Blog

How To Stop Feeling Guilty For Not Accomplishing Enough And Get Through Crisis With Ease

What hurts us even more is our mental tail chasing: the guilt and the shame of falling off the wagon, or not being productive enough. We are conditioned to use time for something we can show for it, the result we can see, count and measure.

Hospitality Industry: How To Survive The Crisis Without Falling For Your Excuses

The hospitality industry is historically in reaction mode. It is the slowest to adapt a new technology and mindset necessary to stay relevant and profitable in any economy. Mostly, the hospitality industry fights change and adamantly tries to keep the status quo. During this crisis I see the same mindset over and over again: blame, apathy and defensiveness.

Hospitality Industry: How To Re-Evaluate Your Business And Survive The Crisis -- So You Can Avoid Being A Victim

Your business hasn't failed as a result of the crisis -- your business, while physically remaining open, had failed prior to the crisis.

Coaching Is Not Advice Giving

She has been with me through times of my life when I’ve felt most volatile. She’s helped my walk through many uncertainties and helped me make some life-altering decisions. We rocked and plowed through a lot of shit together! Then I fired her. I had to.

Customer Surveys Are Killing Your Business

Sprint finally realized: people don't stay on the phone for a damn survey! And, they decided, tricking people into it would be a worthy and profitable idea.

How To Conduct Employee Reviews

For many, restaurants are a transitional path for people on the way to “real” jobs or careers. Yet, this truth is a poor excuse for the industry’s notoriously high turnover. In reality, lack of employer support and diminished growth opportunities -- not the prospects of a “real job” -- are some of the biggest contributing factors to why most people leave the restaurant industry.

What To Say To Your Hospitality Team In Pre-Shift Meetings

The truth is, many restaurants don't have pre-shift meetings, and some that do still don't have a solid system or strategy around how they do it. Many restaurant managers think of pre-shift meetings as a necessary evil. They make it boring and glum by merely talking about new specials, 86’d items, and pointing out the negatives, like wrong uniform or schedule issues.

6 Ways To See Through The Posers And Find A Real Coach

Everyone's a coach now! My Instagram feed doesn’t lie. Coaches for this, and coaches for that. They are everywhere! Health coaches, life coaches, business coaches, fitness coaches, relationship coaches, wealth coaches. And I love this one: lifestyle coaches, e.i. undercover network marketers.

What's Wrong With "Can I Help You?"

When the hostess finally looked at us, she asked the worst question any service professional can ask. "Can I help you?” She followed it up with a raised eyebrow. My cynical side wanted to come out say, “Well, I don’t know, can you?”

How Not To Be Held Captive In Any Conversation

Have you ever had a conversation with someone who just wouldn’t stop talking? He hardly took any interest in you, just kept going on and on about themselves, and whatever interested him? Maybe you managed to break away, but you left completely drained.

Are Business Cards Dead?

I thought my business depended on how elaborate and prestigious my business cards looked and felt. I even considered ordering metal cards, for $8 a pop! I spent a whole month looking for the right printer and the right design for brass finish engraved cards that could have blinded someone from 100 feet away. I don’t know what stopped me.

I Am In The Miracle Business

I had no idea I would be in the restaurant business. After arriving in NYC with no contacts, only $40 to my name and absolutely no English skills, my first job in the restaurant business was as a bartender in one of Brooklyn’s busiest restaurants in 2002.

How Good Service Kills Your Restaurant

If you think service is why people return to your restaurant, It's a safe bet that you won't stay in business. "What?!” Let me help you out. You don't think people come to your restaurant thinking: I hope the staff is rude to me, my food tastes lousy, I wait for my drinks for an eternity, can't find my server when I need them, and hopefully they say "duces" on my way out, do you?