Effectively Manage Your Restaurant and Your Life.

Effectively Manage Your Restaurant and Your Life.

If you’re like most restaurant owners, you have more to do than
time to do it.

But too many Restaurant Owners get so wrapped up in their business, they forget to take care of the other aspects of their lives. And the results can be devastating! Families are neglected, friends are lost, and the physical and mental health of the restaurant owner declines. (Just to name a few.)

So here are some tips for being able to successfully manage your company and your life:

• Put systems into place- mistakes are made when processes are not systematized. When processes are consistent, fewer mistakes are made and there are fewer fires to put out.
• Take a day off- despite the temptation to work a 7-day week, take at least one day for yourself. You will see your productivity and your health improve. (Not to mention how happy your family will be to see you.)
• Go home- set a time schedule for yourself. Schedule the number of hours you will work and stick to that plan.
• Set your priorities- there’s always another crisis to solve. So be sure to make special occasions with friends and family a top priority. Don’t allow a restaurant “emergency” to hold you back. After all, there’s bound to be another one tomorrow.
• Automate your business- this is sometimes  an odd topic for restaurant owners, but there are many places to automate your restaurant and I am not just talking about the POS System. If you haven’t taken the time to realize the value of automation, do so soon. Places you can automate – Any recurring task like weekly emails or marketing mailers, costing your food, paying your bills can even be automated and save you a ton of time. With your business on auto-pilot you have more time for other things.

None of the stuff in this email is new to you. You know it all. But unless you are willing to take these suggestions to heart, you will never be able to effectively manage your life.

And remember, nobody ever lay on their deathbed wishing they had spent more time at the Restaurant!

I would love to hear your thoughts on the topics I present and their link to True Restaurant Success. Please do not hesitate to share – Leave a Comment

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Live Meetings are a WASTE OF TIME

I recently got a call from one of my people, you know the one…“It’s so & so, call me back.”  No detail information – it is a Time Suck Death Trap waiting to happen.

Here is how I handled it; you might want to take note.  This little tidbit could save you about 10 productive hours in a week – or open up an entire day to play golf or spend time with your family.

I responded via email from my phone:

“Got your message, I am tied up but please shoot me the details of how I can help and I will see what I can do. “(I like the cell phone email, since it says it is from my mobile device – Busy Busy Busy – or at least that is what I want people that Suck Time to think.)

Here is the email that came back:

“It would be helpful for me to get together with you both to get some clarity on some questions that I have and to make sure I’m operating on the same page that you are.

I’m tied up with appts on Wednesday and I understand from Susan that Jonathan’s day is packed on Thursday.  Could we get together on Friday morning?  I have to meet this weekend’s client on site in downtown Raleigh on Friday at 2pm.   If Friday does not work, please give me some alternate times that work for you both.”

Nice message – for someone that is obviously busy I would think that another meeting would just make things harder and the work day longer.

My Response:

“I say have a conversation with Susie (the person’s direct supervisor) and see what you can get knocked out.  Then let’s schedule a call – 30 minutes – no one has to waste time or money traveling, we keep it concise and make it real productive.

Let me know when you have 30 minutes after you have spoken to Susie.  I can fit 30 minutes in any day.

Please send me an agenda in advance.”

Thank you

Jonathan

It appears that a meeting will be avoided, at least a long one.

Here is where this all stems from…

I am re-reading the book by Dan Kennedy called “No BS Time Management for Entrepreneurs – the Ultimate No Holds Barred Kick Butt Take No Prisoners Guide To Time Productivity & Sanity”. I recommend it for every restaurant owner or entrepreneur.

I am so intune with the value of my time that I frankly cannot afford to make a simple conversation a 2 hour ordeal.  It is just like the analysis of slicing, dicing, chopping in your restaurant – you cannot make real money in this business doing the work of an $8 or $10 employee – You simply cannot make $100,000 a year doing $10 an hour work – the math doesn’t work – not enough hours in a day, week, month or year (do the math – it is impossible).

Your Time is valuable and the people around you, especially the ones that work for you need to understand and respect that.  It is their Job to keep you on the big ticket items – Generating Sales and Marketing, of course.

Let’s analyze a meeting for a quick second:

• Everyone travels for 30 minutes (to and from, even longer considering you have to get to and from your car)
• it takes 10 minutes to get through the social graces and settling in.
• Someone is usually late
• The people you are paying meander when not focused
• Food ads time – You can’t talk with your mouth full

I think a lot of meetings could be avoided saving a ton of time and money, if not avoided – more focused and productive.

Sometimes, a live meeting is necessary such as an introductory client meeting, or one that something actually has to be visual or selected from a physical sample.  If it’s going to aid in your company’s income, go for it.  But…

A well organized, concise phone meeting can very often save hours upon hours of time!

Some of that time can be used to get better prepared for a necessary meeting or follow-up.  Imagine if you didn’t have to drive; that time could be so productive. Or even better it could be used to claim back some personal time.

The bottom line:  Value your own time (time Integrity), Teach Others to value their time and yours, and for the love of all things good, if you have a person that continually sucks your time and they don’t get it and will not change – GET RID OF THEM – You will save a fortune and have more freedom, guaranteed!

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How Can A Tight Timeline Work For You… and Make You a Ton Of Money

It is real important for every business person to set parameters for those that work for him or her to follow. I call them rules of engagement. Every owner needs to set parameters around how you will deal with others. For many this seems harsh but guarding your time and limiting your interruptions is the key to productivity.

Check out this model, if you want to see why you want to avoid interruptions:

The average Restaurant Owner is interrupted 5 times in an hour.

Each interruption takes 5 minutes and 3 minutes to get back into what you were working on.

So if you work 10 hours a day then this is how really productive you are:

• 5 interruptions x 5 minutes each x 10 hours = 250 minutes lost to interruption

• Each interruption takes 3 minutes to get back on track (5 interruptions per hour x10 hours x 3 minutes to get back) = 150 minutes lost on refocusing

• 250+150 = 400 Minutes (6.66 Hours per day lost)

Ok, now let’s think about the time you spend each day in Operations fixing problems, how about Human Resources? What about with your guests?

2 basic rules I follow to keep things moving and protect the time that is the most valuable “The time you spend working on your business as opposed to in it.”

1. Time Block: Set time aside that is uninterrupted. This is the time each and every day you work on your restaurant to push it ahead.† Even if the toughest time you can only take so much negativity… you have to limit it and at some point you need to work on getting ahead.Maybe even more important in a tough time I suggest you carve out time that your people know you are off limits. In the past I have even gone to the local library to get the time I need to propel my business forward. Set this time up as far in advance as possible and do not change it for any reason what so ever.† This sometimes is the most important thing you can do for everyone, ESPECIALLY YOU.
   
2. The 24 hour rule:
   *** Don’t let yourself slow down the process***
   This is verbatim my rule to my people. I believe in empowerment and responsibility and this allows them to ask the question but does not allow them to use a delay in response as a responsibility negator. The 24 hour rule – If you are working on something and are looking for approval or review for something you know is right for our business and have worked it through, especially when time is of the essence, if you believe it is quality and represents us as we would all expect then YOU MUST MOVE FORWARD, Make the call and go for it!. At least give ‘em 24 hours to respond. We can all agree that we can all get busy and that “busy” may slow us from doing the right thing as a company.

This 24 hour rule mentality is designed, usually when you are on a timeline (which as a company we are focusing on getting everything to be time based commitments) when you may have sent something to a superior and are waiting to hear input. If they say/email to hold until further comment then hold – if they are non-responsive you have to do the right thing for the business.

“I recognize that I can slow things and this is designed to empower people to do their jobs more independently, ultimately growing our business exponentially.”

- Jonathan W Munsell\

Both of these tools will create more freedom in your own work life.† Use this extra time to step back and figure out more ways just like this that can improve your business with actually less work from you and definitely less personal involvement. Think about it for a few seconds… if you can figure out just a couple more of these you will continue to figure out ways to get more done in less time and ultimately you could even have a 4 day work week.† Imaging this even for a brief moment… if you limit access to you and you figure out a couple more systems to avoid you in the chain of command… COMPROMISING NOTHING from a quality of operations perspective. The real improvement comes from empowering your people and your working less… worse case scenario you don’t work any less but you are far more productive and your company moves forward faster than ever before.

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