Points of Profit NewsÓ

Points of Profit News-the newsletter that promotes 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 develop your managers into leaders.

May 29, 2001

Issue 15

Ron Yudd, Editor, www.ronyudd.com

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Welcome back to Points of Profit News. I hope some of the spirit of last issue has carried over. Did you have time to think about service standards and how important they are to your success? Did you spend a few personal moments thinking about your authenticity as it relates to your leadership style? I hope the section a couple of issues ago on community involvement sparked several imaginative ideas on how you view your neighborhood marketing plan and how you can make a difference in your community and build your business at the same time.

For those of you that are just joining us-previous issues of the Points of Profit NewsÓ can be found on our website on the resources page at www.ronyudd.com.

I am just recovering from my adventures at this year’s National Restaurant Association’s Show in Chicago. The seminar programs were great, the miles of booths were daunting and the people as always—incredible. If you attended, the best advice I can give is to focus in on a couple of ideas that may have inspired you and then go ahead and follow through and get them implemented. Whether it was a new product or a new piece of equipment or a new way to look at your business make your trip to the show worthwhile by implementing a couple of items. Next year—make it one of your goals to take one or your rising stars along with you to give them the experience of this “excellent adventure”.

New Tool- Our new audio product-“Leadership Legacy” is now available. You can listen to a sample on the website at www.ronyudd.com. We have a 25% discount on all audio products in effect through July 1, 2001. Keep in mind that the sales of our audio products go to support our Leadership Cares Foundation’s Thanksgiving Basket Program and other initiatives. Go to www.leadershipcares.org to see what we are working on.

On the Front Lines of Service

Last month’s front line service tip was on how to develop service standards. We discovered that service standards were the foundation of any operation’s success. Service standards defined exactly how your customer will be treated, what their expectations should be and what will be done if the standards are not met.

As promised this month we’ll take a look at an example of a service standard and walk through the process of developing and implementing it in your operation. One of the most basic of service standards is the standard of exactly how to interact with your guest. Let’s take an example. Let’s say you operate a Country Club with a full service dining room. Your philosophy is to promote personalized service to the members. One way this takes place is through the interaction your staff has with the member. Your standard may look like this: Each guest will be greeted at the front desk within thirty seconds. Each member will be greeted by name, they will be escorted to their regular table and it will be ensured that they are comfortably seated before they are turned over to the tableside server. This, of course, is very general—you would add very specific things like exact time requirements, exactly what should be said to the guest, and specific things that defined “comfort” before the greeter/host/hostess left the guest at their table. This exact information is how expectations for the guest are defined and how you will measure to ensure that your staff is delivering on those expectations.

There are three keys to successfully implementing a service standard. The first is that the staff has participated in developing them. You cannot create service standards from the office and then simply post them on the bulletin board. The second key to success is that they have to be attainable. They have to be based in reality. You can’t expect the greeter to greet everyone at the front desk within thirty seconds if it takes two minutes to get back to the desk from the upstairs dining room. The third element needed for success is that service standards must be measurable. If you can’t measure it it’s not going to happen.

The last step of implementing a service standard is to ensure that there is practice time set aside to make sure the staff understands how to go about fulfilling the standards. Practice, measurement and then celebrating success are how service standards are implemented and become part of the daily routine. An effective and well-practiced service standard should become as regular as rolling silver.

Building Leadership Skills

Remember last month’s ingredient of the successful leader? We talked about Authenticity. The leader creates and promotes her vision through her authenticity---meaning—how honestly she lives her vision through her daily actions. Authenticity means that the leader is accountable for their actions. They are genuine, seek the truth, and also hold team members accountable for their actions.

This month’s leadership ingredient is Passion for Service! This ingredient in the leadership recipe means that the leader understands the importance of serving others and the role serving others plays in their individual success. Passion for service means serving your staff as well as having a passion for serving the guest. A genuine passion for service means that the leader gives of herself to others, she shares her talents and skills, she mentors by providing the tools for others to be successful. An example of passion for service was mentioned earlier in the newsletter when we discussed your goal of taking one of your rising stars to next year’s NRA Show. This is a passion for helping another person become successful in our business.

The most interesting thing about a passion for service is that it always seems to rub off on others who witness and experience it. By mentoring a passion for service in others the effective leader develops other successful leaders. Next month, out fourth ingredient of the successful leader----Courage!

Profitability Plus

Last month’s Point of Profit discussed the importance of pars when going about the daily cycle of doing business. We talked about the concept of how pars helped you only buy what was needed and that products sitting on shelves instead of in production were costing the operation money. We determined that less was always best!

This month’s Point of Profit centers on proper receiving and the role it plays in running a successful business. We have recently been using a great phrase in our food safety training classes---“Food has to be safe when you receive it--You can’t make it any safer after it comes in the back door”. This phrase has a lot of meaning. In food safety it’s critical to receive products at proper temperature and in a proper condition because if you accept an unsafe product you can’t make it safe later.

The same thing can be said of the role proper receiving plays in profitability. Receiving is the critical juncture between buying and preparing product. You should have very specific standards for proper receiving. There are several things to review to ensure you are up to speed. Know how to inspect products and what to look for, how to check weights, counts and other measurements, know how to properly take the temperature of various foods. Ensure that your staff has the proper equipment available to do the job correctly. Review your existing procedures for receiving all merchandise. Delivery schedules, scales, tools, hand trucks, carts, wiping cloths, product specification info, training, and all the other details to ensure that you get what you actually ordered and actually want.

Point of Profit Tip of the Month----Cut the cord on several bundles of napkins and aprons during your next laundry and linen delivery. You may be surprised at what you find in the count.

Take Home Idea of the Month

If you really want to promote a particular item on your menu make sure that your service staff has not only tasted the item, but also knows the exact ingredients and is also fully versed in how it is prepared. I know one operator that won’t let a new server near the floor until they have worked at every station in the back of the house learning how everything is made, step-by-step, ingredient-by- ingredient. When you really think about it—our floor staff is our direct link to our customers when it comes to our menu offerings—the more they know the better informed our guests will be. It’s a win-win because we have always wanted our guests to know how great the food is and at the same time make sure our staff was comfortable with passing on the information.

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Web Site of the Month----- This month’s selection is www.restaurantreport.com. They have a lot of great information for our industry. My favorite is the listing of Their Top 100 Sites (click on Food Web). Have fun—a lot to explore!

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

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. E-mail your ideas, thoughts and contributions along with your name, address and phone number to: ron@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 keynotes, seminars, workshops, facilitation, consulting and personal coaching. His keynotes and seminars—Leadership Legacy, Leadership for the Bottom Line, No One Escapes Customer Service and Mentoring Today for Leaders Tomorrow have helped business operators focus in on building leadership skills, improve customer service and enhance 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 ron@ronyudd.com. His office number is 301-540-5791. Copyright 2001 by Ron Yudd.