How to Build a Team That Dominates

You know, we have a problem we need to address and it's your team. Okay, that's probably not quite accurate. See, the problem is you for not training your team to dominate. Sure, you probably trained them maybe once, maybe twice, but half assed efforts yield half ass results. Oh, and please, for the love of all that is sacred, don't throw out the excuse that you don't have time because you never had time to begin with. See, things get done when you make a decision and then develop the self discipline to get what you want. If your service or your restaurant is kind of so. So see, the effort you placed into training them was at that same energy level. Water truly does seek its own level. Mediocrity is attracted to mediocrity, like it or not. You don't think so how many powerful or successful people do you know who seem to be friends? See, do they run in the same circles? Yeah. See, successful people like to associate with other successful people. It's just the way it goes. So how do you get there? How do you get to that level? How do you create a team that just dominates your market? I have a really simple five step plan for you, so buckle up. Step number one, you got to understand what your role is. See, when you're the leader in your bar, nightclub or restaurant, you become a source of energy that feeds the culture. Much like our sun radiates heat and energy out into the solar system, many tend to give their most energy to those that are really close to them, or I hate to say the people that they like the most, those close to the source of energy, they got the good life. But if you're kind of like Pluto or Uranus, your days are kind of relatively cold, dark and isolated and nobody wants to be Uranus. See, you're the energy that creates the culture. Bad culture equals bad energy equals bad leaders. It's not a complicated formula or a complicated equation. If you take ownership of the idea that your team gets their energy from you, then you've managed to taking a big step forward to getting a better restaurant today. Step number two, you got to become obsessed. I mean obsessed, obsessed. Obsessed with becoming better. Now. Now if you're the energy source for your restaurant, as discussed in step one, then you need to become freaking obsessed with becoming a better person. Now you might quip that becoming a better person has nothing to do with being a leader, increased profits, culture, or creating a team that really dominates your market. I would say au contraire, that it has everything to do with those things. Restaurants get better when the people in them become better people. I can't say that enough. You can't raise your restaurant without raising yourself. It's impossible. See, most people learn on what's kind of known as modeling. We imitate the behavior of others because we're chock full of these things called mirror neurons, these neural network in our heads. Basically, they help us learn at a faster pace, and we really need them to survive. Now, you've been modeling the behavior of others your entire life? Life. I'm just telling you. From your parents to your siblings and your friends to even those that you admire, like teachers, mentors, and coaches. You might not have realized it before, but your behavior is really, truly a collective of other people's behavior that you've been exposed to both the good and the not so good. See, being obsessed with becoming a leader and being obsessed with becoming a better person is the only path that really will truly build your team to one that dominates the market. And the word obsessed, I hate to say, sometimes gets a bad rap because many associate with kind of being out of control or crazy. And yes, that is true. That obsession can get out of control if it's not kept in check. In other words, you either control your obsessions or they control you. So read, listen to podcast, watch YouTube videos, substitute some audio books for music while you're driving, go to seminars, find a mentor, get a coach. Hint, hint. Becoming a better person does not require you to sit on top of a mountaintop, shave your head, and meditate for hours and hours upon end. All it really requires is for you to become obsessed with learning one new thing each day. See, we build our restaurants by building ourselves, plain and simple. Leaders are forged through chaos, pressure, and discipline. And anyone who tells you that leadership is easy is just full of shit. So, number three, you got to practice until they whine, and then you got to practice some more. See, now that your energy is amplified and you're becoming a better person, it's time to train. Now, here is where the path you're traveling comes to a fork. And you can either take steps towards dominating your market, or you can shuffle towards settling into mediocrity. Tell you right now, mediocrity is the easy path. Easy doesn't get you shit. Elite athletes who want to win Olympic gold medals know that they must train and they must commit to training every single day. In fact, they're aware that sometimes they may need to train multiple times, some days as well. So to dominate and really become elite, you must make a new commitment to train your Team every single day. There's no days off when it comes to training. If you're aiming for the top, training must become, has to become like your dedication to becoming a better person has to become an obsession. So here's the easiest system to use to stay on top of the path to greatness. All I want you to do is get a blank business card, a blank index card right here, alright? And all you do is you just draw a line down the middle and on one side you write my three, and on the other side you write team three. Now choose three things each day that you're dedicated to improving for yourself for that day. And that goes under the my3 side. And then I want you to pick three things you're committed to training your team on for the day and that goes on to team three side. Now, fair warning, your team's not going to like to be pushed out of their comfort zone. No one does. See, that comfort zone was established from the other kind of mediocre restaurants that they worked at before and that, you know, those places only gave them training when they first started. So be aware that when you're going to start doing some new stuff, they're going to start to complain, they're going to start to whine, they're going to push back, they won't like it. You know, they're trying to get you to stop this new obsession that you discovered and they're going to try and lure you back with them to that comfort zone. Stay the course. Stay the course with your new mantra. You either play at my level or you step aside. That's the way I want you to think about it. Step four, Asset allocation is key. Look at the people on your team right now, okay? Would you say honestly, they're all at the same skill level? Of course not. See, you have your A players, you got your B players and you got your C players. Now, you shouldn't have any D players working in your restaurant. And if you do, you should probably fire them right away and then give yourself a timeout for being a bad for a really bad selection. Now look at your team again. You know, do you have everyone on your team playing to their natural strengths? Most likely. Most likely you're just filling positions and shifts. You're not looking at your team as assets. You're treating them more like more or less. Kind of like, like they're all the same. So let's talk about checkers and chess. So when you treat all your employees the same and try to be fair, okay, you're playing that kind of big game of checkers. Now, when you look at each individual on your team for the unique strengths, talents that they bring to the position, and then you start using those things and leveraging them to their full abilities. Now you're playing chess, manager plays checkers, leaders play chess. You're never going to develop a team that will dominate your market, you know, by standing in their way. And that means you can't do their job for them. You know, do you want to, you know, if. Do you want to coach, lead, teach, and train? Hell, yeah. You know, do you want to take that away from someone else? You know, learning, growing, and developing? Hell no. So let me provide. Give me a few examples. So let's say there's the general manager, and he's working the expo when they should be on the floor, kind of orchestrating, guiding, you know, and really kind of helping the whole guest experience. Or maybe the chef who pushes people out of the way of the line, grabs the plate and finishes the dish. Maybe the floor manager who seats everyone and has, you know, has. They're out there seating everyone, but they have three hourly hostesses standing by in the host stand doing nothing. See, if you're in a salary position and you're doing the job that is normally fulfilled by an hourly position, you're not managing your assets properly. When you take away opportunities for other people to grow, they leave to work at other restaurants that will help them grow. So if they're not getting an opportunity from you, they'll find it someplace else. And step. Fine, Step five is you got to keep the cycle going. Now it's time to follow the same directions that you do on your shampoo, rinse and repeat. See, excellence, greatness, and market domination require one critical element, and that's consistency. It's not about taking one step towards, you know, being a better person, a better leader, training your team, and then suddenly, all of a sudden, you just achieve greatness. No, you're never going to be offset that way. It's about developing the discipline to take many steps and to follow through even when you don't want to. So how do you develop yourself? Determines how you're going to develop your team. How consistently you train your team determines how consistently they're going to perform. How you allow others to grow will determine how much your bar, nightclub, or restaurant will grow. See, it's time to step up and step into your potential. Once you start down that path, a true leader, right, you allow others to step up into their greatness. It's all about synergy. Each element on its own is great, but when you combine them together effectively, they truly become unstoppable.