The Restaurant Biz

Twitter Updates for 2009-01-04

• @problogger Didn’t Seth want to get rid of resumes? #

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Thank You

Thanks to;

• every client who allowed me to help them make 2008 a banner year.
• everyone who read, agreed, argued and contributed to all of our forums and the ideas behind them.
• Ben, Kevin, Lu, David and Joe for all your help, support and hard work.
• Bill and Roy for your inspiration, perspiration and friendship.
• Alan for being my Coach, mentor and overall bright light.
• Andy for giving me hope that some chain people get it.
• an industry that continues to allow me to have more fun than any sane man should be allowed in one lifetime.
• my wife Lori for being my hero - you are my sunshine.
• Dr’s Canavan and Krekow for working diligently to allow me more time to grow older with my hero.
• Jennifer and Scott for being pretty great kids.
• “the boys” for always greeting me with anxious abandon when I arrive home every night.
• every owner, operator, manager and business person who didn’t make headlines for scamming someone out of something.
• every server, cook, host, cashier, chef, bartender, parking lot attendant, bus boy, waiter, food runner, and order taker for the service you give every guest, every table, every day.
• everyone I encountered during tens of thousand of miles of travel who made them easier, comfortable and more enjoyable, and
• our men and women standing a post far away from home so that the rest of us can whine about having it rough…

…for a tremendous 2008. See y’all next year!

Jeffrey

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2008 In Review

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Merry Christmas Everyone!

Hopefully you realize on this day in which we celebrate the birth of Jesus, that your response to the situations you find yourself in determines only your degree of success  - not your level of failure. You truly must believe that you never lose if you take something from each encounter and use it to build a more successful you and thus a more successful life.

Please take a moment today to think about those things that make you truly rich and wise and that create love and joy in your heart and in your life and allow yourself to be blessed. You really do deserve it.

Merry Christmas.

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5.75 Questions You’ve Been Avoiding

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Don’t Forget To Have Fun!

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My Favorite YouTube Christmas Video

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Happy Thanksgiving To All

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Lowest Common Denominator Thinking

Well I tried. I gave it my best shot.

I joined several industry social websites over the last year, not in any overt effort to make more money ( I don’t do the hard sell) but rather to try and insert a deeper and more intellectually honest way of thinking about the business. It has been, and still is, sorely lacking. Not only that, but thinking in general has taken hit after hit over the last few years. I see, hear and watch it every day, at all levels, and it is extremely sad to me. I’m simply tired of valueless, mindless pinheads who can’t see the forest for the trees.

Therefore I have stopped trying to influence, persuade, converse, challenge or inform through them. I’m still very actively involved in the traditional sources of industry information and experience sharing as well as the RCS blog, my books and websites. I will also be heavily more involved in the RCS Forum now as well.

Why?

Lowest common denominator thinking and the whining that eventually comes from those who propagate it.

If you want to put an idea out into the world for its consideration, please do the following;

1. Be prepared to defend it. Just because you had an idea doesn’t make you the brightest bulb in the room. And just because someone challenges that idea doesn’t mean its bad. It means you need to dig deeper and understand the complexities of the very idea you put forward. If you can’t, don’t whine about anyone who challenges it being a bully and that somehow you’re a victim. As long as people stay away from personal attacks toward you and stick to the debate of the idea, what’s the problem?
2. Learn and use enough proper grammar and composition to not only be understood, but to help those reading your thoughts, think you are smart enough to have actually come up with it in the first place. There is nothing worse than writing with every third word misspelled or misused or used out of context or using words that are archaic or simply used to try to impress others about the size of your vocabulary. Get over yourself. Keep it simple and easy to read and understand. Good proofreading can go a long way toward obtaining increasing amounts of credibility.
3. Don’t attack people. Attack ideas.
4. If you run a social website - I facilitate several - be intellectually honest and fair. Acknowledge and be proactive in dealing with issues as they arise but don’t be so politically correct that you alienate members just because “clicks” send you email complaining about nothing more than they aren’t smart enough to rebut an argument. People will disagree. But as long as the focus remains on the ideas being argued, keep out of it. Diversity of thought (and relatively free speech) is a good thing.
5. Don’t be a noob by saying things like “Air is important to your survival” or my personal favorite, “Marketing is important to your business success.” If you can’t add intellectual content to a discussion, it would be better if you just sat back and learned something. Most people can’t do that and it only gets worse when you include the masses in a conversation that most are ill prepared to participate in. I don’t believe everyone has something to say on every subject. I also don’t believe in consensus as an arbiter of intellect.
6. Don’t promise things you have no intention of doing. Be honest. Keep your word if you give it.

There will probably be a lot more to come on this.

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Public Speaking and Presentations

I just received another phone call from a not-for-profit (NFP) organization about speaking to its membership. As they were asking me several questions about speaking to their group, it dawned on me that I have not posted about this in a while. So I am now in order to help inform other NFP organizations who would like to have me speak to their membership.

I travel everywhere - all 50 states - to give speeches and presentations to groups throughout the industry each year on every issue we face on a daily basis. “For profit” organizations get charged my speaking fee + expenses (see the link below for details).  Most not-for-profit organizations need only pay my expenses to get there and back.

I also have not been listing my speaking dates for NFP groups but I will start posting it on a consistent basis.

• For more about having me speak to your group see: http://restaurantcoachingsolutions.com/what-we-do/public-speaking/
• For a list of upcoming speaking events featuring Jeffrey, go here.

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