Buynov

Sometime ago, I read a quotation somewhere, which belongs to Savielly Tartakower, if I am not mistaken. The one I read mentions chess players, but it refers to people in general, I think:

There are chess players, who play poorly, but who know they play poorly. They are reasonable - help them.
There are chess players, who play poorly, but who don’t know they play poorly. They are ignorant - avoid them.
There are chess players, who play good and who don’t know they play good. They are modest - respect them.
There are chess players, who play good and who know they play good. They are the chess gurus – follow them.

In this case it is not important to label people and to classify them, in my opinion. Much more important it is to take a moment and answer a very simple question – which are you from?

The short-sightedness of the Bulgarian managers in the restaurants astounds me. Are these guys thinking or scratching their … The goal is extremely simple – bigger turnover, which leads to bigger profit. And optimizations are doable in almost any restaurant, and they can easily be applied. Here are some ideas from my direct observations:

• “Something to drink?”

This, in my opinion, is the most ridiculous thing in Bulgaria – there are just a few places where they do it. Besides that the menu should be brought fast, it is absolutely natural to order a drink for a start, so that you won’t be sitting on an empty table. In most cases, the customer knows what he wants to drink before he chooses a meal – “Something to drink?” with the menu would significantly increase the consumption of all alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. If you go in the US, this is like a God’s commandment – the question “Can I get you something to drink?” always accompanies the menu, simple and effective.

• Prompt servicing

First, you wait 20 minutes for the menu, then 20 minutes to order. Until you get what you’ve ordered and consume it, every desire to come back is gone. When the customer wants to order, he should be able to do it fast and easy, and not to wait for the waiter to come around indefinite amount of time. After all, the more orders are served, the bigger the turnover – respectively the bigger the profit. Not to mention that if you force your customers to wait, they will get nervous and might leave – you loose all the orders they could have made. Additionally, every restaurant has limited capacity - number of tables for customers. The faster the servicing, the earlier the customers will finish their meal and will vacate the table for the next customers.

• Attitude

It all depends on the number of tables a waiter is serving, and how motivated he is. It doesn’t seem right to have one waiter per 10-15 tables – in such situation there is no way you can get a prompt servicing, not to mention that the waiter will be overloaded with work and would most likely get nervous. Hence, he would not be able to provide good servicing, would not increase the turnover (because he would not be able to react to all orders promptly), the customers would not be happy about it and the tip would be small (is any at all). If the waiter serves just a few tables and is able to respond adequately to the desires of the customers, there will be an improvement in all directions. Plus, if the customer is satisfied, he would come back.

The idea for this post occurred to me while I was in Happy Bar & Grill, where all of the above are applied and work by the clock. The servicing is very good, you can get a good meal and a couple of beers for 40-50 minutes, with no hurry and no redundant worries ;). Even if there are no vacancies, you can wait for 5-10 minutes and a table will be available – this is the effect of the prompt servicing. The only flaw I found is that they don’t have a functional website yet, which nowadays is not serious.

Other good restaurants are the pizzerias Victoria. Both chains are relatively expensive compared to the others, but for a reason.

There is no formula how to be assigned to a management position, it depends on several things – the company, your colleagues, your superiors and favorable circumstances. The fact that you are assigned to this position, however, does not mean that you are a manager already, just a chance. I’ve seen enough accidental people holding high posts (and I am sure you met a few as well) to have illusions about this being based on merits or abilities. Anyway, if you happen to hold such position and you are willing to listen to what I have to say, here are several advices to make it easier for you (I sincerely hope that they will help). Here’s how to get started:

• Delegate

Regardless of who you think you are, you will not be able to complete everything yourself. That is why your team exists, to work with you, under your coordination – the objective is to complete the tasks together. Trust your team-mates – believe me, they will do the technical tasks much better than you, and you will have the time to do the work for which you are paid for. That is to help the people, doing the actual work, to do it better.

• Make compromises

Don’t delude yourself, that everything will go as you planned for it and that you won’t make mistakes. The manager is a busy man, there are a lot of tasks to be taken care of and in order to complete them, he has to make compromises with the quality. The less they are, the better, but it is imperative. This means that it will be important for you to prioritize your tasks and to appraise which deserve more time than the others. And don’t blame yourself too much about the compromises you made – when time goes by you will become more effective and more capable to assess which tasks deserve compromise and which not.

• Be good willing
  

Don’t presume that by holding up your nose, swaggering and strutting around the office you will get there. Nowadays it is important to motivate people, not to give orders. If you act as the warden, you risk to end up as the scarecrow, which all the colleagues mock and laugh at, even behind his back. Is this what you want?

And finally, never forget where you started from – the memories you have as a worker, and the bosses you had, are priceless. They will remind you of what is right and what is not, what you can and what you can not afford to do. Listen to the people you work with – they will share their experience as well, and it will provide you with many useful ideas of how to make the job smoother and more useful as whole. And don’t forget – regardless of what you read or heard, the management is a science of how to work with people and they are the biggest asset you will ever have.