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EFFORTLESS, INC.
PO Box 280
Gig Harbor, WA 98335 USA
(800) 767-1055
(253) 858-9255
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| EHC #557 Insights for the Professionally Curious | October 3, 2008 |
In the interests of time (mine), I will send the Special Edition of the EHC to everyone again this week. This simplifies my life while I am in Europe trying to kick back ... and is a good chance for you Comp folks to get a sense for the additional info you can tap into for just $39 a year. Of course, you can take me up on my Best Free Offer Ever and test drive it for three months as my guest! In any event, enjoy it while you can -- I hope you get some info you can use.
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Good Morning!
All good things come to an end ... and so it is with our time in beautiful Italia. Tomorrow we get on the long, long road back to Seattle via Pisa, Paris and London.
I keep threatening, but one of these days I may just make one of these trips and stay here ... but it is not this time. There is too much important work to be done. Six Star Hospitality is being born, we have the Last Birthday Bash coming up ... and I have a week at home before I leave again for a week of training sessions with a hotel group in Mexico!
But life is truly good ... and I realize again that the validity of that statement has nothing to do with where I am or what I am doing. Sure, it is easy to feel remarkably lucky sitting in the sun sipping good wine while being immersed in the ancient mysteries of an Italian hill town ... but it is no less true in the day-to-day routine.
We just seldom stop long enough to notice and appreciate that based on the choices we have made, we are exactly where we want to be and doing exactly what we want to be doing at any given moment. If such is not the case, make another choice and change the parts that don't serve you. If you can't change them, embrace them. Life is too short to spend any of it feeling resentful.
It's the only life you get this time around ... you might as well enjoy it. Ciao for now.
Bill Marvin
The Restaurant Doctor |
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 Six Star Hospitality(tm)
Rethinking Restaurants
Six Star Hospitality suggests an experience beyond the guests' highest expectations - that it is, indeed, something remarkable in the marketplace.
It will revolutionize the way that independent restaurants operate, compete and excel, offering a totally fresh way to deliver what has always led to success in the restaurant business but which seldom happens because operators "don't have the time" or "don't get it."
Six Star is based on the knowledge that independent operators can prosper if they make hospitality their competitive point of difference ... if they discover how to deal with their staff and guests in more productive ways and have an effective system to tend to the details of the business so they are free to nurture a positive work environment, assure memorable guest experiences ... and have a life themselves!
If the way operators were approaching their businesses was going to give them effortless lives, they would already have effortless lives! The simple truth is that for a business to expand, the owner's thinking has to expand first. One cannot be successful in the future using the thought processes and management models of the past.
(more next week)
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 Conditioning ...
How to Raise Prices ... and Boil a Frog!
Filling up my rental car in Italy today reminded me of a note from my colleague TJ Schier. He wrote in part:
"Have you pulled up to the gas pump lately and felt some relief that gas was so cheap because it was under $4 a gallon? Remember three years ago when you were up in arms because the price at the pump was above $2? If so, that is called conditioning. We have been conditioned over the last few months by high gas prices. When prices drops below $4 per gallon we now think it is cheap because the oil companies have conditioned us to accept it."
In Italy, gas is about US$8 a gallon. Is it expensive? If you go by US standards, even at the recent peak of our gas prices, it is exorbitant. But to the Italians, it is just the price of gas. I don't know if gas prices in Europe NEED to be so high, but they have been up there so long that people have accepted it and adapted.
Look inside your restaurant. Have you conditioned your customers to accept mediocre food, service, or substandard cook times? Are your employees conditioned knowing you accept the lowest standards possible and they that they can come in late, be out of uniform, or be unproductive? It is never too late to re-condition the team. It is not so important where you are today, but rather what you are doing about it.
Whatever people are used to getting becomes their standard after awhile. I am told that if you put a live frog in a pot of boiling water, it will immediately leap out. But if you put the same frog in a pot of cold water and gradually raise the temperature, it will stay in the water even as it reaches the boiling point.
(It makes you wonder about the sicko researcher who came up with this, but never mind.) My point is that we all secretly know that the days of $2 gas are gone forever and we secretly expect that the price will continue to rise. But if gas prices suddenly spiked up to $8 a gallon in the US, we would have mobs in the streets with torches and pitchforks. Nudge prices up a few cents at a time and we just accept it.
But there is good news in all this. If you have conditioned the market to your mediocre food, indifferent service or slow cook times, even the slightest improvement will look monumental ... to those few customers you have left! Likewise, if you stay on top of your costs and make regular, incremental price increases, guests hardly notice ... or at least grudgingly accept them more easily than sudden, more severe, across-the-board price jumps.
The bad news about low staffing standards is that after your staff becomes used to them, you play hell trying to raise the bar. Here again, steady, incremental change is the key to success. As TJ suggests, it is not so important where you are today, but rather where you need to be and what you are doing about it.
By the way, where ARE you today? Where DO you need to be? What ARE you doing about it?
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 Details
Little Things Make All The Difference
One of the things that has struck me in Europe is the care that the staff in the shops takes in packaging your purchases.
For example, we bought some pastries and croissants in a small local shop. The pastries went on a little cardboard tray that was then carefully wrapped in a conical manner (so the fruit on the top would not stick to the paper). I wondered why she gave the top of the cone a little twist until we got home and realized that when you untwisted the top, the two sides just opened apart like a clam shell. Very cool.
The croissants, not being sticky, were put into a bag, but then the corners were carefully twisted to give the package some stability.
It occurred to me that small touches like these are the difference between places that just get by and those that prosper. The underlying product is taken for granted -- in the case of restaurants, good food and good service are the price of admission. Nothing unusual there. But it is the small things you do that are not "necessary" that set you apart in the end.
Take another look at your to-go containers. Are you using the same styrofoam clamshells that every other restaurant on the planet uses? Personally, I would look for something totally different, but there's nothing inherently wrong with a styrofoam clamshell ... IF you add a little unexpected touch to set yours apart. Perhaps that is adding a colorful sticker with your logo ... or writing the name of the contents and the date ... or all of the above.
If you want the rewards that your competitors will not have, you must be willing to do the work that your competitors are not willing to do. The neat thing is that often, it isn't really that much work!
I am a few days behind on the daily diary at the moment, but click here and you can follow along on the trip.
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The Six Star project
is taking on a life of its own. I appreciate the 275+ 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 while they are at it? 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 we want you 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.
 Last Call For The September Survey
All-Star Staffing(NOTE: I know, I should have the October survey up by now. I just didn't have time to design it on this trip. Look for something new next week. In the meantime, add your thoughts to the September survey instead.)A common complaint of independent operators is the amount of time they spend trying to keep their shifts filled with quality workers. At the same time, you need an all-star staff to deliver Six Star Hospitality ... so the program will include a proven process to find, select, develop and retain the best of the best.
Without a plan you are just making things up. When you make things up, you risk making mistakes, either by hiring the wrong person or by violating employment laws. Making it up takes more time, is less effective and produces more stress. When you make it up, most of the work falls to the manager ... who already has too much to do. Worst of all, without a plan you don't get the best people and that is the greatest loss of all -- for you, your staff and especially for your guests.
This month's survey outlines what we already intend to create ... and asks for your ideas to help us see even more radical applications. The program designers will need to invent ways to do things that have always seemed impossible ... so we want a "wish list" of the resources you would like to have at hand if your wildest dreams could come true ... then let's see how close we can come to giving it to you.
If you said you wanted to be part of the development process, this is the way to do it right now. I can't ask you 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. |
 The Perpetual Question
"What did you learn from your staff today?"
I learned to quietly observe the employees working without my being in the way and monopolizing the environment myself. -- Joe Wagner, Jackson Java Company, Jackson, MS.
When it comes to learning, it is not about you. When you listen to learn you talk less and ask a lot more questions. Stay out of the way and let people be great on their own account. Nobody ever became a good pilot just by going to flight school. At some point they had to solo!
Learning to listen respectfully to everyone you meet - - and being intensely interested in what you hear -- will deepen respect and expand your mind.
Never doubt that the most valuable management skill you can develop is your ability to listen.
You may see that in a moment of personal insight ... and, to your eternal detriment, you may never get it at all. It all depends on how serious you are about finding out what you and your company are really capable of becoming and how willing you are to open yourself up to possibilities that are beyond your present experience.
What did you learn from YOUR staff today?
To share your insights on this important question for the common good (and your own as well), just click on the link above.
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  Lighten Up!
The Noble Experiment Continues
The weekly weigh-in is suspended until October. I decided not to bring my scale with me on this trip!
If you can't handle withdrawal from my incredibly inspiring project, try losing some weight yourself ... or stop smoking ... or start exercising ... or start doing any of those other tasks that you know would help you personally or professionally if you did them ... but that you have been putting off for reasons that would sound silly if you dared to say them out loud!
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Copyright ©2008 William Marvin. All rights reserved.
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