The View from the Outside: Gaining Helpful New Perspectives

In this insightful episode of the Restaurant Success Podcast, restaurant consultant Matthew Mabel explores how gaining fresh perspectives can transform your restaurant business. Whether your restaurant is subtly deteriorating or seemingly thriving, external viewpoints are crucial for continued growth and success. Matthew shares compelling case studies from his consulting practice, demonstrating how restaurant entrepreneurs can avoid isolation and complacency through honest assessment. Learn practical strategies for improving restaurant profitability, enhancing operational efficiency, and achieving sustainable business growth by stepping outside your comfort zone and embracing new perspectives in the competitive restaurant industry.

Key Topics Covered

• How to honestly assess if your restaurants are improving or subtly deteriorating
• The value of external viewpoints for restaurant business growth
• Avoiding the isolation that limits restaurant entrepreneurship
• Real-world examples of transforming restaurant operations with fresh perspectives
• Strategies for maintaining growth momentum in successful restaurants

Links Mentioned

• Why Accountability Is the Unexpected Key Ingredient for Restaurant Growth
• Restaurateurs When You Lack Experience, Add Someone Who Has It

Resources Mentioned

• Website: www.surrender.biz
• Free initial consultation available

Connect with Matthew Mabel

Matthew works with owners of successful, independent, multi-unit restaurants to improve:

• Profit growth
• Sales optimization
• Guest count increase
• Unit expansion
• Employee engagement
• Brand loyalty

How to Support the Show

• Subscribe to the Restaurant Success Podcast and Newsletter
• Rate and review the show
• Visit www.surrender.biz for additional resources

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to the Restaurant Success Podcast. I'm Matthew Mabel, veteran restaurant advisor, coach, consultant, and speaker devoted to multi-unit independent restaurant unit, profit and revenue growth, internal harmony and ownership freedom and flexibility.

This is your weekly entree of the advice, strategy and tactics that I currently provide to my best clients.

Today we're going to talk about gaining helpful new perspectives from outside your business. We'll explore how to honestly assess whether your restaurants are improving or subtly deteriorating, the value of external viewpoints, and how to avoid the isolation that can limit your growth.

I'll share real examples from my client work that demonstrate both challenges and opportunities when you bring in fresh eyes to your operation.

Be honest with yourself.

Are your restaurants continually getting better, or are they ever so slowly deteriorating? Do you have evidence for your answer? What are your guests saying? What do the numbers say?

Recently, a longtime client has brought me back after a seven year absence. This company is a great business anyone would be proud to own. Why have they asked me to come back? Things have deteriorated slowly and subtly - in a way that turned out to be hard to perceive from the inside.

So we got to work and now we know how to correct that and make the company better than it has ever been - increasing profit by seven figures through increased service and staffing levels, hospitality, new menu items, education and training, and purchasing practices.

Another client's restaurants perform well. Life feels good. Sales clock in at a record high, catering grows, unit count is going up, and profits look solid. But that does not mean ownership is ready to relax. Instead, we initiate ways of accelerating success and making that company better than it has ever been before - including new focuses on marketing, branding, culture, levels of operational responsibility and accountability, and faster ticket times. All this alleviates a periodic cash-flow challenge related to fast growth.

From the inside, it can be hard to see what is really going on until the warning signals hit the red line on the RPM meter. Conversely, when things go well, contentment can lead to complacency. Maybe you've nailed your daily run so many times you never think about making it faster or longer. In either case - whether you risk future crisis or complacency - once you realize it, you can't sleep, either from excitement about opportunity or stress about decline.

As for me - I like my clients to be able to sleep soundly. Makes for healthier lives and better businesses.

A ton of my work involves helping people find the pieces that really make a difference. That brings a whole other level of leadership, inspiration, management, supervision, discipline, hospitality, service, and accountability. On a parallel track, we take steps to make sure they don't blow up and destroy what already works at their brands.

Many of my clients have focused so long and singularly on building their businesses that they have lost touch with the rest of the industry. The result? They're on an island of their own making. They know very little about any company other than their own. They have heard about what the numbers "ought to be," but they really don't know. Or they work in an area where they have no experience outside their company.

Highly successful, they and their brands either exist on an exciting trajectory or need a course correction.

Maximizing revenue, profit, and net worth, though - and speeding up that journey - requires outside knowledge and experience...

I've added links to a couple of relevant blog articles in the show notes that relate to what we discussed today. One article is about accountability and why it's the unexpected key ingredient for restaurant growth. The other discusses what to do when you're working in areas where you lack experience - and how to add someone who has it. Both of these topics come up frequently with my clients, so I think you'll find them valuable.

Let me tell you about how we might work together. I work with owners of successful, independent, multi-unit restaurants to grow their profit, sales, guest count, and unit count. My unique approach bonds employees and guests to restaurant brands and allows owners to enjoy the freedom and flexibility they have earned.

To schedule a call with me to discuss how to achieve your biggest goals, follow the link in the show notes. The initial consultation is complimentary, and we can discuss which big moves might be right for your operation.

Thanks for listening. If you haven't already subscribed to the Restaurant Success Podcast and Newsletter podcast, please do so, and rate and review the show. Find more information in the show notes at Restaurant Success Podcast dot com.

Also find tons of information you can use in print, audio and video form at my website, www dot surrender dot biz. Thanks again and see you next time.