[00:00:00] Speaker A: It's true.
[00:00:01] Speaker B: The Restaurant Strategy podcast exists to help you build a more profitable restaurant. Of course, that means helping you to make more money. But I'm also interested in giving you the freedom, the time to spend that money to to focus on the things that are really important to you. One key way to do that is to inject operational efficiency into your business. I'm going to give you eight hacks for doing that.
[00:00:24] Speaker A: On today's episode of the podcast, there's an old saying that goes something like this. You'll only find three kinds of people in the world. Those who see, those who will never see, and those who can see when shown. This is Restaurant Strategy, a podcast with answers for anyone who's looking.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in. My name is Chip Close and this is Restaurant Strategy, a podcast dedicated to helping you build a more profitable and sustainable business. I've been in this industry for 25 years. Most of that time was spent in New York City, the world of fine dining. But I now work with operators and owners from all over the world. We're in six different countries. Over 150 people currently enrolled in my program, my coaching program called the P3 mastermind. So I write books, I give talks, I host this podcast. You find me on social media. But if you want to work personally with me in my group coaching program, it's the P3 mastermind. And I'm happy to chat with you about that. It is for independent restaurant owners who struggle with profitability. The way to get started is to go to restaurantstrategypodcast.com schedule grab some time on the calendar. You'll get to ask some questions of us so you better understand the program. We'll get to ask questions of you so we can understand if you're a.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: Good fit for the program.
[00:01:52] Speaker B: Again, we restaurantstrategypodcast.com schedule and yes, you'll find that link in the show notes.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: Now, are you tired of juggling schedules, tracking hours, worrying about HR compliance, and dealing with all those last minute no shows? Well, it's time to say goodbye to the headaches and hello to Time Forge. Time Forge is a labor management solution designed for the fast paced world of restaurants with product offerings ranging from recruitment to retention of your team members. With Time Forge, you can simplify employee scheduling with automated AI schedules based on sales, weather and other events. You can track attendance and labor costs in real time, keeping up with complex labor laws like fair workweek and meal penalties. You can recruit staff who live near your stores from our more than 11 million hourly job seekers. They have 11 million plus job seekers on their platform. And you can pay employees their wages and tips on a daily basis after every shift. And you can communicate proactively with your staff, using messaging, surveys, and more. And that's not all. Time Forge integrates seamlessly with most POS systems, giving you full visibility into labor and sales performance and suggesting when you should staff up or staff down. Whether you manage one location or dozens, Time Forge saves you money, time and stress so you can focus on what really matters, delivering exceptional service and growing your business. Thousands of restaurants trust Time Forge, so why not you visit time forged.com RestaurantStrategy today and see how Time Forge can help your team and your restaurant run like clockwork. Again. Timeforged.com RestaurantStrategy as always, that link is in the show notes.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: Okay, so today we're talking about operational efficiency. Specifically, I'm giving you eight hacks, eight ways to increase the. The sustainability, the efficiency, the effectiveness of what you do now.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: Why?
[00:03:49] Speaker B: Why? Because it's one thing to make more money, it's another thing to be able to free yourself, to give yourself enough time to enjoy that money. So, eight hacks. Without any further ado, let's dive in. Number one, one of the biggest things you can do for your organization is to build SOPs. And SOP is a standard operating procedure. This is usually a one pager that says, in this instance, this is.
This is how we take inventory. This is how we set up the grill line. This is how we place orders. This is how we do all of the things in our organization. Here's the thing. You are a wealth of knowledge. The people in your organization are a wealth of knowledge. But if you walk out the door, if they walk out the door, so does all that knowledge. When you build SOPs for your business. And yes, it may seem like a herculean task, but when you build it, you just have to build it once. And then you have them forever. And then anybody new who has questions, you just direct them to the binder, you direct them to the hard drive, you point them in the direction of the sop, standard operating procedures. When we are faced with this, this is what you are to do. Build SOP once and you got them forever. That's the first thing. Number two, the second hack for operational efficiency is to build scripts for your.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: Staff, for your hosts, your servers, your.
[00:05:09] Speaker B: Bartenders, your managers, your runners.
Everyone in your organization needs scripts. It's one thing if you walk into a meeting and says, hey guys, listen, I really need you to push the specials, right? Everybody nods their head and they say, yes, I know I'm. Yes, I'm excited about this special. I know you're excited about this special.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: Yes, I'll push the special. But just telling people to do it.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: Is often not enough. You have to show them how to do it and why it's important that they do it. The way you do this is to build them scripts. This is what to say. This is why it matters that you say, this is how you say it.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: This is when you say it.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: You build scripts for your staff for whatever you want them to do. And again, it's one of those things. You build them once and you've got them forever. So the first two build SOPs, second one is build scripts. The third thing, now again, we're talking about hacks for operational efficiency. The third thing is to set aside time every week for key tasks that must get done. The perfect example I can give is responding to online reviews. So more and more we've come to realize how important online reviews are to your ranking, right? So Google reviews, Foursquare reviews, TripAdvisor, Yelp, all of those impact your discoverability online. And I think we want to be found on the Internet. So when you are responding to online reviews, set aside time. Literally put it on your calendar. Otherwise it's going to feel like a task that's hanging over your head. Oh yeah, I really got to get to that. But if you say, hey, every Monday And Thursday from 9 to 9:30, I sit down and I log in and I answer all of my online reviews and there's a, there's space there for you to do it. That's the only task to get done. What you're saying is that this is important enough for me to schedule it and it is immovable. And when you do that, it's just part of your day, right? It's just, you gotta make dinner.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Okay?
[00:07:05] Speaker B: You go to the kitchen and you make dinner. You make dinner every day around 6:30 or whatever time it is that you make dinner. Set aside time for key tasks. My example is responding to online reviews. But there are probably, I don't know, dozens of things you, you or your team need to do. Drop them in on the calendar and actually schedule them out. The fourth thing goes hand in hand, right?
Maybe you are not going to respond to all the online reviews, but it is important enough that it needs to get done.
Delegate key tasks. Delegation and oversight is the fourth point here.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: It's a hack.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: It's not really a Hack. It's not a not trick, not a gimmick, but it's something that you need to do. And when you delegate tasks, you are taking things off your plate. So therefore you're creating efficiency in your week to week. Delegation and oversight is crucial. What are the tasks you're going to have others do and how are you going to provide oversight for those tasks? So every Monday and Thursday you're going to ask your general manager to sit down and respond to online reviews. So what sort of oversight are you going to provide? Maybe every Friday at 9am you log in and you just check to make sure it's done. Or maybe every Friday you have a manager meeting.
The general manager explains to you what exactly they did, what common threads they were seeing in the reviews that they responded to over the course of the week. So in everything that you delegate and you should be delegating tasks that can be passed off, you also need to provide oversight. Just passing them off and trusting they get done often isn't enough. So those are the first four. Number one, build SOPs. You do it once and it's done forever. Number two, you build scripts for every member of your staff. If it's important enough to ask them to do, it's important enough then to show them how to do it. Number three, set aside time every week for key tasks that have to get done on a recurring weekly basis. And then the fourth piece is delegation and oversight. Figure out which tasks can be done by others and figure out ways that you can provide oversight to those tasks.
[00:09:10] Speaker A: Those are the first four.
[00:09:11] Speaker B: The next four, after a word from another one of our sponsors.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Pop Menu has reimagined the restaurant. They're breaking the mold of the menu, taking the kitchen doors right off the hinges and serving up their most comprehensive technology solution yet. POP Menu Max. It comes with the previous ingredients that we've talked about here on the podcast right Websites designed with SEO marketing tools that help keep you top of mind with guests. And of course, that patented interactive menu technology.
This new recipe brings automated phone answering to the table, third party online order aggregation, wait listing and more.
POP Menu's phone answering technology, for example, has your ringing phones covered with AI. The simple questions that used to keep your phone line tied up will now be handled by the computer without having.
[00:09:56] Speaker B: To pull a staff member away from.
[00:09:57] Speaker A: Your in person hospitality. So all those questions that people ask can be answered by the AI server, by the AI phone answering service. So no more missed reservations, no more people asking for your hours or if there's parking or if you've got a gluten free whatever.
Also, no more missed revenue. And that's just the beginning. You have a passion for food. Pop Menu has a passion for technology. Together that's a recipe for restaurant success. And now even more digital ingredients are in their technology pantry. And Pop Menu is helping restaurants attract, engage, remarket and transact with their guests on a whole new level. Trust me, if you're a restaurant owner, you need to look at Pop Menu to take your business to the next level. For a limited time only, get $100 off your first month. Plus you get to lock in one flat unchanging monthly rate. Go to popmenu.com restaurantstrategy to claim the offer. That's $100 off your first month by visiting p o p m e n u.com restaurantstrategy as always, that link is in the Show Notes.
Running restaurant means juggling a lot. Staffing, inventory, customer service and finances. Sales tax has to be done and while no one plans to miss a deadline or miscalculate a payment, mistakes happen.
When those happen, they can lead to penalties, fines and yeah, added stress. That's why there's Davo by Avalara. Davo integrates with your point of sale system and automatically sets aside sales tax daily, giving you a clear view of your actual cash flow. Then when it's time to file, Davo files and pays your sales tax on time in full. Guaranteed. No more last minute scrambles or costly mistakes. Just seamless automation.
Thousands of restaurants trust Davo and with a 4.9 star rating on G2, it's a proven solution. Your first monthly filing is free with zero commitment. Get started
[email protected] RestaurantStrategy I will add in here. This fits in perfectly with what we're about to talk about again, davosalestax.com restaurantstrategy and yes, that link is in the show notes.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: So again, today I'm sharing eight hacks for operational efficiency. Because it's one thing to create a business that is profitable that makes you money. It's another to have a business that makes you money but that you are tethered to all the time. What I want to do is help give you a little bit of freedom. The way we do that is to pull you out of the day to day operation. The way we do that is by following these eight hacks. These eight tips today that I'm sharing. I already shared the first four. Number five.
Just like we talked about how important it was to Set aside time for weekly tasks. You also have to set important monthly.
[00:12:42] Speaker A: Tasks on a calendar.
[00:12:43] Speaker B: I recommend doing it at the beginning of every quarter. So a books meeting, maybe this is where you sit down once a month and you review the P and L, look at your forecasts and budgets for the period to come. You look at the spending, all of that, right? So maybe a books meeting is important enough. You drop it on the calendar every single month, maybe all staff meetings or staff reviews, right? Where you are sitting down with your managers on a quarterly basis or sitting around sitting down with hourly employees twice a year. That stuff should go on the calendar at the beginning of the period, at the beginning of the quarter, at the very least. This way you can see what's coming up and you can properly manage your time. Most importantly, your team can properly manage their time. That's number five.
Number six, people do work and deliver.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: It to you, right?
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Just like we talked about delegation and oversight, instead of you doing the work and telling them what to do. And this is a shift. This goes hand in hand with delegation. Right? But what you want to do is, is tell them what you need to happen. Hey, listen, I need to make sure we're doing at least $165,000 in revenue this month. Build a plan that shows me how to do that, then they will do the work and deliver the plan to you. You're telling them the result you want, and what they do then is they do the work and they come to you instead of you saying, we have to do $165,000 in revenue this month. And so I want you to do this and this and this and this to make sure we fill our books. And I want you to do this and this to make sure we're keeping check average up. And I want to make sure you have these kind of specials that are at this price point. And all of that, that's exhausting for you, but something that's very much a.
[00:14:17] Speaker A: Part of your staff's job.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: So your general manager, your chef, your managers, whatever, you tell them what you need to happen, and you tell them to build you a plan to make it happen. It is a crucial, crucial mindset shift when you go from operator to owner, when you become a CEO, you talk about what needs to happen and they figure out how to make it happen. That's number six.
Number seven. This has to do with marketing. Yes. But it's also an operational piece. Build out a calendar over the course of the year that lays out promotions, menus, events, et cetera, staff will know then when menus need to be ready, when they need to be cost out, when the menu has to go to print, when collateral has to be ready, when press release have to go out. If you've got a calendar that says what you're doing, when you're doing it, then you can back up and almost build a critical path for anything you're doing. For a promotion, for a special event, for whatever.
If you know at the beginning of the year or the very least at the beginning of the quarter, if you know what's coming up and when your deadlines are for it, everybody can work, can work in alignment. They're synchronized. That's the seventh thing. And that will bring incredible efficiency to your organization. You won't have to chase people down. They will see it. They will know what is due when, what their deliverables are and what their deadlines are. Finally. Then of course, this is the point of what we're talking about. Number eight, remove yourself from the day to day and just let the team figure it out. Don't tell them what to do, how to do it, whatever, just remove yourself. Something I recommend to all of my P3 members. So I've got the P3 mastermind and then I also have a legacy group. You have to have come through the main group, you have to have proven that you put all of that stuff into place and then you get invited into the legacy group group. And the legacy group deals with more advanced issues. Right? We are thinking next level, we are thinking growth, we are thinking freedom. And something I make everyone do within 12 months of joining that legacy group.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: It's serious.
[00:16:17] Speaker B: We're not messing around. They have to take a one month sabbatical. If they don't, they are removed from the group. A one month sabbatical, saying I am unplugging from my business. Now, I allow them four hours of calls with their company every week, but they are not allowed to step foot in their business for a month. And better if they have no contact, right? If they need contact up to four hours, that's fine. They figure out what the best use of their four hours per week are. But otherwise, when you remove yourself from the day to day, it forces other people. It's a sink or swim reflex. And people will rise to the occasion. You may not be able to predict who will rise to the occasion, but.
[00:16:56] Speaker A: People will rise to the occasion.
[00:16:58] Speaker B: When we're talking about finding operational efficiency and we're talking about efficiency in your life when you remove yourself from it, wait till you see how incredible your team is and how they do rise to the occasion and they get things done and superstars will present themselves.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: So the eight hacks, I put hacks.
[00:17:16] Speaker B: In quotes because these aren't hacks. These are nuts and bolts, blocking and tackling things you need to do again really quickly. The eight number one, build SOPs for your business. You do it once, you got them forever. Number two, build scripts for your staff. If it's important enough to ask them to do it, you can. Then it's important enough for you to show, show them how to do it. Number three, set aside time every week for weekly tasks that must get done.
Number four, delegation and oversight. Figure out what you can pass off and how you're gonna provide oversight. Number five, set important monthly tasks on the calendar at the very beginning of each quarter. So books, meetings, staff reviews, all staff meetings, et cetera. Number six, get in the habit of setting goals for people and then they do the work and deliver it to you. They tell you how they're gonna make that go.
Have to dictate all that. Number seven, build out a marketing calendar that has all your promotions, events, everything that, anything that needs to get done and everything that needs to happen in order to make that done. You're basically making a series of shorter critical paths. And then number eight, if you really want to watch your team rise to the occasion, simply remove yourself from the day to day. A one month sabbatical is a really good way to start off that. Wait till you see how good it is when you just, just pull yourself out and they have to figure it out.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: That's it.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: Again, this podcast that's interested in increasing the profitability of your restaurant, that simply means more money for you. And now we're talking about how to get you more time. Those are the eight things that you must do. That's what great restaurants, that's what great owners do. These eight, if you want to be great, if you want to hit the next level, if you want more time with family and friends and the things you care about, then this is what you need to do. Again, as always, appreciate you guys being here. Thank you very much and I will.
[00:19:08] Speaker A: See you next time.
