Hello and welcome back to heroic hospitality. I'm your host Mario Nocifera
I'm so excited to begin our first episode by focusing on hospitality and asking you the question what does hospitality mean to you, your business and your communities.
As leaders, it is up to us to set the standard and to lift everyone up around us. True hospitality is a dialogue and customization of simple act or gesture. Yes, we are in the business of making money and growing that bottom line. However I feel it's the small interactions that can be potentially the most powerful for our guests, employees and our culture.
Allow me to describe a scenario:
It's a snowy day in Denver CO and a server in a restaurant over-hears a guest describing their grandmother's tomato soup to other guests at the (table, clearly) trying to validate ordering the restaurant's version.
Something is sparked and the server immediately gets 3 very small tastes of warm tomato soup for everyone to try including 3 crunchy croutons.
The guests are blown away, immediately thanking the server and praising the manager. The meal continues and the guests eventually leave... happy of course.
The intention of this particular server was not to make a couple extra dollars. It's because the
server truly feels great about their job, who they work for and the freedom they have to make decisions.
My question to you is this? How can we recreate this on a larger scale, having unbelievable buy-in from our employees and teams is powerful? How do we empower our employees to act with greatness and to help not only trigger fond memories but create them?
Well the heroic work begins before this server is actually hired, trained and integrated into the culture.
It's up to the owner and executives to distill their vision clearly, understanding what they are asking for and how they are asking for it. I'm referring to the high level operating procedures, best practices and clearly defining the experiences they want for their employees and guests.
The owners are the roots of all organizations.
And once the roots are established and anchored they communicate and collaborate buy-in from the senior operators and managers. Collaboration is the key they are the ones that are actually running the business.
I’ll refer to the operators and managers as the stem being primarily responsible for the culture and growing a profitable business.
So when the ownership and managers are on the same page and have the freedom to manage with intention It is much easier to instill measurable strategies and best practices on a daily basis.
The roots anchor the stem and the stem supports the leaves and branches.
The leaves and branches not only get their energy from ownership and management, they also get energy from the environment. It becomes all encompassing.
Day to day frustrations and challenges of running a hotel or restaurant can sometimes be (overwhelming + difficult) AND at no point will the people we employ always be able to give 100%.
As leaders, managers and... particularly owners, ask yourself... how are you showing up for your employees? Do they have the tools necessary to execute the job that you expect of them? Are they empowered to make decisions? How well do they know your brand your vision and your goals?
But any way real quick, back to my tomato soup story… None of the guests actually ordered the soup, they didn't care for it… However two of them left a world class, 5 star review, said it was “their favorite” restaurant and described and how it made them feel. Getting anyone to say its their favorite anything is indisputable its their feeling.... In addition they went back the next week with a 6 top and spent over 415 dollars.. They like the food, but it's the experience they receive that genuine feeling of being cared for that brings them back.
This experience cost under $0.25 and 3 minutes of time.
The secret recipe here is the employee that cared and felt cared for by the leadership of the restaurant.
What are the BEST businesses doing consistently? LIVING BY THE ROOTS and being driven by leadership that has THE employees best interest.
Hospitality goes far beyond restaurants and hotels and needs to have the spotlight no matter what business you are in.
Now Allow me to ask YOU the listener, what are some of your best practices you employ to show up for your people and teams? Are these strategies working and would you be willing to share them with with us?
Next week I'll talk about how to make tomato soup and all the different steps it takes to put soup or anything else for that matter in a bowl. Well not really… Anyway, tune in, and please if you have any questions feel free to email me at [email protected] I love this subject!
Until then, I encourage you to smile and make someone's day...
Thanks again for listening to the show!
And feel free to visit MarioNocifera.com
