← Restaurant Unstoppable with Eric Cacciatore
Restaurant Unstoppable with Eric Cacciatore
1226: Three Elements that Define Excellence with Rudy Miick, Part 3
01:07:11
Rudy’s an executive coach, psychologist, restaurateur, writer, speaker, athlete and dad. His clients typically run at 3 – 5 times above median profit within our industry, and they get there within contract periods. He is a co-founder and...
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- [00:05]
A
Welcome to restaurant unstoppable. For 10 years and over 1, 000 episodes, I've been traveling the country chasing word of mouth leads and having in person only long form discussions with the industry's finest owners and operators. Our mission is to inspire, empower and transform the restaurant industry by bridging the gap between this generation's leaders and the next. Listen to today's guest and so many others and step closer to becoming unstoppable. Do you wish you could have all of your restaurant needs and solutions under one roof? Well, you can. It's called Restaurant Systems Pro. And with Restaurant Systems Pro, you get accounting systems, budgeting systems, costing systems, purchasing systems, inventory management systems, labor management systems, training systems, and systems to create and implement checklists. And on top of all all this, Restaurant Systems Pro has their own native general ledger and they're in the process of launching their own pos, which they are so appropriately naming serve because that's exactly what they do. To learn more, head over to restaurant unstoppable.com RSP where you can schedule your own demo, watch a demo that I did with Restaurant Systems Pro CEO Fred Langley, or catch every and all testimonial we've ever recorded on the show. That's Restaurant Unstoppable.com RSP this episode is made possible by me. Me is a digital recipe platform that helps you stay creative, build profitable menus, and nail food execution at scale. We know to scale you need consistency because consistency builds trust with your guests and your staff. We all want to know what the job done right looks like. And when you have systems, your systems are a picture of perfection, of what that job done right is. And that puts us to peace. We are so happy when we know we're doing a good job. Me will be the one source of truth for your entire team. It's time to take control of your profitability. Learn more at www.getmes.com unstoppable. That's www.g e t m e z.com/unstoppable. With excitement, it's time to welcome back on the show three times in a row, founder and president of M. Rudy. Mick, my man, are you feeling unstoppable today, sir?
- [02:39]
B
I am continually unstoppable and I'm thrilled to be back.
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A
Yeah, you have to be. And I think you know what's coming next. And I think I know the answer. But what is that inspirational motivational success quarter mantra you got for us today?
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B
What I breathe with on a daily basis is be on purpose.
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A
Yeah, be on Purpose. I've forced you to unpackage that two times in a row. So if you guys did not catch part one and part two of this three part workshop series, listen to that. Hear what Rudy has to say about being on purpose. And in part one, we covered vision, purpose, values, you know, how to look at these things as tools. And then in part two, we talked about Cartman's drama triangle and conscious communication. Today in part three, we're going to be talking about how we integrate these three pieces to define excellence. So with that being said, Rudy, take it away.
- [03:34]
B
Well, it's great to be back, Eric, and thank you for the setup of taking a sense of values that we hold or a sense of purpose that we hold and turning that consciousness into a choiceful tool, into a concept that I think most of us believe is good to have. And how do we actually turn our values into verbs? How do we actuate and put those tools to work in our companies, in our private lives as well? So to move our groups, to move our teams, to move our companies in a way that is effective and is with intention tied to that, that's where the communication tools and just a simple question of, gosh, am I in, am I in drama? Am I just spinning my own wheels here? Well, I got myself stuck in the mud and. Or how do I connect and make contact with my team even more effectively or my customers or my family. Right. And then I'm struck there's, you know, from that, from that, putting them in place. There are a whole bunch of places we can go into the fiscal well being of our companies. The way we hire, the way we train, those two big pieces that you introduced us to. Around, contact, connection through the communication, intentionally, on purpose, guided by our values to achieve our vision. Wow. From there we can go anywhere.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So there's a summarial overview.
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A
So does it make sense? You kind of did just that, the overview, you know, part one, we talked again about vision values and you know, our purpose statement and looking at those things as tools. I think when I hear that that is what being on purpose is, is like. Here's why I exist. This is my purpose. This is our mission. These are our values. This is where we're going with our vis. Being more conscious is kind of what came to mind. Talking about Cartman's drama triangle, knowing, knowing when we're being dramatic, knowing when we're being emotional, being able to call it out and be able to move away from that triangle as fast as possible, to be conscious of how we're showing up with our energy. So how do these. So piece number one being the values, vision, purpose, piece number two being carpenter, drama, triangle, and piece number three being conscious communication.
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B
Right.
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A
Those are the three pillars we're talking about today, right?
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B
Well, I, I would integrate actually Cartman as a tool that supports us to stay present and awake to ourselves. And the communication, those two pieces actually integrate into an overall of communication. So if we, if we took. If we took this power hour and integrated three major steps in. In our approach to the world of work, I would say here's where they go. Not to throw you off your. Your pivot place here, but that first piece of vision, purpose, values that we've both alluded to here quite a bit. I would call that step number one in knowing who we are as a company. Have we defined excellence? Have we defined high performance? Whether we're carrying plates, whether we're packaging everything into go containers, whether we're using trays, whether we have a bar, whether we don't, you know, if it. If it's. We've got a food truck or a catering company, whatever those pieces are, that p. That essence of knowing who we are is step one.
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A
So it's a definition of who, what and why.
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B
Yeah, exactly.
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A
What's two?
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B
And that's where. And that's where purpose and values are so important. Because those pieces tied to my vision act as the compass. Right. Step two, I'm going to throw you a curveball here. Is everything that we do financially, fiscally, and that we're looking forward, not backwards, and we're being proactive and disciplined as part of our value system. So that. And this is something that most operators, even most companies, we'll talk about fiscal proficiency, but it's rare that we actually put it that I see folks tying that fiscal knowledge and discipline as actually a company value. I believe it is. Right. And then third, and the foundation, the primary how is the communication that you're talking about and that you and I have been talking about around. Wait a minute, are we in drama here? Are we just spinning wheels? Are we actually making traction on everything we said is excellent. Those are the. To me, those are the three pillars. Everything else follows that.
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A
Got it? So if the goal today, so to summarize, number one, is the who, what and why. We say, we say who we are, we say what we do, we say why we do it. Number two is the actual execution of are we living up to that? And then number three is the communication and how we communicate, whether or not.
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B
We'Re Hitting the mark and how we are, the communication is the primary how tool. With all the tech, with all the finance, with all the machinery, with all the equipment, the communication still, whatever technology we use for it, the communication is the primary how of moving all those knobs. And if we're in drama, this is why we spent so much time on the triangle. If we're in drama, we have lots of energy. So much spinning, we're spinning wheels.
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A
Wasted.
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B
Going.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Wasted.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And that's the great majority reason, in my opinion, why most restaurants are running at 3 or 4% EBITDA or net up. Right. I mean, or going broke, frankly.
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A
So if today's restaurant purpose is to really talk about how these three pieces, what we say and who we say, why we are, what we are, all this, the actual ability to execute and are we showing up doing what we say and who we are, are we doing those things? Are we executing? And then number three, the communication that surrounds this, How. How does this all come together? Today's goal is to bring this all together. So what is the agenda for today going forward to make sure we can have brought this all together?
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B
Well, one of the things I was thinking about is you and I might have a dialogue of how do we. So we've defined these three steps. What if I was an operator in a startup, how would I implement them? If I have one restaurant or two restaurants already running, how would I implement them? If I have a small chain already? We've been in business 10 years and decide, hey, we're going to ramp up and install this stuff, what would those things look like? Because, I mean, so that's what I was sitting with, is we have kind of three elements that we play with in the industry. One is startup. Maybe we have a big budget, maybe we have no budget, right. But we're starting our business. What would this look like? There we are in growth mode. We want to go from one unit or two units to 10 units, or from 10 units to 20 units, or from 20 to 400, you know, whatever our vision is for that growth, and then in a downturn or in the chaos that a lot of us went through with the pandemic and issues like that, where everything changes right under our feet and that in that turnaround, how do we pivot, how do we change? How do we go from undisciplined to a lot of discipline and that turnaround sort of a piece, we are doing the same things, just with a different focus and a different speed. So that's what I was kind of thinking that that might be interesting three ways or three.
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A
You might be in three different situations. Whoever is listening to this, maybe you're just getting started and you want to start from scratch doing it the right way. Maybe you realize that you got something special, but you got to tighten it up. How do you. If you already have momentum and you're looking to scale, how do you implement this stuff at that point? And then the. The turnaround, if, if, if you're looking, if things are going down, you're not growing, but like the things have turned around and you got to revigorate, you have to bring things back to life. How do you implement it? How do you implement these things in that situation? Those are the three things we're going to discuss.
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B
Dude, you are so clear, right? I wish I was as clear as you. And what. As I was listening to you, we ended up with an overused phrase during pandemic and over the last few years, but it hit me like a brick of what you just named in that turnaround is literally a single word. Pivot. We gotta go from here to there, and we gotta do it as fast as we can. How do we do it?
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A
Pivot. All right, let's start unpackaging this. But real quick, I'm gonna take five steps over to my right. Cause there's a book that came in the mail today that I think might come in relevant to today's convers. So I'm gonna go grab it real quick.
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B
Okay, do that. Absolutely.
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A
A little plug. You must know the name Robin Dunbar. I would imagine Dunbar's number.
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B
I do.
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A
I've been wanting to get him on the show for some time and I. I didn't realize that in 2023. Recently he published this book in collaboration with Tracy Camarilli. I'm so bad with last names. Camarilli and Samantha Rocky.
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B
Okay.
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A
The Social Brain. The Psychology of Successful Groups. And I listened to this book on audio, and it's one of those books like you. You listen to it and you're like, I gotta get the hard copy. And this is one of those books. And I think some of the lessons from this book might come out. So just in case it does, I'm gonna have it off to my left. Highly recommended. Maybe I'll send you a copy as a thank you for doing this workshop. But let's bring it back to the first scenario. If I'm a startup and I these three elements, what does that look like?
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B
Well, so here's what it looks like in startup headline number one, there are an awful lot of folks out in the industry that think that the restaurant business is, from a naive perspective, pretty simple. Hey, everybody needs to eat. I can find an old kitchen, I can find an old, you know, a building that used to be a restaurant or something. I can take it over or I'll get a food truck or what, whatever the thing might be. And I'll deal with, I'll just start, right? The ultimate kiss of death is your friends, the friends around you every time you throw a party go, oh my God, you're the best. You ought to open a restaurant, right? And the difference is you throw a party once a week or maybe once a month or once a quarter and it goes off really well. The difference running a restaurant is it's seven days a week, three day parts a day, etc. Right, right. So where for me in a startup and what set us at what set mic up for success with the very first restaurants that I owned and ran with my partners and then essentially with clients and stuff, was that we actually did our work in advance. Why this restaurant? Why this think, maybe even tighter. Why this concept? So I want to do a taco truck, I want to do a pop up, I want to do a ghost kitchen, I want to do a sit down restaurant. All of those, any of those are phenomenal if and when they're thought through. And we mitigate the risk of our startup if we do the work in advance we need to. So do I build a budget? You know, most people think, oh, okay, well, I'm going to pencil out the prices of my equipment, the prices of food. What's labor going to be ballparking? Right. What we miss very, very often is wait, what are the values that are going to guide us in this project and why restaurants in the first place? What is it I actually provide by doing this? Right. How do lives, how do I impact lives or do I even care about that? Is it just a way to make money? So asking those questions up front and then with vision, like you and I talked about Ari some weeks ago. Yeah, exactly. Ari's big mantra is to always start with vision. Right. I tend to start with purpose, but with a vision of, okay, well, I'm getting ready to invest in this idea. I've found partners, I've got friends and family that are willing to take a risk with me. They've put some money in, in place and stuff. At the very least, I want to start with a vision of what do I see this thing becoming and what is it in our neighborhood or Whatever. So if I. Those ideas might start loosely. My offer to our audience is if they, whether they've started loosely or you just have this full color picture of exactly what you want to create. Either way, write it down, type it down, play with AI generatives on it to articulate what that vision is and to think, then you know me well enough. My, my places will wait. If the definition of the, of the word restaurant is a place, one goes to be restored, and I'm a restorer of soul. How does this concept change people or impact people that come up to us? It might be, I might have a little sandwich cart out on a corner, right? But for those of us, for instance, let's stay there for a second. Little sandwich cart on a corner in Chicago or New York or LA or, you know, whatever town we're in, one, one cart's got a line and the other card is empty. No different than no, no cart. I mean, no different than a standing restaurant of somebody's executing really well. Somebody else has not executed well. So I want to take those initial thoughts of purpose, vision, values, articulate them to guide us in the way we're going to treat our people, the way we're going to treat and deliver, produce our food, right? Are we vegan? Are we vegetarian? Do we care? Are we a meat company? Are we a pot? Right? And I'm appreciating seeing your head nod. Right. Those little pieces of clarity that take us a bit further. And then what is the service standard? The way we're going to deliver it.
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A
Yeah. So a lot of the times, people who are going through, they internalize it, right? They know who they are, they know what drives them. And they might say it once in a while, but that's not enough. You have to concretely cement it to paper. You have to build ritual around who we are and what we are so that everyone knows. It's not enough for you to be the person who knows. And this isn't for. I mean, it is for you. That's actually one thing. Like, I think people think when they're going through this, this, these exercises, they think that it's. It's not for me, it's for everybody else, but it's also for you, to keep you honest. Behind every great restaurant is a great person. The key to being great is to be of service to others. And this holds true for all organizations, not just restaurants. After spending a month in Phoenix, Arizona, being hosted by Restaurant Systems Pro CEO Fred Langley, I got to experience firsthand Fred's desire To serve. It all started when I got there. Fred gave me the keys to his house and to his office building. When Fred leaves work every day, I witnessed him go coach one of his two sons baseball team. And when Fred's neighbor lost power when they were hosting their son's birthday party, Fred offered to host the party at his house. Eric, why are you sharing this? Because how you do one thing is how you do everything. And believe me when I say that the desire to serve extends to Fred's restaurant clients. There are no secrets or shortcuts to life or restaurant success. There's only discipline, hard work, and the desire to do the right thing. Fred and his team at Restaurant Systems Pro are here to serve you with the systems and resources to be more disciplined so you can do the hard thing, which nine times out of 10, is the right thing. With Restaurant Systems Pro, you get accounting systems, budgeting systems, costing systems, purchasing systems, inventory management systems, labor management systems, training systems, and the systems to create and implement checklists. On top of all this, Restaurant Systems Pro also has their own native general ledger, and they're in the process of launching their own pos, which they are so appropriately naming Serve. And you know what? If you don't want to change your pos, that's absolutely fine because Restaurant Systems Pro integrates with all major POS providers. To learn more, head over to restaurantunstoppable.com RSP and you will find a link to schedule a demo with their sales team. A demo I personally did with Restaurant Systems Pro CEO Fred Langley and all 18 of our testimonials that we've recorded since the beginning of Restaurant stoppable. Again, that's restaurantunstoppable.com RSP 100%.
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B
This is the work I do for a living, right. And have for a long time. And the more I write or the more I scribble, the more I, you know, just like writing the book, you know, on social brain that you just showed us, the first draft is not the final edit, right? And so the more I work and practice and articulate, whether I'm typing, thumbing, writing, whatever it is, the more articulate I'll get. And a gigantic kiss of death, especially in startup, is I'm walking around with all this stuff in my head as the owner, thinking my team is going to read my mind and know, well, everything we're talking about is so obvious. It's obvious to me because I've thought about it, but not to my team. Yeah. And that is one of the real. That's where the communication comes into play, right?
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A
And pick up one of these guys. If you guys don't have something like this, pick up one of these guys. It's a little journal and I'm actually proud to say that I got this journal almost a year ago today. August, sorry, October 16, 2024. And Rudy, look, look how close I am to being. I'm almost there. I got like 10 more pages left. And this is an exercise just like any other exercise. You start off, I started by writing down my gratitudes for every day and once one particular thing that I was grateful for and if I got a page filled in the first, you know, a couple weeks of doing this, that was a big deal for me. And then like any other exercise, if you start small, if you just start by putting your shoes on to go for a walk, over time it compounds. And now I feel like my day hasn't started. And until I've written my intentions. Now I have, I started with this journal. Now I have a little journal that I carry around with me that is, it's like I need to get all these to do is off my, my, my emotional journal and onto a smaller, like it just starts compounding. And if, if you're not a writer, just start small is my point and, and it will build momentum.
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B
I, I love what you just said so much. And I don't know where we're going to be. I don't know what three generations from Gen Z is going to be called or what it's going to look like. But as of today, still the act of physically, the kinesthetic act of actually writing is still more brain potent than thumbing in text or typing. It still has more kinesthetic resonance to building thought processes and brain synapse. So three or four more generations, I don't know. As we use our automated tools more and more and AI and verbal, but that brainstorming creates its own outcome. It is visioning in its own way, very quantum physics and very field theory. But those tools actually work in our industry. Those tools meaning it's all about quantum physics and field theory, right?
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A
Yeah.
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B
So yeah, we're starting to know a question.
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A
No, no, I mean, I was just going to say, I mean one way I like to visualize it like you can have a vision for what the cathedral is going to look like, right?
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B
Yeah.
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A
But that won't start coming to life until you lay the foundation and then that laid that. Laying that foundation is a physical act of putting something down. You can have it internalized, you can see what it looks like in your head. But you have to lay that first foundation. And you're not going to build that cathedral overnight. You're going to build it in layers, right?
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B
Yes.
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A
And you know, writing, just getting the, getting in the journal, writing that first thing that, that's your foundation and it's going to change over time. As a matter of fact, this morning, one of the things I wrote down was the evolution of my core values. You know, and this is something I've been working on for 10 years and it's still to this day evolving and getting more like finding the language to concisely communicate that. And where I'm at today, in case anybody is curious, my core values are freedom, trust, curiosity, openness, collaboration, service to others. That's where I'm at right now. So.
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B
Nice. Well, and to your point, it's an evolving theme, right? Yeah. So let so on for some of the audience we're talking about some fairly what might be construed as ethereal things. Oh, values. Oh, the vision. How many restaurants do I see myself having in three years and five years and 10 years? What's the EBITDA? What's if I even know what EBITDA is? Right. What's our prime costing and why? This product mix that we're building, that's one step also to really put in place in advance are the numbers. What is my budget for whether I've got money or not? I want to know how much money I need to go acquire, depending on what I've got access to. So what are the projections? What is my sense of a check average per person, day parts in a ring, hour or day parts that I'm going to be operating and what is the revenue that I'm visualizing bringing in? Right. And the National Restaurant association and all the state associations, Fast Casual Nation, a bunch of different organizations have got nationally tested trends for turns or cycles per minute, depending on our industry segment. Right. That can guide you. And guys like me that do this for a living, we have access to those numbers on a regular basis. After we've opened 20 or 40 restaurants or 100 restaurants, those numbers just ooze out of our system. But, but doing the, the numbers in advance as well really helps. How much staff?
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A
Yeah.
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B
What does the staff look like? What is the expectation of those things? So that again, day one, oh my God, I've got my values in place, but I also got my fiscal systems in place from day one as opposed to playing catch up six months after I open, which is the first step.
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A
To number two, if we're looking at these three parts, right? First part saying, like committing who we are, why we are, and what we're going to do, and then number two is actually doing it every day. So I feel like actually going through those exercises of getting these pro formas and those numbers is going through the motions. This is the first step.
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B
Motions 100%. And then to your point, communication is the primary how and with if in a, in a startup, I might have to go talk to potential investors, whether they're friends and family, whether they're my banker, which is very rare, whether it's a investor or two, whatever that might be. But the communication starts also simultaneously. So that bedrock of those three steps in a startup I'm beginning, just like your journal is now just over a year old and you're almost complete with your first book, I might have iterations of pro formas, of budgets, of thoughts, of concepts that are ready to finally present before we open. Now, if we're. Imagine if we're already up and running and I never put those pieces in place. I've got to figure out I'm going to do the same three steps, but I've got to figure out while I'm running the company, how and where do I get the time to articulate my values, articulate the vision, Right. Maybe I do it while I'm driving. Maybe I do it, I go for a walk every day. Right. One of the things that always astounds me in the Fortune 500 and Big Public companies, the C suites of those leaders, so many of them actually take the time to take a nap or daydream or go for a walk or take 45 minutes to just think. They actually chill out. That's part of how they get paid, what they get paid for.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And in our world of work, we think, oh, my God, I can't take a break. I can't go play golf, I can't go surf. I can't. You know, God forbid I should take some time off. Well, if you don't take. Right.
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A
Anyway, it comes up another plug to the book. They, they talk about this world we live in, how we look at the business today as machines. But the thing is, humans are not machines. And it's like trying to squint, to fit square pegs into round holes. You know, like we, we have to reverse engineer the business, the machine to serve people, not people serve the machine. And people need that time to go for a walk, to brainstorm, to get creative, to get the creative juices. Flowing. And we are by nature mobile creatures. Like when we're moving and with other people walking, talking, it's amazing how that just starts. That in itself is synchrony. And that act of being synchronous with other people, just all this is just so powerful in the creative process and building culture too. And those are rituals, right, where we.
- [32:49]
B
Go for our walks and we talk 100%. So I'm going to take a risk and go a place that you and I have, even you and I rarely go. But a huge part of our track record, my experience over years, we are actually, when we take on a restaurant and do it right, we've clearly defined our intention. How big do we want to be? What are the numbers we want to hit? What is the kind of feedback we get from people? We put that into a context and call it things like vision, call it things like purpose, call it things like values that guide a decision and keep us on track, right? Then we put numbers in place to anticipate where we're going. When I pay attention to clearly defined intention and have done the numbers as well as the cultural heart of how I treat people, how I treat product, there's only one outcome, and it is quantum physics and it is field theory. The only outcome is success, period. That doesn't mean we might not trip and fall, right? We might have to pivot. Right. I think back in the day with Starbucks as an example, how many times Howard Schultz redesigned Starbucks, right, in its, in its massive heyday, he would get off track a little bit, come back to center, go again, turns into one of the biggest, most successful cultural brands in the world. Now they're struggling in massive ways, which is a whole other story. But when I pay attention to my intention here, the field theory, literally from a quantum physics place, there's only one outcome that is achievement of my goal, and we do it every single time.
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A
I would love to understand that more. Maybe that's a future workshop. That's a good teaser right there. So to bring it back to today's conversation and not that we've strayed totally off of today's conversation, but we're here to focus right now on three parts of how to bring these three parts of this workshop together and those that is startup ready to scale and needing to pivot are the three topic points. I think, you know, we've unpackaged, you know, what to consider if you're a startup. Is there any more to that before we talk about the focus on scaling or ready for growth?
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B
Well, so the Same criterion occur with scale as startup. The difference is I have to figure out if I'm not doing these pieces, these three pieces, defining excellence, defining who we are tracking and anticipating our fiscal well being. I call it fiscal acuity. And number three, conscious communication, which includes paying attention to drama and victimhood and passive aggressive behaviors that get us nowhere. Right. That energy then guides us to the way we hire. Because now we know who we're looking for. We're not just looking for a cook or a bartender or a runner. We're looking for somebody that has some passion, is excited to put to work in an environment that is really active. They don't want to sit at a desk, hey, I want to do stuff. I want to meet with the public, I hire better. That leads us to training more effectively with intention, on purpose to achieve the vision to hit our numbers. And then the ongoing growth of things like social brain is on our reading list for our team. Not just the managers, but the whole team. Right. Why not? So in, in the actual growth mode, the struggle, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, is I've got to have the bandwidth. If I've waited till restaurant number two or even, God forbid, restaurant three or more, we've got the tools in place. We're doing okay, we're surviving or maybe even thriving. What's next? We still now have to, while we're running the ship or while we're driving the car, flying the plane, we need to know how to remodel the plane while it's in the air. Right. And that, that has its own unique needs. Especially if I'm a solo owner.
- [38:01]
A
Right.
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B
With, with a whole, not, not a whole lot of money.
- [38:05]
A
So, I mean, I think that is a big challenge. Right. A lot of us, sure, you know, I say be tomorrow you today, but today you is working 80 hours a week. So how can you focus on doing the tomorrow things if you're too busy being who you are today? Right.
- [38:21]
B
So like, Right, well, and that is where likely the drama, the drama triangle starts showing up, which is a combination of the values. Oh, I say that I'm going to treat everyone, we're going to communicate, treating everyone with dignity and respect. But I'm work because I'm working 80 hours a week. I'm barking, right? Oh God, why don't you just fix this yourself? Right? Like how is that dignity and respect or behind closed doors? We say screw inventory this week. We don't have enough time.
- [39:01]
A
Right.
- [39:02]
B
All right. And right there we end up not living the values we said we were going to hold about dignity and respect or about fiscal well being and we let those things go. Suddenly the car or the truck, I always think of a pickup. For some reason the truck is now starting to already spin its wheels in the mud.
- [39:27]
A
Right.
- [39:28]
B
As opposed to, okay, get back to it. Get the inventory done. Yeah. What do I need to start doing differently?
- [39:36]
A
Yeah.
- [39:37]
B
And that's where the communication comes.
- [39:38]
A
Right. And I think this is the power of having a list like what is the most important thing that I can do? I can't do all of tomorrow me today. But I can do one part of that that will move me in that direction and if I can prioritize the most significant part that will get that will be the biggest move in the right direction to help me build that momentum. Then what is that one thing that if I focus on day after day until that thing is done and delegated so I can move on to the next thing and then the next thing and then it compounds.
- [40:08]
B
Yeah.
- [40:09]
A
This episode is made possible by me's MEES is a digital recipe platform that helps you stay creative, build profitable menus, and nail food. Execution at scale consistency builds trust with your guest and your staff. No more messy spreadsheets or scattered systems. Whether they want to admit it or not, your team loves systems because systems equals peace of mind. Because we all want to know what the job done right looks like. And Mies paints the picture of perfection and is the one source of truth for your entire team. By locking in recipes and training before service starts, ME makes sure every dish is consistent, every team member is aligned, and every location runs like clockwork. So when the report rolls in after the sale, they tell the story you're after. Higher profits, better margins, and repeat guests. It's time to take control of your profitability. Learn more at www.getmes.com unstoppable that's G E T M E E Z.com unstoppable.
- [41:13]
B
I can't remember where I heard this on one of the one of the news shows recently, but there was some author sitting and talking about Steve Jobs and then and then actually Elon Musk. So set politics aside for a second. It was really interesting to your point about a list. The reason I bring these guys up is if you look at the empire that Jobs built with Apple is like maybe the most notoriously successful guy in history of I've got a list of 50 things but there's five things that must get done today.
- [41:55]
A
Yeah.
- [41:56]
B
And he was notoriously successful at Before I go to bed, these five Are going to get done. Right, Right. Forget the list of 50. I'll get to those tomorrow or later this week. But these five things must get done. And the comment was the only person in the world that's maybe been better is better than getting that must done was musk. So just in terms of the discipline.
- [42:26]
A
Yeah. I want to show my.
- [42:29]
B
Set politics aside. I'm not touching that one. But can't argue the process of.
- [42:35]
A
Yeah. You can't argue the productivity, the level of accomplishment. Right. Whether.
- [42:39]
B
Yeah.
- [42:39]
A
You agree or disagree.
- [42:41]
B
Exactly. That's. Yeah, yeah.
- [42:43]
A
But that's why I got the second little handy travel with me everywhere journal, which is the. The to do list in one spot. No matter. And as more things are coming into your world, anytime you say, oh, I'll take care of that for you, it goes in the journal, it goes on the list. So you make sure that you. That's integrated. You know, that's how you build trust. That's my second core value.
- [43:04]
B
Well, and a positive integrity for sure. Right. Go ahead.
- [43:07]
A
So I think we've unpackaged. You know, if you're. How do you bring these three parts together? If you're a startup, I think we. We've gone into. If you're small and you're ready to scale and you're in that process of building momentum to scale, I think that's kind of where we are. You've unporch or unporchaged unpackaged portions of that. Is there more to that before we move on to the pivot?
- [43:34]
B
Well, I think in the pivot, all that changes is it's even more intense and there's even more pressure to get stuff done quickly because we've only got enough Runway on cash. Typically in a turnaround or a pivot.
- [43:53]
A
Yeah.
- [43:53]
B
We're likely down to some serious deadlines with cash, with mortgages, with whatever it might be. And so the intensity shifts to musts as opposed to wants. Right. So let's get a little more granular. I'm sitting as I'm watching some of the folks that are joining us in the audience, I'm thinking, okay, well, when do I apply values to support my fiscal need? Right. Whether it's a startup, whether it's growth, whether it's pivot. My offer to our clients, to the executives that we coach or the teams that I coach, and to me on a personal basis as well. I'm thinking of the second an issue pops up here. Here's a pin. What am I supposed to do with this pin? Which values apply to being effective using this pin or using this cup. Right. Whatever it might be. Geez, I could hold the cup here, I could hold the cup here. I could hold it with one hand or the other. Which values apply to the effectiveness, to the longevity, to the value of that comp. Right. Which values apply? What are the behaviors that apply to that value? Do that and do it now and suddenly that simple formula will work with my staff, with my assistants, with my managers, with myself. And the interesting piece is that I build muscle. It's like lifting weights. Oh, I turn the values from this interesting idea or a list of your trust was one of the things that you named in yours. You've got your values in your book. And I move them from my book to my heart or my book to my heart, to my head, to the area around me, so that the values now become tangible tools. And they include the financial and the way I communicate. And we communicate to those behaviors. Not compliments, not good job, bad job, but what do I need to make eye contact, a tangible smile, the use of my cup, et cetera, Whatever.
- [46:38]
A
Yeah, well, you know, one of the things I like to say, and one thing that helped me with redefining my values after having 12 years of doing this, I can ask myself, what got me here? Who am I and why am I successful? And when I was able to have that track record of showing up consistently for 12 years and what people have said to me to my face on why they like me, why they trust me. Hearing those things gives you a baseline to be able to start to reverse engineer who am I and what got me here. And those become your core values. What will get me to where I'm going and right. What. And if you don't have systems and processes, the reality is you do because you are the systems and processes because you've been doing everything. So what are those things to your point that got me here? Like what are the. In those things are your values and what are the, what are these values and how do we do these things? Even better, that becomes your north. Your North Star in documenting and getting traction.
- [47:41]
B
So, so to that I'm watching myself feel a desire for tangible. Right. Tangible exercises here. I'm starting to think of like again in startup, in turnaround, in pivot, in growth. I've got a. I've got a kitchen that is maybe designed as a four person line. I've got a menu that is developed that so far the only way we've been able to figure out how to do it is with a Four person line and all of a sudden somebody gets sick or a person on our team that we've somehow brought on is not performing at the standard of excellence that we thought they would. And even with repeated coaching, whatever, we've got the wrong person in the wrong seat on the proverbial bus, Right. Or, you know, the wrong person in the position. So now I'm at a choice point. Do I just replace this person or can I actually, with some additional thought, modify the menu or modify the line to create a three person production line. Right? And I'm better off, counterintuitively, I'm better off. I can take that fourth person salary, turn it into a raise for the other three people, raise the performance, they make more money, we are more efficient. And instead of getting stuck in the mud of going, oh my God, I'm going to go broke, oh poor me, I'm going, wait, how do we actually turn our values into high performance production? This is what excellence is with three people. And we can get more accomplished with three than we could with four previously.
- [49:37]
A
Right?
- [49:38]
B
We shift the line or we shift the menu, we increase production, increase profitability, the team's happier and everybody wins. Right? But that doesn't happen by accident, right? Yeah.
- [49:54]
A
And you know, you know, and that's why I think part two is so important. If, if what we just discussed or what I discussed was part one of the defining who you are, then part two is the scorecard, the fiscally responsible. Are we hitting our mark? Are we doing what we say we're going to do?
- [50:10]
B
Yeah.
- [50:11]
A
And you need, to your point, like you, like, I think you kind of emphasize on that when summarizing that you need to be able to say like, are we hitting? Like, are we tracking?
- [50:21]
B
Like, exactly right. And that the communication then that I'm talking in terms of behavior as opposed to compliments and criticism. So you know, we've got, we've got some folks, you know, that have, have been tracking our series for a few days, right? And so we've got, hey, Ben, Ben's in our audience. It's great to see him consistently. And you know, I just love that guy's casual attitude. If everybody could be like Ben, just sitting back casually, right, we'd have everybody making more and more and more money in our, in our business. Okay, well, so be like Ben. Be, be more casual. Okay, well, to our audience who may or may not see Ben the way I'm seeing them, here's actually the behavior, right? The compliment is, hey, the guy's laid back. Here's actually, which is a nice compliment, but what does it mean? You know, how does Eric or Rudy become more casual? The behavior that I'm seeing in Ben that I'm actually talking about is, hey, Ben chooses to sit in a chair that rocks. Ben actually is able to, with that rocking, soft, upholstered chair, able to sit back and have his arms crossed, laying back. And, oh, by the way, his facial expression has just this tiny little uptick on the corner of his mouth. It's not quite a smile until I call him out on it. And now it's a smile. Now it's a toothy grin. And that sitting back with your arms crossed doesn't mean I'm being lazy. It means I'm actually being attentive, listening, articulating, and I can use the pivot of the chair to move forward and get your attention. That's performance. Be like Ben.
- [52:38]
A
Yeah, I love that. That was a great on the spot example too.
- [52:42]
B
And so instead of most of us as managers and owners, talk about, hey, be like Ben. He's so laid back. He's so. Just chill, dude. He goes, no, here are the behaviors and do the behaviors. And each of us can do that, right?
- [53:00]
A
Yep. Yep. I love it. So we've covered a lot. I don't know if.
- [53:06]
B
And Ben, thank you for letting me play with you.
- [53:08]
A
Yeah. And I think example, back to this idea of lists. I think we've touched on startup, We've touched on scale. We've touched on pivot. Safe to say.
- [53:17]
B
Yeah.
- [53:17]
A
The biggest difference between scale and pivot is nice to have and must have.
- [53:23]
B
Nice to have and must have. And speed of execution.
- [53:27]
A
Speed of execution.
- [53:28]
B
Because your Runway is short in pivot. Make no mistake. We don't have four weeks to do this. I need this. I need it this week.
- [53:36]
A
Yeah. Last week.
- [53:38]
B
Yeah.
- [53:39]
A
Yeah. So I think the one thing that we haven't really unpackaged well or not well, but maybe we can go more into is that last part of communication. Is that safe to say or no? Like, I think we started talking about communication, the power of a list, Right?
- [53:55]
B
Well, the power of the list. And actually, you're anticipating where I was headed as well. The. Just the example that I played with just a moment ago with with our audience member Ben about, hey, be laid back versus what are behaviors. That is absolutely the essence of communication.
- [54:12]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Relative to lists, I think Brian Tracy. I don't know. I'm sure you've heard of Brian Tracy. His work and eat that frog. If you haven't listened to that or read that book. Highly recommended. He does some great. He gets some great tools on how to manage a list he talks about. I think what he does is there's also the four quadrant. I don't know if that was him or somebody else, but I think he might kind of lean on that a little bit. That's the idea of having, you know, important, urgent and, you know, prioritizing the most important urgent things and then, okay, like, can I do this or can I delegate this? And I think that we could be much better. I think we think we have to do all this by ourselves and, and that's not true. Like, we can lean on our team, we can do this collectively. Any advice on, on that?
- [55:02]
B
Sure. There is a massive covenant counterintuitive to leadership of if I'm the owner, if I'm the manager, if I'm the leader, give away anything and everything I can give away, give it away. Even making like for me asking my assistant to, hey, would you call so and so I you. For a long, long time I thought, God, that is just so aggressive. But it actually saves me the equivalent of about an hour a day, just the act of picking up the phone and calling somebody or typing out, as opposed to my support team doing stuff. But the, the example is give away anything and everything I can possibly give away. That doesn't mean throw you the keys. It means if I'm going to throw you the keys to my car, you better know how to drive the car as well. Right. So don't just assume it's going to get done. But as I hand off the keys, how do we ensure that you are good to drive? Right.
- [56:20]
A
Get it, want it, capacity to do it.
- [56:23]
B
Exactly. And then, and then, and then the other piece is, especially at the owner level of chair of the board or partner level, do not give away anything that I am the only one to do it. Right, right.
- [56:40]
A
Yeah.
- [56:42]
B
And that slippery slope of which what are all the things I give away that I haven't given away just out of habit, control, fear, whatever, give all that stuff away. Possible. And what are the three, four things that I must not ever give away?
- [56:59]
A
Right. So first step is I, you know, prioritize the list. Is it important? Is it urgent? Is it not important? Is it not urgent? What are those four quadrants? Put the things where they belong. The most important, urgent things. What am I. Who. What are the things only I can do and only I should do? Make that list and then delegate everything else.
- [57:21]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [57:22]
A
Yeah.
- [57:23]
B
100. 100.
- [57:24]
A
So I think I've been kind of sitting on this and I think in terms of communication, in terms of how to build a list, in terms of how to manage a list, this and to like to achieve goals, to work towards something. One of the biggest tools I've discovered in how to do this is the entrepreneurial operating system EOS introduced by Gino Wickman in his book Traction where he talks about level 10 meetings. This idea of having rocks but like the VTO like all this stuff, like it's not ground shattering things all like in if you take every element of the entrepreneurial operating system and you were to like the spread it out, like none, none of those singular parts of the system are earth shattering. But when you bring them together to see how these things play off of each other, that's where it becomes important. I know that's one tool and the other tool that's on my radar that I'm not as familiar with, but from what I understand it's very similar to EOs and level 10 meetings is Covey's 4Dx.
- [58:24]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would say Covey's goes deeper and farther. It's a lot more expensive.
- [58:33]
A
Yeah, it's the four disciplines of excellence is where he introduces those principles. I have not read that book yet.
- [58:39]
B
Well, so. And they're both. You know, EOS is magical. It's gigantic company, gigantic system of licensing and franchising and, and not so much franchise, but license. The challenge that I've seen with my clients that have been using EOS is the formats are incredible and at the same time the communication part of filling in those blanks or how filling in those lists. If I don't know how to get unstuck from drama, if I don't know how to talk about behavior instead of compliments and criticism, we can still get caught in hours and hours and hours of wasted time going in circles and going down rabbit holes. That should be a whole other meeting. And so with. Although this will sound self serving on one level, what I love is our work blended with EOS is a potent tool set of how to fill in those blanks, how to use those tools and how to put values, if you will. So it's one thing to say, oh, use your values how. Oh, it's one thing to say stay out of drama.
- [60:12]
A
How.
- [60:13]
B
And that how to is critical. And I, I think there's just rich dialogue there and books to be read and written both.
- [60:23]
A
Right. I guess what I'm curious about is your approach to this, the MIC approach, how is that different or like, what does that look like? What are the elements of that?
- [60:39]
B
Just what I said, which is how to. So you've got values. How do you use them? Oh, you've got. All of us have communication skills and we have this vision of our brand. Some of us are more articulate at sharing it, some of us are more inspiring in sharing that that doesn't. And every owner, every leadership team has the opportunity to be effective. I think that's what. If Mick brings anything to the table, it's those pieces of the how to implement, make your own list, make your, you know, that are unique to you. And I'm not saying that one is better than the other. I think it's just an interesting choice point of how we play together and how we integrate systems.
- [61:35]
A
Rudy, this has been a lot of fun, man. This is, I think, where we can conclude the three part workshop series. But this is not the end of us collaborating. You are making yourself available once a month at a. On the. I think we landed on the 4th or the last Tuesday of every month. Okay, 11am Eastern. And you're gonna be doing a power hour. You've been referring to this conversation as a power hour. This is a workshop where we're going deep into one subject. But you are making yourself available for a power hour. And if you're listening to this and you want access to Rudy and his schools of thought and his coaching in a group setting, then you're one membership away from getting regular access to, to one of the best in the industry. Head over to restaurantsoppable.com live to be able to get access to Rudy and so many more badasses in the industry. And during that time, if somebody's listening to this, what's your message to that person that might be interested in being able to talk to you on a monthly regular basis? Like, what is the special way you want to help that individual? How can you help that individual?
- [62:44]
B
My sense is that if you find yourself keep asking the same question and haven't been able to break through, that's a good place to play with us. The other piece is if new questions are beginning to bubble up for anybody listening because of these dialogues. Absolutely. Reach out. And last but not least is if you know what you want to do but can't figure out how to do it, call us. Be in touch, reach out, be in the power hour.
- [63:20]
A
And how do we get in touch?
- [63:22]
B
Certainly LinkedIn for Rudy. Mick, my cell direct line, 720-641-7565. You can also get a Hold of me on and through restaurants Unstoppable. Yeah.
- [63:36]
A
Yeah. And Rudy has agreed to support our mission to inspire, empower and transform the industry. So if you do reach out to him and you want to work with Rudy, please make sure you mention restaurant Stoppable so he can let me know and so we can keep this machine moving forward, building momentum. And thank you in advance for using my links and, and using my network. I think now, before we actually say goodbye, I, I do want to have you call somebody out to be a future guest on the show. After three workshops, I, I, I thought about maybe having you call somebody out at the end of each episode, but figured I'd cut you a break and just wait till the end. So here we are at the end. Who's somebody who's on your radar right now, who's truly impressive, who's a game changer, who's challenging the status quo? Who is somebody I need to make an example of? Who is that person that comes to mind right now?
- [64:24]
B
Well, I'm gonna break the code and give you two names. I'm gonna give me a shout out to my strategic partner, Bob Sloop from Kaizen Management. The guy knows more in his little finger than most people know in their whole bodies. And just brilliant. And also Ms. Anna Towson, just an amazing fractional marketeer. Brilliant, brilliant woman that understands our business and understands the numbers of it as well as the communication of comment.
- [65:01]
A
Two people I feel like I know well. So making my job easy, Bob, this means I have to make a stop in New Jersey the next time I head south. We're gonna make this happen, man. We're gonna get you on the show, we're gonna share the story. And Anna is somebody who's, she's, she gets plenty of air time on the podcast.
- [65:17]
B
Okay, so. Okay.
- [65:19]
A
Awesome way to reinforce those relationships. This is where I say thank you so much, Rudy, for sharing your knowledge, your vow, your, your perspective, your wisdom. There is no question, my man, you are unstoppable. And now we're going to open it up for Q A. And if you joined us live today, you could be engaging Rudy on this topic. Of the three, what do we call it? The pillars of excellence? Was it pillars? Was it parts? Too many elements. That's what we said. The three elements that define excellence. You could have engaged Rudy on that topic. And we're gonna say goodbye and open it up for Q A.
- [65:50]
B
All the best. Bye. Bye.
- [65:52]
A
That wraps up up this three part series with Rudy.
- [65:55]
B
Mick.
- [65:55]
A
Thank you so much, Rudy, for joining us and teaching us. And if you want access to Rudy Mick the Rudy Mick playlist and this three part series. If you want the playlist in one spot, easy to access, head over to restaurantstoppable.com Mick M I I C K We'll get you that playlist. And if you did not catch the news last week, Rudy is making himself available once a month. It's beginning in October for in operation strategy Culture power hour. This guy is a beast and you can get access to him once a month for some group coaching. This is unheard of. $47 a month is all I'm asking to get access to Rudy to get access to me twice a month to get access to our P and L power hour. We have operations power hours. We have culture power hours. We have marketing power hours. We have live workshops. That's what we did today. And we have mentoring sessions where I'm literally connecting you based off of your interests, your passions, your desires. Tell me who you want to have join us live for a mentoring session and I'll do my best to get them. We go further together. You do not have to go alone. We got your back. Come hang out. Head over to Restaurant Unstoppable.com live to join us in our you network live today. We'll see you there.