Fix Your Hospitality Training through Leadership Development

If you think your managers are a cost, you’re already losing money.

After working with over 300 restaurants worldwide, I’ve seen the same mistake again and again: owners try to fix training, systems, or hospitality first… but nothing truly changes until leadership is fixed. Leadership is the foundation. If it’s weak, everything else breaks.

In this video, I break down how an $80,000 manager can either drain your business or become a profit-generating asset. The difference comes down to how you develop them. When managers are told to just “manage,” you get inconsistency, turnover, and missed revenue. But when they’re trained to lead and develop people, your entire operation starts to scale.

Here’s what that actually looks like in your business:

✔️ Lower employee turnover (saving $20K–$30K/year)
✔️ Increased upsells without being pushy (adding $50K+ in revenue)
✔️ Better guest experiences that drive repeat visits
✔️ More 5-star reviews and word-of-mouth growth
✔️ A team that performs without constant oversight

This isn’t theory, it’s a proven framework we’ve used with hundreds of restaurants. When you shift from seeing leadership as a cost to expecting a return on it, everything changes. Your team gets stronger, your systems start working, and your business becomes more predictable and profitable.

At the end of the day, your staff controls your guest experience, your guest retention controls your revenue, and your leadership controls it all.

If you want help actually implementing this into your restaurant, I’m hosting a free live training where I’ll walk you through how to build leadership, training, and systems that actually stick. You’ll also get a workbook so you can apply everything directly to your business.

Transcript

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So we've worked with over 300 restaurants worldwide, and that number's probably higher. I gotta actually count it. But the big takeaway there for me is that we've developed a lot of leaders because in order to scale a business, improve a business in any way, shape, or form, whether it's through hospitality, whether it's through systems, whether it's through just the training process itself, um, ultimately what we have to do is we have to fix leadership. Leadership has to be the first and the most important thing that we fix. Thinking that it's the other way around, in any way, shape, or form, for example, I want to fix my hospitality, so I think I need to fix my training, but you have to fix your leadership first because your leadership is allowing that hospitality to live in a bad space or in a detrimental space in the first place, right? Your leadership should not allow things to happen that are detrimental to the business. In fact, they should be only contributing to things that benefit the business. Your leadership has to be looked at as an investment and not a cost. If you look at your leadership as a cost, like it cost me$80,000 to have this leader a year, then that's what you're gonna occur is a cost. If you say, my leadership, I invest$80,000 a year in them, then that's where you're gonna start getting an investment by just framing it certain ways and understanding their job function, right? A couple things. Their job function is A, to develop people. If they can develop people successfully underneath them, they're going to be an ROI. Okay, so let's just say I have a manager that I pay$80,000 to, and I just say, hey, go manage. Basically, count cash, walk around, talk to tables, talk to staff, make sure they're not late, make sure people aren't stealing, uh, make sure the building doesn't burn down, put out fires as they pop up, and oh yeah, give really good hospitality. Oh yeah, hold people accountable. Oh yeah, uh make sure everyone's doing a really good job. Oh yeah, have people upsell, oh yeah, be better with the team. Then I'm gonna get diminished results, right? Now, if I look at this manager and say, I want to turn him into a leader, okay, and I have some problems I want to solve. First of all, my employee retention is low, right? It's on the lower side. We have high employee turnover, it's industry standard, blah, blah, blah. I want to lower that. Secondly, we don't have any upsells going on right now. I notice that none of our tables are upselling or upselling consistently. That means we're leaving money on the table. I want them to work on that as well. Third, hospitality is my guest retention lever. You can predicate the success of my business based off of my guest retention. How well am I retaining my guests? And so I want to make sure I'm retaining my guests at the highest level possible because my staff is who is in control of my guest retention. Nobody else. Zero people. It's all my staff. I, as an owner, cannot be in charge of gas retention because I'm not at every table all the time. Same with my manager. So the person who is going to be in charge of my guest retention is the host, is the server, is the bartender, is the busser, is the food runner. And I have to understand that. It's the cashier, it's the barista, it's everybody that interacts, it's the drive-through window employee. It's every person that interacts with the guest guest regularly is going to be in charge of my guest retention. My guest retention is in charge of my profits. My profits are in charge of my business, and my business is in charge of me. I need to adhere to guest retention at the highest level possible, which means that I need to focus on making sure I develop my staff at the highest level possible to give the best guest experience possible in order to get the highest level of guest retention possible. So that way I have the highest profits possible, which means my business is happy, which means I'm happy, right? And I'm putting that in very lame's terms. I don't think money should be happiness should be predicated on money. But if you want your business to be successful, you want to keep people employed, you want to keep your bank account happy, you want to keep the stress levels down, you want to make a get create a thriving, successful business, that's how it's gonna work, right? So with that being said, I have three things to focus on employee retention, guest retention, upsells. Now, I'm gonna focus on those right things. So now I have a manager and I'm gonna say I want to turn that manager to a leader. So I want them to lead. Number one reason why people quit a job is because of bad leadership. So I want to right away lower my employee turnover rate by developing my leaders at a high level so that people won't leave because of that reason. Secondly, I want to have a good leader who brings good morale, creates good morale for the staff because he's a good leader. So I'm gonna raise employee retention that way. Secondly, I'm gonna have him develop the employees at a high level so A, the restaurant stays busier, B, the staff is better with the guests, so they get more tips and they're busier, so they get more tips at a higher level, so they're gonna stay longer. And that alone, right there, I can almost guarantee it will save you$20,$30,000 a year almost off the bat, just by focusing on those two things. Okay, so we're paying a manager$80,000 a year. We turn him into the leader, he just made us$30,000 by just basic ways of lowering employee turnover. Now, if we go really into the nitty-gritty, we can go get that number down much lower, but if you want to go basic,$30,000. So now you're paying him$50,000, right? Because you just paid$30,000 of his salary because he lowered or she lowered turnover rate. Next wanna focus on upsells. People aren't asking. That's a problem at the tables. It's not because no one's buying, it's because no one's asking. And no one's asking because they don't believe in it. And they don't believe in it because they haven't been set up correctly. We have to give strategy to them, to the staff, right? If a server wants, if they want a server to upsell, we have to create a strategy and then we have to train them on that strategy and we have to make it really simple for them. The simpler the better. If they order this, ask for this. And it's not constantly asking them for upsells, it's guiding the guests to a better experience possible. That's why it's a strategy, right? When they don't know they're being upsold to. It feels like they're being guided to a better experience, and they are. We give them a better experience and they thank us, right? Thank you for giving me an opportunity to have a better experience versus just not asking me for a single upsell the whole time I'm there. That's crazy. Now let's just say we add 5% of uh uh uh check averages across the board with just a simple implementation. Your restaurant's doing a million dollars a year, that's fifty thousand dollars, right, in sales. So now that's fifty thousand dollars in sales that you did not have before, that you now have because you've trained this manager to be a leader and he's managing, monitoring all this stuff. He's making sure the training's in there, he's being making sure it's managed, all that stuff, and he's developing the people because we trained him to be a leader. Now that$80,000 went down to$30,000,$50,000 because he saved us$30,000 in employee turnover. And now it goes down to zero because he just created$50,000 worth of upsells in one year because he is trained to develop people the right way. So now his rate, now his salary is zero dollars. Now you talk about guest retention. So guest retention again, developing the people underneath them. The staff is being developed at a high level, which means that they can maximize guest retention. That's what staff development is people development. I'm developing them to be the best versions of themselves and giving the tools to be the best employee, right? So I'm gonna teach my staff, create an environment where I can cultivate a staff that can execute at a high level. This includes accountability, holding people accountable at a high level. This includes training rigorously at a high level. This includes holding the standard, this includes showing up every single day and being the example amongst many other things as a leader. But I show up and I do that and I train my staff and develop my staff at a high level. So now they can retain the guests at a high level, which means the guests are coming back more often, which means the guests are actually spending more, which means the guests are marketing for us, telling their friends and family about us. Because we have to understand one thing. When a guest walks in the door, we don't want to just serve them and make sure they leave happy. We don't want to just serve them and make sure things don't go wrong. That's the least we can do, and that's a wrong mindset to train anybody in our business. When a guest walks in the door, we want to do three things. Again, clarity, focus, giving your team clarity and focus. And then we gotta train on this. We want three things we want them to do. One, we want the guests to come back. Two, we want them telling their friends and family. Three, we want them leaving a review. That's our mission, that's our goal. Not when they come in, be really nice and make sure they leave happy or make sure nothing's broken, make sure nothing goes wrong. If something goes wrong, fix it. No, we're we have a clear-cut goal and directive. Now, in order to do those three things, we're gonna have to give them a pretty freaking good experience. And it has to be thoughtful and it has to be a hospitality experience. What Wolga Dara says, one for one, not one for all. If it's one for all, that's just service. If I'm really nice to people, I'm really knowledgeable and I'm really friendly, and I serve you with a big smile throughout the entire experience. That's just me being nice. That's service. A one for all, that means it's a transaction. I'm just going through the transaction. One for one means that I am asking you questions and figuring out a way to give you a unique hospitality experience. Okay, so that's what you need to do to make sure they come back. Wow, that was amazing. Now that was pretty good. Yeah, that's good. That was good, she was nice. He was nice, guys. Oh my gosh, he was amazing. I gotta tell someone about that. That blew my mind. How do you know to think that? How do you know to do that? What who told him that? That's amazing. I was so good. I can't believe they went above and beyond for me like that. I can't believe they said that and then the manager came out, then the host came out. So we want them coming back. We want them telling their friends and family. If you wow your guests, if you exceed their expectations when you least expect it, meaning, for example, if it's someone's birthday, if you bring them a birthday cake, you're not exceeding their expectations when they least expect it. If they come in and say it's their birthday and you're bringing them a birthday cake, they're expecting that. In fact, they will be disappointed if you don't bring that. That's how much they're expecting it. If we do something special, go above and beyond, then that's going to exceed their expectations when we least expect it. What does that look like, right? What is where is the creativity there? How do you figure that out? How do you develop that? How do you make it one for one? It takes effort, but again, you want to run a highly profitable business where that can scale and grow at command, these are the things you have to do. What other people aren't doing, they're not willing to put in the work, but you are. Number three, we want them leaving an amazing review, right? We want social proof. We want someone to search restaurants near us or your type of restaurant, your type of cuisine. And when your restaurant pops up, three, four, five, six, seven down the line, and they're looking and they're scanning and they see yours and they go, Whoa, they have 5,000 reviews and they have a 4.8. That is undeniable social proof. I no longer have to look at anything, right? I'm just looking at the cuisine. Those kind of reviews tell me this place could be absolutely amazing. Or I'm looking at two different steakhouses. This steakhouse has 157 reviews and a 4.7. This steakhouse has 5,000 reviews and a 4.7. Well, I'm just gonna pick the one that has more reviews. Like that's that's it. Uh these both look great. I'm just trying to decide, split decision. I'm taking this one. Has 5,000 reviews. How do I say no? And you can absolutely do it. We've worked with a restaurant group that just last month one employee got 140 reviews, five-star reviews. And before that, they got 12 five-star reviews a whole month before that. This month, one employee 140 reviews. What does that prove? It's absolutely doable and it's been doable. In fact, that whole year before, right, they just spent no time doing those things. They just spent, they just didn't get reviews, right? They select all the imagine how many reviews they had if they were if they had implemented this a year, two, three years ago, right? Just simply setting it up, setting up the systems and the training and the leadership. So that's what we want. Now, if we get that to happen statistically, proven statistic, proven study, if you can increase your guest retention by 5%, you can increase your profits by 25%. So if I'm a business owner that owns a restaurant, I would say, what can I do to freaking obsess over that 5%? Because if you're telling me there's a way to increase my profits by 25%, I'm all years. And if it doesn't cost me an arm and a leg, I'm all years. If I don't have to buy another restaurant or a bigger restaurant, if I don't have to buy, if I don't put up more staff on, if I don't have to buy a second location, if I don't buy a food truck, right? And I can increase my profits by 25%, I'm all in. How do I do it? How do I obsess over it? Oh, you increase your uh guest retention by 5%. How do I increase it by 10? How do I increase it by 15? How do I go to 20? What do I need to do? What that needs to be my obsession, my goal, my mission, right? The numbers are there. You should you should want to do it just because you're giving hospitality, you're honoring your guests. But if you want to look at it strictly from a numbers point, 25% increase in profits if you increase your guest retention by 5%. So let's say this leader that you created does do that job and increase it by 5%, increase your profits. Or let's just say you're you increase your sales by 25, 25%. That means you do a million dollars in sales, they can increase it by$250,000, right? And this is a proven study. Proven study. And so not simple, it's not easy to increase guest retention by 5%, especially when you measure it and you're actually uh able to measure it. So that means it's$250,000. Let's just say that study's wrong. Let's say that study's wrong by half, by 50%. It's wrong by 50%, okay? That's still an increase of$125,000. Let's say that study's wrong by 75%, right? Let's just say it doesn't increase it by 25%, increases it. Let's just say it increases it by 6%. So that means we did a million dollars that you had that that manager by increasing your guest retention by 5% that year, it'll increase your sales by 6%. Again, 75% off of what the study has said. Let's just go with that low, low number. That's still$60,000 if you're doing a million dollars a year. So that means now that this leader who you hired went from being paid$80,000 a year, but then he lowers your employee turnover rate by$30,000. So now he's only costing you$50,000 a year, but then he increases check averages through upsells by$5 a year. So now he's costing you zero dollars, but then he gets your guest retention up by 5%, and we just shoot extremely low and say you're only getting a 6% increase in sales. Now he has made you his profit, he's netted, including his salary, he has netted you$60,000. Now, obviously, I know there's taxes and all that stuff that you have to, you know, you have to consider when you have an employee. I get that, right? But let's just say he with all that said and done, then$30,000. That means you went from I'm gonna hire this manager for$80,000 and he can put out fires and I hope he does a lot better, or I'm gonna invest$80,000 a year in this manager. And with that investment, I'm going to get an ROI, demand it. And so I'm gonna train him and develop him at the highest level possible. I'm gonna give him all the tools to be as successful as humanly possible. And then with that, now instead of him costing you$80,000 a year, he is profiting out the door, out the door. You have a free manager who's also paying you. He's walking in saying, I'm gonna work and also here's$30,000. Thank you for letting me work here. I appreciate it. That's the difference between mindset, framing. If I look at it as a cost, then he will become a cost. If I look at him as investment and I'm determined to get an ROI on my investment, and that's what's beautiful about employees and investing in your employees, is that you can control the ROI, right? If you invest money in the stock market, you can't control that, right? But with your employees, you can because it's just how well you're gonna develop them, how much time you spend with them, how much tools you're gonna give them, how much education you're gonna give them, how much are you gonna learn to learn to give to them, right? That's what it all, that's where it all matters. That's where that's where it becomes profitable. When it comes to leadership, and again, when you want to fix something in your restaurant, I want to fix systems, I want to fix training, I want to fix hospitality, I want to fix my servers, uh, uh execution, my host, I want to fix check averages, I want to fix sales. It all starts with leadership.