Gimme another…
I am a big fan of the TV show “Bar Rescue”. The premise of the show is that failing bar owners across the country write to the creator of the show “John Taffer” and ask him to come and help them rescue their bar/restaurant from foreclosure or certain financial ruin.
Almost all of the owners in each location have double mortgaged their homes, tapped into their 401K’s or worse, tapped into their parents retirement accounts in order to purchase the bar and “chase their dreams” of being the owner of their own bar business. I certainly believe that when you make up your mind as to what you want to do, you should go all in but cringe when these folks brings their parents into their incompetence.
Now, the guy that comes to rescue the bar that is now heavily in debt is an entertainer for certain and you have to look past his screaming and his rapid fire bursts of bleeped out profanity in order to find the nuggets of leadership principles he is trying to instill in the bar owners.
In almost every case, each owner thought that owning a bar would be a snap, a cash cow if you will. After all, they drink, they know how to make a crown and coke and they certainly know how to drink beer. Their sentiment is always, what else do you need to know, I am a good business man or woman, I can figure it out. In every case, they are dead wrong.
The rescuer sets up camera’s throughout the kitchen and the bar so that he can record the actual efficiency or in almost every case, lack of efficiency with the bar operations. In other words, there are no secrets, the people that work in the bar know they are being reordered. What is always revealed in those recordings is just about every violation of business ethics and leadership you could possibly imagine and it’s all preventable.
Most of the owners set up a “tab” for themselves so they can keep track of what they need to pay back to the bar. The cameras catch then as they sit in their “Kingdom” of ownership and “Power” but, none ever pay back the bar and the tabs are often staggering.
Of course, the staff see’s this cavalier behavior and realize that the owners can easily be taken advantage of and generally help themselves to a few “shots” while passing out a few “free drinks” to their friends and family. The staff is also notorious for “generous pours” in order to garner larger tips that do not go back to the owners that provided the “free drinks”. The owners are always oblivious to not only their own actions but the actions of those that are assisting them towards their journey to foreclosure or bankruptcy.
In almost every case, the owners have no earthly idea how to make the simplest of drinks, and because each bartender had their own way of making a drink, the bar lacked consistency across the board. In other words, each margarita is like no other. Some are stout, some are nothing more than margarita mix. After a little heart pounding intense probing, the owners cop to having no consistent training program for their staff or their servers. With all that said, it is a recipe for disaster and it plays out humorously on TV.
If the lack of control on the alcohol consumption and serving practices weren’t bad enough, the kitchens in every case are nauseatingly unsanitary. They all lack discipline, organization, standards, and especially safety standards. In every case the Bar Rescue guy finds outdated food in the coolers and freezers, deep fryers and grills that have not been cleaned since the inception of the ownership, lack of proper rotation for perishables and certainly improper food handling practices.
Watching all the disgusting footage of the kitchens, which often include little furry friends scurrying around the surfaces and floors all play out in front of the cameras make me want to NEVER order any food, from any bar. “No thanks, I will stick with bar pretzels and a few too many overpowering margaritas…Just call me a uber please.
You can watch the show for yourself and if you get past the screaming, yelling, tears, slamming doors and deeply bruised egos you will easily see all you need to know about running your own business, department, store, or team. Generally it’s the stuff we used to learn on the “paper route”, mowing the lawns, baby sitting or just bagging the groceries because that’s all you were old enough to be allowed to do. You know, the hard stuff like; be on time, know what you are doing, pay attention to detail and be proud of your work.
The first lesson on Bar Rescue is; Take nothing for granted. As an owner, manager or shift lead, you need to know what you don’t know and then you need to learn how to know it. You have to know that not everything is in the training manual and not everything can be learned by “YouTubing” it. My suggestion is to find the best possible person to learn from and tap their experience and knowledge reservoirs dry. The caution is; you have to research WHO is the best. As a general rule, the best and most knowledgable people are not sitting at the end of the bar slamming shots with you.
I was in the retail industry my entire life, so I thought I knew everything there was to know about inventory management, turns, supply chain so…I bought an adult beverage store. Why not? I knew what I was doing. The first mistake I made was, I didn’t know that I was doing and I trusted the staff, especially the manager. After all, he had been the manager of the store for several years and knew “all there was to be known” about the liquor business. At first, I let him do his thing but then I noticed that he liked to call in sick a great deal. Since he was the only one that placed the orders for the inventory, this became an issue. He used his “I’m the only one that knows how to” leverage a few times before I decided I needed to take matters into my own hands. Since I knew NOTHING about liquor orders, I had to learn quickly.
I will say this, anyone can write an order for products but, can you write an order that will turn into a profit or will it just sit on the shelf for years, reminding you of how stupid you are? I don’t own that store anymore but I still go in there every now and then and to this day, five years after I sold it, there are STILL a few reminders of how little I knew about the business.
The more I learned about the business, the more “possessive” the manager became of his knowledge, or lack there of, and I was eventually forced to encourage him to find a job that was commiserate with his superior business acumen. Did I mention that the more I learned, the more effective the store became, the happier the rest of the employees became? Oh, and the the biggest bi-product of being a seriously involved owner…sales and profits began to soar to places the store had never experienced.
I won’t go into all the details but after I wrestled control of the antiquated ordering system from the “experienced” manager and instituted a Point of Sale system that kept track of all inventory, coming and going, things began to change dramatically. I managed to train EVERY employee in the store on how to place orders and receive merchandise so that every bottle and can could be accounted for. The inventory control system became as close to automated as you can get. The point, It was painful for an semi-egotistical goober like me, but I learned what I didn’t know. I learned that I was losing money based off his poor ordering practices and I learned that most of the employees were eager to learn and become a part of the solution, not the problem.
Don’t get me wrong, micromanaging is almost as bad as lack of management. Like so many others, I hate being micromanaged. I prefer you show me and if I fail, go ahead and unleash a sharp instructional tongue on me. It is very important to trust your employees, but you better know how to do what they do. You don’t have to be as good as your bartenders or employees are at their daily jobs, but when it comes to ordering merchandise or pouring a correct margarita at optimal speed, you, as the leader, better know what “correct” and “optimal” are. If you don’t, you’ll fail.
In a past life, I was tasked with “inspecting” operations in lots of retail stores. I wish I could say I was excellent at it but in all honestly, I was deficient in so many areas. I was blessed to work with so many mangers, district managers, VP’s and all sorts of senior leadership that were all way better at understanding and running the business than I was. I was smart enough to pay attention and learn from all of them.
Some of my bosses and managers were what I like to call, “instructionally gruff” and could ruin your dinner plans, and then some of them were “instructionally soft” but could also ruin your dinner plans. The thing I got from all of them was knowledge and feedback. I may not have enjoyed the feedback each time I received it, but to me, the feedback, both loud and soft was their way of helping me get better.
When the bar rescue guy points out to the oblivious owners of the failing bars that they; don’t know how to serve, don’t know how to order, don’t know how to cook, don’t know how to train and they don’t know how to clean, they all seem totally dumbfounded by the revelations before them. When he points out that slamming beers at the end of the bar and offering free shots to their buddies and friends is the reason they are failing, they genuinely seem embarrassed. As if to say, “wait a minute, you mean my drinks aren’t really free?”.
The whole show is a test in humility for each failing owner as all their flaws are on public display. Many cry, many argue, many get mad and walk off the show, but the ones that I like the most are the ones that square their shoulders, eat their slice of humble pie and start learning the business all over again. Scratch that, not all over again, its more like “for the first time”. They immediately clean the kitchens, they learn how to bartend, they learn how to serve, but in most cases, they learn the one element that they either forgot or didn’t know, they learn how to hold themselves and ALL others accountable for the success of the business.
It’s ok to have fun, in fact, I love it when people have fun at work, I want people to have fun at work, but not at the expense of sales or profit. Oh there you go Randy, all you care about is sales and profit! No, I also care about YOU and your families. I want your spouses happy, your kids well fed and well clothed and I especially want the nice cars in the driveway of the house of your dreams, but without sales and profit in ALL businesses, there is no business, there is no pay, there are no benefits and most importantly, there are no jobs.
If you are, or you plan on starting a company, buying a business, taking over a company, running a store or bar or being a shift or department leader, you have to get involved, you have to understand and learn all you can about every aspect of your chosen business and then, and only then, you will find yourself in a position of possible success. Success is never guaranteed, but I promise you, If you study your business, learn all you can possibly learn about it, listen to your employees, and study your competitors, your chances of success are far better than if you sit idle at the end of the bar watching your investment evaporate right before your very own eyes.