Author Archive

Loyalty is probably the most abused word in the marketing lexicon and is usually defined using a retail context. How? It’s use has been warped, twisted and misappropriated to mean nothing more than a discount that rewards a guest for dining with you or to dine with you at some future time (frequency). So much so that [...]
Catering is one of the fastest-growing segments of the foodservice industry, with caterers, banquet halls and hotels commanding the majority of the special-event market but not monopolizing it. Indeed, restaurateurs increasingly are getting into the game, expanding their catering and private-dining services as a way to garner incremental sales and optimize overhead in the face [...]
Takeout sales are projected to grow at three times the rate of on-premise dining and at seven times the rate of the rest of the total food industry, according to the National Restaurant Association. To compete for a strong share of the takeout market, businesses must understand how to adapt their current products and systems [...]
Pricing means different things in different industries, and every company has different needs. We draw from an extensive toolkit to develop a tailored solution that works for your environment and your people, and we work with you to design solutions that allow your organization to develop the skills to repeat the process into the future. [...]
Quite often, it is possible to hear the terms ‘coaching’ and ‘mentoring’ used interchangeably in a personal and organisational development context. Wherever these are used, the success of these development approaches is dependent upon many factors, not least the organisational culture, the skills of the individual mentor or coach, and the emphasis that is placed [...]
I don’t. The Guest does. Or the Customer does. That’s the entire point. YOU don’t define how well you treat me. I do. The customer. Because it’s MY needs, wants and desires that I’m interested in having satisfied. Business people think they need to define what excellent CS/CX is, which leads to transactional thinking and [...]

“There are 7 billion people in the world. Not all of them will appreciate your brand of jazz. Your mission is not to convince anybody to like you, respect you or see the world the way you do. Your mission is to find people who resonate at your frequency.” ~ Liz Ryan

Most of you will be familiar with a supply and demand graph. This shows a demand curve, which graphs the relationship between the price of something and the quantity demanded of that something, as well as a supply curve, which graphs the relationship between the price of something and the quantity supplied of that something. [...]
Minimum wage is NOT $_.__ (insert your localities minimum wage here) an hour. The REAL minimum wage is ZERO - which is what you make when over-taxed employers can't afford to hire you because the only job you are qualified to do isn't worth $_.__ (insert your localities minimum wage here) an hour.
Business owners have many options to consider when searching for the funds needed to finance a capital investment.  From traditional bank lenders to fintech startups, the options are plentiful and the purpose of this article is to highlight a lesser known, but widely used source of financing, the SBA504 loan.  To get you up to [...]
1. Execution. You have to walk the talk. Every part of the guest experience has to be executed or no amount of external marketing will help your business grow. 2. Effective positioning. Who are you to your guests? Are you offering any differentiated value or are you just another commodity business in your market? 3. [...]
Depending on objectives and the organization’s environment, I employ a variety of Coaching methods to help those I Coach elevate their performance. These include, but aren’t limited, to: Strategic Planning. Work with the leader in “planning the plan”, and facilitating team involvement in its development and execution. Shadowing. Accompany the leader on their rounds and observe their [...]

Service is table stakes (pun intended). Everyone provides service: everyone has their 12 steps of service that include all the transactional lists most people (restaurant managers included) come up with to answer the question: “what does good service look like.” This is the wrong question.

Most operators consider the cost-benefit between two (or more) choices they want to consider. The problem lies in how they chose the options being considered and whether or not there were better alternatives.