clintjolly.com http://clintjolly.com Tue, 11 Oct 2011 04:33:40 +0000 en hourly 1 Clintjollycomhttp://feedburner.google.com Never Enough http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Clintjollycom/~3/4geU-UloZwA/ http://clintjolly.com/504/never-enough/#comments Tue, 11 Oct 2011 04:33:40 +0000 Clint http://clintjolly.com/504/never-enough/

I’m cursed with never being happy with what I have. I always want more.

It happens with just about every aspect of my life. Personal and business, doesn’t really matter much.

It’s the reason that

·         I have built a money making business- I always work hard to make it better

·         I’m able to live life (mostly) the way I want- I continuously work on saying yes to the things I want and no to the things I don’t

·         I have a lot of material possessions- buy something, replace it with something better, repeat

It’s also the reason that

·         I’m single- I have a hard time settling down with someone, no matter how great they are

·         I have insomnia, sometimes- I can’t stop thinking about how to better myself, my business, etc.

·         I get depressed- reaching a goal makes me feel like I didn’t set the goal high enough, so I still failed

I’m not bitching. Just throwing this out there in the hopes that some sort of clarification finds its way back to me. Somewhere in the not too distant future is the solution to my little problems.

At least I live in a world that allows me the freedom to have these problems. It could be worse right?

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]]> http://clintjolly.com/504/never-enough/feed/ 0 http://clintjolly.com/504/never-enough/ Living life in the now http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Clintjollycom/~3/j2xnjafs54g/ http://clintjolly.com/503/living-life-in-the-now/#comments Sun, 09 Oct 2011 11:05:47 +0000 Clint http://clintjolly.com/503/living-life-in-the-now/
A good friend of mine and I talked about living life in the now. Not worrying about what happened, or what will happen. Just enjoying the moment. I’ve always been a control freak. Always in charge of the goings on around me. Lear ing to let go and enjoy has never really come easy. But, let me tell you that living in the now is the way to go. Had plans for tonight that changed close to last minute. A month ago I would have been pissy about it. Today, I let it go. Went to a concert and got stood up by my “date”. Moved on…

Met some new folks and had a blast. Hooked up with friends and they joined in the fun. Enjoyed the night to the point that I forgot about all the things that would have bothered me just a short time ago. It’s fun growing up. But, I don’t plan on acting like it for a while!

Party on Wayne!

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]]> http://clintjolly.com/503/living-life-in-the-now/feed/ 1 http://clintjolly.com/503/living-life-in-the-now/ Comm Row http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Clintjollycom/~3/NtUMMSQSCzM/ http://clintjolly.com/502/comm-row/#comments Sun, 18 Sep 2011 22:07:02 +0000 Clint http://clintjolly.com/502/comm-row/
There’s a bit of an embargo on info coming out about CommRow. But, I was lucky enough to get a tour today. I can tell you it will be more than you expect. A lot of thought going into the place. And, they’re serious about building and being a part of the community. Also, I ran into the new executive chef, which I’ve known for years. With him in the lead I can assure you that the food and service will also be better than you expect. From talking to people about this project I’ve heard a lot of doubt. My only hope is that you, your friends and your family will go check this place out. Grab a bite, a drink and jump on the wall (I’m skipping the wall part myself…). That’s the only way to get a good opinion. I doubt they will disappoint.

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]]> http://clintjolly.com/502/comm-row/feed/ 0 http://clintjolly.com/502/comm-row/ The cost of doing nothing http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Clintjollycom/~3/i6YuFECIpzc/ http://clintjolly.com/501/the-cost-of-doing-nothing/#comments Thu, 15 Sep 2011 07:31:16 +0000 Clint http://clintjolly.com/501/the-cost-of-doing-nothing/

Business, a lot of times, boils down to balancing expenses and income. Good business folks are good at bringing income up as expenses go down. That’s efficiency. Great business folks are great at leveraging expenses into income. There’s a line to be drawn somewhere.

Here’s the difference- Great business leaders realize the cost of doing nothing. They lack the fear of spending money to a point that they realize the instances that an expense can be used as a tool to make more money.

Marketing comes to mind. An accountant will tell you it’s an expense. A businessman will tell you it’s an investment.

Labor is an expense. But, it’s an expense that you can manage and leverage into profits. A business owner’s time is invaluable to their business. Anything that they spend time doing that could be done by someone else is an expense. Hiring a person to do those tasks, while the business owner works ON the business leads to profits.

Consultants and advisors are expensive. Good ones cost a good chunk of change. Great ones cost a lot more. But, their time is leverage to build more profits with less money. The $100+ an hour seems ridiculous, until you realize the profits from the investment.

My dad, who has taught me more than I could ever imagine, has a saying “Stepping over dollars to pick up pennies”. I don’t think it’s his original, but it makes sense.

Every second of every day I think about business in some form or fashion. Every store I enter gets evaluated in my (admittedly biased and cynical) mind. I see handwritten signs with misspellings, marketing materials that don’t jive with each other, employees that aren’t trained in their jobs, a business owner that works IN the business 70-80 hours a week to save from paying someone $10 an hour to do a job.

In my own business career, I struggled a bit. I learned in the school of hard knocks. I learned a lot by trial and error. At 26 I was running a $10 million a year business with 72 employees. We lost a chunk of change that year. Our sales dropped by 40%, and then we made money. 6 figures a month at one point. Unfortunately, we borrowed a lot to get it done and we ended up closing due to the debt that couldn’t be repaid.

In that time, about two and a half years, I saw the turning point for me. I stopped doing things the same way. Or, more importantly, I started doing new things. I did them quickly, figured out if it worked and went forward accordingly. Scrap the bad ideas, keep the good ones and keep moving forward.

Keeping the old systems doesn’t work anymore. Doing nothing costs a lot of money. Watching a business struggle due to the fear of change makes no sense to me.

Let me give you a real life example from my last business.

Part of my business was a deli/restaurant. Really, it was a glorified deli that did some things differently than your average sandwich shop. A restaurant revolves around the menu. We would launch a new menu about every three months.

The process went as follows-

Look at trends, competitors and products.
Brainstorm new ideas with the crew. From management to employees.
Test new recipes with staff and get feedback.
Run the new ideas as specials and get feedback from customers.
Adjust as needed and start serving the new menu for a few weeks.
Use sales info to make changes. Get rid of the dogs, market the stars. Run for a few weeks.
Look at the costs. What takes too much time? What are we wasting product wise?
Adjust the menu again to it’s final form. Run the menu for a few months.
Start over, again and again.

(notice that customer feedback and sales come before the cost portion. Who cares what it costs if no one buys it? Of course, the prices were based on our best estimate from the get go, then adjusted to real life numbers)

In the tech world, they call this iteration. Build a product, test it, refine it. Rinse and repeat.

We saw increases in profits every quarter from the time we implemented this strategy……

It’s easy to blame the economy these days for a lack of business. Every one else is doing it, why not you? To this day that’s the excuse I hear from others of why my last business closed. But to me, I know that it was because I waited to long doing nothing. I waited too long waiting for everyone else to change instead of making change myself. That’s a mistake I will never make again.

Side note: I used “I” a lot here. It was more of a “we”. In the final years Butcher Boy had an amazing crew that would do whatever needed to be done to be successful. They broke their backs for my family and I’m eternally grateful for that.

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]]> http://clintjolly.com/501/the-cost-of-doing-nothing/feed/ 2 http://clintjolly.com/501/the-cost-of-doing-nothing/ Testing…. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Clintjollycom/~3/Mahy2SfYBKU/ http://clintjolly.com/499/testing/#comments Thu, 08 Sep 2011 22:01:10 +0000 Clint http://clintjolly.com/499/testing/
Just testing out some automation :)

Clint Jolly
Chef | Strategist | Entrepreneur
Great Thyme | FoodBizWiz
Mobile Phone: 775-772-8447
Email: clint@clintjolly.com

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]]> http://clintjolly.com/499/testing/feed/ 0 http://clintjolly.com/499/testing/ Thoughts…. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Clintjollycom/~3/mdKDqb-WDm0/ http://clintjolly.com/498/thoughts/#comments Sat, 03 Sep 2011 07:05:43 +0000 Clint http://clintjolly.com/498/thoughts/
It’s a random stream of consciousness kind of night…..

I just ate dinner with 22 folks at 4th St. Bistro in Reno. It was hosted by one of my catering clients. They’re the first clients to ever invite me out to these functions. It was amazing, but I’m not sure if I should feel rewarded, smitten, boisterous, proud or arrogant. I can say it’s not a bad thing though.

I sat next to a couple that have lived in Algeria, Columbia, England and others. About five years each. They vacation in Italy, brazil for Carnival and more. I’m jealous. I was in a coffee shop today. A “large” (is that politically correct?) man walked in. He was wearing plaid shorts with a striped shirt. The barista, obviously an acquaintance at least, called him out. “Go home and change. That’s ugly. Don’t you know better?”. I pride myself on being a bit stylish. But, as with most things I think I miss the boat. I guess that makes me improve constantly?

Speaking of improving- I have a list I need to start on to improve myself. Health, efficient business, the next step. It’s a constant thought that invades every day of my life. Get better. Be stronger. Make more. Give more. A friend told me last night that I need to focus more on what I do best. He’s not the first. But, I feel like I’ve conquered that (cooking) enough to be happy. I feel like it’s time to move on. I’m spoiled. I didn’t grow up with everything, but there wasn’t much more I could have asked for. We always ate well, lived in a nice place and enjoyed life. I walked into the family business and made a career of it. It taught me to work hard for material things, but I never learned to work hard to make myself happy. I’m working on that. Speaking of work- no one really enjoys it. Do they? But seriously, I spend 60-80 hours a week doing something productive. (may not get paid for all of it) That seems like work mostly. But, a lot of it is time spend acting like I’m working so that I don’t work too much. The other night at a wine bar, I was asked by a nice looking older lady if I was single. Her companion was my age, she was 50+. I thought it was a bit strange. But, she invited me to a speed dating event later this month. I think it will be fun, but my first reaction was to think of people to invite. That would sort of end up like going out with my friends and only talking to them for a few minutes each. That’s not the point is it?

I’ve worked hard in the last year to meet new people. Mostly business related folks. It’s been a real blessing to expand my network on a slow, but directed, pace. The next step is to figure out how to leverage these new connections into a win win relationship. There’s a lot there, and I believe in the power of numbers. Synergy. I consciously know that I could conquer my problems if I quit trying so hard to do so. Let the universe guide me and pay attention to signs that lead to the right outcome. The problem is that I’m a control freak. That makes me want to plan, organize and oversee every part if life. It’s an internal struggle that I’m not sure I’ll ever fully control. (yes, I see the irony there…)

The control issue hinders my success. I’m a great starter. I’m a terrible doer. I need other people for that. If I could learn to let go a bit and let them do that part, success would come easily. As for success- to me it’s the freedom to do what I feel like at the moment. That doesn’t mean being rich, although money sure does make it easier. It means having the ability to travel when I feel like it. To take a day off when I don’t feel like working. To build a new project when my attention is focused. I don’t care about a big house, but a few sports cars would be nice. That’s really not all, but I have to work tomorrow. It feels good to share random thoughts. You should try it sometime. Let me know if you do.

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]]> http://clintjolly.com/498/thoughts/feed/ 0 http://clintjolly.com/498/thoughts/ MyHabit…. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Clintjollycom/~3/1Wv2OLKuns4/ http://clintjolly.com/495/myhabit/#comments Fri, 26 Aug 2011 10:18:49 +0000 Clint http://clintjolly.com/495/myhabit/
If you know me, you know I’m a clothes whore. It gets stupid sometimes. But, I really believe that “the clothes make the man”. Anyway…..

I have shirts I’ve paid $300 for. Tonight, I wear one that I just got delivered from My Habit and had three different women comment on it. I paid $20 for it…. I’m shopping the discounts from now on :)

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]]> http://clintjolly.com/495/myhabit/feed/ 0 http://clintjolly.com/495/myhabit/ Back on track http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Clintjollycom/~3/Og2A6vGx0jI/ http://clintjolly.com/491/back-on-track/#comments Thu, 18 Aug 2011 21:02:02 +0000 Clint http://clintjolly.com/?p=491

I have a bad habit of constantly looking for new ways to do business. The reason I say that it’s bad is that it gets me off track from what I need to do. I know how to make money for myself, but I start to sway a bit and see opportunities pop up here and there that grab my attention.

I have two main loves when it comes to business. I’m married to the food world and marketing is my girlfriend. My catering business is the “cash cow” for now (not that I’m getting rich) that keeps the bills paid and affords me a bit of free time to build other ventures. Besides catering, I do a bit of business working with others to help them succeed in online marketing. I’m still defining my niche there, but have seen some successes with a few different folks.

My career in the foodservice industry has been a mainstay for my entire life. I’ll never leave it completely. But, I would like to expand and grow into a bit of a different direction than catering parties. Not that I hate it, I actually have a lot of fun working with my clients, it’s just that I don’t want to be loading grills and tables in a trailer when I’m 50….. So, I enjoy writing and I’ve had a fair share of people tell me that I’m good at it. I enjoy reaching out and interacting with other business people and learning about what they do and how they make themselves successful. Finally, I enjoy sharing my thoughts with people and building a community of folks that are interested in similar things.

I’ve found a way to tie all of this together into one project. I’m marrying my love for food, business, marketing and community into one in a way that I think most of you will enjoy. Early next month I’m launching a food news website. It’s not complete yet and I’m probably a bit early in telling you all about it but I’m excited to see it through. I will be sharing a chef’s inside look at new restaurant openings, new chef hirings, events, new menus, etc. Sort of a loose journalistic approach (I’m not a trained journalist) to food news. No reviews, a bit of professional opinion and hopefully the best source in town for foodie gossip.

I’m lucky to have a great friend by the name of Sam Shad that is going to be a part of the journey. You may have seen him on The Dining Show, Nevada Newsmakers, or on the local news for many years. He is sponsoring the new blog through the dining show and using his years of experience in journalism to keep us on track. We may be the first local, independent blog that has TV sponsorship :)

I’m also looking at teaching some classes in online marketing to business owners. I have been to a few of these events that others are teaching, I’ve watched a few on video. I think I can add a little bit of a different perspective since I have the experience from their end. I’ve been the guy running a retail store, managing employees and still overseeing an interactive marketing campaign. I was also running all of the marketing so I’ve seen how it can all tie together in a full marketing mix. Just last night I had two people ask me about doing classes like this. We’ll see where that one goes.

So there it is- back on track, keeping my focus to three ventures. Catering, the new blog and exploring the possibility of teaching others some things I know. If I start to sway, please slap me!

Here is what I would like from you, my loyal readers :) — If you hear of any good food news- restaurant openings, closings, new menus, etc. Or, if you simply have a great experience at a local restaurant or bar, shoot me an email at clint@clintjolly.com. I have a list of 15 or so stories I’m going to go after to get started but the more the better so I can stay ahead of the game. Also, when we have the site up and running in a few weeks I would love your help in sharing it with your friends that may be interested. You’ll see announcements here, Facebook, Twitter, etc. when we have the site live and things are rolling.

Cheers!!!

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]]> http://clintjolly.com/491/back-on-track/feed/ 0 http://clintjolly.com/491/back-on-track/ Time to Rise Up! http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Clintjollycom/~3/lYhMZbUVGPQ/ http://clintjolly.com/487/time-to-rise-up/#comments Mon, 15 Aug 2011 20:06:42 +0000 Clint http://clintjolly.com/?p=487

I’ve been in a funk the last few weeks. It happens to me about every 3-4 months it seems. I just feel down and as though I’m not doing something that I should be doing.

The funny thing is that I know how to get myself out of it easily enough. I just forget to take action for a while. Working on a new project is one sure fire way to get my mood up, the juices flowing and my spirit soaring.

I have a great new gig on the horizon, I’ll wait until it’s firmed up to share more details…. should be the end of the week

The other sure thing I can do is to sit and chat with my friend and business coach Andrew Hill. He’s blogging on his site – Sage at Work. He always has the knack for helping me find answers I need at the time. I leave a meeting with him full of spunk and go get it attitude.

The funk starts when I don’t feel as though I’m contributing or sharing enough. I need to be surrounded by people that are doing great things. I need to lead people in some form or another. I just recently joined up at Reno Collective as a member to get myself out of the home office and surrounded by quality people. (funny though that I’m writing this from home…..)

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]]> http://clintjolly.com/487/time-to-rise-up/feed/ 0 http://clintjolly.com/487/time-to-rise-up/ Surprise, surprise! http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Clintjollycom/~3/M3GdD4WEb2U/ http://clintjolly.com/485/surprise-surprise/#comments Sat, 06 Aug 2011 01:12:40 +0000 Clint http://clintjolly.com/485/surprise-surprise/
So, I leave the house about 7:30 this morning to head to the kitchen. Before I go, I put the dog in the outside kennel. Full bowl of water, couple of chew toys, all set….

Fast forward ten hours. I pull in the driveway expecting the dog to be happy to see me. And, he was, but he came running up from the porch….

Photo

Not sure how long he was running around the neighborhood. Maybe I need to find some better Mastiff proof fencing….. It’s patched for now. Tomorrow should be interesting though. Leave about 7 am for work and get home about 2 am. If you see a 140# bull mastiff running around south Reno- don’t fear. He loves people and doesn’t eat as much as you would guess. I’ll be by to pick him up soon :)

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