I see it often.  The owners of a failing restaurant can’t make a decision.  Or worse yet; they are too stubborn to make a decision that makes sense.  Or maybe they deny that there is a problem at all. I can see it clearly, and often their partners and friends can see it too.

There is the employee or manager who isn’t the right person for the job, or who just doesn’t do their job. Yet, ownership can’t seem to confront the person and find solutions. 

There is the money gushing out the door due to theft, poor cost controls, poor accounting and a myriad of other reasons.  Yet, ownership can’t seem to implement better accountability and security.

There is a better way of preparing a dish, or serving a table, or handling a customer complaint.  Yet, ownership refuses to rock the boat and change “the way we’ve always done it”, or re-work a family recipe.

There is a major food code violation in the kitchen and the inspector has written it on the report for the last three inspections.  Yet, ownership is more worried about a dollar, than the health or life of a child, or a senior, or a cancer patient.

There is a hard decision to be made, or a decision that really isn't a decision at all. Maybe "it’s just the right thing to do”.  Yet, ownership continues to push back due to money, or anger at the government, or a general disbelief that they need help.

There is a time that all businesses need outside help, or a new perspective, or non-biased input. Sometimes the truth hurts. Yet, ownership doesn’t feel that they need help, or can’t afford it.

There is a cost associated with indecision, stubbornness and denial.

There is a restaurant for sale. Cheap.

Everyone has something that they could improve upon in their life.  I know that I could be better about turning off my computer at the end of the day, and just enjoying family time.  I know that my wife could improve by not putting my chef's knives in the dishwasher time and time again.  My daughter could study more, and text less.  My son could be less forgetful. My Mother could stop worrying so much.  Politicians in Washington could...well that's a blog for another day. But here are five things that I think almost all restaurants could improve upon starting today that would have an immediate positive effect on business.

1.  Improve your curb appeal.  Is your sign fully lit?  Did someone empty their car's ashtray in your parking lot?  Are the flowers in the planters alive? Is your sign fully lit? Before a guest even enters your building they have started to get a first impression about what to expect.  If it's bad enough, they might just get back in to their car and leave. 


2.  Clean your restrooms.  The restroom lets you know what a restaurant's cleanliness habits are.  If the bathroom isn't clean what does the kitchen look like?  While you're at it, fill the soap and paper towel dispensers, and get rid of the nasty smell.  Nothing ruins my appetite like a poorly-kept restroom.

3.  Clean, clean, clean.  I'm not just talking about the basics such as cleaning your bathrooms, vacuuming the floor, or cleaning the windows.  I'm talking about cleaning the bottom of the sugar caddies, and making sure the squeeze bottles of ketchup and mustard don't have dried gunk on them.  The edges of the tabletops, and the bottom side where someone has deposited their chewing gum should also get some love. And, when is the last time the seats in the booths were removed and cleaned?

4.  Hire good people and train them.  Your staff represents you, and sometimes they might not represent you well.  Individuals who don't perform quality work should be held accountable. Everyone needs training on the menu and menu item ingredients, how to address a table, and how to respond to a complaint or concern.  When someone tells your staff that they are a first-time diner, your staff know how important it is to make a good impression.  And when asked for their opinion as to "what's good", the answer shouldn't be "everything". 

5.  Touch tables.  It seems to be a lost art unless I'm paying $40+ for an entree.  Why don't managers take the time to touch tables and inquire as to how the dining experience is going?  The cost of this seemingly rare practice is nothing, and the impact can be great! Just because a restaurant is "casual" doesn't mean that the manager or chef shouldn't be able to say "hello". And once they do touch a table, they need to respond appropriately to a guest's complaint and make things right instead of making excuses.

If any of these issues applies to your restaurant, you need to stop what you're doing and take action NOW. You'll be surprised at how just improving on the points above will improve your restaurant's image, and improve your business overall.

As I sit down to write this, I’m exhausted. I’ve been putting off a huge home project that has needed to be done for years…painting my front porch. Now keep in mind that the porch isn’t just any old porch. It’s about eight feet deep and 35 feet wide with lots of balusters and railings, and a very high ceiling. It’s a classic old house with a classic old porch.

The first thing that I needed to do, before I could even think about a fresh coat of paint, was to wash everything off.  So, out came the pressure washer. And while I was pressure washing for five hours, I had plenty of time to think. And, it occurred to me that I was enjoying my time. 

I was enjoying an unseasonably nice day, listening to the somehow-calming drone of the pressure washer, and thinking about HHC and the success that I’ve achieved.  I was also thinking about how nice it is to not let my job consume my life.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m passionate about what I do, but everyone needs some down time. Everyone needs to work to live, not live to work. Everyone needs balance.

I was thinking too about how a few of my past colleagues were probably sitting in a restaurant or café somewhere working on a laptop.  Or, maybe they were sitting in an airport waiting for their next flight.  Or, maybe they were in the air struggling with limited legroom, reading a SkyMall catalog, and snacking on a tiny bag of some sort of in-flight treat. Regardless of exactly what they were doing, I felt a bit sorry for them.

I’ve been there. I’ve missed ball games, school concerts, holidays, family reunions, church and all sorts of other events. I’ve taken opportunities that required me to be away from home for long stretches of time. And even though it’s not realistic to not miss anything, there were definitely a lot of events that I shouldn’t have missed. I should have realized sooner that life requires balance, and that I can be great at what I do, and be a success without selling my soul to my career or feeling guilty about taking time off. In fact, I should have realized that downtime actually helps me be more motivated and effective when I am working.

And that’s how I got here. That’s how HHC came to be. I decided that I didn’t want to transfer to another state again, or rack up half a million frequent flyer miles, or miss another ball game. That’s how I got balance. And I hope that as I continue to build HHC, I can have a long, balance-filled life helping others achieve balance too.

Next weekend...PAINT.

We all experience failure in our lives. There are loves that are lost, contracts that aren’t awarded, products that don’t sell, goals we don’t reach, and businesses that fail. Ultimately though, it’s how we handle these failures that define us.

For example, American auto manufacturers have had a tough go of it over the past several years.  GM and Chrysler’s businesses failed and required government bailouts.  Ford didn’t require a bailout, but still had huge problems of its own. Journalist Bryce Hoffman, in his new book, American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company, talks about how Ford avoided bailouts, dealt with its failures, and was placed on a positive course for the future.

So what is one of the secrets to Mulally’s leadership as CEO of Ford? Simply put, it was maintaining a positive attitude.

Mulally, though facing possible failure, is described as always being upbeat, and being the first one to get over bad news.  He maintained a positive attitude every day, and kept smiling, even though there wasn’t a lot to smile about.  His positive attitude set the standard for others, and he was able to encourage everyone to work together, rather than succumb to failure. Mulally was, and still is, a leader that the employees of Ford believe in, and his attitude promotes success.

So, what kind of leader are you? Do you keep a positive attitude each day when presented with bad news or possible failure?  Is your attitude one that you can be proud of? Does your behavior motivate your employees to succeed?

When faced with bad news or possible failure, remember that if you aren’t part of the solution, you are very possibly part of the problem.

Very recently my wife and I were invited out to have dinner at a restaurant that we had never been to before. It is an upscale restaurant in the Indianapolis area and it has been around for many years.  It boasts of having an inventive menu and an excellent chef. When we received the invitation I thought, "Great! I've driven by there a million times but never tried them out!" 

Unfortunately for the restaurant, we won't be back. It's not that the food was bad or that the service was poor, it's just that it wasn't good enough to make me into a raving fan. 

Many restaurants put too much of their marketing focus on getting new customers.  The business creates new coupons or promotions to build excitement and buzz in order to get new people in the door.  In fact they focus so much on getting new customers they forget sometimes to take extraordinary care of them once they arrive .

The really tragic thing with our dinner experience was that our server ASKED us if we'd been there before, and we said "No". That should have been the call to action for something special; something to really "WOW" us so that we'd be back.  But it wasn't.  

So what should the restaurant in question have done better?  They should have gone above and beyond:

• At a minimum the service should have been impeccable.  They should have done simple things that aren't seen in many restaurants such as crumbing the table between courses, announcing dishes descriptively, giving me a black cloth napkin so as to avoid white lint on my black pants, refolding my napkin when I used the restroom, etc. They should have done things above and beyond what I would normally expect. Instead, they didn't do anything out of the norm. They weren't even especially fast or overly outgoing.
• The manager or chef should have visited our table and welcomed us and thanked us for our first visit.  They should have made a "big deal" about our being new customers in their establishment. We should have felt like we were special and important to them.
• Offering to add us onto their frequent guest program would have been a smart idea too.  If they don't have a program (and I don't know if they do), they need to start one. This would have opened up a line of communication with my wife and me that could have been used to send us news about promotions, menu changes, etc.  
• They could have sent us an amuse-bouche, or a complimentary treat of some type, as a surprise.  Or, since none of our small group ordered dessert, they could have given a small dessert sampler to the table as a way to say "thank you" to their new customers, and entice us all to return again and have dessert next time. 
• They could have sent us a hand-written "Thank you".  Now, this would have required getting our address information so that they could open up a line of communication as I already discussed.  But, "Wow", that would have made an impact!  Imagine us receiving a "Thank you" via snail mail.  No one does that anymore.

So to all of the restaurants out there spending big money and working hard to find new customers, I suggest this: focus on making the experience amazing for your current customers, and ask them to refer others to you.  And when you get first time customers, make sure you blow them away with great food, amazing service, and let them know you are celebrating their discovering you.  Let them know how very important they really are, and most of all...that you want them to come again soon!

 

In my travels with Hoosier Hospitality Consulting I get to meet a lot of people with a very wide variety of backgrounds.  I've met young people who have a dream of starting their own hospitality business, but have no experience in hospitality industry.  Then there are those who are great cooks whose friends tell them, "You should open up your own restaurant". And of course there are  those with years of experience as a server, or a bartender, or a cook and a desire to strike out and do their own thing and not what some owner, manager, or chef tells them to do.  All of these combined contacts have made me realize some common reasons that restaurants, and businesses in general, fail.  These are my top five.

#5 - Underestimating the difficulty of establishing a new business. Regardless of the type of business you want to create (a bakery, a restaurant, a mobile truck, a catering operation, a motel, etc.) it is a business.  You have to know what you know, and what you don't know.  You have to ultimately know a fair amount about accounting, taxes, licenses, building codes, food safety, marketing, promotion, service, human resources, training staff, managing costs, and much more that has absolutely nothing to do with how good your food tastes. And when you don't know, you need to know someone who does.

#4 -No practical experience. There are those who are book smart, and those who are street smart.  Running a business has a lot to do with being street smart. There are a lot of things that you can read online, or learn in school that ultimately don't filter down to the day to day realities of running a business.  I fly on airplanes, but I wouldn't try to fly one.  Just because someone is an awesome cook at home doesn't mean that they know how to be a restauranteur. Before using your money to open a new business, why not let someone else use their money to hire you.  You'll surely learn about what to do and what not to do...on their dime.

#3 - The business doesn't have"that thing" that makes it special.  Think about what restaurants you like to go to, or what hotels you use, or what stores you shop at. Why do you patronize them?  What is important to you?  Those are the questions that you have to learn about your prospective guests and customers.  You are going to have to have something that makes you different and special; something that makes your customers try your place and then continue to choose you over others that offer the same type of product.  Lots of folks go to a new restaurant once. What is "that thing" that makes them come back?

#2 - They don't understand how to market their business. Do you give out coupons?  Run a newspaper or magazine ad?  Do you have a frequent customer program?  Do people really care about what you Tweet?  What about SEO? Which of your marketing tools are effective, and how effective are they? There are so many different ways to market your business that WON'T work, it's scary. You have to do your research and be skeptical of every Account Representative that claims to have the magic bullet that will make your business profits soar. (See #5)

#1 - They don't have the money. Let's face it, money makes the world go around.  However much money you have available, or have planned to spend, it always seems to take more.  Think about it, how many times do you hear "The project came in under budget and ahead of schedule".  Anytime someone starts a business the odds are very good that it will take longer to get the doors open than was planned...and that means MORE MONEY.  To be safe a new business will need 2-3 years of operating funds available in some form or fashion before opening.  There are so many variables to starting a business that it's impossible to plan ahead for every little circumstance.  A lot of new businesses fail not because they didn't do things right in #2 through #5 above, but because they just ran out of money a little too early and had to quit before success was realized.