Tag Archives: managing

March 27, 2015 · 10:41 am

Easy Recipes

This Foodie Friday will involve a trip to the store for me. I like to avoid the markets over the weekend so Friday mornings are sometimes spent reviewing and searching for recipes. A little menu planning in advance means just today’s trip to the stores.

Pulled pork in BBQ sauce sandwich with slaw

Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As I was going through a few food sites looking for ideas it struck me how many recipes involved the word “easy.” I suspect part of that is an appeal to the time crunch all of us seem to be under and part of it is to make cooking less intimidating for those whose kitchen skills involve a microwave and opening a can.  The recipes are indeed easy – dump some stuff in the slow cooker, walk away for 6 hours, voilà! Supper!  While I love my slow cooker and have made, say, pulled pork in it, I’m not going to tell you that the end product is anything like, or near as good, as what I produce from my smoker.  The smoker is a tricky beast to use and requires a lot of attention. Which is, of course, the business point.

I’m not going to tell you that we need to make things as difficult for ourselves as we can.  In fact, I think quite the opposite.  What I won’t do or ask my clients to do as part of making things easier is to denigrate the quality of their offerings.  That’s where “easy” tends to become hard.  Maintaining the greatness of your brand, your products, your services isn’t easy nor will it ever be.  It requires constant vigilance and a proactive mindset.  You can’t just set the cooker and walk away.

So here is the easy recipe for this Friday.  This is the one that gets us to great while being relatively easy. As a person, learn the basic skills you need and practice them.  That’s true in the kitchen and the office.  Possessing those skills – critical thinking and communicating first and foremost – and getting them right makes using them easy.  As a manager, hire and train only those people because when every member of the team gets the basics right every day the end product will be easy AND great.

You in?

 

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March 18, 2015 · 11:59 am

I Suck At Art

What, you are wondering, compelled me to announce to the world I lack proficiency in art? Why am I telling you that I can’t draw? The self-portrait I painted in college (yes, I took an art class) looks like something a 5-year-old did while taking acid and flinging paint. I haven’t improved much over the years. But why am I telling you?

I’m telling you because you need to do the same thing. You need to think about your weaknesses. No, I don’t mean your inability to step away from the candy bowl. I mean the areas in business which are not your strengths. It’s a critical step to becoming a better business person and probably to being a better human being too.

Bad managers think they know it all.  They can read the data better than the person breaking it out.  They can write better than the chief copywriter and design better than an art director.  Their marketing campaigns are brilliant and they know everything there is to know about social media.  You might have worked for that guy.  The problem is that inevitably they miss something because they refuse to admit they have a blind spot in their skill set.  They don’t ask questions – they just give you answers.

Great managers know their weaknesses and hire accordingly.  Even those of us who are on our own need to do that.  Sure, I can build you a website but it will take me a long time and it won’t be as good as when I bring in someone who excels at it.  While I know what works from a user experience perspective in digital you don’t want me doing artwork to bring it to life.  This is why you hire someone like me (OK, hopefully me!)  in the first place – to work with you in areas where I’m more expert than you and to bring in resources that will compensate for the weaknesses in your business.

So I suck at art.  You may be Michelangelo but you probably suck at something else that’s important to your business.  What are you doing to patch that hole?

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February 20, 2015 · 12:24 pm

Il Coperto

The Foodie Friday word of the day is “coperto.” For those of you unfamiliar with the term it’s an Italian word meaning “covered.” When you eat out in Italy and wish to dine sitting down, you pay the coperto – the cover charge. It’s usually a couple of euros and is meant to cover the costs of the table, tablecloth, napkin, dishes, washing and cleaning, heating and light – everything involved with a restaurant meal which is neither food nor work costs of the staff.

Spaghetti all' arrabbiata

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There is a corollary to the coperto – a “no tipping” policy. Since the coperto covers the non-staff items, the margins on food and beverage can be spent on staff. The US is one of the few countries where there is a two-tier pay system because we are one of the few that operates in a system in which someone is dependent upon tips for their income. The cooks and dishwashers often make far less than the better-compensated front-of-house servers and bartenders. Thanks to tips, service staff can take home as much as twice the pay of their kitchen counterparts.  This is beginning to change and I think it’s a good thing.  It’s also instructive thinking for all businesses.

Quite a few restaurants are starting to charge a nominal fee per head much like the coperto.  Others are inflating their food prices but forbidding tipping – in essence building in a 20% tip.  The final cost to a customer is the same assuming that they left a reasonable tip.  This allows them to pay a much higher wage and to provide benefits such as health care.  The transient nature of the business is changing as great servers and cooks can be compensated and induced to stay on.

What happens when there is a bad experience?  Think about it.  First, it’s rare that you withhold the entire tip.  That’s punishing an entire staff for one person’s incompetence.  The reality is that you’d probably complain to the manger.  It’s rarely a money issue.  Second, what happens quite a bit is that people are just too damn cheap.  $5 on a $125 bill is unfair but that is more the reality of the business than to person who overtips.

What does this have to do with your business?  First, ask yourself if there is a two-tier system that unfairly rewards one group over another.  Second, what have you done to make sure that your staff is incented to remain?  As with customers, I find it’s always more cost-effective to retain an existing competent person than to find, hire, and train a new one. Finally, how can you rethink how the money customers pay is positioned without seeming to nickel and dime them?

There are a lot of ways to change the US system.  At one place servers get paid either $10/hour OR 20% of their food sales, whichever is higher, and it’s almost always the over for servers.  Others charge a flat fee while others automatically add a 20 percent service charge to all bills or raise their food prices.  All forbid tipping.  Hopefully everyone wins.  Employees make more and consistent money, customers get better service due to a happy, motivated long-term staff, business owners continue to make reasonable profits.  Sounds like a plan to me.  You?

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