Your Restaurant Staff Are Your Greatest Asset
Your staff are many things:they are your front line PR organisation they are your sales force they are your restaurant critic ….and many other things too.Always hire employees who like people. You want people that are enthusiastic and fun. Restaurant people need to be ‘people people’. You do not hire people that are just looking for a job and after the money that goes with it. That will be a recipe for disaster for any restaurant. You want people that want that job because it’s what they enjoy.As a restaurant owner you will always want to make sure that there are some things that cannot be taught. You cannot teach someone to smile or to make people feel comfortable. You cannot teach people to be genuine. These are skills that are innate…they come from a persons personality, not from training. Experience may be important, but good interpersonal skills are paramount.Here are a few things to think about when it comes to staff:- Always hire an incredible host or hostess. They should seem thrilled to see the customer.- Your waiters should always understand that it is in their best interest to have great rapport with customers. Their tip average will

Nonprofit Name Change - Four Tips for Success
In April of 2004, the NOW Legal Defense and Education fund changed their name to Legal Momentum. The name change was a grand success. LM's Vice President of Communications, Maureen McFadden, shares these four tips to ensure the same success for your nonprofit:1. Dedicate Yourself. Dedicate yourself to a long-term process for the name change. Be prepared for the process to become emotionally exhausting at certain points (names, like design, trigger emotional response).2. Include Staff, Board Members and Stakeholders. Be inclusive in a way that contributes to the name change process. Beware -- when the going gets rough, the knee-jerk response is to pull back and become very secretive. But this is the point at which it's especially critical to keep the dialogue going.3. Research Other Name Changes. McFadden recalls one of the most useful steps in LM's name change process was to survey other nonprofit organizations that had recently changed their names. She asked:Why did you do it? What kind of problems did you run into? What steps or techniques were particularly successful?An amazing thing happened today that exemplifies the power of the "global network".

I received a call from UPS Japan. They have to deliver a parcel from America to my Italian associate that lives in Tokyo. The address on the waybill was incorrect and there was no telephone number on the waybill.

UPS wanted to deliver this parcel so they did a search on google inputting my associate's name. What they came up with was my Intrmarket Solutions web site at http://www.intrmarketsolutions.com. They searched through my contact information which was very easily accessible in an extremely simple way and called me. I provided the telephone number of my associate and told them that if they cannot get through (he may be away on business) to call me back and I would provide the most recent mailing address for them to deliver the parcel.

I contacted my associate to confirm that UPS did get through so his parcel is on the way to his office. This is a real-life example of how the internet was used to help someone succeed in their ventures.

This brings up a few very interesting points to consider:

1) COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: ACCESSIBILITY

All companies need to be accessible in order for clients to find them. This is an obvious fact. Without visibility no company would ever have contact and no transactions would occur. Traditional means have been to have a physical presence with a sign above the door so that people walking by will note your presence. When advertising advanced, we moved to utilizing the media (newspapers, trade magazines, phone books, TV etc.). Companies go to trade shows for exposure, they put up ads on automobiles and billboards, and more.

These days, research on how people are advertising shows that things are dramatically changing; more and more companies are putting ads on the internet through the search engines. Google and Yahoo have become so successful (and wealthy) not because they offer all that free stuff, but because so many millions of people access them, find ads, click on the ads and go to businesses that are there. This makes revenue for these companies. To have an ad on the internet usually means to have a website or presence on the internet.

A website that is visible, "google-able" (accessible through search engines), simple, professional and well-laid out (with easy access to contact information) is a major asset in this day and age when nearly everyone looks to the net to find people and places.

In the past, even when it was not necessary, "web-heads" often said, "you have to be on the net." I didn't necessarily completely agree in the past, but now I feel differently. Managers in their 50s and 60s (those that are running "older, established" companies) have finally embraced the necessity of IT to develop competitive advantage in their company so they too look to the internet for information on people, bu

extremely simple way and called me. I provided the telephone number of my associate and told them that if they cannot get through (he may be away on business) to call me back and I would provide the most recent mailing address for them to deliver the parcel.

I contacted my associate to confirm that UPS did get through so his parcel is on the way to his office. This is a real-life example of how the internet was used to help someone succeed in their ventures.

This brings up a few very interesting points to consider:

1) COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: ACCESSIBILITY

All companies need to be accessible in order for clients to find them. This is an obvious fact. Without visibility no company would ever have contact and no transactions would occur. Traditional means have been to have a physical presence with a sign above the door so that people walking by will note your presence. When advertising advanced, we moved to utilizing the media (newspapers, trade magazines, phone books, TV etc.). Companies go to trade shows for exposure, they put up ads on automobiles and billboards, and more.

These days, research on how people are advertising shows that things are dramatically changing; more and more companies are putting ads on the internet through the search engines. Google and Yahoo have become so successful (and wealthy) not because they offer all that free stuff, but because so many millions of people access them, find ads, click on the ads and go to businesses that are there. This makes revenue for these companies. To have an ad on the internet usually means to have a website or presence on the internet.

A website that is visible, "google-able" (accessible through search engines), simple, professional and well-laid out (with easy access to contact information) is a major asset in this day and age when nearly everyone looks to the net to find people and places.

In the past, even when it was not necessary, "web-heads" often said, "you have to be on the net." I didn't necessarily completely agree in the past, but now I feel differently. Managers in their 50s and 60s (those that are running "older, established" companies) have finally embraced the necessity of IT to develop competitive advantage in their company so they too look to the internet for information on people, b

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All companies need to be accessible in order for clients to find them. This is an obvious fact. Without visibility no company would ever have contact and no transactions would occur. Traditional means have been to have a physical presence with a sign above the door so that people walking by will note your presence. When advertising advanced, we moved to utilizing the media (newspapers, trade magazines, phone books, TV etc.). Companies go to trade shows for exposure, they put up ads on automobiles and billboards, and more.

These days, research on how people are advertising shows that things are dramatically changing; more and more companies are putting ads on the internet through the search engines. Google and Yahoo have become so successful (and wealthy) not because they offer all that free stuff, but because so many millions of people access them, find ads, click on the ads and go to businesses that are there. This makes revenue for these companies. To have an ad on the internet usually means to have a website or presence on the internet.

A website that is visible, "google-able" (accessible through search engines), simple, professional and well-laid out (with easy access to contact information) is a major asset in this day and age when nearly everyone looks to the net to find people and places.

In the past, even when it was not necessary, "web-heads" often said, "you have to be on the net." I didn't necessarily completely agree in the past, but now I feel differently. Managers in their 50s and 60s (those that are running "older, established" companies) have finally embraced the necessity of IT to develop competitive advantage in their company so they too look to the internet for information on people, b

dvertising shows that things are dramatically changing; more and more companies are putting ads on the internet through the search engines. Google and Yahoo have become so successful (and wealthy) not because they offer all that free stuff, but because so many millions of people access them, find ads, click on the ads and go to businesses that are there. This makes revenue for these companies. To have an ad on the internet usually means to have a website or presence on the internet.

A website that is visible, "google-able" (accessible through search engines), simple, professional and well-laid out (with easy access to contact information) is a major asset in this day and age when nearly everyone looks to the net to find people and places.

In the past, even when it was not necessary, "web-heads" often said, "you have to be on the net." I didn't necessarily completely agree in the past, but now I feel differently. Managers in their 50s and 60s (those that are running "older, established" companies) have finally embraced the necessity of IT to develop competitive advantage in their company so they too look to the internet for information on people, b

nal and well-laid out (with easy access to contact information) is a major asset in this day and age when nearly everyone looks to the net to find people and places.

In the past, even when it was not necessary, "web-heads" often said, "you have to be on the net." I didn't necessarily completely agree in the past, but now I feel differently. Managers in their 50s and 60s (those that are running "older, established" companies) have finally embraced the necessity of IT to develop competitive advantage in their company so they too look to the internet for information on people, businesses and novel ideas. They also use it to see what the competition is doing and to stay one step ahead of the pack. Of course the younger generation managing businesses are heavily invested in the internet.

I am still trying very hard to get better access to my website; it is an ongoing process, an upward spiral. One always must be constantly innovating, looking for new things to add, new values, new advantages otherwise the competition will level the playing field, or worse, get one up on you. I regularly look at the number of "hits" or accesses to my website through statistics my host offers, tweak the keywords, make more submissions to other important search engines and the like.

There are companies that will do this for you. If you choose to go that route you need to do your due diligence as you would in any business venture before hiring someone to do something for you. There are companies that will do it for free, some that will charge a huge amount, others that will meet your needs and those that will scam you and try to rip you off. If you have the finances to go this way, I highly recommend it for small and medium businesses alike. You wouldn't ask a first-year medical student to perform open-heart surgery, would you? Likewise, would you ask a newspaper delivery person to write your "million dollar" marketing campaign? Use the resources that best suit your needs and the most talented people in the field. Look to the "total running costs", the costs over the entire project, and not just the numbers that follow the dollar sign.

Quite simply, you need to be visible and more importantly, findable. And you need to be found before the prospect finds your rivals. This gives you a competitive advantage, and the only way you can succeed in business is to have a competitive advantage over your rivals.

In the ISO 14001 (environment) world, you continually need to be spiraling up. This means you need to innovate and provide new and unique ways of "helping the environment". Of course decreasing your negative impact is one way (use less gasoline, decrease electricity, eliminate waste, etc.) but another excellent way is to add to the positive impact of the environment (produce environmentally friendly goods, use environmentally friendly associates, etc.). Decreasing costs and providing goods