The Fastest Way To Break Free From Your Restaurant

Busting your ass in your restaurant and still watching it go nowhere. Maybe you've got the whole game back. You're grinding day in, day out, yet nothing changes. Your team is disengaged, your sales are flatlining, and your profits, they might as well be a myth. It's brutal. But let's face the truth. You're doing it all wrong. If your restaurant feels more like a sinking ship than a flagship, it's time to admit that you might just have the formula for success completely ass backwards. Now stick around and I'm going to show you the right way to do this. Hey. Welcome to the Restaurant Coach Podcast. It is the cure for the common restaurant. I'm Donald Burns, the restaurant coach, author of the youe Restaurant Sucks trilogy, Savage Restaurant Success, and the creator of the TRC Method. Now, I'm serious when I say I probably said this 10,000 plus times. All business problems are people problems. Now, I want to share with you some of the challenges that I faced back in the 90s when I opened my first restaurant. Now, up until that point, I'd been in the industry for 15 years. I opened my first restaurant when I was 30. I'm coming up on 45 years in the restaurant world. Yes, yes. It's been a long, long time. Now, I had around 15 years experience when I opened my first restaurant at 30, and I thought that that experience was all I needed to open and operate a successful restaurant. Now, on the surface, I did have a lot of skills that a restaurant owner needs, but back then, I thought that knowing how to run a restaurant was all I needed. And looking back now, over four decades in this crazy industry, I can definitely see the errors in my thinking. Having experience, work ethic, and knowledge of how a restaurant operates is just 20% of what it takes. You see, I knew how to run a restaurant, but I did not know how to build a profitable brand that would give me the freedom that I crave deep down. Now think about why you opened a restaurant. Was it to have a job or was it to have financial independence and freedom? Instead of becoming the owner, I gave myself six jobs instead. Chef, general manager, bookkeeper, HR director, chief marketing officer, janitor, and beverage director. I'm telling you, it sucked. It sucked big time. And the sad part was my restaurant did not take off like I expected. And I wasn't sure why. I mean, come on. I had worked in Santa Fe, New Mexico as a chef for years before opening my first restaurant. I had won awards, I was praised in the media. And opening a restaurant should have been a slam dunk, right? No, no, no, far from it. In fact, I was like many restaurant owners thinking that I just had to work harder to get ahead. Now I can look back now and I kind of describe it as falling in quicksand, which is a very, very powerful thing to think about. What happens when you fall into quicksand? Well, most people, their first instinct is to fight harder and escape the quicksand. Here's the thing. You don't realize that the harder you fight, the more you work, the faster you sink. And they say that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Well, I was about to go under when my mentor showed up. Peter was a well known and highly respected local businessman who built his fortune around $65 million from his fire truck company. Yes, he built fire trucks. And we sat down one evening and he shared a story that was remarkably like mine. And he said that he had an over inflated sense of confidence that he had a product that very few offered and that he would be a huge success overnight just by offering his high quality fire trucks to the world. And he said he didn't realize it at the time that fire truck sales are a lot more about government contracts and relationships. And the thing was that was awesome is that he openly shared that his first two years were were very, very lean. And many times his accountant told him to close the company. But Peter knew that sometimes when you find yourself hitting your head against the wall, you gotta stop. You have to reassess the situation and take a new approach. Peter told me I knew things had to change. I had to change. I stood back and realized that the solution wasn't what I thought it should be. My ego and pride kept me stuck in a loop of getting the same results, which were low sales and even lower profits. Peter said when I changed my mindset and my approach to the situation by not thinking what I thought it was, but getting outside feedback and applying it, everything shifted in the right direction. He said I started to focus more on building relationships and not just closing sales. And it opened the door to what we have today. Peter also offered to be my business mentor for a year. And it was during that time that was first introduced to what I call the 3P framework. He told me that this framework is what turned his company around. If I applied the same process map to my restaurant, it could save me as well. Now the original way that Peter taught it to me was people, process and product. Now for restaurants, I've switched the order around to be people, product, process and the Reason I changed it was because I feel that when people and process are working together and supporting each other, basically they bookend each other, they protect the product, or protect the product means protect the brand. And over the last 14 years, I have had the honor of coaching almost 2,900 independent restaurants with the exact same process. And it has proven to be the most effective way to build true long term success. A lot of times I often refer to it as the combination to restaurant success. Here's a great example. If I gave you a three digit combination lock and I said, hey, open the lock, could you do it without knowing the combination? And just so you understand the statistics here, in a three digit combination lock, there are a thousand possible combinations that could open the lock. What if I gave you the three numbers and I told you the order they go in, you're going to open the lock every single time. The 3P framework is the combination to help you focus on the right things at the right time by putting the numbers to open the lock in the right order. I'm telling you, this is a lesson I learned a very, very hard way. The things I thought were the key to restaurant success were not the things that created long term success. Here's the thing, when you take shortcuts, you can find some immediate results, but I can also say with 100% confidence they are not sustainable long term. Now, fair warning, the 3P framework is quite simple on the surface, yet it's, it has layers of complexities that are very, very worth exploring. So at this time, let's take a look, one frame at a time into the people product process framework. Now I like to think of this like building a house. And when you're building a house, the foundation is everything. I mean, would you build a multi story building on a weak foundation and then move your family into the top floor? Hell no. So why compromise and create a culture that won't allow you to have the restaurant you want? So the first foundation People is culture plus your team. People is not only having the right people, but it's also having the right people in the right position on the team. People is about cultivating a culture that will allow your brand to grow and operate without you. I'm telling you right now, if you don't get the culture right, nothing else is going to fall in place and you're going to be constantly chasing your tail, working in your restaurant, stuck on this giant hamster wheel. Culture is more important than you think. I've had clients that had a toxic culture and describe it as just living at their restaurant day in, day out, handcuffed to the restaurant all the time. And then they get an opportunity to expand their brand to another location without fixing the culture first. And what they get is they don't get another location, they get just a bigger hamster wheel that they get a run on. Hashtag, write this shit down. Without the right culture, you will always be stuck working in your restaurant. Now, culture starts with understanding the triad. The triad is what I call mission, core values and vision. And then you gotta bring them to life every single day within your four walls. 80% of restaurants talk a good game about core values, but few have the courage to live them through their actions and actually talk to their team about them daily. Being the 20% that actually walk their talk. Now, hiring is the gatekeeper that protects the culture. When you take shortcuts and don't conduct a solid interview, you're going to let in those people that might damage your culture. Remember, it only takes one bad apple to ruin the culture fast. Training systems are another critical element to the foundation that many don't give it the respect it deserves. In my coaching programs we follow a 70, 2010 methodology for training. It's known as blended learning. 70% of your training is hands on. It's also known as kinesthetic learning. It's what most restaurants do, shadow training, you know, that lead and follow kind of thing. 20% is active feedback or mentoring. This uses auditory visual modalities. And the final 10% is reinforced learning via online training videos and quizzes. Next up is product, which is menu plus marketing. Now, only after you have a solid foundation, it's time to upgrade your products. And you have two products that work in unison with each other. Your menu and your marketing, known as the M squared coefficient or M2C. Now if we were building a house, this would be the frame of the house. A solid frame can withstand harsh weather. When you have your product solid, your restaurant brand will be able to manage the economic storms that will come your way. Now again, I move the traditional process product frames around for one main reason. While 100% of restaurants have a menu and do some posting or advertisements, 80% do not have their menu costed out or know how to market effectively. Not knowing the cost of everything on your menu is the number two sin I see in the restaurant world. Well, the number one sin is mediocrity. In case you were asking the framework modules, the product modules are harder than the process work. See, when the owners see the process part, they immediately think that's the one thing they need to focus on. Little do they know that if you don't have the people in the product phase solid, none of the process stuff is going to matter. So products is not just having a menu. It's understanding the business side of that menu and knowing your theoretical food cost. Now, speaking from personal experience of being a chef and a restaurant owner, I love the creative part of the culinary game. Getting in the kitchen, playing with the food was my flow state. I mean, I could lose track of time when cooking. The owner in me love connecting and talking to guests. And I'll admit, it was a little ego stroke to get raving compliments on the food. Now, my mentor Peter quickly pointed out that you can't deposit positive reviews. You put dollars in the bank, and if your numbers are not set up correctly from the start, you're going to go out of business very, very quickly. Did you know it's estimated that 20,000 new restaurants open each year in the United States? And in just three years, 10,000 of those new ventures will be closed for good. Here's the thing. No amount of hard work can save a restaurant concept that doesn't know their cost. Now, I'm going to be honest with you. I'm going to come clean and confess that when I opened my first restaurant, I did not cost out my menu and I did not do inventory. Why? Because for years as a chef, when I worked for other people, I was told those things I had to do because it was part of my job. And when I became a restaurant owner, I honestly didn't think I had to do that anymore. I mean, kind of would have been better if I just walked around with a giant S on my shirt. And not S for Superman, but S for stupid. Peter told me that, you know, you can't be blind or avoid the business side of the. Of the restaurant world. I mean, he was right. And up until then, I was just making excuses when the reality is I avoided it because I didn't like that side of the business. Hashtag, write this shit down. You will not like every job you have to do as an owner. But here's the thing. You must trust and respect the process, or it will bite you in the ass. So in the product phase, we tackle this elephant in the room right away. It is the hardest part of my coaching program, and unless you are the kind of person who loves numbers and spreadsheets, it's going to test your patience. And at times, it will make you question if you really want to do this stuff. Let me stop you right here and say yes, you have to cost out your menu. I'm telling you, once we swallow our pride and stop kicking and screaming about doing the costing thing, we move into creating a menu that increases sales and profitability. And here's the thing. Now contrary to the advice of your professional graphic designer who made your menu that looks amazing and it is riddled with so many FA PAs that is hurting your sales, I mean, I appreciate and respect the skills of a graphic artist. They just need to incorporate the elements of menu psychology to really elevate the ordinary into the extraordinary. So after your menu is solid and profitable, now we can talk about effective marketing. Now let's get clear on this. Every restaurant posts or advertises, only 20% truly market their brand, where they get a return on their investment. The other 80%, well, that other 80% throw massive amounts of money and time down the drain doing things that are basically vanity metrics like likes and views. I have a lot of friends that have over 100k followers on Instagram and yet they struggle to make a decent living from it. Followers does not mean that you have the right followers. A well designed marketing program will show you how to identify and dial into who your ideal guest is. It's going to show you how to tap into emotions. It will show you how to share your mission, your core values and your vision to the world through visual storytelling. You got to learn how to take people on a journey with you or a story and you do that through video. And when that happens, I mean, I'm telling you, they become raving fans. Posting is easy marketing that matters and has an impact on your brand takes a plan and consistency. Now, only after we have a rock solid foundation and we have the framework up of our house do we install the walls and place a roof on top. Right. And the walls in the roof are process. That's systems, strategy and profitability. I'm telling you, when you get to this phase, it's like all the pieces start to fit together seamlessly. We start by putting up the walls by implementing a module I call the system stabilizer. Every restaurant has some systems in place. 80% don't have all they need or they can't get their staff to use the systems properly. Now, looking back over that 3P framework, if you did the people phase properly, this does not become an issue for you. Your team has buy in. They understand the culture, they will follow the checklist, the culture, the accountability, the training will you, you have to embed this into your restaurant. So this part is about giving them the proper tools to make them more effective. If your team is more effective and self sufficient, they don't rely on you being there as much. This is where you start getting your life back. This is where you can see that you start working more on your business, less in your business. Now make a note of this. Systems need to be what I call is ccte. Clear, concise, trainable and enforceable. The key word when installing systems is accountability. Without it, the systems will never be utilized to their potential. Many clipboards with checklists that are never followed hang on the walls of the average restaurant. You need to explain the standard and expectation for every task on the checklist or else the staff is going to make up their own standard. And trust me that their standards are typically lower than yours. Once we get the systems or walls up and secure to the framework, then we go to work on the roof. And your roof is your strategic plan. There's a famous quote by Benjamin Franklin that goes, if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail. 8% of restaurants have the plan of just open the doors and hope for some business. Make sure hashtag write this shit down. Hope is not a strategy. It breaks my heart to see good restaurants that have untapped potential just wait for things to happen. I know because that was me. When I opened my first restaurant, I thought I could just get by on my reputation and culinary skills. Yeah, lesson learned the hard way. To help you avoid the mistakes I've made, I'm going to take you through my strategic planning system called strap maps. These tools have allowed my clients to focus on growth and puts him in a position where, where they are ready to take advantage of opportunities that come to them when they start getting highly profitable. And I'm telling you, that's actually a byproduct of implementing the 3P framework. You're going to rise to the top of the game and you're going to be recognized as a driver in your market. Business opportunities are going to start to come to you out of nowhere. And here's the thing, you're going to be very tempted to jump on them all at once. This is where I need to caution you just to wait a little bit longer until we finish this 3P framework. I mean, you're getting so close to having it all and it's easy to be lured by the sound of opportunity jumping on other opportunities or projects before you finish getting the entire 3P framework in place. It's kind of like getting ill taking an antibiotic and Just when you start feeling better, you stop taking the antibiotic before you take all the pills. And what happens when you don't finish the entire antibiotic prescription? I mean, the illness comes back twice as hard and kicks your ass. So let's not do that. For strategic planning, you need to look at six different views of your restaurant. A five year plan, one year plan, quarterly monthly plan, weekly plan, and a daily plan. I know it seems like a lot, but once you get the habit of doing this, it becomes fast to maintain. Just like any new habit. The learning curve the first 66 days is the hardest part. Once our roof is secure, now it's time to insulate and seal it. Make it leak proof. This is where you dig into those KPIs, those key performance indicators that truly drive profits. Now there are about 40 KPIs that someone could look at, but here's the thing I want you to remember. Not all KPIs are created equal. In the restaurant world, there are only seven that truly matter. Prime cost, Guest check, average ref pass, Discounts and comps, employee turnover, profitability and cash flow. You'll also need a few key financial tools in the fight for profitability, which is your P L profit loss statement and your budgets. They become your engine and steering wheel that you refer to daily. I mean think about it. How far would your car go with the check engine light on? Or if it was leaking, you know, steering wheel fluid? Probably not very far. So once you have all these elements in place, you will have a house that you can move into and be confident that it can weather the storms no matter what comes your way. I mean recessions, market shifts, supply chain shortages, shallow labor pools, ulta competitive markets all hit restaurants every single year. And depending on your location, those things could hit you even more often than others. The 3P framework also becomes a tool for making decisions and staying on the right track. Distractions are a constant battle for most restaurant owners and just like having a three digit combination lock like I mentioned earlier, you need all three numbers in the right sequence to open a lock. Once you understand the combination, you can just open a lock whenever you want. Hey, make sure to hit that like and subscribe button before you leave. And please share this video with someone that you feel could use the message. Now for those that really want to get on the fast path to forexing their profits and getting their life back from the restaurant, grab a seat at my free 90 minute TRC method masterclass. Just head over to restaurantcoachmasterclass.com to save your seat.