Tag Archives: Restaurant

Too Many Projects Have You Frozen in Your Tracks?

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By David Scott Peters

www.therestaurantexpert.com

Take a moment and look at your to-do list. Do you see a list that seems to be growing instead of getting smaller? Do you have more than half your list marked as “A-1 Priority” projects? If you actually got some of those projects completed, would your restaurant run smoother? Would you have happier, better-trained employees? And/or would you make more money?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, what the heck are you waiting for?

I’ll tell you what you’re waiting for: A freakin’ miracle! You know the one… it’s where Tinker Bell arrives, lands on your shoulder, sprinkles her pixie dust and, magically, all of your projects and tasks get completed. Right? (At least that’s how I picture my miracle arriving.)

The reality is that as your list of uncompleted tasks keeps growing, your restaurant suffers and your stress level explodes to a point where instead of getting things done, you freeze and grab hold of your daily routine, praying that if you just keep moving the business will be OK. (I want to thank Dan Korem, husband of an Elite Member, for an enlightening late-night discussion where he shared a study that provided the data proving this point.)

Getting things done

The key to getting things done is to delegate!

What does it mean to delegate? According to Merriam Webster, the official definition is, “to entrust to another or to assign responsibility or authority.” In other words, use your business’ resources, people and their time to get your stuff done.

That sounds easy, but how many times have you heard someone tell you to just simply delegate? How many times have you found yourself able to take that advice?

If only it were that easy, right?

Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth Revisited, talks about how most small business owners make a critical mistake when they delegate. He talks about how they often “delegate through abdication,” and this doesn’t work.

“Delegation through abdication” is where you have a problem, a major project, a critical task that needs to be done and you hand it off to someone else to do without giving them sufficient direction. You simply hope they will fix it, and that they will know exactly what you want done and how to do it successfully. Without providing specifics and expectations, you’ve just set the person to whom you’ve assigned the task on a path to failure. And when they fail, which they inevitably will since they can’t read your mind, you revert back to the mindset, “If I want something done right, I simply have to do it myself.”

How’s that strategy working for you? Remember that to-do list?

The keys to delegating

If you want to delegate successfully, all you have to do is follow these five simple steps:

  • Be specific and clear. Explain what you want accomplished, the steps you want the assigned person to take and then ensure they understand. For example, don’t just say, “I want you to do these recipe costing cards.” Instead, teach the step-by-step process to completing a recipe card — from writing in the recipe to converting the ingredients used from pounds to ounces, etc. — and show them how to complete one. Then watch them complete one and have them explain exactly what you have asked them to do. You need to make sure they get it. Understand when you assign a task to most people, they will answer, “yes,” when you ask them if they understand a task that has been assigned, even if they don’t. NOTE: You can NEVER be too specific!
  • Define success. When you delegate a task or project, you need to let the person you have delegated to know what success looks like. Take the time to let them know why this task is important, what successful completion looks like and why it’s important.

For example, “The task of completing recipe costing cards is imperative to our restaurant’s success. Costs have been rising and we need to see what items need to be dropped, any opportunities where we can raise prices, reduce costs, or reduce portion sizes to recapture the profits we’re losing, without negatively affecting our guests. And these recipe costing cards are the key to doing that and allow us to use the Menu Profit Generator Software to find those opportunities. You’ll have performed this task successfully when, 1) all of the batch and item recipes have been costed out, 2) proper yield tests have been performed and 3) all current ingredients have been converted to unit costs and input into the recipe costing card worksheet.”

That’s clearly defining success.

  • Let it go. If you were specific, clear and took the time to explain what completing the task or project successfully looks like, don’t micromanage! It’s OK to check in from time to time to see how the project is coming along. It’s OK to check progress. It’s OK to spot-check work. But it’s not OK to micromanage. You don’t want to be over shoulders every step of the way. They won’t want to give you their full effort for fear that it’s never good enough. You have to let whomever you delegated to follow his or her own path to completion. They might take an extra step or two to get it done, but that’s how they learn. If you know the quickest path to completion is from point A to point B, and they divert to C, D and E on the way, well, if it doesn’t hurt the company, let them find their way. That’s how you learned the shortest path in the first place. But when they learn from doing, it’s more likely to stick. Please note that if they’re going to do harm to themselves or the business along the way, that’s when it’s time for you to step in.
  • Continue communication. When you check in on progress, this is your opportunity to give that person positive or corrective feedback. Remember, just because you showed them once how to do the task, that doesn’t mean they’ll keep it in memory the next day or a week from then. They have to practice it correctly to do it correctly. In a nutshell, continued communication equals ongoing training, and that pays off in dividends. Just remember to be patient. They’re learning and may not master the task at hand for some time.
  • Recognize and reward. When you follow the steps above, you’re almost guaranteed to not only get the task at hand done, but also start developing someone you can count on. You’ll be able to delegate more and eventually hand over tasks knowing — and trusting — they’ll get done correctly. Reward someone doing things right with a simple thank you, pat on the back, movie tickets, dinner out, money, etc. Show that you appreciate the hard work and keep them interested in doing more.

Doesn’t that all sound so easy? Even I find myself telling people how easy it is to effectively delegate, but the truth is it’s easy to hand over tasks and pray they get done right. It takes real time and commitment to delegate effectively. If you’re tired of feeling overwhelmed, frozen in your tracks or have too many projects on your plate and really want to get things done, follow this recipe for delegation success and start reaping the rewards today!

David Scott Peters TheRestaurantExpert (1)David Scott Peters is a restaurant expert, speaker, coach and trainer for independent restaurant owners. He is the developer of SMART Systems Pro, an online restaurant management software program helping the independent restaurant owner remain competitive and profitable in an industry boxed in by the big chain restaurants. He is best known as the SMART Systems guy who can walk into any restaurant and find $10,000 in undiscovered cash before he hits the back door… Guaranteed! Learn more at www.therestaurantexpert.com/rdspos.

 

How to Get Your Message Across to Restaurant Managers

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By David Scott Peters

www.therestaurantexpert.com

In Last week’s post I covered the pitfalls of not communicating with your management team and offered up a solution to avoid a failure to communicate. The solution is to have weekly managers meetings.

To begin having effective managers meetings, follow this four-step process that prepares everyone for this new activity in the routine.

Step 1

Step one is the planning meeting. This is the step where you look at last week’s priorities and goals and audit where they are. Did they get accomplished, did you hit your goals or were there things that happened that delayed results? Take the time to really look at things with a detailed eye.

Next, create your list of goals for you and your team for the upcoming week. Be specific and clear in the list of what you want done, how you want it done, how well you want it done and more importantly by when. Without deadlines nothing would get done.

Step one applies to every restaurant owner whether you have a partner or not. The only difference is when you have a partner, this step becomes even more important.

Too often in independent restaurants, partners don’t communicate. As a result, they send mixed signals to their employees and managers because they ask them to do two completely opposite things or get the same thing done two completely different ways. Or worse, they do this directly in front the employee resulting in an argument/fight between the partners.

This is the quickest way to get your employees to tune you out and then do whatever they want. The employee knows that they can just point fingers to the other partner and there will be no recourse.

If you have a partner this is the most important step because it puts you both on the same page, allowing you to all communicate the same game plan from the same playbook.

Even if you don’t have a partner, you can create a similar challenge when you continue to change your mind on how you want something done, telling one manager and then getting mad at another because they aren’t doing it the new way, even though they never got the message.

Step 2

Meet with your general manager and communicate the goals for the next week. Gather your general manager’s priorities that need to be addressed and added to the list. This is your opportunity to make sure your general manager is on the same page as you. You are also setting the general manager up for success to conduct an effective and efficient managers meeting.

Step 3

Step three is the agenda. Now that your general manager has your list of goals for the week, he or she will create an agenda for the meeting. The agenda should include such things as a start time and a finish time and topics to be addressed.

Before the meeting, clearly communicate what ALL of the other managers will need to bring to the meeting. If any of the other managers have something they want to add to the agenda, they need to get it to the general manager at least two days before the managers meeting.

Please note that your manager meeting should not be scheduled for anything more than 90 minutes. Anything longer becomes counterproductive.

Step 4

Step four is conducting the actual meeting. One of the biggest questions I get all the time is, “I’m the owner, shouldn’t I conduct the meeting?” The short answer is NO, unless you fulfill the general manager role as well. Your general manager is supposed to execute the plan. He or she is going to be held accountable for these goals, so you need to put them in a leadership role and demonstrate that the general manager is the other managers’ direct supervisor.

When conducting the meeting, the general manager will do about 25 percent to no more than 50 percent of the talking. This is because your managers have come to the meetings knowing what they are responsible for. They will have brought the correct information from cost of goods sold and labor costs to employee issues to project updates. They will present to the group. You want every manager engaged and participating in the meeting.

Be sure to stick to this agenda. If and when a NEW topic comes up, make sure you determine if it should be tabled until the next meeting or if you need to set up a sidebar meeting after the manager meeting. Do not add it on the fly. When you don’t control the topics, start and stop time, managers meetings go forever. Anything longer than 90 minutes creates an environment where your mangers get frustrated because they feel you don’t value their time and quite frankly, they start tuning you out.

Timeline

What day you choose for your manager meeting is up to you. It can be determined based on the day all managers would be in the building anyway, or what day inconveniences the fewest managers.

An example might look like this:

Owners meet on Tuesday allowing the general manager to complete the budget variance reports for the past week so the owners have the numbers.

On Wednesday the owners and general manager meet to get on the same page and set the agenda.

On Thursday the general manager conducts the managers meeting.

Conclusion

If you’re tired of things not getting done, tired of not making the money your restaurant should be making and/or tired of being frustrated on a daily basis with everyone’s performance — owner or manager — then you’ll want to follow the four simple steps in this article. Just remember it’s not only about being organized, it’s also about being consistent. This comes from conducting the managers meeting weekly.

David Scott Peters TheRestaurantExpert (1)David Scott Peters is a restaurant expert, speaker, coach and trainer for independent restaurant owners. He is the developer of SMART Systems Pro, an online restaurant management software program helping the independent restaurant owner remain competitive and profitable in an industry boxed in by the big chain restaurants. He is best known as the SMART Systems guy who can walk into any restaurant and find $10,000 in undiscovered cash before he hits the back door… Guaranteed! Learn more at www.therestaurantexpert.com/rdspos.

 

Small Family Operation, Big Mistakes

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By David Scott Peters

www.therestaurantexpert.com

There’s a small New-York-City-style deli near our office. They serve high quality meats and have incredible egg salad. What makes them a draw for me is they put their sandwiches on their bagels that are made daily. The combination is really good.

But with that said, they do so many things that just kill me to watch. Let me share a typical visit for lunch. After a few lunches with them, I can hardly stand to go in anymore because I can’t stand to watch them make so many mistakes that are costing them business.

Let me tell you what I see as their mistakes and how they should go about fixing them.

1)      Checklists – The restaurant was dirty because they don’t have checklists. We teach that checklists are the foundation of ALL restaurant systems because they set standards and expectations. Without checklists, especially in a small family business, everyone has their own idea of what clean means. If they had checklists in place, there would be only one standard for everyone to follow and nothing would get missed.

2)      Point of Sales System – They’re using a cash register – which is a horrible idea! If they actually had other employees it breeds theft. In their situation I highly doubt internal theft is even remotely a concern. But, when they type in the sale price of everything sold, they lose their ability to analyze their sales mix to find ideal food cost or just know what their customers are buying.

3)      Customer Service Training – While I love that they are a small family business, they have no sense of customer service. They unfortunately treat you like an inconvenience, politely to your face. If they put a “WOW” customer service program in place, they would kill the competition because they would endear the customers to them and get them to visit and say, “I know the owners!”

4)      Selling Tickets – You think that today everyone would understand Restaurant 101 includes staging and selling tickets. If they would learn to fire items and work their stations as a team and call the customer when the complete order was up and ready, they would instill a sense of urgency and improve customer service. I wouldn’t be done with my sandwich by the time my wife gets hers.

5)      Recipe Costing Cards – It is 100 percent clear to me that this restaurant does not have recipe costing cards. Why? Nobody can sell a fresh bagel with Boar’s Head meats in generous portion and give you a fountain drink for under $6.50! Heck, the sandwich itself should probably sell for more than that. Add the fact that they are giving up $2 – $2.50 for every sandwich they sell, they are committing financial suicide! Charge for quality. Charge separately for sodas because customers don’t price shop a drink.

So what about you? Do any of those situations sound familiar to you in your restaurant? I bet some do! Let’s run through each question you should be asking yourself.

Do I have checklists in place for every position and every shift in my restaurant?

Do you have a point of sale system or better yet, is it accurate?

Do you have a real training system in place?

Is your kitchen run professionally by professionals?

Do you have accurate recipe costing cards done for ALL recipes?

Be proactive in your restaurant! Let us help you make sure your restaurant isn’t making these common mistakes.

David Scott Peters TheRestaurantExpert (1)David Scott Peters is a restaurant expert, speaker, coach and trainer for independent restaurant owners. He is the developer of SMART Systems Pro, an online restaurant management software program helping the independent restaurant owner remain competitive and profitable in an industry boxed in by the big chain restaurants. He is best known as the SMART Systems guy who can walk into any restaurant and find $10,000 in undiscovered cash before he hits the back door… Guaranteed! Learn more at www.TheRestaurantExpert.com.

How to Develop a Management Plan in Your Restaurant – Part 1

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By David Scott Peters

www.therestaurantexpert.com

First, what is a management plan?

A management plan is your written strategy for how to get your restaurant to where you want it.

New ideas have very little value unless they are put into action. This management plan is a tool that translates ideas (I should or I’ll try to) into action (I am). This helps solidify your commitment to turning your restaurant into a profitable and smooth running operation. It also provides the direction your management team needs to do their jobs to your expectations.

In developing your plan for improving your restaurant operation, remember these helpful tips:

  • Study every aspect of what you want to implement – does it fit with your management style and goals.
  • Believe in your plan – have confidence in your ability to make it happen and work.
  • Teach, involve and delegate to your team. You can’t do it alone and you need their commitment, buy-in and most importantly their support.
  • Work hard to make it happen! See rapid results!

Benefits of a management plan

A management plan produces:

  • Clearly defined goals to achieve
  • Knowledge of achieved success
  • Clear communications
  • Organized thoughts and ideas, identifying/rectifying omissions
  • Systems for realizing short and long-term goals
  • Less stress
  • Increased bottom-line
  • Increased cash flow
  • Improved employee morale
  • Business growth

You should have several objectives in mind when developing your management plan, but your ultimate goal is to build a more profitable business (a virtual cash machine), work less, have less stress, and have a real personal and family life.

Just remember, any business is only as good as its people believe it is!

In the next blog post, I’ll provide you with the questions you need to ask of yourself and your restaurant to be able to put your management plan together.

David Scott Peters TheRestaurantExpert (1)David Scott Peters is a restaurant expert, speaker, coach and trainer for independent restaurant owners. He is the developer of SMART Systems Pro, an online restaurant management software program helping the independent restaurant owner remain competitive and profitable in an industry boxed in by the big chain restaurants. He is best known as the SMART Systems guy who can walk into any restaurant and find $10,000 in undiscovered cash before he hits the back door… Guaranteed! Learn more at www.TheRestaurantExpert.com.

 

5 Things You Can Do Now to Cut Food Costs

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By David Scott Peters

www.therestaurantexpert.com

I originally wrote this article in the fall 2008 when the economy was really starting to hit my members where it hurt. And many of my members, because they have put systems such as these in place, weathered the 2008 recession much better than they expected. It’s all about operating at the lowest cost possible to maximize every dollar that comes through the door – in good times and in bad times.

So here are five easy-to-implement systems that will help you weather any economic storm – from the economy to slow tourist traffic – and also help your business in the long run.

  1. Raise prices. If you’re feeling the pinch, you could have no choice. A mistake would be to start ordering lesser quality substitutions, such as catfish instead of grouper. People who eat in your restaurant on a regular basis have come to expect a certain level of quality. If you start offering lesser quality ingredients, it will be noticed, and you’ll pay the price in the long run. And you don’t have to raise prices by much to have an impact, as long as you’re implementing changes in other areas.
  2. Purchase smarter. This is a two-parter.
    • First, order a descending dollar report. You can get this from your vendor. It shows what you spent the most money on down to the least amount of money. This isn’t necessarily in volume, but in price per item. It’s not that I ordered 10 cases, it’s that I spent $1,000 — which could have been 1 case. Based on these figures, you can try to find like or better products at cheaper prices, which can have a huge impact on your business. You can take something you usually spend $3,000 a month on and get it down to $2500. Attack the next thing, say it’s $2,000 a month on down to $1500 and so on. Work your way down the report, cutting dollars off each item you order until you get to the bottom and can’t cut any more. You don’t want to sacrifice your quality, so it won’t work on every item, but this can be huge. I’ve had members cut their spending by 5, 7, even 10 percent.
    • Second, get a prime vendor agreement. Rather than order small amounts of product from a large number of food distributors, you’re better off to order most, if not all, of your product from one distributor. Yes, you might be getting a killer deal on cheese from one vendor, but in the meantime, you’re getting railed in your janitorial and paper items from another. Cherry picking won’t get you far these days. It’s no longer to your advantage to purchase this way. A prime vendor agreement will make a huge impact on your bottom line, cutting percentage points off your operations costs, guaranteed.
  3. Recipe costing cards. Create a recipe costing card for every item on your menu – including your bar drinks. Include everything down to the single piece of lettuce. If you’re a quick service restaurant, you can include the cost of the to-go packaging. Making these cards and training everyone to them eliminates waste and over-portioning. Plus it provides a great training tool.
  4. Menu engineering. Sit down and take a long hard look at your menu. If you have them at your disposal, run a few reports through your POS system. Look at your item-by-item sales mix report and your key item report. Plot each item on a graph, with the number sold on the y axis and the profits made in dollars on the x axis. These will tell you what items are ordered most often and how much they cost you to make. Combine your recipe costing cards with your POS reports, and you’ll see the dogs on your menu. The dogs are the ones that don’t sell, or the ones that do sell, but cost you money to sell. You don’t want dogs. You want stars. You want popular, high-profit menu items. Get rid of the dogs, highlight the stars. Encourage people to purchase the higher priced items on your menu.
  5. Waste sheets. All causes for waste are avoidable and are a direct result of a lack of management and training. Waste includes a burned steak, food that spoiled because it was buried in the back of the walk-in and wasn’t rotated properly, and serving portions that are too large (this ties in to the importance of recipe costing cards). The waste sheet includes what the item was, that it was wasted, why it was wasted and how much that cost. Some people also like to put how much money it would have been worth if you sold it. Keep track of what gets wasted, and you’ll see a drop in waste. It’s an automatic drop in your food cost.

Lean, mean, fighting machine

Whether we’re in a recession or not, these things will impact your bottom line. If you’re already doing these things, I think there are probably places you can still trim. Go back and look at the areas where you can make a difference.

And just imagine. These five suggestions focus purely on cost of goods sold. That’s just one area within your restaurant. There are margins all over your restaurant where you can have an impact.

David Scott Peters TheRestaurantExpert (1)

David Scott Peters is a restaurant expert, speaker, coach and trainer for independent restaurant owners. He is the developer of SMART Systems Pro, an online restaurant management software program helping the independent restaurant owner remain competitive and profitable in an industry boxed in by the big chain restaurants. He is best known as the SMART Systems guy who can walk into any restaurant and find $10,000 in undiscovered cash before he hits the back door… Guaranteed! Learn more at www.TheRestaurantExpert.com.

 

 

 

Nations Restaurant News – Arby’s shifts marketing strategy

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When Arby’s introduced its new Turkey Roasters sandwich nationally on Sept. 3, the chain was embarking on a new era — one with a clearer branding strategy and increased menu innovation.

“This brand has had an identity crisis for the past few decades,” said Russ Klein, Arby’s chief marketing officer. “We’ve made the decision that we want to be a modern sandwich shop.”

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Quick-Service Traffic Continues Rising, While Full-Service Falls

Consumers pulled back from visits to midscale and casual-dining restaurants in the April, May, and June quarter, continuing a four-year streak of visit losses for the full-service segment, according to The NPD Group, a leading market research company. Read the full article to learn more.

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