“Perfectionism is a hustle.”  –Brené Brown

I’ve spent many a night at the office–hours after everyone else has driven home and eaten dinner–to get ahead on my job. I’ve worked through hunger pains, dehydration, and exhaustion all in hopes of delivering a great product, getting ahead of deadlines, and/or outperforming others.

When I first showed signs of overworking and holding myself up to impossible standards, people asked me what was going on. Perfectionism, I’d say with an air of accomplishment. It’s perfectionism that drives me to push myself so hard.

I’ve spent years conning myself into believing that perfectionism is what made me good at my job. But the truth is, perfectionism has done me more harm than good.

Perfectionism may masquerade as a tool for success in the workplace, but it undermines creativity, true productivity, and happiness. Underneath the banner of “Be Perfect” is a bonfire of ego and self-loathing.  We say we want to be perfect for ourselves and others, while fanning the flames of self-doubt and low self-esteem.

Perfection is an insidious voice that tells me that if I don’t overwork myself, I won’t get what I want. It whispers to me that I’m the only one who cares about a particular project. It urges me to stay later and work harder because if I don’t do it myself, I will let everyone down. What’s worse, perfectionism has made me turn on myself and others.

Even though many of us in business use perfectionism as a badge of honor, it’s not the key to achieving success. Perfectionism keeps us from living a healthy and authentic life. Trying to achieve the unattainable goal of perfection is linked to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis. Perfectionism fosters a culture of fear within us and our workplace. Being the Best makes us afraid to fail, to make mistakes, or even be criticized.

Whenever I feel a bout of perfectionism coming on, I enforce mandatory self-care moments. I set an alarm to make sure I don’t stay past my out time at the office. I take walks around the block to break up the monotony of the project I’m working on. I put some music on. I read an inspiring article. Or, when things get really bad, I take an emergency chocolate break.

Despite all the mind chatter telling me the opposite, I have to remind myself over and over again that I am the most productive when I’m having fun and taking care of myself.  I don’t need to get everything done right now. There will be more time tomorrow. In the world of tech, the mantra is done is better than perfect. So why not treat myself to a productive next day, after I’ve had a great night of sleep and dinner with my husband?

It’s in the stillness of self-care–deep breaths, meditation, or enjoying a bit of delicious food–that I am reminded that overworking doesn’t earn me a spot at the table. I’m over the perfectionism con. In truth, we are all invited to be part of building something special. But we can’t show up if we aren’t taking care of ourselves. I’d rather be happy as I do great things.

How do you fight off the perfectionist mindset?

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.

Perhaps the rule book hasn’t been written yet, but I have yet to find the definitive guide to overcoming the unique set of challenges of being a woman, a leader, and a restaurant professional.

But it’s a thing. Being a woman and a boss is tough. I think not enough restaurant people are talking about it.

Since the beginning of restaurants, men have dominated the landscape. Even women as a dining public were not allowed to dine out until the 1900’s. Women diners were not even allowed in the same dining rooms with men until the mid 1920’s.

Becoming a female leader in restaurants has been even more difficult. “Respectable women” weren’t even allowed to work in restaurants (as waitresses and hosts) until the 1940’s. Rare were the women running kitchens, overseeing business, and owning the establishment.

Married women may have been allowed a hand in running restaurants in the early days of America, but owning a restaurant outright was nearly impossible.

Restaurant ownership continued to be a challenge for women well in to the 1970’s.  Banks would refuse women credit, restaurant supply companies would overcharge for supplies, vendors would charge high deposits and communities would shame women for being indecent.

Considering history, I shouldn’t be so surprised by the challenges I’ve experienced working in restaurants as a female.  The mere idea of women in charge isn’t even something that’s been in existence for 80 years.

If you are the boss and you happen to be female, you are more prone to being labelled a bitch or a battle axe. Bitch is a clever little word that’s meant to demean and shame. Battle Axe the kind of description that’s meant to hurt and give tough women who stand up for something, something to be ashamed of.

In my experience, I have seen men do the same things I have done and instead of being shamed for it, they’ve been given raises, promotions, and earned the moniker of being idiosyncratic.

GET JUDGED. FIGHT FOR RESPECT.

One of the key differences between men and women in leadership is that men are often given respect right away and over time earn judgement. Women in charge, however, get judgement up front and have to fight hard to earn respect.

FEMALE ROLE MODELS ARE HARD TO FIND

When I started out working in restaurants I was a teenager. I was naive, never-been-kissed, and eager to please. So when I stepped into the kitchen of East End Seafood as a “soda girl” I was uncertain where my place was. The males cooked and the women stacked high towers of fried food, made drinks with raspberry syrup and limes, microwaved cups of chowder and rang up customers at the push-button cash register.

80’s rock played on the radio and cooks talked about hooking up with girls and getting wasted. They also spent a lot of time shaming all the girls working in the kitchen, too, about how we looked, how sexually naive we were, and what we could expect to have be done to us.

Once when I was collecting limes in the walk in, one of the cooks stepped into the cold storage closet and rubbed himself against me and whispered something into my ear.

I was scared, confused, and oddly aroused. I laughed, because I didn’t know what else to do. I stood by the box of limes and waited for him to leave. When I went back to making Lime Rickies, I wrote the whole thing off as flirting–even though every word out of his mouth after that was mean and degrading.

At the time, I didn’t think I could go to the people in charge with what happened. The owners were a husband wife team. Tasos called the young women who worked for him chicks (even though I asked to be called a young woman). He kept his chain-smoking wife silent whenever it came time to make decisions.  

Later, after graduating from college, I got a job as a bartender in a live music club outside of Boston, Massachusetts. 

I was one of the first women to work behind the bar. I learned from my colleagues that the nights I worked behind the bar with them were more lucrative –especially when I wore tight shirts. When I showed up to work in a baggy black tee shirt and jeans one night I got an earful from my co-worker.  “You really gotta think about how you dress,” he said. No one seemed to care that his jeans were ripped and his tee shirt hung over his belly like a tent.

I moved to Los Angeles in the late 90’s. After graduating from film school, I eventually became a server in a fine-dining restaurant called Opaline, a ground-breaking restaurant of the early 2000’s. I wasn’t confident in my role as a server. The menu had dishes with elegant names and ingredients I had never seen or heard of before. There was lamb’s tongue, beef cheeks, and a French cassoulet.

It was there at this ground breaking restaurant, that I was first introduced to a female chef who was helping out in the kitchen that night. Her name was Suzanne Goin. She was a stoic, powerful force at the stove. She looked like a seasoned ballerina, with long, lithe limbs. Her movements were precise and elegant.

I was a nervous wreck when I stepped in to the kitchen and approached Suzanne for the first time. She was the first female chef I had ever met, let alone see in action, and I had been working in restaurants for a decade.

I blurted out some meandering story about vegetarians and food allergies and finicky diners when Suzanne put down her sauté pan and stared at me with an intensity I will never forget.

“I don’t care about the story,” she said. “Just tell me what they want.”

Her words hit me in the gut. Her steady gaze made me forget how to speak English.

The strength she had, her drive to get shit done–regardless of how I felt about it–scared the breath out of me. It took me a moment to gather myself and recollect my use of the English language.

“Can you m-m-make the pasta without the meat?”

“OK,” she said. She snapped her head back to the contents of her pan and put it back onto the flame.  I stumbled out of the kitchen, stunned.

She scared me.

Months later, I was able to extract from the interaction a precious jewel of experience.  Suzanne showed me that to get things done sometimes, you have to be direct. She taught me the importance of communicating quickly and with confidence–especially around a hot stove.

She didn’t resort to talking down to me, or to shame me. She asked me to make myself clear. 

My interaction with Suzanne shone a light on my own embedded sexism I had been programmed with my whole life. Her power frightened me. I judged her because she didn’t call me sweetie or say something nice when I came into the kitchen. She was a boss at the stove, and she didn’t give a shit if I liked her or not. She was there to get the job done, and she wanted it done well.

I began to recognize my need to dance around a thing in order to avoid being direct. I wanted to make sure everyone liked me. But Suzanne taught me that if you want to get things done in a kitchen or a busy dining room, there might not be time to be nice. Just say the thing.

Suzanne was the kind of woman I wanted to be.

BECOMING A LEADER

Several years later, I was promoted into the role of general manager for the first time.  I learned first hand how challenging leading a team could be. There were rules and expectations to uphold.  I reported to an owner who expected me to uphold my commitment to making his restaurant successful and profitable.

The friendships I formed when I started as a waiter changed when I stepped into my new leadership role and asked them to follow the rules. 

“You’re such a bitch,” they’d say to me. “Why do you have to be so uptight?”

INTERNAL BIAS + EXTERNAL BIAS.

Over the years of running and supporting successful restaurants, achieving financial and operational goals hasn’t been the biggest challenge. Compared to the test of being a woman in charge, that stuff seems easy.

We are in a time of great change. The #metoo movement and vocal advocates for women’s rights are helping us get clear on our own and societal biases.

Women in leadership need to talk about the unique challenges we face. As we step into the uncharted territory of female leaders in restaurants, we need to be open minded and be aware of our own internal biases if we ever want to see equality in how men and women are treated.

Pervasive gender biases that would have us believe that all women are by nature nurturing and soft on making tough decisions, need to be torn down.

Not all women are the same. If we want to see women rise in the restaurant business, we need to celebrate the outliers, the renegades, and the strong. Women shouldn’t be persecuted for it.

QUESTIONS FOR CHANGE:

If we want to see change in the world, the first and only place we can go is within ourselves. Here are a set of questions you can ask yourself to start your own internal revolution.

When I seek to be nurtured by my female boss, am I being fair? Am I expecting a certain kind of behavior because she’s a woman? When I look to my male boss for encouragement and he says “good job!” why do I take him at his word? When I get the same words from a female boss, do I question the sincerity?

Do I believe the marker of a successful man in business is that he build an environment where everyone feels nurtured and taken care of like a family? Are women expected to do this every time they join a team?

Do I believe successful woman should openly celebrate her wins? Or do I believe we should be modest when it comes to our successes?

If a woman asks me to do something do I perceive it as “yelling”?

If a man asks me to do something do I perceive it as yelling or talking to me?

When I’m frustrated with a woman what are the names I call her in my mind?

When I’m frustrated with a man, what are the names I call him in my mind?

Can I add more kindness to the situation?

]]> https://www.foodwoolf.com/2018/03/being-a-female-leader.html/feed 2 4908 https://www.foodwoolf.com/2018/03/foodwoolf-return.html https://www.foodwoolf.com/2018/03/foodwoolf-return.html#comments Wed, 07 Mar 2018 23:27:05 +0000 http://www.foodwoolf.com/?p=4897 Hi friends! It’s been a while.  Since my last post three years ago, a lot has changed.

The social media landscape has completely transformed the way we communicate. In just three years, Instagram has created a visual equivalent to visual blogging. It’s given us a constant stream of food-porn gratification and visual stories of our favorite food brands. This is the time of websites, lifestyle brands, podcasts, and online personalities.

It’s good to be back to the website I started in 2007. Ten years ago, I was an early adopter who  joined the “blogosphere” after the first wave of food blogging started to gain momentum. I wrote recipes, food essays, restaurant reviews, and eventually began writing a series called Service 101. These pieces were a place where I could share my insights and experiences as a service leader and consultant working in some of Los Angeles’ top restaurants.

Three years ago I began to get the inkling that if Foodwoolf was to continue, something needed to change. I was working on a book about restaurant consulting, when I realized that the most important shift I was seeing in the food industry was in fast casual restaurants. Wanting to expand my experience beyond fine dining and coffee shops, I decided to dedicate my next few years to the study of the industry from the inside out.

I put this website on the back burner and my consulting practice on hold.

I joined a healthy fast food concept called Sweetgreen. I became an operator of the company’s first west coast store and dedicated myself to learning about the healthy fast food industry from the inside out.

I experimented with leadership approaches. I had beautiful triumphs and some heart-breaking failures. I did intensive training in D.C., NYC, and Maryland. I learned about sourcing great ingredients.  I met world class leaders. I developed great people and trained future leaders. I saw the power of vision and core values in action. I chopped more kale than you could imagine. I worked side by side with leaders who inspired me. Together we struggled, failed, pushed, pulled, kicked ass, and pushed ourselves to be better than the day before. I lifted cases of romaine like a boss, counted lemons and weighed every vegetable in the store at four am on inventory days, and lead a team of enthusiastic team members to market success and personal development.

Several years later, I was approached to return to my consulting work to help a healthy food chain in Florida. I developed recipes, people, and operational plans that helped the restaurant grow and thrive.

I returned to LA to help open a world-class Northern Italian restaurant.  Together with the founders and, in an unexpected turn of fate, my husband, I helped the team re-define the traditional restaurant paradigms and build something truly groundbreaking.

In these three years, I’ve seen a lot of pretty remarkable things.  I’ve grown professionally, learned new skills, and experienced a whole new level of  personal development. 

I’ve seen how love, vulnerability, and patience make up the most important muscle I’ve got: faith.

I’ve learned a lot more while I’ve been away.  I’m so excited to share some of the lessons I’ve learned.

In addition to new content, I look forward to giving Foodwoolf a tune up. I’m eager to make this site a resource for people who love restaurants, who work in a food business, for people who are looking to open their own restaurant/cafe, or are interested in becoming a consultant.

I look forward to hearing from you.

I’ve missed you.

Shows like Homeland, the Killing, Mad Men, and other past greats like The Wire or The Sopranos tell complicated stories with dramatic themes like: you can never go home, you can’t deny your true nature, or the past will always catch up with you. 

If the writers have done their job well, the theme of the show is reflected in the main and secondary storylines all the way through until the televised narrative comes to a dramatic end.

I’d say that if my life was a series, this season has been full of wonderful narrative twists and turns—some expected and others completely unanticipated.  The season in my life and on Foodwoolf.com has been about big changes that began with small actions and events.

By aligning my personal and professional goals with my internal compass I saw how the incremental turns could lead to entirely new vistas.

The theme of 2014: Actively live in the paradoxes.

• Give in order to get

• Get comfortable being uncomfortable

• Go slow to move faster

• Get small to go big

Whenever I made leaning into a paradox a priority throughout my days in 2014 I saw extraordinary things happen. When I actively chose to do the opposite of easy—picking up the phone when I wanted to not call back, sending a generous email to a stranger rather than ignoring their request—I found success, generosity, abundance, and work that I have always wanted.

Give in order to get: Radical generosity begets radical results. 

Giving generously without expectation of getting anything specific back always pays back more and in unexpected ways—even in business.

I found that the more generous of spirit I could be with clients—offering through feedback and well-thought out tools rather than quick fixes and simple observations—the more I received in return. Short-term clients became long-term clients. A single audit for a fast casual international food company turned into a month-long assignment.

Rather than hold onto an idea that sharing “trade secrets” or details of my consulting practice would lose me business, I doubled down on the paradox and wrote about my work. I wrote the first draft of a workbook for people wanting to start their own restaurant consulting practice and began the editing process.

“You’re not really truly being of service unless it hurts a little…”—Unknown

2014 showed me that the more I gave of myself with friends, family, and business associates—especially if it was inconvenient or made me uncomfortable—the better the results.

Get comfortable being uncomfortable

This season I got the chance to experiment with the concept of finding power in being vulnerable. I learned to walk towards what frightened me, not run from it.

The power of vulnerability (a concept wonderfully expressed in Brene Brown’s book, The Power of Vulnerability and Daring Greatly) guided me to strengthen my personal and professional relationships by opening myself up, being more honest, and sharing my vulnerability with others.

By opening myself up to the possibilities—rather than lock down on what was familiar and comfortable—I grew more. Embracing the idea of getting comfortable being uncomfortable helped me to observe myself changing without getting too worried about the discomfort I experienced during the transformation.

Go slow to move faster

This season I was able to experience the paradox of slowing down in order to move faster numerous times. When my work felt overwhelming and daunting, I slowed down in order to work faster.

I forced myself to take breaks for food when working through lunch was a habit, and found that I was more effective on the other side of a good meal.

When the LA traffic was especially bad I accepted the situation and listened to radio podcasts, rather than beat my head against the wheel. Oddly, when I arrived at my destinations, I was relaxed and mentally charged while others were frazzled and mentally unhinged.

Get small to go big

Everyone has an ego. Ego is the “I am” voice that tells us who we are and why we do things.  Ego is what gets businesses off the ground and teams through the biggest challenges. Ego is the defining force within each of us that defines what motivates what we say and do. Our ego is what helps make us unique and defines us in the world.

Egos may be crushed, but they can not be destroyed. Egos may expand and grow too big. Big ego can be like gasoline: used the wrong way it can burn relationships and enterprises down to the ground. Keeping an ego in check can be difficult, especially in our achievement-based society.

This season I faced ego head on and looked at how to balance my ego with my desire to be humble and right-sized. Even as I sought to grow my business and improve my professional standing, I focused on being The Student, not The Expert.

I opened my mind, did my best to clear away the pre-conceptions of what “my business” is, and opened myself up to the opportunities of looking at things from a different perspective. The result: exciting and profound changes in everything I do.

It’s an inside job

This year’s dramatic theme — lean into the paradoxes — has resulted in a rich narrative life.  New and exciting storylines popped up. The pacing has been quiet, frenetic, and intense. Old (and tired) stories came to a close. Exciting character developments happened along the way. New characters were introduced, recurring ones grew in importance, and a few sadly left the show.

My role continually changed and developed throughout the season. I have been a leader, a follower, a teacher, a student, an observer and a creator of new things. I have had comedic moments as well as dramatic turns.

What has been the theme of your year?

“If we don’t cook all of this down soon, it will go bad,” my mother says.

She points to the case of juicy summer tomatoes sweating in the heat on the kitchen counter. She drops a sack of onions on a thick wood cutting board. My mother pulls a chair up to the counter and hands me a heavy cleaver. I am to be my mother’s summer prep cook. I am nine.

My uniform for work is simple. I’m dressed in a one-piece bathing suit and wear swimming goggles pulled so tight over my face, the skin underneath puckers from the suction.

I am not skilled with a knife, but my will push my small hands to go faster. Beads of humidity, tears, and sweat pool at the bottom of my mask as I struggle to chop white rings of pungent onions into tiny slivers. We sing our favorite songs from Godspell.

I watch my mother chop onions into tall mounds. Her face is wet with tears and her long, wavy hair drips with sweat. I marvel at her strength. I feel the smallness of my hands on the big knife.

When we are done chopping, my mother stirs the piles of our hard work into a pot. She adds the liquid guts of the tomatoes, bags of brown sugar, cinnamon sticks, crushed cardamom, mustard seeds, and freshly chopped coriander.

The pot on the electric stove pushes rings of heat and spice into the air that are so heavy, my heart bangs against my chest like a bird trying to escape its cage.

We stand together, though, stirring our precious chutney with a long wooden spoon. The chutney is not yet chutney. It still has hours to go until it becomes the tawny stuff we heap on chicken. Fresh from the pot the reddish mash tastes of bright summer, the spice of fall, and something green and unfamiliar. 

When the kitchen gets too hot, we charge outside for mouthfuls of fresh air.  Exhausted, I crawl to the living room and fall asleep. Down low on the green shag rug, I dream of tomato chutney and the sweet juice soaking through light clouds of basmati rice.

*****

My mother recommends following the Tomato Chutney recipe from Recipes: The Cooking From India for this dish. This British cookbook was first published in 1969 and is full of easy to follow and delicious recipes and can be found used on many websites for under $5.

Defining the WHY

What is the mission of you business and why should people care about it? What is the WHY behind all the hard work and commitment?

Building a restaurant, a juice bar, a food truck, or food product with the goal to make money and look cool may be enough to motivate a founder or owner, but the profit end game doesn’t motivate a team to work hard or commit to the organization for a long time.

 Beyond Profit

If you want to attract great talent and keep them committed to your organization, you ought to give them a bigger reason than just paying their bills. Successful organizations that attract and grow great people communicate and live by a set of core values that inspire and motivate big and small business decisions every day.

Conscious Capitalism

What motivates you and your team to come to work every day? Does your restaurant dedicate its focus to solve a problem in society? Do your business’ food decisions protect a way of life or serve a need in the community?

Feeding the hungry, educating kids, clothing the under-privileged, or promoting a healthy lifestyle are all great reasons to come to work and work hard. Integration of aggressive sales goals with doing good are integral in creating a healthy culture in your business and encourage real talent to your business.

Consider how your business can stand by your core values in a meaningful way. For example, if helping reduce hunger in America is an important core value of your business, it’s important to do more than just donate funds to a great organization. Empower your team to think about ways to reduce waste, communicate the company mission, and think creatively about how their daily work can serve the mission to reduce hunger.

Why the WHY Is So Important

But beware of thinking that writing “help the hungry” in the mission statement will be enough to motivate great people to work hard and stick around. Restaurants that claim a particular commitment to a great cause but show employees the opposite through business decisions and leadership actions, reduces credibility and creates a culture clash that negatively motivates staff.

I have had the great pleasure of working for culinary leaders who motivate teams and attract great talent through an inspiring corporate vision. But I have also had a front row view of the negative impact of business owners who speak of valuing employees and the environment in their employee manuals, but are wasteful in the kitchen and treat hourly employees like throw-away commodities.

Being an Employer of Choice

The restaurant industry is evolving. Employees of food businesses aren’t coming to work just to pay their bills. Hourly and salaried employees seek employers who can offer tangible and intangible benefits such as health care, tasty food, discounts, opportunity for growth, cool swag, and a fun work environment.

Employers of choice like Starbucks, Sweetgreen, Shake Shack, and Whole Foods offer employees a competitive wage, a fun work environment, opportunity for growth, benefits for full-time employees, discounts, delicious meals, and the opportunity to contribute to making a positive difference in the world. Even fine dining restaurants in major food cities like Danny Meyer’s NYC restaurants offer hourly employees similarly generous wages and benefits.

When an organization’s leaders know, understand, and live the core values of the business, teaching and leading the team becomes more effective and robust. When employees believe in and live by the core values of the organization, the workplace has a better chance at being filled with great energy and excitement.

Everyone knows it takes a lot to build a great team. You need to invest a lot of time, money, attention, dedication, passion, intention, courage, conviction, and commitment.

So If you want to maximize your investments, it’s best to create a place where people want to keep coming back to work.

What is your business’ reason for being?

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.

Why sell happy?

A sandwich may just be a sandwich, but when you buy a smoked turkey sandwich with fresh avocado from somebody who remembers your name, gives you a taste of something extra that’s delicious, and treats you like you are the best thing that’s happened to them all day—you’ve been given something more than what you expected.

When the retail clerk picks out what you ask for and then goes out of her way to pick out an outfit for you that when you try it on makes you look like a cooler version of yourself, you’ve experienced something delightful.

When the handmade gift you’ve ordered from Etsy is delivered with a hand written note from the artist, you feel special.

Understanding the importance of the how and why of delighting customers in every day actions is an important part of individual business growing towards something BETTER.

Why spend time and money in dreaming up ways to exceed customers’ expectations? According to Seth Godin, a best-selling author (Tribes, Permission Marketing, Purple Cow and many others) and inspiring speaker, business makers should be in the business of creating something that delights customers. Because when a product or service delights a customer, what’s gained is more than the dollars from that single purchase. What is created is repeat business from an engaged customer who is compelled to share the story about the cool new thing they bought.

In the connection economy, an excited customer who’s in love with your company’s product line or services and gushes about you to all their friends is just about the most powerful, organically grown social media tool there is.

Organic Social Media

When it comes to building a budget for a new restaurant, most business minded people focus on equipment, square footage costs, food purchases, labor, and utilities. But if restaurant guests really are looking to satisfy something more than just hunger, why aren’t more aspiring restaurateurs and food makers building happiness and delight into their business plans? Well, the simple answer is that investing in great service takes time and money.

People like Danny Meyer and the people behind the Union Square Hospitality Group, Mendocino Farms (a growing sandwich shop concept in southern California) and Sweetgreen have built successful businesses on three key ideas: consistently offer high-quality food, maintain a great atmosphere, and offer above-and-beyond service.

These multi-unit restaurant successes invest time and money into training and supporting a healthy service culture because they know that in order to build a business that will last, they have to do more than just make a great burger, sandwich, handmade beverage, or salad. They know that they need to “sell happy” in order to create an experience around food that truly delights customers.

Happy customers = return business + powerful marketing

Thoughtful restaurateurs with an eye on a goal that’s bigger than pure profit, understand the need to build something extraordinary for their guests. They commit time and effort to create an exceptional experience.

What kind of business do you want to build?

If you are looking to grow a happier and healthier service culture, send an email to Brooke -at- Foodwoolf.com and I will send you information about the one-day “Visioning a Better Service Culture Workshop”.

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.

Plenty of restaurants start with business plans and a vision for success, but don’t take the time to write any of it down. Owners commission blueprints, lease spaces, write the menu, decorate, hire the staff, and open the restaurant to the public. Money gets tight and they skimp on building training materials.

The opening team bands together like a tight-knit family and creates a living and breathing restaurant. Time goes by. Staff members leave and new team members come onboard. Change begins to set in as the remaining staff retells the story of what they’ve learned to the new employees. Fine point details are skipped. Corners are cut.

Instead of telling the story of the restaurant’s really cool filtered water program, for example, the only message that’s handed down is a simplified version. The training server tells the new hire: “every table gets bottled water or water from that tap.” Gone is the story about why the triple-filtered, reverse osmosis process is so important. Erased from the story is the ethos of the restaurant. What remains is an action, not the reason behind the action.

When there are no service manuals, no checklists for side-work or cleaning assignments, expectations morph. The finer points of service–the greets, the thank you’s, the crumbing of a table, the opening of doors–get lost as individuals begin to offer up their own interpretation of what hospitality means for them.

Service programs based on folklore suffer from lack of clarity, omission, and skipped steps.

As time goes by and the restaurant’s ethos is erased, so too are the expectations.

“Never show up late” turns into “he doesn’t mind if you are five minutes after your call time”.

“Never give away food” becomes “she won’t get upset if you give something under five dollars away to friends.“

“Every table must be greeted within two minutes of being seated,” becomes “get there when you can.”

When business owners skip the step of writing down the specifics of their service program, they hand over control of the culture of their business to their staff. The culture changes because it has to. A restaurant without clearly written goals and expectations is a restaurant without a compass.

Restaurant owners who want to create a consistent vibe and offer a strong hospitality program should consider investing in service manuals that detail steps of service, describe hospitality philosophies in detail, and illustrate goals and expectations of each role within the business.

Because if you expect your staff to share the same story of hospitality every day, you have to write it down*.

*If you don’t know how to write a service manual yourself, you can ask someone like me to help! Email me for a quote: Brooke [at] Foodwoolf.com.

A tall Latino man in a Coffee Bean baseball cap waits for her behind the register.

“Good morning,” he says with a smile. “How may I help you?”

Her face is expressionless as she keeps her eyes down. She scans the multitude of apps on the screen of her sherbet colored iPhone.

“Iced blended,” she says. A double-click with her agile thumb launches an app.

“What size would you like,” he asks.

“Regular,” she says, annoyed. Her mouth is angry. “Put some whipped cream on top.”

The tall register man leans closer. What did she say?

“I’m sorry. Did you say you wanted whipped cream on that iced blended?”

“Yeah,” she says.

He keys in her order and repeats it back. She flashes him her frequent customer app and keeps her eyes down. Maybe she’s playing a game of let’s-see-if-I-can-ice-this-guy-out-of-existence.

She tosses her phone into her purse, almost triumphant. She has passed the point of required verbal communication.

She pulls a Bank of America card from her wallet. She waves it in his general direction, but doesn’t bother to raise her eyes to him. She doesn’t take the time to look him in the eye to see the man—a son, a father, a brother—helping her.

She misses that moment when the register man’s eyes go dim as she has reduced him to a nonentity. She wouldn’t know anything about this man and the way he holds his head, or moves his glasses up to the bridge of his nose when nervous, because she is looking at her phone. He slides the card through the register’s reader and hands it back to her.

“Would you like your receipt?” he says. He holds up the slip of register paper for her to take, but she is already gone.