[00:00:01] So let's take a second to talk about waiters. I spend a lot of time talking about waiters. I'm sure you spend a lot of time fretting about waiters, right? I can't help but notice all the conversations I keep having with owners and operators everywhere I go about how we can't find good people, let alone keep those good people. Some of those people are our waiters. And yes, I think technology will replace a lot of what they do, will allow us to run with fewer people and better people. But. But for the time being, we still need waiters. For the majority, you know, the hundreds of thousands of restaurants all over this country, even just to focus in on the United States, we need waiters. So how do you get better waiters? That's what this episode is all about. Don't go anywhere.
[00:00:42] 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.
[00:01:13] Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in. My name is Chip Close and this is Restaurant Strategy, a podcast dedicated solely to helping you build a more profitable restaurant. We cover marketing, we cover operations, we cover a whole bunch of stuff. In between each week, I leverage my 20 plus years in the industry to help you build that more profitable and that more sustainable business. I also work directly with operators all over the world through my P3 mastermind program. What are the three P's they stand for? Profit, process and Progress. So if you've got a busy restaurant but struggle to generate consistent, predictable 20% profits month after month, then please set up a free 30 minute strategy session. We'll get to learn more about you and your restaurant. You'll get to ask some questions about the program to to see if you're a good fit for the program, visit restaurantstrategypodcast.com Schedule profit is quite literally the only thing that matters in your business. Because once you have a profitable restaurant, you can talk about growing that restaurant or stepping away from your restaurant, or even just coming in to dine at your restaurant instead of bussing tables or jumping behind the line. Again, schedule a free call with me to get started by visiting restaurantstrategypodcast.com schedule. As always, you'll find that link in the show notes.
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[00:03:22] Now, today we're going to talk all about waiters, but it begins with a simple mindset shift. I want you to, I want you to. I want you to understand something really crucial. That yes, our people may frustrate us because, because they're not committed, they call out, they, they, they sort of wander through the shift. They're lazy. All of that. And some of that may be true. There's a really important thing that I want to make sure we get across here is a mindset shift I want you to make before we begin this conversation in depth.
[00:03:53] When we talk about our staff, really, when we talk about anything that has to do with your restaurant, I want you to take responsibility for the problem.
[00:04:02] Let's assume that this is your fault if you say, oh, my staff is so lazy. My question is, why are you letting them be lazy? Or why do they think they can be lazy in your restaurant? Because if you're telling me my staff is so lazy, your expectation is that they work as hard as you do.
[00:04:21] There's a really important shift here. What you may not realize is that a lot of people may be working the hardest they've ever worked in their lives.
[00:04:30] And yes, it's just not enough for what you expect of them.
[00:04:34] But then my question goes back to you. How can you take responsibility for that issue?
[00:04:38] Maybe you just haven't set clear expectations.
[00:04:42] So before we get into this conversation, talk about where to get better waiters. Understand? I'm not talking about where to find better waiters. There's not some magic job board. I'm going to tell you where all the good waiters are, because everybody is dealing with the exact same issue.
[00:04:55] There are a couple of mindset shifts we need to make. Then we're going to cover four specific areas. But the first mindset shift we need to make is that first one is that you need to take responsibility for the problem. Assume that it's all your fault. Whether it is or it isn't. I promise you, if you start doing this with some of the biggest problems you have in your restaurant, your attitude will change. Your staff's attitude will change. Their attitude towards you will change, and your restaurant will change.
[00:05:23] You take responsibility for that. My staff is lazy. Why am I letting them be lazy? My staff keeps coming in late. Why do they feel like this is the kind of place where they can show up late? They show up late because they've been allowed to show up late. They show up late because you don't. There's no repercussions.
[00:05:40] And I understand what you're gonna say. You're gonna say, yeah, but as soon as I come down heavy on people, I can't afford to suspend somebody. I can't afford to let someone go because I need every person I have. And I don't think that's true.
[00:05:53] I think you need less people than you think, But I think you need better people than you have.
[00:05:59] I'll repeat that again. I think you need less people than you think, and I think you need better people than you currently have.
[00:06:07] So if you've got 10 servers on the floor, I'm guessing you got two rock stars, two duds, and a bunch of people in the middle. Or three rock stars, three duds, and the rest of them in the middle. That's how most restaurants are. I've worked in, I don't know, 27 or 28 restaurants. I've worked with over 200 restaurants over the course of my career, and I have found that pretty much every single place I've gone, every restaurant I walk into, it's pretty much true. You got rock stars, you got duds, and you got a bunch of people in the middle. What you need is more of the rock stars, none of the duds. And you need to help bring the people in the middle up to the level of your rock stars. Now, I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but like I said, we're going to make these. These mindset shifts. First one is that it is your fault. It is your responsibility.
[00:06:55] If you got bad staff, it's because you hired bad staff. If you got lazy staff, it's because you are letting them be lazy. If you got order takers instead of salespeople, it's because you haven't made them into salespeople. There's four areas we're going to cover. Hiring, training, management, and development.
[00:07:13] So when I said, how do you get better waiters? That's the title of this episode. It's not where do you find better waiters?
[00:07:19] It's how do you get them, how do you make them right? It's not about finding them. It's not about finding somebody who's ready made. I think we're way beyond that.
[00:07:29] Bunch of people have left the industry.
[00:07:32] Bunch of people have just found great jobs. They're never going to leave. So we got to be really honest with how we get them, how we create them, how we maintain them, how we retain them.
[00:07:43] This is really, really crucial. And there's four areas we're going to cover. Hiring, training, management, and development. And I'm guessing you are doing one, if not all of those a little bit wrong.
[00:07:56] So how do you get better waiters? You get better waiters by demanding better waiters, by creating them yourself. By creating the kind of environment where great waiters want to be.
[00:08:05] By giving great waiters a reason to come join you.
[00:08:09] By creating an environment that will take mediocre waiters and turn them into great waiters, or take people who have never waited tables before and turn them into great waiters. I've talked a lot about that. A couple months ago, we talked all about training. I talked about the level one, level two, and level three training. And I talked about my very first job in New York City was for a company called BR Guest Restaurants. And I shared a little bit of their philosophy. It was a very difficult company to work for, but ultimately it helps shape how I think about management and how I think about opening and running restaurants. I shared those. If you haven't listened yet, go back to that episode. It's all about how to kill, how to build a killer training program for your restaurant.
[00:08:48] But this is a little bit different. This is waiters. Here's the next mindset shift I want to make. Your waiters are, are some of the most important people in your restaurant because they are your ambassadors. They will touch more tables than just about anyone else in the restaurant.
[00:09:05] They will have more touch time, more table time with your guests than just about anyone else in your restaurant.
[00:09:13] Yes, your hosts, your maitre d, see every single person who comes in, but their time with those guests is very fleeting. Same thing with the managers. Maybe they'll touch a bunch of tables, but their time with them is fleeting. A waiter by definition, or a server is there to take care of whatever they need.
[00:09:30] So they got five tables, four tables, you know, four guests at each table. It's 20 guests per turn, two turns a night. That's 40 guests. I'll say 40 guests minimum. On a busy night, maybe it's 60 or 70. On a really busy night, That's a lot of people. When you extrapolate out and you say, hey, these guys are working four or five shifts a week, right? 40 covers times five shifts a week. That's a lot of people that they're coming in contact with.
[00:09:57] More than that. And here's something really, really important. And I know you know this, but I just want to highlight this right at the beginning. Your servers are your sales team, right? So the lifeblood of any, let's say, car dealership are the sales team, right? The people who go out, meet people, answer their questions, get them on the hook, and sell people cars.
[00:10:20] It's the same thing with your sales team. Your sales team are just the waiters and the servers. And there's two ways that servers go about what they do. They either take their orders or they sell.
[00:10:32] Right?
[00:10:33] We've said this before. I'm sure you've heard it. We don't want a bunch of order takers. We want a bunch of salespeople.
[00:10:39] So how do we create salespeople? We create salespeople by hiring and training them. That's where I want to start here, right? So the first conversation here is, how do we hire and how do we train service people? I'm going to share with you something that Danny Meyer shared in his book Setting the Table a long time ago. He talks about something he calls the 51 percenters. So the two kinds of people, right?
[00:10:59] Two sets of skills, really, that they need is that, you know, the skills to be a great waiter, the time management, right, the rights and wrongs. Yes, we do this. No, we don't do that. Just the knowledge of food and wine and spirits and all of that. And then there's all the soft skills, which is how can you be compassionate and empathetic? How can you be warm and gracious and hospitable? And he talks about the 51 percenters. He said, I'd rather find nice people, warm, gracious, hospitable individuals whom I can teach about food and wine and service.
[00:11:33] I can't teach people how to want to take care of someone. I can teach people about food. I can teach people about different wine regions, about different spirits, about what pairs with what.
[00:11:43] But I can't teach them how to be nice people, how to want to take care of people. So that's the first bit of information that I got from Danny and I pass along to you.
[00:11:52] I would figure out what kind of restaurant you need if it's a very technical, savvy, you know, high level, elevated experience. Yes, maybe you need people with a great deal of base knowledge, But I'm guessing for 98% of the people listening to this episode, you just need warm, gracious people. People who want to take care of people, people who want to make sure that the guests have a great experience.
[00:12:18] So I would start by finding those people, those people who have the sort of desire to take care of people, and then you teach them what you need to teach them.
[00:12:29] So when you're hiring, here's the thing that I always love to do. I pretty much take a quick glance at the resume. Honestly, I'm looking at the resume to see if there's anybody that we both know, anybody, any sort of shared experiences that we can use as a touchstone to start our conversation. But really, I put very little weight in a resume. Resume doesn't tell you who this person is. They tell you what they've done, how they made Money the last three years, five years, 10, 20, 50 years.
[00:12:59] I don't care that much about it. A couple of things that I like. I like to see longevity. I like to see growth.
[00:13:08] I like to see, you know, some sort of journey, some sort of story there. But really what I like to do is I like to ask them, I said, hey, I don't want to look at this resume. Tell me the story of this resume. What's not here? This tells me where you worked, when you worked there, some of the duties you did, some of the responsibilities you had.
[00:13:25] But tell me the story.
[00:13:26] Why did you choose this place over another one? Why did you leave that place and go to another one? What did you not have at the first place that you gained in the second? Why did you move to the third and the fourth and the fifth?
[00:13:37] Let them tell you the story, and then I will honestly say, stop talking about the past as quickly as you can.
[00:13:45] Rather than talk about why someone left, talk about what they learned there that they're going to bring to your restaurant, right? What did they learn that's still with them? Not why did they leave that experience. That experience is in the past. But I want to know what they brought with them. What about that experience has helped shape them, what sort of knowledge they've gained that's helped develop them?
[00:14:09] That's the important thing. One of the biggest pieces of advice I can give you when you're interviewing waiters is not a matter of.
[00:14:18] It's not a matter of why did you leave there, but it's what did you take with you from there. What are you bringing with you? What am I getting?
[00:14:28] What am I going to benefit from here?
[00:14:30] And let them tell that story. The best way I can put that is stop talking about the past, find ways to talk about the present.
[00:14:36] Why are you interested in this job? Why are you here? What's going on in your life? How can we help support your life?
[00:14:43] That's a really important thing we don't spend enough time talking about. But our professional lives help support our personal lives. I'm going to guess if we were all independently wealthy, just had a big money bin full of money, we could just go in and get whatever we needed for the day or the week and it was never gonna run out. I'm guessing that a lot of us wouldn't do what we do as much as we may love what we do.
[00:15:06] I'm guessing we'd be on a beach somewhere, we'd be traveling, we'd be on a golf course, we'd be volunteering, we'd be helping those in need. We'd be doing something else with our time.
[00:15:17] That's okay. It's okay. If the reason we're doing this is because we need to support our personal lives, all of us have to work.
[00:15:24] Doesn't mean we can't enjoy our work. I enjoy my work very, very much. I love the impact I make. I love the conversations I'm able to have with my. With the members of my mastermind group.
[00:15:33] I love what I do, but I don't know that I would do it if I didn't need to pay bills, if all my bills were paid and I just had a giant money bin like Scrooge McDuck. I don't know.
[00:15:44] I don't know how I would go about it, and I don't think you do either.
[00:15:48] But for you and me and all your staff, the reason they work is because they need to pay for their house, their car, their kids, school, groceries, things like that.
[00:15:59] So let's meet them where they are, try to understand what they need in order to support their personal lives. How can this job, how can this professional opportunity support your personal life?
[00:16:15] How does your professional life support your personal life is really what I'm trying to say. That's what all of us do. We find a job that pays us a lot of money, or we find a job that offers us work, life, balance or flexibility or the ability to live in a cool city, or the ability to not have to commute, or there are lots of things we look for in a job. So you have to figure out, what is this candidate looking for and how can you provide them with what they're looking for. I guarantee you, if you provide somebody with whatever they're looking for, they will never leave you. Because why would they leave you if they had all their needs met, aside from being totally bored? And that's a need, so we could even solve that one. But aside from just being totally bored and needing a change of pace, my experience has been that we can provide people with everything they need in order to live a very fulfilling, happy, solid life.
[00:17:12] So let's spend more time talking about that.
[00:17:17] This is really crucial. We don't spend enough time talking about it. So when you hire, make sure you understand what these people are looking for. Make sure you understand what kind of people you need, what you can't train, and what you can train. And of course, that leads us to the next piece, right? I said hiring, training, management and development. Those are the four aspects of how you get really good waiters. So you hire for the skills you can't possibly teach. But then we have to go to training, because then you have to figure out then if you got all these 51 percenters, as Danny Meyer always used to say, if you got all these nice people, warm, gracious, hospitable people who like taking care of people who want to make people's day, well, then you got to teach them what they need to know in order to properly take care of the people in your restaurant.
[00:18:00] Now, if you work in a sub shop, a sushi restaurant, a taco joint, or the finest fine dining restaurant ever, there are different things that people need to know at all of those areas.
[00:18:10] Maybe there's very little that they need to know at a pizza shop, because most of us know pizza. But I don't know, maybe your pizza shop is different. Maybe they really need to understand your process. The kind of dough you use, what that does, the kind of cheese, how maybe you make your own mozzarella, maybe there's things they need to know. You got to figure out how you need to get them from point A to point B.
[00:18:31] So when we talk about training, I'm going to refer you back to that episode I mentioned a few minutes ago. I did it a couple months ago, how to build a killer training for your staff.
[00:18:40] I talked about level one, level two, and level three training. Level one, let's say, is the first seven days. How do you get someone, how do you shoot them out of a cannon, get them good enough to take a station at the End of seven days. That's what you got to figure out. Especially for a waiter, there's a lot to introduce them to.
[00:18:58] It begins on their very first day. You should be at the front door with open arms, with their new hire packet and your arm outstretched, ready to shake their hand.
[00:19:11] Hi, welcome. We've been expecting you. We're so glad to have you here.
[00:19:15] It's amazing how often we just don't do this.
[00:19:19] Takes you so long to find somebody, you wonder why they don't feel appreciated, why they don't feel part of the team.
[00:19:26] It's because they're not properly welcomed.
[00:19:29] If I showed up and somebody invited me over for dinner and I showed up and they didn't answer the door and I'm ringing the doorbell, knocking, and I had to go all the way around back and they oh, yeah, sorry, we were out back.
[00:19:38] I don't know, I wouldn't feel very good about that.
[00:19:41] So I put a little post it on your front door, say, hey, we're out back on the patio. Come around.
[00:19:45] Or you keep the door open, or you wait for them to get there and then you all go out back.
[00:19:49] It's the same thing in a restaurant. If you want to make them feel welcome and appreciated, you have to welcome them and tell them how much you appreciate that they're there.
[00:19:59] So on day one of their training, you stand at the front door ready to welcome them with a handshake and their new hire packet. You sit down with them for five minutes and you explain how it's going to go. Hey, this is how your week of training is going to go. Everything you need is in this packet. You're going to fill out all your new hire paperwork. We're going to make whatever copies of documents we need to make.
[00:20:22] Then we're going to stash all your stuff in the office and then I'm going to give you a tour of the property. After that, I'm going to pass you off to Joe. You're going to be with Joe for the rest of the night. This is how your first shift is going to go. He'll explain how the rest of the training goes.
[00:20:35] So maybe day one is just an observation.
[00:20:38] So they're going to have a little bit of a meet and greet. They're going to get a tour of the place, they're going to watch the setup, they're going to detail the station, they're going to go to the meeting and they're going to observe service for the majority of the night or maybe half the night. And then you're going to pull them aside and say, great, let's go down to the office.
[00:20:52] That's the other thing I recommended in that episode. I'm going to recommend to you. Sit down with these people every single night. It can be for five minutes even. But take the temperature of the water. If somebody's not feeling it, if it looks like they're not going to fit in, if it looks like they don't like it here, you're going to know better, you know, at the end of the first or the second night than at the end of the five nights. It's going to cost you money if you don't figure this out.
[00:21:16] So figure out, get them on the hook. Make them feel part of the team again. Make them feel welcome and appreciated.
[00:21:23] When you give them the new hire paperwork, obviously it's all the documents they need to fill out for being a new employee. But then it should be a service handbook, right? An employee handbook. Should be a service manual. Should be the menu descriptions, should be a photocopy of the floor plan, Maybe wine by the glass descriptions, maybe a list of all your specialty cocktails. Maybe maybe a list of your beers and some descriptions of your beers. Give them everything they need to succeed and then tell them at the end of every night, you're gonna have a little quiz. It's not as a gotcha, but we just want to make sure you're tracking, that you're progressing.
[00:21:59] And tell them what's going to be on the test.
[00:22:01] At the end of the first night, you're going to need to know the name of the restaurant, the phone number, the email, the web address. Maybe you need to know the name of the chef, the gm.
[00:22:10] You have to know the table numbers and the seat numbers. I don't know. That's not hard to memorize. Over the course of a four, five, six hour shift, you tell them at the beginning. This is some of the stuff we're going to need you to know at the second night. Hey, at the second night, I want you to know what our three signature dishes are and be prepared to just explain a little bit about them. They don't have to know every single ingredient that will come.
[00:22:32] But at the second shift, right, if the first shift is an observation trail where they're following one of the other servers, maybe the second shift is in the kitchen where they get to see all the food. They get to interact with the chef and the expo and the food runners.
[00:22:43] Hopefully they'll get to taste some stuff, but they'll get to see a lot of food, take a lot of notes, ask questions at appropriate times.
[00:22:50] So at the end of that night, maybe it's something as simple as, like, hey, tell me about two of your favorite appetizers you saw.
[00:22:56] Tell me about one entree that you got to taste. Tell me about one of our signature dishes. Again, you're not trying to do a gotcha, but hopefully after three, four, five, six hours in the kitchen, they've come away with something. And if they haven't, that's something you want to know at the end of their second shift rather than at the end of their fifth or sixth shift when they fail the food test.
[00:23:17] When you're training, you have to work backwards.
[00:23:20] Where do you need them to be at the end of five, six or seven shifts? And then what do you need to teach them in order to get them there?
[00:23:27] I can't stress this enough. Training has to be thorough, but you have to manage the expectations. And early on, you gotta let them know what they need to do in order to succeed, and you need to let them know what you're going to do in order to support them so that they succeed.
[00:23:44] That's how you get great waiters. That's the beginning of that relationship. Right? And again, we talk about training that first seven days, that level one training like we talked about a few months ago, that's just how do you get them good enough to survive, to tread water for a night, to.
[00:24:01] To get through the shift?
[00:24:03] As we move on, we really need to talk about how we properly manage our team and how we continue to develop their skill set. We're going to talk about that in just a second after a word from another one of our sponsors.
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[email protected] RestaurantStrategy and try Davo Free for the first month. Again, that's D A V O salestax.com RestaurantStrategy that link is also in the show Notes okay, so continuing this conversation of how we get better waiters. Again, you don't find better waiters. You make better waiters. You make them. Like we said at the very beginning, there's a mindset shift that I asked all of you to take and that is that you take responsibility for this problem. If you got lazy waiters, they are lazy because you are letting them be lazy. If you've got waiters who are unreliable, they are unreliable because you have told them you don't need them to be reliable. So you find people and you clearly articulate your expectations. And this begins way back at the interview. If I didn't say this in the earlier section, we were talking about hiring. You outline your expectations for them at the very beginning. It also goes without saying, like we were talking about the match of personal and professional, right? You got to know what are people looking for? Are they looking for a certain level of income? Are they looking for flexibility? For balance?
[00:26:54] People are looking for different things. Yes, people want to make as much money as possible, but there is a threshold. At a certain point, people no longer need any more money. Maybe they're happy to just work three days and have time with their family, or work for four days and be with their family.
[00:27:09] The question is, can you offer that? You got to figure it out first by understanding what people need and then you can match that. So again, talked about these couple of mindset shifts at the very beginning of the episode. Then we talked about hiring and training. That's really where this starts. Setting clear expectations right during the interview process, training them the right way. Again, I referred you to a previous episode, how to build a killer training for your staff. It would be worth your time to go back and listen to that after this episode. But now let's talk about the other piece, which is management and development, right? We talk about management. Is that how do you manage the people on your team, right? How do you keep them motivated? If you want a really good book to read, there's a book that I used to recommend all the time. I still give it out as gifts quite a bit. It's called Drive. It's by a guy named Daniel Pink. And it's all about human motivation, what motivates us. And I think you'll find. And he certainly does this in the book, he sort of turns it on its heels. And he said, you know, for thousands of years, we've assumed that people are motivated by one of two things, either by the carrot or the stick, right? You dangle the carrot and you. You dangle some reward. And you say, if you do this, then you will get that, or you threaten the stick. So you do this or else I will punish you in some way. And we still do this. That's how we motivate so many of our people. And yes, money can be a powerful motivator. But in the book, he said it's not as powerful as you may think. He said, here's a perfect example. He says, why do people do puzzles?
[00:28:39] Why do people play intramural mural sports or pick up basketball? They are not going to be in the NBA, right? When I go play basketball with friends, I'm not going to be in the NBA. I'm not trying to impress enough people in the yard to maybe find an agent and get me into the NBA. I do it because it's fun. I do puzzles for the challenge of it. Why do people play video games? He suggests they do it for the mere joy of it, the challenge of trying to beat the game, of trying to get better at the game.
[00:29:06] And so there are intrinsic factors and extrinsic factors. He says, right in this book. And I think if you think about it, I think sometimes a lot of people just want to do a good job because they can prove to themselves that they did a good job right? Just for mere appreciation, just for the knowledge that they did it right. And I think we put a lot of weight on outside factors, on punishments and rewards, and I don't think it's as easy as that. So you have to really think about how you manage.
[00:29:39] Management begins again at the very beginning, when you interview, when you hire them, when you train them. It's about clearly articulating your expectations for people, what is expected of them in order to thrive.
[00:29:52] If you need a bunch of salespeople instead of a bunch of order takers, you have to make sure they understand that. And then you have to give them the tools they need to be a really good, great salesperson. Anyone can be an order taker, come up to the table and say, hey, what can I get for you? And you just write down everything they tell you and then go put that into the computer. But that is not a salesperson. A salesperson, a great waiter. And I think we would agree with this. And it doesn't matter if you're at the highest, fanciest fine dining restaurant in the world or just low key pizza shop. You want someone who can guide you through the menu. What is it you specialize in? Say, oh, we're really good for this. I want someone to show me the best way to experience this restaurant. And I think a lot of our waiters would be unlocked. They would have a sense of ownership if you made sure that they knew that that was their job. Your job is not to take orders.
[00:30:45] Your job is to show people the best way to experience this restaurant.
[00:30:51] The best thing we do is this. One of my favorite dishes on the menu is this. Hey, if you're going to do this, you should also do a side of that. Hey, if you're going to do this, why not this on top or dig, whatever it is.
[00:31:03] And I think if you show them that they can have a great deal of autonomy in there, you're going to bring a lot of joy to their, to their lives. You're going to bring joy to the way they go about their work.
[00:31:14] And ultimately, ultimately, I promise you, you're going to see it in the bottom line. Because people are going to be much more satisfied in their job.
[00:31:23] They're not going to have to churn because you are actually treating them respectfully.
[00:31:27] So when we talk about how we manage a team, I want you to think really deeply about what motivates people, what motivates you. Yes, you are probably motivated by money, but you're probably motivated too by a work life balance, by freedom, by flexibility. That doesn't change no matter where you are. People want some version of that or they're willing to trade flexibility because they just need as much money as they can to support Their family to pay for college, whatever that is, that's okay, too.
[00:31:54] It begins again, right? You change your management. You improve your management by first figuring out what your people want, what motivates them.
[00:32:03] And I'm going to challenge you.
[00:32:06] I'm going to challenge you by saying it's not often the things you think they are. It isn't. It isn't what you think it is. I think there are other ways to motivate our team as we go further along.
[00:32:17] So how do you manage? You manage by setting clear expectations. I'll also remind you of another thing that Danny Meyer said. Again, I can't take credit for it. He just said it so succinctly.
[00:32:26] In his book Setting the Table, he talks about constant gentle pressure, right? You clearly articulate the expectations and then you constantly but gently apply pressure. This is how we do it. No, this is how we do it. No, remember, we talked about it. This is how we do it. If you can't do this, that's fine, then you're not going to work here. Then you are not right for this position.
[00:32:46] And that's fine because there are plenty of other places where I think you can thrive. But if you want to thrive here, you have to do it the way I showed you how to do it.
[00:32:55] That's constant gentle pressure. Not getting emotional when people are so stupid. Why do I have to keep showing them a million times? You have to keep showing them a million times because you didn't properly get it across to them or you've got the wrong person in the position. They are never going to do what you want them to do. And so stop banging your head against a wall. Just find somebody who will do what you need them to do. That's the idea of constant gentle pressure. It is the most obvious management principle out there.
[00:33:23] So if you want to change the dynamic, change the way you're approaching these people, make sure it's very, very clear. And oftentimes you're going to find that the big problem is with you. You didn't properly or clearly articulate the expectations enough that they just weren't sure what they were supposed to be doing. You didn't absolutely make it crystal clear what you wanted from them. So if you want to talk about how to manage your team, look to yourself first. That's how you start getting better waiters. So hiring, training, managing, and now development.
[00:33:55] Somebody stays at a company because they are continuing to grow, whether it's through promotions, right? Where they start as a back waiter, front waiter, and then a Captain. Whether they go from bar back to bartender, busser to food runner, to server, there's some reason, right. There's some growth there, that this will continue to support their lives. The further they go, the more they learn, the better they get at their job.
[00:34:19] So don't pretend like you don't have to develop this staff. Yes, it would be easier just to have everyone come in, do the same job for 40 years, retire, and be done with it. But you wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it. I don't think a lot of people would do it. They want to grow. And when I say they, I mean us. We as human beings, we want to grow. We want to.
[00:34:38] So if you don't have a. If you don't have a plan for developing your staff, that's why you're losing people. Hundred percent. That's why you are losing people. You are losing people to other places that have that in place, that are better able to take care of their people.
[00:34:57] Again, if you provide a place where people can get everything they need in order to support their personal life, they will never leave that professional life.
[00:35:05] But you have to continue to develop them. Now, when we're talking about servers, we also want to continue to develop them because they are salespeople. Yes. There's a base amount of knowledge they need to know. They got to know the menu inside and out. You need to give them menu descriptions. They have to know what's in a dish. They have to know the ingredients. They have to know the allergens. They have to know what they can substitute, what they can't substitute. So if you've got people on your floor who don't at least know that, again, shame on you.
[00:35:32] Give them menu descriptions. Give them a really beautiful picture of the dish. Tell them what the protein is, how you cook it, what the veg is, what the starch is, what the sauce is, what all the ingredients are. Then talk about the allergens at the bottom. Talk about potential substitutions. No, there are no substitutions available.
[00:35:48] Yes, we can easily substitute this vegetable for this vegetable. Whatever the answer is, do that. And then tell them a story about the dish.
[00:35:56] Why is this dish on the menu? It's not just because it tastes good. It's because, hey, this is my riff on such and such a dish. This is my grandmother's famous dish. This is something that I love. I developed this over numerous times. I got this dish. I got inspiration for this dish the last time I visited Italy. Whatever it is, there's a story that goes along with that dish. Maybe it has to do with the inspiration behind the dish. Maybe it has to do with the partner, the purveyor, the kind of protein you're using. There's some story behind the dish.
[00:36:24] There should be. And if there's not, I would challenge you to create that.
[00:36:29] So if you don't have this, that's the bare minimum. You need basic menu descriptions with pictures, allergens, ingredients, the way things are cooked. And then I always like to say you need a story about the dish.
[00:36:42] Somebody asks you about it.
[00:36:44] Tell me about the chicken. Oh, you know, it's really interesting. We get all our chickens from such and such farm. Oh, you know, this chicken is a riff on a dish that our chef had in the first time you went to Tuscany, whatever that is. Tell a story. It's gonna give your servers something to work with. And guess what?
[00:37:00] A food with a dish, with a story, an item of the story, a product with a story gets sold more than a product without a story. I've said that before on this podcast. If you've been listening for a while, you know that to be true.
[00:37:12] A mediocre wine with a good story gets sold more than a superior wine with no story.
[00:37:16] An interesting label, all of that.
[00:37:20] Now, that's the bare minimum. How do we develop the team? You got to figure out what else they need to know. So in that. In that training episode, I talked all about level one, level two, level three training, level one, what do they need to know in the first week to be able to take a station? That's the bare minimum.
[00:37:35] Level two, what do they need to know in the first 90 days to be as good as your best person by the end of those three months? So look at your best server and say, what do they know?
[00:37:45] What do they know about wine and food and spirits and beer and about service and about this restaurant? How can you teach them all of that in 90 days? That's that. Level two. And then level three, development. How can you continue to nurture their growth in this role in this position, in other positions within this restaurant?
[00:38:07] Because you can go busser to runner to server to bartender to manager to general manager to area district manager. You can keep growing and the very best employees out there continue to grow and stay with the company for 10 or 15 years because there's always another opportunity. They're always growing. They're going to get a promotion, make a little bit more money, provide more for their family. They're going to get another promotion, provide more for their family. They're going to get a promotion and find more personal satisfaction in their job because they're learning more, they're growing.
[00:38:35] So offer that professional development because it helps serve their personal development.
[00:38:40] You need a system for identifying when people are ready to move up and then a system for teaching them the things they will need to know in order to succeed in that new role. See, if we're going to go from a busser to a food runner, what do they need in order to succeed in that new role? How can you teach them just about everything they need so that when you make the transition, it's seamless for them? Same thing from a food runner to a server, from a server to a bartender or a server to a manager, from a manager to a general manager.
[00:39:06] Right? Floor manager knows the POS system inside and out, right? Understands how to build schedule, maybe does the payroll. But the GM really is under, is responsible for the budgets, for the, for the P and L every month, for building projections, for building partnerships and all of that.
[00:39:21] So again, there are things that your, that your people will need to know. You got to identify what they are and then map out a plan to get them there. That's how you succeed.
[00:39:31] Now, the whole idea that the title of this was how do we get better managers? I'm sorry, how do we get better waiters? The key is you don't find them, you make them take responsibility. I'm going to end the way I began.
[00:39:44] Again, that mindset shift. Take responsibility for all the failings in your restaurant.
[00:39:50] And let's assume again, it's easier if you can take this on yourself and say, hey, it's my fault. I don't have better waiters.
[00:39:57] But I'm going to commit myself moving forward to make better waiters.
[00:40:03] That's the biggest takeaway I want you to come away with from today's episode. And again, cover those four areas. Hiring, training, management and development. How you grow that staff, how you move them from one to the other to the other. That's how you get better.
[00:40:18] That's what I wanted to talk about today. I hope you got value out of this. One final reminder about my P3 mastermind. I meet with people every single week. I field, I don't know, 15 or 20 calls from listening listeners all over the country. If you are, if you're generating a lot of revenue, if you've got a loyal following, you've been around for a while and just struggle to drop a consistent, predictable number to the bottom line. It's something that looks like 20%, then please get in touch. I will show you how to drop a consistent, predictable 20% to the bottom line through my Mastermind program. Set up a free call with me, 30 minutes. I'll get to learn more about you and your restaurant. You'll get to ask some questions about the program. We'll see if you're a good fit for the program. There is no. There's no pressure to join. But if that's what you're struggling with, I promise we can help. There's impact we're making on dozens and dozens of operators all over the country. You might be. You might be the perfect fit again. RestaurantStrategyPodcast.com schedule that link is in the show notes. I appreciate you guys being here, and I will see you next time.
