Untitled episode

hello everybody hi everybody Jamie and Marcus here episode number 15. excellent test of time love passion and hustle in the restaurant business yes or in any business really business we're talking about our our business which we are in the restaurant business with lots of love passion and lots of hustle way too much hustle yes way too much sometimes yes all we do is hustle we are

always working so I've done something always doing something and I guess it's a good sign of an entrepreneur it is because we do a lot of delegating so let's not get confused with working inefficiently oh I didn't say we work inefficiently I didn't say yeah I don't want people no no I don't think we work in it we definitely delegate enough but we also hustle a

lot and everything we do is kind of circled around our main business right exactly kind of Gears off like a family tree so it's like a tree with roots growing in the bottom and then leaves growing on the branches so so let's talk today about hospitality and customer service versus customer service or lack of customer service yes all right so I and I know you are

too really upset when we go to a place that you have to pre-order on an app on a screen on an iPad and then they ask for a tip right off the bat before you even have interaction with people they're asking you for a tip I actually think that we should start leaving zero tip and then tipping either with cash or asking if we can run

our credit card again for a tip of um some nature when we are put into that situation because I find it very disappointing that you're at a kiosk you're ordering and then it says would you like to add a tip right and I don't know if I want I don't know right I don't know if we've gotten good let's put it this way I want to

I don't know how much right we're good tippers I mean I think we always sip 20 for the most part unless we get really bad service right 20 or minimum minimum minimum or more yeah so um I I just going up to a kiosk and then well this happened to us just recently a couple of times when we were traveling right and in airports and um

you know in big cities now some of the restaurants are moving towards you know ordering off of a kiosk and then you walk up to the counter you get your food and you sit down and so you don't really know the experience because you're traveling right you don't really know like what to expect um from the restaurant um you don't really know like you think you're

ordering then you go sit at a bar and they're going to deliver the food and they're going to make sure you're taken care of they're gonna make sure you get silverware but you don't really know that experience going in you know we went to a place just recently right when we were traveling um where we walked in we went to the kiosk we had to we

sat down and then um they text you when your order was ready and you had to go up to the counter and pick up your order and then you sat back down the only thing the service the staff came around to do was ask if you wanted drinks yeah I mean that was the only thing so the problem and you had to clean up your own

however you want to say it of customer service versus dollars right customer service service or hospitals so when I worked at The Greenbrier you worked at The Greenbrier too beautiful property in West Virginia do you remember what the paycheck said or or or or their tagline with what they used no I didn't work there as long as you did ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen

oh I didn't I don't ever remember that always always made sense right polite people serving polite peoples how is sort of how I kind of sum it up right and it was so true because the people there the culture of that place was very Southern Hospitality is what you would call it right Southern Hospitality Welcome Wagon like is you're there and they're happy you're there just

like when we go to Italy The Vineyards and the restaurants or that we go to it's just it's amazing to hospitality and it's just and then all of a sudden now you're putting into places where they're just taking orders um they're following up with you but they don't care about service they don't they don't care about service they certainly aren't giving you Hospitality right right it

starts with service then it goes to hospitality right so there is a distinct difference between service and Hospitality right and they don't care about giving you the service they're just there to make the money I mean we had a girl in an airport just recently too who like it was terrible service we complained and we complained We complain because we tipped ahead of time and nobody's

coming this to we you call it quality check at our restaurant go check and make sure everything's okay make sure that the steak is cooked properly or the fish isn't dried out or that people are enjoying their meal or check and see if they want another glass of wine do something except just stand there and and just not and oh my gosh remember we we also

um at a restaurant uh a bar that we went to in an airport a few months ago you know the lady served us she was terrible right I mean terrible and we didn't really leave a good tip and then we asked for water afterwards oh my gosh skipping she saw it and she did she was nasty she was not nice she's not I mean they didn't

smile at all I mean they did not smile at all she had no idea what she was doing it was like she gave us dirty glasses she I mean it was just incredible but you know what we talked about it back then that comes down from the manager which is well right but here's another example like we ordered a bottle of wine an 80 bottle of

wine which we're already tipping 20 on they're forcing us to dip ahead of time you know she brings the bottle to the table and there's already a glass missing out of it I'm like if you can't notice and I think there's a glass there's already a glass she goes no there's not and I said there is look at it look at it and she goes oh

my gosh I'm so sorry but you know what that should be something that you are that's part of your service that's part of knowing what you're doing I mean I watched the girl behind the bar make three drinks and pour them out I said no idea that was what she was doing and that was part of her training that was part of her they said oh

she's new she's training and so she's making drinks which doesn't have a proper recipe she hasn't gone through the training she's using a recipe mushy oh yeah she had a book open then why should you throw them out I don't because they didn't come out right she tasted it and it didn't come out right I I was appalled so we spoke to somebody at this restaurant

and they're like she's throwing drinks out like yeah like is it like and nobody was back there watching her no nobody was back there watching three three drinks just throw it away so here's now get to your part about where this thumbs from it stems from management manager I mean it stems from up above it stems from who owns the restaurant or the bar or the

facility down to the Busters and servers it all comes from the top all starts at the top I guarantee you that all these restaurants that we talk about that we have bad experience throw people in and they are not giving them the the ha the customer service the training the hospitality they just don't care they're there to make money and here's the thing what I get

when we're traveling a lot in big cities because we're usually in big cities you know there it's Transit um like an airport right that people are coming and going and you're never going to see these people again so it doesn't really matter there's a lot of great restaurants we go through these big cities that have an amazing team amazing team and that they're loyal and it's

just so it's it's the culture it's the culture of these places have built yeah and it's the way they treat their team and so I'm sure there's something I was gonna say oh so so so so somebody recently told me they go Marcus you know there's a person you have on staff and we're talking about a specific person and semi recently and they said that person's

hurting your business and that hurt it sure did it hurt because because you know why you know why that hurts because we know because we know because we know we haven't done anything about it you know we talk to them we tell them you know all the things that we would do with all of our other staff and and it's just not but when the guests

said that yeah but a good friend you know they noticed yes right if they notice in other people and if they notice all the other people are noticing yeah so now we've done our part with working and working and working and working and trying to positive feedback and this this and this now it's our it's really our fault because it stems from the top and I

guess the point here is to to anybody a restaurant owner or a manager entrepreneur it's just listening listening to this is not right for our business you are responsible you are ultimately responsible for what's happening if your team is not up to where it needs to be that's your fault for lack of training some people some people like to hire rock stars where they hire these

rock stars they come into work and the rock star is supposed to take care of everything and they're paying more money in labor because you're taking a rock star who's already making money and bringing them in there that's the shortcut version of of how to do it the proper version is to notice Talent within an organization and say okay you're washing dishes you're a prep cook

you're doing this I think you have more talent I think we need to move you up but I have to invest the time as the owner the manager operator to train that person so here's the difference between having a cook that's making 25 an hour hiring the Rockstar or moving somebody up and paying them 15 to 17 an hour because you're working with them and moving

them up on and you're investing time into them and you have a system you're going to save a lot of money if you have a system a lot of people don't have the system so here's what they do they hire the rock star and the culture is not good because a rock star comes in is making more money than other people there's animosity and all of

a sudden like this and all of a sudden everyone wants to leave um and the person that's being brought up isn't being trained properly and it's getting frustrated I can't believe that I'm doing the same job as this other person and not realizing what their job even is to begin with not realizing what the qualities were speaking with and now sudden they get frustrated because they're

like well I just get in trouble and I don't do things right and I had no training here and and this and this and this and all of a sudden they're looking for another job and then obviously the restaurant owner who's saying I can't keep staff I can't keep labor down I can't do this anymore the staff is killing me I need to close or I

have to do something and I hear this all the time so let's talk about Hospitality let's talk about the difference between hospitality and service or customer service what is your definition of customer service and what is your definition of hospitality customer service is something that anybody can do anybody can take an order anybody can serve food anybody can anybody can serve the customer hospitality is serving

the customer with a smile and caring it's a step up I'm taking it's like organic versus biodynamic Organics great but biodynamics organic with a lot of love right and I think the hospitality when you have good hospitality that's that's good customer service with a lot more love it's it's more than caring about it's one of the caring about the current situation it's about oh I back

in the day if this dates this the restaurant in the shape like people would ask us for a newspaper I already have today's newspaper now it's all on their phone right but 2003 2004 2005 do you have a newspaper hospitality is sending somebody to the store and getting it to get all the newspapers and bringing back four newspapers instead of one newspaper that's Hospitality Services I'm

sorry we don't have sorry we don't have it right we don't have it right or here's yesterday's paper what good is yesterday's paper I had yesterday's right so hospitality is that way level above it's above and beyond Above and Beyond The Smiling the caring the you know giving them your all you know giving them the wow factor giving them more than you would in service so

and again this all stems from management now I find when I'm in a bad mood my team doesn't perform that well if something's wrong with me personally my personal life or you and I something or we have other distractions something's wrong we're not here we find that things change because we're not here to set the example we're not here to charge lead the charge direct the

ship set sail on the ship and then all of a sudden people not let's face it not everybody has that Hospitality gene they don't right no they can all walk a dish out they can all take an order but they don't have the hospitality Gene that has to keep being reinforced with your team I like that Hospitality Gene reinforced with your team yeah there's a little

rhyme to it yes that's it's nice [Laughter] so here's the deal if we're having issues at restaurants dining out other people are too and chances are and we're not perfect we're buying I mean by no means are we perfect but I don't think we're complacent absolutely not we're always learning we're always wanting to provide better better more better more it's like when somebody walks in the

door you greet them quickly when somebody leaves thank you so much for your for your you know thank you for dining with us or you know sending them a thank you card or thank you you know or or it's just going above and beyond talk about thank you card because that's Hospitality right there absolutely so you know after somebody dines with us you know we're collecting

data right you're collecting somebody's email or getting a comment card after they've left that or they've celebrated their birthday with us and they get a birthday certificate in the mail um we write them a hand written thank you card um obviously we don't have everybody's um you know names and addresses but we write them the ones that we have we write them a thank you card

like hope you had a great birthday thank you so much for celebrating with us we hope to see you soon and we try to put something personal in there like it was so nice to meet your family thanks for dining with us for the first time we hope hope to see you back and it's on a postcard and we send it to them and that's Hospitality

that's going above and beyond to give the rest of the experience to give them more to make them think about you when they're at home sitting on their couch opening their mail three days later that's the carrying out that's the carrying out that's the caring aspect so you know it is really important that you care about your guests and fake caring doesn't work because people can

read right through that it is the true the feeling the feeling that you get from the hospitality the feeling that you get and you can get a feeling from good service but when somebody goes above and beyond and says to you you know what let me give you a taste of this wine before I actually give it to you that's Hospitality right you know we don't

have that by the glass but let me go ahead and give you what I do have by the glass and let's see if you like that um you know it's going above and beyond as much as we can you know what you don't know if you're gonna like our soup let me bring you a little taste of the soup you know um same thing with behind

the bar you know we don't have anything you know typical in terms of you know big Brands so let me give you a taste of the Gin before you have it let me give you a taste of the Vodka before you have it I want to make sure that you have something that you enjoy instead of something that you're not gonna like and you know what

we've had drinks returned from our staff that doesn't give them a taste ahead of time right I didn't know your Chardonnay was like this and I didn't know your Cabernet was like this yeah I don't like it's just so here's the thing back to the handwritten postcards there's gonna be a lot of restaurant tours that are Washington saying we serve weight too many people there's no

way I can do a handwritten postcard there there's there's no way two a day means is is more than you're doing now your team each person can Right One A Day evening today you know we used to make our staff write one a day um now I try to write to everybody that we possibly can right right so and if our staff doesn't have time to

do it then I'll do it my office person will do it I make sure they go out all the time so here's the deal we're paying now people to manage social media for us we're paying people to do this high-tech stuff for us this technology for us you need to be paying somebody to go back to the old-fashioned way of reaching out to people you need

to combine both right so so recently I just heard somebody say well do you like what what do you do for social media well you do everything because a bodybuilder doesn't just work his legs are just her arms or chest they work everything so you have Tick Tock you have Instagram you have LinkedIn you have Facebook you have Tick Tock all these things and you have

to scatter things out and part of that scattering things out with customer service or Hospitality it's an Android and postcard saying goodbye to somebody and if they walk out the door you didn't get a chance to say to buy them because you missed them you walk out your door and say good night right because you're in the show I didn't get to say good night thank

you so much and I've done it many times right so if you're a big restaurant you can send out 50 postcards a week that's 50 or 10 or 15 more than you've been doing and those people who get that postcard are gonna say wow they really care that restaurant was so big and huge restaurants so busy and somebody took the time they don't know you they

didn't send it to everybody that place took the time to send me a thank you for dining and they mentioned my birthday they mentioned whatever amazing I'm just just amazing there's so many things that you can talk about about hospitality and I'm sure there's things that we're missing it's things like a fork dropping on the floor and you hear it and you bring another Fork yeah

absolutely rush it right over you rush right over somebody spills something you rush right over they're not cleaning it up themselves I mean that's part of hospitality and who cares if they don't need a fork they drop their Fork you bring them a new one you you don't wait for them to ask you do it automatically it's like thing with coffee get away from the ask

for sugar and cream part of services them automatically having silverware that's part of service because like above and beyond like if they drop something and you bring them a new napkin or you bring them something that's going above and beyond that's Hospitality so ladies and gentlemen being served by ladies and gentlemen love it that's it all right folks so good challenge is to I guess identify

up your hospitality no matter what what situation you're in casual fast service whatever there's something there's something that you can be doing to up your hospitality from good service yep I don't care if you're a drive-through whatever there's something that you can be doing um we like to consult a lot we help other people and I was working with a tow truck uh driver on time

and I said man bake dog biscuits just have dog biscuits in your tow truck and if somebody has a dog you give them dog biscuits that right there alone is a game changer there's no other tow truck company and chances are if somebody's calling a tow truck they're not having a good time they're not having a good day when you're going into a restaurant you're going

to have a good time when you call tow truck it's because you're out you're you're down on your luck that day when you're calling a tow truck so making somebody's dog happy so that's just something thinking outside of the box just think outside the box better Hospitality restaurantgrowthsecretsuniversity.com you and I have a lot of fun stuff over there a lot of great stuff over there on

how to run your restaurant go check that out we've developed an online training platform that is Bar None the best everybody from Tony Robbins to Grant Cardone to General Motors to a lot of big companies are using this very similar platform same platform that that we've transformed into a great training tool we would love to talk to you about that because it all this comes down

to team training absolutely more team training you have the better off you are absolutely culture you're going to have yep so all right all right this is Jamie and Marcus thanks for tuning in have a great day