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 EHC #560
 Insights for the Professionally Curious
 October 24, 2008 
One of my more difficult weekly tasks is to decide what information I am going to leave OUT of the Complimentary Edition of the EHC. It's not that I don't love you all, just that the folks who are paying for my weekly rants deserve to get their money's worth ... even if that money only averages out to 75 cents an issue. So I apologize for the necessary surgery ... and hope you may eventually decide your business is worth another forty bucks a year!
Good Morning!

I have spent most of the week with my friend, long-time mentor and industry legend, "Coach" Don Smith. I made the trip to his ranch in Texas to spend several days reviewing the Hospitality Imperative with him because I really wanted his input, advice and counsel on the project.

Our talks focused primarily on the hospitality experience itself -- how to define it, how to deliver it and how to measure it. Those in my Gold Group have already received a couple of my past interviews with Don so you have a sense of his passion for the industry. I assure you that he hasn't lost any of that fire.

In addition to a pile of notes and fresh insights, I returned with a big pile of resource material to digest and perhaps integrate into the project. I even recorded one of our longer discussions and hope it will prove to be of good enough quality to duplicate for you in another monthly CD.

The topic of hospitality itself is particularly relevant because in today's market, the places that survive will be the ones who do the best job of connecting with their guests ... and that means the ones who are most hospitable.

Bill Marvin
The Restaurant Doctor
Get Personal, Get Busy
It's About People, Stupid!

In a business based on personal connection, you have to get personal. This means going beyond the procedural aspects of service and getting good at the human dimension of service. The key to treating your guests as individuals is to start thinking of them as individuals.

It may be wonderful to look at yesterday's business and see that you served 300 dinners when you were expecting to serve 275.

It is an entirely different mind set to look over yesterday's reservation list, credit card receipts or frequent diner transactions to see that Phyllis and Wilbur Young came in to celebrate their 53rd anniversary, Renee Strom hosted a luncheon for local meeting planners or that you handled a special entree request for Dick Gaven.

Statistics are a good way to keep score and see if you are continually beating last year. However, statistics tell you about the past and the past is history. A successful operator wants to get a handle on what will assure her success into the future.

In a "people business" like ours, it's about people, stupid!

Becoming A Place of Hospitality™
Rethinking Restaurants

(NOTE: The US Trademark Office refused my registration of "Six Star Hospitality" as too similar to something called the Six Star Diamond Award that is awarded to cruise ships. Go figure. Since I have always said that the purpose of this work is to help you create "A Place of Hospitality," that is the new working name for the project. Any comments?)

Past the human dimension, we have identified six functional areas of concern that must be in balance to create a memorable dining experience and create A Place of Hospitality™.

1. Fiscal Fitness
To succeed in the hospitality business, you must be a good restaurant and you must also be a good business. The two are not the same skill sets.

Most restaurant entrepreneurs do not go into business because they love tending to the books and managing the more mundane aspects of the company. The business part of the business is not necessarily the most fun, but inattention to the numbers will bring down even the busiest restaurant.

Widespread access to broadband Internet opens up possibilities that were unthinkable only a few years ago and the Hospitality Imperative Program will take full advantage of that.

A common complaint of independent operators is the amount of time they spend pushing numbers, so the system will automate as much of the grunt work as possible. The system will integrate all the hardware and software in the restaurant and make sure they all can talk to each other.

This includes accounting, POS polling, daily reports, payroll, scheduling, compensation, cost control, purchasing, invoices, staff benefits, government compliance, cash flow projections, forecasting, recipe cost updating, break even, menu analysis and other necessary applications.

All this information will be accessible online to assure participating operators always have a handle on the financial aspects of their businesses - from wherever they happen to be - without the need to manually generate the numbers. This will also maintain control of the technology and protect the proprietary processes of the system from piracy.

(more next week)

The Six Star project is taking on a life of its own. I appreciate the 280+ operators who have helped the cause by responding to the general survey. Have I heard from you yet? It's never 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.
The October Survey
Community Connection

Most independent operators are fixated on marketing, believing that all they need to succeed is to get more people through the door. That is important, of course, but people only come back because they want to ... because you have become their favorite restaurant.

Achieving this goal is more the result of continued connection than of endless marketing hype. Part of that connection is personal and part of it comes from maintaining contact and awareness with past and potential guests in a way that makes them inclined to patronize you more often..

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 wanted to be part of the Six Star 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.

Here's What You're Passing Up To Save 75 Cents!
In This Week's EHC Special Edition ...

  • Cool Idea Of The Week - how personalized menu items can make you friends ... and sales
  • The Research Imperative - half a dozen great ideas from a trip to New Orleans that can help you stand out
  • What Did You Learn From Your Staff Today? - how one manager learned to look beyond the numbers
  • 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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