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Your Servers- Salespeople or Order Takers? ALOHA! Welcome to this edition of TIPS. Weve been talking about the huge positive impact that having a house full of salespeople versus servers, waiters, or order-takers can have on your business. I will give you a personal guarantee that if your ratio of salespeople to order takers is high you will be seeing revenue and profits go up, costs go down, improved morale, lowered turnover, fewer sick calls and WC claims and... well I can keep going on with the list, but you get the idea. How can I make such an extraordinary claim? Its easy. First of all, I have experienced myself, the difference between a salesperson and an order taker as I have been both in my restaurant career. I started off as an order taker and through proper mentoring and modeling, but mostly through my own motivation to become better at what I do and make more money, I became a salesperson in the restaurant industry. Here is my AHA moment as it happened. I was living on the beautiful island of Maui, working for a World Famous restaurant chain as one of their top servers. By top, I mean that I had high seniority, was the head of the training department and could pretty much choose my shifts. But I was still an order taker. I was a good order taker, but an order taker nonetheless. I had been asked about the possibilities of moving into management, but I knew I wasnt quite there yet, so I continued to do my job, day after day. No big hassles or problems, but I just wasnt feeling satisfied. We had recently experienced an acquisition by our sister company, and there were changes that were happening that was making the staff grumble a lot and overall, morale was starting to sink. Worse yet, it was becoming visible to the customer. Slowly, I found myself for the first time in a long while not wanting to show up for work. One summer we had a new manager join our team who was on fire. He gave great pre-shift meetings, was sincere, happy and modeled the behavior he wanted from his crew. Here was my model. He also became a mentor, but that was later on. Just watching this guy every day, made me want to do a better job. He was invested in this company and was happy to let everyone know about it. Everyone from the dishwasher to the customer. Actually, anyone who would listen! I watched this guy walk the talk day after day, and knew inside I had to have what he had if I was going to keep working there. Simply showing up for work each day wasnt cutting it anymore. I was burned out. I was making good money as an order taker, enough to support a good lifestyle on Maui where the cost of living is about double of what it is where I live now. But something else needed to change. One day, I had an epiphany. I suddenly realized that I was in the service industry. What a concept! After years of doing this job, it suddenly dawned on me that I had signed on the dotted line (my application) to be of service. Thats all. Not just of service to my guests, but to my fellow employees, management, the facility itself. WOW! I was transformed. I came to pre-shift that day with a whole new attitude. I started out by following the advice of my new model and listening carefully to some of the sales techniques he was trying to teach us. I then began to implement them. Well, what do you know? My check averages soared, my tip averages ran from 25-30% on a bad night, I was winning practically every sales contest every night I worked. It was like a miracle had occurred! But I didnt stop there. When I had free time, Id help run food, stock stations that werent my responsibility, sweep the floor (a job everyone hated), and assist my busboy by carrying tubs and taking out trash. What happened from that experiment? I began winning employee of the month, only the best bussers wanted to work with me, they would do anything to help me out. The kitchen would bend over backwards for me, because I was Johnny on the spot to help get other servers food out whenever I had the time. What was going on here? I had experienced a paradigm shift of a very large magnitude. Within 6 months I was in the management training program, within 9 months I was on the team of another restaurant in the island chain that was a 12 million dollar a year restaurant, and soon I was fast tracking my way to other markets and big fat raises, bonuses and promotions. That is an abbreviated history of my own movement from order taker to salesperson. Did it end there? Of course not. I was now in a position to TEACH and MODEL what I had learned, except now I was doing it from the other side of the operation. Now I was selling the entire operation, the entire organization, the entire concept to my staff every day. Everywhere I went, sales improved, costs went down and the ultimate domino effect occurred. I was the training manager for every restaurant I worked so I could make sure that we were teaching these concepts from all angles. I caught em when they walked through the door! Can this same change occur in your operation? YES! From bottom up and top down. All it takes is one on fire person in a position of authority who is willing to model the behavior required. If you have two on fire models, your salespeople will increase exponentially. This is not a theory. This is a fact that has been proven over and over again in the restaurant industry by quality leaders. We will have one final TIPS article on this subject, to draw out our checklist and to show you in numbers, what a difference a house full of salespeople can make! Dont worry retailers- youre next! Until next time... Shawn October 23, 2008 TIPS |
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