With Limited POV, How Can You See Your Potential?

Episode Summary

In this insightful episode of The Restaurant Success Podcast, Matthew Mabel explores the critical challenge facing restaurant entrepreneurs: how to expand your perspective when your point of view feels constrained. Restaurant owners and business leaders often find themselves trapped by their own limited viewpoints, making it difficult to identify growth opportunities and unlock their true potential. Matthew discusses practical entrepreneurship strategies for breaking through mental barriers, expanding business vision, and discovering untapped possibilities within your restaurant enterprise. This episode is essential for any restaurant professional looking to overcome operational blindness and achieve sustainable business growth in the competitive food service industry.

Key Topics Covered

• Overcoming limited perspectives in restaurant management
• Strategies for expanding business vision and identifying growth opportunities
• Breaking through mental barriers that restrict entrepreneurial thinking
• Practical approaches to unlock restaurant potential and improve profitability
• Building systems that provide clearer insights into business performance

Links Mentioned

• How Much Restaurant Profit Is Enough? - https://surrender.biz/how-much-restaurant-profit-is-enough/

Resources Mentioned

• Website: www.surrender.biz
• Free initial consultation available

Connect with Matthew Mabel

Matthew works with owners of successful, independent, multi-unit restaurants to improve:

• Profit growth
• Sales optimization
• Guest count increase
• Unit expansion
• Employee engagement
• Brand loyalty

How to Support the Show

• Subscribe to the Restaurant Success Podcast and Newsletter
• Rate and review the show
• Visit www.surrender.biz for additional resources

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to the Restaurant Success Podcast. I'm Matthew Mabel, veteran restaurant advisor, coach, consultant, and speaker devoted to multi-unit independent restaurant unit, profit and revenue growth, internal harmony and ownership freedom and flexibility.

This is your weekly entree of the advice, strategy and tactics that I currently provide to my best clients.

Today we're going to talk about something that might be holding you back more than you realize - operating with limited perspective when it comes to your restaurant's true potential. We'll explore why benchmarking your financial performance is so challenging for independent operators, and I'll share some eye-opening examples of million-dollar improvements that happened when owners finally got the complete picture of how their restaurants compared to others in their segment.

Think about it. You'd never make a major purchase for your home - like that new car, OLED TV, or a smart refrigerator - without comparing prices, especially with all the online tools we have available now. And your standard practice when making a major purchase for your restaurants - like new furniture or H-VAC - always involves reviewing more than one bid.

Yet, every day you make major decisions without comparing the financial performance of your restaurants to others similar to yours.

So why does that happen? Well, benchmarking financial performance and the other key metrics in your specific segment is one of the most mysterious things an independent restaurant company must master. It's mysterious because, unlike those other examples, you can't just look up the answer on your phone like you can the price of that car or TV.

Do your AUV, profit, PPA, guest count, and food, beverage, and labor costs, show that you're achieving your highest potential?

Do you even know?

Finding the information you need can be nearly impossible on your own. I know you haven't bookmarked a site that tells you what your segment's metrics ought to be - because that doesn't exist. And while some of my clients have great relationships in the industry and share information, many don't.

Since I can see multiple brands operating in similar segments, I'm able to compare how concepts with common themes operate. After all, I get to see six or seven companies in your segment - and you probably only see one.

In this kind of data-darkness, I see opportunities like I have military-grade night-vision glasses - and you do your best with a flashlight.

Your CPA may also be able to see this information. But, experience tells me that some do, but a lot just don't have a broad enough client base to go beyond guidelines.

When someone's restaurants in your segment have labor cost, food cost, or PPA that's superior to yours, see that as irrefutable evidence of a chance to improve.

If one person can do it, I know that everyone can do it.

Let me share some examples of what I'm talking about - what I call million-dollar improvements.

A long-time client called me, concerned that their bottom line had eroded. As we work to correct that and get them back to their historical place as a leader in their segment, the difference in profit earned adds up to seven figures annually.

Next, I recently encountered a restaurant known to be hugely successful. But I saw that a seven-figure amount was leaking out of this restaurant annually. The owners were shocked by my analysis that their costs for food and labor were significantly higher than other people in their space.

And, another group of three restaurants came back to me eight years after I told them the same thing. They had done nothing about it - accepting mediocre profits year in and year out, shortchanging themselves, once again in the millions.

So here's what I want you to think about

How do you benchmark?

How do you know how well your restaurants could perform when managed properly?

What limitations do you put on yourself because "this is the best we have ever done"?

Now, speaking of getting that broader perspective, I've written a couple of articles that really connect to what we're talking about today. The first one is called "How To Take The Right Steps Toward Mastering Your Restaurant Financials." It breaks down exactly how to set up your company to properly track financial success and compares your performance to the competition. 

I also wrote an article titled "How Much Restaurant Profit Is Enough?" that addresses those common misconceptions owners have about profit targets and shows you exactly where the real opportunities lie.

You'll find links to both articles in our show notes. 

Let me tell you about how we might work together. I work with owners of successful, independent, multi-unit restaurants to grow their profit, sales, guest count, and unit count. My unique approach bonds employees and guests to restaurant brands and allows owners to enjoy the freedom and flexibility they have earned.

To schedule a call with me to discuss how to achieve your biggest goals, follow the link in the show notes. The initial consultation is complimentary, and we can discuss which big moves might be right for your operation.

Thanks for listening. If you haven't already subscribed to the Restaurant Success Podcast and Newsletter podcast, please do so, and rate and review the show. Find more information in the show notes at Restaurant Success Podcast dot com.

Also find tons of information you can use in print, audio and video form at my website, www dot surrender dot biz. Thanks again and see you next time.