I was told an great saying once. "You have two ears, two eyes and just one mouth, use what you have most of more".
At the time I was young and didn't think much of it but over the years I've realised the importance of listening and looking rather than speaking. So much more can be gained by allowing others to tell you or show you what they want or need, or more importantly what they didn't want you to hear or see.
It can also be a great tool for training others and I believe when you have listened and looked the things that you should be saying are not statements or demands but questions.
By asking questions you allow others to think for themselves and find the answers, this undoubtedly makes the person you are training learn quicker and more effeciently. What it also makes them do without realising is grow their confidence, after all it was them who found the answer and made the decision, theres no need to tell them otherwise.
Become a better listener and learn to ask questions and you will grow a strong dynamic team, full of cofidence and loyalty to the comapany.
Thanks
Philip
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
Can you be lazy and still acheive results?
So can laziness be beneficial to your business?
If you take the meaning as it is then no, nobody likes lazy workers but if you add the word constructive then yes.
Constructive laziness is simply making sure your staff utelise their time to greater effect. Why do a job twice when you could of done it correctly once?
The great thing about installing the constructive laziness idea into your business is that it actually makes staff work harder and fit in more tasks into their day.
A very simple demonstration of this is in the summer when you have a beer garden. The waitress takes a plate of food to a table in the garden, then asks if they need any sauces, then heads back to the kitchen for the sauces, back to the table and finally back to serve someone else.
What she also did was to come back empty handed. Why? Because she hasn't been trained to consider why she should always come back with something from the garden. It might only be a few glasses or a couple of plates but by doing this each time she would acheive more and her working time would be more beneficial to the customers and the company.
This is the point of Constructive Laziness. Train your staff to consider adding a task to their original task so that they wont have to do it later. They might think that this way of working means that they can relax later but what it actually means is that they are more effecient and so are giving your business more value for money.
Introduce it now and reap the rewards.
Philip
If you take the meaning as it is then no, nobody likes lazy workers but if you add the word constructive then yes.
Constructive laziness is simply making sure your staff utelise their time to greater effect. Why do a job twice when you could of done it correctly once?
The great thing about installing the constructive laziness idea into your business is that it actually makes staff work harder and fit in more tasks into their day.
A very simple demonstration of this is in the summer when you have a beer garden. The waitress takes a plate of food to a table in the garden, then asks if they need any sauces, then heads back to the kitchen for the sauces, back to the table and finally back to serve someone else.
What she also did was to come back empty handed. Why? Because she hasn't been trained to consider why she should always come back with something from the garden. It might only be a few glasses or a couple of plates but by doing this each time she would acheive more and her working time would be more beneficial to the customers and the company.
This is the point of Constructive Laziness. Train your staff to consider adding a task to their original task so that they wont have to do it later. They might think that this way of working means that they can relax later but what it actually means is that they are more effecient and so are giving your business more value for money.
Introduce it now and reap the rewards.
Philip
Thursday, 12 January 2012
Are on going discounts dangerous for businesses?
It's obvious that discounts make up a huge part of the mid-market dining sector. Most of the major high street brands have large discount aimed to attract more customers but although this is great for generating foot flow is it good as a long term stratergy or for profits and has it got to the point that the companies now can't survive without these promotions.
Every month I receive my usual email for 2for1 on mains or Pizza for a pound and every week I sigh slightly thinking about the pressure that the marketing team must be under to think of more and more new discounts. It's not that I don't want a deal or appreciate a good discount but I worry that the smaller independents are feeling the pressure and are having to follow suit.
I fear that this is a slippery slope and before they know it they are just another member of the heavy discount group, serving average food, knowing that if they stop the discounts they will lose their new client base and potentially loose any type of business. It's a far step from their original plans.
I no longer see companies such as Pizza Express, La Tasca and Prezzo (to name but a few) as serving quality, I just see them as a place to go if I had a voucher. It's a shame really because they all started out as great restaurants.
There is another way of course, follow the likes of Cote. They don't advertise discounts and are certainly not know for vouchers but instead have built up a good group based on quality. Quality food, drinks, service and surroundings. So if you are a new restaurant or an expanding group stick to the idea that if its good enough people will come. Give the customer a great experience and they will come back again and again with or without a discount.
Don't fall into the heavy discount trap, a promotion now and again is fine but don't go over board or your business might just sink.
Philip
Every month I receive my usual email for 2for1 on mains or Pizza for a pound and every week I sigh slightly thinking about the pressure that the marketing team must be under to think of more and more new discounts. It's not that I don't want a deal or appreciate a good discount but I worry that the smaller independents are feeling the pressure and are having to follow suit.
I fear that this is a slippery slope and before they know it they are just another member of the heavy discount group, serving average food, knowing that if they stop the discounts they will lose their new client base and potentially loose any type of business. It's a far step from their original plans.
I no longer see companies such as Pizza Express, La Tasca and Prezzo (to name but a few) as serving quality, I just see them as a place to go if I had a voucher. It's a shame really because they all started out as great restaurants.
There is another way of course, follow the likes of Cote. They don't advertise discounts and are certainly not know for vouchers but instead have built up a good group based on quality. Quality food, drinks, service and surroundings. So if you are a new restaurant or an expanding group stick to the idea that if its good enough people will come. Give the customer a great experience and they will come back again and again with or without a discount.
Don't fall into the heavy discount trap, a promotion now and again is fine but don't go over board or your business might just sink.
Philip
Monday, 9 January 2012
The Yes Culture
If your business can introduce a Yes culture and have your staff fully embrace it you'll soon see the benefits. The only thing is how do you start the culture?
The whole point of the Yes culture is to display a positive approach to anything and everything concerning your customers. Staff should be trained to always say yes and to be positive. Now- I've had clients ask "what if we can't say yes to a customer" which in the first instance is a valid question but a true Yes culture means that when you need to say no, you can still say yes.
This is not a mind trick or a way of deceiving customers but its how we introduce a positive answer to requests. For example if a customer asks for a T-Bone steak but you only serve Rib-eye you can reply with "I would love to but I'm afraid we don't have any in the kitchen, try the Rib-eye this time its from our local butcher, hung for 21 days and full of flavour. Next time you come to see us, give us a call and we'll get a T-Bone ordered from the butcher especially for you". This no answer to their request is dealt in a positive way and so falls in line with the Yes culture.
With a Yes culture introduced customers will always receive a positive experience, this can set a great opinion of your business and can help establish a loyal fan base.
Yes is the way forward.
The whole point of the Yes culture is to display a positive approach to anything and everything concerning your customers. Staff should be trained to always say yes and to be positive. Now- I've had clients ask "what if we can't say yes to a customer" which in the first instance is a valid question but a true Yes culture means that when you need to say no, you can still say yes.
This is not a mind trick or a way of deceiving customers but its how we introduce a positive answer to requests. For example if a customer asks for a T-Bone steak but you only serve Rib-eye you can reply with "I would love to but I'm afraid we don't have any in the kitchen, try the Rib-eye this time its from our local butcher, hung for 21 days and full of flavour. Next time you come to see us, give us a call and we'll get a T-Bone ordered from the butcher especially for you". This no answer to their request is dealt in a positive way and so falls in line with the Yes culture.
With a Yes culture introduced customers will always receive a positive experience, this can set a great opinion of your business and can help establish a loyal fan base.
Yes is the way forward.
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
Answer to the quick survey I posted
Recently I posted a quick survey on linkedin.com
The question was this
Q. In order what is the most important part of running a hospitality business?
A. Marketing
B. Operations
C. Staff Training
D. Design
E. Financial awareness
G. Customer service
I had a great response from people in all areas of hospitality and I would now like to share with you my answer to the question.
It can be argued that all of the six points are equally important and throughout the life span of a hospitality business this can be true but I want to look at the question in a different way.
If I had prioritise one of the list to make sure a restaurant or bar was to survive in the current climate I would have to choose customer service. This decision that was my first instinct and has been a constant in my working life but I couldn't keep Financial awareness from also being at the top, lets be honest without financial awareness where is the business plan? People open a restaurant with the intention of making money. OK, there are the ones who tell you its for the love of food, but lets be honest they need to make money to spend money on their Fois Gras and truffles so they have to have an idea of Financial awareness.
So does that mean I think that should be number one, well no. As I said my choice is customer service. The days have long gone when it was OK to think that a customer was wrong or an idiot for complaining, the time has past when the waiters sniggered when a customer ordered a Sauvignon when they were eating a Ribeye. Now the emphasis is on providing the sort of service that makes customers feel that it was worth spending their hard earned money.
In the current climate more than ever customers want and need value for money, they are bombarded with TV shows telling them their rights, magazine articles explaining how restaurants work and websites allowing anyone to become the next A.A Gill. We as hospitality professionals must do all we can to meet and exceed the customers expectations. By delivering great service and not average service a business can start to build a loyal fan base who will return again and again. Customer service should be a fundamental of any business and none more so than hospitality, it's essential therefore that delivering great customer service and going that extra mile should be regarded as the most important area and everyone working within the business should be aware of this.
So customer service is at the top of my list and what I consider as the priority. This is then followed closely by the financial awareness as there is no point supplying the best service in town if you cant actually afford to stay open.
After these two I start to group the others together. Next on my list would be operations and staff training. Some would say staff training is more essential than operations and if you want great customer service then you must train your staff. This could be true but I believe that the majority of people will follow the leader and so if the business owner believed in great customer service and demonstrated that on a daily basis then the staff will follow. So I would say as much as training is important and it is very important, you have to know what your working operations are to start with. There is no point training the staff to do one thing and then deciding that the way you operate is completely different, this is a false economy and a waste of yours and your staffs time. Establish what you are going to do first (this undoubtedly will be tweaked from time to time) then formulate your training plan to work in line with your operations. Streamlined and efficient planning will deliver greater results.
The final two are design and marketing. There will be people out there who would completely disagree with me and would say that marketing is the most important. I understand their opinion and through my experience working as a consultant I get asked about marketing more than anything else.
My answer is always the same. Marketing is very important and the more you can do to get your business noticed the better but do it correctly. Don't waste thousands of pounds on advertising but look to the free options instead. When you do start marketing your business make sure its at the right time, if the customer service is poor work on that first to improve it, if you don't turn a profit because your spending too much look at your books and cut costs, if the way you work is not efficient and doesn't deliver what you first envisaged restructure your operations, if the staff don't work properly or deliver the correct level of service train them until they do and if the restaurant, pub, bar or hotel that you operate is a turn off to customers look to redesign and attract people through the door. Once all of these areas are correct then look to market the business because there's no point spending time and money on getting people to your venue only for them to be let down and never come back again.
So there it is my list:
Customer Service
Financial awareness
Operations
Staff Training
Design
Marketing
Kind Regards
Philip
www.bandrresolve.com
The question was this
Q. In order what is the most important part of running a hospitality business?
A. Marketing
B. Operations
C. Staff Training
D. Design
E. Financial awareness
G. Customer service
I had a great response from people in all areas of hospitality and I would now like to share with you my answer to the question.
It can be argued that all of the six points are equally important and throughout the life span of a hospitality business this can be true but I want to look at the question in a different way.
If I had prioritise one of the list to make sure a restaurant or bar was to survive in the current climate I would have to choose customer service. This decision that was my first instinct and has been a constant in my working life but I couldn't keep Financial awareness from also being at the top, lets be honest without financial awareness where is the business plan? People open a restaurant with the intention of making money. OK, there are the ones who tell you its for the love of food, but lets be honest they need to make money to spend money on their Fois Gras and truffles so they have to have an idea of Financial awareness.
So does that mean I think that should be number one, well no. As I said my choice is customer service. The days have long gone when it was OK to think that a customer was wrong or an idiot for complaining, the time has past when the waiters sniggered when a customer ordered a Sauvignon when they were eating a Ribeye. Now the emphasis is on providing the sort of service that makes customers feel that it was worth spending their hard earned money.
In the current climate more than ever customers want and need value for money, they are bombarded with TV shows telling them their rights, magazine articles explaining how restaurants work and websites allowing anyone to become the next A.A Gill. We as hospitality professionals must do all we can to meet and exceed the customers expectations. By delivering great service and not average service a business can start to build a loyal fan base who will return again and again. Customer service should be a fundamental of any business and none more so than hospitality, it's essential therefore that delivering great customer service and going that extra mile should be regarded as the most important area and everyone working within the business should be aware of this.
So customer service is at the top of my list and what I consider as the priority. This is then followed closely by the financial awareness as there is no point supplying the best service in town if you cant actually afford to stay open.
After these two I start to group the others together. Next on my list would be operations and staff training. Some would say staff training is more essential than operations and if you want great customer service then you must train your staff. This could be true but I believe that the majority of people will follow the leader and so if the business owner believed in great customer service and demonstrated that on a daily basis then the staff will follow. So I would say as much as training is important and it is very important, you have to know what your working operations are to start with. There is no point training the staff to do one thing and then deciding that the way you operate is completely different, this is a false economy and a waste of yours and your staffs time. Establish what you are going to do first (this undoubtedly will be tweaked from time to time) then formulate your training plan to work in line with your operations. Streamlined and efficient planning will deliver greater results.
The final two are design and marketing. There will be people out there who would completely disagree with me and would say that marketing is the most important. I understand their opinion and through my experience working as a consultant I get asked about marketing more than anything else.
My answer is always the same. Marketing is very important and the more you can do to get your business noticed the better but do it correctly. Don't waste thousands of pounds on advertising but look to the free options instead. When you do start marketing your business make sure its at the right time, if the customer service is poor work on that first to improve it, if you don't turn a profit because your spending too much look at your books and cut costs, if the way you work is not efficient and doesn't deliver what you first envisaged restructure your operations, if the staff don't work properly or deliver the correct level of service train them until they do and if the restaurant, pub, bar or hotel that you operate is a turn off to customers look to redesign and attract people through the door. Once all of these areas are correct then look to market the business because there's no point spending time and money on getting people to your venue only for them to be let down and never come back again.
So there it is my list:
Customer Service
Financial awareness
Operations
Staff Training
Design
Marketing
Kind Regards
Philip
www.bandrresolve.com
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