From Concept to Success: The Four Building Blocks of Restaurant Business

Hey, good afternoon, the Restaurant Coach Nation. Donald Burns here. Another beautiful Sunday afternoon. Here to give you some live training. I'm excited about this one. This one's a good one because it helps. I find a lot of restaurants struggle with sometimes the fundamental stuff. We got a lot of our menu stuff in place, we got some of our marketing in place, we got some of our operations in place. Remember, to me it's always a 3Pmodel. Anytime I'm looking at any problem a restaurant has, I always look at the 3 or I call it the 3P framework. The 3P framework is this. It's people, it's product, it's process. The trick is gotta have them in the right order and you gotta have the right emphasis on the right parts. Sometimes you have to focus on the product part, which most restaurants do. They have a great menu, they have some great recipes, they have great beverage programs, they have some good marketing going. But they might have some process part too. They might have some systems, some checklists, they might have some budgets, they might have some kind of strategic planning for the year. But the part I think most people miss out on is that people part. That people part is really what holds everything together. And so today what we're going to do is we're going to create a little bit. This is kind of, this is some stuff out of my restaurant accelerator coaching program. And I'll talk about a little bit longer, a little bit later actually, and a little longer too. But this program, the restaurant accelerator is number one. It's a, it's a hybrid coaching program. And what do I mean by hybrid? A hybrid coaching program is basically, it's the best of everything I've ever done before for. So it's a little bit of online programming. So there's online courses that you can study at your own pace. There's group accountability with a mastermind group, and then there's also one on one coaching. So you get private time with me one on one to work on those issues that are basically holding you back from reaching your potential. And one of the things we always do in any coaching program is we create what's called as a map. And just like any kind of map, I use a metaphor map for a massive action plan. So what we're going to talk about today and if you haven't, if this is the first time you've ever tuned in or seen me anywhere again, I'm Donald Burns, I'm the restaurant Coach. I have 40 years experience in the restaurant industry. I don't say it to Impress you. But to impress upon you that when you work in industry as long as I have, you've seen a lot of mistakes and you've also seen some really great, what I call best practices that's going on out there. So when I'm looking at restaurants, I actually tell people what I really do is I study restaurant success because I find if you find someone getting the results you want, you can do what we call is modeling. And by modeling them, I basically see what they're doing and I want to basically implement and use the best things that they're doing too. So modeling is the fastest way to get results. So we use a lot of modeling. In fact, I'm going to take you through I basically have what I call there's a restaurant success path and all restaurants go through this path. Most restaurants are what I call in the valley of mediocrity. And what you want to make it to, your goal is to get what I call is the summit of outstanding. When you get to the summit outstanding, your restaurant stands out so far ahead head that you don't even have competition anymore. You basically become the leading driving restaurant in your market. And that's the goal for every restaurant. Everybody's on this call is in the restaurant business. Your goal is to take your restaurant from wherever it is now to make it to that some of it outstanding. So how do we do that? Well, there's different, I have different programs that I offer along the way like the one you're in now. If you're here watching the restaurant coach nation, this is my free Facebook group. It's a private group only for people in the restaurant industry. Of course I have the restaurant coach university which is an easy one to follow. And that's just basically an online learning program. Has a lot of my online courses. There is a monthly call available. Restaurant masterminds is my group accountability calls for restaurant owners only. And then my top program for those restaurants that really want the fast track and want the fastest results is they usually get the restaurant accelerator. And that's anywhere from a six month to a year program depending on how fast you kind of go through the program. So really a lot of it's on you. And of course I have some books out there. Your restaurant sucks, your restaurant still sucks. And my new book is coming out very soon called your restaurant culture sucks. And I also have a little booklet called outstanding mindset. So enough of the sales pitch. Let's go through the summit checkpoints along the way there's checkpoints just like if you're going to a summit. If you're going to ascend a summit like you're climbing Mount Everest, there's certain checkpoints you want to make. Checkpoint one for any restaurant is you have to have commitment. You have to be committed to making sure that you are ready to make some changes. You have to be committed. Checkpoint two is we got to make a little shift in your mindset, because I find 80% of restaurant success is mindset. 20% is systems and strategy. Checkpoint three is the team. Of course, you cannot do it by yourself. I know a lot of restaurant owners try to do it by themselves, and they end up burning themselves out. Checkpoint four is we're going to dial in. You got to dial in your operations. You got to make sure everything's running smooth, everything's running great, everything's working in synergy with each other. And the last thing is leadership. Without leadership, nothing is really ever going to get done. It's where we're basically fighting with the team. So that last checkpoint is leadership. So today, what we're going to talk about is what are some resources you have for checkpoint one and commitment? And these resources, these tools are basically, they're all free and available to you. Again, my goal, my duty is to help as many independent restaurant owners as I can break free from where they are to get the restaurant and the life that they want. That might be make more money, that might be working less hours, whatever that is for you. That's your definition of success. And my goal and my duty to help you make that definition in your reality and your kind of vision of success become reality. So what do we have? We have the Restaurant Coach Nation, which you're here, of course. You have my books available now, those aren't free. You have to pay for those. Actually on Amazon, I do have my blog@therestaurantcoach.com there's some great information in there. I have the Restaurant Coach podcast, which is available on itunes, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, Google Player FM, and Google Podcast. And then also I have a YouTube channel that also has great videos. And again, all these elements are free. As long as you make a commitment that you want to improve. As long as you make that commitment, you're halfway there, right? Let's jump into the good stuff. I get my slide to work. Okay, here's what we're going to talk about on today's training on the Restaurant Coach Nation. Make sure, number one, have a paper and pen, if you can, or a pencil, whatever you like to write with crayon. I don't really care. Have a pencil, paper, crayon, whatever you want to write with that is going to help you because I want you to write down as much as you can. The more you take notes, the more chance you have of implementing stuff. Okay, so there's four building blocks to what I call as the map or the massive action plan. Block one we're going to talk about today are core values. Block two, we're going to talk about raising your standards. Block three, I'm going to talk about optimization, how to optimize your results. Block 4, how to 10x service or how to create raving fans. Today. Let's jump in, shall we? Slide deck slow today. Block one, Right. If you really remember, we talked about that first step on this path to the summit of outstanding is commitment. When you're committed to taking new actions, committed to changing your mindset, committed to changing your habits, committed to doing new things. Because here's what most people do. They do the same thing over and over and expect new results. That, my friends, is the textbook definition of insanity. When you try to do the same thing over and over and over again and you're expecting different results, it's just like beating your head against the wall every day. I would tell you, please stop beating your head against the wall. Let's do things a little different. So let's start with a commitment, and we start with a commitment to creating a massive action plan, to taking your restaurant to the next level. If you agree that I'm committed to taking my restaurant to the next level, you can type in the comments or type in the. In the chat. If you're here watching us live on Facebook, or if you're watching us on any other social media platform, just type in the comments. I read the. I read the comments all the time. Type yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I am committed. If you want to learn how to inspire your team to do more and be more, say yes. If you want to make more profit, say yes. If you want your guest to become raving fans, say yes. If you want to be better looking, say yes now. Honestly, I can't help you with that one. You're on your own on that one. But I can help you with all the other things that we just talked about, and creating a map is the fastest way to get there. Block one, core values. Core values to me are basically, they're your compass and they serve as a beacon, really do, almost like a magnet. They attract talent, they attract people that want to work with you, and they also Attract your guests to you. People are attracted to culture. And core values are the building blocks for culture in your restaurant. I ask restaurants this all the time. Tell me the difference and if you wanted to, in the chat, write in the comments. What's the difference between brand and the difference between culture? Now, a lot of people, when I ask restaurant owners this, what's the difference between brand and culture? A lot of people say that they're the same. Your brand is your culture. Your culture is a brand. Yes and no. They're very similar. Here's my simple definition of what the difference is between brand and culture. Brand is what your guests say about you. It's what your guests say about you on online reviews, on social media, what they tell their friends. Culture is what your team says about you on social media, to their friends, to their family. Brand feeds culture. Culture feeds brand. They both work together in synergy. Kind of think of them like yin and yang. They actually kind of coexist. If your culture is weak, it's going to produce weakness in your brand. If your brand is weak, it's going to produce weakness in your culture. You need both to be equally strong. That's why I love that kind of the visual reference of yin and yang, because they're equal parts. You have to have both. You have to have the brand and you have that culture. Without both, you're screwed. And not in a good way. Not in the warm, fuzzy way that you want to be. Trust me, someone said, hell yeah, I'm committed. Hashtag, I always say hashtag, write this down. Write this shit down. I call the restaurant coach rule. All business problems are people problems in disguise. And I say this like a parrot. I bet you anyone in my coaching programs, if they're listening or watching this training today on, on Facebook, they will say, donald says this at least 20 times a week, maybe more. All business problems are people problems in disguise. Now, most people problems are really caused when we act out of congruency with our core values. Now here's the thing. Please don't come up with some, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, mission statement or core values that don't really mean anything. Those are what I call surface solutions. Okay, and what are surface solutions? Basically, those are the things that sound good on the surface. Those are the things that we know we should do or should be, yet deep down, we haven't bought into them. Remember we talked about that? First step is commitment. You can, you can put out all the cool words you want on a poster or a board in your employee Staff room. You can tell all the people that you're all about integrity, respect, communication, community. But if they don't see you actually doing those things, you're just a hypocrite. And here's the thing. No one wants to follow a hypocrite. I don't care. I don't care how great your food is. No one wants to work for a hypocrite. Those things all sound great on the surface and we love to pick them up because we think it's gonna make us look good. But if those, those little surface values you pick up, if they don't have deep roots down into your culture, they're not going to survive. Do you want a better restaurant? Yes or no? Easy question. Write into comments, right? Do you want a better restaurant? Yes or no? Or are you happy with your restaurant just the way way it is? If you want a better restaurant, here's the thing. You need to live your values every day. Now, this bears something that you should write down. Core values are not just words you say. They are words that you live by each and every day. Core values are not just words you say. They are words you live by each and every day. If you cannot honestly say you live by it, then it's not a core value. It's more like we talked about, I just talked about a second ago. It's more like a surface value. Surface values never ever build an outstanding culture and or an outstanding restaurant. It's never going to make you what you know. A lot of people ask, you know a lot of people's goals. I want to be world class. What really defines world class anyway? To me, world class is being the best that you can be. It's maximizing your potential. World class. Hashtag, write this shit down. World class is just a mindset. Anybody can be world class. You can be a mom and pop taco truck on the south side of the bad parts of the town. You could be a five diamond restaurant. The only thing that difference between those places is just mindset. World class is a mindset. Write that shit down. So let's take a real deep look at some core values. And here's some. And these are basically some I've seen from some of my clients. Hospitality from the heart. Integrity in our actions. Roll up your sleeves. Get it right. Desire to learn. Now, if you're looking at these or you're looking at your own core values, are there things that kind of inspire you? Are there words on your core value list that make you feel connected? Or are there words on your core value list that. On your core value list, that actually makes you feel disconnected. When I'm looking at this list, I think this is a solid core value list. You know, hospitality from the heart, integrity in our actions. Roll up your sleeves. Get it right. Desire to learn. That's a solid group of core values right here. Here's the problem with core values again. We might know our core values, but we don't walk around with a sign on ourselves saying, like, you know, like one of those little stickers like, hello, my name is Donald. Hello. My. My core value is integrity. Hello, My core value is respectful. It's so important that you talk about your core values on a daily basis. If we know, if we know what our core values are and we actually know what core values are important to our other people on our team, that means you're going to have to talk to people. We can start understanding and developing those. Remember we talked about those roots of your culture, of your core values and roots that go down into your culture. When I talk to my team and find out what their core values are, their personal core values, and I find how those connect with my core values of the restaurant, I can start having those kind of deep roots start forming together, which is fantastic. Let me ask you right now, have you ever had, sat down and had a conversation with anyone on your team about core values? If I asked 100 restaurant owners in a group that question, I would probably get three people raise their hand. Sad but true. And the main problem is, again, we don't tell people our core values. We don't preach our core values. We don't discuss our core values. Enough. Now, when you're looking at your core values, do we pull out those core values? Do we pull out core values to us as a real compass, or do we pull them out as a convenience? And what do I mean when we use core values as a convenience? We use core values as a means to get others back in line. I'm using it to get someone on the team to comply. Remember we talked about that kind of ascent into the summit of outstanding was the first step. The first step is commitment. There's two ways people actually do things. They actually either comply or they're committed. When they comply, they do just enough to get by. When they're committed, they go beyond what they're supposed to do. The way you get commitment is by getting up and preaching your core values, preaching your core values every day. And in fact, I always say, people, it's your duty as a leader. And yes, I said, duty to get up and preach your core values every single day. Day. Because you must back up your own words with actions. I was very fortunate to be a member of the US Air Force Pararescue teams. And I was stationed in England, and I actually got to do a lot of training with the British SAS or Special Air Services teams. And they have a really famous kind of motto, which I thought was really, really cool. It's really great. And their motto is deeds, not words. In fact, if you can write those three words down and kind of put them somewhere where you can see them every day. Deeds, not words. Make a commitment today, like right now, to take your core values and plant them deep into your culture. And then here's the thing. You got to truly live them, nurture them every day, protect them like they're gold, because they actually are gold. Now answer this question honestly, and this is for you, not for me. I'm not here to judge you. I'm here to help you. I'm here to coach you. Would you say you live your core values every single day? Day. Would you say you live your mission statement every single day? If I walked up to everyone on your team randomly, If I walked up to anyone on your team randomly, and I asked them, what are the core values of your restaurant? What is the mission of your restaurant? Could those. Could you be 100% confident that everyone in the team could tell me? If not, you got some work to do. Block number two. Hashtag, write this down. Average is a failing formula. Change. Change is not easy. And we know that. What happens when you start to change things, that change likes to push back. Most people are willing to try change. They're willing to dabble in change. But here's the thing. When they feel the pressure, they back off and they give in. And when you've given in to the pressure, you basically sold out. Maybe that's why it's called, you know, the road less travel. Now, that can change with one decision. And the decision is this, that you're going to raise your standards, and you will not allow your comfort zone or anyone else to allow you to compromise your standards ever again. And that can start today. You know, the beautiful thing about raising your standards is you can just make a commitment and dedicate yourself today. I'm going to raise my standards, and I'm not going to back down from my standards. I'm going to raise my standards and keep the bar up there. So many times we raise our standards, especially when we open a new restaurant, have these great Standards. We have this great vision, and then life hits us and boom, you get a blow. And then, boom, you get another hit. Then, boom, you get another hit. Next thing you know, you start compromising. And when you compromise, it's the worst thing in the world. This is a really great quote. The funny thing about selling out is how cheaply most people do it for. It all starts with a decision. Remember I talked about commitment and this whole kind of, I guess our whole kind of topic for this whole session, today's training session is about commitment. You can start getting the restaurant you want right now. And it starts with a decision to do more and be more. It starts by making a conscious decision to raise your standard. Nothing in your life will ever get better until you raise your standards for yourself first. Let me repeat that. When I say let me repeat that, that's actually me saying, write this shit down. Raise your standards for yourself first. So many restaurant owners and operators have that equation backwards. They expect other people to raise their standards, but they don't actually do anything. Raise your standards first, please. Raise your standards first for yourself. You have to. You have to raise your standards for yourself. So why do we settle? Why do we settle? Why do we settle? Why do you settle? Why do you compromise? Basically because you had this fire inside of you that became diminished. Some people call it burnout. Call it, you know, the problems come when we stay in burnout and we don't do anything to kind of relight that fire. Just like all relationships, you have a relationship with your restaurant. And if anybody's been married or been in a long term relationship, you know, when you first start off that honey, you know, that, you know, dating phase and the honeymoon phase, it's all very, very exciting. And you have a lot of passion, a lot of energy. But then as the relationship matures and goes, as marriages mature and grow, it takes work, okay? Nothing ever stays the same, but we expect it to, which is the worst thing we can do. And just like all relationships, you have a relationship with your restaurant too. And if you're experiencing burnout, you need to rekindle that relationship with your restaurant. We all tend to take things for granted. There's a thing in psychology, it's called the law of familiarity. And it really wreaks havoc on restaurants, you know, especially the ones that have been in business for a long time. You've become so used to things that you kind of develop a blind spot for what they call a stichoma. Okay? Have you ever walked into your restaurant and seen something out of place. Like maybe there's a piece of trash on the floor or, you know, something else out of not in its right spot. And you're looking at the team and wondering how come they didn't see it, how come they didn't move it, how come they didn't put it back? So you know, that's their blind spot. And you have blind spots, too. And the reason you don't notice them is because they're called blind spots. They're called blind spots for a reason. You got some blind spots. Everyone has blind spots. Your duty as a leader is to first be aware of your own blind spots and then coach the team to be aware of their blind spots. That's the best thing to do. Again, expect more from yourself than you do from others. Your restaurant and hashtag, write this down again. Your restaurant is a reflection of you. It's your actions and your attitude that have a profound impact on your restaurant. So when things are good, this is a good one. Here's part of, like your. Your action plan, your restaurant map. Action. I say own it. Stop it and be aware. Own it. Stop it. Be aware when things are good. I'm telling you, man, you are on top of the world. When things go bad, it tends to all pull us down in that pit of despair. As human beings, we tend to let our successes define us, and actually, it's our challenges and our struggles that we find our real strength. All restaurants will experience a challenge. There's a natural ebb and flow to business. You cannot have all sunshine. Sunshine, you know, beautiful days, blue skies. You cannot. You got to have rainy days, too. And it's during those rainy days that you actually tend to grow. When you find your restaurant is stuck, there are a few keys you have to take. Number one, Gotta own it. You must be aware of your current situation and honest with yourself about it. Don't sugarcoat it or use softeners like, you know, it's not that bad. Could be worse. You know, it's. Okay, here's my thing. And this is where my first book title comes from. Your restaurant sucks. If your restaurant's not exactly where you want it to be, that's bad, okay? You got to own it. Nothing will improve until you take personal accountability for where your business is that the next one. Stop it. There's an old saying that goes. My father was great at saying this one all the time. When you find you're in a hole, stop digging. If your restaurant's marketing plan is not working, then stop doing the same boring posts that are not getting any attention. If your restaurant's losing money, then get control of your cost and stop the bleeding. If you are not attracting top talent, then start actively recruiting. And the last one, be aware of be aware. Success leaves clues. And like I mentioned before, success leaves clues but also failure too. You want to start looking for the warning signs that your restaurant is in trouble and then have an action plan to change course before it becomes a big problem. So many restaurant owners are in denial or they don't take action as soon as they see a red flag. If you're driving in your car and the check engine light comes on, how long do you have? You can write this in the comments or make, you know, just kind of write down a mental note. If your check engine light came in your on in your car, how long would you drive before you had it checked out? A day, A week? A month? Six months? A year? How long would you let that check engine light go before you did something about it? But you know what? That's how most restaurant owners operate. The check in that check engine light came on. It's a red flag. There's something not right, but they just ignore it. And I'll tell you right now, if you ignore it, it becomes a bigger, bigger problem. Hashtag, write this down. To take no action is an action. It's just stupid action. So stop that. Stop that shit. So here's a question for you, an honest question. I want you to answer and be honest with yourself again. I'm not here to judge you. I'm here to coach you. Are there any standards you've ever slacked on? Are there any kind of standards in your restaurant that you've compromised on? Is there anything that you at once held at a higher level or raise, had the bar up higher but you've dropped the bar? If you have, I need you to put that bar back up. I need you to raise those standards back up starting today. Block three, accountability. Now, in this block, remember, we're going to learn for on ways to get more from ourselves first. Remember, expect more for ourselves and then ways to help our team maximize their potential as well. How do we do that? Let's talk about what hospitality is. What is hospitality? If you like to, in the comments or in the chat, write down what your definition is of hospitality. Because everyone has a different one in hospitality business. And you know, if you actually study the word kind of hospitality comes from the Latin word hospice, which means host. That's really what being hospitality is really about in our industry. It's about giving to others. It's what real hospitality is. When you're in the spirit of hospitality, you are are the ultimate host. Hospitality is a relationship between the guest and the host, where the host basically receives a guest with goodwill and then they entertain them and make sure they have everything they need. Now there's two types of guests you have. Now we say there's, and we say this in all kind of businesses, you have two types of kind of customers. I don't like the word customers. I say we have two types of basically clients in our restaurants or guests in our restaurant. We have external guests, we have internal guests. Most restaurants focus on the external guests. Those are people who come in and eat your restaurant, eat and dine in a restaurant, have drinks, ask the external guest. They totally forget about providing hospitality to our internal guests, which is your team. Treat your team with just as much respect as you would your guests and you're going to see a dramatic shift in your culture. Again, most people have that equation wrong. This is a great quote. Louis Jacquard described hospitality as the virtue of a great soul that care for the whole universe through its ties with humanity. Wow, that's huge, isn't it? Read that one again. Hospitality to him is basically. This is his definition of hospitality. It's the virtue of a great soul that cares for the whole universe through the ties of humanity. Man, that's a big responsibility. Here's my question to you. Are you up for the challenge today? The restaurant industry is infamous for long hours and high turnover. The key to reverse that process is to take better care of the person who is actually being the host. And that person's you. So let me go into my little sermon about self care. Self care is critical not only to your restaurant success, but also to your peace of mind, your wellness, your sense of being centered, your mindfulness, your ability to give more, all depends on self care, how well you take care of yourself. Okay, so how do you recharge? What do you do to kind of recharge yourself? And I'm talking about positive ways to recharge. Not like, I get home, I pop open a can of beer and I veg out in front of the TV for two hours before I finally go to bed exhausted. Then I wake up, you know, eat a crappy breakfast, go to restaurant, work 16 hour days, go home, pop a beer, watch TV for two hours till I get tired and go to sleep. No, that's not self care. That's not recharging. That's actually depleting yourself. I'm talking about what do you actively do on a positive level to recharge yourself? You know, what are some things you do? Do you meditate? Okay. Do you exercise? I'm not talking about being a gym rat for two hours a day. I'm talking about do I just go for a nice walk in the morning? Do I read a book besides watching mindless tv? And please stop watching all those reality TV shows about restaurants. They're a bunch of crap. What do you do to recharge yourself? What can you do to recharge yourself? Taking care of yourself is probably one of the biggest things I focus on with all of my coaching programs. When you sign up for my coaching programs, be be warned that you're going to get a lot of how to work on your restaurant, but you're also going to get a lot on how to improve yourself. Because I'm a huge believer that restaurants become better when the people in to become better people. And that starts with you, you becoming a better person. You taking care of yourself. In one of. In my restaurant Coach University, I have a great program called Level Up. It's about time management. And it's usually like when anyone signs up for any of my coaching programs, I usually recommend they go through the Level up system first because the Level up program is really going to teach how to get back control of your time. Because the number one thing all restaurant owners tell me is I don't have time. Bullshit. You have time. You're just not using your time effectively. I can help you fix that if you allow me to. How do we overcome burnout? Remember I talked about that law of familiarity? Well, if you feel a little edgy, or as I like to describe it, as crispy, welcome to what's known as burnout. Now here's my. This is my own personal interpretation of burnout. I think burnout is bullshit. What you really need is to reconnect with why you fell in love with your business in the first place, why you fell in love with the restaurant. Here's an exercise. I have all my clients do. I call it the 50. It's a fun one. What you can do is getting a blank piece of paper you're going to write 1 to 50 on. Pretty simple, right? And here's what you want to do. I want you to start writing down why you love your restaurant, why you love what you do. Now, getting to 20 is pretty easy. 30 gets really tough and after 40 you really got to dig down deep into your heart. However, that's what that Exercise is supposed to do. It's supposed to help you reconnect with the things. And it could be just a little things. Like, you know, when I did this exercise, I did this years ago, back in the 90s when I was feeling a little burnout when I was a restaurant owner and I had two restaurants and I was feeling a little crispy, and I broke this down. And again, when I got to 30, 30 was kind of hard. But when I started getting past that, it's like, sometimes the little things, like, I love the smell of, you know, just the kitchen in full production. I love the smell of, like, fresh stock on the back burner. When I first walk in, I can just smell that stock. I just love, you know, just taking fresh ingredients and chopping them up. Those little things that I probably started to take for granted, I just started realizing I just. I love those things. I love that aspect of what I do. I love looking out in the dining room and seeing guests smiling, having a great time. I love it when people walk up and say, oh, my God, you know, this was an amazing experience. I love it when people bring their families and they celebrate special events, anniversaries, birthdays, weddings. Those little things, they all add up, and they all make a difference. What are some things you could do? I highly Recommend Doing the 50 exercise. Find 50 reasons why you love your restaurant, and you're going to have to dig for them, but it'll help you out a lot. The power of words, I would say. What's your title? What do you call yourself? Are you a restaurant owner? Are you the manager? Are you the chef? What's your title? What is your title? You know, it's said that there's over 1 million. It's a little over 1 million words in the English language. I mean, that's a lot of words. Over 1 million words in the English language. But here's the thing. The average person's vocabulary is only 5,000. That's like.004%. I want you to think of your restaurant as a stage. And if you think of your restaurant like a stage, like you're an actor, then what we need to think of is we need to think of ourselves as a role we're playing, you know, because we each play a part, you know, a Persona, a character. So what's your title? What could you do to spice up your title? Who you are at your restaurant or when you're actually in your restaurant? Are you the team coach? Are you the magic maker? Are you the expediter of excellence? Are you a culture curator? Are you doing maestro of memories? What are you make of fun? Okay. And then think about your team. What fun, kind of interesting job titles. Could you come up for people at your team now? In my restaurants, I never use traditional job titles. I never called anybody a dishwasher. What I called them was a ceramic aquatic technician. It was great. When I'm hiring people, hey, dude, I got the perfect job for you. Ceramic aquatic technician. You got your own office in the back. It's got water, it's nice. And then they go, do I get business cards? I go, soon. Not yet. But you will eventually. So think about your title. And I want you to come up with an empowering title again, and I'll give you some of the ones I love. I threw it before. Are you a team coach? Are you a magic maker? Are you the expediter of excellence? Are you the culture curator? Are you the maestro of memories? I like that one. The maestro of memories. Here's another one. What does the word service mean to you? To me, there's no higher calling in life than to serve others. My job as a restaurant coach is to serve you. My job as your restaurant coach is to help you get what you want. I'm a huge believer in that. There's a great quote in my office. I don't know if you can see it back on the wall in my office. It's a. It's a great quote. I built all my brands around this quote quote. And it's basically. It's from Zig Ziglar. And the quote is, you can have everything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want. I believe that with all my heart and soul. I believe that 120%. All my heart and soul. I believe that I can get everything I ever want if I just help you get what you want. So what does service really mean to you? If you want to make more money, if you want to have a better restaurant, you just have to learn how to provide more value. And it starts with having a service mindset. How can I be of service to others? Most people, again, have the equation backwards. What can people do for me? Most people are dialed into radio station wiifm. What's radio station wiifm? What's in it for me? Tune off that station, Try to focus on what can I do for them? What can I do to help you? What can I do to help you get your restaurant? What can I do to help you get unstuck? And if you are stuck, I'm more than happy to have a conversation with you. Just go to my website, www.therestaurantcoach.com. book A Success session with me. I'll do it for free. I just want to help you get unstuck. And we can work on a path and a plan to help you get from where you are to where you want to be in the next 90 days. All you gotta do is reach out. It's always shocking that I offer it all the time, but very few people actually take me up on it. I don't know if they're scared or what. I don't bite. I growl a little bit, but I don't bite. Especially it's on a phone call. I can't really bite you. So think about that. Power of questions. Ask yourself this question. Have you ever whined or complained? If you want better results, you have to ask yourself better questions. And what do I mean by there's bad questions out there? What I mean by bad questions, Some bad questions are like this. Why is this happening to me? You know, you had someone call for an, you know, come in for an interview and you told them to call you, and they haven't called you back. And why don't they call me back? Why don't they like me? And you can tell by the way I've said those questions. I've had some practice because, yeah, there's been some times in my life I've asked myself some pretty lousy questions. I had this really kind of poor me tone to a lot of questions I asked myself. And here's the thing. When I whine and I play the victim, what do I get? Nothing. Zero, zip, Nada. I had to learn to ask myself a better question. And I want you to ask yourself better questions, too, starting today. Here's another one, too. Beware of words that start with when, who and why. Beware of these words that start with when, who and why. What do I mean? If you've heard anyone say questions like this, like when will they do their job? Why don't they communicate better? Who dropped the ball? Who messed up that table? Why do we have to go through all this change? When's someone going to train me? Oh, why can't we find better people? Who's going to tell us what to do when? It's slow. Now, these questions, like, they seem innocent, but I tell you, what they really indicate is a lack of personal accountability or personal responsibility, however you want to say it, you know, responsibility and accountability. I love those words because if you Study words. Responsibility is your ability to be responsible. Accountability is your ability to be accountable. And I'm telling you, personal accountability goes right to the heart of many of the problems that restaurants face today. Turning your thinking around and asking more personally accountable questions is one of the most powerful and effective things that you can do as a leader to improve your restaurant and also your life. Hashtag, write this shit down. Stop the blame game. Take accountability by asking better questions. What are some better questions? What can I do to improve this? What can I do to learn? What can I do to communicate better? What can I do to become a better person? Those are great questions. Those are the questions you should be asking yourself every day. What can I do to make it better? How can I communicate better? How can I improve this? What can I do to learn? So if you want better results, ask better questions. I mentioned this before. Lack of personal responsibility causes most issues in restaurants. You can solve that by taking personal accountability for your actions. And here's the thing, it flows downhill when you start taking personal accountability for your actions. It actually, it feeds into this thing called Batari's box. And let me explain Batari's box to you. Batari's box. Basically think of like a circle and think of like there's a at the top at 12 o', clock, then there's 3 o', clock, 6 o' clock, and 9 o'. Clock. At 12 o' clock is you. It's your attitude because attitudes get passed around. Your attitude, if I move to the 3 o' clock position impacts your behavior. Now your behavior impacts your team's attitude, which at that 6 o' clock and then we move up to 9 o', clock, that impacts their behavior, which goes back to 12 o' clock and impacts your attitude. You ever notice how like bad days just seem to get worse and great days just seem to get really great all the day? It's because attitudes get passed around. Your attitude influences your behavior. That influences your team's attitude, which influences their behavior, which actually starts influencing the guest attitude and the guest behavior about your restaurant. It is a vicious cycle that you need to be aware of if you want to break it. If you break it, you can control it and you can actually start creating a better culture and a better experience for everybody. Hashtag, write this down. Awareness precedes choice. Choice precedes change. Again, here's my question to you about being a little bit honest here and a little bit of a little, little time here for self reflection. And look in the mirror of reflection. Have you ever Ever talked negatively about a guest or a staff member or team member in front of another employee? Here's the thing. If you have forgive yourself and don't do it again. All behavior is learned. Behavior. That's a beautiful thing. All habits are learned behavior. That's a beautiful thing to understand. Because why? Because if I can learn it, I can unlearn it and learn new habits or better habits. All behavior is learned. Write that down. Culture is learned and culture is shared. Human beings have this amazing set of neurons in your brain called mirror neurons. And what they do is they allow us to copy the behavior of others. So when you say things that are negative, they kind of become known as, like, silent approval. And then here's the thing, your team's going to mimic that behavior. Then it starts to spread into the culture. When it starts spreading into the culture, it creates what's known as toxicity. And then that becomes like cancer. And once you're. You're basically, your culture is cancerous. What do we do when we have cancer? We have to basically do radical chemotherapy. A lot of times surgery to cut it out, to remove it. Behavior becomes contagious. Attitudes become contagious. Be very aware of your attitude. Be very aware of your behavior because it impacts everything on a team. Hashtag, write this down. You are either bringing positive or negative energy to a restaurant all the time. And from this day forward, I'm going to say, if I had my hand on your. Put my hand on your head and I said, heal. Heal this person right here you are. From now on, from this day forward, you are empowered to manage your energy, your attitude, and your behavior in your restaurant. You constantly want to monitor the energy going on in your restaurant, especially the energy going to the guest. And your mission, if you choose to accept it, don't. Dun, dun, dun. Do Mission Impossible theme. I need. I need a bigger budget for sound effects here. I don't have it. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to make sure only positive energy flows to the guest. So what are some things for negative energy? When I'm at a restaurant and I see this going on, I see someone taking away something from the table without bringing a refill. Like they take away a chip basket or a bread basket without bringing a fresh one first and then taking away. How about managers asking boring questions when they come to check on the table? How's everything? Not reading the guest non verbals. We all have non verbals. Not saying thank you. You'd be shocked how many restaurants I go to on a weekly basis. That no one says thank you when I'm leaving. Another one, no one says goodbye. Oh, this is one of my favorite ones. How about have you ever walked into a restaurant and the hostess greets you by a number two or my favorite because I travel a lot by myself because I'm, you know, I work in different cities working with restaurants. I walk into a restaurant and then the host will say, just one. Yes, just one. I'm a loser. I don't have anyone with me. So what are some things for positive energy you want to look out for? Bringing maybe the condiments before the food arrives, refills brought in a new glass. Making sincere recommendations, smiling, opening the door for a guest either when they're coming in or when they're leaving. Always be aware of the positive negative energy going on in your restaurant at all time. So take a hard look in the mirror again and ask yourself what are you willing to do to get the restaurant that you know it can be? What new standards are you committed to starting today? What are you going to do to raise the bar? What are you going to do to commit to being better for yourself? Now I want to throw out there for everyone listening to this. I'm actually going to be running a special kind of marketing class and I usually offer this. It's always my all my restaurant coach clients are in this. But I'm going to be offering this out to restaurant owners only. So if you are a restaurant owner, you can email me at donalderestaurant Coach or you can DM me in the Facebook group, in the Restaurant Coach Nation or on the Restaurant Coach page. Just DM me privately, direct message me and say I definitely want more information and what I'm going to be doing. I'm doing a 14 day marketing power playbook. I'm going to take you through my kind of framework for how to create the ultimate marketing power playbook. Pretty simple, right? We have three phases to it. There's foundation, framework and floodgates. I'm going to take you through each of these different dimensions of creating a marketing power playbook that is going to show you the exact step by step formula and you actually will have a playbook by the end of this course. You'll have a playbook on how to actually create a kick ass, killer, wicked badass, wicked awesome as they say in Boston. A wicked awesome marketing playbook. If you're interested, all you gotta do is write in the chat. Tell me more. I'm in. Whatever you want to say or DM me or you just email me at downloaded restaurantcoach.com and I'll send you the link to get signed up for it. It's probably going to kick off. Probably kick this off either later this month or it might be the first weekend after 4th of July. So work on the logistics of that. And again, thanks everyone for being here. You're all in the Restaurant Coach Nation. If you're watching this, if you're not in the Restaurant Coach Nation and you're watching this live, just head over to Facebook. Look for the Restaurant Coach Nation sign up. It's free. It's going to ask you a couple simple questions. Jump right in. I share a lot of content. We're doing live training every Sunday inside the Restaurant Coach Nation just like this at 2pm Pacific Time, 3pm Mountain Standard Time, 4pm Central Time and 5pm on the east Coast. You have to adjust for your time zone if you're international. I'm sorry. Again, I want to say thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for showing up for the training, thank you for paying attention. Thank you for taking lots of notes. And again, if there's anything I can do to help you personally, let's just have a conversation. Just go to my my website therestaurantcoach.com hit any of those buttons all over the thing. The place is saturated says book your success strategy session with me. Be more than happy to talk to you about where your restaurant is now and exactly where you want to be in the next 90 days. Again, call. It's complimentary. You just got to take some action and step up and do it. So I'm going to say thank you again for being here. Facebook. Thank you for being a member of the Restaurant Coach Nation. If you're not, become a member of the Restaurant Coach Nation is free. And I will see everyone again next Sunday. Same bat time, same bat channel for more training on how you can take your restaurant to the next level so you can make more and work less.