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6 Goals for a New Restaurant Consultant

Are you thinking about starting your own restaurant consulting business?

If the answer is yes, I’d wager that the food business has become part of your DNA. Hospitality runs through your veins. Maybe you’ve worked in restaurants most of your life or have run some aspect of the food business that’s given you the confidence and experience you need to share what you’ve learned so far. Perhaps you’ve been a leader in service, are an experienced chef who is obsessed over food preparation and  streamlined operations. Maybe you’re a whiz at hiring and training great teams.  Or maybe you watch the Food Network like it’s your job.

Regardless of who you are, the idea of consulting and being your own boss has gotten under your skin. This is probably the time to ask yourself what about consulting appeals to you.

Maybe consulting seems like the best way for you to showcase your talents. Maybe you’re tired of working long hours for people with big personalities and big egos who don’t recognize your work. You might even think that having a consulting business will be less stressful or give you more flexibility in your life.

I wish I could tell you that by starting your own business you’d be free of all the hard stuff like big personalities or long hours. But I can’t. You might not get free of any of the tough stuff. 

But yes, you will have choices you wouldn’t typically have if you were an hourly employee. You will also have bigger challenges you wouldn’t usually face if you were a server or manager of a restaurant chain–like finding clients so you can earn a paycheck.

If money is tight and you’re not sure if you can afford not getting paid for a while, you might want to consider easing into consulting on a part time basis.

“If you’re not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business.”      –Ray Kroc, McDonald’s Founder

I developed my career as a restaurant consultant by doing a lot of research, planning and then eventually, jumping in head first and figuring out the little details along the way.  

I had to open my mouth and tell somebody what I was planning on doing. I had to act as if I was a restaurant consultant. And, lucky for me, the first professional contact I told about my future restaurant consulting business hired me on the spot.

That’s when I had to just JUMP.

After that first job, I refined my vision. Experience helped me see where I needed to trim some old ideas, borrow heavily from other restaurant leaders, and do a few things in my own way.

If you’re wondering where to start as a restaurant consultant, here are 6 goals to get you on your way to starting your own consulting business.

6 Goals to Getting Going as a Restaurant Consultant:

  1. Define what kind of consultant you are.

  2. Decide what kind of service you’re offering.

  3. Figure out how much your services cost. Decide how to create value for your clients.

  4. Define who your audience is.

  5. Set up a website. A basic website is better than no website. 

  6. Develop an offer. Figure out how you can over-deliver.

 

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Service 101: Selling Happy

I am a consultant to restaurants and businesses who want to have a strong service program. I write training manuals, I build operational systems that support strong performance, hire and train great teams, and coach people on how to engage guests (and increase sales).

But most importantly, I’m in the business of teaching people the how and why of selling happy.

Plenty of restaurants have figured out the process of making great tasting cakes, a sandwich, latte, or fried egg. But what many restaurant owners forget to spend time on is how they deliver their products to their guests.

Here’s the thing, businesses that thrive in today’s connection economy need to do more than just deliver high-quality products that people need or want.  Successful businesses with a dedicated fan base are ones that go out of their way to delight their customers. Continue reading “Service 101: Selling Happy”

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Service 101: The Problem with Folklore

Back in high school I became fascinated with folklore. I marveled at the hand-me-down stories and morality tales that were whispered between teenagers. There were many versions of the same tale. There was the one about the couple at make-out point who find a hook on the side of their car. The tarantula stowed away in a crate of bananas. The sad end of a child star, as a result of a deadly mixture of pop rocks and Coca Cola. Though the details of each story may have been interchangeable—they were murdered! They escaped! They ate the spider! The spider laid thousands of eggs!—the story left the audience feeling in a similar way. Uncomfortable.

Folklore may be a good way to deliver a moral idea, but it is an incredibly ineffective way to share an organization’s plan for service.

Continue reading “Service 101: The Problem with Folklore”

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Service 101: How Do I Become a Restaurant Consultant?

Ever since I wrote the essay “How I got into Restaurant Consulting,” I’ve gotten lots of emails from men and women who are considering restaurant consulting as a potential career. Though the people vary in age and approach, they all ask the same big question: What do I need to know in order to become a successful restaurant consultant?

I wish I had a simple one-line answer, but I don’t. There are no easy answers or shortcuts for building a meaningful career as a freelancer.

how do I become a restaurant consultant

Continue reading “Service 101: How Do I Become a Restaurant Consultant?”

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Restaurant Unstoppable

valentines day restaurant tableFinding good resources for inspiration or direct support within the food and beverage industry can be difficult. There are websites and food publications like Saveur, Lucky Peach, and Bon Appetit that may have helpful ideas you can use. Restaurant books, chef memoirs, and exposés on the service industry can give perspective and ideas. Reality television shows like Restaurant Impossible, Top Chef, and Kitchen Nightmares can entertain and teach by example.

But it is face-to-face conversations with restaurant professionals that many in the food and beverage business lack the most. Thanks to the restaurant industry’s long hours, pace of business, and fierce competition restaurant leaders can easily get isolated from each other. Many restaurant pros rarely see fellow comrades, unless they run into each other at the same late night noodle shop or bar. And even then, we are frequently too exhausted to share quality resources or ideas.

Restaurant Unstoppable: The Pod Cast

Last week I was approached by Eric Cacciatore, creator of Restaurant Unstoppable, to be a guest on his weekly podcast. Restaurant Unstoppable is a weekly radio show that features industry professionals’ insights and tips on what it takes to succeed in the food and beverage industry.  I had to admit I hadn’t heard of Eric’s show, but I was intrigued by his enthusiasm and dedication to growing an online resource for restaurant professionals.

Restaurant Unstoppable is a place where restaurant people can share insights and ideas that can be accessed at any time of the day. Bravo! I like what Eric is trying to do, so I agreed to be interviewed. Who doesn’t want to be part of building something cool?

Eric sent me a rather detailed questionnaire before our interview. His questions about what it’s like being a hospitality consultant got me thinking about simple solutions I could share with people in the restaurant business.

Here are a few hiring tips I shared:

  • Smile when you interview applicants.  If the applicant is unable to smile, don’t hire them if they are applying for a front of the house position.
  • Have open interviews once a month, even if you don’t need people. It lets your current staff know how important doing great work is and it keeps you open to finding extraordinary people.
  • Pay great people more. When you find great people, pay them a little bit more than average if you can afford it. Even $.50 more an hour can go a long way in making a difference in the choices of barista or counter person. Paying more encourage great people not to go elsewhere.
  • Feed your team. Once you get a great team, make sure they’re fed. Offering a great staff meal can go a long way in making your food workers happy and perform well.

Continue reading “Restaurant Unstoppable”

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Service 101: Keep an Open Mind

When you open a new restaurant in Los AngelesWe live in a time when new is a marker of cool. In Los Angeles, the newest restaurant on the block often trumps well established culinary landmarks–not necessarily because of the quality, but for the newness of the food and the scene.  The fickle dining public swarm to what’s new and eat through the menu until they have reached overload and the place becomes “played out”.

The rush to stay current often comes at a cost, since most trend-seeking customers have very little patience for growing pains. Even well-respected chefs who bring along with them their own built in audience, require time and an extreme amount of effort to work out the kinks. Opening a restaurant is hard. Going to a new restaurant is challenging. Customers and restaurateurs need to keep an open mind in the first six months of business.

Take for example a restaurant opening I was a part of a number of years ago before I was a consultant. The city of Los Angeles buzzed with excitement as a well-regarded chef’s prepared to open her third restaurant. The restaurant was speculated about in the city’s gossip rag (Eater LA) more than a year before opening.

Behind the scenes, a famous designer and architect was brought in to create a lush dining room from the shell of a worn out culinary landmark. The chef created new dishes and groomed hungry new cooks for lead positions. Management staff worked tirelessly day and night to hire a great staff, stock the shelves with the best china, flatware, sparkling crystal, and bottles of the best liquor and wine. Service staff trained for weeks on the culinary history of particular dishes, memorized detailed information on wines from around the world, and studied traditions of food regions in Europe.

As opening day approached, LA foodies speculated online about what the food would be like. High ranking Yelpers schemed how to snag a first night reservation so they could be the first to review the restaurant. Curious neighbors peered in through the curtained windows and pulled on locked doors.

The day the restaurant opened, men and women of all ages jammed the reservation lines. Fashionable movie stars and grown adults fabricated lies, elbowed their way to the front of the line, and dropped names in hopes to get the reservation they wanted from the host staff.

After months of non stop work, the team crossed their fingers and hoped that the night went as well as they hoped. The dining room was electric with anticipation as waiters in crisp white shirts delivered the chef’s newest dishes to the guests.  Plates flew from the kitchen as the brigade in white worked against time, sharp knives, hot plates, and exhaustion.

Several hours later, when the last dessert left the kitchen, the chef joined the management team in the dining room to measure the energy level of the room. Guests scurried from their seats to congratulate the chef.

Professional diners–men and women who rarely cook for themselves at home and eat out several times a week–gushed with praise and sprinkled well-intentioned suggestions of where the restaurateur could improve. The customers were giddy with ideas: how to re-design of the restrooms, what level the music should be played at, suggestions on what direction to take the business in (catering! delivery! even more expansion!), how to cook a piece of meat, just how much sauce should be poured over a certain entree, the correct measurements on a particular cocktail, and just how many bottles of wine from a particularly popular vineyard in California should be purchased.

When the doors were locked and the music turned off, the chef swore under her breath.

“I’m happy to listen to constructive criticism,” she said. “Just as soon as any one of those people run their own successful restaurant.”
Continue reading “Service 101: Keep an Open Mind”

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Service 101: Awareness

“Awareness is the birthplace of possibility. Everything you want to achieve begins here.”–Deepak Chopra

 

restaurant consultant los angeles

As a Service Coach, I observe restaurant teams in action and coach them how to win the game of earning customers for life. I take groups of service professionals from being average–and sometimes minor–players to being highly coveted members of an award-winning team. I help shape natural talent into something special.

Most owners understand the basic business proposition of giving their customers a consistent product.  But what many people in business fail to identify and grow in their staff is the importance of making customers feel as if their needs were exceeded. Again and again and again. Businesses that take the time to help their staff be aware, listen, and foster an intuitive sense about what customers want, tend to be the winners in the game of making customers for life.

I am lucky to be a restaurant consultant who has the great fortune of working with smart and insightful people who understand the value of hospitality. These visionary business owners see the long road ahead of them, recognize the need to invest in customer service programs, and bring me on to help improve their game. Like most great leaders, my clients understand the value of getting assistance to sure up their weaknesses–way before a weaknesses become a failure.

The first step in successful coaching starts with observing. I can tell a lot about a restaurant within the first few minutes of watching them in action. Give me a corner seat, a handful of minutes during a busy service, and I can give you an accurate assessment of a restaurant team’s potential, problems, and requirements.

Following my initial observations, I show clients what I’ve learned from watching their dining room. I offer them information on how keeping a constant eye on specific areas of their dining room can result in obtaining key information about their diners and how to better deliver what they need. Even in some of the best restaurants, leaders may fail to identify key areas for improvement. I notice dropped napkins while staff members walk over them. I identify neglected customers and lost sales opportunities where staff members walk past in a rush to get another task done. In some especially hurting businesses when owners can only see business losses, I may find unlocked beer coolers and liquor storage areas, menus with confusing descriptions, managers with lacking leadership skills, and dining rooms with a personality disorder.

Awareness may be something we’re born with. Our modern lives drain us of the impulse to stay aware. Lately, it seems, most Americans don’t seem all that comfortable with awareness.

Continue reading “Service 101: Awareness”

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Acts of Compassion #AFundForJennie

fundraiser for Jennifer Perillo
“I was thirsty you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in.”

When many of us in the food blogging community learned of the tragic loss of Jennifer Perillo’s husband, Mikey, we felt the compelling need to give something of ourselves. We banned together in great numbers and reached out to each other and to Jennie with prayers, words of hope, and images of compassion.  Thousands of us followed Jennie’s simple suggestion of baking a peanut butter pie in remembrance of her beloved. The baking and sharing words of support via the #apieforMikey Twitter meme, soothed our collective ache of grief.

Late Friday night I received an email from my big-hearted friend, Shauna from Gluten Free Girl. She asked via a moving letter if a handful of trusted friends would be available to help participate in an effort to raise money for Jennie. Her email explained that with Mikey gone, Jennie faces some rather significant challenges in the not-so-distant future. Their medical insurance will end in December. The policy’s monthly renewal rate will cost more than the family’s monthly mortgage.

Shauna suggested we offer up gifts of ourselves–a service, a food item, a piece of art–for a fund raising auction. Thanks to the assistance of a non-profit organization called Bloggers Without Borders, every item auctioned off will result in real dollars to be donated into a fund created specifically for Jennifer and her two little girls.

Donate to Bloggers Without Borders

In case you haven’t heard of Bloggers Without Borders yet, it’s because it is a newly formed non-profit organization for bloggers, by bloggers. Co-founded by my friend and accountability partner, Maggy Keet (Three Many Cooks) and Erika Pineda-Ghanny (Ivory Hut), this non-profit organization strives to use the diverse resources of bloggers to help other bloggers and people in need.

You can follow what’s happening on Twitter with #AFundforJennie. #AFundforJennie is a call to action for anyone willing to give generously of themselves via donations of money or of items of self. This fundraiser is our chance to step beyond what feels comfortable and give in a more substantive way.

To make a direct donation now, click that big BWOB DONATE button above.

A piece of me for a friend in need

As a restaurant consultant, I am in the business of service. I help restaurant owners and leadership teams focus on their long-term vision for their business, empower staff, and educate teams on how to give great service to customers. The more I teach the art of customer service, the more I realize that the work I do has roots in the ancient teachings of compassion and generosity. Great spiritual teachers throughout the ages teach the need to make a purposeful effort to improve the conditions of others. The lesson is simple: if we want to have happy and fruitful in business and in our lives, we have to be generous of spirit and give of ourselves authentically.

So when you live a life of service, there isn’t space for hesitating when you are called to be of assistance to a friend in need. All there is room for is YES, WHEN, and HOW MUCH. You just do it. Continue reading “Acts of Compassion #AFundForJennie”