This mission, should you choose to accept it……..

“In the end it is important to remember that we cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” Max Dupree, author and former CEO of Herman Miller.

This mission, should you choose to accept it……..

No, today’s economy is not Mission Impossible. It can be Mission Profitable if take this economic slowdown as an opportunity to improve your best practices and really take a look at things to see how they can be improved, revised and retooled. We have to do it, the business model that we all used last year will not work this year. It is a different environment entirely. Not hopeless, not worse, not doomsday, just different. It still is wrought with opportunity and profits. We all have to work a little harder and a little differently than we have in the past to achieve success and profitability.

Sometimes the answers can be simple. That doesn’t mean cheap, easy or quick. According to www.dictionary.com simple means:
1. Easy to understand, deal with, use, etc.
2. Not elaborate or artificial; plain.
3. Not ornate or luxurious; unadorned.
4. Unaffected; unassuming; modest.
5. Not complicated.
6. Not complex or compound; single.

As I travel throughout Chicagoland, I have the privilege of looking at different restaurants, caterers and banquet halls and seeing what is working and what isn’t. There are a wide variety of concepts that are finding success, but what interests me is not what the concept is, but rather what are the core, fundamental basics of what they are doing to find success in arguably the toughest economic times of the past 30 years. Invariably it all keeps coming back to the same thing. It doesn’t matter if it is a hot dog stand, a white table cloth restaurant, or something in between, the successful operations all have one thing in common at the root of their success. And it is simple. It is clear. It is easy to understand. It is not complex or complicated. It is simple.

When I was visiting family in North Carolina, my brother in law introduced me to a hamburger joint that he couldn’t stop gushing about from the minute we arrived. I was prepared to be disappointed – too much hype often leads to a tremendous let down. Instead, I walked out thoroughly impressed by the operation. I was so impressed that I grabbed a menu and jotted down their website so I could learn more about them. I checked out their website and was even more impressed with them – not because of all of the trappings of a well designed website, but by something much simpler and impactful. They had a clearly defined mission statement that they had obviously clearly communicated to every one of their employees because it was apparent in everything they did.

Their mission statement wasn’t wordy or grandiose. It was simple and clear. It wasn’t just a mantra that they throw up on their wall, it was a practical, applicable statement that was affecting everyone and everything in their organization. The restaurant is a chain operating out of Washington DC called Five Guys. Their mission statement is: We are in the business of selling burgers. Nothing more. Simply defined and easy to understand. It is what they do. Everything in their operation is geared toward selling burgers. Quality ingredients, simple menu (16 items of which 8 are burgers), and a clear vision has grown this chain from 1 store in 1986 to over 300 locations today. They aren’t the cheapest and they aren’t gimmicky. They are successful and they are simple. They know what they are and what they aren’t and they spend a lot of time and money trying to be the best at what they are. They are not worried about pleasing everyone, they are dedicated to pleasing burger lovers. It amazes me to see what they have done with such a simple vision and an even simpler menu.

They are singularly focused on selling burgers. They have found what they feel are the best ingredients and the best standard practices and never strayed from them. Because of their vision and mission, they have taken simplicity and made it a huge success. They sell burgers, hot dogs and grilled cheese sandwiches, and they charge a premium for them. How can they get away with that? They can pull it off because they know what they offer is a value, and they aren’t ashamed to ask the public to pay for value. The value is in their ingredients, their concept, their consistency and they aren’t worried about the place down the street or next door because they aren’t them! They worry about staying true to their mission and carrying out their mission to the best of their ability. Their business continues to thrive because of that value. The public continues to eat there despite the economy and despite the presence of cheaper options in the marketplace because the public knows what they are going to get from them each and every time they go for a burger. (check them out at www.fiveguys.com to see what I am talking about)

What does this all mean to us? Good question. How many of you have a mission statement for your business? How many of you communicate that mission to your manager, your chef or your servers? How many of you expect your staff to live out that mission? Does your staff even know what your mission is? If you have a mission statement in place, how long has it been since you looked at it and asked yourself if you are living it out? Mission statements are important, without one we won’t know where we are going or how to get there.

Imagine this, someone hands you the keys to a brand new Bentley Coupe (I can dream can’t I?) and tells you to start driving to Santa Fe, New Mexico. No maps - no mapquest - no GPS…..just start driving. How far do you get? How long until you find your self lost or headed in the wrong direction? You may eventually get there, but in all likelihood it takes you a heck of a lot longer to get there than if you had a map.

Having a mission statement is like getting a map. It gives us a baseline to keep coming back to for direction and guidance. It helps us keep our end game in mind and allows us to make every action we take bring us closer to that end game. If we don’t know where we are going, it is really hard to get there. Having a mission statement will help you decide what to keep on the menu and what to get off of it. Having a mission statement will help you make staffing decisions, help you decide what your hours of operation will be, it will help you decide what ingredients you are going to purchase. It will touch ever part of your operation. It will help you standardize your best practices. It will help you train your servers, your chefs, your bartenders and your bus people. It will give meaning to everything you do in your business. Without this guidepost we are left to whims and impulses that will drag us away from what we are here to do, and what we do best.

I encourage you to take advantage of the slower pace to be deliberate about what you are doing. It is in times like this that the cream begins to rise to the top. I want you to rise to the top. Take advantage of what life is throwing at you and set yourself up for success.