Points of Profit News

Points of Profit News
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The newsletter for promoting service excellence, leadership building and enhanced profits in the restaurant and hospitality industry. This monthly resource provides quick tips, tools and solutions you can use right away to instill a passion for service in your business, build real and lasting profits and help turn your managers into leaders.
January 7th, 2001 Issue 12

Ron Yudd, Editor, www.ronyudd.com

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Welcome to the new year! An opportunity to take a look back on what you have accomplished personally and professionally over the last year and to think about what you want to accomplish this year. Enjoy this time of reflection and re-direction. Make 2001 your best ever.

On the Front Lines of Service

Remind your staff of the three things that every customer wants. All customers simply want to be acknowledged, treated with genuine concern and enjoy a hassle free experience. That’s easy to say but difficult to deliver. These three become the starting point this year for creating service excellence within your operation. Each line up meeting should touch upon one of these three concepts. Talk to your staff about recognizing customers by name, remembering their likes and dislikes and making them feel that they are being listened to. Teach your service givers to look their guests in the eyes and give of themselves to making that customer's experience memorable. Identify the items, systems or roadblocks that are hindering your staff from delivering a hassle free experience. Work on these three "customer wants" this year and let's see how service levels increase over the next several months.

Building Leadership Skills

Over the next twelve months we will focus on the twelve ingredients of the successful leader. Spend some time each day reflecting on how you are doing on these and then work to teach these skills to your young developing supervisors and managers. In order for genuine leadership to flourish within any organization there first must be a foundation where these ingredients can begin to simmer and then really cook. This requires that the Three Cs' of Leadership be firmly in place. Communication, Coaching and Cheerleading are the foundation for developing good leadership skills. Communication means that there are no secrets in a successful business-everyone understands the mission and is working from the same page. Coaching means that the fundamentals are being taught and practiced everyday in the operation. Cheerleading simply means that when individuals and teams succeed that their accomplishments are being celebrated loudly and publicly.

Take a look at these three first and see how firm your foundation is for building a leadership skills inventory. From this foundation we will explore the twelve ingredients of the successful leader.

Profitability Plus

Profitability is built on doing the little things consistently and with "laser beam" focus. Walk the flow of your products and flow of your customers and focus in on the Points of Profit (or loss) along the way. Begin to build your own walk through system from back door to customer table or counter. Ask yourself ---why are we doing this and why are we doing it this particular way? Begin by questioning policies and procedures, even if you are the one that instituted those policies. Be inquisitive and look at things with "childlike eyes". Pretend you are looking at it for the very first time. Over the next twelve months we will build our Points of Profit list to help you laser beam in on enhancing your bottom line.

Take Home Idea of the Month

Enhance your customer relationship program. One of the ways to accomplish this is to start an e-zine newsletter about your business and directed to the customers and guests that already love you. Start small, gather names and addresses of your regulars and make sure you provide "real and valuable" information. Include information on specials, discounts, new items, staff celebrations, special events, features and the list goes on and on. Check out the free information on building successful e-zine newsletters at www.e-zinez.com. Have fun!

Points of Profit Leadership Inc. helps companies turn their managers into leaders. We are a "one stop shop" for resources and tools for enhancing customer service levels, increasing profitability and developing leadership skills within your organization.

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Points of Profit News is an online means of sharing information of interest to the restaurant and hospitality community. You are encouraged to send questions, make observations and share items of interest. Send your ideas, thoughts and contributions along with your name address and phone number to mailto:ronyudd@ronyudd.com.

Ron Yudd is a recognized expert on developing profit strategies and customer service solutions. Ron provides his clients with the tools for their success. He accomplishes this through speaking, seminars, workshops, facilitation, consulting and personal coaching. His programs Leadership Legacy, No One Escapes Customer Service and Points of Profit have helped business operators focus in on building leadership skills, improving customer service and enhancing the profitability of their operations. He combines a motivating style with practical "take home" ideas. You can reach him at www.ronyudd.com or email him at ronyudd@ronyudd.com . His office number is 301-540-5791. Copyright 2001 by Ron Yudd