Restaurant Marketing Strategies: Restaurant Owners and Managers: Are You Spending Your Time Wisely?

Monday, July 13, 2009

Restaurant Owners and Managers: Are You Spending Your Time Wisely?

As a busy person who needs to deal with hundreds of problems, issues and fires on a daily basis, it is easy for restaurant owners and managers to get sidetracked and lose focus on what's really important for their restaurant.

So my question to you is this: Are you spending your time wisely? Are you using your working hours to produce the greatest strategic payoff for your restaurant, or are you just spending 80% of your time trying to do things that somebody else would do much better than you? Are you really using your skills to the maximum?

I know that restaurateurs have a hard time delegating tasks. I used to own a restaurant. I know how hard it is to delegate on somebody else when you think that you can do better than they, or that nobody else cares as much as you do. This is probably true, and yet it is not the best way to run a business.

Let's take a quick test. Please answer YES or NO to the following questions to evaluate if you are truly doing what you are supposed to be doing:

* Are you working mainly on daily tasks that are not relevant to your restaurant vision and strategy? (If you don't have a vision for your restaurant and a strategy to take you there, you need to sit down for a few hours and think about this one. It is key for the success of your business).
* Are you spending most of your time doing things that you particularly don't like, or don't care much about?
* Are you performing chores for which there are people who can do much better (and probably quicker) than you?
* Do you spend most of your time taking care of responsibilities that you are not completely passionate about?

If you answered YES to any of these questions, you should seriously consider to delegate some of these tasks to somebody else. Some things that for you are a burden, for somebody else could be a passion. Not only you will get rid of tasks that are of not interest to you, but you will also get somebody else's who excels at that particular task doing it. This is a win/win situation since you would liberate your most precious asset: your time, and they will be happy doing something that they really are passionate about.

So think about what really tics you. What are you really good about? What are your strengths? Focus on these and find people who can help you taking care of the necessary and yet unproductive tasks. You will be surprised to see how much you can improve your business by just spending a few hours making a list of tasks that you don't like and can delegate in some of your employees (or even finding help outside of your restaurant if necessary).

Happy meals,

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