Broken Windows Broken Restaurant

Good morning, TRC Nation! So glad to have you here on a Friday. It's a good day to have a good day. I'm telling you, if you don't know what TRC Nation is, TRC Nation is our private Facebook group. We get together on Fridays to share a little knowledge, help you break free from your restaurant running your life, help you get free of those shackles that are holding you back from reaching your potential. And unfortunately, most of those things are you, and you know it. So today we are going to be talking about something pretty exciting. I'm— I'd like this one. I am an avid, avid reader, and I was reading recently, uh, some really, you know, a couple really great books. And this one led me to this, this session we're going to talk— we're going to call it today, the number one bad habit that holds restaurants back. Now, there's a lot of bad habits, but I'm going to share with you today the number one bad habit that I feel holds restaurants back from reaching their potential. And it's— and you're going to be kind of shocked by this. Well, you You might not be shocked, actually. You might say, ah, you know, I saw that one coming, Coach. So let's start off with a quote. Like I say all the time in all my books, restaurant success isn't rocket science, it's just people science. There's a lot of restaurant experts and gurus out there trying to say it's really complex and you need them every single day and you need to stay with them years and years and years and years and years and you need their templates. And you need their checklist, you need their software. That's a bunch of BS. Restaurant success is not rocket science. It is truly, purely people science. And I always say the goal of coaching is to help you understand the people science. And 80% of that people science starts with understanding yourself. If we have never met before, it's the first time tuning in to TRC Nation, I am Donald Burns. I am known as the Restaurant Coach. I am a recovering restaurant owner. Having owned 2 of my own restaurants, I sold those. I got recruited by Wolfgang Puck. I was an executive chef for Wolfgang Puck for 5 years, went around the country opening restaurants for him. Then I decided, you know what, I could probably do this on my own, start my own company. Started doing consulting back in 2005. I'm also a former U.S. Air Force pararescueman back in my early past life, I guess, I guess you would call it that. And I also am an author. I have 3 Amazon bestselling books. My first book, Your Restaurant Sucks. My second book, Your Restaurant Still Sucks. And my third book was just released, Your Restaurant Culture Sucks. Right now, all of them are available on Audible except for my third one, Your Restaurant Culture Sucks. It is being recorded right now and should be available on Audible by the end of October, which I'm very excited about. So depending on how you like to, you know, get your information done, if you like to read, You can get the paperback, you can get the Kindle. If you like the audio version, go to Audible or iTunes and download the audiobook. And just a little bit of housekeeping notes. If you did not know, I think I've been mentioning it everywhere on social media lately, this October is my annual Restaurant Success Summit, October 24th, 25th, 26th, here in Scottsdale. I have 7 other amazing speakers lined up. It is a full— I mean, 3-day, fully packed. We go from 9 AM to 5 PM every single day, 18 workshops total. And I keep this event very, very small for a reason. I want you to have time where you can go and sit and grab a speaker like Carl Osborne or Yagala Dado or Bo Bryant, and you can pull them on the side and say, hey, listen, man, I just want to— I want to ask you a couple questions that relate to my business. So it's a great way to, you know, because a lot of times we go to these summits, these, these conferences, we get some great information, and then it's just kind of like, all right, great. Or, you know, you have a question for the speaker, but you go to find them and they already took off to the next one they're speaking on, or they take it off, off out of the conference. I don't want that to happen to you. So the Restaurant Success Summit is not just a 3-day conference. You're also going to get included a 90-day membership into my mastermind coaching program called Restaurant Masterminds. Where we're gonna go through the elements and the things that we talk about at the summit, and I'm gonna give you real actionable plans to implement them so you can get some real results. This is one of those kind of get you all hyped up, pumped up, send you home and you're motivated for 2 days and then you drop the ball. No, this is a 90-day kick in the butt, hold you accountable program. If you want to grab a ticket, there's still a few seats left. I keep this only to 50 people. Go to restaurantsuccesssummit.com. You can grab your seat for this thing. It is in Scottsdale. It's coming up really, really soon. I'm excited about it. Once you get a ticket, you can— you'll get access to a course, plus I'm also throwing in 5 bonus courses of my— some of my best-selling courses that will kind of give you kind of a, I guess, a pregame, kind of a warm-up to the summit, some stuff that you should know. That's going to get you ready for the summit so that way when you, you make the most of your 3 days. And of course, everything we talk about in coaching, all of my coaching programs, we always follow what's known as the 3P framework. The 3P framework is people, product, process. If you'd like to get a deeper dive into what the 3P framework is, I actually put together a free training for anyone who would like to grab it. It's called the 3 Frames to Thrive series. It actually has— it's, it's, what is it, 2, 3, 4— it's 4 hours, almost 4 hours of training. And it's the Restaurant Success Pyramid. I take you down an hour-long workshop into the 3P framework, and then I go into a 2-hour workshop on the Culture Wheel. All the elements that you need to create an outstanding, amazing culture. And it's— and you just go to 3frames2thrive.com, or you can go to my website therestaurantcoach.com, and you can also sign up for that 3 Frames to Thrive series. It's a freebie. I would grab it, you know. I mean, there's not a lot of stuff out there that gives you free training. Everyone wants you, you know, gives you a template. I'm gonna give you some training too. All right, let's jump into this thing, shall we? That's enough of the— enough of— enough of the announcements. Let's go into the meat of the batter. So first off, let's kind of pre-frame some of this stuff. Let's talk about how to increase sales. There are only four ways to increase sales. Only four. I don't care what anybody tells you. There's only four ways to increase sales. Here they are. Take notes for this. Hashtag. I always say hashtag write this shit down. You can either get new guests to come to your restaurant. That's pure marketing. You can get current guests to come back more often, and that, my friends, is loyalty programs. Did you know that restaurants that use loyalty programs— I found this stat, I mean, it was a crazy stat. I gotta find it, uh, but I'll talk about later. But if you can get guests to come back 5% more often, it increases your profit anywhere from 25 to 125%. That was a crazy statistic I read. Getting guests to come back more often— loyalty programs are the real deal. And if you do not have a loyalty program, you need a loyalty program. All right, you must have a loyalty program. The 3rd way to drive more sales is actually get current guests to spend more. That's upselling, suggestive selling, wherever you want to call it. I do a full-blown workshop, it's called Neuroselling. I teach all my clients, and it actually has been proven to increase sales 15 to 20% overnight. And then the 4th way, which I don't recommend— every once in a while you have to— but you could raise prices. Now That's how you drive sales. Now, why do sales fall if you're doing all of these things, especially the top 3? If you're doing these top 3 things— you're marketing consistently, you have a loyalty program, you're having guests come back, you're doing upselling, you're training your team how to sell more often— but then your sales kind of fall or go flat, there's a main reason why that happens, okay? If your sales are declining, sales are falling flat, I'm gonna tell you right now, you might have what's known as a few broken windows. I am an avid reader. I love reading. I read about 5 books a month. And the reason I read so much, number one, I think it makes me a better writer. Number two, it gives me lots of ideas. And by getting new ideas, I take those ideas when I'm reading a book, I basically look at almost like a detective. And I'm looking at it like, okay, how can I take this information and how can I translate it for my clients, my coaching clients, so they can have a better restaurant? And I just recently finished this book. It is a fantastic book. I highly recommend it. It's by Michael Levine. It's called Broken Windows, Broken Business. It is an amazing thing. Broken Windows was the brainchild of 2 criminologists, James Wilson and George Keeling. And Wilson and Keeling argued that crime is an inevitable result of disorder. If a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares and no one is in charge. So soon more windows will be broken, and then a kind of a sense of anarchy will spread from the building to the streets in which it faces, sending a signal that anything goes. It is a— I mean, this is a fantastic book. I highly recommend it. It is also available on Audible too. And the main takeaway of this book is this: how you do anything is how you do everything. How you do anything is how you do everything. And the details do matter. You might think that that little thing that is no big deal actually is a big deal. And the reason a lot of times this stuff is a big deal— we're going to have to kind of go down the psychological route for a couple couple clues and a couple hints. I love studying psychology. I'm a huge believer— again, restaurant success is not rocket science, it's people science. And if I can use some psychology to help you understand yourself and understand your team better and understand your guests' buying behavior better, it will help you have a better restaurant. One of the things I studied back in the late— I think it was probably early 2000s I started studying this Was NLP. Now, NLP is called— it basically stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming. It's pretty straight, self-explanatory. Neuro is the brain, linguistics are words, and programming is basically behavior. It's how our words and our brain work together to form our patterns or behavior, or you could even say habits. There's a common— there's a common— we call them tenets of NLP. And one of them is perception is projection. Perception is projection is a really, really powerful thing to understand. And why perception is projection means this: if I think it's true, it's true for me. Now, does it necessarily have to be right or correct? No, that's why it's called perception. Perception is projection is if I think it's true, it tends— I think it's true. And what does that mean? Have you ever like driven, you know, on the road and you got to go to— you're going to a restaurant and the first thing you do is, you know, oh my God, I have to use the bathroom so bad. And then you get out and you go to the bathroom and the bathroom is trashed. What's your first impression of that place? If the bathroom is trashed, what do you think? You probably think, wow, you know, I bet you the rest of the place is trash too. I bet you the kitchen's trashed. That's perception is projection. Is it true? Probably not. But on some level, it is true in this— in the sense that if they don't pay attention to the small details, they're going to let the other details slack. If you miss the small things, you're going to miss the big things. That's why the details do matter. Everything is important. Perception is projection is a huge thing because now once I have this kind of seed in my head that I believe this, now it goes to— psychologists call this, uh, it basically— they call it confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is when I'm starting to look now for proof that supports my theory. So now it's like, okay, the bathroom's trashed. I come out, the hostess is like— the host is looking down on her phone. She looks up at me, gives me this kind of look of disdain, like, how, how many people in your party? Now I'm thinking, wow, they really are— they don't care at all. Now I go to the table, the table's wobbly. I go to grab the ketchup bottle, ketchup bottle's all sticky. I'm saying, yeah, see, they don't care. It doesn't matter how great your food is now, you have so many negative things that are kind of bombarding my perception that it's going to be— that food's going to have to be like amazing To get me to change my positioning, my mental positioning. So that's why perception is projection is so powerful. Another thing you have to understand is that we have transitioned our economy, and there's a thing it's called in economics called the progression of economic value. The progression of economic value means we have we basically grow through different economic periods, and there's basically we started with the agrarian economy. That's when we had farms. That's when, you know, people lived on the farm. They actually harvested your own stuff. You grew your own crops. You milked your own cows. That was that kind of era. And then you had the industrial economy. That's where we basically, you know, we started making goods. Then we had the delivery, the service economy, where we actually went and got stuff. And now we have what's known as the experience economy. And we're moving into the experience economy is kind of branching off into what's known as the convenience economy. So that little cake on the side, I'll give you a clear definition of each little area of the economies based on that cake. The agrarian economy, basically you made your own cake from scratch. I mean, you actually, you milled your own wheat, you harvest, you know, you milked your own cows for the stuff, you had your chickens for the eggs, you made everything that made that cake. In the industrial economy, we had cake mixes. That's when They basically, they mass-produced. Duncan Hines had that cake in a box. It was easy to do. And then the service economy is, well, now you could go down to the grocery store, go to the local bakery there, and you could buy a birthday cake. And then the experience economy is now you go to a fancy restaurant and you have the pastry chef bring out a cake. They sing happy birthday to you. That's the experience economy. And now the convenience economy is basically I can take that same cake and I can order it online and deliver through my house and don't have to even leave my home to get the product. That's convenience economy. And we are progressing to each one. The one I want us to focus on is the service— the experience economy is the one we really want to pay attention to. Now here's the question I want you to ask yourself, and if you want, you can type it into the comments, into the chat. Do you offer a product as experience? or an experience as product? That's an interesting question. I always say questions are the answers, and the questions you ask yourself provide the, the answers, and the answers provide better results. Do you offer a product as experience or an experience as product? Something very interesting to contemplate and think about. Now, that's a great way to segue into our next thing. Have you ever seen a piece of paper on the floor and wonder why no one picks it up? Let's move into a different psychological principle. And I've, I've heard restaurant owners, because, you know, I do site visits for my clients, and I'll see it. There's a piece of paper in the middle of the, of the dining room floor, and like, you know, 20 people walk over it or walk by it and never bend over to pick it up. You know why? It's a psychological principle, actually. And the psychological principle is called the bystander effect. The bystander effect is a situation where we always think someone else is going to take care of it. The bystander effect is a situation where, like, and this happens all the time in major cities, somebody falls down, is in like cardiac distress or having, you know, having trouble breathing, and the bystanders just kind of walk around them, walk by them. Don't stop to help because they always assume someone else has already done it or someone else is going to take care of it. It's the same thing that happens in your restaurant. You see that piece of paper on the floor? Everyone else thinks that someone else is going to grab it, so no one grabs it. That's what happens. You want to change this perception of like, every time you see something— I always had a rule in my restaurants: if you see the problem, you bought the problem. And that's a great rule to have. If you see the problem, you bought the problem. If I see a paper on the floor, if I'm the first person to see it, I jump on it. That's my problem now. If I'm making eye contact out in the dining room and a guest makes eye contact with me, I don't say, that's not my table, and tap this person next to me, hey, your table wants you. No, I made eye contact, I bought the problem. That's how you eliminate this bystander effect. If you notice the problem, if you see the problem, you bought the problem. You want to implement that into your brand right away. And just tell everybody, if you see the problem, you bought the problem. Don't make people think everyone else is going to fix it. You want to show them that, you know what, I'm just going to take accountability and responsibility. I'm going to fix it myself, right? Bystander effect, huge psychological principle. Another psychological principle, and you've probably heard this thing before, would you die from one paper cut? Probably say, nah, not one paper cut. Not one paper cut. But hey, would you die from 1,000 paper cuts? Yeah, you would. And there's a psychological thing out there too. The phrase is that death by 1,000 paper cuts, which refers to a slow, painful demise caused by cumulative damage of one too many seemingly minuscule problems. This is the number one bad habit restaurants have. We have a bunch of these broken windows. We have these little bitty problems that we do not think are big problems. And on the surface, one little thing doesn't seem like it's a big problem, and it seems like it can wait. But by letting it wait, by not giving it the attention and the importance it deserves, you are letting it build up, build up, build up. And in the eyes of your guests, perception is projection. By not having like clear, defined bathroom checks where someone's going in the restroom every hour on the hour, cleaning it up, tidying it up, making sure there's plenty of, you know, materials in there, make sure it's fully stocked, you are opening yourself up for a world of hurt. Because remember, word of mouth has turned into world of mouth. With a cell phone. Those pictures I showed you earlier of the bathrooms, those were pictures I found on the internet that someone posted of a bad bathroom experience. Someone went to a bathroom in a restaurant and they posted those pictures. Word of mouth is now world of mouth. With one click of a button on their smartphone, they can actually really, really cause your brand a lot of damage. So let's get into this a little bit. What are your broken windows? What are your broken windows? Where are the opportunities to repair broken windows? And I'll give you a great example of what a broken window is when I talk about broken windows. Okay, here's a great example. A broken window can be a sloppy counter. It could be maybe a sloppy host stand. It could be a poorly located host stand. A dirty menu, an employee with a bad attitude. It can be a physical thing like faded, flaking paint, or symbolic like a policy that requires, you know, guests to pay for a service that, you know, they don't, they don't feel they should pay for. When the servers may be wearing an offensive t-shirt, that's a broken window. When a call about a missing item from a delivery results in a 20-minute hold on phone playing that same boring music over and over, That's a broken window. When a guest asks why she can't get sauce on the side and she told that's because that's the rule, or that's because the chef says so, that's a broken window. They're everywhere. They're everywhere except at really sharp businesses. Really sharp restaurants don't— they actually actively looked how they can repair and fix their broken windows. I remember this is, this is a sad self-confession of being a bad Chef when I was younger. I remember I was probably my— I was probably 25, I think. 25. It was one of my first chef jobs. Uh, it was in Santa Fe. I was working at a restaurant. We had gotten some really good, you know, notoriety, some good press, some good PR, written up in quite a few magazines, a couple travel guides. Of course, that went to my head a little bit as a young chef, and I had a rule back then that you couldn't, you couldn't modify the menu. The food was designed the way I designed it to be, and it was designed to be eaten that way. And I was not going to have my creative, artistic, you know, palate stepped on by anybody. And then the owner of the restaurant's name was Scott. Scott pulled me in one day to his office. He goes, hey, you know, man, you know, hey, we were, you know, great job, man. Everyone loves the food. We, you know, get great reviews, but And every time somebody says, but you know, there's something else coming. He goes, but I gotta ask you something. You know, you know how you won't like, you know, allow people to get sauce on the side, or they can't substitute out vegetables or change the starch on a dish? I'm like, yeah, that's the way the dish was designed. It's meant to be comp— it was composed with those things, and it was designed to be eaten a certain way. He goes, yeah, yeah, you know, that's really great and stuff, but here's what's going to happen. Those people won't come back, and if people just don't come back, I'm not gonna be able to pay you. So then it kind of hit me like reality is like, oh shit! This isn't about my ego. This is about giving people what they want, and that was a huge turning point for me, especially as a young chef. Just like say, wow! This isn't about me and my vehicle to make you know to build my brand and my career. This is about serving people. This is about really what the essence of hospitality is and being a host and giving people you want sauce inside. Sure, you don't want you don't want baby. Carrots? You want asparagus? Of course, you know, my pleasure, whatever you need. That was a huge, huge breakthrough for me. So let's look at some potential broken windows for restaurants, and there's a lot of them. This list I'm going to give you is not inclusive, and if you think of anything as a potential broken window, type it in the comments or the chat because there are a lot of these. And I'm a huge believer in that awareness precedes choice, choice precedes change. If you're aware of the problem Then you have an opportunity to fix it. And that is where the real change is. And this is the number one bad habit that restaurants have is that they overlook these little broken windows. And they don't think they're very, very big things, but they are big things. And I want you to start paying attention to the details. So, what are some potential broken windows for guests? Potholes in the parking lot. Huge one. Beer cans at the front door. Unresponsive bad reviews. You get a bad review and you don't say anything. You want to respond to all reviews, both positive and negative. Okay, always respond to all reviews and do not get defensive. Do not get emotional. Be apologetic if it's a bad review. Be apologetic if it's a good review. Be grateful. Okay, missing signage has missing lights. I always think that's hilarious that there's a sign and it's missing like half the sign, or it's missing half the lights, or it's missing key letters on the sign which make up some Really interesting memes on the internet. You can see a bunch of really crazy signs. Uh, dead flower beds— another thing I see a lot of is people have these beautiful flower beds put in the front of the restaurants, but then they don't pay attention to the flower beds and all the flowers are dead, or they're just basically trash cans. People just leave all their crap in there when they're leaving the restaurant. Fingerprints on the door— now again, you might not think fingerprints on the door are a broken window. It's a broken window. It's sending a message. A messy host stand, dirty menus, smelly restrooms, not stocked bathrooms, graphic t-shirts. Now, if your brand's kind of hip and cool and you're trying to be edgy, that might be okay. But if it's stuff that offends people or it's racist or it draws social divides or it's a, what I call a polarizing topic, you definitely want to stay away from those things. Dirty aprons. I don't know how many times a server's walked up to me and they have like—I mean—and you can tell it's it's not dirty from that shift. I mean, there's old stains that are caked on there and dried. That's horrible looking. It's just like disgusting. Wobbly tables are another. You might not think a wobbly table. Every restaurant has wobbly tables. Yes, every average restaurant has wobbly tables. Great restaurants don't have those. Dirty silverware. Condiments, either condiments empty or the condiments are sticky. I know, like, you go grab the sugar caddy and there's like no Splenda in there, you know, there's— and then just restock it with the regular sugar because they're lazy. All right, chipped plates, another huge thing. Just tells me you don't care. Chipped, cracked plates are another thing. Chipped, cracked glasses are another thing too. Uh, fruit flies in drinks. I don't know how many times I've seen, you know, a bar Get a drink sent back because there's a fruit fly in the drink. All right, don't let those fruit flies hang out and get drunk on your liquor. Take precautions to stop that. Again, lights out in the restaurant. Nothing, nothing really says I don't really care as looking around a restaurant and there's lights out. Or especially like to have— they go out of their way to have really nice accent lighting like on pictures on the wall. And there's like a dark spot on the wall because the light that's supposed to be on that picture is burned out. No one took the time to fix it. Crooked pictures are another thing that tells me you don't care. Lipstick on the glasses, lipstick on coffee cups, hot food that is supposed to be cold, or hot food that is cold, or cold food that is hot. We've seen that. Remember, that's like a stand— that's a classic rule. Hot food hot, cold food cold. Nothing worse than having it the opposite way. You have hot food that comes out and it's cold, or you're supposed to have a cold salad and it's like baked because someone put that cold salad underneath the heat lamp and now it's like as hot as your fried chicken entree. Loud music from the kitchen. Oh my God, this is another one drives me crazy. I'm trying to enjoy my meal and I hear a huge like raucous and loud noises coming from the kitchen. Usually they're music. And I hate to say it's usually some kind of really loud rap most of the time. Or where was that one place I worked? Oh my God, I did it! I did a summer job, a consulting job in Telluride, and the guys loved Grateful Dead. Nothing against the Grateful Dead, but man, when they play Grateful Dead all day, all day long, and then they argue about it all day long, it just got to be too much. Staff cursing. I curse. I say the F word a lot. I'm in the restaurant business, but you got to watch the team from saying that. You're gonna have some people in the dining room that would be very, very offended by the use of a couple misplaced F-words, F-bombs. Yelling at the team. Nothing says I'm not a pro as the manager losing their shit on someone on your team in front of this— in front of a guest. That's like horrible. Or an owner. Oh my God, I did a consulting job in Albuquerque And the owner of this hotel, I mean, he berated the general manager of this restaurant. I mean, just, I mean, called him like every name, and right in the middle of the dining room, right in the middle of service, called this guy like every name in the book. I mean, totally, totally lost his shit. It was horrible. And then what happened else? What else is in there? Broken window, rude staff. Nothing worse than rude staff. Nobody likes rude, pretentious staff. Oh, and here's another one saying sold out. I'm sorry, we're sold out. We never sell out. We never, we never, we're never sold out. We're out of that. Okay, sold out. You got to make sure you're using the right words. Sold out. Do you, do you run out or do you sell out? I always like to say sold out. Yeah, I'm sorry, that's sold out. Don't tell people like common vernaculars either. Like, people don't understand what 86— I'm sorry, that's 86. I know you understand what 86 is, but your guests, most of your guests don't understand what 86 is. I'm sorry, we don't have that, or we ran out of that. That's a broken window. Oh, we ran out of that. I'm sorry, we sold out of that. It's very popular. We sold out already. Okay, broken doors or a broken window. Broken doors are another thing. I've been to the bathrooms and the doors don't open going into the bathrooms, or they're sticky going into the bathrooms. Air conditioning not working, another broken window. Unseasoned or overseasoned food. Staff smoking where guests can see them. I remember walking into a restaurant and the staff was out front standing there smoking cigarettes, and I thought it was kind of unusual. I'm like, man, they look like they work here. And then they walk, you know, then I walk in, they walk in right behind me, didn't even go to the bathroom, wash their hands, just go right back into the kitchen. I'm like, or go right back on the floor. I'm like, oh my God, that's horrible. Okay, some other potential broken windows for guests. Menus not updated online. I see this a lot. Inaccurate wait times, long waits for food, asking for refills. Can I get a refill, please? But sir, it's free, it's water. I know it's free, how come I have to ask? All right, you know, uh, it should be worn. Worn flooring is another thing. Wear and tear on furniture, outdated decor, pest infestations, dirty uniforms. And this is usually when I say dirty uniforms, this is like the the guys in the kitchen who have every sauce known to known to mankind on their shirt, and they walk out in the front of the house to go you know out in the dining room to go grab a you know soda or something like that, or they walk up to the bar to get a soda. And they're just, I mean, they're just covered in filth and grime. You know, that just sends a— that's a broken window. Messy bars. You know, if I'm back in your kitchen, a messy workstation. Okay, dirty tables, not answering the phone promptly, long hold times on the phone. I always love it when you call a place and they don't even really give you a chance to answer. They say, uh, so-and-so restaurant, hold please. You know, they just put you on hold and they leave you on hold for like 10 minutes. Inadequate staff training. Number one, number one thing I see most restaurants have is bad staff training. Poor price-to-value ratio. I don't mind paying more money, but I better feel there's a value behind it. Lack of eye contact. This comes from training your team soft skills. The team's not making eye contact. Um, the mumbler is the number one thing I hate too, is I hate that, you know, you get the server who's the I mean, I mean, you want better? Anyway, wait, wait, wait. What would you like? A side salad? A side what? Would you like a side salad? Yes. Enunciate your words. Weak verbal skills. Uh-huh. Yeah, cool, dude. Yeah. Uh-huh. All right. Okay. You know, teach your team. Teach your team how to talk properly. Teach your team how to use bigger words. Not caring. The superiority attitude. Oh, this is that holy— I, I always say one of the problems sometimes with restaurants I get is they have this like, we are so good, this superiority attitude that we are so good, we are— we don't make mistakes, we are infallible. All right, and then of course racism. No one should tolerate racism anywhere. So those are all some potential— again, that list is not inclusive, it's a huge list, but But that's potential restaurant broken windows. Now, that's your external guest. Let's talk about your internal guest. That's your staff. We always have 2 types of guests we serve. We always serve an external guest. We also serve an internal guest. Your external guest, again, the patrons that come to your restaurant. The internal guests are this team. The biggest question I get and the biggest thing I think people have a misconception is they think branding and culture are the same thing. Branding culture is not the same thing. I'll give you a simple, clear definition why they're different. Brand is what your guests say about you online, to their friends, to their family. Okay, that's what brand is. Culture is what your team says about you online, to their friends, to their family. Here are some potential broken windows for staff. And pay attention to these because these can make or break your culture, and they can also help really improve your turnover if you take care of these broken windows for staff. Schedule posted late. If you tell the team that the schedule is posted up on Thursday at 9 AM, post the goddamn schedule at Thursday at 9 AM, right? Go out of your way to be in alignment with your integrity and follow up and make sure you follow through and do what you say you're going to do. You want to be a better owner? You want to be a better leader? Here's a real simple formula: do what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it and how you're going to do it and how you said you were going to do it. That's the most simplest way to be a great, effective leader. Do what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it and how you said you were going to do it. That's the most effective way to be an amazing leader, is just do that. Right. Oh, no employee storage. I, I would say like, you know, you should get a pair— get a set of used lockers from an old school or something like that that they can put their bags in, their backpacks in, a place to put their phone, a place to put their coat. I don't know how many times I've walked in the back door of a restaurant and there's a pile of, you know, backpacks right next to— like right next to a small little table. in the back, and that's the employee lounge, right? Have some, have some employee storage. Act like you care about them, right? C players, another potential broken window. A players hate C players. Why? Because A players have to pick up the slack, right? A players just pick up the slack for the C players, and C players don't like A players because they make them look bad. I actually heard a C player one time in a restaurant Telling an A-player, hey man, slow down on the prep. You're going too fast. You're making us look bad. I was like, oh my God. Another potential broken window: toxic leaders. Just because your title says general manager, just because your title says bar manager, just because your title says assistant general manager, just because your title says chef does not mean you are that thing if you don't back it up with being a leader. Title does not make a leader. Actions make a leader. And toxic leaders are the worst thing in the world because it just sends a bad signal. And I hate to say, I think the reason we have such a staff shortage in the restaurant industry is we have done this to ourselves by being a place where we don't treat people with respect. We don't treat ourselves with respect. We don't treat our team with respect. And that just transcends into a A real shitty team experience, and when we have a bad team experience, we get a bad reputation. I always say there's plenty of good people out there that want to work. Honest to God, I swear almost all my clients have no problem finding people. In fact, a lot of my clients in my coaching programs have too many people applying because they have a really great culture. If you're having a hard time getting people to come to your restaurant. You have to ask yourself the really, really hard question is, what am I doing wrong? Why don't people want to work with me? That's the real question. It's not that they're lazy. They're not lazy. It's not that they don't want to work. They want to work. Okay, why don't they want to work with you? That's the question you have to ask yourself. Not having any standards, another huge broken window. Broken equipment. Oh my God, I don't know how many times I go in, I do site visits And I'll ask somebody, what's up? You know, that oven there, how come, how come you got a bunch of towels in it? You know, and I know like the, the line cooks like to stash their towels because, you know, towels are gold. So they'll stash their kitchen towels in the oven. And I'll go, why? How come the towels are in there? There's a whole stack of them. Oh, the oven doesn't work. Well, what do you have to do when you use the oven? Oh, we have to walk all the way down to the end of the line, use the convention oven. Well, wouldn't it be easier and make your life a lot better If they just fix the oven on your on your on your station, so you just didn't have to like cross line to pop something in the oven. Oh yeah, yeah, and I've asked them a couple times, but they never fixed it. So now we use it as a towel storage. All right, no, that's that's big huge broken window on your end. Okay, yelling at the team again. There's no reason to yell your voice. I would encourage you instead of raising your voice. Improve your disposition and improve your emotional control. There's a great thing out there, it's called emotional intelligence. One of the things is not to be reactive. And what— and the best way to do that, and you're not going to like this, but is to meditate. Okay, I'm gonna tell you right now, meditate. All right, meditation will help you get control of your emotions. Someone said in the comments I've never seen a working oven below a range. I thought they were for towel storage. Yeah, see, no, they're supposed to be working. That's what they're supposed to be. It's not a, it's not a huge towel drawer. All right, yelling at the team is not a good one. Air conditioning in the kitchen. Oh my, oh, I worked, I did a consulting job about 3 years ago, a place, and the air conditioning, they did not understand the requirements of air conditioning. You know, especially air conditioning for a kitchen, because kitchen puts out a lot. The equipment puts out a lot of heat. You got makeup air units. You got hoods that draw out a lot of air conditioning. The air conditioning unit in a kitchen has to be really, really super powerful to make up the air. And this place, I mean, we used to have. In fact, it was so hot. I had them put a thermometer in the kitchen. In the kitchen. I live in Scottsdale. Scottsdale gets up to 115, 118 degrees. This kitchen would be 125 degrees. It was so hot there was people passing out. I remember the garde manger girl, actually, I was like, I was in the kitchen, I was just, I'm sweating. It was so sweaty I had to get one of those damn freaking headbands and put it on my head because I was sweating so much to stop the sweat from going in my eyes so I could see. The kitchen was so damn hot. I look over and the garde manger girl, she's just like— she started like, you know, she had that look in her eye and I could see like her eyes start rolling back in her head and I'm like, oh, she's going down. And then boom, she went down. That was it. Make sure you fix the air conditioning in your kitchen. I say this quite often in my books: all business problems are people problems. All people problems are communication problems. Work on your communication. That is probably the most easiest thing that you should work on, is just being a better communicator. There are 3 key numbers I want you to remember: 7, 38, 55. 7% of how we communicate is the word we use, 38% is the tone, and 55% is nonverbal. It's not what you say, it's how you say it. When you are communicating primarily through text messages or emails or putting up a Post-it note on the wall and expecting everyone to read it You are only being 7% effective communicator. Stop that shit, okay? Talk to people. Oh, another huge broken window: playing favorites. I know we all try not to play favorites, but yes, there are people that we kind of like and we tend to be a little, a little nicer to, a lot kinder to. Stop playing favorites, or at least eliminate as much as possible. Too much drama. Drama is great for movies, bad for restaurants. Double standards on the rules. This kind of plays into that, you know, that playing favorites stuff. Okay, you got to watch the double standards on the rules. And double standards on the rules also means you as the leader not having double standards rules. I remember where I was. I was at a place a couple weeks ago. And the manager was pissed because the team kept coming in late, and she wanted to write up the team for being late. And I said, you can't really write up the team for being late. You strolled in 2 hours late today. I said, you can't hold other people accountable if you're not accountable yourself. Double standards under rules goes for you also. Being a leader means leading by example. That means you follow the standards, the core values, the mission, the vision, the non-negotiables, the code of conduct that you have. Entitlement is another huge broken window. When I see people being entitled, that's a huge toxic culture warning sign for me. When I see entitlement, gossip, another huge toxic warning. The blame game. How many people have seen kitchens or restaurants, front of house, back of house? And then that's another thing I'm a big believer in, is try to break down those words too. Don't say front of house, back house. Say culinary team, say service team. The blame game is huge. Who did it? Oh, they did it. No one takes responsibility. Chronic complainers—another broken window. The staff hates to hear whiners and complainers, especially if you don't do anything about it. No benefits. Now, when I talk about benefits for employees, for staff, they don't have to be monetary. Now, if you can get. You know, really good benefits. That's awesome, man. If you can get like health insurance, stuff like that, more power to you. There's a lot of great things. Look into your Chamber of Commerce, look into your local restaurant association, see if there's a way you can maybe get a good deal. You'd be shocked at some of the great deals there are out there for insurance benefits for restaurants at really, really low prices too. Do not just think— that goes back to perception is projection— oh, I can't afford, I can't afford insurance for people. Have you looked? Oh no, no, but it's just too expensive. Well, how do you know it's too expensive if you haven't looked? Do some research before you shut it down. Do some research on it. But benefits don't have to be just like monetary stuff. Benefits could be maybe we have PTO, maybe we have flex schedules, maybe I offer maybe some training on the side, maybe offer some training in financial classes. One of the big things that restaurant— anybody works in a restaurant usually suffers with or struggles with is usually financial management. Giving people some educational classes on how to improve their basic life standards is a huge benefit. Low pay compared to market average. I know we're all trying to, you know, get people for a deal, but I'm telling you right now, some of that stuff you have in your head is a is a perceptionist projection belief that is holding you back. What do I mean by that? Right now in the, in the comments, in the chat, what would you pay, the max you would pay an hourly line cook position? What would be the most you would pay an hourly line cook position? What would be the most you would pay an hourly line cook position? I ask this to owners all the time, and most of the time I'll get $14, $15, maybe $16. It depends on your market, of course. Some markets are a lot higher. Bigger cities, of course, pay a lot more than that. But most people, I would say the national average when I'm driving around is usually, you know, $15 to $18, I would say. And so then I ask them, all right, so let's say $15, $18. Someone in the chat just said $20. So then I would ask him, would you pay $30 an hour? Would you pay $30 an hour for someone? A lot of times the person who's paying the max, like this person just said $20 an hour, you know, would you pay $30 an hour? Oh, no way, no way I pay $30 an hour. Well, let me kind of look at your team and I can tell you right now you are actually paying probably close to $40 an hour because you got too many C players. Here's the thing to remember about C players. C players, it takes 2 times the number of C players to do the work of an A player. So when those guys say, I'm not— I wouldn't pay you $30 an hour, $20 is my max, I won't pay more than $20 an hour— if you paid somebody $30 an hour and they were an A player and they could produce, I mean just kick ass and produce, it would save you money in the long run. Because right now, having a— you know, if you got 2 C players at $20 an hour, that's— you're paying $40 an hour For 2 C players to do the job of 1 A player. And if you pay someone $30 an hour, or let's just go back to the example of $15 an hour, and I say, would you pay $30 an hour? You know, oh, no way. Well, you're paying $30 an hour right now. What if you paid $25? If I had someone that was making $15 an hour and they were an A player and I decided to bump them up to $25 an hour, trust me, they will not leave you. They will be loyal to you forever. You don't need more people. You need better people. You need A players. It—I know it's sometimes it seems like like bad information, or you just think it doesn't really make sense, or the math doesn't work. But the math actually does work. When I pay better people more money, I need fewer people, which actually lowers my payroll. It's really— it's, you know, it's, it's a— it's counterintuitive to what your logic would say. You know, a lot of people say, you know, get people low price and just fill up the schedule. I'm gonna, I'm gonna challenge you to say no. Get better people, pay them a lot more money. They won't leave. They'll be dedicated to you. You can train them. You can develop rapport with them. You can actually really, really dig down and make them really, really efficient. And you can get your life back without having to break the bank because it will actually lower your payroll overall. And I know, again, it sounds on the surface like, man, if I start paying everybody $25 an hour, Donald, from $15, I'm gonna go broke. No, you won't, because you will replace the C players. You'll get rid of those 2 people per hour that you're actually paying $30. You're gonna save some money and you have some A players that are dedicated to you. Not saying please or thank you. Oh. 2 most powerful words in the world are thank you. When I go do a site visit, I will ask owner— I will ask the team, undoubtedly I will ask them, and I usually do this in front of the owners. I will ask the team during a team meeting, I'll say, how many people here are thanked on a daily basis? That someone on the leadership team or the ownership team has walked up to you every day and said thank you? You know, sadly, only probably 5% raise their hand. And I would beg to, I would beg to kind of say that the people that raise their hand go back to that playing favorites. It's the people that the owners or the leaders like that they say thank you to. I had a rule when I had my own restaurants. I never left a restaurant without walking up to everyone, looking them in the eye, shaking their hand, and saying, you know what, thank you, I appreciate you. 2 most powerful words. Thank you. And the single most powerful word is please. And then last thing, of course, is lack of training. 85% of managers, 85% of managers that usually get what I call is the battlefield promotion. That means that, you know, like you're the sous chef, and the chef gets fired or quits, walks out, and you get promoted to chef, or the floor manager who gets promoted rapidly to assistant manager or general manager on the spot. It's called the battlefield promotion. 85% of them said they did not have the proper training to assume the role. They just got promoted without the proper training. Training is probably the biggest problem for broken windows and also for lack of staff retention. Now, that's a pretty big list. When you're looking at that list, How many broken windows do you have? How many broken windows do you have? And one of the things we always look at when I'm looking at the 3P framework, that is always my guide. When I'm looking at the 3P framework, there's a certain kind of order these have to go in. And I say, I'll tell you right now, the 3P framework works if you follow it in order. And it's always people, product, process. I have my restaurant coaching clients print off a copy of this. They have a copy that they get, a PDF of this, and they print it out and they put it in their office. And I will tell them, anytime you're stuck, anytime you're frustrated, anytime you're not getting the results you want, the answer is in the 3P framework. And 80% of the time It's in the people part. 80% of all people problems are your problems. All right, restaurant success is not rocket science. It is people— it is people science. 80% is people problems. 20% is the product in process. And I would usually say it's 10 and 10. Anytime a restaurant calls me, I do these one-on-one calls. I do strategy sessions with people. They want to talk about their restaurant and I give them some solutions. I'll say right now, of all the calls I've done over the years, over probably almost like 2,500 calls now I've done with people, all people have the same problems. All restaurants have the same problems, and everyone has the same people problems. And you— everyone thinks it's not a people problem. They think it's a process problem, or they think it's just a marketing problem. Oh, I just gotta, you know, I just gotta market more. That's not the problem. Marketing is easy. Marketing opens the floodgates. If you're bleeding out, marketing is not going to fix the bleeding. You want to fix the bleeding before you turn on the marketing machine. A new checklist— no one's going to follow a checklist if the culture's not right. Trust me, if you don't have a culture of accountability, no one's going to follow that brand new checklist you got. I can give you every checklist you need. I can give you a flash drive today with 390 templates on there. Everything you need. It will not change your restaurant. Why? Because of this. So let me do give you some tools that you can use to kind of help you break fix some of these broken windows. Number one tool I want you to have moving forward: I want you to become O C A T D. I want you to become O C A T D. I want you become obsessive compulsive. Attention to detail. You have to develop this obsessive-compulsion attention to detail. You've heard of OCD before, obsessive-compulsive disorder. Well, I want you to have OCD but with an extra D in there, okay? Obsessive-compulsive disorder to detail, or obsessive-compulsive attention to detail. This is the only way you're ever going to fix broken windows. You have to have this obsessive-compulsion attention to detail. I mean, meticulous. When I had my second restaurant— my first restaurant, I was pretty bad. My second restaurant, I got really, really bad. I mean, I got so obsessive. And one of my early mentors was Charlie Trotter. And Charlie Trotter is a famous chef out of Chicago. He had a restaurant named after him, Charlie Trotter's. Charlie Trotter was, I mean, obsessed about the little details. And I used to always just like— he was one of my idols, he was one of my mentors when I was a young chef and had a restaurant owner in the '90s. And I just remember like reading one of his books, Lessons in Excellence with Charlie Trotter, and it just got me so dialed in on this kind of obsessive stuff that at my second restaurant, when I opened my second place, we got a Mobil Four Diamond Award in the first year, which is really hard to get a Four Diamond Award in the first year. And the reason I think we got it is because I got, I mean, obsessive about the details to the point where the service team had to have a ruler. And like, the silverware had to be so many, like an inch and a half away from the plate. We had chargers on the table. The silverware had to be like an inch and a half away from the edge of the plate. The glass had to be like an inch away from the front of the knife. The silverware between each other had to be like a half inch between each other. I mean, the plate, the rim of the plate had to be, you know, like so many inches from the edge of the table. I mean, we were like obsessive-compulsive. Salt and pepper shakers had to be filled, they had to be on a certain side. Salt was always on the south side of the building, so everything was always lined up. The room was meticulous all the time, and they had like little— I gave them all little rulers. I was so obsessive about all the little details. When they dropped food off at the table, the protein was at 6 p.m. I used to when I did food training on how to run food, how to serve food, they I was really big meticulous about not having thumbs on the plates, no you know fingerprints on the plates. You always had to palm the plate; you never could put your thumb on the rim. And then when they put the protein down in front of somebody, that protein always had to be at six o'clock right in front of the guest. I was huge about that. They would practice and practice and practice and practice and practice. And I would put— even with— I would have them to have blank plates. My server training was almost like— it was like boot camp. Server training was like boot camp. And they would have to like carry plates. They would serve from the left. They would have to, you know, they would carry out 2 plates. They would do team service. We didn't use trays. They would use— everyone would carry 2 plates. They'd come to a table. They would serve with their left hand to the table. And then they would transfer the plate from their right hand to their left hand, move around to the other person, move to their left side, and serve the plate. Very, very meticulous. And I would put little pictures on the plate, like this is the filet. I would put where the filet was on a piece of paper and stick it on the plate so they knew where the protein was. You've got to get meticulous about this. You want to get obsessive, obsessive-compulsive attention to detail. Hashtag write this down. Sweat the small stuff because it is the small stuff that matters. And you could easily— and then if you notice, I highlighted small stuff matters. That's why I call it trigger phrase. I have quite a few trigger phrases I teach my clients. Trigger phrases are small little things we do just to remind people and nudge people. My favorite trigger phrase in the whole world is what's next? I say it all the time. What's next? What's next? What's next? If I'm at a restaurant, I'll say it so much that I know I got people brainwashed when they finally walk up to me and go, hey, Donald, what's next? I'm like, Gotcha now. I got you now. I got you saying it too. That's what I want, right? Sweat the small stuff because this is the small stuff that matters. And then that trigger phrase is just small stuff matters. When I see like a piece of paper on the floor and I see someone looking at it and I'm looking at them and I see them looking at the piece of paper on the floor, and I'll say small stuff matters, right? Another huge one. Another— just a great tool to use. So Get obsessive-compulsive attention to detail. I mean, sweat the small stuff. Number 2, you should shop your restaurant. There's 2 ways you could do this. You can use a professional mystery shopping service, or a lot of times I will have like maybe some of my close friends do a report and of what really goes on my restaurant. But you got to do some kind of shopping service, and here's what you do: hold the team accountable to their performance on the shoppings. Right? When you have restaurant shoppers, what I like to do is I like to have performance measures or metrics based on, you know, I want to have, I want to have performance metrics based on what they do on the perform— on the shopping reports. That's a great one to do. All right, and there's an easy way to do it. You can either find— there's tons of professional ones in your market, or you could just— I know I'll be more than happy to email you this. I have a little shopping report I used to just send them out to my friends and I would tell them like, hey, listen, take this thing, uh, put it— take it, put it on your phone. And then, because nowadays it's no big deal to be sitting on your phone looking at your phone, everyone does it nowadays. So like sitting on at a desk, at a table having dinner looking at your phone is no big deal to everybody. So you can easily like put notes in there about this shopping report. It's like, I think it's like a 5-page report. It's really easy to do. I'll give my friends a gift card. I'll say, here, here's a $100 gift card. Come down to the restaurant on me, use the gift card, but I just want you to do a little shopping report. And they can basically go through— it's broken down by facilities, service personnel, food and beverage, and then there's also social media, which they can do on their own. And then they get points. It's 375 points total. They get a score. I'll give them the percent. It's a really great little tool and helps you understand where your team's really at. And they just basically pull us up. A lot— some of the stuff they can do before they're walking in, some of the stuff they can just do as they're, as they're kind of hanging out. But they can— oh, they can just kind of review it on their phone and then take notes of the hits and miss. Okay, it's a great way. That's tool number 2. So tool number 1, obsessive-compulsive attention to detail. New rule number— tool number 2, do some shopping for your team. You know, shop your restaurant. And number 3, I want us to make a pact. I want us to make a pact. I want us to make a pact. There's nothing quite as empowering as signing your name to a document. I will upload this into the members area. So the replays, of course, are available for all my coaching clients, uh, and I do leave them up in the, in the Restaurant Coach Nation for a day or so. I usually pull them down after a day. But if you'd like to have this little Broken Windows Restaurants pledge, I highly encourage you to print this out and sign it. There's something powerful about signing your name to something that just has a kind of lasting impact to it. And so basically it says, I, and then you put your name, hereby, you know, you know, here are the concepts of the Broken Windows for Business theory. Do hereby pledge to do the following. I will pay attention to every detail of my restaurant, especially those that seem insignificant. I will correct any broken windows I find in my restaurant, and I will do so immediately with no hesitation. I will screen, hire, train, and coach my team to notice and correct broken windows in the least amount of time as possible. Remember, broken windows need to be fixed immediately. I will treat each guest like they are the only guest my restaurant has. I'll be on constant vigil for signs of broken windows. Herbus, And will never assume my business is invulnerable. This goes back to that attitude of superiority. We call it hubris, or hubris is when you kind of have this superiority complex, or you kind of think that it won't happen to me. Kmart, in that book, in the book Broken Windows, Broken Business, they talk about Kmart thought they were too big for their own britches, that they, you know, that Target and Walmart couldn't touch them. And now where's Kmart? Bankrupt. Gone. So don't think you're not too big, and don't ever have it— it never could happen to me. Yeah, it could happen to you, right? So never assume that your business is invulnerable. I will mystery shop my own restaurant, discover broken windows I hadn't noticed before. I will make sure every guest who encounters my restaurant is met with respect, efficiency, and a smile. Smile is like so empowering. I will exceed my guest and my team's expectations. One of the things we talk about a lot is there's the team experience and the guest experience. Most restaurant owners focus so much on the guest experience, they forget about the team experience. I am a proponent of if I focus more on my team experience, my guest experience just gets that much better. And then I would always make sure to make a positive first impression. I will assume that every impression Is a first impression. You only get one chance to make a first impression. I will make sure that my my online and telephone service represent representatives, those people who answer the phone, people who do my online ordering, they do everything possible to solve a customer's problem perfectly the first time. I will be obsessive and compulsive when it comes to my restaurant. That is the broken windows for restaurants pledge. I highly recommend you get a copy, you download it, you sign it, and you live it. So what's next? Speaking of trigger phrases, what's next? You can always check out my books. Uh, all my books are available now. Uh, Your Restaurant Culture Sucks, now available on Amazon. I mentioned that in the beginning. Um, they are— the first 2 books are available on Audible and iTunes. The 3rd book is coming out on Audible here in the next By end of the month. Also, if you are a member of the Restaurant Coach Nation, invite like-minded people. Please, please. We're trying to grow our kind of community here. It's a great place to come and ask questions. You always follow me on Instagram. I'm @DonaldBurns on Instagram. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel, The Restaurant Coach. Also, I have the Restaurant Coach Podcast. I just dropped a brand new episode this morning, a really great one about leadership with Yagal Adato. Who's going to be a speaker at the Restaurant Success Summit in October. It is an amazing, amazing podcast episode. I highly recommend— I think it's episode 102 on the Restaurant Coach Podcast. And if you want to speak to me about a coaching program, please just go to my website and book a one-on-one strategy session with me. If you're not sure about is coaching right for you, do I really need a coach— I, I'm a big believer everybody needs a coach. I still have the same business coach I've had since 2008, just so you know. Why? Because he holds me accountable and he calls me on my bullshit. That's what a coach does. A coach holds you accountable and holds you on your bullshit. Now, I have an integrated coaching suite if you're interested in partaking of it. We always say we start at the valley of mediocrity, and our goal, our path, is to get to the summit of outstanding. Along the way, I have different programs to get you to the top faster. You are right now at what we call base camp. The Restaurant Coach Nation is my free private Facebook group where we meet on Fridays to talk about problems, do a little training, help you get some solutions to move you forward, share information, just be able to ask people questions. It's a great— I love the community. I think it's great. We got a lot of people that are very active on the community. I have a lot of experts that are members that I have allowed to make comments You can reach out to any of those people. Bruce Irving's in here. I know Yagao Adato's in here. Uh, Adam Lamb's in here. Some great, great experts depending on what your problems are. You reach out to people. Uh, the Restaurant Coach University is the next level up. That's my online learning platform. And then we have the Restaurant Mastermind, which is a little more kind of a little more accountability. It's a group coaching program, has 2 calls per week, a Monday call, it's educational, a Thursday Q&A call. And then the fastest track to the Summit Outstanding, of course, is the Restaurant Accelerator program where you get all the programs below it. So Accelerator includes Mastermind, includes Restaurant Coach University, but it also includes one-on-one coaching calls with me. So you get that ultimate kind of kick in the butt about coaching and accountability. Remember, it's like I always say, there's 3 paths. There's the fast, the faster path is Mastermind, and of course the fastest path is the Restaurant Accelerator. Today I want to talk real quick just about the Restaurant Coach University because that is the next logical sequence from the Restaurant Coach Nation. Moving up the ladder to the next level is the Restaurant Coach University. So if you were to buy a Starbucks coffee, a, a venti cafe latte, the national average is $4.15. And if you bought a coffee a day Every day over a year, that would be $1,500. Here's my question to you: instead of drinking a cup of coffee a day, what if you took that money and you invested in yourself to make yourself and your restaurant a lot better? So the Restaurant Coach University, what it includes: you get 24/7 access to my online private training library. Currently there's 25 courses in there. It's like 300 hours of content. We also do a 2-hour live group coaching call every month, usually at the beginning of the month. You also have access to our private RCU community where you can go in and ask questions 24/7. I— and I've got people all from around the world in Restaurant Coach University. I got people from South America, Mexico, I've got— oh my God, Europe, I got some people in Africa, I've got some people in Australia. They're all over the world. It's a great thing. You also get, um, a private Facebook community. And then one of the bonuses we're doing is you get a 30-minute personal phone call with me. Normally I don't do one-on-one calls, uh, in the Mastermind Group or the Restaurant Coach University, but if you take advantage of it, you do get a bonus one-on-one coaching call with me where I can actually kind of onboard you and show you what you need to do, where you need to go based on what your issues are you're struggling with. Because I have courses on marketing, I got some on leadership, I got some on menu, I got some on hiring. Depending on what you're struggling with, I'm going to kind of want to point you in the right direction. Now this is just— remember that Starbucks thing was pretty expensive, that was like $4 a day. Restaurant Coach University is only $97 a month, that's $3.18 a day. And plus also you get one of the things is people are always asking, where's the replay for the Restaurant Coach Nation training sessions? Well They're in the members area for the Restaurant Coach Nation, and they're also in, uh, if you have them, those— all the, all the replays are in there, stuff like that. Here's the deal you get today, Restaurant Coach Nation members. You can save $25 per month if you use the coupon code TRCNATIONDEAL. It's all one word, all caps. If you use the TRCNATIONDEAL when you go to the Restaurant Coach, you can just go to restaurantcoachuniversity.com If you go to restaurantcoachuniversity.com, type in restaurant or TRC Nation deal, TRC Nation deal, one word, all caps, you will get $25 off per month. That makes your RCU membership just $2.36 a day, about half the price of a cup of coffee. And the beautiful thing about the TRC Nation, about all my coaching programs, is they are no contracts, 100% backed, satisfaction guaranteed. You can cancel anytime, no contracts. Just a pure month-to-month deal. If you're not sure if the Restaurant Coach University is right for you, if you want to move maybe into a higher level program, just go to my website. There's a little button on the top— they're actually all over the place— it says book a strategy session with me. I'm more than happy to talk to you, spend an hour talking about your restaurant, where you're at now, where do you want to be in 90 days, and then we can figure out a plan that's best for you and figure out if I'm the best person to get you there. Honestly, If I'm not the best person to help you out, I will recommend someone who is. I know I'm not a good fit for everybody, and I have tons of friends who are restaurant consultants that do coaching that can help you out. So wherever you are in your phase, if I can't help you, I will help you find someone who can help you. My goal is to help you get the restaurant life you want. If I can do it, that's great. I would love to be— and I would be honored to be your coach. If you need, if I'm not a good fit for you, trust me, I'll find someone who is a good fit for you. And then every Friday we have the Restaurant Coach Nation training here inside the Facebook group. Also, it's available on the Restaurant Coach University Facebook page too. And I want to say thanks for being here. I saw someone in the in the chat said Trotter was the man. Yes, Trotter was a legend. Hell on wheels, man. He was a— he was, he was vicious, I tell you. All right, I want to say thanks for being here today. I went a little bit over the hour time, but hey, I think you got some great value out of it. If you did, please make sure again, share this with other people. Share the Restaurant Coach Nation with other people. We are trying to build a community online of independent restaurant owners and operators and experts that want to make more and work less in their restaurant. All these experts tell you all the time you need to work more on your business, less in your business, but then they never give you the tools to make that happen. That's my goal with the Restaurant Coach Nation, is to give you the tools to actually make that reality where you actually can work more on your business and less in your business. If I fulfilled that, then I'm a happy man. So everyone have a fantastic weekend. If there's anything I can do for you, please just email me, donald@therestaurantcoach.com. Or DM me on Facebook, DM me on Instagram. I'm more than happy to serve you and to be of help to you. Everyone have a fantastic weekend.