Latest / Choppin’ It Up by Bloomberg Intelligence / Great Food, Training Fuel Restaurant Success

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Great Food, Training Fuel Restaurant Success · Choppin’ It Up by Bloomberg Intelligence

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Chopping It Up Episode eleven. I'm your host,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Mike Hallen. I'm the senior restaurant and food service analyst
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: here at Bloomberg Intelligence, and it's my pleasure to introduce
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: today's guests. Marvin Albali, CEO of Franchise Global Brands and
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: author of Restaurant Excellence, the Ultimate Guide to Success in
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: the Food and Beverage industry. Thanks for doing this, Marvin,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Thanks for inviting me to the show. You
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: got it so You've had a unique career path. Can
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: you share a little bit about your journey in the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: restaurant industry? Sure? So I started my career. The first
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: thing I started with was that I pursued education and
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: hotel and cattering management. I studied that for four years,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: and after graduation, I took my first job with Chiles
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: as an assistant manager. Made all my way up to
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: a training manager and I was awarded the Operator of
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: the Year by Bricker International. The same franchise Z that
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: operated Chile's was also the master franchise of Food Ruckers.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: So I was promoted to an operations consultant and supported
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two restaurants for about four years. And then
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: one of the another franchise Z approached me. He was
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: a franchise of six restaurants food Ruckers Restaurants and approached
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: me to become a company director. He wanted to grow
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: his company, so I joined the franchise Z and I
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: opened Carribook Coffee, Marble Slab Creamery, and the Great American
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Cookie and two more food Ruckers. In total, we grew
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: from twelve restaurants to twenty two. It was an incredible experience.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I was only twenty two years old and I had
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: to learn everything from designed to site selection all the
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: way to opening. After that, I joined Applebee's, the largest
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: car will dining chain in the world, as a company
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: director for one of the franchise franchise Ease. And then
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: I had a great opportunity to support sixty six restaurants
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Burger King Restaurants in North America, and so I joined
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: the corporate office of Burger King in Miami and supported
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: sixty six restaurant in British Columbia and Alberta in Canada.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: It was my only fast food experience QUSR experience, but
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: it was amazing. And then I joined one of the
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: most iconic restaurant companies in North America and one of
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: the oldest actually, it's called White Spot out of Vancouver,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: about one hundred and fifty restaurants in total. They have
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: two categories. They have a fast casual brand called Triples
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: and they have sit down restaurant family dining called White Spot.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: A fantastic company, they won Best Managed Companies for about
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: seven years in a row an amazing culture. I just
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: fell in love with that company. But then a huge
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: opportunity came my way through a recruiter to move to
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Dubai and lead four hundred and forty five restaurants for
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: the Innercinental Hotel group. The Intercinal Hotel Group also operate
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Indigo Hotel, Indigo Regent on the luxury side Crown Plaza
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: on Holiday Inn. So I couldn't refuse that opportunity, so
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: I moved with my family to Dubai and worked for
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the Intercinal Group for five years. During that time, Mike,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: they also gave me the opportunity to lead Europe in
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Japan as well, so in total I ended up managing
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: seven hundred and seventy six restaurants and a year ago.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: About a year ago, I joined Franchise Global brands. I'm
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: one of the shareholders, and we've been doing consulting, franchising,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: creating concepts, improving performance for several restaurants, Boston Market, the
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Great Harvest Bread Company, for Mosso, we consulted for a
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Wingstop at one point, and several other restaurants in the region.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: So that's it and a nutshell. Yeah, very cool, and
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: not many people that I know, excuse me, in the
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: industry that have experienced from QASR to fast casual casual
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: dining all the way up to find dining, which which
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: is very cool. So can you talk a little bit
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: about what motivated you to write your book? Yeah, So,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: as you said, one of the reasons actually was, you know,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: I look back at my career and I see that
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: I worked both for the hotel business, the luxury side,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: where you learn finesse, culinary innovation, design, luxury, and then
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: from the franchise world I learned marketing, consistency, financial discipline.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: So one of the one of the reasons I wanted
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: to write a book, I said, you know, I have
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: really great exposure and I want to share that experience
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: with people. And the other reason, and the more important
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: reason is, as you know, the restaurant business has one
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: of the highest failure rate in the world, and it's
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: sad to see people invest all their life savings in
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: opening a restaurant for it to fail after two to
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: three years. And I really wanted to help. So I thought,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: maybe if I write a book that will help people
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: in every aspect of the business, we can avoid all
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: that business failure that happens with new restaurant owners. As
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: you know, in the industry, if you look in the
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: industry to if you search for books about the restaurant business,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: you can find a book on culinary on recipes, you
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: can find a book on marketing, but you really don't
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: find a book that covers every aspect of the business.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: And that's exactly what I've done. Yeah, the book is great.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: I think all our listeners should go out and grab it.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate the level of detail in the book,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: you know, especially for a guy like me. You know,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: I mentioned to you before, I have a little bit
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: of experience as a short order cook, a little bit
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: of experience making sandwiches and working the cash register out
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: of Delhi, but that's it. So it definitely opened a
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: nice window for me into into how a restaurant should
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: be run. So I really appreciate it, and I was
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: really impressed by the amount of input you received before publishing.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about that process. Yeah, sure,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: So you know, I really raised the bar so high
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: that it took me three and a half years to
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: complete this book. So after I wrote it, I sent
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: each chapter to three or four top professionals in the
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: world from that subject. So let's talk about the kitchen
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: management for example, the kitchen manage and chapter nine, which
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: talks about recipes improvement. Both chapters were reviewed by actually
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: nine chefs. Some of the chefs were trained by the
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: best in the world. So some of the chefs that
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: shared their input and feedback and added value to the
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: book were trained by Gordon Ramsey, Jason Atherton, Pierre Ganying,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: and Paul Bukuz. The same thing I've done with the
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: design chapter. Brian Tappan the former former designer of the
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Cheesecake Factory and designed several Apple these restaurants and currently
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: works with a company that has six hundred restaurants and
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: being a Pollack who designed more than thirty five American brands,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: restaurant brands and two so really that's the methodology that
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: I took for each chapter, and there's a ton of
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: value out of that for sure. Early on in the book,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: he posted a picture of a viral linked in tweet
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: that you had. Basically it said, most people think they
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: know the restaurant business because they eat out a lot,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: and that really resonated with me. I feel like a
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: lot of restaurant stock investors think they know restaurants because
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: they eat out a lot, So I definitely connected with that.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: What are the biggest pitfalls for entrepreneurs that are taking
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: their first stab at owning and operating a restaurant. That's
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: a great question, and there are several answers to that,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: But what I for the past twenty five years of experience,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: what I see is the following. So new restaurant owners
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: typically in the beginning are very much focused on service,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: food quality, atmosphere, on the top fundamentals, team training. But
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: after about a year they lose focus and the focus
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: turns on marketing, revenue, cost management, and administration work a
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: lot of computer work. And when that happens, when you
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: lose focus on what matters to the guest, you start
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: losing guests. So that's one aspect the other aspect. Some
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: of them get really excited and open another store, but
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: the second store is not even near, it's very far
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: from the first store, So then they dilute all their
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: effort and then they spend a lot of time between
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: the first store and the second store, and then lose
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: focus as well. So if you want to expand, I
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: would say expand carefully and don't go too far where
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: you require a lot of traveling time, which is a
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: time lost on the road. Other operators I see the
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: ones that fail fast and fortunately are the ones who
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: are running restaurants by calculators. So they're obsessed with cost management.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: They're obsessed with profitability, and it doesn't work that way
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: in the restaurant business. And the restaurant business you have
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: to serve quality, deliver quality, quality of experience, and quality
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: of food. Once you impress your guest and earned their trust,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: then you'll be successful. Very cool. So for those listening
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: in that haven't read the book, Marvin equates restaurants success
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: with levels of a pyramid, and exceptional food quality is
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: at the base. So can you speak to the importance
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: of consistency, crevability, and signature dishes at a restaurant, right,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: these are three different elements, so consistency. The reason I
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: put consistency there. I remember watching a Netflix show for
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Anthony Bourdaine. It was called The Last Magnificent, was about
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: a chef called Jeremiah Tower, and he said a phrase
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: in that show. What he said, the beast the religion
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: of any restaurant is consistency, and it resonated with me
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: a lot. Now, I don't see a problem in consistency
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: in the franchise world, but I see a huge problem
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: in Alans with independent restaurants and hotels. So that's why
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: in the book there's about five to six pages explaining
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: in details, how do you achieve consistency because, Mike, you know,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: as they say, consumers trust or the lack of it,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: comes from consistency. That's one aspect. The other aspect, which
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: you mentioned, craveability, and where in the book I talk
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: about having at least two appetizers, two main course items,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: two desserts where people would crave. Because if people don't
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: crave your food, it's gonna be you're gonna have a
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: hard time with repeat visits or with creating loyalty. Think
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: of cinnamon, A lot of people say, oh, you know,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I'm craving I would like to have a cinnamon roll.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Think of Krispy Kreen when they first started and they
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: were extremely popular. Shake Jack as well. So you all
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: hear that, you know, I missed that burger, I missed
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: that donuts. I would love to have a cinema role.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: If your customers are not saying those words, if you're
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: not hitting those phrases, you have a problem in the
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: R and D department. And the last part signature dishes
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: and very simple. If you know you cannot succeed by
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: fitting in, you can only succeed by standing out. And
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: if you don't have signature dishes, which goes hand in
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: hand with cravability, and you don't have unique items, then
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: if you have a Caesar salad like everyone else, if
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: you have a burger like everyone else, I wonder how
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: do you create a following? I wonder how your marketing
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: department will be able to market your brand. So I
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: think your cheft, your R and D department need to
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: come up with few items with specific marinade, a special way,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: special sauce, special cooking procedure that no one can match
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: in your city. I think that's really important. Yeah, for sure.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: And getting back to cinnabon man, I think the best
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: marketing ever is just the smell of a cinnabon right.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: You can smell it if I feel like, from halfway
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: across the mall, and it smells fantastic. Definitely something that
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: creates creavability. Superior service in hospital hospitality obviously are crucial
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: next level of the pyramid for you in the book,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Hiring well and the importance of menu knowledge. Those are
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: two things that you mentioned in the chapter that really
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: stood out to me. Yeah. You know a lot of
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: people talk about challenges with hiring the right people and
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: they say, you know, we're not competitive enough from a
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: salary standpoint to hire the best people. I slightly disagree
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: because in my career I did hire people that minimum
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: wage who are brilliant. So what I coach about in
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: the book, especially for front of the house service employees,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: you really need to look for personalities. So when I
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: do my interviews, I'm looking at the smile, the attitude,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: the positive vibes, the teamwork attitude. I'm not so much
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: obsessed with the skill, because I can teach you how
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: to open a bottle of wine, I can teach you
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: how to serve food. I can teach you how to
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: prebus a table. That's not really difficult, but if you
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: have the wrong attitude, it will be very difficult to
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: change that. So if the hiring and recruitment is based
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: on that, you'll have an amazing team, very positive that
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: you know, people that help each other, very friendly, and
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: you'll do well in that department. On menu knowledge, I
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: talk a lot about it in the book for two reasons.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: First of all, there is a food safety aspect and
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: there is customers health aspect. About three to four months ago,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: there was a guest in Mexico, a British customer in
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Mexico who's got allergy from sesame. Order the salad and
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: ask the food servers if they're sesame in the in
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: the salad and they said no. Obviously they didn't know,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: but there was sesame in it. The customer ordered the salad,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: had the salad, and unfortunately, Mike, the customer passed away.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, the allergy was so strong. So when I
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: coach and train restaurants in the region and internationally, I
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: tell them nine many knowledge doesn't work, and that's one
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: of the reasons. Now someone might say you're exaggerating. You know,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: no food server will know well. The other aspect, we
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: know that confident food servers sell well. If you want
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: to do an up selling program, suggests a selling program
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: without great many knowledge, you will not be able to
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: achieve it. Someone might say, listening to this podcast, I
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: know all of that. Yes, many restaurant owners know that,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: but very few of them do whiz is or tests
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: or training on daily basis, so they end up going
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: nowhere with them. It's really really crucial from a sales
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: standpoint and from a customer satisfaction standpoint. Yeah. And speaking
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: of training, I mean it's really been It's really woven
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: throughout your book. I was. I was almost surprised a
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: little bit. I probably shouldn't have been. But how much
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: you talk about training throughout the book, and how much
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: you recommend restaurant tours train their employees. I mean, whether
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: it's daily, monthly, who you recommend does the training? Can
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: you can you talk a bit about your process and
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: how you recommend restaurant Sure, Mike, I talk about the
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: training a lot, because from my experience, the best operator
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: in the world trained well. And I'll give you last
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: year I was in New York with my family went
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: to Danny Myers restaurant Grammars Tavern, and I was impressed.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: I was wowed with the food server training. Actually, on
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: that day two food servers came to the table because
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: one of them was shadowing a trainer. And we here
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: in Dubai we have Zooma. You're familiar with Zuma, it's
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: a big brand globally and another brand called Lepetite, Mizone
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: and or Fally Brothers. The training is incredible and they
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: have high volumes. They're always fully booked, so there's a
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: direct correlation between training and success. The problem is with
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: many restaurants that they get busy or because they have
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: hourly employees, they don't believe in training or high turnover,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: saying Inston, I have a high turnover. By the time
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: I train an employee, they leave, But there's no way out.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: You're going to train them because the other option is
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: having untrained employees serving your people or cooking your food.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: So I offered two solutions in the book, Mike. One
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: of them is really easy with the daily shift briefing.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Pre shift briefing, you have at least ten minutes for
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: the front of the house and ten minutes for back
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: of the House. So what I would do and what
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: I put in the book, just take a menu item
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: and describe it well with the food servers, ask about
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: the ingredients, ask how do you upsell it? And share
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: one training tip. I'll share one with you right now.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: If there's a customer complaint, what I teach is don't justify.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Always rectify. So someone says my fries are cold, don't
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: say I just brought them from the kitchen. Just say
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I'm gonna bring you a fresh portion of fries.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: So this is a training tip, So think about it.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: In ninety days you would have taught ninety tips. You
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: will notice that the team's skills have improved significantly because
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: you're training every day a new thing. And if you
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: use the service chapter, the service chapter was designed in
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: a way where you can use it from each section
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: of the book of that chapter. So that's one aspect
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: for Back of the House is the same way, or
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: I'd like to call them Heart of the house. The
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: same way you take your recipe. So imagine this, Mike,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: You've got a grilled cook, salad salad cook, an expeditor,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: a fried cook, and you're talking about an item from
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: the growth station. When you're talking about an item from
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: a growth station, you're indirectly cross training the salad employee
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: and the frye employee. So that's the beauty about training
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: every day during appreciative briefing and the other The other
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: solution is at least once a month classroom training but
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: not lectures is full of role play, role play and
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: role play because that what makes the real behavior, and
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: that's where you see the mistakes and you can correct
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: the team and coach them. So these are a very
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: very brief way some of the things I mentioned in
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: the book about training, I thought that was I think
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: you mentioned too that the gms and the assistant gms
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: aren't doing all the training correct. Yeah. So when I
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: worked for Chili's and Applebee's, we had food server trainers,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: we had hostess trainers, we had a grill station trainer,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: a prep trainer. So these are our employees that run
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: a regular shift, but they were trained on how to
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: train others. And when we have a new employee, they'll
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: learn the best behaviors, the best standards from those guys.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: So we just don't put you with a senior employee,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: because sometimes you might have a senior employee who's got
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of bad habits, so you create a problem
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: for yourself. Yeah, and i'd imagine it creates a good
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: pipeline for potential managers down the road. Right, Absolutely, Sorry,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: I forgot to mention that. So those trainers that you
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: were training at least once a month become the backbone
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: of the operation and become part of your succession planning.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: And actually one key point here, Mike, become the protector
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: of high standards at your restaurants. When they see something wrong,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: they stop it. When they see a short cut, they
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: stop it because they're the ones who are leading high standards.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: I like it. In your experience, is there pushback from
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: employees about that much training? How are you and how
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: are your gms taught to lead and motivate your hourly workers.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: I have never experienced or faced and employee who doesn't
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: want to learn. Be it. Nowadays there's a lot of
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: online learning. It's all on a cell phone, gamifications and
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: quizzes and all of that. I've never experienced someone saying no,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: I don't want to learn. But I've seen managers who
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: were too busy to follow up with the trainers to
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: ask about employees and see what they've learned. And that's
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: counterproductive productive, to be honest, Cole, and I appreciate your
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: willingness to seek suggestions for operational improvements from your teams,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: and it seems like you did it on a regular basis,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: and I'm sure the employees appreciate that as well. Do
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: you have examples that were especially successful, maybe something that
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: you recommend everyone thinking, thinking, everyone think about doing. Yeah,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: so one of the that's a great question, Mike. At
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: one point in my career, I was managing a restaurant
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: company of twenty two stores, and I came up with
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: an idea of I want to I heard at one
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: point that the big Mac came either from a franchise
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: z or from an employee, and it became the number
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: one sandwich for McDonald's worldwide. So I said, I want
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: to ask the employees, even the dishwashers, about what could
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: we do better? So what I would do every quarter,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: sometimes every month, I would ask for questions to every employee.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: What are the top your top ideas to drive sales?
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: What are your top suggestions to reduce cost? What are
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: your top three challenges at work and any other concerns
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: or suggestions. So I remember doing that, and at one
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: point we had an employee who noticed that we have
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: no curtains in all of our walking coolers and freezers.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: And you know, I always knew that when you work
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: in a place for a long time, your eyes get
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: used to it. So I was like, that's a great idea.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: So we bought the curtains. We put them everywhere, and
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: here's what we achieved, less insects going to the walking cooler,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: better temperature of food, so less spoilage, and the compressors
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: of the walking cooler and freezer would work less, which
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: means less electricity cost. So we took John, took his picture,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: gave one hundred dollars reward, and circulated his image this
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: photo throughout the company. Then next month, when we did
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: the same exercise, guess what, we received a ton of
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: suggestions and ideas. And that point that was a turning point, Mike,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: because I was no longer leading alone. I started leading
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: with everyone and everyone who was putting their ideas. So
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: you changed the game completely. So that's one of the
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: best things that I ever happened in my career. Actually,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: very cool um. In the book, you also advocate advocate
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: for monthly bonuses. So, um, you know, I'd imagine there's
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: some benefit there because it's it's a high turnover business, right,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: so people are motivated to actually see that bonus money.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: But are there any other benefits to monthly bonuses that
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: you like to speak of. Yeah, so I don't believe
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: in any in an annual bonus or quarterly bonus. So
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: the way I structured the bonus at my company was
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: on monthly basis. And this is how it worked. So
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: if you were a restaurant manager that worked for me, Mike,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: you would res one third of your bonus if you
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: achieved the sales target for the month, and two thirds
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: if you achieve the profit target, an additional one third
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: if you achieve the guest satisfaction target. And the reason
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: I had those three because if I say only profit,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: you can cost and kill guest satisfaction and get your bonus.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: And I didn't want that to happen. So the way
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: we did it, at the end of every month, when
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: the P and L came out, you would come to
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: my office. The finance manager will come to my office,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: and as a restaurant manager, you had to take me
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: through your expenses and how are they going up or
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: down from last month. You have to show me your
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: guest satisfaction scores either on Google on open Table. Also
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: whatever in house program we had, like in Pathrica. And
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: of course the sales targets when I used and I
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: used to issue the check right there and then if
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: you achieve the three even if you achieved only one
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: portion the sales, and it changed everything, Mike, because people knew, oh,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: in thirty days, I'm going to get my bonus. I'm
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: gonna work hard for it. I know how to achieve,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to make sure I don't have repair
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: and manance issue, I don't have waste issues, because I
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: don't want my food costs to go up, which will
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: kill my profit. So I turned the restaurant managers into entrepreneurs,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: into business managers, not just employees. And I recommend this
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: bonus plan to every single company on Earth because nobody
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: wants to wait a whole year to get a bonus. Yeah,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: that's great, And you know, and in the restaurant business,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of examples that you know, if you
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: get the culture right and you hire hard working entrepreneurial people,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: and you have that entrepreneurial type structure. You know, think
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: outback Steakhouse back in the day and places like Texas
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Roadhouse right now, those places humming man, you know. And
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: it's and it's because of the quality of the gms
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: and how hard they're working at it. So, um, that's
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: good stuff. The top of your pyramid. It's restaurant profits.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: But you only gave it one and a half pages
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: in your three hundred page book how Come? And that's
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: intentional because throughout the book, the message that I'm trying
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: to to express the philosophy is as follows. When you
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: have great food, great service, great atmosphere, highly trained, the
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: employees motivated and inspired, and you're active in marketing, and
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: you manage your cost reasonably well, profit becomes a natural outcome.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: You don't even have to worry about it. That's and
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: that's what exactly all right in the book, because you know,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: you cannot achieve profit when you have low sales because
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: of bad food or bad services, as simple as that. Yeah,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: it was awesome, all right. So yeah, great job on
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: that book, man, I really enjoyed it. I'd like to
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: move on. Ask you a couple of other questions outside
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: of the book. Are there any interesting or challenging projects
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: that you're working on at FGP at the moment, or
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: is there an issue that clients are especially worried about
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: right now? Yeah. Look, the internationally, franchising slowed down a
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: lot because what I'm seeing globally, Mike, people are going
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: or more entrepreneurs or more in favor of chef inspired restaurants,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: mom and pop restaurants versus about ten fifteen years ago
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: was all about franchising, at least on the international front.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: What people are worried about are what you're worried about everywhere,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: inflation and employee turnover, which been the case for a
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: long time and for both. Yes, in the US, a
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: lot of people did menu downsizing, they reduced their menus,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: but it's much more than that, Mike, and sorry, I'm
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: going to use the book as an example. In the
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: cost management chapter, we explain about cross utalization, minimizing single
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: use items. You know, counting how many ingredients you buy,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: and questioning why do you buy those ingredients? And not
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: everything should be passed to the consumer because there is
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: a certain point where you can't raise prices anymore, and
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: you have to be very intelligent in your processes and procedures.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: And again we go back to training, right and the
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: importance of training, so that these are you know, inflation employees,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: turn over, and slowdown of internationally franchising. This is these
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: are the top three challenges that I see. Very cool, yeah,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: And productivity improvements and are you know are something that
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: management teams are talking a lot about. They're also talking
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: about reducing waste and continu continually trying to get better
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: at that aspect to save money on their food costs.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: So all good stuff. And are you familiar with the
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: new Burger King US turnaround plan? Do you have any
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: thoughts on the plan specifically or any ideas about what
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: your former employer can do to boost sales and operations
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: right now. It's interesting you asked that because at the
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: time when I worked under Steve Weiberg was the president
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: for Burger King for North America, we were experiencing kind
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: of a turnaround. At the time Whopper, which is the
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: most important sandwich in the burger and the brand we
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: were doing freshly caught lettuce, freshly caught tomatoes. We reduced
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: the shelf life of Burger holding the burger patties, we
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: changed the French fries, we brought smoothies, we brought digital
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: menu boards. So it was an amazing period, by the way,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: and I admire what Steve has done at that time.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: I've read a little bit about what Burger King trying
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: to do now with a lot of remodel and technology
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: and investing in the restaurants. And that's the right way
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: to go because this it's so competitive right now, and
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: other QSR brands have invested a lot of money in
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: the last few years. So if you're viewed as dated
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: and and and old, you're kind of losing market share.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: So I support it. But the only thing I would say,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: sometimes companies spend a ton of money into on technology,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: not on product. I am a firm believer. I think
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: of Chippotli, for example. Chippotle did not invest a ton
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: on technology. It was always about great ingredients, great food,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: and that's what the philosophy of their CEO, Steve, if
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: I remember the name correctly, So I would spend if
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: if it were me, I would spend a ton of
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: time on making sure I serve the best food. Ever,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if it's a digital menu board or
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: a regular menu board. I think I think that what
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: brings people back. It's not the menu board that brings
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: you back, it's the hot, tasty burger that brings you back.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: I think that's great advice, and I think that's a
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: great plug for your book because you cover all of
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: that in there. Marvin, Thank you so much for doing this.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: This is great. How can our listeners get in touch
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: with you? Well, they can either find me on LinkedIn
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Marvin Albali also or they can go to our website
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: ww dot Franchise Global Brands dot com and UH and
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: listeners can also reach out to me at m Helen
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: one at Boomberg dot net and I'll be happy to
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: connect you all right, Thanks again for doing this, Marvin,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Thank you,