the way. Have fun!

“Management by objectives works if you know the objectives…90% of the time you don’t

Leadership

Peter Drucker
Unleashing the power of purpose
Vision Statements and Mission Statements are the inspiring words chosen by successful leaders to clearly and convey the direction of the business or organization. By crafting a clear mission statement and then vision statement. The objective is then to powerfully communicate your intentions and motivate your team or organization to realize an attractive and inspiring common vision of the future.
“Mission Statements” and “Vision Statements” do two distinctly different jobs.
Mission Statement defines the organization’s purpose and primary objectives. Its prime function is internal – to define the key measure or measures of the organization’s success. This is mostly a management tool to help define internal systems and Structures. The mission statement helps to define the short term tactics used to achieve the long term Vision.
Vision Statements also define the organizations purpose, but this time they do so in terms of the organization’s values rather than bottom line measures (values are guiding beliefs about how things should be done.) The vision statement communicates both the purpose and values of the organization.
For employees, it gives direction about how they are expected to behave and inspires them to give their best. Shared with customers, it shapes customers’ understanding of why they should work with the organization.
The Vision is truly beginning with the end in mind
The Vision is a distinct picture of what your long term business looks like. The advantage with the vision is the power of influence, the ability to pill people into your vision. Communicating your vision in a way that attracts people to your cause like a magnet, basically through your sense of purpose, belief, passion and enthusiasm you are easily able to convince people to buy into your business, the excitement pulls them to you. It is necessary to creating Raving Fans and instead of selling you are now creating a solution for your customers the products sell themselves.

The Contrast of a company that lacks vision is the following, management and employees lack purpose, and enthusiasm and often times let the urgent supersede the important, work with low intention, and focus on tactical execution with absolutely no focus on the future goals.
This is not necessarily the issue (to focus on tactical execution is not wrong however to focus on busyness verses business becomes a losing proposition.) You are in the drivers seat to Cultivate a Purpose, paint a clear vision, make clear the reason for your organizations existence and the unique product or service you offer.
First we look at creating mission statements. Then we create vision statements.
Mission Statement Creation

1. To create your mission statement, first identify your organization’s “winning idea”.

(This is the idea or approach that will make your organization stand out from its competitors, and is the reason that customers will come to you and not your competitors Review your USP)

2. Next identify the key measures of your success. Make sure you choose the most important measures (and not too many of them!)

3. Combine your winning idea and success measures into a tangible and measurable goal. (Creates systems and Accountabilities)

4. Refine the words until you have a concise and precise statement of your mission, which expresses your ideas, measures and desired result.
Example:

Take the example of a produce store whose winning idea is “farm freshness”. The owner identifies two keys measures of her success: freshness and customer satisfaction. She creates her mission statement – which is the action goal that combines the winning idea and measures of success.
The mission statement of Farm Fresh Produce is:
“To become the number one produce store in Main Street by selling the highest quality, freshest farm produce, from farm to customer in under 24 hours on 75% of our range and with 98% customer satisfaction.”
Verses a Large Corporate Mission Sysco
Syscos’s Mission – Helping Our Customers Succeed
It’s the foundation of the decisions and actions taken by our employees on a daily basis.
Attention to detail, going the extra mile and simply being available for any need enhances the level of service each customer receives, and ultimately benefits customers in their daily endeavors to satisfy patrons.
We are committed to our customer’s success and to helping them achieve their goals. Maintaining outstanding service has become even more important as consumers embrace quality dining experiences as they enjoy meals away from home. Our responsibility is not taken lightly our customer’s success is vital to our success.

“The Best way to predict the future is to create it”
Peter Drucker

Vision Statement Creation

Once you’ve created your mission statement, the next step would then be to create your vision statement: A vision statement should paint a picture of what you want your business or division to look like in the future. This may of may not be something that you are necessarily going to share with your customers this is about what you want for your future.
Your vision statement should excite you and help you dream. If your vision statement doesn’t excite you how can you expect to be successful, how can go to work each day and be motivated? How can you overcome the obstacles and frustration brought on by starting a business?
A vision statement should be specific to a company, team or division and therefore there could be numerous vision statements in one company. This will help us to understand that we can have multiple visions for each aspect of our business.

1. First identify your organization’s mission. Then uncover the real, human value in that mission this again translates from your USP and what are you solving for your market.
2. Next, identify what you and your customers will value most about accomplishing your mission. What is the true goal of Sysco’s mission? (Our responsibility is not taken lightly our customer’s success is vital to our success).
3. Combine your mission with your long term strategy until you create a vision statement inspiring enough to excite you to wake up everyday this will translate to your customers.
4. Using the example mission statement developed for Farm Fresh Produce, the owner examines what she, her customers and her employees value about her mission.

The examples below are to contrast the differences in business size and style the vision statement for Farm Fresh Produce and Sysco below.
The four most important things that Farm Fresh Produce identifies are: freshness, healthiness, tastiness and “local-ness” of the produce. Here’s the Vision Statement they create and shares with employees, customers and farmers alike:
“We help the families of Main Town live happier and healthier lives by providing the freshest, tastiest and most nutritious local produce: From local farms to your table in under 24 hours.”
For Sysco it is really succinct yet creates a vast picture of business growth and expansionism. One must first understand some general business terms to really understand the size and scope of Sysco’s vision tied off right inline with the mission

Sysco’s Vision is to be the global leader of the efficient multi-temperature food product value chain. We purchase from a multitude of growers, Manufacturers and Processors, and market and distribute more than 360,000 food and related products and Services to more than 400,000 customers- all with a single mission of helping our customers succeed.

Now create your own vision statement To create a vision statement it could help to fill in the blanks of the sentence below:

Within the next ___ years grow ______________________ (company/department name) into a ______________________ (type of company) providing ______________________ (description of products/services) to ______________________ (description of target customer/clients) with annual sales of $ ________.

Review

The first step in creating a mission is to have a USP.
A vision statement helps to create the first step towards achieving the results you truly desire.
Organizations without clarity of vision often are focus purely on financial goals, resulting in the neglect to the long term objectives
Strategies become less about long term innovation and intent and more on reactive tasks (putting out fires).

2007-03-05 05:54:06′, ‘As Fast As Our Company Does! You read that right.There is, contrary to popular

Leadership

belief, a substantial number of hospitality industry employees that take pride in their work, excel at service and believe that they serve the best damn fajitas this side of de Nile. Some do it because they have a righteous work ethic, some because of their innate sense of competition with each other, and still others, of a desire to just make other people happy.

Those that exemplify the highest ideals, elevate their performance because they have to. It’’s simply how they pay the bills, maintain friends and customers- and keep their job. BUT, as often happens in the corporate world, the economy takes a turn for the worse, some bad deals are done, prices skyrocket, leadership changes, competition gets tougher or the Vice President of Operation’’s french fry kickback check bounces. For whatever reason, companies decide to, or are put into a position to, run the prices up/cut corners, and raise additional funds from one area, in order to funnel into another. When this happens, it usually comes from the biggest operations costs: utilities, food and beverages, and the payroll. These areas affect us – the operations people.

Why mess with our world? Small increases in price or pocket change saved here or there, multiplied times many customers, and again by many units, result in piles of money. Did you really think that the corporate gang was going to give up their spa memberships? Stock options? Butt wipe-saving bidets in the Executive Washroom? Tee times at the times you need them most? Ha! A good sign that you”re in this “savings vortex” is a company-wide, new-found awareness of utility waste. The temperature is warmer/cooler than it used to be, managers are bugging everybody about lighting and equipment “turn on” times. Not to worry. These symptoms only last about a month or two at tops.

You may notice menu or portion resizing, garnishes no longer being necessary, changes to linens, glassware, paper products, cleaning and armored car services – even doing away with those mints at the front desk that you swore that you”d swear off of. A big labor crunch, cutting service levels to the bone and pushing heart-of-the-house crews to the limit, mean there’’s not much imagination behind this drive for the dollars. Shortcuts in cleaning regimen or training standards show that morals aren’t such a bargain anymore, and the leadership is willing to sacrifice the future for quick results. All of these measures lead to a lowering of standards once preached by the very same entities that now fear for their own personal money and continued employment. If they visit your locale, be very afraid. They”re dangerous when it’’s their own ass in the line of fire.

[ MEAN TRICK HINT: if a worried- looking corporate so-and-so is in your building, tape a drawing of a target on the back of their coat. It makes them finish the entire bottle of antacids on the way home!]

So, when your guests start to complain, a cook, dishwasher or bartender walks out because of the increased workload, the climate control is whacked out and the boss has eaten all of the good painkillers from the first aid kit, (pain-aid loaded with caffeine) you are suffering withdrawal symptoms due to an absence of standards. The company’’s current crisis is deemed more important than it’’s ideals.  a healthy company, the path of least resistance causes the operations employees to bend, break or reinterpret the rules gradually, over a long period of time – the way it’’s supposed to break down. The company’’s money crunch is much more rapid, and therefore, much more noticeable.