“The only true disability is a crushed spirit”, Amiee Mullins

Preparing to meet adversity rather than avoiding it is a powerful distinction Aimee Mullins made in a recent speech for the renowned TED Conference. Being born without shin bones she gives a very inspiring talk that I hope you will watch and reflect upon. Her message: Adversity is a shadow that’s always with us, and its ability to embrace adversity that that helps shape who we are. Certainly this is a message that can resonate with all of us in these challenging times.

My mother always told me, “It’s the fire that tempers the steel.” I have to say I whole-heartedly agree with this sentiment. Truth is, the most challenging and difficult times of my life have turned out to be the ones that best helped shape me and instill in me characteristics and values that I wouldn’t trade for the world.

For those of you that have been through The Landmark Forum, you understand the power of language. The language we use is about more than a spoken word and communicating a need or emotion. The language we use is a capsule that encases our values, perceptions and outlook. Our unconscious choice of words can define our conscious beliefs of our own abilities, worth, contribution and most certainly our mood and emotion. This short 20-minute speech gives new depth to the influence of language to shape how we see ourselves in the world and the potential we use or lose.

Aimee’s message is also about the power of opening doors for others. This is a critical concept for the restaurant industry as we consider our approaches to recruiting and retention of the best talent.

•    Restaurant Consultants – Aren’t Created Equal – There are so many quack restaurant consultants on the Internet today that it makes my head spin.  Actually, it makes my stomach turn.  I’ve given serious consideration to getting out of the profession all together; or at a minimum, inventing a new terminology.  Abe Lincoln once said, “Associate yourself with men of good quality, for it’s better to be seen alone than in bad company.”  It seems these days there are fewer and fewer restaurant consultants showing up high in the search rankings that I want to be associated with.  Seems there are plenty with just enough knowledge of search marketing to show up high in the rankings but then not sure what do for the prospective clients they actually get to call them.

•    “International” – I’ve seen “wherever there’s a need” as the stated place of business for a couple of restaurant consultants.  It made me chuckle because when you look at their client list, they don’t show any international clients.  Check their passport.  Are their clients paid clients or just website visitors?  You’d be surprised how many “global restaurant consultants” have never even left the country (at least not on assignment – maybe a cruise or something).  Having worked abroad on actually feet-on-the-street restaurant consulting assignments isn’t necessarily a prerequisite of consulting, but it is an indicator of smoke and mirror approaches when someone claims vast international knowledge and experience but doesn’t actually have any.  It should be a red flag.

•    Consultant Versus Employee – Check to see if the experience they reference is actually restaurant consulting experience or if it’s past employment.  One consultant claims to be the “operational mind behind The Cheesecake Factory”.  I’ve consulted at an executive level for The Cheesecake Factory (the entire senior staff of The Cheesecake Factory) and can tell you first hand they aren’t the kind of company to turn over the reins to Johnny-come-lately restaurant consultants.  It’s more likely this “consultant” worked as an employee for The Cheesecake Factory in an operations capacity, which is far different than working in an executive consulting capacity.  Being good at your job doesn’t make you a good consultant.  There is a technical skill required to be great in restaurant operations, but you need that requisite knowledge and an additional skill set in executive-level consulting to be considered top of class in the world of restaurant consultants.  It’s like the difference between being a good waiter and being a professional wait-staff trainer.

•    Portfolio – Ask to see a portfolio of completed restaurant consulting projects.  It’s one thing to drop names of big restaurant companies; it’s another to show the actual completed work.  Sure, there may be restrictions on showing some work due to confidentiality agreements with the client, but I am surprised how often restaurant consultants show off big company logos as clients but didn’t actually complete meaningful work for them.  You’d be surprised how often the logo they use and experience they have was working as a waiter for that big company, not serving as an executive-level consultant to them.

•    Full-Service or Limited-Service – There are many restaurant consultants on the web that have niche experience, but not exposure to a wide range of complex restaurant industry issues.  There are restaurant operations consultants, and restaurant marketing consultants, restaurant social media consultants and restaurant franchise consultants – it goes on and on.  There are a lot of types of restaurant consultants.  Not only are there distinct disciplines, there is the exposure to different cuisine types and boots-on-the-ground exposure in different markets and geographies.  Even if your restaurant chain is regional, restaurant consultants with a global perspective can be worth their weight in gold; especially for the aspiring restaurant chain.

•    Quality – Another thing that cracks me up and is a sure giveaway of wannabe restaurant consultants is poor website design.  There are more than a few groups out to claiming to be top restaurant marketing consultants and design advisors, but with websites that look like it was created their nephew.  Common sense says that if the corporate website and professional marketing materials are less than quality, so too might be the firms advice and capabilities.  If a restaurant marketing consultant isn’t able to produce a WOW website for themselves, how can they produce wow results for your restaurant marketing efforts?

•    Not all Restaurant Consultants are Quacks – Admittedly, I am venting some frustrations I have with the shady practices of some unqualified restaurant consultants; quacks can give a bad impression of an entire industry.  Does that mean me or my firm are the only ones qualified?  Absolutely not.  In fact, there are some restaurant consultants in the field that I highly admire.  They don’t market themselves too much though.  They are good enough that they have robust consulting practices through word of mouth alone.  When they are not consulting, they are probably CEO of a major restaurant chain.  Actually, they probably don’t even want to be called “restaurant consultants”, even if they do provide the service.  Who are a few of the ones I admire?  Lane Cardwell is one.  Phil Romano is another.  Brad Blum is high on my list.  These are the guys with credentials and track records.  There are several more.  Credentials matter, but also important is to have a personality and philosophical match.  First you have to cut through the clutter of who is for real and who is out there just because they thought it would be fun to be a ‘restaurant consultant’ after getting canned from another job.  Once you weed through that though, you have to make sure you’re going to enjoy working together and see eye to eye (for more on bringing out the best in restaurant consultants, see: http://aaronallen.com/articles/great-clients-are-made-not-born).

Bottom line…

You’ve worked too hard for your money to blow it on quack restaurant consultants.  Don’t be “sold”.  Ask to speak to the person that will be working directly on your account; the day-to-day person, not the CEO or figurehead.  Ask for their credentials.  Interview them.  If you feel warm and fuzzy about it, that’s a big part of the decision-making process.  If it doesn’t feel right, no matter what their credentials, don’t do it.  You have to really trust in the consultant you choose to get the most out of them and the engagement.  It becomes a bit intimate and you want to be sure you’re partnered up with someone that’s not only sharp, qualified and experienced, but also someone that you want to bring out the best in and have them bring out the best in you.

Personally, I refuse work that doesn’t inspire me and pass on anything that doesn’t feel right.  You should do the same.  Don’t get lured in to working with someone just because they showed up high in Google.  Ask the tough questions too though.  Make sure you’re not dealing with a quack.  The signs are there if you look for them.

Oh, and please leave a reply on your experiences and thoughts regarding the above.  I’d love to hear from you.

Best of luck!

The restaurant service you receive today is a direct result of our collective willingness to complain yesterday.

The United States of America was founded on complaining.

In the American Revolution, ragtag bands of complainers came together to shape the future of our country and our culture.  In those days, “Taxation without representation” was the call to arms.  13 colonies united in complaint that it was unfair to send the fruits of our land to a foreign nation.  It was in this spirit of complaining that Americans overthrew a monarchy and established a democratic system of government that was unique in all the world.

Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi – all complainers. The U.S. Civil Rights movement was a righteous complaint that was finally heard, and that helped amend more than a century of injustice.

Every inventor, innovator and entrepreneur who has ever brought something new into the world was ultimately acting out a kind of complaint – saying, “This isn’t right – the world needs to change!”

Despite this proud history of effective complaining, it seems to me that today in our experience as restaurant patrons, Americans have lost our will to complain.  It’s become almost impolite to complain when we have a bad experience at a restaurant – as if, as customers, it’s not our place to judge. We have become a nation that hugs failures (like a mean ol’ grandma) because it’s more in fashion to swallow down bad service than to complain about it.

There was once a time that restaurateurs shivered at the thought of a complaint.  A complaint, in those days, like a virus, could multiply.  A complaint that was left unaddressed could metastasize into an incurable cancer on the business.  The mere threat of receiving a complaint from an unhappy customer kept service people on their toes.  My, how faint of heart we are today.

Complaining in a restaurant today may get you looked at like you’re a grumpy old man who is too uptight.  “Just relax…it’s no big deal,” your faint-hearted friends will say.

But here’s the problem with that attitude: if you’re a customer at a restaurant, and the restaurant provides you with an egregious service failure, you are perfectly right to complain.

If a waiter spills food on you, or your entrée is served at an unsafe temperature, or your salad is wilted and drowned in oily dressing, or you have to wait a ridiculously long time for a table with no communication from the surly hostess – all of these situations are well worth complaining about.

Not only do you have the right to complain, but I would argue that all restaurant patrons – especially the ones who genuinely care about the restaurant business – have a duty to complain.

That’s right: you as a restaurant customer have a duty to complain when your experience is anything less than satisfying.

When you complain about a bad experience at a restaurant, you are not being rude or “high maintenance” – you are actually doing that restaurant a favor. Every smart restaurant manager wants to hear from his/her customers – and real restaurateurs aren’t afraid to hear some less-than-positive feedback along with the cheery compliments. After all, if they don’t hear the complaints, how are they ever going to improve?

If you have a bad restaurant experience and you decide not to complain, you’re not being “polite” – you’re actually participating in keeping that restaurant from being all that it could be. By choosing not to complain, you may actually be contributing to the restaurant’s eventual decline and failure – which would ultimately mean the loss of jobs for everyone who works there, and the loss of investment by the restaurant owner. Don’t you think the owner would have rather heard some complaints along the way – that would have helped the restaurant improve – rather than only hearing niceties (“Everything was just great!”) and then losing the whole ship?

Whenever you complain, not only are you doing a favor to the restaurant, but you are also fulfilling a responsibility to the other diners who will come after you.

Tonight, as I write this, I am recovering from a ridiculous drinking experience inflicted on me by an F&B manager at a prestigious hotel in Dubai.  The manager insisted, rather belligerently, that a martini was made from a “mix” and that it should be four (4) parts “mix” to one (1) part liquor.  He thought that Martini & Rossi was a “mix” and didn’t realize that Martini & Rossi was just a ”brand” of vermouth, which is only a minor ingredient in the modern day martini.  Any current or former bartender in the world knows that a martini is more parts vodka  (or gin) than it is vermouth!  And certainly anyone in the beverage business would know that there is no such thing as “martini mix.”

So I complained to his manager, who needs to know about his employee’s cluelessness and belligerence toward a paying customer. If it were not for my complaining, this same manager would be the man to place final judgment on your issue.  So unless you want to be drinking a vermouth martini and choking down poorly cooked steak, surrounded by shabby décor and indifferent service, I strongly encourage you to join me in embracing our collective responsibility to complain.

It’s not rude, it’s not petty, it’s not “picky” – complaining is honest, honorable, and ultimately helps to create better dining experiences for all of us.

It was during a late night show that I saw something even more repulsing than watching the real estate millions infomercial for the millionth time.  It was a television commercial for a beloved hot sauce brand, Tabasco.

Tabasco has been long revered as a leading hot sauce marketing case study and success story.  Their brand was strong enough to carry them beyond revenues for their core business of hot sauce.  Tabasco jumped from the grocery aisle and restaurant tabletop to the mainstream and sold everything from neckties to silk boxers with their brand equity.

Brand equity, like any other asset, can appreciate or depreciate depending on how you invest it.  The newest pizza commercial serves as a reminder that well-intentioned marketers can take a century old (once flaming hot) brand and reduce it to a mild and smoldering simmer.

I can get the notion of selling Tabasco with the idea that people staying up late are likely fatso’s that are stuffing their mouths with pizza while watching Jimmy Fallon – one can overlook that overstretched stereotype.  I also can understand the premise that adding Tabasco can make your pizza sing.  But literally singing?  Old men singing in harmony?  It’s like some sort of gone-wrong pimple remover commercial.

I’m all for innovative marketing and innovative ways to stretch a brand in to new segments or uses.  I’m certainly all for creative marketing ideas and even for new ways to use that bottle of Tabasco in the pantry.  Whoever sold the executives at Tabasco on running this commercial should have put as much salesmanship in to the actual commercial as they did convincing the brand managers to run it.