Common Epiphanies Among Independent Restaurant Owners at My Workshop
By David Scott Peters
Twice per year I host an intensive restaurant operations workshop to help independent restaurant owners increase profits and take control of every aspect of their operations.
“How to Run a Profitable Restaurant: from Soup to Nuts” is four days of intensive training, learning, networking and mind-sharing.
After every workshop, I’m exhausted. I stand on stage eight+ hours per day, teaching, answering questions, conducting Roller Coaster interviews with members, and of course, socializing. But I’m so fired up about the life/business-changing “A-Ha!” moments I see the independent restaurant owners in attendance experience, that I don’t even feel the exhaustion.
Here is a short list of some A-Ha!s from the past — an indication of what you might experience if you attend:
1. Without a well-defined goal, you can move at warp speed and go nowhere fast. From almost the very first minute of the workshop I talk about the importance of having a business plan in place, or at the very least, a financial plan and a budget. Almost to a person, owners will come up to me and say “I don’t know how I’ve made it this far without setting financial goals. That’s one of the first things we are going to work on when we get home.”
2. You don’t have to do the work, you just have to know how to do the work. Many owners feel like there is no way to get everything they’ve learned done when they go home. The only way to be successful is to understand your numbers and then train your managers to produce the data, to implement the systems and bring them to you to make sure they are accurate. In doing so, we can free you up from working in your business to working on your business. Your time is much more valuable than doing an hourly employee’s job. It’s a much better investment of your time.
3. Ideas are cheap. It’s the people who put them into action that are priceless . I can’t tell you how real this statement is. I have literally hundreds of alumni and I have a lot of incredible success stories. The unfortunate reality is that I also have a small group of not-so-incredible stories. Want to know the major difference between the two? The people who return to their restaurants and shelf the manual get no results. On the other hand, those who take action change see INCREDIBLE results, saving thousands upon thousands of dollars, saving their restaurant and more. That’s the difference between taking action and doing what you’ve always done. Whether they’re successful or not when they arrive, what restaurant owners learn at my workshop pays dividends and takes them to the next level.
I know I will witness similar A-Ha!s at my workshop September 14-17, scheduled at the Palace Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. It’s why I do what I do and why I love it. You can register any time for the workshop, and if you register before August 15, as a new attendee, you’ll save $1,000 on the price of tuition.
Editor’s Note: This post was adapted from one originally posted on FohBoh.com.
David Scott Peters is a restaurant expert, coach, trainer and speaker, specializing in systems for independent restaurant owners. He is the nationally acclaimed restaurant coach whose unique “SMART Systems” approach to boosting profits has earned him the title of, “The man who can walk into any restaurant in America and find $10,000 in undiscovered cash before he hits the back door – Guaranteed!” Visit www.TheRestaurantExpert.com for more.
