Re: Why Are Restaurant Operators Such a Hard Sell?
Posted by Jeff Schacher on Thu, Mar 11, 2010 @ 08:44 AM
I just read Michael Atkinson's post on Fohboh.com called "Why Are Restaurant Operators Such a Hard Sell?" He was talking about how resistant restaurant operators are to adopt new technology and processes.
That really got me thinking about the very question he asked. Why is it that way? I have a theory, let me know what you think.
The Management Mind Life Cycle
- Stage 1: Party Time - a new restaurant opens or a new general manager comes in to an existing restaurant and they are energetic and ambitious to grow their business. They throw money and time at different ideas to get people in the door and drive revenue (managing costs often isn't even worried about until later).
- Stage 2: Party's Over, Now What? - the party can last a week, a month, or a year. But when it's over it's over. Staring at an empty restaurant, the operator looks back at their success and says, "I either have to spend more time and money doing what I was doing or I need to try something new."
- Stage 3: Rinse and Repeat and Repeat - owners and managers will try and try new things in an effort to repeat their previous success. (for some science behind this behavior look at "schedules of reinforcement" - I know I'm a geek)
After each failure they become more and more cynical of trying new things and eventually they just resist any kind of change because the last 10 things they've tried haven't had any benefit.
The Big Secret
Well it's not that big, and it's not that secret, but the secret is MEASURABLE ROI!!! The only way to know the return on your investment is to measure the effectiveness of your investment. Of course people get burned out and defeated trying to repeat prior success if they don't really know why they were successful. Maybe the money spent the first month didn't actually bring anyone in the door, but it was the fact that their nearest competitor was closed for renovation. Imagine how empowering it would be to know why something is working or not working. It makes business decisions so much easier.
So I think the only way to really attack the problem of the resistant operator is to educate them or re-educate them on ROI. With all the new web-based software companies, an operator can try a new solution for very little investment of time or money and quickly see if it solves their problem or not.
I am hopeful that these sluggish restaurant operators can be re-energized and empowered with a few chats on ways to follow their money out the door and ways to watch if it comes back in.