How Top Owners Channel Their Inner Salesperson to Create Great Restaurants

Today’s worker has less than zero interest in hearing what their boss wants them to do without context.

Smart people sell their decision and ideas.   

If you don’t identify as a great salesperson but you want breakthrough results in your dining rooms, you must become a great salesperson.

My best clients know this.

Whatever exciting idea they may have – whether they get it from careful, painstaking staying up to late data analysis or a light-bulb moment on last weeks’ vacation to paradise – they know that making it work means they’ll have to step back and sell the idea to their team.

“Nothing happens until someone sells something.” 

Who first said that? Drucker? Watson? Motley?

No one knows.  

But no one questions the truth that, once people buy, they implement.

So go sell your idea to your team so they can make it happen! 

Because I Told You So

Expecting people to take action based on your directive.

Remember that? It’s something you did back when your employees were frustrated having to wait a week for the next episode of Seinfeld or The Sopranos.

In the streaming age, however, that’s not a policy that leads to success for owners of successful multi-unit restaurant companies.  

Unfortunately, we still hear a lot of directives from the big corporate restaurant chains – and new CEOs coming in, taking over, and changing everything.  

One of the things changing? People are quitting. 

Matthew’s Three Essential Steps to Rolling Out Successful Initiatives
 

1. Communicate what’s in it for them. Don’t assume your people want to do their best just because you are paying them. Anyone can pay them. Find something with meaning for them; then, explain it that way.
2. Find out what they want to know. Always create time for input, questions, and discussion. When you let people participate in new initiatives, they feel heard and treated with respect – and they elevate their learning. Their ideas improve the process and results.
3. Buy in first, launch second. Take your time and perfect this before you begin something new.  People with buy-in achieve breakthrough results. People without it experience frustration.

There’s a reason great salespeople are some of the most highly compensated people in our economy.

As you enroll your employees to improve service, beat the competition, communicate to guests about new and exciting menu items, live your culture, improve staff capabilities, or manage costs, you must sell the reasons for doing these things to the people you depend on.

You won’t find a shortcut that will get it done.

Over to you. How will you be a more effective salesperson and boost your organization’s performance?