For Chefs Who Want To Enjoy Their Careers Without Sacrificing Their Lives
Aug. 18, 2022

101: Turning the Table On Restaurant Dogma - Turning the Table

101: Turning the Table On Restaurant Dogma - Turning the Table
Spotify podcast player badge
Apple Podcasts podcast player badge
iHeartRadio podcast player badge
Amazon Music podcast player badge
PocketCasts podcast player badge
Spotify podcast player icon Apple Podcasts podcast player icon iHeartRadio podcast player icon Amazon Music podcast player icon PocketCasts podcast player icon

Jim Taylor of Benchmark Sixty and Adam Lamb discuss the prevailing operating assumptions of running a restaurant in favor of innovative solutions to our industry's most persistent challenges.

Turning the Table Is the most progressive weekly podcast for today's food and beverage industry, featuring staff-centric operating solutions for restaurants in the #newhospitalityculture.

Join Jim Taylor of Benchmark Sixty and Adam Lamb as they "turn the tables" on the prevailing operating assumptions of running a restaurant in favor of innovative solutions to our industry's most persistent challenges.

Sponsored by Benchmark Sixty Restaurant Services

Check out the videocast on

Youtube

Linkedin

FB

This show is sponsored by Benchmark Sixty; check out their unique staff retention solution.

In partnership with Realignment Hospitality

Transcript
Adam Lamb:

Well, welcome everybody to the very first episode of turning the table.

Adam Lamb:

Today's episode is called retention is the new cool.

Adam Lamb:

And currently we are waiting for my guest host or cohost.

Adam Lamb:

Jim Taylor, he's actually in a car racing back through the

Adam Lamb:

traffic in British Columbia.

Adam Lamb:

Him and his wife had a baby checkup this morning.

Adam Lamb:

So we're hoping that everything is perfect and we'll bring him on in a

Adam Lamb:

second, as soon as he joins this stream.

Adam Lamb:

So we decided to try this hashtag lunchbox live stream as a service

Adam Lamb:

to the industry that we all love.

Adam Lamb:

The hospitality industry and intended it to be something that would be

Adam Lamb:

short, sweet, quick punch in your mouth, give you some stuff to go

Adam Lamb:

home or go back to the shop with and.

Adam Lamb:

Work at some staff centric solutions for some of the operational challenges

Adam Lamb:

that the industry is facing today.

Adam Lamb:

Or as my friend Chris hall from the Bern chef pro project likes

Adam Lamb:

to call it this profession.

Adam Lamb:

He refuses to call it an industry anymore because the industry connotates

Adam Lamb:

this kind of huge monolith that sits on our shoulders and squashes us down.

Adam Lamb:

And I completely agree that we are.

Adam Lamb:

able to chart our path through this wonderful career field.

Adam Lamb:

If only we are focused on the values that matter to us and look for an

Adam Lamb:

organization whose values match that.

Adam Lamb:

So why we decided to do this was because we love the industry.

Adam Lamb:

You know, Jim's been posting a series of really engaging posts on LinkedIn around.

Adam Lamb:

This discovery, he made a couple years ago, like, oh geez.

Adam Lamb:

Now I'm a consultant.

Adam Lamb:

Like after 20, 25 years in the industry and building up this huge

Adam Lamb:

amount of experience and, and Now all of a sudden, because of COVID and

Adam Lamb:

some other circumstances he's kind of outside looking in and he makes

Adam Lamb:

a relevant point is that none of us actually start out to be a consultant.

Adam Lamb:

So speaking for myself, I was 35 years in the industry as an

Adam Lamb:

executive chef corporate chef.

Adam Lamb:

Got in the business.

Adam Lamb:

When I was 15 years old as a dishwasher, I went to work at the restaurant that my

Adam Lamb:

father liked to go to the neighborhood big wheel restaurant in Hammond, Indiana.

Adam Lamb:

What's up, buddy?

Adam Lamb:

Hey.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah, just got going.

Adam Lamb:

And the entire internet dumped on me.

Adam Lamb:

I was like, oh no.

Adam Lamb:

So here we are.

Adam Lamb:

We're live.

Adam Lamb:

all right.

Adam Lamb:

so I just was talking to everybody about.

Adam Lamb:

why we decided to do this.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Jim Taylor:

Well, I mean, we decided that it'd just be good to have

Jim Taylor:

some good, healthy discussion about what's going on in the industry.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

I mean, right.

Jim Taylor:

Labor, shortages, retention, inflation, you know, all these different things.

Jim Taylor:

The games just changed a little bit.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

So it'd be good to have some discussions and see what kind of problems we can.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

We were getting into some spirited hold on.

Adam Lamb:

I was just letting everybody know that we're just reconnecting.

Adam Lamb:

There we go.

Adam Lamb:

We're alive on LinkedIn.

Adam Lamb:

, you know, I guess the why for us is that we both come from an

Adam Lamb:

industry that we both still love.

Adam Lamb:

You know, I was talking about the posts that you were doing about, you

Adam Lamb:

know, like who the hell ever plans on becoming a consultant like, oh,

Adam Lamb:

geez, that's what I really want to do.

Adam Lamb:

and my reply to you is like, you know, that's almost like asking for,

Adam Lamb:

that's like asking to be like, like rid hard and put up wet by the folks

Adam Lamb:

who are still in the industry, like who all of a sudden, because we're.

Adam Lamb:

You know, on the line with them or running the floor with them, all of

Adam Lamb:

a sudden we become like superfluous.

Adam Lamb:

Like we don't necessarily have a a big volume of knowledge and experience

Adam Lamb:

with which to be able to assist.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

And so sometimes it's like being a glutton for punishment has been my experience.

Adam Lamb:

but you've had a little bit of different experience.

Adam Lamb:

I.

Adam Lamb:

. Jim Taylor: Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

And, and to your comment about the, the becoming a consultant by accident,

Adam Lamb:

it's funny because I'm sure a lot of people who are in, in operations, in

Adam Lamb:

restaurants, front of house or back of house, mm-hmm in a lot of ways can

Adam Lamb:

relate to the experience I got into restaurant management by accident too.

Adam Lamb:

Did you really.

Adam Lamb:

Well, it's kind of that surprise.

Adam Lamb:

You're the manager type thing, right?

Adam Lamb:

I mean, , I, you know, if you, you don't do anything stupid, you have

Adam Lamb:

good relationships with people.

Adam Lamb:

You give good service and someone just says, Hey, do you mind lock up tonight?

Adam Lamb:

And all of a sudden you're the manager.

Adam Lamb:

Right, right, right.

Adam Lamb:

It can happen the same way

Adam Lamb:

or the, so chef.

Adam Lamb:

Or the, the executive chef happens to bail out on a, on a weekend saying, Hey,

Adam Lamb:

I got another job say thanks very much.

Adam Lamb:

And all of a sudden they're looking at me going, okay, do you know how to close?

Adam Lamb:

I'm like, right.

Adam Lamb:

I'll figure it out, man.

Adam Lamb:

I think mm-hmm right.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Jim Taylor:

Yeah.

Jim Taylor:

And I think, you know, in terms of my experience in over the last few years,

Jim Taylor:

trying to support the industry is we've been really lucky that you know, we,

Jim Taylor:

because we take such a specific approach and you know, I've talked lots about.

Jim Taylor:

You know, kind of holistic data driven decision making process.

Jim Taylor:

I mean, it's really, I think we're actually making some really good

Jim Taylor:

strides in helping the industry understand how to navigate all

Jim Taylor:

this craziness that's going on.

Jim Taylor:

Right?

Adam Lamb:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adam Lamb:

You know, I've been famous for saying, you know, I think COVID

Adam Lamb:

was a blessing for the industry cuz it showed so many opportunities.

Adam Lamb:

you know, we can, we can look at things and say, oh, well, they're screwed up.

Adam Lamb:

They're fucked up.

Adam Lamb:

You know, there's just things that are absolutely wrong and

Adam Lamb:

nothing's ever gonna change.

Adam Lamb:

But for me, it's like, where's the gap.

Adam Lamb:

Mm-hmm because if I can, if I can identify it as a gap,

Adam Lamb:

then I can close that gap.

Adam Lamb:

I have some ability to be able to do that, whether that means.

Adam Lamb:

Figuring it out myself, which is always takes much longer.

Adam Lamb:

Granted I get to carry that ability with me moving forward, but mm-hmm, , I've

Adam Lamb:

gotten, you know, as I've gotten a little bit older, I did a post yesterday

Adam Lamb:

where I said, you know, maybe I'm just getting older, but you know, Order is

Adam Lamb:

hell of a lot more sexier than chaos.

Adam Lamb:

Whereas I know for a fact that a point in my career chaos was

Adam Lamb:

definitely where it was at . Oh yeah.

Adam Lamb:

But as I've gotten a little bit older or what I'd say is more mature, I

Adam Lamb:

appreciate being able to be with other people who I can gain knowledge from.

Adam Lamb:

In the personal development space, they say very often that, you know,

Adam Lamb:

you're the, you are the result of the, of the five people who you

Adam Lamb:

are most closely aligned with.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

Because it's just almost impossible not to not to glean stuff from

Adam Lamb:

them and want to be like them.

Adam Lamb:

I think that's one of the things that I've really enjoyed about our collaboration.

Adam Lamb:

Is that not only did you reconnect me with something.

Adam Lamb:

That I played around with not really knowing what, what I was doing

Adam Lamb:

much earlier in my career, but you brought about a wisdom and a way

Adam Lamb:

of actually bridging the gap in communication to potential clients.

Adam Lamb:

That for me was kind of an eye opener because I think I've spent most of

Adam Lamb:

my life you know, shaking a lot of trees and, you know, hitting people

Adam Lamb:

over the head with wisdom and, you know, we know how far that goes, but

Adam Lamb:

your, your, your way of being with.

Adam Lamb:

Clients is something that's very admirable to me.

Adam Lamb:

You know, you ask a lot of questions in a lot of ways.

Adam Lamb:

It's, you're the perfect coach, right?

Adam Lamb:

Because you ask a lot of questions and you don't necessarily throw your wisdom around

Adam Lamb:

or what you think they should be doing.

Adam Lamb:

What you're actually assisting them to do is to.

Adam Lamb:

Solve their own problems like to, to become their own guru once they understand

Adam Lamb:

what it is that you're teaching.

Jim Taylor:

Well, you, we, you and I, we as a group, but you and I, I mean, we

Jim Taylor:

we've joked about this a few times, right?

Jim Taylor:

The consulting by opinion.

Jim Taylor:

Trap that people get stuck in.

Jim Taylor:

Yeah.

Jim Taylor:

You know, and, and we, I mean, partly people on our team, but also you

Jim Taylor:

know, I meet people all the time that are trying to help the industry.

Jim Taylor:

They're trying to do things that are beneficial, that

Jim Taylor:

are gonna move the needle.

Jim Taylor:

They're gonna help the industry recover and find this whole new normal thing.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

But there there's so much of this.

Jim Taylor:

I have tons of experience.

Jim Taylor:

10, 20, 30 years of experience, really knowledgeable, very smart.

Jim Taylor:

But the approach sometimes, or with the trap that they, I find they get stuck in.

Jim Taylor:

And I got stuck in this at the beginning of my consulting career.

Jim Taylor:

You know, we try to use that term loosely cuz our industry hates it.

Jim Taylor:

They just go, here's what I've done in the past.

Jim Taylor:

So here's what you should do.

Jim Taylor:

And you know, a lot of operators, I think don't, they don't take well

Jim Taylor:

to that because this is my baby.

Jim Taylor:

This is my business.

Jim Taylor:

This is what, I'm my dream.

Jim Taylor:

This is what I'm trying to build.

Jim Taylor:

And don't tell me how to.

Jim Taylor:

So, you know, we've been really lucky.

Jim Taylor:

I think that just that approach around helping operators understand

Jim Taylor:

the information that's right in front of them and what it can help them

Jim Taylor:

do with their business is, you know, that's why it's more about asking

Jim Taylor:

those questions and, and really just helping guide them to, to the answer.

Jim Taylor:

So I, I think Chris who we spent a lot of time.

Jim Taylor:

Actually was joking with me the other day about how he, one of the things

Jim Taylor:

that he, he, I guess, gets a kick out of when I've said it is that I don't even

Jim Taylor:

know the color of the walls of most of the restaurants that we worked with.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

Because, you know, we've never even stepped foot on them and we don't need

Jim Taylor:

to, because it's all about information.

Jim Taylor:

It doesn't mean that we have to go there and run the place for them.

Adam Lamb:

So we decided to Call this first episode retention is the

Adam Lamb:

new cool mm-hmm . And I know that that's a phrase that's been that

Adam Lamb:

you didn't necessar necessarily come up with, but was attached to you.

Adam Lamb:

Like, no, this is the way to do it from now on.

Adam Lamb:

And I know that a lot of operators struggle with I think retention is one of

Adam Lamb:

the things that they least think about.

Adam Lamb:

They're most actively thinking about how to attract new talent, right?

Adam Lamb:

Because they think that who they have right now is comfortable

Adam Lamb:

and, and, and that they don't necessarily need to worry about them.

Adam Lamb:

And why do you think that retention is actually kind of the gateway to not only

Adam Lamb:

creating a culture that's that everybody wants to work in, but also becomes

Adam Lamb:

a point of attraction to, you know, people who are looking for a great job.

Jim Taylor:

Well, I, to be honest, I don't remember the exact stat off the

Jim Taylor:

top of my head, but I've worked with lots of restaurants that turn their entire

Jim Taylor:

staff every year, pre COVID, right?

Jim Taylor:

50, 50% turnover, 75% turnover, you know, 80% turnover.

Jim Taylor:

That's those numbers aren't unheard of.

Jim Taylor:

Yeah.

Jim Taylor:

Even the company that I worked with when I was still in operations had very

Jim Taylor:

good culture, had really good retention.

Jim Taylor:

I was there for 20 years.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

They had a very good retention strategies, but we still turned over the hourly

Jim Taylor:

staff at like a 60% clip every year.

Jim Taylor:

So to me, it's, you know, if a restaurant needs to hire 10 people you

Jim Taylor:

know, it's hard to find 10 people that wanna come to work right now, right.

Jim Taylor:

That wanna work in our industry.

Jim Taylor:

That it's hard to find people that wanna work in restaurants, but it's

Jim Taylor:

that number might be less than 10.

Jim Taylor:

If they didn't lose two or three people every month.

Jim Taylor:

Mm-hmm . right.

Jim Taylor:

And, and I think that the industry's changing in the way that people are

Jim Taylor:

looking at how to, how to take care of their people, how to protect their people,

Jim Taylor:

how to, how to make the experience better.

Jim Taylor:

You know, and there's a couple examples that I, I use a lot.

Jim Taylor:

And one of them is a company that added cleaning and laundry service.

Jim Taylor:

You know, you and I have talked about this one, quite a mm-hmm quite a few

Jim Taylor:

times they added cleaning and laundry service at your house for every employee

Jim Taylor:

in the whole company, whether you're the.

Jim Taylor:

First day dishwasher or you're the vice president of operations.

Jim Taylor:

I was talking to your friend Jensen Cummings the other day.

Jim Taylor:

Well,

Adam Lamb:

I'd say he's our friend

Jim Taylor:

now, but well, hopefully he's our friend now, but you introduced

Jim Taylor:

me to Jensen and, and he, the example he gave me was a, a group that added

Jim Taylor:

pet insurance for every employee.

Jim Taylor:

Because they ran into a scenario where.

Jim Taylor:

An employee didn't have insurance, they got sick, they didn't have pet

Jim Taylor:

insurance, their dog got sick and they, they could, they had to only, they had

Jim Taylor:

to pick one to spend their money on.

Jim Taylor:

And so they took their dog to the vet.

Jim Taylor:

And, and because of that, they missed two weeks of work.

Jim Taylor:

Yeah.

Jim Taylor:

So that hurt them, that hurt the business.

Jim Taylor:

And so that company has now decided to add pet insurance for every employee.

Jim Taylor:

I mean, that's just game changer.

Adam Lamb:

Right.

Adam Lamb:

I couldn't agree more.

Adam Lamb:

Speaking from my own personal experience, you know, my daughter had a cat who

Adam Lamb:

she was incredibly attached to and.

Adam Lamb:

The cat ran out in a thunderstorm and got injured and it cost her $7,000

Adam Lamb:

to get this cat put back together.

Adam Lamb:

And she was in a relationship at the time and they were headed right for

Adam Lamb:

the right for the, you know, marriage.

Adam Lamb:

And he's like, what are you doing?

Adam Lamb:

And she's like, I, I, I have to do this.

Adam Lamb:

Mm-hmm . And so she actually not only picked her own health over that, that

Adam Lamb:

cat, but also her happiness, because in the end, you know, he's like,

Adam Lamb:

well, if you're gonna put that much.

Adam Lamb:

Importance on a cat and not on me.

Adam Lamb:

So it was kind of like a weird exchange.

Adam Lamb:

And in the end it worked out for the best.

Adam Lamb:

But I, I think the sneaky thing is there's a hell of a lot more people who are having

Adam Lamb:

to make these critical decisions than we give them credit, or we give ourselves

Adam Lamb:

credit for, for actually understanding.

Adam Lamb:

And I know Jenssen's been doing a great post around, you know, just

Adam Lamb:

asking the question, Hey, what benefits does your employer provide?

Adam Lamb:

And he's created this huge document.

Adam Lamb:

And some of the, I was just taking a look at it right before we got

Adam Lamb:

on, because there are some that are absolutely critical to the operation.

Adam Lamb:

And then there are some that are just kind of nice to have mm-hmm and the question

Adam Lamb:

is, I think a lot of people during this.

Adam Lamb:

This constriction of the labor pool started throwing dollars

Adam Lamb:

around and saying, oh, well, it's, it's gotta be the wage.

Adam Lamb:

It's gotta be the wage.

Adam Lamb:

So let's, let's pay more, let's pay more, let's pay more and still

Adam Lamb:

forgot about you know, mental health and, and physical health, wellbeing

Adam Lamb:

programs and things of that sort.

Adam Lamb:

And we had a conversation earlier this week when I mentioned to you like

Adam Lamb:

people in the United States do not understand what a load, an emotional

Adam Lamb:

load it is to have to worry about he.

Adam Lamb:

In this in the United States.

Adam Lamb:

And I happen to be married to a Canadian and spend time in Canada.

Adam Lamb:

And you are from that wonderful country where you don't ever sweat

Adam Lamb:

that because, you know, you're just gonna go to the emergence.

Adam Lamb:

It's all gonna be taken care of.

Adam Lamb:

And I say to Americans, like, At some point, our industry has to stand for that

Adam Lamb:

and actually advocate for that as opposed to some organizations or or lobbyists

Adam Lamb:

constantly being in Congress saying, you know, we gotta keep the wage low.

Adam Lamb:

We gotta keep the benefits low or else it's gonna be an industry killer.

Adam Lamb:

As far as I know, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, a lot of these

Adam Lamb:

countries have vibrant restaurant scenes mm-hmm and nobody seems to be hurting

Jim Taylor:

well it's so the, one of the interesting things.

Jim Taylor:

About that whole conversation.

Jim Taylor:

And I actually got called a lo a wage lobbyist at one point because I was,

Jim Taylor:

I was having lots of discussions with people about you can pay more and still.

Jim Taylor:

You know run a very, very successful business and happy to help people who are,

Jim Taylor:

who, you know, might not believe that.

Jim Taylor:

But, you know, without getting fully into the conversation about wages mm-hmm

Jim Taylor:

and what they should or shouldn't be.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

You know, I think the, the fun part of some of the work that we get to

Jim Taylor:

do with restaurant groups is, is helping them understand the, both

Jim Taylor:

short and long-term benefits of just taking better care of their people.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

Whether that's a wage, whether that's a benefit, whether that's

Jim Taylor:

pet insurance, whether that's, you know, whatever that might be.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

And sometimes it's amazing that our industry's notorious for just kind

Jim Taylor:

of always doing things the same.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

It's just the, one of our sort of taglines that we talk about a lot is,

Jim Taylor:

you know, try to get rid of the end.

Jim Taylor:

This is the end of we've always done it this way.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

And, and I think, like you just said, there's a lot of that that comes up.

Jim Taylor:

It's like, well, this person wants to, is gonna quit and go work down the street.

Jim Taylor:

Well, let's just pay them a dollar more an hour.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

And that just doesn't work anymore.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

And you know, that example around adding cleaning and laundry service for every

Jim Taylor:

employee, it was $30 a week per employee.

Jim Taylor:

That's less than a dollar an hour for a full-time.

Jim Taylor:

To have someone show up at their house and clean their house

Jim Taylor:

and do their laundry for them.

Jim Taylor:

So that, that would positively impact their work life balance and improve

Jim Taylor:

probably their experience at work.

Jim Taylor:

Mm-hmm , they're in a clean shirt every day, instead of, you know, the dirty one.

Jim Taylor:

But yeah, it's retention is the new cool as has.

Jim Taylor:

It's kind of taken on a bit of a life of its own for us, but it's really,

Jim Taylor:

you know, about, we just gotta find ways to just improve the overall

Jim Taylor:

employee experience top to bottom in, in

Adam Lamb:

this industry.

Adam Lamb:

Right.

Adam Lamb:

I, through the entire life cycle, I know that there are some organizations

Adam Lamb:

or, or some associates who say on onboarding, what do you mean?

Adam Lamb:

I, I didn't have any onboarding, like, like they pointed where

Adam Lamb:

the bathroom was and then gave me an apron and said go to work.

Adam Lamb:

Mm-hmm and that.

Adam Lamb:

Lack of inclusion in what you know, that that organization is all about.

Adam Lamb:

I mean, it took me a while to get to it, but you know, a healthy half

Adam Lamb:

day workshop around, you know, this is day two orientation, and this is

Adam Lamb:

what we expect, and these are our values and really goes a long way.

Adam Lamb:

So it doesn't always have to be I mean, there's a cost

Adam Lamb:

to everything, but it's not.

Adam Lamb:

It's not as simple as throwing a wage around.

Adam Lamb:

And I tell you why I happen to live in Asheville, North Carolina,

Adam Lamb:

which is considered one of the best especially this year, one of the

Adam Lamb:

best restaurant towns in the nation.

Adam Lamb:

I there's four James Beard award winners.

Adam Lamb:

One of the restaurants was named best restaurant in the country and

Adam Lamb:

cooks and dishwashers and servers consistently jump ship for 25 cent.

Adam Lamb:

it's like, that's how competitive, because the living wage to live and

Adam Lamb:

work in Asheville is somewhere around.

Adam Lamb:

Don't quote me on this, because you can actually go to MIT, MIT living wage

Adam Lamb:

calculator, which is a real eye opener and pick your city, your county, your

Adam Lamb:

town, and actually look at what your living wage actually calculates out to be.

Adam Lamb:

But, you know, it was somewhere around $27 an hour as a living

Adam Lamb:

wage to live and work in Asheville.

Adam Lamb:

That's why people jump for 25 cents because they're, they

Adam Lamb:

can't afford to live here.

Adam Lamb:

So they're constantly forced out into the suburbs, which adds stress.

Adam Lamb:

You know, they've done construction on every road, leading into Asheville

Adam Lamb:

for the last year and a half, and it's gonna continue for another year because

Adam Lamb:

now all of a sudden their bedroom communities to Asheville, which is crazy.

Adam Lamb:

Mm-hmm . But.

Adam Lamb:

It just seems to me that, like you said, there's, there's got

Adam Lamb:

to be a better way to do this.

Adam Lamb:

There's got to, I firmly believe it.

Adam Lamb:

And I think that's why we're here.

Adam Lamb:

And one of the other reasons why we're actually doing this

Adam Lamb:

hashtag lunchbox live stream is something that I got from Jensen.

Adam Lamb:

When I was interviewing him for podcast.

Adam Lamb:

When he said every hospitality company, every consultant,

Adam Lamb:

every restaurant, every hotel.

Adam Lamb:

Has to be both a hospitality comp company and a media company, because if you

Adam Lamb:

don't own the narrative, someone else is gonna own the narrative for you.

Adam Lamb:

Mm-hmm . And so we are here to dispel this entire myth about consultants, coaches,

Adam Lamb:

whatever the hell you want to call it, what you need to know is we're actually

Adam Lamb:

here to serve you whether or not you choose to that's completely up to you.

Adam Lamb:

We honor that.

Adam Lamb:

But one of Jim's core approaches, which I've taken on.

Adam Lamb:

To me, it seems so counterintuitive.

Adam Lamb:

It was like, I'm not gonna tell you how to run your business, you know, your

Adam Lamb:

business better than I I'm just showing you what the data reveals so that you

Adam Lamb:

can understand almost immediately, once you see the interpretation

Adam Lamb:

of the data, what there is to do.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

There's

Jim Taylor:

been some really cool examples of that, please.

Jim Taylor:

The, the, the one, well, the two that jumped to my mind always are, you know,

Jim Taylor:

one a group actually based in Kentucky.

Jim Taylor:

Big restaurant group.

Jim Taylor:

And we were still in the process of, of, they weren't even a

Jim Taylor:

customer or a client at this time.

Jim Taylor:

We weren't even officially working with them, but we were showing them an example

Jim Taylor:

of what some of this data that we look at.

Jim Taylor:

And, you know, some of our core measurements around how to measure

Jim Taylor:

productivity in a restaurant environment and how to measure employee workload.

Jim Taylor:

Mm-hmm , you know, we were showing them what that looks like strictly

Jim Taylor:

from a, a generic perspective.

Jim Taylor:

And one of the examples we were talking about was what customer spend does to

Jim Taylor:

profitability and how often the management team actually has no control over

Jim Taylor:

what that, you know, impact might be.

Jim Taylor:

And anyway, the, the COO of the company, he actually asked me to hold on a second.

Jim Taylor:

He muted himself.

Jim Taylor:

And I'd see him grab his phone and he, he makes a phone call

Jim Taylor:

and he comes back off mute.

Jim Taylor:

And I said, what did you just, what did you just do?

Jim Taylor:

And he said, oh, I just phoned our marketing team and told him

Jim Taylor:

to cancel w night because it's affecting our customer spend.

Jim Taylor:

And it was, I, we were like, no, no, no, hold it.

Jim Taylor:

You know, we're not even there yet.

Jim Taylor:

We're not at that point.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

But you know, really quickly things kind of can jump off the page.

Adam Lamb:

But did you, do you actually, do you actually mean

Adam Lamb:

customer spend or customer.

Jim Taylor:

Yeah.

Jim Taylor:

Well, I say spend right now, cause I haven't introduced

Jim Taylor:

people to that terminology.

Jim Taylor:

We call it customer behavior.

Jim Taylor:

Cause it's how right.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

So there's been a couple of those examples, but you know, there was a,

Jim Taylor:

a group in Canada here, a fairly large restaurant group that they realized

Jim Taylor:

they were gonna save a million dollars a year and they, they came to that

Jim Taylor:

conclusion in the first 10 minutes of our first meeting with them.

Jim Taylor:

Mm.

Jim Taylor:

It was just, you know, really exciting.

Jim Taylor:

We talked about building trust quickly with a, with someone you're working with.

Adam Lamb:

Right.

Adam Lamb:

Sure.

Adam Lamb:

I mean, to, to understand that that opportunity exists is one thing.

Adam Lamb:

And then there's like, you know, the notes of the grindstone

Adam Lamb:

actually like what it looks like to proactively manage that every day.

Adam Lamb:

So mm-hmm, , you know, kudos to those operators who are actually like,

Adam Lamb:

not only do they get it, but they're actually willing to put in the work

Adam Lamb:

to actually realize that savings.

Adam Lamb:

And then for sure, you know, I, I think.

Adam Lamb:

You've been kind of amazed at just how many operators actually see an

Adam Lamb:

opportunity like that and realize, no, this is, I don't want it to just,

Adam Lamb:

you know, pay that out as dividends.

Adam Lamb:

I wanna actually reinvest that back into my organization.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Jim Taylor:

Yeah.

Jim Taylor:

And that's the fun part of, of a lot of the, the opportunity that

Jim Taylor:

we get with operators and owners of restaurants is that the ones that

Jim Taylor:

we end up working with are the ones that want to do new, cool stuff.

Jim Taylor:

They want to change the way that this, you know, it's not just pay

Jim Taylor:

a dollar more, you know, they want to pay for someone's car payment.

Jim Taylor:

They wanna put someone through school, they wanna pay

Jim Taylor:

somebody's mortgage payment.

Jim Taylor:

They wanna pay for cleaning and laundry or pet insurance.

Jim Taylor:

You know, there's, they're really looking at ways to you know, reinvent how, how

Jim Taylor:

hospitality people are, are looked.

Jim Taylor:

Right.

Jim Taylor:

I think that there's, and this is, you know, kind of a, a, a lofty goal, but,

Jim Taylor:

you know, you, you think back to a few years ago, when, you know, the whole

Jim Taylor:

Silicon valley, Facebook, all that kind of stuff, it was like, you get to wear

Jim Taylor:

a hoodie to work and there's no dress code and come and goes, you please.

Jim Taylor:

And, you know, I think that the, the hospitality industry is the

Jim Taylor:

next industry that needs to embrace that type of stuff, whatever that

Jim Taylor:

really, whatever it looks like.

Jim Taylor:

And, you know, we don't have the answer to that yet, but, you know,

Jim Taylor:

really going after it in a unique.

Adam Lamb:

Jim I'm and how was the appointment this morning?

Adam Lamb:

Everything's good.

Adam Lamb:

It's great.

Adam Lamb:

Yeah.

Adam Lamb:

Yay.

Adam Lamb:

Well, listen, that's about as much time as we have for today.

Adam Lamb:

We'll be back next Thursday at 1:00 PM Eastern time.

Adam Lamb:

And we have a few guests lined up and I'm really excited about the next

Adam Lamb:

one, but she hasn't agreed to it yet.

Adam Lamb:

So we won't put that out there.

Adam Lamb:

But in the meantime if you wanna learn more, please reach

Adam Lamb:

out at benchmark sixty.com.

Adam Lamb:

My name is Adam Lamb.

Adam Lamb:

Thanks for joining us.

Adam Lamb:

And you wanna, you wanna introduce yourself, Jim?

Jim Taylor:

You

Adam Lamb:

bet.

Adam Lamb:

Thanks.

Adam Lamb:

We'll see you.

Adam Lamb:

Oh, wait a second.

Adam Lamb:

I gotta do the outro music.

Adam Lamb:

See, pretty good.

Adam Lamb:

Right.

Adam Lamb:

Great.

Jim Taylor:

let's see.