🔥 Bonji Hot Takes: Volume 38 🔥
Hi all, welcome back to the Bonji Hot Takes! We hope your week has been filled with success and happiness. With Labor Day shortening the work week, we want to help get back to that productivity mindset. Building systems is an essential task when businesses are on their path to success. However, as restaurant owners, we can occasionally get lost within the food world and forget that it's a business that needs proper systems in place. It can be easy to leave out small essential tasks when you are running around all day. Thus, with systems in place, you won't even have to worry about the little things that keep your business afloat and running smoothly.
Why Build Systems? In the world of business, countless hours can be poured into monotonous, day-to-day tasks. Truthfully, this can consistently strip away at the more important priorities that the owner or “boss” needs to be more concerned with. Some owners become consumed by the little things, preventing them from striving for growth. Brad Lea, a successful entrepreneur says that he spends about 10% of his time on establishing systems, while the other 90% is spent on growing his company through marketing and sales. Using this concept, you should spend some of your time creating systems that essentially run themselves. Of course, you may have to update or re-visit these systems from time to time, but a majority of your hours should be focused on outwardly growing. Time is your most valuable resource, don't waste it on low-priority tasks that anyone can accomplish with the proper training.
3 Systems You Should Have in Place
1. Inventory Management (Purchasing) Inventory management is defined as a system that helps managers understand how much stock of an item they need in order to conduct business, while also avoiding overbuying and risking products going bad. In the restaurant industry, there is truly nothing more important for managers to succeed in than inventory management. This will have the largest effect on your bottom line, as you want the proper amount of product coming in and going out consistently. If you happen to overbuy, you'll lose money if the items go bad or don't sell. Yet, if you underbuy, you risk not being able to serve customers what they want, when they want it. We've seen it happen all too many times. Managers under-order one day, causing them to scramble for product later in the week, or simply not be able to serve customers. Using software, Excel document, or overall creating a system to properly manage inventory is essential when operating a restaurant! 2. Training Employees For Day-to-Day Tasks Overall, training employees well is how everything starts. It seems extremely simple in theory, ensuring that they are friendly, upselling when possible, taking out the trash, and all of the little things that keep operations moving. On the other hand, if employees aren't trained well and systems aren't put into place, these little tasks may end up falling on your desk. For instance, say your manager under orders a menu ingredient for one week. This will lead you to be making phone calls, trying your best to get inventory ready for the next day. However, if you have an inventory management system in place, this problem may have never come about. Be proactive, train employees, and build systems around tasks, and you should have far fewer worries in your daily life. 3. Crisis Management Of course, major crisis situations may call for a bit more than a system in place. Yet, it is still absolutely essential that you have a protocol and system for what to do if something goes wrong. On a lesser scale, having a system for something like an upset customer can be massive for your business. Often, employees can be flustered when a customer is unhappy with either the service or product. Using a system for appeasing that situation can completely change how the outcome may turn out. For example, say a customer has been waiting in line for longer than they expected. Your employee can visibly see them becoming frustrated. Before that customer explodes, leaves, or writes a negative review, your employee can be proactive in solving the problem. A system for handling this situation could involve the employee offering the customer something extra for free, 50% off for their patience, or another way to ease the tension. This system could play a huge role in changing a negative situation into a positive one. Think about the negative reviews you've seen about restaurants taking too long… all of that could be flipped into an amazing review with a simple discount or free side dish.
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