Staff Meetings

They’re expensive.
They’re time consuming.
They’re boring.
They’re never-ending.
They’re painfully early.

Right?

Well, not necessarily...

My staff meetings are short, sweet, to the point, and they’re engaging.  I’m not interested in standing up at a podium and bellowing at my staff like peons.  We’re all here to openly discuss our current standings, praise our accomplishments, acknowledge our failures, and make any necessary adjustments to continually improve ourselves, our product, our customer service, and our brand.

We always have and have always had open communication with the entire staff.  They’re encouraged to give input and in turn we’re able to address key issues promptly and implement quick and swift changes.

Everyone including the owners are given weekly “To Do’s” and held accountable for them.  Anything from painting stairs or a cleaning project to more Facebook posts and new product and uniform ideas.

But it ain't free.  Bringing in our team every Friday for a couple of hours costs money.  So it’s important to use this time wisely and productively.  It has the potential to be one of the most productive times during your week.  You know the Power of One Hour.

Keeping everyone in the loop makes everyone feel involved and gives a sense of pride over the store.  I want that.  I want my staff to have a sense of ownership.  Therefore every member of the team has a personal stake in our continued improvement.

If everyone had a sense of ownership at his or her jobs, businesses would be more successful.  And we want to be the most successful of them all.

Closed For You

Sometimes you can break the rules to get by.  Sometimes it’s better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission as “they” say.

But I don’t mess around with food.  I play it safe.  It’s not worth making someone sick.  I take pride in my establishment and its reputation.  And I take pride in myself and my own reputation.  

If we can’t open the store, we don’t open the store.  If the food may be bad, we throw it out.  As my friend Ben coined, “When in doubt, throw it out!”

The Customer is Always Right

Always.  Period.

Sure there are exceptions to every rule.  But our approach to customer service shouldn’t be to determine the validity of the customer.  Our approach, and our goal should be to make this customer want to come back.  Being right and saving your $8.99 purchase isn’t worth losing a customer.  Seth Godin writes in his most recent blog post:

The customer who seeks out your help isn't often looking to deplete your bank account. He is usually seeking validation, support and a path to feeling the way he felt before you let him down.

Who cares if she actually asked to hold the mayo or not.  If she says she did, she deserves my support as a patron to my business.  What’s that statistic about telling bad experiences vs. good ones?  It doesn’t even matter because if one person leaves my establishment unhappy, I'm not doing my job right.

Signatures

Today I signed my first paychecks.  Putting my own signature down on on everyone's paycheck gave me a real sense of ownership.  It felt amazing.

...and then I saw the total!

The Power of One Hour

Today we had a legitimate partners meeting for the first time in weeks.  It was only for an hour and yet we were all able to complete more crap than we can usually do individually.

Because we devoted one single hour of an entire week in an office without interruptions.

It’s amazing how many times each of us tables an item on our “to-do” list because we need to confirm with one another.  Having everyone present allows us to bounce ideas off of each other, confer in real time, and push each other to meet deadlines and get shit done, rapidly increasing our productivity.

We’re always impatient for others to make moves and yet we often put off our own work.  Having partners is a great way to keep everyone in check, but only if everyone is being utilized properly.  Regular meetings need to happen in order to stay on page and they need to happen in a controlled environment.

Working at the restaurants leaves us open to constant distractions all day long.  We’re putting ourselves at the mercy of our business, letting our business control our lives.  This is our business and we should be controlling it.  Putting an hour on the schedule every week and sticking to it will radically change your world.

One hour a week.  That’s all it takes.  One hour of power.

Learning to be a Carpenter

I’m using many skills to open up a store and learning new ones: planning, forecasting, budgeting, and most notably, learning carpentry.

That’s me below!  Oh boy.  In between working in the kitchen next door today, I spent the day spreading chemical solvent over a concrete floor then scraping up industrial glue that was underneath the carpet we pulled up yesterday.  I had no idea how bad this would be.  It was a bloody mess!

I’ve been to the hardware store every morning since we began the buildout.  As Ben Wood said, “Get used to it, you’ll be there everyday until we open!”  (He also told me this method of removing the glue would suck.  Should of listened....)

Clearly we could hire someone to complete the project start to finish, but it costs $$$.  Plus, where’s the fun in that?  We looked at the carpet and said to ourselves, “Sure we can pull that up!”  And when we saw glue underneath we said, “Sure we can remove that!”  Did we have any idea how?

Tomorrow is more scraping, then it’ll be retiling the bathroom, painting, replacing ceiling tiles, assembling furniture, etc.

It’s so exhilarating putting ourselves elbow deep into a project from the very beginning, being a part of it through and through every step until it’s complete.  And when it’s done, we’ll look at it and say “That’s ours.  We built that.”

Own My Own Business: Check.

Today I achieved one of my top life goals.  Today I became a small business owner.

It’s right up there on my list along with owning a home and having a family and has always been my number one professional goal.

A dream come true, I’ve been working towards this goal my entire life and with a little help from friends, support of family, a little bit of luck, but mostly hard f’ing work, I did it.

I’m so excited, especially because of whom I’ve gone into business with!  I joined into a partnership with two close friends, something many advise against.  As Dave Ramsey might put it, “The only ship that won’t sail is a partnership”.  This is often true, but we’re ready to prove it wrong.

And now comes the hard part: making it successful!  If I thought I’d worked hard before...I had no idea!  So here’s to new ventures and limitless possibilities!