Donald Burns (the restaurant coach) presents a short YouTube talk categorizing restaurants into four market types: dying, maintaining, evolutionary, and revolutionary. He defines characteristics and behaviors for each category (e.g., dying: cannot meet overhead; maintaining: treading water and fearful; evolutionary: attempts change but often too slow; revolutionary: top ~5% that build culture and dominate). Burns emphasizes mindset and culture as the key differentiator and closes by promoting his Restaurant Coach University courses.
Questions this video answers
Donald Burns (the restaurant coach).
April 29, 2017.
Chapters
Hey, Donald Burns, the restaurant coach, and I want to discuss the four types of restaurant in the market. Number one is dying. These restaurants cannot meet their overhead, and the only way they stay afloat is by infused loans of credit lines, credit cards, faster family and friends. These ones close quietly because they never really made an impact on the market. They just fade away. Number two is maintaining. These restaurants basically are treading water. They have a few good months of profits and then they lose money. The other months, they operate from fear and they don't do things to really rock the boat because they are afraid things could get worse. They stay stuck in the middle, they tend to have weak operational systems and they bleed out a lot of profits. They never really truly thrive, just survive. Now, I've seen restaurants that do over $2 million in sales fall into this category. Hey, if you can't make profit on $2 million in sales, you have some real deep problems and issues under the surface that need to be addressed. Number three is evolutionary. These restaurants are slightly above the middle in the fact that they do try new things. They do evolve. Some evolve a little too slowly to keep pace with the market. And while they're better than restaurants stuck in the middle or average, they are stuck in a race with other evolutionary restaurants trying to break free. Here is where the competition is toughest for. They have to fight for positioning in the market. And the biggest issue that they come across is that they don't give new things a chance to really take root before they get frustrated and go back to their old ways. Now, this happens when they operate from the fear mindset that they picked up in the kind of maintained category before, and they've never gotten rid of it. They are afraid to commit 100% to new ways. You cannot get to the next level if you keep one foot on the level below. I'm just telling you it can't be done. And fourth type of restaurant is revolutionary. These few restaurants are in the top 5% in the market. They set the tone and other restaurants copy them. They build their brand. Looking forward, these are the restaurants that stand out. These are the brands that get media attention and mentions they. These are the restaurants that really become legendary. They don't compete, they dominate. They have a culture that shines, and that culture attracts top talent and guests to them, just like a beacon. Now, is it easy to get to revolutionary? Of course not. Like I said, of all the restaurants out there, only 5% would actually be classified at that level. Now, can you become revolutionary if you work at it? Truly believe you can. I study restaurants for a living. And I can tell you it's culture and mindset that separates those that are evolutionary from those that are revolutionary. A shift in mindset sets up a chain of events that creates kind of a domino effect. And that's why I created the Restaurant Coach University to give you courses that address the one thing holding you back from your greatness, and it's your mindset. So check out the courses at RCU and ask yourself if you're ready to take your restaurant to a level that stands out in your market.
