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 EHC #551
 Insights for the Professionally Curious
 August 22, 2008 
Good Morning!

Welcome to the last week of summer (at least in the Northern Hemisphere!) Enjoy it while you've got it because the pace will pick up significantly as we move into the fall and when you look up again it will be January.

Are you ready? Are your plans in place for Halloween and Thanksgiving? Is the promo campaign for your holiday parties ready to go? Do you know how you will handle Christmas and New Year's Eve? Have you expanded your holiday thinking to include Eid, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa this year? How about a December bounce-back program to shore up the January slump?

I plan to spend the last week of summer enjoying the company of our house guests, finishing the unearthing of my office and enjoying a few glasses of wine on the deck watching the sun set on Mt. Rainier. I hope you will also take a moment to pause, savor the sweetness of life and recharge your batteries for the work that lies ahead.

Bill Marvin
The Restaurant Doctor

Be Prepared
Yet Another Dimension of Leadership

Tropical Storm Fay will not seem to let Florida alone. I would rather watch TV coverage of extreme weather than to live through it but Fay got me thinking ... and it should have you thinking as well.

Do you have a plan for what to do in the event of a natural disaster or even just a prolonged power outage? When you don't have a plan, you are likely to either get panic and chaos ... or an "everything is on the house" party! In either case, it will not reflect well on you or particularly work for your staff or guests.

How do you close out checks for people in the dining room when the registers or POS system is inoperable? What do you do about providing some light? Do you have candles or flashlights? Where are they? What do you do about food that must stay refrigerated or frozen? Do you switch to disposable serviceware? If so, where is the emergency stock?

What about people who arrive after the power goes out? Can you serve them? Do you know at what point you can no longer legally serve the public? Does your staff know? Do you have a plan for what you will do for people that you have to turn away? If you want them to come back, a gift certificate for the return visit would be a great way to soften any disappointment (remember that their houses are likely dark, too!) but it is not going to happen if nobody knows where to find the gift certificates or how to account for them. Training will set you -- and your staff -- free.

The best time to prepare for an emergency is before you have an emergency. Once it is upon you, there is no time to start training. Your crew will also feel more confident if they have been thoroughly drilled on what to do when the unexpected happens.

So start to think about what "routine emergencies" you might encounter - power outages, fire, hurricane, tornado, earthquake, armed robbery, death on the premises, and so forth. You get the idea. The job of the leader is to lead ... and part of leading is to make sure that you do not leave your crew wondering what to do next.
The Six Star project is taking on a life of its own. I appreciate the 250+ operators who have helped the cause by responding to the general survey. Have I heard from you yet? If not, it's not too late to share your thoughts.

The program designers will need to invent ways to do things that have always seemed impossible ... so what would you like to see invented? The next few EHC surveys will take each element of the Six Star program and ask you to go WAY outside the box of what you think is possible.

Essentially the drill is to complete this sentence: "Wouldn't it be cool if ______" Go crazy! Be unreasonable! We want to know the resources you wish you had at hand if your wildest dreams could come true. Then we'll see how close we can come to giving them to you.
The August Survey
Fiscal Fitness

The Internet opens up possibilities that were unthinkable only a few short years ago and Six Star will take full advantage of that.

A common complaint of independent operators is the amount of time they spend pushing numbers so we will automate as much of the grunt work as possible. This survey will give you an outline of what we already want to create ... and we need your ideas to help us see even more radical applications.

The numbers may not be the most exciting place to start, but the programming will probably be the hardest piece of Six Star to develop and we need to get started. So let's see how big a game you want us to play.

If you said you wanted to be part of the development process, this is the way to do it right now. You won't be able to field test something until we have created it!

As usual, I will send copies of the survey results to everyone who participates. In the meantime, you can download copies of all past EHC surveys -- including the massive WOW Ideas collections.

Click here to add your thoughts to this month's survey.

Here's What You're Passing Up To Save 75 Cents!
In This Week's EHC Special Edition ...
  • The Need For Six Star Hospitality - an ex-pat bemoans the lack of memorable dining on a recent trip home
  • Nickles and Dimes Revisited - why trying to get more from a guest will often bring you less
  • The Nose Knows - a potential marketing advantage that many operators never consider
  • What Did You Learn From Your Staff Today? - one operator's insight into getting her staff to take ownership
  • Special Offers on Management Resources - while I am still in that business
Solve the problem of what to talk about in your next staff meeting. Upgrade to the EHC Special Edition and get it all!
Copyright ©2008 William Marvin. All rights reserved.

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