Restaurant coach Donald Burns uses chess as a metaphor to outline seven rules for winning in restaurants: think ahead, know your guest, know yourself, adapt, admit mistakes, communicate a clear plan, and remove underperforming staff. Leadership and accountability are the difference.
How can the Netflix series the Queen's Gambit help you win the restaurant game? In this video, I'll share seven rules that you must follow if you want to beat your competition. Hey, TRC Nation. Donald Burns, the restaurant coach and author of your restaurant sucks. I was flying back from Orlando, working with some clients, and I wanted to share with you something that has been on my mind. The restaurant industry is a strange place. I mean, some people love it, some people hate it. Most people really have no clue what it is at its essence. So let me tell you what it really is. The restaurant industry is a game. It's a game where you are the player and your guests are the prize. The restaurant game is a lot like chess. You have to know the rules to play, and you have to know the strategies if you want to win. The difference is that in chess, you're only playing against one person, and in the restaurant game, you. You're playing against a lot of people. That's your competition. I was watching that series on Netflix called the Queen's Gambit, and I realized she was so good because she studied the strategies that would give her an advantage over her competition. The good news is, is that you can use these same strategies that the best chess players in the world use to outmaneuver their opponents. So here are seven rules that you must follow if you want to win the restaurant game. The first rule of the restaurant game is that you must always be thinking three moves ahead of your competition. You need to be able to see what's coming and be prepared for it. This means you don't want to bury your head in the sand and ignore the warning signs. You must anticipate the market and stay out in front with innovation and lots of action. The second rule is you need to know your guest. You need to know who your guests are, what they like, what they don't like, and what they're willing to spend. The third rule is you got to know yourself. And this is a really, really important rule. So here's. Here's some questions I want you to answer. Do you have the skills to do a job as a leader? Do you have the drive to be successful? Do you have the character traits and values to be a leader? Do you have the ability to make and follow a plan? If you don't, I hate to tell you this, but then you're just a liability to your business and also to your guests. And if you do, then congratulations, you're an asset to your business and your guest. The fourth rule is you must Be willing to make changes. Change is a constant in the restaurant industry and in the universe. If you don't change with the times, you're going to be left behind. You can't stand still in a fast moving world like today's restaurants. If you do not adapt, you're going to become extinct. The fifth rule, you must be willing to admit when you're wrong. Now let's be honest, this is going to be a very, very hard one for most people. If you're not open to the concept that you can learn from others, then you are not going to go very far. In the restaurant game, you must surround yourself with people who are better than you are. Those new people, they're your new chess pieces. Or they could be also called your new habits. Because you can't use the same old pieces from the set that you used to play when you were a kid. You must have a variety of pieces and new habits if you want to play the game effectively. Sixth rule. You must have a plan. It takes a little skill to be able to create a plan that can be carried out by your team. And you must be able to clearly communicate your plan to your team. I'll tell you, if you can't communicate to your team, then the plan is not going to work. And if you're not the person to carry out the plan, then it's not going to work. If your team's not willing to carry out the plan, then I hate to say it's going to fail. And finally, the seventh rule. You must be willing to get rid of the dead weight. If you have people on your team right now who do not follow your plan, who you do not hold accountable, then you are letting them down as a leader. Actually, you're not really a leader. You're just a liability. If you have people on your team right now who have poor skills and they're not doing the job, then they're hurting your brand. And if you don't get rid of these people, you're going to destroy your restaurant slowly from the inside. If you have people on your team who have poor character and are not a positive influence on your culture, you got to get rid of them. If you don't, you're going to lose the culture war that's happening right now inside your restaurant. Telling you the restaurant game is not for the faint of heart. It's a game that requires you to be at your best every single day. Because if you're not, you're going to lose the game. If you're not willing to make changes. You're going to lose. If you're not willing to acknowledge when you're wrong, you're doomed. If you don't hold your team accountable, you're screwed. If you don't get rid of the dead weight on your team, you are going to die a very slow, miserable death. And if you don't follow the rules of the game, you're definitely going to lose. You must play the restaurant game with passion. You must play it to win and you must become your fullest potential or you're going to lose the game. The restaurant game is not easy to play. It requires you once again to be at your best every single day because if you're not and you're not willing to do that, you're better off not playing. Now make sure to like and subscribe and share this video. In my next video I'm going to show you why loyalty programs are like gold for your restaurant.
If your restaurant only works because you work 80 hours a week, it doesn't work.
